#nor is he a bad person

[as8bakwthesage]

Considering that in the Iliad and in the Odyssey, a lot of Odysseus' faults aren't even discussed like they are in the "Epic" musical, how different stories paint the sacking of Troy with more or less detail (the Iliad versus the Aeneid, for example), and who murdered Astyanax also depends on the story (Astyanax isn't even mentioned in the Iliad, Odyssey, or Aeneid, but in other lesser known books/stories), it's very interesting how Jorge Rivera-Herrans chooses to paint Odysseus' character.

You can only assume that "Epic the Musical" really is just a very specific character study about this one dude that Jorge hyperfixated on, huh?

[bluerosefox]

Selina's New Kittens

Once again. A new DPxDC idea/prompt.

(Deaged! Danny, Dan, Ellie, and Jazz!)

Enjoy my random ideas.

Look.

Selina....

Selina wasn't expecting this when she decided to have some fun and do what she does best.

She just meant to sweet talk her way into Master's gala/party. Flirt and get info, maybe some blackmail. Steal away the rare cat themed artifact he had recently gotten (and also steal away his actual cat, such a lovely little diva it is too). then she was going to disappear into the night like always.

So...

Selina casted her eyes into the mirror of her car and could see the tiny children she had rescued from Master's hidden basement lab. All but one was asleep, the oldest out of them, although she seemed to be losing that fight from the way her head was falling forward, eyes closing but would jerk herself back awake when she realized she was falling asleep.

Curled up as hard and as much as they could towards the little redhead was three dark haired children, Selina mused that they'd fit right in with Bruce and his little bats/birds.

Two were near identical boys, though one seemed to be much paler than the other and if she remembered right one had red eyes and the other had blue, and the last one of the sleeping kids was a tiny toddler, a girl she heard was named 'Ellie' from the others.

Selina took note that the red head, Jazz, had finally fallen asleep a few minutes later. With a deep breath as she drove further and further away from that... that insane Fruitloop (she overheard the two boys call him that as they ran to her car) Master's place, she blindly reached for her phone and pressed a single digit on the screen, knowing it will connect to her car and call up the only person she can trust to help her with this.

"Selina." came the gravely voice after a single ring, sounds like she caught him on patrol but he seemed to be in a spot where he was okay to say her actual name over coms or she caught him before his night shift started.

"Hello Darling, I need your help with some kittens I found and to help me... Put away their terrible old owner."

[crustyfloor]

A new pop-up store dropped for ALIEN STAGE's 2nd anniversary and wow. It's so sick.

It's Interesting what exactly these experiments are focusing on and monitoring.

Instrument practice

I found it interesting earlier that Till was so tame, more so than he usually is when he's going through experiments, but music, and making music is what he loves doing, So he was fully in his element here. This was probably the only thing he was made to do by the aliens that he at least tolerated.

(Additionally, judging by his collar (orange), he was at least calm. maybe he just isn't fazed anymore.)

//Side note, that head contraption looks familiar BUT this most likely isn't related at least i hope

(It puts me at ease, at least..)

Dance practice

This surprised me, but I suppose Mizi needed more skills.

She looks very startled here, and nervous(?) +It looks like she's doing this while singing. And with that face covering I assume this was a test monitoring her dance balance, precision, etc. At first, I did think it was odd, "Why would Shine put her through that" But alas I was reminded that even though Mizi is the flower of the group she was never untouchable, to Shine, this was the equivalent of teaching your dog to sit and stay.

(seeing this it reminded me of those scenes in movies where the people are dancing, and the music gets faster and faster until they fall. I wonder if she was doing through something similar to that)

Singing practice (?)

Similar to Till she also looks quite calm outwardly, if the machine around her neck is an iteration of the collars they have, then this process wasn't something she liked, or given how intense this experiment looks, this was a test of high-pressure to ensure she always stayed calm during performances (?). Then again this could also be a posture practice given all the structure focused on maintaining her position.

(What I believe was another form of this test was shown before so I think so)

(With her hands in a praying stance I wonder if she was praying to herself or singing a religious song (sweet dream?) It's also interesting that the machinery around her looks like a halo, and she looks so...angelic? holy?)

Image making practice

By image making, I think they made Ivan replicate expressions with his face. Whether this process was painful for him or not...I'm not sure. But it looked visibly uncomfortable, maybe that was the point. (His expression, even in this circumstance is so dubious..)

Ivan, among other things, needed to have a spotless appearance to be successful, his image was a priority given his skills were certainly guaranteed.

I assume the aliens eventually took note of his lack of expression, in the real world this can be a detriment to one's career, so the Aliens had to ensure quality was perfect. (To a more...dedicated level)

Superiority test

'Superiority test' Is very vague.

