#the tragedy becomes about how she is a woman and cant escape that

[madtomedgar]

Just... What if women in fiction had tragic endings that had nothing to do with gender. What a world.

[gayregis]

I live and breathe for the scene where Geralt and Cahir roll around like drunk toddlers and Milva just starts wailing on them with her belt without hesitation.

honestly ok 😅 i feel awkward bc i found this scene really tragic and depressing, but it seems like everyone else really likes this scene and thought it was funny? to me it feels like the hansa reached one of their lowest points as a group. i made a looong post about this on r/wiedzmin but i deleted my reddit account so i cant find it and think it’s gone forever... 

the scene is tragic to me because it represents how desperate geralt is to blame someone for his predicament other than yennefer, because he doesn’t want to believe that she would ever betray him. she, of course, hasn’t, and the magic spying was a result of her torture because she finally broke after holding out for very long, instead of her free will. but geralt still has had his worst fears falsely confirmed by this new information -- and it’s something that he’s suspected from the beginning, that yennefer betrayed him (when he sees her clothes in the room at thanedd, he wonders if she had to leave them in a hurry as a captive, or if she changed into men’s clothes to be a double agent...) and since geralt thinks that the entire world is out to get him, his lover yennefer betraying him would be the twisting in the knife lodged in him already from society’s abuse of him. additionally, he thinks that ciri has died (or suspects it, or maybe knows the truth that ciri has undergone extreme trauma and abuse, and pronounces her dead later because he doesn’t want to believe that his daughter is suffering, instead choosing to think that she has died, because in death, one does not suffer).

and cahir very desperately wants to be trusted by the company, because he has nowhere else. it doesn’t matter now if they fall into the hands of the temerian lilies, rivian lozenges, or under the nilfgaardian sun, because they’ll be punished by all of them. cahir has “lost” his family because he is traitor to the empire, and he has no hope of being accepted into a northern country because -- well, the north has been largely destroyed by nilfgaard at this point -- but he has already pissed off the rivians for his desertion of their military, and he speaks with a slight nilfgaardian accent and isn’t entirely able to evade detection as a nilfgaardian (he’s perhaps gotten better at it than during the massacre of cintra where he had to shed his armor and all, but i digress). so the hansa’s really all he has, and geralt of course is the leader and a father, which cahir wants the trust and respect of, because he has lost the trust and respect of his previous leader, emhyr, and his biological father, ceallach (or so he may assume - ceallach seemed distraught at cahir being declared a traitor of the state. but no matter how he or his family may feel in their hearts, legally, ceallach has to denounce his son in order to remain in favor in court, and cahir is aware of this). 

so these two forces collide -- that’s the fight. geralt lashes out, cahir defends himself adequately. and the rest of the hansa is desperately trying to stop them. regis is frozen -- i surmise that he is so because regis is a very philosophical and logical character, his domain is that of thought and pondering. in contrast to him, milva is a very direct and quick-to-anger character whose domain is that of action and force. so, as milva can act, because she is composed of action, regis can’t, because no thought has gone into this fight -- it’s completely senseless, and regis can’t make sense of it, so instead he is limited to freezing on the outskirts and commenting on the aftermath in a cold voice. additionally, i wonder if the fight reminds him of fights that he instigated amongst former friends when he was younger, and the present violence reminds him of his past violence, revolting him.

milva acts, but she acts in desperation. she uses the improvised weapons of her belts to draw them apart, lashing them evenly. it’s funny to many because this is a punishment usually reserved for juvenile means, but i think about being struck with a belt and i wince, it’s painful and terrifying as well due to the cracking of them like whips. and it’s not her regular weapon - a bow, because she does not intend to kill, but it’s not something less in force - her hands, because simply her hands will not work in drawing them apart. she HAS to use violence in order to stop THEIR violence. pairing with what ciri speaks of in another chapter about drawing an eye for an eye, repaying evil, i think a lot about this question of can only violence can stop violence? and as for milva’s character, she is not the leader of the company, she refers to herself constantly as a simple peasant girl from the forest (or wench, in some translations...), and she berates herself for not being educated and not knowing how to make decisions. though she demonstrates real skill and knowledge throughout baptism of fire in relation to making decisions for the company, it is evident that she lacks the confidence in herself and the desire to act as a leader. she is forced to take action because no one else can.

the situation is further exaggerated in drama by dandelion, who is usually jovial and the optimist of the company, becoming truly upset and having his voice even shake (iirc) as he tries to tell passersby that everything is okay and it’s just an argument between friends, already solved. it uneasily hints that his optimist nature serves to mend unhappy realities, and makes me wonder what else he relates as already patched up, but is actually significant of a larger break...

and of course, angouleme. the girl that just joined, who has been running from a lifetime of trauma and violence, has run right into this scene of more violence. like dandelion, her nature is to lessen the horrifying nature of the scene with optimism and comedy, and she congratulates milva for her good work, not knowing of milva’s temperment and hidden fragility (milva hides it well, but as we can see in baptism of fire, she really is fragile inside!). this of course results in milva lashing out at angouleme, who immediately breaks, cowering and sobbing. milva, realizing what she has done, drops the belts and hugs her silently, with that action saying silently to her, i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to. again, milva is not a woman of words, she is primarily driven by action, and her actions demonstrate her inner self, so that this is act is considered apology. angouleme and milva share much in terms of escaping abuse and trauma, so this outburst of anger triggering (term used in the actual psychological manner) angouleme makes milva recognize in the girl the features within herself that she tries to hide, and so she realizes that they are not at all that different, and immediately feels horrible for taking her fears and anger out on her.

so the company at this point is broken. cahir and geralt, two men without families, are lost and alone, now broken and damaged by their fight and by milva’s work. milva, our fighter, and angouleme, the youngest, are paralyzed, thinking about their traumas. dandelion, our artist and best friend to geralt, is shaken and can’t compose thoughts or provide consolation. regis, our philosopher, usually eloquent and well-spoken, is at a loss for words. 

everyone is suffering! meanwhile, fireworks rise and explode in the background. it could be seen as comedic due to the setting of the festivities playing in the background, but it is a dark humor based upon tragedy. this is what this scene feels like to me... i’m sorry if it’s not funny it’s just how i feel D:

[daddyd0nt]

my 100 ideas

Most of these totally suck but i wrote 100 of them so let me know if any of them sound like something you would read or have any ideas for how to spice them up with blood and gore and how to get the most shock possible out of the idea.  

