#the metaphor of this little detail…..

[emmafallsinlove]

forever be in love with the idea that jess is the only boyfriend rory never wore any costume for.

[medicalunprofessional]

sorry guys they finally showed me peak fiction . Its called “phantom of the paradise”

[phoenixcatch7]

Okay but it's super interesting how

Din = Power = Ganondorf

Naryu = Wisdom = Zelda

Farore = Courage = Link.

Because Din, in the hylian creation myth, created the physical world. Naryu then created the laws - gravity, time, etc. And Farore finally created life - plants and people.

Din created the body, naryu the mind, Farore the soul.

And the triforce and its wielders so perfectly reflect that.

Ganon is physical power, he is big and intimidating and he breaks things. He is cunning and determined, but that's not what he focuses on. He is might makes right.

Zelda is wisdom and cleverness. She is stall tactics and information and team work. She is a powerful mage with a spine of steel, but that's not how she'll win. She is the pen being mightier than the sword.

Link is courage and persistence. He is the wild card sneaking behind enemy ranks, always moving, plunging into terrifying situations head first. He's a phenomenal fighter with a keen wit, but that's not what will get him through his challenges. He is bravery not being the absence of fear but the triumph over it.

They sit in perfect parallels to each other.

And ganon is reborn through his body - his resurrection is immortality. No matter how low he is cast, as long as he has a body he can claw his way back. He can cling to his power, build it ever higher.

Zelda is reborn through the magic of her bloodline. It's the accumulated knowledge handed down for generations, the unique power she must master, the skills she must develop to survive and get her kingdom out the other side intact. Even her name, the knowledge of herself, is handed down from all the way from the very first. Her ancestors knowledge of her future presence, her stability, is what gives her the edge.

Link is reborn in spirit. He is not bound by flesh or blood. Just like his wanderlust soul he can reappear in any time or place. His variation, his unpredictability, is exactly how he fights. It's what makes him so hard to pin down.

Ganons need to build strength means he can't chase after link. Links impulsiveness means zelda can outwit him. Zeldas stationary predictability means she's an easy target for ganon.

But the other direction?

Fire melts ice, ice redirects lightning, lightning burns fire.

And that's the very essence of the triforce.

[purrfectlycontent]

till’s pupils reflecting red only when he’s looking directly at ivan

[archiveofliterature]

every day i become more convinced letty fetishised ramy bc tell me why i just found out that the royal pavilion is in brighton which is WHERE LETTY'S FROM

btw the royal pavilion looks like THIS

rf kuang really chose her details right bc letty could've been from anywhere in england but no she was like let me pick brighton where a prominent example of orientalism architecture was built

[qoldenskies]

Is there anything in CL/CC that you feel like people have missed that should've been obvious, or are obvious to you, or are important in general?

ive usually been pretty open about a lot of small details when prompted, but one in particular i bring up a lot 'cause nobody else will is raph's response to the curse and how COMPLICATED the way he reacts to it is.... he is the ONLY one that falters when under the throes of it. leo and mikey show the tiniest bits of resistance early on, and they notice that something is wrong, but once they get deep in, they never actually hesitate. raph does REALLY late in.

he hesitated when he benched donnie from the team, he felt guilt. he was going to hurt donnie after he broke shelldon, and he stopped himself. he tells leo to knock it off at the family meeting and derails the dogpiling to get to the point. he could have broken down the door EASILY when donnie ran to the bathroom. he sighed like it was bothering him before striking him to the floor. he only joined the fight after leo got hurt. he was strong enough to snap donnie's neck in one hand and he only strangled him.

anyways shout out to THIS paragraph from the next chapter

(donnie didn't notice raph crying, he was too out of it, for the record. although notice that after the curse breaks he refers to raph's eyes as "cloudy")

so much of raph's guilt comes from his resistance. he was the most cognitively aware. the connecting emotion that it invoked was righteousness, vindiction; and with raph, that is the thing that he values the most. he barely got physical and aggressive, and only really waited until he HAD A "REASON" to. mikey's an enabler but i would argue raph is the most passive early on, because even when he does some nasty shit it's all things he can twist into being "reasonable." donnie's being shitty and not asking him before doing things. donnie isn't actively providing enough. donnie causes problems in battle. donnie's more trouble than he's worth, and raph puts the team above all else.

