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fionaapplerocks · 14 hours

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The Long and Winding Road That Leads to Fiona Apple

By Tyler Coates 2012-05-31

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” So goes the oft-quoted line from William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun. Time is circular, and our relationship with our own personal histories is ever changing. This is a concept with which the enigmatic Fiona Apple is deeply familiar.

The 34-year-old singer-songwriter is about to release her fourth album—the first in seven years—aptly titled The Idler Wheel is wiser than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords will serve you more than Ropes will ever do. The spinning wheel of time cranks back and forth for Apple, who continues to re-examine her past while trying to keep up with the present. Like most artists, however, Apple finds that her fans cherish the past more than she does.

In 2000, a 16-year-old fan named Bill Magee approached Apple after a show in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania with a request: he told her he was a member of his high school’s gay-straight alliance and hoped that Apple could write a few words of support. “[I] was much more interested in interacting with a celebrity than building an alliance between gays and straights,” he admitted on his blog 12 years later where he posted a scanned image of the letter he received less than a week after requesting her response.

Apple wrote: “All I know is I want my friends to be good people, and when my friends fall in love, I want them to fall in love with other good people. How can you go wrong with two people in love? If a good boy loves a good girl, good. If a good boy loves another good boy, good. And if a good girl loves the goodness in good boys and good girls, then all you have is more goodness, and goodness has nothing to do with sexual orientation.”

“My brother was the one who told me about it,” Apple tells me just weeks after Magee posted the letter on his Tumblr, which was then picked up by various sites like Jezebel and Pitchfork. “I was like, ‘A letter I wrote to someone when I was 22 has made its way online?’ That’s the scariest thing I could possibly hear in my life. And the subject matter was so important—I know how I’ve always felt so I knew it wasn’t going to be a bad letter, but I was like, ‘What did I say?!’”

The letter’s sudden popularity online is indicative of how much has changed since Apple released her debut album, Tidal, in 1996.

For starters, she was then a 19-year-old singer-songwriter signed to a major record label and churning out emotional and dark odes at a time when her contemporaries were singing bubblegum-pop love songs.

She made headlines after appearing in the video for “Criminal.” Shot in a seedy apartment, the video featured a scantily clad and emaciated Apple, sparking criticisms of the exploitive quality of the images (and suggesting that she had an eating disorder). In 1997, when accepting her award for Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards, Apple infamously shouted into the microphone, “This world is bullshit, and you shouldn’t model your life on what we think is cool, and what we’re wearing and what we’re saying.”

While the speech was replayed and parodied on TV for years following, Apple was lucky enough to have said those words before the days of blogging and YouTube; had she given the speech 15 years later, it may have turned into a career-damaging viral video and sparked a few thousand snarky tweets.

She also has the luxury of being a successful artist who doesn’t need to promote herself online. “They want me to tweet now, but I don’t,” Apple tells me of her label reps. “It doesn’t feel natural to me. But I do find it actually more interesting to see people posting ridiculously mundane shit. I like to hear about what people had for breakfast or what they did all day. It’s interesting because I don’t know how other people live.”

While Apple is hardly a recluse, she’s made few public appearances in the seven years since the release of her third album, Extraordinary Machine. The excitement following the announcement by Epic Records of the late-June release of The Idler Wheel speaks to the loyalty of her fan base. (And as for that long-winded title, it’s a callback to the much-maligned 90-word title of her acclaimed sophomore effort, universally shortened to When the Pawn…)

The Idler Wheel does not deviate from the familiar sounds of Apple’s earlier records; the songs are still layered with complex instrumentation, and her reverberant voice still takes center stage in each tune.

The album was produced nearly in secret over the last few years—a surprising move from an established artist with the resources of a major label at her disposal. But Apple explains that her experience with the label system is what allowed her to feel free to work on her own. “It was very casual, and I wasn’t fully admitting that I was making an album,” she says. “I got to use the time in the studio to inspire me to finish other things rather than feel like I was finishing homework to hand in. It wasn’t a lot of pressure. And the record company didn’t know I was doing it, so nobody was looking over my shoulder.”

Most might take that mentality as a reaction to the restrictions of her record label, especially after the drama surrounding the release of Extraordinary Machine. After collaborating with Jon Brion (who produced When the Pawn) to create an early version of the third album in 2002, Apple then decided to rework all but two of the songs with producer Mike Elizondo.

The original version of the album leaked online, and Brion suggested in interviews that Apple’s label had rejected the demo and forced her to rerecord the songs (a claim that Apple later denied). Still, it incited an uproar among her fans. An online-based movement called Free Fiona organized demonstrations outside of the Sony headquarters in New York, and protestors sent apples to the label’s executives.

The final version of the album was released in 2005 and received positive reviews and earned Apple a Grammy nomination. “I ran into the guy who started Free Fiona after a show in Chicago,” she tells me. “He apologized to me! They didn’t get the story quite right, but they did help me get my album out. I felt so bad that he had spent all this time thinking I was pissed at him—I had a physical urge to get down on the floor and kiss his shoes!”

It’s an intense reaction (she admits she didn’t bow to her fan because “it would be weird if I did that”), but Apple is still a very intense person. Dressed in a flowing skirt paired with several layers of spaghetti-strapped tank tops that reveal her slender frame (which seems healthier than in her early days, giving the impression that she must spend most of her downtime on a yoga mat), Apple fidgets in her seat during our conversation, often giving off an infectious giggle.

But she is surprisingly comfortable to talk to, not much like the somber young woman who sang of heartbreak and disappointment. “I don’t think I’ll ever have an idea of what I look like to the rest of the world,” she replies when I ask if she ever worries that her lyrics, which are sometimes in stark contrast to the up-tempo, progressive sounds of her songs’ instrumentations, give off the wrong impression of her personality. “It’s all your own perception. I could easily be concerned with how I’m taken and then have all the good stuff filtered through to me and choose to believe that. For the rest of my life it’d be the truth for me, but not the whole truth.”

Born Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart in New York City to Brandon Maggart and Diane McAfee, Apple’s musical destiny was settled at birth. The McAfee-Maggarts are, while not reaching Barrymore-level name recognition, an entertainment family; Apple’s father was nominated for a Tony for his performance in the Broadway musical Applause, both her mother and sister are singers, and her half-brothers work in the film industry—one an actor and the other a director.

She’s a third-generation performer, as her grandmother was a dancer in musical revues and her grandfather a Big Band-era musician. While Apple’s auspicious introduction to the pop world had critics calling her a prodigy, she crafted her early songs as a cathartic necessity. (“Sullen Girl” from Tidal, in particular, is about her rape at the age of 12.) “Over the years it’s transferred more into a craft,” she says. “I use myself as material because that’s what I’ve got. But these days I write less than half of my songs to get myself through things. I have to find other things to be meaningful— otherwise I’d just be miserable all the time.”

