#also probably wilfully ignorant

[starlightseraph]

someone tell wilson that house is very much not joking about wanting to fuck him.

i mean it’s very obvious but bro is just oblivious

[luvgods]

can’t stand blogs who refuse to acknowledge or face what’s happening in the world because ‘escapism’ do the 12k dead children in palestine get to escape? no? so then why should you

[infiniteko]

https://www.tumblr.com/illusionaurie/743221144282398720/hey-mystic-i-was-gonna-link-an-ask-from-earlier?source=share

👁️👄👁️ why is correcting misinformation / contradictions / massive over complications considered "mean"? these people realize they’re on the internet, right? if you’re still learning about ND/AV, you can literally just write down your thoughts in a private journal so you’re not responsible for spreading myths and false info on the internet to confused, vulnerable people. i’m sorry to be harsh but so many young people enjoy the title of being a "blogger", but without any accountability or experience in what they’re actually claiming to "teach". people are allowed to publicly criticize other people’s public claims, it’s the internet and it’s part of having a platform. 🤷 any ounce of criticism doesn’t equate to bullying or hatred. be open to discussion that’s not always positive and don’t take it as such a personal attack…

when people are tagging their posts with ND/AV, but aren’t using these concepts at all accurately, it’s totally fair to correct them. the same way if i came on here talking about how jewish theology considers jesus to be a messiah, i’d expect someone to tell me otherwise. it’s just blatantly untrue lol. it’s harmful and also extremely pointless to talk about things you don’t know anything about as if you know, when you can just take a tiiiny break from the internet, go within and… actually know it for yourself?

it’s veryyy transparent who here speaks from experience of knowing themselves (you + RW mainly, also i think Ada was mostly right just massively over conceptualized) versus who simply says whatever words they think sound good lol. it’s a shame to see people be wilfully ignorant but oh well🤷 it’s only themselves that they’re keeping seemingly stuck and unhappy, forever chasing (as that anon themselves said) "manifestations" and "desires" that bring about no meaningful or lasting happiness. 👎

sorry btw ik you probably can’t post this because of 🫨the controversy!!!1!1!🫨 but i had to indulge myself just a lil in the pettiness… i was bored, and i’m so tired of hearing people label SHORT + SIMPLE sentences as "riddles" just because they don’t want to put on their big girl pants and know this for themselves

Oh Anon you're speaking from the depths of my soul. I couldn't agree even more. Most of these "ND/AV" "bloggers" talk nonsense and get extremely defensive whenever they are corrected. They enjoy having people who listen to them and you can always tell who is talking from straight direct experience and who isn't. It's considered rude and "bullying" because they're asleep. But I'll be quiet🙆🏻‍♀️

[y-rhywbeth2]

I wonder if it would make resist Durge feel better to know that evil deities killing their clergy for turning apostate is normal? I mean they probably knew this already, but.

"Priests who commit heresy [...] or who wilfully disobey or ignore their deities have committed a major transgression. [...] If the deity is a neutral or evil one and the offense serious enough, major transgressions may even by punished by death in whatever form the deity has the power to arrange."

Also, we should probably keep an eye on Shadowheart's health.

[sarcasticscribbles]

HEY HI local dark avatar here.

The dark on a emotional level:

to me the dark is blissfull ignorance. its the oppesite of the eye, the oppesite of knowing. it is keeping yourself and maybe others in the dark. in Jungian phychology the part of ourself we hide is litarly called a shadow. So it's not wanting to see parts of yourself (on a personal level) or parts of the world around you. This is probably also why Basira is associated with the dark next to the hunt (I don't know if its on purpose.) She is wilfully ignorant about Daisy's actions. That is what I think can make a dark avatar. also yes its a heavily unexplored fear in tma, I hope this made sense.

OH THAT'S INTERESTING yes I really want some theme option with "kept in the dark" but I don't know how to word it for the poll (blissful ignorant or just ignorance might work) I've never made the Basira - The dark connection but that's such a good interpretation! There are so many aspects of the dark I feel are unexplored in the main series and i'm very excited to work with it

[thirteens-pocket-watch]

There is something to be said about the Captain's internalised homophobia. It probably already has but I want to.

