#Subversion Quest

[masterweaverx]

End of the Month Publication Roundup

Well, I managed to get quite a bit out this month.

The next chapter of Strike Out is out, so if you want to read a story of a teenage superhero realizing her mom isn't all that great and trying to find a way to improve her situation, there's that.

There's also the very first chapter of Subversion Quest, where the protagonist is the plaything of fate itself. This wild romp isn't exactly my best work, but sometimes it's fun to just be silly.

And then there's Central Collapse, which is more of an idea and part of a oneshot collection than an actual story right now. The question posed: What if a toxic parent died before the start of canon?

I've also added four chapters of Vista of the Stars, so if you want to see a teenage superhero's adventures in the Star Wars galaxy, there's plenty for you there!

And for those of you who have been waiting for it, the next dramatic section of Luck of the Draw is up! That's one interlude and six chapters of teenage superheroes fighting crime, saving lives, and finding love. (Fair warning, this part does have some close calls and transphobes, but the transphobes get beaten up and it ends with the poly lesbians expanding their romantic group, so it's all good.)

Anyway, here is your reminder that writers are artists too, and artists need support! Here is my Patreon if you want to support me long term, and here is my ko-fi if you want to support me short term. I really depend on this for... basically all my income. If you don't want to support me monetarily but like my work, please please PLEASE reblog this.

[arolesbianism]

Sometimes I just look at Isabeau and just know that if isat came out and I got into it when I was like 16 he would be my favorite character and I would've gone absolutely buck wild over this man and feel like he was laser targeting me. But alas Odile has a grip of steel on me rn due to her virtue of being a middle aged woman

[kalitera-stin-erimia]

Lovecraft and Cosmic Wonder

"But the thing is, for Lovecraft, cosmic-existential horror wasn’t the whole story. Not by a cyclopean margin. In fact, a look at his overall body of fiction, and also his personal development as an author, and his various essays about life and writing, and the teeming ocean of thousands of letters that he wrote to a vast network of correspondents, shows that his focus on the cosmic horrific theme of existence-as-nightmare was balanced and complemented by a deep craving for liberation into transcendent realms of beauty and bliss. As I observed just a few days ago in my latest column for SF Signal, “Fantasy, Horror, and Infinite Longing,” this pairing of horror or terror with sehnsucht, the emotion C.S. Lewis identified as the “inconsolable longing” for “that unnamable something, desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of a bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World’s End, the opening lines of Kubla Khan, the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves,” is quite common among authors and artists, especially those working in the field of the fantastic. <...>

So Dream-Quest is fully as much about an exquisite experience of cosmic longing as it is about a wrenching experience of cosmic horror. The novel shows Carter yearning for an escape into a dreamworld and to a dream city of eternal solace and beauty, and being opposed by all of those nightmarish figures Tyson mentions. And it’s the recognition of this fact, not just in this particular novel but as it’s threaded throughout the rest of Lovecraft’s life and work, that’s missing from so much contemporary scholarship. It’s not that Lovecraft wasn’t about cosmic horror, but that he wasn’t all about it. Cosmic horror was wedded to cosmic wonder in his psyche. The one bled into the other. They were inextricably united as flipsides or complements in his affective makeup. Their paradoxical pairing was in fact the engine that drove him, since he was perpetually poised on the razor’s edge between perceiving the cosmic perspective as nightmarish and perceiving it as beautiful and liberating. This tension channeled itself into a burning desire to capture and convey both intimations in imaginative form, and the fact that the darker aspect has gotten more press than the lighter one in the popular and even the critical imagination, and has in fact become rote, is vaguely reminiscent of the smear-job perpetrated by Rufus Griswold on the memory of Edgar Allan Poe.  But in Lovecraft’s case it appears to have happened by accident, with, perhaps, some help from unsympathetic critics such as Edmund Wilson."

From Cosmic Horror and Cosmic Wonder: Revisioning Our Vision of H.P. Lovecraft by Matt Cardin.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

The teacher clapped his hands. "Ok! We're doing motivations people! Motivations!"

"I want to find my father."

"I want to prove myself to my childhood bullies."

"I want to do nothing."

"..."

"That's not a motivation," the teacher said.

"Sure it is. I'm motivated to not be motivated."

"I-- then why are you going on this quest with this party?"

"Ideally, I'm not."

The teacher opened his mouth. Closed it. Said, "That's not--"

"My motivation is to make that guy do something," the last rookie adventurer proposed.

The apathetic one frowned. "Which I'm not going to do."

"Aren't you?" they asked, raising one eyebrow suggestively.

"No! You don't get it, I'm doing nothing--"

The teacher grinned with too many teeth. "And! Your motivation just went from 'do nothing' to 'do nothing despite that one guy trying to make you do something.'"

"What? No! He can't be part of my motivation!" Did no one understand subversive art anymore?

"Too late, the story marches forward. Next, what's preventing you from self-actualizing?"

The rookies looked at one another. "Can we turn this in at the end of the quest?"

"Fiiiiine. But you get extra points for every character arc you complete, so consider having a revelation mid rising action to keep the audience engaged."

"Yes, sir!"

[inthemoodforblastt]

Buffy is a radical heroine precisely because she refuses to conform neither to the stereotypical femininity imposed on female protagonists nor to the hyper-masculine mold that dominates the classical hero’s journey. Yes, she carries the archetypal weight of a traditionally male-coded role: she’s the Chosen One, the one on whose shoulders rests the fate of the world, the one who must confront the ultimate evil, the one expected to sacrifice her life—repeatedly—for the sake of the greater good. But what makes Buffy subversive is that she inhabits this role on her own terms, and through it, exposes its contradictions.

Unlike the classical male hero —who usually embraces his destiny with stoic detachment or egotistical bravado— Buffy resists it. She doesn’t want to be the Slayer. It’s not a romanticized quest for glory. It’s a burden. And that resistance, that refusal to glorify suffering or noble sacrifice, is profoundly political. Because Buffy doesn’t accept her role out of fatalism or legacy: she accepts it as a conscious ethical position. She chooses, with full awareness of the cost, to save others. Not because it makes her exceptional, but because she refuses to let anyone else carry the pain she knows too intimately.

What’s even more radical is how she does it: without amputating her emotions, without repressing her pain, without adopting the affective coldness that stories have historically rewarded in male heroes. Buffy doesn’t perform strength through detachment. Her power is explicitly emotional. Her vulnerability is not a weakness to overcome: it is a weapon. She continues to love, to feel, to break down, to rage, to mourn and all of that is framed not as a flaw, but as a source of power. She is not strong despite her emotions, she is strong through them.

This is where Buffy directly confronts the patriarchal foundation of the “hero’s journey.” She doesn’t just challenge the damsel-in-distress trope (though she absolutely obliterates it) she also rejects the masculinized “girlboss” fantasy that demands emotional sterility as a precondition for leadership. She is not a woman in a man’s role. She reshapes the role itself. And she does it while never losing sight of what matters: not honor, not destiny, not recognition, but people. Buffy is not guided by ego, nor by duty to abstract ideals. Her compass is rooted in care, in community, in love.

