#because I can only save people in a story

[moghedien]

omg we finally got the mierin backstory and I truly cannot stop laughing her life sucks so bad all because oopsies she accidentally broke Satan out of jail? LMFAOOOOOOOO

Imagine you had a terrible break up with the person who is the love of your life, but you weren't the love of theirs. You watch this person marry someone they very clearly love and adore more than you. You watch the two of them have a family and grow happier and happier. And you can't even really escape seeing this because they're your colleagues and your ex is one of the most well known figures in the world. They're everywhere being very happy and living the life you wanted and you just have to watch it. And everyone only knows you as the person who used to date your ex and got dumped

So you pour yourself into your career and research. You're talented, after all. You're very talented and strong in the power even in an era of strong channelers. You haven't received the recognition you want or deserve, but you're still working, still researching, still making break throughs. Constantly being reminded of your ex by everyone and everything, but you're doing your own thing. And, well, its not really the life you wanted. And you are lonely, you are heartbroken, but you're going to help people and that will give you some fulfillment. You just have to commit to the work and not worry about your ex.

And you do make some genuinely remarkable breakthroughs. You and the team your working with find a source of what seems to be unlimited power. Something that isn't limited by gender or ability, something that anyone can tap into. In an age of already immense technology and knowledge and magic, you found something that could catapult it into a golden age for what is already a golden age. You're doing something that will help everyone, that will change the world for the better. You don't know what it might be. You have no reason to know what it is. No one has even heard of the Dark One, after all, how could they have expected you to?

And you tap that source and it does change the world by unleashing the ultimate evil into an Age that had forgotten such things even existed. Everyone knows you were involved. Other researchers that were working on this commit suicide in shame. You're the one left to take the blame, the scorn, the humiliation, the guilt for something that no one could have seen coming. For something that everyone would have done if they had been in your shoes. For something you certainly didn't mean to do. Your grand act that was going to save everyone damned the world. Your crowning achievement that was going to give you the recognition outside of the shadow of the person who broke your heart is now the thing that will stop anyone from trusting you or recognizing your talents ever again. You haven't even sworn to the Shadow yet and people already hate you, already blame you, are already concocting stories about you and your motivations.

And of course, the only thing people remembered about you before this was that your ex broke your heart. So now to everyone, you're just a jealous bitter ex girlfriend that brought literal hell to earth because you couldn't get over a man.

That's literally all anyone will ever see you as from now on, so that might as well be who you are.

[azonewithu]

I girss with your city in ruins snd everyone defeated by me youre the mediocre people you found out in the end. But i dont relate well to your movie that guy seems reas snd acts likr a punk. It coukd never be me because i dont take shit fton people. Ill kill snyone who gets on ny nerves Jenna. But its a cuye movie in enjoying it anyway its fun. Uour southern accent vanishes and reaapears its cute but kibd of smsteur hour. Didnt the firector notice that. Ha ha ga or say snything. It fiesnt take away from the story which idnt bad. An ambitious dtory but my msin pronlem with stories like this is some old guy wrote it or something. High school girls ate never this complex or interesting but i suspend my disbelief. Oh now its over. You werent bad in it. I cant relate though ive always stood out snd above all other artists Jenna. You know the best of your idiot i dustry cant hold a candke to me right. All the odlscars all thst time and none of you can write as well as me with as much power and prophecy. All the prizes you give im still deadlier snd better. You try abd gight me your whole ciry slmost burned. Emma asked me not finish uou off or Jenna your city would be gone too. Remember thst that girls saved your cute lil ass. Fucking with me can mean a bulket in the head you fint knjw snyoneceith sny power lije me.ill backhand snyone in your idusyrybi made you all look kinf if weak now. None of uou movies or stories are as vompelling as what i can write. You should slmist just give up but i know yiu wont. Whats the medium suzed word. Incorrigible. Yeah thats it. Its almost like you should taje a brrak but you never will. Thats your worst americsn fault. But you know what. Youre really great Jenba i live you andxwant you to do well anyway. I fint know why its not ir acting movues thats only the second one i saw. You pop off the screen and are sexy snd fun to watch. You want to kill everyone in your industry in a few sentences. None of your movies are as great as you say they are Hollywood or snywhete in earth. Oyher yhsn rate exception any time an ape tells me donethings so great i just say back, yeah its almost like they had a team of monkeys working on the script all week. Ha ha ha and check and mate. Its too mych youre too much period Jenna its too much making all your art shit. Even if it is good. You americans are loke that in msny ways. Trying living a little instead of expressing yourself or keeping track of everything. Tske a chance that youre not the greatest i am by far. Ive embarassed all you smericans msking you look weak. Im Azriel i kivked you ass eith the weather. Youre kind of a joke a lot of people are yhinking now. Ha ha ha im so fuckn right so i dont knlw go fuckn cry. The eorkd figured you put that youre kind of fucked. And you are plagiarists. Gid hates those people. You kind of maje me sick and i feel youre pathetic but i like art. Il not mad at my lik girls i live them. Its slways some asshole thats more got my ire. Im gonna hurt you all sone more you know tgstvright. Im hapoy the weathers crushing you. Your voubtry deserves ehat it gets good snd bad more bad than good thesecdays.

[f4th0usecat]

𝗶 𝗮𝗺 𝗮 𝐌𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐂 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂

ft. reader, mark grayson & his variants.

tags : angst, tragedy, only sorrow prevails in this short story.

tw! : reader has superpowers(blood manipulation), lower case intended.

song recommendations : all i need by radiohead, exit music (for a film) by radiohead.

blood, your blood. it drips, making a splattering mess on the cold floor you now claim as a canvas, your state being one of the many grotesque pieces to the mangled city before you. a city you once called home.

a groan escapes beneathe your lips.

what happened?

ignoring the jolts of pain and the swivels in your head, you muster the remaining strength to lift yourself from all the debris around you.

you can barely stand straight. cupping your left arm, it felt different, it felt deformed, it felt severed. you take a few steps into the open, having been caved in from a sidewalk along the streets of chicago.

you begin to walk mindlessly, in hopes of encountering citizens near you. you almost pass by a window, or the remainder of a store you knew all too well. you can only reminisce it’s warmth, being welcomed by the smell of freshly baked pastries, the soft chatters of customers reduced into background noise, a small radio by the cashier playing it’s tunes.

you glance at the window, a distorted image of yourself staring back. a very ugly one. a huge cut on the middle of your left arm, an open wound with your skin stretched far apart. mimicking the image of your forearm hanging loosely from your elbow. not to mention the amount of blood that trickles out of the wound.

you grimace at the sight of you, before disappointment seeped, curling your brows and huffing in frustration. you can only imagine all the blood you loss.

you take a good look at your surrounding, finally taking in the image of the debris, the buildings in flames, the lifeless bodies trapped under rubble. the sight made you flinch, taking a few steps back as your face contorted into pure horror.

bits of memories before the city fell flashes in your eyes. you and mar- invincible’s argument, avoiding the press, the short encounters of you and your fellow heroes(colleagues), your contract with cecil, running away from home.

right, you weren’t supposed to run back to the one place that might’ve salvaged what’s left of your hope in making things right again. your impulse on running back to the familiar house of a dear friend, or was, the grayson’s.

“fuck.” a curse slips between gritted teeth, if only you had held your ground.

“stay put.” cecil’s raspy voice rung through the earpiece. it was not a question, nor a command, he demanded you stay put. as the scene displayed on your tv pivot between cities being burnt to the ground, the ludicrous images spotting her mark grayson, in different twisted and unforeseen costumes.

you scoffed at the thought, as if mark would put up with those mismatch colors.

and you were right, because your mark would had shown off his new costume, your mark would have wasted no time saving countless of people’s lives knowing he is risking his. except, these floating figures weren’t him, they weren’t your mark grayson.

and they never will be. they were only fragments of different dimensions. different broken pieces of glass put into a mosaic they call a time stream.

you were pushed back into the present as you hear footsteps on pavement, paranoia kicking in. you were in no shape to fight were it a villain, or worse, a variant of mark.

you hurry on light footsteps, hiding in the shadows of an alley. thankfully there still is one despite the city’s ruin.

you muster any surge of strength into using your power. you manipulate your own blood. it pools itself back into your massive wound, splitting some of it into concocting a makeshift patch, quickly drying into a rough wrap. this will hold off into losing more blood, for now.

while you were busy tending to your own injury, you didn’t notice a tall and lean figure that stood down the opening of the alley.

a cough interrupts your thoughts.

your attention turns to the source of the only noise that has rang loudly in the silence that befell this city by far.

you suddenly felt sick, looking at the man before you. the face of the man you have grown to long and yearn for over the years. the difference only being that the man before you, had blood on his hands.

“not that i expect you to come running towards me, but i had hoped you wouldn’t look at me like that.” a different pitch to mark’s voice, suddenly felt too loud for you.

he scoffs at you. clearly having no clue of what to say in this bizarre scenario, a scenario you had anticipated to be in the form of a battlefield.

before you can even form a tought to a snarky reply towards the variant, his brows scrunch into concern. it only took him one glance to your left arm, before he started walking towards your figure.

you can finally see this mark up-close, his costume had kept the bright yellow, replacing the navy blue with black. and for whatever reason, his suit was clad in a cape with the same bright yellow.

for a moment you would had giggled, if not at the fact that the mark grayson before you isn’t entirely the invincible you’re hopelessly in love with. this mark wore an unreadable expression, yet let off as if something sinister hid behind that stupid mask.

“come with me.” he speaks with that condescending tone that keeps you from thinking he’s your mark.

you roll your eyes, you knew it was a command.

“if you think giving me an attitude helps, we’ll see if you can still give me one without those pretty little eyes of your’s.” a threat was spilt. you freeze under his gaze and the words that rolled off his tongue.

fear has wriggled it’s way down your spine. but you make sure you don’t let him see it.

despite the thoughts of compliance and subservience unconsciously floods your survival instincts. you hold the weight of his gaze, making an attempt to look unthreatened, silently sizing him up with the use of the anger apparent in your eyes.

“no.” you utter with a stern tone.

“hm.” he pauses, still no sign of any emotion drawn on his face. “i knew you would say that. afterall, you’re another variant of her.”

this piques your interest. you had thought by now you and this mark would be in a brawl out on the streets, but it has only took a few seconds for you to realize he hasn’t even laid a single finger on you. weird.

“ah, i’m guessing you and the me in this stupid fragile dimension, aren’t together?” he lets out another scoff, making you lean into pure confusion. together? you and mark were never together, you don’t even know whether he feels some type of way for you to begin with.

so you opt to answer the elephant in the room, the only viable answer to that question, “he’s with eve.” a slight crack to your tone. you aren’t aware if he notices the slight shift of tension in your body, but he makes no comment of it. letting your emotions play out.

