#which is to say. ambiguously.

[homielander]

shiv's motivations for voting to pass the gojo deal are so layered and i don't think they should be dismissed in favour of any one interpretation. shiv desperately grabbed on to a lifeline for her relationship with tom. shiv was the deciding vote and she couldn't bear to hold the crown only for a moment just to place it atop her brother's head. shiv knew she would have more influence as wife of CEO rather than sister of CEO. shiv absolutely hated seeing kendall crystallize into logan before her eyes, especially when he made roman bleed ("and if we did kill him we get to go to bed") -- succession has always been about siblings so of course she tried to free her brothers before her child. shiv still thinks she can raise her child with all the material benefits of being the daughter of waystar CEO while doing better by her, whatever that means. and all of those things are true

#shiv roy #succession #succession spoilers #ok i'm sleeping #wait i know i just assumed tomshiv baby is a girl but like. i'm right #also i have seen many people say shiv did it purely out of spite and i will say #i don't think they would have had dialogue about shiv saying she's tired and they should all rest #or panned to shiv looking at roman's face fresh with blood #or shown shiv tearing up over her conversation with tom at the beginning of the episode #or had her say 'i cannot stomach you' which has pretty obvious connotations even in the context of succ #or had shiv make up her mind precisely when kendall said the andrew dodds confession was a lie #if her motives weren't meant to be read as ambiguous. they would not have put those things in there without reason #shiv leaving the room may have been impulsive spite but what came after was more complicated #it's also not even wholly altruistic it's just cold admittance that they don't have It. she thinks she does #and i'm not sure why the sentiment that they can't take it but she can surprises anyone #she's literally always seen herself as the exception

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

The Spider And Her Demons

YA Australian urban fantasy/horror

about a Malaysian-Chinese girl who’s half spider-demon, just trying to keep her head down and survive high school

when she accidentally kills and eats a man in front of the most popular girl at school, they strike up a strange friendship and she starts to learn more about herself and the supernatural world

aroacespec/sapphic ish

#The Spider And Her Demons #Sydney Khoo #loveozya #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #you give me a teenage girl with giant hair spider legs who scuttles across her bedroom wall on page 3 #and then eats a man and i am already sold. #also aus books are always so familiar compared to US books :) #and yes sexuality stuff is ambiguous but basically: a bunch of discussion on relationship hierachies (ie friendship equally/more important) #themes of feeling unlovable bc you're different and different forms of love #multiple times the MC says she has no interest in dating or relationships and also is touch (and maybe sex) repulsed #- but of course that Also has to do with the whole Being A Monster thing #and it definitely shows some kind of attraction to dior - ie looking at her lips/bare skin; blushing; etc #and ends on sort of hand kiss / 'is this something??' vibes #I asked the author and they said they see them as QPR / platonic soulmates but are not at the point where they would know what to call it #which makes total sense to me! #the part of me who wants more obvious aroace YA wishes it was a little more specific #but also I DO love ambiguity and I think it wouldn't be true to the characters #who are clearly not even ready to start figuring that stuff out. #and also. aroacespec sapphics is like. also something i want #also like. I think it's reductive to assume just because 'looks at lips' is a common allo attraction trope....doesn't necessarily mean #it has to be that. yknow. #anyway. i loved it a lot. #gross spidergirl (affectionate)...... #also dior is such an interesting and complex character. like another book could have made her nicer or less fucked up

[regallibellbright]

I think it’d be really, really funny if the Civilians of Twilight Town keep trying to guess what Roxas, Xion, Lea, and Isa’s deal is, trying to fit them into SOME sort of even remotely traditional family structure and end up with, like, six different competing rumors even before the polite blonde girl who divides her time between “the old abandoned mansion, which they guess she owns?” and “nowhere in the area.”

And then the visiting scientist.

And the other visiting scientist.

And the scientists’ apparent son (other son?), who spends his entire trip talking with Pence about something they’ve clearly been collaborating on for at least a year despite the fact that no one’s ever seen him before.

