#does it hit hard and real

[ragnarssons]

so, i re-rewatched gladiator II and i gotta say, i feel like this movie wouldn't struggle with its story anywhere as much, had the first movie been honest with its protagonists and who they were.

marcus aurelius (movie-wise, even) wasn't a "fair, pro-democracy" emperor, during his reign, rome conquered a lot of territories and enslaved a shitton of people. heck, macrinus' character exists precisely because of that: because marcus aurelius also conquered and enslaved people.

maximus was, sure, a "defender of rome", he also was just like acacius, a general, conquering cities, killing men, women and children to do so, burning their bodies in mass graves, feeding off the blood of people who would then end up as slaves to rome.

the first movie (and by extension, the second movie) glorifying these characters into "role models" just takes away all the complex (and interesting) ambiguity that is brought up by characters like lucius/hanno, macrinus, acacius, etc. and where the second movie doesn't delve nearly enough into these complicated, intricated questions, it could be because ridley scott (or anyone involved in the movie tbh) didn't dare question what the narrative was for the first movie. you can't just take a character like maximus, adored by fans, and 20 years later, question whether or not he truly was a hero. because in the first movie (the timeframe portrayed in the movie, i mean), he was a hero. he fought for freedom.... once he was in the arena. once he became a slave. once he was betrayed by the rome he'd spent decades of his life serving.

and we needed this hero as a source of inspiration to a character with his morality muddled like lucius. i guess i'm not as troubled by the glorification of maximus as i am of marcus aurelius, tho.

because at the end of the day, macrinus is portrayed as being wrong, awful, and worse than his own enslaver??? because, the gladiator saga as it is, has characters who serve the purpose of denouncing the colonialist politics of rome, while also glorifying it through other characters??? and then the narrative being like "oh but it's the fault of these bloodthirsty emperors" (either comodus or caracalla/geta) but actually not, because even "nice democracy guy" marcus aurelius and "liberty hero" maximus fought to conquer and enslave people, sooo? 🤷‍♀️ when it's just...... so much more complex than that? and it would be so interesting to have had either maximus question that in the first movie, lucilla question than when faced with macrinus, lucius just serving lucilla's narrative to question that. i feel like the movie goes so fast that we brushed over so many character moments that could've been interesting, like literally acacius learning about how his conquests literally murdered lucius' wife? or lucius questioning how his father is actually literally just like acacius and how many widow(er)s, orphans, did maximus (and marcus aurelius) leave in his (their) wake? or, to go back to the first movie, have maximus, who bonded with juba just THINK for two seconds about the fact that it's because of him, the system of marcus aurelius, that juba ended up as a slave?

like sure, the first movie being more "bottled", it feels like it's less lacking than a movie about literally "the heir taking the throne", but both movies suffer from the same.... lack of nuances and questions being put in front of the characters, moral dilemmas or times for the characters to introspect. it would've worked perfectly fine, had gladiator stayed one movie, but if you're gonna build a saga about "freeing rome from tyranny" like why don't you question the whole SYSTEM of rome which is itself a tyranny, no matter who has the power? a system who upholds men like comodus, caracalla and geta, a system that is held together by these same senators who are corrupted to the bone and NOT AT ALL the ideal "democracy guys" that lucilla (anyone in rome) should rely on to change the system? (like biiiiiiiiitch wake tf up... oops too late i guess).

idk 🤷‍♀️

[za1ka]

oh no would you look at the time i can't believe Crowley's a chronic valentine's day misser! but thankfully it's never too late for amore so let's get sappyyyyyyyyyyyyy 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Not beating the allegations.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[teratomatica]

you always land on all fours

[zenruu]

if you're still boiling a character as complex as alistair down to anything along the lines of: himbo, idiot, soft baby without an idea of his own, haha funny cheese man i'm straight up burning your house down with lasers and sending you directly to hell.

if you genuinely believe that man is stupid, all you're doing is admitting that you yourself cannot see beyond the incredibly transparent veil he wants to put over your eyes.

what he is is insecure, and he wants you to think he's stupid so that he doesn't have to live up to expectations he fears he won't meet. shortly after meeting him you can call him out on using humor to deflect and make himself smaller and he ADMITS IT.

he repeatedly shows you just how intelligent he is and how aware of the ways of the world he is. his history knowledge, his understanding of the chantry and its control of templars and mages that goes far beyond nearly anyone else we as the player speak with, his emotional intelligence when it comes to understanding others' intentions and needs... and this is just a thoughtless little post with quick examples i conjured up in five minutes! i'm not even doing a deep dive here! how do so many people miss all of this?

this is not advanced reading of subtext, it's incredibly simple and i'm completely unsure how people don't understand this about him.

he's such a great character for so many reasons - his flaws being some of those reasons - but a lack of intelligence is simply not one of those flaws no matter how you spin it.