Her songs are still extremely autobiographical, which is perhaps their charm. Following in the footsteps of other singer-songwriters, especially women who emerged in the early ’90s and expressed their emotions in particularly vulnerable ways, Apple’s openness has always had an empowering appeal. Her songs seem to suggest that feeling a variety of emotions—sadness, glee, despair, insanity—is not only normal, but, like those self-reflective musicians before her, she also gives permission to her listeners to feel the same way.

Even for Apple, her older songs are relics of another time, and she now makes them applicable to her life in the present. “They all kind of become poems after a while,” she says. “You can take your own meaning out of them. It’s been a very long time [since my first albums], and I can apply those songs to other situations that are more current in my life.” She admits she has changed greatly since she started writing songs in her late teenage years, especially when it comes to how she portrays herself. “I don’t feel comfortable singing the songs that I wrote. I used to blame other people and not take responsibility. I thought I was a total victim trying to look strong.”

And she is much harder on herself in the songs on The Idler Wheel than she ever was before. Sure, she admitted to being “careless with a delicate man” in “Criminal,” arguably her most famous song, and in When the Pawn’s “Mistake” she sang, “Do I wanna do right, of course but / Do I really wanna feel I’m forced to / Answer you, hell no.”

On The Idler Wheel, Apple examines her own solitude and neuroses as well as their effect on her relationships with others. “I can love the same man, in the same bed, in the same city,” she sings on “Left Alone,” “But not in the same room, it’s a pity.” On “Jonathan,” a somber love song layered with robotic, mechanical sounds that’s presumably about her ex-boyfriend, author and Bored to Death creator Jonathan Ames, she urges, “Don’t make me explain / Just tolerate my little fist / Tugging at your forest-chest / I don’t want to talk about anything.”

But performing, as a central requirement of her career, still takes precedence. “Some nights I’m very, very nervous, and some nights I’m not at all,” she tells me. “I think, ‘This is ridiculous. I’m not a person who does a show, I’m a person who should be on a couch watching TV.’ But then it’s like I get knocked into another state of consciousness, and then I’m left behind, and the person that’s doing the show is there and there’s nothing else in the world existing other than the note she’s singing. It’s such a joy to do, but I forget about it until I’m on the stage.”

Apple has lived in los Angeles since Tidal’s release in 1996, although she admits that she’s “not an L.A. girl.” “I was supposed to stay in New York,” she tells me. “I remember being 17 and asking if I could record in New York. How did I end up here? It’s 15 years later… How did that happen?” Apple doesn’t seem to process time like other people. When I ask when she began recording The Idler Wheel and when she knew it was ready, she has a complicated answer. “It must have started in 2008. Or 2009. I don’t know! I have no idea. It’s weird to think that there was 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011.” Her big blue eyes suddenly look to her right as she furrows her brow. “Where’ve I been? What was I doing? What was that year about?”

Maybe the solitary nature of living in L.A. contributes to her aloof tendencies. “I’m not a social creature,” she says, “I don’t go to parties all the time because I’d probably just wonder why I’m there in the first place.” Her preference for being alone may also stem from the kind of personal criticisms that people tend to throw at female musicians. “I’ve gotten so used to being misunderstood. Nobody’s ever really said anything bad about my music, but when I’ve had albums come out there are always people making fun of me. ‘Oh, she’s back?’” She didn’t even expect the comments (mostly online) when the full title of The Idler Wheel was announced. “I didn’t stop to think that anyone would call it ridiculous, but people did. I thought, ‘Ahhh. My old friends.’ I’m not sure what’s ridiculous about it, but that’s what they’ve got to say.”

I cautiously mention the infamous acceptance speech from the VMAs, a moment early in her career that defined the public persona of Fiona Apple as an angry, ungracious woman. “I’ve never been ashamed of that,” she replies immediately. It was the first moment, she says, in which she felt like she could speak up—to break free from the shyness that defined her childhood and early teenage years. “I genuinely, naïvely thought that I was going to put out a record and that was going to make me have friends. I expected to give it to people and they would understand me; no one would say to me, ‘We don’t want to be your friend because you’re too intense or too sad all the time.’” It wasn’t necessarily the case.

“Do you still think the world is bullshit?” I ask when we talk about the VMAs. She laughs. “It’s not the world!” she exclaims. “Of course people think that ‘the world’ is the whole world. I felt that I had finally gotten into the popular crowd, and I thought, ‘Is this what I’ve been doing this for?’ I felt like I was back in the cafeteria in high school and still couldn’t speak up for myself.”

These days, Apple spends more time focusing on her own art rather than the reactions to it. With age has come calm and decreasing desire to pay attention to her detractors. “I’ve decided it takes too much energy to try to avoid it,” she tells me, brushing aside her freshly dyed crimson hair. “I’m not going to hide from the world.”

Source Archive.org:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120603033544/http://www.blackbookmag.com/music/the-long-and-winding-road-that-leads-to-fiona-apple-1.49114

#fiona apple #interview #2012 #LONG #black book magazine

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chatonarya · 2 days

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The Faithful Gambler: A Post-Rides Enciodes Silverash Retrospective

Spoiler warning for Keen-Edge, Silver Blade, The Rides to Lake Silberneherze, Gnosis's oprec, and Degenbrecher's module.

I’d like to take a minute to talk about the character development of our favorite CEO and industrialist in the wake of The Rides to Lake Silberneherze. Although not the focal point of the story nor given as much attention as he was in Break The Ice, Enciodes Silverash still received a hefty amount of development in RS and the accompanying material that further expanded his character in ways that I very much enjoyed. Let’s dig in, shall we?

Beginning with some background: one of the most glaring criticisms (and character flaws) often leveled at him is the fact that he does not treat people as people but rather as chess pieces. While this is not an inaccurate statement, neither is it fully accurate, and the release of RS and Gnosis’s oprec have given us some additional background to this. We see by Gnosis’s oprec that rather than stemming from some innate emotional lack, Enciodes has in fact been brought up to think this way. As Enciodes discovers Gnosis’s quiz results are different from his, his tutor assures him that it’s nothing to get worked up over as Gnosis’s smarts will benefit him in the future when he is the leader of the clan.

