#very open to changing my mind

[stargirl230]

brush test inspired by a road trip through the Pennsylvania countryside 🏞️

(no reposts; reblogs appreciated!)

[sskk-manifesto]

Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple and how “ability users” (opposite to “normal people”) learning to accept themselves through the acceptance of their own abilities is a queer metaphor of acceptance of own's sexual orientation and gender: an essay by me

[mono-socke]

random (old) sanders sides things bc i do still love them

[gingermintpepper]

I saw it in your tag game post that you're also fond of the Apollo-Heracles conflict 👀 for a myth that appears in only a couple of sources, it sure has a lot of presence in the vase paintings (no seriously, everytime I think I've seen the last of it, I find ten more)

SO do you have any favorites among the paintings that represent this story??

OMG OMG THIS ASK IS A GIFT. IT IS A GIFT THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR LETTING ME TALK ABOUT THIS

I also think it's extremely interesting that it's a story so popularly portrayed by vase paintings and in such a variety of ways!! It's certainly one of the stories that gets left out of written compilation of Heracles' legend a bit (which is a shame, I think it's a fantastic story) but Apollo had a very peculiar relationship with Heracles in general that I just kind of find amazing (and very, very funny).

Apollo is not a god with any legitimate grudge against Heracles, but he does argue with the mortal a bit like he argues with his favourite brothers 😂Part of why I love the story of Apollo and Heracles fighting over the tripod so much is that it is such a little brother thing for Heracles to be upset with the proclamation his elder brother has given him and so, he throws a great fit, taking up the chair and declaring that he'll just give himself a better prophecy! And Apollo, instead of being a marginally professional big brother, decides to fight him for it until their father has to break up their cat-fight. Like was that not just the plot of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes? Is this not exactly how Apollo treated Hermes when he was a child and now those two are inseparable? 💀

Because of this, my favourite vase paintings tend to be the ones that highlight the personal squabbling between Apollo and Heracles the most. There are some very elaborate ones that have the full host of them - Athena, Heracles, Apollo, Artemis, usually a dog and a doe, I've even seen a couple that had birds and plants etched on them, but the simplest ones that show Heracles about to bonk Apollo with his club out of frustration or depict Heracles nyooming away from Apollo while Apollo (presumably) yells curses about how he's going to fling Heracles head first into Tartarus for daring to take his things? Yeah, those are the premium big brother/little brother things I'm looking for.

(Photo. Marie-Lan Ngyuen)

(Photo. Museo Claudio Faina)

Also the one in the Theoi.com archives is a real classic - perfect energy.

[mayskalih]

I said about my point of view on SasuSaku because of this post https://www.tumblr.com/mayskalih/751166856235302912/hello-talking-again-about-sasuke-i-agree-with-the?source=share

That's why I came to "tell you all this". Sorry if I said something that you didn't like or the fact that I even said it was a nuisance or something like that.

I'm tired of people coming here and explaining to me why I'm wrong for not shipping XYZ (and by XYZ somehow it's always sasusaku). Ppl need to learn to accept that each person's preferences are different. I like my ships, you like yours. I keep my ships and my opinions to this blog exclusively (and servers of like-minded folks) and ask to respect these boundaries. That's all.

[averlym]

4 on the angst list with Araleyn please I need them to suffer

4 : "but it's my fault, right?" (prompt list here)

[cranberrymoons]

.

[lucem-stellarum]

So I actually wanted to go through and listen to the video, "Your Vampire Boyfriend Explains His Turning". It doesn't exactly match up to the way they tell it in "The Vampire Boys Have It Out". I'd recommend you go watch both videos back to back because it's fascinating, and frustrating. Redacted is contradicting himself on some things to push hard on the idea that both Porter and Vincent are in the wrong. I'm not saying that Vincent is perfect, but the way Erik is going about framing the circumstances of their fight and changing previously established canon so "they both have their reasons" isn't the greatest. Details and receipts under the cut because of length, and because it gets critical.

