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marlowe1-blog · 1 year

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The Book of Job Chapters 1 & 2

I'm going to put the first two chapters together because they are the ones that everyone pretty much knows about. There are certain implications that one might not immediately get, like holy fuck these are some dark chapters. I just read The Magician King and I feel like Julia's story has a similar theme which is "DON'T GET GOD'S ATTENTION". Of course in the Magician King, the world is polytheist so they get the attention of a god, just not the one they wanted. And if you've seen the first season of The Magicians, you know what happens (I'd recommend the show over the books, but the books are not bad).

Ok. That's not the real theme of the opening. It feels like it when you read it fresh, because almost everything that happens to Job is because God is going "Isn't Job the best. He's so faithful and nice" and then you got Satan going "Well why don't we fuck with him and see how faithful he is" and this happens at least twice (maybe three times.) and every time Job gets fucked over even more.

Oh by the way, since I have the Jewish Publication Society translation, they go with "The Adversary" for Satan. A major part of this book and about the history of religion is that Satan seriously changed with the Christians getting ahold of him and putting him in the role of the enemy of all Christians. Zoroasterianism seriously influenced those guys.

In the Bible, Satan is a job description. There's a use of the word as a verb when the Angel is blocking Bilaam from going to curse the Israelites but the angel is not necessarily Satan. So this is where Satan gets a name, but it could be any angel. There are some very weird thoughts on angels in the Bible. Are they a holdover from paganism? Are they ways to have G-d talk to people without taking away the fact that Moses is considered the only one who is talking to G-d directly? There seems to be a general belief held up by the text that Angels are just agents with a job and that job is in their name. So Raphael is the healer and Gabriel gives strength. Most of the time the angels don't even get names in the text itself (although midrash comes in for certain things. LIke when three angels visit Abraham, Raphael stays to heal Abraham from his circumcision while the other two go off to destroy Sodom).

So JPS changing the name to Adversary is just translating the name outright so we know that the main thing about Satan is that he's a literary function. He's G-d's "devil's advocate" and the one who challenges everything.

This seems to be a movement away from monotheism, when monotheism really only took hold a few centuries before this book (it's written in Aramaic so it's definitely a later book in the canon). But also this is a philosophical novel without a necessity in believing it as anything more than a philosophical novel (Oh I'm sure there's an evangelist who will argue that literally Job existed and had a very stressful conversation with his friends and it was all recorded, but evangelicals are fucking idiots. The guy who stands outside my building smoking pot believes in every conspiracy theory available including one about how there is no outerspace because of the firmement of heaven line. Like the Bible says that we are under a bubble so there's no such thing as Mars. I actually still talk to this dumb fuck because he's so stupid that he's almost funny when he's not horrifying).

So here's the point you know about. God says "Hey isn't Job great" and Satan goes "hey let's fuck with him" and God goes "Ok!" So JOb loses his children, his money and his health. And his wife tells him to curse G-d and die which is advice to kill himself. Because really how can he live after losing everything?

Then come Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite who sit with him in silence for 7 days. So now we have the rules of Shiva (mourning) where the first seven days people accompany the mourner but they don't talk unless the mourner talks first. And they stay silent for seven days.

They are going to come off like assholes in the rest of the book, so that part should be remembered.

Note - I'm kind of happy that my mom died during Covid so I didn't have to host people for a Shiva. I don't think my creepy roommate would have liked that and sometimes it's just not worth it. I have people over for Shabbos but he can hide in his room for a few hours.

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castexpectopatronum · 3 years

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Liquid Amber - Part II [Remus Lupin x Reader Imagine]

Summary: You had been crushing on Remus Lupin for an eternity when you finally decided to ask him out. However, things do not go as planned and you remain wondering just what exactly is going on with this boy.

word count: 1.6k

trigger warnings: none

notes: apparently this got deleted, so i’m reuploading it

Masterlist

“... and I really don’t know if I should have continued with Divination because on the one hand, sure it’s a fascinating subject but on the other hand, Professor Hartshorn is so incredibly ridiculous, you should’ve heard her yesterday- (Y/N), are you listening to me?”

At once, you snapped out of the daze you had been in and looked at your friend who was eying you with a bemused expression.

“Still thinking about him, are you?”

Sighing deeply, you hunched forwards and rubbed your eyes, utterly exasperated – from both, your work and mind. “Sorry, I just... I can’t get him out of my head, no matter what I do.” She smiled. “No worries, (y/n). We’ve all been through that phase. Probably everbody has that one crush they will never forget. It’s normal.”

“Normal or not, it bloody sucks,” you grumbled, leaning back in the armchair. The two of you were currently sitting in your common room, occuping an entire table with your school work. Quills, parchment and half-empty ink bottles littered the entire surface and the books you didn’t necessarily need had already been banished onto the floor where they were stacked into a dangerously lose pile. But as long as they didn’t fall into the fireplace, it didn’t bother either of you.

A huge yawn escaped your mouth and in a rather half-hearted attempt to be productive, you threw a glance at the essay you were currently working on. Once again, it was for your potions class. Like the time you had gathered all of your courage to ask out Remus Lupin but had been turned down and had felt absolutely humiliated for the remainder of the week. Even now, you still had problems looking him in the eye but as Remus was apparenly determined never to speak with you again, it did not cause you a lot of trouble.

Picking up your quill again only to twirl it in between your fingers, you wondered wether Remus was purposely avoiding you. You wouldn’t be surprised if that were he case; he had looked quite constipated when you had asked him if he wanted to go out with you.

Your stomach tightened unpleasently. If you had known of Remus’ profound aversion to go out on a date with you, you wouldn’t have approached him in the first place. You hadn’t planned for him to get into that kind of rotten situation. Maybe you should go and apologise to him. Was that something you had to do?

It had started to rain; heavy drops were whipping against the window and together with the occasional scratching of your friend’s quill made you fall into a hypnotised state while you stared into the depths of the crackling fire.

”You’re not going to finish that this evening, are you?”

You simply shook your head, not bothering to raise your eyes.

Your friend sighed deeply and rolled up her parchment. “Shall we head to bed, then? I’m finished, anyways.” She groaned loudly as she stretched in her armchair, finally educing a small smile from you.

“Yeah, good idea. Let’s go to sleep.”

One day, you would be able to look back at this and laugh about it. Your first heartbreak was a good story to tell your grandchildren. And that, my dear, is how the first bloke I ever fell in love with rejected me, which is great, though, because if he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have married your grandfather and you would never have been born.

Sadly, however, you were far from getting grey hair and wrinkles and telling bed time stories to your children’s children, so you had to endure sitting in class behind Remus and starring at his stupid brown hair which looked so wonderfully soft that you felt the strong urge to run your fingers through it every time your gaze fell upon it.

And thus, you came to the terribly depressing conclusion that you hated your life. But – of course – you found yourself, once again, unable to despise the person that made your life such a horrible mess. Which made it an even more horrible, messier mess.

The ringing bell, which marked the end of the school day, interrupted your flow of thoughts and you quickly gathered your things together, glad for the opportunity to escape.

While walking back to your common room – you avoided the library as much as you could – you again considered approaching Remus to talk things out. You were still unsure wether or not you owed him an apology, and anyway, you didn’t want things to be awkward between the two of you.

Not that you had had many opportunities to become aware of said awkwardness – Remus was definitely avoiding you.

A sigh escaped you, one in a line of many others since that faithful day in the library, and you tried to focus on all the homework and revision you had to do for today. Going over all of your plans in your head, you turned around the corner-

-and collided straight with another person, causing all of the books in both of your hands to fall and spread onto the ground.

The clash’s force made you stumble several steps backwards, thankfully though you managed to keep your balance, arms waving around.

“Shit, sorry, mate, are you okay?” Once you’ve managed to get a stable footing, you lifted your gaze from the stone floor and looked directly into the face of Remus Lupin.

All colour drained from your cheeks.

“Oh. Hi, Remus. Didn’t see ya there.” You laughed forcefully.

Remus looked at you with a startled expression that quickly turned into one of clear uncomfort.

“Hello, (y/n),” he muttered quietly.

In a desperate attempt to chase away the heavy silence lying between the both of you, you hurriedly gathered up the school books that were scattered around on the stone floor. The two of you stood there in awkward silence, clutching your books to your chests. He was expertedly avoiding your eyes while you were desperately trying to find the right words to say.

Surprisingly though, it was Remus who first raised his voice,

“Listen, (y/n), I need to go, so...”

“Remus-”

“I forgot something in the library-” He tried to quickly walk past you but you seized his arm to hold him back. The look he gave you, however, was one of slight surprise and discomfort.

“I’m sorry,” you said, unable to hide the sorrow in your eyes. “Listen, I never...” You interrupted yourself, an uneasy feeling spreading throughout your stomach. “When I asked you out, I never intended on making you feel uncomfortable. I just ... I just wanted to know if I stood a chance. You really don’t have to feel guilty for anything – and I’m sorry for having put you in this situation.” You licked your lips nervously and let go of his sleeve. “That’s it. I just wanted to apologise. Sorry for bothering you.”

Remus did not say anything in your defense. Nor did he say anything to blame you. He did, in fact, not say anything at all. He simply stared at you, his brown eyes almost burning a hole into your skull. As you looked into his piercing eyes, finding yourself unable to turn you gaze away from them, your heart forgot how to beat.

“Remus?” It was no more than a breath, barely even a whisper, but it was enough to snap him out of his daze. He blinked a few times, then took a hasty step back and cleared his throat. You took a shaky breath – you hadn’t even realised you were holding it.

“I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you,” he said hoarsely, looking at the stone floor instead of meeting your eyes. “Believe me, that wasn’t my intention.”

Your face softened. “I know you didn’t want to hurt me, Remus,” you whispered. “I’m not mad at you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He lifted his head slightly but then changed his mind and continued to stare at the ground. “Me turning you down... That had nothing to do with you.”

You took a step back and furrowed your eyebrows. “What do you mean? Of course it had something to do with me.”

Remus pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head. “No, (y/n), it didn’t. Please believe me.”

You opened your mouth to speak but no words came out of it. Remus sighed.

“(Y/N), I would have rejected any girl that had been in your place.”

Frowning, you attempted to speak – then you understood. “Oh! Merlin, I am so sorry – I didn’t know you fancy boys. Nobody told me.”

Abruptly, Remus lifted his head and gave you a startled look. “Wha- No, (y/n), I’m not gay.”

“Remus, that really isn’t something you have to be ashamed of, no matter what anybody says-”

“I am not gay!”

You paused. “Alright... Then what is the problem?”

Remus attempted to say something but then changed his mind and pressed his lips together. He looked like he regretted ever bumping into you.

As you examined his face and the tense expression upon it, you sighed in defeat. “You know what, forget it. I’m sorry, that’s none of my business. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry for what happened back in the library.” A forced smile appeared on your face as you turned to leave. You felt Remus’ burning eyes on you until you had reached the end of the corridor, leaving you more confused than ever before.

#remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin imagine #marauders era imagine #marauders imagine #liquid amber #part two

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helena-thessaloniki · 3 years

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Hi Helena! Big fan of your writing here🥺♥️ Your rivamika fics are my safe space 😭 (if you have time to answer) i’d love to know when you first started shipping them, why, and what made you continue to love this ship (or anything else to do with your journey as an RM shipper)? i love your characterisation of both levi and mikasa individually, but even more so, your portrayal of their dynamic as a couple, which is why i wanted to ask so badly ☺️ x

Hey anon! Oh woah, first of all, thank you so much. Second of all, oh god, you probably shouldn't have handed me the mic. heh 😅

I’m afraid to look at the word count of this response, I’m sure it’s much more than you bargained for, but I appreciate the question and enjoyed thinking through my response (: Most importantly, I’m so glad you find my stories as a safe space. It’s really an honor. Thank you for sharing with me 🖤🖤

TL; DR As a longtime reader, writer and lover of stories and story-telling, by being someone who pays attention to how stories are crafted and deliberately developed from beginning to end, I sincerely thought Isayama was setting up rivamika as an endgame relationship. So, I read into and interpreted meaning out of ALL their interactions and became deeply invested.

I don’t necessarily ship them cause of the parallels, age gap, enemies to lover trope, height difference, or some of those common reasons and/or kinks. I��m more basic and boring than that. I love the concept of them coming together as though it’s inevitable.

They both are unbelievably strong, selfless, and have suffered so much loss— so, no one else could truly understand them as well as they can understand each other. They both probably would have always settled for a stable, simple life, and been alone and lonely even without realizing it— instead, they find each other, and realize what it means to actually no longer be alone, to do more than just survive. It’s this understated bond, as opposed to a dramatic and passionate romance, that I envision in them and that I love so much.

Then, the passion, heat, the romantic "spark"— I think that’s an added bonus, the cherry on top, the perfect final puzzle piece. They’re both so physically capable, can speak through their actions, and don’t show much need or capacity for emotional/ verbal communication, so the ability to connect with each other through physical intimacy and mind-blowing sex seems like another given.

Still, at the end of the day, for me it comes back to their ability to fully depend on each other, to the inevitability. Not like some soulmate trope where they 'have no choice' in it, but like the stars aligned to prove it's right. How each of them have only one other person on the whole planet who could see and understand them, to be on par with them, to make them realize there’s more to life than settling and surviving, and they happen to find it in each other.

You asked, I rambled 😅 Here’s a breakdown of my thought process in my rivamika journey. For those who make it to the end or want to skip to the end, I'll finish with the excerpt of the very first rivamika scene I felt compelled to to write.

I've tried before to re-watch and remember the exact scenes, exact moments, that initially captured my full attention, but I guess it was all of them, the gradual and cumulative compilation of their earliest interactions.

Mikasa always appearing cool and indifferent, and paying no attention whatsoever to others fawning over, like Jean initially falling for her, but then her strongly reacting over Levi in the courtroom showed how uniquely capable he was at getting under her skin.

Of course, the scene in the forest chasing the Female Titan was a critical one. I think of that as the first time both Levi and Mikasa were truly able to see the other's strength, mental and physical. And for them, orphans and trauma survivors who have suffered extensive loss, I think that seeing strength in another person made them feel less alone. Less alone in a deep, quiet but cataclysm, life-altering sort of way, even if not a romantic one. Like they didn't know it was something they didn't have, something they didn't expect to get from life, but then found it with each other.

(Even when we found out Levi was an Ackerman, I was disappointed if it meant they were immediate relatives, but willing to accept it wouldn't be a romantic end to loneliness, it would be a familial end to loneliness. But... the author never explored that. Not once.)

In that forest scene, manga and anime, the way that Levi pauses to really look and see Mikasa and think about who she is, what she’s gone through, and how strong and dedicated she is now— that was a defining moment. It was also a visual demonstration of Levi breaking character, from aloof and ruthless, to considering and curious. I thought Yams was showing both of them do that on purpose.

Then, Levi getting hurt because of Mikasa in that scene felt like another clue. Sure, it was while saving Eren, and sure, it could have been meant to humanize super-soldier Levi, or sure, it could have been another aspect of how Mikasa rushing into things over Eren ends up hurting other people that later changes in her character development, but it felt like a very pointed statement about Mikasa being a vulnerability for Levi. And that's swoon-worthy, right? Most of us have been exposed to and conditioned by stories about how special and romantic it is to be the one and only girl who can make an otherwise disinterested or unattainable guy actually pay attention to her, and so admittedly I fall right for it.

I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty, but the opening of season 3 felt like confirmation. When Levi figures out Kenny's behind things and entrusts Mikasa with instructions to share with the others, instructions about fighting people instead of titans that ultimately everyone else besides her struggles with, and when Mikasa lets Levi hold her back from chasing after Eren, her most important way of trusting and having faith in Levi, I honestly took that as cues from the author that rivamika was endgame. I let myself get truly invested from then on. That’s that understated bond I was referring to. To me, that unspoken but undeniable trust is the most important dynamic.

Seeing them fight together or fight similarly has always been fun and powerful and fulfilling.

I'm newer to the snk club. I was originally an anime-only fan and started watching in fall 2019, I think. I wasn't on tumblr, twitter, or anything else to see fandom discourse. So, I didn't know that the rooftop scene of Mikasa fighting Levi over the serum was such a staple for our ship until much later. I love the scene just like many do for all the reasons we do, but I don't think the actual scene was pivotal for me, so much as it's aftermath. I thought it represented two things.

One, it was an important marker in Levi's characterization. Hands-down one of the most striking scenes to me is the one where Levi is in the alley, somber and alone, listening in on Eren, Armin, and Mikasa talking together. It artfully shows his longing for hope and connection. So, when Levi chose Armin for the serum, that represented Levi choosing hope. And when Mikasa ultimately gave up fighting Levi and didn't choose Armin, which Armin finds out about later on, I see that as an important marker in Mikasa's development. It puts a wedge between her and Armin/Eren [Armin, because he knows she would have let him die, and Eren, because Armin is too special to him and he couldn't look at her the same way after realizing she would have let him die]. That distance between her and her childhood friends is one I don't think could ever be healed completely, one of those painful lessons in growing up. By doing that, it then also puts a distance in Mikasa's own childhood self to her current self. I thought that matured her and separated her out in a way that was another clue toward eventual rivamika developments.

That's a whole other conversation on Mikasa, but I’ll stay on track. Her love for Armin was absolutely authentic and fierce, but at the end of the day, at the core of her being, she chose survival over hope. Meanwhile, Levi chose hope over survival. To me, that was soft, fertile ground for the reasons why eventually, if/when Mikasa found hope and chose hope, that could directly tie together with her inevitably in coming together with Levi. Again, less butterflies and fireworks, but more natural and in a way that was just a given.