“infact—what do i have anything to do with you? you’re probably just another mark with another eve.” you spat like venom, your emotions a blur as you ignore how reckless and stupid you probably look before him.

you didn’t even notice the lump forming in your throat, the way your jaw tightens as you continued to grit your teeth in resentment, your eyes turning glassy.

but he does.

“you’re my girlfriend.”

that makes you halt completely. suddenly every emotion you have ambitiously swallowed to a jar with pride, shatters as a tear drops. you could not believe what he had just said.

a mark from another dimension, in love.. with me?

at that moment, you could only think back to the argument that had happened way before mark and eve got together. the fight that had broken you, that had turned you into this vengeful mess filled with nothing but hatred towards yourself.

“—ah fuck, seriously?” another voice, or better yet, another variant of mark sporting a mohawk. looks as if he had walked in on or most likely had interrupted something between her and the sinister version of himself infront of her.

suddenly another voice of mark’s but in a different pitch joins in. “and i thought i was the only one who had thought of looking for her. i fucking hate you guys.” another variant with his mask clad in a mid-length cloth? or is it a rug?

“you just cant keep your hands to yourself, huh?" he huffs in clear amusement, before his lips form into a pout. as if he was throwing a tantrum towards how oddly calm and casual the scene is before him.

“fucking cheating bastard.” he mutters loud enough for the other variant to hear.

you couldn’t tell, but you couldn’t give anymore fucks to begin with.

only the realization dawns you, that there were other universes where mark motherfucking grayson may be or is irrevocably in love with you.

and knowing this universe’s mark doesn’t reciprocate the same feelings? only tears the last thread of hope. the unfortunate reality.

that in every other universe, mark grayson falls for you. and in every other universe, it doesn’t end well.

(edits were made)

[mysteryanimator]

Breaking down Castlevania Nocturne Season 02 - Episode 08 “The Devil is Easy to Cheat” Almost Shot-By-Shot

Previous shot analyses: S01E04 - Bedroom scene / S01E06 - Gulity Men to be Judged / S01 E08 -Breakup

Word count: 8.2k (I'm sorry it keeps getting longer)

We have returned once again to “mystery uses their media production and analysis skills, along with their hyperfixation on storyboards to talk about gay vampires, their other hyperfixation”.

For people new to my breakdowns:

If I skip any shots, its because I'm limited to a 30-image limit and some parts just won't have images BUT I will try my best!

I highly advise you to rewatch Nocturne after reading this and make your own thoughts because while this is an analysis, it also comes through my own lens. How you engage with media will be very different to me, however, there are principles that are followed to elicit certain types of emotions from an overall perspective. I'm here to break down those film codes and artistic principles :D I will be drawing over some of them, while others will be moving.

These are just observations based on my background in media production and analysis (I’ve been out of the field for a bit but trying to strengthen it back since it is important for storyboarding). Despite all of that, this is for fun, which is why I will be writing a lot more casually (which therefore specific interpretations may bleed through), so please don't take this too seriously! This not only helps me out as a student to become aware of how stories are put together and, in turn, how to apply them and make my own. It also allows me to impart that excitement to you and helps everyone to understand why they might be so drawn to a particular scenes (me included)! Shot choices matter, especially when you have only 12 episodes, a deadline, a budget, asset restrictions, and so on. It all has to count. Everything matters.

Passionate creatives care and there is more than "the curtain is blue just because." The times when things slip under the radar and are put there just because are mostly due to executive decisions, budget restrictions, deadlines and a lot more that we don't get to see from an audience perspective. I think in this day and age, people do forget about how intentional the media they consume is and Castlevania is choked full of carefully curated scenes.

With that out of the way, let's talk about gay vampires !!!

[Can't believe we're starting with no image. I can't show it due to image limits, I'm saving them for other scenes. Feel free to follow along on Netflix!]

After Edouard and Annette's conversation, we have shots of buildings. This is to establish a jump in time and a new scene occurring! Showcasing this large building is important because we cut to Olrox carrying Mizrak after this, and once you mentally pair that with this large building, it'll sink in that Olrox has been walking with Mizrak in his arms for a while now. We do not know what happened from the time we saw Mizrak walking side by side with Olrox to now, but we know he's getting worse for wear.

Then we get a close-up of a window!! Mizrak and Olrox scenes in season 01 were either introduced through pulled-out establishing shots that contained a lot of greenery (the courtyard in ep 03 / the breakup hill in ep 08) OR via windows of the inn. This gets continued here.

We get candles too and fire symbolizes life and we've already had Olrox state how his previous lover "burned with such passion". These candles supernaturally light up, which builds to foreshadow the transformation Mizrak will have as he goes from dying to being "alive" through supernatural means.

The following midshot purposefully cuts off their faces to continue to build suspense. Having a lack of face means we're unable to connect to them which is intentional. It makes us yearn to connect deeper because we can clearly see something is absolutely wrong. Mizrak isn't walking. This is super uncharacteristic of Mizrak and doesn't align with what we saw last.

[omg yay an image]

This is a midshot in which the camera moves from top to bottom/bottom to top. This type of camera movement is called a pedestal, though I have seen it be called a boom/jib. For any general camera movements, whether that be the aforementioned pedestal or a pan, the camera has to be motivated by something in the scene to move in that direction. So what is the motivator for this specific camera movement in this shot? The order of who we see in the shot.

It begins with Mizrak because now we finally have a clear view of him and he practically encompasses most of the screen because he's horizontal and how we view shows is with a landscape screen. Immediately the first half of this shot tells us two things. It's Mizrak and Mizrak is dying. It's something we need to immediately pick up on because the camera begins to move up. After all, a particular face is cut off. It's Olrox's. The second part of this shot has us reveal it is Olrox who is carrying Mizrak and what expression he's making. Dividing up our focus and moving the camera makes it less overwhelming to us as an audience to engage with this scene because it lets us focus on one thing at a time and builds up a shock factor. This is helped by the fact that the first focus point is horizontal, then when the camera moves up to shift focus, Olrox is dead center vertical.

This also feels like a reference to La Pietà. It is a sculpture of Jesus and Mary depicting the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary. La Pietà depicts the sixth, John 19:39-40. Jesus is being taken down from the cross and put into Mary's arms. While the death is over, Mary still grieves the loss of her son. What follows after this is the seventh sorrow as she watches Christ's burial waiting for his resurrection which feels very in line with what's happening right now.

[no image my bad sorry for the long wall of text]

Next, we have an extreme close-up of Olrox's eyes.

Eyes are a massive thing within this scene alone, and this shot here helps to establish his current thoughts and feelings because they take Olrox's eyes away after this. We no longer become privy to his inner world. Eyes are by far one of the easiest tells of a character and their current thoughts. Eyes are the window to the soul. Mizrak also in previous scenes has a ton of focus and close-ups of his eyes because he is such a guarded character but his eyes do tend to betray him. The exact same thing can be said for Olrox (his eyes betray him with Drolta when he lies about not seeing Belmont and co, won't lie, it's really funny).

One thing to note is the asymmetry of his hair, which never usually falls in front of his face. This is where I bring your attention in season 02, Drolta and Ezerbet questioned what Olrox has sacrificed. What or who he would die for. His hair has fallen in front of his face VERY MESSYILY in that instance as he looks down in deep thought. While there are other instances of his hair in front of his face, the example I brought up is personally the strongest call back (however I can be totally wrong and there can be more!)

Not only big wide expansive shots are used to establish new locations, close-ups do! They're usually always followed up by much wider shots, however. The purpose here is to show Olrox entering a new location, and moving from the hallway to the bedroom. This is super important to establish because this is the final leg of the journey they both have to traverse. We need to see them get from point A to point B or else it does not feel as impactful. The silent moments matter heavily for this type of scene because they say a lot.

Also, I'm a sucker for these types of compositions/lighting, it's actually one of my favorite shots in this scene. The doorway literally frames Olrox into a box and it keeps him centered in the shot. As he walks through, it is purposefully dark around him and the only light that peeks through is from behind. Backlighting a character not only helps to distinctly separate the character from the background, it often gives a halo effect which is associated with the divine and otherworldly. It can establish how powerful a character is. HOWEVER, Olrox is walking Mizrak away from the light, which can further strengthen Mizrak's descent into vampirism as it can be considered turning away from God due to the inability to accept human ailments and death.

This is a wide shot to establish the interior we're in. It's absolutely used to contrast the much smaller inn room in season 01 episode 03. The beginning of their relationship versus the end. The camera here uses a truck movement (the camera moving side to side, in this case, left to right). Its intention is to follow Olrox and draw our eye towards the bed in this scene, as this is where the rest of the scene will take place.

Now, if you’ve read my previous analyses, you will know how much talk about Olrox holding Mizrak from behind. It’s a key characteristic, it is so important to see their mental states as characters.

Olrox right now is holding Mizrak from behind. Except this time, Mizrak is accepting it.

The first time Olrox holds Mizrak from behind is he tries to persuade him out of death. The second (and third) time Olrox holds Mizrak from behind is to forcibly tear him away from death. This is the last time Olrox holds him from behind because he’s actively dying. though in this instance, instead of persuading or forcibly trying to pull him away from death- it’s him ending up gently carrying him away from death. Or one could even argue, that Olrox is actually gently taking Mizrak towards his death instead of preventing it. Death to his human self and his man-made chains.

While Mizrak never explicitly states “yes bite me turn me into a vampire”, and the room for ambiguity is there, there is an acceptance from Mizrak that begins the moment we see him in Olrox’s arms. Time and time again, we have seen Mizrak constantly fighting against Olrox, either by physically pulling away or saying the most horrific things known to man. This is entirely different. He’s being carried the ENTIRE WAY to the bed without fighting Olrox. His posture is a lot more open and exposed towards Olrox. He in this moment is giving himself up to him.

Why another wide shot? For the boxes lets gooo, Myst loves boxes and frames.

This shot uses the setting to frame Olrox and Mizrak. The bedframe acts to box them in and create a small space just for the two of them outside the view of anyone else. The background behind them showcases the hallway Olrox traversed and its length emphasizes the distance Olrox has been walking just for Mizrak to lay and rest.

By the way, why I'm wording what Mizrak tells Olrox as a confession later in this analysis is because of this shot. This deeply reminds me of the Anglo-Catholic practice of private confessionals. It feels like Olrox is here as a higher judgment, sitting and listening to Mizrak's confession of penitent. The boxing-in of the shots and how private it is begins to deeply feel like a confessional.

