#even though they both commit insane atrocities

[zaundump]

Ok fine ill write more sinco fics lmao

[regnumveritatis]

Films made to praise Arsinoe/Perseleia in the Athenide verse

2) Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame part 2

Apologies for the long wait to those of you who were excited for this compilation. Had a lot of work to be done, and now the semester is ending, so I'm using my newly found free time to catch up on backlogged ideas. That being said, I hope everyone enjoys the lore building.

1) The lie of Arsinoe 'simply fading'

On the day where the golden Athenide 'faded' away from our mortal plane despite her cult having enormous success all through the Aegean and Adriatic coasts, the farmers of Athens coincidentally write on how they witnessed large eagles attack then proceed to eat the golden orioles hiding in their olive groves. Athenians of the time took it as a sign of tyrannical delights soon to be defeated at the hands of mighty Zeus. The high priestess of Corinth, however, took this news on an entirely different way and proclaimed,'Reason has been murdered by the State!' For which she was punished and declared insane as no one would believe Zeus capable of murdering the child of his favored daughter Athena. Here, the writers are giving the winning argument to that Cassandra-like woman as Zeus/Jupiter clearly chases and kills his own granddaughter and then attempts to apply roman law to her last kit. Her death also mirrors the historical murder of Princess Arsinoe of Ptolemaic Egypt as she is killed on the steps of Holy Ground by someone who deems her a threat.

2) Styx always takes her due:

Contrary to what the ego of Olympus's king would believe, even Zeus can not break his word or violate the sanctuary of another deity without consequences. The movie chooses to represent Styx as the archdeacon of the cathedral in a historical nod to how places granting asylum to slaves (the real reason the Romani went in large waves to France during this period was escaping chattel slavery in balto slavic countries) to be broken under pain of death shifted from the temple of Hermes and the Athenides to the statue of the Emperor then finally to the catholic cathedral where any who murdered within its halls were doomed to eternal perdition. While Styx can't prove Zeus's role in the murder of their friend, they can force him to uphold the promise not to directly harm his granddaughter's wards unless provoked since doing so will condemn him to Tartarus per his own agreement centuries ago. By this fear, Frollo claims Quasimodo (a name that in this universe is a taunt to Arsinoe as she has left her work unfinished so her son is half-formed) to raise though not without embedding the child with a lie that will falsely indebt him to his supposed benevolence

3) The Roman Mutilation:

The 'future' scenes from the beginning are done from an entirely roman standpoint as far as Frollo/Zeus is concerned. He fully endorses the false tale of Pietas Securitas as it suits his needs perfectly, spreading the word of her cruelty both to eliminate anything corrupt in his eyes and to create belief in his virtue for the mortals. Fides Nerio is also brought low as she is no savior, merely a minor goddess collecting the spoils of war. Jupiter is not the cruel god calling for these barbaric games of slaughter. How can he when he did not even approve of Dionysius's barbaric revelry? By reminding the mortals/demigods still believing in him of the atrocities committed by Rome and comparing them to his care, he causes them to feel guilt over doubting him and thus easily manipulates the situation to his control. Despite all this, people long for something more than what Zeus offers even if they don't know what exactly this entails which brings us to the part you've all been waiting for: the Perpollo shipping.

4) The introduction of Phoebus

Any hardcore greek mythology fan knows what the name of this character references. Shining Phoebus arrives at the city bearing the name of that loathed Trojan Prince humbly, his desire to be part of the people a stark contrast to the previous behavior of other authority figures. His cloak is Athenide blue in deference to his unyielding devotion to Lady Loyalty and his horse is named Achilles in yet another attempt to besmirch the reputation of the demigod who trampled upon Perseleia's blessing with his cruelty as he proves that Achilles makes a better horse than a human. Due to his departure from Galia and anything remotely Roman till after the fall of the Empire, Phoebus does not recognize the layout of the now medieval city. He appeals to the previous rule of xenia by kindly asking the city guards for directions and taking their indifference to him calmly. Their lack of respect is forgotten instantly as Truth's eyes gaze at long last Loyalty, here named Esmeralda.

4) The reclaiming of the name Esmeralda

In the Ancient Greek era, emeralds were sacred to Artemis, the lady of the hunt and twin to Apollo. The connection was done because they were the same color as the woods she so loved. As such, emeralds were traditionally believed to provide protection in the woods, which is why Cleopatra purposefully gifted her most esteemed guests with them to show her sincere hospitality as well as her wealth. The Romans, however, did not wish for Diana to share anything with 'the seductress of Egypt', so they changed the stone's patronage from her to Venus. In Roman mythology, emeralds are then said to bolster fertility and were gifted as tokens of affection and/or fiery passion that could help couples conceive. Even so, a connection to Artemis remained by way of her twin Phoebus as emeralds were also believed to have healing properties (emphasized on the eyes as proven by the emerald lenses created to improve sight) and mystical properties that would aid clairvoyance. By the middle ages, it's romantic symbolism had shifted from Venus' fertility and passion to Apollo even further as mystics like Saint Hildegard commented how they were believed to provide truth among lovers as one could not lie about infidelity whilst holding an emerald per popular belief. By doing so the Christian population unknowingly removed themselves from the grasps of Love in favor of Truth and Loyalty together as they always should have been. The new meaning is reaffirmed in the character who is inspired by Perseleia. We see a further rejection of Roman times in her beautiful dark skin that Ovid considered 'the mark of the poor' and her healthy curves with voluminous black hair that are a far cry from the thin, blonde aesthetic considered a pillar of beauty by the Empire. Esmeralda is loyalty free from the shackles of Fides Nerio as she dances with her sisters' outcasts. Immediately, she is drawn to Phoebus and nods in harmless flirtation that she dare not allow to go farther knowing fully the nature of men.

[soap-ify]

nsfw below , minors dni.

obsessed!ghost with lack of self awareness worms are invading my head.

tw : kidnapping, breeding kink, simon is insane.

-

You were supposedly the younger sibling of one of the men Ghost was assigned to capture for interrogation, and since he only found you, he captured you instead, believing that you would have some important information for him.

He was really the bad cop, taunting you throughout while you were helplessly restrained on a chair, fat tears running down your cheek, shivering under his harsh words and demands.

