#despite some research

[vulcanautus]

"I have to carry on, and do everything he planned to do."

[sarnai4]

Ares: Hey, remember when you got chained up?

Thanatos: Yeah, rough times.

Ares: I'll bet. Remember when I saved you?

Thanatos: Of course, man! Thanks again.

Ares: No problem, but I've got one more question.

Thanatos: Go ahead.

Ares: Remember when I got chained up and trapped in a bronze jar?

Thanatos:...

Ares: For thirteen LONG months.

Thanatos:...

Ares: Nothing but the darkness of my own mind to keep me company.

Thanatos:...

Ares: All for trying to keep my mom and little sister safe.

Thanatos: Well, now I think you just want me to feel bad.

[catenary-chad]

AC/DC is a VERY smart song, one of the reasons it’s my favorite lyrically in the show is that it’s so explicitly about electric trains and has multiple references to super interesting issues/traits with them. This doesn’t go into the broader electricity puns (which are shockingly versatile), just the ones most relevant to trains

“Feel my magnetism”

I’m still trying to figure out if this is an issue with remotely modern electric trains and motors, but I have heard a claim about a turn of the century New York Central S-motor (one of the very first mass produced electric locomotives!) basically “picking up and stealing” some tools left near the track this way and then dropping them when switched off.  Basically the whole “pulling in things with magnetism” has at least some real life precedent with trains.  

“AC/DC it’s okay by me/ I can switch and change my frequency”

This was perhaps the defining feature of the CC 40100 Electra’s helmet was based on.  Due to inconsistent electrification systems (due to early 20th century tech limits) it’s very common to have 2,3, even 4 voltage locomotives and EMUs since it’s cheaper and easier than replacing all that infrastructure.  Having both AC and DC compatibility is actually super old, the New Haven Railroad had one of the first AC-powered lines ever and the very first AC locomotives there had to be equipped for both it and the existing DC third rail in other sections.  But being able to run on multiple AC frequencies is much more recent, and the CC 40100 was an early example of it.  The Northeast Corridor in the US actually requires trains capable of running on THREE different AC voltages/frequencies, being able to “change your frequency” is an important requirement there (and in continental Europe)  

Basically, silly 70s-80s era bi allusions are just how electric trains are.  It’s so out there but so on the nose.  It’s probably the single smartest writing decision of the show because it works so well and talking train media otherwise NEVER talks about these aspects of electrification.  

“I can shock you, I can set you on fire”

The history of diesel and electric trains involves so, so much spontaneous combustion.  Exploding is almost exclusively a steam engine thing, but if they wanted to dramatically kill Electra or Greaseball or any of the Nationals, this is always an option and weirdly underused.  

“I can reach up and pluck down the lightning/watch the conductor, see the live wire”

Direct reference to overhead electrification and how pantographs are raised to make contact.   Also fun play on train conductor/electrical conductor, which is popular in trolley/train jokes.  This system is something almost exclusive to trains and part of why they are so established, efficient, widespread and convenient as electric vehicles.  They’re genuinely absurdly OP vs basically all other forms of traction since they don’t have to carry their own fuel/power supply and can have ridiculously high single-unit power since the only limit is how much capacity the power grid has (and how much can be practically used without wheelslip).  Due to their fixed paths they can run this way vs needing batteries and totally bypass the decades of density limits those had.  Even today batteries are not really practical as a main power source for anything bigger than commuter EMUs and switchers.  

(Trolleybuses are a thing and there’s been attempts at sticking pantographs on trucks… and I guess bumper cars technically count too lol) 

Shoutout to Stexico for having a very different chorus with somehow the exact same sentiment. 

“Macho/Hembra es mi conector” (Male/Female is my connector)

This is just a hilariously matter of fact statement about the electrical connections on AAR standard passenger engines and coaches, which I think Mexico uses since their rail system is so US-based but I could be wrong (privatization axed basically all their passenger services around the time Stexico came out and there’s very little even today).  The stuff about “with my switch I connect you” is also incredibly matter of fact because there’s usually a separate switch or dial to turn on head end power on locomotives.  

