#has been for 8 years now

[artkaninchenbau]

Crocodile finds a strange stray cat an 11-year old Nico Robin (AU where they met 13 years earlier. Robin's been on the run from the World Government for 3 years. Crocodile's 27 and has not set up base in Alabasta yet)

It seems like I have become possessed. By some sort of demon.

Bonus:

[deathandnonexistentialdread]

No please elaborate on how much you've been yearning for Kaito Kid for more than eight years

[buqbite]

I think he is perhaps the second most nihility character of all nihility characters so far

[diviedrawn]

Great plan Ethan!

[clansnaphance]

I'm really not vibing with whatever staff is doing now. Not only does there seem to be a total internal communication breakdown, there also seems to be an absolute disregard for how the players are affected by this.

Like, ignoring the fact that the consistency argument doesn't even hold water, their takeaway from the Fern/Paisley thread seems to have been "oh we gotta change Breakup and Hypnotic too!!"

And then completely reversing Sandsurge Blend on top of that? A gene that's been out for over half a year and was only listed as having the gradient softened, not reversed? Just a total failure to communicate and an absolute bullheadedness in pushing the changes through despite the very reasonable player concerns?

To top it all off, none of these are bug changes, they are style changes. Someone saw these genes before they went live, greenlighted them, and put them in the game. And now, months upon months later, someone else (presumably) says "fuck that, I want the gene to look like this instead" and that complete change is just... pushed through??

Like. Did they learn nothing from the Butterfly debacle, from Obelisk Flair, hell, from the Eyepocalypse?

What the fuck is going on behind the scenes?

[weaverhornet]

as awful as it's actually been to live through, liz trusses 45 days in office is objectively hilarious on reflection. girlie walked in, had three quiet weeks of royalty circus when the queen kicked it, proceeded to immediately crash the £ by making economic plans so bad that every single market in the world went What The Fuck, spend a little under a month scrambling and back pedaling and changing ministers and desperately trying to cling onto power before finally dramatically resigning after 45 entire days (the shortest time of any prime minister ever) and starting a panic 7 day long leadership election just so that the Tories can try and avoid calling an actual general election. good job everyone

[quitefair]

The Temple of Mythal and Greek Sculpture

Or: How Bioware takes from history without any nuance.

--

Picture this. You're me, playing Inquisition for the first time. You get to the Temple of Mythal, the doors shut behind you and you finally get to look around. It's a typical elven ruin for the game, nothing much seems different...

Hold on.

Hold the fuck on.

You know what that is.

You know what that's based on, and for a long time after it tickles you. Oh, maybe that meant something in the grander scheme of things! We've never seen such a blatant reference to a real-life sculpture anywhere else in game (to my knowledge at the time)! Maybe it'll come up later and it'll all make sense!

Here's the deal. I've been bothered by this for years. The more I think about it, the more angry I become. Anger over a single fucking type of statue, you say? There's a lot of other shit to be angry over in this game, and you choose this?

YES! I CHOOSE THIS! AND THIS IS WHY.

--

Picture this. You're me again, aged 14 this time. You're in the Louvre, the first museum of Western classical art you've ever been to. You've grown up in a place where this interest could only be cultivated from extra-curricular reading, and for a kid that age from my country to be ass deep in Greek and Egyptian myth is frankly lmao. Neurodivergent. Anyway.

So we're wandering around the Louvre, I've just taken my parents through the Egyptian section and given them a thorough infodump on everything I know about burial rites.

And then we enter this room. And I very nearly fall to my knees when I catch sight of her.

This is the sculpture the statues at the Temple of Mythal are based on - one Winged Victory of Samothrace.

She is a sculpture from the Hellenestic era, depicting the goddess Nike stood at the prow of a ship. Her head and both arms are missing, save one hand with two fingers (also in the Louvre but displayed separately). She was found on the Greek island of Samothrace, among the ruins of what was known as the Sanctuary of the Great Gods. It seemed like she was displayed at the top of a hill, looming down at all that regarded her.

I’ve had the absolute privilege of seeing her in person twice in my life, both before and after the 2013 restoration. And let me tell you, regardless of which staircase that leads you there, the sight of her will stop you in your tracks.

[Now with people, for scale.]

