#because I see people saying things from one perspective
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staryuee · 2 days ago
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are you able to make some head canons of scaramouche, kazuha, xiao, (BASICALLY ANEMO BOYS), neuvi, kinich on how they react to reader being nonchalant like lwk i think itd be funny
NONCHALANT S/O
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꒰warnings꒱ N/A
⠀꒲ ` characters . . . xiao, kazuha, scaramouche, neuvillette, kinich
⠀꒲ ` notes . . . happy new year ♡ still on hiatus but i didn’t want to leave you guys completely high and dry d(^_^o) + also kinich is most definitely out of character just bc i refuse to play the new update so i know nothing about him
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XIAO
ʚ it doesn’t bother him, if anything he likes the fact you’re able to brush things off easily (makes it easier for him to stop crouching on nearby trees to assure you’re safe, but lord do you sometimes hurt his ego)
ʚ xiao isn’t confident in romantic gestures, even something as small as a compliment or pinky holding has him wanting to disappear and recover…so when you so easily act indifferent to it while he’s practically drunk on flush straight up makes him die a little
ʚ aside from the slight jabs to his pride, you aren’t uncaring and dumb enough to let his love go unnoticed (thankfully) so he can fully appreciate that you protect your peace
ʚ haunted by memories of war, death and the stench of metal, it’s nice to find some solace in the cool air you exude
ʚ from the outer perspective, two people who have nonchalant energy wouldn’t seem to work too well (but lord do people drool when you two are duoed for a fight), but you and xiao just click!
ʚ he’s quiet, protective but sweet and ready to take the first step to love you, while you’re chilled, confident and allow him to take comfort in someone who’s stable (and sometimes snarky lol)
KAZUHA
ʚ he takes your nonchalant energy as you being ditzy or levelheaded if anything - in other words - it’s really endearing!
ʚ you sort of match his personality to the T, except he’s just the slightest bit more reciprocal with other people’s energy meanwhile you just stand back with your hands either tucked in your pockets or fiddling with the edge of his scarf
ʚ he actually kinda just enjoys teasing you if anything to see if anything can make you crack, most attempts end in failure but it is a rather cute bonding exercise to whoosh you with anemo energy out of the blue to then help you reorganise your hair and straighten your clothes
ʚ he does worry for you on the occasion when you seem to show a lack of interest in him, he’s a pure romantic at heart! he thrives off the attention from his beloved partner! but once in a while you do show him just how much you love him
ʚ did he immediately brighten when you once placed your head on his lap really quietly when he was humming a melody to you? yes, and he has no shame about that
SCARAMOUCHE
ʚ oh you PISS him off
ʚ if ignorance and arrogance were ever personified it would be you and him respectfully
ʚ obviously you both love each other on deeper levels than just: “even though i’m above you i’ll still let you hold my hand, — “okay.” - but your relationship is just…humorous at best from an outsider’s view
ʚ the akademiya’s student body is currently conflicted between the idea that your relationship is either ideal or highly toxic
ʚ on one hand, it’s really adorable to see the mysterious, snarky student of vahumana that rarely ever comes to class be so oddly…chatty in your presence, as you so lovingly listened to every word (if the people close enough to actually hear can be bothered to ignore the fact he’s badmouthing the entire school while you shrugged at every word)
ʚ aside from the yapper x listener duo, he’d also…a little more physically affectionate? he rests his head on your lap quite frequently because you say nothing and therefore don’t bother teasing him
ʚ that’s also the main thing he hates: how nonchalant you are about everything makes his indifference seem futile and oddly more vulnerable. you don’t care about anything, and it’s incredibly infuriating! the first time he said “i love you” you replied with “huh?” and that was the first time he’s ever felt so scornful
ʚ he loves you most days, so he will deal with your frustrating silence - it’s nice to see him become the person he wanted to be with someone who rarely intervenes
NEUVILLETTE
ʚ he’s worried, intrigued and a little jealous all at once.
ʚ worried because he fears that your indifference is a direct consequence of his own inadequacy. are you perhaps not satisfied?? do you not like it when he cups the side of your face when he kisses you? or do you hate the purring noises he makes when you curl your hands in his hair? …it’s raining in fontaine again
ʚ he’s intrigued mostly because you don’t seem to care or even be fazed by the fact you’re not only dating a dragon - but a primordial, godly being that precedes the creation of the modern teyvat. he didn’t think the information would be useful to you in the first place, but when you asked so nicely about the two blue steaks in his hair, he felt obliged to tell you - and yet you replied with “oh, cool.”
ʚ a little jealous just because this attitude is rather perfect in court. you can’t show bias and any emotion whether for defence or prosecution can skew your perspective on a trial - it’s difficult. he’s grown to love the little beings that run around fontaine carelessly, passing judgement has become something so much more colourful than black and white. but with you? it’s like you either have no opinion, or just to not engage - slightly admirable, if a little scary
ʚ at the end of the day, it doesn’t worry him too badly. nonchalance doesn’t necessarily mean emotionally unavailable - and believe me he spends enough time next to you to love the little quirks and habits you do when no one is looking at that façade of yours
KINICH
ʚ you 🤝 kinich - two peas in a pod
ʚ you don’t give a shit about anything? neither does he! do you wanna kiss?
ʚ ajaw lowkey hates you both (said with affection) and does NOT hesitate to let his opinion be known, though kinich is of course quick to shut him down
ʚ he kind of enjoys peering his head at you during conversations to see what you’re like - if your face scrunches when people say something weird, if your brows pitifully furrow at the mention of loss, or even if you smile at laughter — and he sees quite literally nothing, which was honestly like looking in a mirror
ʚ no one actually knows how two people with nearly the exact same level of charisma (none) got together, but you two are happy with each other, so really - who else needs to comprehend your relationship?
ʚ you have a really similar approach to life: do what you must to get what you want. but to him that means dangerous commissions that no one would probably want, and to you that means lounge around graffitiing a wall with some symbols you thought of on the spot
ʚ it’s genuinely infuriating to have a conversation with either of you though when the person speaking isn’t looking for particular help (or is speaking too slowly for either of your likings), you either brush the person off and walk away, or kinich talks back rather abruptly
ʚ mualani made it a non negotiable rule to have someone, hopefully the traveler, around either one of you like some sort of support dog to ensure you guys actually socialise and don’t sit there like owls waiting to bite
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©STARYUEE do not copy, steal or repost ♡ ᴜsᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ɪʜᴇᴀʀᴛɢᴀɴʏᴜ
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teaboot · 2 days ago
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I’m sending this anonymously but this is NOT anon hate
You are such a good person, i think. Your latest post(as of 4:10pm Arizona, US time) spoke to me really hard. My father is a cop, in the united states, arizona, duh. And he used to be such a good person, he was a security guard and a damn good one too, and later in he became a prison guard because it paid better, and then he joined the police force.
I’d like to think that hes one of the good ones, and for the most part he is. A lot of my delinquent friends over the years who’ve had run-ins with him say that he gets them breaks, he takes care of them, hes a good cop. I’ve even seen body camera footage of him in the field and i’m proud to say that hes my dad. He calls out bad actors where he sees them, and he gets punished for it. He doesnt see the system or how his punishments are by design. And he continues turning in his cog, begrudgingly, and slightly out of time, but he thinks hes making a difference
Sorry for the ramble and essay, i just wanted to say that i really like your blog and i think you are a very nice human being. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
P.s. i’m totally basing an oc off of your outlook on security. You strike me as more of a superhero than a security guard.
-🦕 anon
Oh, that’s a super flattering take and a valuable perspective- so thank you! But I’m a gullible dumbass, and not even an incredibly smart or fit one- I just want people to be happy and safe. That’s all. And I don’t want to BE a cop, I’ve NEVER wanted to be a cop, but every time the request comes around I feel like I’m wearing down.
I keep wondering if I could help MORE in a position like that.
Probably like your dad did.
Here, people know they’re safe with me because I shut down the gunhappy jerks, but I don’t know how long it would take to truly make a difference in public security, or how many of my morals I’d have to compromise to get to that point
I feel objectively like a system so archaic and flawed can’t be changed from the inside, but another part of me says that you don’t need to change an entire system to make a difference where it counts
I believe that so many bad situations and life-changing moments can be diverted or changed by a single person in the right place at the right time- and I figure, if I trust myself to do the right thing and BE the right person, shouldn’t I do my best to put myself in those places?
But good intentions, roads to hell, you know? I don’t WANT to be a cop. But I want to be able to DO SOMETHING about the thinks I dislike seeing in conflicts. SOMEONE has to be willing to do that, right?
I’m not religious, you know? But the devil can be very convincing
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sidestepsam · 2 days ago
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hey this is so random but idk if yk the nakay girl on tiktok but she’s met the team a good amount of times and she just posting a video kinda saying she doesn’t really believe in pazzi.
what’s your opinion on that? she’s quite young so idk hahaha
This is a good opportunity to share my thoughts on this.
It is true that they do a lot of things that female best friends do with each other. They’ve also always called each other best friend, etc. so I can understand why a lot of people, especially if they’re not deeply into the lore, may truly think they’re just BFFs. That being said, there’s a very big difference between being unsure/not caring and being a denier. I don’t have an issue with people not being convinced they’re together, if anything I respect it because they’re just waiting for hard evidence. I do, however, have issues with deniers for multiple reasons:
1. It usually comes from a place of heteronormativity and or homophobia.
There’s a lot of people that see being straight as a must have in the mold of the perfect role model and I believe that is applied to Paige especially. Straight men also think this way but from a different perspective. Rather than being worried about them being role models, they’re in denial that P and A aren’t for them. Azzi also gets it because she’s conventionally feminine and a lot of ignorant people think that to be gay as a woman you have to be masculine.
