#symbols of ares

[mrmiserymushroom]

based on a dream i had and idk why i dream about blitzø so much

stolas does not have both arms because HE IS JUST SYMBOLIC DON’T COME AT ME PLS😭

[huntressofladyartemis]

Seriously??

Stop saying that the gods and goddesses are mysoginists or feminists… They aren't, they weren't! I'm sick of reading or listen how some gods are insulted or acused of mysoginists or some others are acused of feminists… No! They not!

They were religious deities! They still are, because there's an Hellenistic community of worshipers! But i'll talk of the Ancient Greece… I'm not Greek, but i don't like how some gods and goddesses are treated just for their myths and the same people say that were the Greeks whose actually treated the gods like that! What's i'm saying?

"Zeus is a dick, a mysoginist, a r*pist even worse that his son Apollo, he can't kept his pants on and that's how the greeks portrayed him, so… the greeks says that Zeus is a dick"

…

What? Seriously??? The Greek whose worshiped him? Zeus the most important god in the Greek Pantheon? Zeus the king of the Olympians and the father of the gods?

I know many of the male gods assaulted women in the myths… But please I'll say it again… Don't took the myths as literal! Neither the ancient greeks do it that because they worshiped those male gods… They took the myths as metaphores, lessons and stories…

But i advice you if you're not sure: talk with a greek person! Ask the greeks theirself because they know much better of their own culture and history!

Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter, Athena, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, and a can continue with all of them…. I will defend all of them because i love them and i know the context and history behind the myth! I know the myths were written by persons (HUMAN PERSONS) whose "humanized" the gods to be more close with them, so that is why in the myths the gods aren't perfect! I know there's people who worship them (i'm not hellenic polytheist yet, but i would like to worship Artemis one day of these) and i respect the deities! I know the symbolism and metaphores of the myths and stories!

Zeus is NOT a dick! Hera is NOT a bitch! Aphrodite is NOT a whore! Apollo is NOT a asshole! Ares is NOT a idiot! Dionysus is NOT dumb drunk! Artemis is NOT a cruel and bad friend! Poseidon is NOT a piece of shit! Demeter is NOT a bad helicopter mother! Hades is NOT the villain… But neither was Zeus, Demeter, Apollo or Aphrodite! No!

[sesamenom]

no living man may hinder me: The Gilded Wraith of Numenor

from the Reverse Gondolin AU, based on @who-needs-words's idea for Ar-Pharazon's fate! (they also wrote a ficlet for it, check it out here!)

[cruelseraph-art]

lucifer

[poppytuft]

the bear s3 spoilers

below the cut! thinking about claire and stuff we saw this season re: carmy/syd/the restaurant/donna, just finished the season so itll be a mess and also im comin in way too hot on this so my bad

sometimes...... sometimes i believe you guys are all watching different tv. im not sure how this season didnt feel like a direct through line from s2?? and im not sure WHY everyone is SO MAD about claire LITERALLY "haunting" this season. girl. come on. we need to have a sit down talk about how the berzatto generational trauma is the real meat of this show (this will make sense, just trust me). thats the MAIN EMOTIONAL POINT. syd's relationship with her dad, marcus and his mom, richie and evie, even tina and louie are all examples of parental relationships that are tender, sweet, supportive, etc. these are INTENTIONAL!! by creating these relationships we see PLAINLY how fucked donna is and how much she fucked up all of these kids. thats why "ice chips" was such a FANTASTIC episode. there was SO MUCH unpacked, so much revealed, so much worked through with sugar and her but at the end of the day she's still learning how to unlearn all of this horrific narcissistic bullshit. SHES STILL UNLEARNING THOUGH. thats where fucking DONNA of all people sits right now——somehow, she's learning how to heal. EVERYONE IS LEARNING. that's also what is so important about that episode.

now lets look at carmy. in "ice chips" we are LITERALLY told about how each berzatto is born: mikey fighting against the idea of being alive at all, nat into a quiet, soothing room, and CARMY is fucking born into EVERYONE SCREAMING and ARGUING and FIGHTING. we are BLATANTLY told that all carmy has ever known is HELL and all he's ever known how to communicate is through exploding. this is so violently against what we also know about his personality from childhood in "fishes" (anxious growing up, arts-oriented, had a hard time making friends). now, he works a violently stressful job, processing the trauma from both his mother (and chef fields [joel mchale], realistically) through the high-stress environment.