Though he never raised his hand on you for some reason, not hurting you in any way besides his words. and soon enough, he came to the realisation that you truly were innocent, not having know what atrocities your fucked up brother and his group were commiting around the world. You were just a poor sibling that happened to get caught in this mess. A lost lamb.

And Ghost couldn’t help but feel infatuated, relishing the faint glimmer of hope in your teary eyes once he calmed down and begin to undo your restraints, only for you to black out once he injected something on your neck swiftly, causing you to fall unconscious.

The next thing you knew was that you were in a bedroom you had never seen before in your life, waking up with a faint headache, your head spinning while your vision tried to adjust itself to the surroundings.

You were even wearing some different clothes now — a cozy pair of oversized shirt alongside some sweats that were clearly big on you too.

“Looks like you woke up, love.”

A gruff, terrifying familiar voice snapped you out of your momentarily curious state as you whipped your head to meet those stern brown eyes that made your skin crawl, your breath hitching anxiously.

Ghost. Though instead of his skull mask, he wore a simple balaclava, and also some casual attire.

It was almost as if you both lived together.

“W-Why am i here?!” Your first instinct was to shriek out, your body going into the flight mode as you tried to get off the bed in haste, only to be stopped by a pair of strong arms wrapping around your chest, trapping you.

“I am protecting you…” He growled, an unintentional waver in his voice while his eyes took in the way you were so scared of him. It made his heart ache.

Why would you be so scared of him? He was literally trying to protect you from the rest of the team that would probably find you through the connections of your brother. Ghost could never have that happen. Especially to a pretty thing like you who was clearly innocent. He wanted to save you from the ultimate doom, and what better way was there other than to keep you all to himself?

Why couldn’t you see that?

Also since he had taken such a liking to you, a feeling no one had ignited in his cold lonely heart. And now he was fully commited to you. Insanely and devotedly.

The next weeks flew by and you were still reluctant on warming up to him, flinching away from every little touch he tried to make, quietly obeying whatever he would ask you to do. All you could remember was the scary lieutenant who harshly tried to get information out of you that day.

But this Ghost was so different, and you couldn’t help but feel confused. No, you can’t even trust him. All you want to do is go home and sleep on your bed. But he had said that you would be in severe danger if you would get out of his house.

Was he saying the truth?

Though Simon felt as if you were actually beginning to trust him now, blissfully unaware of the raging storm in your head. After all, why wouldn’t you trust him? He was giving you food, shelter, even care. He was so kind to you, so it was only fair for you to be kind to him as well, yeah?

All he wished now was to knock you up, breed you with his babies so you would be stuck with him forever, being his lovely little spouse. That'd be the best way to keep you safe and happy.

[sphacelating]

i’m the #1 fan of andrew committing atrocities and being a rotten, horrible piece of shit, and the worse he gets, the more interesting he is to me. i’m far more likely to think the worst of him than give him the benefit of the doubt, i feel no need to make excuses for him or ignore shit that points to that he’s a terrible human being because i want this motherfucker to be awful. i even had a couple of early headcanons that i later dismissed because they ended up feeling out of character for him as the game progressed. i want to see andrew be exactly as horrible as he’s capable of being, and when he is, i have a fucking blast picking him apart and calling him out on his shit.

what i’m absolutely not a fan of is heavily biased, baseless speculation for the purpose of villainizing him that completely contradicts other parts of canon, that there’s no substantial evidence for whatsoever, and that actually makes no sense for his character or tcoaal’s storytelling. theories that some of you pull out of your ass and aggressively present as fact, because you need andrew to be as bad as absolutely humanly possible just to make ashley’s actions more palatable.

you desperately need andrew to be a rapist to make the fact that ashley raped him easy to swallow, so that ashley isn’t the only one who would cross that specific disgusting line, because if she’s raping a rapist, i guess that lessens the impact for you, eh? otherwise, you would be forced to digest that aspects exist where one sibling is in fact worse than the other, that they are willing to do repulsive things that the other wouldn’t do, and that in ashley’s case, one of those things is rape. you can’t handle that. you need andrew to be a rapist so you can watch the scene where ashley sexually assaults him, feel disturbed by it, and still afterwards comfortably say “they’re both equally bad, though.”

like my wife said. why are you people so damn eager to make a victim of sexual assault, a character that gets raped on screen in one of the most unpleasant and impactful scenes in the game, into a rapist? how are you this damn comfortable with reading into four sequences of optional dialogue that show and prove none of what you say it does, and boldly make the claim “this rape victim is a rapist”? insane shit.

[separatist-apologist]

Have you talked about the end of the acolyte yet?? What were your thoughts?

I did, and I am still collecting some of them. I'm conflicted. Qimir is incredibly sexy, Osha is also very beautiful and I love seeing them standing next to each other. I would loved it more if we got a full frontal smut scene with peen and boob- for academic purposes only of course.

I do have beef though (under the cut for spoilers):

I am really tired of the misread of what the Jedi are, and the edgy reddit talking points of "attachment GOOD Jedi DUMB" while trying to turn the Jedi into Catholic cops or whatever- that Senators speech was like...you know when you read a fic and you KNOW the author has personal beef with one of the characters? And so they use their fave to deliver the most sanctimonious, out of character rant you've ever read that ruins the whole fic because its like, "they would not say that?" That's how I felt. Okay.

It feels a little like the show runner has beef about the way R*ylo ended and is trying to right those wrongs. I'm terrified to even invoke the ship name because a lot of them are, how do I say this nicely, insane people with no boundaries. Osha's motivations in this episode were all over the place and didn't make sense at all. Killing Sol, for example- that felt out of character to me. Like the 180 that happened with Osha's character, it was like- they knew what they wanted to do, and they needed to get to that point, but like...it didn't make sense with what we'd seen previously

What was Mae's point? I'm asking genuinely because like...her whole arc was reuniting with her sister and then she just lets Qimir wipe her memories of Osha and it's all good?????

Darth Plagueis, my man...you good??????

YODA?????

I admit, the bleeding the kyber crystal was sick as fuck, I was mouth open staring the whole time like you can do that?????

