#army of revolt

[yellowbrickramble]

DRAWING ROSES IS HARD, YOU GUYS!

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[demigods-posts]

me personally. i wouldn't have gone after all the olympians at once. you're biting off more than you can chew here. all you would need to do is take each olympian out one by one. and then convince demigods that once enough people stop believing in a diety, that diety ceases to exist. which is not a lie. and you could use the death of pan to back yourself up. sure, you'd be in it for the long haul. but chess isn't meant to be a quick game.

[woggle-bugger-me]

To be clear I'm a guy so maybe it's not my place to say, but I'm gonna say it anyway: I'm fully aware that Baum was a feminist (at least for the time period) and that the Army of Revolt wasn't anti-woman's rights propaganda or anything, but that doesn't change that in the text itself, to a modern audience, the Army of Revolt is still an offensive parody.

Like, when I re-read The Marvelous Land of Oz as an adult who has both the historical context and the knowledge of Baum's IRL politics in mind, I can have a laugh at Jinjur and understand that it's satire. But when I first read it as a kid, I didn't know about any of this and it was an uncomfortable read. Most modern-day kids wouldn't read Marvelous Land and think "this is a satirical parody written by someone who A, supported women's rights and B, planned on adapting it into a play for an older audience", they're gonna think "this book's making fun of girls."

This isn't me saying I think kids are stupid or something. They're not. But they might not have the historical knowledge to understand the satire, and they might not pick up things like how the male protagonists are also portrayed in a comedic way, or how Glinda is a powerful woman who isn't portrayed as a joke, but they will pick up on the fact that Jinjur is portrayed as a joke.

Don't get me wrong, Marvelous Land is one of my favourite Oz books, and I do like Jinjur. I love to see adaptations that show her in a more sympathetic light (Yellow Brick Ramble) or show her as more of a genuine threat (The Chronicles of Oz). But I've also noticed that when people discuss aspects of the Oz books that have aged poorly, they often leave out the Army of Revolt, even defending it. While I respect people's opinions, I disagree with this take. And I hope no kids read Marvelous Land and were put off Oz, since most of the books portray girls in a much better light.

TL;DR: The Marvelous Land of Oz is great, but my god the Army of Revolt has aged like milk.

Do you want to know one of my more controversial Oz opinions?

[averydistinctivestyle]

From everything I know about armies, the least realistic and galling part of The Way of Kings is that Kaladin, son of and apprentice to a literal surgeon, was not immediately snapped up by territorial medics upon entry into Amaram's army.

[my-pjo-stuff]

I can't believe I'm saying this right now, but somehow Rick really managed to write one of the most realistic representations of a revolution I have ever seen in non-historical media. And completely on accident too!

[bestworstcase]

thoughts cooking.

mountain glenn, grimm overwhelmed the city and the people took shelter in caves, building an entire underground city after the destruction above. an explosion later opens a breach into a grimm nest, grimm flood the city again, and vale seals off the tunnels, implicitly without attempting rescue or evacuation, sacrificing the people to protect the core city.

<- same choice ironwood made.

“i see lives that could have been saved,” and all. vale created the world’s largest tomb.

fast forward a few decades. a single transport ship approaches vacuo with the news that salem came to vale and “there’s nothing left.” the huntsmen aboard “led the civilian retreat, brought as many people as we could…”

that turn of phrase—‘led the civilian retreat’—doesn’t evoke a panicked, disorganized scramble to get away from vale. it calls to mind the orderly evacuation procedures we saw during the battle for beacon, where people were loaded efficiently into transports to move them from beacon into a safe zone established in vale. port and oobleck were in charge of that retreat too. (and it demonstrated generally that emergency evacuation is something vale has on a lock—the assault on beacon blindsided everyone but the kingdom’s crisis response plan sprang into action like a well-oiled machine.)

only one ship, though.

when cinder attacked beacon, they retreated to a safe zone in vale. when salem hit vale, the immediately obvious place to establish a safe zone is patch—it’s close by but separated by a body of water, and it’s relatively defensible (an island). unlike vale, patch probably doesn’t have the room or resources to support a large urban population indefinitely, but you can use it as a relatively secure staging area for a subsequent evacuation to somewhere else. what you probably can’t do is squeeze anything like the majority of vale’s population onto patch island. (i mean, you could if it’s as huge as it appears to be on the map, but the map is NOT to scale and i get the impression that patch is supposed to be quite small.)

