#no matter what religion you are or aren't the THEMES of this song are so compelling and evocative

[hearts-hunger]

i love you religious themes i love you spiritual symbolism i love you theological interpretations i love you devotional imagery

[tkdrawz]

Some of the TMNT fandom (and, frankly, society) really ain't shit.🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️

[From left to right: Princess Fiona (Ogress Form) (Shrek) Eep (The Croods) Gloria (Madagascar) Dijonay Jones (The Proud Family) Luisa Madrigal (Encanto) April O'Neil (TMNT Mutant Mayhem)]

These ladies are female protagonists in their respective franchises. All of them have different body types that contrast from the default thin, petite body type that we're used to seeing. And all of them are BEAUTIFUL! 💖

Three of these ladies became love interests that ended up in healthy relationships with partners who love them for who they are. Also, four of them are women of color. (idk if Fiona counts. While she is green, she started off white so... 50/50? 🤷🏾‍♀️) That part is especially relevant to this post because Twitter got me EFFED UP. I'M ON ONE, ON TWO, ON THREE TODAY!

So the concept art of Mutant Mayhem's April O'Neil was revealed by James A. Castillo, an artist who worked on the movie.

And people are DRAGGING HIM LEFT AND RIGHT! Being disrespectful to both him and April's design. I can tell you right now not even a third of those quotes aren't positive! There is a vast difference between criticism and insults:

💛"I do not like this design. Besides the color yellow and her red/ginger hair, she simply doesn't read as April O'Neil." That's criticism. This expresses disproval of the design without any vulgarities.

💔"Rethink your entire career. "Artist" my ass! This shit is garbage! She looks like she sleeps in a van and smokes so much weed she reeks of it. You failed." That's disrespect. And I don't think I need to tell you why.

Normally, I tend not to discuss such sensitive topics on my blog (religion, politics, discrimination of ANY kind, etc.) for my sanity and out of respect for others with opposing views. But today, I will make an exception.

I would love to include Luisa, who alongside April was mocked and disrespected heavily for her appearance, but I wanted to speak on this matter from the perspective of a plus-sized African American woman. Luisa comes from an completely different background whose culture and standards I am not entirely familiar with. I can't speak on what I don't know. Respectfully.💜

In the black community, women are faced with colorism, texturism, constant comparison, and body image negativity on a daily basis. And a good amount of it comes from our own community! Our shade, our 4C hair, our weight, our attractiveness, our lifestyle! It's brutal out here!😭😭😭

However, in terms of media a plus-sized black girl is seen as ghetto, loud, and undesirable with a side of attitude. The best example I can think of is Dijonay from The Proud Family.

This is the show I grew up on! The theme song, the characters, the Suga Mama, ICONIC! I love Dijonay to pieces, but as I grew up I realize that she was, in some aspects, a negative portrayal. She was always chasing instead of being "the chase". She was a horrible friend to Penny. And she sucumbed to a lot of negative stereotypes with barely any redeeming qualities. And this was very disheartening considering that she was the darkest one in the group. And the heaviest. And as a little chubby wubby in the 2000s with THIS as my representation? I have to give the writers a bit of the side eye. Was she any better in The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder? To that I would say.... meh. I love her in the reboot, but they could do so much more with her in my opinion. I still haven't seen them address the issue of colorism. 👀

While she is not a human, Gloria is voiced by a black woman (Jada Pinkett Smith) and imitates the sass of a black woman so... yeah. She's included. Gloria was persued by two men. One was the suave, flexing hippo Motto Motto. And the other was her friend/neighbor from her childhood Melman. She chose the latter for good reason of course. Now in Madagascar, Gloria wasn't mocked or criticized for her weight. In fact, hippos are known for their weight. However, she was seemingly fetishized for it. By Motto Motto to be exact. And being fetishized is NOT better than being ridiculed.

Unlike Dijonay, April was the chase, a love interest for Leonardo. I admit, I was SHOCKED that she was gonna be persued. Let alone that the writers wanted to try another Turtle/April pairing considering how April and Donnie went...😬. Now her backlash was on a completely different level. One that I wasn't even prepared for....

While Gloria and Dijonay are original characters, Mutant Mayhem's April O'Neil is a different interpretation of the character that has existed since the 80's. The same can be said for the Turtles, Splinter, literally everybody else! Every show and movie for that matter! And with every story, she changes. Design, motivation, relationships/dynamics, even race as of lately. All of it changes. And change isn't bad. In my opinion, it keeps things fresh and interesting instead of spoon feeding us the same story and concepts over and over again. Change challenges us. Change motivates us. However, some people don't like change nor want to accept it and adjust. And that's life. That's just the way it is. But change is necessary in order to progress.

