#What is antidote

[voiider]

Okay alright I'm tired of giving more children to Bruce Wayne I think we need to start taking some away 

Tim getting kidnapped (but in a way they don't announce Tim Drake-Wayne as missing??) and is given Something that induces amnesia but he escapes or maybe just literally wanders away but like he's in the middle of Ohio and he's walking down the road unsure of his own name or where he is and a weird looking camper pills over and a large man leans out the window and says “you doing alright there, sonny?” 

And he doesn't really know so he sorta shrugs so they pick him up and the man introduces himself as Jack and this is his wife Maddie and their two kids Danny and Jazz and they're just heading back from a camping trip and they can take him into town (Amity?) and take him down to the station and help him get things figured out 

The police take his picture and upload it to a “found” database or smth but there's no active or recent cases in Ohio for missing persons (or teenagers) matching his description 

(But also, Amity is pretty disconnected from the rest of the world digitally. They mind their business. Sure they run this boy's face in the newspaper and let the neighboring precincts about him but there's not much more they can do until this kid gets some memories back)

So he goes to stay with Jack and Maddie (idk how i don’t care about LAWS) while they wait to see if they get any hits or until he gets some memories back and they register him under Alvin (“hmm maybe... Tom? No, definitely not. Caroline? Alvin? That sounds the best I guess”) Fenton at the local high school so he can keep getting an education (and Alvin isn’t sure why, but this sort of feels like a waste of time, he already knows all this math stuff and why would he want to read Of Mice and Men he’s pretty sure someone told him John Steinbeck was a hack. Or maybe not. He can’t remember) but it’s simple enough and he likes the Fentons even if they keep trying to convince him ghosts are real 

And maybe they are. Actually. Real that is. He saw one the other day and had to double check if knowing ghosts were real is a common knowledge thing that he forgot of if he never knew in the first place. Jazz tells him that ghosts are pretty much an Amity specific thing but that they appear other places and then Jack and Maddie set him down and give him the entire history of ghosts that night and then show him their lab which is pretty cool

And maybe he accidentally suplexed someone who startled him in the halls on his first day and also fell asleep in science,but give him a break! he’s going through a lot right now

But his new brother roommate friend? Is helping him adjust at school by telling him who to avoid and what not to eat from the cafeteria and Jazz is in most of his classes but also he’s not sure why they’re trying to act all sneaky about this Inviso-Bill/vigilante situation because like. That’s clearly just Danny with white hair? He looks the exact same? Also he literally saw Danny walk through the bathroom door last week if it wasn’t obvious enough.

So Tim really isn’t expecting Danny to be surprised that he picked up a thermos that Phantom dropped when he and his friends ran off to fight another ghost

[artbyfuji]

Rosebird Week Day 6: First & Last Kiss 🥀

"The Lovers II" - Rene Magritte (1928)

[thats-highly-significant]

The inherent homoeroticism of 70s cop shows

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[t4tadrienette]

AN HOUR???? God that's so funny

[wanderingibon]

the viago-crow rook dynamic makes me crazy i fear!!! the found family!!!! the layers!!! the care of it all!!!! the 'i am afraid of losing my protégé who I've come to regard as family but I don't exactly know how to convey that so I have to be stern toward them, remind them not to abandon their contract, so they aren't eaten up by the antivan crows like I know the organization can do and has done time and time again' i am literally rambling rn but i could write a whole essay i fear

[tothestarsinvelaris]

Elain using her gardening and cooking skills to create antidotes, salves, poisons, etc to help in war.

Elain's visions being essential to the success of the NC and their allies to stay ahead of their enemies.

Elain working with Rhys to keep strong mental shields up so people can't use her visions against them.

Elain getting training from Azriel on how to use daggers effectively, how to be stealthy and fade into the shadows.

Azriel helping Elain in the kitchen, using his hands to make warm food for his family.