In Redding Weddy, we obviously see him burying the letter and rigging it to explode but that's all in the past. I want to focus on the present. When Fanny tells him about her attraction to someone, he tells her to "bury that emotion deep down and never let it show" and that "nothing good will come of it." This is obviously reflective of how he still views his own homosexuality as a source of shame.

However, in Perfect Day, he is fully accepting of Claire and Sam getting married. He actively helps set up the wedding and is proud of all involved when it goes successfully. This indicates that while he remains ashamed of his sexuality, this homophobia is exclusively internal and doesn't extend to others.

I may be going too in depth but to me, this shows that the Captain is quicker to judge himself than others. What is a moral failing for him is forgivable for another person.

If you want to go another step further, this can also be tied into the fact that the Captain is very autistic coded. Growing up nuerodivergent is an isolating and confusing experience, largely due to the fact that everything you do is percieved as wrong. You can say and do the exact same things as other people and yet still be told you're doing it wrong. Your tone of voice was rude, your body language makes you look uninterested, you're being wilfully ignorant but all the while, you don't know what you're doing wrong. I think this is where this trait comes from.

So in conclusion, the Captain is an autistic gay man with internalised homophobia and his experience growing up as an autistic person shaped his tendency to judge himself for things he forgives others for.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

you can't gatekeep a religion people can worship whatever they want and you can't stop them

Is "calling out people who are wilfully ignorant, condescending, and imperialistic/colonialist in their attitudes toward Greek culture and people" gatekeeping to you?

Then this probably says something about you

Also, kind reminder you don't exist in a vacuum, and Greek people (or people from other countries) who see you treating their figures, practices, and old religions like puppet-theater, are not the bad guys for bringing this to your attention

[littlesparklight]

Focusing a bit on Troy, here's how I arranged things, starting with the first sack:

1270 BC; the first/"lesser" sack of Troy. Priam is 26. I use the myth (in Diodorus Siculus) where Priam helps Telamon out of Troy after Laomedon imprisons him when he's sent on embassy by Herakles to request/demand the horses and Hesione, so Priam would be no child. Considering that the sons of Laomedon aside from Priam named in the Bibliotheke are the same ones seated with Priam in the Iliad, I also ignore the "Herakles killed all of Laomedon's sons". He clearly didn't! 1267 BC - Priam sends a delegation to Delphi to ask the oracle when it might be the right time to request Hesione back [it's not specified what the oracular question was]; the delegation comes back with Panthoos, Delphian priest of Apollo, who has come along to "interpret the answer given"/explain it to Priam. He ends up staying in Troy and is given the same position in Troy as he'd had in Delphi. 1258 BC - Priam assists his future father in law Dymas and his sons against an Amazon incursion, meeting Hecuba (~21) and getting married to her. [He divorces Arisbe and either he or her father then marries her to Hyrtakos.] 1251 BC - Paris is born, and exposed. I don't have him be the second son, but he's among the earlier ones. (Hecuba is also in general giving birth to a lot of multiples to squeeze 19 sons and a handful of daughters into the years required!)

For Paris' return to Troy, I went and played freely with things. Because I wanted to. So Paris is ten (1241 BC) when he returns to Troy, using none of the more "established" myths for that. However! If I was going to use the funeral games version I'd probably have him be ~18 (so he returns then in 1233 BC). The reason for this, aside from still giving Paris at least two years in Troy prior to the Judgment, is that Hyginus says he was come to "young manhood" when the funeral games and murder attempt happened, and the hypothesis for Euripides' Alexandros play specifies he was twenty. And since it's always floating when the Judgment happens (before or after recognition) having the Judgment happen at 20 regardless seems like a good spot to me.

And since I wilfully ignore the part where Paris has ships built, or Aphrodite orders ships built for him, because Troy would already have ships, and it'd take years for such to be built, Paris then leaves for Sparta in 1231 BC.

I do go with there having been ~5 years between Paris and Helen reaching Troy and the war actually starting. It makes sense, even if one doesn't use the full ten as both the Iliad claims and the Bibliotheke accounts for. So that means the Trojan war properly starts in 1226 BC.

