#AND I DEFINITELY DEFINITELY HAVE NOT BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE SAME CHARACTER FOR LIKE TWO WEEKS OR SOMETHING.

[selfdesructivedisaster]

YASSS. So I don’t agree with all your points but I’m so happy to be having these complex moral discussions about my favourite musical!!!

To preface, I think you’re 100% right about Glinda obviously being the more selfish one of the two. To imply otherwise was dumb on my part lol.

To start at your first point, i don’t think having more justifiable motivations makes someone more or less selfish. Yes Elphaba only wants to be normal so people can stop judging her based solely on her appearance, but if anything id say this is a more selfish motivation than just wanting social status and fame. We often confuse selfishness as a bad thing, but when you’ve been ostracised and hated your whole life like Elphaba has of course you’d be mainly concerned with changing that. Her motivations in act one as a character are entirely for personal gain, to be see as normal. As to where Glinda who only wants status and love just because she likes it (my superficial queen) . it isn’t as intrinsic to her character as being accepted is to Elphaba’s character. Like, if you took away their selfish attributes: Glinda would definitely be changed, but Elphaba would just be an entirely different character!

To your second point I do think you’re partially right! Elphaba doesn’t want Glinda to ruin her life just because, she just wants her to fight against the injustices relating to animals! And the social isolation and hatred that would follow is just a byproduct of doing that! But here’s where Elphaba’s selfish tendencies shine the strongest in my opinion. Elphaba is so morally high and just that she’s is looking past social consequence and only focusing on political justice. She is ignoring how big of an ask this is and ignoring how doing this morally right thing would be a personally awful thing for Glinda. It’s selfless of her to fight for the rights of marginalised people because it’s going against her OWN initially selfish motivations but then going around and asking someone to do the same is selfish because even though Glinda also cares about animals, she has no obligation to ruin her life to help them out. asking this of Glinda even though she knows how miserable a life like that would be for her, is a selfish ask!

Now with all that being said you are 100% right that during Defying Gravity Elphaba goes through a change in her character that makes her more selfless than Glinda. But I think ignoring her initially selfish and self-centred roots takes the nuance out of the situation 

By having Elphaba make a personally selfless choice it really contrasts the selfish choice she’s asking of Glinda.

This metaphor is a little out there so bear with me— what if a vegan asked their meat loving friend to also be a vegan because they both hate the exploitation of animals. Who is more selfish? The vegan asking her friend to do something they would obviously not want to do? Or the friend continuing to eat meat despite hating the exploitation?

There’s no right answer because they both have their justifications and rebuttals!

I don’t believe Glinda’s decision was a wrong one because putting morality over personhood is an objectively difficult decision! Even tough I 100% agree with Elphaba’s decision to fight against the wizard despite being hated for it; i don’t think I could do the same!

Anyways this is super long and sorry I was just so passionate about ur response lol. I really hope you respond to this because I would love to hear your opinions feedback!

I love how inherently selfish both Glinda AND Elphaba are as protagonists. But where one gets praised and admired for it, the other gets demonised and hated.

People always attack Glinda’s decision not to runaway with Elphaba, but no one acknowledges how overtly selfish it is to ask that of someone.

Elphaba is asking Glinda to throw her ENTIRE life away for her. To be ostracised and hated all throughout Oz when she knows full well how badly Glinda cares about what people think of her.

And while Elphaba is used to such ostracisation, Glinda is not.

It is an equally selfish decision refuse Elphaba request. To perpetuate corrupt beliefs you don’t believe; in order to be accepted and validated by people in power.

They’re BOTH in the wrong, for entirely different reasons. It was an impossible situation with no right answer. And I’m sick of people acting like Glinda made the “ wrong choice ”

[dunmeshistash]

Hey! I was wondering if you'd have an opinion on this? It seems to me like the term "Ancients" is used to refer to both the original Ancient Race, and to the very early people after the apocalypse caused by the Demon (likely mostly the long-lived races). For example, Kabru discusses how "The Ancients" conducted experiments around dungeon resurrection on the short-lived races, but by definition these did not exist during the Ancient Race's time - and neither did dungeons as they do currently.

I guess it's similar to how we talk about our own history, like we tend to chunk together hundreds of years together like when we talk about the roman empire (which google tells me lasted over a thousand years)

I think when characters like Kabru and Marcille talk about the ancient civilizations they are talking about the ones who created the dungeons, there is records surviving from that time or else Mithrun wouldn't have known that they sealed the demon inside the dungeons, I think the dungeon experiments might as well have been conducted by those people or by the people who rediscovered the dungeon after the guy wished for everyone to die and those would probably still be considered ancient by present time.

Actually from Mithrun's version of the story I don't even think he knows the difference between those two sets of ancient people, and that's the knowledge the canaries have so it's probably the most complete understanding of ancient civilizations and the demon that the characters have.

Also I don't think Dungeons changed much from back then, mostly they were buried and then rediscovered from what I understand, like these were "ancient dwarven ruins" when "ancient elves" used it as an outpost, they were called ancient 1000 years ago

It's confusing honestly idk

After writing all this I'd chalk it up to the fact all of them have incomplete knowledge of history both because there's forbidden knowledge and knowledge that's only known by the Demon so to them it's all the same ancient civilization?

[plusvanity]

Metalion was arguably one of Pelle's closest friends in Norway, and the very same person who saw Pelle trying to drown guinea pig in a jar, then putting it in the microwave. That story would have never been known if not for Metalion. He decided to share it, which points to him NOT being the "Pelle was an angel" type of person.

Yet he said that Pelle only pretended wanting to kill the farm cat and said he actually believes Pelle could have caught the cat if he wanted but pretended it was too fast for him. He also expressed belief that Pelle was actually fond of cats "in his own twisted way".

(Metalion was also the person who received the famous rant from Pelle about the inclusion of Garfield comic in the Slayer mag, with the accompanying "I HATE CATS" drawing where he put Garfield in the meat grinder).

What do you think about this? Do you agree with Metalion or you think he could have been wrong? I could have asked you this in dm but I feel like reading the discussion if anyone wants to add their two cents.

I definitely feel like Pelle was trying harder than his metalhead peers to seem brutal, tough, cold and 'evil' and his harsh antipathy towards cats is, in my opinion, the easiest way in which you can tell he's purposefully exaggerating his image.

Now, I wouldn't say he was an angel either. He was very complex as a character in the scene and I'm glad we have this story from Metalion to contour a wider view on Pelle's personality. I wouldn't consider him evil or an animal abuser for killing a rodent, but the way in which he carried out the act is quite interesting for a few reasons. If I recall it correctly, he was drunk when he did that. We all know that alcohol allows disinhibition and promotes reckless/ unthoughtful behavior. I see him as having fun and wanting to see 'cool and brutal' to his friends, so his sporadic decision to microwave the hamster must've been born from the wish to impress. And what wanting to impress really means? To belong.

I very much believe that a lot of Pelle's actions and declarations originate from his wish to belong, to be perfectly integrated into a small group of friends that he made. And this could be traced back to being bullied in school, having low self-esteem and being emotionally neglected. These are some of the conclusions that I tend to have when looking back at his history and relationship with others.

I don't have any way in which I can prove or disprove this, but my gut feeling tells me that Pelle wasn't sadist, cynic, or evil in the slightest. I believe he was, in fact, a sensitive person and sensitive does not equal 'angle' or innocent. I think he was forcing himself to be more intimidating than he was in reality because of a tough lesson that he's been taught since early in his life.

Another aspect of why he might be pressured to maintain this exaggerated act was because of the environment, after all the black metal scene was designed to capture 'the worst' in people as a backlash to conformity and normality. He couldn't be less aggressive, less brutal, less 'cool' than his peers, not when he finally had the chance to express himself in a way that could be appreciated by those who shared his feelings.

If Pelle was indeed prone to violence and aggression, it would've shown and there would've been stories about this, but there are none. The only person he ever hurt was himself, and this is not because he couldn't hurt anyone, because he could if he wanted to, but he took it on himself as a mindful decision.

Although self-destructive behavior is common for people with low self-esteem, it is not the rule. Many people lash out on others for their own feelings of self-hatred. (Vikernes for example)

I don't see the possibility of him secretly liking cats this far-fetched because exaggerating about just how much you hate something is sometimes a good indication of how you actually enjoy something that you're very ashamed of.

To sum this up, I think Metalion was observant enough or lucky enough to see beyond Pelle's shocking acts of impression. I see that instantly cooked rodent incident as something isolated, pushed by the circumstances in which Pelle was at that time rather than part of a continuum of cruel events.