A close-up! While an extreme close-up is where the creative behind the shot forces you to focus on one thing, a normal close-up is usually aimed at the face and intended to communicate what the character is feeling or their current headspace with a whole facial performance. So, as you could probably surmise from this shot, what the artist intends to communicate a few things:

Olrox putting him down (neck area)

Mizrak breathing raggedly (mouth)

Mizrak opened his eyes to look at Olrox (top of face)

Mizrak is SO GREY, he lacks proper colour (overall face)

So for all of that to be seen, a close-up is needed.

Ok, why punch into an extreme close-up here if we already have a close-up of Mizrak in the exact same pose? This one solely focuses on his eyes. As I stated with Olrox's eye close-up, eyes are a massive thing in this wholeee section, so now it's Mizrak's turn for a eye close-up. Especially since for the remainder for this, Olrox does not show his face and Mizrak basically communicates for the both of them. The way Mizrak talks and looks at Olrox is an indication of how Olrox could be feeling.

Also, how can you not have an eye shot paired with the line "You've seen the devil, then, waiting for me." This falls into place really well.

This midshot does a lot of things, more importantly, it establishes where characters are in the scene because, for the rest of this entire section, it is basically all close-ups. This helps to ground where everything is because later on, Mizrak gets panicked. In turn, the camera and timing match that, therefore we can begin to lose our sense of where we are WHICH is a good thing to sell that idea, however, we need to establish where everything is before that is done.

This also establishes Olrox is just never going to be showing his face until the very end because now the camera has locked itself to this side of the characters.

Another thing is also how Mizrak's wound is practically in the middle of the shot. It is more clearly obvious that the wound is straight in the middle of where the cross is on his uniform. Mizrak in a funny not so funny way, is being martyred. He is dying refusing to give up his faith or beliefs. While he is defined by his religion because that's a core aspect of his character, he actually mostly believes in the people. He believes and cares strongly for characters like Maria who neither of them politically align together, but he makes sure she gets to her house. He wants her safe.

This midshot is very important because while Olrox's face is purposefully obscured, Mizrak's face never does. What's interesting is that Mizrak is looking directly at Olrox as he braves his confession of weakness. Not only is Mizrak's eyeline just up toward him, but Olrox's body is just purposefully included in this shot. When Mizrak continues to confess his fears further into this scene, in the back of our minds we have the fact Olrox is intently listening the entire time even though he is shunning himself away from the audience. For the next three shots, he literally disappears from the audience's perspective, but not from Mizrak's eye line. His current expression when listening to him is literally just for Mizrak to know.

These are all extreme close-ups! The purpose of this is to directly have you focused a very specific reaction and emotion! The main focus of the first shot is to solely focus on Mizrak's eyes looking directly at Olrox, then him looking down and away from his face before getting scared literally the moment his eyes move off him and he looks back up at him. Multiple different reads of the situation can be applied here since why Mizrak looks down is not exactly stated to us. One thing I will say is that what motivates a character to move their eyes down another character's body is to literally check their body, either for attraction or concern.

Mizrak is dying here though. Why does his eyes drop? It can be for a multitude of different reason but the most likely is the self-actualisation of the eternity of torment.

What's important too is that in the second shot, Mizrak's hand shakes before stopping. We need to see that. Especially paired with that specific line because his shakes stop after saying "no release", which is basically a visual contradiction. Having something visually stop while having a dialogue about unending pain and suffering. To me personally, this hand movement can read as two things, though there are definitely more interpretations, these are my two takes based on different focuses.

Tremors are caused by fear, but he however can control them which is why it stops. This is his last attempt to feel like he has control over his situation. This is based off the fact the line contradicts the action taking place.

This isn't him shaking, this is him fighting himself to reach out to Olrox physically. His hands can be read as clenching and unclenching rather than tremors. This is based off the idea of how visually Mizrak is alone in these shots and Olrox's presence in a is absent (but can be sensed he is outside of our line of sight).

Hey so, fun fact, this has happened before. Extreme close up of hands/eyes whilst they talk about demons/hell. BOTH SIDE PROFILE TOO.

Again, hands and eyes are key indicators of how characters can feel in the moment, and the character Mizrak uses this to great effect since it pairs very well with his guarded persona.

Also oh my god look at him being so full of colour compared to now.

A close-up! It is probably one of the most vital shots in this entire sequence (alongside Olrox's iconic line). Mizrak cries A LOT in this season, but here, he purposefully doesn't try to hide or turn away- he admits this while staring directly at him.

An important detail is that his dialogue of torture and agony are all solo shots. Alone. This is on purpose. This confession of fear is also visually alone, but he calls out to Olrox by name in this solo shot. What this does is that it gives permission for Olrox to re-enter the scene, hell, you could argue Mizrak is begging Olrox to re-enter the scene. Technically, Olrox has not left the scene because Mizrak stares at him the entire time during his confession, but Olrox has left the audience's line of sight, which makes Mizrak's shots feel that much more isolated and alone.

This is a personal take, but it also has evidence. This is one of the bravest things Mizrak has said thus far in the entire series. His bravery and strength should not be measured by running into battle to protect the ones who cannot protect themselves- his measure of courage and strength lies in being vulnerable and admitting weakness. I actually discussed it in my season 01 - episode 04 analysis, so the groundwork for shielding vulnerability only for it to be opened up has been there from the very beginning. There is build-up and now it's being released all in one go, which is really interesting considering the fact Mizrak talks about agony upon agony with no release, but here, he's releasing all of his emotions.

Mizrak has also said Olrox’s name about three times now. That is the exact amount Olrox said Mizrak’s name in the last season. Funnily enough if you squint hard enough they can be call and responses to each other.

S01E03 - “Has the world abandoned you, Mizrak?”

S02E04 - “I’ve seen enough too, Olrox.” (girl what have you seen please tell us)

S01E06 - “Of course not Mizrak, I’m not in love with you.”

S02E05 - “If you do have soul Olrox, and maybe you do. I hope it finds peace.”

S01E08 - “I don’t want you to die, Mizrak.”

S02E08 - “I’m afraid, Olrox.”

In any visual entertainment medium, repetition comes in threes so something has to happen after this, which we'll get to very shortly (it's the "my love" part).

This close-up of Olrox is used to slow down the scene and break the tension caused by Mizrak's scenes. It's utterly silent, a complete contrast to the panic and the wordy confession by Mizrak.

What this shot does is help build anticipation for him to share the screen space with Mizrak as he lowers himself in this shot. We're also not privy to his face. This also builds up the anticipation of seeing his face later on and really hammers that impact.

This shot is very important as it reintroduces Olrox to be in the same visual space as Mizrak and this is the very first thing he does.

When reintroducing Olrox back in, two new things are introduced. Well more so not new things, two pre-existing motifs/concepts get elevated.

Hands. This is not new, hell, Olrox holding Mizrak is by far not a new thing and it is one of the key visual characteristics of their dynamic, hand-holding however, is definitely new.

"My love", is absolutely very new, but of course it is a replacement for Mizrak. Mizrak's name gets elevated to my love.

What's also very interesting is how pulled out this shot is. This is important however as two different elements are here to strengthen this shot.

Mizrak's entire dagger is in this shot. A weapon of violence is here to contrast the gentle nature of Olrox reaching for Mizrak's hand. The matter of fact that the dagger is placed in this shot BUT lacks any very heavy visual weight implies how any agony, torture, or violence is currently being subsided as Olrox's hand is in front of it.

The bed sheet takes up a major part of the lower thirds of this shot. Take notice of it's colour and pattern. I do go over it in my mindless talks about the Nocturne eye colour analysis, but I'll reword it to fit the context of this scene in particular.

Olrox is coded purple and green. Not only in his character design, but in the locations he's often put in. If you think back to every single space Olrox has shared with Mizrak they are all green. Mostly grassy outdoor environments, however, if they are not outside, the inn is very naturalistic in colour and framing like nature itself. This showcases where Olrox is compared to Mizrak in a power dynamic. Mizrak just does not have any strong vibrant colours to define him that aren't monochromatic or brown, but that's kind of the whole point of his character. This just easily allows for when he shares a space with Olrox, the green and any other vibrant colour to overwhelm Mizrak, and in a funny way, make Mizrak stand out very oddly because Mizrak isn't visually a vibrant character.

So this one shot, it basically informs us how Olrox is wrapped around Mizrak and is not willing to let go.

This is shot is so impactfullllllll, the build up to this is soooo good.

This is a close-up shot, what's important though is how much Olrox visually takes up screen space-wise, completely contrasting the previous shot. Especially since this is the first time we haven't seen his face in a while. This shot chooses to specifically focus on Olrox's eyes and mouth. This builds to anticipate what is to come and have us on the edge of our seats, questioning if Olrox is going to actually bite Mizrak. The closeness of the shot too makes this scene very intimate to continue this more romantic, yet still dark atmosphere going on.

Also what's important to mention again is Olrox's hair strands, which is used to block and frame this shot. In a sense, it makes the shot that much more suffocating and close in. While Olrox does not show any panic or fear emotionally, simply because Olrox is trying to comfort Mizrak, this feels like Olrox is in fear. By having this line paired with a close-up of Olrox only, it makes it feel like Olrox is locked to the one sole option. His sole decision. He's currently not going to be taking any other suggestions because how can he? Mizrak admitted his fear of death/hell, and by no means Olrox is giving into Mephistopheles/Old Man Coyote.

What choice does he have? He has no other choice... right?

The theme of choices is a massive thing in Nocturne Season 01. Olrox's first appearance in the show is with him says "don't listen to her, there is always a choice". Olrox is the one to introduce this theme of choices, but here now, Olrox is backed into a corner with no other choice.

[No image sorry]

Next we have a close-up of Mizrak's eyes.

While this will not be the last we ever see of Mizrak's eyes since we have another shot, his eyes are important. This reaction is important. We need the pause for the gasp and his shock. What's important is that his eyes do all the talking which in my mind is much more powerful as it communicates ten different billion things and leaves it up to the audience's interpretation of how to engage with this scene.

However, the most important takeaway for everyone is that we have to see Mizrak be shocked.

This is important because of course, a close-up of the mouth is there to state how Olrox is going to bite him, therefore you need to put a lot of emphasis on that to really hammer it in, but the focus of the mouth moves. It does not move with Olrox however, Olrox moves himself and out of the camera. This puts emphasis on his descent, really building for that anticipation of the bite but it gives us one last tiny glance at Olrox's mental headspace before the bite.

