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twistedtummies2 · 1 month

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Top 7 Leprechauns Onscreen

St. Patrick’s Day is one of the odder holidays on the calendar. Ostensibly, it is a celebration of Ireland itself; a tribute to its culture, history, and folklore alike. However, at least outside of Ireland - such as in the United States, where the filthy American swine writing this happens to come from - it seems to be treated more as just a day of partying. It’s an excuse to booze up, eat merrily, and wear lots and lots of green. That’s not bad in and of itself, but it emblematic of how commercialized things can get, I suppose; I have no idea how the date is celebrated in other places around the world, including Ireland, mind you.

Again, filthy American swine, that’s me. 😛

Nothing speaks to all this better than the treatment of arguably Ireland’s most famous figure of folklore and legend: the leprechaun. Leprechauns have become mascots for Ireland and St. Patrick’s Day as a whole; a lot of people probably don’t even recognize or know the actual legends behind these little fairy shoemakers and their crocks of gold. However, they have become just as popular and recognizable as other holiday icons, such as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. They are the fanciful embodiment of Ireland, in popular culture, and for better or worse, they are as popular as they are whimsical. Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated by stories about leprechauns; something about these little spritely creatures in their green coats, cobbling shoes and playing tricks, guarding heaps of treasure, just stuck in my imagination in a lot of ways. Part of this may be that I am actually a large part Irish myself, and I’ve looked into the legends and songs about these fair folk with great interest. Of course, with this fascination comes exposure to another medium: the screen. Leprechauns have appeared numerous times in films and on television, and it’s easy to say that these treatments have done just as much for their reputation and popularity as anything else. I thought it would be fun, this St. Patrick’s Day, to cover some of my favorite interpretations of these strange creatures from movies and TV. I’ve decided to make this a brief Top 7, partially because it’s hard to sort things out after that number…but also because, hey, if we’re celebrating and chatting about “the luck of the Irish,” might as well use the “lucky number seven” as our guideline, eh? So, without further ado…here are My Top 7 Screen Portrayals of Leprechauns!

7. The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold.

We’re starting off this countdown with a weird one, folks. If you haven’t heard of this somewhat obscure holiday feature, I wouldn’t blame you. This half-hour special was the creation of Rankin/Bass; a company most well-known for their various Christmas cartoons, such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and The Year Without a Santa Claus. “The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold” was one of their final holiday creations, released in 1981…and you can tell they were REALLY struggling to come up with new ideas for such things. The special is a bizarre hybrid of Christmas cartoon and St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Starring Art Carney as Blarney Kilakilarney (yes, really), the story focuses on the troubles a family of leprechauns face when a wicked banshee, known as Old Mag the Hag, tries to steal all their gold. Mag, you see, needs to have gold in her hands by Christmas morning, or else she will be destroyed, transformed into nothing but a puddle of tears. Mag is imprisoned in a magic pine tree for her evil ways, but a hundred years later, a young cabin boy named Dinty Doyle (played by Broadway-bred actor Ken Jennings) digs up the tree. Mag escapes, summoning a storm and leaving Dinty shipwrecked on the island where all the leprechauns live, and now he and the Little People must try to cooperate to defeat Mag and return home. The special isn’t that great, to be honest; it’s got lots of problems, and it’s obviously quite peculiar. However, I have a soft spot for it: I watch it almost every year. Something about it is fun and comforting, even if it isn’t necessarily the best of Rankin/Bass’ work, and it’s always stuck with me. It’s just my kind of weird and silly; if you think it sounds interesting, consider looking it up and giving it a watch yourself.

6. Finian’s Rainbow.

This colorful 1968 feature - based on the play of the same name - is an early success of legendary filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. It’s weird to think that only a few years after this movie was released he would go on to debut “The Godfather,” really. The film stars Fred Astaire as con-artist Finian McLonergan: an Irish immigrant to America, who plans to try and make his way in the world via a crock of gold he stole from a leprechaun. The leprechaun, Og - played by Tommy Steele - is slowly turning human, for the longer a leprechaun goes without their gold, the less of a leprechaun they really are. Finian buries the treasure near Fort Knox, of all places, where a series of magical misadventures take place, involving a racist Senator, quarreling farmers, and several musical numbers. The movie is mostly fun, somewhat farcical, and highly satirical…but there is one stumbling block I have to point out: the aforementioned racist Senator gets punished for his wicked ways at one point by being turned into an African American himself. No, the Senator is not played by an African American actor, so…yeah…you can probably guess the awkwardness that arises as a result of that. It’s an unfortunate element in an otherwise great picture, and the main reason I don’t feel I can rank this in the top five. If you think you’d have difficulty watching this movie due to that issue, I wouldn’t blame you…but if there’s one thing this film teaches, it’s the importance of an open mind and an understanding of how times change. That, and that leprechauns are just as nimble on the dance floor when they’re human height as they are when tiny.

5. Wearing of the Grin.

This classic Looney Tunes cartoon is another favorite of mine around St. Patrick’s Day, and - being only about seven-and-a-half minutes in length - it’s an easy viewing for anybody. This short stars Porky Pig, who ends up lost in the middle of Ireland during a thunderstorm. The porcine traveler decides to take shelter inside an old castle, ignoring warning signs to “Beware of the Leprechauns!” This decision quickly comes back to bite Porky in his curly tail, when he ends up being victimized by a pair of leprechauns - O’Pat and O’Mike - who, believing he’s after their pot of gold, force Porky to wear The Green Shoes. This doesn’t seem so bad at first, but it turns out the shoes are alive, and as long as Porky wears them, he’ll be forced to dance an Irish jig non-stop. Porky manages to escape the fiendish footwear, but the shoes themselves give chase, determined to continue the punishment. It’s a typically silly, slapstick bit of goofiness, but there’s also a sense of atmosphere and danger to it you wouldn’t expect, and the visuals get more and more absurd the longer the short goes on, making it quite a feast for the eyes. It’s a hilarious and creative piece of Chuck-Jones-born buffoonery; exactly what a Looney Tunes fan would want for St. Patty’s.

4. Luck of the Irish (2001).

I actually am aware of two films with this title. The first was a 1948 feature, which - by all accounts - has nothing to do with the one we’re talking about here. I sadly have not seen that movie yet (although I would very much like to), so if you’re familiar with it, let me know what you think. For now, let’s focus on our actual topic: this 2001 TV film was made for the Disney Channel. As most people may tell you, Disney Channel movies tend to be hit or miss; some of them are actually quite a good time, considering the low budgets many of them have to work with, while others are…frankly rather painful to sit through. This one, I feel, is in the former category, and it’s actually developed a bit of a cult following for good reason. The story focuses on a young lad named Kyle Johnson, who seems to always have good fortune thanks to a lucky gold coin he wears around his neck. When the coin is stolen, however, not only does Kyle find bad luck following him wherever he goes, but he starts to undergo some strange physical transformations: he starts to grow shorter, his hair turns red, his ears become pointed, etc. It’s ultimately revealed that Kyle is actually half-leprechaun, and the one who stole the coin is a wicked fairy-man by the name of Seamus McTiernen (played by, of all people, Timothy Omundsen). Seamus is trying to steal all the leprechauns’ gold from around the world to become King of the Leprechauns; it’s now up to Kyle to stop him…via a basketball game. OF COURSE! A CLASSIC MANEUVER! PATTON HIMSELF NE’ER HAD BETTER STRATEGY! (pauses) Yeah, like I said, this film is wacky. But it’s a good kind of wacky; if it sounds up your alley, give it a look-see.