I wrote Beyond the Walls before reading the manga from the Marley Arc and on, so that's why most of that story is her journey into embracing that hope. *manga spoilers* There's a lot of meta, criticism and talk about Mikasa's silent, off-screen and subtle style of character development in the Marley Arc and afterward. I won't go down that road, I'm still processing the end of the manga to be honest, but I think it's fair to say she does eventually end up choosing hope over survival when she lets go of Eren and saves humanity instead. I love the “Stay with Me” line and think it’s perfect; a simple but profound display of trust and their deep-rooted bond in a really understated way. *end manga spoilers*

Here's something I always wanted to talk about in full but haven't. It honestly reads to me like Yams was building toward rivamika, and didn’t do anything to stop that until too late. There are tools authors can use to ensure we stop shipping a pair or start shipping a new one; love triangles are commonly used in every artistic medium and we’ve all been persuaded by these tools. But Yams didn’t use these tools to make sure readers didn’t feel convinced by rivamika. For all the reasons I listed above, more I'm forgetting, and for the following:

If he wanted us to think they were family and it would be incest, he should have added in a conversation between them realizing they were (close) family and that they weren't the only ones left in their biological family like they thought. But he didn't.

If he wanted us to think it was completely inappropriate between a child-and-adult and student-and-teacher, then he could have done something to ensure Mikasa looked childish or Levi looked older, but no. They barely look ten years apart. I do think it's unacceptable and that there's a power imbalance between a child-and-adult relationship regardless of that, and that there can't be true consent when one is a superior and another a subordinate, so I personally age-up Mikasa in my head and try to handle his position of power responsibly in my writings... but the point being, by the end of canon, there's no inappropriate or non-consensual romance between them, yet there's a lot of history and chemistry that could naturally lead to an age-appropriate and consensual relationship. If Yams didn't want us to think so, he could have made it more clear that there were reasons it wouldn't happen.

The only thing that makes sense to me is the author planned on rivamika endgame but was shamed/pressured out of it (either internally or due to others) OR that the author somehow accidentally created such vibrant chemistry and an incredible dynamic between them. Like, he didn't put enough convincing substance of eremika in, didn't make Levi look old enough, didn’t have one of them do something unforgivable in the other’s eyes, etc. Those are some of those tools he could have used. Romance was never a key component in snk. And since we now know Yams planned or needed eremika endgame for sake of plot and the conclusion of the manga, I personally think he didn't know what to do with the riveting rivamika substance and chemistry being much more convincing to readers. Once he had them so well built-up, maybe the only option he felt he had was to just stop putting the characters together. We get little-to-no rivamika interaction, platonic or practical, after season 3 all the way up until the very end. But there was so much of it beforehand ?? So, it simply doesn't make sense. I think the author just straight-up cut any and all interactions out between them because it was too convincing and moving, more convincing and substantial than eremika. But, as the end of canon shows, we needed to have some eremika buy-in. It's messy writing and unskilled in the romance department, but considering for how long and how complicated snk has been in a creative process and how lackluster the eremika romance (the main and apparently pivotal romance) is developed, I think it’s plausible to say the author effed up.

As far as writing fanfiction goes, there's just so much room to explore them. In canon, we aren't given enough insight into their individual perspectives, let alone their dynamic together, so it feels like a blank canvas to work from. I think that's part of why I love to write them, and also why I don't necessarily read much of them. When I first started shipping them while watching the anime, I read a few of the classics that were canon-verse, but I haven’t really read much since. For me, exploring and discovering them as a writer is the most fun. (It's one of the reasons Naruto and Harry Potter have such large fanfiction collections. There's so much world-building and so many characters, but there's also so much left to the imagination.)

In general, I'm drawn to strong characters, especially women, who are multidimensional enough to be real, vulnerable and soft. Mikasa is the pinnacle of that. I don’t necessarily like to write about her love or infatuation with Eren, but I do respect and admire and consider it integral to her character and her amazing capacity to love. We can have strong, kickass women who falter when it comes to love but are still considered strong for it. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive and Mikasa is a beautiful example of that.

And Levi is strong, but real and vulnerable too; he’s honestly a fantastically developed character, from Petra explaining to Eren in the beginning how he’s not the amazing hero he’s painted to be to the public, to how Levi genuinely cares for Erwin and others and chooses hope despite all he’s suffered.

The end of the manga wrecked me a bit. Kind of like Games of Thrones. You have something that was so epic and well-done for so long, a rushed ending that isn't immediately sensical and isn't fulfilling is hard to stomach. Eventually, I'll move on from the denial of that and process what I think and feel about it. The whole reason we have fanfiction is to expand on canon, but it's made me put rivamika on the back burner until I figure it out. So I'm a little less hyper-fixated on the pairing right now even though interacting with you all and asks like this remind me what brought me here in the first place. 😊

To conclude, I’ll share that the very first rivamika content I wrote was a compilation of moments I thought could be inserted into season 3. These are still moments I plan to edit and publish one day. For anyone that actually read this far, I’ll put a rough and unedited excerpt of the first scene I ever wrote about them.

Thank you again anon 🖤😊

BEGIN EXCERPT [after the rooftop fight for the serum, immediately following the ceremony where Eren touched Historia by kissing her hand]:

Part of her was embarrassed at such a flagrant act of disobedience to a superior, especially to one who saved her and countless others' lives in the past. But mostly, she was anguished by the situation Captain Levi put her in once he revoked the serum meant to save Armin and planned to use it on Commander Erwin instead. Her current ostracization and self-loathing was not entirely her own fault. Anger she felt toward herself was just as easy to wield against him.

It must have shown in the grit of her teeth or defiant tone, because he turned to look at her, more aloof than curious.

Like a flint struck to steel, it ignited the fury she felt toward him.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated. I should have just killed you,” she answered him at last, piercing him with eyes darker than the night.

He wasn’t concerned. “You’re good, but not that good.”

Her hands fell to her side, fists clenched as she stood with a single, fluid movement. Before she could let loose a threat, he sighed.

“What’s the problem, Ackerman?” He was dismissive, his shoulders relaxed and posture loose.

The fire too furious to contain, she went sailing for him with the same speed from the battlefield. Her fingers already curled, she tightened her grasp as she swung her fist into his gods-damned apathetic face.

Levi wasn’t unprepared. He easily side-stepped her, then snatched her wrist to steal her momentum. Though he tried to toss her aside, she was no less fast; Mikasa dug her heel in and spun, her other arm shoving hard into his chest.

Too graceful to stumble, Levi used the chance to hook her second arm too. He caged both her wrists in a grip so strong, she was sure it bruised her bones. Still, he only looked at her warily, almost bored.

“Shouldn’t you be grateful? I chose Armin.” If his reminder was meant to ease her anger, it had the opposite effect.

Fury and desperation gifted her additional strength. She shoved into his chest hard. Levi shifted backward, nearly forced into loosening his grip; within that split second of an opening, Mikasa slammed her elbow into his chin, rocking his head backward.

“You did,” she seethed, but as fast as the fire inside her exploded, it was doused. Her next words came out broken and damp. “But I didn’t.”

Levi remained stern and otherwise unmoving as he attempted to flex his jaw through the spasm of pain. As the momentum of the fight died down, he loosened his hold on her wrists and evaluated her distraught frame.

Mikasa immediately released her own hands and turned away from him, eyes stinging from tears she refused to shed as she focused on the stars ahead. Admitting the harsh words aloud hurt her far more than any injury she could inflict onto him.

Not only was Armin one of the only friends she had, but he’d been a steadfast one throughout almost all she could remember of her life. After the trauma of her childhood, it was Eren and Armin who embraced her, whom she learned to love. Now, though, there was a wedge between her and Armin she was not sure could ever be removed. What was worse, as deplorable and selfish as she knew it proved her to be, was the painful wedge it now put between her and Eren too.

Once again, she found Levi standing at the peripheral of her sight, close enough to see but far enough to be a blur at the edge of her watery vision.

“You almost killed me.” Levi repeated his earlier words, but he said them with an odd bite, torn between frustration and patience. “You would have killed me to save him.”

Too late, Mikasa realized he hadn’t meant these words as an accusation, but an odd form of validation. She bit her bottom lip, teeth puncturing too hard; the tang of metal was sharp on her tongue when she swallowed blood.

“You thought about letting your closest friend die,” Levi said quietly, tiredly. “But I did let mine die. I left him for dead, when I could have saved him.”

Mikasa was startled from her selfish reverie, for the first time acknowledging the sacrifice he made on that fateful afternoon. She’d been too absorbed in her own relief, and then, her own regrets to consider what the decision had done to him.

For a brief moment, she considered turning to face him, but the stark reality of the matter made her refrain. How could she feel pity for his loss, when his loss enabled her gain? An uncomfortable knot tightened in her stomach.

“Tch,” Levi sighed. He was only one notch less taciturn, but for him, that was soft. “You’ll live with your guilt, and I’ll live with mine.”

His words granted Mikasa’s tears the permission to spill. She buried her face further into her scarf, both hands trembling at the worn threads. As quietly as he arrived onto the roof, Levi disappeared from it.

It was rare for him to indulge in alcohol or celebrations, but Erwin’s absence felt more tangible than his presence ever did. Levi distracted himself with the chaos of the few remaining Scouts that Erwin had died entrusting his legacy to, and attempted to drown the pain with whatever drink Connie Springer shoved into his hands.

He found Hanji with their ale long-forgotten about on the table as they half-stood from their seat, frantic while explaining some morbid experiment in great, vivid detail to an unsuspecting and slightly horrified MP officer.

Though Levi wordlessly took the seat beside them, Hanji paused their rant to slap him hard on the back, an enthusiastic greeting flying from their drunken lips. The MP took this chance to excuse himself, a pathetic attempt at politeness, but Hanji either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

“Ah, Levi,” they smiled at his drink, though it didn’t entirely reach their one eye. “Where you been?”

Levi didn’t answer. “You know, shitty-glasses, you’re even more unbearable about your experiments when you’re drunk.”

Hanji waved dismissively and reached for their ale. Years spent in battle and command together had gifted both of them with an eased familiarity, and sometimes, genuine friendship. In the same manner he ignored their question, Hanji ignored his lack of response and went on with their original inquiry.

“Careful, Captain,” Hanji warned lightly. “Now that there’s far fewer Scouts, you having a favorite might cause some division.”

Even though Hanji meant the words, there was a glint of mischief that twinkled in their remaining eye.

“It’s not favoritism,” Levi countered bluntly, turning his vision toward the young man on the far side of the room. “Eren is simply the best chance that we have in this war.”

Hanji laughed as if he’d made a joke and Levi looked back to stare at them, unable to be surprised at their quirks or oddities any longer, but still a touch curious about what spurned this current demonstration.

“I wasn’t talking about Eren,” Hanji said at last, a pointed nod toward his injured chin.

Levi blinked. He didn’t realize he was nursing his injury with the hand not on his drink. As though it were too hot to touch, Levi dropped his hand.

Hanji was not judgmental, nor inquisitive. In a war-torn life of losing too many cadets entrusted to him, the fact that Levi found a soldier with the strength and skill to remain safe was not only rare, but worth special attention. Still, it made him too lenient.

“Sometimes I think you’d let her get away with murder,” Hanji chided halfheartedly.

When he thought of Erwin dead in his grasp, sometimes he wasn’t sure if he already had.

#my asks #my thoughts #rivamika #rivamika fanfic #lena writes

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sanktagenyas · 3 years

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ok so i finally watched those last three episodes. i said buckle up it’s time to suffer and by the saints did i ever suffer. i just knew the darklina scenes were gonna be rough to watch. it was already rough reading the scenes as they were written in book one. i mean the darkling just shines with his intelligence in that chapter, doesn’t he? threaten the man she loves? well the other man she loves? check! tell her she betrayed you when the reality is you’ve been telling half truths all along and didn’t trust her to make her choices? check!

buddy this isn’t how you apologize. in the show itself it’s pretty much the same back and forth that leads nowhere. you lied to me! you ran off because my mother told you i’m not who i say i am without giving me a chance to explain! you’ve been lying or bending the truth since we met! YOU TURNED YOUR BACK ON YOUR COUNTRY!

by that point i was just like chill the fuck out man you’re about to decimate many many countrymen and you know it. i loved that the stop they made was all about him getting revenge on the man who attempted on alina’s life, that was very unhinged of him and i was HERE for that shit but everyone else in that port? every other woman and child and man on that port? not all of them played a hand and he just went ahead and had them slaughtered without batting an eye. and it’s not like he has some kind of safeguard for grishas does he? how does he know there’s no grisha wherever he’s expanding the fold? some could be in hiding because they fled, because they didn’t want to serve the king. oh well he doesn’t really care about those people does he? we all saw how he spoke about those deserters to arken.

also he could NOT handle alina’s harsh truths about how his own actions are harming grisha close to him even though he claims that every choice he’s made was to protect them and empower them. when she brought up genya i was like yes you better look down you motherfucker! you did this to her, you delivered to her abuser over and over.

we saw his backstory, some of it and he acted out of grief and rage. he toyed with magic he did not understand and of course he didn’t intend this but his reaction to the fold once it was all said and done was definitely foreshadowing what he was to become. i created something he said defiantly. you created something you don’t have control over. and now he’s done it again somehow, he’s got brand new creatures following him at the end.

i actually felt for young aleksander for losing the woman he loved but the arrogance and the recklessness he showed there is still the same arrogance he has now. he thinks he has thought his plan through but that’s just working off the assumption that no one opposes him ever otherwise he went ahead and put a target on grisha’s backs. he definitely put a target on alina’s back although i know that was never the plan. the fact that when he has a perfectly good remedy to the fold, a chance to actually fix his mistakes once and for all he turns its back and decides to make it ten times worse, chooses ruling via fear over hope is jusr a sign of how far he’s gone. and he didn’t waver once not even when alina was pleading with him that he could have made her his equal, that they could have stayed together and made ravka safe together if only he gave her a choice, he was still manipulative and lied to her face.

at this point i just don’t think his love for her outweighs his belief that he knows what’s best for ravka, what’s the best way to protect grisha. because he doesn’t care about anyone who isn’t grisha at all. he was persecuted like so many others. he won a war for a king centuries and that king turned on him. i’m sure he’s looking at the current one knowing that once grisha have exhausted their uses that king will turn on him too. the fold is just a different kind of war and if he wins that one for the king the darkling already knows what the outcome will be.

so to summarize this whole darkling commentary here i understand where he is coming from, i understand the fear and the rage and the desperation. it’s not working out for him though. he’s feared but he’s alone. for every ivan there’s a zoya. for every man who’s blindly loyal to him there’ll be someone rising up to oppose him eventually. and if it’s not his own people it’ll be non grisha folks. he has the second army working for him still, but he is alone. and that’s no one’s fault but his own because alina was willing to work with him.

speaking of alina i loved every second of her rising up to oppose him telling him she never needed him. she may have fallen in love with him but she never actually needed him to be powerful, she only needed to free herself of the restraints she’d put on her powers out of fear. i also thought that the way she freed herself of his control made more sense than it did in the books.

i have hope for darklina still despite all that’s happened despite how positively full of rage ans resentment she is because she still loves him, she still listened when he pleaded with her that they needed each other if they wanted to deal with the fold. of course there’s the slight issue of him lying directly and manipulating her to do his bidding and of course the fact that he took her power from her. the only thing that was her and he perverted it for his own gain. i think it just might take more than a year for her to forgive him i’m afraid. i don’t necessarily see a path to redemption right now but reconciliation? alina can be merciful, she can be forgiving. i think all it would really take is just one selfless act, one show of good faith. if he keeps pursuing her and mal and keep trying to rob her of her agency however i don’t see them ever having any kind of closure.

i don’t think i need to expand much more on my thoughts on malina. i’m not feeling what the show wants me to feel. i’m not seeing them as these soulmates that belong together. to me they’d be better of as best friends. the darkling didn’t make her strong he tried to steal her strength for his own use but mal doesn’t make her strong either, she relies too much on him. mal actually was pretty damn resourceful when left on his own. i unfortunately couldn’t say the same for alina. co-dependant love is not better than toxic love and darklina’s toxicity (most of it) comes from the lies and from the darkling repeatedly choosing for alina. he’s not brave enough to just tell her what he intends to do and let her decide whether to align herself with him so he lies and he deceives instead. not much he can do to undo it now but he could help actually destroy the fold if he wanted to. i don’t know if he’ll ever come around to it though.

the darkling visiting mal with the sole purpose to rub it in his face that alina and he are immortal and so eventually mal will die and then he could just swoop in was just peak comedy. the way he delivered that line too you’d think he was talking to an insect not another human being. it was brilliant. mal echoing that same line but ending it with “the past will do it for me” was pretty good, nice quip i’ll give mal that but also terribly ironic when you see the ending.

team crows remains the highlight for me. kaz and inej and their unspoken love for each other is just killing me. i can tell there are personal traumas there that i don’t know about (gotta read those damn books and quick) what with kaz not being able to help tend to her wounds and the fact that there were moments were i could see there was maybe a kiss about to happen or an embrace (at the end when kaz let alina go free and made a deal not to rat her out) and it just didn’t happen. there’s a story there about kaz and his distaste for being touched/touching others. jesper is just here to look pretty, shoot shit and be the most charming person in any crowd. i’m in love. also someone give him his goat back for the love of god.

nina and mathias were entertaining for sure. with all that banter and all these jabs i should have really seen them falling for one another coming. i felt like it was perhaps a bit rushed but i guess there’s nothing like almost freezing to death together to make you reconsider your views. you know the whole saving of lives thing can really bond you. the waffle date was adorable. was not expecting nina to just brand herself a traitor for him and she’s damn lucky fyedor came on that mission because i’m pretty sure ivan wouldn’t even have offered to keep her name out of the report. she and mathias ended their story both heartbroken and separated. i really hate that he thinks this was all intentional. really hope she’ll join the crows on their next con job. and i also cannot wait to see the look on heleen’s face when kaz buys inej’s freedom.

i was not at all expecting zoya to turn against the darkling. that’s what happens when you turned down one of your fuck buddies, aleksander they get bitter and then they leave you to be eaten alive by volcras. ok but in all seriousness she did the right thing and i hope she finds her family even if they’re not alive so she can say her goodbyes.

oh and completely unrelated but since i talked about heights of comedy before i really need more sassy! darkling in my life. he is everything. that quip about his speech. the way he said adorable like he was gagging on the word. him just letting david be his dorkiest self and raise his hand before speaking, that little put upon sigh. i love sassy! darkling almost as much as jealous and petty darkling which is saying a lot. just more of that. it humanizes him, i’m tired of villains who are forever stoic and stone face.

i think i about covered everyone and everything that happened in those remaining episodes. all in all shadow and bone is an amazing adaptation, really faithful to the first book. they made some changes to the characters which in turn changed some dynamics (alina actually admitted she wanted to be with the darkling. out loud. to his face. book!alina would never and book!darkling would never cry in front of her.) but it made for surprising viewing. it also made me become even more attached to some characters (the darkling let’s be real) which made me care more which is why i was livid when they started making a lot of terrible no good choices.

i was just really blown away by this show and the way the grishaverse was brought to life and above all major props to the actors who all just seemed to be born to play their respective roles.