When Vincent's talking about the circumstances of his turning to Lovely, he says at 5:00 that "all he's had is the clan, and they already knew the story. Will had told them." That the only person he's ever explained it all too was Sam, because William told everyone else on his behalf. Which, first of all, makes it sound like the clan was a lot more supportive overall and a lot more informed than ANYONE implied in the later video. Even if William edited out a lot of the details there's some things you just can't get around. Like the fact that William, who is old blood and promised to never turn another progeny, and so needed a damned good reason to break that vow. The fact that neither of them had ever met before that day. Vincent's refusal to discuss the exact circumstances of his turning to the rest of the clan, the fact that William had to list Vincent a missing person rather than letting the department handle the human authorities around his turning. The fact that Vincent was uninformed/unempowered before this and had to be introduced to the entire magical world from the ground up. He couldn't have known anything about who William was as a powerful political force, the advantage that being turned by old blood gives him, Vincent literally couldn't have arranged his turning for his own selfishness because he didn't even know that was an option, let alone the bonuses of having William specifically as a maker.

There's so much evidence that Vincent's turning was impulsive, any combination of the above facts implies that it wasn't a choice on Vincent's part, let alone something that he would try to "earn". Plus, William bought WonderWorld because of the lawsuits after the very public accident to be their home base. People saw Vincent get on the coaster, that he was riding it just before it crashed, and that's the same day the clan gets a brand new prince that matches the description of a "body that was never found"? Even if William didn't blatantly spell it out for the more oblivious members of the clan, it's SO obvious what happened from knowledge available to them. An "impulsive" turning isn't ever going to be a happy story.

Speaking of "publicly available knowledge"... we can argue about how much of the full truth is available throughout the general clan population (however many people that may be), but if Porter is close enough to William to be offered his last name, and close enough to know secrets that Vincent isn't aware of, shouldn't he have known William and been part of the clan long enough to have been around for the original explanation for Vincent's abrupt turning? Let alone, potentially, being closer to William and getting more personal details, at least from William's side of the story? Getting a new progeny isn't a decision to be made lightly. Porter very heavily implied that he's known William for longer than Vincent has; since Vincent's turning was the first time that William and Vincent had met, then Porter's been part of the clan longer than Vincent has.

Next, we know that both Porter and Adam were foundlings, but considering how fundamentally eternal and unchanging vampires are, it seems odd that there'd be such a population turnover in the clan that Vincent was tormented by "the rest of the clan" (per Sam, when he said it wasn't his place to tell other people's private stories at ~18:00 in the later video). Vincent was turned Feb 13, 2000. Sam is turned by Alexis in 2008 (per the timeline). That's not long enough for immortal vampires to forget Vincent's story. Even if there are a LOT of new vampires in the clan over time, Vincent is the golden boy, the prince. It's natural he'd be the subject of gossip, and the circumstances of his turning would be pretty good fodder for the rumor mill even if he doesn’t talk about it himself and not everyone is as principled as Sam is. If some of the newbies (or Porter) were getting prissy about Vincent never having to take his turn guarding WonderWorld, just the fact that he died there doesn't seem like it would be uncommon knowledge among the clan.

With how rare vampires are supposed to be, even without specific numbers and censuses it doesn't make sense. The Solaires are supposed to be the largest and most influential vampire clan in Dahlia, sure, but population-wise that still can't be that many people. Either the clan grows slowly enough that word about what actually happened to Vincent can get out and corrected, (and the minority of new people who don't know better perpetuating baseless rumors face charges of slander against the prince) or the clan should be large enough to effectively patrol WonderWorld without Vincent needing to take regular shifts. (which... wasn't Vincent on patrol the night he first met Lovely?) 'Duke' Sam has to patrol sometimes, but does Alexis take shifts too? If the clan doesn't have a large enough population to support even the "royalty" from skipping that duty (except for Vincent), then they can't have that many members. By that logic, the clan is small enough that "everyone knows each other's faces" and so why is Porter bitching about the unfairness of Vincent having the "perks" of the Solaire blood and name when he ought to know damn well why Vincent of all people generally avoids that particular duty?

Again, Porter was almost certainly around to watch Vincent join the clan. Why doesn't he know about the circumstances of Vincent being invoked for a single time? Vincent tried to starve himself to death because he refused to feed on humans. William couldn't convince Vincent to feed of his own volition, so he invoked him. That is a seriously drastic measure to take for someone who "wanted to be turned". Alexis' many invocations seem to be common knowledge among the upper echelons of the clan that we see in videos; if Porter is close enough to have the Solaire name and be part of the "family" and is close enough to William to know "more than could fill the city of Dahlia", why is he so out of the loop around Vincent? Porter is jealous, not stupid nor blind.