Electra is based on this very 70s bi stereotype/trope that lumps in the botanical definition of “bisexual” and makes characters “both male and female” in a way that’s inconsistently trans, GNC, and/or literally being 50/50 both in a way that doesn’t work that way in humans.  Velvet von Ragnar from Never Too Young to Die is almost IDENTICAL in this regard as another example.  But the hilarious thing is that it’s just… incredibly matter of fact and literal when applied to electric trains because so many of them are able to run on both AC and DC power because rail electrification is so messy and many of them are technically “both male and female” going off electrical connections.

Anyways, tangent aside

I do not know enough German to appreciate the intricacies of stuff like word choice or idioms in the translated lyrics but these ones are fun because they’re explicitly about overhead wires

“Steh unter Spannung”

I’ve seen the translation given as “I’m a live wire” but the more literal one seems to be “stand under tension/power/voltage” which I honestly like more no matter which one “Spannung” means here.  I know voltage is sometimes called “pressure” as in water pressure in English, which this might be a case of.  The allusion to voltage/power in overhead wire is obvious, but  literal catenary wire tension is also SO important specifically in rail electrification.  The wire has to be tight and straight enough to make proper contact with the pantograph (and getting the upwards pressure on those is also important).  Europe has mostly reasonably modern lines with adjustable weights to keep wire tension constant but the northeast US has HUGE issues with outdated systems with fixed wires that sag in the heat (then get snagged on pantographs and torn down) or snap in the cold when they shrink/expand.

“Ein Griff von mir” (A grip of mine)

“Holt den Blitz aus der Leitung,” (Takes the lightning out of the wire)

Also seems to be a direct reference to pantograph pressure/contact with overhead lines, similar to the English version of this line.  There’s a strong hand/arm association with pantographs in general due to their design, modern ones bend in arm-like ways and “touch” the wire in a very particular way.

Also this is probably just wild coincidence but “Griff” makes me laugh because Zaine Griff was the workshop Electra.  

[selcouth-vast-poet]

soem old sketches i didd sometime ago

[harbingersecho]

grif's surgery but just a little more... obvious?

I actually rly rly ADORE frankengrif but I don't have an in-show reason why he'd have extensive long-term allogeneic skingrafts on his face 😔

[monkesupreme]

Love this body type post SOOOO much. Thinking of this rudeass that tried to fight me how inaccurate bruces height and weight was (6’5/250lbs) in the replies of my OWN post, and how he needed MORE weight to be considered a brick house (bc they themselves were 220 and 6’2 and in their words ‘had a little bit of muscle’), then immediately ignored their own statement and got upset when i mentioned i wanted jason to be slightly taller and 40 lbs heavier. Suddenly thats TOO fat and im stupid. Fucking moron.

[charmwasjess]

I think about how Barriss and Ahsoka use radically different saber forms as a contrast to their personalities and worldviews as well. You ain’t alone. 😅👍

GEODE MY MAN!! I love to hear I'm not the only one and more of this tasty analysis exists.

I'd be so so so curious as to your thoughts on Barriss and Ahsoka's respective forms and what it says about their characters, if you felt like going wide with it. 👀👀👀

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

hope you feel better soon!

I am riddled with ailments, but I stay silly!

[risingsunresistance]

YOU 🫵 I LOVE YOU 🫵🫵🫵

[laterkatersays]

Fandom: Oxventure (Web Series) Rating: Explicit Relationships: Edie Valentine/Garnet Munro Additional Tags: Lesbian Garnet, Demisexual Edie, Demisexuality, No Period-Typical Homophobia, Fluff and Smut, Light Angst, Getting Together, Falling In Love, Hand Jobs, Porn with Feelings, Explicit Consent, Sharing a Room, Accidental Voyeurism, Bathing/Washing, Oral Sex, Scissoring, Tenderness

When Edie caught Garnet bathing one morning, she should have closed her eyes, should have feigned sleep. She did neither of those things.

Which lead to a very interesting conversation...

[servuscallidus]

I never liked Melanie as a person but was very intrigued by her as a character, since she's as deep and well written as any other on the show, (until fandom made me hate her). I'd forgotten though that the dislike was immediate + from her first appearance we get to know one of her most fundamental (and insufferable) traits, that is that she does exactly what Jon does, worse-ish* even, but she thinks she's better than him because, well, because it's her and she just is. Which will come back full force later on to such wonderful effects

[gamebunny-advance]

Irreplaceable

It's all "pikmin yaoi" this and "pikmin yuri" that, but then y'all will go and ignore the canon pikmin yaoi/yuri that's right in front of you.