It is so brief, but we see his eye and that's important. You don't include anything that isn't important because this is a serialised animated series, you're not going to spend additional time on something that lacks importance (I think, this is me guessing I can be so wrong here). Also, his eyes are green they're going to stand out against black and brown. His eyebrow is upturned and his eye, from what i can personally read, is far more gentler than his previous shot.

(i won't lie, seeing this loop is very funny to me)

Another close up and this is the final time we see Mizrak's very brown human irises. This is the last thing we see of his humanity. This is animation, so it's important to capture Mizrak's face before the bite, Mizrak's initial shock of pain and some sort of acceptance as his irises settle back to normal size before closing them with tears. Honestly, it's better to just click through it on Netflix frame by frame if you really want to see the arcs Mizrak goes through in this one shot, its very cool to see him go through all these phases in a short amount of time. While nothing is stated outright for the morally grey area which is on purpose. It builds off the whole conversation from the season 01 episode 06.

Mizrak: And you did that to him? Did you even ask for permission?

Olrox: I was in love with him, I wanted him to be with me forever.

Mizrak: And is that what you have planned for me?

Olrox: Of course not, Mizrak. I'm not in love with you.

This leads to one of two outcomes for the future. Either Olrox repeating a cycle beat for beat, or Olrox trying to fix previous mistakes in a "what would I do differently if I went through this again." Both come from his survivor's guilt. This will be explored further in season 03 (please I need it so bad) in a much more complicated nuanced way because this is Mizrak we're talking about. Despite him having overlapping traits with Olrox's previous lover, he is also the very opposite of him (that we know of since we can gather Mizrak is so self-loathing, while Olrox's previous lover embraced his connection to the land and fought for the rights of his people, so we can make the assumption that he embraced his whole identity).

This mid-shot paired with another pedestal camera move! The camera is motivated to move up so it can showcase the new character positions in the location, Mizrak's hand placement, Olrox's arm and of course the biteeee, followed by Mizrak's expression. It's staggered one after the other.

One thing you must notice is Mizrak putting a hand on Olrox's elbow (this gif makes it so hard to see, this is me asking you to rewatch it on Netflix for a better view) which can imply acceptance of vampirism. It's animated intentionally. Again, nothing is stated outright, but also media is kind of boring to engage in if you spell it out verbally. What's the point of a visual medium without using visuals to a storyyyy. It also just gives autonomy to the audience to come to their own conclusions which is also more fun. The lack of a spelled-out answer makes us more engaged as an audience.

Then we get a fade to blackkkkkkk~

While this is mostly just to symbolize the end of a scene, in a lot of other media, fade to black is used to cut away from sexually intimate scenes which is funny knowing that context.

What's fun is that this scene is supposed to run parallel with Richter and Annette's scene kissing (I'm not sure, there could been a stronger scene to parallel this, I just know in my soul of them is supposed to go in line with a Richter/Annette scene). One character takes care of their partner's aliments and sharing an intimate moment together. Whilst they are definitely not one-for-one, these two couples are supposed to show different aspects of love as this entire series, both the original and Nocturne, have very strong themes of love in it. This also just allows for whatever they have planned for season 03 to make them still feel closely tied even if they're literally doing completely different things.

Ok we are done with this sequence, time to jump to the spicy one!

This is our establishing shot for the scene. Curtains. A window. Through both season 01 and season 02, we’ve been getting so many cues about Olrox and Mizrak’s association with windows and curtains. Also, the last time we saw curtains as an establishing shot for Mizrak/Olrox, they were naked. This builds off our previous expectations.

Also, this is super vertical and red. This will be VERY IMPORTANT LATER. Greenish yellow curtains were used to represent Olrox, but this is red.

We jump to pedestal midshot, which just gives us a lot of questions. Where's Mizrak? WHY IS HIS SHIRT OPEN? WHY IS HE LAYING LIKE THAT? NEW CLOTHES??? WHAT'S GOING ON??? That's all intentional because we don't have any setting establishing shots and therefore it feels disorientating on purpose. It forces us into questioning mode. We can only presume we're in the same location due to the bed and camera angle feeling the exact same as where we left off in their previous scene together, but that's all we get.

Pedestal camera movements also just happen a ton in this sequence simply because Mizrak's reveal is all ton in pedestals and it complements nicely with the fabric falling down, so setting up the movement early helps ease it in.

This shot can also totally parallel season 01 episode 04 where Olrox turns to look at Mizrak leaving the bed since both of those shots are framed above Olrox. This can also totally parallel Olrox killing Julia as his hair is in a circular motion in a similar shape to the blood.

@ifishouldvanish did an amazing breakdown of this and for the life of me I cannot find it, but once that's found I'll link it here, in a sense it's basically offering his blood up to Mizrak here.

EDIT: Thank you Vanish for sharing it! This comments the Olrox/Julia parallel along with discussing the Quetzalcoatl and how they overlap with what's occurring in this scene! You can read it here!

We cut into this close-up! The main thing here is directing our eye-line to stay on the left of the screen and build anticipation for Mizrak's face. Every single shot's aim is mostly for that build-up for that pay off.

Close-ups, as I've stated before, are used mainly to see an emotional performance from the character and therefore personally connect to their feelings. This however, which I will be personally honest, is so hard to read but I feel that's on purpose to give into the ambiguity aspect of not only the scene but also of Olrox as a character. Both Olrox and Mizrak are expressive and extremely very guarded, so it definitely leans into that. It also gives the audience the autonomy to come to their own conclusions. Like this can read as a very gentle smile, it can read as a subdued concerned look- it's your interpretation and how you personally engage with this entire sequence. It allows the ending to be a lot more open-ended.

This longshot! It gives more of the background to establish where characters are in the scene but do notice how things seem different now. Notice the colours in this shot. We're introducing Mizrak's new colour motif. It practically dominates the entire scene, even if Olrox's eyes glow bright green. Not only this, this shot builds up for the anticipation of Mizrak's vampire transformation reveal as all the red fabric drapes down in an almost waterfall/dripping way akin to blood.

We also begin to have the fabric move down, bleeding into other shots to stitch them cohesively together (that pun was intended).

Also, this is super intentional again, but Olrox is boxed/framed by the bed with very harsh lines and rectangles. This deeply contrasts Mizrak's shots because Mizrak doesn't visually get confined by the background due to all the drapery and the blurred background. He is also associated with vertical organic lines. This creates a deep separation between these two characters, giving us suspense and tension because there's a clear disparity between them.

Woo! A midshot! This shot feels so long and so short in timing.

This is super vertical. This shot is 90% made of vertical lines, which brings a ton of focus toward Mizrak's back and the drapery because they're the only two things that are not vertical.

The drapery here is basically a curtain unveiling the main piece. This is Mizrak's rebirth, he has transformed. This is coupled with artistic nudity as nudity isn't inherently sexual and represents the form in its barest sense. You could even say it's religiously coded.

Also in general, if you put anything on the very edge of your shot visually, it creates unease so if you put something as bright as light on the very edge, it makes your shot unbalanced. This is done on purpose. The dark aspect of this shot is literally all-consuming and makes the left heavy focus feel more menacing because there's so much empty dark space.

This mid-shot is paired with a pedestal camera move! The camera is motivated to move in an up/down position due to the last shot having the robe fabric around him move down as a reveal, therefore continuing that movement here to continue the reveal of Mizrak’s transformation. While yes "teehee look at his chest awooga", rightfully so, me too, you notice the blood and wound are absent. Mizrak looks strong and healthy. The pedestal camera movement is used to great effect again because the first thing you're focused on is his chest, then it moves up and you see the bite marks and the ear. Information is slowly given to us.

I'm putting my case down that this shot is a callback to Season 01 Episode 03, in which Olrox peers outside the window of his inn room. They both have this same forlorn look as they look out.

This cut to a close-up and having Mizrak switch up is fucking terrifying. This is because the background is completely blurred to give Mizrak the center stage. The background is completely separate to him, he doesn't feel grounded to it as if he's popping out of the screen. His eyeline is directly at US, the audience.

When Mizrak turns, his eyes glow bright red. We've seen this before where someone turns their head and their eyes shift from their natural colour to bright red. In-fact, Mizrak has seen this before.

Tera does this BEFORE with Emmanuel too when he insinuates on Tera's vampirism affecting her love for Maria. Another example, while not as strong (simply because the freshly turned vampire comparison) is Ezerbet demanding Emmanuel to bring back Drolta but all of these points of contention surround love and so-called monsters having souls.

Side note, it's very interesting that she yells at Emmanuel, but cries over Mizrak's comment and her red eyes disappear. Obviously, the stark difference is that Emmanuel literally sacrificed her, but it showcases that Tera and Mizrak probably were close friends since he makes sure to actively protect her daughter and he knows his way to their house. Just something to think about with these newly turned vampires and how their lives will come to overlap eventually.

While this trait may just be an Ezerbet thing, we don't know, notice how the glowing eyes occur in highly intense emotions surrounding people they love deeply. The Tera example just being stronger to back up this case since she is a recently turned vampire. Eyes are super important in Nocturne for both vampires and humans. Alucard's eyes go bloodshot red like Dracula's when he fully powers up. Maria's eyes go pitch black as she initially summons Seiryuu. Olrox's eyes glow bright green as he spies from Mizrak from his inn room window. Richter's eyes glow icy blue as he fights Drolta and eventually confronts Olrox.

So what does this mean for Mizrak? Again, this will begin to pull into interpretation based on other scenes in the show and how I viewed those. One thing I can say is that Mizrak still "has a mind that can think and a heart that can love" - Olrox S02E01. We need to pull that context from Olrox/Tera's conversation, Tera/Emmanuel's conversation, Ezerbet's demands from Emmanuel, Drolta's night creature transformation, and Alucard's conversation with Maria about Dracula. While there definitely are more conversations that can further strengthen the point I'm making, no matter who you are, monster, vampire, or human, they all have a soul, you are innately the same even after transformation. It is however your choice to indulge in the powers of vampirism and abuse it or stand against its tide. This includes Mizrak now. The choices he makes now are still him. Which why it makes it all the more shocking because the last time we saw him, he was having a crying session, pouring out his heart and soul to Olrox but suddenly now he's quiet and fucking terrifying. We as an audience mentally have to determine which choices he has made. Did he cry after feeding, sobbing over the violence like countless times before or did he indulge in the powers he manifested? Or a third other more complicated idea? I'm not going to say my personal opinion outright to avoid swaying your own because the intention of this shot is to make you question and really dig deep about it.