3. The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns.

While not received well at the time of its release, this 1999 TV miniseries has since gained a cult following and much more acclaim. Personally, I love it. The story is essentially an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet,” but with an Irish flair. The tale begins when an American entrepreneur, Jack Woods, goes to Ireland for a vacation in the countryside. He soon finds out that his holiday home is frequently visited by the Little People. It turns out the leprechauns are engaged in a feud with the fairies (or the pixies, rather, since leprechauns typically are a sort of fairy). This becomes a problem when the fairy princess, Jessica, falls in love with a young leprechaun named Mickey. Chaos ensues as a result of the tryst between these star-crossed lovers, causing the feud to escalate into an all-out war. At the same time, Jack has to deal with some troublesome affairs of the heart all his own, as he becomes infatuated with a lady named Kathleen. Eventually, the two love stories collide, only heightening the stakes. The miniseries combines many elements of Irish folklore and myth together in its runtime, and treats these elements faithfully while at the same time making various changes to the concepts for its own purposes. It also features a great cast, including some rather surprising performers, such as Whoopi Goldberg. While not as well-known as some of the other items on this list, it’s well-worth checking out.

2. Lucky Charms.

Well, you can’t talk about leprechauns without bringing up this classic cereal and its mascot, can you? I remember loving Lucky Charms as a kid…which is funny because, the last time I tasted it as an adult, the flavor…ah…left much to be desired, to put it in the least offensive terms. Looking back, I think the primary reason I loved this cereal so much came from the TV commercials, starring Lucky the Leprechaun. The advertisements for this children’s breakfast staple have a long and interesting history behind them on their own terms, but the basic formula has always remained the same: Lucky is an eccentric little leprechaun, whose greatest treasure is not a crock of gold, but instead a bowl full of Lucky Charms. In the universe of the commercials, the marshmallows in the cereal actually give him different magical abilities he can use to his advantage, as he tricks and escapes his ever-persistent pursuers, who yearn to steal his delicious(?) frosted oats. Unlike many leprechauns in fables and folklore, Lucky - while occasionally and suitably mischievous - isn’t a malicious character in any way; if anything, he’s just trying to escape from those darn kids that never leave him alone! He’s friendly, playful, and sometimes can even be a hero…as far as the thirty-second-to-a-minute-long commercials he’s in will allow, anyway. It’s no surprise this cereal was and remains so popular; the idea of the great chase is an indelible concept, the magic and whimsy of the visuals and storytelling always allow for creative fun, and the charm of a leprechaun character was certainly a lucky break for advertisers. (pauses) Yeah, that was a bit forced, I’m sorry. Bottom line, it’s telling that, even to this day, if you say “leprechaun,” more people will say something about Lucky Charms than arguably anything else.

1. Darby O’Gill and the Little People.

I have a theory that every person, particularly Disney fans, has that one live-action Disney movie that they love which most other people seem to forget about. For me, that movie is “Darby O’Gill and the Little People.” The film focuses on the many misadventures of an old Irish storyteller, the titular Darby O’Gill. The grand old timer is a sort of “frienemy” to the King of the Leprechauns himself, Brian Connors. When Darby is in danger of losing his job, King Brian decides to help…by kidnapping Darby and forcing him to stay forever in his underground palace. (It’s the thought that counts, I guess.) Darby soon turns the tables on the King, though, and instead ends up kidnapping HIM, and refuses to let him go back to his kingdom until Brian grants him three wishes. (Keep your Aladdin jokes to yourself, please.) Top it off with Darby’s daughter falling in love with a young farmhand (played by Sean Connery, of all people), hijinks with the town bully, and the creepy appearances of a mysterious Banshee, and it’s wily shenanigans all around. The film is totally over-the-top, and absolutely plays up to Irish stereotypes more than anything else, but that’s honestly part of the fun: it’s got a campy sense of humor about itself, but it also has a lot of real magic, heart, and even a sense of prevailing danger. It feels like an old Irish fairy legend brought to life, which is fitting since the Disney team actually took inspiration from a bunch of old Irish fairy legends in crafting the script. There’s even an episode of the old Disneyland TV show, which acts as a sort of “mockumentary,” showing Walt meeting Darby and the Little People and learning all the folklore about Brian and his fellow imps. (That’s pretty cool, too, by the way; check it out if you can find it.) The film is probably most well-known for its special effects, most of which are still REALLY impressive, even to this day; heck, even if you know how they were done, you still find it hard to see through them or believe they could work the way they do in the final product. If you haven’t seen this film, I do highly recommend it…BUT, a word of caution: do NOT watch the version on Disney+. For some baffling reason, the Disney+ version redubs some of the actors and has a few minor edits, which really don’t do the movie any favors. If you want to watch this film, buy the DVD, or see if you can find a better copy elsewhere online. You won’t regret it; I certainly never have. I watch this film (and the Disneyland episode accompanying it) every St. Patrick’s Day, and that’s a tradition I never plan to cease. When I think of leprechauns, Irish myths, and all the trappings that come with those things, this film is the first thing that comes to mind. For these reasons above all else, King Brian and his friends in this movie take top marks on this list.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

The Wee Men/Leprechaun’s Gold. (Two cartoons by Noveltoon that are based on classic leprechaun myths.)

Rupert and the Leprechauns. (An episode of the UK animated series “Rupert;” quite cute.)

Jack the Giant Killer. (This movie features a leprechaun called “Imp” as a major character. You can thank Rifftrax for my knowledge of this one. XD )

Leprechaun (1993). (I actually am not a big fan of this movie, or the series it spawned, but it felt physically wrong not to acknowledge Warwick Davis here.)

