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eroguron0nsense · 3 months

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Perhaps my brain isn't braining or I'm assigning undue significance to this but I kinda feel like One Piece seemed to shift more toward exploring what real familial love means or looks like after the timeskip? We get Ace's death, the postwar arc, and Luffy coming to the conclusion that despite having lost both of his brothers, he's still got the Straw Hats and he can move forward with his ragtag crew of siblings, Team Mom and Dad, and an eccentric skeleton Uncle, and then right after that, we get several arcs defined overwhelmingly by either the destruction or salvation of various families.

One of the main inciting incidents–if not the inciting incident–of all the political intrigue inherent to the Fishman Island arc is the assassination of Otohime and its ramifications for Shirahoshi and the entire Ryugu Kingdom (not to mention Luffy trying really fucking hard to imitate Ace and be a big brother to Shirahoshi and Surume as a means of processing his own loss).

Dressrossa's where we first see a true perversion of all the lovely found family tropes that have long been established in One Piece (villains have destroyed families but few if any are depicted as having one in the same way Luffy does; pre-time skip villains are more likely to be loners or self-interested tyrants and their followers aren't really referred to as "family"), giving us self fashioned patriarch in Doffy who completed the destruction of his bio family and spent the rest of his life building a grotesque, failed imitation of it through manipulating and indoctrinating a group of followers he doesn't truly care for, only to be brought down by a combination of his brother's final actions, the little boy Cora saved and loved, the bonds of the Riku family he brutalized, the brothers of the guy whose devil fruit he acquired and tried to entrap his enemies with, and an actual Found Family Crew who genuinely love each other and are willing to sacrifice for each other in a way Doffy cannot possibly understand.

The entirety of WCI involves almost every conceivable permutation of multiple families plotting against, exploiting, abusing, and defiantly loving each other, from Judge discarding any hope he ever had of having an actual family that could love him by literally stripping away their ability to do so in the name of facism/conquest, to Chiffon betraying her abusive mom for her loving husband and in-laws, to Linlin being failed by every parental figure in her life and constructing the most bizarre, fundamentally horrifying political/military structure out of her army of bio children.

Wano's main villain is also an abusive father and tyrannical crew leader, and that does, in fact, contribute to his eventual downfall, but more to the point, the arc opens and closes with the initial destruction and eventual restoration of the Kozuki family in Momo, Hiyori, and Sukiyaki, Luffy's kinship with Momo and Tama, circling back to reminders of Ace yet again (for the third arc so far) and Hiyori literally closing out the arc mirroring her father's catchphrase/dying words (and to a lesser extent, plot fuelled by the destruction of the Kurozumi clan). By the time we end what I personally consider to be Part 2 of One Piece, Luffy's family has picked up another uncle, he's been confronted repeatedly with the spectre of his brother and come out stronger for it (also filling the big brother role for multiple characters), he's reunited with Sabo, and has confronted and defeated multiple villains who act as the antithesis to everything One Piece has told us so far about the joy and love and unity that the Straw Hats and their friends and true families exemplify. And by the time he tells everyone his real dream and shares what he'd previously only told Ace, Sabo, and Shanks, it feels like we've finally gotten some closure for Marineford

#one piece #monkey d luffy #portgas d ace #marineford #donquixote doflamingo #straw hat pirates #kaido one piece #charlotte linlin #fishman island #flame emperor sabo

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wauzmons · 9 months

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We have been Betrayed, Backstabbed, Bamboozled: The Future of Elysian Eclipse

So, if you are active on our Discord, you know that EE is made in the Unity Engine and the CEO just decided to massively fuck over all the devs who are using it...

Callum Upton made a great video explaining the situation:

youtube

But it gets even worse!

Unity since defended themselves, saying that these fees are only affecting 10% of their customers, because of the $200k and $1m thresholds, so Indie devs don't have to worry about that.

…which isn't true:

Unity Plus

They aren't only introducing these fees but also changed the regular pricing plans! They just removed "Unity Plus" which is the lowest tier and costs about $50/month per dev with taxes. This is what most indies use. The next higher tier costs QUADROUPLE that amount and is also required to remove the universally loathed "made with Unity" splash screen. Oh! And if you have the personal tier, you won't be able to use Unity offline anymore! It now needs to do a license check every 3 days to function!

Unity's Ad Service

The fees will hit devs that do free-to-play mobile stuff especially hard, since they still have to pay the fees even when the players don't buy anything, meaning they could end up owing Unity more than they make in income. But what's this? If you use Unity's advertising service for your game, you will get a discount on the fees! The majority of mobile games run on Unity, meaning they are trying to monopolize the mobile ad market with this!

Publishers

Elysian Eclipse has caught the interest of a really big studio and publisher, who is considering to handle the marketing and publishing for the game. They are obviously planning to make the game come out big with sales, going beyond Unity's thresholds. But since the game is made in Unity, they probably now have to reconsider that carefully, since that would cause a massive amount of fees with Unity's new pricing model. So any game using Unity is now an instant turn-off for publishers, also massively hurting indie devs who don't reach that income threshold yet.

What will happen now?

So, Unity can't be trusted anymore and should be seen as a major threat to us and the gaming industry. Even if they walk back on some of these decisions, what has been said, has been said. They showed that they don't care about destroying thousands of games, as long as it nets them profit, so who knows what they are going to do next?

I will pause the development of Elysian Eclipse and release the Patreon demo, including all the prototypes like Aquatic Stage for free today. I canceled my subscription and it will run out next year, so Unity isn't getting a single cent from my games anymore.

Unreal Eclipse?

In the meantime I'll focus on improving my C++ skills, so I can work more effectively in Unreal Engine 5. Unreal is the current industry leader, offering much better solutions for graphics and performance for 3D games. It is also partially open source and completely free until you reach $1 million in revenue.

It is unlikely that I will be able to just translate the game from C# to C++ and port it over, since it is using a lot of engine-specific features. This basically means, we will start from scratch... I can't tell yet how much work this will be or in what ways the game will change.

But one thing, you can always be certain of: I will NEVER BETRAY MY DREAM. I will finish this project, no matter who or what stands in my way. I hope you will continue to support me on this journey.

That being said,

FUCK JOHN RICCITIELLO!!

Fucking cunt.

#elysian eclipse #spore #gamedev #indie games #unity #unity engine #fuck unity #unreal engine #youtube

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nepentheisms · 9 months

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This is it; this is the Big 'Un that's been knocking around in my head since the bookclub's inception.

When it comes to mentions of the biblical parallels in Trigun, I've seen that Wolfwood is most frequently discussed as a Judas figure. I think it's important, though, to note that carrying out the Judas role to Vash's Jesus was a job he was ordered to take, and it's one he went through the motions of following while having the ulterior motive of killing the one who gave him the order in the first place. In fact, when Wolfwood does turn traitor, it's actually Knives and the GHG he chooses to betray. He ends up Judas-ing the guys who assigned him to the Judas mission - that's some sweet irony!

And as Wolfwood's time in the story draws to an end, he takes the path completely contrary to Judas' ignominious end by suicide. He instead takes a leap of faith and dares to place his trust in Vash's vision for humanity's future. His faith remains imperfect, but in the midst of all his doubt and uncertainty, he persists anyway.

This last stand of his becomes Wolfwood's ultimate affirmation of his devotion to Vash's ideals, and he effectively becomes a martyr, which places him far outside the image of Judas. In fact, I think that when we look back on his character arc as a whole, we can see how it more neatly lines up in trajectory with the story of another apostle: Peter.

Like Peter in the gospel narratives, Wolfwood finds it difficult to have the kind of faith that is asked of him. Vash goes into his battle with Rai Dei insisting to Wolfwood that he can finish the conflict without taking a life, but Wolfwood intervenes against Vash's wishes because he was worried about Rai Dei's next move. Peter sees Jesus walking on water and goes out to join him, but with the rough winds blowing around him, Peter becomes overwhelmed by fear and begins to sink. After these failures of faith in their respective stories, Peter and Wolfwood are then chastised by the men they follow.