I think Pelle had a limit when it came to seeming cool, and this would make a lot of sense if h indeed chose not to catch the cat at the farmhouse when he could just do that.

Some people take their frustration on smaller creatures because they need to punish a lesser being than them the way they've been punished by a bigger being. This is an antisocial mentality. Pelle could have done so, if he wanted to many times, but he didn't. Also, most antisocial acts are committed ALONE, not with friends, or at a party, or in any social circumstances and things like that don't stay hidden for long, so eventually people start noticing. This is clearly not Pelle's case.

[kiragecko]

So, it's the early 2000s. I'm hanging out with the first friend I've managed to make in half a decade, my now-husband. We're both trying to make good impressions, because friendship is hard! Now-Husband does this through the evergreen autistic method of 'let's share my special interest'.

(I would later do the exact same thing, slightly more successfully, with the Discworld books. This can be a good method!)

He does have enough social awareness to realize that sticking me in front of the Final Fantasy VII video game will not work. But, Advent Children is a MOVIE! He can share THAT with me!

-

Now, a more social aware person might ask themselves (and maybe even me) some questions first. Questions like:

Has Gecko ever played a video game?

(Answer: Yes, I have played parts of Super Mario World and two Donkey Kong Countries! Also, a snakey Tetris clone?)

Has Gecko ever watched an anime?

(Answer: No.)

Has Gecko ever had ANY interaction with Japanese bullshit, and it's differences from English bullshit?

(Answer: I have read one manga at this point, W Juliet.)

Does Gecko even know what an RPG IS?

(Answer: No. If the acronym was expanded I would think you were talking about D&D.)

Can Gecko watch things with subtitles?

(Answer: Unknown, but I'm about to find out!)

Does Gecko actually enjoy movies?

(Answer: At the time, I would have said yes. I had been taught to ignore a lot of pain back then, and didn't realize they were sensory nightmares.)

Is this movie a good fic for newcomers to the franchise?

(Answer: Unhinged laughter.)

-

We watched Advent Children.

-

The saving grace of this experience was that Now-Husband LIKES explaining stuff! He got to explain a LOT of stuff. And it was VERY interesting to watch someone try to figure out how to explain,

"Your guess might technically be correct for this movie, but it wasn't that way in the game! ... I don't think. And it's not what I think they're trying to imply! ... It might actually be a plot hole. Or maybe we just missed something with the bad lighting? But also, I'm realizing, in real time, how many of my interpretations are actually fanon and I'm questioning everything!"

And there was a pseudo-vampire. I will never get over Vincent. Every moment of Vincent was overdramatic, trying-to-hard-to-be-cool BULLSHIT. I loved it! Vincent was very easy to understand!

-

The plot of Advent Children, according to Gecko:

The main(?) characters are in a flower church and Aerith glows and rises into the air in a clear death metaphor. Or maybe actually dies? (I was mostly scared all the stained glass would break.)

Cloud and his Large Sword fights the One Winged Angel Music Guy multiple times. Reasons unclear.

FAKE VAMPIRE SHOWS UP AND THINKS HE'S SO COOL! HA HA! I LOVE THE DUMB FAKE VAMPIRE. LOOK AT HIM POSE!

I definitely saw Tifa and Barrett at some point, but I don't even have memories of thinking, "Oh, he is a DADDY! THERE IS A CUTE KID!" So they failed big time, there.

The End.

[transfemhawkeye]

As a disclaimer, I'd recommend waiting until we have the full chapter to make any definitive statements on it. Something, something, leak culture bad.

With that said, though, I have been thinking for the past half hour or so about Izuku rejecting a partnership offer from Bakugo in Chapter 431, and while I'm adhering to my words above regarding that, I do want to push back on the opinion-- which I've seen a lot of people holding-- that doing so is automatically mischaracterization.

BNHA's story centers around Izuku and Bakugo's dynamic, and we see that dynamic shift in such a profound way over the series. We begin the story with Izuku simultaneously idolizing and fearing a boy who, by all appearances, despises him. Katsuki's a bully and an egotist, but like so many bullies and egotists, the way he's acting is a mask. It's a response to fear, and it's a very conventionally masculine one (that's another post, though). Katsuki's scared of Izuku, because even though Izuku is weak, quirkless, below him, Katsuki always feels like Izuku is above him. He's scared of this feeling, and that becomes anger. So he lashes out, keeps Izuku at arm's length, and it doesn't work, because no matter what he does or says, Izuku worships him. That's a very intentional word choice; there is a sort of religious quality to the two's early dynamic, where Katsuki is this unreachable figure who Izuku simultaneously fears and loves, who represents the apex of strength and power in his eyes. This is, to say the least, an extremely unhealthy relationship dynamic, and one which harms both of them.

It's impossible to talk about Izuku and Bakugo's character arcs independently of each other. I would describe them as two sides of a coin; Izuku's arc fundamentally centers around creation, and Bakugo's around destruction. When Izuku arrives at UA, he defines himself by his worship for All Might and Katsuki. Izuku models his costume and his fighting style after All Might, even using the same names for his moves. Simultaneously, he continues to internalize Bakugo's bullying, doubting himself, continuing to idolize Katsuki even as Katsuki's increasing feeling of inferiority spurs him to ramp up the torment. So Izuku's arc is about gaining independence; it's about creating his own identity, about self reliance. He reclaims the derogatory nickname Katsuki uses for him, develops Shoot Style, changes his costume, and starts standing up to Katsuki. Yes, he still admires Katsuki, still cares for him, but crucially, that admiration no longer comes at the cost of his self-respect. It's because of this change that Bakugo is forced to reckon with the root of his aggression. He spends the majority of the series working towards consciously grasping his feelings of inferiority, and a big part of that is confronting his preconceived notions of strength and weakness, and accepting that he can rely on others without being weak. (Again, so much of Bakugo's arc is tied to overcoming toxic masculinity, and I'll definitely need to write about that sometime, too.) The apology he gives to Izuku at the end of the Dark Hero Arc is one of the series' strongest narrative moments, and its a showcase of so much development-- it's a genuine expression of vulnerability, Bakugo dropping his veneer of superiority, something which would be unconscionable to the Katsuki we meet in chapter 1. That Izuku doesn't immediately accept and try to assuage Katsuki's guilt speaks to the development he's undergone, too. Izuku learns to rely on himself, while Bakugo learns to rely on others.

So, after these arcs, with Izuku finally repowered, Bakugo asks him: "Will you join my agency as my partner?" This is the natural conclusion of Bakugo's arc: it shows that he sees Izuku as an equal and he's prepared to rely on him as a partner. And yet, Izuku turns him down. I understand why people would be upset about that, and if he did accept the offer, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But at the same time, we've just talked about how Izuku's story has centered around gaining independence from his idols. At some level, Bakugo is asking Izuku to go back to defining himself by their relationship, and even though it's in a far more equitable way than the hero worship which used to describe their dynamic, it's completely reasonable and in-character for Izuku not to want that. Yes, it's sad, but I think acting as though this is out of character for Izuku basically requires ignoring his character development, and it implies a very simplified understanding of his and Katsuki's dynamic and how it evolves throughout MHA. Bakugo and Izuku have one of my favorite relationships in any media I've watched/read/played/etc. and it's frustrating to see Izuku's part in it essentially be disregarded.

[walkingoneliner]

An analysis of Cater Diamond

(That's mostly me screaming into the void.)

Cater has always had an identity problem. We see this from the very start of the game when he makes it clear how much he hates sweets because of how much his family always had to have them.

We get an idea that his family is a bit...smothering in their ideas and likes. And this is only built upon throughout the game with things such as the "rule of cute" they seem to live by.

Now, I'm not going to say Caters card is definitely him as dorm leader...but it certainly seems it. And if so, you'll notice somthing quite striking.

How different it is from Riddles uniform.

If Riddle's uniform is ouji, Caters is 100% Visual-Kei

It's far from cute, almost general looking.

Now I'm not saying "Oh Cater will be a bad leader and run Heartslabyul to the ground grr grr" as he doesn't seem like the type to do such a thing.

What I am saying, is that in Caters dream, such a uniform is vastly different because in his dream he is likely being himself! The only bad dream we've seen so far was Floyd's! Everyone else has been living their perfect realities, Epel being strong, Kalim being real friends with Jamil, Ruggie's dad coming back for him AND nobody in his village going hungry. So we can presume that in this dream as well we get to see the REAL Cater.

Which brings me to my part two ✌ of this analysis!

Who the heck is Cater?

To figure this out, we have to figure this out from the very core of who inspired him.

