#astor meta

[legendofmarshie]

astor fans we have a fucking problem

so astor right, rat bastard, we love him and hate him and hate to love him and love to hate him

his zelda wiki page doesn't list his japanese VA

so I go to look it up and add it and be helpful

I CAN’T FIND IT ANYWHERE

all the japanese VA lists are like link, impa, zelda, champions, kohga, purah, robbie, hestu, all of them BUT ASTOR (and sooga)

the game credits don’t say names, he’s not listed on any other wikis, on any japanese voice acting sites, WHO THE HELL VOICED HIM PLEASE I HAVE TO KNOW THIS IS IMPORTANT

@ nintendo HOW DO YOU NOT RELEASE THIS INFORMATION

[storyofwhoiam]

@proprioceptiion liked for muse roulette plotting:

River Song - Arlene Keller: River goes back in time where she meets Arlene. River when she’s just a child herself?

Isabela Rosa - Maybelle Fox: The Rosas live next-door to Maybelle’s family back home or she’s friends with one of Maybelle’s kids

Marc Astor - Jess McCready: Marc decides to invest money in the league and sponsors the Peaches (there should probably be some kind of peach-flavoured drink involved)

Gabrielle Solis - Barry Allen: Barry trying to live on Wisteria Lane and keep up his secret identity at the same time

Catia Lucas - Maybelle Fox: Journalist Catia being assigned to write about the Peaches in some fluff piece but trying to dig deeper to find a proper story to write about

John Rowland - Barry Allen: Solar-powered, meta-human John with his phytokinesis, fighting crime?

Allie Novak - Clara Shane: It feels to me unlikely that Allie would know how to swim, therefore volunteer lifeguard sounds potentially very needed

[silverjirachi]

I had an idea regarding character development of astor (if he actually had one haha), and the devs mentioning something like this came to mind...

"hyrule during the calamity would have a lot of malice, we need more malice in fights"

"simple malice enemies isn't enough, they're just new types of their respective species we need like a malice controlling boss spouting pillars from the ground"

"ganon is literally the calamity so we would need a side boss again, acting like the main villain"

"let's make a simple placeholder villain smug and dark, who we could fight in any land with no story whatsoever so we can put him in whatever origins afterwards"

"his theme music? since he would appear rather frequently than previous ganon-puppets, let's give him an easy tweak from zelda's theme; after all, zelda herself has more screentime than any other before. A royal honor for him, before we kill him off like all the other secondaries."

"and let's take these simple 6 upscending notes and nicely bloat it into an unsettling battle ambience, making the strings have a surrounding voice effect for universal doom"

... i have a feeling he really was expendable, simply made to be disposable after all - what do you think :p

Yeah this is a pretty thorough breakdown of how i imagine astor's character came into being. As much as we all *wish* there was more direct astor connection to botw, I promise botw was made without any conception of Astor as we know him now. There is absolutely no sign of him or his people in-game, save for a few tiny, tiny threads mentioning people who "worship ganon" who may or may not be yiga. The only shred of an inkling we have to go off is the mention of a "fortune teller" in botw, but that seems to be such a throwaway line and an easy mystery they left unsolved for exactly the purposes like you see now. A "fortune teller" could literally be anyone or anything, doesn't mean they were evil, doesn't mean it was Astor, even if the *vague* connections were made in retrospect (with his design and music for instance).

And even when Astor's VA so vaguely mentioned in an interview that "Astor wasn't in BOTW, or so we think," I'm pretty sure that was more him knowing as well as the rest of us that there is nowhere near enough evidence of Astor in-game to say that, but it was him having to have those sorts of thoughts as an actor. Especially when he follows it up with how Astor could have just been "lying in wait," or something to that effect. Unless Nintendo told him something we don't know, in which case @ Jon Lipow break your NDA.

But in fact, I'm inclined to say the entirety of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity wouldn't have been released at all if not for the overwhelming success of BOTW. It was a cash grab. They knew people were obsessed and in love with the story so they made an even bigger shinier story that lives in that world, and I don't blame them, I am lapping that shit right up. They spent a long time refining and developing that initial world, and they should milk it tbh. I would too. They said themselves BOTW2 was initially gonna be DLC because they just had so many ideas to expand BOTW, and maybe along the way, some of those cut ideas were put into AoC instead.

But that absolutely ties in to why I don't think we're getting any further information on Astor, ever. If not for, come dlc, we find out he was the leader of this cult or something. I think that will be the extent of it. He wasn't pulled out of botw's pre-established lore or anything, you're exactly right - he was made for botw's existing lore, and more specifically, for Age of Calamity's, which is on such a weird island in terms of timeline and such as it is.

Which is exactly why he's disposable.

Age of Calamity, cool and fun and story-driven as it is, is ultimately a spinoff game. They needed a spinoff villain who would fit the world and explain *some things* in the world but also not be important enough to make a huge impact on the world in such a profound way that he'd make a mainline appearance.

It's always interesting to me, then, just how disposable Astor is both in terms of the "meta," as well as how quite literally, in game, he lives to serve one explicit purpose until Ganon doesn't need him any more - after which point, he is disposed of at the earliest convenience. As above, so below. As in Koei Tecmo, so in the Great Calamity.

Art reflects life? Life reflects art? Something else entirely?

Anyways yeah

[karlnapity]

On c!Karl and stories

Zoë Lianne / Pierre Bonnard / Donna Tartt / Margaret Atwood / Tom Astor / Charles Bukowski / Louise Fitzhugh / Mitski

[greatrunner]

half the princesses who aren’t white (and not named Tiana) are quite literally drawn like white women with tans and the same box head. Like, this is so lazy?

[randomwriteronline]

My meta theory on the existence of Vaati-like characters with examples, in screenshot form because i dont have the strength to copy and paste all of these

I also just noticed that i. completely forgot the whole “fights with magic” aspect that IS indeed a characteristic common to Vaati-likes

whoops!

+ bonus thoughts regarding wizzro and astor courtesy of a pal of mine

[sheikah-simp]

So Exile//Vilify is complete, what comes next?

(The following is a really long post both on my thoughts on the end of the novel and what it means to me personally, as well as my plans looking into the future and where you’ll be able to find me from here.)

First of all, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading and coming to the end of this fic. It was a monster of a project and I’m both sad and relieved to see it come to an end. It started out just as an idea that would not leave my mind, inspired by a song I somehow came to associate with him, playing on repeat over and over again the same way I pictured him brooding over his fate and exile.

Images of him staring out over the canyon and thinking on the castle, a place he might have once loved and lived in, as he watched the king raise armies and the Divine Beasts that would only serve to seal his doom. How Astor, knowing this, simply watched it all happen, beholden to his own part in the prophecy, destined to take his part against him, like something on a giant chess board the two of them were forced to play out.

Ever since December of 2020, I have wanted to do that picture of him justice, and while the story evolved to put much less focus on the mental chessboard between Astor the king - the makers and defiers of prophecy - I found that truly a lot of set-up and explanation was needed in order to build a world in which Astor would inhabit, love, and be doomed to destroy. A man who is destined to have everything stripped away from him in the name of Ganon must have something to strip away in the first place.

It also started from a point of observation for me, something about the world in BOTW and the Legend of Zelda franchise as a whole I had been mulling over long before we met Astor. And that is, in their world: it seems like there is no free will. Zelda must awaken her power despite her own desire to focus on Sheikah tech, Link is chosen by the King, and then the sword, and simply must fight because he is destined to be a hero, and that is what heroes do. There is so much focus on fate and prophecy in the LOZ series as a whole, and the more you think about it, if prophecies are always meant to be true, and some people have no choice in being heroes, others must then have no choice in being villains. People in prophecies are “chosen,” they do not choose, and even on a meta level, as this is a video game franchise, the player is literally controlling every aspect of the character and their movements. Their actions are not their own. They are being puppeteered.

I played through BOTW the first time and progressively thought about how unfair it all seemed - the very same thing had happened 10,000 years ago, and how it was rearing its ugly head again. Did Rhoam, like many a tragic Greek figure, actually fulfill and exacerbate his doom by trying so desperately to work against it? These are the very same questions that plagued my mind when I began the fic, posed by Thelem at the end of the book. I use my writing to explore concepts, ask questions and discover the answers for myself through the process of writing a book. And in the almost two years I spent to write Exile//Vilify, I found myself ending with just as many questions as I had at the start, with not a single one of them answered. No knowledge gained, nothing completely worked through. The same doomed prophecy as it was at the start, and nothing anyone could do about it.