Originally I'd gone with the most usual date for the end of the war (1184 thereabouts), deeming the other, earlier dates, as too early. But when I wanted to lean more into the Bronze Age collapse, which means certain cities (like Mycenae) have already been destroyed by 1184 BC, I moved things up to still be close(er) to the 1184 BC date but not close enough I couldn't accommodate later events to align with a date around there for the destruction of Mycenae.

[starmanbyler]

see this actually made me realise something. this person is right. mike was not trying to control el and he didn’t really care much about how she looked or how she dressed.

how does this help my case??

well, why do you think they made max say ‘not hopper, not mike, you.’ ? there was no indication that hopper nor mike had much to do with how el dresses. in fact it’s pretty overt what max actually meant by that and i think this person may just be wilfully ignorant about it. it’s not about clothes.

max was talking about el finding herself and understanding what she actually likes. she literally said ‘how do i know what i like?’ and they just loveee to brush over that??

EL DOESNT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO LIKE SOMETHING!!

how does this not raise any red flags to these people???

this ties into that whole argument that it’s supposedly ableist to say el isn’t ready to date, when until she was 14 she didn’t even know how to tell what clothes she likes. if she can’t tell what clothes she likes, how do you expect her to know what she likes in a relationship and who is good for her?? i’ve gone over this so many times but the only understanding el has of romance is mike kissing her + overdramatised old romance movies. this is Not Good for her bro??

max’s comment there had nothing to do with clothes. what she’s saying is that she should live based off of what feels like her, not hopper or mike. in hopper’s case, she probably just means that most of el’s current life is based around hopper’s, her clothes, her home, the tv shows she watches. and the mike comment is also about this but also about mike himself. i think it’s sort of saying that mike may not actually be what el likes.

max urges el to do some introspection and reflection and try to figure out if she likes mike for mike or if she likes mike for what he represents. whether that’s in the way that he’s the first person she felt she could trust, or the way he just is her romantic partner and she sees that as a positive thing because of it’s portrayal in media and she sees her friends having relationships and thinking that’s just the norm.

the whole ableism discourse is odd to me. it’s not even like it’s canon that el is disabled. people act like she’s just autistic (which she may well be) and in which case, it would be dumb to say she can’t date, because many autistic people are able to have good relationships. the problem is that el is severely traumatised and sheltered and quite a few years behind on her understanding of the world. for example, she didn’t know what a friend was until just 2 years before.

and the argument that she’s not ready to date is not inherently about her having trauma or possibly a disability, it’s based on her as a person because we can see in text and subtext that she doesn’t understand her own relationship or feel how she ‘should’ in a relationship. people with trauma or disabilities are often able to have relationships, and el could at some point but the show tells us that she isn’t ready, and she isn’t in love with mike.

it’s not about the clothes. mike doesn’t care how el looks. he said he liked the new look. which ironically i think represents her independence and understanding of herself. mike and el would both be better off without each other romantically. i honestly feel like him saying that (‘i like the new look by the way’) in a meta sense, was more like him accepting that she should go in a different direction (and so should he) and that m&m scene, despite what people think, didn’t seem like a ‘getting back together’ scene to me. it felt more like an amicable reunion, they never officially reinstate their relationship, they just decide to stop the fighting and get along. i know lucas said to win her back, but then there was the weird music and weird face of mike before him soon having this scene with el.

it felt to me like mike was accepting their breakup and realising they don’t work. i also do not think that they were together between that point and the very end of s3. it would explain why he looked so shocked after she kissed him. the ambiguity confuses me and i wish they had touched a bit more on what their ‘making up’ even meant but overall i think it was first el realising they don’t work, then mike realised, but el changed her mind because she had lost something stable in her life. that’s one idea. i’m not too sure why exactly she decided to say she loved mike and kissed him at the end of that season, and if anyone has any ideas i would be interested

[jayextee]

Cunk on Britain

Because, fuck it, I can't sleep and binged all five episodes of this thing and now apparently this Tumblr is a blog where I review every piece of media my shitstain attention-span let me consume in its entirety.