mountain glenn. “i see lives that could have been saved.” vale’s greatest failure, standing abandoned as a dark reminder. and “if you can’t learn from [history], you’re destined to repeat it.” did vale learn from its failure in abandoning mountain glenn to die?

in this fractal spiral of a story. ironwood didn’t get his way, but what if he had? “we are saving who we can” -> “brought as many people with us as we could,” with the history teacher whose chosen purpose is to prevent another mountain glenn from happening hunched over, haunted, in the background. is this a fucking counterfactual.

also if there were people left behind in vale, the mountain glenn undercity is the obvious place for them to flee. it’s not safe, but you can get there from vale through the tunnels (less exposed than driving or flying above ground) and if you can barricade the points of ingress to the cavern, it’s at least a more defensible place to set up an encampment than anywhere out in the open.

and i mean it might be that salem massacred the city and let one ship escape to maximize the damage to morale and provoke as much outrage as possible for the sake of getting the sword out of that vault. but mountain glenn is such a crucial narrative cornerstone, and vale has a history of making the kind of sacrifices ironwood tried to make with mantle, and the specific phrasing used here is interesting (“nothing left” vs “no one left,” “civilian retreat” implying an orderly process a la the evacuation from beacon).

i think it’s also the more narratively interesting and dynamic choice for there to have been a judgment call to leave a large number of people behind—it’s a counterfactual vehicle for unpacking team rwby’s conflicted feelings about their decision-making in atlas through comparison to what vale’s leadership did in the same situation, and there being some ambiguity as to whether anyone else survived allows for a thin ray of hope (maybe there are some people still alive) to galvanize the coalition into a counteroffensive (if there’s even the smallest possibility of survivors, we need to help them. we have to try.) and you draw the tension in salem’s character between her extremism and her effort to chart what she believes is the minimally destructive course to the surface by putting a survivor’s encampment within her immediate reach.

[fanfic-lover-girl]

Fratboy Luke Castellan AU

The urge to expand upon this AU was inspired this section in book 2

He’d changed since the last summer. Instead of Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, he wore a buttondown shirt, khaki pants, and leather loafers. His sandy hair, which used to be so unruly, was now clipped short. He looked like an evil male model, showing off what the fashionable college-age villain was wearing to Harvard this year.

Then I was watching a bunch of Legally Blonde edits and all I could think about was Luke as a male version of Elle Woods. If Luke was raised in the mortal world, I bet this guy would be fraternity president material!

Luke was considered attractive by demigod standards so imagine how mortal teenage girls would swoon over him. Plus Hermes is the patron of athletes so Luke would easily be that popular jock good at almost every sport. Swimming and horseback riding DO NOT agree with him though! Hermes would be at every game of course!

Speaking of Hermes. Let's toss the ancient laws in the trash where they belong. Hermes is still a god so he would be the visiting dad type. He would swing by at least once a month, but he would be there for every birthday, graduation ceremony and sports game. He taught Luke how to drive (god of travel). And by taught I mean he rolled up in an expensive BMW, handed 10 year old Luke the keys and transported him to a fast highway and cackled as he told his panicking son to drive. Luke only crashed once so Hermes is not sure why May is screaming at him.

Even though Luke has his "crew" of male friends from his sports teams, I still see his closest friends being girls whom he sees as pseudo sisters.

As the god of shepherd animals and guard dogs, I picture Hermes giving Luke this huge vicious immortal guard dog to be his son's companion and protector when his son was little. The thing is a total sweetheart to Luke, but has some beef with May for some reason lol. Luke totally takes his doggie with him to college and post grad and it's a testament to his charm that he makes any friends at all given the evil looks his dog gives everyone. Especially the ones whose gazes linger too long on his human.

[bedlamsbard]

the 2010 film Centurion is deeply frustrating to me because it desperately wants to be about the Varian Disaster, every single beat in this movie would fit near-perfectly for the Varian Disaster, you could relocate this film temporally and geographically to Germania and not change literally anything except some of the names, and yet because Hollywood considers Britannia way sexier and more exotic than Germania it is set in Britain. this movie should be about the Varian Disaster! in every way but geographically including the drawback of the frontiers this movie is about the Varian Disaster! and yet. it is not about the Varian Disaster.