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stromuprisahat · 1 year

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so i've seen a few of your posts around, and it's clear that you're white supremacist scum, which isn't surprising seeing as you're a fucking slav and i've never met a slav who isn't a literal nazi. still, it's so amusing to see you call black people "dirty" and rail against our presence "poisoning" your media when your own people aren't well-known for being particularly spectacularly civilized. in fact, slavs hated by almost every other european, but whatever, that's beside the point.

listen: there aren't even any black people in your country, but you're obsessed with constantly attacking us for "invading" your dumbass fantasy stories. why? why can't you just be fucking normal and accept that people can look various ways that aren't aryan lmao. newsflash, moron: fantasy worlds aren't real, but even in the real ancient and early medieval world that inspires much of the fantasy genre there wasn't yet this obsession you freaks have with skin color. the people in fantasy worlds can look however you want, without any connection to real-world politics. you and your followers are pathetic. just thought you should know <3

Well hello, hateful chauvinist, who doesn't use anon button! What a surprise! Care to add the topic of those particular posts that made you so upset?

which isn't surprising seeing as you're a fucking slav and i've never met a slav who isn't a literal nazi

I just adore uneducated swines calling us "Nazis". Honey, we were literally the inferior group, supposed to be moved to Siberia for some forced labour. So yeah, calling us Nazis is incredibly correct, wokeflake!

it's so amusing to see you call black people "dirty"

Provide direct quote, please.

rail against our presence "poisoning" your media

Believe it or not, "diversity" is the exact opposite of making everything fit the same mould. When you take a piece of media and make it fit US-POV, you're likely to piss off people, who were happy to see some representation of theirs for a change.

when your own people aren't well-known for being particularly spectacularly civilized. in fact, slavs hated by almost every other european, but whatever, that's beside the point.

Did you just call us primitives, rightfully looked down on by the rest of the continent? May I ask where are you from? What's your education about our history?

listen: there aren't even any black people in your country

Not quite. We live in 21st century and Czechoslovakia had some economical ties to African countries, so we got some gentic exchange as a treat, which makes probably dozens of descendants around Prague mostly and separate individuals, who stumbled on us gods-know-how. But you should know that since you're an expert on us, shouldn't you?!

I guess colonial history is something to boast about now, isn't it? And we're the bad ones for not enslaving other nations and importing their people to bully them for decades...

but you're obsessed with constantly attacking us for "invading" your dumbass fantasy stories. why? why can't you just be fucking normal and accept that people can look various ways that aren't aryan lmao. newsflash, moron: fantasy worlds aren't real

To paraphrase Tolkien:

I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by "people can look various ways that aren't aryan". I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects, but there might be some Gypsy blood in our veins if that's what you need to know.

I'm against US-Americanisation of our stories. Taking a story with colouful characters and making them look the same is bad, but the opposite is politically correct, since that's what paper "diversity" looks like.

What we love about our stories is we can see ourselves there. Us, our world, our culture, our land... pretty, ugly, but all ours. Reflection of what we look like, not just caricatures of poor cleaning ladies, whores and mafia members with shitty pseudo-Russian accent.

I'd expect you to know something about the value of self-recognition in fiction.

but even in the real ancient and early medieval world that inspires much of the fantasy genre there wasn't yet this obsession you freaks have with skin color. the people in fantasy worlds can look however you want, without any connection to real-world politics.

There's a brand new fantasy world build from a zilch, and there's heavy inspiration by real history and culture. I don't know what's your idea of middle-ages, but people in backwards rural areas didn't move much. Population was pretty homogenous here. You could find merchants and scientists from distant areas in well-developed cities, but the best we can do anywhere else is different hair-colour and even that could be a reason for suspicion. Mousy brown is the safest around here. Darker the complexion, more likely to be identified as čert.

If you insist on adding visibly different groups- skin colour (since you need to add it), culture, clothes, religion-, it's likely they'll live in separated districts or areas. See: Jewish quarters in history.

you and your followers are pathetic. just thought you should know <3

I'll pass your love to my followers, I'm sure they'll be happy to recieve it.

#reply #Slavs #já a švábi #vs.#chauvinistic piece of shit

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an0nfr0mth3d3n · 2 months

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Wait hold on I don't watch BBH but you're telling me literally every negative thing I've seen said about him on Twitter for months has just been straight up misinformation except for him being friends with someone who said weird shit?

Xenophobia: "You uncultured swine" - popular american culture phrase I've heard him use before when talking to friends and I myself used a few years ago when it was most prominent. Said at an inoppurtune time and was apologized for.

Homophobic: Was the first person who Antfrost came out to, friends with so many gay people, respects all pronouns (ever heard of the good ole bbh they/them beam? He often uses it when he doesn't know someone's gender, most recently used for Chun-sik because Bad didn't know Chun is a boy) is fine with being called they.

Transphobic: haven't seen anyone call him this at all but in case they have there is no evidence for this. I dare you.

Racist: Back when he played "It Takes Two" with Skeppy he made a comment about a character with a thick Mexican accent reminding him of Skeppy. Not even hours later he heavily apologized for his comment and said it wasn't an appropriate one at all. Not to bring up past conflicts but I think his recognition of what is defined as a weird comment and willingness to change and adjust behaviour is pretty swag.

Racist Chat: The one guy who had monkey emojis Rurus uncovered that that guy just liked using the monkey emoji to portray their own emotions, and did not use it when referring to other cc's at all. As of now the mods are still waiting for evidence of these phantom chatters and are accepting clips and screenshots to find and ban these people if they even exist.

Hates Women: Never heard this either. This guy has an extremely positive relationship with literally every active female cc on the server. Green flag if you ask me.

Wanna throw some more at me? I've been watching this guy for half a decade, am I missing anything?

#soooo many tws to add #also I apologize to followers for the spam of serious topics #but I've never spoken up about this in a really serious matter and I want to bring my background of knowing how #to do fucking research into this discussion #tw xenophobia mention #tw racism mention #tw transphobia mention #tw misogyny mention #tw twitter #twitter discourse #fandom neg

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notwiselybuttoowell · 2 years

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The fringe never stopped being an education for me. When I was starting to write hourlong shows of my own, I went to see Bridget Christie and realised everything I was doing was shit and needed to be overhauled. I have watched shows by contemporaries, such as my ex-flatmate turned sitcom superstar Rose Matafeo, the sketch masters Lazy Susan and the genius/serial award-loser James Acaster, that reminded me why I fell in love with comedy.

When I hosted Edinburgh Nights for the BBC in 2018 and 2019, I was even forced to watch things that weren’t comedy. I saw Rachael Young marry live music, dance and Afrofuturism in Nightclubbing, a show that paid homage to Grace Jones. I saw Pussy Riot and was fortunate enough to interview them, where I was informed that they hadn’t been smuggled out of Russia to perform at the festival, as reported in the press, but had travelled “by unicorn”.

When I wasn’t watching shows, I was performing; learning how to be a comedian, step by excruciating step. In 2010 and 2011, I performed in a sketch double act with Tom Neenan. We were called the Gentlemen of Leisure and the show was a parody of The Culture Show on BBC Two and was exactly as financially profitable as it sounds. But we learned a huge amount about joke-writing and the partnership ended up with Tom becoming my partner in crimes against comedy on various radio shows and The Mash Report.

Meanwhile, I was doing standup on the Free Fringe, where the audience members aren’t charged, but can offer a donation to the performers on leaving the venue. The aim is for the donation to be in cash, but we were often compensated in old playing cards, flyers for our own show and bits of string. Still, these were formative experiences, performing on 25 consecutive days, accelerating my development more than months of infrequent gigging on the open mic circuit in London possibly could.

[...]

At times, it can feel as though defending the fringe is morally indefensible, like eating meat or supporting Manchester United. Landlords have been encouraging students to stay in their flats in August, leading to a shortage of properties and driving up prices. The Fringe Society was forced to launch a drive to find Edinburgh residents who would be willing to rent properties to performers for less than £280 a person a week. Some performers are staying out of town in caravans or on campsites.