Now, I've seen many different guesses, the King of Hearts, the Knave of Hearts and the White Rabbit being the top three.

Well we know he isn't the Knave, that honor is clearly Aces considering he is the one who stole the "tarts upon a summers day." (Google Queen of Hearts poem if you have no idea what I'm talking about)

And honestly? I thought he was the White Rabbit! And i think they wanted us to think this.

We know when the game first released they said the reason Caters eyes were red in some twstunes and classes was because of the fact he originally was supposed to be a rabbit beastman. However, that was changed for an unknown reason.

I believe it was changed because they realized that a better white rabbit would indeed be Trey.

I know what you're thinking.

Trey? As the White Rabbit?

Hear me out.

Trey can fit the role of the White Rabbit very well as he,

Is Riddles right hand man. Many people assumed him to be the King because of this, but really, the Rabbit does far more for the Queen than the King does.

Has an odd obsession with teeth. It was a joke from the get go that none of us even considered.

Has a large family...enough said in the rabbit comparison.

How nervous he is around Riddle! Now every character is nervous around Riddle just as every character is nervous around the Queen. But it's noticeable how much more nervous Trey is than Cater, in the same way the Rabbit fears the Queen more than the King.

Finally, he is the one to smooth things over with the other students when Riddle rampages. Similarly, the White Rabbit is the only one of the Queens court to speak to the others in wonderland.

So what does this leave Cater with?

The role of King.

Now, the King doesn't do much in Alice in Wonderland, nor in the book Alice's Adventures Underground/Alice's Adventures in Wonderland which the flim Alice in Wonderland was based off.

Does that not remind you of Cater who is the most stand offish of the Heartslabyul cast. He doesn't do much at all to impact the story. All we see him do us use the others for his gain painting the roses (somthing I truthfully can't connect to the King despite my best efforts) and we see him try to convince Riddle to go easy on the first years, specifically Ace and Deuce.

I fear if I keep speaking, I'll end up running in circles. But for now, this is where I'll end it.

The fact he was the one to try convincing Riddle to go easy on them was a huge hint he was the King of Hearts the whole time, as one of the kings few lines is "Can't we have a trial?/Oh just a little trial?" And in the book he attempts to calm the Queen by reminding her that Alice is simply a child, so they should go easy on her punishment.

Not to mention he has the gavel that the King of Hearts uses...but that's just a nice little detail.

Cater is indeed the King of Hearts which we can easily trace evidence of back to the start of the story.

Despite this, I don't have any idea what Caters dream could be, but I do know it will be fascinating to see one of the least developed characters of twst finally shine!

If y'all have questions, additions or corrections, comment and let a girl know or send me an ask!

[marie-wisp-of-curiosity]

DA:TV thoughts, part one

Hello, curious friends!

After trying to put them in order, here are some of my thoughts/theories about Dragon Age: The Veilguard! They are mostly about Rook as a character and the tone of the game. Part two here.

Spoilers for all and everything Dragon Age.

TL;DR: DA:TV is not the story of Rook; it's The Veilguard's. We see it through Rook, who tells it to us in the style of Varric's books.

_____

ABOUT ROOK : What is a Hero?

DA:TV is not Rook's story

In Thedas, our Warden from DAO is remembered as The Hero of Ferelden, Hawke is The Champion of Kirkwall, and in DAI our character becomes The Herald of Andraste and The Inquisitor. All three are people who became legends, names and stories bigger than themselves.

In DA:TV, Rook leads the Veilguard, but I think our group will be what is remembered. In the end, it's your companions that become "Heroes of the Veilguard." As the leader, Rook unites them and gets them ready to save the world: They are definitely part of the story, but they are not the main character.

Like Varric intended.

The kind of hero(es) we need

I think I'm not alone here in finding the state of the real world worrying. It often feels like we're overrun by hate and that we can't be saved.

Before DA:TV, Thedas is going through the same thing. Pride is about to cause the death of even more people than it already has. Venatori cultists, the slavery-loving "Make Tevinter Great Again" assholes, and different Antaam colonialists and dictators are getting restless.

Before recruiting Rook, Varric faced a question: "When everything is going to shit, who is going to save us? What kind of hero does Thedas need right now?"

Varric has an excellent eye for finding Heroes, but has written enough of their stories to know they often end in tragedy. He has also lived through enough of those stories himself to know that behind the Hero there are lots of people willing to lend their talents to the cause. He knows the answer is not "one very special, or unlucky, person"; it's "many people willing to help by bringing their skills to the table and working together.

Varric also knew he could die at any moment, especially when trying to stop his friend Solas. He knew he probably wouldn't see the end of this tale. So he found Rook and has been preparing them to take his place by teaching them lessons when they were travelling together. I'm guessing he told them about the events of the first three games, to some extent. Everything "he" tells Rook in the lighthouse is things your mind pieces together from your memories of him, the lessons he already taught them. Varric's good eye and lessons are why all Rooks have in common at least some maturity and kindness. That was inevitable in anyone Varric would have chosen and mentored. Their talent as a positive leader is what they bring to the table.

Even if I understand why that's frustrating to some players, it makes a lot of sense to me that Rook can't really antagonize their companions or be mean to them like in the other games. That Rook wouldn't have brought the Veilguard together to save the world. In the same way, I think you can't really "import" an Inquisitor that wasn't at least respectful to Solas, because that mean/antagonistic Inquisitor has doomed the world. It's said a few times that Solas left clues to be followed by Varric and Harding because a part of him wants to be stopped. That doesn't happen in a world where an Inquisitor hasn't shown Solas that modern people are worth saving.

To me, this is the game telling us how to save the world. We need to organize and do what we can, and that's way easier to do while being open-minded and kind to each other.

In the very beginning of the game, Varric asks the player, "Who are you?" No matter where you are from in Thedas, your background, your past, what you look like, or what your gender identity is, YOU can be Rook. Because we can all make the world a better place.

part two

[mai-komagata]

Hmmm... I don't know how to pinpoint the issue I'm having here. I don't think Galadriel was treated by Sauron in the same way he treated Adar or Celebrimbor, but I also don't think anyone is saying that. Because I have always insisted that what is interesting about Sauron is he manipulates each person in a *different* way, to suit their personalities -- and that is what makes him not a flat villain but a mirror. Galadriel is treated like an equal because that is what she craves more than anything. Celebrimbor is lovebombed because being treated as special is what he craves. I don't think Galadriel is some helpless damsel in distress -- and I think it would be very hard to make one of the most prominent women in fantasy "de-exceptionalized" -- Galadriel is exceptional by her very nature, regardless of her relationship to Sauron. I think when people say "sauron is evil as both halbrand and annatar" people sorta imagine people are saying "he is a mustachioed twirling villain with no other internal motivation other than generic evil", and that is not it at all. Sauron wants to be in the orbit of amazing and powerful people to achieve amazing things. Halbrand is repeatedly shown as having that motivation, and it is true that by watching *who Halbrand shows favor to* and *who he treats with contempt* you get a very clear picture of who he is. And there is nobody more amazing to him *at first* than Galadriel. I think it overly villainizes Galadriel to say she was using Halbrand in the same way he was using her. He is very deliberately lying to her until the point when he can no longer sustain the lie. He knows she is hunting Sauron and he knows he is deceiving her about that fact the whole way through. She, on the other hand, is very clear about her intentions with how a man from the southlands can help her attain an army, and he delivers for her.* Sauron is at no point deceived by what Galadriel is doing and is egging her on. Had he been an ordinary man, the situation would very much not have been one of equals at all. But Halbrand is never an ordinary man, he is always fully consciously Sauron. Crucially, I don't think Galadriel's ambition/vendetta means she deserves to have been catfished by Sauron. But I don't think there is a power imbalance in their relationship either, and I think that is what Gennifer is saying -- not like Mirdania, for example, or even with Celebrimbor, that knows he is working with a Maiar and feels cowed by it. I think there is a desire to express this as binaries -- either Galadriel is a victim or she is a victimizer. Or that Sauron is doing evil or doing good. Sauron has goals. Galadriel has goals. Their goals aligned for season 1 and they use each other to further those goals. Their partnership is very utilitarian. He was still very pointedly trying to deceive her about his identity in the hopes of dissuading her from her goals and having her perpetually under his thrall. But that is a long term objective -- not something he was acting towards specifically until s1e8. *I also think people interpret the line of Sauron "offering her an army" to refer to his offer to make her his queen at the end of the season. At that point the gig is up, that offer is a last hail mary pass. I think that was more in reference to the rest of the events of season 1, when they are trying to convince Numenor to go to war, and later enlist the men of the southlands. She's definitely obfuscating his later offer when talking to Adar, but what Sauron did for most of Season 1 was get her an army. (also, if you are confused as to *why* people try to equate Celebrimbor and Galadriel or Adar and Galadriel, it is not to diminish or make Galadriel into a victim. It is to elevate a more queer reading of Sauron's actions by equating it to a more visible straight relationship, which is something that predates RoP as an interpretation of his character. Two things can be true at once -- Galadriel isn't a damsel in distress and there are parallels in the narrative between these relationships).