She wasn't bad in the movie AT ALL. I absolutely adored her! And the dynamic between her and Leo wasn't akward or uncomfortable at all. It was handled really well. Ayo Ediberi did an incredible job bringing her to life! (GOD, I loved her in The Bear! Shameless plug lol)

That being said, I understand some of the sensitivity that fans have when a character changes so drastically you can barely recongnize them anymore beyond the bare minimun. (See also Sonic Boom's Knuckles) But the blatant discrimination, rude comments, and the boldness, THE AUDACITY, that some of these nasty Twitter fingers with their dirty fingernails have to type such disrespect to the artist that I can't repeat up here was wild af. Like, I can't believe we have to share a planet with some of them! Uggh!😷(But that's Twitter 24/7 so what's new?) Her and Rise April don't deserve the hate they get. You don't have to like them. Art is subjective. But to insult and harrass the artists and the people who look like the characters, then mask it under the umbrella of "tHaTs mY oPiNiOn" is 🐱. I said what I said. And I will say that shit again.

Also, just because she's black doesn't mean we can't have another white April O'Neil ever again. We know goodness well they could make another iteration of TMNT and make her white if they wanted to. Heck, I encourage them to explore other races and cultures too! New York is full of them! And it's not like all the other versions of April up and vanished. You can watch them anytime on Hulu, Netflix, Paramount Plus, etc.

One more point I'd like to make is that I am an African American woman who is currently on a weight loss journey. As a plus-sized girl, I had incredibly low self-esteem and picked up toxic, unhealthy eating habits from starving myself to overeating BECAUSE I starved myself. Also, I have experienced both sides from being disrespected and made fun of to being complimented and persued. I was at my biggest weight 2 years ago and I have made incredible progress to lose weight since then. People can lose weight. It is achievable! I went to school with some people who were way bigger than me that lost the weight by senior year! Just because she's big in this movie doesn't mean she can't lose weight by the sequel. Like I've said before, it's not wrong to encourage health and fitness!💪🏾 In life, they call this a glow up. A "remember how you treated them in high school" type of comeback. People can, and are allowed to, change. And it's not wrong to embrace your body and the skin you're in. It's all relative!💖

This post isn't to convince you to change your mind. And it won't make the bullies go away. I can't change the world overnight, nor am I trying to. At the end of the day, you're the consumer. It's your choice. Your prefrence. I can't tell you how to think.

I just wanted to spread a bit of awareness that plus sized people exist. And they will always exist. Everyone is deserving of representation in media in all facets. No matter their shape, size, shade, or sexuality. There are so many people from different walks of life who deserve to be seen and on screen. And the amount of visibility for black girls this year alone is amazing! And I want the same for other women of color, too!

Don't let this trash ass society and the people in it who prefer AI/robots over human beings, fake over real, and bad over good tell you otherwise. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. YES I AM TALKING TO YOU. YOU ARE AMAZING! YOU DESERVE ALL THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE AND MORE. YOUR STORY CAN CHANGE LIVES. BEING A GOOD, HARD WORKING PERSON DOES PAY OFF IN THE LONG RUN! YOU ABSOLUTELY MATTER IN THIS LIFE AND THE NEXT. WE SEE YOU. I SEE YOU. AND I ADORE YOU. RAISE YOUR SELF ESTEEM, ADJUST YOUR CROWN, WEAR IT PROUD, AND DO YOUR BEST!

Be good to one another. Take care.

💙 -TK

[spacevixenmusic]

Like... redemption arcs on a fundamental level challenge viewers on the baseline assumption that XYZ antagonist will always be trouble no matter what. Hell, I remember when the Diamond discourse for SU started to take root with "What's The Use In Feeling Blue?"

The episode's music number of Yellow and Blue mourning ruffled a few feathers by way of humanizing whom Steven Universe viewers considered to be the Big Bads. A uniform authority that would be a physical threat down the line, one Steven couldn't engage with in words.

What the song did was send the message that it won't be as simple as "punch evil until it dies" and some felt that it was, by proxy, sympathizing with fascist tyrants in a whitewash-y way.

I hate talking about this stuff in a vacuum, like the universal idea of a "redemption arc" is supposedly doomed to failure just because people aren't thinking critically about media anymore. Talking about media exclusively in TvTropes terminology helps no one.

The redemption arc in Steven Universe is based on the show's main theme: healing through empathy. It's a fantasy story, not a political commentary. The show is not built around presenting a realistic solution to real-world fascism, it's a fantasy story about a boy who is thrust into an ancient conflict between aliens and the worlds they've invaded or colonized, and the show's main gimmick is having Steven use his natural inclination toward empathy and understanding to resolve his conflicts. That's the THEME of the show! It's just a fucking fantasy cartoon!