2. It comes from a place of wanting to come of as morally above others.
This is what I think that chick is doing. I’ve never liked her, I think she has a weird parasocial situation going on to the point that she’s developed a weird sense of ownership. This girl knows them just as much as the rest of us do. She’s only met them in public, organized events that of course would not have any outwardly Pazzi situation happening. Literally two videos after that one she’s in literal tears over the game. Of course we all felt it, but to actually cry and film it? Be fr.
Lastly, and sorry if this is rude, but A LOT of these people are literal children. Even some of you on here I can tell are kids/teenagers. That age group knows nothing about reading romantic social cues especially when there’s gay undertones involved. They’ve also never been in relationships. It’s the same reason why they make entire love edits out of P & A looking at each other for 2 seconds and caption it as the most romantic thing they’ve ever seen.
All I’m going to say is that if P or A did exactly what they do with each other with a dude, absolutely no one would question that that dude was their bf. So in conclusion, we will see in 3 months (hopefully) who gets the last laugh 😭💀
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ace-of-bass · 2 days ago
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I think that not seeing the differences also makes it harder to talk to people of differing opinions to yours and potentially change their minds. I grew up conservative in the Obama years, and didn't think of myself as racist and didn't explicitly hate people of other races (yes implicit racism is a thing, but that's a different topic). If someone called me a white nationalist or a fascist because I was a conservative, I would simply think "oh, they don't know what they're talking about" and not take them seriously. I changed my beliefs because of long conversations with friends that took me seriously and worked to understand what my beliefs actually were - as well as a few online posts and books that constructed actual arguments against conservative beliefs instead of just calling said beliefs a pejorative.
Also, not seeing the differences in belief makes it difficult to see where people of differing opinions from you might be similar. As I said, I grew up conservative, but then I had a brief libertarian phase around my freshman year of college. I'm now an anarchist, and I think that falling in that particular flavor of leftism has a lot to do with my deeply held belief in small government - I don't think that I could be a capital-C Communist because of it. To me, the key thing to get libertarians to adopt an anarchist perspective (even if they would never call themselves anarchists) is to say, "well yeah the government should fuck off but shouldn't we help one another?" Particularly if they're Christian they are probably already familiar with ministries engaging in mutual aid (along with a whole lot of charity ministry). I have a much easier time talking to libertarians about my political views than I do talking to MAGA conservatives (who I generally avoid because I honestly don't know how to talk to). But if I saw all people who aren't leftists as the same, then it would be much more difficult for me both to get people to start building an anarchist world (regardless of label), and more difficult for me to interact with people in my life that have different views.
I think that one of the most common and most harmful tendencies which a lot of people fall into when thinking about politics is outgroup homogeneity, the idea that there's a much wider diversity of opinions among those close to our beliefs than there is among those far from our beliefs.
This is most commonly exemplified by the foolishness of "horseshoe theory," which places Centrist Liberal Democracy in the middle of all political thought and then argues that the various ideas diverging from this viewpoint are all basically the same. But virtually every ideological tendency has their own versions of this. Large portions of the right think that there's practically no difference between Hillary Clinton and Karl Marx. Meanwhile, on the left, there's often very little effort made to distinguish center-right liberal democrats, conservatives, libertarians, and reactionaries from one another.
But fascism is not communism, social liberalism is not Marxism, and conservatism is not white nationalism. These are all different ideas with different ways of viewing the world, offering different solutions for different problems. Being able to distinguish between them is very important for understanding the world! The conflicts, tensions, and overlaps between seemingly-allied ideological factions have huge implications!
I've always found a lot of value in the idea of an ideological Turing test: can you describe a given political ideology's viewpoint on an issue in such a way that a neutral observer would have trouble telling the difference between your description and one offered by an actual believer in that ideology? If not, you might not understand that ideology as well as you think
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mxrcurysb1tch · 23 hours ago
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🍃🧝‍♀️✧・゚: ⋆♱✮♱⋆astro observations pt. 3 ⋆♱✮♱⋆ ✧・゚: 🧝‍♀️🍃
✰ ⊹₊⟡⋆ Gemini placements can talk for hours about literally anything, especially over text. They always want to be entertained and have someone to share their random thoughts with even if they’re just having a conversation about what they ate for dinner.
✰ ⊹₊⟡⋆ okay this one is PERSONAL and idc. Virgo placements ARE NOT BORING. Just say you don’t understand intellectual humour and wit. But fr, I see a lot of takes on Virgos that are soooo bad even from professional astrologers and it’s a little alarming. Like Virgos don’t exist just to tidy up your life for you and critique you. No. no. no. no just no!!! They have a huge amount of emotional control and objectivity and are skilled at creating beautiful, calm and safe spaces for themselves and everyone around them. If they can be judgemental at times, maybe you should listen, they know a thing or two, ya know? They’re very observant. Also they’re way harder on themselves than they’ll ever be on you.
✰ ⊹₊⟡⋆ Libra placements aren’t liars and they aren’t fake. They’re highly attuned to the social environment and they want to keep everyone happy simply because it stresses them out not to. They could benefit from being a bit more assertive and firm with toxic people thought
✰ ⊹₊⟡⋆ Your sister sign / opposite sign are the qualities you have deep down but might be hard to access or are hidden from you, especially with your moon and rising sign. For example, Capricorn moons are very sensitive and have a huge emotional range just like cancers but they are very reserved about this and it is hard for them to express. Similarly, cancer moons can be very strong willed like a Capricorn. Also it might be that the negative expression of the opposite sign comes out at your worst times. For example, a Pisces moon under distress might display some of the worst traits of Virgo like being judgemental and withdrawn.
✰ ⊹₊⟡⋆ Retrograde planets in the birth chart do not deny, they simply delay or force the native to go about things in a different, sometimes more long-winded but ultimately more fruitful manner. They encourage a person to diverge from the typical way of doing things and to create their own methods, opinions and values instead of unquestioningly following the masses. It makes the native ask “why am I choosing to believe/feel/do this thing without questioning it?” and makes them realise that a choice does in fact exist. It is easier for these people to be original and to have a new, refreshing perspective on life. Unfortunately, less open minded people might not understand them. The sign, planet and house will influence the area of life in which this is most prominent.
✰ ⊹₊⟡⋆ the 9th + 21st degrees are Sagittarius degrees. Having these on the moon can make the native feel at home and emotionally fulfilled while travelling or in a foreign country. These natives are also likely to be drawn to living abroad.
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joejhang · 14 hours ago
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my unasked-for input in the jeremy discourse
been seeing a lot of jeremy knox discussion as of late while mindlessly scrolling thru the aftg tag so i've decided it's time to step in. spoilers ahead continue at ur own risk.
the main criticism of jeremy i've seen in the fandom is the way he treats/deals with jean's situation. a lot of people think he's just not doing a good job and can be insensitive or thoughtless at times. i'd like to counter this by saying: he's doing his best, and he's actually doing pretty well.
the aftg fandom at large has this superiority issue where they seem to always know the right thing and the right way to go. i'm gonna remind y'all that we are very used to the foxes and andreil, and the trojans are a totally different environment to the one we've been acclimatised to. the foxes are not well-adjusted AT ALL and to an outsider's eye the way they deal with each other is probably really cruel and rude at times. it works for them because they're in similar positions in life and have no time for politeness and courtesy, and the only way for them to work together is to work out all the fights and issues head-on, with little concern for hurt feelings. it works for them, but that doesn't mean it's the best or only way to go for anyone else.
jeremy may have an untold backstory of his own, but i think we can all agree that he's much more well-adjusted than jean, who has been living in an abusive cult environment for years. the trojans and jeremy are completely unfamiliar to jean, but so is jean to jeremy. jeremy has no idea the full extent of jean's past and history of abuse, so you can imagine his shock and horror when he finally begins to realise the ugly details of what happened to him.
there's a lot of emphasis on action and reaction in the way the fandom sees characters and relationships, but not a lot on intention. i think, no matter the mistakes jeremy makes, his intentions are good. he wants to support jean and help him in his healing journey. was it wrong of him to tell cat and laila what happened in jean's freshman year without his permission? yes, of course. but i think people need to consider that jeremy is literally only human. he's a 22 year old boy who has unresolved issues of his own that's just trying to do the best he can with what he has. he shouldn't have talked about jean's past without his consent, but it's important to know that he didn't do it with malicious intent or just to gossip. he probably genuinely thought it was the right way to go to let cat and laila know, so they can help jean better by knowing what happened. it wasn't the right thing to do, but honestly i think people in the fandom are more pressed about it than jean is. jean remarks on it and seems a bit annoyed, both with himself for telling jeremy and jeremy for telling the girls, but he doesn't hold it against jeremy and clearly still trusts him. jean knows that jeremy wants the best for him, and is doing his best, and the fandom should remember that too.