-Two girls become drifter killers to fund the abortion of father-daughter incest

- Zombies like EDM and converge on a rave, replacing the drugged up crowd with nobody noticing

-human farming and a cannibal restaurant

-girls discover fairies and torture them

-two pageant stars become pro-ana superstars

-people earn points in an online game called “Calligula” by committing crimes and filming them

-A boy befriends a vampire trucker and reminds him of his last mortal love

-mall goths murder a “poser” in the woods

- De sade as a transcript of a hurtcore chatroom

-neighborhood kids who congregate at “dirt Hill” bully a child to death who comes back and haunts them in their teens

-A suicide club starts at a highschool

-Oliver twist remake where they are prostitutes instead of thieves

-A glitch in time leaves a rapist turned into a child and lands him at the mercy of his victim

-killer caterpillars

-Aliens that can only get you if you think of them

-A bulimic girl vomits up a baby

-Monsters live in the sand of a beach

-Experiments done on kids to turn them into weapons

-A pedophile on the run with his victim writes a fake memoir supposedly penned by the victim about murdering his family to escape

-Women storm the white house to torture/kill a rapist president

-An exchange studentl living in germany is called upon by the ghosts of a murdered jewish family to kill the family next door who are descendants of the nazis that killed them

-addicts at the end of the world trying to stay high

-anti-aging cream is made of dead 3rd world babies

-Bigfoot, our protagonist, tries to befriend a group of campers but accidentally kills them all off

-Prtending to be underaged, a girl traps a sadist pedophile in his own BDSM dungeon

-An american pedophile in asia becomes possessed by the ghost of a little girl killed in a brothyl

-a girl mutilates herself in her room in an attempt to look “beautiful” by cutting off all the features she finds ugly

-Satanists overtake a christian summer camp for SRA rituals

-A girl who is being molested’s dolls com to life in order to kill her stepfather, told from the POV of her favorite teddy bear

- A girl falls in love with a ghost who she can only see when she asphyxiates so she becomes hooked on duster

-A mute autistic girl befriends a demon who gets vengeance on her bullies

-Two DID alters fall in love and write love letters to each other in a diary even though they can never exist at the same time, plan revenge on church gardner who abused the host and caused the split in an attempt to be whole

-A child who killed another child is released from prison upon turning 18.  When another child goes missing he must solve the mystery to clear his name with the help of his murder victim’s sister (who turns out to be the real killer)

-An adopted girl, upon turning 18, searches for her birth family only to discover a human puppy mill

-Two little boys abduct and murder another at a carnival and watch the panic unravel as the adults search for him

-A cult leader drives his followers to mass suicide

-A mother and daughter break a murderer out of jail and fight for his affections

-a school adopts lobotomies for problem students

-A human trafficker crosses paths with a telekinetic child

-An adopted girl finds out she is the blood heir to an enormous hurtcore ring

-A woman becomes aware that she is a character in a story and begins fighting the writer, who plans to write her into a tragedy

-a rich girl who has spent her life in a self sufficient high rise accidentally hits a lower-floor elevator button to discover that the zombie apocalypse has been happening for over a decade

-The son of a truck stop stripper living motel to motel comes across a magic pack of cigarettes that each grant a wish when smoked.  In the end he gives his last one to his mom and she wishes he was never born and he disappears.

-An abusive troubled teen camp in the wilderness combats a masked slasher

-Activists free elephants at a circus but are captured by sadistic clowns

-Patient zero of a zombie virus goes around infecting hundreds of people through her work in a fast food chain because she cant take paid time off

-A vigilante caring for her murdered best friend’s infant has to take out a chain of criminals while still keeping up with the overwhelming task of motherhood

-A new club drug goes around the rave scene, highly addictive, eventually turns you into a zombie but so addictive people cant stop using it

-A girl wakes up and lives the same day out 100 times, with each day becoming more gruesome and out of control as she tries to stop the death of her best friend from happening

-A woman with no memories is arrested for involvement in a hurtcore ring

-Teens in a mental hospital after a rash of suicide attempts begin to die in strange accidents around the hospital

-A girl singer rising to fame realizes shes being prepared to be sacrificed by a death cult

-A boy who accidentally murdered his sister as a child becomes obsessed with a local girl who looks like she would have grown up to and stalks her, killing everybody close to her to “get his sister back” for his dying mother

-after trying acid for the first time a college girl is dragged back in time and witnesses the slaughter of the natives by settlers and is taken in by a native family fighting back

-A conscious zombie takes out a white supremecist stronghold

-Teens at a christian youth retreat battle a tentacle monster that feeds on virginity

-A haunted house bonds with the family that it is killing after falling in love with the lonely teenage daughter

-After abuse in the industry, a porn star seeks revenge against the producer who abused her, rendering her infertile

-A little girl who lives in a funeral home forms a bond with a senile old man who believes her to be his dead wife reincarnated

-A cursed school play production where the creepy theater teacher has a deal with the devil to sacrifice the lead girl, who grows a thirst for blood

-Upon puberty a girl starts to gruesomely turn into a mermaid despite her family’s assurances that these changes are beautiful and special

-a homeless prostitute forces her son to be her daughter in order to scam and kill pedophile men

-somebody nearby dies whenever a child sucks her thumb and she tries to break the habit

-after discovering her beloved guide dog is a demonic hell hound who needs human flesh to survive, a blind girl goes about finding deserving victims for him to eat

-A band of punk rockers find themselves set upon by nazis after one is killed at their show, the nazis have super-meth

-Everyday life in a small town is disrupted when the residents awake to find themselves living with grotesque cartoon physics

-A date-rapist catches an STD that turns his penis sentient and against him

-A boy who has never seen the sunlight is identified as a kidnapped infant and returned to his family, who have no idea how to handle his PTSD

-A tween popstar’s lyrics contain satanic messages that make his fans killers they kill their families and go on robbing sprees to afford his concerts

-A prim and proper young woman crosses a zombie-infested city to reunite with her (female) childhood best friend who she is in love with

-A chubby loner girl suddenly becomes an asset to her girl scout camp when it is set upon by monsters that only she knows how to fight from reading about them in horror books

