You know, sometimes I forget just how much I love Agents of Shield until I see a post, or something about it, and suddenly, it all floods back. No other show has ever compared to the effect it and its characters have had on me, even as I move through various fandoms.
A thing that bothers me about wizard schools in popular media – outside of the magic-grade-school stuff, anyway – is that they're typically depicted as being basically magic universities, but their actual curricula and pedagogical approaches look much more like those of a technical institution. Like, buddy, that's not a wizard university, that's a wizard trade school. You can't just slap university student culture on top of trade school pedagogy. It doesn't work like that – the one emerges from the other!
"Well ACTUALLY wizards are" wizards are made up. They can be analogous to whatever real-world class or vocation the author wants. Wizard-school-as-university and wizard-school-as-technical-institute are both perfectly fine; what I am grumping about is wizard-school media that doesn't seem to have a clear picture of how different sorts of educational institutions actually operate.
Okay but now I really want to know what a Wizard technician would look like. Would he wear magical overalls with all kinds of reagents and magic tools sticking out of his numerous pockets?
A guy like that walks into your tower with a toothpick in his mouth, takes one look at your summoning circle and goes
“I see yer problem. You used chalk B12 instead of S3. B12 is only for transmutation circles. Gimme a sec I think I have a piece somewhere here.”
He fixes your circle, test summons an imp and goes.
“There ya go. Fit as a fiddle.”
“It’s the chalk.”
“The chalk? I always use that chalk, it’s never been a problem.”
“Ah - yes. This stuff will work just fine for most circles, but, uh - here, take a look with my loupe. You see the off-color flecks? Can’t hardly see them with the naked eye, but those are impurities. Silicates, might even be some iron in here, to be honest. Usually won’t cause a problem, but - you said you hadn’t tried this particular summons before?”
“First time trying a 5th level, yeah.”
“Those silicates will make your scribing a little fuzzy when viewed from the astral plane. You see, for example, these three fine lines here? With this chalk, on the astral that looks like one thick line with fuzzy edges. They can’t tell exactly what you want, and they’re picky lil’ critters so they just won’t do anything in response.”
“Really? Oh. I always thought the expensive chalk was just fancy to be fancy.”
“Making pure chalk is difficult, you need a dedicated production line or dust gets in the finished product. To be honest, you don’t need to bother with it for most things, but 5th and up, 5th level and up, it actually is necessary. Anything with lines within about two millimeters of each other.”
“So I need to start over?”
“Unfortunately yes. You’ll have to erase all this, but with some good chalk it should work just fine. Next new moon your summons should go off without a hitch.”
“Dang. At least it’s not my sigils, I was worried it was my sigils.”
“Nah Your sigils look good. Even and balanced. You know what you’re doing, it’s just an equipment problem.”
“Thanks for the help, sorry to make you come all the way out here.”
“No problem! It’s my job.”
#scene from moonstruck with vincent gardenia explaining the different types of pipes but it’s metallurgy ores #there’s the kind of ore you have— which is garbage. then there’s steel which is pretty good. unless something goes wrong. #and something always goes wrong. #and then— there’s copper. which is the only kind of ore i use. #it costs money. it costs money because it saves money. (@macklesufficient)
today in defenses of boromir that no one asked for: tired of reading that boromir’s death was in vain because he failed to save merry & pippin from the uruk-hai. the fact that this clearly important warrior was willing to die to protect those two is what convinced the urukhai that they had indeed captured the halfing who carried whatever important thing saruman wanted. they took the hobbits to isengard (to isengard gard) because they thought they had the right ones! boromir didn’t succeed in preventing their capture but he did in fact keep them alive by making them seem valuable. furthermore, he actually also saves frodo in this way: because the orcs and uruk-hai think they have what they came for, they stop looking and turn back: if they had not, they might have ultimately found and captured frodo or at least raised the alarm that a hobbit with an Important Thing was on the loose, setting others searching. which is the very heart of tolkien’s worldview - that you do the right thing because it is right, and doing the right thing is never in vain.
