#conclave my beloved

[pureseasalt]

beloved my john, so i'll carry on

(conclave x sufjan stevens)

[randomfandomss]

+Bonus ✨️

[roguekaiju]

This is so ridiculous sorry im just glad everyone's finally showing some love to the underappreciated messy bitch who lives for drama Monsignor Ray O'Malley (alt below)

Alt:

[gio-goose]

THIS IS A REPOST CUZ UH I REMEBERED THAT U CAN LINK TO PREVIOUS STUFF INSTEAD OF REBLOGGINF IT (twitter habits i am so sorry this is embarassing MHAVJHAB)

anyways here is the first part

[emotinalsupportturtle]

Me and the Conclave (2024) soundtrack

[lilybarthes]

*

[masked-and-doomed]

LIGHT DARK GOOD BAD

OH LET THEM TURN OH LET THEM FLIP

RED BLUE HOPE FREE

A PERFECT WORLD IS ON ITS WAY

[nerdypipsqueak]

THIS IS WHAT I MEAN WHEN I SAY VINCENT WOULD BE A MENACE ON SOCIAL MEDIA

#coolpope

[abovedivinity]

Edits- 4/?

[endearing-dalliance]

Just like Piltover, Arcane's beauty hides its fundamental problems. Its ableist, antisemetic, acephobic, classist, and worst of all, it doesn't initially seem that way.

Firstly, I want to say that this post and my problem with all of this is due to the real-life references, biases, and viewpoints of the team people who created the show, made the design decisions, wrote the scripts, and continue to defend what many have pointed out are genuine problems in their stories and characters. This nothing to do with the VAs, individual animators, supporting crew, or even the characters themselves. I'm genuinely heartbroken for all those people who proudly worked on the show, did their parts beautifully, supported the viewers, and are met with a fanbase disappointed, hurt, and angry about something completely out of their control.

I wrote up a different post about Piltover vs Zaun in the original lore and how that version is such a different situation than we we got.

Despite everything they did to make the Arcane undercity/Zaun this horrible place, they keep referencing the positives of LoL Zaun (an equal and respected society) and attributing them to Arcane Zaun. All of this is straight from the AoA:

"When you look closely, Piltover and Zaun are not entirely dissimilar" (y'all literally designed them as polar opposites)

Zaun is a refuge for outcasts who don't have a home, and there is the thrilling sense that anything is possible. So pretty much the exact opposite of what Vi was trying to show Cait?

In Piltover everything is heavily regulated; Zaun is wild and more pure meritocracy. "its is not completely lawless, though there are some issues with the mob." That's certainly one way to put it.

Zaunites "make magic out of nothing. nothing is precious, everything can be recycled and be reworked to make it better" I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that people can't afford to replace things when they break. Nope. Completely plausible reasoning. No real life parallel at all.

One example of innovation is a jeweler from Zaun who makes unique gothic work. Not only did they never showed us this side of the undercity, I maintain NOBODY in Piltover is putting on a gas mask to go jewelry shopping in a slum.

"Even though they were oppressed, they can innovate in ways Topside can't. Like well let's take this freedom we have because they don't care about us, and use it to find beauty and innovation. That's where Ekko's little conclave came in." Did they forget the literal orphans he rescued from those "shady streets"? What were they free from, their parents? Cause Piltover's enforcers seem to kill a lot of those despite "not caring". This is straight from Ekko's LoL lore where he spent his days being a kid running around with the Lost Children and inventing for fun. Arcane Ekko got Misfit Toys as an intro song. The Firelights were called a gang. These are not happy, healthy kids enjoying their world. They're vigilantes taking care of other kids who have nobody else.

"Ekko emerged as one of the unlikely heroes of the show, rising to meet tough, sometimes heartwrenching challenges, and becoming a charismatic and beloved leader" His LoL lore is that of a self-educated genius described as "The Hero of Zaun's Youth". Beloved pretty firmly established already. Also charismatic...are we really not past the point where its not supposed to be a shock that a black guy can be articulate?

Sevika's arm is specifically described as "flamboyant", which was the same word used to describe Piltover's augments

This gave me the vibe that they were trying to glorify or romanticize Zaunites' suffering and environment, but on further reflection I think that's giving them way too much credit. Christian's reply below makes it pretty clear he doesn't understand his own story, and Alex's indicates they weren't even trying to tell it and are surprised by this interpretation. Because to them, the Zaunites were the bad guys all along.

(Cool cool name one team member who has personal experience with living in under an oppressive ruling class that is either ignores their suffering or actively worsens it. I'll wait.)