She’s not a knight on a noble quest. She’s not even interested in heroism as a myth. She is a Slayer. A worker. A survivor. And by embracing that, she collapses the romanticized masculinity of the classical hero and rebuilds it from a place of collective responsibility, emotional truth, and moral clarity. That is her revolution.

[mariuspompom]

Idk. The way I personally see it, the sUbvErSiOn in Rhaegar's storyline is NoT that a hot blonde twink who plays the harp is actually a Machiavellian rapist who single-handedly destroyed Westeros instead of saving it. The subversion isn't even that the prophecy that was supposed to save people actually killed them. The subversion, imo, is that Rhaegar, having the typical fantasy attributes of a hero (his idiosyncrasy and his gender), instead of saving Westeros as he was supposed to, died. He died.

He died. Without accomplishing anything.

He was the only one who knew and gave a fuck about the prophecy, the only one who had the bigger picture and wasn't so deep into the political game, the only one who was trying to figure out a possible solution. He was good, people loved him, he should have succeeded, he would have succeeded if this was a different story, a more predictable sorry. It should have been him.

And he got killed. And instead of that guy, who was decent and good and idealistic, the only one who was, the kingdom is left to Robert, Tywin and the twins. You are yapping day and night about Rhaegar only looking after his cock when in reality, Rhaegar was the only major male character in the rebellion's timeline, with the exception of Ned, that gave fuck about sth that wasn't his own cock. And he lies dead while Robert the actual rapist, Tywin, the actual murderer and the twins, the actual murderers/schemers, aka all your faves, are doing whatever the fuck they please with the power they very unjustly possess.

In some media, subversion is a question of morality, a plot twist, a "the tragic fallen hero is actually the villain" arc. I don't think that's the case with that character. The way I see it, subversion here is about narrative progression. We would normally expect a classic high fantasy hero like Rhaegar to succeed in his quest or at the very least to achieve his purpose after sacrificing himself in a blaze of glory. Not here. Here the hero both fails and falls, and we are struck by the ruthless realism of the game, intentions don't matter, ideals don't matter, everything is shot to hell because the other guy was simply better with the sword. And when we think it's all over and this world is literally doomed to be eaten alive by the corrupted traitors that govern it long before the long night comes, here comes Rhaegar's younger, exiled, uneducated, powerless, enslaved, forgotten sister and suddenly it's not over. It is her who brings the dragons back, it is her who is going to fulfill the prophecy along with his forgotten bastard son Jon (not gonna go into TPTWP debate let's assume it's both of them). That is the subversion. That's the full extent of it. I think that's a substantially richer take than treating him like fucking Griffith from Berserk or sth but whatever.

[greisekinderschar]

regarding book!dandelion’s much discussed misogyny one thing i find insanely amusing is how the gamer bro fanbase perceives it.

because to me, it’s like, supposed to be one of his weaknesses. it’s one of the ways in which he is unhinged that continuously gets him in trouble. yeah, there’s a joke here and there. but like. dudu thinks he can get away in dandelion’s form? nah man, the angry woman with the frying pan knocks you out, worst decision you made that day. he’s afraid he’ll get murdered if they go to toussaint. he survives the quest to end up on a scaffold because he couldn’t stop fucking around.

yet, when you see the dude bro “book stans’” reaction to the queer netflix reveal there are very personal grievances when they say “you made the womanizer gay!!!”. we know he’s not gay. he’s bi. he fucks more than twice the amount. but the fact that “the womanizer” would as much as look at a man somehow hurts these people in their masculinity, which reveals they think this part of him to be the cool, masculine part.

and it’s really funny to me, because i have this idea of sapkowski using bard characters (he does it in the hussite trilogy as well) to have some, dare i say it, subversive masculinities. because dandelion is very un-masculine in the context of the story. not only does he challenge the temerian knights and others by directly insulting their idea of masculinity and often ridicules the hierarchic structures he himself benefits from despite having fled the connected responsibilities. he’s not a fighter, he’s a poet, he’s not ‘hot’, he is pretty. he’s a coward, he is vain, he is bitchy, he is emotionally intelligent. he laments the gruesomeness of war that is nothing like the heroic masculine stories told about it. he is kind of the mum of the hansa. in short, he is very ‘feminine’, except for his womanizing and his misogynist moments (and the drinking). the parts of him that are, as i said, the most pathetic of his character. and yet, readers who are caught up in the structures of hegemonic masculinities perceive it as a way to consolidate his place in the hierarchy. in a way, his assholery is his redeeming quality in the masculine order. or at least that is what i believe, because why else would they have such an extreme reaction. if dandelion loses his one hegemonic masculine trait of putting himself above women by also sleeping with men, then he is not a man.

[i am aware the concept of masculinities has fluctuated massively in history, which is the point of hegemonic masculinities, and that medieval courtly masculinities had their own ‘feminized’ moments, with monks complaining about the knightly fashion making them look like vain women, but this is a fantasy saga that the reader perceives from contemporary standards, and the masculinities presented are very warrior-centered]

plus, i imagine it complicates his friendship with geralt. because they are bro bros, going to the BROthel together, sharing beds, kissing each other on the cheek for goodbye. if one of these bros is interested in dick, it makes emotional intimacy among men ~weird~. it makes the dude bros go “a bro cant have anything”. but bro, bro, you could have everything. you could even have a bite of dandelion.

[voluptuarian]

Sometimes I just want to enjoy some new Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass-inspired media, but somehow every single adaptation seems to be a version of one of these

straightforward adaptation of the book(s)

mental illness metaphor (clever)

mental illness metaphor (tacky)

Oz and Wonderland exist together somehow

YA #dark #fantasy #royalcore series

claims to be inspired by the book(s), actually based on the Disney movie, no one involved has ever actually finished either

porn

manga/anime with little resemblance to the original plot and every major character is a hunky man for some reason

Disney-branded cash grab ahoy!

Dark and Edgy (and probably perverse) "subversive" or horror retelling

Hot Topic Aesthetic™️

Combination of two or more

pretty sure you could do just a drinking game of Alice adaptation tropes, pick literally anything, and be drunk out of your mind in no time. Drink when there's:

asylum

harem situation

"killing game" (for some reason??)

red queen/queen of hearts conflation

"the real story"

grouped with traditional fairy tales???

"it's not 'Wonderland,' it's [insert similar-sounding but darker alternative term]"

something victorian patriarchy something something corsets hysteria something something

scheming royal families

drug metaphor

Not saying none of these ideas has been done well, but they've all been done, many times! I just think there are far more interesting possibilities out there that aren't being pursued. Jabberwock as Arthurian questing beast! Card kingdom courtroom drama! Genuinely deep fantasy world building exploring the reversed time-space dynamic in Looking Glass Land! DO SOMETHING INTERESTING WITH IT BY GOD

[theperfectquestion]

TWENTY YEARS TO MIDNIGHT

The Venture Brothers starts out as a show that makes fun of the past, but lasted long enough to be one that truly understands it.