-A kidnapped boy realizes he is outgrowing his captor’s attraction and sets out to eliminate the competition of new boys brought into the house

-A redneck boy and his incestuously abusive brother are the lone survivors of a monster attack on their family farm and the boy has to decide if he wants to help his abuser survive or take his chances on his own

-A school for poor children where children are farmed for their organs for the rich

-a young junkie discovers one day that he has the power to regenerate lost body parts

-An interracial group of rich friends finds themselves lost in a bad neighborhood overnightdurring a full moon where the occupants of the neighborhood come alive as werewolves

-A small Amish-type religious community is completely cut off from the world during a monster attack and carry on business with no idea that the outside world has collapsed other than that they’ve stopped receiving letters and newspapers.  A team is sent out to scout the damage

-A girl who has her driver's license for the first weekend is held hostage as a getaway driver for two sadistic maniacs on their crime spree

-At a sleepover, two elementary school girls decide to kill another

-An ex-amish girl assimilates herself into society right when a monster attack begins to crumble it and must get back to her family to warn them that the world is ending

-Desade’s 120 days rewritten in the modern day hamptons

-a new diet pill causes moths to take up residence in somebody’s digestive system

-a group of white people go to film the “horrors” of a supposedly cannibal tribe, but when their racist notions are false, they force the people to conform to what they expected to find so they have something for their film

-a “murder circus” where participants pay to torture victims runs into a clash with protestors

-fights to the death like dogfighting but with human children

-a young man gives himself up to a sadist to pay off his sister’s drug debt

-A young woman working in the crime scene clean up business tries to shelter her own daughter from the horrors of the world by locking her in their apartment and becoming more and mor agoraphobic

-A home invasion turns the tables when the serial would-be-rapists/robbers break into the home of female vampires

-In the aftermath of the end of the world, a small tribe of hardened cannibalistic survivors now have to face forced assimilation back into society

-Trapped in a building with an active shooter, a group of elementary school kids fight back with school supplies

-An international tour group of study abroad students become stranded in the alps with a snow monster

-a team of serial killers/lovers is put to the test when one of them gets a woman pregnant and decides he wants to quit killing and become a normal person

-A teenage punk with a specialty for giving piercings turns into a back-ally abortionist in a wealthy suburb

-Twins who share a body and each have a head get into a feud over a lover and attempt to separate

-A group of racists find themselves cursed by a flesh-eating virus that starts with a change in skin pigment

-Racists hunting illegal immigrants come up on the wrong side of a desert spirit after destroying water left out by humanitarian groups

-A police force in a poor city is hit with a curse that transform them into flesh hungry pig-monsters and the local youth must take them out to protect their neighborhood

-A massive flood turns into a struggle for survival for a dorm building full of art students

-A woman is convinced that her son, conceived through a rape, is a demon

-A mental hospital during a zombie outbreak

[wildlingknight]

So like I wrote this stuff down around September 2017 with the intention to write a fic about it (I might still do that when I have more time) but it’s just sitting and festering in my drive so I’ll put it here for now and build on it when uni is done. It’s a super long post but I did put a cut in.

There’s a whole bunch of mind vomit stuff here:

 I was talking to my discord group about things that could have been added to Botw because I’d gotten to a point in the game when I’d done mostly everything and was just putting off facing Ganon because I didn’t want it to end. So I came up with gods and spirits that you might meet in random places and sometimes they have quests for you or something. Taken directly from the server:

“This isn't really a hc more a random idea but what if there were time specific places on the map in botw? Like I just found  place on the side of death mountain called shadow hamlet ruins, what if you go there and it's just some ruined houses with a meteor wizzrobe in any other time but on the night of a new moon there's like creepy shadows that kinda come out of the wood work and shadows of the ruins and they don't exactly attack you but make you super uneasy and circle you a bit and it's like the people who lived and died there as a result of the calamity, like we know it corrupts the living but what if it doesn't let the dead rest either?

Like there are places all over hyrule that are just places until you visit them on a specific night or day or when certain parameters are met and you have a unique little event happen like a person you wouldn't meet any other time with items you can only get from them or maybe the dragons rest somewhere and you can just stumble across them, or more spirits and godlike beings who you wouldn't come across any other time apart from this one random spit of woodland halfway up the dueling peaks on a night where it's raining you come across an ethereal glowing woman or something who watches over the plants and mushrooms like glow like her, and you can't really interact with them because we are insignificant to them, they are so indifferent to us with our mortal comings and goings that the most we can hope for is a glimpse of them, just to make the world feel even more alive than it already does

I think Link is more aware of them because he is goddess chosen, goddess touched, and he's a gentle and pure soul who they in turn are drawn to, I like that he has a connection to them through having being dead but I personally like to think they're a bit afraid of him, he was brought back through science like magic without the godesses interference or hands, that shouldn't happen he died and by all means should have stayed dead but here he is, wandering hyrule saving people and dragons and riding gods across plains and placating giant mechanical creatures that will only listen to him, in their eyes he's a fucking monster or demon

And they know you don't piss off a demon who denied death so they're cautious but curious in equal measure”

And then neatened up and made less mind vomity:

Ruins

On specific nights- different for each ruin- the ghosts of the people who lived and died there during the calamity come out on the night they were wiped out. Different for each place depending on how close they were to castle and what the actual cause was, e.g. castle town would have been hit first and hardest by the Calamity itself so that would get spooky on the night of Zelda’s birthday every year. If they are fairly far away from the castle e.g. Shadow Hamlet ruins on the far side of Death Mountain, it would be a different night and they would feel different due to the nature of their deaths, such as being wiped out by monsters fuelled and powered by the Calamity. They don’t attack but most travellers accidentally come across them and fear for their lives saying ruins are haunted at night so they try to avoid them, preferring to go to living villages or taking their chances with monsters out on the roads or in the woods. When Link (and later Zelda) enter the ruins on the specific night they act up the spirits hiss and circle him and lament their passing in groans and wails but they do not come close because he is light and they cannot touch him. He died for them and Zelda cried for them, they are Goddess chosen and Goddess touched.

Lesser Gods and Spirits

Found all over Hyrule, again during different specific times when certain parameters are met.