But by the end, I realized that it didn’t matter. I wrote 150k words about a life to be stripped from - a life we all knew the ending of from the beginning - and just like many of the characters kept repeating, it was about the moment. The process. Loving and fully living in each moment even if you fail, even if you know where it will end. Failure is something I fear desperately in my own life. I have great anxiety about putting so much time and effort and love into making my dreams come true, only to have them fizzle out and stripped away from me in the end. What if I fail despite how hard I try? What if I am destined to fail, what if I have no say in whether I fail or not? And while this book by no means made me overcome that fear, it did draw my attention to it, which I should have recognized from the beginning when I joked about Astor being such a failure as a villain. Unlike Astor though, I am happy I get to live in a world with free will, where even if I do fail, I can try again, and make choices on how to respond, and know my life is mine to do my own with.

Astor is not as fortunate.

I know I’m not alone when I say that I felt robbed of Astor as a villain. He seemed so interesting, to have such great potential, and yet he was hollow and near pointless in his existence. I wanted so badly to fill the gaps, to do justice to an otherwise eschewed character. I love doing that in my work - focusing on the stories that lie between, that other people may write off or ignore. My writing of this fic was an act of appreciation, in a way, or a proposal for something that could have been, something we - all of us - had the freedom to create after being given such a one-note villain who will be nothing but thrown away and forgotten in a spinoff game. It doesn’t matter, because he matters to us, and that is what makes the difference.

I’ve been told multiple times this fic has been viewed as “the bible” in our small but mighty Astor community, and I can’t tell you what this means to me. It means a lot for me to be viewed as someone who had that kind of influence on our collective idea of this character. I’m certainly not claiming to be an authority, but I’m glad my fic has come to have its place in our literature and that so many people have come to recognize and enjoy it. It’s a gen fic with no major romance about a side character in a side game, there’s no way it was ever going to reach the levels of big mainstream loz fics out there, but that doesn’t matter, because Astor matters to me, and he matters to us, and the nearly 4k hits and 150 kudos the fic has at the time of writing this - along with all the comments - are more than enough for me.

But now that the fic is over, what do we do?

I’ll admit I’m still going through the writer’s mourning period/withdrawal after finishing a book, but I can feel the recovery coming on soon. I have a few smaller ideas already on the table (along with Trouble Will Find Me), one regarding an alternate route I almost took for Astor in Exile//Vilify (more explicitly as a reincarnation of Ganon’s seer). That would be a very small one-shot fic. I do still have Stories from Exile for you to read and will occasionally update (have a lot of ideas still on my list there). However, that said, these are no longer my top priority in the same way Exile//Vilify was. Because until I started writing Exile//Vilify, I hadn’t really considered myself part of the loz community at all. I was a Pokémon writer, and I have a trilogy that I took a detour from in order to get this fic out of my mind. I’m going to set my focus on returning to that series now, although like I’ve said, I do still plan on popping into this community. I’m not going to ghost you all, I’ll still answer asks, stay active, and post every now and then. You, and this fic, have meant too much to me over the course of this journey for me to go away like that.

So please, don’t be a stranger! Your thoughts and asks and messages are always welcome. If you want to make art or other fics inspired by my worldbuilding, please do. I thought this was clear, but I’ve never explicitly stated it. You’re fully welcome to use my ideas as long as I get a shoutout - mostly just because I also want to see it :). I worked too hard on this for too long for other people not to use it for ideas. Please do. Show me your art. Show me your things. I want to love them.

So where can you find me now? Here on this blog, of course, although tumblr seems to have not necessarily “shadowbanned,” but blocked some of its functionality after the ios ban. So if you’re not checking here, you can reach me on my main @silverjirachi.

If you are interested in my pokemon series (focusing on the hoenn region and hardenshipping, Archie and Maxie) you can follow @the-dead-sea-trilogy and @hoenn-pride, my pokemon side blogs, the first of course for my fic related things and the other for general pokemon things.

And of course, you can still find the rest of my work by browsing my author page on AO3. I’ve posted WIP wednesdays and previews of my coming fics there.

Also-

In the coming weeks or a few months into the future, I may be making a special offer regarding a physical release of this book. I get all my fics hard-cover bound for my own personal collection, but I’ve already had a few people ask me about having copies of their own. Keep your eyes open for an update on when/how this will happen if you are interested. It will be a very small, one-time thing to friends and close fans as, naturally, it’s going to be a gift coming from mostly my own wallet.

I’m going to conclude by dropping a bit of music here. (Slight Exile//Vilify spoilers, so if you haven’t read the ending yet, please do). But, as you might have figured out by the ending, Thelem is somewhat of a narrator character. He was my way to ask questions of the fic - the questions he asks at the end - and acted as a guardian angel of sorts of the book. He is my representation of my love for the story, and of the story of Astor as a whole. It was very, very early on in my writing process when I realized what would have to happen to him by the end, and I cried and was frustrated about it when I realized, but somehow that made me grow to appreciate and love him even more, strengthening his role in the novel as a whole. There was one song by The National - who also wrote the song Exile Vilify (The National, weirdly, has inspired all my fics thus far) that I came across around this same time that somehow I came to associate with Thelem.

The lyrics, though indirect, speak to me of a man resigned to yet content with his place in life, and how that place is flooded with this melancholy sort of love informed by the pain of the reality around him. This is in such stark contrast to the way we see Astor throughout his life - who knows no peace with the weight of prophecy that weighs over his head. I kept turning the lyrics, “Sorry I hurt you, but they say love is a virtue, don’t they?” over in my mind, like this man knew how things would end and let it happen anyway - out of love. He knows what he has to do is painful, but he does it because love - devotion - is a virtuous thing that is not always happy. And so as much as the song Exile Vilify is the namesake and first inspiration for the fic, Sea of Love has been its secret, underlying theme. It followed shortly after, and has always informed my perspective in writing it, knowing where it all would end, and I’m glad I can finally share that with you.

Because while I thought I was writing a book about prophecy, about the inherent “fucked-up”ness of being a chosen one, in a weird way, the fic was written about, and at its heart, is about love. Love of the character, love of the process, love of the story, and the twisted, distorted love of prophecy. It’s about how all those things affected the courses each of their lives - both for better and for the worse - at the time of Astor’s demise. It’s not the ending, it’s the moments shaped by love in between. Because, as Thelem says at the end of the book - love, while painful, still lessens the fall of everything.

And so that is how I will choose to end. Once again, thank you so much for all the support, for making me feel like I was part of a community, and for reading my story of Astor to its ending. It made such a difference to me, and I’m looking forward to the next things on the horizon.

[hoodie-prince-kid]

Coslist in no particular order (subject to change):

human!Meta Knight

Octavo

Mettaton EX

Jevil

human!Prince Peasley

Astor

Linebeck

human!Calcifer

Kris

Inigo Montoya

Puss in Boots

The Great Sage (Miitopia)

Amanda O'Neill

Rumpelstiltskin (Poptropica)

Barok van Zieks

Dimentio

Nico Fire

I'm running a contest where you judge my taste in fictional characters, here's a link to the masterpost.

Here's a list of picrews I like!

[rayeverydangday]

My Star

Chapter 1

Notes: Have a bit of a break from break so I’d thought I’d try to put a few of these chapters here. Enjoy my first fic!

King Dedede had been a bit worried about the dark hearts that had crashed into his castle before he was out of control.

Fortunately, Kirby was able to snap him back to his senses and together with Bandana Dee and his lover, Meta knight they were able to bring peace to Dreamland once again. The Waddle Dees began to rebuild the castle and get rid of the mess that was created. But he hadn’t seen Meta since the void incident. Kirby and Bandana Dee reassured him that he was probably just resting somewhere but this didn’t satisfy Dedede. He wanted to see his boyfriend and know why Meta was avoiding him. Why wouldn’t he want to see him? Did he do something wrong?

These questions filled his head once again as he headed towards his room for the night. He shut the door and walked towards the balcony to stare up at the astorment of stars in the sky. It was his favorite pastime to watch the stars. If only -

“Sire.”

Dedede jumped and reached for his hammer only to meet the gaze of his knight. “Meta Knight!” he cried, trying not to sobb with joy. “Sorry to keep you waiting si-” the knight began before being put in a bear hug. (Or would it be a penguin hug?) “Where have you been?” Dedede asked, holding the knight's hands. Meta’s yellow eyes shimmered before he turned away. “I… I felt guilty. I couldn’t protect you.” he said.

“Well that’s okay. I wasn’t exactly there for you either.” Dedede said with a nervous chuckle. Meta Knight shook his head “Yes. But it feels like everytime a new threat comes I am captured and forced to fight on their side. Or worse you are captured and made to do the same. I’m starting to see a pattern in being controlled against my will. One I’m growing tired of.” Meta sighed.

Dedede couldn’t agree more but decided to try and change the subject. “Maybe ya just need a little sleep!” and he scooped up the knight as if he weighed nothing.

“Sire, what is… I?” Meta knight stammered. Dedede hopped on the bed placing the knight beside him. “Come on, Meta. Ya need your sleep and as king I order you to take a rest.”