but the moment he shoves mikey after coming out of the closet, it's free game. i enjoy thinking about raph in context to CL the most because it speaks to the nuances of donnie's relationship with him; there's self-restraint. raph has always had to grapple with the fear of hurting them on accident, and the fact that donnie already kind of has an established complex about his weakness speaks of past baggage about the topic. raph knows how to control how rough he is with donnie. he doesn't find himself fretting about him as much as he does the other two, because he's been so convinced of how capable he is, how important he is, but god did he used to, and that still bleeds into his behavior now.

for raph, this is worse than if he'd just been a hateful caricature of himself, at least leo has that (although leo is haunted by his needless, excessive, meticulous cruelty, so it's not much better). the curse preyed on what raph values the most, that intense dedication to doing the right thing, to being a good person. to being a hero.

now, he has to live with knowing that he will always second-guess himself when he turns his anger on his family, even when it's for a good reason, and that he will never, ever be able to trust his own decision-making without thinking about how fucking convinced he was that donnie deserved it when he put his hands around his throat.

except for the person that caused all of this. it may be on leo's mind more (and leo will be much more reckless about it, because UNLIKE raph he isn't avoiding his own anger), but raph is more direct about his intentions in his internal monologue; he is going to fucking KILL them.

at least that he can stick to; if anyone tries to hurt his family like this again, they're going to pay.

(the person responsible has to pay. raph HAS to pin it on someone else, so he doesn't admit the misguided fear that he has deep down; that it's him who's the problem. that from the beginning, this was completely his fault, for not noticing the groundwork that allowed donnie to submit to the abuse.

raph and donnie are more similar than you'd think)

[sea-buns]

Forgive me if I'm a bit nervous about Gorgug this season. It's just that the last Zac Oyama pc was Colin Provolone, who was arguably one of his greatest D20 performances, if not the greatest.

Zac always does great with every pc he plays, but Colin was something else. He came out swinging with actions and words that were teeming with unspoken emotional baggage. The way Colin's presence affected the other pcs; there was this level of depth that I don't think I've seen in any of his other characters. It was understated and quiet in that signature "just a guy" way that he tends to be, while still captivating everyone instantly with just how raw it was.

Not to say we haven't seen emotional depth in Gorgug. It's just that, compared to the other Bad Kids, Gorgug's journey and progression as a character has been very... impersonal? Like, yes, he found his birth parents, and he found friends who appreciate him, and he faced his insecurities about his intelligence, and he navigated relationship troubles, and his trial through the claustrophobic bug-tunnels was a horrifically-uncanny parallel to how he's spent his entire life trying to make himself as small as possible.

But how much of that has actually changed him from the Gorgug we started with? I would agree that he's definitely happier with his life, given all the loving and supportive people that have been added to it when it used to be just him and his parents. And he's certainly grown into himself and become more self-assured in his abilities, even if he's still, and always will be, our anxious little guy. And there's nothing wrong with that. I've always liked how Gorgug was a representation of all the little things. The subtle acts and kindnesses that don't seem like much to most, but to some are everything.

We don't need another Bad Kid living in fear that their mouth could be shit-in at any moment. We've already got one-too-many.

All that being said, I just feel like Gorgug's personal story beats are much easier to sweep under the rug than everyone else's. He has the same soft and understated quality that Colin held, but they lack that extra oomph that pushed Colin over the edge from being just another guy in a series of dudes, to a character that the vast majority of us could not get out of our heads. He took someone who was anxious and softspoken, who ultimately never wanted to be violent— someone who is remarkably similar to Gorgug in many ways— and maintained that demeanor and core in Colin's character while still hitting us in the feels with character development at max velocity at every turn.

I think Zac gets better and better at this with every season that goes by. With each new character, there is always something that leaves me stunned in awe. And it's been, what, three? Four years since we last saw Gorgug?

