#theme: loyalty

[demigods-posts]

okay but you can see the moment percy's heart shatters into pieces once he learns that grover was also annabeth's protector. because this child grew up watching as his peers chose schoolyard taunts over compassion. watching as his dad chose freedom over fatherhood. watching as his mother chose to protect his life by sacrificing her own. but when his mom dies, he holds onto the notion that at least he's not alone. at least he has grover. but that worldveiw wastes away when he learns that he is, first and foremost, grover's assignment. that he was no one's first choice at all.

[beaulesbian]

✨ Happy Birthday Roronoa Zoro ⚔️(11.11)

"Until the day I defeat him and become a master swordsman, I'll never be defeated! Got any problem with that, King of the Pirates?!"

[marivanilla05]

Shinran Week 2023 | Day 4:

Black Knight & Princess + Flowers

[bbgatile]

some pairs for valentines day

[spacedlexi]

speaking of fucked up overly hated female twdg characters i find it Super Interesting how people will say carver was the best villain in the whole series, but when lilly is literally just a successful carver (iron fist leader of a community turning children into soldiers) suddenly shes a bad/lame villain for some reason 🤔

[sneakyboymerlin]

Actual monarchists in the Gwaine tag. Scary

[weusedtobegiants]

I am inherently faithful to the man who possesses me.

Anaïs Nin, from The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1931-1932

[kismet-cat]

one of the really cool things re: ghost trick's writing is all the parallels you can draw between characters. for example: in the first chapter with missile, there’s the repeated joke that missile will take the blame for the stuff "kamila" (really sissel) broke. and sissel explicitly says that it’s "honorable" of him.

and like, haha funny. until. you learn about jowd. and how he took the fall for something "kamila" (really yomiel) did.

and then, later on, missiles chooses death (to stay dead) because he can better protect kamila that way. the same choice jowd made.

the thing is, though, those parallels don't just exist; they exist in contrast. because in jowd’s case, him turning himself in and asking to be executed is shown over the course of the game to have been, though arguably well-intentioned, ultimately cowardly and not a proper solution. on the other hand, missile staying dead is, though sad, portrayed as truly noble, even admirable.

and there's a couple different meanings you can take from that. maybe it’s a difference between jowd resigning himself to his "fate" versus missile putting himself in a position where he can change fate? or maybe it's that jowd was arguably doing it more for himself — for the sake of assuaging and no longer having to live with his own guilt — than kamila, whereas missile's intentions are pure.

either way. i've seen posts about the missile–cabanela parallels before, but, jowd–missile parallels are there too. and they're equally painful :)

[tea-cat-arts]

I know the general fandom consensus is "Feng Xin = Dog," but "Feng Xin = Falcon" just makes more sense with my brain

[blood-orange-juice]

I was pondering why is Luocha's attack called "Thorns of the Abyss". (Luocha, darling, do you want to talk about it?)

It's not the exact same characters as in Genshin though. Abyss in Luocha's skill is 黑渊 (the dark deep) and genshin abyss is 深渊 (the profound/abyssal deep)

(I think 渊 is the same term you can use for deep sea)

So he has a 'thorns of the black depths/abyss' (黑淵的棘刺) skill and a 'white flower of hope/prayer' (白花的祈望) skill. The latter also got translated as "Flower of the Abyss", haha.

(Chinese speakers, do correct me if I messed up, this is the best I can manage with a dictionary)

So. I assumed Swan's abyssal line is also about that-other-under-the-sea-abyss.

Went to look up her skills.

AND WHAT DO I SEE

Hoyo are mocking us

Bonus: she (and the likes of her) is a memetic entity and can take any form. A girl with booba, a whale, a giant crystal.

[if-loki-was-a-fox]

Y'know, if you look at it from the right angle, the first three deaths of Secret Life were all directly following betrayal of their closest teammates, and the winner didn't win until after he finally got a devoted and loyal team/family of his own. Kinda just a nice sort of symmetry, y'know?

[patheticblorbloscholar]

Tarzan 🤝 Spider: Not accepted by their adopted parents until they prove themselves to them. Since them being human was all they saw.

Kerchek and Neytiri- The boy isn't one of us, he's human.

[distant-screaming]

Unwavering loyalty is all well and good but at what point does it become insanity? What is too much? Is it okay to kill and grieve and hurt out of loyalty? It is okay to want? Is it okay to then take that loyalty and turn it into a love that is so deep and so immovable that it changes everything?

And does the answer change if the person has never asked for that loyalty? If they have only ever asked for a friend?

[brother-emperors]

I see your dog-coded Agrippa and Cassius, but what about Crassus ? Kind of like feral dog coded

for me, Crassus skips the dog coding allegations on account of no one being able to put a leash on him, and there's no person he seems to be singularly devoted to in a way that dictates his actions

Dating The Praetorship of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Martin Stone

like, there's Sulla, but Crassus also did a lot of that of his own accord, and Sulla shut the door on him politically so Crassus climbed in through a window and worked a different aspect of Roman society-politics with magnificent skill. he ALSO skips the dog allegations because if anyone is bringing someone to heel, it's Crassus doing it to other people. there isn't a specific person that Crassus' actions can be dedicated to in a way that makes me think of a dog the way Agrippa's actions for Octavian do.

I also don't think he's feral! what he is: really fucking ruthless, or has the potential for ruthlessness, which isn't the same thing to me as being feral. and being ruthless is not uncommon for Late Republic politics

Lucullus: A Life, Arthur Keavney

but its that pivot point between being firm, ruthless, and likeable that makes him interesting. he's actually. he's--

okay, so in my mind, he's Machiavelli Prince coded. there are only two Romans I have ever made a compare and contrast analysis using Machiavelli's Il Principe, one is Augustus, the other is Crassus. and for once my connect the dots of thematic tomfoolery has something I can cite, someone ELSE has also made a comparison to Augustus

Dating The Praetorship of Marcus Licinius Crassus, Martin Stone

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Sighhh the long road would be such a fun silly quest if it wasn't her Actual Main Important Quest

[eerna]

gestures wildly. it's about crafting a legend out of a living person. how the Ghost is something your friend made up on the spot to make you look cool, but then it slowly starts taking over your life. until you forget everything you believed to be true. until everyone you loved is gone. your clan is disbanded, your uncle disowns you, you have gone from a honorable nobleman to a wanted outlaw. BUT you did it for love - for the fact that you love your people and your island so deeply that you're willing to sacrifice your entire existence for them. it's not something any of their leaders have ever given them, and they see it, so they start turning to you more and more, telling about their encounters with you around survivor campfires, spinning tales until you are a seven-foot-tall monster who has risen from the dead to save them. you no longer belong only to your loved ones. you now belong to the entire island, and you will stay theirs.