Meta held the covers sheepishly. “But sire, what about my nightly patrol?” he asked.

The king curled up next to the knight, the mask cold to the touch, but he didn’t move away. “It’s one night. There’ll be Waddle Dees and your Knights out there protecting Dreamland. It will be alright.” There was a moment of silence before Dedede felt the mask being lifted away as Meta Knight placed it on a nearby counter.

“Thank you, mi amore.” Meta said and curled up closer to the king.

“Rest well, my star.” Dedede said as they drifted off to sleep.

~

Meta knight dreamt of fighting all sorts of enemies, easily defeating all of them. It didn’t bother him at all, he just wished to be stronger. But he became worried as soon those enemies turned into his friends. He soon woke up with a sudden start as he began to dream of fighting himself.

He looked around and reassured himself he was in the castle with Dedede by his side. Curling up close to the penguin he sighed with relief and after a little while he felt his love wake up. Dedede opened his bright blue eyes and looked down at the small knight next to him. “Morning, my star. Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah… ” he said, refusing to worry his lover about his dream. What if it wasn’t just a dream though. What if it was a-

“Good. I had the best dream that you and I were having a relaxing picnic with the gang in the beautiful sun. So how about we make that dream a reality?” Dedede said.

“As you wish, sire. “ Meta said.

Dedede grinned and scooped Meta Knight, “Oh, so formal!” he laughed as a surprised Meta soon rested on the King’s chest. Dedede knew something was up with his love but didn’t push him for detail. If he didn’t want to talk about it now they could later.

He sent Bandana Dee to fetch Kirby and the four of them went to enjoy a lunch together to celebrate their new found victory.

As they enjoyed their meal, Kirby began to wonder and said, “How about we throw a party with all our friends? Everyone who has helped us out with the Jamba hearts and void. “ Dedede grinned, “Yeah, we can have a dance party. With music, decorations, and-”

“And tons of food.” Kirby said. Bandana Dee giggled as the two listed off different types of food. Meta Knight relaxed in the shade of a tree with a good book but he couldn’t shake the feeling that dream gave him.

“That nightmare. “ Said a deep voice in a whisper.

Meta turned around startled by the voice he heard. But everyone was preoccupied with talking about pizza toppings. Maybe he needed more sleep, he thought after examining the area. He got up from his spot and laid down next to Dedede in hopes of getting some rest. Dedede happily layed a arm next to his sleepy knight. Everything will be just fine , the king thought.

~

“Meta! META!”

Meta knight gasped as he woke to the sound of his voice. He had awoken from a nightmare. A nightmare! He was trapped in the castle hearing cries for help. But he couldn’t find anyone, anywhere. It was awful to feel helpless, to feel like he couldn’t do anything.

Everyone was looking down at him. He was covered in sweat, that dream felt so real. “ I think you mean nightmare,” said the voice in his head.

The voice was IN HIS HEAD!

“Meta Knight? Are you okay?” Kirby said, hugging Meta Knight once he got up.

“You were thrashing around in your sleep like crazy!” Dedede said.

Should he tell him? Tell them what he had in his head! HIS HEAD! What should he do?

What will you do? he asked… him.

It stayed silent.

“I… “ Meta Knight stammered “I… had a nightmare. I have to go check on the fountain, sire.” he bowed and teleported away leaving his worried friends and a fearful Dedede to confront an old enemy.

Next

[legendofmarshie]

it’s tough work explaining exactly just how little personality astor age of calamity has to a flock of engineering students I’ve tamed who aren’t very familiar with zelda over lunch, but by talos somebody’s gotta do it

[hyrule-kingdom-updates]

OOC; To Mod - hello! I’m doing a fun thing where I hop into the askboxes of different writers and ask them about their favorite works! This specific blog is like. A huge undertaking, so if you wanna geek out about it, go for it! This can include anything, from arc development shit to fun facts about the blog and how it operates. This is such a cool idea anyways, and I’m sure people would love to hear about it. :)

I am going to geek out about this so hard that you’ll regret ever talking to me.

Hmm...What to talk about that won’t spoil the future of HKU...Oh I know! How about I ramble about

HKU and the Long and Arduous Process of Making Characters and Themes

I will try to avoid details when I can, but I will be discussing the latest developments with Siv, Larc, and Astor, so consider yourself warned for spoilers and catch up if you haven't yet! :3

Waste not, want not: Why I find it important to not waste characters and time

In Hyrule Kingdom Updates, Asivus "Siv" Hartell is the protagonist. Zelda(Mallory) is the deuteragonist. Then finally, LinkLink is the tritagonist. They are the perspectives that I would find most important. However, all in all, I would consider there to be six really important characters in order for HKU to work, that being: Siv, Zelda, Link, Larc, Astor, and Zavis.

Now, I say "really" important for demonstrative purposes because really, all characters are important. Every single one of them. Characters are the lifeblood of HKU, and I spend a lot of time making sure that they don't give off the impression of being self-inserts or just there for fun. I mean they are, but I spend a lot of time making sure they don't seem like that *wink wink*

This is what I define as the essentials for any "good" character:

Someone who provides an interesting/new perspective on the themes of the story

Someone whose wants and needs enhance the plot

Someone that can be understood as an individual

Yet someone that wouldn't be important to the story, without their bonds and relationships to the other characters

I don't really care about how likable a character is, or relatable, or how funny or badass they are; that's all secondary. Third-endary, even. If a character doesn't do enough to serve my story, I cut them, and merge their ideas with an existing characters. Caricautures are for comic relief, and in order to maintain a reader's interest an immersion into my story, I want to consistently give them characters that are well thought out and important. Whenever there's a new face, or an unexpected appearance, I want it to be wordlessly understood that I'm not wasting their time, that there is something this character has to offer.

A reader finding value in something/someone is one of the most important things a writer can have, because it is that particular investment that drives the story, or at least, my story. I cannot stress enough how vital characters are to HKU because this quite literally wouldn't work if you removed even one person from the plot. If you don't find these people important and interesting then EVERYTHING'S ruined. Everything. Every post is a battle for your attention and time, every piece of dialogue is a line I cast into the sea just hoping that there's someone swimming in the ocean because at any MOMENT you could click away, and I know this because I AM a reader, and I WOULD click away if I found something boring. So every plot point is just a battle between the writer me, wanting to spew everything, and reader me, who knows what the essentials are, and what to do to keep a person's investment.

This cycle of writing the story and characters, and understand what is essential and interesting to a reader is what led to me cutting over 20 characters and arcs from HKU.

That's how much time I spend on these fictional fuckers, no one is wasted or expendable. I think the only character that I could write out if I wanted to would be Hestu, and that's mainly because I did actually forget they existed until the Lost Wood's arc rolled around.

So with those points in mind, let's look at some of the characters that I spent a lot of time writing for, that is Siv, Larc, and Astor.

Welcome to the shitpost blog: First Impressions and Establishing...Everything

Welcome to @hyrule-kingdom-updates, and thank you for following! This is just a little comedic blog featuring funny posts from characters who live within Breath of the Wild Hyrule.

Hook, line, and sinker.

There's a lot of reasons why I started HKU this way, (one of them mainly being that I knew no one would read it if I opened immediately with the plot) but the main reason being I believe it was the fastest way to get you interested in the world and the protagonist.

The theme of HKU centers around trauma, and asking the question of what's the right way to deal with the malice(not the goop but like, real-life malicious things) of the world.

So if you want to move a story into a direction that plunges a fictional fairytale kingdom into the realities of life, you first have to establish that fictional fairytale kingdom and it's characters,

Even from the very first post I am working to establish character.

Now, it might seem silly, but there's actually a lot of information that you automatically take in from these two posts alone.

The diction and lack of proper punctuation implies that the narrator is more casual and down to earth

The narrator is aware that people are reading these "updates"

The immediate contrast between the "professional" introduction and humerous shitpost provides insight as to the sense of humour present

The orator is new at their job, and perhaps wants to keep their position

The narrators updates are under the influence of the Royal Family, perhaps more specifically, King Rhoam.

The establishment of Rhoam being in power and Urbosa being alive tells as to when in the timeline of Hyrule we are

Addressments like "don't worry" and "wish me luck" imply that there is value in the reader's opinion and perspective

The goal of the shit post says was basically to establish the world, and what kind of person Siv is. On a meta level, I want you to laugh at the shit posts because that's what Siv is doing. I KNOW you're enjoying the shitposts, therefore it more believable for you to understand that this is something Siv does as well. There's an unspoken distance between you and the world, even if your asks impact it. For you, this is just another funny day in the life, and the same can be said for Siv, but the difference is that for him, it actually IS a reality.

That's why I really enjoyed these days because I was just schemeing behind the scenes, knowing how I was going to turn this all over your heads.