So I rewatched The Venture Brothers in one big splurge over the course of two weeks, from Turtle Bay to Baboon Heart.

One of the most charming things about the show is a product of its lengthy creation process and the fact that it was written almost entirely by just two people. The story nearly has a tight continuity, so if you take it at its word then all the events of the story take place over a period of two and a half years, while the actual show was made over a period of twenty years.

The outcome of this curious time dilation is that we follow the Venture Brothers, Hank and Dean, through those difficult years between 16 and 18, but we also follow the writers, Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, through the difficult years between their twenties and their forties. The show begins irreverent, contrarian and cruel and changes, cell by cell, into something wiser and more profound.

The treatment of Rusty Venture, former boy adventurer and long-suffering heir to the poisonous Venture legacy, is a fascinating thread to follow. In the very first episode he steals his son's kidneys like a ghoul, and his various addictions and neuroses are firmly treated as quirky objects of pity. I don't know much about the personal lives of the writers, but I imagine a certain amount of tragedy would have found them over the course of twenty years. A certain empathy for Rusty's position kicks in around the second season and develops strongly throughout the years. By the time the writers have reached the age that Rusty is when he is introduced, there are delicate attempts to reach out to the poor man, to understand and maybe counteract some of his own personal tragedy, though careful not to smother the comedy that such a character brings to the table.

But the thread I enjoyed following the most was that trailing behind Action Johnny. If you have ever heard of The Venture Brothers, you already know that the show began as a parody and deconstruction of the 1960s Hanna Barbara cartoon Jonny Quest, which was itself an attempted relaunch of the Edisonade craze of the 1910s, riding on the coattails of the far more successful and popular Tintin and Uncle Scrooge comics.

Jonny Quest was the son of a world famous scientist and adventurer, Doctor Quest, who led an extraordinary jet setting life where he accompanied his father to exotic places to experience exciting, often racist, science-themed thrills instead of going to school. He was watched over by his lantern-jawed bodyguard, Race Bannon, and joined with his adopted brother, Hadji.

The Venture Brothers stole this set-up entirely, and Rusty's backstory is a carbon copy of Jonny's. We are first told that this is something more than a swipe early on in the first season of The Venture Brothers when Race Bannon appears, as himself, as a secret agent belonging to the same organisation as the Venture family bodyguard, Brock Samson. It's a clever shorthand for saying that boy adventurers are not singular in this world, they are a type, one which occupies a distinct social strata along with their bodyguards, enemies and other supporting cast members.

The way that we are told this fact, in the seventh episode of the first season, is peak 2004 adult swim: beloved cartoon character Rave Bannon drops out of the sky, lands in front of one of our characters, dies, then shits himself. This was vaguely subversive at the time, but twenty years of Robot Chicken and the like have rendered it a tired, hoary gag. Venture Brothers itself has proved that this moment is at least a wasted opportunity. There was undoubtedly more comedy and interest to be mined from having Race Bannon around as an older counterpart to Brock Samson. But there was fun to be had with squandering opportunities and biting the hand that feeds for writers in their twenties in 2004.

When Jonny Quest himself appears in 2006's season two episode, Twenty Years to Midnight, things aren't much different. Jonny is found haunting the bathyscaphe from the cartoon, injecting heroin, waving an antique pistol and ranting about his father. He has a teardrop tattoo and missing teeth. He is discovered by Rusty's brother, the overachieving but naïve Jonas Junior. It's a much better gag in execution than the Race Bannon one, despite being essentially the same beat, but there is some pathos thanks to Brendan Small's delivery. Jonny is left alive, unlike Race, but the capper to this scene is somehow more humilating and tragic than when Race's corpse shat himself: Jonny is brought on side by Jonas Junior who, pressed for time and not as accustomed to being threatened and menaced as Rusty is, is unable to apply superscience to this situation and simply offers Jonny a supply of heroin.

The entertainment industry's relationship to its back catalogue of intellectual property has changed a lot in the last two decades. Characters like Jonny and Race were embarrassing curios in Ted Turner's garage in 2006. Why not dust them off and kill them in a cartoon to make college kids giggle? Why not give them a crippling drug habit and have them collapse to their knees, bellowing, "I'm in real pain!" But within ten years the media behemoths realised they could spin their old straw into gold, and instead of selling sheink rays at a yard sale, so to speak, they were putting the Flintstones in ads for Halifax bank.

So the Venture Brothers show renamed their tragic, adult Jonny Quest to 'Action Johnny' and in doing so was forced to consider him as a character rather than a skit. And the colossal strength at the heart of the Venture Brothers is in taking ridiculous things like boy adventurers seriously. Jonny Quest was allowed to become a valuable (?) piece of IP, forever a child, forever innocent and marketable, while Action Johnny could live his life unfettered by the parent company's fears.

Action Johnny appears two years later in Season 3, sober but shaky, doing a favour to Rusty by running a seminar for his ill-fated summer camp. He undercuts the spirit of the event by warning the children of the long term effects of adventures on the psyche and unravels into rants about his father. It's a solid bit by itself, especially when contrasted with a neighbouring table from the Pirate Captain (who, despite being an important recurring character, the show refuses to give a name) about the joys of being part of the 'rubber mask set.' Though the world of the Venture Brothers is nominally organised through a bureaucracy of licenced 'protagonists' and 'antagonists,' the biggest tension on screen is between the characters who chose the life, like the Pirate Captain, and those who had the life forced upon them, like Action Johnny. It just so happens that the former tend to end up as tortured, resentful good guys and the latter wind up as joyful, carefree villains.

Bringing that point home in the same episode is the appearance of Doctor Z as the summer camp's headliner. Doctor Z is the final borrowed character Jonny Quest, and one who the writers clearly take the brightest shine to, probably because he has the funniest voice to imitate. Doctor Z also represents the goals of show's resplendent second half - having deconstructed the boy adventurer genre in the early seasons, the Venture Bros very carefully puts the pieces back together into something wholly new.

And so Doctor Zin, the generic yellow peril villain of Jonny Quest, becomes Doctor Z, the retired and contented former archfiend of the Venture Bros. Doctor Z is treated by the other characters as something like a national treasure, a beloved old star who made the game his own. The joke of Doctor Z is that he seems genuinely bemused that his lifetime of villainy seems to have had a lasting negative effect on people. When he appears at Rusty's summer camp, all theatre and terror, he is delighted to meet his old foe Action Johnny, while Johnny is thrown into a whirlwind of trauma at the sight of Z, one that will drag him down into further troubles.