This demonstrates clearly how he’s effectively been groomed for politics from a young age, trained to look at people and see how they might be useful to him first and everything else second. Ever since he was a child, his role as the future clan leader has been pressed upon him—but Enciodes has embraced this role, as he possesses a natural leader personality. This is explicitly stated in Gnosis’s oprec, with Gnosis commenting that Enciodes acts as if he was born to lead. In “Browntail,” the vignette in To Be Continued, Ratatos enviously guesses when Enciodes goes to Victoria that he’s simply chosen to abandon his post, that he’s had enough of his burdens and responsibilities, but in fact, the opposite is true: he not only understands that this is what is expected of him, but he wishes to excel in his role and achieve more.

It's also clear that he internalizes his position as “a Silverash” as an extension of this. Enciodes has inherited the legacy not just of his father, but of his grandfather, who began the Silverashes’ exploration of the outside world; Enciodes is the third generation to bring new things to Kjerag. As he says in BI, “We must take that step forward while we still have control. That's the Silverash tradition.” The Silverashes do not sit idly by: they always explore, look forward, and seek new routes.

We see this as well in how he impresses upon Enya that it is practically her duty to take the opportunity and become the Saintess, tit-for-tat deal it may have been behind the scenes, and how she knew he would answer her doubts by reminding her of what she was: “a Silverash,” and thus also possessing that duty to answer the responsibility to lead. Presumably, Ensia is somewhat exempt from this on account of her Oripathy and being the youngest (traditionally sent out to seek their fortune), but it can be taken that even her adventurer’s nature indeed stems from her Silverash blood, as well as her new position as ambassador to Laterano.

It is here that I must note that this is a very aristocratic attitude; noblesse oblige isn’t merely an idea, but seems to be the way of things in Kjerag by Enciodes’s own recitation of the ‘Kjeragandr’, Kjerag’s holy book, where he states, “the three clans formed a covenant with Kjeragandr to lead the people. The mantle of authority is merely an insignificant reward.” He takes this idea completely to heart, taking each of the responsibilities that come with his position as clan leader very seriously. He is prepared to shoulder the burden of all of Kjerag, and likely believes that it is in fact his duty to do so, both as the Silverash patriarch and the only person with such deep knowledge of the outside world.

This is perhaps Enciodes’s greatest flaw and the core of his arrogance: his belief that he and he alone must take on the entirety of Kjerag and lead it into the future, that he and he alone must protect Kjerag from the impending avalanche from outside, and he is the only one who can, forming a sort of savior complex. It is this that Enya rebukes him for in BI (telling him that nobody has the right to choose for all of Kjerag), this that forms the primary conflict between him and other clans. He states in BI-ST-4 that Kjerag is out of time, and if there is anyone who objects to the fact that they must move forward then he can only deprive them of their right to do so, and he’s not wrong, exactly—we know both from a meta perspective and now with additional knowledge that he’s completely correct and that the danger is on Kjerag’s doorstep. Even without his debt to Duke Caster, it’s obvious that had Kjerag remained as it was, sooner or later, it would have been either gobbled up or simply crushed by another more powerful nation. His actions, however forceful, were necessary at the time and understandable.

We also know that Enciodes did not do what he did without some reluctance and emotional distress. He makes it clear that he feels he is being forced into taking matters into his own hands, and in ideal circumstances, he would not do such a thing, much preferring to convince others of his point of view. We see by Gnosis’s oprec once again, as well as in Keen-Edge, Silver Blade, that Enciodes has a relatively normal emotional baseline: he complains about his father not smiling with his family and constantly engaged in battles of wit with the foreign merchants, and doesn't want to become like that in the future, or at least, if he does, then he wants to make sure he smiles and laughs to his heart’s content first. (This explains why he dresses up as a pirate to go to the beach, I suppose.) He's very tense and nervous throughout the entirety of the manga and dealing with Viscount Walden, despite the fact that he’s been prepared for such things since he was young. Even Enciodes feels (or felt) unease at the prospect of being sucked into the whirlpool of Victorian aristocratic conflict. This demonstrates as well how much Enciodes emotionally represses and restrains himself in order to pursue what he deems necessary; how much his great endeavor costs him on a mental level.

Yet despite the somewhat cold, lofty, and arrogant persona he had in Break The Ice that cloaked his passionate heart, we see a more human and emotional side to Enciodes in RS, expanding upon his characterization in BI—indeed, I would say in RS, he shows some remarkable character growth and his savior complex barely rears its head. And in conjunction, we also see what inspires such powerful and unwavering loyalty from his companions, not just his employees, most strongly demonstrated through his bonds with Degenbrecher and Gnosis, his closest friends. Through them, we also see a new and fascinating depth to Enciodes: that of personal faith.

Interestingly, despite his position, it’s heavily implied if not outright confirmed in both BI and RS that Enciodes is actually something of a non-believer in Kjerag. He pays lip service to Kjeragandr when it is necessary and demanded of him, but ironically, he places the most belief in himself and his own assets—that is, his people and his friends.

In stark contrast to his claims in his second oprec (something I will likely address separately later), Enciodes has an incredibly strong friendship with Degenbrecher. We’ve seen its roots in Keen-Edge, Silver Blade, where he wins her over with his daring but primarily with his trust. In the final few pages, Degenbrecher is startled, touched, and moved by the fact that Enciodes completely placed his life in her hands, refusing to dodge the blade Baron Stuart was swinging towards him because he fully believed that she would not allow him to come to harm, no matter what. He had utter faith in her protection, despite the fact that at that point Enciodes had only known Degenbrecher for three months. Upon leaving Kazimierz and being free of the Armorless Union, it would be completely within Degenbrecher’s power to simply dump him and go her merry way with no consequences to herself, rather than repaying her debt—but once again, from the very first, Enciodes placed his trust and faith in her that she would keep her word.

It’s one of the most remarkable things about their relationship, and indeed, Enciodes as a person: his ability to hold out his hand to someone and move and befriend them with his sincerity, and it’s even more remarkable that he’s actually done this twice. It also puts into perspective how his actions in BI were truly a last resort for him. Wherever possible, Enciodes actually prefers not to use force and would infinitely rather employ diplomacy.

With this solid foundation as their basis of their friendship, this friendship has continued for ten years as of RS, and we see further hints of it sprinkled throughout: from the casual way they speak to each other in oprec1 and BI, to the more open and intimate camaraderie we see between them in RS, especially RS-ST-2, where it’s clearly emphasized that they do not keep up pretenses with each other and show each other their true faces, something which is of particular note for Enciodes.

If I may digress for a moment: in BI, we only see him truly drop his guard and speak frankly during BI-6, when he is alone with Gnosis while the latter is imprisoned. In RS, by contrast, Enciodes is more open with others around him, as well: he listens closely to Weiss’s estimation of Viscount Harold and praises Weiss’s pessimistic streak as one of his virtues; he reassures Matterhorn’s doubts about a potential client he’s caring for; he bickers with Enya about their childhood escapades for the first time in ten years; he gets along much more smoothly with Ratatos in their collaboration; and on the whole, seems much less intent on “shouldering all of Kjerag” by his lonesome than before, though he remains the spearhead of Kjerag’s modernization efforts.