Redemption arcs are fun because they are designed to force you to think about your so-called enemy as a fellow human being. How did they end up where they are? What makes them think that what they're doing is right? Do you know anyone like that in your own life? Would you be able to convert them like this villain got converted, or do you think it wouldn't work like that? There are no wrong answers, because art is all about thinking critically and coming to YOUR OWN CONCLUSION.

I'm begging people to stop treating the media they consume like it's supposed to be some kind of religion or dogma. It's just art. You don't have to agree with it if you don't agree with it, and you can't just generalize everything based on tropes and patterns. You have to apply things on an individual scale.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Here is a gif of a jiggly girl jumping rope in her underwear as a reward.

[hgghgfd]

In a Black Box with Nick Cave 1983

On The Street, May 1983

Interview by Rob Miller

Collected by Katherine B.

If male artists are, as Sigmund Freud once opinioned, simply frustrated neurotics trying to capture the traumas of the birth experience, then Nick Cave must be pretty close to getting back to his womb by now.

Perched on his narrow bed littered with a half-empty flask of scotch, a crumpled packet of Peter Jacksons, and an On The Street (of course!) in a sordid little Kings Cross hotel room, Nick is still tangibly more man than myth-even if on stage you can get a clear view of Mick Harvey drumming through those (Mum's cooking or not!) matchstick legs. Nick talks distractedly, and in an offhand way in the general direction of the cassette player, with, one suspects, a touch of disdain for the "pen-pushers and the quacks (We just want the facts! We've just come for the facts!)" - but in retrospect with surprising candour and honesty as well. He is really not the sort of successful artist who wallows smugly in the bog of self-congratulations.

Meanwhile, never one to miss an opportunity to sharpen up his pristine public image, bellicose bass player Tracy... 'buurrp' Pew lobs a parting shot - "Well...we'd better leave you two alone together then," as he walks out of the door with a shuffling and quiet Barry Adamson in tow and the interview gets underway.

ON THE STREET: How much of a distinction is there between The Birthday Party and Nick Cave as a songwriter - given that The Birthday Party had gone as far as it could go? Does that mean the The Birthday Party was not just Nick Cave as a songwriter?

NICK CAVE: I don't think that The Birthday Party was just Nick Cave as a songwriter. I don't think that the Man or Myth tour is just Nick Cave as a songwriter either. The main reason why The Birthday Party broke up was that the sort of songs that I was writing and the sort of songs that Rowland was writing were just totally at odds with each other - it was mainly a rift which developed between me and Rowland which kind of carried on through the rest of the group and made it tiresome for everyone else as well. It was certainly enough to make Mick Harvey quit, which is why The Birthday Party broke up officially. It probably would have gone on longer, but Mick has the ability to judge things much more clearly than the rest of us. We tend to get a bit carried away with things.

OTS: Your songwriting has undergone quite an evolution since the first Birthday Party album - it seems that these days you use much more conventional imagery.

NC: Yeah, I think so too. Even though I am using more conventional sorts of imagery, it seems to be much more difficult to write songs nowadays. With each year the process of writing a song becomes far more involved to ridiculous lengths. For example, writing Mutiny in Heaven was in the writing, lyrically anyway, for a good four months before we ever recorded it in Berlin. It's because you're using a cliche that it's like that I think - because people see something that they've heard about many times before, written about in a refreshing way, which is far more potent than just choosing a theme or subject matter that is obscure to begin with and writing about that in a conventional way.

OTS: Are you a lapsed Catholic?

NC: No, I'm not.

OTS: I guess it doesn't really matter what you are or aren't, really.

NC: I don't think it does. I've always had a very strong interest in that sort of imagery. I've always used it, perhaps now a bit more aggressively than I used to.

OTS: Do you like Louis Bunvel films?

NC: No, I don't. I hate Louis Bunvel films actually. He's... didactic, his films are didactic and the way I use that imagery... they're not making any particular statement about the Church, Religion or God at all. Not intentionally anyway.

OTS: Still - that seems like an incredible claim to make given that Mutiny In Heaven is so incredibly (although delightfully) blasphemous!!

NC: When I wrote that song it wasn't to make any deliberate insult to the Church or anything. I don't think in political terms like that. I was just happy with the way it sounded. I'm not stupid enough to be unaware that if particular people heard it, then they would find in offensive - but I wasn't being deliberately offensive or harbouring any particular prejudice against the Church when I wrote it.

OTS: Why then? Is it just a matter of exploring the emotional force you can generate from singing a song?

NC: Well, that particular song is different. The sort of songwriting I'm mainly interested in at the moment is far more narrative. Jennifer's Veil for example or a number of songs of the Man or Myth EP that's been recorded or things like She's Hit, this kind of half-story stuff, trying to build some sort of enigma around a particular character is mostly what I'm interested in, but Mutiny In Heaven is far more of an abstract thing, quite different from what I usually write.