Doctor Z will become more of a feature than Action Johnny over the following years as the show becomes more interested in its older cast members - the ones whose personalities shaped the world, and who have sunny memories of the days that were so painful to Rusty and Johnny. He is part of a larger rehabilitation arc on the meta level, where characters with reprehensible aspects to them are held up for the audience to inspect so that they may find some empathy with them. Sargent Hatred is the poster child of this era, who is a repentant paedophile who joins the main cast as the Venture Brothers' new bodyguard. He's a whole other topic, but Doctor Z has the same function as Hatred, but on a metatextual level. His ancestor, Doctor Zin, is a hideous racial stereotype of the sort that makes modern revivals of the adventure genre so unpalatable. In its first deconstructionist half, the Venture Brothers show would simply wave Doctor Z around as shock tactic - 'look how racist Jonny Quest was, and by extension the company that made it and, logically, its audience!' and then maybe give him a violent and undignified death to wash their hands of the whole matter. But the reconstructivist Venture Brothers show embraces Doctor Z, and takes him beyond his tawdry origins to become an integral part of its story.

In 2009, Action Johnny helps Rusty to articulate this in the episode 'Self-Medication' from Season 4. Johnny and Rusty are in the same therapy group for former boy adventurers, a premise that would later be stolen wholesale by the She-Hulk show. A trail of tenuous clues leads the group to Doctor Z's house in the middle of the night. Johnny forces a confrontation with Z, accusing him of murdering their therapist to perpetuate the spiral he has been in since he saw Z take the stage back at Rusty's day camp. Doctor Z immediately groks the situation and invites the former boy adventurers into his home for tea with his beloved wife, who proudly proclaims herself to be his beard. Doctor Z is proud of what he has done in life, and so has the ability to put the past behind him. Sat between Z and Johhny, who is unable to move on, Rusty realises that he has more in common with the antagonist in the room than the protagonist. Rusty has many such insights throughout the length of the show and they lead him to an interesting end point where he seizes the nettle and becomes a parental figure to the whole weird superscience community.

The final encounter between Action Johnny and Doctor Z takes place nine years (!) later in our timeline - 2018's 'The Terminus Mandate.' Doctor Z is retiring from active villany and, according to the ceremony-obsessed fraternity of organised supervillans, that means he must menace his archenemy one last time. Action Johnny's father is long gone, so Johnny inherits that dubious honour.

It's the first time that we see Doctor Z not being fully committed to the bit. Johnny is resident at a posh rehab clinic and Doctor Z is conflicted between genuinely wanting to see Johnny again but unsure of how to interact with him in a way that doesn't cause actual, lasting harm. Doctor Z even brings a prop from a Jonny Quest cartoon as a gift, in a sequence lovingly reanimated to translate Jonny Quest's vocabulary into the Venture Brothers' language. The sequence chosen is virulently racist, almost too racist to be believed: a mask of the god Anubis lands on top of Johnny's dog, and Doctor Z's Egyptian henchmen suddenly believe that the mask is a vengeful god come to punish them and so abandon the young Doctor, giving the advantage to Johnny's team. In the lobby of the rehab centre, in the late to evening, Doctor Z struggles to articulate why the Anubis mask means so much to him and Johnny cringes at the memory while enjoying the act of reminiscing. He offers to go and run and hide, so that Z can find him, and they both discover they are delighted by the idea.

It's a touching, uncomfortable and deeply weird scene that, to me, is the pinnacle of The Venture Brothers as a creative endeavour. Behind it is a group of people who have been mulling over the implications of Jonny Quest as a short-lived but impactful cultural phenomenon for most of their adult lives. They have been mining the absurdity, the legacy, the implications, the pathos and the bathos of those 26 half-hours of cartoon and found incredible treasures. It starts with finding a silly old thing in the attic that you want to ridicule and it ends, twenty years later, with you acknowledging the attachment one has formed to that silly old thing, and how it has informed your life, for better or worse, in ways you can't deny.

[thecrabbybarista]

We should talk about The Lords in Black I'm gonna do that right now because I wanna talk about their trope subversion and symbolism and shit.

So obviously The Lords in Black are a subversion of Cosmic/Eldritch horror and I'm gonna explain how using an ant metaphor

So the classic ant metaphor for cosmic horror is to imagine that you're an ant encountering a piece of human technology, right? I believe it's usually a circuit board. The whole point is you're witnessing something deeply incomprehensible and unfamiliar.

The ant metaphor for the Lords in Black is: imagine you're an ant and a teenager starts burning you with a magnifying glass.

It's still incomprehensible, but not in the way the complexities of a circuit board is. If you were suddenly stricken by a scalding beam of light, the only way you could rationalize that is that it was an act of a god. You and your ant colony would invent and fear this god.

The Lords in Black each represent a kind of strange and inscrutable cruelty that the modern world offers, the cursed lasers that cut into our souls, from places we have no power over.

Wiggly is obviously the idol of capitalism. Animalistic desperation, commodity fetishization, and the exchange of money, products, and emotions. All of the things that the other Lords represent stem from elements of capitalism, hence why Wiggly is THE Lord in Black, the leader of his brothers. What Wiggly offers will never be enough. He is what leaves you always unsatisfied.

Nibbly is the idol of the consumption of human beings as products. Obsession with self image and presentability, trends of all kinds, and the beauty and fitness industries. People in the modern age are desperate to be consumable, and some would go to any lengths to do so. This is an attitude that especially impacts women, who feel that they need to wear make up every day just to earn respect. And when we feel the need to change to be respectable, the need to look appealing and to be consumable, the bourgeois eat well. Our quest to look special makes us like any other customer, filling. It's no mistake that the two leads of Honey Queen are women desperate to be noticed and respected. It makes them all the more eager to be eaten.

Tinky is the idol of infinity and repetition. Dead end jobs, middle class suburbia, and the inability to escape one's circumstances. It's no coincidence that the first time we see Tinky is at a wedding, a ceremony dedicated to eternal commitment, or that he's associated with CCRP, a company in which most of the workers do useless busywork all day. When you look at the life you have ahead of you, it can feel crushing. Will you ever have a real career to be proud of, or will you be stuck at this job until you die? Will you ever not struggle to make rent? Will you really love your spouse forever? What if you don't? Isn't it just easier to continue the routine than to address the problem? After Ted is driven to insanity by the Bastard's Box, after he discovers that he can't escape the person he's become, he becomes homeless, one of the most terrifying eternities a person can find themselves in, fully dependent on random acts of kindness to survive while your situation drives you further into insanity.

Blinky is the idol of the panopticon. Gossip, public drama, and unwanted attention. One of the first things Blinky does on screen is sexually objectify a girl who's fresh out of high school, and this plainly displays a consequence of living in a content driven world. There is constant scrutiny and interpretation given to your every action. At any moment, you could have over a thousand eyes on you, whether you want them there or not. The panopticon we live in captures us in moments of time, and turns the person we were in that moment into an object deserving anger, embarrassment, lust, admiration, judgement, or anything else a watcher might assign. But Blinky also targets another fear, the fear that we feel when we can't see the danger, and cannot protect ourselves or those we love. Alice's anxiety that Deb might cheat on her when she's not around are made manifest in Watcher World, and Bill's frustration at not being let into Alice's life are used against the family. We are inclined to both want and fear the panopticon. We hide, and we seek, and we expose.

