#sterne rambles

[sternevogn]

hey Sterne :P just wanted to ask you something in regards to the Dean-Howard-Eunice-Clift B plot in Season 3 and specifically what makes you like it as much as you do? mainly asking since I and many others aren’t really a fan of the whole thing with even some people like me thinking it’s the worst part of the whole season with the reasons given being that it barely relates to everything else in the series, it kinda ruins Howard’s character compared to the previous seasons, the episodes in the whole B plot (especially CLIFTCHAOS) just not being that good etc etc, I would even go as far to say that if the whole arc was removed then S3 would be on par with S1-2 and NV, so I’m interested to know what makes you like the arc specifically compared to everyone else. that’s all, hope you have a good day :)

tw for suicide given the topic.

honestly? even i'm not all that sure what makes me like it that much. i think the biggest part of it is just eunice having had a profound impact on me. i don't like to talk about it much, but i have a really big history with suicidal thoughts and ideation. it was not something i really expected in the mythos at all i guess, and its incorporation kind of hit. while i definitely don't think people read into the plot the same way i do at all, i think howard was genuinely unsuspecting and didn't understand well what was happening in GGG until it was too late to, and that additionally kind of hits, too. i read into it as, even though eunice had no intention to call howard, she still found this stranger who was willing to listen to her and talk to her, and in a time like that, i feel like you want anyone to listen. to hear you. so that you don't feel so alone. so i think eunice really appreciated that howard didn't hang up, that he was there with her in her final moments, and that she genuinely found some kind of joy in being heard one last time. unfortunately, not knowing the reason behind eunice's suicide does make things a lot more difficult to interpret, but under the assumption that it's genuinely because she's suffering, it was a final moment of peace for her. it hurts to me, as well, that there seems to be a lack of understanding from howard during this scene. i don't think he fully connects the things she's implying, and that makes it absolutely devastating when he finally asks if she's okay, piecing together at the very last moment what she's about to do. but by that point, it's far too late.

while i think i certainly interpret this whole plotline far differently than most others in the fandom, i think it does have some impact. dean's irrationality in a) dropping out to be vice president and b) sending the fbi to hunt howard (and eventually killing him himself) is a pretty drastic but genuine interpretation of grief, too. grief- and denial- make people do genuinely crazy things. i remember hearing from a qna once that dean definitely felt responsible for what happened to eunice, and that kind of weight on your heart is really something, too. whether he genuinely knew that howard hadn't done anything or not, i don't know. i think he wanted somewhere to put that blame, wanted to deny that his sister would ever do such a thing, that she had to have been happy, but she really wasn't.

cliftchaos aside, idk wtf was going on there to this day 😭 idk what clift was cooking. im abt as lost as everyone else i fear HELP

dean and clift to me are genuinely very interesting people outside of the mythos who both led tragic lives, so that's a huge part of why i like them so much. it doesn't necessarily reflect on their plotline for s3 much, just think it's cool to have been introduced to them and gotten to learn about some pretty interesting and tragic people.

in conclusion, it mostly stems from GGG and the topic of suicide. since it's just an overall personal thing for me, and so is my interpretation, i don't necessarily expect people to read into or even like s3. my brain basically fabricated entire personalities for howard and eunice and the kind of people they were in s3. i know suicide or the notion or threat of it can weigh as a heavy responsibility on one's heart, so it feels like a reminder that you always have to remember no matter how much you feel like you don't, you will always have value to someone out there. a friend, a family member, a pet, hell, even a stranger. someone out there always will care about you, and that's a reason to hold on. find a reason to live. remember the burden your loss will have. find that something that brings you joy, even if it's just a little. as long as it's something.

i think that's a really important thing to consider, even if nobody considers it that deeply. eunice's death feels like a humbling reminder of how much of an impact it has, what consequences it has. so, that's really my 2 cents (although, id say i gave like $2 worth of rambling here 😭) on why i think i am as attached to this plotline. sooo.... yeah

[sternevogn]

not like the worst thing ever but my mom did tell my grandma and my brother both that i was trans without asking me first. my grandma had a hard time adjusting until the end but my brother was highkey kinda transphobic at first. he's slowly getting better abt it over the years tho

[foldingfittedsheets]

When I was learning German my teacher pulled me aside to ask which of my parents spoke German. I was confused and said neither. Then belatedly I remembered that my dad did speak very rudimentary German after being stationed in Heidelberg for a few years.

This teacher was well loved but very strict, being questioned by her was always a little intimidating. I didn’t know why she was asking.

She pressed to ask if he spoke it with me and I laughed nervously and said no I asked him not to speak it because he couldn’t even conjugate verbs.