My other thing about like...dark/light side romances- and I'm only gonna say it once as a SW enthusiast and not someone who likes to write these kinds of things- is that the little speech Qimir gives about "desire" is him MANIPULATING her. Time to pull out our power and control wheel for every dark/light side romance and be honest with ourselves. A sith can't love because the nature of the dark side is a craving for power. It's possession. It's more, its excess, its possessive and controlling and a constant urge to take everything you can get, use it up, and discard it when it no longer benefits you. The rule of 2 literally ends with apprentice killing the master and becoming the master himself, taking a pupil, and thus restarting the cycle.

I fully expected him to die, not gonna lie. I'm curious how this is gonna happen but I've shelved all my expectations so I'm not disappointed. I want to say things about the bendemption movement but I won't because I value not being told to end my life- but in the established canon, I genuinely don't see how this relationship plays out. either she kills him and becomes the master, or she moves back to the light and kills him because he doesn't really love her. OR he moves to the light and they're both held accountable for the atrocities they commit when they're evil.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

that you bake of this

I find it interesting how the first poster is accusing groups of TB stans of not handling criticism, when TG stans (particularly Alicent stans) are the ones most often "melting and crying" over criticism.

Pointing out Alicent's hypocrisy and cruelty, the fact that Aegon is a rapist, and Aemond was a coward and cruel are all met with screaming. They flat out deny any facts of canon that show how awful their favs are. I've been told to kill myself multiple times just for pointing out actual canon things Alicent has done. Like, the call is coming from inside the house TG lmao.

I don't deny that there are certain people who claim to be TB but have absolutely braindead takes (namely certain Daemon stans, which is very sad). But the fact of the matter is, those people are a very small percentage. The percentage of insane people who can't stand criticism is wayyyyyyy larger in the TG fandom.

Most of TG stans' so-called criticism of Rhaenyra is just calling her a whore, saying she roll over and take any injustice, and that she's not nice enough. Of course we get annoyed and angry with that, it's not even actual criticism; it's just noise. The few times they actually have valid critiques of Rhaenyra, they still tie it in with calling her a fat whore. Anything of worth they could possibly offer is always completely bound to their intense hatred of Rhaenyra.

No, Rhaenyra isn't perfect, we don't expect people to just blindly worship her. She's not a good person, she's classist, and she wrongfully ordered the executions of innocent people twice. However, she's the rightful heir, that's literally a fact. We expect Rhaenyra to be supported because she's a victim of the patriarchy and misogynists. She doesn't have to be your favorite character, but the fact remains that she's the rightful queen and the Greens are usurpers and warmongers.

As for the whole "team smallfolk" idea: it's basically always used as an excuse to be blatantly hateful towards Rhaenyra. The "team smallfolk" and "team neutral" people never attack the Greens with the same vigor as they do Rhaenyra and her family. In fact, most of them even say that they're "green leaning".

The contradiction in this idea of supporting the smallfolk and the Greens simultaneously is that if the Greens hadn't interfered, the Dance and the deaths of the thousands of smallfolk wouldn't have happened. Rhaenyra and the Blacks didn't start the war, the Greens did. The Greens committed the most atrocities and refused every single offer of peace Rhaenyra offered.

I think the second poster is hilarious though. I don't know if they're TG, I assume so based on the subreddit. I don't know if they meant to, but they pointed out just how hypocritical the first poster's mini rant was. The first poster tacked on "Also they hate "Team Smallfolk," and the second poster pointed out how most of TG also just don't give a shit. Even if the second poster isn't TG and was just going to that subreddit to start something, there are still so many TG stans who admit that the smallfolk don't matter to them. I even had an anon once tell me that the maids Aegon raped don't matter to them as an answer to why they like and support him. I'm not going to say that they're right on not caring, but at least they're not hiding behind that false moral superiority.

Like I said earlier, the Greens were the ones who caused the deaths of thousands of smallfolk, both indirectly by starting the war and directly through Aemond and Daeron. The Greens didn't care about the smallfolk in any way, they only cared about power. Any TG stans who act like they're "better for the smallfolk" are delusional.

To sum up my thoughts: the first poster is projecting. Every single one of their criticisms apply better to their own group. The delusion and false superiority that poster displays are hilarious and frustrating.

[jjs-brainrot]

I've paused my Symphogear watch so I can go back and start from the beginning again. This show must sustain me until Girls Band Cry's fateful return u_u

I feel like a need to write about Hibiki and the general direction XV seems to be going but I can't articulate anything other than "Oh my gosh why didn't I watch this sooner"

Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe are really near perfect throughout AXZ and XV so far. I might still say that AXZ has my favorite story of the seasons so far, but XV definitely looks the best.

Gay vampire might be the most entertaining antagonist since Carol(no one can compete with her though u_u)

Understandable, Symphogear is a gift that keeps giving no matter how many times you watch it.

It really is a hard series to articulate how good it is to people tbh. "Watch Symphogear" and showing them a batshit insane scene is the best you can do. It's just something you need to experience for yourself.

AXZ and XV really do trade out constantly for the best season for me. They're both Symphogear at its most Symphogear.

Millaarc is great. She can commit one or two atrocities as a treat. Murder a few innocent girls as a snack even. We appreciate evil women in this house!

[pulim-v]

what are the *checks notes* obamitsu/muzan vs yoriichi parallels. Be insane

OKAY SO. I MIGHT JUST BE CRAZY

SO IN DEMON SLAYER THERE'S THESE TWO CHARACTERS CALLED OBANAI AND MITSURI

And they are quite possibly my favorite shounen couple ever.

So to give a basic rundown of their stories, both are very accomplished demon slayers (titled "pillars" because they support the whole organization), and they got the job for VERY different reasons.

Obanai was abused by his family. Rich aristocrats, who got their wealth due to the atrocities committed by a demon, they usually sacrificed all the boys that were born to said demon, but Obanai's heterochromia caught her attention, and he was left to live until he was older. Eventually, an older Slayer saved him and killed the demon (in the process causing the deaths of several members of the family), but the experience heavily traumatized Obanai - he feels at fault due to a relative of him blaming him for their deaths, he is afraid of women due to the demon's abuse, and he cannot eat regularly due to the abuse he endured. He goes into the Corps as a form of repentance - he kills demons and saves people to compensate for his cursed blood.