i think a lot of the issues the fandom has w jeremy and also jerejean is that they seem to think jeremy is going to "heal" jean. i cannot explain how much this take boils my blood because people can't "heal" other people. healing is a complicated and long process that requires, yes, help from others, but also changes in perspective, environment and core belief. jeremy alone is not going to fix jean and make him good as new, and that attitude towards them is unhelpful when analysing the narrative. jean's slow journey of healing comes from the combination of: a huge change in environment (the mob mindset of the raven's nest -> the sunshine court), a support network (jeremy, cat, laila, wymack, the trojans, occasionally kevin and neil), a change in mindset (both towards exy as a sport and towards relationships with others and a relationship with himself) and simply time. no one person can heal another, and no matter how large a role jeremy plays in jean's healing, he knows he can't do it on his own. so do the other people around jean. it's why cat takes him on a motorbike ride, just to let him relax and see the world. it's why renee doesn't get jean to stay with her, because she knows how good the trojans will be for him. jeremy is not going to heal jean, but he can definitely help him with it.
the last and arguably most important thing is this: jean trusts jeremy. y'all can talk about how jean is traumatised and unfamiliar with the world outside the nest but i swear to god this fandom babies and uwufies him to unbelievable extents. jean may be unspeakably traumatised and at the end of his rope, but he is an adult, and he does have agency. he understands that jeremy cares about him and his wellbeing, and he trusts jeremy. jeremy isn't perfect. he's inevitably going to make mistakes and do questionable things along the way, but i don't think he's at all impeding jean's healing or growth, and he is doing everything with genuine good intentions. one person's definition of the "right" thing to do is not objective and all-encompassing. jeremy may do things that offend you, and that you would hate, but everyone has a different opinion on these things. do you guys remember the conversation between andreil after dr*ke's attack, when neil pushes andrew just to see him crack? if u think about it on an objective level, it was wrong, even cruel, to press someone about their history of trauma after a horribly traumatic event has just happened to them. but andrew doesn't hold it against neil, and doesn't even seem all that bothered by it. i think the aftg fandom would do well to look at things and events that happen in the books in context and stop thinking that there is only one right answer to every question and only one correct solution in every situation. just because something would be a no-go for you, doesn't mean it would be for everyone, and that goes for fictional characters as much as it goes for real life.
anyway i just find it so interesting how critical and quick to judge people are when it comes to jeremy, when, objectively, the foxes and even andreil have done probably more pressing and objectively "wrong" things to each other. if u read the series back, there are a lot of times when they push and challenge each other's boundaries, but there's an understanding that that is the best way for them to engage with each other. it would do everyone a lot of good to apply the same attitude to the sunshine court, considering how vastly different of a context this new series is in.
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siggiedraws · 2 days ago
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I like your essay but does it really irk you if Sonic is Ever portrayed differently even somewhat in other media? He can still have great character even if it doesn't always fit your ideal for it
Thank you, I'm glad you like my essay! My response to this will be quite long-winded, so bear with me.
I am not oblivious to how irrational it may come across for me to essentially admit I dislike all different interpretations of Sonic. But personally speaking, if I am to be completely honest with myself, yes, it does irk me. Their differences almost always compromise Sonic’s appeal, making them unlikeable to me.
My question is, if you are going to remove what makes pre-existing material so special in an adaptation, why is it even an adaptation of pre-existing material? This is a rhetorical question; I know the answer is purely due to cynical marketability reasons. Media is almost guaranteed to generate money if it features a popular, recognizable character. For obvious reasons, I do not think prioritizing marketability over artistic integrity is a good thing that should be defended or encouraged.
My argument is simple: Is it possible for a different interpretation of Sonic to be a good character? Sure, in a vacuum. You can replace any beloved character in fiction with Sonic instead by doing nothing but slapping some blue spikes on it and calling it a day.
My issue is that wouldn't make it a good interpretation of Sonic the Hedgehog because there is no reason for it to be Sonic.
I feel that now is a good time to finally talk about this.
My wariness of divergences in Sonic adaptations, is in part, based in the knowledge that the people at Sonic Team had their creative vision completely disrespected and dismissed overseas.
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(SOURCE) - Yasushi Yamaguchi's Twitter
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(SOURCE) - Masato Nishimura's Twitter
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Sonic Team had no say or power in how Sonic was depicted in the U.S. In some cases, they had no idea that changes were even made until they were told by someone.
There is this distinct sense of cultural superiority coming from Sega of America. Did you know that Sega of America considered Sonic's design "unsalvageable" and insisted it needed to be changed? Did you know that Sega of America tried to "educate" Sega of Japan at character design because they saw them as incompetent at designing good characters?
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(SOURCE)
Yes, this is primarily about Sonic's design being "too Japanese." This is corroborated in Sonic the Hedgehog Gametap Retrospective.
As an artist, it is really devastating to hear this story. Putting myself in Sonic Team's shoes yields nothing but sorrow. This flagrant disrespect towards artists' creative visions is odious to me.
Now compound this with the fact that Sonic has had a consistent lack of fidelity in adaptations since he was created, especially in the West, and I hope you can see my perspective here.
To go back to my initial topic on Sonic's characterization, I think that my position can come across unreasonable if you are a person who does not feel particularly strongly one way or another about it. It is completely fine to feel this way. Everyone can enjoy media however they please. For the vast majority of media I consume, I do not pay nearly as much attention and devotion to character consistency.
Sonic is different.
Sonic as a character is extremely important to me. He has gotten me through many hard times in my life and he continues to endlessly inspire me. Whenever I am faced with a tough situation, I hear Sonic’s voice in my head, encouraging me to be strong. Encouraging me to do my best. Encouraging me to keep living. Sonic is my favourite fictional character of all time. He means so much to me that it’s impossible to put into words.
I don’t want to get too emotional here, but I believe that a character like Sonic should continue to propagate and stay culturally relevant because I think kids nowadays really deserve a character like that in their lives. How he is characterized and used in the narrative in Sonic media really matters. There are Tailses in the world who need to learn how to be confident. There are Blazes in the world who need to learn how to accept help. There are Elises in the world who need to learn to let go of the responsibilities that burden them. There are Shahras in the world who struggle from having been in abusive relationships. And there are Merlinas in the world who are afraid of death. These people would benefit from a positive figure to guide them out of dark places.
My feelings about Sonic are far from an anomaly. See an excerpt from this artwork by sludgetoons, in response to this video essay:
"This one fucking video finally has made me realize WHAT Sonic is to me. he's my hero he's my inspiration hell hes a role model yes but none of those terms ever felt right to place onto this character that is so beautifully painted to be this characters free from the shackles of humanity and a need to be "relatable". He's not a hero or a role model, hes a DIRECTION. Sonic himself is an impossible goal to reach as a person, but just trying to live my life in a way that is free, appreciating the world that is around me, exploring and climbing and running and rebelling, lending a hand where I can but understanding ultimately im free to do as I please and I owe no one anything as they owe me nothing. as long as i am FOLLOWING him in those big footprints those red sneakers leave I am becoming a better version of myself. The goal is not to become Sonic, that's impossible. But by ignoring that impossibility and pushing on anyways I still WONT become Sonic. but I'll inadvertently become this better version of myself.
There's no way I can explain it properly how much this character means to me. When I picked up the pencil to draw for the first time it was because I thought he looked cool and inspired me and I wanted to replicate that magic. When I was feeling trapped in my past relationship and thought I had no say in what was happening to me his voice was in my head telling me this wasn't right and that "I could do anything". Start of 2024 I found myself asking "what would sonic do" more often than ever and 2024 was the best year of my entire fucking life. I couldn't give a fuck if it makes me seem insane he made who who I am and I love myself and I hope someday somehow, in another time or space, I can meet him just to say thank you."
This is just someone spilling their heart out on the internet about how much they love Sonic. It has over 9,000 likes at the time of this post.
I do not like different interpretations of Sonic.
None of them inspire power in others quite like this.
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annalacerda17 · 48 minutes ago
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This!
This is exactly right.
Also, from his own perspective, Wei Wuxian couldn't have chosen to ignore what was going on in the labor camps once he had learned about it, because that would go against everything he was as a person.
He didn't fight for the Wens because he thought that would accomplish something. He always knew he was just buying them time, and that there was no guarantee he would be able to save them for good. He certainly hoped so at one point, but as things progressed it became clear to everyone that they were living on borrowed time.
But to Wei Wuxian that wasn't the point.
The point is that a horrible injustice was done to those people, and he found out about it, so he couldn't ignore them and go on with his life, because that would go against his very nature.
Wei Wuxian knew very well that taking the Wens out of the labor camps would paint a huge target in his back. He knew that the sects were corrupt to their core. He had noticed that the Jin sect had been trying to occupy the power vacancy left by the Wen sect. Wei Wuxian wasn't a fool, and he wasn't overestimating his abilities either.
Actually, I think a lot of people read this part of the story and assume Wei Wuxian was politically illiterate. That's not true at all. If anything, it's Jiang Cheng who is a political fool who falls for every one of the Jin sect's traps.
Wei Wuxian was very aware of the political undercurrents, and made his choices accordingly. However, and this is the point the novel tried to make, one man can't change society by himself, no matter how right or how powerful he may be. Wei Wuxian's social class was working against him, and that made it impossible for him to speak to the other decision makers of the cultivation world - the sect leaders - on equal terms. This also meant that the culprits were the ones controlling the narrative, which is why Wei Wuxian's reputation was destroyed so thoroughly.
Wei Wuxian's only option was to deter them with brute strength. I'm making this point because so many people in this fandom keep asking why Wei Wuxian didn't just talk things out. Like, he tried. But in my opinion it was very clear in the novel that nobody wanted to listen to what a son of a servant had to say. Especially a son of a servant who dared to be powerful and refused to bow his head to the upper class.
When he chose to fight for the Wen remnants, Wei Wuxian did so hoping that if nothing else happened, his power and the Yin Tiger Tally, combined with his choice to settle in the burial mounds would be enough to deter the sects from pursuing them further. But he always knew that this wasn't an indefinite solution to the problem.