As I said in the introduction, for Enciodes to accomplish his goals, he must emotionally repress himself to a certain degree, and RS-ST-2 shows who Enciodes truly is when there is no gambit, no plot, no ongoing game—how he’s not incapable of honesty or joking around or teasing. We see the glimmer of the bold, outgoing boy he used to be and still is deep down, and how he can be quite caring (though I suppose it’s worth mentioning that the relationship he has with Gnosis is somewhat different from others). It is only before Gnosis and Degenbrecher that Enciodes lets down the facade he wears for the rest of the world; the two people he truly trusts and cares for the most.

Returning to the previous point, the moment which demonstrates Enciodes and Degenbrecher’s relationship most strongly is when Degenbrecher makes the decision to take on Harold’s army by her lonesome. This is one of my favorite moments in RS for what it shows of Enciodes’s character and his friendship with Degenbrecher both: as he watches Degenbrecher battle, he is increasingly agitated, and it is one of the exceedingly few times in the present day that we see him actually lose his cool and his stoic facade slip. Not even during the gambit in BI do we see him ill at ease for even a moment, yet it is here, during arguably the biggest and most personal gamble he has ever made, that we see the pain in his heart.

He also says this, which gorgeously lays out just the kind of person he is:

Enciodes: Even I might say [Degenbrecher has] changed some. Thus I've trusted her this once—I've gambled on her. Enciodes: Had I not, you might have watched that affable Viscount lose his life to a few 'panicked tourists'. Enciodes: We gamble for a best case scenario. Enya: ...... Enya: 'Gamble'. Enciodes: I have always considered the success or failure of anything to hinge on one's own grasp, and not entreaties to gods. Enciodes: Nothing goes unaccounted for. I put all the chips down. I see it through, win or lose. I've never complained about it.

These few lines beautifully encapsulate Enciodes down to the core. His appraising way of looking at the world not out of preference but out of necessity; his reliance not on luck or blessings but on skill and talent; his gambler’s heart steadfastly taking on the risk for the worthwhile reward, beginning to end, staking everything he has; and indeed, his arrogance, believing that so long as he has enough cards in his hand, enough chips to gamble with, enough assets and information at his disposal and every tiny detail taken into account, he can somehow arrange a victory solely through his own powers. (And in a way, this does have a basis, as it’s not a strategy that has failed him thus far.)

This gambler’s streak of Enciodes’s isn't something new, technically: Gnosis chews him out over his gambling in BI, as well, and his enjoyment of the thrill of the challenge and situation; and in RS-ST-2, we see Enya reprimanding him for his overly risky behavior and reminding him that unlike in his childhood, she won’t be able to bail him out if he loses everything. (I’m hard-pressed to imagine just what Enciodes was gambling on as a youngster to lose all his allowance and his younger sister have to bail him out, but nevertheless, the point stands.) We also see it in the manga via his plot with Viscount Walden, which Degenbrecher comments is fraught with risk and nearly costs Enciodes his life, as I said above—no matter the danger to himself, he goes through with this gamble, steady and resolute though his hands may tremble behind his back.

He does the same thing in this moment in RS, too: although he’s so nervous watching Degenbrecher that he bruises his own hands from clasping them so tightly (mirroring the way he did so in Keen-Edge, Silver Blade), and goes against his own status as a non-believer to ask Enya to pray for Degenbrecher, he still waits, still places all of his belief and faith in Degenbrecher, rejecting Gnosis’s suggestion of escalating the conflict (which Gnosis would have already long since done) in favor of truly gambling everything on her. He clenches his hands, refuses to avert his gaze from the scene before him, and sees it through, no matter how painful it is. And for Enciodes, to whom Degenbrecher is one of his closest and most trusted companions, it is painful. Should the worse come to worst, he has his contingency plans and more cards stuffed up his sleeves, but he puts all of his power behind the ideal scenario—and anything, really, always believing that there is a path to victory.

In RS-ST-3, following the battle, he has an extended conversation with Degenbrecher regarding the events of the past, not just of the story itself but of their entire relationship and bond. Enciodes speaks of his growing debt to her and tells her she can name her price, but Degenbrecher dismisses this statement, calling it an act and claiming that she stayed in Kjerag for reasons unrelated to him—in a roundabout way, absolving him of the very idea of his owing her a debt. Similarly to what I said above, nothing is stopping Degenbrecher from theoretically extorting Enciodes for whatever she wants, as she is his most potent asset and they both know it, or simply deciding she’s had enough of him and his nonsense and walking away. Yet instead, she makes this gesture of generosity in response to his.

After they are interrupted by the young campaign knights who are eager for Degenbrecher’s autograph, Enciodes rounds out the conversation by stating playfully that perhaps he’s no different from the Kazimierz she so loathed; perhaps he too uses her as a bargaining chip and a tool, and asks her if she finds this unacceptable. Degenbrecher’s stunning reply is to smile back and say that she’s gotten used to it. Degenbrecher loathes being controlled, with her third championship being solely to spite the KGCC even if it cost her life in the end, yet she doesn’t bat an eye at being moved about by Enciodes as his ‘queen’ on the chessboard. Why? Because Enciodes, contrary to his words, has never once used her nor treated her as a chess piece, which they both know, and that’s the reason behind Degenbrecher’s reply. She’s used to it—used to Enciodes asking her to do things for him, and if it’s Enciodes asking her to do something, she doesn’t mind. “Who do you think is the first person Enciodes always calls?” she comments to Gnosis before she goes to face Harold’s army. She’s so used to it that she makes a joke, chuckles, and smiles before she heads out; indeed, it’s Degenbrecher who first volunteers to hold Harold back, and then Enciodes asks her if she can do it.

And thus we come full circle: she doesn’t mind because Enciodes is her friend; he’s her friend because he trusts her and has faith in her; and because he believes in her she doesn’t mind. And because he’s her friend, there is no debt between them, and hasn’t been ever since they began their partnership ten years prior after Walden’s banquet. Fundamentally, it’s a completely different relationship from the one she had with the KGCC, and indeed, with anyone, and it’s through the mutual knowledge of the power of their bond that they can joke about it like this. “Maybe I’m just another unscrupulous businessman,” Enciodes jokes, completely aware of the fact that if he was, Degenbrecher would not be there in the first place.