Xion introduces a boy who looks nothing like her, currently lives with his family (not, she specifies, her family,) and has no relationship with Roxas or Lea whatsoever. Apparently they’re both the children (okay, he says creations, but Even’s an odd one) of one of the scientists. Technically, they say. They look nothing alike. They’re pretty sure he doesn’t live with the scientist, either. He does know Namine (presumed to be the scientists’ mutual daughter) but they say they’re not siblings point blank. Someone crosses Xion and Namine being sisters off a whiteboard, then considers and puts a question mark there.

Roxas’s incredibly obvious identical twin shows up and they claim to be half-brothers. Roxas will skateboard away from all followup questions. On another trip, he’ll bring a third boy who introduces himself as “the other half of (Ven’s) heart” and then immediately refers to Roxas, Xion, and Ven (but not Lea or the other boy, who nonetheless knows him) as his siblings. He claims to have been born at the dawn of time and just after the worlds shattered and also sixteen years ago. (Vanitas knows exactly what he is doing and is THRIVING off the chaos.)

Based off similar hair colors, her apparent dislike of Lea, and sheer desperation, half the town is convinced that Aqua and Isa are siblings and she sided with him during the breakup. There’s no consensus about how Terra fits into this. (Isa’s not correcting them. About any of this. It’s not worth it.)

Seifer gets back from a journey of self-discovery and asks who the newbies are and gets shown eight different, mutually-contradictory conspiracy boards in the form of family tree/relationship charts. Lauriam and Elrena have been the source of multiple schisms among the gossip mill.

By the time Sora shows up again even Hayner, Pence and Olette are having trouble keeping everything straight, and they actually know the whole story.

#kingdom hearts #long post #note that whether or not any given professed relationship is ACTUALLY how they consider each other should be ambiguous #(except for Ven and Vanitas and Even and Xion and Repliku which are obviously canonically accurate but being interpreted as not literal) #and any assumed relationship by the town is equally unreliable #Roxas and Ven know they can’t get away with being UNrelated but refuse to say they’re twins #it would only raise more questions at their birthdays #Sora brings Strelitzia too. Sora doesn’t know Lauriam’s name. Ven clearly knows them both. Chaos reigns. #the TT Teen Trio figure it’s none of their business whether any given group are siblings or dating or both #it’s Heart Stuff. that gets complicated even before the time travel and giving each other your body and replicas and everything else #if someone wants them to know then they’ll tell them. except Vanitas. but then someone else will tell them. #oh also Seifer DEFINITELY met Leon during that journey of self-discovery and it was a Whole Mutual Thing #but that goes without saying and he will never mention it to the rest of the town as it won’t come up… #up until some of the Radiant Garden crew visit and recognize him.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Since we're on the topic of flower symbolism...

Idk if you noticed but on the neighborhood map there's a single white daisy blooming in Frank's yard. Daisies represent loyalty and innocence and so in the language of flowers they represent the phrase "I will never tell." Hm...

very true! tbh i haven't paid much attention to Frank's daisies because they don't seem to be "his" flowers - that title belongs to sunflowers <3 - and white daisies also appear all over Julie's house and in front of Home. and to me it loses a bit more credence since there's also a red daisy near Julie's and blue daisy-like flowers pretty much on his house

#i associate them more with wally tbh! #HOWEVER! im not willing to discard such a take! #im just a bit more skeptical on the daisy train #i mean they Are a very generic Flower Shape so who's to say that they really are daisies? who knows! #theyre just a bit too ambiguous to stand out As daisies #the ones in front of Home are much more clear-cut and precisely drawn #which makes me think that the other generic daisy-shaped flowers are there just as decoration #BUT WHO KNOWS! YOU MAY BE ONTO SOMETHING HERE IDK #homebogging #rambles from the bog

[skuaclan]

Moon 2.

#skuaclan #warrior cats ocs #note 1: i mixed up which of foxfern's sides was grey whoops. i blame the weird perspective #note 2: when i say 'their' i just mean the loner! they're not cinder's. their parent was a stranger to him. (their name was procyon) #ravenkit #fogkit #foxfern #sunstar #bluekit #cinderplume #note 3: ive ambiguously aged up these kittens a bit for lore purposes to the extent where they can be weaned. so dont worry about it #theyre supposed to be newborns at this point ingame but the difference shouldn't really matter #i cannot be arsed doing a bunch of work to explain skuaclan finding an external nursing queen to temporarily feed them sorry lmfao #also i am assigning them pronouns out the womb so i dont gotta do it later on. @ ravenkit woe he/they be upon ye #if a cat changes gender later on i will account for that obv but im willing to let assumedly cis cats like raven and fox have bonus pronoun #just like. at random. if it seems an arbitrary good fit for the character i begin building in my brain #moonskip events