Also if you're still interested in my personal opinion I feel like it really seeps through in all my fan art and just this informal essay in general. Even then I do have a ton of thoughts about it that are not perceivable in the public eye because, in my brain, their dynamic is so convoluted as individuals LET ALONE THEM PAIRED TOGETHER. The thing is too, multiple different ideas and interpretations co-exist in my brain at the same time so it's really hard to get a proper personal opinion without me just saying "me like Castlevania : Nocturne more than a normal amount."

This is a long shot, it establishes the room they’re in, where the characters are placed and the location. While it is always important, the is colour, character placement and framing is something I’m specifically calling out here.

This is an extremely red room. The colour red is now heavily associated with Mizrak. The only thing that isn’t red is the bed, aka where Olrox is placed. It is green, a colour often associated with him. Often then not, Olrox and Mizrak’s private scenes usually tend to be placed in green environments, giving the sense to the audience of who is higher in the power dynamic. Not only here, that has been changed but with the way the bed frame is placed, it literally boxes Olrox into this section. It makes him appear a lot smaller and appears to take up less space. The roles are swapping. We've already seen this by Olrox joining the fight, and now we have Mizrak accepting vampirism.

This midshot is used to communicate him getting up from the bed and giving Mizrak the same dark stare. It also just gives a reason to see Olrox's torso LOL.

This shot is super vertical which challenges every other shot Olrox has been in because he's been horizontal or laying down the entire time. This and the previous shot is now on par with Mizrak who has been associated with vertical organic lines.

This shot is laced with so much mystery and lack of any conformation because you can also again, interpret as you wish with this shot. That's the allure of it though, that's why people love this shot.

[no image here sorry, curse you 30 image limits]

The next shot I wanted to talk about was the transitional curtain/drapery which is super fun as a way to go between shots. It's a super reminiscence of curtains unveiling a performance on stage or a magician trick behind the curtain to reveal a transformation or something disappearing. What the drapery reveals for the first one is two close ups of Mizrak's new form. His teeth and his dagger-like nails. These are vital to showcase the violent potential of his body. His new weapons.

What's interesting is that Mizrak is growling. Mizrak throughout the entire show harks on about animals, yet he himself has become the thing he's sworn to hate- hell, before his transformation, he literally barks and growled at other people, this is just manifesting it in physical form.

Animals to him (from what I've gathered) are free to follow their heart’s content (which is something Mizrak is yearning, desiring and longing to be like if you think about it), which are not bound by the rules made by mankind. The church's rules appear they are given by God, and the Abbott fights for Him in His name, but these teachings are reinforced by infallible men despite taking vows of obedience, stability and conversatio morum (fidelity to monastic life, which vows of poverty and chastity go under these). Mizrak is blind to the fact he is serving men's idea of God rather than God Himself, but it all begins to unfurl at the seams during season 01 and Mizrak finds himself trying to still cling to it in season 02, but it's just himself now. It is literally just faith as his companion at this point.

Ok Mystery, tell me how this shot of Mizrak’s ass is important. Why incorporeal voice, I’d love to tell you. So I'm not joking when I say this is Mizrak liberating himself from his man-made chains. Nudity, as I stated before, can mean rebirth but it can also represent vulnerability. This literally bares out Mizrak in his entirety, unbound by his uniform, and by his ties to his religion. Vamprisim in a way has led him to accept his other parts of his identity (not fully though because this is Mizrak).

Going off into another media, but it reminds me of Louis from Interview With the Vampire (2022). He comes to terms with his queer identity through being turned into a vampire and if he never got turned, he probably would have died never accepting that part of himself. Honestly, I think that show is very good to overlap its theme with Mizrak and Olrox, and also in general a very visually/narratively-driven strong show, I would highly recommend it.

Okay, let's get back on topic!

They're posed specifically like that to make the silhouette distinctly clear of where they are, but Mizrak and Olrox's poses intrigue me. The way Mizrak's legs wrap around Olrox's thigh and how very intentionally his hand goes to the side of Olrox, especially since we have jumped from two shots of his dagger-like fangs and nails, which appears very violent, yet this is very intimate. Then we have Olrox, whose pose is also very open. It's accepting whatever onslaught hunger Mizrak has. This is strengthened by the contrasting vertical and horizontal lines in this shot as now Olrox is horizontal. He lasted about 5 seconds before being back on the bed.

Another thing is that compositionally, Mizrak is above Olrox and takes up a lot more visual space then him, which places him higher in the power dynamic. Mizrak has never been in that position until now. Olrox is much lower in the composition and most of it is covered up by Mizrak, being placed lower in the power dynamic, which is also a very new thing. This further pushes the new roles they have in this dynamic.

The sound effect for Mizrak landing on the bed isn’t as harsh or violent as I expected despite the appearance of the velocity he was going at in the previous shots. I'm going to take that as intentional because Mizrak looming over Olrox is a parallel to season 01 episode 03. While the sounds are not the same they're way similar. In turn, almost every single shot in this sequence can be tied back to a previous shot in season 01 I'm not kidding. This is why this works so well, everything is coming back.

All those visual parallels can be seen here on my Bluesky!

This one shot is both fucking absolutely terrifying but it also communicates "woah hot" which is great, we need more of that in media. Give me more horror mixed with sexuality in a vampiric context thank youuuu.

This shot moves from a midshot to a close up because Mizrak moves himself. The camera isn’t motivated to move, he is, exactly like Olrox's bite shot. We’re also placed in the position of Olrox. The shot just LINGERS on Mizrak just staring at the camera and it’s just slightly longer then the norm. To me, this reads as if Mizrak is literally eyeing up prey. Terrifying.

The presumption can be made that Mizrak, being newly turned (evidenced by the still-fresh bite marks) needs to feed. Much like how Tera needed to feed off Ezerbet. However, instead of forcing blood into his mouth much like how Ezerbet dribbled blood into Tera, Olrox just lets Mizrak come to him animalistically. This does not strike any fear into him, hell his expression is so muted. Though we never get any close-ups of Olrox's facial expression when Mizrak goes to look at him which is very intentional, we don't get to have a proper read of Olrox's expression and continues to steep this further into mystery, yearning for more information on this scene. This also just ends in another fade to black, Olrox bit Mizrak in the last sequence analyzed, now we can again presume Mizrak is biting him due to this.

This is our last shot of Olrox and Mizrak. It leaves us to question what happened and what will occur in the future. It doesn’t even give us any answers but it lays the foundation for theories and the potential for season 03.

Another thing to note is that Olrox, originally known as Count Olrox/Count Orlok in Castlevania : Symphony of the Night was based on Count Orlok from the gothic film Nosfertau (1992). There's a whole thing where Count Orlok's shadowy hand clasps over Ellen's heart/chest and she reacts quite 'suggestively' to it. This scene is used to comment on the societal taboo of sexuality and indulging in it. This basically kind of happens in this entire sequence, but instead, it's Mizrak's shadow looming over Olrox and it's Mizrak initiating the act. If you apply that lens here, you can engage with the scene as Mizrak letting himself come to terms with his sexuality, a thing he considers taboo and forbidden through vamprisim.

A section of Nosferatu I'm talking about can be viewed here.

And we're done! Apologies for skipped shots and if any of it got really clunky or had any odd grammar. I hope you enjoyed this informal essay discussing episode 08 and I hope you got something out of it! I'm stopping this now before this consumes my brain because I need to hop onto graded studies. This was a very fun study and I hope to do more in the future!

[creatingblackcharacters]

I love Wyll with all of my heart. But I'm pretty uncomfortable with his story.

Having the only canon Black character be "owned" by a demon, and getting literally demonized for NOT killing an innocent person (I've seen people say that Karlach is nonwhite coded, possibly also Black, but since Samantha isn't afaik I'm not counting her even though I do headcanon that a human!Karlach is either Black, or Polynesian which I've also seen) and Wyll doesn't get to have any agency in his story! Basically every other character can make the choice for their major plot themselves if encouraged but Wyll LITERALLY cannot! The PLAYER must make the choice for him (and of course, if you choose not to save the life of his "owner" Wyll is sentenced to a fate worse than DEATH!)

Like, Wyll deserves better, both in canon and by the fanbase

Karlach's actress is Black biracial (though, she's said some shit that's made me smh a bit).

But also, the creation and reception of Wyll as a character has been heavily marred by antiblackness. 😐 I was already put off by the idea that some white woman (and yes IDC that she's "not technically", if we can see Blackness, we can see whiteness) owned him 😅 there was already a lot going into that that could be read and done so well... If both the writers and the viewership were aware of antiblackness visuals and history 😐 And it has become obvious to me that many people... Do Not.

I think his entire saga really is a combination of "creators need to create with more intent for their Black characters" and "viewers need to recognize their own antiblack biases in order to understand this character", and neither side was willing to do so, because they were already comfortable in their profit and enjoyment of said antiblackness. So! 🤷🏾‍♀️

[vodika-vibes]

A Burden Shared

Summary: Fox decides to take matters into his own hands when his Jedi General starts burying herself in work after discovering the chips and arranging for the clones to have the increased aging reversed.

Pairing: Commander Fox x Jedi F! Reader

Word Count: 1062

Warnings: it gets kind of heavy in places

A/N: This week is dedicated to stories I want to write, I guess, lol. Anyway, I hope you all like this little fic, some of the lines were pulled from a webcomic I like.

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“Cyare,” Fox leans his hip against her desk, his eyes locked on her exhausted face, rather than the piles of medical research, political research, and law books that she’s been glued to for the better part of a month.

“In a minute, Fox. I just need to finish this paragraph.” She sounds as exhausted as she looks, “I think I’ve managed to come up with a way to get all of the battalions de-chipped without alerting the senate—“

“Cyare, that’s not your job.” Fox points out, his voice gentle, “The Jedi Council is working on that.”

“They need to work faster.”

“Hey,” He slides his hand over her shoulder, and then down her arm to take the datapad from her fingers, “You did your part.” He kneels next to her chair and her gaze flickers to his face, “You’re the Jedi General for the Coruscant Guard, and you managed to get our chips removed. Let the other Jedi worry about their Battalions.”

A stressed line appears on her brow, and Fox reaches up to smooth is away with a gentle finger.

“But, what if they don’t?”

“Then that’s something for the Council to worry about.” Fox points out, “You’re still a baby knight, you can’t do anything about the people who don’t want to take care of their men.”

“But I should—“

“You’ve done enough.” Fox interrupts.

Her pretty eyes scan his face for a moment, and then her gaze flickers to the scar on his neck. Her lower lip wobbles, and she reaches out to lightly touch the Lichtenberg scars on his neck, “I haven’t though. I need to do more.”

Fox takes her hand in his, “This isn’t your fault.”

“I should have seen. I should have known that something was wrong. I—“

“No.” Fox interrupts her again, “No, I didn’t want you to know. I ordered my brothers to hide this from you. The only person at fault is the person who gave them to me.”

