#i'm just being nosy

[asofterepilogue]

I deeply love the epic musical but I have one big and unfortunately pretty central issue with it, and it's that it often seems to conflate kindness and stupidity.

odysseus' mistake wasn't sparing ("sparing") polyphemus, it was going into a cave full of food when he knew something was off about it from the beginning, and then giving the cyclops his real name when he had already won. it wouldn't have mattered that polyphemus was still alive if odysseus had just stuck to his brilliant original plan. polyphemus had to live long enough to move away from the exit that he was blocking, and going back to kill him once he was awake would have been incredibly dangerous, and hard to justify when he'd already so easily killed 7 (14?) men. mercy didn't have all that much to do with it, even though odysseus, athena, poseidon, the crew - the narrative itself at times - all later insist that's what doomed odysseus.

still, the lesson odysseus somehow learns from that is that he needs to be ruthless (which he already clearly is! he might hate it, he might wish he didn't have to be, but he is, at the end of the day, ruthless enough to murder a baby). but when it actually comes down to a choice between mercy and ruthlessness (and not just... a test of whether he can keep his mouth shut), mercy does a lot more for him than ruthlessness.

he's at his most callous in scylla's lair, and how does that work out? he makes the crossing, sure, but his crew attacks him, knocks him out, and takes the opportunity to do the most insanely idiotic thing they possibly could have, which ultimately sends them to their death, and odysseus to 7 years of suffering.

in contrast, odysseus gets help from circe. he chooses to go back for his men, he chooses not to lead with violence, he chooses to appeal to her mercy, and she ultimately chooses to be merciful herself. that's the only time odysseus and his crew aren't worse off having stopped somewhere. and it's not because odysseus was ruthless, it's not because he put his emotions aside, it's not even because he tricked anyone into anything - it's because he was unselfish and honest (but not completely stupid! he didn't provoke her, he used the moly well, etc.), and was met with kindness.

the implicit false equivalence between kindness and stupidity is even more jarring once you get to the wisdom saga, because athena is learning the exact opposite lesson. she's much kinder to telemachus even though he never seems as promising a "warrior of the mind", she sounds downright nostalgic telling him about odysseus, she admits she hasn't been sleeping well since she and odysseus fought.

she chooses to help odysseus not because she can use him for her own glory, but because he's her friend after all, and he's suffering.

and she doesn't win the god games by being ruthless (as in, cruel to her opponents) but by being smart. you could argue she's manipulating them, but I think she's just trying to find what would sway them, and she's not dishonest or mean about any of it. she can be smart without necessarily being ruthless!

there are still two sagas left, so maybe odysseus won't finish the story thinking he has to be the monster every time everywhere if he wants to win (though considering the snippets and tracklist... yeah I'm gonna doubt that). either way, I know I'll love it. I just don't love the casual way wit and callousness get conflated throughout what we've seen of the musical so far.

[markantonys]

i want the show gang to be better at telling each other things than the book gang, but with one exception.

so, in the books, elayne spends several months at the white tower with egwene and gawyn, so she is probably aware that there's a crush brewing (at least on gawyn's side if not also egwene's, depending on whether we want to ignore the Early Series Weirdness of her crush on galad which is later semi-retconned lmao) because i just know that elayne would be very observant about things like that (unlike egwene completely missing everything to do with avirand while traveling with them for months bless her heart).

but in the show, depending on how things are reshuffled, elayne might not be around whenever and wherever egwene and gawyn first meet. she might not be around for ANY of the times they're interacting.

and i just think it would be funny if egwene and gawyn both refuse to or forget to confide in elayne about their love lives and elayne rolls up to the last battle and sees them together and it's like "oh hey! egwene, i didn't know you knew my brother" "yeah he's my husband actually" "what the FUCK"

[soapbubbles511]

Not me zooming in on Vas' snapchat video because he's apparently at Taika and Rita's house in Auckland.

I spy Thor's hammer, a Korg funko pop, some Star Wars ships and the Shogun helmet from Boy.