Meanwhile, the Fringe Society is facing criticism for scrapping its app, a valuable tool for performers to direct audiences to their shows, sell more tickets and hopefully mitigate some of those astronomical rents.

The fringe is supposed to be a place where performers can come to experiment and evolve. However, it is turning into a playground for those born wealthy – like Monaco, but with more people who went to clown school.

It has been heading this way for years – and I am not exactly an example to the contrary. I grew up middle class and went to a fancy university that subsidised my first two trips here. More significantly, when I started doing solo standup shows, my first three were paid for by a management company. At the time, the going rate for a solo show (including venue hire, accommodation and PR costs) was about £10,000. I was performing in venues that were so small that even if I had sold every single ticket I would still have lost money.

It would be disingenuous not to acknowledge my fortune. It would make me no better than the swines in our cultural and political life who are the children of wealth, but proudly proclaim that they “did it on their own, without any help”. It is our most pernicious myth, aside from the one that brussels sprouts taste nice if you fry them with bacon. Your dad bought you a flat and the thing that tastes good is bacon. Sprouts taste like small, hard farts.

This is to say nothing of the woeful underrepresentation of female acts, ethnic minorities and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Organisations such as Fringe of Colour and Best in Class work hard to address this, but wholesale change is needed. No one seems to be able to put the finger on who is to blame. Landlords, venues, PRs, Edinburgh university and the Fringe Society blame each other, but in the end the bill is footed by performers.

It is no wonder that younger comedians are increasingly seeing the benefits of social media exposure to their careers; the startup costs required are minuscule in comparison to those of doing a show on the fringe. But allowing the fringe to slip slowly into obsolescence would be a shame. At its core, it offers performers a boot camp to hone their skills and a collision of different styles of performance.

Being a performer at the fringe can feel like being a character on a film set in Las Vegas, because the house always wins. And I mean one of the bleak Vegas films, not Ocean’s Eleven – there is no sign of Clooney or Pitt. The only time it resembles Ocean’s Eleven is when you hear some drama student attempt a truly disgraceful cockney accent that would make even Don Cheadle say: “Bleeding heck, guvnah.”

I still believe in the fringe. Perhaps that is inevitable, given my whole life is tied to it, like a pointless Forrest Gump. My birthday is in August, so I can measure my life through the festivals I have attended. My first years I was there, I spent almost every waking moment with Tom and Ed Gamble. In the past three years, I have been best man at their weddings. In 2010, I met a woman who was funny and charming, but whom I presumed disliked me intently. In October, we will have been in a relationship for 10 years. I cannot separate my own life from the fringe and the city of Edinburgh. It has given so much to me, professionally and personally.

But even I understand that it stands at a crossroads. It must find a way to recapture its egalitarian spirit to remain relevant. It is not enough for charitable organisations to fill in the gaps; systemic change is needed. I say this not out of malice, but simply because I strongly believe, to quote my own mother: “If you love something, you must be willing to relentlessly point out everything that is wrong with it,” a phrase she often says to and about me.

#excerpts #edinburgh fringe #fringe festival #british comedy #nish kumar #live comedy #wish I could have seen the Culture Show parody

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mercurialbadger · 6 months

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I receive, every day, incessant wailing of marxist-leninist about the Certain Most Popular Trans Woman On Tumblr Who Can Not Be Named, and it is getting tiring.

What is the class composition of Tumblr trans women and people who are not batshit transphobic?

I am sorry to note, but it's vanity obsessed lumpenized 'creative class" (further: lumpen-creacl) which is entirely entrenched in politics of recency bias and looking good.

While I note that the sort of opinions such a person holds is most often not good, you, yes, you, marxist-leninists, are forcing me to quote Jesus Christ: "Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?".

No. To expect the turbo-lumpen-creacl to have good opinions about "passing" or "Utena" or "lesbianism" is not revealing you as a person capable of choosing right strategic alliances. Demily is a force of good compared to the endlessly uneducated masses of swine who parasitize on our youth as Twitch and YouTube streamers.

The real application for you, as a party organizer, is combating nonfiction videos culture, not making nonfiction videos, publically refusing to watch nonfiction videos, agitating for wider acceptance of less monetizeable media of education, agitation and propaganda.

#iris.txt #twitch streamer #drama

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itisilithi · 6 months

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okay third and last (for now) rambling

why is Ganondorf evil?

well i think being a victim of racism is at play here. and there's something as a SWANA man myself i need to say about it.

in oot, i never figured out if people hate the gerudos because of Ganondorf's known actions or if gerudos are already hated even before his antics.

when i was a child and still now, i was aware that acts of terrorism or theft done by my community had to make me say "i am against it! i am charlie!" even if it wasn't my responsibility to carry such a burden.

terrorist attacks always put innocent SWANA people more at risk of racism and give them the duty to pledge their allegiance to the European people's country. many of the SWANA community don't dare to go to social right or pride riots because of that.

and we know that this climate makes many young people radicalized into said terrorist groups because they feel like the system always make them lose, even when they're acting "good"

now that we know how gerudos and SWANA are quite similar in their respective universes. i can only supposed Ganondorf got "evil" (though i can understand why he hates a world where people bathe in comfort and are protected because not everyone is protected equally anyway. his logic probably stems from the fact he wasn't one of the people protected by this all righteous system and would rather have everyone stand in a foot of equality in terms of suffering and risks of the outside world) because of a system making him lose. whether he stayed true to his word of allegiance or not, the king of hyrule would've still put him under great surveillance and would've not hesitate to strip him from all his rights.

now why is he a swine when he's in his ganon form? well pork and other pork like animals are haram and associated with demonic, bad food (they tend to turn bad quickly in the desert and aren't nutritious btw). considering gan is a metallica girliepop, his form probably takes on the form of what he and his culture consider evil and bad (please see my vision)

and why is he having evil powers? well in SWANA culture it's often famous how bitter people learn hexes to curse a family - but we also learn how to protect ourselves from the bad eye/hexes. maybe Ganondorf felt too cursed he manifested the hex on hyrule a bit too bad.

and to go back to demise now.

i honestly think demise's curse wasn't real - but rather a warning that the cycle may repeat itself. however OOT gan - who later regrets it as WW gan's curse was the one cursing himself and our pair of blonde/brune hero and heroine

this is my rambling and to me Ganondorf drinks water in those cups.

*nodding wisely* yeah *nods* “gan is a Metallica girliepop” *spits out tea* LMAOOOOOOOO

BUT YOU ARE SO RIGHT ACTUALLY…. You gave me like. Visions

But also yes Ganondorf absolutely 100% drinks from those cups

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frmartinshomiliesandreflections · 10 months

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27th June >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Matthew 7:6, 12-14 for Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time: ‘Treat others as you would like them to treat you’.

Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel (Except USA) Matthew 7:6,12-14 Treat others as you would like them to treat you.