She is massive. Larger than life, and immediately is the centre of your attention. It's not the fact that she has no head, no arms. No, you will realise the closer you get to her, the more you're able to appreciate the details of this absolutely astounding piece of history.

No. It's because she feels so alive.

The way her robes drape against flesh, wet from sea-spray or rain, yet flowing with the motion of an invisible wind. The wings cast behind her dramatically as her right foot steps forward. Standing tall and proud, unflinching, unbowed against the elements. Even without her arms, you can feel how dynamic the torso and legs are.

You don't need to be an art historian, or even have any knowledge of Greek myth or art history to stand in front of her, as I once did as a young teen, and nearly be brought to tears.

So.

This brings me to the first of the two main gripes I have with the way this sculpture is used in Inquisition.

Compared to the way she's displayed in the Louvre, and also presumably how she was presented to her original audience - larger than life, looming, powerful, beautiful - she is relegated instead to smaller, repeating statues of the same nature throughout the temple.

This diminishes the purpose of the original sculpture, which was to instill a sense of awe and wonder. The singularity that forces you to focus and appreciate the scale and intricacy. The aura, the gravitas of having a single, massive sculpture of such a dynamic figure is completely gone.

And to make things worse, they Mythal-ify her. Adding a helmed head and changing her beautiful feathered wings to leathery dragon wings. They don't even add arms, which is odd because the original sculpture very clearly is missing its arms.

And, may I ask, Why?

It feels cheap, like they saw the Winged Victory and were like 'oh shit this is a cool sculpture, we should add it in game' without giving any fucking thought to what the sculpture means.

Which brings me to the second gripe. The complete disregard for the symbolism of the Winged Victory.

Detail from the Athena fountain, Parliament Building of Vienna, showing Nike the Winged Victory in the palm of Athena's hand [source]

Nike is a minor Greek deity, said to be the daughter of Pallas (a Titan) and the river Styx. Her other siblings by the same parents include Zelus (Zeal),  Bia (Might) and Kratos (Strength).

Yes. That Kratos.

She was one of the earliest gods to pledge her allegiance to Zeus in the Titonomachy, and after the victory of the Olympians, Nike and the other gods that allied with them were allowed to live on Olympus. In her aspect as Victory, she is closely associated with several of the major Greek gods, and in particular, Athena.

There's also her Roman counterpart, Victoria. This version doesn't come with the backstory Nike has, but is more of a general concept of victory. This is the aspect that is present in a lot of the modern sculptures and interpretations of Nike/Victoria:

Left: Detail from the Berlin Victory Column. Right: Detail from the Victoria Memorial, London. Note the similar iconography, of a woman seemingly standing against a strong wind, fabric and cloth adhering and yet flowing against the breeze, wings outstretched.

From this, we can probably extrapolate what our beloved Winged Victory might've looked like. Here's an artist's render of one possibility:

There's some iconography we need to go through before moving on - symbols that are commonly associated with Nike/Victoria.

One is the trumpet as see in the reconstruction above, the sound and symbol of the end of war, of impending peace. Another is the laurel wreath, another Greek symbol of victory and achievement. Famously, laurel wreaths were used to crown victors of the original Olympic games.

This is another conversation entirely, but there’s a discussion to be had about the duality of Elgar’nan and Mythal, in term of vengeance and justice, and how an emotional rage versus a calculated wisdom can be compared to the difference between the two Greek gods of war – Ares and Athena.

If we can compare Mythal to Athena, in the sense of her wisdom in making difficult decisions, then it’s not a stretch to associate Mythal with the symbolism of Nike, and therefore explain the presence of statues similar to the Winged Victory in her temple.

But since Bioware absolutely did not put this in the game for anything other than the Aesthetic, there’s some problems that need to be addressed.

Mainly in the way in which these statues are scattered throughout the temple. If you wanted static, ominous statues to line the walls as your player characters explore, perhaps have like, I dunno. Less dynamic statues that you reference?

Left: Nike of Paionos, Right: Stele 1 of Las Incantadas

Or maybe instead of statues, have friezes lining the walls. Like this one from the equally iconic Pergamon altar, depicting the Giganomanchy.

It’s the same symbolism, the wings, the smiting of foes and victory of good over evil.