Porter's comments about the rumors that popped up when William 'brought home the new baby?' More proof that he HAD to have been with the clan at that point. How else would he have heard all those rumors? Porter was jealous of Vincent's circumstance immediately after his induction to the clan and didn't hesitate to start "tearing Vincent down" from the moment they met for the crime of "not being grateful enough" to William. Porter's accusations that Vincent wanted to be turned by William to get the associated power and prestige of being turned by "old blood" is proven to be a lie (again, ignoring the fact that he was uninformed before being turned) because Vincent avoided events (like the Summit) for years longer than most makers would have allowed their progeny. If Vincent wanted that prestige, what possible reason would he have to avoid events where he could flaunt it, and potentially acquire more?

I'll admit, we DON'T have a definitive date for when Porter joins the clan, or anything at all about Porter and William's relationship. The timeline website hasn't been updated with Porter's information yet. Even still, William offered Porter the Solaire name; that's supposed to be some great honor not offered lightly. That level of trust takes a LONG time to build. Porter had to have been part of the clan to see Vincent in the depths of his depressive and suicidal ideation, to criticize Vincent in the specific ways and faults that he does. The way the argument video is set up, though, it sounds like Porter was both there to torment Vincent at every turn from the beginning but also not there to miss every blatant fact of the situation around Vincent joining the clan.

Porter's claim that "all [Vincent] ever did was moan about how terrible it was to be you. As if we all didn't register in your mind as people with our own far worse problems" (15:00) is just so hypocritical considering his apparently willful blindness to Vincent's own deep seated issues. After having it pointed out to him, and being punched by Lovely, he sees it clearly enough to apologize and sound like he means it, but then why didn't he see ANY of the points from my first paragraph in the first place? Porter saying that "he didn't know" about how traumatic Vincent's turning was in the later video, while his voice sounds genuine, is either blatantly false or things are being retconned in order to make the feud between the two of them more dramatic.

Some of Porter's accusations do hold weight. I'm not going to lie and pretend that Vincent is some perfect angel in all of this. Vincent is arrogant, self centered, and blind to his own privilege. He used to be a manipulative ass. He's favored, powerful, and lucky in certain ways that Porter isn't, but that's not his doing nor his fault. But Porter's comment about Vincent's "egregious actions" is so vague as to be meaningless to me; if it's not worth elaborating on here why is it part of this 20+ year grudge match y'all have going on? Vincent couldn't choose his maker, he didn't know a single thing about William when they met and he was turned. The fact that Vincent has the self control to only "need" to be invoked once shouldn't be a criticism. There's years that they're skimming over for the sake of limiting it down to a 20 minute conversation for watchability. But I hate retconning, I hate this sort of character self-contradiction and hypocrisy especially to push "both of them are in the wrong", I hate that Sam is just being played as a mouthpiece to force this "grey morality" (12:38, 13:24) and defend both sides, and I'm not going to lie I expected Redacted to do better than this. Trying to equate Vincent's jealousy that Porter was well-adjusted to being a vampire with Porter's complaints that Vincent was traumatized and suicidal because of the circumstances of his turning is not okay.

14:30 Porter says: I said you were arrogant, and favored. That from the moment you were turned you've never wanted for anything. You'd never been invoked into doing something horrific for your maker's amusement. You've never been beaten within an inch of your life for the slightest transgression. You've never gotten so much as a slap on the wrist no matter how egregious your actions. You never had to guard WonderWorld. You'd never had to do anything. And still all you ever did was [look down on us]... You were turned by old blood... and didn't even have the tact to show a little gratitude for it.

19:30 Vincent says: I did look down on you. I hated that you seemed to enjoy being a vampire so much. I hated that you seemed so at peace with who you were. And what we had to do to survive. You made everything look so easy. And that made me feel broken. Even more than I already felt.

You can't have it both ways, Porter. Either you want Vincent to be just as broken and mistreated as you imply you were, or you want him to be happy and grateful about his "perfect" life. You can't complain that he never recognized that other people had far greater problems when you're the one who ignored that he's practically screaming with every action, every fact, every unsaid word that he's literally being forced against his will to stay alive, both by turning and by invocation until it literally hit you in the face. You don't have the right to tell Vincent, as a (formerly) uninformed unempowered human, that he shouldn't have manipulated something he didn't even know existed into getting the power you envy so badly. Porter was jealous of Vincent because of his circumstance first, and that jealousy made Vincent's every legitimate fault unforgivable and threw in a lot more illegitimate criticisms just for good measure.