Pokey is the idol of tyranny. Complacency, sedation, and obedience. The world revolves around the few and uses the many in service of this. We are all expected to fill some role in service to the rich, to work for a corporation and to buy the products of those corporations, and when we cannot fill these roles we are at risk of starving, or being kicked out of our homes. We must join them in their quest for profit, or die. But we must also accept their pacifiers or we will be driven insane. We must choose between complacency or despair in confronting our place in the world as a pawn, as an ant in the colony. Isn't it easier to accept the comforting lies? Your job is important. Corporations give people what they want. People in power deserve their power. People in power are using it well. We are happy. America is great.

These are the magnifying glasses that are being used to torment us, that we cannot make reason out of, that we've made dark gods out of. But this isn't the first time humanity has encountered scorching light from the heavens. When the people of ancient Greece witnessed burning rods of light, falling viciously from the heavens, they invented Zeus.

But we know where lightning comes from now. We know the science behind electricity and its place in the world. We know what keeps lightning away and what attracts it. We can protect ourselves from it.

But there's an important difference. Lightning is natural. It's existed long before we have and it will continue when we're gone.

The unorthodox cruelty of being alive today is not natural. We cannot logic our way into surviving it because it does not operate under a sound logic. But we can make things a little more bearable by focusing on what is sound, understandable and natural.

There is humanity. There are families friends and lovers who would go to the ends of earth to protect each other. As long as we have this humanity, we have hope.

That's why Miss Holloway's deal with the Lords erases her from living memory after her temporary deaths. To have the powers that she does she gave away the power most important to have under the Lord's rule: human connection. The only real thing we have left.

Alice and Bill escaped Blinky's manipulation through the love they have for each other

Emma survived the longest out of any character in tgwdlm because of the genuine hope Paul gave her of a better future

Lex snapped Tom out of Wiggly's control by reminding him of what his son really means to him

Ted couldn't escape Tinky's plan for him because he was too jaded to make a genuine connection with a woman.

Linda was eaten by Nibbly because she didn't have a loving connection with her father, because her father always made her believe that she was never good enough, because this mindset led her to take for granted the connections she did have in her life.

The world no longer cares about us. We have to care for each other. It's the only thing we have left

[acepalindrome]

Listen. The thing is, I love a good subversion of a revenge fantasy. I love when a revenge quest is shown to be self destructive and awful and tragic, and how the character can heal and grow and learn to let go and move past their anger.

.,..except when it’s a woman doing it. Then I’m hootin and hollerin and cheering that bitch on!!!! Fuck em up, babe!!!!! Love me some female rage!!!!

Anyway I hope Clea Dessendre gets a whole sequel of her doing increasingly morally questionable things on her quest for vengeance. I don’t need to see her healing and finding peace. I want her to break the Geneva Convention.

[struggling-jpg]

Thoughts About the Potential Underlying Hidden Tragedy of Yanqing and Jing Yuan

that isn't just the "Yanqing will have to kill Jing Yuan eventually" red flags.

A relatively longer-ish post so thank you for bearing with me if you choose to do so!

I'd already been thinking about this whole mess of thoughts for a long while now, and so have other people, but the urge to write this came from a comment I saw on a post that mentioned how Yanqing had lost to "Jing Yuan's ghosts" and overall how it contributes to the dynamic of them being mentor/mentee + father/son. While the narrative seems to be leading to "Yanqing having to strike down a Mara-stricken Jing Yuan," there's just enough weird points that stick out to the point some alternative outcomes for Yanqing and Jing Yuan's fates to play out.

And while I anticipate HSR to follow that most expected point, I feel like there's enough there that could lead to a subversion or something more likely than that, an additional twist to the knife alongside the expected point.

Jing Yuan's Flaws as a Mentor and Father-Figure:

While most of us love the family fluff, I'm pretty sure we can all acknowledge the issues in Jing Yuan's approach and decisions in regards to Yanqing. Yeah, this is a fictional space game story where it's likely they aren't going to delve into the consequences of having someone as young as Yanqing be a soldier, there seems to be something there regardless. Like the brushes with death that he has and how we see him have to worry about the Xianzhou's security as a teen due to having a higher position in a military force. This is all set up for more of a coming-of-age type narrative for him, which HSR has done amazingly so far, but there are a lot of chances for this to explore something darker.

Among official media, the one time I could even remember the term "father" being used in relation to Jing Yuan is in Yanqing's official Character Introduction graphic:

Another notable thing that we see here is how we do have moments where Yanqing expresses thoughts and questions about his own origins and birth parents. The fact that even here, he wonders if the general is hiding something from him, sets off some alarm bells in my head. But he then brushes that off because he's always been with the General and Jing Yuan accepts him for who he is (which under the theory that Yanqing originates/is connected to the Abundace adds a whole heavy layer (this will be discussed in a later section)).

Yanqing does something similar in his texts:

As Huaiyan says to Jing Yuan:

"Yanqing can understand your concerns."

Alongside Yanqing generally being a considerate and polite boy, it can possibly be said that his eagerness to share Jing Yuan's burdens not only stems from his own gratitude towards him but possibly also Jing Yuan's distance.

As in, Jing Yuan doesn't really express his feelings so blatantly, and what we can clearly tell from when Yanqing first met "Jing Yuan's ghosts," neither does he speak much about his past too on a personal level. In Jingliu's quest, Yanqing says that Jing Yuan simply told him to forget everything he saw that day.

For Jing Yuan, the loss of the quintet is a grief that feels fresh in his heart, especially with echoes of them running around him. This is in the description for "Animated Short: A Flash":

(Will also talk about this in a different section)

While Yanqing learns about his General's past in a more direct manner (aka the people involved), it's sad how avoidant Jing Yuan is at times. While he's never been a upfront person, especially in the case of solving problems, I wonder if HSR would go as far as to show the negative side of that in terms of raising and teaching Yanqing.

History Repeats Itself (Sometimes It Don't Need A Reason):

+ the Jingliu parallels

Following up on that last image, Jing Yuan, especially in A Flash, has that whole "history repeating itself" thing going on for Jing Yuan. It points to Yanqing having to take down Jing Yuan but it also comes with a lot of its own possibilities and meanings.

It's blatant that Yanqing parallels Jingliu to an unsettling degree. Anyone who personally knows Jingliu and meets Yanqing sees her in him. Jingliu probably sees herself in him as well. Beyond powers and passion for the sword, her Myriad Celestia trailer shows that her principles before getting struck with Mara were the same as his. But it took her losing her dear friends in such a cruel and brutal manner (alongside how long she'd been alive) for all of that to fall out and form the version of her we see today.

And while it seems that Yanqing is deviating from Jingliu's due to the teachings he's learning, especially with Jing Yuan's effort, I feel like there's still a chance for things to go so wrong and mess with that. Yukong's line about him strikes me as concerning:

"A sword will vibrate and beg to be unsheathed if it is unused for too long... Once unsheathed, it will either paint the battlefield in blood, or break itself in the process..."

Even though I don't think HSR will go down a route of tragedy with Yanqing, like say, he gets Mara struck somehow or killed because that's not how Hoyo's writing has fully gone for playable characters (Misha and Gallagher aside in terms of death). Even in the most despairing parts for Hoyo's games, they're usually outlined and tinged with hope in one way or another. It's just that with what's been presented, there's got to be more here than meets the eye.