Mitsuri's situation is very different. She had a family that supported her, but she was born different. Her muscles are incredibly dense, which makes her physical strength very impressive, and her need for food very high (which had the side effect of causing her hair to turn partially pink). Sadly, though, that caused her to be rejected from society - when she was about to get married, her fiancé rejected her, telling her that her strength, hair and appetite were disgusting, and only a beast would settle for her. She hid her strength, dyed her hair and didn't eat nearly enough, living half of a life so someone would accept her. Then the leader of the Corps told her to use her strength to help people, because she was a wonderful person and shouldn't waste her talents. She saves people and kills demons because she finally found a place for herself, and in this she wants to find a husband, someone who is stronger than her so her strength isn't seen as a curse.

I could go insane over the two as a couple in general, but I'll save that for later. For now, let's get into Muzan and Yoriichi

Muzan is the king of demons, and the original person to BE a demon. As a child, he was incredibly frail and sickly, and his doctors all warned him that he'd die before he became an adult. One doctor, though, gave him a medicine that fixed his issues, and made his body much stronger, but it seemed to have some weird side effects. His body craved human blood, though that wasn't a big issue; the really bad thing was the face that he couldn't walk in the sunlight anymore, so after killing his doctor he used his newly acquired immortality to search for the thing that could fix that and make him a truly godlike being

Meanwhile, since he was a child, Yoriichi seemed very different from other people. He always had a sort of pleasant aura around him, and could see the inner workings of things without any effort. One day, while his twin was practicing swordfighting, his teacher seemed curious to see how Yoriichi would fair. What followed was him being utterly destroyed, Yoriichi striking four times in a mere moment and making him unconscious. This made Yoriichi be celebrated by his family, but he truly didn't want this level of fame - he ran away, and found the Demon Slaying Corps. He joined them, and taught them the way of Breathing Techniques, though they could never be as strong as he was. He finally found a place where he belonged, though even then he was never like the others near him, and they eventually rejected him too when he failed to kill Muzan.

So we have a cursed child, sickly and weak, who is fated to die at a young age but is saved by others, who hates their nature and tries to go against it, and an incredibly kind, blessed soul, who is unlike everyone else in their life, but never managed to find a home. The difference, in these cases, is that Obanai was kind and Mitsuri found her people. It's that Obanai was grateful to his savior and the Slayers accepted Mitsuri.

@risingscorchingsuns bestie sorry for tagging you in this but you're the KNY literary analysis moot to me and I want to get your input on this akjshdaksjhdjkash

[rainbowstargazerlilies]

Mechs Ships Tournament: Resurrection Round Part 1!

Hi! The winner of this poll will proceed into the final poll to face off against the other Resurrection Round poll winner, Polymechs And Lyf, and the HNOC trio. This will only run for one day. Hope you all are ready!

link to the other poll

Propaganda under cut:

Nastya/Aurora:

So perfect and immaculate that they’re **canon** and I love them so much <3333

them <3

lesbian machines. thats it.

They're girlfriends!!!!

Lebabin

Funniest line in OUAT(IS)

what if your girlfriend was the ship of theseus and you were a princess who got revolutioned and love just wasn't enough in the end. what then.

them <3

https://themechanisms.com/fiction/ghost-in-the-machine/ (via @wormsontoast)

Ivy/Nastya/Raphaella:

women in stem no further questions.

Brian/Jonny:

A.K.A. Two of Hearts. They're inversions of each other - one driven by a moral compass he doesn't quite have any control over, oscillating wildly between atrocities and regret as the last shreds of his humanity demand a conscience out of him; the other without any morality at all, committing any crime he finds amusing for the hell of it with no regret at all, yet with a kind of external fascination for stories with love in them, even (and especially) though they all end badly. They can fill in each others' gaps and provide what they lack. By their powers combined they make one barely functional human being.

they complete each other. anatomically.

Brian/Lyf QPR:

Look, them as a queer platonic partners just does something to me. They both spend a lot of time isolated in space and very likely have some form of trauma from it. Just think about them sitting together looking out at space trying to do exposure therapy n all that, or hell even them sharing about how being alone in space effected them and being there for each other because they /get it/. It does something to me every time. Like they could be romantic but also the idea they are qpp's makes me happy too.

My loves <333333 (sorry for being gay on your form it may happen again)

Guys please just imagine it. Lyf makes it a habit to join Brian when he has to pilot Aroura and then they get to just, sit in each other's company because they aren't alone. And they're safe together. Like come on chat please it's so good. It's so sweet and fidgekdbjr #again PLEASE VOTE THEM!!#i will be more motivated to write the fic sooner rather then later#i will put off the other prison mechs + lyf fic i have in the works for this PLEASE (via @moons-br)

Brian/Tim:

THEY ARE BOTH VERY PRETTY

gay people

#they played tsuru+spouse and hatter+hare (tags via @majorshatterandhare)

Marius/Raphaella:

my propaganda for raph and Marius is one of my fav fics ever “make me mended” on ao3. Raphaella picks up Marius and mechanizes him. both are starved from human contact. you can imagine the rest

#the prettiest most insane intelligent woman and man who falsely calls himself a doctor#theyre hilarious to me and i adore them (tags via @l3monbunny)

#please please please vote marius/raphaella they mean so much to me#it’s about the vivisection the malpractice the constant violations of scientific and medical ethics (tags via @asthe-crow-flies)

#please vote marius and raph#i think they do cute couple things like removing other people’s organs together and testing poisons on each other (tags again via @asthe-crow-flies)

[wildernessuntothemselves]

just finished chapter 5 and i’m gonna have to sue you for extreme emotional distress atp 😭 omg the difference between ryujin and mc is killing me… the way they have what they wanted but in such a twisted way… and bg actually loving mc also in his own twisted way. he did the best he thought he could in this situation (though last chapter he went too far still). both bg and mc are trapped in their own ways god this is so tragic it’s too much 😭 i just know i’ll be destroyed by the end i’m already crying as it is

again your writing is just amazing… the way i’m so immersed in the story i don’t even realise it’s ended or how much time has gone by. the way i’m actually empathising with all the characters. i didn’t think i’d ever feel bad for bg after last chapter but now.. 😭 the fairytale and the entire beach scene was amazing, i loved how you set it up. i also realised mc doesn’t really know th at all or what to expect from him. this is actually insane.

beomgyu would do anything for oc except let her go and he would commit unspeakable atrocities in order to keep her. He'd be the perfect lover if she never tries to leave. if he could cut off her wings then he'd make sure she's the most spoiled caged bird in the world :')

yeah oc and taehyun are a whole other bag of worms. can't wait for you to let it loose lmao

[twothpaste]

i'm interested to hear about Porky for that character meme

First impression: The first time I saw Porky was in Smash Bros Brawl when I was like 12, and I was probably about as bamboozled as every other kid back then. I remember being creeped out and a little captivated, wondering what the hell could possibly be up with this rampaging kid / old man / ??? In some kind of life support mech??? Like damn these Mother games must be crazy. (Proceeded to emulate Pokemon instead for the next 6 years 🤸)

Impression now: Oh, I see! He was The Best Villain In All Of Media. That's what was up with him. He carved out a corner in the back of my brain where he's been living rent free for a decade. If I think too hard about him I go off the rails and sometimes become cataclysmically sad. Awesome.