to conclude this essay boromir died a hero and saved not just merry and pippin but also frodo and sam.
some excellent additions in the tags here @erynalasse & @manta-ray-parade
Crowley's POV
Based on an excellent analysis (pt. 1, pt. 2) by @twilightcitysky, other analyses I've read on tumblr and my own analysis
#good omens 2#good omens 2 spoilers#crowley#episode 6 is gonna make me go insane#crowley is my poor little meow meow#cast out of heaven but never feeling comfortable in hell#alone except for the angel who dares to color outside the lines sometimes#being on the outside of heaven for so long he can see it clearly for what it is#but aziraphale is blinded by his want for love and acceptance#and though Crowley loves him so much he won’t go back#he knows who he is and what he wants#and it’s not heaven
And you are? Oh, no one, I mean, technically, Muriel, 37th order scrivener but, you know, no one.
Aziraphale's POV
Based on an excellent analysis (pt. 1, pt. 2) by @twilightcitysky!
(I'll be making a gif set from Crowley's POV soon)
Thinking about how I need to see Crowley in mortal peril in season 3. I need to see their roles reversed, to watch Aziraphale comprehend in a moment everything he is about to lose and truly understand the panic Crowley has felt for him so many times before. I need Aziraphale to make a choice, to move heaven and hell and earth to protect his most important person and whatever chance they have of a future together. And I need to see them reunite in a world where Crowley knows Aziraphale will always do what it takes to rescue him too
i just want to mention when crowley and aziraphale are fighting and crowley puts on his glasses it broke my heart. he’s always so chill about it with aziraphale and earlier in the episodes the first thing he did when he came into the bookshop was take off his glasses. he and everyone else in the season were safe in the bookshop. he was safe with aziraphale. safe and comfortable enough to immediately stop hiding his eyes
so him slapping those glasses on was a punch to the gut and i will not recover.
You idiot. We could've been... us.
#good omens 2#good omens 2 spoilers#ineffable husbands#THEE SCENE#this scene was so rude#the desperation in crowley#the fact that aziraphale keeps trying to put his hands on crowley’s back#the longing and rawness in both their faces in gif 7#Neil gaiman you are a cruel man who better make it right in season 3#goddamn
Moment of appreciation for the final agni kai.
Zuko learning to redirect lightning, as a metaphor for learning to redirect his family's abuse, not letting it hit his heart... pure poetry.
Less well appreciated, I think: when Zuko leaps in front of Katara to take the lightning for her, he becomes what he never had at the agni kai where his father scarred him, what not even Iroh would do for him.
Protector.
He intervenes.
I’m on my (third?) watch of Agents of Shield, currently on 2x08, The Things We Bury. And it just occurred to me how good the parallel stories are in this episode in particular, all centering around the title.
(This breakdown got a lot more in-depth than I was expecting, so I’m putting the rest under a cut)
proofweed-deactivated20230515
Neither femme nor masc but a third more wicked thing....... Boring
i cannot believe there is a real and very serious event in Agents of SHIELD called the Raid of the Fridge
I'm generally of the opinion that trying to resurrect prematurely cancelled shows is like necromancy—odds are they'll come back wrong.
Except for Galavant. Any Galavant revivial will be funnier the longer it stayed cancelled.
Tags pass peer review, etc, because they SO perfectly capture the spirit of the show.
Our DM deeply regrets giving us an alchemy jug
(After mayonnaise was brought up during a war council)
DM, exasperated: I swear, if any of you so much as mention the goddamn mayonnaise again-
Fighter: Listen! One day, it could be useful!
Warlock: Look, one day we're gonna be in a... a salad making competition, and we're gonna need the mayonna-
Fighter, voice getting increasingly higher: We're gonna WIN the salad making competition with MAYONNAISE?
(Group loses it)
Warlock, valiantly pressing onward: The war council might need tuna sandwiches! We don't know!
