#special status

[gallus-rising]

i'm beginning to think the Swansea is devs' favorite character and i love it so much. they made him an official dance playlist on Spotify, there's an achievement for letting yourself be axe murdered 10 times in a row called "The Good Ending", his keys in your inventory could've totally been just a normal picture of some keys but they put in the extra effort to give him a silly swan charm, he gets multiple epic speeches, there's an entire character dedicated to hyping him up, they posted a video of him twerking Jimmy to death. mark my words they're going to turn him into a marketable plushie any day now

[dearestdo3]

regulus who at first hates sev for being a poor, weird halfblood but for some reason keeps getting special treatment from his cousin and her fiancé

and years later he does the same thing

[azirafuck]

people will tenderly kiss crowley as he's in the middle of the snake-to-human transition looking like an expired cucumber but draw the line at. beard.

I'm also people

[rapha-reads]

No but I gotta talk about Medusa for a minute actually.

It's been. A very long time since I read the PJO books so I don't exactly remember how Uncle Rick presents Medusa in the book. But the way the show introduces her myth? Fascinating. For me as a Greek mythology enthusiast, that is.

The show makes Medusa a victim of Athena. Of course, the show is mainly for kids, so they can't exactly say that, hey, kids, Medusa was Athena's priestess and she was raped by Poseidon, YEP, or protagonist's father, IN Athena's temple, nah, that's neither kid-friendly nor does it endears us to Poseidon. Not that Poseidon is very dear to us viewers/readers at this point, our narrator/protagonist can't stand his own dad.

But still what fascinates me is that even though they twisted the myth to ft the narrative they still managed to evoke Athena's curse as being actually a gift, and Medusa not feeling wretched over her condition but blessed.

Which is not a modern reading of the myth, actually. Saying that Athena couldn't punish Poseidon for his transgression and could only punish Medusa, but did so in a way that would give Medusa weapons to defend herself against whoever and whatever would try to harm her again, is a narrative that exists since Antiquity.

My point is that the re-framing of Medusa's myth, departing from the traditional, non-kid-friendly version while still incorporating both classic and modern elements, is a good frame of reference for the series (book and show)' entire approach to mythology. And I guess I'm saying that mostly for the non-book readers who are discovering this world, many of whom might be Greek mythology fans and might have gone "wait, why is Hades AGAIN presented as the bad guy when he's the chillest, most normal, most stable god in this entire pantheon", because that's a conversation the book fandom has been having (over and over again) for more than a decade.

Anyway, yeah. As a long time book fan and a show appreciative, here's my advice to anyone who knows WAY too much about Greek myths and still want to enjoy the ride without going every five minutes "wait, that's not correct": reframe. Contemporary rewritings, modern audiences and Fantasy genre.

[afurtivecake]

I like that TSC, though written in the POVs of characters who experience physical attraction, still reads like an ace romance. It still relies on small tender gestures and moments to convey emotions like deepening feelings of trust. What it doesn't do is place characters together in big plot moments and just waving away the reason for the characters' sudden closeness as *it's sexual attraction*. Allo romance novels will tell you how they got together, but an ace romance is basically an entire thesis on WHY they got together. And I'd say TSC reads far more like the latter.

[agentc0rn]

Lonely earth-bound monarch figures whose existences and legacies extend past the bounds of time and space.

[shitty-malevolent-aus]

Malevolent au but it’s just an endless loop of the Benevolent Christmas special where every time Arthur and John slowly realize what’s going on and somehow break out and break the cannon

shitty AU status denied. this sounds interesting

[sgtgrunt0331-3]

America's Response Monument, subtitled De Oppresso Liber, is a life-and-a-half scale bronze statue in Liberty Park overlooking the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City.