I'd been aware of the character Philomena Cunk for a while due to YouTube Shorts showing me these bizarre interview snippets where a woman (Diane Morgan, who is excellent) plays the embodiment of Dunning-Kruger syndrome made flesh, a character so confidently-wrong and willing to display it in the form of stupid questions, I couldn't not watch any new one the almighty Algorithm™ flung my way.

So I'd been meaning to check out more, in context, in the form of the show. Which I have now, due to the aforementioned insomnia.

All five episodes play out in the 'mockumentary' format, and OH LAWDY is it well-observed and executed with finesse. The flat and boring tone of the presenter (Cunk herself), the visual vocabulary, the pacing of regular documentary programming all sends the genre up in a manner so tiringly-familiar it becomes hilarious.

Not that it doesn't have the help of some amazing writing, by Charlie Brooker; best-known for his hand-drawn comic strips advertising CeX back when they were a tiny London backstreet shop.

Or Black Mirror. That's a thing he also did. I guess.

So, that's the how, but the what? A brief, ish, history of Great Britain. As told by the most amusingly-dimwitted and wilfully-ignorant presenter, who I hasten to remind the one reader I probably have, is fictional; via a series of archive footage, historic stills, helicopter shots of Cunk on hills, and interviews with experts in their field trying their very best to remain composed whilst answering absurdly-silly questions -- it's brilliant, and funny, and clever.

So. I guess I'll be checking out the follow-up Cunk on Earth the next time I can't sleep then, eh?

5/5

[eff-plays]

can we get more of your feelings about the durge/astarion stuff pretty please?? because i feel SO vindicated after reading your thoughts and am almost resentful of durge/astarion stuff having everyone so "they're made for each other!" and "they're canon!", it feels so invalidating towards tav/astarion. i really don't like durge either; i have one canon character when i play rpgs and dark urge does not fit them in the slightest 😓

if i wanted to put an understanding spin on it, i guess that's the trade off for having your own custom character with a back story you've created, and at least astarion is so incredibly loving towards tav and talks repeatedly about how incredible they are and how much he cares for them. but i do absolutely have SO many created scenarios in my head where my tav breaks down with their own traumas and ptsd, and astarion is there to comfort and help them through it, because god knows we don't get any of that in the actual game 😭 (i hope this made sense omg, i just love your opinions and want to hear them all)

Honestly I am not generally in the business of having too many opinions on things I haven't personally tried or experienced, so what you've seen so far of my opinions on Durge/Astarion is basically the extent of it, and my reasoning for deciding not to try it in the first place.

However, I can offer some further vindication in that I think saying "they're made for each other" or "they're canon" is such a dipshit and factually incorrect take that it's pretty much not worth getting upset over. People can say and think whatever they want, that doesn't always make it true, particularly not when it comes to RPGs that are meant to be played as you want them. People who say this are fundamentally misunderstanding the concept of an RPG, and they're probably stupid, and their opinions aren't worth considering or taking seriously. Or, they're just trying to upset you and they feel smug about their own choices, in which case you should still ignore them.

Like, I hate Ascended Astarion, but I'm not gonna say Spawn Astarion is canon. If I do say it, I will clarify that it's canon for me, because it is, but canon in general? It would be literally, factually untrue. So why would I say that unless I'm wilfully obnoxious and smug about my choices? Or just dumb? Which I am, but not like that.

Iirc Larian encouraged people to play custom origin for their first playthrough, and people did, and most people tried going for Astarion. That means that, statistically, a shitton of people have Tav/Astarion as their main pairing. Why would they encourage this if it's apparently not canon? Why shoot themselves in the foot by offering an apparently inferior experience first?

Also, just because one writer wrote stuff for one character because they had the time to do so, does not make it somehow the definitive answer. It was clearly not intended to be the only romance where Durge gets a specific variation, I doubt Larian would do that, so it's basically an accident, or at least unintentional.

That being said, even if it was intentional, who's to say it's a good thing? Harkening back to my Dragon Age days, I remember people saying that Andrastian human was clearly the intended experience, and the game struggled to accommodate any other race/class. Does that make it canon? Or just bad game design/writing?