Matthew 14:31 (NRSV) - Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"

And it's these struggles with doubt, these moments of fear and cynicism overtaking faith that are so instrumental to the Christian perspective on salvation with its message of "You are flawed by nature, but you are loved beyond all comprehension nonetheless. Accept this love that it may save you and change you."

In Peter's case, although he is singled out multiple times for his failures (e.g. denying Jesus three times), he still holds a special place of prominence among Jesus' disciples. The 21st chapter of John features a conversation between Peter and the resurrected Jesus in which Peter affirms his love for Jesus three times (a reversal of the three times he denied Jesus), and Jesus responds by instructing Peter to care for his flock. After Jesus ascends to Heaven, Peter continues the work set out for him in building the early church until his eventual martyrdom, which, according to church tradition, occurs via upside-down crucifixion (see Caravaggio's rendition here). Interestingly, Wolfwood's martyrdom also involves lots of grievous bodily harm being dealt by crosses.

So the saint gets brought to death's doorstep, and that brings us to the infamous whiskey bottle

Others have already pointed out that "The Bride" likely refers to the Bride of Christ. This excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up the concept:

The unity of Christ and the Church, head and members of one Body, also implies the distinction of the two within a personal relationship. This aspect is often expressed by the image of bridegroom and bride. The theme of Christ as Bridegroom of the Church was prepared for by the prophets and announced by John the Baptist. The Lord referred to himself as the "bridegroom." The Apostle speaks of the whole Church and of each of the faithful, members of his Body, as a bride "betrothed" to Christ the Lord so as to become but one spirit with him. The Church is the spotless bride of the spotless Lamb.

Now Peter is of particular importance when talking about the Church as an institution, because in the Catholic tradition, Peter is believed to have been granted a distinguished position of authority as the very foundation of Jesus' church, and every Pope is considered a successor to Peter in their occupation of the Church's highest office.

So Peter = Pope = the head of the Bride of Christ. And if we take the reading of Wolfwood as a Peter analogue.... you see where we're going. The Bride of Christ has been sanctified through a powerful demonstration of sacrificial love and prepared for the wedding to the bridegroom, but right here Yasuhiro Nightow subverts the biblical metaphor to devastating effect. The wedding doesn't come to fruition, because Vash can't bring himself to step into the role of the heavenly bridegroom. In this moment, he just feels all too painfully human in his grief. Wolfwood ascends - celebrated across the sky by those he saved with his selfless love, but Vash descends - acting as an ordinary person mourning the loss of a loved one.

John 13:36 (NRSV) - Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now...."

#trigun #trigun maximum #trigun spoilers #trigun maximum spoilers #suicide mention #cw suicide mention #religion mention #christianity mention #trigunbookclub #the bookclub is a funeral procession this week #hugs going out to all of you #Guns&God meta

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invalidstories · 3 months

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Masterlist

Coming soon: the title is blue ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤNew(came out in the past week):🌱 next to it

Hero x Villain:

Moonlit Bonds: Villain notices the Hero doesn't look well and takes care of them.

Unexpected: Villain has a soft spot for children.

Unity: Hero finds an injured Villain on their doorstep.

Forbidden Love: Forbidden attraction between a hero and a villain.

Villain's Lair (Part 1, Part 2): Roaming through the villain's lair, the hero finds many unexpected things.

Betrayal: Once friends became enemies.

One Bed: One-bed trope.

Shadows of Justice (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3): Villain uncovers the truth about Hero.

Beneath the Mask: Hero learns about Villain's trauma.

Elevator Blackout: Hero and Villain get stuck in an elevator together.

Masquerade Ball: Hero and Villain at a masquerade ball with forbidden attraction.

Enemies at the Café: A suicidal hero, and a villain who wants to help.

Camp Counselors: Hero and Villain are forced to be camp counselors.

Memories: Supervillain is jealous of Villain and Hero's love and erases their memories.

Movie Date: Villain brings Hero to a date.

Dramatic Hero (Prompt 1): Hero tricks the Villain.

Acts of Kindness: Villain had a rough day and Hero cheers them up.

Drunk Hero (Prompt 2): Villain encounters a drunk Hero, and takes care of them.

Palette of Fate (Part 1, Part 2): Civilian is kidnapped by a lovesick dangerous villain.

Love's Betrayal (Prompt 3): Hero betrays Villain. Once lovers turn enemies.

Puzzle (Prompt 4): Villain needs help with a puzzle (+ pinned Hero)

Enemies to Lovers Dialogue Prompts: Dialogue Prompts

Familiar Face: Hero trips Villain

Angst Dialogues Prompts

Misplaced Trust: Hero trusted the wrong person

Reunion After Suffering Dialogue Prompts 🌱

The Price of Defiance: Villain has captured Hero 🌱

Other Writing:

Quote: "...everything takes time and I'll be fine"

Be Curious Passage

Book Quote: "I hope you have the courage to..."

"We are all born so beautiful, the greatest tragedy is"

"Speak to people in a way that if they died the next day..."

"Some wars help us bloom"

Being brave doesn't mean you're never afraid, it means...

"Be the reason someone feels..."

"...Don't tell me my worth when you haven't seen like from my eyes."

"...regret is stronger than gratitude."

"I wonder what is a greater wish..."

FanFictions:

Lunar Reverie (Part 1, Part 2): Rumors about the queen spread around, and The Rapion Crew loses trust.

Art:

Digital Forest Art

Candle Flame Painting

Castle Painting

Waterfall

#writers on tumblr #writing #writers #quotes #masterlist #villain x hero #hero x villain #the lunar chronicles #reading #artists on tumblr #art #artwork #invalidstories #fanfic

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alpaca-clouds · 5 months

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Dungeons & Dragons - Or: Why Capitalism Sucks at Making Money

If this past year managed anything, it managed to get me really into DnD. Before I did not play DnD much, rather going with Shadowrun or (heavily homebrewed) World of Darkness. But with first Honor Among Thieves releasing - and then Baldur's Gate 3 giving me brainworms tadpoles... Yeah, hurray. New hyperfixation unlocked.

But as I started to read through all the lore, but also meta stuff happening around it. And yes, I quickly understood why basically everyone was frustrated with Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast. But I also think, that this betrays one of the big issues with capitalist logic and how it often fails to reach an audience - for the reason I outlined before: capitalists are actually super bad at realizing what works and why, because they only judge based on spread sheets.

And yes, the headline is hyperbolic. But let me explain.

A Community-Based Game

I mean, the biggest scandal of DnD this year was probably the entire thing about the community license. And this is very much something that shows quite well, how bad WotC is at recognizing why DnD works and has worked so long.

DnD centrally has been build around this idea of community. Now, mind you: This community was very, very focused on cis white guys for the longest time, but everybody else just managed to get in there and make their own little bit of community. Which also lead to a lot of homebrew stuff, that at times tackled some issues that the rules themselves did not address at all or not well. The combat wheelchair is probably the best known example of this.

But even outside of marginalized communities... DnD always thrived through the community aspect itself. People self-publishing magazines and adventures for it since the fucking 70s. As well as play sets, dice and what-have-you. DnD was always very much about all this and thrived through it. And now in came WotC saying: "Oh, yeah, actually you will now have to give us a big cut. (The big irony was, how Unity made the same move later on.) The fandom outcry was obviously big, there was a boycot, it worked. And WotC went all:

Of course they basically won the world competition in backpaddling (though again, Unity was a big contender this year as well) and quickly went back on this. But of course there is a problem: When your entire product is so much build around community and your community starts mistrusting you, you got a problem.

And this is basically what happened.

The Audience Problem

There is another problem of course. Financially the DnD movie failed - and I actually think this says a lot about how WotC kinda misunderstands the audience.

Now, there will be people trying to tell you, that given that the movie had great reviews and stuff. But the movie had a production budget of 150 million USD and only earned a bit more than 200 million on worldwide box office. Given that the marketing budget was likely around 30 million, the movie barely broke even.

Of course, part of the reason for it was that it just had a bad release date. It released parallel to the Super Mario movie, which ended up being one of the most successful movies of this year.