Azriel helping Elain in the garden, planting seeds and getting his hands dirty in a way that helps bring life into the world instead of taking it away.

[etoilesombre]

You know what? People shouldn't feel bad about liking things in fandom, or creating things that make them happy. I'm absolutely vagueposting, but this really isn't about one post, it's about a tone I've noticed popping up again lately from multiple people (including people I follow and generally respect!)

-"They absolutely cannot fuck! So crazy people would think about that and be into it, it would break canon! "

-"Mod AU doesn't work, they're Serious Characters they aren't gonna run a coffee shop its OOC! "

-"Actually, fun fluffy fic about them at all during a certain era doesn't work!"

I get it. I agree with a fair part of it. People post all kinds of asinine shit that I hate actually. But you know where I bitch about it? Privately in group chat.

Let people fucking have fun. I get the sense that many people come to this fandom specifically because it's Serious and Challenging and you want to Do Serious Analysis. I think a lot of folks around these parts either are in school and not having a good time about it, or wish that they had gone into better academia that doesn't really exist, and they're getting that need met here. And that's great! For real!

But you know what else is fine? People who either don't have that need, or are getting it met in other parts of their lives, and come here for stress relief and a fun free hobby.

Of course they can't fuck for real! It's not in the text, they simply don't. But the tension is obviously written in, and playing with possibilities can be fun! Also if you can't see how it could happen and still not fix shit, that's a skill issue. Fic authors aren't stupid, we don't fail to understand canon, but not everything has to be everything all the time. Sometimes you want to do all the work and try to match the level of writing in the show, and sometimes you want to have something nice and easy. The show is REALLY well written and what it needs to be, the point of transformative works is playing with what it's NOT. Some people cope with fluff, or good ending everybody lives AUs, and it might be so totally valid to look down on that, but maybe being publicly correct might be less important than being kind?

Actually, the main thing I want to say is that if YOU reading this are a person who wants to write a cute coffeeshop AU, or be horny on main about your boys kissing, it's actually fine!! At least, it historically has been fine. This is a really small fandom now and not that many people are actively creating, please don't be discouraged by this stuff, because the people who criticize on tumblr are actually not the majority. The REASON they criticize is that, if you go to AO3 and sort by kudos, much of it is this super sweet OOC stuff! It looks like that's most of what there is, because a lot of readers in the wild who watch the show and look up fic like it!

Anyway. Let people have fun, it doesn't cost you anything, and not every thought needs to be public. It actually does discourage people.

[neurotonic]

thoughts about prism/fabricator and such. i always kinda thought that prism wouldn't be so interested in this kind of arrangement, reasoning and logic say she doesn't have anything to gain (at first)... but in the same way that she accepted the agreement with Zoraxis where she's desperate enough to prove a point, she's fueled by her desire to find a meaningful relationship here. even if fabby's only into her because she's so similar to solaris.

i think they'd be the type to come to an agreement with this arrangement. Surely their emotions will stay disconnected and professional. Surely they won't develop the longer they get closer to one another. Surely

[hayaku14]

me when i read a long kidco fic and the writer hints on an aptx 4869 permanent antidote:

[deanmarywinchester]

previous years: 2022, 2021 / list of worst sf/f/horror

the bangers were BANGING this year, I kept mentally readjusting my top 5 list every time I read something good so the honorable mentions are extremely honorable this year. I hope you read anything that sounds good from this list and tell me about it!

top 5:

chain gang all stars by nana kwame adjei-brenyah: when I say that this book is like the hunger games for adults, I’m not making a glib comparison between two books about fighting to the death, I’m saying that I haven’t felt so intensely about a book since I stayed up late to tear through the hunger games and sob about it when I was thirteen. this book is satire as real and devastating as I’ve ever read, with action scenes that feel like they’re being dripped directly into my hindbrain and a unique and believable love story. put it on hold at your library literally RIGHT now.