Favorite moment: The entire Empire Porky Building is a mesmerizingly monolithic character study unto itself. But his climactic speech when you finally reach him at the 100th floor is like. God. Fucking hell. Where does one even begin. The surprising eloquent conviction with which he speaks, after a whole dungeon of childish taunting. And then, it's actually such a thin veneer after all. He's deluded himself into thinking he's a godlike visionary, but everything he declares about "humanity" is so insecure and immature and downright wrong. The unnerving spite and tragedy of it all. The urge to pity him feels like a bellyache. How you know where he came from and what a hapless child he used to be (and maybe still is) - but to the people of Nowhere?? They've got no fuckin' clue. And he doesn't belong here, but at the same time, he embodies every individualistic capitalistic apocalyptic thing they tried to shove under the rug and forget about. Just. Agh. Turns my brain and bones to jelly.

Idea for a story:

Unpopular opinion: He's not "insane," or mind controlled by Giygas, or gone "crazy" in the aftermath of Giygas' influence. A thousand lifetimes are sure to do something to a guy's head, sure - and I'm sure his mental health ain't great - but like?? Everything about him hits so much harder if he is of relatively sound reasoning (like every other capitalist), and if he's acting on his own will. Stripping him of his psychological agency renders him so thematically & conceptually toothless to me, idk. If he was just acting zany & evil 'cause he was out of his mind or whatever, then none of the shit he does or says really means anything!! Giygas brought out the worst in him. Aloysius and Lardna conditioned him to make terrible choices. Porky chose to spend 3842389 years committing atrocities unto mother Earth and mankind.

Favorite relationship: His friendship with Ness is so bittersweet, and his use of Claus as an extension of himself is both harrowing and fascinating. I think my fav is his narrative dynamics with Lucas though. How they both faced cruelty at the hands of shortsighted adults and the world at large, but learned completely different lessons from it. How Lucas, presumably a boundlessly kind and forgiving person, gets pushed to his absolute limit with this guy. How he's gotta grapple with the ethics of Porky's fate, whether or not he deserves to spend eternity trapped by his lonesome. How Porky coerces this humble farm kid into the role of Ness, chasing the high of his friendship and rivalry. How he calls Claus his "double," right in front of Claus' actual double, just to drive the knife in deeper. How he thinks he represents the grim reality of human nature, while Lucas stands tall and faces him as a shining counterpoint. Everybody explode now.

Favorite headcanon: Uhh shit I dunno what my favorite is. The Masked Man is based on one of his original comic characters he used to draw when he shouldda been paying attention in math class. He had a crush on Ness and didn't know what to do about it and now it's the whole universe's problem. He has a laughably poorly-informed admiration for Ronald Reagan, 'cause his dad spoke highly of him. If he were just a guy in the 2020s, his goal in life would be to usurp Elon Musk by being exactly the same but "smarter" and "more competent" (he would fail because he's neither).

[leastdatablebracket]

ROUND 3, MATCH 16

Propaganda under the cut!

Kenshin Uesugi

Propaganda

He is a cold calculating bloodthirsty warlord, who is also a yandere and overly jealous. Also is obsessed with MC's friend Sasuke, where he both loves and constantly threatens to kill Sasuke.

Cullen Rutherford

Propaganda

stupid racist cop creep whose fans cry about how hes "changed" and "you can't judge him he was addicted to magic drugs" nah he still chose to be a racist cop and abuse his power over innocent people and i hate him. the writers making him romanceable in da:i after how blatantly horrible he was in da:o and da:2 is baffling but i guess they had to appeal to the part of their audience who watch those "mafia boyfriend" videos on tiktok or whatever

He's creepy in origins, though still 100% willing to kill the female mage pc he's crushing on, as well as all the other mages trapped in the circle with him. He's the second-in-command in an even worse circle in 2, listening to and defending the increasingly obviously insane meredith until literally the end. He's one of the people still pushing for the circle system by inquisition, and yes he's going through withdrawals and working through the traumas of previous games. And to be brutally honest his was the first romance i took and while i don't remember much from it, its not worth all the girls going absolutely nuts over knockoff terrible alistair.

He's basically a cop who thinks being born a certain way can revoke personhood and by Inquisition still thinks mages are monsters to be controlled, not people. He gets a fairy tale cutesy romance that focuses on his personal struggles with addiction while showing absolutely no regard to the atrocities he committed and still thinks were justified. He can be romanced BY A MAGE and his actions and beliefs are just glossed over. He believes mages are 'not people like you (Hawke) and me', but if the Warden was a female mage he canonically had a crush on her and would deliberately hang around her despite the fact that he was her *jailer*. If that Warden romanced Leliana, there is war table dialogue in which he pesters Leliana for news of his 'former' crush despite her repeated statement that she doesn't want to talk to him about her. All this shitty behavior and lack of introspection gets swept under the rug by the game, not even giving the PC the chance to really challenge his beliefs. Like damn even Fenris could apologize when he lashed out due to past trauma with mages, and if anyone has a reason to hate mages it's Fenris. If you want an ex Templar hottie Alistair is RIGHT THERE. Tbh I know Cullen is a popular romance and I'm not here to tell anyone what they can or can't do or like in a video game, I'm just saying I think he is deeply undateable

Spends the first two games as an antagonist, fervently devoted to the cause of subjugating mages, then a bunch of "character development" happens off screen and the games treat him like he's completely reformed. However he's actions make it clear he still sees mages as dangerous and lesser. Not to mention if you romance him with an elf he doesn't pay your culture more than lip service respect like most of the devout characters 