And we know that Enciodes’s comments about treating Degenbrecher as a chip and a tool are patently false due to the rest of the story and some of the supplemental text. His terror at the prospect of her death; the way they converse casually after Harold’s banquet; Degenbrecher’s commentary about him in her voice lines; her feelings when she sees them coming to meet her after the battle; and the two anecdotes from her module story.

His overreaction to her forgetting his friendship medal ‘The Silverashes’ Sword & Shield’, and his second medal to her, ‘Ten Years,’ which demonstrates how Enciodes doesn’t take her for granted and, fully aware that only her own will binds her to him, he takes it upon himself to make sure she knows how important she is to him on this occasion and remind her that he hasn’t changed. He’s still the same person she chose to follow ten years prior, with the same dreams and ambitions and goals. And Degenbrecher grasps his implied meaning immediately, demonstrating the depth and mutual understanding of their relationship. At heart, he’s still the same person who placed his life willingly in her hands when they first met; and so as he hasn’t changed, he will continue placing his faith in her as well.

This faith also appears in his relationship with Gnosis. From the very beginning of their friendship, Enciodes has always believed the best of Gnosis. Even when Gnosis sells out Enciodes to kidnappers in a misbegotten attempt to escape Kjerag as a child, Enciodes immediately forgives him and omits Gnosis’s initial role in the whole plot from Olafur so as not to get him into trouble. Instead, he states that Gnosis is his friend—his first true friend, unlike any other, because they share similar thoughts and viewpoints, and because Enciodes sees Gnosis not as a future asset as his tutor told him, but as an equal. He also makes a truly staggering promise with Gnosis of and for the future, a mutual promise that he, again, trusts Gnosis will uphold.

Enciodes and Gnosis have been friends for twenty years, and throughout this time, we see more of the same: Enciodes refuses to believe Gnosis or his family have anything to do with the deaths of his parents; Enciodes forgives Gnosis for his standoffishness and curtness when they reunite in Victoria; Enciodes is perfectly fine with Gnosis’s radical nature during their plot with Viscount Walden, only bidding Gnosis to stay safe; Enciodes ignores majority opinion in making Gnosis his CTO. In fact, an argument can be made that Enciodes has more faith in Gnosis than Gnosis has in himself: even as Gnosis sees himself as a villain, the son of a sinner, an outcast with no home, Enciodes continues to believe the best of him. It’s Gnosis who pushes for the plan of playing the scapegoat while Enciodes wants to discard it, not because Enciodes doesn’t think they can’t pull it off but because he simply doesn’t want Gnosis to worsen his own standing. But even so, unhappy though he may be, Enciodes puts up little resistance, allowing Gnosis to execute this plan, whilst maintaining the faith that Gnosis would never actually become a traitor to him in full.

Enciodes states this most explicitly to Doctor in BI-ST-4:

Enciodes: But I understand him. As long as we share the same purpose, he will not betray me, nor do I need to exchange any information with him while executing a plan. Enciodes: I could sit back and let him employ all his resources in whatever way he deemed efficacious to stymieing the power of the Browntail clan. Destroying the railroad tracks was just a clever trick. Gnosis gained Ratatos's trust, and also blocked access to spies and Messengers from other countries.

Gnosis operates best when he is given free rein to arrange things as he pleases, and it is likely the heart of his comment in BI-2 that he needs “a partner [he] can work with” rather than pawns. It’s here that I must remind gently that in truth, per his RIIC talent, Gnosis was the “hidden mastermind” behind the majority of the events of BI. It was Gnosis who instigated the chain of events leading up to the Snowcap Incident, and Gnosis who took charge of their resources to pull off their coup, heedless of Enciodes’s explicit approval. Enciodes did, in fact, step back and permit Gnosis to take control, reacting to Gnosis’s moves and reading the meaning behind them with their usual silent rapport. Gnosis comments to Enciodes that he is neither Enciodes’s pawn nor underling, but rather, his partner-in-crime, and indeed, Enciodes does not treat him as anything else but a partner, emphasizing repeatedly that it is “[their] undertaking together.”

Gnosis’s module also makes clear that Gnosis (in his mind) is most loyal to his own choices and not Enciodes specifically. If, at any moment, their differing perspectives diverge too much (in other words, if Enciodes loses sight of their mutual dream and goal) and they fail to reach an agreement, then Gnosis will likely cut ties with him. However, they never reach this point emotionally because Enciodes is always figuratively (and literally) holding out his hand towards Gnosis, reminding Gnosis of his own sincerity and their friendship, of their shared dream, of their promise, always with complete calmness and faith that Gnosis will stay beside him—and with faith in Gnosis as well. Faith in Gnosis’s abilities and judgment, but also faith that Gnosis will always choose him, because he is, in turn, choosing Gnosis. Beneath this trust, their friendship remains unbreakable.

And so we see that both Gnosis and Degenbrecher, two strong-willed characters who refuse to allow others to control them, willingly choose to remain by Enciodes’s side and do as he asks. Because he has faith in them. Not only does he treat them both as his genuine and dear friends, which they are, but rather than leashing his two most potent assets and holding their debt over their heads, he allows them freedom to do as they please with the complete assurance that they will never leave him.

Certainly, this is in part because they all share the same goal—Kjerag—and this is what unites them, but I must state that it is actually Enciodes who infected Gnosis and Degenbrecher with his dream of the ideal Kjerag. He shared his thoughts about what Kjerag could be to Gnosis and promised he’d make Kjerag a true home for Gnosis; Gnosis replied that in that case, Kjerag had to be big enough for Enciodes, too, and they would do it together. Enciodes opened Kjerag’s borders to the world and helped the Kjerag people become more tolerant of outsiders; Degenbrecher found herself charmed by the Kjerag people and culture after she sampled it, and was thus loved and accepted by them and found Kjerag to be a place that makes sense to her.

Were it not for Enciodes and his actions, neither Gnosis nor Degenbrecher would make Kjerag their home. Gnosis has yearned for the outside world ever since he was a child and finds Kjerag backwards and stifling, yet he is there to build it up; Degenbrecher continually complains that Kjerag is boring and there are no opponents or challenges there for her, yet she is there happily doing farmwork and copying scripture.

Enciodes’s faith in the ideal Kjerag is so strong that not only does he make it reality by staking everything he has upon it, but he spreads this dream to others as well, either directly through speaking of it as he did with Gnosis or by simply making it manifest as he did with Degenbrecher (and, one may argue, with Harold and Trilby Asher, too). This is even explicitly stated in the description for his newest skin, Never-Melting Ice: “He believed that Kjerag would eventually amaze all the world that would view it,” as well as in RS-ST-3: “There will come a day when people from the outside will know more than just Karlan Trade, see more than just the snow, mountains and valleys. They'll remember the name 'Kjerag'.”