Yanqing's Origins - The Breaking Point:

From what we've been given, I think the number one thing that would have the potential of shaking Yanqing's entire sense of his life and the reality he lives in is learning where he comes from. Where he actually comes from has been a strange mystery since the beginning, how Jing Yuan getting him being recorded in the military annals of all places.

As shown from the screenshots of Yanqing's texts, he doesn't know and tries to brush it off because he's happy with Jing Yuan now. The choice to have this aspect here leaves a lot to ruminate on. What is Jing Yuan hiding? And if he really is witholding information, does he ever intend to tell Yanqing? If he doesn't and Yanqing finds out, how will it play out? And even if he does mean to tell him, depending on the severity, how will Yanqing take it?

It's why the theory that Yanqing is connected to the Abundance, possibly even coming from it directly, is as harrowing as it is.

With his arc in mind, will his development be enough to sustain him when he does find out the truth? If he finds out sooner than he should, will he be able to rise above it? And what of Jing Yuan? If confronted with a situation that's outside of his control again, what will he do and how will he react?

The potential in that scenario is so fascinating to me, because we can all anticipate the absolute gut punch that Yanqing killing his master would be. It fits Hoyo's writing style of something so sad but having a hopeful end for the future type beat. But the idea of that being twisted, that expectation being flipped on its head, could be so agonizing. It's not a narrative we see too often explored, at least in my experience, so maybe that's why I'm brainrotting over it so much lol.

[dingodad]

I’ve seen some people say helltier is the same as the ultimate self, but I assumed they were different things? Can you shed some light on this?

they are certainly different things. though there are doubtless shades of the ultimate self in vriska's quest to reconcile with alternate lives, it's off the mark to be calling the new vriska "ultimate vriska".

the ultimate self is the logical conclusion of who a character is, and is visually manifested in designs that emphasise a character's core mythic traits like their aspect. the hell tiers are the complete opposite experience: vriska works to completely subvert the things that make her 'vriska', and this is reflected in a design devoid not only of any trappings of a Hero of Light but almost scrubbed clean of vriska's prior identity entirely.

hell tier has to be thought of as antithetical to dirk's philosophy, in which the ultimate self is tied up. and from what we can see so far this seems to be how hell tier vriska operates on a practical level as well; where the ultimate selves are lofty titans who observe the breadth of the narrative from above, vriska now acts as the essence of subversion itself, disrupting the narrative by her very presence - not the ultimate version of a god of light, like rose is, but the perfect inversion of one!

[bereft-of-frogs]

I’m sure this will shift around as the book goes on and maybe should have been an obvious subversion from the start, but I’m loving how in Nemesis Games, trouble-maker Amos goes to Earth to cause trouble and seems to be headed right for it, but then has an actually pleasant excursion where he helps an old man keep his home…

while non-trouble-maker-mr-honorably-discharged-from-the-navy Alex goes to Mars on a distinctly non-trouble personal errand, and immediately gets jumped by the plot.

Side quest novel is going great

[sepublic]

Alright, let's talk about some details from the TOH pitch bible;

A lot of the stuff is what we've already seen and/or in line with the show. What's interesting is that King WAS a former King of Demons at one point, and we would've had an episode where he runs into his old gang and chooses Luz and Eda over them. It makes me wonder if he even had a connection to the Titan in earlier drafts, if he wasn't recognized as one back in the day because he just wasn't big enough, etc. Eda makes a deal to help remove the collar, which IS the source of King's woes, placed by a 'mysterious wizard', I wouldn't be surprised if it was Obron AKA Proto-Belos.

What gets me is that Tibbles originally started off as a friend to the protagonists, while Bump was an antagonist! Coupled with Tibbles being re-elected as mayor after Bump is deposed for corruption. I like the detail of Bump being a parasite controlling a body from the head, because it carried over into his final design with Frewin, and before we got confirmation Frewin was a separate entity, I loved the joke theory that the imp on Bump's head was the REAL Bump!!! Seems that was always the implied story of the design, I love it. Tibbles being the demon fan of human stuff would eventually become Gus instead, so this is technically Proto-Gus too…?

Interesting how Bump and Tibbles' alignments switch completely with one another, and it makes sense that with Lilith no longer the principal in the final draft, it goes to Bump, who ends up being really chill and a subversion in his own right! Interesting, but I do prefer the final Bump we got, and that's fine by me, because when the concepts aren't as interesting as the final product, it means we got the best possible version.

I've already discussed Obron and William in a separate post, and Pupa is someone we've been told about in a previous livestream. Lilith would've been both head of all covens (and not just the Emperor's Coven) AND principal at the same time, and she seems much more of a jerk to Eda in general; She has no qualms with cursing Eda because of a direct order from Obron.

Apparently the curse would've been an AGING spell, which settles my questions on how it would've been portrayed in earlier drafts! This goes along with Eda's older look. Likewise, there would've been a subplot of Eda considering Luz's sacrifice as a way to restore her youth, which likely goes hand in hand with Obron's orders to bring Luz to her, etc. The 'Bloom of Eternal Youth' quest, which Eda and Lilith go through together as their sisterly relationship is explored, feels like a carryover from this past idea.

I think I prefer the final draft; I like that the curse isn't just aging Eda, but also takes away her magic, makes her turn into a beast, etc. I like Lilith being a lot more complicated in her relationship with Eda, instead of just hating her and cursing her without hesitation. The redefining of the curse makes it less about age, and more a chronic illness metaphor, and I like how Eda in the final draft is upfront about having to learn to live with it, deal with it, on her own terms. She isn't trying to find a cure (although Lilith being promised one by Obron feels like a carryover of Eda's moral dilemma with Luz), and that adds another nice dimension to her conflict with Lilith, as well as Gwen. It's pretty frank in its own right about normalizing disability, and those who play an antagonistic role (however brief) are the real weirdoes for making such a fuss about it.

The Bat Queen would've had more of a recurring role based on the description, which saddens me; I always got the vibe she was planned for more, but between all of the other stuff the show had to juggle, plus the shortening, she ended up getting shafted despite being one of the earlier characters. Sashley, Pasha, and Bruno are also interesting, with Pasha in particular giving me freaking Philip Wittebane vibes with his grossness, beard, and anti-demon attitude; He even starts off as a potential friend to Luz because fellow human, only for his true bigotry to show. Makes me wonder if Philip ended up incorporating Pasha, we also have bodily transformation because of consuming magical stuff... P-names.

(Also, I like how in the drawing of typical Demon Realm denizens, I can see an eye demon who resembles a past drawing of Dana's!!!)

Eda was actually a late bloomer, which creates a parallel with Luz in one way, and their relationship is referred to as sisterly (in the final draft it’s explicitly maternal). So Eda wouldn't have been the talented youth, in fact things may have switched between her and Lilith; Lilith's disdain may have partially come from Eda not being as innately talented as her.