HyunA is very calm here too, likely sedated in that water with all the tablets on her. I guess this was a test to get an idea of a pet human's strengths and weaknesses, endurance, and temperament to compare and contrast them with others, testing who is more viable for Alien stage?

Another interesting, and sad part about this is that HyunWoo was there, watching his sister through her experiments.

(Also, it looks like both of her legs are normal, no alien leg yet.)

Heart rate variability

And finally, the most visceral of them all. The wording 'variability' makes this all the more sickening, the Aliens were testing his heart hours, testing it at different rates, speeds, and states. And he was in agony the entire time. Even the way he's clutching his chest, it gives me chills. This would've been a completely harmless test in a normal setting, as something quite similar to this can be performed efficiently in real life. But he's being tortured in the process.

This is one of the first times we've ever seen Luka's face so truly clear and unprotected, (understandably so.) He's even crying.

[dykedvonte]

I think a big misunderstanding is the power people give Curly to actually change things about the way the pony express operates or could’ve done things on the Tulpar.

We are talking about a company that docks pay for bad synergy despite mandated psych evals that should tell which staff members would work well together, only allots for 5 hours of sleep despite having literally no other tasks to truly do and locks all resources behind the access of one person. The last one is likely to manage resources and make it easier to justify collective punishment and blaming one person for it; someone needs something in “excess” or the captain gives in? It’s all on them your pay is docked. Instant resentment.

It’s insidious how the company works, it’s by design to distract you from coming after them, to force tensions to line their own pockets. With all the restrictions and forced interactions, altercations are bound to happen. 5 hours of sleep a day, limited sources of entertainment, no real tasks… the monotony alone would cause bad cabin fever, mix that with just only one absolute mediator and you get the exact environment that allows shit like in the game to happen.

The idea he could just complain and try to throw his weight around to get them to dig into their pocket for the crews comfort is laughable and misses the predatory and dehumanizing aspect of capitalism the Pony Express represents. Curly was and is still just another asset to them. Being a top show pony doesn’t mean he’s anywhere close to the actual top. He is the top of the working ladder, not whoever’s in corporate, he wouldn’t even be on the bottom step unlike what Jimmy perceives. The resounding recommendations he would get are almost mocking as they throw him out like nothing just like the rest. Being a shitty fucking company, how much do you bet they’d mean anything anyways, especially since he wanted to leave the field all together.

He made a fuss and they didn’t listen, he says he should’ve done more but you can tell he knows it wouldn’t have changed anything. Jobs like this are willing to make a sacrifice if it means even a penny more. Curly makes a bigger fuss they likely would’ve just found an “unrelated” reason to fire him, hired a more pliable guy or, terrifyingly, promoted Jimmy. The company was failing, going to shut down whether anything happened on the ship or not. But knowing that they were shutting down and that everyone, including him, would be out of a job with this being their last paycheck, he had to factor in not destroying the last bit of their financial stabilities combined with every other issue on the vessel and his own. He gets another cryopod or locks and then he has to break to them that they are not only fired but there will be substantial cuts to their paychecks due to the “upgrades” (things that already should’ve been in place on their part) on top of anything else that could be docked along the way.

You can blame him for saying it so early into the trip but then again, if he mentioned it later who’s to say it wouldn’t have been worse? On the capitalism side alone how would people in a galaxy away from home, out of a job and already stir crazy react? Don’t get me started on how Jimmy would have reacted if he realized he only had two days left to fix what would be a very hard to miss “problem” in his head…

I can’t even consider explaining this as devils advocate because it’s just facts of the world we and they live in and factors that heavily affected the situation. People are just so quick to make claims on the ease of the choices when P.E literally makes it hard to choose to do anything but suck it up.

[javussyannihilator]

anyway. javert is a good person with pretty average morals for his time period, who tried his best and worked his ass off despite the odds stacked against him from literal birth, all while never receiving a shred of affection or compassion and struggling to be the one halfway decent person surrounded by the flip and corrupt. and he cared so little for his own life that his idea of punishing himself for his mistakes was to end it, in a death so tragic hugo took it from his own daughter’s demise. there is nothing evil or amoral about javert; he’s honestly just a guy doing his best in a system designed to make everyone fail, and he doesn’t even realize it until it’s far too late.

[thelordofgifs]

hot take but you guys are maybe a little too obsessed with elrond. he's just a guy.

[skywalkr-nberrie]

One of the biggest arguments I’ve seen used by the Ob*d*l*s against Anidala, is that scene in the ROTS novel where Padmé says she could trust OW with the secret of the rebellion and was hesitant to tell Anakin and I just wanna say:

Padmé wasn't an idiot. She was an extremely intelligent and competent woman, perfectly able to understand that loving Anakin and thinking that he could be trusted with a certain politic-related matter were two very different things and reducing her choice regarding who to trust with an important political matter only on the basis of her feelings of romantic love diminishes her professionalism, and this is why I say y'all could never understand her.