He was a total villain in the first two games who was violently prejudiced against mages and uses one single bad experience as an excuse for it (a bad experience that is pretty much exactly what he in his job subjected graduating apprentices to, mind you, but this is never brought up). Now he says he's changed, but his words and actions say otherwise. He still distrusts mages, sympathises with the rebel Templars trying to kill them, and he never owns up to the terrible stuff he did and helped others do in the past two games. He totally knew what Meredith was doing and says he doesn't, and he still tries to defend her intentions. And you have no option to call him out on it. If you romance him as a mage, he angsts about how he might have seen you as subhuman in the past but NOW you're one of the good ones, and when you ask him if he'll kill you if you get possessed, he dodges the question. And the PC is written as being almost sad that she's a mage? Like 'can you love me despite what I am??' Also if Leliana romanced a female mage PC in the first game who is still alive, he asks her creepy questions about their relationship. Fitting considering his original purpose was to be creepy to the female mage Warden. 

I hate him and want to cause chaos. Plus his VA is an asshole.

Cop

I think you covered almost everything but don't forget that beautiful moment in DA2 - Act 2 where you find out some templars had a petition to lobotomize all mages and Meredith, THE HARDCORE TEMPLAR LEADER, rejects it, but Cullen says they got a point. Despite the fact that we just found out that those templars were using lobotomy (or the threat of) to rape people and get away with it. And then Cullen in DA:I is whining that anything that happened it's not his fault because Meredith kept the worse away form him so he didn't know, but also that anyway Meredith had a point and did what she had to do. Meredith does not go mad until Act 3, before she was of sound mind and Culllen was her second in command BECAUSE he hated mages as much as (or even more) than her. What the FUCK did she even hide from you, Cullen. Oh, but he changed! Because the writers make A VICTIM OF THE TEMPLARS say so. And anyway he only says so BECAUSE HE READS MINDS not because Cullen did anything to show it. Also the narrative wants to sympathise with Cullen for his drug problems while Cullen is openly attacking the only other character with the same problem for...having the same problem. And he's the antagonist, so there were OTHER things Cullen could be mad about. But he is mad about the drug problem. Also I'm not an expert on writing characters with addictions but he is an addict only when it's time to have a cut scene where you pity him. Otherwise it has zero impacts on everything else.

[spectacularizm]

book

wow Okay so in my last bloggy majiggy I talked about how I don't read that much and how I dislike How To Kill A Mockingbird. Well, now, I'm gonna talk about some books I actually DO like!! 1. Stephen King's "The Mist" ----- Okay well if you couldn't tell by some of my posts, I am a huge fan of The Mist, both the Novella and the movie (not so much the show, though.. I'm gonna pretend that doesn't exist..) The book is surprisingly short, but really intriguing and written in a way that doesn't make it feel short. The book IS a "horror/thriller" genre story though, so if you're not down with that, don't read it. Basically it's about a bunch of silly goobers trapped in a grocery store because the dumbass military opened a rift to an another dimension and the creatures of that dimension, which are gross fleshy bug monsters, started pouring into our world along with a thick fog. It's a fun read, and I love Stephen King, and the movie's REALLY good, so what's not to love? 2. All Quiet on the Western Front/Im Westen nicht Neues ----- This one's a give-in. Look at my profile picture, man. Erich Maria Remarque really hit his magnum opus with this one. Not only is this book stellar, but all 3 movies are unique and do the story so much justice. It's a good length, the length it needs to be for a war story written like a journal. It's captivating, a bit scary, disturbing for sure, depressing, and very melancholic- Because that's what WW1 is. In a nutshell, this story was a way for Erich Maria Remarque to dump all his war views and war experiences into a story through the eyes of 17-18 yr old Paul Baumer (I can't do accented A's on my keyboard I apologize in advance fellow AQOTWF enjoyers!!). It's amazing, purely amazing. Changed my perspective on life. On everything. REALLY recommend, even if war stories aren't your thing. 3. Plaguemaker ----- I bet you ain't even heard of this one heehee haahaa. Written by Tim Downs, in a particularly fancy, inviting and calm way, this story is once again not for the light-hearted. It talks about the horrific atrocities the Japanese Empire committed back in WW2 with their infamous Unit 731 project, and it goes into deep details about it, too. Other than that, it's a very wholesome and ambivalent story, and I really felt connected to it the whole time I read it. When I was done, I felt depressed. Literally. I'm even upset there's no movie on it! Good thing I'm going into the film industry! It follows a New Yorker detective, set on a mission to go bust an 80 yr old Japanese guy who wants revenge on America. Little does he know that 80 year old was involved in some batshit insane WW2 crap and is actually a bio-terrorist who wants to spread the plague all across the states and then some. He teams up with his ex-wife and a fellow old Japanese guy and they go on depressingly heartwarming missions to bust this evil Plaguemaker. --- That's it. That's literally it. I don't read much, I don't really like it, if I'm honest. I mean, you could probably tell? but I'm more of a movie person. Now, I have read some other stuff, like Lord of the Flies which I LOVE but don't feel like ranting about, and I've read the entire Wings of Fire and Warrior Cats series', but both of those fandoms I left a long time ago. Thank you so much for reading, I have a fairly big blog coming up full of doodles of lots of different things, so I probably won't post until then. Feel free to tell me if you like any of these books, too. Stay safe everyone, love you guys <3

[desirepathzine]

FIF Retrospective: Our Newest Album Ever!

Welcome back to my continuing retrospective on formative Christian ska band Five Iron Frenzy. Today, I'm revisiting the no longer truthfully titled, Our Newest Album Ever! (exclamation mark is part of the title!)

I wouldn't call this record a blindspot in my FIF listening history, but of all their records, I didn't gravitate towards it, even though it's got a few classics on it.

Released in November of 1997, ONAE! starts with "Handbook for the Sellout", which I think is hilarious for a band on their sophomore album, one released with the same indie label as their debut, after several offers from major labels were rejected. After the jokey diversion of "Where is Micah", FIF returns to grappling with their new found indie success on Superpowers "we've been given superpowers, ask us for an autograph, we sing, we dance, we'll make you laugh, don't you want to be like us?". The band had been able to live off of their touring revenue after Upbeats and Beatdowns, and are clearly having feelings about this minor status change, even as they delve into the unglamorous details of their touring habits (and satirize them). But, as noted in Superpowers, there is still the focus on engendering hope and peace in their audience.

