homicidal-sheep

[homicidal-sheep]

God, Maxwell and Olethra's equal but opposite character arcs are really getting to me.

Olethra is sky-eyed from the start, granddaughter of the legendary adventurer Comfrey MacLeod. She's desperate to escape the boring life that her parents lead in Pilby and to follow in the footsteps of her grandmother. She's a huge fan of the Zephyr crew, and she read all of Monty's books about their adventures.

But as she goes on this adventure, she realizes that while it is certainly fantastical, it's also dangerous as well. She's lucky enough to have the mech, but the other people around her don't have that kind of protection. She watches them get beaten bloody and struggle to fight back. When she tries to get in a good quip for Monty's next book, he's distracted in the middle of his fight. Things aren't like the stories.

And on top of all of this, the grandmother that she adored so much is slowly revealing herself to be a not-so-great person. She was reckless and single-minded, prone to taking on debts that she knew she couldn't pay. She was sometimes unkind to the people who had once been family to her, and sometimes her recklessness really hurt them. Her grandmother is not the false idol that Olethra has made her out to be, she is a real and flawed woman.

On the other hand, Maxwell is incredibly serious and practical. While he holds onto his grandfather's idea that finding Zood is a worthy investment, he does not hold onto any whimsical ideas of exploring it. He simply wishes to note that it exists to restore the Gotch family name before immediately returning to Gath. Even his fighting is based in rules and structure, even if it's incredibly violent. Mordecestershire is "breaking the rules" by wearing a jetpack to escape instead of simply dying from being thrown off the ship. It's all logical.

But the longer that Maxwell spends in Zood, the more impractical and almost whimsical he becomes. Yes he's still incredibly serious, but he also believes for a moment that he could fight a dinosaur. He jokes with Monty about his books being terrible. He makes the "rowdy" and reckless choice to give Torse his heart. He throws a snowball at Monty when they're at the Ectic Research Station. Even the "you're meat" scene is its own kind of twisted whimsy, comically violent and highly impractical. Of course he's still a bit of a wet blanket sometimes, but he's slowly learning why his grandfather was so sky-eyed.

Olethra's arc is about a dreamer having to ground her dreams in reality, and Maxwell's arc is about getting a realist to start dreaming again.

[homicidal-sheep]

The boy is not ok and we love him for that <3

[homicidal-sheep]

Humpback Whale (Megaptera novaeangliae)

(source)

[homicidal-sheep]

This is not a novel concept but the difference in Zoey's upbringing vs Rumi's and Mira's is so funny.

Like, Rumi was likely homeschooled and Mira either was also homeschooled or went to some fancy prep school. Zoey went to a public school that probably had roaches and questionable fountain water.

Rumi was raised for stardom. Mira grew up with a trust fund and credit card in her dad's name. Zoey probably worked at McDonald's for gas money. Fully has a customer service voice and an undying hatred for people that walk into restaurants right before close (Mira and Rumi used to do this without thinking about it and she does NOT let them anymore).

Zoey might be the only one of them that actually knows how to drive because the other two would've had people driving them everywhere for most if not all of their lives.

She's the only one with an actual concept of money. She'll be like "DAMN that's way overpriced for the amount of food you're getting" and Rumi and Mira are like "oh is (Korean equivalent of like 50 USD) a lot for this?"

She may also be the only one who knows how to manage chores. Like, maybe Celine had Rumi do chores to teach her the value of hard work, but maybe she skipped that in favor of more training. Mira absolutely had people for that. Zoey was doing dishes as soon as she was old enough to learn how. She probably feels weird about Huntr/x having people that they pay to clean their place for them every couple weeks because she was NOT raised to sit around while someone else does the chores. If her parents were doing chores she was always helping.

For a while she probably forgets that she just has crazy money now. She sees something she wants and she's like "hmmm, maybe I'll get it in a few months to make sure I REALLY want it and can justify the purchase better" and the girls are like "?????? But you want it today. Just get it. We could literally buy this entire store."

[homicidal-sheep]

cain instinct

[homicidal-sheep]

thinking about comfrey and cadswitch’s letters to each other kinda dunking on their kids who wound up different and olethra and max saying wow adventuring skips a generation and… yeah. it really does.

longspot gotch is kind of a stick in the mud. he is boring. hutch macleod is firmly rooted in his own place. he has rules he follows to a t (even if they are just that you should be able to do whatever you want). because longspot saw his father sink his money into who he saw as a lunatic, saw all the ways the family name and fortune were going up in flames before his eyes. hutch saw his mother live by no rules, tied down to nothing, free as the wind and never holding to any real commitments and leaving people behind at her own whims. they both saw their parent’s flaws and failures and course corrected to an extreme to never be that way.

max and olethra only heard the good parts of the glory days. you don’t sit around and tell your kid “yeah grandpa did all that cool shit and he was stupid, he squandered his fortune” you don’t tell them “grandma’s a bad person who gave me abandonment issues”. at least you don’t tell then that during their formative years.

s o by the time they’re old enough to form opinions, they’re sky-eyed and eager to go adventure themselves, see where the stories happen, hear from the legends themselves.

adventuring skips a generation because the grandkids don’t see all the downsides and harsh realities of adventuring. they don’t see the consequences until its too late. max and olethra didn’t see how much adventuring strained the crew’s lives until they were already in zood, they never saw how badly their relationships with comfrey turned out until they got to ramansu.

they’re not going to see how much the legends leave out till they see comfrey in her element on this adventure, and then they’ll realize for themselves why adventuring skips a generation. and i cannot wait to see it.