[tuituipupu]

i need to know his rising sign so bad ↑

i think it's aries or leo

[chasedeys]

https://www.tumblr.com/chasedeys/768169507136159744

The way NO ONE ELSE tried to calm down or even dare put hands on Ja’Marr but Joe tells you all you need to know about the is devoted and soul tied ass relationship God I wish we knew what was said and the post game convo. Like poor baby couldn’t even come up with a coherent sentence about Ja’Marr in the presser 😭

yeah i think it's definitely because they were so taken aback by ja'marr exploding like that 😭 he's probably already pissed since before the play itself and snapping at everyone tbh and then him getting all up in the refs face had them freezing and then joe (joe cool joe ice joe ja'marr knower and bestie etc) being the one to react first literally dragging him away by his jersey (hot! and also crazy) and probably yelling at him too had them freaking out (??) because they've never seen the two actually fight like that?? idk they were definitely heavily taken aback. joe probably didn't even have enough time to fully digest what he did and what ja'marr did and simultaneously deal with the game loss (with the entire way they lost it too sigh the fucking dpi) before he had to shove his ass to the podium and answer all the questions especially about ja'marr. and it's soooo important to me how he neverrrrrr caters to anyone saying shit or baiting him to say shit about ja'marr. that's his man etc etc.

[problematicsashawaybright]

It's none of my business and it doesn't matter in my life in the slightest but. What the fuck happened on the set of wicked. Why do Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have TEN matching tattoos. TEN.

[regicidal-defenestration]

Question for the room: what's your favourite piece of art? Any and all mediums count

[blujayonthewing]

opening the group chat for the first time today and there's like 200 new messages because everyone's Going Through It today it seems but one of my friends dropped 'I'm separating from [terrible boyfriend she's been living with for like eight years] for real this time, I just moved a bunch of stuff to my parents' and I'm losing my mind because y'all the subject changed almost immediately HEY HI EVERYBODY ELSE SHUT THE FUCK UP I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THAT???

[demonstars]

can he please pleaseeeee post names Please

[commodorecliche]

you ever get tired of seeing someone hate on something even when the hate is warranted or deserved? like bro, we get it. you hate thing. good job, we DEFINITELY know you hate that thing. we knew yesterday too, last week as well, and the week before that. because it's literally all you talk about, and frankly, you hate it so deeply that it's making me wonder if you actually like it a little. like you hate this thing so much it makes you look obsessed.

[cerealbishh]

"Henry cares for Faran. The Liars normally have to be the ones caring for others. It just makes me melt!" - Zaria on Twitter about Henry(x)

[laurabenanti]

written content creators of tumblr (fan fic, poetry, original works, etc.):

if you're unsure what any of these are, here's something from write practice to provide a general overview. and here is an alignment chart for kicks and giggles.

[brittlebutch]

finding a character that grates against your nerves and eventually thinking, well, that's not fair, you haven't done anything; why do i dislike you? and then you dwell on this for a while and discover 'oh! you are like me when i was younger' and decide well, i'll simply learn how to love the both of you. power in this.

[campingwiththecharmings]

ever feel like you have so much love to give but you just have no idea who to give it to or where to direct it? 🥲

[peliginspeaks]

is null like Aware that theyre only 2 and that thats not normal. i feel like they wouldnt realise xD

Null is not Aware. in general. However funny as that answer is this really did make me think so I'll try to answer it real style too shdhds

Null doesn't remember anything before the last 2 years or remember how they came about. Someone existed prior to that, now that person does not exist in living memory anymore, and Null is-not in her place. I don't think it has a concept of its age...? Since it only recently has developed a concept of being a thing that is alive, due to having been killed before. Null has very little internal dialogue that doesn't surround the feeling of hunger and emptiness and schemes to fill it, and no sense of identity to speak of outside of that, so the sense of being abnormal compared to most humans doesn't register with them much. However, by now they've probably realized that most people have a birthday and parents and a childhood, and from very early on they realized people like it when they appear to be like Most People.

So, if you asked Null about its background, you'd probably get a patched together mix of the information of others that it's heard and filed away. It wouldn't take an especially careful ear to realize that none of it adds up. References to moving from the Surface at age 18 clash with anecdotes of living in the Neath as a child, and if pressed for an age you'd swear you heard tell of a birthday party they hosted with a number that exceeded the one they just gave you. If you are positioned to be talking to Null, you are probably either too polite or too disinterested to pry. ...Or too confused. Most likely too confused.

(...or it will make you want to talk to them more to find out what's going on. Bad idea, overall.)