A friend of mine could not believe that the movie had financially flopped. They were like: "What the hell? Literally everyone I know who watched the movie went to cinema like three times to see it again." But... Yeah, that is true. But the issue is that these people are a very certain group.

Because lets make one thing clear: The people, who adored the movie so much, that they went to the cinema several times and bought the DVD/BluRay on release... were mostly queer nerds. Because this is the group of people who this movie spoke to.

And let's make this clear: I love the movie for this. I love that it so clearly went for this audience. Because I am part of this audience - and I adore this film.

But basically the movie has a general issue in terms of audience. Because on one hand the movie is too nerdy to have a wider audience appeal of people who had never played DnD, while on the other hand the movie was kinda not nerdy enough to go full force for the nerd audience.

A lot of people in the fandom have instantly sussed out one thing about the movie: "Why doesn't Edgin cast any spells? And why do we see so little of the weirder species?" And part of the reason undoubtedly was budget related. But the other reason is that... well, it is currently a well accepted wisdom in media production that you cannot sell a high-magic story. At least not outside of animated media.

Hence... There is surprisingly little magic being cast in this. And we also do have a mostly human main cast - or why Doric is the most classically pretty tiefling you have seen with her human skin tone and all of that. Because media productions do not trust the audience to accept high magic concepts.

Who is DnD actually for?

Okay, let me talk a bit about DnD 5e - and a good decision, and a bad decision. And how that affected DnD.

Everyone, who is somewhat into DnD probably knows that 5e massively changed the game. With one simple goal: Make it more accessible. Which manifested in several ways.

For one, the game was in some ways made less offensive. Because prior to 5e there was a ton of racism, sexism, queerphobia and ableism inherent to the game rules and times to the game lore. This is just a fact. Things like species that are inherently evil and stuff like that - and also some of the real-life racial coding inherent to some of the species. Removing all that stuff is a good thing. Like amazingly good.

And also, they made the rules a lot more accessible. Before the rules were bogged down with a lot of stuff, that was simplified or removed. Again, this is a good thing.

And this worked. It worked really well. Of course, this was also partly due to stuff like Critical Role and other actual plays like that happening and promoting the game. The player base probably increased ten-fold from what it was before.

Yes, it should also be noted that there is probably a good topic for a study on how formerly nerd-thingies became more and more mainstream during the last 10 years or so, but yes, DnD was one of those things.

But in this there was also a rather bad decision made, which ironically also mirrors what happened with Marvel. And this decision is: Because we want to reach a wider audience, every single thing we release for this has to reach the widest audience possible - rather than allowing that certain things might have a more specific audience.

I am sorry to talk about the MCU here, but it is just such a perfect example of this: The MCU basically made two mistakes. Overwhelming their audience with too many releases. But also not allowing the movies to be for a certain audience, but for the broadest audience possible. A good example is how they dealt with the minority-lead movies. They got directors and at times even writers from that minority - but then basically did not allow them to be too specific and be too critical of, for example, a racist system because that might not go over too well with white mainstream audiences.

Now, WotC did not really do anything like that. But they also went with this idea that everything they officially released should have the broadest possible appeal. Hence the weirdly low-magic approach to the movie, of which I assume that it definitely was an executive decision made.

The fact that the movie resonated so much with the queers more than anyone else was also not intended - at least not from the production company. Like, let's be honest. No, Xenk and Ed were not supposed to be read as romantic. And how appealing the found family trope was, probably was not intented at least on the side of Hasbro (not sure about screenwriters and director).

The Lore Problem

This perfectly connects to one of the big issues that all the franchises going for a broad appeal after being very nerd-focused for so long, run into: The Lore Problem. And this is quite ironic, because I ran into the problem earlier this year as well.

See, as I was writing fanfics for DnD:HAT I quickly ran into the problem that I knew next to nothing about the world of Faerûn. Sure, once upon a time (like between 2007 and 2011, while I was living in Austria with my then-boyfriend, who really was into those games) I played the old games of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate 1 + 2. But let's be frank: I barely remember shit from those games. And getting to understand what actually happened in the lore between and after... Well, there is just a ton of lore. I mean, people are playing around with this world for literal decades. So, yeah. This can very much be overwhelming for someone getting into it anew. Like, where can someone new even start?

The fact that - at least partly for legal reasons - most of the Actual Plays also do not work with the official lore, rather just using the rules to create their own worlds, obviously adds to this. Even the tables I played on so far always preferred original worlds, because the lore of DnD is just very intimidating.

The one thing that actuall ended up getting me into the lore was BG3, because it left open just the right questions to go into the Forgotten Realms wiki and just look for stuff, before also starting to listen to lore podcasts.

But here is the thing: WotC is also not helping with this issue. Like, they absolutel could create a proper accessible compendium on DnDBeyond that would just allow people to get an overview of the world and the timeline of things happening, maybe go into some of the major factions of the world and such. I mean, heck, they really, really want you to use DnD-Beyond rather than roll20. Yet, in DnD-Beyond I do not even have a monster compendium without paying, which roll20 offers.

Like, sure, WotC, it is okay to lock up the adventure modules behind a paywall, no problem. But if you do give me even the most basic tools to run a campaign, I am gonna use roll20, thank you very much.

But yeah, what WotC should make just more accessible was just: Timeline, important places and the maps (heck, make them interactive, you have the fucking money), maybe also a proper list of the pantheons and factions within the world. Heck, add maybe some inspiration there for what players might want to do within one of the scenarios and then, under this, go and link "hey, we made this one adventure about this, if you are interested!"

Something I did not realize originally was how much freedom the lore still leaves the people. Like, often even the important settings and events are just set-ups for adventures that the characters can have in there. There might be a few novels or comics then, that go into an example of a thing certain established characters like Drizzt or Elminster did during the time, but there is a ton of freedom to explore.

But by basically locking everything up behind a paywall, you will never get people even interested in this kinda stuff.

Because here is the thing: I like my lore. I love lore. I adore lore. But... Without BG3 explaining some stuff and giving me specific questions to ask about it, the lore would have been very inaccessible to me.

Just think of people as... people

Of course among it all there lies the central problem that comes with capitalism running something like this. See, whatever CEOs and shareholders are sitting on those chairs with WotC and Hasbro, they do not see the players as players or the community as a community, but as consumers. Just as they see their employees not as valued constributors, but very exchangable wage slaves.

They do not see the value of the community exchange with stuff like fanmade modules and things. While incorporating a bit of homebrew stuff in DnD Beyond, they are absolutely not interested in the wider market of people just creatively interacting with DnD and making a little bit of money from it. If anything they see those people as potential rivals on the market.

Heck, they have issues seeing things like Critical Role or Roll20 as the enrichment for the franchise that either are - but more like potential rivaling forces and money they have lost.

And their employees? Yeah, as we learned... Most people who from the side of WotC helped the Larian team with BG3 have been let go by now. Because WotC and Hasbro do not care for their employees, they only care about having some numbers going up.

I fully admit it. Apart from Buying BG3 and the money I have invested in anything DnD:HAT related, the only money that WotC got from me, was some of the novels I bought on Audible.

But here is the thing: WotC is doing a shite job at wanting me to invest into any of their stuff. Partly because those modules I would like to have are not available anywhere anyway - and partly because... As I said, give me a reason to get something, rather than just expecting me to randomly get something.

And mind you, this is no slight against any of the people just working for WotC. This is mostly about shareholder and executive decisions made. Stuff that basically just sees either their employers or the players just as a ressource to exploit, rather than... people.