Padmé didn’t have to "love" OW or even like him at all to know he was the perfect Jedi to ask for help in a secret political matter.

That's the point being made in the novel, she’s hit with the realization that Anakin in this particular moment could not be told this piece of info because of his relationship with Palpatine, and Padmé specifically mentions in the Junior ROTS novel that she didn't want to make Anakin “keep a secret” if he didn’t agree with their stance because it’d be “unfair.” So this also played a part in why Padmé didn’t think it best to inform Anakin about the Rebellion. It honestly had little to do with her actually lacking trust in him, and more to do with the circumstances she was in not allowing her to be open with her husband and her not wanting to make him choose between his wife and his “father figure.”

However, Padmé knows OW’s political ideas aren't tied to ONE particular person but to a philosophy, one which is closer to her own, at that point. None of this was ever meant to be hinted as “romantic” or even remotely insinuated as romantic. It’s strictly professional and even the tone of the scene makes that so abundantly clear.

All I’m saying is that, some of these proshippers are doing the most out here to try and prove their ship, like my loves? You forgot a very important thing called ✨ context ✨ and regardless of her rational thinking, Padmé still went out of her way to try and talk out all of this Rebellion secrecy stuff with Anakin when she confronted him in the scene where she asks if he ever thought they were “fighting on the wrong side.” Padmé didn’t trust OW in the same way she trusted Anakin (with her entire self and being) she had the level of trust and love for Anakin that was only meant for him.

Mixing up her unwavering faith in Anakin as her husband with her trust in OW’s devotion to duty as her comrade/ally is purposely deluding yourself, because the two aren’t the same and therefore can’t be compared. An example of this is: Padmé constantly putting more value to Anakin’s words over OW’s in the end of ROTS when he came to tell her of Anakin’s “crimes”. She completely disregarded what OW had claimed about her husband and instead made her way to where Anakin was herself, to ask him directly. Despite what the truth was, this is proof of her trusting Anakin unconditionally, and I didn’t even think I had to spell that out because it’s as clear as day.

In conclusion, Padmé didn’t trust OW more than Anakin, she just knew the circumstances she was in didn’t exactly make it easy for her to openly talk with her husband about these matters and that’s part of what played into the issues they had in ROTS, it’s exactly what Sidious wanted. This scene in the novel doesn’t exist to imply some hidden romantic undertone that George was intending all along. No, far from that. George was always an “open, , clear and easy to understand” type of storyteller, so if the former was the case, this scene wouldn’t be any different if there was some hidden message or subtext the reader should be made aware of, George would make it obvious. Fact of the matter is, the one and only reason for this scene in the novel to exist is only to show to us as the “reader” that the narrative is tearing apart the Star-Crossed-lovers (Anakin and Padmé.) and visibly putting the two of them on different sides in the story because the consequences of this narrative choice is what will foreshadow and play into the inevitable and great fall of the couple and character in the future. Even the novel makes a very purposeful and clear distinction between “love and trust” in this chapter where all this occurs. Padmé loves Anakin, but knew she had to trust OW with the situation at hand. And if you want to talk “narratively” Padmé needed a reason to keep the Rebellion a secret from Anakin, thus leading to Palpatine to sense “betrayal” in Padmé later on, and using that to his advantage to manipulate Anakin even more into getting him to “suspect” her. It’s all spelt out for us and it’s not hard to miss. All it takes is a little media literacy and understanding context.

(Mind you, hypothetically, if this scene existed for literally any other reason, it would’ve been brought up again, but it wasn’t. It’s only mentioned once and exists for only one moment which was meant to serve a certain narrative and then it was done. There’s not much to make of it since the context of the scene is so clear.)

[timetravelstudies]

This got long and annoying so its under a cut now

The way in the fight w the museum director insul gets the same big injuries he has given trianon (so far), aand particularly the ones that T thinks back on often as specific sources of fear/humiliation/control (pepper sprayed in the eyes; kicked in the balls; choked with smth small and thin ((wire / car window)))….. im too tired to formulate a proper Thought abt this but the fact this all happens right in front of tjat one painting of dante & virgil in hell + insul and the director are in the exact same pose right as insul is about to die* is obviously so meant to evoke the idea of contrappasso….. at this stage trianon isnt “””strong””” enough (doesnt understand Insul enough and most importantly doesnt fully inhabit himself and his own strengths) to be able to pay back Insul’s violence (as he does later, though not in such a literal way anymore) so tje director will do for now🥰 bc they both need to descend into hell they both need to be subject to physical and psychological violence in order to strip down layers……. so its cool how the director serves that purpose for this phase 1 both in story for insul himself (who eats shit in this fight) and also as a sort of alert for the reader like make no mistake they are BOTH gonna get put thru the ringer. even the top has to wade through cocytus! or smth