#shadow and bone spoilers #sab spoilers #darklina #alina starkov #aleksander morozova #inej ghafa #nina zenik #mathias helvar #jesper fahey #kaz brekker #zoya nazyalensky

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spockandawe · 3 years

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I just found out about Word of Honor, and I enjoy watching it. Glad found your blog...I see that you already finished the novel, can I ask about the characterization of wen kexing, zhou zishu and scorpion king (my 3 fav characters) between the novel and drama? I know there must be a bit of change (for adaptaions), but is it the change really big between book and drama? Which one that you prefer?

So! This is a really interesting question. I just finished gluing together a bunch of books, so forgive me if I’m really loopy, but this whole thing fascinates me right now and I was thinking about it all while I was playing with glue, so let me answer it and queue it up for a reasonable hour.

The easy one is the scorpion king. He is completely different between novel and show, as in that he’s a whole nother character. In the book, there’s no xie’er, just some mercenary dude. I do definitely favor the show here, because I’m a sucker for a beautiful alarmingly murder-happy boy who is being exploited via his emotional needs, and like, that boy is gorgeous. In the book, that character does not exist. What we have as the scorpion king is some dude with a hell of a voyeurism kink and a gambling addiction. He leads a group of mercenaries and gets involved in similar aspects of the plot, but there’s no emotional entanglement between him and the rest of the story.

Now, I don’t dislike him, Zhou Zishu (and Wen Kexing) show up to crash his place, looking for information, and he’s like cool cool cool, so, let’s make this interesting, why don’t we gamble on it? If you win, you get info, and if I win, you two put on a sexy show for me (wen kexing is like oh no we could never but i mean if you INSIST--), and then the contest is to see who can... eat more needles. But he’s ultimately a much flatter character than Xie’er is, and he doesn’t come packaged with piles of daddy issues, so I’m way more into the show version.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing... I want to say that characterization is very consistent between the show and the book, and the main differences stem from the different constraints of the two mediums. Like, the easy one is that in the show, they have to hold back on the gay romance. In the book, Wen Kexing is very up front about his sexual/romantic interest from the start, and Zhou Zishu knows it. There’s also no shixiong/shidi dynamic. In both stories, Zhou Zishu is used to keeping people at arm’s length and has a thin face, and gradually softens up with Wen Kexing as the story progresses. In the show, you get a sharp boost to intimacy when the shixiong/shidi reveal happens, but in the book, he unfurls more slowly over time.

There’s a while where he basically allows Wen Kexing to take liberties, without either pushing him away or reciprocating, and I’m not all the way through the show yet, but I don’t think there’s a stiff, awkward, uncertain period like that in there (and it’s resolved when he asks Wen Kexing how sincere he is about Wanting him, and they almost have sex before weird scorpion man interrupts them, so I have no idea if the show will even try to adapt that scene)

And like happened when I first watched The Untamed, I’m frequently awed by how much a good actor can add to a story through body language and microexpressions that a book just can’t capture, and it’s an especially lovely story element for a plot where so much revolves around that central relationship. I can’t necessarily differentiate between book characterization and show characterization when it comes to this, because they’ve just fused into a seamless whole in my head, but I really am a huge proponent of consuming both forms of media for this exact reason. They don’t clash, and each enhances the other.

OH, the other thing I made note of while I was working. I can’t confirm, because i’m still mid-show, but I’m almost positive that the nature of Wen Kexing’s damage is a notable point of difference (to me, at least?) between the two plots. In both, he had parents, who (I assume) died horribly, with him finding their bodies very directly, leaving him traumatized and alone at a young age. In the book, he was just alone until he took in Gu Xiang (when they were both terribly young)

“I was a child too, and stumbled many times over the course of raising her. I burnt her mouth the first time I fed her congee— For Ah-Xiang to survive until now, it wasn’t easy on me, but in truth... it wasn’t easy on her too.”

Now, I’m not super sure how the show will do this exactly, but no matter how his parents die, even if he finds them like he did in the book (very gruesome, so i kinda doubt the show will go there too explicitly), he still had a shifu and a shixiong somewhere out there, and the gifsets I’ve seen tell me that he cherishes that memory, even if he thinks that he’s stained/corrupted/etc and would only be a disappointment to them. I’m pretty positive I’m in fanon territory here, unless the show gives me some conversations I’m not really expecting, but I think it is a notable change to go from ‘everyone in the world who ever loved me is dead’ to ‘my parents are dead, and even if my shifu and shixiong would hate me now, they loved me once.’ It informs... the nature of how he becomes emotionally dependent on Zhou Zishu and vice versa. Adding that relationship changes a lot of subtle things about how they relate to the world and each other, and I’m not mad about it, it’s just Different (and i narrowly prefer the book).

So! For the scorpion king, the character has been remade entirely, and the novel one is fun enough, but the show version is an incomparable DELIGHT. Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing have pretty consistent characterization, I think, but the different plots mean that slightly different parts of their personalities are revealed. I think both the actors put a ton of work into trying to be faithful to the original characters while they were acting, and it shows. I narrowly prefer the book, but that’s more about plot than the characters themselves. My recommended way to read the book is with at least some clips/gifs of the major characters in action, which is what I did for both mdzs and tyk, and it’s working out for me REAL well so far. So I definitely recommend it! It was a book I enjoyed a whole lot.

#spock replies #word of honor #faraway wanderers #xie'er baby you deserved to be in that book #just like you deserve a not-garbage dad #Anonymous

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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years

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General gripes about DS9 and gender (some spoilers) (content notes: some references to sexual abuse/trauma, and specifically spiritual abuse/sexual misconduct in religious leaders, also death/murder):

I swear to fuck these people do not know how to write female characters without shoehorning them into romance plotlines. (Or weird fucked up stuff, like when that Cardassian serial murderer kidnaps Kira.) Especially noticeable with Ziyal -- when Kira takes her to DS9, the writers apparently can't think of a single thing to do with a young woman other than ship her with a much older Cardassian. Then, she's starting to get her own life and make a name for her as an artist, and they fucking refridgerator her. The fuck. (And: the focus is on how her death affects Dukat, that fucker. Which, obviously sure it's going to affect him...but it's also going to affect Kira, who sees Ziyal as like a younger version of herself and was trying to protect her. And then Ziyal dies. That should have some sort of effect on Kira! And did no one else on the station make any sort of connection with her when she was there?) This is arguably not primarily a gender thing, but it is partly a gender thing: the show keeps demanding Kira find sympathy for her oppressors, over and over again. (This is a gripe fest: of course there's a lot of things about Kira's character that are done really well.) She keeps getting thrown in situations that show (some) Cardassians in more nuanced lights and that more or less force her into relationships with them, while meanwhile her old resistance cell friends all get killed off, her parents are dead, if she has any other family we don't hear about it, and she's basically left with no Bajoran friends even, as far as we know. She gets Bajoran lovers who... OK, about that. First, Vedek Bareil. Now, Bajorans are shown to have a pretty relaxed attitude towards their clergy (eg Kira is frequently rude to Winn even after she becomes Kai with apparently no consequences) -- but still. Vedek is roughly equivalent to, what, cardinal? He's high up in the heirarchy. And, he's put himself in a role of spiritual authority relative to Kira: she gets access to one of the Orbs through him. They've got a power imbalance and one that's connected to Kira's ability to do her religion. I don't care what the social norms are on Bajor that is 100% sexual misconduct on Bareil's part. If something went wrong in their relationship, it could fuck up Kira's connection to her faith. And in the show it's presented as no big deal.

(Star Trek seems to be aware of this when it comes to ship's captains! For all that Kirk notoriously fucks everyone, he never voluntarily (/outside of the mirror universe, outside of odd transporter malfunctions that split him into two parts, etc) came on to a crew member. But it's no less important for religious authorities.) (Also: this has nothing to do with celebacy. I'm fine with Bajoran religious figures being allowed to have sex and being allowed to have sex outside of marriage. But: a religious leader having a sexual relationship with someone who they're in a pastoral relationship to is wrong, and while Bareil isn't exactly Kira's pastor I think there is some level of, he's providing spiritual guidance to her. That means she's off limits to him, or should be. In the same way that bosses shouldn't fuck their direct reports, college professors shouldn't fuck their students, therapists definitely shouldn't fuck their patients, etc. Regardless of how they handle their sex life outside of those restrictions. And regardless of whether there's love involved or not -- romantic love absolutely does not make it better.) And then there's Shakaar, the former leader of her resistance cell. That she joined as a teenager. It's...yeah, it's been many years, yeah she's not directly under him any more, and yeah goodness knows a band of resistance fighters is probably not going to have a clearly written up sexual harassment policy so it's not necessarily unrealistic...it's not as blatantly "oh god no" as Bareil, but it's got some...is anyone thinking of potential abuse of power issues here? Anyone?

There was one episode where Jake and Nog were double-dating and it goes badly due to Ferengi, uh, gender roles not meshing well with Federation egalatarianism. And, then the rest of the episode is all about how they're going to repair their friendship. And I was thinking: we didn't see either female character either before or after, and why is a sexism issue being shown from the lens of "how can I, a nice guy, stay friends with my male friend who has sexism issues" and not "how am I, a young woman, going to deal with this affront to my basic personhood" or "how am I, a young woman, going to repair my friendship now that I talked my friend into a double date so I could date the guy I liked but his friend turned out to be garbage?" Like...out of all the potential relationships there, why is Jake's friendship with a guy with sexism issues (who's made it clear he's not going to change, at least as far as dating goes) the one presented as being in most need of preservation? I know, it's because Jake and Nog are more central characters and their friendship has been significant in the show for seasons now. But...that just brings up more questions. Like why does this show have a significant bro friendship between two teenage boys, but there's no friendship between two women (or between a woman and a man for that matter) that's given as much weight? There's some bonding between Kira and Dax, but it doesn't have the same presence and significance as Jake and Nog or, say, Miles and Julian. (I'm having first name/last name inconsistencies here. Ah well.) Keiko has no on-camera friendships. Kira has no on-camera friendships that have Jake & Nog or Julian & Miles weight. Dax maybe does with her Klingon buddies from Curzon's lifetime. (Benjamin Sisko also doesn't.) Ziyal could have, but doesn't. Molly could have, but doesn't. Miles doesn't seem to have any (on-camera or otherwise acknowledged) parent friends (like...there's one couple mentioned who can babysit Molly at times? That's it? We never even see them?), which is weird because fuck knows parenthood can make it hard to have any friends who aren't parents. Odo's got his weird frenemy thing with Quark. Garak has his standing lunch with Julian (if you read that as platonic, which ... yeah, there's not a lot of arguments for seeing it as platonic beyond "they're both men.") I am, don't get me wrong, extremely for showing male friendships. Very much for it. It's just...I want friendships that aren't between two guys also. And I want them to be shown as significant and meaningful and worth overcoming obstacles for. Friendships between women, friendships between people of the same race or culture (or alien species, since we are talking Star Trek here), friendships between men and women that aren't just a precursor to romance. And...parenting that isn't just...I want to see Keiko have problems with parenting that she overcomes with help from other people. I want to explore the emotional ramifications of Kira being a surrogate mom to Kirayoshi or being a semi adopted mom to Ziyal and then having her die. I want Kira to talk about how her own upbringing in times of famine and war and occupation affects her sense of her ability to potentially be a parent. I want a female character to calmly talk about her decision to not become a mother and have that decision be treated with the utmost respect. I want the sort of struggles that male characters have with parenting on the show, like Worf's difficulty connecting with his son or Benjamin's conflict over watching his son grow up and get less interested in spending time with his dad, be shown for female characters as well. And the joys, like when Benjamin remembers holding Jake as an infant, like when they reunite after Jake gets caught in a war zone. Rather than parenting be this thing that mom characters apparently do on autopilot without any internal conflict or feeling out of their depth or particular moments of joy and amazement. There's so many plot lines and moments and bits and pieces that could be amazing moments that give

mother characters balance and nuance and characterization, but they only ever get shown for fathers. (And this is not just Star Trek either...look at all the kids movies that are about father/son or father/daughter bonding, and somehow the moms...just aren't there. It's so good when there are single father storylines, just...where are all the mom storylines that could be like that?) And why do teenage boys get focus and their own stories (especially with Jake in DS9, but also TNG has Wesley Crusher and Alexander, and TOS had one story centering on a teenage boy) but girls either aren't there at all or don't get to have stories that are about them? Ziyal's stories aren't about her, she doesn't get to form her own friendships and only barely gets to develop an interest of her own before her life is taken away from her. Molly doesn't get stories that are about her. (And yeah, Molly's a lot younger than Jake, but those are still choices: DS9 could have been set when Molly was a teenager, or the show could have introduced a different teenage girl as a significant character, or Jake could have been a girl rather than a boy, or Benjamin could have had two children...)

#incidentally I have no complaints about how winn is written as a female anatagonist #she's a shitty person and an excellent villain #I have pretty tangled thoughts and feelings on dax #she's had a few really great episodes and it seems like her characterization is starting to make more sense since her relationship with wor #moogie is odd but satisfying as an older woman who lives life on her own terms under a highly patriarchal culture #ds9 #feminism #gender and media #women in media

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im-the-punk-who · 3 years

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Could you post some more malex thoughts? What about that song? Or thoughts on them being endgame? Or season 3 malex thoughts?

Baby’s first RNM meta request 😭

ABSOLUTELY I can.

So I am gonna start with my S3 thoughts and endgame thoughts because everything else will tie into that.

From what I’ve seen, Roswell had 5 seasons originally planned, which is still what it feels like it needs to me. Which is cool! It also means we’re probably(hopefully, actually) not gonna get canon malex in s3.

The show has set them up as the ‘will-they-won’t they’ couple - most of their tension together focuses on *whether or not they get together* instead of if they’ll stay together. To me at least, it’s pretty clear the show’s assumption is that if they end up actually getting together in a healthy way(which they both seem to want in their relationships now), they will stay together.

If the show actually does it’s job right and takes the time to let both of them heal, grow, and experience other things that likely won’t happen until at least mid s4. It would make a nice dramatic midpoint for the season, they could play out a bit of that relief of finally being together in the late s4, and then whether or not they renew s5 they’ve told the story they wanted to. But if they do get a fifth season they can play with some hurt/comfort with Michael and Alex actually building/cementing their relationship.

As we’re seeing with Liz and Max, tension has to come from somewhere and where RNM(as most shows do) fails is thinking it needs to come from the relationship, which is what I’m afraid would happen if malex get together so soon after making the(at least private) commitment to get better for each other. There won’t be enough time for growth and dramatic build to sustain the afterglow and they’ll have to find something else to torment the poor boys with.

I don’t hold out a *super* large amount of hope for it, because like...this is the CW. But I do think either way malex will likely be endgame. Just from everything the show has told us and set up, I would be extremely surprised and honestly really fucking angry if they don’t. Not necessarily because they’re My Ship, or because it would be any sort of queer baiting - they’d both still be undeniably queer and I assume Alex would end up with Forrest or someone else in that scenario.

Honestly it would just be bad storytelling to set up your characters as having this deep cosmic connection, setting them up directly in parallel with our other pairs of starcrossed lovers Max/Liz and Nora/Tripp, dropping all the hints in the music choices(Holy Moly being the big one when linked with the Would You Come Home scene, but there are other small parallels in song choices - ‘Through Your Eyes’ as Alex walks away in 2x06 for example.) Especially with the literal confirmation that they both still *want* to be with each other (Alex’s song saying ‘if I got better and worked through my issues can we be together’ and Michael recognizing he’s got to give Alex the space to do that work so that maybe someday they can be together. ‘It’s not our time right now.“ “But it will be.” “I hope so.”)

