#it’s probably my favorite tragedy

[transbutchblues]

obsessively thinking about antigone tonight. queer antigone / antigone as a product of incest displaying incestuous undertones&themes herself / married through death antigone (anouilh’s antigone, who wanted to have her first time with hemon the evening before she goes to bury her brother, who wanted to die not-a-virgin and yet not-a-wife but who didn’t, because they fought instead) / antigone who only knows how to live for oedipus / antigone who only knows how to die for her brothers / antigone who is nothing but her love for her family / antigone who leaves ismene behind / antigone who knows her brothers have been cursed by her father but still goes back to thebes, because she has to / antigone who knows creon will remove the dirt she puts on polyneikes’ body, but still puts it there, because she has to / antigone ready to die, born to die / antigone already dead from the beginning, her fate sealed long ago / antigone leaving thebes as a child knowing she will only come back to die.

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.

[definitelynotarabbit]

You ever think about how tragically flawed all the homonculus from fmab are? They all have their special abilities but when it came right down to it their abilities failed them.

Like specifically Greed. He had his ultimate shield and for 99% of the show it did exactly what it was supposed to. Or at least it looked like it did. But then in his final moments this bastard gives his life to protect Ling and by extension literally everything and everyone else. Something very telling about this is that he's finally satisfied. That single act reframes everything.

At Greed's introduction we're given the impression that Greed is selfish, that his shield is there to protect himself. But when you reframe this with his reaction to Wrath killing the chimeras and his final act, you get a very different picture. Greed valued his possessions above anything else. He wanted to protect them at any cost, including himself.

So with that knowledge, his ultimate shield becomes a goddamn tragedy. This man just wanted to protect those he cared for but was given a shield that could only protect himself.

By extension this also reframes his line to Ed about being the type to brush off a threat until the threat was to a loved one. In this context it suddenly seems a whole hell of a lot more likely that he was speaking from personal experience.

Why else would he leave his body exposed for his first fight with Wrath? It seems to me that he didn’t want Wrath going anywhere near the chimeras and so he made himself a target. He could have just thrown up his ultimate shield (up to his neck, wouldn't want to cover up that face) and fought Wrath a way more effectively. Instead this self sacrificing piece of shit keeps the attention on himself until he physically can't anymore. This guy couldn't bear the idea of losing his loved ones possessions so badly that he was willing to die for them. He literally would prefer death to watching his friends die.

And then the cherry on top is that despite trying to fight to the death with Wrath, Wrath intentionally leaves him alive.

Tldr

The curse of Greed's ultimate shield is that he is forced to survive when others do not. He can only truly protect himself, the last possession he would consider protecting.

[mummer]

still sorting out how to feel about it but fuck ncuti was just insantly beyond all expectations. King

[lakeheadlyricist]

watched i saw the tv glow

[oh-no-its-bird]

I think a 'surviving as a maid' oneshot where Ash and the queen run away together would cure my depression actually

Same for a fic just about Mio and archmage Ciel interacting in literally any way tbh bc what the fuck the author really thought they could pull a "and there was only one bed" and just have us (the readers) let that slide???? Bitch I see you and I'm so here for it— honestly both from the casual familialness of it and potential shipping. I adore both possible angles of this dynamic

Mio, Ash and archmage Ciel as a dysfunctional little family / maybe throuple (but also it's incredibly unclear what's even happening there) is so compelling to me I'm sorry I'm fully checked out of like all other ships bc that dynamic is so interesting in literally all directions

Rolling it back to Ash and the Queen too, they have such good chemistry and I adore every scene they share together. The Queen has such this like gentle, elegant, tragic air to her that you can just tangible feel. The way I lose my fucking mind whenever Ash gets any real emotion out of her, just, ag. I love them. Fuck.