A lesser Goddess who watches over plants and mushrooms that glow with the same ethereal light as her- can only be found where they grow in abundance, like the pillar in Kakariko on a rainy night during a new moon, and also conversing with Cotera the great fairy there.

A giant stag with two faces who watches over the life and death of animals, seen all over Hyrule as long as there’s a moon showing, so not on cloudy nights. Eyes like miniature galaxies and coat the colour of moss, fur appears to be made of grass and hooves of wood and several times the amount of antlers normal deer have that are white like bleached bone and strung with what looks to be pearls.

A woman with long black hair, horns like a Lynels and the face of a wolf who’s snout ends turned up like a Moblin’s, with three eyes that constantly glow like the reflection of a cats at night and who’s mouth doesn’t move when she speaks in a growl and smoke and sparks emits from her open mouth over her lolling black tongue- the Mother of Monsters and she hates Link.She doesn’t attack him when he meets her but she is unkind to him and she growls and snarls at him, threatening to curse him and his children’s children for as many of hers he has killed. Found in Akkala in Rok woods and Tempest Gulch most commonly but also occasionally other places, can take the form of a monstrous wolf when the need to escape arises.

A child made of water that swims with the fish, watches over everything that lives and breathes in water. The Zora refer to them as ‘The Child of Nayru’, and offer to them to keep the fish they eat good and plentiful. Seen by Link on the banks of the Rutala river when he stops for a drink after tackling the Rucco Maag shrine. Ripples like water constantly so it’s difficult to pin down specific features or gender, and voice is almost gurgling sounding

A giant scarab beetle, white and iridescent, often seen in the desert around Dragon’s exile and known to Tera, the great fairy at the Gerudo Great Skeleton, the god of all insects. (There’s a joke going round Hyrule that Beedle is the god of all insects.)

The spirits that are just going about their work are cautious but curious about Link. Usually they are indifferent to mortals, their everyday motions and wants insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The Calamity was a tragedy, but nature still goes on so they can’t afford to abandon their work.

Link and Zelda

The Gods are frightened of them. Link died and should be subject to the laws of all living things but here he stands, blemished but alive, and yet it was not the Goddesses who chose this, it was without their aid, a magic forged by man. Instead he wanders, alive and well, helping who he can, man and spirit alike, Dragons take notice of him, Gods allow his burden upon their backs, abominable machines who listen to only him, at his command. And Zelda isn’t dead either, they should be dead, they had their time, had their chance. They carry too much light within them it hurts the spirit’s and god’s eyes to look upon them.

Once while I was playing with my friend we were talking about the koroks and I came up with a hc on how they’re born I guess:

“Maybe they're branches that fall off the deku tree when they start to rot because hes old as balls so I bet he loses branches like old men lose hair and then because of like forest magical bullshit they become the new children of the forest and they grow up to be like Hestu and it takes thousands of years for them to reach like 'maturity' but when it's time for the deku tree to die one of the korok will take his place but all those who grow to maturity before he dies go out into the lost woods and set up root and become the ogre trees”

And then because I like to hurt them while they’re all sleeping:

“I'll just leave this here for when y'all wake up, what if the reason Wild likes to eat so much is because he is trying to fill the void of loneliness left behind after his friends in the army start treating him differently after he becomes the chosen one and because of Zelda's initial dislike of him then after he wakes up from the shrine of resurrection he doesn't know why he's so hungry all the time until after he starts remembering zelda and then realises he's doing the same thing, trying to fill the void left in him after losing everyone he loved and half his memories and having to wait until he's strong enough to see Zelda again”

Enjoy!

[catalina-infanta]

Star Wars The Last Jedi and Disney’s Hercules: a Comparison in Tropes in a Hero’s Journey

I'm a bit of a Disney fan, so I'm sorry if this is redundant, but I wanted to make a brief post about my fave Disney film and how it parallels with The Last Jedi. I also see that there are a lot of mythical parallels we discuss here in the Reylo community, so I thought this was somewhat pertinent, especially when looking at Disney and how it uses these tropes and storytelling arcs. Apologies as I wrote this very quickly and there are grammar errors!

So, let me start.

So first, Hercules, our mythical hero, starts as a baby foretold. 

Hades, who is God of the underworld and is a type of evil “devil” archetype in this movie (like Snoke the “snake”), has the fates see into the future to tell if he can overturn his brother, the noble (haha) Zeus, only to find out his new nephew, the newborn child of Hera and Zeus, will crush his ambitions if he fights. 

So, he has the baby kidnapped and his servants try and turn the baby mortal, but he escapes death and is raised by mortals, not knowing his origin. Yet, miraculously, he retains the strength (power) of a God. He never fits in because of his inhuman strength.

If you compare this with Rey, abandoned on Jakku, and a child with god-like (force) power, we see some similarities...Perhaps, too, she is a child of prophecy. This “chosen one” was mentioned by Mark Hamill and I will discuss that further below. 

Hercules is lost, he doesn't fit in in normal society and goes searching to find where he belongs: Like how Rey is waiting for her family, Hercules goes searching for his. 

His song here is “I can go the Distance” and it's about finding where he belongs as he goes searching for his parents when his adopted parents give him a medallion showing he came from the Gods. 

“I can go the distance” Lyrics:

“I have often dreamed Of a far-off place Where a great warm welcome Will be waiting for me” source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/h/herculesmusicallyrics/gothedistancelyrics.html

I feel like, if Star Wars did songs, Rey would sing a similar song while eating and cooking her food on Jakku...

Because Hercules and Rey are looking for belonging. Preferably with their family who they don't remember but who left them. Hercules finds his father and even asks Zeus when he sees him whether he loved him, and why he left him (in this case it was kidnapping). 

Eventually, learning from his dad that he has to prove his heroism, he goes to a disgruntled trainer of heroes who are living in obscurity and seclusion and is fed up with training because all his past trainees have let him down (all the heroes who died: Achilles, etc. 

Sound familiar? 

Remember how Luke is disgruntled, Mark Hamill says he thought Ben might have been the prophesied  “chosen one” but now wants nothing to do with training new heroes, it seems. He is pissed. Old man shouting at kids to “get off his lawn” is evoked in my mind.

In Hercules, Hercules eventually convinces Philoctetes to train him.