The point is that Wei Wuxian didn't "throw his life away" for nothing, because when he decided to protect the Wens he wasn't expecting to save them forever. He knew very well that he was borrowing time for them and that the chances of things working out permanently were quite low. He had hope, but everyone there knew it was far-fetched. He still chose to do it because he didn't see it as throwing his life away. For Wei Wuxian, protecting the Wens was his only choice in that situation, because doing otherwise would be the same as throwing away his soul. Wei Wuxian could never turn a blind eye.
one mild sentiment i see echoed around alot is that despite everything, wei wuxian failed to “save” the wen remnants, that him going to such great lengths was an effort in vain. but... no?? he did accomplish alot by taking them to the burial mounds. he gave them time. he gave them a period of peace and community life. he gave their elders a sense of togetherness. he gave them a chance to heal some of their wounds together. he prevented their slow, agonising, brutal, INDIGNIFIED deaths at the labor camps, prevented their daily suffering under the oppressive guards.
as wen qing said: they all should have died a long time ago but wei wuxian’s efforts did bear sweet fruits, however bitter the end might have been.
and here’s the thing. the wens survived through wen yuan. their legacy still remains because all the remnants and wei wuxian (and ofc lan wangji) fought to see that happen. imagine if they hadn’t, if wei wuxian wouldn’t have done anything. the wens would have seen their demise in the labor camps with nary a mention of their deaths. they would have been wiped out without ever getting the chance to say their piece or take their stance. as things went, atleast wen qing and wen ning faced their deaths bravely, as leaders of their community. atleast, wen yuan could live a fulfilling life. atleast the wen remnants had a year and more together, to enjoy some of the peace the post-war cultivation world was enjoying.
and that is what wei wuxian gave up everything for. a cause greater than himself.
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h-sleepingirl · 4 hours ago
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You Are A Wizard, So Pour Over The Tomes
Hypnosis is magic. It is not just “the closest we can get to magic.” Trance practices in all kinds of forms have served as the basis for mysticism across cultures and human history -- thousands of years. It is not new. It is not western. It did not start with Franz Mesmer or James Braid or Milton Erickson or Wiseguy.
Modern hypnosis stems from a rich human history of fascination and spiritual veneration of the mind’s power. We are practitioners of a comparably new discipline where we can literally change the way that other people experience the world. Their innermost selves are as leverage to us -- putty to us, when we know what we are doing. We can transform others freely. We can give pleasure or pain. We can facilitate experiences that seem to defy reality.
People talk a big game about respecting that power. What they usually mean by that is respecting EACH OTHER. That’s crucial, obviously -- not manipulating, not harming, being a good person.
But what about respecting the discipline itself?
It’s tempting to see what we do as disconnected from the “historical” and “outdated” methods of hypnosis. But we are a part of that history. We are likely hilariously wrong about a lot of things related to trance, hypnosis, the human mind -- what will hypnosis and psychology look like in 100 years? And even as we innovate, we are always building on the techniques and ideas that came before us -- in ways we are often not even aware of. We reinvent; we use ideas from the past unknowingly.
We have a right -- and a responsibility -- to OWN our magic. I am not here to gatekeep and say that this magic is not yours. It IS yours; it’s unequivocally yours. But as a whole we could do more to respect it.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” And hypnosis is not even a technology that we UNDERSTAND. The only real reason we DON’T see ourselves as wizards is because there is a huge motivation to legitimize hypnosis as a scientific discipline -- and non-rationalist perspectives are looked down upon in our culture. I’m not anti-science (maybe a little -- tongue in cheek) but I do think that labeling hypnosis as “just psychology” is dishonest about how much we actually objectively know about it -- and does a disservice to the phenomenon itself.
I’m not saying hypnosis is literally metaphysical. But I am saying we practice something very powerful without knowing its nature. There are secrets we have tried to suss out about this magic through history that we have written down -- past and present. We actually have tomes of knowledge, records of past experiments and modern inventors.
In the last couple of years, I’ve started teaching/facilitating “text studies” -- classes where we sit down with an excerpt from a hypnosis book and parse through it as a collaborative group. I desperately want to show people that there is value in just critically reading the resources available to us. The clinical texts -- especially older ones -- are hard to read, like they are almost in a different language. But it is amazing the insights we have come to by tackling them together.
These old texts are not pure truths -- there is a lot we’ve improved on over time. But we can learn a lot by learning what hypnosis was like historically. The entire discipline of hypnosis is extremely susceptible to change -- it is defined SO MUCH by how we view it culturally. I just recently was amazed at re-reading some Erickson where he talks about making his subjects daydream autonomously -- as a primary mode and result of inducing hypnosis. Contrast that with today, where if someone’s mind wanders for even a moment, they feel like they’ve failed. There’s something really important here -- a technique from 50 years ago that tells us something we’ve lost in modern practice.
And there are countless examples of this, of people losing and reinventing methods over and over. As I’ve watched our kinky niche grow over just the past 13 years, I’ve watched ideas phase in, out, and in again -- there is both growth and regression of our collective body of knowledge. That’s the nature of things, especially when we operate partially disconnected from the resources that are available to us.
We CAN be connected to the rich human history of trying to unravel the secrets about our minds, and about this thing that gives us enormous transformative powers -- powers that we take for granted.
You are a wizard -- so pour over the tomes.
Read a book. Read an article. Set aside some time and view yourself with the respect of being someone who can study and suss out a magical text. Take notes, look up words and concepts you don’t know. Or just absorb what you can on a first pass and go back later. Read a chapter or just master a single page. Romanticize the aesthetic of sitting with the scent of paper, or as the technomancer with words appearing on a screen.
Read. Own this art. And bring that respect of this art to the people you share it with. I promise you can do things with hypnosis that you have never thought possible.
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This is a little motivational piece (for you and me!) as I gear up to teach "Analyzing Erickson" at Charmed. It's something I feel really passionately about, and I wanted to share it.
Permanently linked/free on Patreon.
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avelera · 4 hours ago
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(Arcane Meta) Zaun Died with Silco
I want to open this by saying I understand people who are upset that there isn't more Piltover/Zaun conflict and resolution in S2 of Arcane. However, I'm going to argue here that the reason it's not in S2 after 2.03 is because the conflict is over. Piltover won. There is no more Zaun anymore as a potential political player and, ultimately, this comes back to haunt Piltover in their hour of need.
Overall, while I am invested in the Piltover/Zaun conflict, especially in S1, I'm less focused on Caitlyn and Vi's story which is our main lens for the conflict, or rather the end of the conflict, in S2. Still, I hope to offer my more Arcane worldbuilding-focused perspective. And just to get it out of the way, here are a few things I had trouble with:
I too was puzzled that anyone from the Undercity would join Piltover in the defense of the city.
I also thought it was strange to have Jayce focus on the threat that Viktor posed with his robots while soliciting help from the undercity, instead of on Ambessa, the more clear and understandable threat that would have made a better rallying point and allowed for a final discussion about the Noxian occupation of the undercity and how Noxus turning on Piltover was just them reaping what they sowed.
I was certainly taken aback when everyone was given Enforcer uniforms for the final fight.
That said, I believe there are answers to all three of these. From there, I want to dive into what exactly happened in S2 with Piltover vs. Zaun, to my eyes. Short version: there is no more "Zaun" as a potential nation or political player by 2.03 when the Chem Barons are taken out by Cait's forces, but it really died before that with Silco, who was already in a precarious negotiating situation himself and he knew it.
Very few people from the Undercity joined Piltover's defense of the city. Maybe a half dozen. I felt that was our moment of "you reap what you sow" for Piltover. A few passionate idealists who could see the bigger picture that saving Piltover does mean saving the undercity joined, but there were no hordes of volunteers. Piltover had lost the right to them and was substantially weakened for it.
Jayce choosing to focus on Viktor as the threat makes sense for him, but it was a poor political move and probably lost him volunteers he would have otherwise gained. The robot army threat is too esoteric and fantastical. "The Noxians turned on us and plan to conquer the city," is a threat that would have been better for rallying the troops, Jayce is just too single-minded to think of it. He's a bad politician.
The Enforcer uniforms are an odd sour note, but they do make sense as protective gear. Piltover doesn't have an army. There are no uniforms to give people. All they have is Enforcer uniforms. It is an odd note symbolically, but practically speaking it shows how little time Piltover had to prepare. Piltover is a civilian city going up against a military force like Noxus. They are woefully underprepared and really only have their status as defender in urban fighting to give them a prayer of even stalling the Noxian forces. Ironically, Piltover's only hope against Noxus mirrors Zaun's only hope against Piltover if they had gone to war: the difficult nature of urban fighting against an entrenched, motivated opponent on their home turf.
Now, to get into, "What happened to the overall Piltover vs. Zaun fight?" I get why people think it's lacking in S2, and I get why people find it horrifying that there is no independent Zaun at the end, all we've got is Sevika with one seat on the Council, as far as we can tell but I would point out:
Zaun is dead at this point. It's been dead since 2.03. Arguably, it really died with Silco.
As Jinx said, she didn't just destroy her own family, she cursed an entire society when she launched that rocket into the Council Chamber.
Here's the thing, Jayce was actually right when he said Zaun wouldn't stand a chance in an outright war with Piltover.
Yes, Zaun has a lot of brawlers. They have Shimmer and the Shimmer berserkers.
But Zaun doesn't have any sort of organized fighting force beyond the guards of individual Chem Barons and their factories.