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[homicidal-sheep]

what if…. i was a priest who’d been sent to fight a war for God and you were the enemy soldier i had killed several times and pulling myself together on the sand again i noticed you praying in silence with your fingers counting the tasbih beads and was reminded of my earliest memories praying lauds with my mother counting out the rosary…. and we were both Boys? haha… unless

what if… you were the enemy soldier who had come to kill on my people’s land but during one of our long and intimate journeys between betrayals and Murder you asked to stop at the place where the prophet Yahya baptised Isa (peace be upon them both) and from far away i watched the devotion with which you made a pilgrimage and honored a sacred sight…. and we were both Boys ….. haha … unless? 

what if… while I was performing wudu before salat along the banks of the Nahr Al Shariat I accidentally looked over and saw you collecting the river water in a flask and heard the low tones of your voice blessing it in a foreign language… and we were both Boys…. haha… Unless?

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[homicidal-sheep]

sherlock holmes deduces you are trans before you've figured it out yourself and refers to you with those pronouns and then when you look confused is like "ah...had you not arrived at that conclusion yet?" and wafts away in his dressing gown to smoke seventeen pipes, leaving you in a gender crisis

[homicidal-sheep]

i have made like 57 reddit throwaway accounts in my life because my only use for reddit is to login once a year to pose niche questions to a sub i assume is compromised of mostly autistic dads desperate to impart their knowledge upon anyone who will listen. when i got my first fisheries job the equipment list my boss sent me just said “knife.” i emailed back asking what kind of knife and he replied “any knife.” i got on reddit and went to some sub about fish and i said “i got a hatchery job in alaska. what knife do i need for multipurpose use. a knife that does it all.” one guy responded in ten minutes breaking down everything about knives & salmon work. gave me a better idea of my job than the interview did. then he recommended a single knife and like twenty other people replied after him “this is the correct knife. no notes.”

bought it. pretty good knife, no notes.

[homicidal-sheep]

final TOG 2 thoughts: there is a much better movie in there somewhere that strips the first immortal / last immortal concept out entirely and allows Quynh to be the big bad. Quynh wanting her immortality to end after centuries of repeated awful dying contrasting w/ Booker (who she's kidnapped and does not immediately release) slowly coming to the realization that he *does* have family to live for and that there's good shit out there in the world if he's willing to look for it. Quynh being convinced that Nile has the power to end her immortality bc she thinks Nile took away Andy's. Quynh trying to box Nile into a corner to do what Quynh wants by threatening Nile's mortal family. Nile having to face her mortal family after letting them believe she's dead, having to let the life & family she's left behind and the life & family she's chosen come together.

and then on the final showdown, Nile and Andy facing off against Quynh together. Quynh deals Andy a mortal wound; Nile deals Quynh one. Quynh still heals. it turns out her obsession with Nile was always wrong; Andy lost her immortality because she stopped *believing* in the life she was living. Quynh in angry hateful tears begging a dying Andy to come back, it's Quynh who's supposed to be dying. Andy quipping, "I always go first" and then dying

and then if you want a happy ending: Andy coming back after. Andy regaining her immortality *because* she cherishes her life and believes in what she does and isn't ready to end yet. Andy and Nile bringing Quynh back into the fold. Andy and Nile and Quynh and Booker and Nicky and Joe *healing* together

do you see my vision

[homicidal-sheep]

All these people saying ‘shut up that joe and nicky didn’t kiss! Let gay relationships just be wholesome! I’m gay and you don’t need to see them tongue to know they’re in a relationship! stop objectifying gay characters!’ you don’t get it. Youre entitled to your opinion but I don't think you get it. It’s about the Vietnamese antagonist being demoted to henchman so a well-known white blonde actress can be the main antagonist (an original character) instead. It’s about another original character being introduced whose only contribution is to be the wise asian man trope. It’s about the toning down of the two most disgustingly romantic characters to the point where they barely touch eachother, when they were previously on screen spooning in bed, holding eachothers faces, and yes, kissing. Specifically kissing in a van surrounded by homophobes that they then murder in some pretty top tier comedy. 

I’m not upset because i was wanting to get my rocks off. Im concerned because these were decisions that were made, and in the era of almost every movie needing corporate board approval, you need to question why these decisions are being made and who’s making them. Why can’t we show our two gay characters kissing in their only intentionally romantic scene together? Why can’t the vietnamese character be the main villain she was originally set up to be? Why has the new asian character presumably spent his immortality amassing knowledge, and not fighting like everyone else, with no explanation?

At the end of the day it was a bad movie. Plot holes everywhere, rough acting, Madame Webb style dubs. But I still think it’s important to acknowledge the slideback that’s happened here and it's okay to be upset about it.

[homicidal-sheep]

reminder that "allies welcome" was once secret code for "those not out yet can still participate without putting themselves at risk", and for those who aren't out yet to comfortably exist in these spaces you have to let allies exist in those spaces too.

[homicidal-sheep]

No wait, random worldbuilding idea:

A people who have an age-old tradition, that when warriors left home to go to war, their family that remains home prepare funeral goods for them while they wait, sewing them the clothes and preparing the tools and all that they will be buried with - to emotionally prepare them to the hard possibility that the one who left will not return home alive. If the warrior returns, their burial goods are all burned in a bonfire that is lit for the celebration of their return.

And to this modern day, mothers of the culture will tell their children "fine, but let me take your measures for burial clothes before you go" as a way of telling them that something they're about to do is lethally stupid. Sharing stories about just how dramatic their mothers are, someone tells their group of friends that his mother once actually took out a measuring tape to start taking his measures when he said he's leaving home for a work trip.

And another one goes "pfft, yeah. This one time I went to a rock concert and came back home to mom sitting on her sewing machine, fucking making me a funeral coat."

[homicidal-sheep]

It's a good thing Suki taught Sokka feminism in season one bc if she didn't it would've been up to Toph and I don't think Sokka could've survived that lol