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls in front of pigs, or they may trample them and then turn on you and tear you to pieces.

‘So always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the meaning of the Law and the Prophets.

‘Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to perdition is wide and spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’

Gospel (USA) Matthew 7:6, 12-14 Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.

Jesus said to his disciples: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.

“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you. This is the Law and the Prophets.

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.”

Reflections (8)

(i) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

There is a tendency as we get older to say to ourselves and to others, ‘Don’t ask me to change. I am too old for change’. Yet, we also know that some people in their senior years can cope with enormous change. You are familiar with the saying, ‘It is never too late to change’. The word ‘old’ could be substituted for ‘late’ there. According to today’s first reading, God called Abraham at the age of seventy five to take on a very radical change. He was to leave his homeland, Haran, and go on a journey with his family and possessions to the land of Canaan, hundreds of miles away. We hear in that reading, that ‘he went as the Lord told him’. The Lord is always calling on us to take on some new journey in our lives, even though that probably won’t mean leaving what we have come to call home. Here in Finglas, we sense the Lord calling on us to set out on a new journey, which involves the greater coming together of the three parishes. We are all on this new journey. Along the way we have to be patient with each other. Along the way, as Jesus says in the gospel reading, we need to watch that we don’t become more focused on the failings of others than on our own failings. We can’t see the speck in someone’s eye, much less deal with it, if we have a log in our own eye. As we take a new journey together, we need to be able to see clearly, and Jesus suggests in the gospel reading that seeing clearly comes from acknowledging our own failings and asking the Lord to forgive us and to heal us of them. If we are to truly journey together we need that poverty of spirit. It is to the poor in spirit that Jesus declares the kingdom of heaven belongs.

And/Or

(ii) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

In using the image of entering by the narrow gate in this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus is suggesting that the way of life he has set before his disciples is a difficult and challenging way. Entering through a narrow gate requires a clear focus and a certain concentration of effort. Jesus is also suggesting that his way will often run counter to the way taken by the great majority. The call of the gospel, in that sense, will often be experienced as counter to the prevailing culture. For that reason, it will require a conscious decision on our part. The way of the Lord, with all it entails, is a way that needs to be chosen. That choice is always a response to a call, the Lord’s call, but it remains a human choice. We may have been baptized into this way of the Lord as infants but as we go through life we have to choose this way for ourselves. Every day we have to choose to go through the narrow gate, to take the Lord’s way. Although the gate is narrow and the way may be difficult, Jesus assures us in the last line of the gospel reading that his way is the way that leads to life. It not only leads to life beyond this earthly life, eternal life, but it leads to life here and now. As Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians, ‘now is the day of salvation’.

And/Or

(iii) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospel reading Jesus speaks of two ways between which each person must choose. The image of the two ways was widespread in the Old Testament and also in pagan philosophers. Jesus compares the narrow gate and the hard road which the few take with the wide and spacious road which the many take. He himself embodies the narrow gate and the hard road. To take the narrow gate and the hard road is to follow him, to live by his teaching, especially as that teaching is expressed in the Sermon on the Mount from which we have been reading in recent days. Jesus implies that many people will turn away from his teaching, will take other, easier, paths. The Sermon on the Mount puts before us a very high ideal and the temptation is to keep it at arm’s length on the basis that it is not really for the average Christian. Yet, Jesus addresses his teaching to everyone; we each have the same calling which we try to live out in the circumstances of our own lives. The narrow gate and the hard road is one we are all asked to take. In taking it Jesus assures us that we will find life, both now and beyond death.

And/Or

(iv) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

The roads around the city have improved greatly in recent years. The roads in and out of the city are wide and spacious. They are a far cry from the narrow and winding roads of the past. The wide and spacious roads mean that more cars can travel on them at greater speed. However, we know from experience that there can be a value in getting off the wide and spacious roads and taking the narrower, less busy roads. In taking such roads we can often come upon a view we wouldn’t get if we stayed on the main carriage ways. In the gospel reading Jesus suggests that taking his teaching to heart, trying to live by his values, is equivalent to taking the more difficult road as against the wide and spacious road. He thereby acknowledges that the way he puts before us in his teaching and in his own life is not the way that most people would be inclined to take if left to themselves. His way is not the broad and spacious road that most people head for; his way is one that many would instinctively avoid because it seems too difficult and fraught. Following the Lord will always be counter cultural to some extent; it will always involving going against the grain. Yet, Jesus also assures us that his way, for all its difficulty, is the way that leads to life. This morning we ask the Lord to keep us faithful to his way, especially when we are tempted to take an easier way. In the words of the Lord’s prayer, ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil’.

And/Or

(v) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

The command in this morning’s gospel reading to ‘treat others as you would like them to treat you’ is not unique to the gospels. It is often termed the ‘golden rule’ and there are versions of this command among Greeks, Romans and Jews. There is nothing specifically Christian about it. It has been said that the command calls for an exercise of moral imagination as a preliminary to action. We are to ask ourselves, ‘What do I really want from another person?’ Then we try to ensure that all my actions in their regard reflect those qualities. The fact that we find this ‘golden rule’ in the gospels indicates that the teaching of Jesus incorporates the best of the moral wisdom of the ancient world. Jesus could affirm that wisdom as well as challenge it. In our own times it is equally true that many of the values of the gospel are appreciated and lived by people who would not describe themselves as disciples of Jesus, as Christians. In these threatening times for our world, we need to find the common ground that allows people of different faith perspectives, and of no faith, to work together in the service of humanity and of our planet. As well as challenging the culture with the values of the gospel, we also need to build bridges towards it. In a similar vein, Paul in his letter to the Philippians exhorts, ‘whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things’.

And/Or

(vi) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

The image of the narrow gate and the hard road that Jesus uses in the gospel reading suggests that being his disciple will often make demands on us. Whereas we can saunter through a wide gate without much thought, to get through a narrow gate we have to concentrate and focus our attention on what we are doing. It takes a certain amount of alertness to get through a narrow gate. Jesus is reminding us that being a follower of his requires a degree of alertness and deliberation on our part; it doesn’t happen automatically. The adjective ‘narrow’ tends to have a negative meaning in our culture. No one wants to be considered narrow; we like to think of ourselves as broad minded and inclusive in our approach to life. However, the gospel reading this morning suggests that a certain narrowness of focus is called for in the following of the Lord, in the sense that it often means excluding all kinds of pathways that can be very well trod. Saying ‘yes’ to the Lord’s way requires saying ‘no’ to a lot of other ways. Jesus reassures us that this narrowing down which following him entails ultimately leads to a great expansiveness, the great expanse of God’s life. The gate may be narrow but if we try to enter through it faithfully it will lead us to an abundance of life.