Also, I think its very telling that a cocreator admits to having difficulty distinguishing between a group of systemically abused people fighting for their right to live on their own terms and people breaking the law because want power and influence and money. I don't think Peaky Blinders and the French and American Revolution (among others) are really compatible stories.

"It was an impossible pipe dream if you ask me." Well then. All the nations that successfully rose up and freed themselves from their oppressive overlords were just flukes I guess. Also I'm not sure how they managed to figure out the alien invasion lack of relatability and not realize that's basically what they ended up with. Also, the fact that they keep framing it as a civil war rather than a revolutionary one is mindbogglingly out of touch.

So they were trying to comment on the two party system, but also the point wasn't to comment on the real world. They wanted to show the widening wealth gap in a "fun way", but also that's not what they were shooting for. Over and over we've heard about how the show is about duality, the struggle of Jinx and Vi and the struggle of the two cities. If they didn't want to comment on the real world, didn't know enough about politics to even realize what they were doing or what message they sent, DON'T MAKE A $250 MILLION STORY ABOUT IT. Thanks to their contributions, we now have a story about two girls brutally traumatized by their environment enveloped in a pro-oppressor, forgive your abusers theme. Well I aint forgiving any of this.

I get the idea of "show, not tell", but some things do need to be explicitly told. Oppression is objectively wrong no matter who the oppressed are should not be left up to interpretation. Its not the viewers' job to piece together that Zaun's problems are ultimately caused by Piltover, especially since what they are shown is that death of a child makes the world a better place. Not once in 18 episodes do they ever explicitly condemn Piltover. Not once did they validate Zaun's right to independence. We got "forgiveness" (forgiving your abusers? great message) and "finding your way back to each other" (which none of the duos actually did. They're all "dead"). And my personal favorite, the important lesson that asexual people do not have happy, healthy, nonplatonic relationships, so TAKE THAT JAYVIK SHIPPERS.

Since they ended Arcane with a reference to a Japanese proverb, in the spirit of duality I'm ending with a quote by someone who actually has personal experience on the subject:

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."- Desmond Tutu

[gio-goose]

AU doodles bc I cannot make anything complete rn anywaayyyyssss skitters away into the fog

[tialilith]

bellini has secretly (and shamefully) been in love with lawrence since they first got to know each other but he never found the courage to tell him (it's obvious to everyone except lawrence). then benitez shows up and bellini has to watch lawrence become completely smitten by him. and in comparing himself to benitez, bellini can't feel anything but lacking.

[vigilskeep]

I’m obsessed with bea!! so how did get badasss rogue skills as a little chantry mouse?

her aunt!!

some extra bea lore, to explain the situation: her father was guilty and distant, never wanting to actually pack her off to the chantry or a marriage like he was supposed to, because he regretted what happened to her mother when forced into the wrong life too young. this made bea’s elder half-siblings anxious; he’d married her mother because it was politically advantageous, because she came from a much more powerful family than their mother. as long as bea wasn’t vanished off like a proper youngest sibling, she felt like a threat to their inheritance

as you can imagine, that was a pretty isolating big house to grow up in. she was a little bullied by her siblings when they were younger; she downplays this as kids being kids but she did learn to pick locks because she occasionally got locked in places. when they grew out of that she stopped getting any attention at all, and that was sometimes almost worse. she wasn’t really bold enough or socially gifted enough to seek company outside of the family. she was a lonely kid and she spent a lot of time with books, in the chapel, or with the trevelyan family’s beloved horses. (all trevelyans are horse girls whether you like it or not)

so what bea looked forward to more than anything were breaks from that loneliness: the occasional visits of her aunt.

her aunt was the previous generation’s youngest trevelyan sibling handed off to the chantry, and a templar. butch lesbian, very close-cropped hair, lot of muscle, heavier frown lines than she really should have had at her age. sad-eyed and serious whenever she didn’t realise bea was looking at her. but she was always very affectionate to bea, having been in that position of the youngest just waiting to be sent away. she’s the one who used to call her bea! and a variety of increasingly nonsensical nicknames. “lady bea, lady bug,” she used to say. “my little bumble bea. what have you been up to while i was gone?”

and bea would say, “ummm. reading?”

and her aunt would shake her head. “that’s no good,” she’d say. “that’s no good at all. it’s a dangerous world out there for a little bea, and books won’t protect you. you’d better learn how to sting.”

and bea would say, “but auntie, bumblebees die when they sting, i read about it!” and her aunt would laugh and ruffle her hair and say she was too smart for her own good.