Anyway! So, I would count a Not-Malex-Endgame as a bad ending, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get zero canon Malex content in S3. In fact given where the characters are, I think it would be an AMAZING choice to have these characters who are fan favorites and who everyone *wants* to be endgame - stay apart and work on themselves, and build all that TENSION( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) for an entire season in order to cash in for an s4 payoff.

Also, I really want to see Alex grow as a person.

Michael really started to change in Season 2 - we’ve seen him start trying to be better, dealing with his emotions more, recognizing how bad his relationship with Alex is and trying to improve with Maria as well as building his other relationships, too. To me, Michael is already very different than he was in S1 and honestly, Alex has some catch up to do in terms of working on his fears and how they relate to how he cannot stand to be around Michael in stressful situations.

To that end, I really want to see how Alex and Forrest interact, and how a relationship with Forrest might change Alex. We heard before that Alex doesn’t really consider himself to have had a real relationship, and Forrest does *not* seem the type to be up for a fast and easy thing, so I think he could really push Alex to face his issues around commitment and his tendency to cut and run.

Which would actually be really cool! I am not a Forrest-endgame person at all, mostly because he seems both way too put together and way too needy for Alex long term, but I do think they would be really fun to see played against each other and also just .... nice things for Alex Manes please.

Also then we get lots of Michael making sad eyes at Alex which is just *chefs kiss*.

For Alex, his personal conflict has always centered around his trauma, his father, being ashamed and afraid of being openly gay, and having enough faith in people to believe he personally is worth fighting for and my main wish for Alex is to finally fucking learn how to love and be loved in return.

So in that vein and especially if we see Malex as endgame, it only makes sense that Michael’s journey needs to be a parallel one of him finding something worth staying on earth for. He’s started to build a family for himself fucking finally - Maria, Isobel, Sanders, hell I think there is even the potential for Liz, Max, and Kyle to be family. And of course, Alex has always been his family. But previously no one has ever had his back in the way he’s had theirs.

From what we’ve seen, Michael has always been the one who gives with his whole self - both Maria and Alex comment on it - “I don’t doubt your capacity for love” & “He keeps secrets because of how much he loves Max and Isobel, not because of how much he loves you.” He is a character who has spent his life throwing affection and emotion at the wall and seeing what(if anything) sticks.

He took the crayon from Max at the orphanage, told Isobel he killed the girls, dropped his plans to leave Roswell for her, he both defended Alex from his father and didn’t stop him from leaving a place he was in danger, he let Liz experiment with his blood for Isobel’s antidote. He tells Alex once that he was glad that Max and Isobel had an easier time, even if it meant he didn’t. Michael’s biggest character flaw is that he believes he has to be useful to be wanted. That he, as he is, is unloveable. Or, maybe better put, that he is not worthy of the kind of love others have.

In S3 I want this challenged, CW I will fight you. I *REALLY* want to see him have to face head on his assumption that he’s going to leave Earth at some point and everyone is going to be fine with that. I want him to realize he’s become core in someone’s life again. I want to see someone grab hold and refuse to let go. I want it to get messy, and I want them to stay, damnnit!

I want to see Michael start making plans to stay again.

I said in a previous meta that I thought the growth Michael has gone through already would lead to him being approached by Jones with an offer to leave (so that Jones can separate the pod squad, so that he can use Michael to get to Max, something like that) and I really want to see what decision a more grounded Michael might make in a situation like that.

And what my tiny shriveled shipper heart REALLY wants is a scene where Michael is put to this choice of being able to leave and - despite being offered everything he has been working towards for his entire life - the relationships he’s built are strong enough to make him stay(again.)

(Hint, I REALLY want this to be Alex, for the plot resolution for them in S3 not to be ‘we get together’ but to be ‘we are able to recognize that we can BE there for each other even if we aren’t together’, which would lead spectacularly into an early/mid s4 get together after some light angst :)

I have a lot more thoughts re: what I want from everyone else and what I’d love to see from the non pod-squad squad (MARIA ALEX LIZ ROSA PICNIC DATE WHEN) (CENTERING YOUR MAIN CHARACTERS OF COLOR WHEN) (TRY MAKING YOUR VILLAIN NOT A FUCKING PERSON OF COLOR!) Also like, Generyx, Deep Sky, Mr. Jones, possible connections between them and characters who aren’t pod squad oh my god can we for one episode focus on someone else, etc, but like.....this is already so long so maybe that’s for another time xD

Also as stated like....this is a CW show so this isn’t what’s going to happen, but it’s what a I *DESPERATELY WANT* to happen. My interaction with RNM is VERY much dead-plot-do-not-eat until proven otherwise and I’m just here to no-thoughts-head-empty enjoy the parts of Malex I like and ignore everything else :)

I’m gonna use this image that Diana made me because honestly this should be a disclaimer to any RNM post I make.

#LMAOOOOOOOO SORRY FOR THE GIANT POST #this should probably be readmore'd but uhhhh your assasins failed to kill me during the night #and you must now suffer another day of my insanely long meta #long post #malex #roswell new mexico #rnm meta #roswell new mexico meta #michael guerin #alex manes #Anonymous #milo answers

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hashtagartistlife · 4 years

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Do you have a license for all these hot takes? ▲ Unleash the other meta conversation. Please give use Ichigo.

Or not, apparently I don't know how to read and missed that you already did one for him. Oh well.

Even though I’ve already given my Hot Take about Ichigo (see here), I figured I can take this chance to write that meta I promised re: ichiruki’s double protag status, the meaning of ichigo’s name, and what it means to be a shounen hero. This will also sort of addresses the debacle a few months ago in regard to the Only well-worded, moderately coherent and somewhat valid IH meta I have read, which is also primarily about the meaning of ichigo’s name and how that ties in with the overall theme of protection throughout the manga. (I think the basis for the IH meta – that Ichigo only ever uses the serious form of the word ‘to protect’ for ORIHIME as an individual, and that the other times he uses them are for broader swathes of things—has been debunked in the comments, but since I don’t speak Japanese I really can’t figure out the validity of either side of the argument so I’ll take it as it is. Also, when I say ‘somewhat valid meta’, what I mean is in the context of the narrative I don’t think it’s valid at all, but at least there aren’t major glaring logical fallacies in the meta itself. The bar is so, so low for IH meta. I’m not even sure we can call most of their…. text-vomit… meta at all.

Anyway. Petty and off-topic.)

So, here goes: the meta about ichigo’s name and how it correlates to the theme of protection throughout the manga, what it means to be a shounen hero, and why and how those two things tie in with ichiruki’s double protag status!

Ichigo’s name is comprised of two kanji – one obviously the kanji for the number one, the other a kanji that means ‘to protect’. We all know this. This leads to Ichigo’s name potentially having two interpretations: ‘one protector’ (or as the official eng translation put it, the one who protects), or ‘to protect one thing’ (the translation used in the scanlator’s versions + official kr translation). Both would make sense given the context of the entire story, but I tend to think the latter version is slightly more relevant (not necessarily more accurate— just more relevant), mostly because in chapter 19, straight after hearing the meaning of his name, Ichigo goes on to single out one thing (one person) that he wants to protect—his mom.

(And why does he single out his mom for this honour? Because his mom always protected him. This is relevant a little later.)

He then does go on to say that as his sisters were born and he went to the dojo and got stronger, the list of things he wanted to protect grew, so it’s absolutely valid to read his name as just meaning ‘protector’. But, despite that, it’s very clear in the text that Ichigo always has one thing (person) that he wants to protect above all no matter what. This is the ‘one’ thing that he associates his identity of ‘protector’ to. Initially, it’s his mom—because when she dies, despite the ‘growing list of people he wants to protect’ still existing, Ichigo loses his sense of identity as ‘the protector’. Sure, he still protects his sisters, but it’s duty driving him— he no longer thinks of himself as a protector. How can he, when, in his view, he’s the one who practically killed his mother? His ‘growing list of people to protect’ halts to a stop, and years later, we see him telling Rukia that he’s ‘not a good enough guy to stick his neck out for other people’. This is a lie, as we all know, but it’s important that Ichigo is espousing this rhetoric. He has stopped actively wanting to protect.

So, despite Ichigo having an innate desire to protect, I would argue it’s conditional – 1) dependent on the one person he wants to protect the most (e.g. his mom, and, as I will argue in a moment, Rukia) being alive and well, because otherwise he just falls into despair and rejects his identity as protector, and 2) initially dependent on the subject of protection being someone close to him. Ichigo, despite having progressed to ‘I will definitely protect everybody’ by the tybw arc, did not start there—it was a progression! He starts off very small and quite selfish – first, the person most important to him, his mom. Then his family. Then his friends. Then friends of friends, then acquaintances, then—and so on. This is why I said Ichigo is self-centred: everything he does is dependent first and foremost on the things and people that are most important to him. (Which is fine for a normal person! Maybe not so fine as a shounen protagonist, though that part comes later.) Ichigo doesn’t start off with some lofty ideal to protect the whole world – compare that to Rukia, who lands in the story and immediately demands him to protect everybody, regardless of distance or convenience. As dux put it in his excellent meta, this is an instinct towards protection versus a philosophy of protection. Ichigo has an instinct to protect, like most people do! But Rukia has a philosophy of protection, which most people can’t even begin to fathom or try to emulate. (This will, again, be important for a later point in this post, but for now, back to ichigo’s name.)

So basically, we have established so far that: Ichigo’s name means one who protects or protector of one thing. But whichever interpretation we go by, it’s evident in the text that Ichigo has a… tether person, of sorts, that he ties the meaning of his name and his identity of ‘protector’ to—a person he wants to protect above all. Initially it’s his mom. But after his mom dies?

It’s Rukia.

It’s blatant. Ichigo being unable to save Rukia in ch56 broken coda is DIRECTLY paralleled with him being unable to save Masaki. At the end of the arc, in having saved Rukia, Ichigo regains his identity as protector finally gets some closure re: the Masaki era of his life: ‘the rain’s finally stopped’. It’s very clear that Rukia’s importance to his identity as protector is equivalent to the importance that Masaki had on it. Rukia has now become his ‘tether’; Rukia is now the person he wants to protect above all; Rukia is the one, who, should he fail to protect her, he would fall into despair and reject his protector identity again. He WAS a little down about being unable to protect Tatsuki, Chad, and Orihime in the HM arc, but it was nothing like the abject despair he experienced at Masaki’s death + Rukia being taken away for execution, and as soon as RUKIA comes back and affirms his identity, despite the fact of his failure still existing, Ichigo perks straight back up. Basically, failures to protect people other than Rukia get Ichigo down, but it’s not enough to keep him down as long as Rukia’s still standing.

Ichigo also consistently goes apeshit over Rukia’s safety in particular. He’s not spurred into action re: going to find the Vaizards until Rukia becomes hurt. He thinks of Yammy and Ulquiorra, but his eyes don’t glaze over black until he thinks of Grimmjow, who has hurt Rukia. He refuses to split up and Rukia specifically calls him out that it’s out of concern for HER safety. As soon as he feels Rukia being cut down, he immediately throws away the mission to go save her instead. And most importantly – what’s the main criteria for Ichigo deciding on the one he wants to protect the most? It’s the person who protects HIM. Rukia is one of the only people in the text who consistently protects Ichigo, physically, mentally, and emotionally. (She is also the only person that the text refers to as having ‘saved’ Ichigo. Nobody else gets this distinction.)

Alright! So Ichigo’s instinct towards protection has a self-centred bent to it, and the person at the centre of this instinct has gone from being Masaki to Rukia. So what now from here?

A little bit of a tangent: when I first read the chapter regarding the meaning of Ichigo’s name, I was a little taken aback, because – what a selfish name for a shounen protag, for someone who’s supposed to go on to become a hero of the world. Heroes don’t get to protect just one thing, they have to protect everybody! How is Ichigo going to be a shounen protag saving the whole world, if he’s only going to protect one thing?

To answer this question, we need to have a look at what makes a typical shounen protag. Look at Naruto, whose ‘ninja way’ has rehabilitated countless people, who eventually became Hokage, so that ‘his ninja way’ officially became adopted as the whole Leaf Village’s ‘ninja way’. Look at Luffy and his crew, whose carefree attitudes and ride-or-die comradeship between their crew members is widely admired and emulated. Look at Fairy Tail, where Natsu’s guild is the ideal for what a guild should be, and many guilds have reformed in their image with their values. What makes a typical shounen protagonist, I would argue, are two main things: an indisputable, unshakeable, almost inhumanly good ideal widely recognized within the canon as the way that things should be, and the faith, power, and drive necessary to rehabilitate people to this ideal and change the world so that it becomes closer to this ideal.

Naruto is the ideal of a ninja. Luffy and his crew are the ideal of a pirate crew. Natsu’s Fairy Tail guild is the ideal of a mage guild.

Is Ichigo the ideal of what a Shinigami should be?

Not initially! Initially, he’s just a prickly little kid with a shitload of trauma and depression to boot! Initially, his instinct to protect has a self-centred bent to it! Initially, he’s not even a Shinigami at all!

This is where Rukia comes in. Rukia and her philosophy of protection is the ideal of this series – she is what all Shinigami should be. The text isn’t even subtle about this—Rukia canonically has the most beautiful sword (soul) in all of Soul Society. Realistic or not, Rukia is the ‘absolute good’ of this universe—her ideal is, theoretically, the universal ideal.

But idealism alone doesn’t make Rukia the protagonist-- Rukia lacks the faith, power and drive necessary to turn people to her way of thinking and enact change, which is the other key component of a shounen protag. This is the part that Ichigo supplies—his complete and utterly unshakeable faith in Rukia and her values, the power necessary to back those values, and the ability to spread these values far and wide so that other people start to take up these values as well. I said above that Rukia’s philosophy of protection is so far-fetched that most people can’t even begin to fathom or emulate it—but Ichigo is not ‘most people’. He’s a shounen protag, goddammit! He has the ability to take up an ‘ideal’ that for most people would be impossible, and actually enact change towards that ideal.

This is why Ichigo and Rukia are double protagonists. Not because they were designed to be matchy-matchy or because of their avalanche of matching titles or whatever else. This is why. They are literally two halves of one shounen protagonist. Kubo called them sand and rotator in the side A and B poems, and he could NOT have picked a better analogy for them. Think of a watermill (or a sand mill, as the analogy is given), which is used to grind grain. The mill by itself cannot perform its purpose any more than the water by itself can magically grind the grain. The water needs to be driven by the wheel through the right mechanisms, and the wheel needs the water to actually function. Rukia drives Ichigo, points him in the right direction with her values, and Ichigo supplies the force necessary to enact change. Rotator, and sand. One protagonist, split into two.

(As a completely unrelated aside, I don’t know what it’s like in Japan, but in Korea ‘grinding the grain’ is a euphemism for sex, and watermills are inextricably associated with illicit liaisons. They’re the eastern world’s equivalent to the western world’s stables- any raunchy business conducted outside is usually conducted in a watermill.)

This is also why Ichigo’s name wasn’t something more all-encompassing. He can ‘protect one thing’ and still be a hero – as long as the ‘one thing’ he protects is Rukia. He wants to protect Rukia above all else, to the detriment of others, even (as evidenced by him turning away from rescuing Orihime to rescue Rukia)—but Rukia tells him no, no, I refuse to be protected by you, you have to protect the whole world. This is why it HAS to be Rukia for Ichigo – anyone with less than the absolute selfless ideal that Rukia has could never make Ichigo into the hero. Rukia turns Ichigo’s head to the whole world, opens his eyes to the possibility of protecting more than those in his immediate circle, makes him selfless enough to go through with it. Rukia makes Ichigo the hero. (Big aside: I’m not using ‘hero’ and ‘protag’ interchangeably here. Ichigo is the ‘hero’ of the narrative, but BOTH ichigo and rukia are the ‘protagonists’ of the story.)

But that isn’t the end of it. I have mentioned, in the past, that Bleach is not typical shounen, that it is structured more like YA lit and should be analysed as such. ‘But Sera! You just spent like 2 A4 pages talking about why Ichigo and Rukia are Standard Shounen Protags together!’ Ah but you see, that’s only initially. INITIALLY, Ichigo and Rukia need each other to become One Whole Stock Standard Shounen Protag. Rukia lacks faith and drive, Ichigo lacks ideal. They need the other to support their flaws, initially. To be completely honest, this is an excellent way to start an unhealthy codependent relationship. The most beautiful part about Ichiruki is that they don’t go down this path at all. They start becoming a whole shounen protag individually, by adopting the other person’s strength as their own. Rukia’s ideals inspire Ichigo, and by tybw, he is as avid about protecting everybody as Rukia is. Rukia sees Ichigo’s unrelenting faith in the fact that she is a good person worth saving, and starts believing in it herself and reciprocates in kind in HM and FB arcs. This is where the YA component comes in—YA protags, unlike typical Shounen Protags, don’t start off with an unapproachable ideal and the power+faith+drive necessary to change the world with it. They GROW into it. That is what Ichigo and Rukia are doing—they are both growing throughout the whole story to fit their protagonist roles, so that eventually, they can become One Whole Independent protagonist on their own.