What Zaun has is the fissures. It has ugly, difficult urban fighting in dangerous spaces. But as a counter to that, we have the fact that their ventilation is controlled from Piltover. In a true all-out war, Piltover could in theory just flush out the entire undercity using the Gray. Having your infrastructure entirely dependent on an enemy oppressor is what I would call a "fatal flaw" in any defensive military strategy, particularly when what they can cut off is the air you breathe. That's easily game over right there unless Silco has a way to circumvent that.
In a guerilla war, Zaun could probably hold out for a long, grinding, ugly civil war made up of mostly guerrilla attacks, in which a great number of innocent civilians will die, even in an all-out conflict with Piltover. But it would suffer catastrophic losses and probably still lose in the end.
Now, Jayce is I think somewhat naive in his claim Zaun doesn't stand a chance. Maybe Zaun wouldn't stand a chance in the long run, but they'd make Piltover pay for every inch with blood. They'd grind Piltover down into a shadow of its former self, force them to sacrifice all of their principles. To some extent, I think Jayce gets that, he gets that he doesn't want more kids to die, but I think even he underestimates just how ugly that war would be and how long it would go and how unrecognizable his Piltover would be by then.
The moment that gives Silco pause in Jayce's assessment of how easily Zaun would be crushed isn't the fighting. Silco is pretty confident that they could make Piltover pay and he's arguably looking forward to the chance on some level.
What gives him pause is when Jayce says the Council doesn't care.
To some extent, Silco like any revolutionary against an oppressive "civilized" society (heavy, heavy emphasis on the air quotes there) is that a certain point, Piltover is so soft-hearted they will get tired of the bloodshed.
What Jayce just told Silco is that the Council is more barbaric than even Silco maybe appreciated, for all their vaunted principles. There isn't necessarily a limit to how many Zaunite children will die before Piltover decides to cease hostilities. Knowing what Silco knows of Piltover's brutality, I think that is a sobering moment for Silco. That's when he decides this really is the best time to negotiate.
(Aside, this is by the way where Vi is wrong about Silco, driven by her emotions. Silco is willing to set aside the feud to get his nation of Zaun, he can be negotiated with. He's just not willing to give up his daughter (something Vi can't possibly understand at this point).)
Here's why it's the best time for Silco to negotiate and it ties into everything else:
Without Shimmer, which has been severely hampered by the raid on the factory, Zaun doesn't have anything to counter Hextech.
Jinx's wild attacks against Piltover has helped put the pressure on them that Silco capitalizes on. But it is a paper-thin threat. She is a lone albeit devastating terrorist. She makes Zaun appear more dangerous than it is but that can't last forever. Silco has leveraged her attacks into a pressure campaign against Piltover, but a serious response from Piltover (as seen in 2.03 with the strike team corners and very nearly captures her) could reveal just how fragile that threat is.
Basically, Zaun has some champions, arguably a league of legends lol, but it doesn't have an army. It doesn't even have Enforcers of its own. It doesn't have a concerted force of any kind.
The money is running out. As "Sucker" shows us in 2.02, each Chem Baron that gets taken out means less money on the table, and we're down 2 by the beginning of S2 with Silco and Finn, who arguably both fell to internal fighting.
As the Chem Barons say in 2.02, even if they got total unity in Zaun, they're outnumbered.
However, they don't have total unity in Zaun. They can't even get the Chem Barons to agree on what to do on one topic, with Jinx.
Silco basically has to accept the deal with Jayce when he does, while Zaun appears to be at its strongest. Because if he had waited any longer, the fact that they don't have the strength or money to back it up would have become apparent.
Furthermore, once Jayce resigns from the Council, which he was planning to do anyway regardless of Jinx's attack, would mean Zaun would lose its one champion with the political capital to give them independence. The window for Zaun independence is actually extremely narrow.
With Silco's death and Jinx's attack on the Council, then the subsequent eradication of the other Chem Barons, their resources, their money, including Shimmer which was the only thing Zaun really had to match them against Hextech in that arms race, there really isn't a Zaun anymore.
There's no one to negotiate with. No one to hand power to. No force that can govern itself. Zaun is completely fractured with the eradication of the Chem Barons. By taking them out, Cait removed the need for Piltover to negotiate with Zaun. And the reason Piltover chose not to was because of Jinx's rocket and then the attack on the memorial, which was orchestrated by Ambessa.
This is all according to Ambessa's design, by the way. She divides Piltover/Zaun against themselves by capitalizing on Jinx's attack. She leaves both severely weakened to make it easier for her to take over, and Piltover walks right into the trap. They would have fallen to Noxus if not for Mel's love of the city, even if you remove Viktor and Jayce's plotline entirely.
TL;DR Zaun is gone, guys. It's a distant dream. Sevika is the only person with an interest in making it happen anymore and she can't even get the Jinxers to listen to her. All the factions are easily arrested at the rally. Piltover has no reason to negotiate with any of these people. As the lone torchbearer for that cause, it makes sense for Sevika to be on the Council but beyond her, there is literally no one else to give a voice to (since Ekko doesn't appear to have an interest).
At least, until the Noxians turn on them, and then there's an interest in Piltover and the undercity joining forces, but as I referenced at the beginning of this, Piltover has now lost the right to the undercity's help AND lacks the undercity's resources too. Now Noxus has Shimmer instead of Piltover or Zaun, in addition to their sophisticated and expertly trained military force. As Jayce said, they were meant to lose this fight. Arguably, they never had a chance of winning if not for Mel claiming the loyalty of the Noxians in the wake of her mother's death and everything Jayce did to stop Viktor and the Hexcore.
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questionablecuttlefish · 14 hours ago
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One of the most popular topics that people likes to bring up in shipwars “against” lightcannon is that we mischaracterize (did I write it correctly?) Lux to fit in our delusions. For example: she didn't kill Sylas and she despises killers and her ideals and morality is the most important thing to her, oh, also that she's good
So you as a Lightcannon writer and someone who is very familiar with her lore and character, could you give me your perspective about this?
Ah yes, that one.
Here's my answer in pictures:
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But more seriously. 😆
I think that's a gross oversimplification of Lux's character, and it's generally an argument made by people who don't know who Lux is beyond the most superficial impression.
It's a product of a mindset that can't separate modern ideals of 'morality' - what would be moral to you and me, from our culture and our moment - from a character raised in a very, very different culture and a very different world.
A good example is the opening scenes of A Game of Thrones, we witness the horrible slaughter of a group of Night's Watch by the Others. The lone, desperate survivor escapes, and in the very next scene, we see that he's been captured by the Lord of a castle, who is about to execute him for the crime of desertion by beheading with a sword. This man makes his sons watch as he decapitates this poor, innocent bastard who, to us, has done no wrong and just survived a terrifying experience. He makes sure his seven year old, Bran, witnesses him cut a man's head off with a sword.
Meet Eddard Stark, probably the most forthright, honorable, and morally upstanding character in the series.
Look, Lux is a 'good' character. She's smart, compassionate, forthright, and principled. She almost always takes the diplomatic option first and uses violence primarily in self-defense.
On the other hand, she's a Crownguard. She is the daughter of the highest ranking noble household next to the King himself. Her Aunt is the High Marshall of the entire Demacian military. Her Uncle is(was,heh) the head of the Mageseekers, so the mage hunting secret police. Her brother is the Might of Demacia, Sword Captain of the Dauntless Vanguard.
What I'm saying here is that Lux is a military brat. She has been born and raised into the values of a highly militaristic, feudal warrior culture at the very highest level of that society. She's been trained in warrior arts - riding, swordfighting, archery, and military tactics and strategy - since she could walk and form words.
In her old lore? She was literally a traumatized, brainwashed child soldier taken from her family and trained to fight for Demacia.
In her new/current lore? She's still a trained spy who has succeeded at several covert missions within Noxus.
We've seen her fight monsters and Mageseekers in the M.S game, she didn't hesitate to shoot Sylas with a crossbow and stab him with a dagger until his mages dragged her off him in the comic, as above.
She also witnessed her brother behead a man in the For Demacia story; she was trying to intervene because she had sussed that there was something else going on, and therefore his death would have been unnecessary and unjust, not necessarily out of protest at the death penalty itself.
It's worth noting - as the Mageseeker confirms - that Lux stayed out of the mage rebellion not out of 'naive pacifism' as she's sometimes accused of, but because: 1. She couldn't forgive Sylas for his betrayal.
2. A desire to protect the noncombatant refugees in her care.
3. She's still loyal to Demacia and her family and refused to fight her own kin.
4. because she knew if she stayed neutral, she could leverage her Crownguard privilege and name with King Jarvan to negotiate protection for mages after the conflict.
Which, y'know, she did.
All of these are products of who she is a character, a Demacian, a Crownguard, and a canny political operator. None of these are blind pacifism, this is the kind of soft power "Fox" move Mel Medarda would recognize and approve of.
So no, Luxanna Crownguard isn't going to be put off by Jinx's violence.
Violence is inherently part of her world, too. Demacia is a 'medieval' feudal regime that is almost perpetually at war with its neighbours and, in some ways a harsher, more brutal place than Piltover and Zaun, particularly its notions of 'justice'.
Piltover is only about 50% likely to have public executions as entertainment/morality lesson, Demacia absolutely 100% does and we've seen two of them in canon, is what I'm saying.
I think Lux would understand that Jinx committed terrible deeds, yes, as part of a civil conflict that Lux herself would be coming at with only an outsider's understanding.