NOW. ENTER CLAIRE.

HOW is she not fascinating to you all. we don't see her whole story (because the bear, duh) but we are given just enough pieces here to put together that her story runs parallel to carmy's. how are you not getting this. walk with me.

claire. glasses, nerdy, quiet, sweet, girl next door. family friend! cute, but considered mid for a long time by everyone at school, but suddenly the berzatto men all badger carm, "oh she got a glow up, oh shes looking for you, she wants to see you," etc etc etc. what happened in between?

she finds herself. she finds the stressful thing she LOVES, which is the hospital. her job is objectively more stressful than carmy's (illustrated by that scene earlier in the season but i forgot the episode, where claire talks about the girl who got her shit wrecked by the glass table), and while we don't have an exact understanding of what her home life was like, we understand that her and carmy both have a level of internal anxiety that thrives on the stress of their careers. HOWEVER, claire does it because she loves it. carmy just doesn't know how to stop.

this is what makes claire feel like "peace" to carmy——because her high-stress job is a choice, an active choice she is making because it fulfills her. it's not to prove her dead brother wrong, or to honor his own legacy, or to prove that dickbag boss wrong, or to leave a mark on the world, or to make her own life worthwhile, or to prove that she doesn't need anyone else. she genuinely enjoys helping people even when the days are stressful, or scary. he's obsessed with this. he wants to know how she does this. every day she leaves that stress at home——and he wants to learn how to do that too.

claire is VITAL to this season and to understanding carmy's stress——and how far back he is in his healing process. it should only become more and more apparent, as we see characters like tina (the beef/the bear became vital to her success/development as a chef AND person, both for the people AND her love of food), marcus (not hiding his grief, but using it to help rationalize how much his mother loved him and wanted to be surrounded by people that love him), and richie (finding a purpose through service/expo and understanding he can start over again) push through their own traumas and struggles to become better people. if donna can be not only present at sugar's bedside during labor, but WELCOMED at this point in the show, it makes carmy's inability to heal all the more present. claire is an important part of this puzzle: she helps us see a window into a world where carmy is balanced emotionally, but unbalanced professionally, because he has no idea how to make the two coexist.

however, the idea that he can be balanced emotionally at all is so fucking enticing——with the help of someone who experiences stress in the same way as him (and who is familiar with his familial trauma), he has the opportunity to grow up and move on from his family trauma and wounds perpetuated by the industry he works in.

on the flip side of this....... his inability to process any of this is starting to impact syd. and frankly, that's some bullshit. his lack of communication, inability to community build/trust ANYONE, and his violent stubbornness is pushing her into the same space that he was in under chef fields, in a much slower, more subtle manner, and for slightly different reasons. her panic attack at the end of the season could read in two directions to me: her stress over the responsibility of changing so many people's lives has boiled over once she remembered that the beef once was truly great (hey five star review on the fridge!), OR, she realizes how much she isn't in it for the food. fuck a Michelin star: she wants to cook with her family. chef terry says at the end of "forever", in the garage with carmy, that she's so grateful she got to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, where she wanted, with the people she wanted to do it with. sydney is so close to having those things at the bear——but carmy's dysfunction is keeping it just out of arms reach. the two of them are now on opposite sides of the approach from last season: syd dying for a star, and carmy dying to cook for the woman he loved. now, carmy is hungy for recognition again, desperate to prove something, and sydney is remembering (thanks to the conversation with other chefs during the ever funeral service) why she loved cooking in the first place. so this leaves us to wonder: should she stick it out? for the people? or make something of herself? is she carmy, or is she terry? i guess we will just have to see.

all this to say: every character is connected. the bear is a show about family, found and blood, and the choices we make for, with, and because of the people we love, for better or for worse. food is only the center of it, because it's the center of all of our lives. you can't hate claire without understanding where she sits in the web of the berzatto family. and really, you can't hate her if you understand what her presence means for carmy, for syd, and the restaurant as a whole.

