#alternative interpretation

[smilesgoalongway]

Lately, I have really begun to feel that Hera's sufferings have been invisiblized. Imagine you're the Queen of Marriage and Family and your husband's name comes on the top of the deafaulters' list every week??? And you can't even kill him? Or divorce him? Also, given how girls are taught about the "sanctity of marriage" from a young age, separating from him or involving other people in the problem has been internalized by us as a big no-no. What can you do? You ignore and let it slide once, twice thrice but multiple times?? (Folks don't let it slide it at all.) So what do you do?? You target the ones you atleast have a chance of overpowering. (I'm by no means justifying or excusing the cruelties, just explaining them). You want to seek the control and security that you're not allowed. That which had been forcefully, deceptively and patriarchly taken from you. How, you ask? By deceiving yourself and making yourself content with the modicum of power you're able to accrue by making others miserable. By victimising the victims.

They had one unfortunate encounter with Zeus, she deals with him everyday. You may have a support system after the assault, she has none. You have gods to pray to and vent. She can pray to none. She has been reduced to a joke in front of the pantheon. The Goddess of Marriage whose own marriage is in shambles. The Goddess of Family who try however she might, cannot have one. The Queen of the pantheon but remembered only as Zeus' wife.

She was Gaia's too, just not loved as much. Just taught that His word is the last word. He is the source of your joy. If he makes you cry, then too bad.

She was Poseidon's and Hades' sister too but they did not protect her. Well, the moment she became the wife and sister-in-law, she ceased to be a sister.

She ruled others beside Zeus, not under him. But it seems his sceptre was more fearful than her crown.

She would not let this slide. If Zeus wouldn't allow her to be the Goddess she was fated to be, she'll carve her own title. She'll be remembered as the Goddesd of Vengeance and Cruelty. Hera refuses to be a joke, not when it comes at the cost of her tears. She learnt how to be selfish from Zeus. If she cannot have a happy marriage and family, she couldn't care less about others'.

Note: this is an attempt to showcase Hera's misfortune. By no means was it intended to reduce other victims' plight. Apologies if it came across like that.

[goldensunset]

when people refer to canon story-relevant kingdom hearts games as ‘spinoffs’ it makes me sad not only for the obvious reasons i always say but also bc like man i WISH this series had spinoffs. imagine what they could do if they had permission from nomura to truly go off the rails and ignore the greater canon for a second and just do some fun whimsical plotless thing in an alternate universe. imagine a fishing/boating game on destiny islands. kh fighting game. it is an injustice that we have been deprived of kingdom karts. can anyone hear me

[ghcstao3]

ghoap first meetings but it’s the 141 on a mission. they’re (unfortunately) in a populated area as they scout out the target, and while they did everything they could to not have things turn sour, this target just happened to be overly paranoid and far too skittish, so they, along with everyone else working with the target, turn and attack.

gunshots fire and crowds of people scream and flee in every which direction. it’s disorienting, but the 141 pushes forward—being careful of civilians, they try to keep solely to hand-to-hand and short range weapons as they chase down the small group, target included.

soap, at some point, ends up pivoting into an alleyway in the hopes of a shortcut to the next street over where he’d seen one of the men disappear, but to his misfortune it’s a dead end.

it’s not until he realizes this does he notice the man smoking further back in the alley. he raises an eyebrow at soap’s breathlessness, pushing off the wall to approach. soap finds himself mesmerized by the way the stranger snubs out his cigarette on the brick wall, unable to sputter out any sort of excuse and apologies, i’ll leave you be.

he’s supposed to be a professional.

it happens too fast, the man coming close, until it feels like they’re barely a foot apart. then in a flurry of movement so fast it makes soap’s brain stutter to a halt, the man seizes the concealed gun in soap’s waistband, aims at something behind him and pulls the trigger, mindful as possible of the barrel’s proximity to soap’s head.

his ears still ring, though, as the man tucks the gun back away just as quickly as he’d retrieved it. he doesn’t hear the slump of a body dropping, nor the clatter of a weapon falling to the ground, but he can certainly sense it.

soap decides he’s in love, then and there.