Apparently my accent was so good that she assumed I’d had more than one year of practice. The problem was my vocabulary. Ironically I needed her to translate the word for accent as I was unfamiliar with it. I was a decent student but some words tripped me up.

One day she conducted an oral exam and asked us to talk about the hospital. We could say whatever we wanted. In the middle of my nervous little monologue about how we go to the hospital when we are sick and the doctors and nurses help us she suddenly burst out laughing.

I had never seen her laugh before, at least not more than a sensible chuckle. But here she was, bent over her stomach cracking up leaving me baffled as to how talking about the nurses could possibly have inspired this extreme hilarity.

The word I was trying to use for nurse was “Pfleger” but I’d said “Fluger”. (Possibly fliegen? It’s been a long time) What I said was close to fly, and the teacher was imagining flying nurses drifting along the hospital wing.

She apologized and tried to compose herself but she admitted that hearing my extremely competent accent saying absolute nonsense was the highlight of her week.

[a-mythologynerd]

The thing about Darlington is at first glance he seems so much more tame and straight laced in comparison to Alex, and, like he is to an extent, but its all about the packaging. (And isn't that the thing between these two anyways from the very start?) I just always get reminded how many of his character traits aren't some dignified or morally superior dichotomy to Alex and her ruthlessness. The thing is, Darlington is just as ruthless and ambitious, he just didn't have to confront it until Hell. The desperate, starving, consumption motif is so clear from Alex's very first chapter but it's not til later that you realize Darlington is the exact same way, just about things other than the extreme level of survival Alex had to endure. Instead, Darlington was able to scrap by and keep the legacy going, serving something and keep the roof over his head. It makes it less obvious then that he is also a survivor and has that same drive.

You can especially see it in the way he tries to prep himself (the exercises, the learning, the training) for the long awaited "grand adventure," the way he treats his study of the arcane (I mean seriously, you cannot paint that boy as the lawful good archetype if he decided to devote himself into brewing a mythic possibly fake archaic drink that might MIGHT let him see the great beyond just because he had to believe there was more to this life, he had nothing left to lose, and he just had to find out and couldn't be satisfied with only some instead of all), and even more clearly, the dream vision he is granted in Hell. Dawes gets a dream of academic success, Turner professional success, Darlington has a dream where his house is never empty and there is always more people, knowledge, and he finally knows the secrets of every mystery in the world. He just hides all this better. He has the polish, the East Coast rich vs LA rich, and the austere Puritanical upbringing that makes him seem as Alex puts it, "expensive." But the reason these two work (and the reason I am insane about it) is because of this shared character trait of never being satisfied and always wanting more (what's really interesting is Alex seems to want more comfort and security and Darlington wants more risk and adventure and that's what drives the conflict). I'm drawn to the parallel someone on here once said about how Darlington is a sword and Alex is a cannonball. Same effect just different methods. Different packaging. Add in the questions of who is the rabid dog, who is the soldier, the servant, the monarch, Dante, Virigil, Beatrice, Orpheus, and Eurydice? I just love how these two characters seem SO diametrically opposed at first glance but are actually so alike in childhood, character, and ambition.

[scarapanna]

Pre-corruption SM doodle!!!!

Au specific because if I completely missed the spot w him I have an excuse to still use the design/silly

Closeted clown nerd/aff

[skwistokwarrior]

ok ive always had this hc where like gene and surge had the opposite relationship of simmons and sarge, like simmons is desperately holding onto sarge as a potential father figure whilst surge see's gene as a son and genes like those angsty teens whos like "omg surge stop embarrassing me"

[mochiwrites]

<- girl who does not handle getting in trouble at work well

[cadmusfly]

oops

french napoleonic navy time

closer to reenacting trafalgar on my desk

[iraprince]

Hiii, i love your stuff and kinda from a distance really look up at you for, in my perception, being able to express yourself without giving a fuck. Thats sick dude, Im so so afraid, of absolutely everything, its nice to think like i might grow into someone less apologetic of my existence. Nice to see people just being yknow

hey, thank you, this is really really nice. the secret that is probably not a secret is that i am also deeply afraid a lot of the time lmao -- but less than i used to be, and in ways that feel less stifling and self-suffocating, if that makes sense.

like, it used to be "i'm scared that if i express myself the way i want to, everyone will find me obnoxious, so let's just sand those edges down to be safe" -- now my fears are more like "now that i'm expressing myself in a way that feels natural and real, i'm afraid that it's all stupid/vapid/not worthwhile or meaningful" (<- specifically abt my art) or "i'm happy that i talk and act the way i want to now, but what if it makes me impossible to befriend," etc etc etc. which still feels bad and puts me in a funk a lot of the time but at least it's a fear that comes After/in reaction to doing stuff, rather than a fear that STOPS me from doing stuff, you know? like, it's evolved into a kind of fear that's less in my way.

