I keep on hearing people go all "The voice of the Smitten is such a creep. All he wants in the princess is someone to control and keep as a pretty object. He'd drop the princess if she wasn't the perfect petite maiden like in the damsel route." and I will not stand for the Smitten slander.
Like- He's been in love with her as a burning corpse ghost lady:
A terrifying ghost woman who wants to bring fear and chaos to the world:
And even a murderous blade monster woman who would kill you and enjoy every second of it:
Like, he ALWAYS loves the princess no matter what she looks like or how she acts, he loves her for being herself no matter what or who she is. That's the point of his character and I'm tired of people slandering my boy.
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I WISH Jorge had referenced the part of Luck Runs Out where Odysseus tells Eurylochus to be quiet because I feel like that’s an element missing from a lot of Eurylochus interpretations.
“I need you to always be devout and comply with this /Or we'll all die in this” is important because Eurylochus fails to do it by questioning Odysseus’ words (the bag is NOT treasure, it’s storm) and opening the wind bag and his actions lead directly to the facilitation of the death of most of the crew. I hesitate to say he’s to blame because, well, Poseidon is taking revenge due to Odysseus’ decision, but Eurylochus handed him means and perfect opportunity to do it.
So, after that, Eurylochus obeys everything Odysseus says to do. He takes men to explore Circe’s island. He stays put instead of running when Odysseus goes to rescue him. He follows intl the Underworld despite the fact that “hey this witch is helping us now by sending us to death’s realm, this is definitely not a trick” probably raised some questions. He doesn’t (or at least we don’t see) stray or talk to the souls in the Underworld even though Odysseus ends up doing it. He traps and kills the sirens.
He lights and gives out six torches.
So, if devotion to Odysseus wasn’t enough to save them? If Odysseusnis now using that devotion and trust to get them killed as long as he gets to make it home to his wife? What is he meant to do now?
Eurylochus doesn’t sound… fully there, during the second half of Mutiny. Whether there was divine intervention pushing him or madness or simply the pain of it all, he’s not acting rationally. He just saw six of his trusted men brutally murdered, asks Odysseus to lie and say it was a trick, and can’t even kill him when the truth comes out. Odysseus’ wounds are bandaged! (I’m not sure that he doesn’t actually know where Helios’ statue is from btw, both due to the melody and bc it seems outrageous)
We’re all talking about Odysseus pleading for Eurylochus to stop before killing the cows, but Eurylochus is pleading too. He asks how much longer is he expected to suffer, to push through doubt, to follow the orders. And Odysseus’ first plea is “I need to get home” (later “we can get home”). Let’s not forget Odysseus is selfish and Eurylochus knows that, maybe even loves that, but he’s not just hungry, he’s tired.
When Polites gets the location of the sheep cave from the lotus eaters and takes the men to it, he leads several of them to death and himself to his doom. When Eurylochus stumbles upon the cows, does he remember that? Does he deliberately invoke it?
Killing the cows isn’t about the hunger, not really. It’s about the devotion that was asked of him, the price he paid to learn that lesson, and the pain that silence put him through anyway.
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it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.
yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.
right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.
the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.
these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.
it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.
we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.
secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)
whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.
they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")
and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."
i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.
one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.
i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.
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