And then perhaps, at the heart of the temple... where, y'know Bioware, lay a body of water sacred to Mythal herself, you could've perhaps done something remarkable. You could then have had the most dramatic and beautiful entrance you’d ever seen.

[Nike, at the iconic Daru Staircase, the Louvre]

It was at this moment that Mythal walked out of the sea of the earth's tears and onto the land. She placed her hand on Elgar'nan's brow, and at her touch he grew calm and knew that his anger had led him astray. - Codex entry: Mythal: The Great Protector

Mythal herself strides out of the Well Of Sorrows, the metaphorical tears of her followers that died and kept their knowledge alive in her name. Her (draconic) wings spread out, (restored) hands outstretched to touch her husband, to calm the rage that nearly destroyed this world.

A symbol of victory against the blind rage of a god against His father, the Sun. A symbol of wisdom and grace, against the violence of hatred. A divine sense of something bigger than anything we could imagine.

There's also the lack of iconography regarding victory, instead piling on some cheap representations of what we think of as Mythal. That's another post entirely on the symbolism of the Elven gods, but if Bioware really wanted to hone in on the Athena/Athena Nike parallels, they might have thrown in the trumpet/laurel/palm leaf symbolism with the statues, alongside the dragon wings.

If this were the case, then maybe, just maybe, Inquisition would’ve then earned the use of this sculpture in the game.

Sources not listed above/Further reading if you're interested

https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/the-palace/a-stairway-to-victory

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1412/winged-victory-the-nike-of-samothrace/https://smarthistory.org/nike-winged-victory-of-samothrace/

https://smarthistory.org/nike-winged-victory-of-samothrace/

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/greek-art/hellenistic/a/nike-winged-victory-of-samothrace

[19871997]

and what if we were first overalls tasked with saving an entire city at eighteen years old .

[fishfingersandscarves]

my costume prof just straight up bought me a sewing machine 😭

[variksel]

anthony was so real for making frances bisexual on bi visibility day (((almost)))

[diaruchann]

I think for most people it went:

Percy Jackson -> Greek Mythology -> Epic: The Musical

But somehow for me it was:

Epic: The Musical -> Percy Jackson -> Greek Mythology

[ruvviks]

All That's Left follows two journalists and their friends in post-apocalyptic United States as they travel from the fallen east coast megalopolis Opportunity back to Los Angeles, crossing through a harsh wasteland overrun with zombies— only to find out that there is a lot more life left than what the protected cities want them to believe. On their journey they meet dozens of people living their lives as peaceful as possible away from military forces, corporations, and corrupt governments; and they learn that the same mutated ghouls that took down Opportunity are spreading rapidly through the country, destroying everything in their path. Will this finally be the end of the world as we know it?

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@vvanessaives, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[whatthefuckisasweep]

RVB NATION HOW THE FUCK ARE WE FEELING RIGHT NOW??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?>!!<!?!?!>!>?!?!!?!?!?!?

[coollyinterferes]

The unmistakable sound of footsteps approaching begins to fill the air. Whoever is coming seems to have brought some company along…

They are getting closer… and closer… and closer…

…and closer…

……until..................

"Goooooood evenin'!!" Comes the loud greeting from a certain blond man. A big smile on his face and all.

"We beg your pardon for our prolonged absence. It was completely beyond our control..." Then adds the gentleman standing by his side, apologizing on behalf of both, offering a genuine smile along with the apology.

"...BUT! We're back!" And hopefully for good this time…

[stardustcatcher]

i find it important to note that learning this information changes absolutely nothing! josh post-coming out is the same josh that we’ve all loved for however long you’ve been a fan. he has not put a label on himself so don’t do that for him. he is in no way changed. as someone who’s experienced this, it is the worst thing when people start treating you different when they find out you’re queer. this is just another piece of his lore, something he’s lovingly decided to share with us because he loves and trusts us. okay, i’m done, thank you.

[silentauthor96]

*Been angsting about this page for the last 20 minutes*

The way it's like he's still waiting, even after his sister has left the room, to see if she mentions it at all.

Then glances at the calendar as if to make sure he's not just wrong about the date.

Then puts away the food that [imo] he made for his own breakfast and saves it for his sister instead.

The way he never bothers reminding his family that it's his birthday because he has long since internalized that they do not have time to care

[Gakuen Babysitters Chapter 37]