It’s a beautiful, perfectly balanced, ironic jigsaw puzzle: Rukia had the ideal, but didn’t have the ability to turn others to this ideal. The only person she turned to it was Ichigo, but that was enough—Ichigo turns everyone else to it as well, overcoming centuries of tradition. Ichigo had the faith and drive, but no-one to put it behind. The only person he put it behind was Rukia, and that was enough—she and her values guide his choices and actions, and he becomes heroic. Ichigo and Rukia each failed one criteria for being a shounen protag, except with each other, BUT THAT WAS ENOUGH. Affecting and changing just one person—each other—was enough to set everything in motion.

A couple other points that I couldn’t find a place to fit into the essay cohesively, but think they’re still worth a mention:

Rukia says ‘all souls should be protected’, and she enacts this by protecting Ichigo, who is a hybrid of all the different soul types present in the narrative: human, quincy, hollow, reaper. Ichigo, despite being such a mixed entity, identifies firmly as shinigami, not because the shinigami convinced him with their ironclad, lofty morals but because Rukia did.

If Ichigo’s main flaw is being self-centred and tunnel visioned + a weird sort of superiority/hero complex, then Rukia’s main flaw is probably the exact opposite - despite having this incredible ideal, her lack of faith in herself + her tendency to obey the system in all but the most dire, life-threatening situations. Even their flaws are a perfect balancing act, mitigating each other out. (Rukia’s main flaws I probably want to go into in a bit more detail some other time, since it’s not something the fandom in general has much discussion on.)

So! In summary, the tl,dr version:

Ichigo’s name means ‘protector’ or ‘to protect one thing’ (both versions have been used in official translations). The latter is more relevant, as I have explained above. This ‘one thing’ initially is his mom, but by the end of the SS arc, it has very firmly become Rukia, again evidence listed above.

This had the potential to be problematic, as it’s not very heroic of someone to want to protect just one person, to hell with everyone else. BUT the narrative sidesteps that by making Ichigo and Rukia two halves of one shounen protagonist, and making them work best when they are together.

Shounen protags require two components: an ideal, and the ability+desire to enact that ideal. Rukia had the former, Ichigo had the latter. That’s why it’s not problematic for Ichigo to want to protect just one person most— because that one person is actually the ‘ideal moral standard’ of their entire universe, and she keeps telling him to use his powers for good and not just her.

But that’s not even all. Initially, they need the other to become ‘whole’, so to speak— but they don’t stay that way. Ichigo and Rukia have an immensely positive impact on each other, and help each other grow to adopt the best traits of the other and become a hero in their own right. Again, this is why they are both protagonists— because both of them kept growing and changing, right up to the final arc.

So, even though it’s been said a million times before, it bears repeating: Bleach genuinely is a story about Ichigo and Rukia, both of whom felt a little displaced in their own worlds and had trouble making connections. They connected with each other, and only then could their immense capacity for good could start changing the world. That’s really the crux of it— that it had to be each other for these two, not anybody else. Nobody else could bring out the best in them except for the other. They would never have become this extraordinary had it not been for the other person recognising their inherent value. It absolutely had to be Rukia for Ichigo, and vice versa. It’s always going to be the Ichigo and Rukia show.

#replies #bleach #bleach meta #ichiruki #fangirl life #i dont often ask people to read my meta but everyone should read this one #i feel very strongly about this meta #masshiro--ni #q&a

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loquaciousquark · 4 years

Text

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E91 (Jan. 21, 2020)

Good evening, everyone! Sorry about missing last week; @eponymous-rose was out of town and I had some other commitments. Regardless, here we are! Brian is looking handsome and cold, as are Sam & Travis on the couch. Everyone is wearing coats. Is the heat broken?

That said, tonight’s guests are Travis Willingham & Sam Riegel.

Brian starts us off asking Sam if he’s remaking the Wire in Beverly Hills. Sam basically embodies that hello fellow kids meme tonight in a hand-knitted beanie from his wife, a bomber jacket, a yellow tee, and skinny jeans. They quickly photoshop in smoke trailing out of his mouth. We’re just a few minutes in and this is off the rails already.

Announcements: The next issue (#5) of Vox Machina comics comes out Wednesday, Feb. 19! It’s also available online at Dark Horse Digital and Comixology. And that’s it! Huh.

Episode 91: Stone to Clay

Brian tells us this is the first time ever to have Sam & Travis alone on Talks. I’m stunned and so are they. Sam says, “between me, Brian, Dani, and Travis right now, there’s four tens on this show right now.”

We’re already into questions less than ten minutes into the show. Truly this is a remarkable night.

63 in game days and 21 episodes passed between Caduceus’s first mention of Stone (episode 71) and Fjord connecting the dots. Travis blames the internet connection and his really bad ADHD night, as that was the night he and Laura remoted in from the hotel.

Brian tells us that when Ashley used to skype in, she could only see Matt & couldn’t see or really hear anyone else.

Travis says there was a huge delay for him between mouths moving and the audio coming through, and then that audio was pretty distorted. Laura could handle it okay, but Travis just heard a jumble and couldn’t parse it.

Sam took a CBD bath the other day and found it exactly as relaxing as a normal bath. Sam & Travis commiserate about taking baths only to have their knees pop out of the water. Tall people problems smh

Caleb & Nott completed the spell in less than a week, including dealing with the Angel of Irons & brokering peace treaties. Travis though the laughter was going to be Helas.

Travis says he definitely didn’t hear the name the first time (he remembered dust but not stone from the lava pits). “Look! Yes! No, I was not listening before! Thursday nights are my times to enjoy my friends and food! Marisha is an amazing note-taker; why would I ever take my own? This is how I got through college!”

Sam says he keeps a mission checklist in his head and has for ages. He has a page in his notebook labeled “To Do” that includes things like visiting Kiri or Shakaste, in case they have downtime and need ideas.

Travis asks if he continues writing in his (apparently) very small handwriting, and Sam says he has to leave room for Laura to draw all her dicks. They all marvel that she is actually a very good artist.

Travis honestly still thinks the Stone name is a huge coincidence, especially since Taliesin didn’t have access to Fjord’s last name when he created Caduceus’s last name and backstory. Sam challenges Travis that even if that were true, doesn’t he think Matt will find a way to tie it together?

Travis says Fjord doesn’t want anything to do with the last name and it’s not even his real name. He’s not convinced this isn’t a coincidence.

Travis did a lot of research into orphanage naming conventions when coming up with Stone. He does have a backstory as to how the orphanage manager picked Stone as his name.

Travis thinks Matt would have emphasized the Stone name more sooner if it had been a true connection and not coincidence.

Brian: “He does like to take credit for coincidences, doesn’t he?”

Nott didn’t think there was a catch in the ritual; Sam was more surprised they were allowed to achieve the milestone at all. He was shocked it happened so soon in the story and that the spell is relatively easy to cast.

He didn’t know it would fail, but there was a moment when he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go through with it. Travis agrees everyone was shocked when it didn’t work.

Fjord’s current stance on faith and destiny hasn’t changed since the last time he discussed it. Faith is a slow thing for Fjord and he really does think the name is a coincidence.

Sam as a player is excited to see what comes next for Nott; “if she had been transformed into Veth at that moment, I would have been excited to see what comes next. The fact that it’s still Nott makes me excited too. I’m excited to see more of Nott since she’s the best character in the M9.” He also confesses he was a bit relieved, in part because it’s delayed the inevitable. At some point she must decide if she is going to stay or go with the M9.

Cosplay of the Week: @kajicosplays on instagram of a lovely lady Percy. Brian: “Isn’t it fun when Taliesin’s characters live?”

Deep down, Nott knows she will do the transformation at some point, but at that last moment where she had to make a decision she had to check in with herself to make sure she was ready. Sam Riegel as a D&D player also knows that you have to trust your DM and make choices.

Brian misreads the word “ribbing.” Sam teaches Travis what rimming is. We all learn a lot about each other.

Sam thinks Fjord can realize when the time comes to set jokes aside. He thinks Fjord was very respectful. Travis has honestly forgotten that the conversation took place.

Travis has Dani answer from Fjord’s perspective. It’s actually pretty insightful, talking about how Fjord recognized someone hesitant to give up these newfound powers that have become intrinsically tied to self-worth.

Fjord has always been loyal, and Travis sees his protectiveness of the M9 as a logical extension of this.

Right now, he has found some agency & self-direction and is hopeful to share that sense with everyone else (he especially mentions Yasha).

Sam & Travis start quoting from Half-Baked. This is chaos.

Nott does want to stay with the M9, but she also wants to go home for sure, both of those things. The kiss with Caleb wasn’t necessarily a goodbye; it felt like the closing of a chapter. It felt like something to mark the end of the experience.

Now they’re quoting Beverly Hills Cop. Oh, boy.

“You look like you wrote Pitch Perfect.” When did this turn into a roast?

Fjord has no memories earlier than the orphanage (The Driftwood Asylum). There were a couple dozen kids there aside from him; Travis thinks some of them might have been named Stone. It also operated as a small child-labor workshop for carpentry & woodshop stuff. “It was a terrible place all around.” He has no images of parents or being dropped off.

Sam thought the Nott transformation would be more endgame, though he feels it makes sense that it’s not. “While Nott transforming into Veth was my original goal, what’s great about these long games is that your goals can change two or three times before the end. Now I can explore all these other things: does she want to go back and be a housewife? How does she rectify her obligations to her husband and child to the life that she’s made with the M9? It’s so exciting and interesting.”

Brian asks a hypothetical: if she could transform back but lose all Nott’s memories, would she do it? Sam: “Oh, that’s tough. I don’t know.”

Fanart of the Week: a lovely piece by @pen_draws with everyone in the hot tub.

Travis is very trepidatious about returning to the open ocean after rejecting Uk’otoa. He wants to make sure the third temple is sealed. It feels like it would be too easy for someone not to come and try to collect the job he left half-finished. He also wants to go back to Darktow.

Sam doesn’t know if Nott is still in love with Yeza, although she definitely still loves him. He’s playing with the idea of a high school sweetheart being exposed to the world and then going back home. But Yeza’s amazing, a great guy, perfect. “I guess we’ll find out when/if she turns back into Veth.” Sam feels guilty talking about him. “He’s a fictional character and I feel guilty that he might be watching the show.”

Neither Nott nor Fjord trust Essek. Travis: “He just went from being cold and aloof to being really warm. I know there’s been time and he’s lived an isolated life, but...time will show if he’s being genuine. All of our haunches were up. All of us were on level five alert.” He’s being so helpful that Travis doesn’t trust Mercer with him.

Fjord never ever considered becoming a paladin of the Traveler. “No. Fuck no!” The Wildmother reached out and directly intervened to save him. Travis gets super creepy bad vibes from the Traveler’s relationship with Jester (Sam agrees).

Nott feels more pressure when her own problems become the focus. It’s hard for her to open up and talk about her feelings. She’d rather pick up on other people’s problems. Sam also acknowledges it’s more pressure on him (and anyone) as a player when the whole table is looking at you.

And that’s that! Is it Thursday yet?

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts

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septembercfawkes · 4 years

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The Hero's Journey Explained: The Middle

In my last post, I started talking about the Hero's Journey, its strengths and weaknesses, and how it differs from other popular story structures. I also broke down the elements of the beginning (Ordinary World, Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call, and Meeting the Mentor) and decided to again use Spider-verse as one example, to help illustrate how it actually fits multiple story structures. You can see that post here. Today I would like to pick right back up, covering the middle.

Crossing the First Threshold

Armed with whatever magical thing she got from the mentor, the protagonist is now ready for adventure. This is another moment that I think can be a little confusing, so I want to pause and talk about a few things. Like I said last time, the magical thing may be real or figurative. It can be a magical pendant or it can be something like sage advice. The character may be armed with a magical thing without realizing it yet. Or the character might be armed with a magical thing he doesn't like or is reluctant to have.

In Crossing the First Threshold, the time arrives for the hero to officially depart from the Ordinary World and enter the Special World. Remember, the Ordinary World and the Special World are relative. This is the moment Buddy the Elf goes to New York. Or Elle Woods goes to Harvard in Legally Blonde. Or Bilbo leaves Hobbiton behind. Or Harry goes to Diagon Alley. Or Katniss leaves District 12. Or Lucy goes through the Wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

But in some stories, the Special World is more a state of the character than an actual place. It might be when a dad dresses up as a nanny to see his kids, like in Mrs. Doubtfire. Or a Chinese girl dressing up to take her father's place in the war, like Mulan--it's a "special world," for the character. And of course, it might have nothing to do with the external. The character might need more personal growth, and the Special World can be him now striving to grow in that direction.

The main idea is that the character is leaving normalcy behind and is now truly entering a new, unfamiliar, or different situation. Some characters may be eager to go, while others may be forced. But the Special World has come, whether they want to embrace it or not.

Just before crossing the threshold, many characters may prepare, by packing, strategizing, or praying to their ancestors (Mulan). There also might be one more external or internal event or turning point that kicks them out into the quest for good, like a sudden death, a new threat, or a change of heart.

In Spider-verse

The facts that Brooklyn may be destroyed and that Peter Parker dies are external events that kick Miles out toward the Special World. He doesn't just have Spider-man powers, he needs to become Spider-man. Acting as Spider-man is the Special World. So what does he do? He prepares. He buys a Spider-man costume, wears a mask, tells himself everyone is counting on him. He crosses the threshold as he tries to jump and swing from buildings. He is now in the Special World.

Tests, Allies, Enemies

Now in the Special World, the hero is going to be tested, make friends, and probably enemies. In order to survive the Special World, she will need to adapt, which includes facing difficulties (tests). She will probably need some help or guidance from someone (allies). And she will probably have to struggle against an antagonistic force (enemies).

Some of the allies and enemies may have been foreshadowed or introduced in the Ordinary World, but here their true natures are revealed.

In Harry Potter, Harry meets Draco Malfoy in Diagon Alley. On the train, he meets Ron and Hermione and Neville. And at school he meets even more allies and enemies. And he faces difficulties as he is tested (sometimes literally) by the Special World.

Bilbo faces trolls and spiders but also gains friends and allies. Katniss connects with Peeta, Haymitch, Effie, and Cinna, but makes enemies with Cato and some of the other tributes. She is literally tested before the Games, and then she faces more difficulties in the arena. Buddy, Elle, Lucy, and Mulan do the same thing.

The Special World also has new rules that the hero has to learn to deal with and probably live by.

In Spider-verse

Soon after trying to become Spider-man, Miles meets a Peter Parker from another dimension. And through the middle, he accumulates a bunch of other allies, like Gwen, Peni, Spider-ham, and Spider-Noir, even Aunt May. But he also gets more enemies, like Doc Ock and Kingpin's other henchmen. He faces difficulties: trying to repair the goober, trying to learn how to swing, trying to steal a computer from Alchemax, and is tested by the Special World--that of being Spider-man.

Approach the Inmost Cave

Now more experienced, supported, and familiar with the Special World, the hero is ready to go deeper into the heart of it--where some of its greatest rewards are guarded by the hero's worst fears. Near this part of the story, the hero and allies may again make preparations or plans to snatch what they truly desire: riches, success, safety, a love interest. It's similar to glimpsing a cave and then preparing and approaching it. Within the cave lies their wants, along with their antagonistic forces.

This is not necessarily where the hero enters the cave, but where they draw closer to it and its promises. There may be people and obstacles in the way. And if they enter the cave, they won't yet succeed in getting what they want. They will have to face more tests and trials and challenges. They may have to learn even more about the Special World. They may have to cross another threshold within it.

The "Inmost Cave" is often the most dangerous feature of the Special World. Sometimes this is a literal place, like Smaug's lair for Bilbo. Or the Death Star for Luke. But other times it's more of a state of being--where the risks are high. If it isn't the most dangerous feature of the story, it is the second-most dangerous. Again, though, this isn't so much entering and conquering the Inmost Cave as it is glimpsing or preparing and approaching it.

So in Mulan, this is when the now-trained soldiers have to go face the Huns. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, this is when Harry first encounters Fluffy, who is guarding the trapdoor in the forbidden corridor. However, I think you could also argue that this extends into the next chapter where Harry and Ron must face a troll that actually came from within the trapdoor--it's another glimpse of the Inmost Cave.

In Spider-verse

After getting the computer from Alchemax, Miles, Peter, and Gwen head to Aunt May's house, where they can prepare to defeat Kingpin, by making a goober as well as specific plans. There, they meet the other Spider people, and they all have a discussion about what to do and who does what. However, Miles is still not quite ready for the Inmost Cave, and there will be more tests and obstacles as they try to approach it.

The Ordeal

The Ordeal encompasses what others may call the "all is lost" moment or plot point two. In the Hero's Journey, it may be said that this is what the story is really about. I find that kind of vague, so let me explain that some more. What the story is "really" about is the thematic statement, which is almost always illustrated through the protagonist's character arc. This is the crisis moment for the character arc. It's where you hit the protagonist hard with whatever inner demon or thematic challenge she needs to overcome to defeat the antagonist later.

The Ordeal is the biggest test so far for the hero, and it will make them hit rock bottom. They will face their biggest fear here, and have to confront it. This will lead to the most significant, personal growth.

In the Hero's Journey, this is a sort of death and rebirth. Sometimes this is literal--the hero may literally die and be revived. But it's often figurative--the old them dies and a new them is then reborn.

But of course, something needs to bring about that moment--a powerful obstacle or opponent. This is essentially the climax of the middle segment.

In Mulan, The Ordeal occurs after she is injured saving the soldiers from the Huns, when she is found to be a woman--one of her biggest fears. She is told that she will bring dishonor to her family, that she is a disgrace--her other biggest fear. This directly hits the theme topics of the film: honor and gender equality. She is sent away and at her lowest low.