[princess-from-another-galaxy]

My teenage self was obsessed with Apollo (& Artemis and Ares), so I decided to make lockscreens for Apollo.... (also since Apollo has his own book series in the pjo universe!!)

I hope someone likes them ... 🥺💜

[quohotos]

Everyone is trying to do prophecy gymnastics to explain how Ares is actually the warrior. No one is talking about how the character named after the god of war is the war's final causality, that he never gets to see the peace, that him and Gregor only met because there was a war, that him letting Henry die and saving Gregor fulfilled the Prophecy of Gray... Thus implicitly starting the prophecy of Bane and the war that followed.

Ares isn't the warrior, he IS the war.

[pomsdoodlefort]

Egg-Father

Unable to sire a brood of his own, he was tasked with guarding and warming the eggs of others. His true name was lost to time as other family members started calling him "Egg-Father" as an insult, but he took the mantle to heart.

Never truly allowed to interact with the hatchlings, they will never know his service. However, when they hear his voice they feel a warmth in their hearts they cannot truly understand.

Egg-Father is kept at arms length from the rest of the family, but he is content in his role tending to the young eggs. He sees it as an important and sacred duty, even if others see him as simply an incubator.

[r1-jw-lover]

This little post I made on Akira and John exploded more than I expected, so I shall offer more interesting observations that I noticed about lighting choices/colour symbolism in the John Wick movies. Before we get into it, I would like to recommend these analysis [1, 2] by @evren-sadwrn on Marquis de Gramont, John Wick and Helen Wick talking about the same topic as I am below.

Charon

Most of Charon's scenes throughout the franchise were otherwise dark backdrops only brightened up by the lamps/light sources around him, which exemplifies the fact that he is the most reliable, dependable and trustworthy character, ally and friend in this dark criminal underworld, fitting for someone named after the ferryman of the underworld in Greek mythology.

The only scene where Charon notably breaks this pattern was his final scene when the Marquis shot him when he and Winston and everyone else were drenched in the Marquis' harsh golden lighting, which was heartbreaking to say the least.

Marcus

Similarly, Marcus' scenes in the first film had mostly grey backdrops, representing the stability, monotony, and lack of transformation of his life, in contrast to John who just lost his wife at the time.

The two exceptions happened during the two most important points of his character arc, the first one being darkly-lit when Marcus decided to not shoot a resting John from the Continental's window and warned him instead, and the second one being brightly-lit when Marcus got beaten up and then killed by Viggo in his home for helping John. These two scenes were also backdropped by yellow lighting as opposed to the blueish hues from his previous scenes.

Cassian & Ares, Gianna & Santino

I'm putting these four characters together in the same section because they share a common theme in terms of lighting choice, especially during their last scenes. Both Cassian's and Ares' final fight with John ended in brightly-lit settings with white lights. On the other hand, both Gianna's and Santino's death scenes took place in darkly-lit settings. The parallels, man, the parallels!

Caine

The lighting choice for Caine was kinda hard to pin down, and I think it's because it's meant to represent the emotional conflict Caine faces throughout Chapter 4. The fluctuation between light and dark, neon and natural lights reflects his dilemma very well, with his darkest lit scene arguably being his duel with Koji, where it's also the only scene he took down his sunglasses, thus signifying his lowest point in the movie.