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fuzzystudios · 2 years

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yk when I started reading toa I was kinda disappointed at the lack of power that apollo / lester had, bc pjo and hoo had their main characters be basically op, and this is literally a (former) god. apollo in tho made me cringe and reading his perspective was like looking at pills in an orange prescription bottle. but he was the whiny teenager that felt like an out-of-depth teenager more than the actually lived for years-in-teen-numbers, because they were more heroes and soldiers than teens, like they were supposed to be. he is simultaneously whiny child and responsible adult.

the moment I really latched onto him was when he basically dropped everything and tried to dive into the forest to go save his kids. bro wasn’t actually a selfish idiot like he kept making himself look like. bro was an emotionally constipated loving loser (affectionate) and loveable. he would risk the wrath of styx to save these kids. positively skrunkly

oh and his power! look guys the former protagonists always had some power to back them up, some good strength. this guy? first not demigod protagonist and he goes from straight up zero to launching a guy to the clouds with his bare hands. and tfw he uses his voiceTM. BEGONE SNAKE! and he acts so pathetic lol and if you look through whatever sunglasses he’s wearing and you look at the things from 3rd person pov dude what is he doing. he just flew off a road driving a car, and puts himself in front of the gremlin child to face one of those creepy zombie things that scream FOOD!!. bro straight up stabbed himself. bro sings the most heart wrenching song that even giant ants that don’t even understand what he’s saying get the point to the extent that they go catatonic with depression.

and holy cheez-its what kind of pain tolerance does this guy have?? dude??? you fell from the literal sky above the Empire State Building which like literal greek heaven (ouch) straight into a dumpster and then gets beat into unconsciousness by a pair of thugs under Nero like??? and with broken ribs, injured nose, hurt shoulder, etc. he walks up the stairs, runs through the woods insane. dude is literally insane. he gets flayed alive, forgets his other half, trapped in place by molten chains all at once and still trying trying to walk wth like this guy’s pain tolerance is beyond ouranos. idk how he does it I can’t even tolerate a hot summer day.

bro gives advice to a lost gremlin child who betrayed him anyway, helps her defeat her abuser the way he never could. and he grew, like everyone around him, to something better, something hopeful. “you’ve changed” heck yeah!! we love to see it

and humor?? like random mentions of things no one else in pjo would give you like playing the zither at 2am, godly toilet seat, ares roundhouse kick, waking up in Argentina. I love that they’re so offhand but they’re so funny and random

the haiku. they’re hilarious, works of art.

the characters. Chiron. Chiara. Damien. Austin. Kayla. Cecil. will. nico. Rachel. Lavinia. emmie. Josephine. heck even Commodus. lityerses. Abelard. Diana. frank. Jason. piper. the trogs. lu. reyna omg. meg. aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAA I love them so much! just how they fit in with his own journey of self and how they grow with him, like a garden, like an orchestra building its crescendo together, in unity. little things like reading frank’s admiration of apollo first in hoo, and now we get apollo’s side of it, and he’s so cute. Reyna’s whole journey of “finding the one who will heal her heart”. (gods I loved that thank you rick.) and will’s “dad!” and making apollo literally weep and meg: “the beast is dead. I killed it.” and taps her head and I'm just so proud of them.

“YOU ARE NO GOD!” he isn’t the same god who fell to earth in the winter. he likely won’t be ever the same ever again. ‘cause he’s gonna work to being better. he’s saving the world, but he’s also having a journey of his own self, rediscovering himself, building onto himself like everyone else, they’re all gonna be a better version of themselves.

k one problem: not enough content. I am starved for content. please feed pet. ty

#rambles #bad quality posts #essay thing #I think #trials of apollo #lester papadopoulos #apollogists #toa apollo

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butwhatifidothis · 5 months

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Do people really not see the inherent disconnect of the claim that Houses Claude is genuinely an amoral opportunist when his dream is to break down barriers to foster unity and peace? Like, is there not a fundamental incompatibility in having a desire for everyone to get along yet being a backstabber that throws people under the bus for their own benefit? From a personality/character standpoint, all that does is make Claude look like a ginormous ignorant hypocrite, and an idiot even though he's supposed to be smart. Because if his end goal is to create a diverse and harmonious community, how is he going to bring people together if he constantly betrays every side? And from a writing perspective, it makes no sense to have a character's actions and goals be completely contradictory and never address it.

Also for someone who is amoral, it sure is interesting in Balthus' Classroom QA Part 2 that Claude likes "ensure the fewest casualties" and dislikes "do anything to eradicate the enemy" when the question was "the war has been dragging for long so let's end it quickly". It's kinda like he has some principles or something.

Like, the idea of Claude being an untrustworthy backstabber who opportunistically takes advantage of everyone without ever growing close to them is just Hubert minus Lady Edelgard could be an interpretation of his character that aligns with at least his initial showing, or a surface level understanding of him. He calls himself the embodiment of distrust, he never fully opens up to anyone, he can in fact be fairly manipulative and callous; the crumbs are there, for sure.

But it also has to ignore how far he's willing to go to protect his people (putting himself in high danger when he is not sacrificial like, say, Dimitri is), or how he supports others having dreams for themselves (Goddess Tower), or how open he is to criticisms against what he thought (Cyril's support), or how he tries to be there for his friends (Marianne's support), or how he's open-minded enough to listen to people he initially thought needed to be his enemy (Rhea), or how violence is not just not something he considers but is something he actively rejects as a means of getting what he wants (The Alliance Leader's Ambitions, near the end), or how putting the people's lives in danger is something he is adamantly against (as you point out, Balthus' classroom question). A staggering amount of Claude's character has to be deliberately ignored in order to come to the conclusion that he's just a backstabbing opportunist who does anything to get what he wants (who magically gets fixed by Byleth's mere presence), because a backstabbing opportunist who does anything to get what he wants who magically gets fixed by Byleth's mere presence does not describe Claude.

Even if one were to take the game's writing failure of properly presenting Claude tackling racial issues (like never addressing Petra's situation despite having supports with her) you can't really deny that Claude is, in fact, a caring person after taking everything in his character into account. For all his flaws, he never abuses the trust people have in him to the extent that they are actively put in danger, nor is it ever the case that the "doesn't truly tackle racial issues" ever translate to anything so drastic as "which means he'll actively worsen relations between two countries." And, well, yes; you still do have to take into account that his dreams are of bringing people together and disregarding past bad blood. He never stops trying to achieve this dream, and he wants it to come true so badly that he is willing to let other people that he trusts rule Fodlan to work together with him to achieve it, shown in VW and even AM. That means a lot for someone like Claude, who is otherwise pretty slow to trust other people so deeply.

That's not someone who would use Leicester's bad history with Faerghus as fuel to violently invade it. That's not someone who would use Almyra's navy to make it look to Sreng like Faerghus tried to invade it. That's not someone who wants to conquer other nations and make his own come out on top. Those things describe Hopes!Claude, which 3H!Claude is not.

It's like. You know how some 3H's fans see 3H as "Edelgard, Dimitri, and the third guy that justifies my fave"? How a lot of people in 3H's fandom don't really see Claude as his own character with his own perspective and ideals and beliefs and morals that are unique to him, and only see him as a battering ram to try and knock down one of the other two lords? And so don't really care how he's characterized in other things (like fanfiction, fanart, meta, or in this case spinoff media) because they never really cared about him as his own character? But then get really, really, really defensive when you point out the flaws in their perception of him, saying that you're the one who never understood or liked Claude, because if you did you'd "realize" that he was always [insert vague, bland description that happens to prop up the lord they actually like]?

Yeah that's basically what's going on here. Most people who prefer Claude as their fave lord do not like Hopes!Claude, some of the loudest voices in the JPN Amazon reviews were of people who hated Hopes!Claude and were literally trying to warn Claude/GD fans away from Hopes as a game because of how awful their writing is, while nearly every Hopes!Claude fan that I've seen vastly prefers Edelgard as their fave lord and are - you guessed it! - very defensive when it comes to Claude fans venting their frustrations over Claude's shit-end-of-the-stick treatment he got in Hopes.

So like, yeah. It's less that people aren't directly computing that Claude's ambitions and character don't match how he's depicted in Hopes, but that they just don't care that it doesn't since 1) it justifies their fave and 2) they never really gave a shit about Claude anyway

#ask #anon #clyde discourse #yeah these people just want Claude to do whatever makes their fave look better #at BEST they want him to do edgy shit just for the sake of it because edge = iNtEreStInG which is. not much better lmao #like these are the people who called Claude too boring because he never snaps like Dimitri does #nor does he do overtly morally bankrupt things to get what he wants like EdeIgard #(man if I had a nickel for every time I liked a game where a POC man was called boring by fans because he didn't do ''bad enough'' things #(before those ''boring'' traits are given to other characters and then paraded around as *that character's* traits instead of the POC man's #(I'd have two nickels. Wyll Ravengard baby you're not boring the fandom is just ass sometimes)#ANYWAY LMAO so yeah you have either Battering Ram For My Fave or Isn't Wanton Murder Just So Nuanced Guys and both are insufferable

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xxlovelynovaxx · 1 month

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Oh lovely, the transandrophobic "trans inclusive" rad/ical feminis/ts are now calling te/rfs "twerfs" (trans woman exclusive radi/cal femin/ists).