I can not find a single fic for this webtoon and this saddens me deeply. I think I need to fix this fact immediatley tbh

[kingpains]

dr1 designs pt. 1

[pitske]

I felt like posting this old art I did of Mangle because it is to date one of my favorite traditional drawings I have ever done <3

[viillette]

it's so crazy how few historical fiction novels are like sharon kay penman's. the way that they're built out of the skeleton of the historical record seems so obvious, but there's so few people who are actually willing to commit to it in the way that she did. it seems like so often that's just a starting point which gets reformed to fit a coherent narrative, but she makes no real attempt to do that. there's themes and foils and patterns, but first and foremost it is a reconstruction. you can't really know what someone who lived that long ago was like, only what they did, and you can feel how she takes these isolated, dramatic events and builds a whole life around them. the books are nothing more than an answer to the question 'what might someone have been like, what could the history between these people have been, to possibly explain something like this?' the ability to string together a handful of facts and events from medieval chronicles to create people that feel so real, and psychology and relationships that develop so naturally that these distant, seemingly impenetrable choices suddenly feel so immediate and clear is just beyond belief. you know this probably wasn't actually how things happened, but it doesn't matter because it was something like this. the particulars are less important the crushing awareness that at one point all of this made sense. there was a time when all of this was right now. the world is unrecognizable and exactly the same. that's something which sounds very simple but is incredibly difficult to accomplish.

you come to know these people so well, their loves and hatreds and ambitions and failures, and those things are rarely resolved in the end. you know them from the time that they're children, you watch each one of them die, and none of it means anything in particular except that they were a human being. things which seem like they must be building to some tragic fallout end in anticlimax. things which seem utterly inconsequential in the moment manifest again decades later in cataclysmic disaster. and then you see it all play out again from the beginning with their children, and their children's children. all these uncanny echoes, this endlessly unfolding palimpsest of lives, each laid over the triumphs and mistakes of those who came before. i've never read anything so epic with so much mastery over the micro and macro levels of history. it's the minute, seemingly inconsequential everyday details, which build into a lifetime, which builds into generation of lives, which builds into the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires. it's the merciless endlessly turning wheel of fortune that replays the same songs in different keys again and again for all time. a person is both an individual with free will, and the prisoner of their blood and circumstances. somehow everything has infinite weight, is tied to everything that has come before and will come after, is the culmination of someone's entire existence—their pains and joys and fears and hopes—and yet is simultaneously completely meaningless, just one more victim of fate in an endless procession of lives and choices. the whole impotent tragedy of humanity is laid out in front of you and it's so repulsive and beautiful. it's deep love and unfathomable, senseless horror briefly and miraculously reverberating in a vacuum, an absurd aberration fading into silence.

if it's not obvious these books have made me cry like 10 different times

[entering--hyperspace]

Its 2am, quick! Ramble some preliminary thoughts about Rytlock and Leo's relationship, spoiler alert! Its complicated!

I'm currently "going through" the personal story, and I was thinking about how...complicated Rytlock and Leo's relationship becomes especially as Rytlock Puts Himself Into Situations and that affecting a whole lot later into the story. I was talking to my friend about this. Heres the thing about these two,

They are not perfect for each other. This isn't a fairytale relationship, they arent destined lovers, they will never get a true domestic happy life together, and they could probably find people to fit them both better in the long run.

But, they were perfect for each other when they met.

Rytlock, punished for ambition, losing someone he cared about because of this, gaining a literal physical reminder of it, after he had just lost Destiny's edge. Blinded by glory, torn apart by loss, failure. He grew distant from his warband because the warmth of a flame was more enticing than the bonds of his past. He had no one, he was ignorant to the repeated life lessons, he was bored.

Leo, on the other hand, was a coiled snake ready to strike. He had ambitions of his own, he grew tired of constant death, reckless fighting. Spirits lamented over lost opportunity, of being playthings in wars fought by higher powers. He grew up in a land that was a physical cautionary tell of how single individuals could ruin the very souls and doom entire nations. Souls that cant rest, souls that cant return. It was Ascalon that inspired him to become a necromancer, to commune with spirits, to treat the dead with reverance, and thus respecting life before its final march. It did outcast him from his warband, save for a single individual.