For a moment, Fox things that he’s getting through to her, but then she shakes her head, “No. No, Fox, I have to do more. I have to.”

A heavy sigh falls from his lips, and then he slowly, gently even, coaxes her out of her chair. His movements are sure as he powers down her datapads, and shoves books in where they can’t be seen anymore.

And she lets him. She happily moves into his arms, and settles on his lap on the floor next to her desk.

“The weight of the galaxy is a terrible burden for one person to bear,” Fox murmurs against her temple, his lips ghosting down the side of her face, until he’s lingering at the corner of her mouth, “Why do you have to carry this weight alone?”

“Be-because you shouldn’t have to.”

Fox tightens his grip around her, “And you should?”

“Yes!”

“No.” Fox ghosts his lips across hers, “No. You need to listen to me, cyare. Can you do that for me?”

She nods slightly, her eyes closing as he peppers light kisses all across her face.

“You don’t get to take the blame for every wrong done to my brothers and me.” Fox speaks softly, but there’s an underlying firmness in his voice, one he knows that she’ll listen to because she always does. “You don’t get to lessen their wrongs by taking their guilt.”

“But they don’t feel guilty.”

“That’s on them, not you.” He slowly drags his hand down her spine, causing her to shiver and making a tiny smile cross his face.

“Someone needs to take responsibility—“

“Not you.” Fox insists, “Never you.” His hand comes up to cup her face, “You saved us. Do you understand that? Finding the chip, making sure that we all have them removed, demanding that Kamino hands over the counter to the enhanced aging by appealing to their business sense? That’s all you.”

“But I couldn’t have you all.”

“No, you couldn’t. But you know what? We’re going to live long lives. Long, healthy, lives. Because of you. Because you care.”

“It’s the bare minimum, Fox.”

He slowly bumps his forehead against hers, “If there’s a Patron Saint of Clones, it should be you.” She averts her gaze, shyly, “In fact, I’m going to bring it up the next time I see my brothers.”

“Please don’t.”

“Oh, I’m gonna.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and then she releases a soft huff of air, “You’re impossible.”

“My brothers say that being irritatingly right all the time is my super power.” Fox replies, he closes his eyes as her hands come up to cradle his face, a surge of affection making his grip tighten around her. “Do you have any idea of how much you mean to me? To us?”

“I’m just one Jedi.”

“You’re everything.” Fox whispers, “And not just to the Guard. We all know what you’ve done for us.” Her fingers lightly stroke his cheeks, and Fox wants to melt into her, but he resists the urge, “And you’ve done enough. We all know it.”

“I just feel like I can do more.” She whispers to him.

Fox opens his eyes and stares at her, “Oh, cyare. My love. My only.” He kisses the tip of her nose, “Why do you only see our suffering? Beloved, aren’t you tired from carrying that burden?”

She stares at him, and Fox sees tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

“Look at everything you’ve given us. A future. A life where, someday, we might be more than soldiers. Cyare, beloved, you gave us hope and we will never be able to repay you for that.” He presses his forehead against hers once again, “Let us share your burdens.”

Once again, her lower lip wobbles, “It’s a lot.”

“That’s alright. There are a lot of us, and we’re used to sharing heavy loads.”

“It’s really exhausting.”

“I know. But you don’t have to bear it alone anymore.” He pulls her closer and feels her press her face against his neck, “For now, how about we get some sleep, and tomorrow we can figure out how to save the galaxy.”

“...I’m going to drool on you again.”

Fox laughs quietly, “That’s alright. That’s my burden to bear, and it’s not one I’m willing to share.”

And then, quietly, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, cyare.”

@heidnspeak

@justiceandwar98

@etod

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@lonewolflupe

@silly-starfish

@msmeredithrose

@cdblake1565

@badbatch-bitch

@continous-mistakes

@falconfeather23435

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@kimiheartblade

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@six-1mpossiblethings

[katerinaaqu]

Hello, how true is the idea that every monster Odysseus faced was a reflection of him. I've seen a lot of comparisons between what Odysseus crew did to the Cyclops and compare it to the suitors and people using tht as a basis for ths argument

Hope ths make sense

??

Okay I kinda see where this is coming from for the Cyclops but honestly I do not see it. Not at all. Much less with the rest of the monsters he faced.

Polyphemus cave in my eyes have nothing to do with the Suitors to Odysseus's palace but I think people by n large are confused with it and rightfully so because of how the custom of Xenia is being pictured in ancient literature. Normally anyone can ask for hospitality to everyone and then the owner of the establishment by n large is expected to accept if they wanna name themselves as faithful to the gods because hospitality is sacred. Normally the person seeking hospitality should ask for it to the owner and wait for them to return if not there and then ask permission to live in their establishment which as I said the owner by n large is expected to accept the request.

True here of course the Polyphemus case is a bit unorthodox given how the owner was not there so when the heroes came in the cave they didn't have the official permission just yet. The problem is here that we talk on a cave instead of a house so they didn't have a yard to wait to or a hall either. so in one way they passed through the "gate" which was also, though, the entrance to Polyphemus's home. The establishment was obviously not human either given how everything was large at size. However the deal is that Odysseus had brought gifts of Xenia with him, the godly wine he received from Maron in Ismarus. It was a very good gift to offer in return for hospitality. He even rejected the suggestion of his scared men to steal what they could and run because they are not thieves. So by some general definition Odysseus still honored the custom of Xenia. He waited for Polyphemus to come back home and request hospitality from him. The plan of course would be to exchange their personal information too. Ironically here it was Polyphemus the one to do so by mentioning who he is while Odysseus concealed his.

Odysseus realized the foe wouldn't respect Xenia when Polyphemus laughed at it. Arguably Odysseus already was afraid of that when he saw how Polyphemus looked and acted like. Which is why he requests Xenia but then he offers the alternative of offering each other gifts and go about their ways. That seemed like a bargaining paper, for he feared for his and his men's safety already so he hoped the idea of Polyphemus receiving a good gift and giving them something back would save them catastrophe. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Polyphemus not only doesn't respect the law of Xenia but he even twists it to a monstrous degree by consuming his guests. Then Odysseus realized he would have no Xenia there thus in a way twisting it back by not introducing himself to Polyphemus or offering a fake alias (in this case the trick of Nobody) and giving him a fake story so that he could protect the rest of his fleet as well. At that point I am not sure we can talk about Odysseus and his men violating the law of Xenia since there was no Xenia given in the first place

The Suitors followed a more normal route to ask for Xenia but the difference is that instead of honoring it with bringing gifts of Xenia back they just kept on consuming the wealth of the palace without bringing anything in return while harassing the residents and all their assets and slaves and servants. It took them full 4 years and Penelope's deception that she wanted supposed wedding gifts that they actually brought back something of value to replace what they ate. Odysseus didn't do the same. He entered the cave yes, that was because the cave was unorthodox place to stay in the first place, while carrying with him gifts of good value to give to his future host. He didn't take advantage of his host nor harassed him. On the contrary, he suffered at the hands of Polyphemus and lost six men.

As for the rest of the creatures he faced like Laestrygonian Giants, Skylla, Charybdis, Sirens...is really hard to say straight out that they are "reflections of himself". We can definitely speak on perhaps a foreshadowing of the end for example Laestrygonians spearing his men and killing them COULD be a foreshadowing of the killing of the suitors while Skylla COULD be the selection of the people that Odysseus deemed worthy or loyal enough to be trusted while he would do it But the Sirens seem more like the ultimate knowledge he might want to accquire rather than his own personal side. If anything they are also the symbol of something that sets you astray. The thirst for knowledge in its dangerous form, the seeking of something that might make you lose your path, something that Odysseus didn't do in that stage. His curiosity seems to be one of the things that brought destruction upon themselves but Odysseus also had a backup plan in this case; his ship. He was tied on the mast when it happened.

So yeah we could perhaps seek some elements of the story itself rather than seeking sides of Odysseus to the monsters he faced. I do not seem to see a mirror of personality to these creatures. Mostly I see hints or possible symbolism or foreshadowing of the final part (which was already foretold anyways) but I cannot say they represent Odysseus himself. The locations are also mentioned to the trip of the Argonauts so it seems more like a cartography of the dangerous parts of the Mediterrannean and all the local myths that Greeks connected to their presence there rather than a straight out connection to Odysseus as a persona.

Hope that makes sense! ^^;

[kick-a-long]

just some background: because of the way things have been since 2008, people don't even realize that houses like this are perfect starter houses. starter houses are not the house you buy and die in. a starter house is supposed to be affordable for someone who has been working for a few years, a little savings in the bank, and is ready to start getting on the housing ladder. the value of a starter house starts low and will go up (housing always goes up.) It's supposed to have a college town vibe with lots of young people who don't want to rent anymore but aren't fully settled. a starter home helps you afford a house big enough to raise a family in an area with good schools and amenities. then after you become empty nesters you often downsize and move into a house the right size and price for an older couple/single in an area that has more amenities you need as a 60+ year old.

two to four stories with some mixed use is perfect for a starter house community. this was standard in the seventies (which is how you got things like key parties and black suburbanites) although you more often got single floor houses or small apartments in the city. young people would all move into similar affordable areas and party like it was a college town. this ended in the 80s with hyper conservatism, white flight, and cutting social programs which increased the price of suburban houses because of the demand which is also why you see so little mixed use and the rise of mall culture. the housing developer just needs more units and doesn't care about the quality of the area while malls were built to pick up the slack from people stuck in the suburbs with nothing to do.

the push back preventing starter homes is four fold, 1. labor is much more expensive than ever before. 2, few people want to live outside urban areas. 3. people who own homes don't want more homes built in their area (nimby) that would decrease their own house price and attract 'the poors' and 4. people who have been working a few years don't have nearly enough money saved up to buy any starter house because so much of their paycheck is eaten up by rent et all so the market for starter homes isn't even there.

that last one is the killer. you can't even fix things by just fixing number 4 either. even if people had the cash local governments would still favor the nimby electorate and make building homes super expensive. plus the market for starter homes would probably get scooped up anyway by people buying rental properties, which is a nightmare for anyone involved because it's only downsides including for the land lords who often get in over their heads (or in the case of commercial land lords, cut costs by doing no maintenance and basically blighting whole areas into slums.)

sorry for the rant but I think that the lack of home ownership is one of the most destabilizing forces in america today and it's an epidemic throughout most of the east coast. it's why people don't feel ownership or responsibility over their governance and why no one can afford to do anything anymore... including buying price gouged eggs.