Obviously not saying Larian did a bad job, clearly they did a good job if people are going to bat for it this obnoxiously, but the logic is equally flawed.

I do have issues with Durge in general as a concept (mostly cuz I just don't understand the logic behind including it aside from ... previous game fanservice?) but I haven't even graduated from gamer school yet so I won't get into that.

Also, one thing abt Tav I love that Durge misses out on is just the sheer ballsiness and comedy of rocking up to Bhaal's secret temple and killing all his guys and just not even being involved in any of that shit at all. Durge gets all that angst and drama, sure, and Orin is soo important apparently, but she died in two rounds for me. TWO. Imagine being just some fucking guy who fucks up your shit so bad that you have to restart everything. That amuses me to no end.

So ... there's that, lmao.

[legolasghosty]

91 please!

Hi, SO SORRY about how long this took, been swamped! But some more Holograms for you! Julie and Bobby are... supposed to start actually kinda talking in this scene, but they're not cooperating much so far...

Julie stared out the window, wilfully ignoring the tension in the air. It wasn’t actually silent, LA never was regardless of the time of day or night, but neither she nor Bobby had made any attempt at conversation beyond checking directions in the 20 minutes they’d been on the road. The boys had all fallen asleep right away, Alex snoring softly and Reggie practically lying across Luke’s lap. 

She could tell Bobby was stealing glances at her every so often, probably because she was doing the same thing. There were suddenly a million questions running through her mind about this weird guy who was an ‘intern’ but also apparently related to Caleb Covington? And was somehow set up to run HGC Records in the future? But hated his job? And, on a more personal note, she couldn’t help but wonder what he meant about ‘knowing a lot about grief’. As much as he’d mostly been a jerk so far, a part of her wondered if he’d get what she meant if she brought up her mom and how music felt after losing her. But that was also a super rude thing to just ask someone, right?

(Send me a number and I'll write that many words on my WIP and show you!)

[keeperoftinyarmy]

I have two levels of thought, for JK as an individual and JK as an artist. I'm not trying to trash him but I'm just trying to get my thoughts straight and seek your opinion because I feel a bit betrayed.

Now as an artist, I've always thought JK has great potential as a soloist. However so far, all his three singles released during solo era are pretty generic. I think its fine to like them but I expected better from him. I mean I'd expect this sort of music from a BP band member, not someone from BTS. As for the payola, I personally don't care even though I'm shocked about the extent of payola he's getting. I just can't take his achievements that seriously because of them though. And other people might find it hard to digest because it goes against things BTS preached as a band.

The thing that gets is me mad is that if they have this much capacity then everything I saw during Face - forget paid radio spins but just sending the audio to radio, the splitting of the streams by Spotify, the issues with the D2C web store, the issues with Hanteo - were all wilfully ignored by Hybe. But that has nothing to do with JK.

So anyway his songs and his choice to go for payola - I think it's fair to criticize JK on that but they have nothing to do with Jimin.

But there's just one thing thats genuinely made me question what JK is doing as a friend to Jimin and as individual. And that is the extended parallels between elements of Like Crazy and Seven. I say parallels because I don't want to say the c-word but that's what it is. Why are the concept photos, outfits, styling, and dance moves so similar between two songs that have no relation to each other. When I saw the concept photos, I wrote it off as a coincidence, but now with the choreography I find it hard to do that again. And JK has seen the LC dance - he watched it right on live so I can't pretend the hybe choreographer just gave him this dance and he didn't know anything. I just can't reconcile it in my head. I feel sad.

I respect your opinion and thank you for sharing it with me. I’m going to assume this isn’t a shade attack on Kookie and respond.

I will honestly say Seven is the first JK solo song I’ve really liked….except for My You. And that’s totally fine, every song is not for every person. It doesn’t change how talented JK is or how much I want him to succeed.