I'm not going to pretend like I have the right answers for this, how it "should have gone". Everyone is going to have their own preferences, and at the end of the day this is Redacted's story. He makes the final decision. But I do have the right to point out flaws and criticize where I think he could have done better. Maybe he wanted Porter to be a hypocritical, jealous, contradictory character. Maybe he legitimately did just forget that the rest of the clan already knew (or easily could have put together) the messy details when he wrote that Porter didn't know better. He could have written it any way he wanted to, but he chose this way.

[bogos-bint3d]

Post that has rerouted my brain

[pussyhoundspock]

having seen it now, i think the mixed review for the new york transfer of the 2024 frecknall cabaret make a lot of sense -- it's easy to see both sides. on one hand, it's an incredibly well produced, choreographed show with great aesthetics; the performances, especially the older b-couple are fantastic (i'll talk more specifically about cliff/the emcee and sally in a minute); cabaret itself is phenomenal. so it's a great show with great costumes stages effects and great performances. of course its getting praise!

but on the other hand, there isn't much the revival is doing that's very revolutionary. it's really just doing the sam mendes production but "more". cabaret has a really interesting history -- the original stage show, then the movie (all different songs), then the new stage show in 1987 (combo of songs), then the sam mendes/alan cummings revival which was so impactful that's the song list and book that was used in the frecknall revival. it set the tone for the aesthetic, as well as the themes, and even did its own attempt at making audience members feel like attendees of the kit kat club. however, of course, the frecknell version does more to do that. more to immerse the audience, more frenzy to sally, more demonic energy to the emcee -- though i would say the frecknell emcee is much closer to joel grey then alan cummings -- i.e., sexless, vauderal-ian figure/jester, puppet master/architect, etc, but i won't get too into that. anyway that is to say i understand the frustration or negative reviews because i dont really think the frecknell revival is doing or saying anything different than the mendes one, which was a lot more recent in america than london, though arguably the frecknell version takes things further for better or worse. and some stuff really works -- like i think one of the strongest scenes in the whole show is the brick through the window scene GENUINELY incredibly

the frecknell cabaret did have its flops for me, though. for example, while i liked what they were doing with this version of the emcee -- especially the clown suit! the costuming was great! i didn't really like redmaynes version. it felt like he was working way too hard and trying way too hard -- whereas with joel grey and alan cummings i truly felt that character come alive and it was creepy and compelling and fun and many other adjectives with redmayne it was just like. a version of the emcee that was sexless and also had negative rizz and also was visibly like Trying. i don't know. what they were doing with the emcee really worked for me; redmayne's performance didn't. but that's very like my personal taste. i also didn't really love the performance of 'cabaret' at the end which is unfortunate because that's one of my favorite musical theater moments in like. well. the whole damn thing. i did generally like the portrayal of sally, even dialed up as it was, because it did feel resonate with our time -- i think cabaret revivals really reflect the time they're in.

THAT SAID. speaking of time periods. an aside but. this production felt like the dialogue equivalent of tiktok face. the acting/actors just felt too modern at times. also. while i'm doing minor asides. i didn't really feel like they leaned as into the immersive thing as they could've but that could've been because i was rear mezz. anyway.

[tsuchinokoroyale]

How are you not someone's wife already???

I’ve licherally got no room for a man like where’s he gonna fit??

Not to mention…

[witchwhaat]

the urge to chop off all of my hair vs the "you know it takes forever to grow them"

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Jingliu

[gingermintpepper]

Absolutely the funniest thing about my current corner of tumblr is that pretty much everyone I've recently followed for Apollo-Appreciating Purposes are either genuinely Hellenist or just rather very into Rick Riordan's Trials of Apollo series which is wild because I know a net zero about both of those things.

[piplupod]

feels like the isolation is a gushing wound and going to the centre is just a small bandage. i think perhaps i am not really ever going to feel okay unless something miraculous happens. i am retaining some semblance of sanity now that I'm leaving the house and socializing with non-family more than once a week, but i am still hurting more than I can really tolerate and I don't know what to do about it. there doesn't seem to be a fix for this that I can enact.

[anyoldfandom]

The problem with starting to think about the Pack more is the fact that now I want to grab Skalamander the same way I grabbed Bobo like. My house now. I want to use your character potential.