But I think it's also worth noting that despite being the obvious second main character after John in the fourth film, Caine was merely a side actor basking in other people's spotlights, whether that be the Marquis' harsh golden lights, Koji's neon lights, or John's (more accurately Helen's) yellow candlelights/sunlight. Caine was a supporting role up until the post-credit when he gets to reunite with his daughter. That's when he gets his own spotlight and arguably the brightest scene he's ever appeared in.

Okay, that's all I could find as of now. There are definitely more characters to dissect and study but I will stop here. If you want more analysis like this, please reblog.

[suncrysthyper]

An Coileach Ar Lasadh Corcairdhearg

The great war overseas was finished. The mercenary armies of the crimson bird was smashed by the legions of the crimson shroud. The phoenix was defeated by a bundle of sticks.

But, the bird returned, moving into Iberia, encroaching on the tribes that already lived there. The tribes of the bird of Ares. They came for their lands. They came for their silver. They came without woad or moustaches.

But the very trade routes that provided the silver and tin helped ferry them away. Ferry them away to a verdant land of mist and fey. They walked along beside the fey. They wrestled with the Fir Bolg. They watched giants build causeways to fight each other.

And the land was theirs.

[errantsquam]

randomly decided to revisit my modern/urban fantasy fe4 au concept... here's some designs of the kids

[apphiarothowrites]

Letters from the Left

An exchange, shortly after a diversion from disaster:

Dear Dr. Blue,

I think I've made a huge mistake.

We could argue about which of the many changes we've made thus far is the "first" major change, but I think this is probably the one that will have the biggest immediate impact.

I saved Sabo. Kind of.

I warned you in my last letter that Sabo was reaching his breaking point with his parents. The break came, coincidentally at the same time of a Celestial Dragon visit. And a Dragon of another kind, too. Sabo was blown out of the water, I saw Dragon pick him up, and I couldn't let them go.

I think that was the biggest room I've made yet, this time around. They were half a mile out on the water, but I reached them and pulled them back in. Dragon was surprised, to put it mildly. So was Cora-san.

I think the biggest surprise was Sabo's condition. Ace and Luffy were as upset as I expected, and even more so when it was decided that Sabo should still leave with Dragon. He'll wake up without memories, again, and recover with the Revolutionaries, again.

But the biggest change this time is that Dragon has taken with them momentos and stories of Sabo's family. Sabo will remember as he recovers. Cora-san forced a blood promise out of the man that Sabo will be allowed to write back to his brothers. (There was some other deal made there, too, but I can't quite figure it out. I think Cora-san is going to be trading information of some kind with the Revolution but I'm unsure what could be of value to them on this island.)

Please tell me this isn't going to blow up in our faces. I can't help but think of how horribly wrong things can go from here: what if Ace decides to follow his brother into the RA? What if Luffy's departure from the island is delayed? What if Dragon's many enemies find out about this place, what will they do to this kingdom??

Reluctant Regards,

ฅ

[thewickerking]

JUST REMEMBERED THE TUMBLR NIGHTMARE I HAD WAS A NIGHTMARE AND SIMPLY. DID NOT HAPPEN. THANK FUCK. This was like. A week or more ago I judt kind of assumed it was real this whole time

[lunian]

hm huh its interesting yeah

i just think that Ares' connenction with birds is very nice :)

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Quark

By Ames

Do you have the lobes for business? This week, we’re putting our knowledge of the Rules of Acquisition to the test with one of our favorite Ferengi characters: Quark! He really does it all: he tends bar, he runs a profitable casino, he romances ladies who you’d think would be way out of his league, he snarks with a certain gooey chief of security, and he schemes! Boy, does he ever scheme.