[katierosefun]

my cancelled-able trait from the queer community would be that i really apparently love messy endings. i love u happy endings and i also love u such sad, messy, ambiguous endings . . . i love u endings where u have this weird pit in the bottom of your stomach because you know that there's love here but u have no idea what to do with it and u just have to deal with the fact that someone is profoundly affecting your life and you're not gonna get closure from it anytime soon . . . i love u queer love stories where it's really just "u don't always get to see the sunshine and rainbows at the end of it . . . sometimes all that's left is just one big question mark and the quiet hope that they get their shit together" . . .

#caroline talks #don't get me wrong. i love u happy endings. esp when it comes to queer love stories #but i also just. love endings where it's just like. well. u DON'T know for certain whether the characters #are truly going to ride off into the sunset together. #the only thing u know for certain is that they love each other and that they're going to have to grapple with that forever. #maybe it's also just bc like. idk. i took too many film classes and so my head's forever stuck #on this one essay about how some really happy endings feel lifeless. #like how in some ending shots. the characters look like they've had their happy ending. but there's also some weird unease and confusion #and it's like. well yeah. because for every happy moment u get in life. u are still already thinking 'well what's next. what now.' #which is fascinating to me. but also me @ me: god maybe u can just be happy and it's not that deep. #but also. i do love the wonderful ambiguity of just. 'there is so much more to live. so much more to do.' #and i guess it's not just for queer love stories. i think a lot about the ending of my mister. #with lee ji an and park dong hoon walking away from each other but they're happy. u have no idea how their relationship will pan out but u #do know that they love each other. #or like. columbus. with jin and casey. they hug each other and thank each other for being in the other's lives. #and jin says goodbye to casey and casey says goodbye to jin and u have no idea if they'll see each other again. but u know they love each #other so very much. even if they'd only known each other for a second. #or like. beginners. anna and oliver love each other so much and u get this sense that. they're still a little bit uneasy/nervous about how #the rest of their lives are going to go. but they'll try. #or. god. the swearing jar. #the last shot. i think about it a lot. #there is love!!! but u don't always know how the rest of it is going to pan out!!! u just know that it'll pan out somehow!

[magpod-confessions]

in response to another ask, i actually really like the ambiguity of jon's asexuality, bc many other ace people (including myself) can project our owns expiriences and feelings while not being confined to canon.

like, if it was said that he was repulsed, completely utterly, finds it disgusting, etc., then myself and many others on the less repulsed side of the spectrum would have a harder time connecting and liking the character, especially if, like myself, are Jon kinnie's, then it would be even harder.

and on the other side of things, if it were said jon was more positive or neurtal, it would still have the same effect of being hard for all ace people to connect with.

i do also believe the way his sexuality was handled was a bit... off?

like, saying all ace people "don't" is an over exaggeration. some people do have those activities (look i may be ace and on the more neutral/positive side of it but i can still skirt around the words, ok?) and some dont, and it just feels weird. having an ambigous ace character while giving the hint that they might be repulsed/indifferent/etc., towards doing certain activities just feels weird to me.

ofc it could also be read as melanie just learning about it from georgie and never thinkin to ask Jon himself, thus causing ehr to draw her own conclusions, but yeah, a bit weird, but yk. it is what it is? not sure how to close out these thoughts-

.

#yea i like it being ambiguous #i actually take melanie explaining jons asexuality as jon being a guy who doesnt label himself. which is canon according to jonny #so he doesnt say hes ace he just says he doesnt have sex much #and to keep him ambiguous you can say that was his relationship with georgie but he later learned more abt himself #and then elaborate on that #idk personal headcanon for me #magpod #tma #the magnus archives #jon sims #jonathan sims #asexual #asexual character #magpod confession

[introspectivememories]

i love!!! pavitr!!!! best part about him is that the astv creators just said he's indian. he could be any type of indian and you wouldn't be wrong. maybe he's malayali. maybe he's from mizo. maybe he's from punjab. maybe he's tamilian. maybe he's from sikkim. you decide!!!!