OTS: Do you find there is much in the ways of film, theatre, bands or books that you want to consume yourself?

NC: Oooh - yeah - there are things that I like - but I'm just far more skeptical these days about what I go and see and what I read than I used to be. I used to do all I could to fill myself up with as much input as possible, but these days it seems much easier to predict what will be worth seeing or reading. I'm far more prejudiced than I used to be.

OTS: Are you still influenced by things? For example, by your immediate environment or the particular atmosphere of Melbourne where you grew up?

NC: I don't think that the environment has much impact - only in a really negative way. I really don't think that what happens to me day to day has very much bearing on what I'm writing about at all. It seems to be far more of an inward type of thing and far more to do with particular obsessions that have always been there - not that I could ever lay a finger on them - not that I even had a difficult religious upbringing which is the reason why I use a lot of blasphemous imagery - nor is it the influence of other musicians... or painters or books that I've read - although I could probably site some, mainly literature, that put me on particular tracks. The influences don't seem to come from anywhere anymore, they just come from your own past or what you've already created and what you can extend on from what you've already created. You review what you've already done and find that it's not what you've wanted to have done and you keep on wanting to repair your past... shortcomings.

OTS: I remember very strongly the Friday 13th gig at the Roundhouse last year, which some loved, some hated but which affected everyone. There was such immensely potent feeling coming off the stage for at least the first ten rows anyway because the sound in the Roundhouse was so horrific on that occasion.

NC: I thought that concert was really dreadful actually. I remember afterwards trying to cancel the whole rest of the tour. But the two at the Trade Union were much better...

OTS: - in a much more straightforward way though -

NC: I thought that all the concerts we did in Sydney were good in different ways, from what I remember of them anyway - and in retrospect. I liked the Roundhouse one, because it just, to me, showed a group in the process of falling apart. And it was those sorts of things that I thought were good about it - it just showed a group in its final stages and how we were making no qualms about how we appeared to the audience.

OTS: How did The Birthday Party go in America? How far did you get?

NC: Well, the last tour we did was great. It's fairly hard to tell in America how many people you actually draw and how many people just come to the club - people come to clubs with little regard for who's playing at all. All of the concerts we played were packed out - especially in new York and L.A - we played some really exceptional gigs, some of the best The Birthday Party have ever done. They were really inspirational.

OTS: Do you find you respond well to the challenge of playing to people who have never heard of The Birthday Party?

NC: Yeah, sure. America's really like that! You get the impression that you are able to shock and offend and that sort of thing all over again, whereas in London every time you play to the same kind of jaded, Pavlov's Dog type crowd.

OTS: Would you say that The Birthday Party were always a misunderstood band in that sense - that a certain contingent of the audience come along and get off purely on the aggression of the music without knowing or caring that it has much more to offer?

NC: Yeah, certainly. I don't know of another group who are playing music that is attempting in some way to be innovative that draws a more moronic audience than The Birthday Party. This is not everybody, of course - just people I see from stage - there's always ten rows of the most cretinous sector of the community.

OTS: And so is Berlin as exciting as we've been lead to believe?

NC: Well, I've always found it very exciting in the times that we've toured there. I just built up a collection of German friends - Berliners - who were really remarkable people and there was a real lot of activity going on that didn't even nod towards England for recognition. It was totally autonomous and very exciting in that respect.

OTS: In all areas of the arts?

NC: Yeah, sure. There was a group of about 25 people who just spent each night together at one of the clubs there - there were about five clubs you could go to in Berlin and they generally stayed open until 9 o'clock in the morning. They really knew how to live, the Berliners.

OTS: It always seems to light up just before a fall, Berlin.

NC: I don't think its ever really been very different. It's only when people who don't live in England or America got there and re-discover it, that it regains notoriety or popularity. I don't think it's ever particularly stopped there. I know that Berliners don't give a fuck who goes there or who uses their little creative island.

OTS: And so was it enjoyable doing the Immaculate Consumptive shows?

NC: Yeah, it was great. I'd worked with Lydia Lunch before, but it wasn't particularly stimulating this time. We were at each other's throats, it seems, the entire time, but it was really an education and very exciting to work with Marc Almond. He's just brilliant, that guy. I don't know what sort of reputation he's got here.

OTS: Obviously for lots of people, it's very easy not to take him seriously at all - that effete, camp sort of image.

NC: People really have the wrong idea of what he's like altogether. He's very aware of his public image and plays it up to hilarious extreme. But when he's doing things out of the Soft Cell or Mambas mode, he's really a very exciting performer and a great lyric writer. As far as I'm concerned, it was he who made The Immaculate Consumptive shows so exciting.