So, you know how he is at the start. Siv is an apathetic individual, he laughs off whatever shit comes his way, and cares only for himself. His view of the world of Hyrule is through the lens of someone who seems to have accept that he has no control over his life, his very job is dictated by royals.

And though he has no respect for authority, and has been deemed a lowly criminal by most people, he still seems like a pretty decent guy. Human. It seems pretty apparant that even though he pretends to not care about the world, he obviously has human morals and wants, and would more than anything like to have control over his life, but he seems to have accepted that's not going to happen.

Siv isn't just sarcastic, or just apathetic to everything, or just a rebellious person. There's a subtle layer to everything, but it's all wrapped in a clearly understandable line of logic. Therefore he is

Someone that can be understood as an individual

At this point in time, if you asked him how to deal with the woes of the world, he would probably shrug his shoulders and say, "laugh it off. Sometimes that's how it is." Whether this idea is something he will main remains to be seen. Therefore as our protagonist, he is

Someone who provides an interesting/new perspective on the themes of the story

Oh brother, it's time to go on a journey: Change and motivation

Now, another way that I break down characters is like this

Want - what they want on the surface

Lie - the belief that they have that prevents them from obtaining their need

Need - what they need to do in order to become better

So, let's break down Siv at this point.

Want: Siv wants to have control over his life, and to do what he wants in order to be happy

Lie: Siv tells himself that there's nothing he can do about his situation, and to just accept the world as it is

Need: Siv needs to learn to give a shit. About himself, and others. He needs to understand that while not everything in life can be controlled, the aspects that we do have power over, like our actions and relationships with others, are important.

Now, Siv doesn't actually go our searching or acting towards his want OR his need, as his lie tells him that he should just take what he can get, and dig in. So far in the story, there is still a distance between him and the reader and the world, because he can choose when to answer asks. He can choose when to confront questions.

So in order to really kick off the story, we have to take that choice away from him.

Enter: The Quill of Roost. Well, more like the quill enters Siv, as he eats it, and we soon discover that now, he can't really escape the questioning voices. Notice that Siv only did this in an effort to do something good, to be a hero. Maybe we'll come back to that later.

So now that we've forced Siv to leave his comfortable apathetic lifestyle, we can start to poke and probe him into a new person. He now has to listen to people more, both literally and metaphorically.

Siv's brother, Arcadius (also known as Larc, by Siv) is a foil, in that he's his opposite. He's not a criminal, he's the respected Captain of the Royal Guard. He's the golden boy, a hero in his own right. He generally respects authority and likes order. I mean, the first time you meet him, he talks like a "how do you do fellow kids" school teacher.

AHe's adored (and simped over) and has a loving family, and lives society's definition of a perfect life.

Yet, despite all of this, there is a deep saddness to Larc that is ever present. He seems to greatly sympathize with Asivus, and has a lot of (yet unseen) regret and guilt. Simiarlly to Siv, he constantly thinks about the unfairness/malice of life, but since Larc seems to have gotten the good end of the stick in life, Larc just convinces himself that any malice or negative emotions he might feel are unjustified, that they don't exist. That he's pathetic to think as such.

But of course, ignoring it doesn't make it go away, Larc still has these emotions, he's still not happy, but he's become to accustomed to them being there and not dealing with them, that's he's almost apathetic about it, similarlly to Siv.

He attempts to find happiness and satisfaction in authority, the the order the kingdom has to offer. He believes that the best thing he can do is be autonomous to whatever the world hands you, whether orders from a king or a father.

But despite this, he understands that deep down, this isn't making him happy. He still hasn't directly dealt with the regrets and guilts he has, even though he tries to hide it under "orders" and the like. He's too much of a coward to do so. Thus, he just concludes that he doesn't deserve to be happy.

Want: Larc wants someone to tell him what to do to be happy. He doesn't want conflict or confrontation, just peace.

Lie: When the life Larc lives doesn't clear his regrets, Larc tells himself that it's because he doesn't deserve to be happy. Thus the very least he could do is do as he's told, and someone like him doesn't deserve to talk back

Need: Larc needs to learn that he does deserve to be happy, but the road to doing so isn't smooth. He needs to learn to care about himself, and actually confront and deal with the problems in his life, instead of running away and being autonomous.

Therefore, Siv and Larc's outlooks on life have contridictions, theirfore their actions also oppose each other at times, and that conflict helps move the story, and make things more fun to watch.

Overtime, we can see their lies start to break down, based on their interactions with other characters, and in their attempt to even help themselves and each other. The autonomous nature and apathy they have starts to break down, whether despite, or because, of their wants and desires.

Now, Siv and Larc just on their own are cool, but with the way they're designed to highlight the theme, and affect the story based on their character driven actions, it makes them both interesting and perhaps even relatable characters, as they are

Someone whose wants and needs enhance the plot

And of course, this pattern isn't just present in the Hartell bros, but in pretty much every character (Except Hestu)

Hey what's that?/We have an older brother/You thought there were two but there is another: Character interaction is pretty cool

So. Siv has allowed himself to open up a little. He dares to be vulnerable for the sake of being happy. He's actually started to rekindle and create bonds, with characters like Larc, Zelda, Link, and Zavis.

But the thing about being open to change and love, can inevitably lead to pain. It's just a reality of life.

Enter: Didymos Astor. Just as the Champion gang comes together, Astor comes along to fuck things up.

On a meta level, Astor is an intriguing character simply because the expectation for him didn't amount to much to begin with. Age of Calamity Astor was just evil for....unstated evil reasons. Therefore writing him was practically just creating an entirely new oc.

So playing with the meta-ness of Astor, there's a lot of mystery to him that I maintained, but in such a way were I actually made sure to eventually answer those mysteries.

At first you don't know why he does what he does, but you do understand that his goal is to help Calamity Ganon rise. He also seemed absolutely confident in his decisions, he believes that his path is the best one.

Then slowly, information is revealed that allows you to understand Astor. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I purposefully did this in parallel with Siv slowly being hurt and betrayed by the people he once let himself be vulnerable with. The understanding of Astor comes with Siv's lack of understanding of the world around him.

Astor at this point in time, is basically a representation of listening to that little voice in your head. Both metaphorically, and quite literally. An "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude.

And of course, because this is HKU, he's not purely an evil villain, and he has an understandble line of logic in his actions, and even morals, as...different as they may be. I try to be very precise with my characters as I don't want to use backstory as an excuse for their actions, I fully intend to let their consequences play out, but at the same time I do want you to understand why someone does something besides just "he evil."

Astor used to have a close relationship with the old Queen of Hyrule, a literal symbol of hope for the kingdom given she possessed the power of Hylia. He himself wasn't a very important person, just some random orphan that probably only got a place at the castle because he was friends with the queen. But when she died, and the fate of Hyrule was apparantly sealed, so too did his hope. A much more depressing outcome of the "you can't control life so be apathetic" view that Astor shares with his brother.

He tried to apply logic to his situation, whether by trying to justify the end by saying that everyone in Hyrule is a fool, or a bad person, or by twisting the memories of his better days into something worse so that he doesn't have to feel as bad.

But of course, the TRUE and absolute reason he does all this, is to save Zelda, because as much as he would loathe to admit it, there's a part of him that still cares. If siding with the Calamity is the only way to save the last connection to the light of your life, then so be it. In a cruel world like Hyrule, why should he be able to enact just a sliver of justice in it.

And honestly he might be right. In the hundreds and thousands of timelines out there, I think there's only two were Zelda actually survives. Not very good chances *wink wink*

He couldn't care less if he looks like a villain as he does this. In fact, he would probably want to. He's been ignored his whole life, so some dramatic time in the spotlight to prove everyone wrong would be euphoric.

Want: Astor wants power over his life, even just a little bit. Just enough to rid the world's vermin, and save Zelda.

Lie: Hope is a lie and everything is doomed. We deserve to lose

Need: If Astor wants to be an actually good person, he needs to learn there are aspects and realities of life that you can't predict or control or assign logic to, yet despite that life is good anyways. Hope isn't always about winning, but about letting yourself live as best you can, and persevere.

Astor is a blast to write, because sometimes he's a stupid emo teen that you can bully for being called "Didymos," and then two minutes later he's a genuinely terrifying villain, and then two minutes after that you're feeling just even the slightest bit of sympathy for him. He's a cunning, cucking, emo bastard and if Larc didn't exist he might just be my favourtie character.

But another thing I love about writing Astor has to do with my fourth point on how I craft characters:

Someone that wouldn't be important to the story, without their bonds and relationships to the other characters

People being enjoyable on their own is great, but I think the best part about writing different characters is seeing how they fit together, like puzzle pieces. This again goes to my point about how no character is wasted, because a complete puzzle doesn't have extra pieces (except Hestu)

So let me just talk about my themes of trauma and how I use malice in HKU

I made this venn diagram awhile ago, but it's kinda....bad. Lmao. So let me summarize in a way that's coherant.