[lunar-years]

SOTR SPOILERS//

I am even more fascinated by the Katniss and Haymitch parallels after SOTR honestly. Because their inherent natures are SO similar and yet those natures manifest in very different ways in their stories under their different circumstances.

On the one hand you have Haymitch, whose Pa dies but who still has a very present mother, who doesn't have the same kind of strains or responsibilities weighing down his childhood like Katniss does. He has to take out the tesserae for his family, yes, but otherwise he leads a very social life full of friends and family and neighbors and his beloved girlfriend, all of whom care about and love him. Katniss, though, is denied both her father and her mother, and has to grow up so quickly so young that she isolates herself and shuts herself down basically from the beginning. Few friends. Withdrawn. Too serious for her age. The music gone out of her life. The way Haymitch gets only after his Games are over.

And then you factor in how this affects their motivations and strategies in the games. Katniss prioritizes her own survival because she has no choice but to. Her family desperately needs her. Whereas Haymitch can be satisfied just dying in a way that will leave his family proud of him. So, he has less inhibitions holding him back, openly takes on a protective role for the other tributes, similar to the protective instincts Katniss has to work hard to deliberately suppress in herself in order to forge ahead towards her own survival. 16 yr old Haymitch can openly pursue rebellion to an extent 16 yr old Katniss couldn't even possibly fathom. They both have the right instincts and decent, kind hearts and can be reckless and care so deeply about other people and contain the kindling for the spark. For a time though, they both end up sort of stuck in the same place, having to lock up the best parts of themselves to protect it from the world in order to just carry on.

And then you have Haymitch's relationships with Katniss' parents, too. How they tried to help him and he blocked them both out. It was so heartbreaking when Burdock leads Haymitch to Lenore Dove's grave and Haymitch thinks of how Burdock will never forgive him for what he's done. And it's true in this world, because Burdock dies well before Haymitch saves Katniss. Then you have Haymitch and Astrid, still left alive. I now so wish we'd gotten to see more moments between them (it's pretty much just the one very brief exchange when Gale gets whipped), because I have to think they have a quiet sort of understanding and forgiveness between them now. Two people who both let Burdock down because of the enormity of their grief. Haymitch, who tossed him to the curb with violence, and Astrid, who couldn't be a real parent to their daughters without him.

And then there's all three of them merged together in Katniss, who gets to be the one to carry the best parts of all of them forward. ahhh.

[teenytinymenace]

Recently I’ve started my second d!Urge playthrough (this decision had been motivated in part by me wanting to take notes this time; I guess it has been working fine just yet).

My character, Lovage, is going to be a resist d!Urge and part of the roleplay is to (force myself to) do some bad stuff too, since you can’t write a redemption arc when there is nothing to redeem, right? So I decided for Lovage to have a d!Urge episode in the Emerald Grove, when she approaches Timber the squirrel who’s guarding her tree. But it didn’t go as planned and despite me reloading the save few times in a row I couldn’t get the response I was hoping to get from Astarion (my d!Urge’s future love interest) or at least the one I remember from my latest playthrough… and then it dawned on me: maybe this scene is different if you are a Dark Urge? Because that would totally make sense! Under those circumstances I created a Tav just to follow this hunch LOL.

I must add that I absolutely hate this scene since animal cruel*y is something I abhor and even replaying it to get you this video and the screenshots was awful. That’s why I decided I’m going to show you only Astarion’s reaction to what happens.

There you have it, “d!Urge” reaction and then a regular “*evil* Tav” reaction:

You don’t see it on the video but the beginning of the scene is also different for d!Urge and Evil Tav which I feel is something very important story-wise. While the Evil Tav is attacked by Timber as soon as she arrives, nothing like this happens to the Dark Urge.

Now imagine the scene from the POV of Astarion: the Dark Urge approaches Timber, smiles an evil smile and kicks the squirrel with such force the poor creature is k*lled upon hitting a tree. I think we all can agree that this is not only evil but pretty fucked up. And while Astarion is much used to cruelty, this is not something even Cazador would do; you can see later in the story that everything Cazador does is motivated by personal gain: in this context you can see that tortur*ng people is not mindlessly cruel, it serves (in part) maintaining control. I have this HC however that some of the patrons he handed his spawns off to for sure had such kinks which would also help to explain Astarion’s almost immediate response to you kicking Timber.

I say “almost” immediate because when you watch the video in slow-motion you can see this:

This is his expression just before he makes his ironic comment, and I am amazed again by the amount of detail in this game and so grateful for it here especially because the way they made his expression “bleed through” one frame to another proves that what you saw a moment earlier was not a pragmatic choice to use the same reaction for a character in the background, it was a writer’s decision.

Astarion’s comment sounded so awful to me I kept wondering if I’m a hypocrite, since there seems to be almost no difference between his two snarky remarks except for the wording maybe, which, to be honest, didn’t sound convincing even in my own head. Now I come to the conclusion that whereas in the “Evil Tav” version Astarion’s comeback is clearly a cover up lie of something he has blurted out in shock, while in the “Dark Urge” one he has detached himself fully emotionally at this point (again: Neil deserves ALL of the rewards for his brilliant performance <3), which makes it sound so horrible and cold and makes an immense difference in reception.

With the Dark Urge Astarion knows immediately that he has to do with a complete psycho and he is (quite understandably) scared SHITLESS. Why it doesn’t make him leave? Well, does anything, ever, really? This is why I think that he must be used to much, much worse, if not by Cazador’s hands then surely by those of some degenerate freaks Cazador wanted to make happy.

Nothing seems too extreme to Astarion and if it proves to be, then well, he can always switch his emotions or even consciousness off and then let every terrible thing go on. That’s why he is one of the few companions who stick around no matter what you do and he appears happy doing so. Remember that he is also the one that is willing to give it a go to try to take control of the tadpole? He reminds me of a PTSD patient who is struggling with both substance and hazard addiction. Imagine driving a race car with no brakes and trying to maintain balance between an increased need for stimulation and an overwhelming feeling of all of this being too much.

Astarion from the “Evil Tav” version of the video reacts with fear and sadness in the initial few seconds but then the lines “no, what did you do?!” are delivered with anger and contempt and I believe that this is what he is trying to conceal adding his snarky comment, which is brilliant, to be honest: if you know by this point that he is a vampire Astarion can hope that you attribute his strange outburst to his vampirism (idk, maybe vampires are revolted by the idea of wasting blood?), and if you don’t know about his true nature then his disgust is even more understandable because you just made the scene needlessly bloody.

And while all of the companions show disapproval here, only Astarion is distressed so much he forgets for a moment about his well practiced act.

Let me know what you think!

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

And when Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Sauron were fighting, I thought, “Well, there’s no version of this where she could win.” I mean, yes, he’s in mortal form, but he has so much power. Did she have a chance in that fight? Was that fight hopeless?

PAYNE: We see at the top of the season that using the crown of Morgoth, which is itself an artifact of immense power, that his physical body is able to be killed. In theory, Galadriel could have done similar to what Adar (Sam Hazeldine) did at top of the season.

MCKAY We talk about this a lot in the writing of those scenes, in the staging of those scenes, in the rehearsals with the actors. Yes, she could physically win. There is a way. But what he wants is not to kill her, but her to finally give him the credit he feels he deserves. He wants her on his side. He’s toying with her. But she’s more powerful than maybe he expected. So it becomes: How does she find a victory, even though he seems to be holding all the cards?

‘The Rings of Power’ Creators on That Big Season 2 Finale Reveal and Sauron’s Mistake

Sauron didn’t want to kill Galadriel, but he stabbed her with Morgoth’s crown because it looked cool on-screen people. We all know “blood binding theory” is our fandom’s wishful thinking and fanfiction. It’s almost as if binding himself to Galadriel hasn’t seen Sauron’s goal since Season 1, when we are told that “only blood can bind” (1x05).

Stories having continuity? What’s that? Yeah, like JP Payne said, “this was a big story with a clear beginning, middle and end. There are things in the first season that don’t pay off until Season 5.” Nah, he’s baiting the readers of “Empire” magazine, like they were baiting Emmy magazine when they called Halbrand “Galadriel’s love interest”.

“This is it. You bind me to the light. And I bind you to power. Together, we can save this Middle-earth.”

He was holding that dagger because it looked cool, too, people. Completely unrelated with only blood can bind, while talking about binding. Everything is meaningless here.

[wanderingmind867]

I feel like Two-Face having a third split personality makes some amount of sense, although I also get why it isn't explored that often. I mean… Two-Face is known for Twos. His gimmick is duality. Having a character like The Judge ruins that gimmick. But at the very least, I do like when media with Two-Face tries to add elements of that third personality into their stories.

For an example of that, I love pointing at the Telltale Series games. When you get the choice to save Catwoman from a sneak attack by some crooks or save Harvey from a giant spotlight crashing onto his skull, the game then offers a branching path for Harvey. Both paths end the same way (because he'd already been injected with a serum by the children of arkham that lowers impulse control and makes people more prone to strong emotional responses), but they develop his character in significantly different ways. I suppose I should be worried about spoiling this for people, but I personally like spoilers, so i'm not that bothered.

If Batman saves Harvey, then the drug still works it's magic and makes him a paranoid wreck, obsessed with consolidating power around himself. But it also makes him less bitter towards Batman. His darker side begins to idolize the vigilante justice aspect of Batman, and I believe he even creates a special police force modeled after Batman (I think). In essence, he becomes a fanatic obsessed with the strength of the bat. Elements of The Judge can be seen in how his paranoia makes him try to become a dictator.

So Two-Face without the scars is (if i remember correctly) a lighter shade of evil. He hasn't got the physical trauma to deal with, he's only got the mental stuff. And it's a little easier for him to manage one without the other. He still looks the same, so it's not like he's gotta be scared of being judged for his looks. So that might honestly help his sanity a tiny bit. I remember the scene where you see him in his office before his mayoral portrait is painted. Without the scars, he's paranoid and messing with his coin, but he's not angry and violent. He's more just paranoid and lashing out.

Meanwhile, a Batman who lets Harvey's skin burn and scar over ends up creating the Two-Face we all know. This man spends half the game hiding behind bandages, or phantom of the opera style face masks. He resents Batman, since Batman saved Catwoman and left him to burn! He can't even have a normal mayoral portrait taken, because one side of his face is red and covered in welts and scars! This Two-Face is so deranged that he can't even be reasoned with. Which kind of makes sense. I imagine it's hard to think when your skin is always pained and your mind is full of a drugged substance.