Gennifer Hutchison who's a writer for TROP said that Sauron and Galadriel's relationship is different. She called it a relationship of equals. She went on to say that it's unlike the love bombing and manipulations of Celebrimbor in the second season. Galadriel is also using Halbrand in the first season which supports her point.

So why is there the insistence to de-exceptionalize Galadriel and insist that every way Sauron used and victimized Celebrimbor or even Adar can be transmitted to her?

The showrunners said that you've gotten to know Sauron by watching Halbrand.

Why the insistence then that the show started in s2 and Annatar is the way to understand Sauron's relationships? There's two seasons to watch with no need to make things up.

Galadriel isn't just prey that the dastardly villain preyed on that many of you want to make her be. A large part of s2 included her own culpability being listed for you and a large part of s1 included her agenda to take a human she met and use him as a tool against Sauron. She was telling this man she met he was very special, destined for greater things, and that their meeting was fate. Does the fact that he turned out to be Sauron erase the power differential she believed existed between an elf of her stature and a human?

From my point of view, many are forcing Galadriel into the box of female victim beyond what's on screen.

[alexanderwales]

Movie Review: Upstream Color (2013)

I watched Primer when it came out on DVD. It's one of the few movies that, when I finished, I immediately watched a second time. I loved it. It was dense and opaque, and benefited greatly from a second watch, which made the whole thing slot together like a nice little puzzle. It was filmed on a razor-thin budget, with one of the main characters being a writer, director, producer, and editor. I immediately put Shane Carruth on my (then short) list of directors to watch.

So I've been meaning to watch Upstream Color, his second movie, for a full decade now. The reviews for it were never very good, and every Primer fan I knew of said that it was no Primer, and I guess I had other stuff going on for literally a dozen years. I keep a "to watch" movie list, which is usually 20-30 movies deep, and other stuff kept taking priority for one reason or another. I wanted to be in the right mood for it, that was definitely part of it. So I watch a movie every two or three days, something like 100 movies a year, and that means that since Upstream Color came out, I have watched more than a thousand movies instead of watching it.

Spoilers Follow

Let's start with the obvious: Upstream Color is no Primer.

I think that I could fit the story of Upstream Color into a single paragraph. It's not complicated. When we start any movie that my wife doesn't think she'll like, she goes to look up the synopsis and reviews and trivia and stuff, and she quoted me a review that said it was an "opaque mess", and ... I don't agree with that, but I can see where they're coming from.

Here's my plot synopsis:

A man (credited as "Thief") discovers some worms that can be used to induce a hypnotic state. He uses them to hypnotize a woman, Kris, and makes her give him her entire net worth while under hypnosis. When that's done, he leaves, and she writhes around under worm control until being summoned by some music by a different, unconnected man (credited as "Sampler"). The Sampler takes the worm out of her body, implants it into a pig, then releases her. She wakes up with no memory and her life is shattered. Later, she meets Jeff, who had the same thing happen to him, they fall in love, they have a psychic connection to these pigs, they gradually get more in touch with what happened to them, then they go kill the Sampler and rescue the psychic pigs.

I don't think that there's anything in there that anyone could be confused about. The movie spells everything out. There are one or two plot beats aside from that, but this is about it.

It's how the movie does this which is unusual. It's taking show, don't tell to its limits, almost never with dialogue that clarifies anything, and its scenes muddle into each other, with none of them feeling like they last more than a few seconds. There is essentially no grounding, even when it felt to me like there should be, and the movie doesn't ever really stop being a visual tone poem. I found this grating in the first five minutes, then got used to it, and eventually started to find it grating again. I guess my best point of comparison is Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, which I thought was more effective but also did grate on me a little bit.

When a moviemaker does something like this, particularly an auteur (or would-be arteur) like Shane Carruth, I always start by assuming that this is part of the point, that we're being fed the plot one way instead of another because it ties into whatever is going on thematically. And here ...

Where I thought it was most effective was the sequence when the baby pigs were being drowned, since we're almost required to have that whole thing be done with Kuleshov effect, cutting back and forth between the pigs and Kris and the pigs and Jeff. It's a nicely evocative little bit of cinema, even if I didn't think that it emotionally landed for me. Where it's less effective is when we really would have been better served by just having some straightforward exposition, or more standard filmmaking, but I guess if you're committing to the bit, you're really committing.

So what's the story about? What's the analogy, what's the theme?

Kris and Jeff are drawn together because of the psychic connection from the worms/pigs, but also (in my opinion) because they've both been victims of this horrible thing that's happened to them, their entire life having been torn down by some thief, then made to believe that they were somehow responsible. So they've got the psychic thing going on, yes, but they also have parallel traumas, and the same sort of gap in their lives. I think this what I'll call Thesis One, the shared bond of trauma.

Another major thing that struck me when watching the movie was that both our protagonists seem insane from the outside. They have this weird connection to each other that no one could understand (though they don't seem to have friends or family or anyone to talk to who could find it weird). They mix up their memories, and sometimes fight about that. They have bouts of irrationality, paranoia, anger, grief, with no explicable-to-them source. They feel like there's somewhere they're meant to be, but they try to follow that sense, and it leads them nowhere. To me, this immediately said "mental illness", so I'm going to call this Thesis Two, the terror of knowing that something isn't right with you, but having no idea what it is, having this internal feeling inside of you, patterns of behavior that make sense at the time. This movie is basically not shot like a horror movie in any way, and does not use the language of horror films, but I think it does share a lot thematically with the subgenre "mental illness horror" where the protagonist thinks they're crazy. That our two protagonists seem intensely codependent helps push that line.

Lastly, at least some of the movie is about personal identity and meaning, though I'm not sure that I would called that Thesis Three, mostly because I don't know what it's trying to say about personal identity. Clearly both Kris and Jeff are attempting to construct meaning in the wake of what's happened to them, and their identities bleed together with their overlapping memories, but this is just not fulfilled very much, and some of it is wrapped tightly in what I'd call the mental illness stuff.

Even if I'm reasonably confident in what literally happened in the film, and what it's about, there are a few things that don't really click for me.

In a normal film, I would expect that the sequence goes:

woman gets hypnotized and wormed

life is ruined

lots of strange thoughts and adventures with another man who is equally crazy

revelation that she's not crazy after all

revenge and catharsis

But in Upstream Color, the Thief and Sampler are implied to be operating entirely separate from each other. There's a little gap which can't entirely be closed through inference, but it's implied the Sampler incidentally pollutes the water with dead worm-pigs, the organism infects plants, those plants get (totally be coincidence?) taken up by exotic plant foragers, then bought by the Thief. So the Thief and Sampler apparently don't have any relationship with one another.

And yet, it's the Sampler, who removes the worms from people and puts them into pigs, that gets killed in the end. Yes, he was the one to kill the Kris-pig's piglets, but ... I don't really understand this narrative beat. Do they assume that he was the Thief? The Thief gets away with it, and all we see of him in the end is that he's sadly shaking his head because the magic worms are all gone.

I mean, yes, the Sampler is a creep who uses his psychic connection to peep on stranger's lives, and yes, most of these people (seem to be) victims of the Thief, and it's fucked up to not give them information or closure. But if the Sampler and Thief are unrelated, which seems likely to me, then it feels like the Sampler is taking bullets better meant for the Thief? Or is it just because he killed some piglets?

And what does that mean?

I am, moreover, confused about what the function of the Sampler is when compared to what the themes are. Does he tie in with the mental illness angle? No, not really. Does he tie in with shared bond of trauma? Only in that he's preventing people from getting closure, I guess. He's a voyeur, a failed artist, some of this ties to personal identity, but again, it doesn't feel like a strong thesis, it just feels kind of random, especially since we have virtually nothing to go on as far as the Sampler's motives or history. He seemed to me like he was mostly just an artist, with the sounds of nature as his primary art and the experiences of other people as his secondary "art".

I'm going to give my hot take on this movie now, which is that I would have liked it a lot better if it were more traditionally structured. The opening five or so minutes really made me think that I would have been better off leaving it on the to-watch list. The "piecing together the location of the Sampler and getting revenge" stuff was super rushed and kind of nonsensical, and offered no catharsis, only confusion.