When you get traumatized by something, or something terrible happens to you, even if that experience gets solved, you will probably still have that memory for the rest of your life. That experience, and the consequences that it had, will be something you have with you for a long, long time, and the reality is that sometimes there's nothing you can do about it.

And so the question of HKU becomes...well what exactly do you do with it? Is it a strength, or a weakness, or do you pretend it doesn't exist?

Asivus is the protagonist of the story because it is from his perspective that we explore the most viewpoints and angles of the stories theme, not just through Siv himself, but from his perspective of those around him, and his relationships with them. Again, per the "no character wasted," because quite literally everyone has an opinion on the subject.

For now, let's just focus on Siv, Larc, and Astor.

Hartell Bros and using pictures to appeal to the neurodivergent asshat (AKA myself): The Journey to find your need

This is pretty much where these characters stand at the start of HKU.

Through the beginning arc, Siv becomes less apathetic and actually starts to care, about others, and himself. And eventually, he even follows the hope (ambition) to help Zelda save Hyrule. Now, at this point, Siv doesn't respect Astor, and he envies Larc, so he moves further away from their respective "places" and values. He allows himself to be vulnerable.

Meanwhile, circumstances threaten the most important thing in Larc's life, his family. These circimstances force Larc to go against his usually autonomous lifestyle, and actually act out of personal ambition, and try to take the helm on his life.

Finally, Astor has been in his spot for awhile, ever since he became set on helping to revive the Calamity. And over the first few arcs, nothing happens to him that forces him to change. He stays in his place, because his brother's relationships to him basically make him a moral compass of what they DON'T want to be. (Almost like...getting bad advice, and not taking it.) Astor at the moment is a stationary catalyst who tries to convince Siv to share his viewpoint. And this doesn't happen yet.

So its because of their interactions and relationships that their characters move to here:

HBut the thing about letting yourself be more autonomous, or vulnerable to other people, is that while it does have great benefits, you still might get hurt by other people, so you need to learn how to handle these situations properly.

Asivus does not handle this properly.

When Zavis betrays him, and makes him look like a fool, Siv books it out of the vulnerability department as fast as he can. When Link seemingly shows Siv that the future is broken, and that the world is unfair and out to get him, Siv detaches himself completely from being content (apathetic) and when Siv see he can't rely on anyone to save him, even Zelda, then he moves further into control.

So yeah, Siv's character quite literally wouldn't exist without his relationship to others, and they, him.

Meanwhile, Larc is forces even further into the control and ambition department by being turned into the literal emodiment of ambition and power: a Hollow. Thanks Astor! So for a brief amount of time, he lives at the extreme ends of purple and red, and once he recovers, he desperately wants to move back towards the blue and yellow areas because it wasn't exactly the best of experiences for him.

So now Larc is no longer autonomous to the world around him, and after he is truly revealed as a traitor thanks to being kidnapped and almost dying and the world finding out about everything the gang's been up to, Larc really cannot return to his "following orders" lifestyle. He's on the edge of being where he needs to be, but he still is of the mindset that he doesn't deserve to be happy. So while he allows himself to be in control of his choices, and to follow and protect his family, he rejects hope for himself, and dips into just not caring about himself.

Finally, Astor. His change starts small, but the fact they he shifted at all when he's spent so much of the story as immovable is significant. In a combination of not liking Siv's extremes, and actually expressing hesitation the more he interacts with Zelda, Astor moves out of the yellow and just barely dips into the side of ambition, and the desire to actually change a seemingly unchangeable situation. But it's just barely, and he still sides with Ganon.

So thus, after all those interactions, the Hartell Bros stand around here:

And where will they go from here? Who knows! I'll give you a hint thought...things are really looking Up for Siv (wink wink).

The beauty is that you don't even know if anyone will ever truly live in that perfect harmony that the middle offers, because let me assure you, the people that DO live in that perfect middle, are currently dead. The movement toward that center is a positive character arc, but will everyone achieve a positive character arc? People can enter there sure, but the hard part is staying, of keeping those ideals. And Hylia...don't even get me start on how Link, Zelda, Zavis, and everyone else fits into this, I'd be at here for another six hours.

And also, I think my little graph is a good example of my other themes on mortality and how it's not black and white. There's no extreme good end, and extreme bad end; being a good person is a harmony of the different difficulties every day has to offer.

And then ALL OF THIS, I hide under the guise of mystery, and plot, and humour, and shitposts; evil soup, hot sword people, disaster gays, giant robots, cucking, ninjas, knights, musicians and seers...Just a constantly battle between not being too preachy and not going too off the rails, I myself am constantly trying to find that center harmony as I write HKU.

But make no mistake, this is probably the most fun thing I've written...ever. It kicks my ass sometimes, but it's so....I don't even know how to describe it, it's just great. There just so many things that I have to think about to deal with the story and the characters and it's work but I'm really passionate about it so it's FUN and I love it and I will ramble about it again one day because, fuck man...

Writing is badass.

[shaykai]

I didn't see the astor ask until i already sent mine in. Now to continue: What about... DJ Octavio(could be original gijinka headcanon lol), Dimentio from Super Paper Mario, and Meta Knight from Kirby.

Not My Type | Alright | Cute | Adorable | Pretty | Gorgeous | LORD MERCY

I don't actually have a gijinka headcanon for Tavio (so I'll just base it off of @hypnothesis-au Octavio because he is gorgeous) he's buff, he's pretty, he makes music and his eyes glow- 10/10

Not My Type | Alright | Cute | Adorable | Pretty | Gorgeous | LORD MERCY

I know little to nothing about Dimentio! He seems neat, I like his theme, and I'm always here for a jester type character. He's alright.

Not My Type | Alright | Cute | Adorable | Pretty | Gorgeous | LORD MERCY

I also know nothing about him other than he's like a super cool Kirby with a sword and he can fly- very next. Also glowey eyes-

[unfrgivble-archive]

Let’s talk about the untitled Titanic verse. This is a non-magical verse which means that Lucius is a muggle in this verse. Lucius has close ties to the White Star Line and acted as a primary sponsor of the ship’s building. Due to the large financial impact he had, he was invited on Titanic for her maiden voyage. Obviously, he was on first class and an esteemed guest of J. Bruce Ismay, dining with him and the captain nearly every night.

In this verse, Lucius is affiliated with the following figures:

•J. Bruce Ismay - business partner

•Thomas Andrews - worked closely, along with Bruce, on the ship’s construction

•Captain Edward Smith - has sailed under him many times before and considers a friend.

•Chief Officer Henry Wilde - an acquaintance but Lucius admires Henry and offers financial and emotional support during Henry’s loss of his wife and two children

•Sixth Officer James Moody - Lucius is close friends with James’ American mentor, Richard Selby and promised to keep an eye on the young Officer during the voyage. I’m going to write a whole meta about James and Lucius, please stay tuned.

•Karl Behr- Close friend of his son’s.

•John Jacob Astor - Lucius and Mister Astor regularly butt heads, but it is a friendly rivalry.

[mittensmorgul]

I’m rewatching 13.15, A Most Holy Man, right now, and... and I remember when it first aired. The reaction was largely “meh,” or “the noir format doesn’t really do it for me and the episode was kinda boring overall.” It’s possibly the s13 episode I have the least amount of posts for on my blog. It was largely skimmed over as mostly irrelevant, with the only takeaway being:

A. They got the macguffin they needed to progress the A plot by the end of the episode

and

2. They really should’ve cut that scene of Dean going on about how he’d kill everyone who tried to steal his car...

But... this was a Dabb episode. I wrote this post back in May, but I think it merits an additional look now:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184946657745/so-im-still-out-ahead-of-the-tnt-loop-but-i

Because this single episode functions as a microcosm of their entire lives, at least thematically, if not in a 1:1 fashion. I mean, it is just a 42 minute episode. There were only so many twists and layers they could reasonably shove in, and the Rule Of Three is a convenient metric for demonstrating the pattern in narrative shorthand that invites us to consider the unspoken “etc. etc. ad nauseum” ourselves.