In either case, Harvey Dent gets put through the ringer. He gets drugged. He thinks his girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend. He potentially mauls a criminal to death with his bare hands. He has a psychotic break. But there's two different flavours of psychotic break. There's the version where he's obsessed with bringing batman style justice to the city, and then there's the version where he hates Batman and blames him for Gotham becoming a hellhole that he has to fix.

If you read into all this, it really feels like Harvey develops a different split personality depending on what happens to him. If he isn't scarred, he gains a split personality in the form of "The Judge", an authoritarian obsessed with law and order (at all costs). And if he is scarred, then he gains a split personality in the form of "Two-Face", an angry and violent man who thinks he has to burn the city to the ground to make it better. Both his negative personalities showcase his obsession with justice and order, but they showcase it in slightly different ways. It's pretty cool.

[deathlessathanasia]

I dont like Rhea.If I worked that hard to save my 5 older children from my cannibal husband’s belly

I sure the hell would not stand by

…as Zeus cannibalizes his pregnant wife/my niece who saved my other kids by making my husband throw them up

…as Zeus constantly cheats on, humiliates, and actively abuses Hera, my own daughter

…& support Zeus’s homewrecking side hoe over my daughter who got cheated on

…as Zeus rapes a bunch of poor mortal women

…as Hera punishes those women (what kind of mother supports the willing mistress who insulted Hera but not Zeus’s victims)

…as Hades kidnap-marries my granddaughter organized by Zeus without even a heads up to her mother Demeter

…as Poseidon rapes Demeter while she’s searching for her missing daughter

…as Zeus shapeshifts into Hades to rape Persephone, his own daughter

She is a pick me boy mom who doesn't care about any of her children besides Zeus. She doesn't stand up against Zeus knowing damn well that Hera cant

I get what you're saying and it's certainly possible to explore Rhea as a morally ambiguous figure (she does after all stand by as Kronos eats 5 of their children in most versions), but I don't think it is reasonable to expect such interventions from her in the myths. These are not real people with consistent personalities and morals, they are (in this specific context) characters with particular roles in a narrative. If a story has no need of Rhea to be present, then she is not going to be included in it. It's that simple. Why does she appear in the Homeric Hymn 2 to Demeter? Likely because she is the mother of both Zeus and Demeter, which makes her a fitting mediator between them. Maybe also because the narrative is concerned with family bonds and relationships between women, so who better to help Demeter (a goddess who had lost and recovered her daughter) come to terms with the new order of things, with her girl having become a woman, than her own mother? Why is Rhea present on Delos for Apollo's birth in Homeric Hymn 3? Well, obviously it is meant to glorify the recipient of the hymn, hence why all goddesses except for Hera are there. Even Hera's enmity glorifies Apollo since it is caused by her envy at the greatness of Leto's son. This is not a narrative about homewrecking, but about the birth and integration in the pantheon of one of the most important gods. Leto is not Zeus's side hoe but his respectable consort whom most deities seem to like and esteem. Why does Kybele/Rhea sometimes raise and instruct Dionysos? Presumably because of the similarities between them and their rites, as pointed out for instance in Strabo's Geography 10.3.13.

In many other stories, by contrast, Rhea's presence would serve no purpose. The cannibalism of Metis? That is (primarily, though there is a more symbolic meaning to this too) about Zeus evading the succession cycle and proving himself more successful than his predecessors. Rhea played her own role in this cycle, it's not her business anymore. Besides, it is not only Rhea who takes no issue with this, not a single god does: not Zeus's siblings, not Metis's parents or siblings or even daughter. Morally speaking, it is a non-issue for everyone because the narrative doesn't require it to be an issue; Metis quite literally exists to be ingested and assimilated. Zeus cheating on Hera? Zeus and Poseidon raping? Those myths are primarily about the birth of various gods and heroes. What would forcing Rhea into these narratives accomplish? She is not needed, so she plays no role, just as other goddess mothers don't get involved when their sons assault or kidnap women. Why would they? Those myths are not about them. Hera taking revenge on the occasional woman? Again, has a specific purpose (gotta explain Io's connection with Egypt somehow), is required by the narrative. Rhea is not needed.

I should also point out that Rhea herself can be powerless before Zeus. You mentioned the Orphic tale where Zeus impregnates Persephone in the guise of Hades, yet Orphic tradition infamously also involves Zeus forcing himself on his own mother.

Now if you were to write a story based on the myths in which Rhea would be aware of all the things you mentioned, would be able to do something effective about them and would not care to, I agree she'd look pretty bad.

[parcai]

I'm sure this isn't even a new discussion point, but it's bugging me more the more I think about it. ACOMAF's infamous Chapter 54/55 – Rhysand's infodump – is the go-to justification for his stans. That's where he gets a lot of his appeal, by explaining his past actions and motivations before their little paint session. ACOMAF, though, is so different from ACOTAR and its first book appeal, it lacks the whimsical magic, whirlwind romance that the other books just don't have. It feels like SJM put more thought into the plot and writing, which is why the later problems are so frustrating. Because not only is ACOMAF generally lower quality than ACOTAR, it's those less quality sections that people use to justify Tamlin hate to make Rhysand look better, which is ridiculous because if SJM has to take so many roundabout paths with poor plotting/writing to justify Rhysand, then how 'good' can he really be?

The way ACOMAF undoes what ACOTAR was about... ugh. It's such a blatant rewrite, and a poor one at that, as we all know and have discussed endlessly. But it's more than that! It's a rewrite and it's explicit about being a rewrite, but people can't even see that/don't care! Rhysand wouldn't be nearly as popular if he didn't have to explain all the supposedly good things he's done for Feyre! Tamlin saves her family and doesn't go around boasting about it; he protects her, even if it risks his court. He tries to shield her from Prythian's problems. They had their issues, sure, but it all felt more natural. If Tamlin had a whole lengthy chapter sitting there talking about all his choices, maybe people would love him too, but that doesn't happen in ACOTAR, because that's just such lazy writing!

Forget who you like more, or whether you buy Feyre's POV – the fact that Rhysand needs that infodump and that justification for his actions, whereas Tamlin's actions often speak for themselves! The writing feels like it's working overtime to elevate Rhysand at Tamlin's expense. And this circular logic is just so incredibly frustrating.

I wish SJM had kept Rhysand as he was in book one. I actually deeply enjoyed him there. Or, if she was going to do all this, had actually properly foreshadowed it. All this overcompensating just to make him look good... so annoying. I miss Rhysand where the narrative held him accountable, allowed him to be truly morally grey and just an entertaining guy doing the most insane things. I miss the first book. I miss the hinted-at insane lore between Rhysand and Tamlin, their fathers, their families, their powers. The picture of them being friends, to standing across from each other in a hallway, each other's families' blood on their hands, glowing in the light of new High Lordship. Their history, their contrast, the fact that neither of them were fully good people but the narrative could respect that and still love them both anyway. I miss everything about it, really, before it all turned juvenile and unrealistic and childish.

I don't think people have enough critical thinking to understand that it was already easy to love Rhysand and appreciate him for what he was in the first book, that perfection/goodness doesn't equate to likeability, and it was his flaws, fully acknowledged, that made him so interesting/fun to learn about. That this was the beauty of the first book in the first place. Brb mourning what could have been…mourning the fact that it never had to be Rhysand vs Tamlin in the first place.

Rhysand and Tamlin and Feyre and how they all work together to show different sides of what it means to grow up and work through the horrors of your past and become who you were always meant to be (aka the point of writing about 500 yos like this in the first place). A story of a mortal girl with fire in her veins, who shot a wolf, and threw a shoe, and was both saved by and ended up saving the Beast. Was reckless and stupid and with a big enough heart to venture down into the depths of Amarantha's lair, not some overly forgiving, amnesiac doormat, who changed them both in very different ways, and who changed her. Head in hands btw. It's not just that Tamlin deserves justice, it's that all three of them do. None of this is as it should be, and the blindness to the injustice of Tamlin's character is only the tip of the iceberg. 😞

[dissvicious]

Heyo! I absolutely love your comics and I hope you have a wonderful month!

My question is how fast do you come up with storylines? Loki is kinda new so did you have different story line before our favorite gigant came into the manga? It’s totally fine if you don’t answer btw I’m just honestly amazed how fast you can come up with stuff

( sorry if my English isn’t the best btw )

Thank youuuuuu!!!!

I'm not a native english speaker myself, but from what I'm seeing here you're doing great :)

To answer you, the whole CMK story after the time skip including them breaking up because of Zap death after Shanks attack, Nina slut era on Elbaf and being somehow saved by the strawhats came naturally, with both Nina and Kid personality and the codependency I headcanon KidKilker to have, it was only a matter of time before things go south, and Shanks offered the perfect breaking point. The global whole story has been written since the moment I really got emotionally attached in Nina - between her two pregnancies or so. Of course things changed a bit over time, for exemple at the beginning of Nina's story I hadn't met Wyv yet so Shriek wasn't her official-tm daughter and I had to rework a bit my story around where our canons crossed, and sometimes fun things happen between me and my readers that make me change the story a bit (for exemple Nina having a fanclub in beast pirates when y'all started defending her rights and wrongs)

Loki wasn't planned in the original story and the whole NinaLoki thing started as a joke with my discord besties. God I wish I could find the exact moment where it became an idea but when the famous panel of Loki all chained up was released I think I said something like "wah, Nina would top him" or something like that, because ahaha she's tiny for a human, he's tall for a giant, he's canonically a yandere simp, that's funny you see? I wasn't even a Loki simp at first!

And then the most we learned about Loki the more LokiNina just... Made sense. So I reworked the storyline to include what was initially a silly joke in. (Shoutout to @nethhiri who was high key involved in this ship before anybody else)

The whole complete ChainsawMetalKiller storyline, including how things will end, has been planned since Loki first appearances - with some changes here and there. And I think you can say the second half of Elbaf, the one that will not be canon compliant and really an AU, is gonna be a collaboration with @wyvernslovecake because we kinda wrote it together? We yap about our shared canon every day and slowly but surely the story wrote itself.

Even if like me you don't like working with people, having a small group of close friends you yap daily with and with who you're being deeply involved in each other stories is an INCREDIBLE creativity boost. Shoutout to @nethhiri @wyvernslovecake @a-killer-obsession who became incredibly important and precious in my life in such a short amount of time, I love you guys ❤️

And last but not least: I'm a professional! Today I'm 28, which means I've been writing comic books every day without stopping for the half of my life - my first real big graphic novel is 10 years old now. I don't say it to flex, just to say I have a lot of practice, storytelling in any form always has been my passion, so it comes up naturally.

Sorry for the quite long answer, TLDR: find yourself a bunch of weirdos, start doing stuff you enjoy doing and don't stop

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest

Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here

Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭

It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony