#just the PINING

[sheikah-simp]

⭐star⭐ for Exile//Vilify :0

I know this ask was like FOREVER AGO but I was SICK forever ago and couldn't properly rant about Exile//Vilify in the way I wanted to.

For this particular Director's Cut, I want to focus not on one particular passage, but sort of just the whole progressing relationship between Astor and Rose, and how they are reflections of each other and the world that surrounds them.

Astor is in his first year at the abbey when he first sees her - just about thirteen years old - while she is having her seventeenth birthday, triumphantly making her way up Mt. Lanayru. And, incidentally, this is something that is brought up again from Astor's POV at the end of the Epilogue:

Tomorrow, Princess Zelda would be going up Mt. Lanayru, as her mother did before her, as did she with all the hundreds of goddesses with whom she shared a singular soul.  ...  She, unlike the others, would not be met with flowers and roars of thunderous applause.  There would be no showers of trumpets and throngs of people lining in the streets.   No, her journey instead was to be made in secret–almost in shame–as the kingdom, in the threat of Calamity, was well aware she had been unable to awaken her mother’s power yet.  They had little hope remaining that she would.

But, of course, this passage is not about Rose, although Rose is clearly in his mind. This passage is about Zelda-Sparrow, Rose's "failure" daughter.

Astor spends what he knows to be his final day in "normal" Hyrule--the Hyrule before the Second Great Calamity--looming over the village of Hateno. This was his birthplace, the place that set his prophecy in motion, and the first place in the world that rejected him for his difference. It's the place he was forsaken from the start.

But. He also spends it there because it is in sight of Mt. Lanayru. He was watching Princess Zelda there. I wanted to get into this more, and somewhat had plans to, but there was going to be a portion of the book that just detailed Astor stalking Link, Princess Zelda, and the rest of the Champions while they set themselves up for their own failures. I was going to extend the things I summarized in the Epilogue into their own chapters, but the book was getting longer than I wanted it to be, and Astor's final line is already the pinnacle of the book proper for him:

“I am Astor, your oracle,” he said.  “The last seer to the royal family, forsaken child of Hateno Village.  Catalyst of the Great Calamity, and Prophet of Doom.”

Astor had owned his identity and his own fate at that point. That's the capstone of the book. There was no need for further chapters, as I thought they'd detract from the gradual progression of Astor's acceptance of his "evil personhood" -- his acceptance of his failures.

A sense of failure, a deep and unshakeable feeling of being damned by the gods, forsaken by Fate, a feeling that he shares with Rose's own daughter, Princess Zelda. Whom the whole kingdom, he knows, shall and already does regard her as a failure. As unable to live up to her legacy, and the legacy of her foremothers.

Rose, to me, and to Hyrule as a whole, is triumph. Even though she does have the inklings of the struggle that her daughter is about to face (she has blockages in her power, can't craft arrows, and ultimately dies because she steps into Malice and is unable to fend off the Stalfos with her light), this is not evident to anyone else in the kingdom. She is, and always would be, remembered as Hyrule's Rose, their beautiful bloom, with a sad, bitter thorn to have been taken so quickly from the world. Even though her power failed her too, this is never how she would be remembered. All of her memory is always joyful and triumphant, because she was chosen and blessed by Hylia, and incredibly, incredibly fortunate in her lifetime. And she is, of course, the inheritor of a kingdom that bears the name of the Goddess that dwells inside her. The Goddess who is always prophesied to win.

Astor, on the other hand, is failure. While Astor is a prodigy in his own right, and "chosen" by Fate in other ways, he is chosen to be favored by the inherent loser--the person in these prophesies that Link and Zelda are always fighting and winning against. The person the kingdom hates. I think that, had I explored Astor following Rose's daughter's journey more, this sense of failure is something he would have deeply empathized with her. Perhaps even developed a sense of love and paternal guardianship over her, especially since she is his last, living connection to Rose. To victory. I think he might have grown to love her the way he would have loved her had Rose still been alive. This is one of the many reasons that I joke that Astor is Zelda's real dad, aside from the fact that he is.

Astor does not know, at the end of the book, if he will live or die. If the Great Calamity - and therefore all his efforts, all his life - will be a success or failure. He knows the kingdom will be plunged into a long era of darkness, and I think he has his suspicions due to the history of the kingdom, but he has also surrendered completely. Because it's not actually about Hylia or Ganon. It is, and always was, about Fate toying with everything and everyone around it. And, having had the great privilege of knowing Fate and dispensing the words of Fate to others, and still considering himself to a degree to be Fate's right hand, he finds peace in the uncertainty. His sense of power and pride comes much less from being a servant of Ganon as it does in knowing that, whether good or evil, he was, in fact, one of those favored (or unfavored) by Fate.

TL;DR Exile//Vilify can be read as a big dissertation on what it means if you are literally, cosmically, pre-destinationally born to be a failure. And then of course there is the shadow of Thelem, haunting the entire narrative, calling out from the pre-destination of his own grave, calling out desperately to Astor that yes, your life and your story will matter, even if that.

Fanfic Writers: Director's Cut

[paintedcrows]

Did anyone tell Ford (bonus doodles: Family Movie Night, 70s Classics)

[blabberoo]

Idk what au im cooking.. but Im cooking..

[knockknockwhosthereartistism]

I was inspired

[mushiver]

I know what you're all definitely thinking. What if everyone from Gravity Falls was a chair. Well, I was bored enough at 3am to think about that too

Edit: part 2

[miri-draws]

I've been grunklepilled.

[wormspoodle]

compiled some things

[starridge]

why did you do it

[skipppppy]

Highkey one of the funniest parts of Gravity Falls is how obnoxiously close they come to revealing Ford’s existence in the early seasons but never do out of just. Cosmic levels of dumb luck

Episode 1 Stan nearly catches Dipper with the journal and it’s passed off as a gag about Gold Chains for Old Men magazine. In Time Travellers Pig they go back to the Shack 30 years in the past and miss Ford opening the door on them by literal seconds. In bottomless pit Mabel gives him a set of truth teeth that make him incapable of lying and he tells the twins TO THEIR FACES that he regularly commits massive tax fraud and if they had asked him to elaborate he would’ve told them who he was impersonating. In one of the shorts Dipper and Soos find a sentient omniscient mailbox that will answer any question in the universe, and right before they can ask it who wrote the journals Mabel shows it a video of herself snorting gummy worms and it kills itself out of disgust. The entirety of Dreamscaperers is them delving into the depths of Stan’s psyche, going through his memories, all while fighting his brother’s ex-boyfriend and it somehow just. Doesn’t come up. Bill never mentions him. Their grandpa Shermie never said anything. Their parents never said anything. Either the universe was conspiring to cover it up or they are genuinely all that oblivious

[stemmmm]

bad youtube clickbait thumbnail that reads "I think I just had a therapy session with a DEMON???"

[yujateaandpi]

y’all just— thinking about how excited Stanley must have been to host the twins— Alex says he smokes cigars but he doesn’t smoke once in the show— has a beer gut but he only drinks sodas in front of the kids— doesn’t swear when they’re around which must have taken INCREDIBLE effort— Stanley Pines, known crook, buying pancake mix at the supermarket and many bottles of syrup— learning to cook basic healthy meals and burning so many of them before he gets it right— buying new sheets, new mattresses— avoiding bunk beds because it reminds him of Ford— looking at the attic room he made wondering “is this enough will they like me”— trying to act aloof at the bus stop so he doesn’t betray the fact that he was there hours early— watching them goof around and thinking of New Jersey beaches— then the first night they’re there, he watches them debate running away and only stay because Mabel shook a magic 8 ball. That must have kept him awake all night.

[leo-artista]

Incorrect quotes ft. Stan twins

[time-woods]

Accessorize ! Accessorize ! Accessorize !

based off of how my dad got his ears pierced))

[noodles-and-tea]

Smooth

[varilien]

am i blanchin?

girl we blanchin!!

HI HIII happy birthday to everyone's favorite mystery twins!! how did they grow up so fast!!!!

Palestine: Funds | Action | eSims | Info Sudan Resources | Congo Resources

[kate-bot]

billford comic i made while i was hungry >:3