OTS: So what do you intend on doing after the Man or Myth shows?

NC: I'm not really exactly sure. Possibly we'll be looking at doing some concerts in America with this line-up, mainly because some of us want to get over to that side of the world. But all I've though about so far is to go to Mexico for a while and not do any sort of performing. If I thought I could live there, and if it was a likeable place to live, I could maybe get a job and just stay there for a long period of time. If I had the urge to, I could always record very easily. This is the thing about being solo, you can work from project to project which is what I want to do. I have no particular plans for doing anything in future in the music regard simply because I haven't thought of anything to do.

[crossdressingdeath]

Ah, I think what we're getting into here is the difference between Andrastianism and the Chantry. There were a lot of different Andrastian sects(? Cults? Not entirely sure what the right word is, but I'm gonna go with sects) when the Chantry was first founded; most of them aren't around anymore (at least some of them gone because of the Chantry and its habit of wiping out every other religious group it can, see the codex entry on the Daughters of Song for an example; that one's especially nasty since they were pacifists and the Chantry steamrolled over them anyway), but even in the games' time period there's still a couple, most notably Chantry Andrastianism and Tevinter Andrastianism. Orlais chose a very warlike sect to follow right from the start, which might just have been because that's how Orlesians are but it's still a thing to keep in mind: the sect the Chantry came out of was already one that glorified war above most other things. How convenient for an expansionist empire! The Chantry itself was absolutely created from that initial sect with propping Orlais up in mind, and it has stuck to that mandate pretty consistently throughout Thedas's history (even up to the occupation of Ferelden, the Orlesian king put in charge had a Chantry advisor; as far as I'm aware there was no significant Chantry presence among the rebels, at least not in any official capacity). It's also important to me to keep in mind that in the games there is a vague acknowledgement of how Andrastians don't necessarily follow the Chantry and many don't agree with it; Anders is a devout Andrastian, and he understandably despises the organization. Varric is Andrastian, and Cassandra comments he wouldn't be caught dead in a Chantry. Basically the Chantry as an institution and Andrastianism as a religion are not the same thing, the Chantry was created with a specific goal that Andrastianism did not share, and after a point they have to be discussed as separate entities.

I sort of agree with the "institutions are at their heart the people" thing? But also that only goes so far when we're talking about an institution that is fundamentally not in it to do good, or at least not for anyone who isn't already wealthy and in a position of power. I think the best example is Mother Giselle; she was working in Jader during a famine, and she demanded the Chantry step up and offer aid to the people who were starving. She's the epitome of someone determined to do good within the Chantry and fulfill their supposed mandate of charity. And... the Chantry refused to help. Just straight up refused to send aid no matter how many times she entreated them to help these desperate people. Eventually Mother Giselle fell back on a hunger strike, and that worked (although the Chantry insisted she feed herself and her fellow sisters first, which they merrily refused to do; I have issues with Mother Giselle but this is very good, gotta respect the determination). But the Chantry was so furious with her for "shaming" them and forcing their hand that by breaking that famine she ensured she would never be able to move any higher in the institution than she was already. Mother Giselle was fighting the Chantry the whole way and was punished for succeeding. That's kind of the running theme in the Chantry; there are a lot of genuinely good people who are genuinely determined to help! But outside of the individual level they consistently find themselves stymied and slapped down by the organization they serve, because the Chantry does not actually exist to help and does not actually want to. There comes a point where you can't take the intentions of people who join up as the true purpose of the institution, because the institution absolutely does not agree with those intentions and will do everything in its power to shut them down. (Also I mean there comes a point where it's like... hey if you people are in this to help people why aren't you quitting when it becomes clear the organization is going to demand you hurt people at every turn, Keran DA2 you will always be famous to me.)

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT. Thank you Dorian for being the best once again and pointing out that hey maybe if the Chantry didn't treat their mages like shit and traumatize all of them they'd get possessed less often.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #197

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're getting festive with Attila the San(ta)! We do dip into Fighter just a bit, but that's because she's got a candy cane that can turn into pretty much everything, so you gotta be prepared. She's mostly a Swords Bard to channel Dumuzid's whimsical story of Santa Claus into the aforementioned Candy Cane of the War God, as well as a Divine Soul Sorcerer. Some things don't change.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Something something Super Mario 64, something something Dark Souls

Race and Background

I know last time we made Altera a human, but I think we're going to change up her race between versions for once. Less because she is a different race, more because time marches on. Altera isn't quite human, so this time around she'll be a Custom Lineage. That gives her +2 Dexterity, as well as Performance proficiency to really nail those ho ho hos. You might be santa, but you also get a gift for starting with this race; the Gift of the Chromatic Dragon, that is! Once per long rest, you can add 1d4 of elemental damage to a weapon's damage rolls for a minute as a bonus action. Look, one of the things the candy cane can turn into is a whip, and it needs all the help it can get being useful. Also, proficiency times per long rest you can use your reaction to gain resistance to one instance of elemental damage. Her Natural Body might be a bit weakened by her cold, but it's still there.