anyway. i believe you'll experience something like this, because wanting to grow is the first step of growing. the fact that u hope or wish for something different means you're already on your way. to fewer fucks!! or at least distributing the fucks u give in a way that serves u better

[bambiraptorx]

currently entertaining the idea of a scenario where Draxum has some sort of appraiser come over to his house to see how much it's gonna cost to repair his house or whatever and then the guy just walks around like "OSHA violation, OSHA violation, OSHA violation, hey why the fuck do you have four teenage turtles hanging out in your frankly seriously unsafe house"

and Draxum just sighs and has to explain that he literally cannot get them to leave. yes he is training them, yes he is training all four of them even though having that many apprentices at once is frankly batshit insane, no he does not have any control over them whatsoever can he just have the estimate for repairs now

[yumiayumu]

the downside of liking a new ship that’s only recently getting attention is the lack of fanfics (╥﹏╥)

[sternevogn]

do you ever just. agh. AGH.

i know i already have my 5 mythos aus (tosop au, sig au, wtwfaa au, hiw au + dd au)....

but i want to make a nixonverse specific au. like... i need an au w the last son and the knight and the queen. i need it. it needs to happen. but why..... i already have 5 aus. but then again. what's stopping me. or i could just write fics like a normal person and not make everything into an au. fic might be more sensible. and. and just as emotionally damaging as my aus

who knows... we'll see what i do. but i might write stuff about how i think things happened. coughs. i don't think it'll be fun but at least it would allow me to stop having these things floating about in my head or something. i also feel like i should do that with monument mythos a bit but...... surprise...... i write about howard (what a shocker right. who would ever have guessed) and like. his experiences. smiles. then frowns. not excited for that actually. anyways ill be quiet now byeeeeeee

[crimsonscloud]

EDWARD NORTON and LIV TYLER

as Bruce Banner and Betty Ross in THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)

[shoegazingmonad]

Often whenever I see people talking about ult Dirk getting a redemption they always mention wanting some kind of angsty breakdown from him where he's all distraught and 'I've done such shitty things and have lost track of the person I was and I really regret my actions and need someone to help me because for once in my life I don't know what to do' but that just seems so. Unrealistic and pretty fucking lame for a character as extreme as Ult Dirk? If there's any way I'd want a redemption arc for him to happen would be through him having the most disgustingly violent and self-destructive meltdown ever. Like at the end of the story when he's nearing his defeat and too scared to face the consequences (both physically and emotionally) he just starts flipping the fuck out to try and prevent any form of happy resolution for himself because he doesn't know if he could take something like that when he doesn't deserve or 'want' it. I need him to say and do absolutely unforgivable things just to prevent anyone from ever giving him the chance to make things right, and have someone still reach out to him despite that. I need him bawling his eyes out screaming shouting punching walls and lashing out in all directions out of fear, anger and misery because after everything he's fucked up, against his will or not, there's still hope for him as long as someone wants there to be

[a-mythologynerd]

I may be totally wrong but a whole part of Hell Bent is the idea of visiting Hell changes you a little (or brings out what was already there…) as both Darlington and Dawes acknowledge about himself and Alex in terms of Darlington’s demon form and Alex’s flames. Except it’s more than that. Dawes is able to read the writing on the second descent

“The scholar. What knowledge had Dawes brought with her from the first descent?”

So that got me thinking. Dawes is the scholar in both plains, obviously checks out. Turner as the priest, checks out but curious how that’s gonna expand especially as his tingle thing and the way people talk to him is like a literal confession. Alex as the soldier and cannonball but also potentially a soldier/warrior queen(?). But more importantly, Darlington as the prince. Which confused me as his whole arc thus far is realizing he’s not the main character or hero but the knight/servant. So why a prince?? Which would normally imply a main character hero vibe.

So with all that in account, I think the idea is he either is or has the capacity to become a demon prince like Golagrot. With Alex as his queen. Queen consorts typically take the title of prince. As we are aware, G refers to Darlington as Alex’s demon consort. Darlington is apparently very scarily good at being a demon and seems to actually rival G. Anywho. Darlington has demon powers cause he’s a demon prince and Alex has her hellfire cause she’s a conquering queen. That’s it. That’s the theory.

[novantinuum]

I've decided after doing my rewatch of the SU movie that Yellow Diamond would be the type of person to laugh at minion memes, actually