Lux knows exactly how it feels to have best intentions blow up in your face, to be backed into a corner and forced to take some pretty extreme actions to survive.
I don't think, after her actions and choices triggered the Mage Uprising and cost untold lives across Demacia, Lux would consider her own hands clean enough to judge someone like Jinx. Sure, Lux didn't mean to give Sylas her power to commit second hand mass murder, but Powder didn't mean to kill her family either.
And it's also worth noting the part of Sylas' actions that Lux doesn't forgive - especially in the Mageseeker dialogue - is specifically the personal betrayal of her trust, outing her as a mage, and ruining her life.
She understands his cause. She won't join it, because that would mean siding with someone who wants to kill her family, but again, Lux's reasons for choosing not to fight are much more complex and personal than 'she hates violence'.
She's able to compromise enough to accept Sylas' help when her city comes under siege, because while Lux is a 'good guy', she's also a pragmatist first.
I think Lux would see a lot of Sylas in Jinx. I think she would see a lot of herself, as well, particularly once she learned about Jinx's past, about Silco (basically Jinx's Sylas figure, no?) and about everything she's been through.
I don't think Lux would judge her for that.
I feel that Lux would try to be the voice of reason, the hand holding hers to ground her, maybe even the olive branch to help her try to repair some of her burned bridges (this is certainly what she tries to do in Ill-Omen's) and that could cause interesting conflict in their developing relationship.
But I think Lux would understand. Jinx may be more volatile and spiteful and personal in her use of violence, but she's shaped by experiences not far from Lux's own.
And by Season Two? Yeah, no, Season Two Jinx is well and truly on her hero arc. Post-Season Two Jinx? Especially if she's trying to put violence aside and heal?
Post season two Jinx, who's grieving losing her father, her sister, her child? That Jinx would absolutely attract Lux's compassion even more than before.
I've written so many words to answer it, but to me, it's such a non-argument to begin with. You have to not even look at Lux past "blonde nice girl" to think it.
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the-film-theory · 17 hours ago
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i like it. i really do. and BECAUSE i like it, im gonna read FAR in between the lines.
uh... buckle up? this was quite a long post. i had to put a keep reading thingy for people
i do like the differences between everyone else and the second coming.
his life obviously wasnt has traumatizing as literally everyone else in this drawing (alan with the torture he put his sticks through, the dark lord and his death, the chosen one and being, well, him, and victim being the first one to go through everything.)
not to say tsc's life wasnt traumatizing, but think about it
victim's powerless (we'll get into victim's thing later), tdl, tco, and alan all have destructive powers
tsc, on the other hand, has powers that create life. life. he creates life, he makes things for the sake of making it. he's given a soul to all the drawings he's made, and its shown through their body and face. that eel during the demonstration of tsc's powers in the testing lab is proof of soul in tsc's creations.
he's not just drawing things; he's giving them purpose. like alan was supposed to.
unlike alan, tsc doesn't hurt them; instead, learning from the rest of the color gang, he bonds with them; learns to care, learns to feel what he is described as: compassion.
while everyone else's descriptions are negative (and by extention, all start in/m), tsc's is completely different. which shows that, despite being made as the latest stick made from a traumatic line of sticks, he's the one with the most care and love.
but, what about victim? his description is different, too. he has three words instead of one. and while that might be because he's just hard to describe in one word, i'm just gonna read inbetween the lines. again. because i can.
as i stated before, victim, as we know so far, is powerless. he doesn't have anything like chosen or the dark lord or tsc. he doesn't HAVE any powers. he wasn't given any.
he was a normal stick figure used for torture by alan. of course, once he knows about the other sticks that alan made, and their powers, he's going to compensate for it.
and he already has. he stole a chunk of alan's drawing app. he took a piece of alan's "powers" and used it to create rocket corp. before he knew about the rest of the hollowheads, he was already compensating for a lack of something.
and that lack of compensating was a normal life. a chance at being, well, happy. because during his entire time with alan, he was tortured and killed and revived over and over. victim landing in the outernet was the start of a new life.
and by gods was he going to take advantage of that. i think that's why he's insult to injury (coming back to the three words instead of one) is all the things he did to recover and live life, all to have it ripped away from him. he saw chosen was the one to take away mitsi's life (from agent's perspective). way later down the line, he met tsc. he met the color gang (kind of. red, yellow, green, and blue were kind of through images and memories.).
and, if he were to look further back into tsc's memories, he'd see a family. a happy, found family. one that victim was having, until it was ripped away.
and that would hurt, it would cut deep. seeing alan being nice? that would just be the icing on the bleeding cake.
holy FUCK this was a long analysis post. i literally should be doing my homework. assignments are due tonight. whatever, im almost done lmao. thanks for reading, if anyone fucking cared.
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food for thought
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vyl3tpwny · 2 days ago
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genuine question: why is genesis so low on ur topsters?
also, if you can: could i hear why hawaii: part ii is rated 3.5 on ur rateyourmusic? (as opposed to like. anything higher)
(p. s. your music inspires me to be the sincerest version of myself, and for that i thank you. the impact you've had on my life is unforgettable.)
genesis isn't rated low. my number one album of all time is genesis' "the lamb lies down on broadway", for about 16 years running. my topster is organized by relative colour, it's not perfect but it just looks nice!
when it comes to talking about music, what i like and like about it, almost 100% of the time i NEVER want to discourage people, talk down to artists, or claim my opinion as fact. the only time i will actively talk down about art is if it's purposefully harmful (see artists like: Tom Macdonald, etc).
with that said, music by miracle musical - and by extension tally hall - often does this thing where there are a handful of really impressive, well written songs that just blow me away. but then the rest of the album outside of those handful of songs are either just ok/catchy or don't interest me very much. the tally hall gang's highs are very high, and equally their lows are just sort of pace-killers for the albums.
it's dynamics like these that prevent me from liking some of my other albums for similar problems! i think albums like queen of misfits and glitter are bogged down by an absurd amount of boring filler that could have just been left out or reworked to be more interesting, it makes it hard to ever listen to those albums front to back. ironically i don't feel that way about fairytails, my 40-song long ass album, almost everything in it still feels rather purposeful to me. i listen to my own music a lot, and once i've finished a project i tend to try and listen to it and enjoy it from an audience perspective rather than an artist one.
while i'm on the topic, i don't necessarily agree with even rating hawaii pt. ii 3.5 because in the past few years i've completely lost interest in the idea of weighing albums by arbitrary scores. nowadays i like to just give 4-5's to albums i like and then ignore anything else. it doesn't really make sense to me to assign a number score to something with good faith, other than to show that score to other people. interfacing with art is not a black and white process. despite the so-called 3.5/5.0 score i gave hawaii pt. ii whenever that was, the reality is that record has influenced me and i've enjoyed it. honestly that's what matters the most. we can sit here and talk album dynamics, technicalities, compositional proficiency, lyric profundity, and """""consistency"""""" (which is a word music critics love to throw around without actually realizing what the fuck they're talking about) all day, but what matters the most is:
Did you like the music? (Yes/No)
Did it inspire you in some way? (Yes/No) [Optional]
Does it seek to do harm? (Yes/No)
Do you respect the efforts and goals of the artist? (Yes/No) [Should always be the inverse of Question 3; i.e; if you answer No to 3, then you should answer Yes to 4]
honestly if you answer yes, yes, no, yes, then it's a good album. i really don't care. not every piece of art has to push the envelope to new heights and be the most innovative thing in the world - i mean wouldn't that be extremely fatiguing and overwhelming? everyone wants to be a critic and tear down shit that doesn't click with them within the first viewing/listen these days, i don't know why, it's probably an ego thing, bred by the echo chambers in the corners of the internet. but a lot of music criticism can be COMPLETELY discarded in favour of "this just isn't for me", and a lot of people go leaps and bounds, doing mental gymnastics over internal compensations, to just avoid saying the dreaded phrase of "this just isn't for me".
trust me, i'm someone who has immense experience with tearing other people down to compensate for my internal insecurities, it happens extremely often which is why a lot of art criticism makes ZERO fucking sense. it's never about making meaningful commentary about anything, it's always just trying to justify in the format of a dissertation - the subjective experience of "this just isn't for me".
so. do i like hawaii pt. ii? yep. is it a perfect album? no. why did i rate it 3.5? probably because at the time i wanted someone somewhere to perceive me as Very Articulated and Well Educated In The Realm of Discussing Art In Front of Other People, in Order to Appear Superior in Intellect and Refined in Taste, Because I'm Insecure Just Like Everyone Else.
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quackerofoatz · 1 day ago
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Hannibal’s relationship with God ♱
[ Taglist 🏷️: @fromelysium @siffrin-enthusiast @buggaboorenegade @flowers-jn-her-hair @scar1ett-so1dier @gardenofearthlydelightss}
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As the show’s antagonist, Hannibal is a man from the get-go who is an unnerving and unique individual to the audience. We see how he interacts with characters and sees himself while doing so. We see the duality of this charismatic cannibal during the night, exposing what Hannibal is. He differs from most murderers/killers in the show; there’s more depth and uniqueness. 
In the first episode, Will introduces the idea of God to the audience, setting the show’s narrative. He challenges the concept of divinity to his students at Quantico and unconsciously to himself. He establishes the theme of divinity and judgment within the show, hinting at the differentiating opinions on this theme. By asking his students to consider why the victim in the case had been subjected to such an act of violence and if it was of God's will or not. He will hint at his moral compasses and opinion on divine judgment by asking his students this.