Payola… that’s a loaded word and we don’t know that happened. What I see are deals and connections and different modes of marketing than BigHit has used in the past. I’ve thought since Like Crazy and PD Bang house hunting in LA that BigHit was set on fully understanding how to create a huge hit in the US market - for JK’s release but also for future BTS releases. This is a business…a business that wants to make money and expand …so figuring out how to get to the top of Billboard should be their priority. I think they had a plan for Seven and Face’s success surprised them. I don’t think they hated it because their stock rose but I do think they continued their plan for their western push. Was Jimin’s album a casualty of that? Seems like but I don’t know. I’m proud of Face still doing well despite the challenges. Jimin’s next project will probably get even more internal support because of it.

Now…the part about the concept similarities…

Going from years of evidence from video, articles and the guys’ mouths Jimin and Jungkook are really close. That means they are discussing their work with each other. That means that any similarities between Face and Seven are fully known and approved by the two of them. Because if Jimin had an issue with Seven’s concept he would have spoken up…and no way JK would have done it if Jimin were upset by it. And I’d bet all my money on that fact.

I don’t think it was copying I think it was a deliberate connection maybe even a collaboration of sorts. I feel like there’s a thread between the two purposely put there by the artists.

This should not be a surprise to anyone that follows BTS…jikook often match and have similar ideas.

[fitzrove]

Tanz der Vampire & The Hero's Journey

TdV is often brought up as an example of a musical where (spoilers) the bad guys win. But I don't really agree with that take. Certainly, the assumed objective of our fearless vampire killers is not fulfilled by the end (the vampires are very much not killed), but that doesn't mean the hero of the story doesn't triumph. Let me go into excessive detail...

The Hero and his Goal

Alfred is obviously the POV character and the hero of the story. He's the first character we meet, and throughout the story, he's the character whose thoughts we get the most insight on. But unlike in a lot of vampire hunter stories, his goal isn't really to kill vampires, even though he does sing a bit about slaying monsters in Perfekter Tag. He's afraid of them and the danger they represent, but he doesn't have any particular deepseated conviction against them or trauma related to them (á la Uwe Kröger's Van Helsing in the Dracula musical for example). The vampire-hunting goal is really pushed onto the narrative by the professor, who occupies the role of the "mentor" in the Hero's Journey, and Sarah, who seeks the vampires out on purpose and (in Alfred's opinion) puts her life at risk. If the vampires didn't threaten Sarah (and if the professor, Alfred's mentor and most importantly his employer, wasn't obsessed with them), I'd argue that Alfred would have no quarrel with them. He's forced to actively oppose them by circumstance, and slaying them isn't an intrinsic goal he has.

So what is Alfred's goal? Well, according to Michael Kunze, his driving motivation is his love for Sarah. But I'd argue it's about more than Sarah herself (which doesn't diminish their relationship in my opinion) - it's about first love and letting all those sweet gooey emotions take hold of you for the first time, about being fearless and vulnerable. Alfred loves Sarah and wants to be free to love her regardless of societal expectations. And hell, there's a bunch of societal expectations and restrictions - Alfred sees what Chagal does to his daughter for something as innocent as taking a bath, how could he expect him to react positively if he told him he wanted to, for instance, propose to Sarah? And the professor thinks feelings are useless bullshit (and since Alfred seems to be pretty much financially dependent on him, he's really stuck between a rock and a hard place and pursuing a relationship with Sarah must seem impossible to him). He probably can't see any way for them to be together other than by running away (even though that must also seem like a pipe dream, because of the financial and practical impossibilities). So Alfred wishes, above all else, to liberate himself from everything that binds and obligates him, so that he can be free to feel and love and be together with the person he cares about openly at last.

The Hero's Journey 1 - Departure

Using the Wikipedia summary of The Hero's Journey, we can trace the similarities of TdV's plot with that narrative scheme. In the Departure section, the main character

lives in the ordinary world and receives a call to go on an adventure. The hero is reluctant to follow the call but is helped by a mentor figure.

So the ordinary world setup (which outlines Alfred's situation and his central problem of not being able to love and feel freely) would be the first few songs (He Ho He to Nie Geseh'n). In Nie Geseh'n, he (and Sarah) quite literally hear the call for the first time - they both hear the vampires sing Sei bereit during their duet. Alfred tries to put it out of his mind (which we see quite clearly in Wahrheit, where everyone except Sarah keeps themselves busy and wilfully ignores the vampire issue, while the professor - the mentor - tries to prod for answers so they can chase the call in the hopes of eliminating its source). After Sarah vanishes, he's pushed by the professor's fervor and determination to kill the vampires (and his own devotion to Sarah) to follow Chagal to the castle.