The Ferengi overall are a bit of a mixed bag, what with their ultra-capitalist, extremely misogynist society, but Quark proves throughout Deep Space Nine to be a complex and well-written person, full of contradictions and character growth. So read the full contract below and listen to this week’s podcast episode (jump to 55:53) as A Star to Steer Her By takes a seat next to Morn to try to catch the ear of the bartender. Come to Quarks, Quark’s is fun, Come right now, Don’t walk: Run!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Make him an offer he can’t refuse Ferengi-centered episodes are typically goofball comedies and worth a laugh or five, and “The Nagus” gets us off to a quite funny start. Quark’s performance as Zek’s successor is full of funny little touches, and the allusion to The Godfather with Quark stroking a gilvo as if it were a lapcat is a good joke indeed. Quark would make a fine nagus, I say. And a decent godfather.

Who wears the clothes in this relationship? Quark may start out as a typical Ferengi, but we see glimpses of his development to becoming a better person due to hanging around all these hoomans. In “Rules of Acquisition,” he’s prepared to pay Pel ten bars of latinum to set her up in a new life, and then outthinks the Nagus when she reveals herself as a female. It’s a small step, but a big one for a Ferengi!

Being with you was the happiest time of my life Somehow, Quark is at his best when paired with reciprocating love interests. In “Profit and Loss,” (not to be confused with “Profit and Lace”), he earnestly attempts to get Natima Lang to safety when the Cardassian government is after her for being a dissident. Sure, it starts off one-sided and creepy, but Natima and Quark’s love turns out to be mutual and really sweet!

Behold the power of math! Yet again, we’re highlighting an episode in which Quark is romantically paired with a kickass female and he comes out looking swish! Not only does Quark battle D’Ghor in “The House of Quark,” but he also exposes the fraudulent bookkeeping D’Ghor had done for Grilka’s house. Quark allows Grilka, one of our favorite Klingons, to realize her agency and be her best.

If they want their money back, give it to them? People give Sisko all the credit, being the Emissary and all that, but in “Prophet Motive” we get to see Quark go into the wormhole to talk to the prophets himself! To save Zek from whatever personality rewriting the denizens of the celestial temple had done to him, Quark takes it upon himself to ensure that Rule of Acquisition #10 remains true: Greed is eternal!

The bigger the risk, the bigger the win Quark’s lobes might only be rivaled by his spine, as he demonstrates an absurd amount of bravery when he disarms the bomb that had Kool-Aid Manned into the ship in “Starship Down.” The thrill of gambling with their lives is perfectly captured in the scene and you feel both the relief and exhilaration when Quark and Hanok don’t explode into little bits.

For a minute there I thought you were talking to me as a friend As we said in the Odo post, the relationship between the constable and the barman is one of the best explored in the series. We can read between the lines how much they respect each other but just can’t say it. So when Quark (in his jammies!) goes to Odo when he’s hurting over Kira in “Crossfire” and pretends it’s just for his business ventures, we all know what it really means.

I claim the Right of Proclamation One good episode with Grilka deserves another! When the ever-glorious Grilka comes to Quark seeking financial advice in “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places,” Quark goes above and beyond to win her favor. He even practices how to fight with a bat’leth and learns some of the basics of Klingon culture, all while remaining true to his Ferengi identity! Qapla’!

Let me pour you another By the time we get deep into the Dominion War, Quark is keen to play both sides, but he does his part for the little resistance band too. In “Behind the Lines,” he slyly gets Damar shitfaced enough to spill all the information he has about taking down the cloaked minefield. Like another good bartender I could name, Quark’s main role is to tend the bar and to listen.

Nobody moves except you Soon afterwards when everything in the resistance is going headlong downhill in “Sacrifice of Angels,” Quark practically single-handedly (okay, with Ziyal’s help) saves the day! He tricks a guard using a hasperat soufflé and then straight up shoots two Jem’Hadar goons and rescues everyone from the brig. If it’s not the first time Quark has deliberately killed, he sure plays it that way.