Hey, you know how terfs "soured" a lot of people on genuine, intersectional feminism?

You're just them but trans, regardless of your gender. You're JK Rowling and Dave Chappelle in blue white and pink. You're writing essays on the evil predatory (trans) men invading (trans) women's spaces and mutilating their bodies with testosterone and cutting off perfectly healthy organs and rejecting the only good gender as traitors.

That last part is just verbatim, even.

Add trans in front of the genders in any transphobe's horrific ranting and you get your own posts. You're cruel, you're class traitors, you're feds in binders and gaffs too pathetic to even demand pay for the work you're doing for our oppressors.

Trans unity means I never give up fighting for your rights, even as you're throwing them to the wolves just for a taste of what it feels like to have your boot on someone else's throat. You justify it because of who you say has faced the "worst" pain, has been hurt the "most" by (trans)misogyny, because don't you know that women have the right to speak over any other marginalized person on their own oppression because only women really know what it's like to be oppressed?

Merlin's unwashed nutsack, do you fuckers even hear yourselves? You're indistinguishable from ter/fs!

Yeah, I'll keep fighting, because I can understand that even the most sniveling narcs who think they're "saving" people by betraying them, even the people radicalized enough that they actually believe in the bullshit they're spreading, don't deserve oppression.

Quite frankly, this post isn't FOR them, no matter how much it's worded like it is, because rage is not a tool of deradicalization and I refuse to judge even bigots every bit as taken in as your average Jehovah's witness or Amish person for doing harm while being victims of the group they're doing harm for.

(All the same, the accusations of trans people being indoctrinated and taken in by "MRA shit" are not only blatant projection, but also in the rare cases that they are true, pale in comparison to the quantity and scope of harm done by this actual significant growing group of radicalized trans people .)

Since I've mainly seen people with some form of "baeddel", who call people "transandrophobia truthers" or "transandrodorks" doing this, perhaps people need a reminder that baeddels were a group who took that name themselves (after it had fallen out of usage for several hundred years, claiming they were "reclaiming" it) who did a shit ton of harm to transmascs, nonbinary people, intersex people, and transfems.

These trans-woman "inclusive" radic/al fem/inists who actually are dangerous and violent towards every transfem that doesn't agree with you. TWIRFs are not a fucking joke. And to be exceedingly clear, there's a reason I hyphenated trans-woman in the acronym spelled out, because it's an adjective modifying inclusive; trans people of every gender make up "twirfs".

There's a decent chance they'll either take "twirfs" and wear it like a badge of honor, like some t/erfs do, or claim it's a slur, like... oh, like some terf/s do. I've read the playbook, and if there's a play I haven't laid out, I'm sure it'll be just as uninspired and plagiarized from te/rfs. But who knows, maybe they'll come up with something new and horrific and surprise us - every so often, ter/fs do that too.

Anyway, if you see this post and wanna tell me, an intersex transneufemmasc, what a horrible awful transmisogynist I am for acknowledging all forms of oppression I face and not just the single one I share with most of you, fuck off and block me. I've got no time for the usual suicide baiting, florid violent fantasies of me being raped and/or tortured and/or killed, and the like.

Besides, while you are fucking dangerous, I've got worse danger to deal with than you on a daily basis, for being a visibly genderqueer fat disabled person in a place where everything from gender roles to medicine is stuck in the 18-fucking-hundreds. I truly do not have time for your bullshit.

#transandrophobia #transmisandry #exorsexism #intersexism #transmisogyny #ceterophobia

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wingedarrows · 1 year

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Belos always meant to kill Hunter.

There was never going to be any “good enough” for him. Even if he did every single thing perfectly, even if he was the perfect golden guard, the perfect reflection of Belos’s views and desires of Caleb, he was still going to die.

Because from the very start, before he ever had his worldview challenged, when he still trusted and followed Belos completely and entirely, he had a sigil.

And we all know what the sigils are for.

If Belos wanted to keep him alive, he easily could have. Hunter never even had magic that could be influenced by the sigils. Belos could have hand-waved it away as it not mattering whether or not he had one. Or he could have kept it quiet. Hunter already wasn’t allowed near the scouts, and he was always in uniform around others, or at least had his gloves on. No one would know. Or if it was needed for verification purposes as Hunter tried to use it in this screenshot, he could have been given a fake one. Tattooed or a permanent illusion or something.

But no. He was branded with a real, genuine sigil.

And of course, it makes sense. Belos has many, many, many years of experience with many different grimwalkers of his brother. And Every Single One of them betrayed him. So, even if there wasn’t a doubt in their mind before, if a caleb grimwalker actually saw for themselves what was happening on the Day of Unity, as it was happening, if they saw everyone dying, well . . . it stands to reason that they would betray Belos too, right? And then that would create a whole mess of things, having to deal with and/or fight another grimwalker for the umpteenth time.

So, how to prevent all that ahead of time?

Give him a sigil and kill him too.

#the owl house #hunter #hunter toh #emperor belos #toh theory #toh #hunter noceda #self

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smokestarrules · 2 years

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Hunter & Vee

(Because, apparently, Hunter doesn’t have enough character parallels already.)

Quite a few people have already said that something interesting about Hunter being in the Human Realm is the sheer amount of connections he’ll find there. To the potential Philip and Caleb’s backstories, their statues, the Golden Guards’ emblem being the Gravesfield crest, there’s a lot there for him to discover about his predecessor’s life.

But also there’s Vee. And I’ve just realized that she’s got a lot in common with Hunter when you really think about it.

Firstly, they’re both Grimwalkers, aren’t they?

Basilisks were extinct, but Philip brought them back, likely in the same way he made Hunter and the rest of the Golden Guards. All you need are a few magical ingredients, a bone of the original species, and then you have a number of basilisks for whatever purpose arises. Interestingly enough, the books Hunter’s looking at in Labyrinth Runners seem to imply that Grimwalkers themselves used to be known as an extinct species, so I can’t help but wonder if Philip himself banned their creation in order to keep everyone off the scent of his own ones.

Adding onto that last point, the entire reason that Hunter and Vee exist is to be to Philip’s advantage one way or another. Hunter is a Grimwalker of Caleb, of the man Philip feels betrayed him. Philip wants him back, but only on his terms, and so Hunter is the forever-occurring test. Hell, it’s unlikely that Philip’ll ever achieve that goal of creating a perfect brother for himself, but I doubt he’ll ever understand that, either.

As for Vee and the rest of the basilisks, their purpose is to give Philip more information about the Day of Unity and how the Draining Spell would work. The Collector is the one who initially gave Philip the Draining Spell, but basilisks drain magic as a part of their biology, so using them as research could only assist Philip as he slowly neared the day of the eclipse.

Even their NAMES prove how much Philip really values other people - anyone other than humans, that is. Vee is Vee, or the roman numeral for Number Five, and Hunter, not even a person in Philip’s eyes, is given Philip’s own title for a name. Philip can't waste time naming them all, after all; that’d be using far too much brainpower and emotional attachment that he simply does not have, and so Hunter it is.

They’re also both powerless to a point, though both of them now have ways to overcome that obstacle. Basilisks do not have magic inherently, but they are capable of taking it from other things and then using it themselves, though they’ll run out eventually. Hunter, on the other hand, has found himself a palisman - Flapjack - whose inherent magic has bonded deep with Hunter’s own style as they fight together.

Then there's the Philip Trauma(tm).

When they are discovered in their hiding places, their reactions are about the same. Luz finds Vee and Vee panics; declares that she’s never going back to the Demon Realm because Philip is there, and immediately jumps straight to the worst conclusion: that she’s going to have to go on the run from him again.