(the movie itself is fine. like, it's Agricola slander and Tacitus is rolling over in his grave, but my tolerance for historical inaccuracy is pretty high these days. don't go out of your way to watch it, but like, it's fine. if I had a nickel for every time Olga Kurylenko has played a Roman-hating British woman warrior I'd have two nickels, which is not a lot but it's weird it's happened twice etc.)

[sybbi]

Members of the Adrestian army when they start hearing about weird blood experiments done on occasionally unwilling subjects in order to make the fuck-off huge, evil-as-shit-looking MONSTERS that are accompanying their armies almost everywhere

[yellowbrickramble]

If you've seen Return to Oz but haven't read the books, I should probably let you know that Omby Amby is not as good at being the army of Oz as Tik-Tok is.

Please support my comics on Patreon! (link in bio)

[artz16]

The gals: Belliana and Delilah

They’re Jinjur’s friends. Bel joined the revolt to keep Jinjur in check and Del came for emotional support. They care about Jinjur but wish she’d make smart decisions…and not work with wicked witches

[everythingwasalreadypicked]

Chris held Alabaster's hands firmer. He knew what the former general's, his friend's, answer would be the moment he located his whereabouts. He knew. But he had to hear him say it, to be sure he still knew the son of Hecate after all.

"They’re tyrants. I know it. You know it. Please Alabaster..."

Alabaster looked at him coldly, a sharp contrast to his warm hands pressed against Chris's own. Just because they both knew his answer didn't mean Alabaster would make it easy, at least that was a trait Chris could still confidently say his old friend had.

"Then what Chris? You gonna raise Kronos?" His face indicated he was joking, his tone not so much. There was an underlying promise of danger in his eyes.

"NO!"

Chris internally winced at how harsh he sounded the moment he let out the scream. Didn't matter, though, he had to nip that train of thought at the bud before it even started.

Perhaps going to his Kronos fanatic friend had been not the best idea. He could make all kinds of excuses to himself that it was the logical choice; he was the best child of Hecate, had tactical knowledge, had been one of Luke's confidants...

But that would be lying: Chris deceited and hid secrets, not lied.

He missed Alabaster.

"We can't..." Chris pleaded, keeping his voice soft even as Alabaster leaped to his feet, retracting his hands hastily and cradled the green book Chris brought with him to his chest like a protective shield. "We can't replace them with an older regime, Al. That was where Luk—"

"Don't!" Alabaster's lower lip wobbled as his facade of anger cracked, his grief evident. "Don't say his name, it's bad enough you've stolen his diary..."

"Would you rather Chiron to have it?"

The son of Hecate stared at a far corner of Dr. Claymore's living room. The silence enveloped the house. The bags under Alabaster's eyes made him look too tired, too old despite Chris being older than him. His heart broke for his friend. Another promise the Olympians had broken, another thing they would pay for.

Al settled on the couch again, surprising Chris as he rested his head on his shoulder.

"Tell me about that plan of yours. I might just be in on it."

****

Chris might just be more similar to his brother than he would admit :)

[bone-stealing-horse]

When I was little, I would sometimes think about the number of students at my school compared to the number of teachers. There were dozens of kids per adult in that school. The average adult there was either an old lady or really loved kids, so none of them would be able to stop them if their entire class suddenly turned on them. That's what sparked a wonderful thought in my head: we could revolt. The faculty would have to restrain themselves like how when chasing small animals, you don't tackle it because you don't want to hurt it, thus letting us have an advantage.

Anyways I would often fantasize about rallying the troops and leading a few hundred strong arms of children to banish all the adults and take over the school. We would lock all the entrances and station a few older kids as guards. I still think about that now, at my school with over a thousand teenagers, what if one day we all collectively as a hive mind decided to rampage and claim the school?

