Al coming back from his travels: Xing was great! I've learned so much about alkahestry, and I think we're really making progress and getting Jerso and Zampano's bodies back! It was really nice to see Mei, and Ling is doing a great job as emperor, and I even got to visit some of Xing's neighbors to the east! I feel like I'm learning more about alchemy and alkahestry every day
Ed coming back from his travels: I Have Been Banned From Five Countries
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One of my biggest pet peeves is the assumption that something has to be sad for it to be tragic.
I've always been a big believer of the 'Apollo has an awful love life'/'Apollo is plain unlucky with love' line of thinking but it does bother me that the general reasoning for that statement is given to the concept of 'Apollo is somehow undesireable and thus rejected' (Cassandra/Daphne/Marpessa) or 'his lovers die young and thus their love is unfulfilled' (Cyparissus/Hyacinthus/Coronis). I personally think that's a very unfortunate way of looking at things - not only because it neglects the many perfectly cordial entanglements and affairs Apollo has had, both mortal and divine - but because it presents a very shallow interpretation of the concepts of love and loss and how loss affects people.
Apollo can still grieve lovers that have a long, healthy life. The inherent tragedy of an immortal who knows his lovers and children will die and cannot stop it does not stop being tragic simply because those lovers and children live long, fulfilled lives. The inherent tragedy of loss does not stop being tragic simply because someone knows better than to mourn something that was always going to end.
What is tragic is not that Apollo loves and loses but that loss itself follows him. Apollo does not love with the distance of an immortal, he does not have affairs and then leaves never to listen to their prayers again. He does not have offspring and then abandon them to their trials only to appear when it is time to lead them to their destinies. He raises his young, he protects the mothers of his children, he blesses the households that have his favour and multiplies their flocks that they may never go hungry. He educates his sons, he adorns his daughters and even in wrath he is quick to come to his senses and regret the punishments he doles out.
Apollo loves. And like mortals, there will always be some part of him that wishes to protect the objects of his affections. Apollo, however, is also an emissary of Fate. He knows that the fate of all mortal things is death. He knows that to love a mortal is to accept that eventually he will have to bury them. There is no illusion of forever, there is no fantasy where he fights against the nature of living things and shields his beloveds from death. Apollo loves and because of that love, he also accepts.
And that, while beautiful, is also tragic.
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Thinking very hard about an AU idea of mine. Reluctant king Sabo AU!
In which Sabo isn’t saved by Dragon, but survives long enough to drift ashore and be saved by the doctors of Goa Kingdom, who do so only to ransom his medical bills from Sabo’s parents. Sabo’s parents take him back, thinking that his amnesia makes him a clean slate, but Sabo, young and stubborn and unsure of his entire identity, knows that everything is wrong and runs again, and again, and again.
Until at some point, he meets the Revolutionaries, and realizes that he can be useful to them, provide them information, make something good of an inescapable situation. From then on, he starts acting the noble that he was born as, in order to be a more useful informant to the Revolutionaries, until sunk cost fallacy hits and he believes that being a noble is the only way that he can be useful to the Revolutionaries. So at that point, why not take it all the way?
At 17, Sabo becomes one of Princess Sarie’s suitors, and at 17, he has doubts about using the princess for his own goals. Sarie is a romantic, and she wants a dramatic fairy tale of a romance, and she was already charmed, but the moment Sabo opens up to her about not wanting to use her to get to the throne, having lofty ambitions of helping the people (just not the people she thinks he’s talking about), Sabo becomes the one she simply must marry, because surely if she tries hard enough, she can make him love her back.
Soon after, the king and his son die. Sarie’s father and brother die. And while Sabo conveniently ascends to the throne, he also swiftly implicates his father, Outlook, in the assassination of all heirs to the throne, resulting in Outlook’s arrest and subsequent execution. And thus, at 18, Sabo becomes king, and begins to gradually institute great changes to Goa Kingdom.
Design-wise, Sabo wears an eyepatch because his damaged eye is considered a grotesque sight by nobles’ standards. Under the eyepatch, he wears heavy makeup to hide the burn scar. These are both at the behest of his birth parents, who spin a story about Sabo having been born half blind to hide the fact that Sabo had been shot by a Celestial Dragon and save face. To those who have seen his scar, they fabricate a second secret story that he was unfortunately kidnapped as a child. Sabo never does find out, until he regains his memories, where the burn scar is actually from.
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And that’s a wrap for Comic Con 2024! Ha, it was a lot of fun, but I really enjoyed dressing up as Mondo today! I even had a couple people recognize him! And a few others just liked the hair, one of whom asked how long it took me to get my hair like that, which tells me that at least it looks natural enough for people to mistake it as my actual hair, ha.
Overall, Comic Con was cool! On Thursday, I attended a live podcast recording for Braving the Elements, which is an Avatar the Last Airbender podcast hosted by Janet Varney and Dante Bosco (the voices of Korra and Zuko, respectively), and I actually got a trivia question right and I should (hopefully…) get an email from them soon to get a prize for answering the question right. If not… oh well. At least I’ll be featured briefly on the podcast answering trivia correctly, even though I usually suck at trivia, ha.
The rest of the days were a bit more meh, but I still had fun. I won a Pokeball ornament from a Hallmark panel, since I knew how many Squirtles were in the Squirtle Squad, aha. Which leaves my trivia score 2 for 2 at the moment.😅 I also got a free shirt and scarf for the upcoming Yakuza live action show, which was neat. I’ve never played Yakuza, but my brother has, so I was able to give him the shirt at least.
Still, while Comic Con was fun, I’m definitely glad it’s over so I can go home and clean up from my frantic cosplay creating the last several weeks, oof.
Also! On the first day I dressed at Taka, but since I was by myself I only have the one photo my dad was able to quickly take of me before he had to drive off and a quick selfie I took in the car.
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