[torgawl]

instead of just cross eyes and star eyes distinguishing dynasties in khaenri'ah, why do some khaenri'ahns cover one eye specifically? there’s many things that seem interconnected regarding the lore:

crimson moon turning around to look like an eye; irmin the one-eyed king; the unknown god’s cubes containing eyes in their design (same ones present in the cataclysm as well as the crimson moon), her glitching looking like arlecchino’s, and the four pointed star pattern that appeared when she showed up to the twins; forbidden knowledge and nibelung’s influence; fischl's auge der verurteilung aka eye of condemnation (crimson eye) and her skin's description "o holiest of sovereigns, high princess of immernachtreich (kingdom of evernight)!".

kaeya's note about the alberich saying "i saved this one memento from the fire 'father' made while he wasn’t paying attention. this was in violation of our principles. our clan's affairs should never be recorded" and "though we could not restore khaenri'ah to life, we of the alberich clan should lead lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers [small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire]", father being in quotation marks and references to fire and ashes; the orphanage in khaenri'ah that wanted to house children from destroyed worlds and non-threats that leaked into the kingdom, in hopes of finding beings from beyond the sky who could transcend the gods; perinheri's first memory being transversing something like a chimney, filled with ash and being asked if he wasn't dead just for him to see the eye (crimson moon) and being told he was reborn; dust and the blood of of dragons (or dragon-like beings like durin and elynas) being connected to rhinedottir and the art of khemia; fire as rebirth and life but also, the balemoon blood specifically being connected to loss of memories and loss of memory being equivalent to death (not physical);  despite the orphanage never being able to find that transcendal person, it had many unusual individuals who became knights of the kingdom.

irmin as the first divine halberd (that once pierced the axis mundi [cosmic/world axis, world pillar, center of the world, world tree, etc.] and connected the nine worlds), the prinzessin der verurteilungas (fischl) as the last one; fischl and kaeya comparing themselves to one another and their parallels to irmin and odin; der ring des nibelungen, in which the dwarf (or nibelung) alberich creates a ring capable of controlling the world, using gold he stole from the rhinemaidens (or rheintöchter "rhine-daughters"). the conflict that arises over the ownership of this ring eventually leads to the destruction of the gods and their home, valhalla.

irminsul (irmin + sul) meaning great pillar and being a reference to the yggdrasil, the tree that supports the universe; the description of the item silver twig – collected in the center of the world - talking about a sage that hanged himself upside down in the irminsul tree to gain knowledge of the runes and the cosmos, then going into a secret kingdom down its roots [also a reference to hanged man in tarot that symbolizes wisdom, divination, sacrifice, prophecy, etc.]; odin who hung himself upside down from the sacred world tree, yggdrasil, for nine days and nights sacrificing his eye and throwing himself on his spear (gungir) as a ritual sacrifice in order to obtain secret wisdom; memories, fire and crimson moon hand in hand with the irminsul, king irmin and the concept of fate; the fake sky, the stars and being able to see fate but also fate being a means of the heavenly principles to control the world (neuvillette calling it puppet strings); khaenri'ah, a supposed godless nation but the crimson moon dynasty revering the moon (and hilichurls worshiping istaroth); the crimson moon having an eye on humanity and always being present associated with punishment and destruction (fall of gurabad, remuria and the catclysm).

crimson moon's semblance (arlecchino’s weapon) implying the crimson moon sought vengeance (“few survived the utter destruction of their kind, hiding in the shadows where the sun did not shine, longing for the crimson moon to decree their desire for vengeance be repaid”); the design of the weapon and arlecchino’s boss attacks resembling the double helix present in deathly statuette material dropped by abyss heralds, abyss lectors and shadowy husks, which has a single red eye. it apparently whispers "see, my child. all that lies under the throne of heaven shall be destroyed by upheaval. the eternal peace of the pitch-dark void shall embrace us all.” as you gaze at it.

the abyss order being founded by chlothar alberich and pierro being the first harbinger; the "sinner" – the crystal in chains from the chasm, protected by an abyss herald - not being a god but still worshipped by the abyss order. the voice stating to chlothar and the traveler’s twin that he "[knows their] fate well" and urged them to become a "transcendent one" saying he would "shed a tear at the end of time... as i gaze back upon your life". he also imbued chlothar with the power of the abyss, which alleviated his worsening conditions. the “sinner” refered to chlothar as “dear creature”; dainsleif, pierro and kaeya being examples of khaenriahns who hide their right eye; dainsleif being called “bough keeper”, bough is a branch of a tree, but also his constellation being a snake ring like ouroboros – representing the eternal renewal cycle of life, death and rebirth; the loom of fate being an operation of the abyss order first encountered during "a herald without adherents" quest.