She's also still an Outlander, giving you proficiency with Athletics and Survival.

Ability Scores

First up; Charisma. You need it to give gifts to good little boys and girls, and your magic comes from your own soul, pure as fresh snow. Second is Dexterity, because you don't wear armor and you need it for your whip. It'll also make you better with that bow and arrow, the key of any archer! Your Strength is also pretty good, we won't be focusing on it, but you are still beating people to death with a cane, so it can't be low. Your Constitution is above average, if lower than usual thanks to your illness. That means your Intelligence is low, and your Wisdom is lowest. It's hard to think or smell when you've got a cold. Better luck next year.

Class Levels

Fighter 1: Yup, starting off with the one level dip. This gets you all the weapons you could want, and you get a little more HP, super important at level 1. Starting here gets you proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as the Intimidation skill -you're still the leader of the huns, after all- and Animal Handling. You also get a Second Wind as a bonus action once per short rest to drink a cup of hot cocoa and heal up. How nice. Finally, pick up a Fighting Style. Archery will be super helpful for an archer class servant, giving you +2 to weapon attack rolls made with a ranged weapon. What do you mean she throws sheep.

Bard 1: Now that we've got all we want from fighter, let's hop over to the star of the show, Bard! I'll put that one skill proficiency in Religion, you get your normal and seasonal powers from different gods, make sure you don't mix them up. Anyway, you get Bardic Inspiration, giving an ally a d6 as a bonus action Charisma Modifier times per long rest. They can then use this d6 to add the roll to any one attack, check, or save. For more fun, you get Spells that you cast using your Charisma. Grab Blade Ward so you can still be a pseudo-barbarian, and Dancing Lights to spread some christmas cheer. You also get Animal Friendship to herd sheep more easily, Disguise Self for the perfect Elder Claus stache, and Heroism to make your allies a bit bolder this holiday season. Also, it's more like Dumuzid is casting Speak with Humans, but you casting Speak With Animals is slightly more reasonable.

Bard 2: Second level bards are a Jack of All Trades, adding half their proficiency bonus to skills they aren't proficient with. This means you've got zero negative skills now- I guess it wasn't much of a cold after all. You also get a Song of Rest for more healing over short rests, but I'm not entirely sure how that works in character. You learn Color Spray this level. I'm not sure blinding people is mechanically something you do, but at least it looks the part.

Bard 3: Third level bards graduate from college, and the college of Swords is great when you need to use a whip and mean it. You get another Fighting Style, so pick up Dueling this time for a +2 bonus to one-handed weapon damage. You also get Blade Flourishes, spending a die of bardic inspiration once per attack action to deal extra damage, move an extra 10 feet, and add effects to an attack. A Defensive Flourish add the amount rolled froma bardic inspiration die to both the damage dealt and your AC for the rest of the round. A Slashing Flourish lets you do a little ribbon dance with your whip, dealing the amount rolled to a second creature as well. A Mobile Flourish launches the creature back, dealing the roll in damage and pushing them 5 feet plus the number rolled. Put a little Christmas magic on your cane to shake up how you hit people, easy. You also get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency with them. Double down on Religion and Animal Handling to get a better handle of your new powers and your mount. You can cast Enhance Ability to make everything you do a little better. Well, not everything, you have to pick one type of ability score check per casting, but still, potentially everything.

Bard 4: Fourth level bards get your first Ability Score Improvement. We need to round up your charisma anyway, so grab the Resilient feat to do just that and get proficiency with charisma saves. You can't banish Santa, he'll just come down the chimney again. Also, grab Prestidigitation to make presents out of nothing, and Knock to get into people's homes. It's a bit noisy, but I doubt someone half-loopy from illness will be a master thief.

Bard 5: Fifth level bards get a better inspiration die, launching d8s instead of d6s. They also become a Font of Inspiration, so you get dice back on short rests instead of long ones. You can also put on Motivational Speeches to rally your party around the one true meaning of Christmas: destroying bad civ.

Sorcerer 1: Bouncing over to Divine Soul sorcerer gives you the best spell list in the game, mostly because it's two spell lists. Cast 'em with your Charisma, check the multiclassing section to figure out how many slots you have. Grab Green-Flame Blade for an extra shiny candy cane, Lightning Lure to use said candy cane to drag people towards you, and Guidance and Resistance to be better than most people. You hang out with a god now, this kind of thing will happen. You also get Mage Armor so you can finally get out of that stuffy leather coat, as well as Shield of Faith for even more AC. You also get an extra spell that is supposed to be based on your alignment, but screw that, grab Inflict Wounds for a really scary candy cane whapping. On top of all that, you are Favored by the Gods, meaning you can add 2d4 to a failed save or attack once per short rest.