Time goes on .....and BONUS! Then he meets the sexy, and captivating (and dark) vixen Megara!

who, unbeknownst to our hero, works for the bad guy (Hades) because she sold her soul to him to protect a loved one, Vader/Papatine-style (who then betrayed her leaving her cold and shunning love). But could this woman, the villain’s servant, bound in tragedy to serve the evil Hades ever fall in love with our Brave Hero? What are the odds this sexy plot twist could come into action??!?!

The odds are very good. Here’s her song “wont say Im in Love” This says it all. 

Suffice it to say, she exudes the same dry humor as our “vixen” Kylo Ren. We should recall his “I hear we have the best pilot in the resistance”, and he is even snarkier in the book...

She is my fave Disney heroine, mainly because of her dry humour and her darker, more complex past. She is not JUST a damsel in distress, she is a fighter, has spunk, and is not just a sweet fluffy marshmallow, She is tough.

Well, Hercules falls in love with her. And when push comes to shove, he gives Hades his power to save her (unknown to him, she was working for Hades, though she didn't want to hurt Hercules). Hercules knows he is betrayed. When Hercules cant fight, Hades starts conquering the Gods. He is winning, and Hercules could do nothing. Megara, as Hades is about to kill Hercules, gives her life to save him, thereby doing her heroic sacrifice (fulfilling the trope, turning her officially into a good guy and earning the trust of Hercules and his friends. I believe Kylo will sacrifice himself for Rey to fulfill this redemption trope necessity, and he will survive). 

So Hercules goes to the underworld and saves Megara, sacrificing himself, almost dying and becoming an actual immortal God through this (his Godhood was earned when he sacrificed himself for love). He then defeats Hades, fulfilling the prophecy. 

BUT, in the end, he decided not to remain a God with his parents on Mount Olympus where they live, because he has found “where he belongs” with his love. Not with his family (once again, in a Reylo reading, this is not unlike Maz telling Rey to look forward to finding belonging, not backward). This is also a full “becoming of age” conclusion, where a person leaves family and goes out to start a family of their own, with a true partner. 

I won't say this has anything to foretell about Reylo and the end of IX, but I think there are quite a few similarities between Episode VIII and this Disney movie. Yes, Star Wars is darker, but it is generally uplifting. I think Kylo is a male, darker version of the sexy, misguided vixen (his anima) that is so tempting and desirable to the straightlaced hero(or heroine). She was someone his friends disapproved of, but her love for him, and his love for her, saved the day and helped him fulfill the prophecy and he found where he belonged was not with his family but with her. And you can take from that what you want :) 

[tumblunni]

Ever have a moment where you just spontaneously get inspired for a sad story idea and start weeping at the torment you have unleashed upon yourself? I have no idea why this happens to meeeeeeeee

I just suddenly had the idea of this unusual love triangle subversion where it starts off looking like the cliche of two guys fighting over a girl, but in the end the two guys hook up with each other instead. Like a big holy shit realization that their rivalry was stemming from repressed feelings, and how much they genuinely enjoyed being ‘rivals’ and kept seeking any chance to ‘fight’. And how their ‘love’ for the girl might have been kind of cruel and thoughtless, they were treating her like a prize, like her only purpose was to be won so the other guy would lose. So they could gloat. And there wasnt much genuine feeling there beyond a superficial attraction, and it was cruel to lead her on thinking you were dating her because you liked her, rather than because you can boast to your friends cos she’s sexy. So it’d be a story of these two guys getting a lot of character development and softening up both towards each other and towards her, forming a genuine friendship with her and apologising for all the ways they’d been cruel while dating her. Even though she doesnt ‘win’ either boy in the end, she has just as much of a victory as they do! She ends the story gaining a lot of self confidence and being able to recognise and escape an unhealthy relationship while also gaining two great wingmen who’re gonna support her towards finding her true love someday. ^_^

But then my thoughts kinda added a sadder potential aspect to the thing cos I was like WHAT IF INEXPLICABLY THROW GHOSTS IN I have a perfectly good comedic/cute romance concept and I had to add tragedy! Alas! :P

The weird idea was that maybe one of the male characters is actually the ghost of the girl’s former boyfriend? So she’s trying to date this new guy and he gets comically tormented by the clingy ghost, thus beginning their rivalry! But eventually it gets sad because the closer everyone gets to their happy ending character development, the closer ghost boy gets to fading away. And every other part of the plot would be even more emotional if one of the people in the equation is dead, yknow? Like... having to realize that your dead boyfriend didn’t really love you, and his ghost is floating nearby trying to apologise but you can’t see him :( And then all the misunderstandings could be much worse because they have to be relayed back and forth through these spirit contact methods. Itd be much harder to reach that big epiphany that "oh shit I’m actually gay and was in denial, and I got accidentally into that relationship with her because I was trying to prove I was straight, but I never realized that I genuinely care about her as a friend and I hurt her by not being honest. I just wanted to give her a fake boyfriend that’d be the dream boyfriend she always wanted, because I care about her. But I didnt know it’d hurt her far more than being alone, and we might lose that friendship we once had..." "...also I AM DEAD and this is getting INFINATELY MORE DIFFICULT” (Also incidentally I was thinking the other male character actually is bisexual, I dont want to make any accidentaly ‘bisexuals are just in denial’ statement that I don’t actually believe, just cos I messed up writing this plot. Yknow??) BUT YEAH IT GETS DEPRESSING Cos he manages to come to peace with himself and apologise and repair his friendship with his ex-girlfriend, and maybe even start a bit of a relationship with this rival boy... and then he passes away. He has one big happy day for the first time in years since he died, he solves all of his lingering regrets, and everyone knows this means he won’t be able to remain in this world but it would be cruel to make him stay sad just so he stays here. And maybe a dramatic depressing argumentative episode where everyone actually considers doing that, just because they dont want to lose him a second time, but they have to accept that it isn’t right. And.. like.. the whole time ghost boy is trying to deny his feelings for rival boy, feeling like its a betrayal to want to date him. Its betraying his friend/ex-girlfriend, and its also betraying this man because he knows he cant be the perfect boyfriend he deserves. This time he knows its wrong to lie, and he cant do it again. He cant lie that he’ll be able to be there, he can’t lie that he can be just like a living person. They can’t even hold hands... So it started off with him trying to keep this boy away from his ex-girlfriend, and now its changed to him trying to force them to get together. Sometimes comical, sometimes depressing. He’s scared of leaving the two of them alone and lonely, and he’s convinced they totally have a spark there, even though the two of them have already talked it through and realized they’ve lost that spark, and he really wants to be with ghost boy. Like.. one of them doesn’t love her because he’s gay, one of them doesn’t love her because its just natural that even if you’re attracted to both men and women you won’t be attracted to every man and woman. And they both love her more as a friend and its so hard for them to actually attain that happy friendship because they’re now stuck trying to ship each other with her. BUT YOU’RE ALIVE, YOU COULD MAKE HER HAPPY! BUT YOU’RE HER OLD BOYFRIEND, HER TRUE LOVE!! An angst-filled love triangle that hopefully wouldnt be as annoying since all the angst is entirely new angst compared to the usual cliches! AND THEN IN THE ENDING HE PASSES AWAY AND WE ALL CRY It’s just him being able to make sure the two of them will be okay when he’s gone, and for the first time they can see his spirit and he’s this contented angelic figure that he was never able to be in life. And this love triangle just ends with two people alone who aren’t dating, but they’ve gone through all this character development and become happy in their own skin, and forged a friendship everlasting! So even though they’re left both loving and mourning the same man, they know they’ll be okay. They had their will to live restored by him, and they want to have a long and happy life so he’ll be happy if he’s still watching over them. Even if he could never have his happy ending. All they can do is hope that there’s some sort of afterlife, so he can have his chance to start a new life too, just like he gave them this new life... And even though both of them were unable to date this poor ghost boy and their relationship together didnt work out, its optimistic that this won’t be their last chance at love they’ll ever find. And it’ll be much easier to find happiness as long as they stick together as friends and act as the superb wingman that that ghost boy always was! And honestly even if they never find someone they love more than him, its not like life is only worthwhile if you have romantic love. The ghost was very happy that he could kiss the boy he had a crush on for the first and last time, but it was equally important that he was able to apologise to his best friend and become comfortable with his own identity. That’s what helped him pass on. And that’s what he hopes these two can find someday, even if they end up just as unlucky in love as he was... A very bittersweet tragicomedy, yeah. I dunno why I had this dumb idea aaaaa