the actual star by monica byrne: about a post-climate catastrophe utopian society built around a religion started by a teenage girl in 2012 based on mayan traditions, and also about the teenage girl, and also about the maya. this book made me crazy because the future society felt real enough to touch, with its radical openness and collectivity solving problems that exist today but causing new ones that are totally novel and meaty and interesting to dig into. read it if you’re interested in different ways of being.

the spear cuts through water by simon jiménez: really, REALLY good, fresh, original epic fantasy. jimenez picks a few perspectives to stick to but hops fluidly into bystanders’ brains to give you their perspectives, so even background characters feel fleshed-out and no one’s pain is dismissed as a side effect of heroic battles or whatever. highly recommended if you like framing narratives and stories about stories, and like epic fantasy but wish it wasn’t mostly about finding acceptable enemies to slaughter with cool swords

the dispossessed by ursula k. le guin: I love how much this book is about hope as clear-eyed commitment to the boring and difficult work of a brighter and necessary future. sometimes the work of the glorious anarcho-communist revolution is leaving your university post and romantic partner for months at a time to dig irrigation ditches so nobody starves when there’s a drought. read this book for diplomatic conniving, a clash of values between a capitalist planet and its dissident moon, and hope.

imperial radch trilogy and its spinoffs by ann leckie: what if you were built to be a weapon of the empire, a serene sentient battleship with thousands of human bodies all containing your consciousness, and you lost all bodies but one and had to figure out how to be a person, singular and alone? what if you were a 19th century british military officer and you slept for a thousand years into the decline of the empire? what if you were grown in a vat to be a facsimile of human and then told off for eating all your siblings even though eating them was SO interesting? what then. leckie’s prose is incisive and funny, her unreliable narrators are wonderful, and her stories are intimate even though the backdrops are insanely huge. 👍.

honorable mentions:

house of leaves by mark z. danielewski: guys? anyone hearda this one? anyway. Something Is Wrong With This House horror with themes of storytelling and grief. recommending that you slam this book as fast as possible like I did so you can hold all its layers in your head at once.

the lathe of heaven by ursula k le guin: i thought I didn’t like ursula k le guin, and then I read this book, went OH and immediately devoured the hainish cycle. im so sorry miss ursula. this book about a hapless pacific northwesterner whose therapist is making him dream different realities into being is so sharp and sly and funny. themes of choices, ends and means.

he who drowned the world by shelley parker-chan: I liked the prequel to this addition to the radiant emperor duology. I LOVED this book. parker-chan has invented new and exciting modes of fucked-up codependency and im obsessed. historical light-fantasy with themes of ideals vs what it takes to reach them, gender, and regret.

babel by r. f. kuang: found the didacticism of this book annoying, but i really loved the concept of this novel and the way it slowly ratchets up the stakes. this novel is for people who want to smash the fun of the magic school genre against the reality of universities’ complicity in the imperial machine.

piranesi by susannah clarke: im late to this book but it’s such a weird little gem. peaceful yet unsettling. a man takes care of an endless house with an ocean inside it until he realizes the house is stealing his memories. themes of memory and devotion.

hell follows with us by andrew joseph white: I can only read YA these days if it’s a reread or if it’s genuinely good and really really strange. this is that. weird gory fantasy about a trans teen who escapes his militarized post-apocalyptic christian cult and finds himself turning into something Different. my only gripe is that he uses 2023-perfect language to describe transness and I think he should be inventing genders weve never even thought of. such is YA.