Luz and Amity's dynamic seems like it would've had Amity retain a lot of her more stand-offish, pragmatic personality even as a friend with Luz, and this would've come up more; So basically, she'd remain more like S1 Amity. That, or this part of their relationship would've lasted longer, and then we would've seen character development as Amity unlearns a lot of the issues her parents passed on. I also wonder if the Willow who cameos in the pilot was originally supposed to just be an extra separate from ‘Paulina’, but then they combined the two together.

The themes are exactly as I expected, glad to see they're still there, nothing changed! Luz becoming a witch and defying all odds to do so, putting in real work and passion. Celebrating individuality amidst conformity, plus Luz trying to impose her own fictional tropes onto the world, only to have to put that aside... Just like Wing it like Witches. It seems Amity would've had more involvement with Luz's journey to become a witch, though we still do have a carryover of that disconnect with her rant near the end of Covention.

I love the Demon Realm being situated BELOW the Human Realm, way to be subtle about being Hell you guys lol... Apparently portals to the human world are a lot rarer to find and use, which makes me wonder if the pilot's 'dimension port' doesn't have access to the human world; Meaning Amity is Luz's only way back, so her improved relationship with her is linked to getting back home. There's a gag about the Knee having service with the human world, but I can see how that didn't make the cut, for dramatic purposes; It seems like the premise for a S1 episode or at least a B-plot. Would Luz have struggled to communicate with Camila through this, or would her search for wi-fi be for mundane reasons?

Apparently Luz's magic would've required a lot more steps to complete, and I see why the show simplified things down to just glyphs. I wonder if there was always going to be the connection of glyphs as a gift from the Titan, or if the Titan and her story was going to be less intertwined in the overall narrative. There also don't seem to be nine main covens, just the many, many covens, some of which are pretty ridiculous, and Covention's sub-covens seem a callback to that.

Luz's first spell would've been levitation, and THEN she would've infiltrated Hexside, with Amity being a lot subtler about exposing Luz, though in the final draft she does figure that out as the way to go in I was a Teenage Abomination. Yeah, I prefer Light being her original spell, feels so much more symbolic and personal, etc. I wonder if the Titan is even as much of a character in early drafts, and if there's still the whole connection/relationship with the land and learning to respect it aspect. Some of these hypothetical episodes push the idea of Amity as a more episodic, typical popular kid antagonist, though in the final draft, the show goes through her character development and explores Amity's romantic relationship with Luz and its complications.

It seems the idea of the Mirror Ghost was split into Adegast and Vee, with Adegast being the one who offers the easier narrative for Luz to believe in about becoming a witch (only to be a fraud who uses uncanny puppets), and Vee being a doppelganger whom Luz communicates through with mirrors. Interesting how Yesterday's Lie was born from this. We saw the test animation from Spencer Wan for TOH, so I guess we know what Luz's puppet-doppelganger is called! And we can safely call her Proto-Vee. I wonder if she also would've been a sympathetic character, I always thought she reminded me of Lake from Infinity Train (and speculated her to be as such since Enchanting Grom Fright), and now the similarities are even MORE apparent!

Alas, The Good Witch Azura, or 'The Unassuming Princess' seems like it'd have been a lot less dear to Luz's heart, as the pilot also reflects; In the end, it turns out the author is just Eda's ex using her adventures as basis, and including private information. I remember when I once speculated that Raine, before we saw their face, would've been just like this as the author of Azura... Again, I think I prefer Azura as being a lot less mean-spirited in the final draft, and instead a celebration of who Luz is as a person, her relationship with fantasy and fiction, etc. We also would've had a Luz birthday party, the Quincenera we've been hoping for since S1...! In the final draft (and episode) we still get that Human-Demon Realm disconnect, though by that point, Luz is much more attuned and chill with the isles.

There’s definitely more of an episodic, sitcom feel to this pitch bible, especially when you compare Proto-Yesterday’s Lie to its final version. Makes sense, Dana is pitching this to Disney executives, though her statement on Understanding Willow feeling truly like her show makes me wonder if she always intended to push TOH in that more serious, emotional route we got.

[disgruntledexplainer]

Deltora, a subversion of fantasy tropes (or perhaps more accurately going back to it's roots)

@yellow-eyed-green-crocodile OK, here we go.

Deltora Quest is a children's book series. It consists of 16 books, though it exists in an expanded universe which contains another 12 books, not counting Tales of Deltora, Secrets of Deltora, and Monsters of Deltora (as well as the little-known extra book The Land of Dragons, which contains about half of what's in Tales of Deltora plus 3 additional stories which you can't find anywhere else).

The books were written during that time when Scholastic was doing it's darnedest to get kids to actually pick up a book and read. You know, the era of Animorphs, Secrets of Droon, and other books like that. Pre-harry-potter stuff. But deltora always stuck out as somewhat... odd.

For one thing, the setting. Deltora is a land absolutely INFESTED with horrifying monsters. we're talking lovecraft-level stuff. indeed, these things are so powerful that going toe-to-toe with them in conventional combat is laughably absurd. I mean, just look at this thing:

each of those little globes is a stomach the size of a PERSON. a sword ain't doin SHIT against that thing. and it wasn't even the primary monster from the book it came from. do you know what was? THE SAND IT'S STANDING ON. YES, THAT ENTIRE DESERT IS A SINGLE MONSTER.

there are also dark sorcerers, capable of, for example, turning an entire town into a fetid swamp in a split second, and deflecting any weapon directed at them. the main villain is a sorcerer of such incredible power that he makes zeus and odin look like chumps.

in order to defeat these creatures, the main characters are consistently forced to use their wits instead of their weapons.

but this isn't what I am writing this post about. every fantasy book has monsters of some kind. probably. no, what REALLY stands out about the Deltora Quest series is the BELT.

this is the Belt of Deltora, a composite magic item formed from 7 gems, each linked to the power of the land, bound together by a belt made by a simple blacksmith who united the seven tribes of deltora and became it's first king. it is considered the single most powerful mystical object on the continent, and uniting it is Deltora's only hope for survival.

except from a generic fantasy perspective, it kinda sucks.

in most generic fantasy settings, the characters are attempting to accumulate magical power which they can use to engage their enemies directly in combat; alternatively, they may be trying to build a big enough army or something similar. but the gems don't work like that. lets take a look at what the gems can actually do, shall we?

the Diamond: Gem of Strength or Fortitude, can give physical strength, fortitude, and courage to the wielder, as well as the ability to cure diseases in the person who touches it. it punishes those who attempt to take it in a dishonorable manner with misfortune. It can allow the wearer to telepathically communicate with and heal Diamond Dragons, and a nearby dragon of it's type boosts it's power, and vice versa. it also has this weird synergy with the topaz where the topaz can summon the strength of everyone who believes in the wearer (in a metaphorical sense) and the diamond transforms that belief into physical strength.

the Emerald: Gem of Honor, dulls in the presense of evil or at the location of a broken vow, is a remedy for sores and ulcers, and is an antidote to poison for whomever touches it. It can allow the wearer to telepathically communicate with and heal Emerald Dragons, and a nearby dragon of that type boosts it's power, and vice versa. Note that out of all the dragons, emerald dragons are arguably the biggest and most powerful. It might have other powers as well, as it's potential isn't as well explored as the other gems.