[allofbeercom]

The brave new world of the xx, pop’s brooding perfectionists

Solo success, confronting grief, sobering up the feted London trio talk frankly about how the events of the past four years informed their new album, I See You

The three members of the xx cross from Poland into Lithuania overnight, trying to sleep inside a bus that judders and lurches along an uneven border road. It is December, an unforgiving time to be touring eastern Europe, and snow that was coming in committedly when they left Warsaw still falls when they arrive in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Its cold here, beer-jacket weather, hot-toddy weather, get-messed-up-after-the-gig-to-distract-from-the-bite weather. But the band Oliver Sim, Romy Madley Croft, Jamie Smith travel in good, sober order. They toured their first album, in 2010, blinkingly, greenly, through a fog of personal tragedy. Two years later they got through a second-album tour mostly by partying wherever they went. (Moving from encore to after-show chasing the night, as the band phrase it in a new song, Replica.) When we meet, the release of album number three, I See You, is looming. For various reasons they expect to take this one around the world in steadier, less emotionally hectic fashion.

Arriving in central Vilnius at 10am, the trio alight from the tour bus and teeter over icy pavement, straight to their hotel rooms for some extra sleep. Im in the lobby waiting for them when they emerge, one by one, at midday. Sim (27 years old, bassist and co-vocalist) appears in a splendid fur-lapelled coat. His enormous green eyes lend him at once a striking handsomeness as well as the perpetual suggestion of worry. More so than Sim, Madley Croft (27, lead guitar and vocals) is dressed for her terrain: leather boots, hoodie, black-camo raincoat, a hat over her dark shoulder-length hair. A stitched image on the hat is faded and hard to distinguish and when I ask her what it is she answers in a soft, whistling voice: Three babies dancing. She says she found the hat in a skate shop somewhere. Smith (28, percussion and production) might have found his entire outfit in a Sports Direct somewhere. He comes down in Nike T-shirt, Adidas trackies, his copper curls sprouting over the strap of a backwards-turned cap.

Theres something drastic and strange about Smiths appearance that takes a moment for me to identify. Hes smiling. I find this hard to reconcile with our last encounter.

In the hotel lobby, the band and I reminisce about meeting last time, more than four years ago, when I shadowed them for a couple of days as they toured through Los Angeles. They were about to debut Coexist, their second album, high in the British and American charts. Their first album, xx, had won the Mercury prize in the UK and gone gold in the US. Its sound sexily gnomic lyrics sung huskily over precise and chilly synths was exerting a blatant influence on the music industry, imitators of the xx springing up all over the place. Now Baz Luhrmann was courting them for one of his soundtracks, and he showed up one night in Hollywood to buy rounds of drinks. The band went to after-parties backstage at the Ford theatre, by the pool at the Chateau Marmont, on the roof of a downtown hotel.

Watch the video for the xxs single On Hold.

I remember the experience for the hilarious difficulty of interviewing Smith, who was then emerging as the silent genius of the group, an unfeasibly talented engine-room operator who was responsible for so much of their musics distinctive and influential texture. At the time he betrayed none of the weight or assurance of someone with great and growing industry clout. Instead he seemed to trust that if he stayed quiet enough during our encounters I might forget he was there.

These days Smith tells stories, tells jokes. While he speaks he taps his fingers in time to some imagined and apparently buoyant interior music. If theres a reticence to him, still, it transmits as a cooler and more grown-up nonchalance. Life, is his deadpan explanation for the transformation. I went from being 23 to 28. It happens to everyone. Perhaps theres a little more to say. Under his solo stage name, Jamie xx has long tended a fertile sideline as a DJ and a producer of other artists work. In summer 2015 he released an album of his own, In Colour, that was enough of a hit to fuel a substantial world tour. He was nominated for the Mercury and Grammy awards. Its easy to see how much Jamies changed, says Madley Croft. Its obvious, because of his personal career hes more confident.