But soon, she will be reborn as someone stronger.

In Spider-verse

After discovering the Prowler is his uncle, Miles runs away back to Aunt May's house and is followed. This leads to a fight, where Prowler dies, and the other Spider people have to explain to Miles that he isn't ready yet to be Spider-Man. To make the moment even worse, he has become even more alienated from his dad. This is the lowest of the low. It's a crisis moment that hits on the theme topics: quitting and perseverance, choices, expectations, and faith. For Miles, all seems lost.

#writing tips #writing tips and tricks #writing tip #writeblr #hero's journey #writing reference #fanfic #spider-verse #Harry Potter #Mulan #The Hobbit #writing advice #writing help #story structure

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summoner-kentauris · 3 years

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What does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir? (You can either just answer or write a lil story if you feel like it)

OOOO now i have thought in my free time a fair amount about what líf thinks of zasha but, and i cannot believe this, i have not thought about what zacharias thinks about líf and thrasir. full disclosure, book III happened to be going on when i formally stopped playing feh. i kept up with the story after that but, theres my obligatory knowledge base disclaimer.

also minor cws through this whole thing because i talk here and there about zacharias and his... mm, canonical relationship to death/selfharm

so, i spent a lot of time thinking about this one, and i keep coming back to my gut reaction, which is that i don't think zacharias would like them very much. i dont know why i think that, though.

PART ONE

i think a lot of it would depend on how they approach him, which is maybe why i've spent more time thinking about the reverse of this ask, come to think of it. see, i think zacharias could go any which way in terms of what he thinks of them. i think he could hate them, as two people who killed versions of everyone he ever loved, including metaphorically killing off the two people closest to him.

i think he could love him, having seen the hell (ha ha literally) that they went through. understanding what that feels like. given the way he talks about his suicide attempts, and honestly that he spent most of book I trying to get people to kill him, really his whole relationship to death. i mean the man talks a lot about death and killing. he might not be the feh OC who best understands how manipulative and... whats a good word. alluring? what im trying to say is that besides eir, he might be the one most likely to understand why Hel and hel's offer appealed to líf and thrasir. i feel like this bit has a place here: "With his dying breath...he begged for his life. He called out your names! "I'll do anything you ask! Just let me live!" excepting of course that i still am not sure if i think he said/thought that or not. ive never been sure who really is in control of speaking right then and there. Anyway. Probably he could come to understand Líf and Thrasir's stance, enough that he could care about them the same ways he cares about his versions of Alfonse ann Veronica

on the other hand, i can see him being fully horrified by the choices those two made in response. this bit: Not anyone... This dark god...seeks death. And it cries for the destruction of Askr. Like. Líf and Thrasir are intentionally enacting the same thing as the dark god's desires, in order to correct a mistake they made that, uh, also enacted the same thing as dark god's desires. talk about awkward. and i think Zasha, who has lived with this nightmare in his head for so long, might recoil from people who are so directly aligned with it. who wants to be around someone who has become, who has chosen to become, everything you ever feared you'd be? especially when you're nearly drowning from the effort of fighting to stop yourself.

i could also see him meeting them and it being incredibly, incredibly bad for him. i feel like, he puts a whole lot of... mm. what am i trying to say.here:

Yet it is you that says this, dear friend, and so I must consider it. I see the faith reflected in your eyes. Perhaps it is possible...

SPEAKING OF BUNNY ZACHARIAS I ALSO THINK YOU COULD TAKE THE FOLLOWING:

You never change. All you see is a lofty goal, even if you lack the means to achieve it... The idea that gods would fall by the hand of man is a fantasy... and a preposterous one. This is a goal that even our ancestors Líf and Thrasir could not achieve.

setting aside the obligatory wtf zash i know you know your lore (fuck, maybe there is no killing the gods, maybe all Fire Emblem victories are temporary at best and Zenith is the only one who knows it. but i think, probably not), i think you could spin a very believable scenario where zacharias takes one look at these two ambitious, arrogant posers and absolutely refuses to speak to them any further.

so, part one, i think that zacharias could think any number of things about líf and thrasir. which i suppose means that i think he's fairly neutral on the subject of líf and thrasir. makes sense to me, i suppose. i feel like zacharias | bruno has practice (regardless of whether he's any good at it or not, or whether its any good for him) at holding and maintaining separate personas, so I don't think the fact that líf and thrasir were alfonse and veronica would necessarily be all that important to him.

which brings me to part ii

what happened to dead zenith zacharias

if zacharias is neutral on the subject, I think a lot of their relationship is going to pushed in one direction or another by líf and thrasir themselves.

and, complicating matters (when do I make things simple?), i think their approach to zacharias would of course depend on what happened to their zacharias. correct me if im wrong, but i dont think we have even a hint what happened to him.

there are three ish options I'm seeing. one: as dead world zenith is further along in its timeline and as zacharias claims he's almost out of time with his curse, other zacharias died due to that before the war with hel. i feel like scenario one is the most likely to lead to a good relationship between main zacharias and líf and thrasir.

two: mr. professional "knows plot relevant things out of knowhere" was the one who found out about angrboða's heart in the first place. especially given "As destruction took hold, we joined with Embla to seek the forbidden heart...", which to me sounds a lot like, "hel was kicking our ass then zacharias showed up and said we should go get this mystical plot object from embla". thrasir even says she and líf weren't allies before the world went to shit. anyway. hear me out here:

Yes. The heart is sealed within an Emblian blood temple. If that seal is broken, someone will die each time the heart beats... Those who perform the rite are the first to die.

Now. Líf claims he was the one who broke it open, but he also was present for the war that followed and only after was he killed and inducted into hel's army. so. both of those things can't be true. i propose that the magic mcguffin located in a sealed emblian blood temple was unlocked by our dear zacharias and thats what killed him in other zenith. i think its possible that other veronica was the one who did it, but you know. its all imagination at this point. also, and i forgot this, but thrasir does go off about how she can't lose until she saves her brother, so. something especially tragic happened at least. and oh boy is scenario two a nice fresh tasty tragedy. so that's scenario two. other zacharias directly died as a result of attempts to fight hel

number three thing that could have happened to zach is boring. he's always off doing things, he could have just died off screen. i mean. everyone did, eventually.

frankly he could still be alive for all i know. the heart appears to take the lives of people in the world, not of the world, or else the summoner would have been fine. so, if zacharias was on one of his off world jaunts, he could conceivably be a-okay. well. as okay as someone who's whole world died. i don't think that's what happened, because thrasir is pretty clear about feeling that she failed him, but yknow.

líf and thrasir's reactions to the above

thrasir is i think the most straightforward. i can't really see her approaching main zacharias with anything but positive intent. even if she's only a little bit open, i think thrasir and zacharias will probably have a decently tolerable relationship. if zacharias can come back to a country that exiled him as a kid and let his mother die in a dungeon and then go on to not just befriend but protect and care for a half sister he didnt know before then, then i think he'll find a way to care about thrasir. you know, intsys could have had fun making another perpetual older brother character. as i understand it, xander gets brother'd a lot, he and zach could have talked. could have been fun. a whole, zacharias, a historically traumatized child: *arrives in a world* every currently traumatized kid in a five mile radius: oh shit this one's ours now. you know what im saying? found family except zacharias would very much like it to stop finding him. he's got important brooding to do. but anway, they didn't go that route and its a tragedy.

líf is... more complicated. i think scenario one creates the most positive outlook. i can see him still having guilt over zacharias' loss, but i think any of it would be overshadowed by everything else that happened. in this scenario, líf finally gets back a piece of the world he'd lost. yeah, it's not his zacharias, but still. it is a zacharias, who is living and breathing and frowning and asking why you are staring at me, knight. i think the two of them could get along rather well, although i see them having significant issues with pessimism. inch-restingly enough... the dark curse bades its hosts to kill askrans. and líf is, well. dead. so... perhaps... perhaps líf wouldn't trigger the curse like alfonse does. in that case, not only does líf get someone back he thought he'd never see again, but so does zacharias.

scenario two is just a nightmare. frankly, i initially thought this scenario would lead to líf just ignoring zacharias (out of guilt, pain, etc), but i was rereading the scripts looking for the spelling of angrboða and this came up:

Tell Hel. She'll erase those memories. She'll erase them all...

so, honestly? i think that in scenario two líf just straight up gets hel to remove his memories of zacharias (as an aside maybe this is also why he never ever ever talks about other anna >:{ )

in that case, líf wouldn't really have any reason to talk to this man, who causes this empty deeply sad feeling to well up in him for now discernible reason. and zacharias has no reason (or time) to talk to this standoffish general of the dead. so. that's a real ships in the night moment.

number three i think líf would still hold the same guilt as in number two, but i don't think it would be as horrifically tragic, so i think it's more likely he'd be willing to approach zacharias. he does appear to have even worse of a thing than alfonse about not opening oneself up to people, but i think that even if he's líf, he once was an alfonse, and being that this is me answering this, i don't think any alfonse can really keep away from a zacharias for very long. its a version of the person who once knew him as well as any other person in the world. like líf can't really seem to stop himself from associating with main sharena, i don't think he could stop himself from reaching out in his own way to main zacharias. and god does that man need some more friends. i think zacharias would probably be a little frightened of líf, and of what an alfonse could become. but i think probably... i feel like a lot of book i issues stem from the fact that, justified or not, zacharias thinks alfonse would risk anything, any harm to save him. i don't know that confronting an alfonse who literally risked everything and did all harm to save his world would be a comfort, but i do think zacharias would get a lot out of having someone who's already done the worst they can do. been there, done that, got the tshirt. i think zacharias would be a little afraid of what an alfonse could become, but i think he would no longer have to be afraid of... no, anxious about it. i think there's a kind of calm in having something confirmed that zacharias could appreciate. healthy? unhealthy? fuck if i know. i also think that in líf, zacharias has a friend who he can't physically hurt anymore. lífs already dead. been there done there got the.... glowing gel torso. i think, curse nonewithstanding, zacharias will always have some degree of tension and fear about hurting people he's in a relationship with, be that because of his issues with abandonment, of abandoning, of harm, etc. but you know. líf's kind of a rock. and he's already hit his rock bottom, now that i'm thinking about rocks. i think that kind of steady, placid deathness could really help zacharias. and i think he would find it soothing, whether or not he knew why.

plus he will be able to know that if the curse gets him, if he dies... he'll still have a friend in the realm of the dead. he doesnt have to be so afraid of leaving and getting left

so there we go! lots of musings. i have been thinkin about why my headcanons are less that and more elaborate branching theories, and i think it is because i would change my opinion depending on which story i wanted to tell or hear or see.so yeah. dunno which one of these answers belongs to the question, what does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir?, but hopefully at least one of them is interesting to read about!

OH also. i think he would be petty-ly annoyed about them cribing líf and thrasir's name. like full on scholar petty. probably showed up to the order in a nerdy huff excited to meet the actual factual líf and thrasir and turns out its just those two, sitting around glowing and reciting death metal lyrics like they're spoken word ballads. dont think he'd get over that ever.

#as an aside during the course of writing this #i have become convinced that ''I was powerless to stop it... There was nothing I could do...'' eir #could probably have interesting things to talk aboutwith ''he was all alone... there was nothing he could do to save himself...'' zacharias #anonymous #whew thats a lot of words #ill spell check in the morning #yeah right no ill spell check tomorrow evening #thats more likely #that was fun to think about #i hope this makes sense because i am NOT going to reread it #im going to go get dinner #sat here and DID NOT MOVE for ages #my neck is killing me #thanks zacharias

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storyplease · 4 years

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So I finally watched “Rise of the Guardians” and I have some thoughts about the major themes in the film...

Anyway, so I know this is a kid’s film or whatever, and I know that this probably WAYYY too in the weeds as far as thoughts are concerned, but what is Tumblr even good for if you can’t rant about fictional characters in peace?

Potential spoilers below cut...

Anyway, so the movie centers around mythical character such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, etc, who can be argued are literally and figuratively “unbelievable” beings that require the faith of children (not necessarily the actual knowledge of their existence) to exist. In many ways, they play by the same rules as the American Gods in Neil Gaiman’s story of the same name. But I digress (a theme in my writing, yes?). One of the biggest themes in the movie is the idea of a “center”- each mythical entity has a an unusual “spark” of something that makes them worthy (from what appears to be upon their death) of becoming more than human.

So for example:

Santa Claus: Miracles/Wonder

Easter Bunny: Rebirth/Hope

Tooth Fairy: Remembrance/Connection

Sandy: Joy/Peace

It is established that all of the characters used to be mortal at some point or other, so the universe appears to have a deus ex machina (the Man in the Moon, who appears to run everything, but more on that later) who “decides” when someone is to be bestowed with powers...but who is also rendered intangible to the human beings they depend on for their power to grow until they prove themselves (mostly to children, because children tend to easily trust and believe in all manner of thing without a shred of evidence, and would therefore be much easier to convince to pledge their loyalty to)...somehow.

One of the big parts of Jack Frost’s story arc is that he doesn’t have any memories of who he was before he awoke with his abilities. He doesn’t remember his family or have the ability to have connections with mortals directly, and yet some people do mention his name without seeing him, so it appears that he is able to scrape power here and there. It is also worth mentioning that all of the Guardians appear to be aware of and can interact with Jack, but that they have chosen not to for over 400 years other than a few times where Jack has tried to playfully interact only to be shut down or retaliated against.

When he finally finds his memories, everyone acts really surprised, but it seems odd that this would never have come up before, especially since the Tooth Fairy appears to swoon/love his teeth and might have brought it up (but we shall forgive her a bit as she appears to be absurdly busy running the tooth empire to end all tooth empires).

But the most important part of this revelation is that a lot of Jack Frost’s negative character traits are specifically because he is lonely and has nobody else. He spends his life interacting with a world that cannot see or touch him. Therefore, his center (fun/mischief) becomes twisted and he causes trouble.

When he realizes his past and is able to connect with both mortal children and the other Guardians, his character blossoms! He becomes confident, protective, fun and wisecracking but without malice or bitterness.

He comes into his own, and his power increases.

Which brings me to...you guessed it...the main antagonist of the film.

The character of Pitch is obviously the bad guy. He’s dark, scary, looks kinda like he’s never brushed his teeth unless the toothpaste was made of coal, and is in general menacing and terrifying. He harms the characters, terrifies the children and generally drives the plot for his own selfish ends. After all, he’s known as the “boogeyman.”

His main traits appear to be a penchant for darkness (creating it and hiding in shadow) and causing fear. His lair appears to be in a hole underground that is situated under an old and rotting bed frame. Now there’s a lot of this that could just be taken on the nose. After all, there’s a reason that “there’s a monster under your bed” is a semi-universal kid’s fear.

There’s even a terrible pun about Pitch having a great time in the “Dark Ages.”

The thing is, darkness can mean a lot of things. And so can fear.

Let me back up a bit so I can explain what I’m getting at:

Awhile back, I read an amazingly insightful book called The Gift Of Fear. It has a lot of very good advice on recognizing and using the fear response to protect your safety and your life. Fear is often overlooked as a silly, primal thing, especially when we talk about children and things that go bump in the night, but there is a very good reasons why humans feel a variety of kinds of fear, and many of them are actively useful in preserving your life.

Darkness is essential to life. The day ends, and night falls. Shadows follow our moves and do as we do. Even the human eye cannot bear blue light at night, and artificial lighting has been touted as all kinds of unhealthy by experts and doctors alike.

None of these things are actively evil or wrong, to be sure.

But Pitch has something in common with Jack Frost. And what is that? Why, he is ignored. Nobody believes in him (which I find silly to be honest because I know plenty of kids afraid of the dark or who have nightmares and such).

The whole thing- the theatrical posing, the big scary Villain speech...in the end, Pitch was doing just the same thing that Jack did when he antagonized the Easter Bunny by ruining the egg hunt with frost. He wanted people to pay attention to him, to like him. And because nobody would do so, he decided that negative attention was still attention.

This is backed up by the fact that none of the children are harmed by his nightmare horses when faced with him (they turn into golden sand when touched). They even say, even with thousands of scary black nightmares bearing down on them, that they aren’t scared of him and will protect the Guardians.

I feel like Pitch is overlooking a couple of things when he is trying his ridiculous plan to rule the world in darkness.

First off, he’s backed himself into a corner- he plays the bad guy, of course he isn’t going to win against the heroes. And to some extent, it’s pretty obvious that he knows it. For all his posturing, he often pulls his punches, and even when he destroys Jack’s staff, he still throws it down on the ground and does not take it with him because he is trying to get Jack to see beyond his limitations just as he himself has learned to harness the sand with his darkness.

Secondly, just because kids love Santa and Easter and gifts from tooth fairies, not all kids have perfect upper-middle-class lives like the children in this movie. There is a reason why there are a surprisingly large number of hand-drawn comics that deal with a child making friends with the monster under the bed or even being protected by said monster against an abusive parent or family member.

My feeling here is that Pitch hasn’t truly realized what his purpose is, and that he is actually being held back because....

Pitch’s center is fear.

There’s a reason he’s portrayed as having a lair under a shabby, rotting bed, in darkness. When he was human, his life must have been hellish. I can imagine him hiding in the shadows of his room, crouched under the bed in darkness because the fear of what his father or mother might do to him was eating him alive. In fact, he may have died in that manner, terrified out of his mind and knowing only the darkness to hide him. If this is what the Man in the Moon deemed worthy to change him into his post-mortal form, then is any of this truly his fault?