Overall, I would say I didn't like the movie. I think it was trying too hard to be deep (for me this is a very high bar to clear), and didn't benefit from the experimental aspects, and would have been better if it at least had a stronger idea of what it was trying to say.

I will now go read some reviews, and maybe that will help something click for me. Hopefully I haven't missed anything major.

[hopeswriting]

imagine you're luce, and you're born the heir to a mafia family. you're mafia-born, and so of course also mafia-raised, and then also a donna-to-be. you're raised to be able to take on the role, to be good and capable at it, are taught to make one of your core beliefs about how the many must come before the few, because the family must always come first. you're going to be the donna, of course you must always prioritize the family above all else, it's your foremost and most important duty.

if caring about the few too comes at the price of the many, comes at the price of the family, is it even worth it? if the happiness gained from it comes at the price of a greater suffering for others, is there even any meaning to it, even if it's your happiness we're talking about? you understand, don't you?

you're not sure if you do, but you care about your family, love it, want to do right by it once you become their donna, so you nod, listen and learn.

(you don't have to be taught the pain and loss and guilt and anger and bitterness is a fair price to pay for the pain you decide has to be inflicted and the sacrifices you decide must be made, including by yourself. it's the least you could do, even.)

imagine you're luce, and the gift of foresight runs through your blood.

you would not call it a gift. you did not ask for it either. and you'll never come to see it as something wanted by you.

you can see the future, and it happened exactly as you saw it would, so of course it's exactly the way you wanted it to go. you can see the future, and it happened exactly as you saw it would, so of course you didn't care to try hard enough to change it. you saw the future before the shape of it had yet to be breathed into existence, and who's to say it didn't come into existence only because you saw it happen? you saw the future, and it happened worse than it had to for it.

you can see the future, but you still can't make it anything else than what it was always going to be. you can even make the visions happen at your will, but you still have no say on what you see or how much you see. you still can only be the witness of it before anyone else can.

it does mean double and longer the happiness sometimes, means relief and gratefulness and hope beyond words, and it'd be cruel of you to voice out loud your feelings for others to hear the many more times it means something else.

you can see the future, and it doesn't make it any kinder on you than on anyone else, does not give you any more power or control over it than anyone else, but at least you can see the future. you're given the time to make peace with it, to brace yourself for it, to bargain with it, to plead and beg and fight against it however desperately and hopelessly, even if in the end it still happens exactly as you saw it would.

(you can see the future, and it still doesn't hurt you any less than anyone else when it happens, but you don't expect anymore for anyone to hold you any less responsible for it anyway. it would be nice for someone to do it one day, but you understand.)

you can see the future, and you decide it's a kindness to both yourself and others to keep it for yourself as much as possible whenever you can.

imagine you're luce, and your family has this set of rings they've looked after and protected for as long as your family has existed. they're one set of three of the most important artifacts in the world, ones that help in safeguarding its existence and balance. they're duty, the very first one and the most important one your family was created for.

the pacifier around your mother's neck is duty too, and the most important and powerful artifact among twenty-one in safeguarding the world and its balance. it's been passed down in your family too, from mother to daughter. it's duty, but less tied to your family and much more to the blood running through your veins. it's a curse, in fact, as it demands heavy sacrifices the rings don't, and one that can only be tied to the blood running through your veins.

(your mother looks at you as if expecting some kind of reaction from you, and you can only wonder at which point you weren't supposed to see it as a given. duty and sacrifices have been one and the same for you for a long time now. is it even duty if it doesn't require any sacrifices from you?)

imagine you're luce, and your mother dies for duty. she's the donna, and so she dies for your family. she's the sky arcobaleno, and so she dies for the world. she's your mother, but she dies anyway, doesn't fight it either, even knowing she will leave you behind, even knowing she won't ever get to see what you look like all grown-up.

everywhere you look, duty stares back at you, from your mother and the pacifier around her neck, her love for your family and the life she gives up for it, her love for you and how she dies anyway while you're still only a child. duty, from your family members and how they die for you and kill for you, how they do both at your command, how their lives are in the palms of your hands and how they weigh only as much as you allow them to at a time. duty, from the knowledge your foresight gives you and the shackles tied to the blood running through your veins.

your mother's only duty while she lives too. she loves you, but she'd have had to give birth to you anyway even if she didn't. she loves you, but she still gave birth to you even knowing the kind of life you'd have to live, the kind of hands you'd inevitably end up with, the burdens she'd have to lay on your shoulders, passing them down from her own. because she loves you, she finds the resolve to raise you to be able to face all of it head-on and come out on top, but she'd have had to raise you much the same way anyway even if she didn't.

(she doesn't die for you, doesn't fight to be able to keep living with you, and this, too, is your mother surrendering to duty one last time.)

(you're so sick of it, so angry at it, so hateful and resentful against it. you're so stifled by it to the point you've stopped being able to breathe for a long time now. or you would have been if they had taught you how to face duty in this way too.

it's for the better they didn't. a silver lining, sparing you pain that isn't necessary for you to go through. everyone you turn to only teaches you how to keep holding your breath longer, and you listen and learn, obedient and dutiful as you've ever been.

you're grateful for it too. really, you are.)

everywhere you look, there's no room for you to so much as question any of it, let alone anything more. duty is commendable, something you ought to look up to and strive towards, strive to achieve. duty is the right thing to do. of course it is.

(you exhale a breath of relief that shakes you down to your very core.

thank god, it's at least the right thing to do.

you're grateful for it beyond words. really, you are.)

imagine you're luce, and before it even happens, you know the choice you'll make when climbing that mountain, when standing on top of it, when waiting for a bright light to shine down on you from above. you know the choice you'll make then, even when pregnant with your daughter.

it doesn't matter since how long you knew, be it years, months, days, hours or minutes before. all that matters is that before you can even contemplate the idea of making another choice and all its implications and possible consequences, before the thought can even come alive in your mind, you already know the choice you'll make.

(you can see the future, but just because you already saw it, it doesn't mean it's now set in stone.

you can see the future, but just because you're given the chance to fight to change it, it doesn't mean it still won't happen every bit like you saw it.

it doesn't mean it can't still happen even worse than how you first saw it happen because you fought to change it, no matter how already dreadful it originally was.)

imagine you're luce, and before it even happens, you know they'll be others with you standing on top of that mountain. you're the only one who'll know it before it happens.

(because you can see the future.

and oh, you did not ask for it.)

they're strangers, people you don't owe anything to. adults who choose to show up at the first meeting, and to show up to every following mission after that. the chosen seven, whose ambitions and prides lead them to walk the path of the seven strongest too once laid down in front of them.

you don't force their hands in making any of those choices for them. you're not responsible for any of them.

you become coworkers then, accomplices, your hands stained in blood to various extent, but now dipping in the same pool of blood as you strive towards the same goal together. you have each other's backs, learn each other's strengths and weaknesses, learn each other's personalities, likes and dislikes. you keep having to spend more time together as the missions keep coming your way.

inevitably, you come to care about them. even more damning, they come to care about you in return. enough so they'll look after your daughter even after what'll happen on top of that mountain. enough so they'll look after your granddaughter too, warmly and fondly enough she'll call one of them uncle.

you're still the only one who knows they'll stand together with you on top of that mountain, not knowing what'll happen on it like you do.

and you do care about them, you swear you do. really, you do.

(you care about them the same way your mother cared about you, and how she still raised you to have steel in you and be made of sharp edges you know how to use. you care about them the same way you care about your family, and how you still send them to their deaths as needed so the rest of your family you care about just the same can keep on living longer and safely. this is the only way you've had the chance to learn how to care and love.

duty and sacrifices have been one and the same for you for as long as you can remember. it doesn't matter at which point sacrifices came to mean love to you too.

and most of all, you love your daughter more than anything else in the world.)

imagine you're luce, and this is who you are. this is who you've been raised to be, the only way you've been given room to grow up to be. this is the life you've lived and the kind of life that has shaped you as the person you are now. this is what you've been taught and told is the best version of yourself you could have grown up to be. this is who you ended up being by what you've been taught and told are all the right choices to make.

you're still the only one who knows what is about to happen on top of that mountain. it hasn't happened yet. the fate of the world hangs on what'll happen on top of that mountain, the same world you'll have to give birth to your daughter in. the same daughter you're currently pregnant with.

now imagine you're luce, look me in the eye and tell me you'd know how to even form the thought of the possibility of there being any other choice to make. look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't look at the only choice in front of you, and know deep in your bones it's the only right choice to make. that it is right of you to make it. because it simply has to be.