#'oh but he's from mumbattan!!1!!“' #ok. so? #mumbai based malayali #mumbai based punjabi #mumbai based manipuri kid #he really is mr. india #and like not to be too bitter here but like usually when we get indian characters they're usually north indian #which like i get. there are a lot more north indians in america than south probably but like while there are some overarching similarities #between north and south indians we're not the same. and it does get a little disheartening watching a new indian character #onscreen knowing you can't really relate to them at all. #but like pav is just like ambiguously indian. like he has no identifying characteristics of any indian states #like the most you could say is that he's maharashtrian cause mumbai is in Maharashtra #and like i love pavitr for that!!! #also before someone says smth #disclaimer! evrythg i said in the tags is based on how i feel as an american born south indian kid #pavitr prabhakar #astv #spiderman india

[teamsasukes]

listen i get where people are coming from when they say that nobody should have expected a radical overhaul of the shinobi system considering the series very squarely set up its main theme as not abandoning friends. that certainly was the setup. but i also think it would be inaccurate to say that the story as it evolved affirmed that refusing to abandon one's friends was the be-all and end-all fix for everything. i cannot emphasize this enough: it's not as though the prior generations we saw lacked devotion to their teammates. the problem was that the larger sociopolitical circumstances obstructed their ability to connect in one way or another. even naruto acknowledges at the land of iron that his and sasuke's positions made it impossible for them to reconcile. so for the series to do a 180 and assert that actually friendship was the solution all along (even though there have been no meaningful systemic changes, even though the source of these intergenerational conflicts has not been addressed) rings hollow. it's especially glaring that being violently beaten in a fight makes sasuke desert his quest for justice without any reservation -- therefore no ideological or political separation was bridged, sasuke was just made to forget what motivated him for the entire series' run. naruto and team 7 succeeding where their predecessors failed was not a function of anything they did differently, but mere narrative convenience.

#like. nearly every prominent relationship in this series is definitive proof that love is not enough! #itachi without a doubt loved sasuke and itachi hurt sasuke more immensely than anyone and itachi did it because of loyalty to the state #if that is how you love... your love is worth nothing #so yeah it just feels really disingenuous to say that the series was about the power of friendship all along #and people expecting anything else were watching the wrong series #when textually the power of friendship has ALWAYS proven insufficient #naruto #naruto meta #team 7 #and listen u could certainly argue that the friendship in previous gens was deficient because there was no attempt made #at understanding or compromise. and to really live by obito's nindo you had to prioritize each other over country ALWAYS #but the series didn't do that either. sasuke for all intents and purposes 'lost' #and he was integrated back into konoha by accepting the hitai-ate #nrt had a bunch of weird mixed messaging on that front in general. like hiruzen letting orochimaru go which proved disastrous for konoha #or hiruzen and danzo's whole thing lmao #but whether the uchiha massacre was right/necessary was also left ambiguous so i'm not sure how that's supposed to paint hiruzen

[willowcrowned]

“Making anyone over the age of 8 watch tcw should be forbidden” okay, but why?

because it’s bad in the way only bad kids shows can be. and then it’s also bad in fifteen other ways

#I don’t think it’s uniquely terrible but I do think it sets out with some very lofty goals and faceplants in an attempt to achieve them #also it gets anakin’s character really wrong in a way that I think undermines a lot of what’s compelling about him #I will say something I do like about it is that it fleshes out the clone wars in greater detail #like the bits with syndulla on ryloth #but it fails to do anything compelling with those bits in a cohesive way #it’s so wrapped up in conveying an obvious moral lesson that it loses nuance #which! of course that was going to happen! #you can’t pick a tangled political morally ambiguous war as a topic #and then use a kids show to try and depict it without losing nuance and cohesion and a host of other things that make good storytelling #even kids shows that are about war and do it well (like atla) aren’t dealing with wars as tangled and difficult as the clone wars are #like. tcw was just never going to be able to say anything about politics or war #with the depth and coherence the clone wars necessitate #in my unprofessional opinion tcw was. much like the prequels. and anakin too I guess. doomed from the beginning #asks #anon #star wars #this is my highly developed opinion

[raayllum]

so like. the AU where viren's plans for conquest don't immediately come together in S3 (maybe kasef hasn't gotten all the armies together yet when he shows up in katolis?) and Viren has to like, be king in terms of administration, and the dynamic he forms long term with Claudia being his high mage, please.