Degenbrecher tells him in RS-ST-3 that now, not only Victoria but also Kazimierz and Columbia have their sights on Kjerag, and that means there will only be more trouble for them in the future, and more people will hate him for bringing chaos to the country. But Enciodes quite happily and contentedly replies, “I don’t care. Let them,” because the ideal Kjerag he's built up can handle anything, the same way the Kjerag he built up achieved its independence. And even if he has to stake everything he has on it in a life-or-death gamble all over again, he'll see that gamble through to the end—not just because he's never lost, but because he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t believe in it down to his very core.

#arknights #silverash #arknights essay #my essays

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adelinamoteru · 11 months

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at some point some of yall will have to admit to yourselves that the jason todd you like and have built up in fanon is not the jason todd that he actually is

inconsistent canon writing included, I have no idea where these povs on him are coming from if ur not actually meaning to do a disservice to his character

#jason todd #red hood #dcu #dc #we already know a third of dc writers do NAWT like jason #I’m prepared to deal with that but even when hes written by them its like??#AT LEAST HES LIKE THAT BC THEY DONT LIKE HIM #but to say u like jason and include him in batfam and etc meanwhile the jason ur looking at couldnt even pass as a walmart version #hes not stupid hes not pit crazy hes not incompetent hes not only fucking angry all the time #actually u know what he is angry #but hes never let that affect his decisions to the extent that I see portrayed in fanon #I cannot dictate or police how people choose to create content for jason like thats smth they’re doing for free in their own free time #but its just so disappointing that I constantly see him getting watered down to the most consumer friendly version of himself #just so that he can fit into the world u want to create #he deserves better !! he deserves to be taken seriously as his OWN character and NOT just batman collateral #he deserves to exist on his own and be taken in as such #the things that happened to jason happened to jason happened to HIM #and the things jason did HE chose to do #to strip him of all of those characteristics so hes more palatable #or so he can have an easy transition into batfam #(which if anyone was to be honest with themselves would realize is not going to happen realistically in canon)#is boring and overdone and frankly should be easy to not do #its okay not to like jason as he is #but that IS who he is #and for goddamn good reasons #not me writing an essay in the tags

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creed-of-cats · 4 months

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The amount of doomerism I've heard from fellow usamericn zoomers/millennials around me is starting to drive me fucking insane.

"We're all gonna die, it's hopeless, it's not worth doing anything. This is our penance as human beings/[insert other guilty identity]"

You know who you guys fucking sound like? Fucking Evangelicals.

Yeah it's fucking scary and big, I'm not trying to say it isn't. But what the fuck is your plan??? Sitting down and dying?? Are you really telling me that this world is not worth you even fucking trying?? That you're just gonna party it out until your miscellaneous end game apocalypse arrives?

This isn't the rapture. The apocalypse is a false concept. People have been living through "apocalypses" every day of their fucking lives for all of human history, especially during the past 400 years. Get up and stop the suicidal idealization of your own tragic death. Our lives in the first world are built off suffering. To lay down and say we don't have any power is to reject the duty we have as beneficiaries of that suffering.

If you are so convinced you're going to die young then die trying instead of baring your fucking throat.

#going to r/collapse pisses me off because some people are genuinely trying to do community gardens and become more self sustainable #and others are like “the third world is done for at least im safe for the time being in the first world :((((”#the “third world” isn't your fucking sacrificial lamb for climate guilt. acting like it's over for billions of people when people are tryin #to survive and innovate and prepare and help themselves is fucking selfish #and moving away from the usa may help you but everyone else is still fucking there and the us will still suck resources from everyone else #the same people who don't vote in anything and then go “oh well it was a given” when shit people get in office like babes you could've done #something about that #climate change #sorry im just pissed today. my housemate keeps saying stupid doomer shit like “hope i die before it gets too bad haha”#like we are both puerto rican don't you think our homeland is worth saving???#to be clear it doesn't have to be extreme action! its something im fighting through too #learning how to be more self sufficient outside of capitalism also conveniently means a more sustainable lifestyle!#and im not perfect at all i want to do more #but im so sick of people just accepting this shit and saying it like its a fucking joke #i get it is a coping mechanism and trust me i get sad too but like jesus christ people are eat the rich until its time to actually #think of a plan or what a survivable future might actually fucking look like and how we help each other get as close to possible.#whatv compromises we have to make until one day it's not a compromise but a goal #and yeah it might not work but i don't want to obliterate any chance of it either #what's the quote from the sophie video? “people can visualize the end of the world more then the end of capitalism”#doomerism #climate justice #gen z #generation z #millennials #climate

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coquelicoq · 2 years

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natsume book of friends season 4 opening sequence has got me incredibly fucked up. the lyrics. kid natsume's tiny little legs and teenage natsume watching him run. the lyrics. nyanko-sensei burrowing into his arms. did i mention the lyrics? ending frame on the fujiwara family. including natsume. because he's part of their family. as the lyrics ask him to "please [not] keep suffering alone"? somebody fucking hold me.

#i'm actually almost done with season 4 because i have no self-control. and every time i watch the opening i'm like #no this has only gotten more potent since the last time i watched it. we are reaching danger levels #natsume yuujinchou #natsume's book of friends #my posts #season 4 is the season of tanuma just completely destroying me on every level. why is every single character like this??#every time he learns something about natsume he's like oh so this is what it's like for natsume?#and then it happens again and he's like wait natsume ALSO has THIS OTHER THING to contend with??#and again: AND A THIRD THING?? WHY MUST THE WORLD'S BEST BOY NATSUME TAKASHI SUFFER???#he just wants to help natsume deal with stuff and i am on the fucking floor #his thought process is just #this is hard for natsume. i wish i could help him. maybe here's a way i could help him? he doesn't want me to though because it would #put me in danger. but i don't want him to be in danger either. and i'm telling him that to his face. i don't think it's really #gotten through to him but that's okay i will just keep telling him. now i'm realizing that the thing i did to help him maybe just made #things harder for him. this is hard for natsume. i wish i could help him. maybe sometimes the best way to help him is to just #respect his wishes and yet remind him that he can lean on people and that people love him as much as he loves them #the part where tanuma realized why natsume doesn't tell the fujiwaras about youkai gutted me #this kid is so emotionally astute and such a sweetheart #i just watched the episode where natsume loses his picture of his parents and his old house is getting sold and i cried. SO many tears.#tanuma putting his foot down for once like no actually you need to admit that something is bothering you this time #we can find this picture. ask us to help you do this thing that we can actually do for you. you don't need to be sad for no reason #mmm can't be coherent about it just rest assured it was extremely harmful to me and also exactly what i needed #anyway the season 4 opening song as the thing you say to your younger self who lives inside your current self because #you can't actually go back in time and be the person your younger self needed to have in their life. so all you can do is love that child #in absentia but so so so fiercely and with your whole entire heart #all you can do is give your current self all the love you have for the child you were #jesus CHRIST