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Will: Everyone has thought about killing someone, one way or another, be it your hand or the hand of God. Now think about killing Mrs. Marlow. Why did she deserve this? Tell me your design. Tell me who you are. (Season 1 Episode 1)
Will is a unique asset in the Federal Bureau for his empathic mind and profiling skills. He is seen as unstable for his socializing behavior but also in curiosity for his rare, incredible perspective. As Hannibal says in the same episode, his ability to identify and think like killers is a heavy burden and a gift for him. He points to Will as they talk in Crawford’s office, which upsets him terribly. Hannibal is a respected and knowledgeable man in the psychology and medical field. He can analyze but not understand him because he is not predictable with his gift. This intrigues Hannibal, as he is used to scanning people and charming his way into their circles.
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Hannibal: What he has is pure empathy. He can assume your point of view, or mine, and maybe some other points of view that scare him. It's an uncomfortable gift, Jack.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter: I imagine what you see and learn touches everything else in your mind. Your values and decency are present yet shocked at your associations, appalled at your dreams. No forts in the bone arena of your skull for things you love. (Season 1 Episode 1)
With the theme of God in place and his empathy, Will is a tool for God to deal with judgment and punishment for those he catches. He sees killers and civilians alike as they are, with their thoughts and emotions. Despite not necessarily believing in God himself, Will's uncanny ability to understand and empathize with serial killers leads him to profile and put them into custody, as if he were fulfilling a divine purpose/civil duty. We see in the show his mental health takes a toll as he investigates; he doesn’t do these cases because he wants to but because it is morally right, which is at the heart of Will's ability. He can visualize the murders and get inside the minds of the killers, making him a valuable tool in solving crimes and preventing future deaths, as Jack Crawford mentions to him in persuasion.
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He fights back and forth with himself while dealing with other people's demands. He is a martyr in his duty to others, but no one feels this way for him. Until we get Hannibal, with all his knowledge and egotism, he sees this as an opportunity for manipulation and a start of companionship. He sees himself as a dark savior to Will and the one to offer him salvation and devotion.
He is like a Pompasettin peacock, so to speak, and a proud one. As the show goes on, episode by episode, we see a glimpse of Hannibal and his mind’s machinations at every therapy session with Will. He’s not just a complicated character but one who sees himself above others, especially concerning divinity, specifically Almighty God.
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Hannibal: Killing must feel good to God too. He does it all the time. And are we not created in his image?
Will: That depends who you ask. Hannibal: God’s terrific. He dropped a church roof on 34 of his worshippers last Wednesday night in Texas while they sang a hymn. Will: And did God feel good about that? Hannibal: He felt powerful. (Season 1 episode 2)
I have gone through the series for dialogue between Will and Hannibal regarding their ideas or feelings on the divinity of God. Of course, I have picked out the ones throughout the season that make the most sense, and we have a broader view of how each of their opinions evolves with their proximity. I may not have gone through all of them as I am one person. 
 Hannibal: A tumor can definitely affect brain function and even cause vivid hallucinations. However, what appears to be driving your angel maker to create heaven on earth is a simple issue of mortality.  Will: Can't beat God, become him? Hannibal: You said he was afraid. Will:He feels abandoned. Hannibal:Ever feel abandoned, Will?
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 Will and he argue the different sides of believing in divinity and being nonbelievers. He can say why people think or what they feel in the divinity, but Will himself is not one to feel the same. Even as Hannibal has a complicated relationship with God, Will almost seems detached from religion but attached to creation with empathy. Hannibal sees how divinity can be mirrored in humanity through our actions, specifically in the actions of Jack Crawford towards Will. He tries to press Will to find a new belief system to pledge his martyr cause. To exchange Jack for Will. He feels he is all-knowing and mighty about what WIll truly is and the beauty of his empathy disorder.   
Will: Abandonment requires expectation. Hannibal: What were your expectations of Jack Crawford and the FBI? Will: Jack hasn't abandoned me. Hannibal: Not in any discernible way. Perhaps in this way, gods abandon their creations. So God has given this person insight into the souls of men. Will: God didn't give him insight; God gave him a tumor. He's just a man whose brain is playing tricks on him.  Hannibal: You are not unlike this k*ller. Will: My brain is playing tricks on me? Hannibal: You want to feel such sweet and easy peace. (Season 1, Episode 5)
Hannibal's view of the world is highly philosophical. He sees himself as both god and nonhuman, both omnipotent and fallen. He creates beautiful things but must destroy them. He is both a parent to his victims and a creator of art, yet he is also the destroyer of life. Hannibal's view of God is that God has abandoned us and given up on the gift of humanity, much like Hannibal has abandoned the goodness in himself and the gift of life. He tries to weave himself into Will’s subconscious, wanting to be the balm for his cursed gift.
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There is no God. Certainly not with that attitude. God gave you a purpose - Not only to create art but to become it. Why are you helping me? Your eye will now see God reflected. I will see you. If God is looking down at you, don't you want to be looking back at Him? (season 2 Episode 2)
Hannibal’s statement about this murder seals the deal that he believes in God, which stands out among most psychopaths and murderers in this show. Hannibal prompts every dialogue about divinity in the show. 
02x11 - Ko No Mono traditionally, during this meal, we are to place shrouds over our heads, hiding our faces from God. I don't hide from God. Bones and all? Bones and all. After my first ortolan, I was euphoric. A stimulating reminder of our power over life and death. Every creative act has its destructive consequence, Will.
He feels God is all-knowing, and we can reach him through our acts outside of religion. He feels there is no shame in acting within God’s gaze, but that is an act of worship. He feels God knows him and understands the actual makeup of Hannibal, The same way Hannibal does with his murderous tableau. He understands this better than anyone as he mirrors his victims of art to elevate them from their mortal flesh. As we see later on in Italy as Il Mostro, the victim we see is reflected as Primavera.
The Hindu god Shiva is a simultaneous destroyer and creator. Has God sacrificed? What god do you pray to? I don't pray. I have not been bothered by any considerations of deity, other than to recognize how my own modest actions pale beside those of God (02x11 - Ko No Mono)
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We see that Hannibal doesn't just have a Western understanding of divinity but a diverse one, with him mentioning this Hindu God. This shows he has accumulated a broad knowledge of gods of other cultures or religions to make his judgment. He says that he feels his acts of violence are minor compared to the smiteing that God or Gods do to mortals. 
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Nothing would thrill Hannibal more than to see this roof collapse mid-Mass, packed pews, choir singing... He would just love it. And he thinks God would love it, too. w: But he believes in God... intimately (SEASON 3 EPISODE  2 )
Hannibal enjoys the violent acts of Gods, which will be pointed out in the second episode of season three. When Will is standing in a church while tracking Hannibal in Italy. As we see through Will, Hannibal is only understood by him because Will was allowed to see sides of him. Well, with his empathy as well, he can also know Hannibal on a mental level. We see this on his adventure in Italy while talking to Abigail of his imagination and Detective Pazzi. 
What I believe is closer to science fiction than anything in the Bible?We all know it, but nobody ever says that G-dash-D won't do a G-dash-D-damned thing to answer anybody's prayers.God can't save any of us because it's inelegant.Elegance is more important than suffering. W: I think my prayers would feel constricted by the saints, apostles, and Jesus Pantocrator. (SEASON 3 EPISODE  2 )
As was established, Will never said he believed in God but had an idea of him. He doesn't understand praying through channels to get to god but going to the source directly. His understanding of God is not rooted in any religion but based on his knowledge with his empathy. It makes him even more special to Hannibal; he is not a believer but mirrors the violent principles of a T. He is the martyr to his cause and peers, but what exact role does he play?
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{ He is the Lamb }
That is the official title Hannibal gave him in the second-to-last episode of the last season.
Lest we forget the Lamb.
Will it be the Lamb of God?
Hide us from the wrath of the Lamb.
Who's "us"?
You, me and the Great Red Dragon.
The Lamb's wrath touches everyone who errs
(Season 3 Episode 12)
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Will has always been a selfless man without intending or prompting to be, even as people around him don't give the same for him. He gives without judgment, or malicious Hannibal sees Will as the sacrificial lamb due to Will's suffering for the sake of his fellow man. The lamb is used as a substitute to save a group from their sins and used as atonement. The lamb repeatedly passes off sins, as Hannibal sees Will doing his work as an FBI agent. Yet the lamb is a symbol to be scared of and not to be trifled with, as many scholars of the bible point out, and Hannibal seemingly so in this line—the lamb. Jack sees Will as someone who could do no wrong and is entirely innocent of the actions around him—even pardoning him from many murders and slips in the show, blaming it on coercion of his empathy and suffering from encephalitis. Hannibal sees him as a triumphant lamb who is partial to righteous wrath upon people of his choosing. 