The Hero's Journey 2 - Initiation

The initiation section begins with the hero then traversing the threshold to an unknown or "special world"...

Literally Vor dem Schloss - the door to the castle is a very literal threshold between the normal world and the vampire world. But it's also an emotional threshold - the lyrics of the song have Krolock dangle the promise of all Alfred wants (love, freedom, passion) in front of him and telling him that by entering this world he will be able to experience all of it. Alfred completely forgets about vampire hunting for this encounter - he's just transfixed by Krolock and the dark freedom and "forbidden knowledge" he promises.

... where he faces tasks or trials, either alone or with the assistance of helpers.

Alfred's trials amount to:

Facing temptation in Carpe Noctem (and resisting it in Alles ist Hell right after, which continues the motif of burying your head in the sand and not dealing with emotions or problems that was introduced in Wahrheit)

Being pushed by the professor to kill Krolock in Der Grüft, but refusing to by saying that he can't (which shows how he's faltering - his fear does play a part in this, but it's more than anything a sign of his heart not being committed to the vampire-hunting mission. The professor tries to push him by telling him to think of Sarah, but to no avail)

Failing to convince Sarah to escape in their bathroom conversation & facing the fact that he'll have to brave his fears to protect her (wait out the ball because she explicitly says she won't leave before then) and coming to terms with it ("I will go into nothingness because I love you") (Für Sarah)

Wenn Liebe in dir Ist (facing the threat of violence, almost escaping by way of cleverness with his book trick, being rescued by the professor)

The trials serve to strengthen Alfred's love for Sarah and his conviction to do whatever he can to stay by her side even if it means forgetting his fears and "betraying himself" (actual lyrics). They don't serve to grow his hatred of vampires, even though he does become braver both in the face of danger and about openly declaring how he feels.

The Ball

The hero eventually reaches "the innermost cave" or the central crisis of his adventure, where he must undergo "the ordeal" where he overcomes the main obstacle or enemy, undergoing "apotheosis" and gaining his reward (a treasure or "elixir").

This is where the show is at its most subversive. Alfred and the professor do face Krolock head-on, but not before he manages to bite Sarah. They don't kill him, but they do seem to triumph over him by escaping. And about the apostheosis, well...

The Hero's Journey 3 - The Return

In the return section, the hero must return to the ordinary world with his reward. He may be pursued by the guardians of the special world, or he may be reluctant to return and may be rescued or forced to return by intervention from the outside.

The apostheosis really only happens after/during the return, which is why it's such a twist to the audience. We expect the ball to he the grand finale, but really, the apostheosis only happens while our heroes are being "pursued by the guardians of the special world" (Koukol). And said apostheosis is obviously Sarah biting Alfred and fulfilling their shared goal - to become free to love and live outside all boundaries and expectations. If you're a vampire, you won't really have to worry about food or shelter in the same way humans have to ever again - and if anyone tries to give you trouble or to restrict you, you can just maul them (which Alfred tries to do to the professor immediately upon being turned). It's really the only way for Sarah and Alfred to be together, and I think after all that they went through during the show, they both know that - Alfred perhaps only subconsciously until the very last minute. And they revel in it. The show has a happy ending even though zero vampires were slain - the poor professor Abronsius, who represents rationality and conventional moral propriety, got the short end of the stick because his ideals go against the show's thesis statement. But Sarah and Alfred got exactly what they wanted from the beginning.

The hero again traverses the threshold between the worlds, returning to the ordinary world with the treasure or elixir he gained, which he may now use for the benefit of his fellow man. The hero himself is transformed by the adventure and gains wisdom or spiritual power over both worlds.

