I Just Don’t Feel Like People Appreciate Book Phantom Enough. Like Sorry But I Have A Fat Crush On

Spoiler warning for Cinderella's Castle under the cut.

While I will say (even this early in her time with the company) that this show was Bryce's finest hour, we need to draw attention to Ella's death scene.

Every time I watch it, I have such a visceral reaction, but I still pay attention to it because of her acting in this scene.

How Ella cries out to her parents as Putrice and Rancilda restrain her. It brings to mind soldiers fatally wounded in combat, calling out for a loved one that they wish to see one last time.

Her attempt to pray to the Nine Good Gods; even after the Fairy Queen disproved her faith, it's still the only faith that she knows. It was probably one of the only things that she had left after her father's death.

She truly sounds like she's in pain when the Stepmother makes the first cut to her leg, only reduced to sobs because she's in too much agony to speak.

But she still has enough defiance left in her to curse the trolls.

Even if the way the sequence is written and acted out makes it seem as if Ella dies pretty soon after her leg is severed, I can easily imagine her drifting in and out of consciousness as she continues to bleed out onto the table.

Maybe she's ready to give up.

Maybe she's afraid that, if there are no Nine Good Gods, there's no greener field beyond. And that means that she'll never see her parents, or Justine and Lucy again.

So death isn't even a comfort anymore.

I think for a lot of white people, when you call them out on their casual racism (microagressions and non-overt things), they see it as a case of hurt feelings from your point of view as opposed to a discussion of harmful practices that aid the vehicle of racism. So in response, they take it as a personal attack, rather than a learning experience, and go on the defensive by bringing up a time that you made them upset as leverage. Or they defend their actions by doubling down on the behavior at hand and dismissing your criticism as over sensitivity and emphasizing their “harmless” intent. And I think that is one of the reasons why it’s so hard to address casual and interpersonal racism with the general white population (and also other poc tbh).

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

So I’m still listening to The Magnus Archives series for a third time and am just on 123 - Web Development and Jon learning that Peter Lukas just got rid of the whole third floor - wasn’t there something In RedCanary’s story about the third floor?

the problem with the addiction metaphor for avatars in the magnus archives isn't actually with the metaphor itself, it's that it's treated as the Only way to understand monsterhood.

"jon made the choice to go after live statements because they felt good" is true

"jon felt good when he took live statements as a metaphor for addiction" is true

"jon felt good when he took live statements because victimizing people feels empowering" is true

"jon felt good when he took live statements Because Eating Feels Good" Is Also True

it's easy to say that jon made The Choice to continue being a monster, there's plenty of characters in the show who've said as much.

but the choice to continue being a monster is Equally the choice to Survive, to continue living. and trying to have a conversation about the Morality of jon's choice, as if it is Only about how good it feels to be monstrous, as if the addiction to living can be separated from the reality of dying. is a bit ridiculous !

the whole point of jon's situation, of Being an avatar, is that it's not Fair. jon was turned into a monster without his knowledge or consent, and then was told that there was no way out of it but to die.

it's not Fair to blame someone for wanting to live, it's not Fair to hurt someone to continue living. both are true, and that's Exactly what makes it interesting ! Why avatars can be both victims and victimizers in turn.

what makes someone like jon different from someone like jared hopsworth isn't their capacity for violence or to cause pain, it's the Choice To Continue Feeling Compassion For Other People. to make the active Choice to see other human beings As People and care about the harm you cause them.

so much of the narrative of tma is about characters who are stripped of agency, who still make Meaningful Choices Anyways. by Choosing to care, even as that choice hurts you. to continue to care even though it would feel Good not to.

this isn't Separate from the metaphor about addiction, it's in Conversation with it.

i’m going to go lie flat on some train tracks

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public libraries are so sick. there are five books I want to read and they're all relatively new so they're only available in hardback which is so expensive but it just cost me $0 to place holds on them. five books for zero dollars. it requires nothing but clicking a button and then going to the library to pick them up when they're ready. zero dollars. that's crazy

I'm still working away on this!! I'll stream a couple days next week (probably Tuesday and Thursday?) while I keep at it!!

I bring you… my silly little comics. Saw a tik tok this morning about British Museum recognizing emperor Elagabalus as a trans woman 🏳️‍⚧️, and I just had to draw this.