(imagine you're luce, and you're not doomed by the narrative. of course, you're not.

why would you need to be when the narrative has painstakingly shaped you all your life to become its perfect, faithful and dutiful sacrificial lamb?

and then, imagine you're luce, and you're even grateful for it, so, so very grateful it held up its end of the bargain too.

truly, you are.)

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[jullbnt]

I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you meant about EoW? What does it change if the Golden Goddesses die first and only create Hyrule after being reincarnated? Sorry if it's obvious haha, maybe I'm missing something ^^

I have no problem with the Three creating the entire world, that's what I understand from the "creation myth" told by the Deku Tree in OoT. The thing I have some issues with is that EoW implies that rifts have always opened throughout Hyrule even though that's never been mentioned before. But I understand that Nintendo wants to create new villains/lore and it also doesn't contradict everything that was established before, so I can live with it (and I'm really pleased that the Triforce and all are back). I guess we just need to imagine that it all happened off-screen and that the Tris always managed to close the rifts on their own before EoW. Another thing is that I thought Demise already represented primordial chaos, but maybe I was only mislead by his French name (Avatar du Néant = Avatar of the Void).

(Btw did you see that Nintendo added EoW to the official timeline a few days ago? It's no big surprise that it's on the DT between Triforce Heroes and LoZ, but it's still great to see it confirmed!)

Yes I've thought of having the dragons from SS die at some point and get replaced by the new ones from BotW (because as you said the thunder dragon demonstrated that they can die). That's one possibility I have in mind and it's probably the easiest way to do this, but I'd still prefer for them to be the same dragons from SS. I still need to think about it (as well as many other things) ^^

Since I'm not a fan of the Zonai I won't advocate for the dragons to keep the third eye haha! But it could have looked cool. I'm not sure they already had the Zonai in mind when they designed the dragons though, that's probably the explanation for the third eye's disappearance. Yes the thicker part at the end of their bodies and the big spike look a bit weird! That leonin tail would have looked good, especially on the Light Dragon since she also has a golden mane. I'm glad they didn't keep the giant horns though, they were a bit much.

I actually like the singing in SS (and Link's reactions), especially when they all gather to perform the Song of the Hero! It's mostly Faron's voice during dialogues that doesn't sit right with me. And the faces definitely look uncanny!

It's fine if you don't like this theory about the dragons! I'm not 100 % sold myself, just trying to make things work because I think having two separate sets of dragons with names inspired by the Goddesses is a bit confusing (especially if we add the Light Spirits on top of that). Water and ice are kind of the same element to me, but maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see 😆

Oh these dragon redesigns are so cool!! Let me just add a link to the original post to credit the artist (charcoaldustonmyfingers) in case anyone is still reading this.

Yes the dragons looked more unique in SS but they were actual characters so it makes sense that they would be more detailed. The names sound cool but maybe they would require an explanation as to why the Goddesses' names were mixed ^^

Oh you're right about the symbols on their foreheads in SS, I completely forgot about that. Guess I can't really act like it's not there haha! But I'll never be able to associate Farore with water and Nayru with thunder, it's really frustrating.

Yes Rauru could have mentioned that to Link, or maybe to Zelda when he explains he's the first king. And you're right they should have included something about Sonia and Rauru's descendance and the disparition of the Zonai, otherwise it just looks like a gigantic plot hole.

I know about Rhoam's diary of course ^^ It's just that I was never fully convinced by the idea that Zelda simply lacked a teacher so I tend to forget that the game provided this explanation (and I'm so used to my own headcanons that sometimes I forget they're just that). Mipha tried to help Zelda by explaining how her own magic worked, and (even though it's the cheesiest thing ever) it's rather obvious that she meant to say she accessed her healing powers by thinking about someone she loved, aka Link. Since Zelda's power awakes when she's trying to save Link, it seems Mipha was right. If so, Zelda's mother wasn't the only one who could have taught her, and maybe Rhoam should have sought the help of other magic wielders to train his daughter (kind of weird that he didn't). I really don't like the idea that Zelda's power works the same way as healing magic and that all she needed was love, but that's what the game implies (unless I'm completely wrong).

Also we don't know whether the queen and her ancestors actually possessed the same sealing power as Zelda. Being able to hear the voices of spirits is nowhere near being able to seal Ganon, but maybe the real sealing power only manifests when the Calamity appears (who knows). The thing is, that would make every woman born in the royal family a potential "Zelda". And I know it's not clear whether all Zeldas are the same person like Link is or if they only share the blood of the Goddess, but I like to think she gets reincarnated the same way Link does so that they can reunite (OoT Zelda mentions that Link is familiar to her). It just sounds weird that Hylia would make sure her Hero gets reborn over and over again but not her (and it might just be that everyone in Hyrule gets reincarnated anyway, just look at characters like Impa, Dampé or Beedle). And if all of Hyrule's princesses potentially inherit Hylia's power and just need a teacher, it sounds a lot less special. What about this "legend of Zelda", you know?

(It's also kind of dumb that no queen ever thought something like this could happen and took the time to write some sort of user manual, especially when it seems pretty common for queens to die quite young in Hyrule. I mean we've seen plenty of kings but never Zelda's mother)

Let's also remember that no other Zelda before had this sealing power, except maybe for Sky Zelda/Sun. So now if other random queens and princesses can inherit it, that would make them more powerful than all the Zeldas we know. That's another reason why I believe the Wild Era doesn't fit at the end of any of the three timelines, unless the Goddesses also changed the rules for Zelda's power when/if they merged the timelines.

My headcanon is that Zelda is the only one who can wield Hylia's power, so her mother being alive might not have made a difference. I like to believe that any Zelda needs to do the whole Skyward Sword pilgrimage with the Goddess Harp in hand in order to awake her divine nature, but of course this knowledge would get lost to time and no princess ever does it (though BotW Zelda was only missing the harp and specific rituals). In the end Zelda's desire to save Link and the bond between them as Hero and Princess would be enough of a trigger for her to bypass the rituals and access her power anyway (but not Hylia's memory as she does in SS). That's how I try to make what happens in BotW work with previous lore, but that's only my take.

Anyway I also like to believe the Queen was assassinated by the Yiga clan! I've seen this theory quite often in fanfic and it's pretty credible. I also like the idea that the "blood of the Goddess" part of Demise's curse would apply to the entire Hylian population.

I'm doing my best to find TotK's lore and story interesting, but it just doesn't do it for me. I listened to QuestWithAaron's videos (I actually think I already did so last year) and though the references to Japanese culture are evident and interesting, I just don't think it's enough to make a good story. Maybe I'm a bit too harsh, I don't know, or it's just not for me. I think Ganondorf is most interesting when he is his own character with his own motive (like Wind Waker Ganondorf), I don't want him to be nothing more than the incarnation of Demise's hatred once he gets his Secret Stone. I like the idea of Calamity Ganon being his lingering resentment or something like that, but when it comes to Ganondorf the man I expect something more. I would have loved a deeper exploration of his character with some nuance and maybe bits of his past. It had been 17 years since TP, we missed him! Now I'm not even sure we'll ever see him again and all we got was "I want to conquer" and then "I want to destroy", just because he's evil. And his little speeches about peace-loving cowards and how the world should be shrouded in darkness really didn't impress me. Sorry if this sounds harsh, I'm just so disappointed.

I agree about some of the tech, I actually really like the wings and the flame/laser throwers. I found the Mesoamerican influence interesting for the Zonai, but I think it doesn't fit the Hylians ^^

I would have disliked the Zonai a lot less if everything wasn't about them, sure. I think I would have been really happy with them being a new race populating the Depths for example, and that's kind of what I'm doing in my rewrite where I think they'll just be evolved Mogma. TotK would be a very different game without the Zonai/Rauru playing a major role though.

The thing with the "Zonai" from BotW is that this all gets very confusing. According to BotW/Creating a Champion they were a civilization mainly based in Faron Woods that worshiped a water dragon (which either means Naydra, Faron from SS or simply the river Dracos). Their statues also heavily imply that they worshiped the three aspects of the Triforce, represented by an owl (wisdom), a boar (power) and a dragon (courage). To me that sounds more like the ancestors of the Hylian themselves. And interestingly Faron in SS is associated with both water and courage (even though I don't like it haha), so the "water dragon" might really be a reference to SS. Many fans also assumed that the barbarian armor set was linked to the Zonai because its description mentioned "a warlike tribe from Faron".