And because Sarah and Alfred have now learned this truth, they can... uh... "use the elixir for the benefit of their fellow man", ie. bite people to liberate them like Krolock did to Sarah and Sarah did to Alfred. And the finale of the show fits this idea perfectly - "the vampires invite you to dance", you're next, being dead & selfish & cursed isn't such a bad thing because it's fun and sexy as hell. Vampirism is a "get out of jail free card" for individualism and greed, which may harm others (like Chagal illustrates in his solo - "why shouldn't I suck on blood when other people have sucked things out of me") but benefits the person doing it. I think this is what Kunze meant with his unhinged "tdv is about German reunification" take - it's about free market capitalism, in a way XD But I digress.

So yeah, TdV is a pretty clear hero's journey story where Alfred (in a way) eventually gets just what he wants, even though he resists temptation for most of the show. I love it and it's awesome >:D

[essayofthoughts]

📓

#4 - So! This is a fun one. I had this idea ages back because I'm one of those people who thinks that Vesper II may well be planetouched but I don't think she's necessarily a full aasimar.

Now I admit that I mostly think this because I think, so soon after Vax's passing and everything with Vecna, that both Percy and Vex would have a strong and likely (especially in Percy's case) bad reaction to their firstborn child being born an aasimar. Aasimar get angel guides - from infancy they are being told some kind of ruling on good or bad and by someone the parents don't know, don't get to meet and get no say in - and we know that Percy especially has cause to be deeply sceptical of random voices in one's head telling one what to do. I think Vex would have an easier time with it than Percy - perhaps hoping that the voice that guides Vesper is Vax's - but I think it'd still be very very rough for them, especially given, you know, Orthax!

But. Let's go against my usual tendency and assume that Vesper is actually an aasimar - you cannot tell me Percy would not be the most paranoid bastard about it. He'd probably try to use every means available to him to assess if this guardian, guiding angel meets with his approval and wilfully encourage Vesper to ignore it if not.

Now. Let's take a step sideways and back.

There's this historical thing that you see especially in early Victorian occultism and the like of "Ghost photography". Now most usually this was a case of accidental or even intentional double exposure, creating a ghostly image behind the intended one. It's extremely cool. But for a while people believed these might be real - that one could see lingering ghosts and spirits via the medium of photography.

Percy said he'd never make another gun. Taliesin has backed this up. But... he knows about chemical salts. He knows about sodium and presumably other fiery metals to create a flash. He knows Tiberius used magic to create, what was in essence, a selfie-stick. Percy hates magic and has the scientific knowledge to figure out photography.

I imagine it's chance, at first, that reveals the ghostly angel that sits at Vesper's shoulder, eyes burning with Pelor's flames but hands soft as sunlight, wings like dustmotes caught in beams of light. I think Percy just wanted to make something new.

I think once he realises it reveals active extra-planar connections he starts experimenting.

Aasimar angel guides are one thing - but also a lack, when the aasimar has Fallen, perhaps? Could it reveal warlock patrons? Could it reveal a devil's contract or a demon one has dealt with?

Percy is paranoid after all. How long before photography spreads across Exandria, used to verify what influences someone has before they take public office? (How many devil contracts does Percy get to stall, and does it help him with his guilt for accepting Orthax and Ipkesh?)

send in “📓” and I’ll roll a d10 and ramble some worldbuilding thoughts

[e-von-dahl]

I think that anon was probably referencing how LGBT communities don't really have a need to bring up a few years of teenagers bullying each other on tumblr because it's not a huge deal for them in comparison. the ace community brings it up rather frequently because it's pretty much the worst thing to ever happen to their community since they don't face systemic issues in the way LGBT people do

“The worst thing to ever happen to their community” yeah and the worst thing to happen to lgbt people was some kids using gay as an insult… (obvious fucking sarcasm)

Ace people absolutely face systemic issues you fucking dolt. Corrective rape, conversion therapy, marriage discrimination, medical discrimination, etc. are all issues that are faced by ace people. Either you’re living under a rock or you’re wilfully ignorant.

Also if you think the worst of the ace discourse era was just “teenage bullying” you weren’t actually there to witness the genuinely awful shit people said and did. My original post was pretty lighthearted, I was just talking about some of the batshit nonsense people came up with, but there was some genuinely horrific stuff happening as well.