I’d go into the entire structure of the episode, but I’m hoping that just explaining the outcome-- after reading the post I linked above-- everyone will be able to see the parallel itself without me having to write 5k words on the subject today. :P

Let’s start with the exchange at the end of the episode that prompted this realization. Because it’s a bit of chicanery:

FATHER LUCCA: I think I got shot. [DEAN lifts up FATHER LUCCA’s shirt to see only a little blood.] DEAN: Looks like he just grazed you. A few more inches to the left and, uh... FATHER LUCCA: It’s a miracle. [SAM and DEAN, with FATHER LUCCA behind them, search the warehouse and find GREENSTREET still hiding.] GREENSTREET: I didn’t know this would happen. I… I’ll give you anything you want, huh? DEAN: The blood, where is it? GREENSTREET: It, uh… doesn’t exist. SAM: You… what? Wait a second. You told us– GREENSTREET: Exactly what you wanted to hear. It was just a bit of… DEAN: Chicanery? GREENSTREET: Exactly. DEAN: Well… chicane this. [DEAN punches GREENSTREET to the ground.] ACT FIVE EXTERIOR – WAREHOUSE – NIGHT [There are police cars outside the warehouse. A policeman leads GREENSTREET to a car and sits him inside.] GREENSTREET: No, no, no, no. Wait. Don’t – you – you – you’ve made a mistake.

For a refresher, Greenstreet was the author of this entire bit of chicanery. For a while, it appeared as if it was actually each of the other people involved:

Margaret Astor, the first person we meet, and also the one APPARENTLY holding all the cards when they walk into the final deal, who ends up backstabbed (well shot in the back anyway, close enough) by her own assistant

she sent them to Greenstreet, who introduced the term “chicanery” to the narrative, which I’m gonna focus on next, because despite all his plotting, his narrative didn’t end the way he wanted (he’s getting hauled off to jail, but heck, at least he didn’t end up dead like most of the rest of these conspirators...)

Greenstreet sent them to Scarpatti, with the partially true information that he’d been the one to have the artifact stolen in the first place, only to learn that it had been stolen from his man in turn...

(and remember, the skull isn’t actually what Sam and Dean need... it’s the currency they believed they needed in order to trade for what they DO actually need... it’s a bit of a chicane... which I’ll get to... sorry for this meandering on the way to the conclusion, but this little side journey is 100% relevant... you’ll see what I mean in a minute)

While investigating Scarpatti’s side-detour, they end up having to investigate a murder, and inadvertently stumble over Father Lucca Camilleri... but Sam and Dean have no idea that they’re now traveling through this episode with the thing THEY actually need. But rather than just... take what they need because that fact hasn’t been revealed to them yet, or even continue to pursue the currency they believe they need to trade for the elusive thing they need, they selflessly choose to do the morally right thing despite believing that in doing so they are forfeiting their chance to get the macguffin they need.

Ain’t it just Winchesters vs The Cosmos on a microscopic level?

Because one thing I’ve learned about Dabb as showrunner is that his absolute favorite thing is gleefully pointing back at canon and explicitly clarifying things. It’s not always obvious, he tends to be incredibly subtle, but if you’re looking for it, it’s impossible not to see in pretty much all of his writing. He LOVES messing with prior perception, and making us work for the satisfying moment where all the pieces fall into place.

Chicanery and the chicane. THAT ITSELF IS A CLARIFICATION. From vague to specific. Because “a chicane” is a very different thing than “chicanery.” And it’s all a bit of a winding deception.

For reference, the definitions of these two very different words:

chi·can·er·y /SHəˈkān(ə)rē/ noun, the use of trickery to achieve a political, financial, or legal purpose. "an underhanded person who schemes corruption and political chicanery behind closed doors" synonyms: trickery, deception, deceit, deceitfulness, duplicity, dishonesty, unscrupulousness, underhandedness, subterfuge, fraud, fraudulence, legerdemain, sophistry, sharp practice, skulduggery, swindling, cheating, duping, hoodwinking

and

chicane (/ʃɪˈkeɪn/) noun, a serpentine curve in a road, added by design rather than dictated by geography. Chicanes add extra turns and are used both in motor racing and on roads and streets to slow traffic for safety.

What the definition of “chicane” doesn’t provide is that in auto racing, a chicane isn’t seen as a “safety” measure, but an obstacle. If you’ve ever watched road racing, the chicane is where a lot of drivers wipe out. It’s a choke point where everyone HAS to slow down, but when you’re RACING each other, the objective is to remain out in front, you know? Jockeying for position, trying to get through the obstacle as quickly as possible to get back to direct racing toward the finish line. So while a chicane literally slows the racing by design, forcing drivers to adapt to the physical reality of safely navigate through the pinch point while not wrecking themselves, they need to maintain absolute focus to retain their position, as well. It’s not about slowing down for safety but about finding the balance point between “safely navigating through without wrecking myself or being wrecked by the other cars trying to achieve the same objective I am” and “but we’re still racing and I can’t let anyone pass me so I’m still gonna push it as fast as I can while still conforming to the laws of known physics.” It’s... difficult.

THREE TIMES in this episode, they use the word “chicanery” before Dean clarifies it to “chicane.” For reference, out of the other 306 episodes of this show that exist at the time of writing this post, they’ve used “chicanery” a grand total of ZERO other times. Seems significant, yes?

In the same way the show has frequently used Wizard Of Oz imagery to convey these same points, with the reminder in the end of the “you had the power inside you all along” sort of themes, this episode takes it one step further. Which... logical considering the nature of the spiral narrative, that when it comes around again, the circumstances aren’t exactly the same. Think of it in terms of that racetrack with the chicane.

In the case of the plot of this episode, a similar comparison can be drawn to The DaVinci Code, since through most of the wild goose chase running through all the games and puzzles, the guy is literally traveling with the object he seeks. It just doesn’t become obvious, like with Dorothy and her Ruby Slippers, until they’ve worked their way through all the puzzles and subterfuge along the way. As Dean says in Scoobynatural when Sam points out that if he knows how the episode ends, why don’t they just get to the point already, and Dean replies “Because sometimes it’s about the journey.” Rather intuitive meta observation about the point of the narrative structure, yes?

Back to our road race analogy now, after passing through the chicane chicane. Every lap, the drivers are driving through the same essential course. The shape of the road doesn’t change in the most fundamental way. The same parts are still paved, the walls around the edges don’t move, etc. But each time they drive around, other conditions vary. Their tires wear down so their traction changes. Heck, the drivers themselves are wearing out physically and mentally. Maybe a dude’s just thirsty or has an itch on his nose or just has to pee real bad. Maybe the wind speed or direction has changed. Maybe the sun has moved so different turns become more tricky with a glare in their eyes. Their engines are slowly shifting as wear and tear of operating at a high performance level alters performance. Their brakes might be wearing down. They may be in need of more fuel and are driving more conservatively, or may have just gotten new fuel or new tires or made some other alteration to their car that shifts not only their ability to go faster, but changes how they handle corners, etc. But there’s also the factor of all the OTHER cars driving around them. Maybe they’ve hit the chicane all by themselves because they’re out ahead of the pack (or trailing far behind it). Maybe they’re clustered tightly together with other drivers. Maybe there was a wreck that altered the road surface... cleaning up fuel/oil spills, sand or dirt having “spilled” out onto the road surface, maybe a slight drizzle started making it more slippery, or even random trash has blown from the stands into the road, or debris from a wreck-in-progress hampers their progress. There are SO MANY FACTORS at play that make each lap around the course an entirely different experience, you know?

Same with the spiral narrative. The major landmarks might be similar, but everything else is new.

And the moment Dean says “chicane this” and punches the author of this series of events in the face, that’s basically 14.20, yes?

They’re tired, and they’re on the last lap, and they’ve been through this chicane so many times now. And they’ve just been told that after every lap, Chuck refused to wave the checkered flag. They kept reaching the finish line over and over, only to discover it was also the starting line and the race was still going. And each time through Chuck’s big chicane, he’d deliberately change those variables, so the more experience they gained on the track, there���d always be a bit of new debris to navigate, a new difficulty level added.

And now in 14.20, it’s like they finally caught him in the act of throwing thumbtacks down on the road, you know? They caught him at his tricks.

And like, to use a favorite metaphor of Dabb’s, it’s like the roadrunner and the coyote. Only the roadrunner had always known all along that the coyote was laying traps for him and always found the most hilarious ways to foil the coyote’s plans and turn it back around on him. It took them 14 seasons for TFW to finally pull a roadrunner.

This has always been Dabb’s ending, because it’s actually the story he has been telling all along. The spiral’s broken, and instead of continuing lap after lap with no end in sight, they’ve finally realized they can just... stop driving in carefully paved loops and drive in a direct line to the finish.

(and maybe the only way to make it to the finish is to pave their own road around all of Chuck’s chicanery... it’s gonna be some heavy lifting and some rough off-roading, but it’s the only way to get off the track to victory lane)

(apologies, this is the sort of place my brain goes when Mr. Mittens is watching nascar at Road America in the background... but it’s super apt, and full disclosure, I started writing this about an hour before he turned the tv on. I was already on this road course >.>)

[daggerzine]

Other Music documentary (2019- directed by Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller)  review by Dina Hornreich

“It is harder to put together than to take apart.” A plain and not-so simple comment coming from the former Other Music Record Store co-owners, Josh Madell and Chris Vanderloo, who are prominently featured in the film, as these words underscore a scene in which their crew is dismantling their once hallowed CD sales racks in preparation for the store’s reluctant closure. OM used to herald as a beacon of hope in NYC’s bustling offbeat East Village neighborhood, a cultural hub known as St. Marks Place – not far from New York University. (If you asked any New Yorker for directions, they would enthusiastically tell you to simply “get off at the stop for Astor Place Station from the #6 or #4 [subway] train: you will see the gigantic cube immediately after exiting the station...can’t miss it!”)