[waddei]

the pressure might be getting to him a little bit

[woof-verine]

re: the vanessa logan wade situation post deadpool & wolverine

I think vanessa and wade try to make it work again, I really do. I think they talk about it. I think he takes her to dinner a few times and he goes over to her place and they try to make things like they used to be between them until they realize that things can never be that way again because THEY will never be that way again. both of them have changed, are changing still, are growing upward and outward and also … apart.

wolverine tentatively reintroduces himself to the x men and wade tags along. vanessa starts her new position at work and that comes with way more responsibilities and way less time for anything else. she’s more serious than she used to be. wade is, too, but in a different way. one day when the x men go out on a mission, wade suits up too because he “has nothing better to do.” logan rolls his eyes but lets him come and stares down the other x men when they ask what the hell wade is doing there. deadpool doesn’t shut up the whole mission. he also does a good job. soon he comes on another mission. then another one. wade keeps weird hours because wolverine is always on call with the x men, and now deadpool is kind of unofficially on call when wolverine is. vanessa needs eight hours of sleep to wake up early to get to her job on time. she isn’t a stripper anymore. and wade… well wade’s looking like less and less of a merc. when wade isn’t sleeping over at vanessa’s, he doesn’t have to worry about someone killing her in the middle of the night while they’re looking for him. wolverine can handle whatever comes after him. he can handle whatever comes after wolverine. when logan wakes up tense and violent from a nightmare in the middle of the night, wade is there and he can’t hurt him. when wade wakes up in a cold sweat from nightmares of his own, he doesn’t have to explain it to logan, because logan already knows what it’s like. slowly, wade’s world unwinds itself from vanessa’s and wraps around logan’s. it’s almost so slow they don’t know it’s happening. but it happens.

and one morning, maybe after a couple of months being back together, wade and vanessa wake up on one of the increasingly rare nights they spend together, and they look at each other and realize that they are different now. too different. and then it ends, to quote t.s. eliot, not with a bang but with a whimper

[claraoswalds]

Am I boring you, Henry? It's just a bit stuffy. Can't you play something more exciting, sir? There is one thing you might like. It's called the Devil's Chord. Tell me more, sir. It was banned by the Church in medieval times in case it allows the devil to enter the room.

DOCTOR WHO The Devil's Chord

[dustykneed]

good luck, babes! 💙💛

maybe i should write a fic. hmm

(edit: if you wanted to know my personal interpretation... watch the can in bones' hand. and the colors mean things loll. i think i'll make an explanation tomorrow just for fun)

[hellenhighwater]

In all these years, I've never learned how to tag someone, so I have to come to you directly, to show you the tears on my cheeks because he's sitting so quietly, curled up, watching a world he'll never know through a tiny crack in the wall.

Thank you!

You know, it's a little odd. All of the pieces in this series are about isolation and escape--Icarus, Orpheus and Eurydice, Prometheus, and certainly the Minotaur. But A Crack in the Labyrinth came first, and more than any of the rest, it's about resignation. About having fought and scrabbled and clawed desperately and still...not having made it. Still being trapped inside, alone.

And when I made it, I hadn't really intended to say anything more than that one piece, but I just couldn't leave it there. I had to give him the whole story--an innocent beginning, same as anyone. I couldn't leave the ending as it was written; I'd initially just intended to have the conclusion the myth gives him, slain by Theseus, but...if I'm going to say, "I'm the minotaur, monstrous and alone and told by the world that that is right and deserving," then I am also saying "you, who feels deeply for this, for whom this resonates, you are also the minotaur and we are monsters who deserve the ending that is written for us." And I...just can't bear to. There has to be hope.

So there is, very literally, light at the end of the labyrinth, one way or another.

Anyways, I used this song for that photoset on the clock app, but I think you would also enjoy it. Cow Boy, take us away.

[essektheylyss]

Because I'm going to be thinking about this forever, I do want to talk about how Caleb speaks, because I think there's something to be said for how his protectiveness (in general) actually presents itself.