Hunter is the same. When the Coven Scouts recognize him and tell him that Philip is looking for him, he needs Gus’ help to calm him down from an anxiety attack.

Even the 'prophecy’ given to Vee by her camp friend in Yesterday’s Lie fits both Vee and Hunter pretty damn well. Guilt and fear.... a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Guilt and fear makes Vee rebel against draining the rats, gets her punished, most likely. Guilt and fear makes every last Golden Guard betray Philip, because in the end, they realize that he’s not someone anyone can trust. Hunter is a good kid. Vee is a good kid. Therefore, they are destined to always oppose Philip, no matter what he wants. Hunter is a self-fulfilling prophecy; the Golden Guards always betray Philip. Vee is always going to disagree with Philip.

...

I just think that Hunter and Vee could be a very formidable duo against Philip, should he regenerate in the Human Realm and begin to cause trouble again. God knows they deserve maybe more than anyone to put him in his place. I hope that their similarities can be explored somewhat in s3, and I also believe they could be rather healing for each other. They both need friends.

Also, as a sidetone; I suppose that at the end of the day, all we can hope is that the parallels between Hunter and Vee stay true to this scene as well (and I know they will).

Camila’s going to love Hunter, too.

#toh #toh spoilers #the owl house #the owl house spoilers #hunter #vee #hunter toh #vee toh #philip wittebane #caleb wittebane #emperor belos #camila noceda #smokey speaks #vee noceda #500 #1k

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mdhwrites · 5 months

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How similar is Belos is to Frollo really? Are they really that similar or is it just fans comparing them because there the only 2 main religious theme villains in a Disney universe ever

This is kind of a rough one because there is certainly a case to be had. The two are cut from a very similar cloth where they are meant to be religious men who have black souls and use the scripture to justify their hate. The big difference for why one is good and one is not is... I believe Frollo is actually dealing with this inherent conflict within him because of temptation.

Belos has no Hellfire... Because he has no fire in him. He is a shell. Not a shell of a man, that's interesting, but a shell of a character. His religious motivation should lead to more extremism, more hate, etc. like that but that would also mean that, like Frollo, he'd have to be active in his hate and pain he causes. After all, from literally the first scene, Frollo is murdering people and trying to kill a baby. He is only stopped when a man more genuinely holy than him calls him out for thinking that even an innocent like a baby deserves death and damnation. It is a moment of weakness from a man who is already hateful and it marks how bad things are for the Romani in the movie. They are NEVER having a good time because Frollo has actively made society and its systems actively destroy who they are. His hate is omnipresent.

Belos' is... *shrug* Like literally until "I am trying to save your souls!" in Thanks to Them, Belos never seems religious in even the slightest. Until we know what the Day of Unity is, it appears he's actually made a pretty good place to live. He's made people safer, he's given structure and community to a world that didn't have it because otherwise his actions before his rise to power would have been found out, and he asks genuinely VERY little of people, even allowing forgiveness to those who have been away from the Coven System for potentially decades like Eda's Friend in Hollow Mind to come back with zero consequences. Even members of his own coven who leave deal with no consequences (which really makes Eclipse Lake feel WRONG in hindsight.)

There is no hate here. There is no motivation. He is evil... Because he is evil. Hell, we even see this with the difference between Quasimodo and Hunter. Frollo keeps Quasi under control by making him genuinely hate himself. By tearing who he is down until he would almost never even question the idea of going against Frollo, especially long term. Disobeying him is terrifying, especially because in Quasi's eyes, no one can replace Frollo for no one will ever be capable of liking him. Not just liking him like Frollo does but liking him AT ALL. And this is all done because while Quasi is Frollo's penance for what he tried to do on the steps, he is also indicative of so much that Frollo hates so he is better treated as an animal than anything approaching a human being. After all, even if he isn't in touch with his heritage, just being tangentially close to the Romani or sympathetic to them is enough to make Frollo hate you and wish to see you erased.

Meanwhile, Hunter is number 489244502 attempt at using magic, which Belos supposedly hates, to create a right hand man of someone who betrayed him for witches! FUCKING AMAZING! Not only that but instead of genuinely trying to isolate and control him, Belos is easily replaced motivationally by Darius for an episode because Hunter easily sees people as able to replace Belos for giving him approval and there's no actual reason Hunter should think himself lesser than others. He literally replaced Lilith in the fiction as the poster person of the Isles. Literally his face was EVERYWHERE shortly after the execution. He holds a lot of power and is given a lot of importance and yet no one in the EC seems to like him WHATSOEVER. Not because of his attitude, personality or lack of magic but because apparently Hunter, who walks around the castle without his mask ALL THE TIME, is known by literally no one in the EC because he's easily forgotten... Until Labyrinth Runners where every scout can now easily identify him immediately.

It makes it so that Frollo appears to genuinely have a conflicted nature... While Belos is just a bad man who is bad at his job and even worse at actually using his religious motivation to justify what he's doing because he's so inconsistent and seems to have no idea what he's actually doing. Like I said: Belos has no Hellfire in him because I never believe he's actually religious. Frollo on the other hand is shown from the first sequence to GENUINELY be God fearing. He uses God to also hurt but his convictions are real and that's part of what makes him so terrifying because only a moment like Hellfire could ever change things with him. Nothing else but his own piety could ever change how he treats the world because so long as he has that conviction of faith, he will never waver. This also makes him actually MUCH more cutting as far as religious critiques go because it's easy to point at the leaders of the Crusades and goes, "Those men were greedy assholes who wanted power." It's a lot harder to genuinely depict the TERROR of what holy motivation does to a person, like why the common soldiers of the Crusades were willing to go so far just for their faith and a chance to not end up damned for that which they were good at.

Meanwhile, I only say nothing could ever stop Belos' rage because that is simply his narrative role. Because he is just a conman who seems to do nothing, part of me assumes, honestly, that an Esmerelda coming into his life would actually make him turn native. He would chain her up and enslave her, sure, but all he wants is glory and praise. He wants a title, not moral superiority. As such... Why wouldn't he make the same choice his brother did if a hot enough witch offered up her ass? Maybe he just gets turned off by the pointy ears?

Like I can't tell you, besides rage about his brother for literally FOUR. HUNDRED. YEARS. why Belos goes to the extremes he does because for as extreme as his hypocrisy... He isn't extreme in action. He doesn't seem to mostly care about what's going on in the Isles, even as he has to wait FIFTY YEARS after coming to power to kill... Like 70% maybe of the population since apparently during that entire time, he never once thought about how he'd go about killing the kids.

It's not compelling and it's not interesting but this is one TOH's inherent issues. It knows really cool ideas and examples. Frollo is a great Disney villain for a reason (and also proof that Disney WILL theoretically let you tackle this subject matter and TOH didn't even do a tenth of what Hunchback did with its religious stuff. In fact, I need to do a blog on how I think the Titan actually reinforces Christian Fundamentalism.) But... TOH doesn't understand what makes the source material compelling. It's not willing to put in the work or the clever writing to really sell why these characters are the way they are. They're just instead character types and tropes that Tumblr and Twitter like thrown in because that's what's in a good story right?

And so we have shells of much better characters, just like Belos wears Frollo like a cheap skin.

======+++++======

I have admittedly not seen Hunchback of Notre Dame in SO. LONG. so this might not be 100% right and sorry about that.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house #claude frollo #emperor belos #toh Belos

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sadsongsandstories · 1 month

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Snow is the original songbird

I have just started reading the book of BOSBAS after watching, and absolutely loving, the movie. The shift to snows perspective is fascinating, and makes one thing extremely clear: snow was always a songbird, long before he met Lucy grey Baird.

And I mean this metaphorically of course

Even though the title sets up a dichotomy, where we assume snow is the snake and lucy grey the bird, the book makes sure to subvert this idea whenever possible.

When we first meet snow, he is performing. He plays the role of the rich, secure noble, clinging to his supposed status as the last major resource he has. Among his classmates he recites his lines and puts on a face, complete with a cheap costume. His life has effectively become a performance, masquerading as the royalty he yearns to be.