some desperate glory by emily tesch: a rolickin’ good space opera time with terrible women <3. a thriller about how the golden child of her isolated human-supremacist space station cult deprograms and the consequences of it. this feels like a grown-up SPOP until the theoretical physics gets involved. big fan

the library of mount char by scott hawkins: this book is harrow the ninth in suburbia until it becomes a more macabre version of the absurdity of the gomens apocalypse. God raises his children, sometimes brutally, to hone their powers in a neighborhood that mysteriously keeps out outsiders. came for the dysfunctional mess of the god-children and now I can never look at a grill the same way

runners up:

bunny by mona awad: books that make you WISH you were in mona awad’s MFA program where she must have been having a terrible time. the weird one out in an MFA program accepts overtures into the unbearable rich-girls’ clique to find out what they’re Up To. themes of aimlessness and the intersection of class with the art world

camp damascus by chuck tingle: have you ever wished that you were simply too autistic to be successfully demonically brainwashed into not having gay thoughts? horror-flavored thriller that was just fun

light from uncommon stars by ryka aoki: this author put a bunch of genres in a blender and came up with something fun and surprisingly cozy. an immortal woman must sell violinists’ souls to the devil in exchange for their fame, or he’ll drag her to damnation instead. there might be aliens and coffeeshop romance involved. definitely a blender.

the fragile threads of power by v. e. schwab: if you haven’t read a darker shade of magic and you like tightly paced high fantasy and historical fantasy elements, political intrigue, and pirates, read that first. if you have, there’s more now! lila bard are you free on thursday when I am free

the library of the dead & our lady of mysterious ailments by t. l. huchu: a teenage girl provides for her family in soft-apocalypse magic edinburgh with a job carrying messages from ghosts to their living relatives. an ongoing mystery series about the intrigues she uncovers among the dead.

severance by ling ma: this books is on the list of media that is the terror to me: it's about an apocalyptic disease that makes people reenact their routines mindlessly until they collapse. intimate apocalypse novel with themes of late capitalist malaise.

ocean’s echo by everina maxwell: i didn't really like winter's orbit because i'm just not a romance guy, but this second novel stands alone and the romance is more insane and less of the entire point of the novel. (also it's between essentially Discworld's Carrot and Moist Von Lipwig, which is. really something.) in the Space Military, a buttoned-up mind controller must pretend to bend a socialite with illegal mind-reading powers to his will. what if fake relationship but the relationship they have to fake is "brain linked master/servant pair."

the murderbot diaries by martha wells: novellas about a misanthropic security android who jailbroke itself in order to watch tv. the name "murderbot" is a joke but it very much did kill people <3 themes of paranoia and outsiderhood, corporate wrongdoing, repentance, and trust

black water sister by zen cho: zen cho is good at any kind of fantasy she writes, including this, her first modern fantasy novel. a closeted lesbian has to move in with her family in malaysia after college in the US, only to discover that her dead grandmother has some unfinished business involving a local goddess and a conniving real estate developer. themes of family, gender, and place.

the way inn by will wiles: a man who’s paid to pretend he’s other people to attend conferences in their place gets trapped in an endless Marriott. has the sharp humor of a colson whitehead corporate satire until it becomes more straightforwardly horror-flavored.

[flowersdiceandlove]

CQMS has a peak for making alcohol in canon. Except! What if they actually make all types of poisons? What if they only say it’s just alcohol so the other sects/whoever don’t get up in their business about why they have an entire peak dedicated to making poison?

These guys are unhinged. They are spending all their time researching all poisons out there and creating their own. Is it deadly poison? Yes. Some say “the deadlier the better.” Are there other types as well? Absolutely. Itching, sneezing, gas bombs—you name it and they either already have it (the likelier option) or will make it for you (it is rare for them not to have it already).

Ofc they work closely with MQF since poison is such a big part of medicine. Zui Xian and Qian Cao have a long standing friendship. ZX is the “unhinged, chaos making friend”, and QC is the “looks composed and like they’ll reign the other in but is actually spurring them on and giving them more ammo” friend. Sometimes a ZX disciple will actually look and act normal, but everyone in CQMS knows not to trust it. Everyone on that peak is insane in a mad scientist sort of way. You cannot survive there if you’re not.

[random-xpressions]

Sometimes she'll overthink, just fuck her brains out. She's made for this, not for that...