[decarabias]

forever thinking about royal’s bad ending. my thing with it is that maruki doesn’t necessarily give anyone what they want most, he gives them what’s most appropriate for them to want within a maruki-approved framework. iirc there’s a really interesting text sequence in the game where he just straight up changes someone’s career because they’re not “good” at it, regardless of whether that’s what they actually want. why struggle at all? ever? right?

and so ultimately i don’t think goro akechi’s greatest wish is necessarily ren. i think it’s a wish for sure, but his greatest wish is his own agency. despite any regrets he has and the fact that shido and yaldabaoth treated him like a pawn, he's generally pretty adamant about owning his choices and their consequences. he doesn't want that erased. and instead, you end up with pleasant boy™ if you take maruki’s deal. maybe maruki (incorrectly) thinks sanding off all of akechi’s rough edges will make him easier for ren to love. but the crux of it is really that maruki has to essentially lobotomize him to preserve the illusion of his perfect reality, because their ideologies are so diametrically opposed that akechi would spend every waking moment fighting back.

this isn’t to undermine ren’s importance to akechi btw — he explicitly acknowledges that he wishes they had met earlier, and there are countless moments throughout their confidant that underscore how much it means to him that they mirror each other so well. he absolutely does want more time with ren, just not under these circumstances.

and that’s also what makes ren’s choice on 2/2 doubly devastating. he knows that either way he loses akechi. and if he takes maruki’s deal, he loses him knowing that his last moments with the real akechi involved the two of them being unforgivably out of sync.

[jaderavenarts]

"I caught sight of the fleeting touches between you. Almost like he wanted to be sure you weren't some fever dream."

I had a vision after hearing “As the World Caves In” by Matt Maltese and had to get it down...

[bugcatcherkit]

whyd they think marriage was a good idea

[joshuamj]

In Stars And Time? More like In Ace And Gender

+ some alts

[nonbinary-octopus]

sometimes I forget that other people have object permanence about me

like, I'm in a bookbinding discord with a pets channel, and every now and then someone will respond to me talking about my cats, with information I had mentioned some time prior. I talked about progress they're making towards being able to coexist peacefully, and someone comments it's been a while huh? and I'm like, you remember how long it's been? like yes, but you remembered that? I told them October comes when he's called, and someone responded "Another point for the 'October was raised by dogs' column" and I'm like, you remembered I said that theory?

and it's just. wild, sometimes. you remember me, the things I've said, things I've done. I left a mark behind me. wow

[rosecandyart]

How is she so cool

[rorydrawsandwrites]

Now it makes me kind of sad that I probably won't make much art (if any) because my self-insert lore for this was really funny

[antirepurp]

metal and sage have the building blocks for interesting conflicts and dynamics if the writers just. do something with those. sage taking on a human appearance that metal cannot achieve due to his inherent role as sonic's foil, who both is and is not him. the restrictions he has compared to sage's freedom. artificial intelligence with the blessing to expand itself with no limitations VS machine tied to the whims of its creator, reliant on external tampering to become more than what it already is. sage offering metal a hand because she is fascinated, captivated, with the concept of "family" - would that not come across as condescending, or would metal take what he could get, even if it meant staying in the shadow of someone more "real" than him?

there is tension and potential for something venomous, and the stage is set for exploring what makes someone "real" enough for a familial relationship. there is space to explore aspects of eggman's thoughts on his creations, why he would bestow the role of a child upon sage so easily, if it's just a different type of familial relationship to the one he has with metal, etc. but someone has to have the guts to go there and i wonder if anyone does

[incangencence]

ooc: Woke up with So Many Thoughts on the Fifteenth Doctor… and I am TRULY at war with myself about whether or not I wanna wade into fandom discourse…

I don’t…

But WOW, what a fascinating and beautiful knot the production team has created for themselves…

[cannibalisticskittles]

jesus christ, man