As a character it's his greatest strength.

Then we meet Lucy grey, our supposed songbird, who immediately used a literal snake as her weopon against someone she hates. Her most powerful moment, of course, is one of song, spilling her voice and transfixing the world the country.

Throughout the first and second parts, they must both act, with snow playing the part of the mentor and noble, and Lucy Grey playing the fighter. Both in front of the cameras and his classmates, Snow continues to act, while Lucy Grey must become a snake of sorts to survive. It's the games, and one must strike or be struck. And so snow offers his venom, with the literal poison and drone strikes.

Their victory is through the deception of a snake, and the literal snakes in the arena, and the performance of a songbird.

It is in the third part, however, where the two characters seperate into their true forms

Because the truth is, while they each use the skills of songbirds and snakes, at their core it is in their motivations that these characters seperate.

Lucy grey Baird is a true songbird, which becomes clear in the third part, where she returns home to perform for district 12, happily and freely and without wanting anything more than to share her voice. In the capital, she performs for the cameras and the crowd, but only as a means of survival. It is back home where she is free, and free to shed her scales and return to her songbird nature.

She is content

Snow, however, is driven by the vengefulness and insatiable desire of a snake. He tries, and gets tantalisingly close, to running away and having a free happy songful life with Lucy grey, but is repeatedly held back by his need to strike. It's the natural response of a snake, of course: to strike when one feels threatened.

So he strikes at his friend, by selling him out to the capital (using songbirds mind you), he strikes at highbottom (using literal poison), and he almost strikes at Lucy grey, but not before she can strike him first (using a literal snake once again).

And then taunting him with songbirds

Because the tragedy of the ending is that they were so close, they could have run away together and been happy. But in truth, it was never an option. She was a songbird and he was a snake. It was never meant to be. To be together would violate each of their natures. They might have been able to work together throughout, growing to care and love for one another, sharing their skills and doing what it takes to survive, but when the dust settles and they are each free, there is no denying the impossibility of their unity.

Which is why, and if you've made it this far, thank you for staying with me, I promise I'm making a point here, snow is wrong about his final conclusion on the games as a reflection of reality. It might appear like we are all songbirds and snakes both, with the desire to manipulate, perform, decieve and betray, but that is not truth.

Lucy grey proves that.

While snow might not realise it, there are people with pure songbird natures: giving and kind and gentle, loving life more than power. These are people who solve porblems not by striking back, but by sharing their voice, opening their lips to utter compassion, shielding others beneath their wings.

That's why his empire falls: because he assumes that everyone is like him.

Snakes only see snakes in others

In hunger games, the participants all hold hands, Katniss and Peeta violate the games by sticking together, caring for one another in a system designed for killers

In catching fire, the parading of the victors, meant to inspire jealousy and hate, instead rallies support especially in 11

And in Mockingjay, it is katniss' voice that rallies the people and inspires them to rise against the capital, singing aloud with both her own voice,

And the song of one Lucy Grey Baird, transcending time to offer her own spirit to the cause

Katniss is a songbird, as is Peeta, and Prim and Finnick and so many others beside them

Gale is a snake, coin is a snake, snow is a snake

In a way, all of hunger games is a ballad of songbirds and snakes, not of THE songbird and THE snake, because in truth it's far more complicated than that. Inside each of us is a songbird and a snake, and the one which we choose to embrace will shape the future we are destined to share.

It's fear or love all over again

Which do you prefer?

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #lucy gray baird #coriolanus snow #katniss everdeen #cages or wings #the hunger games

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fitzrove · 2 months

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Rambling about Hass in Elisabeth for a REALLY long time. TL;DR - yeah, it is necessary as a song...

Because of the costumes and staging people often just see it as "the antisemitism song", which it is, strongly, but I think sometimes the wider context presented therein is ignored. Really, the song shows how antisemitism and hatred are fuelling and entangled with other movements!!

The nationalists in that song come from various groups and social classes, and identify as their enemies:

Socialists

Pacifists

Jewish writers

Jewish women

"Those who are not like us"

Crown prince Rudolf (because of his - historically strong - friendships and other positive associations with Jews)

The Habsburgs as a whole

Elisabeth and her Heinrich Heine (= a Jewish poet) monument project (which also attracted such strong criticism from German nationalists [Austrian Germans who were nationalists, not "Germans" in the modern sense] historically)

Hungary

The "barons" - so the nobility

The "slavic state"

The ongoing "betrayal of the people"

And to contrast, they identify as good:

Strength ("the strong wins, the weak fails", and also "strong leaders") and "purity"

"Unity"

Glory/splendour ("pracht")

Christian values

"Unified Germany", an alliance with Prussia and even an Anschluss (the joining of Austria and other "ethnically German" [so-called] lands to the German Reich. Hmm does anyone remember who also strove for and eventually implemented this... /s)

The conservative Wilhelm II as emperor (again, they want to join Austria into the German Reich)

So like. There is a glorification of all things "German" and of conservative values (religion) and reactionary power politics ("weakness" was and is by similar groups now considered to be a major flaw of liberalism and a liberal world order - in the song, pacifism and socialism are also connected to it), as exemplified by Wilhelm II's Germany specifically. To contrast, racial enemies ("non-Germans") threatening "racial purity" must be eliminated, with violence if necessary. And the Habsburg monarchy, being a multinational empire, is described as immoral and weak because of it being multinational (and the position of Slavs and Hungarians in politics and imperial administration).

The themes of "betraying the people" (Volksverrat) are especially interesting because the enemies of the nationalists as listed in the song, Jewish women, pacifists and socialists, were also the people blamed for German defeat in WW1 (the "stab in the back" at the home front myth). It's overall 19th and 20th century anti-establishment fascist imagery.

Ajdkkf I don't think I'm clearly making my argument but the song's key functions are:

To dispel the myth of the late 19th century being "the good old days", the glory days of Austria before the world wars somehow magically came to happen and ruined it. In fact, the songs shows that the developments leading to the world wars stem from politics and mass movements of hatred that developed alongside and gave power to & drew power from nationalism in the 19th century

To show the audience exactly what Rudolf is talking about in "Die Schatten werden Länger (reprise)". What is the "evil that is developing"? It's not Rudolf's personal petty wish for more power, or his angst about not being emperor yet, or some generic amorphous disdain for how FJ is reigning; it's not the lack of Hungarian independence either, for god's sake. I will die on this hill, if you cut Hass or replace it with conspiracy or whatever you can cut Rudolf as well, Elisabeth as a show is (in my opinion) a good portrayal of him precisely because it depicts him as a political thinker (in contrast to many depictions and post-Mayerling accounts which diminish that and just talk about Mayerling and his "immorality" - a talking point devised by the nationalists and antisemitists who hated him lol, liberal politics were connected to lack of morality) and someone who, unlike most of his contemporaries, saw that antisemitism, emphasis on "power" and realist power politics, exclusionary/hateful rhetoric and excess nationalism would lead to ruin. AND Hass also shows that he was hated by the German nationalists for this! As was his mother, for her sympathy to Heine...

To connect genuine popular dissatisfaction (from Milch - Hass is a reprise of Milch in terms of rhythm and the call-and-response structure where Lucheni talks to the crowd) with inequality, the lack of democracy and the excesses of royalty... to the rise and presentation of fascism as a "solution"

To show that 19th century nationalism was, in many ways, exclusionary, antisemitic, racist and "war-mongering", and that this rhetoric is old - not somehow magically appearing for WW2 and then disappearing again - and will time and again rise... and that it's everyone's responsibility to recognise it for what it is when it happens, if we are to have a reasonable, decent world to live in.