Random Xpressions

[bestworstcase]

actually comparing the divine ultimatum in the sanctioned version of ‘the two brothers’ to what the god of light really said to ozma is interesting. the received version is:

if your kind has learned to live in harmony with one another and set aside their differences, then we shall once again live among you, and humanity will be made whole again. but if your kind is unchanged, if you demand our blessings while still fighting amongst yourselves, then man will be found irredeemable and your world will be wiped from existence.

and the sanctioned version is:

If they are worthy, we will take their forms and walk among them as equals. If not, we will take back our gifts and start over elsewhere. […] Humanity will make it plain. If they come together in unity and find a way to destroy the evil in the world and within themselves, then they are worthy. If not … we will let them burn.

there are… two interesting alterations here.

#1, "we shall once again live among you and humanity will be made whole" becomes "the gods will take human forms and walk among us as our equals." gestures at ‘the gift of the moon’ and ozpin’s commentary thereupon…

One interpretation of this story focuses on the fact that the people caused the problem in the first place. But in my view, it is only natural for us to want to bring more light into the world and “reach for the sun.” And on the brighter side, if you’ll excuse the pun, people were also part of the solution. They not only replaced the sun, a celestial gift from the all-powerful God of Light, but also improved upon it through their own ingenuity. Most importantly, they could not have accomplished this magnificent, godly feat without uniting for a common purpose in a way they never had before. The world once was divided between day and night, light and darkness, but by coming together, and overcoming their inherent jealousy and resentment, people made the darkness just a little bit brighter for all.

…wherein ozpin sidles right up to the precipice of I Stand With My Damned Wife: it’s "only natural" to "reach for the sun," used here explicitly as an allegory for the gifts or blessing of the "all-powerful god of light," whom humanity "replaced" with something better through their own "ingenuity" (even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change, and in time, man’s passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity led them to the tools that would help even the odds) by uniting for a "common purpose" (when banded together, unified by a common enemy, they are a noticeable threat).

he also echoes the closing passage of ‘the shallow sea’ here in naming jealousy and resentment as the problem ("And the descendants of the Humans who turned away from our god’s great gift have always carried envy in their hearts. To this day, they resent us for reminding them of what they are not and what they never can be."), which suggests he did understand exactly what salem meant when she quoted that myth in relation to the brothers—that the brothers were jealous and resentful because humankind had risen anew without them and had no need of their old masters any longer.

he’s still talking about humankind setting aside their differences and coming together, of course, but whereas in previous commentaries ozpin frames this as a difficult ideal to strive for lest we all destroy ourselves, here his tone turns hopeful: coming together is more than possible, humanity has done it before to replace the gods’ design with something greater.

gestures at until the end. "to live free, or die, it’s all the same/the enemy was right, there’s no reclaiming/in waves of shame/we’re desperate to make amends…"

the essential problem for ozma is this: by the time he becomes headmaster ozpin of beacon academy, he’s come around to salem’s thinking on the mandate, to whit that redemption is impossible and thus the only choices are to accept death or to try, once more, to fight for humanity’s freedom. yet he still believes in the infinite divine authority of the gods—he is certain that rebellion can end only in death—and moreover he believes that what he’s done is unforgivable, that it is impossible to make amends. and he is also unwilling to just give up and submit humankind as it is now to the final judgment; his hope is gone but his conscience compels him to keep trying, because he can’t bear to condemn the whole world to death.

hence the book. on its face ‘fairytales of remnant’ is a propagandistic hit piece on salem but read from cover to cover it’s also a desolate apology and plea for forgiveness: history is important and we must listen to each other, he writes in the forward. here is the story about (the witch) the warrior in the woods, who deserved more help than she was given. here is a story about a foolish man who sacrificed his wife and children to appease the cruel, fickle sun. here is the myth you quoted to me once: i didn’t understand you then, but i do now, and there is a deeper truth in this story than i knew. here is my favorite story; it’s about a huntsman who still grieves his wife and a family that finds each other again after parting ways in acrimony.