“the threads of your fate lie in my hands” a quote by fischl connecting to the weaves of fate; fischl stating that if she does not obtain the divine halberd “...this world and everything in it is going to burn in hellfire” (legend of the shattered halberd vol. ii). some other excerpts of the book also include: “but unbeknownst to him, this was the greatest cursed sword of all, that had once burned the entire world to cinders: laevatain [in norse mythology, a weapon crafted by loki and the only capable of defeating the cockerel viðofnir, inhabiting the top of yggdrasil], the sword had extinguished after the world was burned, but... it burned bright once more. ‘the whole world... destroyed again...’ weiyang [fischl] fell unconscious as she spoke” (vol. iv), and, "the world is beyond repair. it shall be born anew from the ashes of the last” (vol. vi); dainsleif saying “none will escape the flames. see for yourself” but also neuvillette’s character story including “the puppet strings glossed as "divine rules" would one day be burned away by the fires of judgment” when talking about constellations; burning away the old world, project stuzha by the fatui and the image of dottore burning the irminsul; nahida saying fontaine's prophecy was engraved in the irminsul, implying the tree also contains the history of the future; sibylla, a prophetess who guarded the irminsul in an ancient city located in what later became the high seas (referred to as abyssal depths). she sacrificed her life for the sake of creating phobos, remus' grand symphony, but her lack of a will ultimately caused the project to fail, as her vague desire to "grant happiness to all in the world who are called humans" caused phobos to attempt to satisfy everyone's desires — including destructive and selfish ones — and set remuria towards the course of its self-destruction (possibly tying concepts of will and fate together); thinking of dottore's plan, it would make sense to burn the tree that holds memories with a fire able to erase them (arlecchino's balemoon powers) so that the world can be born anew breaking away from the shackles of fate.

there’s also the improvisation kaeya does during the play in his hangouts. "do you believe in fate? if fate decreed your life was to end in tragedy, what would you do?". he then throws a prop and we interact, choosing if we would face our fate bravely or challenge it and rise above it. kaeya then goes on saying "then so must it be! yes, so must it be! i shall discard this intaglio and rid myself of the shackles of fate", "fate means to send the machinations of war to every corner of the land to fan the flames of conflict till they ungulf the entire world… fate would see my sword tainted with the blood of innocents, that the bright banner of my homeland might fly in every nation known to mankind. but i shall not bow to the will of fate i am no pawn in heaven’s plan. i, qubad, will spend the rest of my days in a foreign land, 'till i breathe my last in a place far from home" and finishes the play with "but i must walk this path, or freedom dies by my hand. goodbye, my tribe and kin. farewell, sweet land of my birth". the prop we get from kaeya, the intaglio, symbolizes the noble origins of prince qubad in the play and the blood-red jewel (blood, red... funny, uh?) is said to be a crystallization of the question kaeya asked us about destiny. furthermore, an intaglio can be a type of engraved gem or metal signet ring.

[altarboysalteredboys]

thinking of rewatching s1 of arcane but now that i'm also a cane user i suspect that i would just get distracted getting mad at every shot of viktor using his cane incorrectly

[lightasthesun]

hey guys where should I go to get checked out for chronic fatigue syndrome...

[dreamieparadise]

Oh yeah since Jojo exposed the Momina 8 children fiasco I should add that when Hayato realizes that his children don't have a tribe (its through your dad) that actually makes him distraught!!! Momina comforts him by reminding him they have their own...tribe...I'm gonna throw up. I'm gonna choke her with her own intestines!!!

I blacked out in anger and snapped in the tags but also this is so long (tags) so I'll add here...really considered them having 9 kids because I think it'd be very funny for the two oldest to look at their dad like he's a monster. :) they did when the twins were born when they were 16 and 15 but would it not be even funnier if they visit from college and it's love "surprise! Hooyo is pregnant (again)!!" :) unfortunately I said Momina would be 41 when the twins are born BUT IMAGINE? Maybe for Mafia hs au 🙄