Caleb uses epithets and allusions a lot. He refers to Nott as "my goblin friend," to Jester as "my blue friend," to Yasha as "my barbarian friend." Yussa is at one point "our wizard friend," and Essek is "my Kryn friend," in the two-shot.

He is also, notably, paranoid about being surveiled. He wears the amulet of nondetection for most of the campaign, and it's not unwarranted, given that Trent locates him and nearly burns down the Blooming Grove the moment he's able to get a lock on them. Trent in fact has been shown to use any and all information he can get ahold of about or from Caleb against him, to a truly extreme level. His seemingly single-minded goal is expressed to be to ensure that not a single aspect of Caleb's life and loved ones is safe at any moment, to perpetuate the threat of harm from any direction in order to essentially control and monopolize Caleb's every thought.

In Echoes of the Solstice, Caleb does suggest that he is not concerned with Trent being able to surveil him any longer, but Trent is not the only threat, and, timey-wimey plot nonsense aside, the Hells' inability to scry on him since then suggests that he is likely wearing an amulet at least by that point in the timeline.

The extent of Trent's focus on him and his ensuing paranoia is extreme, and even beyond when he may no longer feel that Trent is a threat to him, he seems unwilling to allow him to pose a threat to others, and people he cares about in particular.

Within that context, it's not difficult to read his use of epithets, particularly in referring to people who are not currently present (rather than using their name aloud), as a form of protection. Some of his manner of speaking implicitly or explicitly presumes that he is being surveiled, even outside of the context of protectiveness; after Vess Derogna's death, he frequently refers to Lucian only by epithets, most often, "our old friend," and at one point establishes "Lady D," (to Jester's glee) as a code name for Vess Derogna for the specific purposes of countersurveilance.

This method of protection, I would imagine, goes double for Essek; not only does Caleb have the habit of worrying over those who would use his loved ones against him, which is of course borne out in Echoes of the Solstice, but he also must consider that Essek has his own enemies, and a stray mention of his name in the wrong company or setting could get his partner killed. It seems even in that gifset, when Caleb says, "I am worried for Essek," after the encounter with Trent at Vergessen, that he first considers obfuscating, stumbling over allusory phrasing before acknowledging that Trent already has the information he needs, and at that point Trent is their only real concern about who might care, given Lucien is far too focused on reaching the Astral Sea to worry about hostages.

When Caleb answers Jester's, "And he's going to hurt Essek," with a silence and an oblique reply, it feels most to me like a further measure of protection, knowing that knowledge is power that can be used against him and his loved ones, and silence is the weapon he has against it.

[starcurtain]

Interpreting Aventurine's Situation

(HSR 2.1 spoilers, watch out!) I think one of my favorite things to come out of Penacony is that the plot has left us with two completely opposite but equally valid interpretations of Aventurine's character. Is he a chosen child or just a "lucky" dog? The story leaves the door wide open for both possibilities.

Under a read more for space:

One Interpretation: Unfortunately for Him, Aventurine is Actually Blessed by an Aeon

If you work from the assumption that the Avgin mythology is correct, and Gaiathra Triclops is actually real (possibly a minor aeon of an unknown path or Ena, if you're on that train), then it's entirely possible, in game, that Aventurine has been blessed by a goddess to the point that he functionally cannot lose any gamble he makes. The odds are, literally, ever in his favor. In this interpretation, it doesn't matter how many gambles he takes with his life as the chip because he will always succeed. Despite how risky his behavior looks to everyone else, he's actually been perfectly safe all along.

But this is especially tragic because it means that, despite his mother's and sister's belief that his blessing will help everyone in their tribe, Aventurine's blessing has only ever extended to himself. He's not an omen of good fortune for his people. His luck was never going to protect his parents, sister, or friends. The goddess of the Avgin chose just one person and left the rest of her people to die.

This is where Aventurine's doubts stem from. He asks repeatedly: If the goddess can bless people, then why is life so miserable for the Avgin? Why do they have to live in pain, suffering, fear, and abject poverty if she could make them lucky enough to thrive? Why do people live if it's just going to be horrible?