The OM store opened its doors in 1996, and officially closed in 2016. Twenty years is a very good run for any kind of establishment such as this one, especially in the Big Apple – a fact that was not taken lightly by the two makers of this film who each were an employee and a regular customer at the establishment themselves! And like the store itself: the film is an endeavor for music nerds by music nerds. (And, obviously, this Dagger Zine review is no different.)

For creatively inclined weirdos like us, OM was a place of refuge. It was a major meta-musical mecca that happened to take the form of a retail outlet which is a very bold endeavor to consider: an unusual existence as a cultural outlet that strove to challenge our knowledge, expand our awareness, and promote the discovery of completely unknown (even uncomfortable) expressions. This mentality was not conducive whatsoever to the slick sales-driven experience one might come to expect upon shopping for any traditional kind of consumable commodities. And we certainly did not receive that kind of treatment while shopping there anyway!

OM’s purpose was contrary to basic principles of economics because it was run by artistic types who believed in a much higher purpose behind what they were selling: it was a community focused approach. In doing so, they completely confounded the basic notion that we were purchasing mere commercial products to be unloaded for profit (like toothpaste). The store’s very existence was a subversive act of culture jamming in and of itself. This information in conjunction with a solid awareness of the cut-throat and risky nature involved with doing any kind of enterprising endeavors in NYC is extremely pertinent. (I was once told that any restaurant in NYC would be far more successful if it were in another location simply because the competition alone would be considerably less stiff.)

Instead, they were offering something very unusual to their customers by incorporating some kind of pseudo-quasi-intellectual discourse using extraordinarily inventively stylistic fusions and/or varied often inconceivable sonic experiments to create such astute, pithy, and massively passionate descriptions that would be entirely ineffective as a sales strategy to the less tolerant/picky shoppers at the overpowering Tower Records across the street. The store had a unique energy that was entirely its own manifestation. Bin categories had mysterious names such as: in, then, decadanse, etc. that baffled even the artists whose own work was often filed underneath them, as evidenced by the hesitant testimony provided by indie rock luminary Dean Wareham (of the bands Galaxie 500 and Luna). In fact, these idiosyncratically descriptive insider taxonomies were typically used as a rite of passage upon orienting new store employees to OM’s unique aesthetic.  

The delectably raw live in-store performance footage of more acquired tastes, but definitely well-loved by those “in the know,” included bands who simply could not have thrived in the same ways at more conventional outlets: The Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Rapture, etc. The most delightfully peculiar act might have been delivered by a performer named Gary Wilson whose legendary appearance began with him surreptitiously entering the store while beneath a blanket and then (from behind the scenes, presumably) covering himself in talcum powder prior to seizing the stage with unabashedly alarming flamboyance – with only the playful tunes that would we expect to appropriately match that indelible image so gloriously!

And that was precisely the point: they were unequivocally rebelling against more conventional music consumption habits by offering an entirely different kind of taste-making experience that was kind of less palatable overall – and, in doing so, they even helped launch the careers of some important figures: Vampire Weekend, Animal Collective, and Interpol. The description of the “consignment” process for emerging artists who managed to attain a place on their sanctified shelves seemed extraordinarily modest considering the scope and nature of the impact it offered. There was a lot of social currency behind the OM brand.

The inclusion of a parody skit starring Aziz Anzari and Andy Blitz (available here as well https://youtu.be/YN1mKiQbi4g), followed by the various customer testimonials (including actor and musician Jason Schwartzman), indicated that they may have exuded more than a hint of an unflatteringly, even off-putting, air of NYC hipster pretentiousness akin to that portrayed in the Nick Hornby book, Stephen Frears movie, and/or the new Hulu series (involving both Hornby and Frears): High Fidelity. However, there were clearly very good reasons for them to do this: They represented an extreme mishmash of strange characters who collectively embodied all the historically marginalized shapes, sizes, colors among other attributes that would not have been celebrated (or considered marketable) elsewhere. If they weren’t a little snooty, they probably would have been mocked entirely – as evidenced by an astute and pithy comment by a long-time store employee describing Animal Collective as appearing like a “sinister Fraggle Rock on acid.”

These artists never aspired to becoming real “rock stars” anyway – on the contrary, they embodied the antithesis of that concept. (A point made abundantly clear as they bookended the film with footage of ordinary musicians simply marching through the streets of NYC.) Literally, OM offered shelter to those of us who are able to truly appreciate the anthemic idea behind the phrase: “songs in the key of Z.” It was a place for gathering the outsiders among outsiders, in other words.

It is impossible to ignore various impressive personalities who made appearances throughout the film, in both large and small roles. This includes but is not limited to major NYC scene contributors such as Lizzy Goodman, author of the equally compelling and similarly themed book: Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock’n Roll in New York City 2001-2011. Footage in the film included key figures in influential bands including: TV on the Radio, Le Tigre, The National, Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (all of whom are also featured in Goodman’s book). You can also see glimpses of varied lesser known, yet supremely compelling figures of that era, including writers Kandia Krazy Horse and Geeta Dayal, and former store employees such as Lisa Garrett and Gerald Hammill.

These conversations take place until we eventually witness the demise of Tower across the street (and its many ilk of like-minded big box stores) which clearly signaled the ever-looming end for Vanderloo and Madell’s opus-like enterprise. A point that musician Stephin Merritt, best known for so many stellar masterpieces with his longest-running outfit, The Magnetic Fields, emphasizes upon casually observing the degrading presence of a fitness studio franchise that has since taken up residence in the spot that used to house Tower’s second floor. (I failed to try and restrain myself from recalling a new sense of irony from the lyrical lines that Merritt himself had written and recorded around 1991: “Why do we still live here.. In this repulsive town? All our friends are in New York.”)

There is also a bit of an underlying insinuation only apparent from random customer shots throughout the store regarding a possible impact from the Rough Trade Records shop that had recently opened in Brooklyn around the time of OM’s closing. This is exceedingly apparent to this biased writer herself who personally ventured out to that Williamsburg location last year for an in-store performance with NYU Punk Professor, Vivien Goldman, who had just published her own book Revenge of the She Punks. An event whose audience clearly included some members of the OM community featured in this film as I recall the store had heavily lauded her Resolutionary compilation album release prior to its official closing.

As the film successfully affirms the significance behind record store culture (especially in a global hub like NYC) which has long been hailed as a sacred gathering space for various misfits and weirdos who might find significantly less understanding and/or productive social outlets in other circumstances; its unavoidable bittersweet conclusion dramatically asserts how disappointing it is for us to witness the complete loss in their consistently tenuous financial viability as we are well into the digital information age – if not for the simple fact that paying for music (or any kind of intellectual property) is more commonly perceived as an anachronistic practice which is a clear and painful affront to all the prescient creative geniuses who are struggling to make an honest living off their work.

The film highlights the many multifaceted aspects that we fondly and endearingly associate with the appreciation of music that lies at the heart of the irrational fervor behind record collecting culture: the smell of the vinyl itself, the enormous visual impact around the artists’ choices for cover art, the substantial weight it possesses when we remove it from the sleeve, the delicacy necessary to handle vinyl so as to minimize any potential damage, its often very limited quantities as it is not cost-efficient to produce (the obscurity is intrinsically part of the exhilaration surrounding this “hunt”) among other substantial inconveniences that more or less confirm this as an unproductive – if not entirely illogical – endeavor overall!

Of course, it has always been very apparent to us that we were engaged in some insanely addictive bizarre kinds of quests that kept leading us to this absurd little locale in the first place – desperately trying to pacify some nebulous and insatiable deep cravings that we couldn’t always articulate… yet it always kept us coming back for more! As Mac McCaughan from the bands Superchunk and Portastic, as well as co-owner of Merge Records, astutely concludes: “They knew what you wanted before you knew.” (Of course, they did!)

The overarching and staunch message of this film is most apparent during the final closing scenes when we are eavesdropping on a conversation that the former co-owner, Josh Madell, is having with his young daughter about simply streaming the Hamilton Soundtrack on Spotify because the vinyl copy would have cost her $90 in the store. Perhaps even more ironic, of course, might be suggested by the very relevant context in which we find ourselves today: the annual Record Store Day celebratory event with which the film’s re-release was planned to coincide obviously could not happen. As a result, I was reluctantly watching it, albeit self-consciously, on my 13” laptop screen in my home office during the self-quarantine of COVID-19. Half the proceeds for the “tickets” were to be used to support one of my favorite local record shops here in Denver, CO, Twist and Shout, who may or may not be able to reopen as this pandemic situation evolves.