Fistful of Sand is one of the more cryptic entries on a record that is often on-the-nose with its lyrics, a sort of moody anti-hero's ramblings on a world of emptiness, as all material pleasures can disappear like a fistful of sand. There's a wild hardcore gang vocal bridge that comes out of nowhere, and it's awesome. I really love the instrumentation on this one, it's a musical stretch for the band.

Suckerpunch finds us back in self-deprecating territory, a joyfully bouncy full ska moment that remains a beloved entry in FIF's discography. It's about being a big ole nerd. "They're all suckerpunching me, get in line for a wedgie, all I want, and all I need is someone who believes in me". It is exactly what a Christian ska song would be about. Quintessential FIF, a little dorky, very heartfelt, insanely catchy.

Kitty Doggy is a 40 second lo-fi piss-take made in what must have been tour induced insanity. The stuff of youth group inside jokes and church camp chanting.

Blue Comb '78 is a reflection on lost youth from lead singer Reese Roper, about his sister tossing his brand new blue hair comb out the car window on a family road trip, and his parents refusing to go back for it, a symbol of lost childhood innocence. It's both wildly silly and bittersweetly told. Although I'm sure for many youth group kids, it seems a grown up companion piece to "Oh Where is my Hairbrush" from classic Christian cartoon VeggieTales.

Banner Year returns to a familiar topic for FIF, the atrocities committed against indigenous Americans. Centering mostly on Chief Black Kettle, a leader who ceaselessly advocated for peace, and who was literally shot in the back while walking alongside his wife by white soldiers at the Battle of Washita River. It also includes broader Christian nationalism themes: "A piece of cloth cannot hold your faith". Another song that feels like it could have come out yesterday.

One thing that has started to crop up production wise for me on ONAE! is just a little too much vocal trickery on Reese's vocal. He goes strangely robotic due to pitch correction or something often enough that I'm starting to really notice on this record. I can't really recall that happening too much on other releases, but it is extremely obvious throughout this particular record.

Second Season is a lovely midtempo track about death and rebirth, maybe the most nebulous so far on a record marked by its specificity. The bridge is delightful. It's clear the horn section has been really putting in the work.

Litmus is an extremely interesting song to me, and exists at the intersection of so many of the most interesting qualities of Five Iron Frenzy (it interpolates Low Rider too?). How do you define "Christian enough" in music? In life? Every aspect of mainstream Christianity is carefully calculated, with gains and returns, at what point does it stop mattering? "You'll never formulate your own maker" and "You put my God inside a box" hit me like a ton of bricks. As someone growing up in corporate structured Christianity, full of supplemental materials, divining the exact right way to be an optimal Christian decided by some guy who wants to make money off of the faithful, Litmus hits different. As someone who was outside of the perfect image, who questioned why it cost that much money to be righteous, who hated the fucking insider lingo of Christianity that persists, this might be my favorite song on ONAE!

And now the absolute youth group classic, Oh Canada! A great little joke song about our neighbors to the North, their milk in bags, etc. It's completely unrelated to anything that has come before. It's very catchy, this was stuck in my head constantly for about five years.

Most Likely To Succeed is aimed at some unnamed jerk who has fully assimilated into a modern capitalist asshole, depriving others so that they can succeed, using others pain for their gains. The vitriol feels justified but I feel like other songs on the record tread this territory maybe a tad more effectively. It's a real late cut that doesn't do much for me personally, but it doesn't suck.

Every New Day is a song that has come to close ever Five Iron Frenzy show, their personal benediction to their audience and the world. A world weary anthem for those still clinging to hope. It's maybe the most "praise and worship" lyrics FIF have ever written, but that's not a knock when these words are also some of their best and most powerful. "Yearning for grace, hoping for peace". It makes me cry pretty regularly, even on the days I'm not sure what I believe. It feels so separate from the stale platitudes projected on the megascreens on my childhood mega church's walls. Here is an actually hopeful song about something other than "this hard season of life" or what the fuck ever. Perfect ending, perfect show closer, one of the best FIF songs.

Altogether, I really enjoyed delving into this album that I hadn't really taken the time to consider before. I think hearing Kitty Doggy and Oh Canada and maybe even Suckerpunch etc. all the time out of context put me off of thinking that there were "serious cuts" on Our Newest Album Ever!, which is a shame, because there are two or three deep cuts on here that I count among the band's best. Litmus, Every New Day, even Blue Comb '78 and Second Season are lovely, thoughtful, and something you can't get anywhere else. FIF handily beats the sophomore slump.

[traittor]

💔 💢🔥📝🌌

Mun talks about the Muse

💔Least favorite ship for the muse?

I actually do not think that I have a least favorite ship with Jun Wu because people are too scared to allow him into the shipping scene. If I had to pick, I think Jun Wu x Hua Cheng just would not work. Not bc both of these men are obsessed with Xie Lian but on principal, it just does not work even with XL out of the picture. Jun Wu/White No Face is the kind of extremist that Hua Cheng would not notice/abandon in the end because he is too all over the place and non-committal to right things. WNF just wants to do his own thing and does not care for people. And yes, he will remind Hua Cheng daily that he is ugly as fuck. (even though it is hypocritical)

💢Something about the muse that annoys you?

My god, he is so whiny. His mood switches on the hourly, he does not like things not going his way so he turns around and changes the entire narrative of a reply just because. He bounces off the walls. Which can make him exciting but often ruins MY plans with where the plot is going.

🔥 Unpopular opinion about your muse? 

A hot take that some of you sensitive TGCF "fans" cannot handle, is that Jun Wu wasn't fucking wrong. Did he need to commit massacres? No, but he was abandoned by his own people who were too blinded by divinity to understand that some things are really out of a royal's control. Jun Wu's perfectionism and overburdened duty was his ruin. He was ABANDONED by his advisors and everyone just decided to forget about him because he tried his best to save his kingdom. And yes, he tormented Xie Lian because he is just unconditionally loved for being a fuck-up, HOWEVER, Bai Wuxiang's lessons are actually not that bad? In retrospect, people stabbed Xie Lian over a hundred times to save their skin. All humans are animals and will become selfish when survival is under question. People are like rats. So what Xie Lian is immortal? Can he not feel pain? Agony? People did not care about it and Bai Wuxiang continued to give him harsh lessons to remind him that people will pray to a god as long as it benefits THEM. And tbh? Look at the modern religious mishandling. I am juuuuuust saying, maybe Jun Wu wasn't fucking wrong. (But even a toddler understands the atrocities he committed are extreme as fuck and he is definitely insane. I will never allow him to be redeemed but I think he deserves to be understood).