Ferengi can be just as tough as Klingons Quark’s choice to assemble an all-Ferengi elite squadron to rescue Moogie in “The Magnificent Ferengi” may seem hare-brained (it’s a goofy Ferengi episode, after all), but it also speaks to his pride in what Ferengi can accomplish. There’s also a pure familial love for Moogie that is worth all the latinum in the Nagus’s reward (minus the finder’s fee, of course).

My, what big ears you have Finally, Quark would want to flaunt how he turned out to be right in “The Siege of AR-558” when the standoff with Jem’Hadar soldiers results in massive casualties, including costing Nog his leg. But Quark staunchly protects his nephew and uses his superior Ferengi hearing to detect incoming Jem’Hadar soldiers and blow them away before they can finish Nog off.

—

Worst moments

A contract is a contract is a contract We could really, really, really have done without this detail. Sarda, one of the Dabo girls, reveals in “Captive Pursuit” that Quark has sexual favors written into their contracts. It’s one thing for the Ferengi to be misogynists and kinda sleazy, but it’s a whole other level for him to engage in sexual manipulation, harassment, and assault. And for the writers to play it as a joke!!!

You Ferengi, you think you’re so clever but you’re stupid We gave Bashir a pat on the back the other week when he saved Jadzia’s life in “Invasive Procedures” when Verad and his hired goons kidnapped the Dax symbiont. But remember that it was all Quark’s fault that these worm snatchers got onto the station in the first place! In his greed to make another illicit deal, Quark let them through the docking ring. All for a little latinum.

I’ve been waiting for you Can we all agree that it’s a bad idea for the holodeck to be able to create holo-images of real people because it will always get gross? Geordi did it in “Booby Trap,” Barclay did it in “Hollow Pursuits,” Odo did it in “His Way,” and in “Meridian,” Quark violates Kira’s privacy to create a sex object for that creep Toran and make a little profit, which is a running theme with him.

No nephew of mine is going to disgrace our family name by joining Starfleet The way Quark scorns Nog for wanting to follow his dreams and join Starfleet is also a pretty bad look for the boy’s uncle. First he tries to forbid Nog from applying to Starfleet in “Heart of Stone” and then he rigs up the holodeck to ensure he’ll fail his exams in “Facets.” Quark just comes across as an overstepping asshole when it comes to his nephew in these cases.

Quark’s Treasure, ready to depart Shocking no one, Quark is looking to make another deal in kemocite which he couches in generosity while bringing Nog to Starfleet Academy in “Little Green Men.” And of course this gets them stranded in the past in Area 51 for a while, breaking the Temporal Prime Directive and perpetuating the trope that Quark will put profit over his family members at any cost.

Great Exchequer, take me now! I like to call “Body Parts” “Missed Opportunities: the episode!” When Quark learns he owes his desiccated remains to Brunt, Quark just… gives up on life and plans to get himself killed by Garak. And this is supposed to be a comedy! This is so not in Quark’s character and I lament that we didn’t get an episode of Quark faking his own death, which would be infinitely funnier and better!

Why, Quark? Why did you kill my baby? While most of Quark’s schemes are just typical goofy Ferengi shenanigans you’re meant to roll your eyes at and accept with a snicker, Quark actually sidles up to committing atrocities when he gets into the arms racket in “Business as Usual.” When even Jadzia, who’s the most forgiving of his Ferengi ways, won’t talk to him anymore, you know he’s gone and done wrong.

Oo-mox for Fun and Profit After years of development into a slightly better person, and just when you start thinking “maybe that episode in which Quark put sexual favors in his Dabo girls’ contracts was a fluke,” “Profit and Lace” comes along. The teaser shows Quark asking Aluura to consider giving him oo-mox or he’ll consider firing her. And by the end when he should have learned better, he’s right back at it. VOMIT.

You’re the worst thing that ever happened to the entire Ferengi Alliance Speaking of “Profit and Lace,” there’s more to hate in this deplorable episode. Quark gets into a screaming fight with his mother, blaming her radical feminism as the cause of all their problems with Brunt dethroning Zek as nagus. It’s an ugly fight in an ugly episode, and Quark cruelly goads his own moogie until she has a heart attack, jeopardizing their plan to reinstate Zek. And nearly killing her!