(To be honest, I don't think this is out of line for the behavior we've seen of aeons so far. Even with aeons like Yaoshi, described as gentle and benevolent, with no intention to cause harm, their gifts often create horror in the human world.)

Aventurine's hands still tremble when he bets. He doesn't really believe he's blessed and still expects his own downfall at every turn--but it's never going to come because he is one of the few human beings in the entire universe with the direct favor of an aeon. Even Ratio, a skeptical, evidence-based genius, seems to think this might be the case.

(Choosing the Chinese because the text is a little clearer than the English, but basically: "This guy always has a way of dragging himself up out of the abyss, which can't be explained by just 'good luck.' Everyone is waiting to see him fail... Maybe even he's waiting too. But as time passed, I couldn't help but wonder: Will that day really come?")

This means Aventurine has lived a life of fear and uncertainty for nothing. He's spent his entire life awaiting a failure and painful death that will never come. He can't recognize the love of his own goddess nor trust in the faith of his own family.

The central question of this interpretation becomes "What does it mean for a single human to be favored by an aeon?" Can Aventurine really be called lucky after losing every single thing that has meaning in his life--all because an aeon chose him and only him? Should that be called a blessing or a curse?

The Opposite Interpretation: Aventurine Isn't Lucky At All, He's Just Skilled

On the other hand, the story leaves the door open to interpret Aventurine's situation in the complete opposite manner too. If, as the IPC seems to think, Gaiathra Triclops isn't real and Aventurine isn't blessed at all, then that means every single risk Aventurine has taken has actually been life-threatening--and that every single achievement he's reached has been by his own merits alone.

If Gaiathra's blessing isn't real, then Aventurine's life becomes one long self-run psyop: Everyone tells him he's blessed, he's lucky, he's favored--so young Kakavasha starts gambling early. Banking on this idea that he's favored, that he's chosen, he starts paying attention, he learns the tricks of the trade, figures out how to slip cards up his sleeves, how to word things just right so people will take his bait--he practices, practices, practices, until he can spot winning odds a mile away, until he can predict every possible outcome, until he's seen it all before.

In this situation, every single gamble he's ever made or will make carries a very, very real risk of failure--but Aventurine continues to succeed because he's just that quick-witted, just that aware, just that good at reading people. (He's been doing it for so much longer than everyone else he meets, after all.) He is the gambler extraordinaire, the archetypal charming rogue who can squirm his way out of any tight spot he gets into, time and time again.

He fears every gamble he makes because he has good reason to--there's literally never any guarantee that he will succeed, and he's constantly just flipping a coin to see what outcome he'll get. His personal skill and quick wit continue to turn things in his favor, but it's inevitable that one day he'll meet a situation that outwits him, a gamble where only a supernatural force could have saved him. And if you take this second interpretation, Gaiathra isn't real, so there won't be one.

This story choice would be interesting because it implies a greater degree of responsibility for everything that happens. If it's Aventurine's own quick wit and skill that continually save him, shouldn't he be able to help others with that skill? Shouldn't he have been able to help himself? How was he able to save himself from death but not from slavery? If it was skill, not luck, all along, then who do you blame for all the misery he still experienced?

This interpretation leads to greater questions of self-doubt and anxiety: Is it actual skill or just sheer dumb luck? Does Aventurine have what it takes mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and even physically to always come out on top by his own merits, or is he just the benefit of the wheel of fortune--statistically speaking, a one in a million chance still has to come through for that one, right? And when it all comes crumbling down eventually, will he have only himself to blame?

A Life of Uncertainty

The story doesn't actually give us any firm indication whether Gaiathra is real or not, or--even if she is real--if Aventurine is actually genuinely blessed. We just don't know, as players.

And Aventurine doesn't know either.

His faith in the goddess of the Avgin is shaky. He seems to want to believe and hold on to his people's mythology, but he has valid doubts that a goddess would choose to bless one person while leaving everyone else to suffer.

Is he the chosen of an aeon? And if he isn't chosen, then what meaning does any of it have? Is he just unbelievably skilled? Has he merely been lucky up to now? When will this blessing or luck or skill finally fail him?