[skeletalroses]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, May 20, 1908

[marginal-notes]

i need to remake a proper tumblr account instead of just lurking but i hope you don’t mind me chilling and kicking my feet over your naruto stuff (ik some people get stressed out by lurking and i will 100% head on out if you’d like). anyway ninja world trade+what the heck is a hidden village hidden from. like they pretty demonstrably know where other villages are (chuunin exams) and at least some civilians know where they are (tazuna, etc). i like to think that most civilians don’t know (or didn’t?) bc otherwise i have no idea what theyre hiding about. i also think it could provide an incentive for all those ninjas and ninja clans to congregate in one place (that notably is not the capitol of the country and is in fact somewhat removed from it) if there was some kind of tension between civilian and shinobi clans at least cerca the founding era? but that brings up the issue of trade bc if konoha/etc is on some level removed from the civilian population of fire country what does trade between the two sects look like? i’ve read a few fics where trade (and in particular news) is somewhat regulated/monitored by konoha even between fire country vs the village but idk it rotates in my head frequently

Buddy, far be it from me to ever tell anyone how to navigate social media lol. I don’t care, and I don’t know why other people should care about how you conduct your personal business.

You know, great question about what the hell the hidden part means. I’m assuming there’s a mix of nuances lost in translation plus irl history around shinobi. I haven’t gone super in depth on research into real world ninja yet, since Naruto is very much NOT about how things happened in real life, but iirc real ninja may have roots with the peasantry and lower classes. So given the tensions across the class structure, particularly in contrast to the samurai class, maybe there’s something about hidden structures for training these infiltration and espionage agents that you would hire like special forces (in the most generous interpretation).

But yes, in Naruto magic ninja alien mom land, the locations of the villages are definitely known to some level, and there’s definitely systems of trade/commerce involved in supporting a village.

I’m sure Hashirama and Madura had idealized reasoning for why they wanted to have a joint village as symbol of peace between their clans, but there are some realpolitik reasons you could construe for why you need a village in-universe. For one, it would create a new center of forced interaction between the clans, while critically uprooting the clans from historical land claims. Everyone would be put into a forced restart with a more level playing field.

There’s probably also a lot of politics with the daimyo to allow the peace to happen. Turning over land back to the daimyo in exchange for the village’s land and restructuring of the vassal/lord relationship was probably a key sticking point during the negotiations, along with overhauling the tax relationship between the capital and the clans.

Once you see that kind of political shift happening with the Senju and Uchiha, the other clans would have plenty of real discussions internally about what it would mean for their competing power and relationship with the capital. Do they stay separate and potentially lose out in manpower and influence? Or do they join in and capitalize on the benefits of regional peace, better economic relations, and strength in numbers?

Honestly, I don’t know how much civilians would influence the decisions in that era. Militarily, what can they really do against the shinobi clans? Especially with whatever this concept of “noble clans” entails. Even if you consider potential economic threat, I personally think these clans were reasonably self-sufficient to some degree (siege preparation and other risk mitigation). Additionally, this era of Naruto land is probably analogous to a real world time period where the merchant class was kind of the bottom of the social ladder. So there isn’t quite a political pressure either.

I do say self-sufficient to a degree though, because it doesn’t entirely make sense to be completely isolationist. Shinobi clearly have relationships with merchants and others that would hire their services, and that’s probably a good basis for negotiating supplier relations. As the village is forming, there would be some question and jockeying around which of those supplier relationships survive.

Once the village is up and running, you definitely need to monitor trade in my opinion. These guys are all about intelligence and counterintelligence along with mercenary work. If I do get around to fic, Konoha (especially modern Konoha) ends up being basically a surveillance state. With trade, you can imagine a souped up version of customs monitoring for anything smuggling, contraband, or potential threats to village security. Still, Konoha absolutely will want secure access to commodities and other goods/services, while merchants that can get through the onerous security checks and surveillance would not turn down having access to the village’s market. Haven’t fully hammered out the details yet, but it’s possible that most trade (particularly the most lucrative deals) go through the village government - whether as a straight up government contract, a license to operate with preferential pricing/monopoly, or whatever.

IDK, it’s fascinating. There are many different structures you could end up with. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and money tends to generate pretty strong willpower.

[borbersk]

Even after all the shit the brits have done in the past, I would sooner side with them today than with those yanks

“They took our land, they imprisoned our queen, they banned our language, they forcibly made us a colony of the United States. America says they are democratic, that is a lie! They have never been democratic with Native people! They have never been democratic with Indians! They have never been democratic with Hawaiians!”