The REST of “Profit and Lace” I’m not done shitting on “Profit and Lace.” It should be obvious why we rated it hands-down the worst episode of Deep Space Nine, and Quark’s depiction of Lumba is at the heart of it. It’s like Quark has never seen a woman before and concocts the most demeaning caricature. The hormones are inexplicable. The walk is atrocious. The whole thing flies in the face of any message of equality the show might otherwise champion, all for the sake of a Ferengi joke.

I loved Jadzia as much as anyone in this room After pining for Jadzia in season six almost as much as Julian, Quark weasels his way onto the mission to get her soul into Sto-vo-kor. Throughout “Shadows and Symbols,” it feels like all he wants is to one-up the grief of the actual widower in the room, Worf.  Quark makes Jadzia’s death all about him and whines that Worf isn’t gracious enough that he’s there being underfoot.

Someone has to speak up and I’ve decided that someone is me As if all the ogling of Jadzia wasn’t enough, poor Ezri gets targeted by Quark once she arrives on the station. Quark butts in and advises her not to get involved with Worf in “Once More Unto the Breach,” and it’s none of his damn business! The scene plays it off like it’s romantic and funny and cute, but it’s all self serving because he fancies her. Ugh, why did only men largely write this show?

—

All bets are final and there will be no reimbursements. That’s it for our Quark chat, but we’ve got more Ferengi characters to spotlight on the way (save me). So make sure you’re following along here, keeping up with our watchthrough of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, place your drink order over on Facebook and Twitter, and you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

[spatio-rift]

ok one last post. addressing seishou effortlessly beating teikoku 10-0. which is stupid as hell LOL but bc theyre only using that to introduce seishou as this brand new powerhouse team that came out of nowhere and is insanely skilled.

because the thing is teikoku falling apart without kidou isnt the issue here. its game canon (ie2) and it makes sense with their theme: teikoku as a team is a well-disciplined army who never question their commander. theyre not AS dependent on direct orders as the cyborg-like mikage sennou, but they definitely do not play freely like other teams. their play style depends on following kageyamas orders and kidous instructions. you take out the main cogs in the teikoku machine and the team falls apart. what are the foot soldiers gonna do without orders?

so in that way i dont mind that seishou beat them. its true that after kidou leaves theyd be massively disorganized and unless someone steps up to fill kidous role as their leader while hes away OR they change their playstyle entirely, theyre gonna have a hard time keeping up w their reputation. (and both are things kazemaru is not suited to help them with, so lol. why is he even here.)

HOWEVER. the problem lies with aress timeline. ares takes place a year after the og s1, and from what i can tell the reinforcement committee members finished their year in raimon before transferring for the next one. so 1) seishou are that strong on their own out of nowhere, since kidou hasnt really done anything with them yet?? 2) teikoku had a year to improve & change and... did not?

INTRODUCING: the idea that the reinforcement committee members transfer pretty soon after the whole thing is thought up, meaning for kidou he transfers to seishou in the middle of his second year. which would leave him time to train the then seishou first years into strong players, strong enough to take on teikoku the year after. <- and also gives seishou more substance than just being kinda there while haizaki steals the show. i rave about haizakis relationship w kidou all the time but i think seishous relationship w kidou should be developed a little more, and id like to see him earn their deep trust and respect by spending a little more time with them!! and really helping them grow which is why he was sent there in the first place!!

also of course 10-0 is ridiculous, and the claim that teikoku was exhausted while seishou didnt even break a sweat even more so... but i think w this set up it would be fine and not like, humiliating and reputation-crushing for teikoku to lose to them lol, esp if theyre still adjusting to their new playing style (though by then they wouldnt be fumbling around anymore like right after the og FF. its just a little rough still)