I'm just,,, I'm cautiously optimistic but also going into a bit of a worry about what violence this man may inflict upon us

[synthshenanigans]

Goofy lil redraws of Heart & Mind as a certain youtube channel from 3-4 years ago that also had the black & white color scheme

[thelastbicorn]

Okay, one last Metaphor post. I just wanted to mention two details in Akademeia (the Not-Velvet Room):

1. There *is* a 15th archetype. There is a section for it on the second floor with the other 14. It is listed as ?????, but it has an emblem above the bookcase just like the others. I have no idea what it could be, but I think it either belongs to Louis or the Prince.

2. The Book of the Apocalypse. It’s just sitting there, bright red, locked with chains, looking ominous. If you check it, More tells you that you shouldn’t read it. So...what the fuck is it doing there? This thing is either going to be super important later (likely), or it’s just there for flavor (which would be kind of funny).

I can’t wait to play the full game.

Edit: Spelling; Clarified details of evil book.

[antichrists-plus1]

Ed's exact words when he's telling stede ab him catching the fish in s2 ep5:

"And so I started pulling this thing in, winding and reeling. Man against beast. I'm the man and the beast was beneath the sea.

So I pulled and in the end... I triumphed."

[longagoitwastuesday]

So so indebted to u for posting those lovely illustrations from Cyrano <333 & even more so for yr tags!! I'm completely in love w yr analysis, please feel free to ramble as long as u wish! Browsing through yr Cyrano de Bergerac tag has given me glimpses of so many adaptations & translations I'd never heard of before! I'll be watching the Solès version next, which I have only discovered today through u ^_^ As for translations, have u read many/all of them? I've only encountered the Renauld & Burgess translations in the wild, & I was curious to hear yr translation thoughts that they might guide my decision on which one I buy first (not necessarily Renauld or Burgess ofc). Have a splendid day & sorry for the likespam! 💙

Sorry for the delay. Don't mind the likespam, I'm glad you enjoyed my tags about Cyrano, and that they could contribute a bit to a further appreciation of the play. I loved it a lot, I got obsessed with it for months. It's always nice to know other people deeply love too that which is loved haha I hope you enjoy the Solès version, it may well be my favourite one!

About translations, I'm touched you're asking me, but I don't really know whether mine is the best opinion to ask. I have read... four or five English translations iirc, the ones I could find online, and I do (and especially did, back when I was reading them) have a lot of opinions about them. However, nor English nor French are my first languages (they are third and fourth respectively, so not even close). I just read and compare translations because that's one of my favourite things to do.

The fact is that no translation is perfect, of course. I barely remember Renauld's, but I think it was quite literal; that's good for understanding the basics of the text, concepts and characters, but form is subject, and there's always something that escapes too literal translations. Thomas and Guillemard's if I recall correctly is similar to Hooker's in cadence. It had some beautiful fragments, some I preferred over Hooker's, but overall I think to recall I liked Hooker's more. If memory serves, Hooker's was the most traditionally poetic and beautiful in my opinion. Burgess' is a whole different thing, with its perks and drawbacks.

Something noticeable in the other translations is that they are too... "epic". They do well the poetic, sorrowful, grief stricken, crushed by regrets aspects of Cyrano and the play in general, but they fall quite short in the funny and even pathetic aspects, and that too is key in Cyrano, both character and play. Given the characteristics of both languages, following the cadence of the French too literally, with those long verses, makes an English version sound far too solemn at times when the French text isn't. Thus Burgess changes the very cadence of the text, adapting it more to the English language. This translation is the one that best sets the different moods in the play, and as I said before form is subject, and that too is key: after all, the poetic aspect of Cyrano is as much true as his angry facet and his goofy one. If Cyrano isn't funny he isn't Cyrano, just as he wouldn't be Cyrano without his devotion to Roxane or his insecurities; Cyrano is who he is precisely because he has all these facets, because one side covers the other, because one trait is born from another, because one facet is used as weapon to protect the others, like a game of mirrors and smoke. We see them at different points through the play, often converging. Burgess' enhances that. He plays with the language itself in form and musicality, with words and absences, with truths masking other truths, with things stated but untold, much like Cyrano does. And the stage directions, poetic and with literary value in their own right in a way that reminded me of Valle Inclán and Oscar Wilde, interact with the text at times in an almost metatextual dimension that enhances that bond Cyrano has with words, giving them a sort of liminal air and strengthening that constant in the play: that words both conceal and unveil Cyrano, that in words he hides and words give him away.