When his warband died fighting due to carelessness on behalf of his legionnare, he still chose mercy, even in grief and anger he would not throw away lives as his people were so readily to do. He would show them all, he would show them there was a different way, that the road harder to travel on was a road worth walking if it meant preserving life. Others would see him as weak for this, but he had the confidence and skill to back it up his claims.

Perhaps it was the sharpness, the same cleverness that Rytlock admired in Crecia that drew him to Leo. I like that, honestly. Its a bit selfish, but Rytlock is a very selfish character for a while.

So he chose him, he could see his potential, he was amused, if anything, by someone with beliefs so different than anything they were raised to believe and was ready to challenge the very foundation they stood on. Speaking of, Leo challenged him in ways that surprised him, in ways that if Rytlock were anyone else Leo would have surely been deranked or snapped at for his boldness. He made him stop and consider, a unique viewpoint a fire that had lived for so long it became too strong to be snuffed out, that alone was impressive. Lmao, It's Leo constsntly challenging rytlock that draws him to Leo as well I think. Someone who will truthfully grab him by the ear and snap him back to his senses. On the other hand:

Leo wasn't ignorant of Rytlocks many prior transgressions and the blood most higher ranked charr spill to stand as tall as they do. He didn't think too highly of him before, but desperate times call for desperate measures. They were also, both, lonely. Rytlock appreciated having someone who he slowly crept into being a bit more of himself around, and Leo appreciated the opportunity of gaining his favor, as well as the acceptance of his beliefs. Rytlock understood climbing a steep hill with the people around pouring water down waiting for a slip. He's loyal above all else, he's similarly ambitious. Maybe Rytlock didnt necessarily Follow him exactly, but he didnt turn away or laugh in his face when Leo one night truthfully shared his plans. He simply told him it would be hard, but challenged him to pursue it. And, if anything, Leo's words actually affected him, he could see it slowly, that was enough for him, They were friends.

Physical attraction was there too, of course, that is admittedly a constant even before they become romantic. I see it at this point of maybe not being a thing of romantic bond, but rather of trust. But this is also normal and expected of charr. Friends with benefits, nothing more. But that more would come in later.

A chain is harder to break than a string, much harder. It weighs heavy, its cumbersome at times, but it holds things together quite well despite everything, despite "everything"

They are not a red string of fate, rather a forged red chain. Charr care a lot about loyalty, they care about loyalty in a way that I feel is hard to describe other than something deeply rooted in their culture thus hard to shake. During the time Leo and Rytlock spent together as Leo climbed the ranks and together they took on Ascalonian missions, sharing nights, swapping stories, sparring, challenging, they forged that bond. A bond between two people with no other options. They chose each other.

My memory of path of fire is, muddled, I'll get there when I get there. But what I know for sure is that what began of a romantic relationship would become quickly strained as the story goes on and it is revealed that everything occuring is due to Rytlock's recklessness.

Leo isn't the commander, Connie is, this almost makes it worse for them in a funny way. Leo would probably be more forgiving over his own death, but instead he is made to watch someone else die, he watches countless others die, all while knowing at night he shares a bed with the person at the root of it. But he doesnt leave, because theres always that chain, its backs turned to each other but still comforted by the warmth of another, even if their presence is denied. Im sure when i learn the details of it i can share more thoughts on them but ough.

When Leo does take on more commander-like duties and rytlock is still at his side, it becomes even more apparent how their relationship isnt as ideal as it could be in a perfect life. In a perfect life leo wouldve left everything to be with the olmakhan, to live a peaceful existence, to raise a family. Rytlock thinks of his cubs in a similar regard, Leo and Rytlock cant give that to each other, the world will not allow that of them both, especially leo, But they leave together with that knowledge.