Sim and Madley Croft made guest appearances on their friends solo record. But this was very much Smiths project, one that had been building up for quite a while, and its gestation contributed directly to the years-long wait between the xxs second and third albums. The band started writing material for I See You as long ago as 2014. But the finish line, as Sim describes it, kept getting pushed further away into the future. He is diplomatic about the difficulty of Jamie just not being available. Even though he was really pushing himself, and not giving himself time off, getting face-time with him was tricky. Smith is apologetic. I was busy doing my thing. It was going well. I was happy in that way. But I was also anxious about finishing our [group] record. I definitely felt bad, coming and going. And I did understand that Romy and Oliver were really anxious to finish it. Because they didnt have They obviously had things going on. But they didnt have a creative outlet.

The band get ready to leave the hotel for an afternoon of rehearsals. Before we spill out into taxis I take Sim out of earshot of the other two, and ask: What about jealousy? We cant always rely on ourselves, as humans, to be perfectly delighted by our friends achievements. What did you and Romy really feel while Jamie was flying solo?

There were moments when I felt jealous of his time, Sim says.

And of his success?

Sim speaks carefully. I think of jealousy as: I dont want you to have this. And I felt proud of Jamie. I felt pleased for him that he had all of this going on. But, at the same time, I wanted this. Me and Romy wanted this. We wanted to be back up there, on stage, with a fire lit underneath us.

The trio strongly believe the hiatus has been beneficial to their music. I agree. After his secondment in a more dancefloor-orientated world, Smith has brought back with him to the xx a sense of pace and playfulness, obvious from the very first hands-in-the-air bars of the new record. Across its length the album has a brewed, stewy, experience-enriched quality, subtly but importantly different from the older stuff, which always had terrific clarity but which could lack human warmth.

From a bald commercial perspective the bands absence does not seem to have unduly alienated the fanbase. All tickets for seven nights at Londons Brixton Academy in March recently sold out. Still, there have been some surreal moments for Sim and Madley Croft during their semi-enforced sabbatical. They describe to me how bizarre it felt, trotting along to watch Smith play alone at Brixton, a spiritual home of sorts for the xx and a place they had played many times together. Only now two-thirds of the band were stood among the audience craning like everyone else to see over the next head.

Rehearsals are taking place at the venue for tonights show, a mid-sized arena on the outskirts of Vilnius. I ride there in a cab with Madley Croft, who has a digital camera and takes occasional pictures of the bleak winter landscape. Touring, she says, means seeing countries through the windows of cars. Tomorrow the band will fly to Japan. After that Australia, then Scandinavia, and eventually back for those Brixton dates and four other UK shows. They were on a killer tour the last time we met too. Then, they spoke to me about how strange an existence it was, their every need taken care of while they moseyed from encore to after-party. They made it sound cloying but also comforting, cocoon-ing, in Madley Crofts phrase. At the time I wondered what the effects might be, of the long tour finishing and all the machinery of the band falling away, leaving them to their own devices again.

It took an adjustment, Madley Croft says, of varying degrees for the three of them. She thinks Sim probably found it the hardest. Oliver, to me, is the natural performer of the band. I know he gets a lot of confidence from performing. And I sensed he might not be quite sure what his place was, for a while, when we were off stage. For herself, Madley Croft used the time away to address private matters shed ignored for some time. Stuff from the past. Losses Ive had. It all kind of hit me.

Smith, AKA Jamie xx, playing Londons Hyde Park last summer. Because of his personal career, hes more confident, says bandmate Photograph: RMV/Rex/Shutterstock

Wed touched lightly on this in Los Angeles her difficult backstory, intimately and pretty cruelly interwoven with the backstory of her band. She was only 11, in 2001, when her mother died. (This was a few years before she started writing music with Sim a friend from school in Putney, London as a form of escapism.) Her father died in early 2010 when she was 20. (By now, with Smith, another schoolfriend, the three were established as the xx. They were performing an early show in Paris when the news about Madley Crofts father reached them.) Towards the end of 2010 a close friend of hers, a cousin, died too. (The band had just won the Mercury and were becoming quite famous.) By the time I met them all in Los Angeles, Madley Croft was 22. Shed barely stopped touring or recording since her double bereavement in 2010, and I got the sense of a young woman putting a lot on hold.

The last few years have been, for me, about facing all of it, she explains. At the time I just went for it. Encore, after-party, encore, after-party. Its only on reflection I think how intense everything must have been, and how I just pushed it down. But everything comes up. Ive learned that everything comes up.

When we met before she was in the first months of a relationship with a designer, Hannah Marshall, who was then travelling with the band. They were sweet together, newly and sorely inked with matching tattoos patently in deep, even though Madley Croft seemed a little awkward in a public setting, as if she was getting used to her band-life and love-life intermingling. When we first got together Hannah was always so much better in social situations than me. I felt so shy. But through being with her I feel so much more at ease. Ive noticed thats happened in a different way with me than it has with the boys. And I know its because Ive been with someone.

The couple recently got engaged. It was the stability of the relationship, Madley Croft says, that gave her the grounding she needed to look squarely at her past. She went from pushing down thoughts about her parents to actually kind of craving going to therapy and dealing with it… Its an ongoing thing, she says. I feel like Ive dealt with a chunk. With a hell of a lot more than I ever did before. And the self-examination has borne creative fruit. Right in the middle of the xxs new album comes its tenderest and most nakedly spiritual track, Brave for You, a song that Madley Croft wrote about drawing strength from the memory of her parents.

We pull into the car park of the venue, sure weve got the right place because we can see the steaming figure of Sim, shivering in his coat, smoking a cigarette. Together he and Madley Croft clomp inside, shed their layers, and walk to the stage. She takes up her Les Paul guitar, he his Fender, and behind them on an elevated platform Smith finds his place among an array of mixers and synthesisers. Performing for an empty arena, they play a few old songs and a couple of newer ones, including Brave for You. Smith taps out a high rhythmic pulse. Sim waits for his moment to apply some bass. Madley Croft closes her eyes and sings: When Im scared/ I imagine you there/ Telling me to be brave

Madley Croft with her fiancee, designer Hannah Marshall. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images for Equipment

The rehearsal lasts a long time: hours. I perch with Smith in his mixing station and watch over his shoulder as the trio pick through 20-odd songs. Sometimes the noise, ringing off the exposed concrete of the arena, is tremendous. During uptempo songs Smith starts dancing, big-stepping in time like a cowboy at a line dance, thrashing his head like a metalhead in a mosh pit. Impossible to imagine, Madley Croft says, the old Jamie doing this.