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hbpseverus · 1 day ago
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for all that us snape fans say how we love his character because he is flawed and complex, i find it disappointing how many of us can't extend that line of thinking towards lily, while pretending that young severus was entirely innocent. i've noticed this a lot recently and it's been bothering me quite a bit so i've felt the need to defend lily, or to be exact, analyse the downfall of their relationship without basically giving her all the blame and instead looking at both characters and especially lily more critically.
so. let's talk about the conversation between her and severus after the werewolf prank. some snape fans harshly criticise her in this scene because she insists that james saved severus and doesn't acknowledge how serious this prank was, while insisting that at least the marauders don't use dark magic.
and i agree that she should have been more on severus' side in this case. after all he could have died or gotten seriously injured, turned into a werewolf etc and she downplays the severity of the situation and generally doesn't acknowledge how the marauders bullied severus very much. so yes, she could have been a better friend here.
but at the same time, from her perspective, she was already noticing that severus was spending more time with his housemates, all of them aspiring death eaters, how he had always looked up to lucius and was slowly heading down that same path. how he didn't truly disapprove of his housemates disgusting actions towards muggleborns - her own kind. even though it's not entirely logical, since we see through the marauders that light magic can be used to do harm aswell, this also explains her dislike of dark arts, which these (aspiring) death eaters all were fond of and using to do awful things to her friends (and hogwarts also pretty much teaches that dark magic is pure evil). by this point she had most likely also experienced discrimination at hogwarts for being muggleborn. she knew the situation in the wizarding world wasn't favourable for her, and now her best friend was starting to agree with those people?
the next notable event was of course snapes worst memory (sigh, here i go talking about it for the millionth time). and i really don't like how some people on our side of the fandom talk about lily in this scene (of course, this is not all of us).
first of all we saw that she initially smiled upon seeing severus be bullied, and yes, this was honestly quite disgusting. we know that severus saw this and was rightfull hurt, and this very well could be the reason why he snapped at her. but that is her only 'crime' in this scene. because she then does quickly turn against james and this entire crowd and defends severus. only for james to insult and threaten her, and severus to call her a 'filthy little mudblood'.
now, people say she should have done more to defend severus, that her attempt was quite half-hearted. i don't know. maybe she could have done more, but she did tell the marauders to stop, you can't say she didn't try. some say she should have hexed james herself or bring up her prefect role (although i'm not sure it's confirmed she was one at this time). but say she was a prefect, her job would be to stop fighting, which she tried to do, not to get involved in fights herself. and you can tell that james is entirely dismissive of her and clearly won't let her stop him no matter what, even threatening her in the process. lily also genuinely seems to still hate him at this point in time, she is described to have been disgusted with him to the point where even harry questions his parents marriage. so i don't believe it's fair to say she was just 'flirting' with james here.
furthermore, people believe she should have forgiven severus for being called a mudblood. i used to agree that it wasn't that serious, but i feel differently now. because it wasn't just a word, it wasn't a one time mistake or slip up or even the first time she noticed that he was slowly turning into a future death eater. that's why i brought up their conversation after the prank. lily knows that severus' descend into the death eaters arms had been going on for months, years even. being called - not even just mudblood, but hearing the words "i don't need help from a filthy little mudblood like her" out of the mouth of her former best friend was just the final nail in the coffin. it was her confirmation that severus was finally too far down that road, and she, as a muggleborn, could no longer justify surrounding herself with him. so she abandons him at the scene, and i can't blame her one bit.
of course this post is not meant to be severus bashing in any way, he is and always will be my favorite character, but i don't enjoy pretending he was completely innocent, even his younger self. this is also not to excuse the marauders, as their bullying never had anything to do with severus possibly being a death eater and was really just for fun and because they could, and because he was an easy victim. but i truly believe that lily deserves some grace and also to be analysed as a complex character like severus, rather than painting her as one dimensional, either fully good or fully bad.
severus becoming a death eater is the tragic result of his background and surroundings, and when we analyse him we factor all of this in. lily was wealthier, had a better family, was pretty, smart and popular and had a good support system in and out of hogwarts. she couldn't understand why severus made the choices he did. maybe as an adult she would have looked back and understood it all better. but as it was, she was just a teenage girl watching her best friend turn against people like her and not knowing what to do about that. and what's also important to me to point out is that it was not her job to try and stop this, to try and fix him or whatever. it was first and foremost the adults in severus' life who failed him over and over again, not lily.
finally a lot of us can't understand how lily ended up marrying her former friends abuser and use this as an argument against her, but i honestly don't want to go too deep into this topic. i personally strongly dislike this relationship, because james treated lily herself like shit too, aswell as other people. we have to believe that he truly did change, even if there is not much to prove this. even if he did, i personally wouldn't have been able to forgive him. but i don't believe that marrying james makes lily a bad person by extension or anything. ultimately, if she was able to find happiness, i'm happy for her.
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x-necromantic-x · 2 hours ago
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(reblogging w/ my comments under op’s post to have it on one of my blogs)
hi!! this was my post that you're talking about! and wow haha i did not think it would strike this much of a nerve with some people, but it's always a good thing to see other people passionate about things i'm passionate about also.
a few things–
the post overall was meant to be lighthearted in nature, as someone who enjoys both the musical and the poem it wasn't really an us vs them thing. moreso a playful jab at people who made assumptions about the myth based off the musical (which, in my comments there were a lot of) and if you don't do that, the post doesn't apply to you!
in the pinned comment under the post i talk about how a conversation can definitely happen over the ethics of the situation, i'm all for interpretations of the story and enjoyed the people discussing the myth from the perspective of actually having read the myth or of being aware of it. whenever i corrected people in the comments, it was about things they got wrong about the material specifically, such as people saying circe used her magic to force him to bed or arguing about things a simple google search could tell you whether it did or didn't happen. If you interpret the text as being non-consensual, it was never the point of the post to say that your interpretation is incorrect! me personally though, i don't like the optics of circe being turned into a supporting/positive character if she was a rapist in the original.
I wasn't defending hamilton lmao!!! it was a joke!!! it was a bit!!!!
i also never said homer!odysseus was a horrible person! i very much don't think he is! to me, the point of the story is it's exploration of the human condition, and that even if he had faltered in his resolve to get home, that he still wouldn't have been a horrible person because any normal person in his shoes would have done similarly! i dunno where you got this bit but yk, js for the record.
your interpretation of book 10 in the odyssey is fine, if not a little lost on me. odysseus was certainly not initiative in the task of going home. of course, you can read and take away from it whatever you like, but– and i'm not trying to sound pretentious here– in my analysis class for the odyssey specifically we talked about how this section of the odyssey goes into the nature of human temptation when faced with luxury or an easier way out. Odysseus intentionally spends longer than he has to, a full year, and doesn't make the decision to leave until his crew bugs him and calls his delays “madness”. That doesn't read to me as them being like let's leave and he's like alr bet, it reads as odysseus finding reasons to remain on the island even after his crew is ready to go. you can find all of this in the text.
i never mentioned being fixated on the telegony either, all of my rebuttals have been centered around text and examples found in the odyssey itself. it wasn't really a gotcha moment with circe either, there's no debate that odysseus’ is one of history's great morally ambiguous figures in fiction, with or without her.
lastly, i think the odyssey is sooo romantic! a lot of your post seems to have misunderstood the point of mine fundamentally, and that's ok, i probably could have phrased it better! i think epic is romantic, i think the odyssey is romantic, the point i was trying to get at when seriously debating the storytelling of epic is that i think a lot of people miss the nuance that went into the storytelling of the odyssey in favor of a more sanitized, more easy to swallow protagonist. again, how i studied it, and how i believe the odyssey was meant to be read, is as a critical analysis of the human condition. Myths are reflective of the societies they come from, and i want people to be aware that the myths we read are a glimpse into what sorts of things people back then valued and strove for, how they're different from us, and how they're not. you mentioned having wished you’d studied the literature, and i think if you had, you would have come to a similar conclusion.
while i don’t think op misinterpreted my points intentionally in bad faith, calling me an asshole or saying i’m illiterate definitely made me raise an eyebrow. i tried my best to keep the conversations in my own comments respectful and productive, and hostility was definitely not the tone of my original shitpost. i think most people were able to talk about their perspectives and interpretations of the odyssey without going there. i’m attaching my pinned comments below for more context about the post itself
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Some assholes on Instagram saying that Epic fans are "gaslighting" themselves about Odysseus being faithful to Penelope because of the Circe part and being pretentious about it and how we are stupid for considering The Odyssey romantic
Motherfucker
1. The Odyssey is an epic poem we all fucking know that? That it's a tragedy, technically comedy (comedy in ancient literature used to mean "happy ending", not funny stuff)
2. The Circe bit can be interpreted in different ways, as if it was fully consensual or not or just a transaction. There was still a difference in power dynamics, which was 100% mentioned by Calypso in the beginning, but if you choose to ignore that part if the same as saying some of Zeus' kids were ok to be conceived because the women agreeded to what A GOD wanted.
3. Obviously Epic!Odysseus is differente from Homer!Odysseus, but trying to say Homer! Odysseus is a horrible person that fully wanted to cheat on Penelope just because you want to defend ALEXANDER HAMILTON, i have bad news about you.
4. "The crew had to beg to go back!" I read the Odyssey too. As a child and a few days ago. They stayed on Circe's island to rest so Odysseus job as a captain was literally wait until his crew told him they were ready to leave, specially after what they have lived. Odysseus didnt force anyone to stay in that island, when the crew went "oh, sir, we miss our families, please lets go back now, yes?" Odysseus immediately said "ok". It literally felt like a father waiting for the kids to stop playing in the playground.
5. Homer!Odysseus is not perfect, at all (man killed his disloyal maids because he didnt want to deal with shit anymore, even if they also were coerced/raped by the suitors), but come with a better gotcha than Circe. You are just fixiated on the Telegony and it shows.
6. Idk what to tell you, but if you think renouncing a life with two inmortal godesses (one of whom offered you immortality), traveling for 10 years defying a God's rage, killing 108 men who wanted to marry your wife (and ruined your house), almost killed yourself when said wife rejected you only for her to go "haha i was just testing you, silly :)", have your literally marriage have a word created for you two specifically is not romantic... Idk go read Bridgerton
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