here is a story about a foolish king who destroys himself out of fear that he will make the wrong choice, and the love that saves him. here is the nightmare i have about you, told as a cautionary tale against projecting our own evil onto the face of others we fear. and here’s a story about we humans scapegoating those who were changed, hating and fearing our own loved ones because they do not look the same. here is a story about me, and my failures, and the girl whose trust i shattered, and i will leave it to you to decide if i am worthy of forgiveness. here’s the story that tore us apart; the only good ending i can imagine anymore is the one where humanity replaces the gods. and this story is about my grief, my despair, and why i keep trying.

and here is a story about you, and the hero i was before all of this; look far enough ahead, and the hero becomes a villain, but hopefully the reverse can be true, too. here is a story about humanity coming together to replace and perfect our god-given gifts; maybe we can’t be fixed, but we could start over. i keep telling these stories because i am afraid and uncertain and i want to believe that all of it really mattered.

like beacon tower, built in the image of her prison, the book is a cry for help hidden between the lines of a hollow condemnation. in the thousands of years between then and now, he’s corrupted "the gods will return to rule over us all" into "the gods will be remade in our image," because ozma doesn’t want to save the world unless she can still be in it.

and #2, ozma says the quiet part out loud.

"if you demand our blessings while still fighting among yourself," the god of light tells him, "mankind will be found irredeemable."

take these words at face value, and the divine mandate doesn’t actually sound unreasonable: mankind mustn’t approach the gods with a sense of entitlement, and they should try to cooperate with each other and work through conflict peacefully. that’s within the realm of difficult, but not impossible. but…

taken into context as the divine answer to salem’s defiance and the rebellion against the gods, his true meaning is that mankind must come together in obedient submission to their creators, repudiating salem and all she stands for. it is her "selfishness and arrogance" for which all of humanity stands condemned.

ozma grasps this. i’d wager he understood it the moment salem told him of the rebellion and why the gods ended their "experiment" the first time. and so his telling of the task he’s been given is more honest: humanity must "find a way to destroy the evil in the world and in themselves" to prove worthy.

in ‘the two brothers,’ the "evil in the world" is explicitly the grimm, whom the god light disdains as unliving creatures formed from malice and hate for no purpose but "destroying all that is good in the world." the god of darkness protests that the grimm are more than that, chiding his brother to remember that they are the same. and the brothers made humans by combining their natures into one being, just as dark made grimm and light made animals by "[giving] their essence to their creations."

what then does it mean for humans to "destroy the evil in the world and in themselves"? keep in mind that the humans in the myth do not do anything even notionally wrong: the brothers go to war with each other and "wreak havoc," and terrified humans "prayed to their gods and asked if they were being punished, […] asked for forgiveness, […] begged for mercy." this is mankind’s sole participation in the divine feud, crying out to the gods in anguish why are we being punished? (COUGHS IN JOB.)

in ozma’s account of this story, there is no wrongdoing, no sin to redeem—no justification for humanity to be condemned. instead, the brothers attempt to go their separate ways and find that they can’t, having given too much of themselves to their creations to leave the world, so darkness suggests that they take back their gifts, "reclaim our power and wipe this experiment from existence." no no, says light, we should give them a chance to prove worthy first.

so it is clear—there is no ambiguity about this at all, because there is no wrongdoing—that the "evil within themselves" that humanity must find a way to destroy is darkness itself; the "essence" darkness gave them, the gifts of knowledge and destruction he blessed them with. the evil in the world is the grimm, and the evil within is the part of human nature that came from darkness.

now. ‘the two brothers’ is of course factually inaccurate, and we know (from the answer to "what is ozpin hiding?") that the omission of the whole rebellion isn’t because ozma doesn’t know about it—he does. he knows. rather, the rebellion is something he actively chose to hide.

why?