But not all is good, at all. Unlike Hooker, Burgess reads to me as not entirely understanding every facet of the characters, and as if he didn't even like the play all that much, as if he had a bit of a disdainful attitude towards it, and found it too mushy. Which I can understand, but then why do you translate it? In my opinion the Burgess' translation does well bending English to transmit the different moods the French text does, and does pretty well understanding the more solemn, cool, funny, angry, poetic aspects of Cyrano, but less so his devotion, vulnerability, insecurities and his pathetism. It doesn't seem to get Roxane at all, how similar she is to Cyrano, nor why she has so many admirers. It does a very poor job at understanding Christian and his value, and writes him off as stupid imo. While I enjoyed the language aspect of the Burgess translation, I remember being quite angry at certain points reading it because of what it did to the characters and some changes he introduces. I think he did something very questionable with Le Bret and Castel-Jaloux, and I remember being incensed because of Roxane at times (for instance, she doesn't go to Arras in his version, which is a key scene to show just how much fire Roxane has, and that establishes several parallels with Cyrano, in attitude and words, but even in act since she does a bit what Cyrano later does with the nuns in the last act), and being very angry at several choices about Christian too. While not explicitly stated, I think the McAvoy production and the musical both follow this translation, because they too introduce these changes, and they make Christian as a character, and to an extent the entire play, not make sense.

For instance, once such change is that Christian is afraid that Roxane will be cultured (McAvoy's version has that infamous "shit"/"fuck" that I detest), when in the original French it's literally the opposite. He is not afraid she will be cultured, he is afraid she won't, because he does love and appreciate and admires those aspects of her, as he appreciates and admires them in Cyrano. That's key! Just as Cyrano longs to have what Christian has, Christian wants the same! That words escape him doesn't mean he doesn't understand or appreciate them. The dynamics make no sense without this aspect, and Burgess (and the productions that directly or indirectly follow him) constantly erases this core trait of Christian.

Another key moment of Christian Burgess butchers is the scene in Arras in which Christian discovers the truth. Burgess writes their discussion masterfully in form, it's both funny and poignant, but it falls short in concept: when Cyrano tells him the whole discussion about who does Roxane love and what will happen, what they'll do, is academic because they're both going to die, Christian states that dying is his role now. This destroys entirely the thing with Christian wanting Roxane to have the right to know, and the freedom to choose, or to refuse them both. As much as Cyrano proclaims his love for truth and not mincing words even in the face of authority, Cyrano is constantly drunk on lies and mirages, masks and metaphors. It's Christian who wants it all to end, the one who wants real things, the one who wants to risk his own happiness for the chance of his friend's, as well as for the woman he loves to stop living in a lie. That is a very interesting aspect of Christian, and another aspect in which he is written as both paralleling and contrasting Cyrano. It's interesting from a moral perspective and how that works with the characters, but it's also interesting from a conceptual point of view, both in text and metatextually: what they hold most dear, what they most want, what most fulfills them, what they most fear, their different approaches to life, but also metatextually another instance of that tears/blood motif and its ramifications constant through the whole text. Erasing that climatic decision and making him just simply suicidal erases those aspects of Christian and his place in the Christian/Cyrano/Roxane dynamic, all for plain superficial angst, that perhaps hits more in the moment, but holds less meaning.

Being more literal, and more solemn, Hooker's translation (or any of the others, but Hooker's seems to love the characters and understand them) doesn't make these conceptual mistakes. Now, would I not recommend reading Burgess' translation? I can't also say that. I had a lot of fun reading it, despite the occasional anger and indignation haha Would I recommend buying it? I recommend you give an eye to it first, if you're tempted and can initially only buy one.