Then according to TotK, the Zonai are from the sky (though they also mined the Depths), they are not a barbarian tribe but a technologically advanced race close to the gods, and one of them even was the first king of Hyrule. Also they are not shown to live in Faron Woods, and their clothing/armor looks nothing like the barbarian set. So either the Zonai had a weird barbarian phase at some point (I wouldn't expect that from sky beings but alright), either people at Nintendo simply changed their mind and retconned the Zonai from BotW.

I also don't really like the idea of Hylian-Zonai hybrids, I don't want to imagine how that works 😆 (sorry). But even if the Zonai from BotW were hybrids, the barbarian/savage/warlike part doesn't really make sense. I also can't imagine the Hero being anything but a Hylian and anyone but Link (same for Zelda), and at least if Nintendo was going to drop this Ancient Hero thing I think we were owed some sort of explanation ^^

Oh yes the gotcha machines and disposable technology were terrible, 100 % agree!

Your explanation about the Triforce vs. the Secret Stone wasn't confusing, I understand what you meant! Though I think the nature of Demon King Ganondorf is similar to that of Demise in TotK, so I still find it hard to believe that a Secret Stone would allow him to do something Demise could not (aka easily break the Master Sword). But maybe there's also a possibility that the Sword lost some of its power along the way, who knows. I also think Ganondorf has been able to corrupt the Triforce of Power before, to me that's what happens when he transforms into Ganon (he gets so drunk on power and resentment that he turns into a mindless beast that looks a lot like Calamity Ganon, and that's why Link needs the Master Sword). But I don't know, that's definitely interesting to think about!

I love Minish Cap too, it was one of my first Zelda games as well! In fact I was just replaying it last month. BotW's map definitely references locations from MC, but there are also places like Koholit Rock or Brynna Plain so it might just be more easter eggs. I'll try to see how it can work with my version of Hyrule ^^ Though my main problem with MC is more it's story. I can see perfectly how OoT follows SS, but when I try to fit MC between the two things start getting a bit clunky.

You know I don't get to discuss Zelda lore and timeline stuff in depth IRL, so this is really entertaining for me. I don't mind when you go on tangents, quite the contrary! I just hope this isn't too much scrolling 😆

Hi, sorry if this is a bit rude. 😅 I guess that I was just wondering. How would Jabul Waters, Zora Cove, & Crossflows Plaza be named in French?

I'm trying to give Jabul Waters an interesting name that works to go with my hc & I came up with "Jabuleaux." And Google Translate tells me that Crossflows Plaza would be Place des Flux Croisés. And, I'm seeing that Anse is the term to refer to a cove &, if that's true, then would Zora Cove be Zoranse? At the same time, somewhere else, it said that Anse actually means beach.

And, I believe that a town by a swamp would have cher, quier, bren, brin, or Hor- in it?

I'm sorry if this is weird... 😅

Hi! Don't worry it's not rude or weird at all! I offered to help and I'm happy to do so :D

Did you check the official French translations? I had a surprisingly hard time finding the French version of the map online so here's a screenshot I took myself:

Jabul Waters = Eaux de Jabule (this one only appears when I zoom out)

Zora Cove = Baie Zora

Crossflows Plaza = Place de l'Estuaire

In case you didn't know the Zelda Wiki often lists names for places or characters in various languages in the "Nomenclature" section of its pages. It's very helpful especially if you're searching for the original Japanese names. If we look at at the different names for Crossflows Plaza we can see that a literal translation from Japanese would be something like "Exchanging Place". I checked the Jisho dictionary and it seems to be an accurate translation, though "Place for Cultural Exchanges" would be more meaningful.

It's not exactly a good name in English so it makes sense that the localization team would come up with something like Crossflows Plaza instead, which in my opinion does a very good job of stating that this is both the place where the river meets the sea and where the two Zora tribes traditionally meet each other.

Other European languages all settled for variations of "Estuary Plaza" ("Place de l'Estuaire" in French), which is fine but looses the "cultural exchanges" aspect of both the original name and the English translation.

I've been trying to come up with a French translation of "Crossflows Plaza" but it's not that easy. To me "Place des Flots Croisés" or "Place Flots-Croisés" would sound better than "Place des Flux Croisés", but I still find it a bit weird ("flot" meaning flow, tide or stream). "La Croisée des Flots" is another option if you agree to get rid of Plaza/Place (it means "the intersection/junction of streams"), but I don't think it works very well as a name.

You could also mix words to create a name the same way it was done in English, something like "Place Croiseaux" (croiser/cross + eau/waters). If any of my French speaking followers is feeling inspired, please share your ideas! :)

(I just thought of "Place Cruciflot" and found it too funny not to mention 😆 maybe it sounds too much like crucifix)

In French we also have the word "confluence" that has the exact same meaning as it does in English: either the meeting of two rivers or a gathering of some kind. So to me the most obvious translation would be something like "Place des Confluences" or maybe "Place Confluence", as it would preserve the dual meaning, but it's not very fancy or creative. Maybe we could simply change the spelling to something like Place Konfluans, the same way "Village Côtier" (Seaside Village) is spelled "Village Kothié" (Seesyde Village). But it doesn't look like a French word anymore so I'm not sure that's something you'd like.

As for Jabuleaux, it can work but I prefer the official translation "Eaux de Jabule". Same thing for Zoranse, we would say "Anse Zora" or "Anse des Zora". The official French translation is "Baie Zora" (Zora Bay), which I think is more appropriate given the size of the sea inlet (in my understanding an anse/cove is a small baie/bay and isn't very deep). I think maybe it should have been bay in English as well instead of cove, but I might be wrong! Also I believe "anse" isn't used as often as "baie" and might be confusing for most people, so I would go with "Baie Zora".

I'm not sure where you found this information about swamps and town names? I didn't find anything to confirm it but I might not have looked in the right places.

French towns are often ancient and their names can derive from other languages such as Celtic, Occitan, Flemish, or regional dialects, so that's a very difficult question and I'm not sure I can give you a satisfying answer ^^

I still did a little search and found an Old French word for swamp, "palud" or "palu", that still appears in some town names such as La Palud-sur-Verdon, Saint-Pierre-la-Palud, Lapalud, etc. (today we say "marais" or "marécage"). You might be right about "bren", it could be something like muddy in Gallic.

There's also "vign" or "mign" (from Celtic), as in Mignéville or Lévignac, or l'Île de Migneaux on the Seine river (this one's in my city!).

Near where I grew up is a town named Hazebrouck, it literally means "hare swamp" (brouck/broek = swamp in Flemish). For a bit more French flavor you could maybe use -broucq or -breucq instead of -brouck.

I think the vast majority of French people have no clue about all of that (I didn't except for the last one and it's more Flemish than French), so I'd say don't oversweat it ;)

And that's all! I hope you'll find this helpful ^^

[mikesbasementbeets]

just here to say again that gay people can and very often do experience “crushes” on people of different genders, particularly when they’re young and don’t understand the difference between romantic and platonic love, and that doesn’t make them any less gay

stranger things has done a fucking phenomenal job of displaying this through mike wheeler, whose entire romantic arc has been about discovering what that difference is, specifically through his two major relationships, will and el. he mistakes the platonic feelings for romantic ones and the romantic feelings for platonic ones before (VERY gradually imo) realizing that he’s had them mixed up the entire time

[mellotronmkll]

It's always funny Almost completely relating to people's posts about being obsessed with a piece of media but it's clear they mean like a TV show or movie and are obsessed with one of the characters but for me it's literally always always with no exception some fucking band so it's not really the same but it does have the same completely all consuming effect on me

[traintrainingmontage]

I saw some posts recently about "just let them be friends/mentor & mentee! They don't always have to be family units!!" That is absolutely true. However, the reason why I feel compelled to emphasize the found-family/sworn brotherhood of the Skarloey Railway is because their dynamic runs deeper than friendship and mentorship a lot of the time, in ways that I think are best expressed in a brotherhood-in-arms/sworn family kind of way.

First of all, the obvious example: Sir Handel and Peter Sam calling Duke "Granpuff." It's clearly a term of familial attachment, meant to be analogous to "Grandfather," or more likely, "Grandpa." The fact that three of the engines who come to make up the Skarloey Railway already have this sort of sworn family bond is quite notable; it indicates their interest and willingness to have those sorts of bonds and hierarchies in the first place. Duke isn't their friend, or even really their mentor; he's family. And more importantly, beloved family, as evidenced not just by the moniker but by Peter Sam's reaction throughout the story Duck and Dukes (Very Old Engines).