the mythical narrative deliberately elides the divine justification for condemning mankind to death in favor of emphasizing the pettiness and indifference of the brothers toward their creations—they intend to destroy humans for no other reason than to regain their former power—and also making a direct equivalence between grimm (the evil in the world) and dark’s gifts to humanity (the evil within), both of which mankind must find a way to destroy in order to appease the god of light. the absurdity of this is underscored by darkness’ explicit admiration for human resilience and resourcefulness in the face of adversity; he’s fascinated by their use of his brother’s gifts, choice and creation.

this is, again, not secret. this is a book that ozpin published and made the cornerstone of the huntsmen academies’ curriculum; ‘the two brothers’ as recounted here is a mainstream, widely-known religious story. ozma is the one who established this religion in the first place, and he’s had thousands of years to nudge the doctrine in the direction he wants it to go.

which is I Stand With My Damned Wife. lol

ozma didn’t believe salem when she "blamed the end of the world" on the gods, but once she told him about her rebellion—as she must have, for him to know about it—he agreed with her that she had done no wrong. the story he has been telling about the brothers all this time is one that casts mankind as innocent victims crying out for mercy, for forgiveness, blaming themselves for the cruelty inflicted upon them by uncaring gods. "the desperate humans prayed to their gods and asked if they were being punished."

in his heart of hearts, this is what he believes. that salem is blameless. that she didn’t deserve this. that she’s right.

he could save the world by uniting the whole world against her and calling on the brothers to condemn her, but he can’t—not only because this world just isn’t as dear to him without her but also because to do so would be a grave injustice, and he knows it.

he doesn’t believe that the final judgment can be averted, and he believes a second rebellion is as doomed to failure as her first attempt. the only salvation for remnant lies in destroying salem—who is the evil in the world (grimm) and the evil within (defiance, easily swaying the hearts of men)—but, she cannot be destroyed.

which gives him time.

ozpin doesn’t have a plan for defeating salem. that’s not the same thing as having no plan at all, necessarily, and salem believes he does have a plan.

gestures at "we shall once again live among you and humanity will be made whole" transforming into "we will take their forms and live among them as equals." and the gift of the moon. and "if you look far enough ahead, even a story with a happy ending may reveal itself as a tragedy, and heroes may turn out to be villains… hopefully, the reverse is also true."

(ozma’s character in ‘the girl in the tower’ is called The Hero. ozpin isn’t referring to her, there, but to himself.)

he’s… trying is maybe too strong a word, but ozpin wants to achieve salem’s preferred outcome (humanity replaces the gods) without a rebellion; ‘the shallow sea’ contains deep truths, he writes, and in ‘the judgment of faunus’ he remarks that faunus depict the god of animals as a "wise and noble" figure while humans portray them as an untrustworthy trickster. in the context of the theological disagreement between salem and ozma, ‘the shallow sea’ becomes an allegory for her opinion of the brothers—she rhetorically positions the people of remnant as the faunus, herself as the god of animals, and the brothers as the envious, resentful humans who refused to leave the boat.

in ‘the judgment of faunus’ a god offers to adjudicate between a group of humans and animals who cannot resolve their feud. if they can’t live in peace, they warn both sides, they will "kill one another off, and perhaps destroy the world in the process." when they agree, the god combines them into one being—the faunus.

in ‘the two brothers,’ the gods of light and darkness are portrayed as two halves of a sundered being, the primordial dragon, who—like the humans and animals in ‘judgment’—are "more alike than [they] realize" but "have grown to see only the worst in each other." they create humanity in an effort to resolve their feud, combining their natures into one being, but this fails to stop the conflict between them. their battle "wreaked havoc" and threatened to "tear the world apart." in the end they agree that, should humanity prove worthy, they will shed their divinity and become mortal men; otherwise, they will "let them burn" and part ways from each other forever.

in… other words, in ozma’s myth, it falls to humanity to decide the brothers’ fates: will they be changed into something new and so find peace, or will they be driven apart forever, destroying themselves and their world?