Lapis Lazuli: Gem of Luck or Providence, protects the wearer from evil and brings good fortune. also may have some subtle effect on the weather, though that hasn't been confirmed. it is arguably the most powerful of the gems for the protection it provides, but the nature of it's power is ill defined, and certainly outside of the wearer's ability to control. It also allows you to detect the location of the Opal as if it were a compass, and is more powerful when in close proximity to it. It can allow the wearer to telepathically communicate and heal Lapis Lazuli dragons, and a nearby dragon of that type boosts it's power, and vice versa. If the opal has it's power boosted by a nearby opal dragon, the Lapis Lazuli's power is also boosted if they are close to each other.

Topaz: Gem of Faith, can allow the wearer to make contact with the spirit world during a full moon. the character can see ghosts, and sometimes the spirits of the hallowed dead (those who are in heaven) will appear to the character and given advice, those this is extremely rare. It also clears and strengthens the mind and protects the wearer from the terrors of the night (also ill-defined). It's powers are all strengthened during the full moon. It can allow the wearer to telepathically communicate with and heal topaz dragons, and a nearby dragon of that type boosts it's power, and vice versa.

Opal: Gem of Hope, has the power to give glimpses of the future and can enhance the wearer's vision, and it can also fill the wearer with hope for the future (which helps counteract the panic that the visions of the future often produce). It can detect the Lapis Lazuli like a compass, and is more powerful when in close proximity to it. It allows the wearer to telepathically communicate with and heal opal dragons, and a nearby dragon of that type boosts it's power, and vice versa. If the Lapis Lazuli has it's power boosted by a nearby lapis lazuli dragon, the opal's power is also boosted if they are close to each-other.

The Ruby: Gem of Happiness or Love, it grows pale in the presense of evil, or when misfortune threatens it's wearer. Can be used in conjunction with the emerald to fully distinguish between danger, evil, and vow-breakers, since their powers overlap a little. It wards off evil spirits (also ill-defined) and is an antidote to snake venom, and also apparently repels snakes and venomous creatures in general. It allows the wearer to telepathically communicate with and heal ruby dragons, and a nearby dragon of that type boosts it's power, and vice versa.

The Amethyst: Gem of Truth or Wisdom, changes color in the presence of illness, pales near poisoned food or drink, and guides the wearer toward sincerity, security and peace of mind (AKA calming the wearer when touched). It also boosts the power of Toran Magic. By A LOT. It allows the wearer to telepathically communicate with and heal Amethyst dragons, and a nearby dragon of that type boosts it's power, and vice versa.

True, this is a lot of variety in powers, but with the exception of the Diamond most of this is pretty useless in combat. Especially given that the sorcerers in this world can do things like call lightning down from the sky, or create and control thousands of soldiers made out of goo. And compared to the combat capabilities of end-game weapons of other setting? it's chump change. it should be noted that the gems DO NOT allow the wielder to control dragons, only telepathically communicate with them, meaning that the King of Deltora must still negotiate to get any help, and the Dragons are rarely cooperative, even in the face of their own extinction. The gems don't give you the ability to control the elements, warp space and time, kill with a thought, fly, or turn into a glowing giant (whatever the anime adaptation might say to the contrary).

No, what the gems allow the user to do is: keep a level and clear head, detect potentially dangerous situations, and heal people of ailments.

but here's the thing; given what I said about the monsters in deltora, any of the spectacular kinds of magic would be pretty much useless. The Shadow Lord is beyond anything any mortal is capable of fighting; he has integrated his twisted will with the spirit of half a continent, and has experimenting with new and more twisted kinds of magic for thousands of years. Frankly, even by the standards of most "dark lords" like Sauron, Melkor, and Galbatorix, he is unimaginably powerful. a direct confrontation with him is laughable.

so then, why is the Belt considered one of the most powerful objects on the planet?

Well, because what it grants isn't power.

it grants FREEDOM.

freedom is defined as "the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness[...]" -Catechism of the Catholic Church section 1731

in other words, Freedom, properly defined, is not the ability to do what one wants; that is power, not freedom. Freedom is the ability to do what one NEEDS to do. Freedom to protest. Freedom to preach. Freedom to worship. Freedom to defend oneself both physically and legally. These are freedoms.

Now lets look again at what the belt enables one to do. It allows one to clear and calm one's mind and strengthens one's will, heals, protects from certain kinds of danger, and allows one to heal others. These are not powers, they are FREEDOMS.

oh yeah, and I forgot one more of these freedoms:

WHEN ALL THE GEMS ARE PUT IN THE BELT TOGETHER, THEY PRODUCE A MAGICAL SCREEN WHICH BANISHES DARK MAGIC AND THOSE WHOSE SOULS ARE TAINTED BY IT.

it is not combat power, but it is a power FAR GREATER THAN ANY COMBAT POWER COULD EVER FEASIBLY BE

In a sense, this subverts normal fantasy tropes by going back to its roots. When JRR Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings, he wrote a book about simple working class and middle class people defeating an evil by DESTROYING POWER (with a One Ring being a kind of stand-in for power itself in all it's forms). yet, it seems that every writer since has taken a look at his work and gone "look at all this cool world-building and monsters and magic! but the protagonists and themes are kinda lame. I KNOW, i'll REPLACE those complex and nuanced themes with EDGY GRIZZLED WARRIORS AND POWER-HUNGRY SORCERERS, and make the story all about CONSOLIDATING AS MUCH POWER AS POSSIBLE TO DEFEAT SOMEONE WHO HAS ALSO CONSOLODATED AS MUCH POWER AS POSSIBLE, BUT IN AN EVIL WAY. sometimes they even have their characters performing actions which are completely morally bankrupt (razing cities, killing civilians or surrendering enemies, etc), and justify it because "main villain is worse". because in other words, most fantasy writers decided to completely rip off all of tolkien's world, down to the very creatures that inhabit it, but HORRIBLY INVERT the themes

Meanwhile, Deltora seems to do the opposite. It doesn't copy Tolkien's world. there are similarities; the Shadow Lord is kinda like Sauron if you squint a little. but the world is populated with plenty of creatures that don't line up at all, and even those that are similar are only superficially so. meanwhile, Emily Rodda (the author) took a look at Tolkien's themes, smiled and nodded, and proceeded to ELABORATE UPON THEM. The kingdom of deltora fell because the rulers detached themselves from the needs of the common man and physically separated themselves from them out of cowardice. the shadow lord twists and destroys nature to produce his horrific experiments which mirror in many ways modern genetic engineering. the battle is won not through force of arms, but through planning, cleverness, and uniting the tribes under a common cause.

there are other things, like how each gem corresponds to one of the seven virtues, or how so much emphais is put on using logic to solve problems, and similar things, but this post is long as it is, so i'm going to stop here.