#also soren says he's crownguard still after his father's ascension in 3x06 soo #soren staying on as crownguard?? or would viren take him off and have him be prince?? #or leave him on as crownguard in case. soren dies on it so that his lie is never discovered?? idk #tdp viren #morally ambiguous fam #s3 #arc 1 #canon divergence #prompts #a thousand times which isn't half enough #tdp #the dragon prince

[thelivingautomaton]

alright, since the Remedy brainworms got me I've been replaying Control, got to the AWE expansion last night and picking up on all the echoes/foreshadowing for Alan Wake 2 is making me go utterly bonkers, but like. has anyone picked up on or talked about how in all of Alan's Hotline messages to Jesse, when he's writing about her POV, he exclusively calls her 'Faden'

like, maybe it didn't poke my brain the first time I played it since he does the same thing when talking about Hartman, but coming from AW2 it's pretty jarring as a stylistic oddity...almost like there's a reason (in-universe and/or out-of-universe) that he doesn't call her 'Jesse'...almost like there's only one Faden in his story...

and given how in AW2 we also get some (quasi-) clarification regarding the limits of Alan's ability to "make stuff up" vs alter and rewrite "real-world" events that he sees in clairvoyant flashes...given the Night Springs screenplay pages you can find in AWE that parallels the FBC and the events of Control (i.e. a Director and a Scientist opening a portal to another dimension, finding an eldritch Entity, the Director trying to take its power for himself and then getting taken over before shooting himself)...given how literally all of the "dreams" Dylan tells Jesse about are descriptions/viewings of stuff that takes place on one level of reality or another ("I was the director and you were an intern"; "we were in a game, and it was a fucking boring game but you couldn't stop playing it"; Mister Door, and "a world with a writer writing about a cop, and another world where the writer was real"; a "musical" about Jesse), except, seemingly, the dream about "Jesse Dylan Faden"...

guys. are you picking up what I'm putting down here. guys. GUYS

#alan wake #control #control remedy #remedy entertainment #remedyverse #anyway sorry but i for real am a jesse dylan faden truther now and forever #not in the sense that dylan isn't 'real' or isn't a person in his own right by now #but look. if you were a writer and trying to work out the inciting plot/backstory for your main character #who needs to have a driving reason to go back to the government agency that nearly captured her for study #or alternatively: you need a reason that said government agency is able to learn about the inciting backstory event from a direct witness #without actually successfully capturing the main character in question (since it's important that she instead comes to them when she does) #it would solve a lot of your problems if you just...split your protagonist into two different people. right? #like. are you seeing the vision!!! #also i gotta say. the Gender Of It All (TM) compels me #granted i doubt remedy will go in that direction -- and even if they do i think it'd be highly ambiguous/questionable at best #kind of like how max payne 1/2 raise the vague possibility that max went insane on valkyr and he's the one that killed his family #which is largely shot down but in a way that still leaves the answer at least a little bit shrouded in ambiguity #but you know. a girl can dream

[anghraine]

There's something percolating in my head about how sometimes the scenarios and characters we relate to the most are the ones that don't explicitly identify what they're doing in the terms of how we relate to them. Sometimes there are even specific indications that it's not that thing and yet we can still find it there and find it powerful. Sometimes that can feel more affecting and intense than the better representation out there (and not necessarily just better in a purity culture sense).

And I do think it's important not to give credit where it's not actually due, and not to insist on this kind of stuff as a replacement for actual representation. But I also think it's important to ... idk, allow space for the fuzzier depictions that speak really powerfully to some of us.

(I know this is vague! As I said, it's percolating.)