You can read Burgess' translation entirely in archive.com. You can also find online the complete translations of Renauld, Hooker and Thomas and Guillemard. I also found a fifth one, iirc, but I can't recall it right now (I could give a look). You could read them before choosing, or read your favourite scenes and fragments in the different translations, and choose the one in which you like them better. That's often what I do.

Edit: I've checked to make sure and Roxane does appear in Arras in the translation. It's in the introduction in which it is stated that she doesn't appear in the production for which the translation was made. The conceptualisation of Roxane I criticise and that in my opinion is constant through the text does stay, though.

[attheendoftheline]

Songbird…

Something I love about the show is there’s so much to discover, so much of that little bit of detail but none of it is exactly hidden. The musicals quite explicit on what it’s about what to except but there’s the little things you miss, pardon them pun. Today I want to talk about Eurydice and how she is  essentially a sacrificial Lamb by being a “songbird”.

Hades says it best himself :

“Hey, little songbird, you've got something fine

You'd shine like a diamond down in the mine

And the choice is yours if you're willing to choose

Seeing as you've got nothing to lose

And I could use a canary”

Eurydice is a canary in a Cole mine, and it’s beyond metaphorical!

Canaries were kept by miners up until the 1980s where more solid technology took over the job of gas detection, but they’re so deeply ingrained in mining culture to this day. The birds were loved by miners as they did save their lives on several occasions and I’d like to think it’s nice having a bright, pretty little bird down there. It lifts spirits.

She’s bright and ambitious thinking that signing was the right choice, she’s standing out amongst everyone. I believe the hope would have been “look she’s happy about it , why aren’t the rest of you? Cheer up”. But that doesn’t happen. Eurydice tries in vain to talk with the shades, get them to answer her or turn away from their work for five seconds…they don’t. She starts to get worried she starts to struggle and shake in her new cage.

The second thing she does is detect danger. The fates spell it out a bit but she very quickly comes tp realize just how bad it is. How lifeless, dreary and hopeless it is to make them willingly forget and stop seeing. She tries to stop it, she pulls on arms and tries to stop the line— she can’t. What use is a canary if you can’t see it go belly up? You can’t - won’t- hear it’s warning? In most cases their lifesaving, here she’s just an accessory to the drive of the machine.

Another is songbird V Rattlesnake. Not only is it a threat in nature but it’s also a reference to the myth.  originally for some reason or another - sometimes a stranger  pursues her other times it’s simply dancing…she steps on a snake and dies. This can also play Into the multiple levels of the song where yes it is a literal conversation, on the other hand it you can also take it as her accepting death/giving up the fight to hunger. Here hades is three forms of death, for this version specifically I guess we can say labor.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

pinning to the workshop corkboard: you've heard of winston "i'm cassandra" billions clairvoyance concepts for fun & profit, hear also of winston billions sphinx concepts (you must be This understanding of what he means to proceed)

[themarginalthinker]

Ok so, bear with me

There was this old movie called 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' about a cursed circus, basically making allusions to being of the devil, and in one scene, one of the villains running it gets onto a carousel, the ride runs, and when he gets off he's a child. The ride made him young again, thus providing him with an unnatural eternal life. The ride represents the evil nature of an 'endless ride'.

In the opening scene of The Lost Boys, all the Boys are kicked off the carousel...except David stays on. As they're walking in the very end shot of that scene, all the Boys are off the ride, but not David. He's the only one still on it.

Like. Idk. Is my brain just making weird connections?

[cutemeat]

i'll be honest i dont usually have Big Revelations when i rewatch sunny eps multiple times usually its the little things you notice after like 10 watch thrus that get me

[linkedin-offficial]

im thinking about the hero chess art... now this may be a completely arbitrary detail, but

theyre playing. the black pawn

and their thing with queenie and. and yeah

this may be a very very obvious thing to point out but its making the little gears in my brain spin at such a speed they're grinding themselves to metal dust

ANON I LOVE YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS. ur one of the first to notice that part about the chess pieces specifically and im reeling over it as much as you are trust me. ur absolutely right

in fact, there are many pawns on this board .. i wonder why that is ^_^ ..?