but bea did want to impress her aunt and make her smile when she came, more than anything, so she went very bravely to... someone, maybe a fencing master kept on for her elder siblings, maybe her father or a roguish friend of her father’s, maybe even to one of her elder siblings, and she insisted on being trained. (it would be interesting if it was someone older, who’d also trained her mother, who was of course good enough to be noticed by the wardens.) whoever trained her, they were very grim-faced about it, never letting slip how good she was and insisting it was only the basics of self-defence that she was struggling to reach. not a particularly kind approach, but definitely one that made her work as hard as she did, for better or worse. and she loved the work. it turned out fighting was even better than horseriding for letting her quiet her busy thoughts and just move

i did not expect this response to get as long as it did so to round off this information... it was her aunt, tired of seeing bea pushed aside and kept at home, who insisted on taking her to the conclave to finally go out into the world and see something important happen. naturally, only one of them came back

[endeavour12345]

So, I watched the (Conclave) film last weekend, and here are my thoughts on it (I had read the book beforehand, but loved the film).

Cardinal Lawrence is a good character. Every cardinal wants to be pope, and he knows the name he'd choose (John, like the beloved disciple), but at the same time he cannot escape his doubts about the Church (and its people), as he can't escape his first name (Thomas, like the apostle who doubted Jesus as he showed himself to his disciples after his resurrection).

I love how they portray the cardinals' different views of the church, and what they want for it. I can feel Lawrence's alienation, as most of the other cardinals want an Italian pope.

Now I'll talk about the end of the film and what it means to me.

Reading the book, there was a scene where Lawrence (he was called Lomeli in the book, but I'll use the film's version because this post is mostly about the film) goes to see Benitez in his room, and he notices that Benitez's razor is still in its wrapping. As a trans guy, this immediately got my brain gears turning. It had been a few days, and most men shave every day. I thought that Benitez was either trans (a trans man) or intersex. As I reached the end and read O'Malley revelation about the clinic, then Benitez's own revelation in the book, I became a bit scared of seeing how they would portray that scene in the film, because the Catholic Church is not the biggest fan (that's an euphemism) of LGBT+ people. Yet, it was done in a considerate way, and I felt happy and relieved. Hopeful, even, that Benitez felt accepted by G-d exactly as he was. I wish that was the case with the wider Church.

Another bit I liked (and not without symbolism) was the scene with the turtle. I think the turtle heading into the chapel, that Lawrence saw, picked up, and placed back in the water was a symbol of overcoming doubt and difficulty. And I liked it also because I find turtles cute 😉.

[masked-and-doomed]

I wanna clarify that the darlings talking to me aren't like actually talking to me in my brain. I'm playing pretend but also this play of pretend is still considerably ill now that I think about it. I don't think most people get their war criminal blorbos to talk them through the shit.

[masked-and-doomed]

I should have written it here why did I write it in tags ofc I was gonna yap to high heaven.

Reblogging it so I can SS and continue my yapping-

This scene from -STRIVE-'s story's epilogue has always been so nice to me

It perfectly encapsulates both Faust and Chronus with just one sentence and feels unique to the other epilogue scenes. It feels like it was written JUST for these two.

Faust was forgiven for his sins as a serial killer (likely Doctor Baldhead. I mean, the rare fish with his bag on it is literally called "Dr. Octohead", it can't get much more obvious) and brought peace to the world with his healing. The best example of this I can think of is Leo going from calling him "the unlicensed doctor" in Faust's arcade mode, to discussing strategy in the same room as him.

As for Chronus, while he hasn't had time to do too much just yet, the seeds are already planted for his redemption. The first step was Faust choosing not to kill Chronus when they met at the end of Xrd SIGN's story. On it's own, this didn't mean much, since all Faust wanted from Chronus was answers about the Japanese colony, however, by the time we reach Faust's Revelator arcade mode, things have changed. They aren't exactly "friends", but it's clear that they're now working toward the same goal: figure out what's going on in the Japanese colony. By the end of it, however, not only si Faust actively protecting Chronus from Leo, Chronus even sits down and has tea while Faust calls Haehyun!

Also, side note, but, I find it really funny that Chronus just slides across the screen when they run away from Leo, I have no idea why they didn't just speed up his walking animation.

Back to the main topic, in my opinion, it's this tiny bit of forgiveness that pushes Chronus to do more than he has to. Sure, he could just sit in the Japanese colony all day, but he doesn't, he goes out on his own to save Asuka from Absolute Defense: Felion (btw, I am 100% certain that Chronus invented that technique and no one can convince me otherwise). This action, of course, helps bring peace to the world of GG, as Asuka was VITAL to stopping the revival of Justice in Revelator.

TL;DR: Chronus for -STRIVE-, Chronus cool, line from -STRIVE- epilogue cool