📝 Favorite headcanon for your muse? 

His spider and centipede apparitions that crawl out of his mask are manifestations of his resentment and rage. The more fury he feels, the more insects crawl out of him. They are harmless, do not bite, and if they are consumed, they will a person with dread and unresolved trauma BWX cannot process. I also like the headcanon of Willow Hollow. Basically, it is a space without time, without wind, without flora and fauna, drenched in gray and white. These are desaturated fragments of WNF's memories from Wuyong. He had gardens of willow trees that are now hollow ghosts he likes to sit upon when he does not want to be Jun Wu or Bai Wuxiang, but just himself(?) in a way.

🌌Favorite alternate version of the muse?

You know? The Scum Landlord. I am NOT GONNA LIE, that one is fucking hilarious. But also, I do like his Prince of Poppies verse. This is a verse of the before Wuyong fell and then after where BWX spends days in his "reality", the in-between hallucinations of his former self.

[kisses-in-the-void]

I have a lot to say on this, but most importantly, I don't believe people who think Sauron was a victim are genuinely interested in him as a character. They're just chasing a specific archetype—the tortured, misunderstood villain/anti-hero—and trying to force Sauron into that mold, even though it’s clearly not who he is.

Nowhere in Tolkien’s texts is it implied that Sauron joined Melkor against his will, was manipulated, or suffered under his command. In fact, Tolkien wrote that Sauron was smarter than Melkor. While the details of their relationship are open to interpretation, we know for sure it wasn’t an Anakin/Palpatine dynamic.

Sauron had plenty of time to live on his own without Melkor, yet he still chose to embrace being a big bad evil—and honestly, I think that deserves some respect, at least when it comes to canon. He could walk away when Melkor was first imprisoned, but he didn’t. He chose to stay loyal, and when Melkor returned with the Silmarils, Sauron continued serving him. By the time of the War of Wrath, he was far beyond redemption.

Sauron’s arc is that of a fallen angel who became a tyrant through his own decisions—corrupted by power, blinded by arrogance. And it’s not even just my conclusion—it’s Tolkien’s own words:

If someone genuinely believes all he needed was therapy and a pretty blonde elf maiden to save him and love him, they’re missing the point entirely. That’s not Sauron. They’d be better off stanning a different character, probably in another media altogether.

And yes, it’s hypocritical that people eager to victimize Sauron refuse to extend the same treatment to Melkor. Both are terrible beings who committed countless atrocities. The reason is obvious: they need Melkor to shoulder all the blame so they can say, “See, Sauron isn’t that bad; he can be redeemed and worthy of Galadriel’s love.” That’s insane.

When shipping is your only motivation for engaging with a character, it inevitably leads to mischaracterization. You end up ignoring everything that doesn’t fit your shipping agenda.

sauron's corruption

i feel there is some sort of misconception that morgoth like, had sauron in a dungeon until he became evil, sorta like he did to elves and other creatures. that abuse made him evil somehow.

this is categorically not canon -- even to RoP. look, im not saying two evil people working for each other for Millenia never did bad shit to each other. selfish people can hurt even those they are close to, so it isn't unlikely - although never stated. we can debate wholesome vs toxic angbang dynamics separately, it's not relevant.

but like, sauron wasn't tortured into spying on aüle and betraying the valar in Almaren. He admired Melkor for being more powerful and more efficient and joined and spied on them on his behalf. "for even then he had secret friends and spies among the Maiar whom he had converted to his cause, and of these the chief, as after became known, was Sauron, a great craftsman of the household of Aule." "While Morgoth still stood, Sauron did not seek his own supremacy, but worked and schemed for another, desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the beginning he had adored. He thus was often able to achieve things, first conceived by Melkor, which his master did not or could not complete in the furious haste of his malice."

and he had a part in all the evil things melkor did from that point onward. he wasn't some unwilling participant. his only redeeming characteristic according to Tolkien was his capacity to be servile (which tolkien said he lost by the Second Age -- the temple of Melkor was not built b/c Sauron felt the need to pay worship, but because he thought that was a good tool to destroy Numenor).

dunno... i do like sauron redemption headcanons for the end of the world, but anything that implies that he blames morgoth or curses him for who he is as if he has some claim on extracting revenge on morgoth rings empty to me. He's never expressed this sentiment.

Sauron didn't become evil because he was punished into being evil. morgoth isn't to blame, only insofar as he was there for them to be evil together. he isn't among those who needs to extract revenge from morgoth to achieve justice. also -- even when he had good intentions* he reverted to evil again in the second age, and this was AFTER morgoth was in the void. he doesn't need morgoth around to do evil. *which is questionable: "So - as soon as [Melkor] has mentally rejected repentance - he (just like Sauron afterwards on this model) makes a mockery of self-abasement and repentance."

the most compelling dagor dagorath headcanons to me is for them *both* to be restored, because what is the difference, at that point? are we gonna argue 99% evil can be reformed but 99.9% should not be? (also arguably sauron was evil for a lot longer than morgoth, even if he was slightly less evil for being his servant and a much less powerful being...) The real issue is what is the nature of Sauron's destruction, can be be remade? Melkor was never destroyed, his presence is suffused throughout Arda. In some sense, you need to "fix" this discrepancy to heal Arda. Anyway, i end with this quote which I can't quite decipher but echoes my thoughts above:

"[Arda Healed --] Arda without Melkor, or rather without the effects of his becoming evil; but is the source from which all ideas of order and perfection are derived. 'Arda Healed' is thus both the completion of the 'Tale of Arda' which has taken up all the deeds of Melkor, but must according to the promise of Iluvatar be seen to be good; and also a state of redress and bliss beyond the 'circles of the world'.)" dunno even fake theology is hard.

All quotes from Morgoth's ring.