I might say...no. Being awoken from a hellish world where you are in constant fear to a world in which fear and darkness are the only thing that strengthen you would be its own sort of hell.

We don’t get to see Pitch’s past, but ostensibly the Tooth Fairy has it and knows of it. A tooth is knocked out at the end, so ostensibly it will go in Pitch’s box, or the box of whoever he was when he was mortal.

But furthermore, what if Pitch were able to change the way he thinks about his power and his strength? What if he uses his darkness to conceal children who are in danger, or helps those who are imprisoned to escape? What if he guides children away from danger by using their fear to guide them? What I am saying is that “playing the villain” seems to be the most obvious thing when you’ve only ever known an existence in which you are hated and told you are wrong and bad.

However, if we really sit down and think about it, colored eggs and toys are no more “good” than shielding the weak and vulnerable with your shadows and putting the fear of...something that bumps in the night in the hearts of predators while guiding the fear of the young from forks in outlets and jumps from high places.

In the end, locking a being like Pitch away is a foolish idea because in his loneliness in the darkness, his fear and terror will only grow, driving him into madness in his isolation. Pitch not only has to learn to conquer his own fears (fear or being rejected, fear of being hated) but to also realize that he can be more than a flat villainous character if he wishes to thrive.

He just has to get past the fear.

#rise of the guardians #meta #jack frost #pitch #on fear #on lonliness #tw for light descriptions of abusive behavior

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prolifeproliberty · 4 years

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Hi, I love your blog! I'm Catholic and genuinely curious about which beliefs differ between Catholics and Lutherans. I think my grandpa was Lutheran at one point but he never really talked about it and I'd really like to know! I know inn general we believe a lot of the same things, but what are the differences? Stay safe and healthy!

Hi @soxrox12, sorry this answer took so long! I wanted to take the time to explain everything as clearly as possible and give you a thorough answer.

The basics of what Lutherans believe (what we teach to adolescents and those new to the faith in Confirmation) can be found in the Small Catechism. If you want a more in depth version and don’t mind some more academic language, you can read the Large Catechism. If you’re a total theology/history nerd and want to read about the back and forth arguments between the original Lutherans, the Catholic Church, and other Protestants, the rest of the Book of Concord has all that and more!

To really understand the differences, we have to go back to the origins of Lutheranism with Martin Luther in the early 16th century. Luther was a Catholic priest who, in his studies of scripture, saw major discrepancies between what the Catholic Church was teaching the common people (many of whom couldn’t read and very few of whom had access to the Bible outside of hearing scripture read at Mass) and what he saw in scripture.

The Catholic Church today is not the same as it was in the 16th century, but we still have some major differences. I apologize if I get some Catholic beliefs wrong here, I’m basing this on my understanding of Catholic teaching from my research and from talking to Catholic friends.

I’m putting this all below the cut so I don’t flood everyone’s dash with this extremely long post!

Christian Freedom: Luther had a big problem with the church requiring Christians to observe certain traditions and festivals as a matter of law or obligation. Unless something is specifically commanded in Scripture, it’s optional or a matter of Christian freedom (aka it might be a good idea, but you don’t have to do it). Examples include fasting for Lent (or in general), liturgical gestures (genuflecting, kneeling, making the Sign of the Cross), and so on. We also don’t have any Holy Days of Obligation - while we observe many of the same feast days and festivals as Catholics, we never say anyone is obligated to observe them.

Holy Communion: One thing Lutherans and Catholics have in common is that we both believe that Christ’s Body and Blood are truly and physically present and are truly and physically received by the communicant. Most other protestants see it as a symbol, or see Christ’s Body and Blood as spiritually, but not physically present. This was a big sore spot in the 16th century when Luther met with others who were questioning Catholic teaching. One story goes that he and other theologians were sitting around a table, and the others were arguing over whether Christ’s Body and Blood were truly present. Reportedly, Luther, frustrated by the back and forth, carved the words “This is My Body” into the table and covered it with a cloth. Every time someone (*cough* Zwingli) argued against the Real Presence, Luther whipped off the table cloth and pointed to the words. Jesus’ words on the issue were good enough for him.

We do, however, differ with Catholics on a couple of issues related to Communion.

1. We believe the bread and wine are also still present - we don’t believe that they changed into Body and Blood, but that the Body and Blood are united with the bread and wine. We call this “Sacramental Union.”

2. We don’t believe that Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross is being repeated every time we celebrate Holy Communion. We also don’t see it as the priest offering Christ’s Body and Blood as a sacrifice. Instead, we see it as participating across time and space in the once-for-all atoning sacrifice that occurred on Good Friday almost 2,000 years ago. Rather than offering the Eucharist, we are receiving it from Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.

Sin, Baptism, and Confession:

I’m putting these all together because there’s a root difference in the way Lutherans and Catholics view sin that shows up in both Baptism and Confession.

Like Catholics, Lutherans believe in original sin - that is, we are conceived and born sinful and in need of a Savior - as well as actual sin (we have sinned against God “in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone”). However, we don’t distinguish between the two when it comes to how we receive forgiveness. We believe Baptism washes away ALL sin, and that in Confession and Absolution as well as in Holy Communion we receive forgiveness for ALL sin.

In Confession and Absolution, we confess all our sins, both those we know and those we don’t, and we receive absolution for all of them. We don’t do penance or have any other steps. Confession is:

Step 1: Confess sins

Step 2: Receive absolution from the pastor as from God Himself.

And that’s it! We do “corporate confession and absolution” (aka confession as part of the liturgy that the whole church says together - very similar to what Catholics have in the Mass) in any service where we have Holy Communion, but we don’t ever require private confession. It’s always available on request if someone is particularly bothered by a sin and needs to hear the pastor absolve that sin specifically, but it’s never mandatory (see “Christian Freedom”).

The Pope, Church Hierarchy, and Tradition:

Luther also had a big problem with the Pope and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, as he saw lots of potential for and examples of abuse of power. He has some very harsh words about the Pope in his writings. Many Lutheran churches belong to a synod that has a president and some kind of structure, but we don’t view our Synod president the way Catholics view the Pope. A synod is more administration and support, with some ecclesiastical supervision (although that often doesn’t work out the way it should, which is why my church left our synod and we are now an independent Lutheran congregation).

We view Scripture as our highest authority and our Lutheran Confessions and other doctrinal writings as an explanation of what Scripture teachers. We do refer to the Church Fathers for clarification on some issues, but if something is not found clearly in Scripture we don’t take it as doctrinal.

Intercession and Prayer/Mary and the Saints:

We don’t ask for intercession from saints who are in heaven, or from Mary. We only pray to the Triune God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We learn from the lives of the saints, and we believe they are in heaven with Jesus, but we don’t seek their direct help here on earth.

We don’t pray the Rosary, mostly because it includes those prayers of intercession to Mary/the Saints. We do have several prayer liturgies like the Litany (which our church has been praying a LOT lately because it’s been historically used by the Church - including pre-Reformation - in times of hardship, plague, etc.).

We respect Mary as Jesus’ mother, but we don’t necessarily see her as our Mother or as Queen of Heaven or Co-Redemptrix the way Catholics do.

Essentially we say that our prayers should be directed directly to God and that the Holy Spirit is our mediator who makes intercession for us (Romans 8:26-27).

Monastic Orders and Priests:

We don’t have monks or nuns or any of the monastic orders. Those who wish to go into full-time church work can be Deacons or Deaconesses, and the responsibilities of those roles vary from church to church. Typically they teach (Sunday School, sometimes Bible Study or Confirmation) or are in charge of the charitable work the church does (food pantries, etc).

Our pastors typically go to four years of seminary - 2 years of classes, one year of vicarage in a congregation (like an apprenticeship, working under an experienced pastor), followed by another year of classes before ordination. Then the pastor receives a Call from a congregation, decides whether to accept or decline that Call, and, if he accepts, stays with that congregation until he receives and accepts a Call somewhere else, retires, or (very rarely) for some reason the congregation asks him to leave (usually only if he’s doing something really wrong and is unrepentant).

Our pastors are also free and even encouraged to get married and have children. My pastor has five children and I’ve lost count of how many grandchildren.

-- -- --

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the differences, but these are the key areas that come up most often when I talk to my Catholic friends. I’d be happy to discuss any of these areas in more detail or point you to specific things in our doctrinal books that address them.

Just for fun, here’s some similarities:

Liturgy:

Our liturgy is VERY similar to the Catholic Church’s liturgy. We have “Divine Service” instead of “Mass”, although you can find some very “high church” Lutheran congregations that do use the term Mass and call their pastors “priests” and “Father.”

We also have Matins, Vespers, and other services with very similar liturgies to what the Catholic Church uses.

Here’s an excellent example of an Easter service (and here’s the bulletin if you wanted to follow along) from a high-church Confessional Lutheran congregation in Virginia that I attended when I was an intern in D.C. This was their live stream for this Easter, so due to the small attendance they didn’t do Communion, but otherwise you can see generally what our services are like.

#theology #lutheran #catholic #liturgy #divine service #holy communion #baptism #confession and absolution #book of concord #prayer #faith #religion #christianity #confessional lutheran #confessional lutheranism

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phoenixrisesoncemore · 4 years

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It’s true, I personally think the universe is really amazing yet also really stupid, but maybe it’s because I think of it as another rough in-process draft of an indefinite number, to use your metaphor. But anyway if going by the premise + logic of what you say at the end of your post, how would one theoretically know that this universe isn’t the result of someone else remaking a former, even shittier/less amazing universe into something less shitty/even more amazing.

Hi, Anon. Sorry this took me a bit. I think that’s a great question (like, I can’t quite express how great because it gets too close to some other writing I am doing for me to talk about it too much right now, but it’s a *really* great question)!

[Note this is in response to this post.]

In the real world, I’m not sure there’s anyway we *could* know if we are living in one of a series of universes and most especially whether the cause of the “Genesis” of any of said universes was the result of the action of a conscious being working to “improve” on its predecessor, but it’s fascinating to consider! It’s really a *series* of great questions:

Are we in one of a linear series of universes?

Can we know if and how the previous universe in the series differed from ours?

Can we know if our current universe was engineered by a consciousness in the previous universe in response to fundamental conditions in the previous universe?

Is the current universe in some way ethically superior to the previous one and how would we measure that?

According to Cosmology

If we take out the metaphysical/theological/moral aspect as well as the “intention of a conscious instigator” aspect (that is, stick to question 1) it’s basically cosmology’s “Big Bounce” hypothesis (Einstein’s cyclic model, for example) where the universe doesn’t begin or end, but simply collapses and then re-expands in a cycle forever—Crunch, Bang, Crunch, Bang, etc. Something I’ve wondered for a while: if this is true, could there be any evidence available to us that past cycles existed and, if so, what they were like? I don’t know what such evidence would be (not that I’m, like, an expert :D), but that’s just a small part of the question you’re asking.

I don’t remember if the underlying “laws” of the universe were conceived as capable of changing between cycles in this conception—is gravity still the same, is there still electromagnetism, is there still entropy?(1) If we want to do more than limit this question to the material/mechanical “is it possible?” by looking at the moral implications(2) then we’d need for some of the underlying laws to be able to change.

There is an alternative to the Big Bounce: each universe (a) may create new universes (b, c, d, ...) through some action(s) either within the universe (a) or outside of all universes. White holes are an example of the former: new, separate universes beginning from singularities inside white holes in our universe. Brane Theory postulates that this happens when meta structures outside the universe called “branes” bump into each other; this would be an example of the latter. And I’ve seen versions of hypotheses for both that suggest the fundamental laws of nature need not be the same among the universe (a) and the universes (b, c, d, ... ). But as far as I know (and that’s not necessarily saying a lot :) ), no one has found a way to make these hypotheses falsifiable.

Still none of that addresses the conscious intent question, to say nothing of the last question; the last is, of course, quite subjective.

According to Religion

I’m not very familiar with religious/philosophical(3) conceptions of Creation as cyclical, though I know they exist in Buddhist and Hindu models as well as in the ancient Mayan religion. I’m afraid I don’t know which, if any, view this process as one with a goal or direction. Is growth and improvement of the universe and its mechanisms from cycle to cycle important in the same way as it can be said to be important for living creatures within it in these models? Furthermore, do any suggest that any such improvement is, was, should be, or will be the result of conscious, intentional actions? Can anyone help me out on this one?

It’s a fascinating prospect though. I’d even say it’s a hopeful prospect (and maybe, just maybe, not entirely out of line within the context of Tolkien—see below)!

[Forgive me if I get a bit over-explicatory and didactic here—it helps me to write all this out, even if it might be common knowledge to readers, particularly in the Silm fandom.]

For the purpose of my previous post, I’m speaking (somewhat obtusely) about Tolkien’s cosmological/metaphysical belief system which, at least by the time of the writing of the contents of the published Silmarillion, is somewhat in line with his underlying Catholic faith. The issue at hand, of course—and the issue that Tolkien was trying to “solve” (or at least consider)—was The Problem of Evil.

How does someone working from a Christian perspective square the fact that the world is filled with horrific pain and suffering with belief in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God? David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion expressed the problem thusly: "Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"(4)

One such answer to this question includes an appeal to Free Will—after all, if people are to be allowed Free Will, then they must be allowed to use that will to commit evil, even if an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God would prefer they did not, since that is the definition of Free Will. And this may be convincing for some—or even for me on good days so far as it goes—but it does not address the fact that the natural world, up to and including processes that are several steps removed from consciousness/will (or even life!), generates the conditions for suffering. Free Will may explain why God tolerates things as unconscionable as genocide, but it does not explain why most of Nature consists of suffering as an integral part of its mechanism: we can see the fear in the prey animal’s eyes when it hears the twig snap, but the predator has to eat, too. Suffering is required for the system to run. The story of The Fall as told in Genesis may explain why such suffering happens to human beings, but it does not explain why it happens to everything else, why The Whole Damn Thing Is Fallen.

Enter Melkor stage left.

Tolkien’s Felix Culpa

There’s a quote in one of Tolkien’s letters where he addresses The Problem of Evil almost directly. Tolkien is writing to his son, Christopher, during his RAF training during WWII. Christopher was the child closest in mind to Tolkien, himself, and I am sure his proximity to danger at this time was especially hard for Tolkien on a number of levels. In Letter #66 Tolkien writes the following:

“I think also that you are suffering from suppressed ‘writing’. That may be my fault. You have had rather too much of me and my peculiar mode of thought and reaction. And as we are so akin it has proved rather powerful. Possibly inhibited you. I think if you could begin to write, and find your own mode, or even (for a start) imitate mine, you would find it a great relief. I sense amongst all your pains (some merely physical) the desire to express your feeling about good, evil, fair, foul in some way: to rationalize it, and prevent it just festering. In my case it generated Morgoth and the History of the Gnomes(5).” —Letter #66, to Christopher Tolkien, 6 May, 1944

The cosmology and theodicy of Tolkien’s Secondary World (Middle-earth, Arda, Ea) is laid out in the first chapter of The Silmarillion (Ainulindale, aka “The Music of the Ainur”) and represents an attempt to “make sense” of a world that could generate the kind of evil he had experienced in his life. If I may postulate: the death, during his childhood, of first his father and then mother; what he perceived as his mother’s martyrdom for her Catholic faith; and the endless mechanized, brutal, and senseless horror of WWI.

The answer to this for Tolkien was Melkor/Morgoth, his own resident Satan. But unlike Christianity’s Satan, Morgoth/Melkor had both sub-creative capabilities(6) and was responsible for some aspect of the “Design” of the universe through his Marring of the Music.

In my post the “drafts” are the Two Themes that were sung before the Third Theme (most importantly The First Theme—the Perfect World). The Third Theme is the Theme that finalized the means by which Melkor’s Marring would be integrated into Eru’s greater purpose in such a way as to generate Good that is far greater than what could exist in The Perfect World. It is the Theme that describes our Fallen World.

As The Fall of Man is envisioned as a “Happy Fault” (Felix Culpa), a sinful act that nevertheless allowed the far better redemption of Man through Christ to happen, so too is Melkor’s Marring of the Music envisioned as the means by which greater things than could have been otherwise will arise in the world.

The Problem of Evil as it extends to suffering “baked in” to the system is thus “solved” by placing a conscious agent, allowed Free Will, between God and material reality, with sufficient privileges to affect the design of the universe (Laws of Nature) and sufficient power to enact those designs, however evil, in matter, itself. While that latter part is not unique to Tolkien (hello demonology), the former is not something I have really encountered in quite that form anywhere else.

Now, getting back to your question and tying it to Tolkien :).

At first glance it might appear that any kind of cyclic model of the universe, with the actions of finite, fallen, non-divine beings working to “improve” on the designs of their divine predecessors, would be antithetical to Tolkien’s increasingly Catholic metaphysic. And yet...

Pair up some statements he made regarding both the Primary and Secondary Worlds with the events of the short story Leaf by Niggle and things look rather different. Tolkien said in a few places that he hoped that the ultimate fate of humans, as fundamentally sub-creative beings, would be to have God grant reality to their ideas, in the same way Eru grants material being (reality) to the vision created by the Music of the Ainur. This is essentially what Niggle receives when he reaches the upper layers of “purgatory”: his Tree made REAL (“Ea! Let these things Be!”). Not only that, his experience of it and its reality is intimately tied to his neighbor, Parish, the man who in life was always getting in the way of Niggle finishing his Tree painting. And this is a supremely important point for Tolkien and its the point that Melkor rebels against: sharing in the work of creation. Melkor cannot abide it, to the point that he would rather make all of creation not exist if it can’t consist only of his own mind.