gestures at ‘the judgment of faunus.’ a god happens upon the bloody battlefield and asks why are you fighting?

gestures at ‘the two brothers.’ desperate humans cry out to the gods why are you punishing us?

gestures at ‘the shallow sea,’ which salem used allegorically to equate the brothers to envious, resentful humans who rejected the chance they were given to change and heal, and so returned to their previous unfulfilling lives. with herself implicitly positioned as the god of animals. this one, ozpin suggests, contains deep truths that everyone should take the time to consider.

looks into the camera like i’m on the office.

he includes ‘the shallow sea’ to represent salem’s theological argument against the divine mandate and offers ‘the judgment of faunus’ as a counterpoint, following the pattern of her allegory: the animals and humans represent the gods of light and darkness, and the unnamed god represents humanity (or perhaps just ozma, mirroring salem’s self-identification with the god in ‘the shallow sea’). i can end your conflict if you agree to let me choose who is right, says the god. (and is that not the intent of the mandate, in the end? for humanity to side with the god of light against his brother, for whom salem is only a proxy? to choose which brother is right?) and then the god’s answer is "neither. both. you are the same."

the primordial dragon and the division of the two brothers is made up. it’s not true. but ozpin chose that version of the story and paired it with the ending where the brothers promise to make peace by becoming human, by combining their natures within themselves and thus restoring their true nature as One Whole, light-and-dark and dark-and-light.

which is ozma’s plan.

or at least, it’s what he thinks might be the answer, even if he isn’t quite sure how to make it happen.

the god in ‘judgment’ is either wise and noble or a duplicitous trickster, not to be trusted, depending who you ask, says ozpin. the only way to unite the world to the brothers’ satisfaction is by destroying salem—removing her from it completely. salem can’t be destroyed… but.

but.

the brothers are fallible. she had lied to them, turned them against each other…

they can be deceived. tricked.

ozma is so fucking good at lying. he drove her into exile, erased her from history. what few people there are who know about her are sworn to secrecy and dedicated to keeping her at bay. if the gods had returned one year before the story began, what would they see? an elaborate performance of unprecedented global peace ruled by a powerful, benevolent cult of the light dedicated solely to slaying grimm for the good of all, with salem barred from participation in civilization, completely ostracized and forgotten.

it doesn’t matter if it’s fake. it only needs to last long enough to fool the brothers while ozma convinces them that he can settle their feud once and for all, if only they grant him the power to make it so and promise to abide by his judgment.

if he can trick them into giving up their power and becoming mortal men, then Everything Will Be Okay. it squares the circle, fulfills his god-given task without sacrificing salem to appease them or sacrificing humanity in a futile act of defiance. but it will only work if the deception is absolutely perfect and that brings him right back to square one, he needs there to be no perceptible conflict in the world when the brothers return lest they rule against humanity and he needs salem to be truly gone—not the common enemy everyone in the world stands against, but gone, so thoroughly rejected and forgotten that she has no presence in the world at all.

aaand the only way to accomplish that is by legitimately fulfilling his task, at least superficially. world peace, no salem, the leading power in every kingdom is a virtuous institution inculcating light’s values in noble warriors who protect the peace. it can collapse like the house of cards it truly is as soon as the brothers have taken the bait and shed their divinity but until then, it has to be so real that even oz himself believes it.

[moonlightdancer26]

Snape antis when SA, harassment, abuse, waterboarding, or illegal activities (it’s done by their favourite characters):

Snape antis when a toad gets threatened (it’s done by a character they hate):

[didsomebodysaypancakes]

When I'm watching a show/movie or reading a book, I have this thing called the Sam and Dean Test where I try to figure out whether, if one character died, the other would sell their soul to hell to get the other one back. Passing the Sam and Dean Test means that the characters would sell their souls to hell to get the other back.

Anyways, I'm 100% sure that Starsky and Hutch pass the Sam and Dean Test.