And/Or

(vii) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

In the gospel reading Jesus reduces all of the Jewish Law and the Prophets to a very short maxim, ‘always treat others as you would like them to treat you’. Jesus invites us to imagine how we would like people to treat us, to ask ourselves the question, ‘what do I really want from another person?’ Most of us would answer that question along similar lines. We want from others respect, tolerance, loyalty, understanding, compassion, justice. Having engaged in that exercise of imagining how we would like others to treat us, Jesus then declares that we should act towards others in a way that reflects those very same qualities. The following verse in the gospel reading, ‘enter by the narrow gate’, implies that following this rule of treating others as we would want them to treat us will not always be easy. Narrow gates require an effort to get through. The narrow gate Jesus speaks about then leads to what he calls a hard road. Jesus’ teaching requires a daily dying to self, putting the good of the other before our own good. The way that he sets before us is a difficult and challenging way. Yet, Jesus declares that it is the way that leads to life. It is a life-giving path for us in the course of our earthly life, and it will finally lead us to eternal life, a sharing in the Lord’s own risen life.

And/Or

(viii) Tuesday, Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

There have been many disputes about land in human history. Land can be a highly contentious matter in our own culture. We are familiar with John B Keane’s play, ‘The Field’. In today’s first reading, we are told that the land that Abraham and Lot came to was ‘not sufficient to accommodate them both’. A dispute broke out between the herdsmen of Abraham and the herdsmen of Lot. There wasn’t enough room in this land for the livestock of both. The potential for serious conflict was very real. However, Abraham’s magnanimous attitude nipped the dispute in the bud. He said to Lot, ‘Let there be no dispute between me and you, nor between my herdsmen and yours, for we are brothers… Part company with me: if you take the left, I will go right; if you take the right, I will go left’. Abraham’s conciliatory attitude served God’s purpose for his people and through them for all humanity. In a way, Abraham’s attitude anticipated the call of Jesus in the gospel reading, ‘So always treat others as you would like them to treat you’. If everyone were to live by that principal, it would be a very different world. There would certainly be much less conflict in the world. Jesus goes on to acknowledge that embracing such an attitude involves going through the narrow gate and taking the hard road. Yet, according to Jesus, it is the road that leads to life, life for ourselves and for others. It is a road we can take with the Lord’s help, in the power of his Spirit of life.

Fr. Martin Hogan.

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villains4hire · 1 year

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Buck Barley (Helluva Boss OC)

1 - This guy is powerful, but killable through plotting, progression, but generally is reserved to be permanently killed when your character wants their position or can simply demote them. As you can instead while answering to Stella can take him as your own minion as a reward.

2 - If replacing him in his position as the cannery's Chief Foreman? You can't shut things down or interfere with the efficiency of the cannery, but you could make it ethically run for the workers more, for example. If your character is intimate or close to Stella as family or otherwise? You can see fit to change things IC with interactions with Buck Barley by throwing your weight around after discussing it with me. As Stella would allow aid since she's rather busy/her responsibilities stack rather high, and then the rest goes to her own alone time/recreational time. So things often have to be run by her minions and how they see fit, so long as they get the job done.

3 - Buck Barley isn't his true name and his real name doesn't matter to him, honestly. It was just a name he took as the Chief Foreman of the new canneries he began engineering for Stella to help manage Hell's population, even if a near impossible task.

4 - I want to make it clear that while Buck Barley at times is against the concept of 'Unions', I am, however, not.

Faceclaim: the picture above.

Do I want them to die: Sure, but plotted even if temporary. Will I have/get icons: I have around 90. Tag: cold cuts - cold cuts 'insert rper's character last and first initials here then a single digit number. Age: He's been around for a couple thousand years working for Stella, fairly old. Sex: Demonic. Gender: Any Pronouns. Race: Wrath and Greed Swine Demon, with a sub-facet of Gluttony. Sexuality: Any Adult he enjoys. Personality traits: Talks in all caps constantly. Ragey in a funny way. Talks with a boston accent, albeit a booming, distorted rage voice, as that accent manifested during the industrial revolution as humanity evolved yet again. Loyal. Brutal. Loves to eat meat. Has little concern for others outside of his own. Takes care of his own. Despises traitors. Deceptively smart. Has no love for the weak. Enjoys torture but specifically fine cuts in his victims. Is bit of a work-holic as he loves his job. Likes coffee. Working out. Loves hellbucks/soulbucks. Greedy. Merciless. A bit comedic at times. Relatively understands human culture and references it at times, mostly to be relatable to his hellborn workers/sinner demons. Manipulates even people he cares for or his workers to what he sees as their own benefit. Curses a lot. Mental traits: Was never born as a human, so he's alien in mindset, but can replicate human aspects as part of putting his workers at ease. His true mindstate and personality tends to shine through when doing what he loves: torturing the damned or repurposing them. Physical traits: Stands around 15'0, but can run on all fours standing around 9'0 when he does. Wears a worker's flat cap and a usually blood-stained generic worker's clothes. Powers: -

Wrath: Extreme Strength: he could level a building with a hard enough punch. Extreme Durability: he could take set building to the face and keep fighting. Rage Induced Death: as part of his blessings from a Higher Rage Demon? He can keep fighting even while dead or inflict self-death at will, but his body eventually fails and then violently explodes as part of his greed poison power. This explosion has enough force to blow up a small house and often turns anyone hit or the surrounding environment into golden rubble. Feel the Meat (Gluttony Sub-Facet Combined with Rage): he can eat meat, souls or his own canned meat to regenerate rapidly. Blood Sense: anything living, or especially bleeding, he can track and chase. - Greed: I got a stock in the bank: In his private money/gold reserves? He can regenerate from his soul bucks/hellbucks or his own personal gold piles. He often will do this if angelic weaponry comes into play and he's at a disadvantage. As if killed with angelic weaponry? He still very much will die. Innate Diplomacy: as a greed demon? He's pretty convincing and knows how to argue, lead and appeal to peoples' wants. Could serve as a life-coach, coach, rage spotter to Stella's closer figures. Gold Poison Blood: in his tusks and blood? He produces a poison that slowly turns people into gold overtime, to which he can smell and track afterward. The gold has no value on its own, but combined with the essence of those killed, as it doesn't take souls? Does it gain value. Gold and Money Sense: any form of currency, even from another dimension or plane? He can sniff out. - Technical Skills and Weapons: Weaponry: Wields a classic rage demon cleaver that can cleave a car in half or a small building. Has a hook to grab people with from a great distance. Has a gatling gun he'll swap to or a rapid-firing rocket launcher for his hook. He usually doesn't break out the angelic corrupted variants of his cleaver or a large hand cannon that fires angelic rounds unless he feels the need to. As perma-killing Hellborn or even Sinners with potential isn't his goal, it's self-defense against an actual threat or carrying out Stella's will. Expert Forger of Weapons and Corrupted Angelic Weaponry: all of his weapons he's created on his own, including angelic weaponry he's melted down and corrupted gathered by his workers after purges. He can indeed create weapons for other characters as well. Expert Infernal Machine Worker and Designer: he's forged new machines, often specializing in torturing sinners, but now has reused those skills for the cannery to turn sinners into canned meat for insta-sin or SPIM as the younger sinners and hellborn call it. He could use these skills to build machines for other people potentially of varying natures depending.