Unofficially known as the "Horse Soldier Statue" it is the first publicly accessible monument dedicated to the United States Army Special Forces. It was also the first monument near Ground Zero to recognize heroes of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

[goldensunset]

all i really need from khml is for player2 to return to ephemer’s statue once in a while and just sit quietly by the fountain and reflect. both before and after they inevitably get their memories back- i want them to be drawn back to this spot again and again, just something tugging at their heartstrings, feeling comfortable there…

[osamucide]

do we talk enough about how atsushi and the weretiger and his character overall are a great metaphor for healing from trauma, specifically through community? i mean we meet him as this scared young adult who believes himself to be incapable and worthless. he doesn't even realize the manifestation of vengeance inside him or the fact that it's already lashed out and hurt people - in fact, he thinks he's running from this exact thing that lashes out, without realizing it is in fact himself. memory loss is a common trauma response, and when he does learn he's the weretiger, he's frightened by it and its capacity for harm. it's dazai and the agency who give him the opportunity to use his willpower for selflessness and help him to understand that he's not bad, he's just hurt. throughout the story we're watching him move from uncertain, insecure, overly-polite and meek to strong, assured, determined, and unabashed in his protectiveness over others (see kyoka). we see him go from paralyzed by his flashbacks to determined to dispel those misconceptions about himself. when higuchi corners him and the tanizakis in the alley early in season one, he still doesn't know how to summon the tiger, but it comes out after akutagawa's words (and also, debatably, watching naomi 'die' - just the stressful situation overall, perhaps) trigger a flashback - a really sound metaphor as manifestation for his trauma (stressful/triggering event = fight response). and while his is certainly not the most common or relatable circumstance to understand and heal from trauma under, the weretiger is so powerful metaphorically because ultimately, he uses his harnesses this destructive, disruptive, terrifying power for good. sometimes healing your trauma feels like inching close to this big, scary animal until it trusts you enough to touch and when you finally do, you realize the big, scary animal was also once just a hurt cub who needed a figure to tell it hey, you're not any of those things you think about yourself. (the imagery in the manga/anime/official art of atsushi sitting with the tiger, cradling it, petting it, etc. is so powerful to me for this reason)

it's another reason why akutagawa is such a good thematic parallel for him. akutagawa was not given this grace as a hurt child, by dazai specifically, and thus grew up into a hurt adult - and this also speaks to how complex of a character dazai is. these characters just play so well with one another and demonstrate such complex reactions to trauma, how it is cyclical, how that cycle can be broken, etc. and i just think it's really beautiful and refreshing for a mainstream anime to deal with themes like this

[so-very-small]

trapping a tiny in a jar and gently setting the jar next to me on the sofa and giving them some popcorn cause i’m about to make them watch the entire extended editions of Lord of the Rings with me

[miraculouslytiredout]

tbh this special didn't feel like a special episode, if that makes sense. this could have easily been the pilot episode of season 6 and there would have been no difference. i mean they were in london for only three whole scenes. i was also under the impression that these special episodes had some distance and separation from very prominent canonical events.

[phoenixcatch7]

Reading loz/lu fics and it's just so interesting how wide the spectrum is of their personalities.

Sometimes it's got an in universe reason (different past (usually gender or species change), recent or ongoing traumatic events, a spectacularly bad first meeting), but sometimes (often) the characters are just... Weirdly angsty or peppy, there's no in between!

And I'm beginning to think less people have played more than one game than I thought XD.

Not that it's anyone's fault! One game is more than enough to be part of it all, and loz is exclusive to Nintendo consoles - and all the older stuff is frustratingly hard to get hold of. Heck, I'm still looking for wind waker, and that was really popular! And then you have to play it! They're not small games!!

But could people writing wild please ease off just a tiiiiiny bit so he can be a semi functional member of society pretty please XD? He's just as much a polite boy as any other member of the chain! He won't even run in shops! He can't attack npcs! He talks to every single person he's ever seen and remembers every single name. Yes, he's three quarters woodland creature with a hefty amount of trauma but he's also a fashionista who managed to avoid accidentally taking sides in a mayoral election and that's not easy!

[yunyin]

London Special addendum

Okay a couple more things

When Lila remade the universe, apparently it was in a configuration that had never been done before. What did she DO?

Also! Kagami knows about her mom and plans to talk to her. How do you have that conversation?

[vaguely-concerned]

I don't know what I love more, the fact that as rook you can make a statement in NO uncertain terms that you are NOT responsible one way or the other for the theological implications of the shit you're discovering in the 'regrets of the dread wolf' memories. not my jurisdiction. quite simply none of my business. not my chantry circus not my chantry monkeys. irrelevant to the matter at hand here we'll kill that god if we get to him he can get in line. or if the best thing about it is seeing the lone little 'lucanis approves' that pops up right after choosing it. corvid with a knife about to commit deicide keeping it real and sensibly, pragmatically, wilfully agnostic with me here in this magical lighthouse today