Does this make sense? Idk, i hope so. The love is there, but there is an acceptance of the fact that there will always be a void that cant be filled. Perhaps there is a gentleness to them both that they treat each other with because of that fact and thats just how it is.

[clownprince]

every day is just. i open tumblr.app. i see the worst most oversimplified sandpapered nuance-less dc comics take imaginable. i spend several minutes staring at it debating whether it's worth arguing over (it never is). i sigh, shake my head in resignation and close tumblr.app

[miharuhebinata]

the thing about jackie is that i LIKE that she's dead

[b-plot-butch]

musical theatre makes me so ill every time i have the opportunity to see a musical live it alters my brain and sets up an ache in my chest every time i think about it afterward

[aetherin21]

In between those pages there were more.

Tragedy does not only come from the love and death of two lovers spoken in a song of memories. But also in the stories that surround them and binded their beings together in their waking moments.

A story of a king who had loathed his wife for being simple and feeble minded. A wife that birthed a soft child, unfit of his glory. A son and a prince that can not even be an ounce of selfishness beneath his fingertips as one expected to have. 

A story of a king who raised boys for his self fulfilled kingdom. Making an army fit for his son's rule. To crown him in gold and prestige as fit for the so-called Aristos achaion.

A story of a king who grew weary and decrypt in his own little castle. Raising disposed princesses in playful dances and pretty dresses. With only a daughter at his side, spoiled with absolute love and care.

A story of a king who raged war for ten years for his brother's honor and the honor of those who had taken oath from the hands of yesteryears. A man deluded by the idea of fame from his predecessors as ichor washed his hands for the sake of a trophied damsel that wasn't even his.

A story of a king who had lost his son, a corpse paraded through his own land. Begging for his return and being buried with dignity. A war they did not know would carry on for a decade just for a mere woman who came to his doors with a prince in hand, all too willingly and all too blinded with love.

A story of a lowly goddess defiled by a man in hopes of a promise. A child that would surpass any hero and any god who allowed such atrocity to happen to her wake. Birthing a boy who will one day prove that she is more than a tool for the fates.

A story of a queen and a wife who had nothing but her lyre and a son who did not know what to think of her. A simple woman who is enamored by the sound of the strings, singing soft hymns of silence. 

A story of a princess who wished for love and glory. Promised by a goddess and her father's approval. A night that seemed heated and filled with passion was nothing but an illusion in the grandeur of things. Reduced to nothing but a mere woman used by time as another bearer of the next prophecy. 

A story of a priestess sacrificed for the selfish war to come. A father who she loved and honored took her life in front of an altar that was supposed to be the peak of her youth. Longing the love that was supposed to tie her fingertips with his but only met with the cold rest of a prayer.

A story of a woman turned to slave to an army who ruined her family and her neighbors. Unsuspecting victim of a crime that they knew nothing of. Only to be met with the kindness of man already in love.

Achilles and Patroclus story is a tragedy that is the truth. But the people who had surrounded them were too. As if pulling these two lovers undeserving of an ending they had both wished, for the others had already met their doom.

Yet in between the pages of their youth it wasn't anything but just that. There was hope, love and joy that stayed and lingered in their bones. In the laughter they had shared, in the songs they had sang and in the warmth that they both held. It was there as they basked within each other even if some words were unspoken and only yearning stares remained.

Chiron was witness to this matrimony and so was the others. The names of kings, queens, wives, slaves, princes and princesses had seen their adoration flourished in the steps they had taken. Even if all the gods and goddesses took their bets on which future to side, they all knew of their love because even until death it never waned.

[sonknuxadow]

i dont even know what to pick anymore on the artfight 2024 theme poll because ive been voting vampires vs werewolves on every poll for years and we finally got that theme this year so its not an option anymore

[acepalindrome]

Hear the Nutcracker Overture and immediately think ‘huh, i should rewatch Princess Tutu.’