Notable Swine Demon Traits:

His Gold Poison is also in his large tusks other than his blood.

He has large jaws and could very much use them to eat a car.

Immune to most poisons, flames, lava and forms of pain.

- Motivations: To eat meat and torture sinners as an art. He's a simple swine of simple pleasure for what gets him through the day as a working demon. Has his hobbies like gardening and a few others like, picked it up from Stolas, though he despises Stolas as he sees him as a traitor. Backstory:

While a rather old, but not ancient demon? Buck Barley has earned his position, starting from near the very bottom as a Hellborn. He was the lowest of the low when it came to demons right next to Imps nearly, but not quite. It's only through his own determination, merciless pursuit of power and forging the contractual bonds that he has did he get the training for his technical skills, power increases overtime that he did. So while one could question if he earned it? He certainly took it into his own hands, and that's all he needs to know. 'Honor' and 'Code of Conduct' were for the guys up top as he didn't have the strength to afford back then, as while he does now? It matters little to him, he was a creature of habit. So Buck Barley while has some standards, there's probably nothing he won't put onto his torture racks, but these days? He's entered the cannery business as his stockades remain empty, but his stocks regarding food on the other hand that he pushes thousands out on the daily per factory? That's a different story to tell.

#cold cuts #ooc #bios save #long post

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mask131 · 2 years

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Magical summer: The Weird Sisters

THE THREE WITCHES

Category: British literature / Shakespearian theater

Ah… “Macbeth”. One of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. The “cursed play”, the “Scottish play”… As well as one of the most famous depictions of witches in theater and literature. Because, despite their relatively small part in the actual story, the Three Witches are one of the most memorable, remembered and influential characters of “Macbeth”.

The official way to refer to this trio of witches is simply “The Three Witches” : it is how the list of characters at the beginning of the play refers to them. “Three Witches”. However popular culture knows them better under the name “Weird Sisters”, which is one of the names the trio call themselves during their introduction scene. A third name given to them, but less used, is “The Wayward Sisters”. Three names is quite fitting because the Witches of Macbeth are entirely based on the number three: they are three witches, they repeat their incantations three times, and they circle around to “wind up” their spells three times in a row. But more generally, the Witches appear three times in total during the play (I am leaving the Hecate scene aside, see the description below).

~ The Three Witches in the story ~

The Witches are actually the characters that open the play, Scene 1 Act 1. On the foggy moors of Scotland, somewhere during the 11th century, under a thunderous storm three witches are deciding when they will next meet each other again, and they agree that their next reunion will be to “meet with Macbeth” before each going their separate way following the calls of their respective familiars (Graymalkin, Paddock and Anon – the first two are commonly agreed to be a cat and a toad, the third one is more mysterious it might be an owl or a harpy).

The Three Witches reappear in the third scene of the first act – for this specific “meeting with Macbeth” (who we meet during scene 2, as it turns out he is a faithful vassal to the King of Scotland, coming back from a victorious battle). Under a thunderous sky and around a heath, the witches (calling each other “sister”) gather and chat about all the things they have been doing since their last meeting, such as killing swine or causing shipwrecks… But they stop upon hearing the drum announcing the arrival of Macbeth, back from war, with his faithful friend Banquo. Before the two can arrive they turn around nine times to “wound up” their charm. When Macbeth and Banquo see the three witches they quite startled, and despite Banquo speaking to them first, they speak to Macbeth in return. They deliver him a prophecy in three times “All hail Macbeth, thane of Glamis! All hail Macbeth, thane of Cawdor! All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!”. Banquo, quite happy for his friends upon the witches delivering him such a good prophecy, decides to ask the witches (that he clearly identifies as prophets or seers) to speak about HIS future, and their prophecy is… quite weird. “Lesser than Macbeth, and greater. Not so happy, yet much happier. Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.” And then the witches vanish.

These prophecies are actually what starts the whole plot of the play. Macbeth, who is just the Thane of Glamis, does not understand how he could “Thane of Cawdor” or “King” given both of these titles are hold by healthy, living, powerful men… But upon returning home, Macbeth discovers that Duncan, the King of Scotland, decided to reward Macbeth for his services by giving him the title of Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth then understands that the prophecy of the witches is indeed real, and gladly awaits to become King after Duncan… However, through fear, greed, ambition, and the negative influence of his wife, Macbeth will slowly sink into villainy and madness, first by murdering Duncan in order to steal the crown away from him, and then by killing Banquo, his good friend, because since the witches said he would give birth to a “line of kings”, Macbeth feared Banquo would steal away his throne. The new King of Scotland is however not appeased: the young son of Banquo escaped the murderers Macbeth sent, and Macbeth is tormented by the ghost of Banquo (or at least he thinks Banquo haunts him – to everyone else it just looks like he is going mad).

Macbeth, to appease his fear, doubt and guilt, decides to seek back the Three Witches and he does so in the opening of Act 4, which forms the last apparition of the Wayward Sisters. Macbeth finds them in a cavern, gathered around a boiling cauldron. Before Macbeth’s arrival the witches had been preparing a potion by throwing in all sorts of weird, creepy and disturbing ingredients while chanting and dancing around the “boiling pot”. However they feel Macbeth arriving (a witch says the iconic line “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.”. Macbeth arrives and begs them to answer his questions and give him more prophecies: but this time the Witches offer Macbeth to hear the future not from their mouth, but from the one of their “masters”. What follows is a series of three “apparitions” – the spirits that the witches serve appear to Macbeth, each one with a new prophecy. First appears “an armed Head”, which tells him to “beware of Macduff, the thane of Fife”. Second appears a “bloody Child” which tells him to “be bloody, bold and resolute ; laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth”. The third spirit is a “Child crowned with a tree in his hand” that tells him: “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him”. The witches then promptly order Macbeth to “Seek to know no more” – yet Macbeth, much too curious for his own good, begs to know and see what is cooking inside the witches’ cauldron… and he regrets it when the content of the cauldron appears: eight ghosts of kings, with the last one being actually the crowned ghost of Banquo. Macbeth is seeing the future “line of kings” Banquo’s son will birth to rule over Scotland. The Witches then disappear and this is the last we see of them.

However this last scene is crucial to the development of the story. On one side the witches’ prophecies gave Macbeth a sense of comfort and omnipotence: he cannot be defeated by a man “of woman born”, and he will only be vanquished when the Birnam wood will “walk” against him and come down from Dunsinane hill… Which is obvious impossible as trees can’t just move around. Due to these prophecies and the spirits’ encouragement, Macbeth will become bolder and more ruthless in his decisions and actions, certain that no one can vanquish him… But on the other hand seeing back the ghost of Banquo and the kings he shall bear re-ignited Macbeth’s fear that the son of Banquo will steal his throne, and the witches warning about Macduff also greatly worry him. He is another member of the court, who so far only has a secondary role in the play, but to avoid any risk Macbeth decides to eliminate him. However he can only manage to kill Macduff’s wife and son, as Macduff himself has fled Macbeth’s tyranny and madness… Which actually makes the witches prophecy a self-fulfilling one as, by killing Macduff’s family Macbeth just made a mortal enemy out of him.