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appleflavoredkitkats · 9 months

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sometimes i get reminded of how normal it is for the first world to look down at the third world and idk some part of my dignity kind of dies

#rambles #it's like. people will say stupid shit abt what we can or cannot do #use modernity as a standard of judging us #and we scream for you to view us as equal but we also lose ourselves in proving ourselves through your standards #it's so fucked. i get sick sometimes #also ik the term first and third world suck but give me a break on that

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pepprs · 2 years

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not to be a pain-crazed wild animal. i KNOW i do this every time. but p*riods are so fucking crazy. like my cr*mps are so bad my body is trying to strangle itself but im awake and i need to be at work in 2 hrs and get thru an entire 9 hr workday as if im not in excruciating pain and im gonna bring my heating pad and my p*in r*lief cr*am if you catch my drift (💀) and i’ll need to use them DURING a busy day in which i will not see any other ppl who get periods in person and using them is gonna be a whole awkward thing. like omg. this is not fucking normal lol

#purrs #it is normal obviously. but it’s SO fucking frustrating like omfg the amount of time i lose every single month to being in pain like this #FOR NO REASON and like half the global population has to deal w that and it’s like it’s nothing. idk. despair and suffering and misery #delete later #menstruation tw #the thing that really gets me abt it is how my mom (ik i said i would stop complaining abt her on here but we have been fighting all month #LOL so im giving myself permission) gets so fucking pissed at me and my sister when we’re in too much pain to do chores bc she thinks we’re #being lazy / making excuses and then she compares us to o it brother like.. omg um YOU should know how painful this can be first of all and #second of all why would you even make that comparison when he doesn’t lose a third of his life to his body trying to tear itself apart! lol!#and yes i could work from home or calll out sick but consider: i am mentally illabout not being at work. which * is gonna be on my ass abt w #when they hear me say that bc i know im gonna make a whole awkward big deal abt my heating pad. UGHHHHH embarrassing lmaooooo #like why do people have REGULAR B*DILY F*NCTIONS!!!!! REGULAR!!!!!!! that REGULARLY put them in this amount of pain and we have to just deal #with that like it’s nothing and be discreet about and whatever. ew i sound like um… someone who cares too much abt stuff like this lol but I #im so mad abt it rn like oh my GOD can the pain just not be part of it can we just evolve to get rid of that or put structures in place in a #society for ppl to be more accepting / supporting / whatever of it. please please please please please #(also goes for more than just p*riods btw. like imagine if as a society we had things in place for ppl who are regularly in #chronic pain of any kind 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 what a world that would be 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 wow i sure hope it happens in my lifetime 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍)

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hamletthedane · 8 months

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I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

#shut up e #long post #Saturday thoughts #this has been in my drafts for a week haha #also this is the heart of why AI art feels so wrong #forget the discussion of copyright and theft etc - even if models were only trained on public domain they would still feel very wrong #because they’re not art. art is the labor of creation #even commercial art and art commissioned by the popes and kings of history: there is humanity in the labor of it #unrelated: I did not know living in the Bronx was now something to brag about. How the fuck do y’all New Yorkers afford this city???

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esyra · 11 months

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After the hospital bombing, I finally heard back from my grandmother and confirmed that several of my relatives were murdered by Israeli bombing. Seven of them, to be precise. Three are still going, including her. We've been talking constantly ever since.

Asked if it was possible to head south, and was told they did but were also bombed there. So they decided to go back home, in Zeitoun. Their home was bombed and they were pulled out of the rumble, then driven by ambulances to the al-Ahli Arab Hospital. There were people in every corner. Gazans sheltering, sleeping on the floor. Gazans dying on the floor, waiting for beds.

Four were declared dead on arrival, three were in need of surgery and other three were just bandaged. Then, a bomb was dropped in the parking lot that made parts of the ceiling collapse, like Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah reported in that horrific conference/interview. Those in need of surgery died.

By the way, just in case you didn't know: the Church of Saint Porphyrius, the third oldest in history, bombed by Israel a few days back, was located near the hospital.

When looking for new shelter, they saw schools with signs hanging outside, "We can't take any more families." They met families, sympathetic but already sheltering too many people. They're now staying in an apartment building they found empty. Sleeping in the corner of the living room. If the family comes back, they'll apologize and leave.

Told me she was saving her phone battery for when the bombing stopped, and she had to ask for help to rebuilt the neighborhood. But she doesn't think it's gonna stop anymore. The ones still with her are mute most of the time, like they're saving energy, but she feels lonely and wanted to talk. There's no internet and to connect to WhatsApp, people are buying "a card from the supermarket, there's a password and username." Not sure what she meant. Still, the internet is inconsistent and won't load neither videos or images nor pages, so she doesn't know what's happening on the outside world.

Told her there were a lot of people protesting to stop the genocide, she replied, "The bombings are getting worse by the day." The bombing yesterday was the worst she ever witnessed. The entire neighborhood is infested with the smell of death, of decomposing bodies. Bodies are piling up in the streets and she's not sure if it's because they ran out of places to store them, but most of them are in bags. The smoke of the bombings hide the blue sky—she hasn't seen the clouds for a while.

Asked if I could share their pictures, names and dreams with people and was told, of which I partly agree, "they're not entertainment." If anyone genuinely cared, they would be alive—I'd argue there are people who do care, but I'm not gonna lecture her pain. And they don't deserve to be used to fulfill someone's sick fantasy. Told me to remember what some Israelis do with pictures of dead Palestinians. And I do.

For those of you who are not familiar, many times before settlers got together to celebrate the murder of Palestinians. For one, in 2015, Israeli settlers set a house in Duma, West Bank on fire. An 18-month old baby, Ali Dawbsheh, was burnt alive. Both parents later died of wounds and only a 5-year-old, Ahmad, survived, although severely injured.

Two celebrations of their murder are widely known, one at a wedding and others outside the court in which two were indicted for the terrorist attack. In the wedding, guests stabbed a photo of the toddler, Ali, while others waved guns, knives and Molotov cocktails. Israel's Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was present.

That's what happens in an apartheid. Palestinians are so abused by authorities that their "innocent civilians" come to accept the brutality as necessary or are desensitized by our suffering. After all, it's been 75 years—get used to it!