#just thinking about ... vaguely metaphorical approaches to representation #which is really bad when it's all there is #but sometimes ambiguous or metaphorical representation speaks more powerfully to me than a literal depiction of it #like... if the only autistic representation is ambiguous/coded or robots or whatever that's. not good. #but do i want a media landscape in which it's all literal and clear and devoid of ambiguously autistic-coded robots? no #i was thinking of this because of a d&d metaphorical autism thing but also the perennial darcy question #where 'good autistic representation' never speaks to me quite as much as this character invented in 1796 #whose characterization is complicated and (clearly) easy to interpret in very different ways than i do #and also thinking about my debates with a friend about miranda in mass effect #i know she's straight by game mechanics but to me the wlw energy is so strong #i'm not going to say that's queer representation lol but i still have queer feelings about it #anghraine babbles #general fanwank #a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide #rare breed of attack unicorn #etc

[blinkpen]

grumbles

what if portfolio day but its as slick and professional looking an image every given non-coward artist can muster of a character they made or have worked on saying "ceasefire now" or "they got money for wars, but can't feed the poor" and clogging the tag to total uselessness with it

#limited edition ambiguously sarcastic vent posts i know i'd get eviscerated for posting on twitter itself lmao #'this would keep me from getting hired' only by people who want you to be quiet and remain complicit about genocide #almost like any industry that puts you in that position should be burned to the ground or something #they're already trying to replace us more and more with fucking AI they don't have to pay or get backtalk from #megacorps have no loyalty to you why do you burn your morals to ashes to remain loyal to them #(-as i gently cup your face with my reassuring and also jewish hands- it is not antisemitic to say war crimes. are war crimes.) #(human lives will always be more important than arbitrary fucking lines in the dirt of this earth on which we were all meant to walk freely

[yardsards]

s1 luz was at least a little bit gay for willow i will not be told otherwise

idk if it was a full on crush but it was at least one of those types of nebulous not-quite-romantic not-quite-platonic "hahaha, unless..." type friendships that a lot of queer teens have, u know the ones

#girl was just walkin around sayin shit like ''you're right! my friend IS very cute!'' #which can be just regular platonic bc luz is friendly like that but in this case i feel like it's A Little Bit Gay #eliot posts #toh #the owl house #luz noceda #willow park #just. remembering why i liked willuz/willumity so much. #i kinda headcanon willow as grey-aro and polyam (this literally came to me in a dream) #and i feel like her ideal relationship IS a kind of ambiguous sorta-but-not-quite-romantic sort of dealio #tho i also like the headcanons that she's just plain bi or pan or lesbian in this context too #bc again that sort of ambiguous friendship seems to be VERY common among queer teen friend groups (and not just aspec queers) #like it was A Thing between some of my high school friends and many other queer ppl i've talked to have said similar lmao #tho i also find the headcanon that she's 100% aroace and also uninterested in any relationships outside if friendship to be v fun #just like. basically everyone falling in love w her but her being totally uninterested #but being her friend is so Delightful that none of em rlly have any complaints there #like that scene in carmilla where dani turns down kirsch and says she just sees him as a friend and he gets really excited like #''yes! i am in the friend zone! she sees me as a friend!!! she's so cool i am excited to be her friend!'' #willow taking after canon aroace icon lilith ''constantly turning down suitors but keeping their gifts'' clawthorne #my sister is just straight but this one time when she was in hs a guy asked her out w a massive tub of cheese puff balls #(she was obsessed w those things) #and she turned him down but kept the cheese puffs and ate them for like a solid month

[thatswhatsushesaid]

didn't anyone ever tell u it's rude to interrupt, da-ge

#jesus christ like #okay i don't want to say that my feelings on nmj are souring again exactly because it's not quite like that #i DO think my patience is thin atm just because of some meta i've read that i just strongly disagree with #but come on!!! #there are some things in the text or the show which are deliberately left ambiguous #and up for interpretation #nmj's tears and facial expressions for instance are the subject of much discourse and debate in some servers i'm in lmao #but this moment #and the moment atop the stairs in the novel #where jgy is not even given a chance to speak before nmj decides he already knows what jgy is going to say #(aka he is going to lie) #this isn't headcanon. this is just. the way nmj is #he does not believe meng yao is going to be honest with him #and he does not believe that meng yao was honest with him in the past #and it does not matter what meng yao does going forward because nmj has made up his mind #he did crimes??? good for him 😌 #nie meangjue 🤯 #(not dropping these in the main tags today) #tl;dr this is fundamentally why n!eyao will never work for me #salty peak sect 🧂