[itspileofgoodthings]

I go off about Catholic/christian religious influencers of all kinds and I do so for many reasons but one of the main ones is just. the feeling they’re selling (and it is a feeling and they’re selling it, even if just for views) it doesn’t feel like that for everyone. That whole simplistic set-up of struggle struggle struggle, breakthrough, clarity, emotional peace, tears streaming down the face. That’s not real. Or at least it’s not real much of the time in MANY cases and even when it is real that isn’t the only part or the most important part of having a relationship with God. It’s probably the least important part, the feeling. and so it fills me with RAGE when the emotional part of religion is sold and packaged and paraded and presented on Instagram as “inspiration”! it distorts the whole reality of a relationship with God and puts a literal and figurative Instagram filter over the whole thing.

[shidoukanae]

Hello to the Buddyfight fandom it's been a hot minute but god do i miss this show and have been making fanart for it in the background so i thought i'd post to tumblr too ^^

I swear every year I end up coming back to this show and wishing that it kept going, that it got rebooted, that i could just erase my memories of this show and just watch it all over again from the beginning to enjoy everything once again from Tasuku's own sense of justice twisting against him to Gao's suffering of PTSD and how heartfelt it was handled.

There's something very special about this show that I haven't been able to find replicated elsewhere. It has the most perfect world to exist (so much so that i'd love to be isekai'd into it if i could!!!) and while i have my own gripes with it (hi S3+) i honestly sometimes wish i could go back to my high school years of watching this show just to relive it all again :'D

Anyways!!! I hope there's still people out there who enjoy this show even ten years later who'll like seeing new funny artwork for it!

I wanna add too that i'm hoping to create a rewrite of FCBF (ft. seasons 1-3 + Ace) or at least create more artwork for my interpretation of it and its world!

Because, sincerely, this show is one of the few that, for all its flaws, hasn't disappointed me in the years that've followed unlike many other things i've seen and i wanna try to keep the spirit of it alive while I can thanks to that. And if there are any fans still in existence who love it, i wanna provide some food while its once again in my orbit because damn do i adore this show <3 <3 <#

[noxious-fennec]

Alright. I want you all made perfectly aware that I have completely cut support for Wilbur soot and any associated projects. I find his "apology" to be disingenuous and trashy damage control, and it undermines whatever desire he has to improve, however genuine that is.

I 100% support Shelby and any victim of such disgusting behaviour, i commend them for their courage, and I wish them nothing but prosperity, support, and happiness. I will always value their peace over whatever art he made. I'll find other fucking art.

[crime-scene-psychic]

of all the gin joints in all the world by fall out boy/ M*A*S*H season 6 episode 3 fallen idol

[techno-rat]

techno and his relationship to dehumanization is SOOO important to me .

[cat-with-a-tie]

DenNor, traced from that scene in Princess Mononoke bc it’s a crime this hasn’t been done before.

You’re beautiful.

(first meeting, circa 800 AD)

Norway about six centuries later: ‘Damn really should’ve just killed him then and there huh.’

[dykedvonte]

did you see the article wrong organ tweet abt an interview with the lead writer —>

https://t.co/5dcfeePkz3

The article really should honestly be read by people who try to make any of the characters actions black or white and ignore the other themes in the game. It specifically mentions these aspects that people try to make seem undebatable or uninterpretive and makes sure to use wording to say it can stem from multiple things and never confirm or deny anything.

I do remind people that the interviewer does not work for Wrong Organ so I am only using quotes and paraphrased statements rather than their own deductions as those should be taken with the same grain of salt of an analysis you see on twitter or tumblr and even my blog. They are still a subjective eye compared to Kasurinen’s direct statements.

Particularly pointing out that Jimmy, while deplorable, is still supposed to complex and his actions are not fueled by some comically sick amusement. And that Curly’s actions are not just rooted in one thing and not just rooted in rape culture but also include other social and systemic factors besides the shallow idea he’s just dick riding for his friends. It’s meant to be interpretative and I need to point out that the main writer says that “good intentions mean nothing when it’s gotten that bad”. A lot of people like to think Curly was only acting with intentions for himself or Jimmy when it’s was a misguided attempt at overall peace that ultimately failed and whatever processes behind that are to be nitpicked, not if he was acting out or malice or disregard.

I wish more was talked about specifically with Anya, Daisuke and Swansea but I understand why they weren’t as Curly’s actions/inactions pre-crash and Jimmy’s actions throughout all segments are the main impactful forces in the game. People should really read it for themselves but sit on this quote directly from the main writer:

[iamnmbr3]

the moment when you realize an ai would've written a better larry show than mike waldron bc an ai would've been trained on previous loki content and thus, unlike mike, would've actually watched the films