Bard 6: Sixth level bards get Countercharm, letting you spend an action to give advantage to nearby allies who are making saves against being charmed or frightened. But that's bad, just attack twice thanks to your Extra Attack. You also learn Tongues, because you can't deliver toys all over the world if you can't understand toy commercials all over the world.

Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers become a Font of Magic, giving you your sorcerer level in sorcery points per long rest. You can get more (up to your sorcerer level) by burning spell slots, or vice-versa. You also learn how to cast Magic Missile, for some caster... archer... balls. Whatever. Hit people with magic.

Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers learn Metamagic, letting you control your magic a little more than most servants. Transmuted Spell lets you change a spell's damage type, so now your weapon replacement spells can deal the same types of damage. You also get a Heightened Spell, letting you force disadvantage on one person affected by the spell's saving throw. If you throw enough sheep, one of them will hit eventually. Speaking of spells, you get Scorching Ray, letting you send an array of flaming hot sheep at your enemies, making an attack roll for each sheep.

Sorcerer 4: Your last level of sorcerer gets you another ASI. Bump up your Charisma for more powerful sheep-based attacks. Speaking of, you learn Melf's Minute Meteors, creating six tiny sheep that follow you around. When you cast the spell, and each bonus action thereafter, you can throw 1-2 sheep at a point within 120', where they then explode. Every creature within 5' makes a dex save, and they take damage if they fail or half if they succeed. A bit more brutal to the sheep, but you can't argue with results.

Bard 7: Seventh level bards get fourth level spells like Dimension Door. You gotta end up in the sky somehow for your NP.

Bard 8: Eighth level bards get yet another ASI, so bump up that Dexterity. There really aren't any other spells I want for this build at fourth level, but take Freedom of Movement anyway. It should probably be a lot harder to break into the underworld than you make it look.

Bard 9: Ninth level bards get fifth level spells, and their song of rest gets a bit stronger, turning into an extra d8 of healing. Grab Awaken to turn a regular sheep into a cool, smart sheep. Unfortunately, sheep are small creatures, so you won't have a mount, even if you use the Custom Lineage to make a mini-santa. If you want to keep with the theme you could always get a cow, I guess. No matter what you awaken though, it's charmed by you for up to 30 days, after which it'll do whatever it feels is best. Be nice to Dumuzid.

Bard 10: Tenth level bards get a lot of stuff; Expertise in performance and athletics to be the fittest goddamn Santa alive, the Light cantrip for more Christmas decorations, a boosted Bardic Inspiration die, and best of all, Magical Secrets. That last one gives you two spells from any spell list, as long as they're at a level a 10th level bard could cast. Grab the Shillelagh cantrip to make your candy cane stronger without having to invest in strength, and Conjure Woodland Beings to create some real sheep. Probably not the best use of a 4th level spell slot, but why not. Eight sheep.

Bard 11: Eleventh level bards get sixth level spells, and now you can finally set up for the christmas party with a Heroes' Feast. More HP, advantage on wisdom saves, and anyone who partakes can't be frightened, that's some good mood food.

Bard 12: Use your last ASI for the Tough feat, giving you +2 HP for each level you have. We have to keep your constitution low because of your cold, but you're still Attila the Hun, you should be pretty tough to fight.

Bard 13: Seventh level spell time! Grab Prismatic Spray to launch a whole herd of rainbow-powered sheep in a 60 foot cone, forcing a dexterity save on every creature inside it. They then get hit by one of eight colored beams, dealing plenty of damage, petrifying them, or banishing them, all depending on the sheep that hits them.

Bard 14: Time for your final sword bard goodies! As a proper swordsmaster, you get a Master's Flourish, letting you use your flourishes freely, but restricting the damage to a d6 when not burning inspiration. The cane's pretty flowy, so restricting it just doesn't make sense. You also get another round of Magical Secrets- this time you can Conjure Fey to finally make a proper big Dumuzid to ride, and cast Haste to boost yourself now for a drawback later, just like your third skill. For Dumuzid, I assume an "Awakened White Moose" from Icewind Dale should work, but I don't have that book to confirm it.

Bard 15: Your capstone level is another boost to your bardic inspiration for the most damage and support possible, a d12. You also get one last spell, this time at eighth level, Mind Blank. You are made immune to psychic damage and can't have your mind read for 24 hours, and it's even powerful enough to shut down the Wish spell. You can't read a mind that isn't thinking about anything.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

For someone using a whip sometimes, you do pretty good damage. Gift of the Chromatic Dragon will probably last an entire fight, and without concentration it's just free damage. Tack on your flourishes and haste, and you're dealing 6d4 + 2d12 + 18 damage per turn- with median rolls, that's almost 50 damage, and you can keep that up for a couple rounds easily.