Aventurine's most defining character trait is the extreme uncertainty that has plagued his whole life. What is true? What should he believe? Is he blessed or cursed? Does he have the talent to back up his massive boasts? Should others put any faith in him--should he put any faith in himself? Should he cling to his people's beliefs or reject the goddess that left him the sole survivor of a cultural extinction?

He can't trust anything. He can't trust his family's faith; he can't trust that he's actually a "chosen one" (because how could he chosen and his family be left to die?). He can't even trust that he's lucky because maybe it was just the years of suffering practice he put in. Then again, he can't trust in his own skill because maybe he's just blessed?

Which is it? Which is it? Which is it?

Nothing is certain. Nothing can be taken for granted. Nothing can be proven empirically true or false. There are no guarantees for Aventurine.

Every single thing in his life is a gamble, and none of that is his fault.

What an amazing character. What a great story. Thank you for the treat, Hoyo!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Critical thinking failure: did not consider all the options.

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[thethirdromana]

I'm generally a fully signed-up member of the Mrs Westenra Sucks Club, but I've found myself pondering more sympathetic ways to interpret her character and actions.

I think the most important thing to remember is that Mrs Westenra is dying, and since she has a 19-year-old daughter, she's probably dying young. If she's around 45, actuarial tables for the 1890s suggest that she would normally expect to live at least another 25 years, probably longer (which I'm mentioning since people normally underestimate Victorian adult life expectancy).

She was expecting to be around to see her daughter securely married and to help with her grandchildren; now there's a question mark over whether she'll even see her daughter's wedding. She's experiencing end-stage heart failure: she's probably in a lot of pain (which in her culture she is supposed to bear with quiet fortitude) and may have other symptoms such as fatigue, depression, nausea, insomnia and cognitive impairment. She's probably not able to think clearly a lot of the time. It's not surprising that she makes some bad decisions.

Is that enough to justify her treatment of Lucy? Maybe not. But on that point, I think it's worth noting that while Mrs Westenra is the worst offender in treating her adult daughter like she's a child, she's not the only one. When Mrs Westenra confides details of her illness to Mina, Mina doesn't seem to push back on the idea that this should be kept a secret from Lucy, even in the privacy of her journal. The idea that things should be kept from Lucy for her own protection is one that nearly everyone who interacts with Lucy shares.

In the novel as it stands (not in deleted sections, admittedly) we also don't see Lucy herself pushing for greater independence. In fact, what she wants from her mother is not more freedom but more comfort, in being allowed to share a bed with her.

A final thought on that. Victorians turned against the idea of bed-sharing because they believed that sharing beds spread diseases:

In her housekeeping guide published in 1892, Mrs. Elizabeth F. Holt warned readers that “the air which surrounds the body under the bed clothing is exceedingly impure, being impregnated with the poisonous substances which have escaped through the pores of the skin.”

(from this article)

In other words, Mrs Westenra might worry that sharing a bed would risk passing on her own illness to Lucy. I think denying Lucy's request could be seen as protective rather than dismissive.

I imagine I'm still going to be really annoyed when she [spoilers redacted]. But I think she could be seen as a tragic and sympathetic figure, not a malicious one. This novel has several characters who want to do the right thing but make mistakes (Seward, Van Helsing) and Mrs Westenra could be interpreted as one of them.

[tagzpite]

Siren Odysseus concept sketches !!

[dustykneed]

lament--

there are some things jim will never understand.

(for my enrichment during finals please feel free to talk about your interpretations in the notes! tags are a bit of a hint, but honestly go wild. might make a post about it later when i have the time. ngl i should absolutely be studying but i made the rookie art mistake of picking up my ipad and then my afternoon went away. not entirely happy about how this turned out either but you know what i fistfought the sunk cost fallacy and WON (made something i don't hate first try). so there)

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

question for academic discussion: when did mulder realize he was in love with scully? and when did scully realize she was in love with mulder?

[intermundia]

*gritted teeth* it's actually fine to me that people have a variety of interpretations of star wars