The framing of Hass sometimes confuses people I will never recover from that one post cancelling Elisabeth das musical for being antisemitic because Hass exists ajiddfkdllfgl what's next, it's pro-suicide and homophobic because a character technically dies from being gay? but to me it's rather clear that it's unsympathetic lol, with the whole doomsday atmosphere (no music, just footsteps/marching and drums and screaming, it's meant to be threatening), the way the ensemble harshly criticises the most sympathetically portrayed characters we have seen so far (Elisabeth and Rudolf) for things that seem petty and harmless (having Jewish friends), and the extremely direct comparison drawn to N*zism (to indicate what such a movement would develop to) in many stagings. I don't know how to say this but somehow I've always assumed that "H*tler and n*zism = evil" is EXTREMELY common knowledge and it mystifies me when people like. Think it should have been stated more clearly in the show. Like, the show is working off the assumption that you know what it is and that it's bad because of the millions and millions of people they killed............. this is EXTREMELY common knowledge in Europe, not least in Germany and Austria lol.

So um yeah akwkldlf, sorry for the ramble, I just feel like the song can be poorly understood and criticised on shaky ground sometimes. I mean, I am not Jewish and not equipped to talk about whether it's triggering or traumatising to watch especially with lived or family experience of antisemitic violence... But I think for non-Jewish people there is a huge responsibility to be aware and vigilant of antisemitism, historically and in the present, and sometimes it needs to be hammered home for people to understand...

By that last point I also somewhat mean... I think you don't "get" to be triggered by it if you're not Jewish but perhaps otherwise affected by politics of hatred. Of course I'm not emotions police lol, but many Jewish people have intergenerational trauma AND have to live with extremely similar antisemitic rhetoric and culture to this day, so there I understand criticisms - and there is also a discussion to be had about how and to what extent it is ok to use and display Jewish suffering as a device to educate non-Jewish people.

But anyway, to my original point. This is something I've seen people say and I just... if you're queer and it makes you uncomfortable to see Hass because modern n*zis hate you and it's traumatic, I mean, it's valid to feel uncomfortable and you can choose not to watch it personally to avoid being triggered, but you don't get to call for it to be erased from the show for "problematic content" or for "escapism" or to make you feel better. It is there because the destruction of the 19th century world, and Rudolf's and Elisabeth's suffering, is intrinsically tied to the rise of such hateful politics and without that being shown there is no show. You don't get to make it something it's not, this show is not ONLY an epic gothic romance with imaginary boyfriend, it's a commentary on past, present and future politics in that it shows the dangers of conservatism, antisemitism, racism and illiberalism. Calling for or supporting censorship, or state emphasis on militarism/"destroying the enemy", or advocating hatred, violence or oppression against any group based on ethnicity, religion, race, political views, etc. are all political stances held by and propagated by various people today in various political contexts. And you are not immune to antisemitism or reactionary nationalism if you're queer or whatever, so you have the constant responsibility to think critically about your worldview and your politics!!

#politics #musicals #theatre

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hephaestuscrew · 9 months

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I want to talk about this moment between Lovelace and Minkowski immediately after Cutter dies:

Lovelace GASPS in relief. Both women COLLAPSE, wounded, at the end of their ropes. LOVELACE Nice... shot. MINKOWSKI Couldn't... have done it... without you, Captain. You all right? LOVELACE No. You? MINKOWSKI No, I... I... yeah... LOVELACE Stay with me, Minkowski. MINKOWSKI Yeah... We're almost through this. We just... need to... get Eiffel... And off of their attempts to hold onto consciousness, we -

Firstly, the acting of this scene is incredible. (The timestamp is 1:42:26 if you want to listen back.) I'm in awe of the way Emma Sherr-Ziarko and Ceilia Lynn-Jacobs convey the sense of pain and exhaustion and relief and trying to hold onto consciousness. The kind of damage they've undergone has been very different - Minkowski bleeding out from her gunshot wound, Lovelace recovering from the external control that caused her to inflict that gunshot wound. But the way these experiences manifest in their breathless pained voices is pretty similar. There's almost a kind of unity in that.

I love that the first thing Minkowski and Lovelace do after Cutter dies, even as they are struggling to speak, is to acknowledge each other's contribution to this moment.

"Nice shot" feels like a comment more suited to congratulating someone on doing well at a shooting range than as a response to a friend successfully harpooning their evil boss. There's a casualness to it as a phrase that feels almost humourous in this context, but it also reflects the fact that there isn't really an established thing to say in a situation like this. (More below the cut)

Minkowski could have just taken full credit here - after all she's the one who fired the killing shot - but she doesn't. It reflects the ethos of this show that neither Cutter nor Pryce, the major antagonists, is defeated by a single protagonist alone, and that the protagonists themselves are aware of that.

This scene is an example of a kind of exchange we get a few times throughout the show, where a character asks another character if they are okay and the answer is a clear no. There's an conversation like this between Eiffel and Minkowski in Ep12 (EIFFEL: You okay, Commander? / MINKOWSKI : No, Eiffel. My second in command just betrayed me and tried really, really hard to murder both us. I’m pretty damn far from “okay.”), and between Hera and Minkowski in Ep29 (HERA: Commander? Are you okay? / MINKOWSKI: No. You? / HERA: No. But I will be.), and between Eiffel and Hera in Ep41 (EIFFEL: Are you okay now? / HERA: No, Officer Eiffel. I'm not. But... I'm going to be.) I think I've said this before in tags on a post, but there's something about that type of exchange that fits the tone of this show so well to me. Of course none of these characters are all right, not with what they've been through. But the asking is still important, because of the care these characters have for each other. And the honest answer is still important, because this is a show partly about communication and because sometimes the awful things need to be acknowledged.

I should probably also say that there are also plenty of instances in Wolf 359 where people falsely claim to be fine in response to questions like this. There's an awful lot of emotional repression and compartmentalising on that space station. Which makes it more significant when characters are honest about not being okay.

In this scene, Minkowski and Lovelace don't need to waste words on saying why they aren't all right. I picture them both looking down at Minkowski's wound as she speaks here. And they laugh, or as well as they can do in their current condition, at how absurdly obvious it is that they aren't okay. Maybe that attempt at laughter is a way to keep going. And they are both so determined to keep going.

Lovelace tells Minkowski "stay with me", even though Lovelace is struggling to remain conscious herself. There's something so tender about that to me, and it's particularly heart-wrenching given that Lovelace was forced against her will to fire the bullet that wounded Minkowski.

When Minkowski says "We're almost through this", it feels like a call back to her conversation with Eiffel earlier in this episode, when he said "We're almost through. Just one more day, and then we're done." The "this" in "almost through this" somehow holds everything that they've been through on the Hephaestus. The repeated sense that this is the last confrontation that they will face on that station is perfect for a finale. But there's also something very emotionally heavy about that finality, especially when spoken by a woman who is bleeding out from a gunshot wound. And yet through her exhaustion and her pain, Minkowski expresses hope that they will get "through this", that they are "almost" on the other side of the whole nightmare.

Neither Minkowski nor Lovelace even consider the option of not going to look for Eiffel (and Hera). It would have been perfectly reasonable for them to have gone back to the Urania to try to patch Minkowski up and to wait to see if Eiffel and Hera were able to join them. But these characters would never do that.

They go to look for Eiffel even though Minkowski has been shot and Lovelace has been subject to horrific external control. They go to look for Eiffel even though both of them are "at the end of their ropes" and struggling to hold onto consciousness. They go to look for Eiffel even though waiting on the Urania was the plan they'd agreed upon with Hera. They go to look for Eiffel even though, for all they know, Eiffel and Hera might have the situation completely handled, or might even already be safely on the Urania. They go to look for Eiffel (and Hera) because only once they are all together can they consider themselves "through this".

#It's surprising that I've barely talked about this scene #given that it is definitely one of the finale scenes that lives in my head rent free #I put Hera in brackets in that last point because they don't explicitly mention her #and the location aspect of 'looking for Hera' isn't quite the same #but I know that they wouldn't have left without her either #Also characters telling an injured/sick loved one 'Stay with me' is one of those tropes that really gets me #It's a way of saying 'don't die' without saying it (cos they don't want to say it)#It's a way of saying 'don't die' that disguises itself as says just 'stay conscious'#It's a way of saying 'don't die' that also says 'don't leave me. I need you here with me'#wolf 359 #w359 #wolf 359 spoilers #w359 spoilers #the empty man posteth #renee minkowski #renée minkowski #isabel lovelace

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