You also come packing with a lot of variety in your spell list, with plenty of damage and utility to help you in and out of combat.

Speaking of out of combat, you're weirdly good with skills. Jack of all trades mean you'll never have a negative modifier on a skill check, and Favored by the Gods and Enhance Ability push your advantage as far as it will go.

Cons:

Playing to character means you're using a lot of fire damage, the most easily resisted in the game. Ironically you're going to fight Ereshkigal, so not getting radiant damage is actually helping you a lot. But that doesn't change the fact that fire is the most resisted type.

A lot of your early build doesn't focus on damage at all, so it'll be hard to keep up with the rest of your party in big fights for a while.

Playing to character is a bad idea. We talked about fire already, but also- summoning sheep is a terrible use of a spell slot. Awakening a sheep is a terrible use of a spell slot. Using a whip is just bad, period. Please, feel free to shake things up before bringing it to a tabletop game.

[kaiju-kinnie]

Two people have shown interest which means I'm free to blow up about this.

I'm tired of shipping. Like genuinely, I'm so fucking tired of shipping. It's not even fun anymore, and half the time it's just annoying like dear God. Not everything has to be about romance. You don't need to look at all possibilities of x characters having a romantic relationship fo fully enjoy them as characters, or to try and understand them on a deeper level. And hell you don't need ships to make something more "interesting". Things aren't boring without romance. I'm so tired of people consuming media through the lens of "who can I pair with who"

Like not everything has to be about romance. It's already everywhere, in almost every song, movie, TV show, book, comic, game, etc, there's going to be themes of romance. No matter how genuine or shoe horned it is, it's there! If you want something that explores the relationship and dynamics of characters in a romantic light, the options are endless.

And if you happen to think that two characters on a movie or show have chemistry, then whatever. That's fine. More power to you.

But then you have cases like Unicorn Wars.

Unicorn Wars is a beautiful movie about war, prejudice, religion being used as a justification for colonization and control, the dangers of us vs them mentalities. It is a fucked up movie. It is a tragic movie. And the tags are full of shipping art. Fan art, fan fiction, aus, comics, etc, of two ot three character. You're going to be hard pressed to find anyone genuinely talked about the movie or its themes, or even be able to tell what it's about if you look at its rags.

Another example is the first spiderverse movie. People were so desperate to ship something, especially for an mlm ship, that they shipped spider ham and spider noir. Like sure, on one hand it was funny. But people acted like they needed some romantic pairing to focus on.

The same is with Portal! It's comedy, scifi horror game about escaping a giant robot. Everyone knows Portal. We have the "cringy qnd infamous" (at least thats how people tend to view the ship now, back in the day youd het hatemail for not shipping it) history of people shipping Chell with Tumblr Sexyman Wheatley. But there's also GLaDOS. People have the hots for GLaDOS, I get it. She's hot. Giant mean woman hot. People project themselves onto Chell, as people tend to do with main characters, and ship them. (Also ignoring the fact that it's implied that Caroline was Chells mom, but hey people are desperate for wlw ships because of how rare they are in media).

When Frozen, a movie about how you dont need a romantic parrner to be loved, first came out people were RABID about shipping Ana and Elsa to the point where they were using suit actors as Disney hugging as proof their ship was canon.

This also happened in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters. The movie has zero romantic subplots, and very little focus on the human characters. But everyone shipped Ghidorah and Rodan because there's a joke in the movie about what happens when wild animals invade eachothers territory. Note: Ghidorah came in to best the shit out of Rodan and display dominance.

Hell this also happens with lesser known media. I'm PG Psycho Goreman, people were so desperate to have someone to ship that they shipped the two main characters who were siblings. Like God damn my guys.

Digital Circus isn't even a week old and there's shipping discourse. Someone dug up my friends YEARS old post about why ChelDOS makes them uncomfortable (a small untagged post with under 50 notes) and started sending them messages saying they're "being rude and mean".

I looked up shit for Ghost and it's 70% shipping content. Cool, the goofy backstory about Satanists trying to rule the world with music is kinda pushed to the side by the fan base so people can white fics about the ghouls fucking. I get it! They're a horny band. But please guys come on, I wanna see someone explore their backstory and gimmic.

God it's like this on Twitter too. It's fucking insane. Not everyone needs to be boyfriend girlfriend. Like yeah, in the end it's harmless. But please how to enjoy content outside of "okay but what if they kissed"

Hey can I drop a take on you guys real quick? A potentially very hot take?