However, let's move beyond that to the more subtle examples. Skarloey and Rheneas are listed as brothers in the RWS ("[Edward] remembered Skarloey and his brother Rheneas, because..." [Four Little Engines]). That said, given the loose definitions of familial "biological" relationships that we've seen, they're more like cousins, in that they are from the same workshop and have the same designer/builder but are of two distinctly different builds (and neither are an iteration or variation of the other). Thus, the fact that Edward thinks of them as brothers means that someone, very likely the engines themselves, told him so, meaning they're also brothers by choice, a closer relationship than the term "cousins" implies. Now, while the two never specifically call each other "brother" in the RWS, there's a few moments where they're talked about in the context of friends: "But Rheneas was happiest of all in his own place that night, next to his friend Skarloey (Gallant Old Engine)." "We'd learned sense, and we've been firm friends ever since" (Very Old Engines)." What's significant about this is that many siblings/relatives of similar ages don't get along as well as these two do, and in fact, they had a whole character growth arc about it. They are brothers, and take great pride in that, but are also friends, and equally proud of that fact, if not a little more so. Anybody with siblings knows that it can be difficult to consider yourselves friends in any meaningful way for a number of reasons, and the fact that these two do means that both their friendship and their brotherhood are choices that they consciously made about how they define their relationship. Brotherhood and friendship are not mutually exclusive, and often enrich each other when both are present.

So, let's move on to Sir Handel. After Skarloey pulls his train and gets the coaches in order, Sir Handel "is longing for Skarloey to come back. He thinks Skarloey is the best engine in the world" (Four Little Engines). High praise from an engine who'd called Skarloey "rubbish" earlier in the same story! But while this sort of interaction would normally lend itself to a mentor/mentee relationship--and I do think that relationship IS present--I also think that Sir Handel and Skarloey's relationship is also best defined by something more brotherly. This is because mentor/mentee relationships imply a certain sense of distance backed by experience-based authority, in a similar vein to teacher/student relationships. Mentors and mentees, if that's the only defining relationship, very rarely allows for a peer relationship to develop later because the mentor/mentee divide is so foundational. No matter how accomplished Character X becomes, they tend to always think of their mentor, Character Y, as their mentor, even if they become peers on a social level. The relationship still feels very subordinate. The addition of something brotherly, however, allows a certain closeness to seep in, one that helps bridge that stark distance. Skarloey actually pranks Sir Handel twice, once with George and once with Culdee's story. (Not to mention that Rheneas gives him some passive-aggressive ribbing that causes him some embarrassment.) In both cases, it's for the purpose of checking his ego, but that's not really something widely associated with "mentor" behavior.

Besides that, though, the reason why I think a sworn brotherly bond feels appropriate is because Skarloey actually watches Sir Handel grow up and mature, and helps guide him as he does so. That's very "older brother" behavior to me; Skarloey is invested in Sir Handel's growth as a person, in a way that feels closer than friendship or mentorship necessarily imply, and is integral to that growth happening. When mentorship comes to an end, what will they be? Peers? Somewhat. Friends? Certainly. But sworn brothers, found family, feels more correct for how they act around each other: there's a certain informality and comfortableness that accompanies the respect that speaks more toward a family of choice dynamic--with mentorship, the respect tends to win out. With friendship, the informality often wins out. But a brotherly dynamic allows for both, in a way that feels natural.

Duncan and Skarloey have a vibe like this too. Skarloey actually calls Duncan "my engine" in Gallant Old Engine, which at worst, is analogous to "my friend". The fact that Duncan is anything that warrants a "my", the way one would say "my dear" or "my dude" or another such endearment, speaks to those bonds already being formed. (And yes, we sometimes use turns of phrase like "My ___" for people we don't know/don't know well to indicate strong disbelief or disagreement, but I don't get that vibe from Skarloey's words here. He's talking to Duncan from a place of care, and they're far from being strangers at this point in time.) I'm sure that Skarloey thinks Duncan's a piece of work at times, and he is, but Skarloey's also seen him apologize to Rusty and those two get along. Duncan's stubborn and has been known to be argumentative for the sake of it, but generally has a reason behind the things he does and the way he feels, and isn't too proud to change his opinion or apologize. Skarloey knows that, hence why he uses the story of Rheneas to illustrate his point, and lo and behold, Duncan does, in fact, admit that he was wrong. Again, mentor/mentee relationships bolstered by and that transition into found family dynamics are just what's needed to bring Duncan into the fold, such that by the time we get to the Chris Awdry stories, Duncan has mellowed out CONSIDERABLY.

(Small shout out to Peter Sam loving Skarloey's stories and asking to hear them. That's rather family-coded too.)

This isn't even to mention the fact that they all sleep in the same sheds, wake up together, and spend large amounts of time together in general, unlike most of the NWR engines. There are no branch lines. All (eventual) nine of them are always there, all together, all sharing the same house.

Even though a lot of my focus has been on Skarloey and his relationships with the younger engines, I do feel that many of the friendships between the younger engines has that found family dynamic at its base. There's no bad blood between any of them, not really. They tease each other, but once Duncan and Rusty make up, there's very little evidence that any of them have serious interpersonal issues that need to be addressed. And with the evidence that some of them have already decided to lean into those sworn family bonds, I think it makes sense that after a time, they all do.

It's true that family bonds are not always appropriate for all relationships in all scenarios, but in the case of the Skarloey Railway, the sworn/found family just hits right, at least to me.

Suddenly in the mood to talk about my Skarloey Railway relationship headcanons, so here they are! (This ties into my previous post on engine relationships, so please read that if anything seems confusing!)

-Skarloey is the Eldest. Rheneas and Duke are his brothers (Rheneas being his brother, Duke being his sworn brother/brother-in-arms, but to engines, the difference is often negligable). The other six engines, collectively, are his younger brothers, with Ivo Hugh and Fred being the youngest. Thus, he feels a lot of responsibility towards all of them. "Eldest" is often used as a title of respect/great endearment.

-Skarloey takes a lot of care in teaching Sir Handel the ropes. Sir Handel is the eldest of the younger brothers, meaning that he'll take over when Skarloey, Rheneas, and Duke finally run out of puff. Unlike Duke, who tends to coddle Sir Handel and Peter Sam somewhat, Skarloey and Sir Handel have a firm older brother/younger brother bond, and Sir Handel has never lost his respect for Skarloey. In fact, when he has a problem, he's more likely to go to Skarloey than Duke--he still cares about his granpuff very much, but he's not a glossy-painted new build anymore and Duke still treats him like that sometimes because he missed out on how much Sir Handel has matured over the years.

-Interestingly, Skarloey and Rheneas tend to go to Duke with problems or issues that they can't talk about with each other. Some of these things involve moments during the war, some involve hidden regrets... While the two brothers love each other dearly, there's certain things that are impossible to express, such as Rheneas feeling like he owes Skarloey a debt that he can never repay and Skarloey feeling like he has failed Rheneas in certain ways. Duke respects both of his new brothers-in-arms very much and appreciates the level of trust that they put in him. He also has to admit that it's kind of nice to be taken care of; the SR is run remarkably well, and they care for his well-being as more than a tool. He doesn't have to deal with a poorly-managed railway and trying to protect his granchuffs and all of that. He can lay his own burdens aside, and both Skarloey and Rheneas are more than happy to lend him a listening ear in turn.

-Much like Sir Handel, Duncan tends to get along best with Skarloey from an older/younger brother standpoint. He respects Skarloey a lot, and appreciates his "teaching style" over Rheneas, who tends to give lectures.

-Also interestingly, Rusty finds that they get along particularly well with Rheneas. Their personalities tend to be rather complementary, and Rusty can see just how much Rheneas cares for all of them and the railway as a whole beneath his sometimes-stern-yet-often-cheerful exterior. Rheneas shows Rusty all of the most beautiful, hidden-away spots on the line, and Rusty relishes in it.

-Peter Sam is close with all three of the older engines. He's started forming a mentor/mentee relationship with Ivo Hugh, who seems eager to learn.

-Sir Handel and Duncan have a rivals to friends relationship. They often bicker and clash, but over the years, the edges have smoothed out, and they have a friendly rivalry going. They push each other to do and be better, all while trading good-natured jabs.

-Sir Handel and Peter Sam are partners, as are Rusty and Duncan. Peter Sam and Rusty are very good at being the grounding and comforting presences that their partners need, although they aren't above telling them off if they're being ridiculous. The older engines love to see it and get a good laugh out of the younger engines' antics.

[ichorblossoms]

y'know when i first created grimm i think wolfwood was like. vaguely at the back of my mind as a kinda similar character bc i had recently watched both trigun animes but now i'm reading trimax and i'm like okay. there are Similarities here