Sim, frowning, the least at ease on stage today, unsticks a printed set list from the floor. He thinks back to the previous gig in Poland and says: Oh. I spoke in the wrong place last night. After a lifetime trying to maintain belief in the spontaneity of artist-to-audience banter, its a little shattering for me to learn that the xx arrange their chatty interludes in advance. But these guys are precision workers, broody perfectionists; and theyre rusty in their stagecraft after so long apart. When they rehearse a mid-gig spectacular of mashed-up songs, the music builds and builds, smoke machines gushing, some glorious climax imminent until at the clinching moment Smith slaps a button on his mixer and a deafening error-sound hums around the arena.

Everyone flinches. Argggh, shouts Smith. The mixer is unplugged and hauled away in machine-disgrace. The band take a break. Smith consults a roadie about a replacement. Sim drifts off stage. Madley Croft picks up her phone and taps out a message to someone.

Im starting to see that these three took very different paths away from their last album. Madley Croft into domestic stability and a worked-for interior peace. Smith into self-affirming solo work. Sims route took him where? He has always been the xxs most elliptical member, a charming if skittish, ambiguous interviewee. Unlike Madley Croft he has resisted overt statements about his sexuality. And the particulars of his family background, apparently as troubled as hers, remain much more opaque. When the New Yorker published a deep-digging profile of the band in 2014, the reporter was obliged to include a vague line about Sims early life, which was scarred by family dysfunction that he declines to discuss. Madley Croft has grown over time into openness, Smith into sureness. Sim seems still on his way somewhere.

Maybe theres a clue in the new music. I See You has a couple of tracks that come over as more direct and less cryptic than anything else in the bands back catalogue. A Violent Noise, for example, seems to be about partying too much, overdoing it (Youve been staying out late/ Trying your best to escape). In a subsequent track, Replica, chiefly written and sung by Sim, it sounds as if an unnamed parent is being addressed: Ive turned out just like you They all say I will become a replica/ [That] your mistakes were only chemical 25 and youre just like me Is it in my nature to be stuck on repeat?

Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Observer

Away from the rehearsal I sit down with Sim and tell him the lyrics to Replica register, to me at least, as a kind of confession. A child of addiction, growing up to worry he has become an addict himself, wondering if the problem is unavoidable and hereditary or whether he can go down a different path. Does that sound accurate?

Sim, his large eyes open to their fullest extent, stares over my head for a while. Then he clears his throat and says: Um. Well. Thats kind of bang on, your reading.

He takes a breath. Yeah. Just kind of That was a big thing to deal with, over the past couple of years. Just kind of dealing with my relationship with using [drugs]. With drinking. And, um. And also my parents. Yeah. He says its a shock to realise that the private matters underlying this song have come over so plainly. This conversation is a bit of an eye-opener.

He started writing Replica, he says, a couple of years ago. Before I was taking any action. Or saying anything out loud. The bands 2012 tour had finished. The pace we were moving at stopped, suddenly. It was a pretty flaky existence Yknow, I left school thinking I wanted to live my life like a nomad, free-floating. Turns out I absolutely need some kind of structure. Living back in London again, structure-less, he thought of his drinking and drug-taking as blowing off steam. Later, I started to wonder if it was still charming to be the drunkest person in a room.

His decision to seek help took a while. A long, drawn-out decision. Smith was away gigging. Madley Croft was travelling the US with her girlfriend. I felt a bit lost. The schoolfriends all describe this period end of 2014, start of 2015 as the farthest apart theyd been from one another, geographically but emotionally too. As Madley Croft puts it: We werent in tune. Jamie was on tour. Oliver wasnt being entirely truthful with me about what he was going through. Walls were up.

When they did regather, Sim brought them the lyrics to Replica. Madley Croft recalls the moment. I thought: This is very real. Even though everything we do is real, this felt more transparent? It felt brave. And I loved that he let me in, to discuss it.

Sim makes it sound inevitable it should be writing, rather than talking, that helped bring down the walls between the band. Im a lot better and braver in songwriting than I am in conversation.

He says he has noticed, of course, how much his two friends have evolved in recent years. Theyve come on in leaps and bounds. He says he feels more sluggish in his own progress, a bit stunted People are like, So Jamies done his record and toured the world. What have you done? To be honest, Ive just been at home, figuring stuff out. He doesnt seem to realise that hes made the most progress of everyone. I ask him how long hes been sober.

Watch the video for the xxs Say Something Loving.

Eleven months, he says.

And?

And lifes been transitional, he says, smiling shyly. Quite a shift. Tonights show in Vilnius, for instance, the fifth of the current tour, will be the fifth show hes done in his career without drink. Its why I dont maybe feel so confident here. I dont have that support. I dont have my booze blanket. Everything feels more raw.

Are you happier?

Im. He stops and considers. Im Yes, I am happy. Im sort of adjusting to a different pace of life. But yeah, Im good. I feel anxious. About the next year [of touring], and being away from home. I wonder how its going to play out. But Im excited too. He might be about to experience the beginnings of a music career for a second time. I realise I was never entirely present before. Booze took away the nerves. But it also, like, definitely capped the highs. If hes sacrificed some self-confidence, he says, at least hes gained some self-understanding. Madley Croft agrees. I think hes getting to know himself. Who he is, as a 27-year-old, not as a performer on stage, but in life. Im really proud of him.

Soon enough their rehearsal resumes. Theres not long to go until the show now, and fans are beginning to appear in the snow outside. The band practise what will be the nights final run of songs. They try Intro, one of the first things they ever wrote together, as well as a new track, a happy-sad doozy called On Hold, which explores the ways in which life can seem to move at different speeds for different people. Transitioning from the old song to the new, Smith turns a dial on his mixer. Madley Croft steps forward and sings her half of the shared lyrics, Sim his. Then they sway, gently, by their mic stands.

At the end of the song the two guitarists lay down their instruments. Smith tidies his things. Madley Croft walks around taking a few photographs of the arena before it fills with people. Sim, before he leaves the stage, attaches a small light to his microphone stand. So that hell be able to find his way back to it, later, in the dark.

I See You is out now on Young Turks. The xx play UK shows from 4-17 March

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-brave-new-world-of-the-xx-pops-brooding-perfectionists/