There are bigger questions to contemplate as the tide of change has only just begun in ways that only a tragedy, such as a worldwide pandemic, can facilitate for even the most obstinate luddites who have no choice but to incorporate regular use of digital formats in their daily habits – and we totally have, of course! This documentary remains as unequivocal evidence of the viability behind OM as it stood as an historic cultural hub that transcended the fundamental premise behind a commercial retail outlet. (Even though retail was once considered the only aspect of the industry where substantial money could be made. In fact, a measure of an artists’ success was often the number of albums they actually sold.) As its impact clearly exceeds its impressive years as a store-front operated business, it may also indicate a shortcoming in mainstream outlets who tend to ignore, silence, dismiss, and otherwise relegate the disempowered voices in our community – which, of course, are the major reasons that forced us to seek out these alternate forums in the first place.

The role of arts and culture for society is in fact to provide the very same opportunities that OM offered to us, which is (to reiterate that point from above) to provide an opportunity for discourse that challenges our knowledge, expands our awareness, and promotes the discovery of the completely unknown (even uncomfortable) expressions. These conversations give our lives meaning and force us to continually improve ourselves on many levels. While such commentaries could be considered an acquired taste or even an entirely esoteric endeavor, the crucial sensibilities they offer hold enormous potential for a world that honestly seems to need to hear from us… now more than ever!

If only we could find a better way to invite the integration of our perspectives into the bigger conversations? So that we can participate in the innovations for the changed world that will be waiting for us – and to ensure that it will be a more inclusive place for all of us. Which is perhaps what we ultimately (and so desperately) need, want, and deserve. The alternatives seem frighteningly Orwellian… at the risk of seeming a bit histrionic.

http://www.factorytwentyfive.com/other-music/?fbclid=IwAR3wtvtOKKC46YmfwjB6zv0wp5GMh4YBHFuWk0aLOti5m2NSs8PFChjrK4M

[cometsweepandleonidsfly]

“At a June campaign stop in New Hampshire, Williamson argued against mandatory vaccination, calling it “Orwellian” and “draconian.” “To me, it’s no different than the abortion debate,” she said. “The US government doesn’t tell any citizen, in my book, what they have to do with their body or their child.” She apologized for these comments in a subsequent statement, claiming she personally supports vaccination, but she has a long history of promoting skepticism on the subject (something Trump has done as well).Anti-vaccine sentiment is easy to spread through social media and difficult to rebut once it takes hold. The more Williamson’s views get attention, the more validation she gets, and the more likely it is that she’ll contribute to the problem — convincing individual parents that it’s okay not to vaccinate their children, which weakens herd immunity and makes outbreaks like the recent measles emergence in New York more likely.

Moreover, as the Washington Post’s Gillian Brockell notes, Williamson has spread misinformation about illness more broadly. In her book A Return to Love, Williamson wrote that “sickness is an illusion and does not exist,” and that “cancer and AIDS and other physical illnesses are physical manifestations of a psychic scream.” She advised her followers that “seeing sickness as our own love that needs to be reclaimed is a more positive approach to healing than is seeing the sickness as something hideous that we must get rid of.”

Elsewhere in the book, she insists that she’s not saying people shouldn’t take medication. But the upshot of these passages seems to be that people with cancer or AIDS can will themselves back to health. Williamson’s denial “that I ever told people who got sick that negative thinking caused it” is hard to square with the quotes from her book, part of a habit of obfuscating and downplaying her worst statements when called on them during the campaign.

But the rhetoric that bothers me the most — on a visceral, personal level — is Williamson’s repeated attacks on antidepressants.Williamson has repeatedly cast doubt on the idea that clinical depression is real, calling the idea “such a scam” in an interview with actor Russell Brand and labeled antidepressants harmful, a cause of suicide rather than a cure for it. Here’s a sampling of this rhetoric compiled by podcast host Courtney Enlow:

http://twitter.com/courtenlow/status/1156527208544034817

Williamson has apologized for the “scam” comment and tried to walk back some of the more heated tweets. She also argued that her issue is not with using antidepressants per se, which she claims to at times support, but rather with their overprescription of them.

But her rhetoric has for some time gone way beyond such reasonable concerns in a way that makes her walkbacks ring hollow. She has argued that antidepressants are often actively harmful, suggested that they caused Robin Williams and Kate Spade to kill themselves (there’s no evidence for either claim), and has insinuated that Big Pharma is pushing antidepressants on Americans who don’t need them.

Now, there is serious debate among mental health experts on just how effective antidepressants are and whether they’re overprescribed. And Williamson is correct to say that people sometimes get diagnosed with depression when they’re actually just sad, and that antidepressants aren’t a cure-all for sicknesses of the soul. But her rhetoric has at times crossed the line into more pernicious territory, casting doubt on the value of taking such drugs altogether.

There’s clear evidence that antidepressants can help at least some patients; a 2018 meta-analysis in The Lancet that surveyed 522 separate trials conducted on a total of 116,477 individuals confirmed that “all antidepressants were more effective than placebo.“ The trouble for patients with clinical depression is a lot of them don’t want to get help: Mental illness is still stigmatized by a lot of people.

I know this is real because I’ve lived it. Starting around 2014, I started to suffer from clinical depression. Depression makes even the smallest effort, like calling a psychiatrist’s office, feel like climbing Mt. Everest. Nothing seems like it will work; everything seems destined to fail.

I’m better now — not cured, but better. Medication helped me improve, and it helps me regulate to this day. But when I was really in the ditch, anything that fed what my depression was telling me — nothing you can do will make you better — would have erected another barrier to getting help. I didn’t encounter Williamson-type arguments during my worst time, but it’s easy for me to see how this kind of rhetoric could serve as depression’s agent, worming into a depressed person’s brain in a way that might cause them to avoid something that could literally save their life.

This isn’t just my anecdotal experience but the view of actual mental health professionals. “Mental health experts say comments like [Williamson’s] can increase stigma and make people less likely to seek treatment, even if that is not the intention,” Maggie Astor writes in the New York Times.

Marianne Williamson isn’t funny or charmingly weird — at least, not after you think about her for a bit. The effect her rhetoric could have on vulnerable people is scary.

Let’s be clear about something: There’s almost no chance that Williamson is going to win the Democratic nomination in the same way Trump won in 2016. She’s not nearly as famous as Trump was, not polling well enough, and can’t tap into base racial grievance the way Trump can.

But just because she won’t win doesn’t mean she can be treated as a funny sideshow.

When a presidential candidate gets massive media attention, there is always a surge of interest in what they think and believe. Their past writing gets read more, they get more chances to spread their ideas via America’s biggest megaphones, and they can even parlay their post-candidacy notoriety into more impressive and high-profile positions.

What this means, in Williamson’s case, is a greater opportunity to attract more followers and adherents to her worldview. It’s not that she’s bringing up her dodgy ideas about depression and vaccines in debates — at least not yet — but rather that all the people who are Googling her after watching the debate or reading a positive article about her performance are likely to encounter her old rhetoric for the first time. They’ll hear her past lines about how it’s okay not to get vaccinated, how “sickness is an illusion,” and how antidepressants are dangerous and pushed on you by Big Pharma.

The more people hear these things, the more likely people are to believe them. The media’s elevation of Williamson gives her a significantly greater set of opportunities to influence people’s views on health in a potentially harmful manner.

This is irresponsible. I get that she’s funny and kooky, and even sometimes says things that make sense (like the need to confront the emotional character of Trump’s racial appeals). She’s getting a lot of attention from the public, giving every media outlet — including Vox — an incentive to cover her. But none of that outweighs the potential damage she can do to real lives by giving parents license to skip vaccination or convincing a person with depression that they don’t need to take their meds. Elevating Williamson, especially through favorable coverage, subtly mainstreams these views.

Even more fundamentally, it suggests that a lot of the mainstream media hasn’t learned the lessons of 2016.

One of the key reasons that Trump was able to break from the GOP pack so decisively is that he absolutely dominated press coverage. His persona was undeniably entertaining, his substantive views equally offensive — both of which generated large TV audiences and clicks for news websites. One 2016 study found that Trump got nearly $2 billion in free media during the primary season alone, due to the inordinate press focus on him.

One of the media’s cardinal failures in 2016 was giving Trump, an ignorant and dangerous candidate, far more attention than he deserved — because he was entertaining and almost no one thought he could win. What happened afterward is a lesson in American journalism’s failure to appreciate the importance of its gatekeeping role in the country’s political system.

Williamson is a test of what, exactly, the mainstream media has learned from the Trump debacle — and it’s one that many are failing.”