So I won't risk the image of my loved ones, in fear they are used in these kinds of depravity. I will say, though, the world lost a young footballer. Lost a female writer and an aspiring ballerina. Lost a kind father, who was also a great cook, and a loving mother that enjoyed sewing and other types of handicraft art. Lost a math teacher and a child that wanted to become one.

People think Israel is testing new weapons on them. There's civilians arriving at the hospital with severe burns, which they thought was from white phosphorus, but apparently the pattern is different from the one caused by white phosphorus. It's widely believed Israel tests weapons in Palestinians.

Jeff Halper, author of War Against the People, a book on Israel's arms and surveillance technology industries, said: "Israel has kept the occupation because it's a laboratory for weapons."

They've ran out of drinkable water and the "aid" Biden sent was only for the South of Gaza and no fuel, for hospitals, was allowed in. Many shelves in the supermarket are empty. She said many are convinced that if they don't die from the bombing, they'll die from starvation or dehydration, or whatever disease will develop from the dirty water they're drinking.

Told me all people do now is pray, cry and die. Told me she hopes West Bank is spared. Told her Israel bombed a mosque in West Bank and dozens of Palestinians in West Bank are being murdered by settlers, so she bided me goodbye.

#palestine #free palestine #gaza #free gaza #may allah protect them #may almighty allah see our pain #hopefully she'll message me tomorrow

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crunchycrystals · 7 months

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am i crazy for not liking the ending of thunderhead

#crunchyposts #books #idk i feel like people love the scythe series and i was into it until the ending of thunderhead happened and i was like ok. well.#like it was going in a really interesting direction and then we HARD PIVOTED and i didnt like it so i dnfed the third book like 50 pages in #also like in the middle of the book when that guy is trying to commit a genocide against a specific indigenous group in canada????#after the history of the genocide of indigenous people in canada and then it was explained with his heart was broken by a woman #from that tribe????? idk i get what the author was trying to do but it doesnt sit right with me to reduce it to just heartbreak #after like knowing. the history of racism against indigenous people in canada it feels wrong #like there are other real world reasons for racism that would be more realistic #maybe it was trying to say something about like pettiness and power abuse??? def power abuse but like #idk just doesnt feel good when you know this is an ongoing issue irl

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babycharmander · 2 months

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(BOOK OF BILL SPOILERS)

I just finished reading The Book of Bill and I am kindof losing my mind over some of this stuff.

I had wondered if Alex Hirsch might make Bill sympathetic in some way and oh boy I was not expecting him to do it so successfully (and without cheapening Bill's character).

So, we learn that Bill was born into a 2D world... as a mutant who can see into the third dimension. He claims he was absolutely loved by all, but when talking about his powers, he mentions under Pyrokinesis:

"Cipher, Cipher, he's insane / Starting fires with his brain." The kids in grade school could be so cruel. But where are they now, huh? WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

So probably not quite as liked as he was letting on. To add to that, there's the silly straw page, which looks like silly nonsense until you decipher some of the codes:

"EYE DOCTOR OF A DIFFERENT KIND / WHO WANTS TO MAKE HIS PATIENTS BLIND" "THE DOCTOR SAYS / THREE SIPS A DAY / WILL MAKE THE VISIONS / GO AWAY"

I wasn't sure what this meant until I saw someone point out... he was seeing a third dimension that no one else could see. His parents probably took him to the eye doctor to try to "fix" him. Which, speaking of his eye doctor, the coded message in the section about human eyeballs says something interesting:

"MY OPTOMETRIST NEVER SAW IT COMING"

It could be a joke given beforehand he's talking about dissecting a human eye, but given the previous hints of medical abuse, I wouldn't put it past him that he tried to get revenge on his eye doctor.

Oh yeah and the whole thing about him setting his entire dimension on fire? Yeah it turns out it was entirely a mistake (he just wanted everyone to understand the third dimension he was seeing so they could be free of only two dimensions), he was so traumatized by it he blacks out when trying to recall it. He deeply, deeply regrets it, and...

"What? Your ENTIRE home dimension? destroyed? How? By what?" Bill looked distant, more distant than I'd ever seen him. "By a monster."

He sees himself as a monster.

And yet, he's not some innocent, misunderstood being. He still revels in causing pain and chaos. He's terrible in general, but becomes incredibly abusive toward Ford.

"YOU'RE MY PROPERTY. DON'T FORGET IT. The hillbilly abandoned you, your father won't want you returning without millions, you have no friends, and if you died out here in the snow, who would even miss you?"

Which... speaking of him and Ford...

Yes, yes, I know people ship them. But like, whether you see their relationship as romantic or platonic (I see it as the latter), there's some interesting parallels to be made here.

Both Bill and Ford are mutants who were mocked for their being different. (Bill was not physically a mutant, as far as we know, but more in the sense of him having vision stronger than that of everyone else in his dimension, and also having special powers. And he does describe himself as a mutant.) Both became social outcasts, separated from their families but still haunted by them (Ford seeing commercials of Stan on TV and running across old photos of him and his brother, Bill being haunted by his family in some form). Neither could return home for one reason or another. Both more powerful than their peers (Ford intellectually, Bill in terms of actual powers). Both of them isolated and alone. (Yes, Bill does have the Henchmaniacs, but they seem like shallow friends, and only really seem to follow him out of a desire to have a place to party.)

Ford was not aware of most of this, aside from knowing that Bill could not go home because his dimension was destroyed. But Bill absolutely saw himself in Ford. There was no other person he tried to use whom he felt a stronger connection to.

And he actually seems to care about Ford--he actually gave him a birthday present, and when Ford didn't like it, he decided to get drunk and party with him instead to make up for it.

And then when Ford realizes what Bill's plan actually is and refuses to go along with it, and fights back no matter what Bill does, Bill completely breaks down.

After living for trillions of years, he met someone who was like him, and that person rejected him.

He goes berserk, wreaking havoc, being caught by the dimensional authority that he's been taunting for most of his life.

And then after dying and being cast out of hell for being too annoying, he winds up faced with the Axolotl, who sends him to therapy, where he continues to break down further, sending out the book in a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone who will help him break loose and wreak havoc once again.

"You have no friends, and if you died ... who would even miss you?"

I don't know, Bill. Who would even miss you?

In short,

[ID: The front and back of one of Bill's Valentines cards. On the front is a black void with Bill Cipher lying down without his hat, gazing blankly upwards, with the text "I DON'T WANT TO DIE ALONE" above him. On the back is a simple white "TO/FROM" in red, with a red outline illustration of Bill spontaneously growing a mouth and eating a realistic, bloody heart. /end ID]

#bill cipher #stanford pines #gravity falls #gravity falls spoilers #the book of bill #the book of bill spoilers #oh gosh I haven't thought this hard about gravity falls in so long

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