Indeed, even in the context of his Secondary World there are hints that after the end of the Universe, Men will Sing a new Music, supplying their own ideas for the Design of new Eas. What would these human ideas be, and might they include universes even better than Ea, Men having lived in it and having not originated outside it and having been granted a capacity for working outside The Music unlike any other beings in Ea?

Well...one does wonder....

Notes

I seem to remember that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is one of the reasons this hypothesis fell out of favor back in the late 20th century

And unless I can lay my ethical issues with Nature purely at the feet of the happenstance of evolution on our particular planet (maybe on other planets life evolves in such a way that suffering does not exist but all the good stuff does?).

There’s also Nietzsche’s question of Eternal Return (among other philosophical equivalents). However, I don’t think that required distinct universes, but rather merely infinite time in which matter might, by sheer probability, return to a copy of its previous arrangement.

I posted a quote from Candide not long ago. In Candide, Voltaire was directly mocking Gottfried Leibniz’s take on this issue—that our reality must represent The Best of all Possible Worlds because it is the reality that God chose to create. OK, sure, Gottfried.

“History of the Gnomes” refers to the tales of the Noldor (then called “Gnomes”) and the Silmarils that make up the bulk of The Silmarillion.

It wouldn’t, I think, be out of the question to view much of Tolkien’s divine cosmology as rather Gnostic in flavor: a supreme One delegates creative powers to subordinate divinities who enter into the world, much as some Gnostic thought perceived the demiurgic Yahweh as doing, against the will of the higher God. The (very important) differences being that the Ainur’s powers (at least by the time of the writing of the contents of the published Silmarillion) were only *sub-creative* (they could not create matter or material existence ex nihilo), that material existence is conceived of as fundamentally good (divine sparks/souls are not “trapped” in matter), and that the demiurgic entities are not themselves responsible for creating humans (who are positioned as their peers).

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theoretical-tactician · 5 years

Text

Okay, so I was sent that video about how Rhea did mostly nothing wrong a week back and now that I’ve finished all the routes, I want to give my own thoughts in this. I’m looking at this as someone who completed Crimson Flower first and is very atheist. All of this is going under a read more because it is very, VERY long and I don’t want to subject people to too much.

First, I’d like to bring up that a reddit post was brought up to me responding to this video. I’ve actually read through it before and I agree with points brought up in it (thought I forget bits and pieces b/c it was days ago). Anyhow, here’s a link to the reddit thread if you want an interesting read.

Still, I want to give my own ideas and opinions on this front. For easy reference to what I’m responding to, here’s the video:

youtube

The first thing I will state is based on the talk of impressions at the start of the video. It should be noted that while first impressions can be strong, a person’s mind can be changed. I’ll be honest that my opinion on disliking Rhea has not changed, but that came before even starting Crimson Flower because Creepy Lady is Creepy. My opinions on other characters has changed throughout, though as I learn more of them. It should also be stated that Verdant Wind is a copy of Silver Snow, but even more pro Rhea (which I have my own beef with, but deserves its own analysis). As such, the writer of this video would likely start off with a strong pro Rhea bias (not to mention how they speak of Rhea, so).

But that aside, I want to talk about the actual points in this video. The first aspect I will agree upon is that both Rhea and Edelgard make mistakes. Both are flawed characters. And both do things right. The two are opposite sides of the same coin, in my opinion. They have tragedies that back their stories and actions. They do some things similar. It’s just they way they decide to approach such things and their reasoning is very different and leads to very different results. Since this is about Rhea, I will focus on her. Perhaps another time I will talk about the flaws and merits of other lords.

The first major point the video brings up is Edelgard talking about the church wishing to rule the world. Which, yeah, they don’t want to rule the world, instead acting as extremely isolationist. Rather, what the church prefers to do is having an iron grip on Fodlan. That is in fact another version of the use of the word “world” as world can also just refer to a region or group of countries. I believe that in this speech and every other of Edelgard’s, her use of the word “world” is meant to refer to Fodlan alone. That is what is meant to be taken away, at least.

Fodlan is a group of three countries and is the world Edelgard talks about in her speeches, as she talks about it in terms of the goddess, church, nobility, etc. These are things she speaks of as specifics to Fodlan, conveying that “the world” is Fodlan. One way to take complete control of an area is to enforce isolationism, something Rhea VERY much does.

It should be noted that after the division of the Empire into three countries, they were forced to band together beneath the church due to the threats of other countries invading. This suggests the church having isolationist policies which keep foreigners out of the country, fighting them and not welcoming them as brethren. Not only that, but people must obey the church. Look at Claude’s supports. There is legitimate fear in him speaking out against the goddess because doing such a thing is heresy and he could be put to death for saying such things in Fodlan. At least, I would assume this much, otherwise, that fear wouldn’t exist.

The next point I wish to speak on is about whether or not the church actually split up the Empire into three countries so as to weaken the power of humans and put down her authority in those countries. Now, I’m no politician--even if my friends want me to be one--and I definitely don’t know everything about politics, but I can definitely say that the church wasn’t totally neutral in these conflicts.

I, being the nerd I am, actually spent the time to read all of the books within the monastery library to get an idea of the history of Fodlan. Of course, these books do have lies and half-truths themselves (especially since Seteth chooses what to censor (shit, I’m getting war on Protestantism vibes again)). Anyways, we can’t actually tell what the full truth is of what happened in the past as history is written by the victors. And the church. But I’ll do my best with what information there is.

First, there was the war of the Eagle and Lion. This went on for years until the church intervened as a “neutral” party to end the conflict and allow the creation of the Kingdom. The thing is, the church isn’t exactly neutral in this. The result of the negotiations is that Loog gets crowned the first king of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Rhea made a deal with the Kingdom that they would get their independence so long as they followed the teachings of Seiros. As a result, all of the nobles of the Kingdom are required to be devout followers of the church.

This in’t neutral at all as it acts as a gain for the church who wasn’t even involved in the conflict as far as we know, just benefiting off of giving Loog the crown. I would also note that it makes sense for Rhea to do so in order to gain control, considering that the Empire’s relationship with the church strained over time, eventually leading to the destruction of the Southern Church 100 years before the start of the game. While the war of the Eagle and Lion happened long before then, there was likely still some strain between the Empire and church which would lead to Rhea making such a decision to take control of the Kingdom in this way.

The second part is with the Alliance. As far as I am aware, the church did not involve itself in any way with the conflict, but the effects of Rhea’s negotiation with the Kingdom does affect the Alliance in the long run, as it split off from the Kingdom with some of the ideals of the nobles carrying over. You can see this most clearly in Lornez. If you talk to him early on in the game, he actually comments on how the nobility are required to show faith to the church, even if he himself doesn’t necessarily believe in the faith. This is interesting because he is an Alliance noble, not a Kingdom noble, and ONLY the Kingdom was directly given this requirement to follow the faith. This means that when the Alliance did offshoot from the Kingdom, they kept that same die-hard religious stuff. So perhaps Rhea didn’t work in splitting off the Alliance, but her work still lingers there, digging its claws deep in controlling the people.

We don’t know the full events of either split, so Rhea could have been subtly involved, but we would never know. And while the person in this video says Rhea is never subtle due to how we see her act in game, we must keep in mind that people change with time. She likely could have been more stable then, but perhaps not. So past history is kind of up in the air. Though, it also could have been those who slither, like the video suggests. The truth is, we never learn what happened during those conflicts as they are not the main drive of the story, and, as such, we will never know the full story of such events, leaving us only to walk circles in speculation.

I will make a small comment that it’s interesting how Garreg Mach is perfectly in the center of all the regions, though. Like, why was there no country that cut off and had no borders next to the church? 🤔

Onto the next point in the video. There’s a relatively quick part on the church exploiting people for gold and living in extravagance. The creator of the video says there’s no proof of such, but there is a very, very tiny bit. Due to Dimitri’s research on Lord Arundel in Blue Lions (this part can easily be looked over b/c Arundel isn’t spoken of much in BL), it is discovered that Arundel would give very large donations on a regular basis to the church before suddenly stopping (which was likely when Thales replaced him).

Looking at this, we can take it that the church gets its money via donations and the very, VERY expensive fees for entering the Officer’s Academy. I don’t actually know where all of the money goes and what it’s used for, but it seems apparent that the church gets quite a bit of money from the nobility across Fodlan and through the academy. And with the nobility across Fodlan, look back to what I said about the founding of Faerghus.

Many of the nobility are required to follow the faith and making donations is likely a great show of faith. And money can act as a great way of gaining power. So all I’m saying is that the nobility are giving quite a bit of power to the church (because they feel they must or are required to) and we have no idea what this money is being used for.

The next point is about the hypocrisy of the church leading Fodlan when they can’t lead an era of peace. Now, I can agree that the church has led a long era of peace within Fodlan for quite some time. But if such peace was held in a similar fashion to how we see Rhea holding it (i.e. sentencing people who rise against the church to death without providing them a trial), then I would consider it a false peace. That would be a peace upheld by fear.

Of course, there weren’t many large wars within Fodlan for quite a long time, but there were other conflicts that the church has done nothing about, allowing conflict to destroy the borders of Fodlan. See, if it’s true that the church is isolationist, the locket can’t be torn down and the Almyrans can’t be reasoned with. As a result, we have this eternal conflict in the borders of the Alliance with Almyra, a war without end. The same can be said of Sreng, as The Gautier house is at constant war with Sreng to keep them out of Fodlan. Again, no peace could possibly be negotiated if it’s true that the church has isolationist ideas.

For true peace to exist in Fodlan, there must be no conflict with the outer world as well. But to end such conflicts, the church should help work to create a resolution of conflict with the outside world in a more peaceful way. So, no, the church does not entirely keep peace, and while I have no clue whether Edelgard would, too, she at least seems to wish to make an effort to speak with other countries to try and end conflict.

The next point is about the Crest system and governance. Rhea enforces feudalism, which is not a fun form of government and is very oppressive. I will also admit that Edelgard does not change the government from that of the Empire. But it should also be stated that the Empire isn’t an Imperial dictatorship. See, after the insurrection of the seven, power was taken away from the emperor, giving it to the most powerful nobles, who became ministers.

The emperor can’t actually do much without the support of the ministers. We see this through comments from people like Linhardt and how there are subtle details about Edelgard going off to talk to certain ministers, likely so they would join her side and allow her the power to start this war/help prepare for it. Without the ministers, Edelgard doesn’t actually have the people and resources for what she needs to do. So this isn’t a dictatorship, but rather an oligarchy. This is even further highlighted as ministers who didn’t support Edelgard were forcibly put under house arrest or killed and another would take their place.

I’m unsure of exactly what power the emperor does hold, so Edelgard was either able to put ministers under house arrest due to her power as emperor or through force (considering the people/soldiers seem loyal to her/her ideals and has a few soldiers of her own). Though it seems she cannot strip ministers of their power, as it was rather taken by family of said ministers who then vowed support to Edelgard (i.e. Ferdinand, Hubert, and Count Varley’s wife).

Edelgard wants to put a meritocracy on this existing oligarchy, which either would work, or would fail. The video points out that feudalism is far preferable to the fall of a meritocracy and I’d actually say otherwise. See, if there’s anything I’ve learned from this semester in my classes that spoke on the world and human rights, it’s this: progress can’t happen without change.

Rhea keeps the system stagnant, unchanging. Fodlan is to remain with feudalism eternally. Or at least so long as Rhea and her church have power. With Edelgard’s meritocracy, either one of two things will happen: (1) a change for the better where the government will be more inclusive or (2) the complete collapse (fast or slow) of the government and Empire, which will lead to a new era of change where the people will pick up the pieces and create their own government that will improve the world. This is simply how progress comes about.

I should also note that this is a theme I see within Silver Snow itself. When you follow Rhea and choose to support the church, everything remains stagnant. This is noticeable among the Black Eagles as they don’t get their full development. I don’t want to make this too long, so I won’t go in-depth, but the greatest example is how SS Bernie remains a recluse, unlike CF Bernie who has learned to be more outward. A lot of Silver Snow shows the church using people in a way to try and keep order, creating an unchanging and stagnant world. This is what Rhea does. And this creates more harm than good. Sometimes the best thing to happen is when all falls apart and the people build something new on the cleared foundation.

Next, the video states that Rhea isn’t enforcing the Crest system at all, but that’s not exactly true? Rhea, in a way, is enforcing the Crest system by giving the nobles access to the Relics. These are powerful weapons that can easily be used to hold people at bay or kill them. To provide such power to a select few ensures they hold their status high-up as nobles. I mean, we have an entire chapter which ends with us being required to give the Lance of Ruin back to Rhea so she may bestow it upon House Gautier. And if you don’t give it back to her, she gets PISSED. She is actively enforcing this system.

Not to mention that once again, she requires many nobles to follow the Seiros faith, and follow her as a result. She asks that the commoners have faith in the nobles, which is another hit at her basically enforcing the Crest system. I’d also like to note that the only place where she has less control is in the country that has no nobles with crests of the ten elites (and as such, no relics). Crests seem to matter less in the Empire as we can see many powerful nobles who lack Crests (like, our minister of military affairs has ZERO Crests), which may be part of the reason the church has less control. It just seems that the Crest system is so heavily tied to the church, and it’s only strengthened with the lie the faith spreads about Crests.

I also want to add that Silver Snow shows that the most powerful people within the church are actively given Rhea’s blood and Crest shards??? So she is actively providing Crests to people in power which would only further fuel those with Crests being higher/mightier/more important than anyone without Crests.

The next bit that the video speaks on is how the one major wrong Rhea does is her creation of a false faith and outright lying to people about the past. Here’s what I have to say: Rhea can think of Sothis as a goddess all she wants, but she then forces this upon humans. The forcing of humans to celebrate Sothis as a goddess is partially what led to Nemesis killing off the Nabateans (as far as we are aware, though even that could be a lie, but it remains consistent across routes (Seiros was not the one enforcing faith then, but likely Sothis herself)).

After Seiros killed Nemesis, she created the church of Seiros, which seems odd. Why would you name your faith after a saint (and yourself) and not the goddess you celebrate? It seems odd. I mean, Christianity is called Christianity, not Peterism or whatever (I do realize that there are subdivisions of Christianity like Lutheranism, but that is, again, part of Christianity).

By covering everything up and creating a religion, Rhea simply makes a new way for people to worship her mother as she so desires. It allows her to take control of Fodlan slowly so she might have complete religious control over the people, as that seems to be one of her desires.

There’s a statement in this ending part of the video that really struck a chord with me. The video states that if the church put its beliefs closer to reality, those who slither would have nothing to manipulate Edelgard with. But it should be noted that they aren’t manipulating her. In fact, they weren’t the ones to tell her this. She gained this information from her father, the emperor. This was information passed down to her through the generations.

Her tipping point was being experimented upon so that she might have a second Crest which is also a major Crest. The only way this could have been averted is if the church never took control of Fodlan and enforced the Crest system, preventing Edelgard from possibly being harmed by it and obtaining a secondary Crest. But the only way to do so would be to destroy the Crests and Relics, which I doubt Rhea wants to do (since those are her siblings). In fact, she herself ADDS to this problem as she and all of the saints (excluding Macuil) gave their blood to the nobles who assisted them, which would further assist the creation of a Crest system.

The last bit of the video I wish to comment on is about Rhea’s questionable experiments. No matter how you look at it, what she did was wrong. We don’t know what the first dozen experiments were like, but we know how Byleth’s went. Sure, at first it was to save their life. But then Rhea became obsessive, wishing to turn the child into the progenitor god.

The video states that it seems like Rhea simply wanted Sothis to be reborn in spirit outside of Crimson Flower. But I don’t think so. In every route, Rhea makes comments on Byleth being a vessel and wishing for the power to overcome them, making Sothis return. It seems that the entire time, no matter the route, Rhea has desired for Byleth to be a sort of human vessel to sacrifice for the return of her mother. It is only when this fails and Byleth fights against Edelgard that Rhea gives in and just sees Byleth as being the progenitor god in spirit, Sothis having had passed down her powers to her vessel.

Since the video speaks nothing on anything of the war phase, I will also speak nothing of Rhea’s actions during the war phase. It is then stated that many of Edelgard’s accusations towards Rhea are either outright false or missing context, but I believe otherwise. All of them are true in some form or another, and we never know everything Edelgard does. Edelgard does in fact know the truth of Rhea, but we never know how much of the truth she knows of the Relics (though it’s highly likely she does and just never speaks on it).

It should also be noted that the video says Edelgard is walking the same path as Rhea, though from a different direction. And I do agree. They are two sides of the same coin. People struck by tragedy who wish to right this wrong. The difference is how they choose to pursue fixing this. Rhea does so by becoming some almighty power. Edelgard does so by becoming a tool for her people.

After writing all of this, I will say that Rhea is one of my favorite characters in Three Houses for her writing, and that is due to her tragedy. She’s of so much interest because she’s someone stuck in their past, wishing for nothing more than what they used to have. But they can never have that back, dragging other people down with them as a result.

Rhea may have done some good things in her time, but if she did, I have yet to see or hear them. Perhaps the church has done things to help Fodlan, but it cannot be ignored how much harm Rhea has done as well.

#rhea #fe16 #fe16 spoilers #golden deer spoilers #black eagle spoilers #church spoilers #long post

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