Macduff and the son of King Duncan, Prince Malcolm, gather together their forces to launch an army against Macbeth to dethrone him. Macbeth, full of pride, is ready to take them on… until the prophecy of the witches becomes reality. The Birnam wood “coming down” onto Macbeth… is the army of Macduff and Malcolm, who use tree branches and tree-disguises as a camouflage method to approach the castle of Macbeth unseen. And the “man of no woman born” is actually Malcolm, who fights and kills Macbeth in a duel: he was born out of a Cesarean. So he was not “born” of a woman… but “ripped out” of a woman.

Thus the witches’ prophecies come true and the story ends with order restored.

~ More about the Witches ~

# The Weird Sister are, indeed, very weird in appearance. We never get a clear description of them but we know that they are supposed to be quite old (they are called “hags”, are said to have wrinkled fingers…), they are very ugly (described as “foul” and “withered”), and they have a “wild attire” (their wilderness making sense given they have a strong tie to nature, tied to wild animals, gathering under storms, meeting on moors and in caverns…). In fact, they are so bizarre, ugly and deformed that Banquo, upon seeing them, wonders if they are truly “inhabitant of earth” and if they are not “fantastical” beings – he even wonders if they are actually alive and not some sort of ghosts or revenants. One final line is that, upon first seeing them, Banquo doubts their actual gender because despite them looking and being dressed like women, they have “beards”. This line (which is not often adapted into the witches’ design) was actually a meta-joke by Shakespeare, because at the time no woman was allowed on stage and so in theater plays all feminine roles were played by men. Usually women were played by young, beardless men (preferably pre-teen boys or youthful/feminine looking teenagers) ; but we can imagine that to play the ugly and old witches, mature men were used. Aka bearded men, hence the inner joke of Banquo seeing the witches beard and doubting their gender. (A joke that also works in the idea that the witches are bizarre, confusing and abnormal beings, like bearded women).

# The witches are clearly forces of evil and chaos here. Their powers are destructive ones, as all they do is kill living beings, cause disasters and disturb nature : Macbeth mentions that he knows how they enrage the winds and disturb the sea to destroy buildings and fields through storms, for example. They are also shown to be quite petty and cruel, as for example one says she cursed a sailor with perpetual insomnia to drive him insane, just because he was a bit rude with her and refused to give her some food. But despite all that, they are not actually the villains of the play. The true villain is Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth. The Witches do start Macbeth’s fall into villainy, crime and madness, as it is their prophecy that ignites Macbeth’s ambition and makes him power-hungry… But all they do is actually deliver visions of the future. They just say the future as it will happen, and this is it. Macbeth on its own lets himself get corrupted by these prophecies. But the confusing thing is that Macbeth is the titular character, and the protagonist of the story – as a result, all the “good people” that oppose him are antagonists. Macbeth is an anti-hero as we see the pain, guilt and heavy price that his actions bring to him, almost giving up sympathy for this man who sees his world crumble down horribly around him because he listened to the wrong people and wanted to follow a hopeful dream… The same way others such as Banquo, Macduff and Malcolm are anti-villains, as while they are the enemies of Macbeth, they are victims of his crime, and here to restore order into the kingdom and punish a villain. And this entire confusion is actually recapped in one specific line told by the Three Witches in their very first scene, a line which becomes a leitmotif for the whole play “Fair is foul and foul is fair”. The Witches are precisely such a confusion and inversion of morals, and they bring, through their prophecies and presence, the same kind of chaos and anarchy into the kingdom, as Macbeth’s rule is surrounded by treachery, murders and all sorts of other disasters.

# This all leads to a big debate about the exact role of the Witches. The literal, simple, most down-to-the-text interpretation of the Weird Sisters is that they are not actually villain character in the play, but rather “purveyor of dangerous knowledge”. Their only mission originally was to meet with Macbeth to deliver him their prophecy that he would be King. That was it. Banquo was not included in their preparations, and he insisted on having a prophecy too – which he got, so he discovered his glorious future… but also put himself into danger, because it is this prophecy that will lead Macbeth to kill him. The same thing happened when Macbeth actively sought the witches a second time: he wanted to have more prophecies to ease his tormented mind, and he got them, but to the price of both luring him into a false sense of invulnerability AND causing his own fall and doom. If Macbeth hadn’t tried to kill Macduff due to the Witches’ prophecy, Macduff would probably have not turned against him so hard. Macbeth tried to accelerate or prevent his own fate, but in doing so prepare his own doom and fall – and overall, the Witches’ prophecy are self-fulfilling. The moment someone asks for their knowledge of the future, this person is doomed, and it is well illustrated by how Macbeth’s curiosity about what is in the cauldron, despite the Witches’ warnings, leads to a manifestation of his worst fear and the certainty of his failure.

# But a second interpretation of the Witches, which rose in popularity in several adaptations (especially since the Orson Welles movie), is that they are not as passive characters as the first interpretation leads to believe: this second idea claims the Witches are actually masterminds of the whole play, that they orchestrated Macbeth’s rise to power and fall in order to savor the chaos and evilness that would result from it. This concept of the Witches interprets them as deliberately making their prophecies ambiguous enough to be misinterpreted by Macbeth, and shows them as influencing Macbeth into villainy and madness – as a result in this version Macbeth is less a man who lets his own flaws and ambition turn him into a monster, but rather the puppet of evil witches and the victim of supernatural forces beyond his control. (A specific case: the Witches predict that Macbeth will be King. However the actual king, Duncan, says his heir will be his son Malcolm. Macbeth, anxious at seeing his dream pass by, decides to take matter into his own hands and kill Duncan to take the crown away. Did the Witches actually saw and predict that Macbeth would be King? Or did they make this “fake” prophecy to place the idea of kingship in Macbeth’s mind, knowing full well he would somehow manage on his own to get King and thus take the crown away from the royal family?)

These two dual interpretations can co-exist without much trouble because in the play itself there is a confusion and ambiguity towards the relationship between the Witches and fate : it is unclear if the Witches actually shape and provoke fate, or if they are just servants of Fate whose job is to do what they do. When in the first scene they set their next meeting with Macbeth, are they doing that on their own accord because they decide that Macbeth will be their next “game”… or are they just obeying the powers of Fate that force them to meet Macbeth so that they can deliver their prophecy? It doesn’t help that Shakespeare HEAVILY relied on ancient pagan symbolism of fate to create his Witches: a trio of three old women giving prophecies was of course made to evoke characters such as the Moirae of Greek mythology or the Norns of Norse mythology, and the word “weird” (of Weird Sisters) actually comes from the ancient word “wyrd” which was an alternate way to name “fate”, “doom”, “destiny”. As a result one can read it as the “Wyrd Sisters” or “Sisters of Fate”. (It is a wordplay Terry Pratchett did in his Discworld series, when he parodied Macbeth in the novel called “Wyrd Sisters”). Again, new confusion and ambiguity: The Wayward Sisters are clearly entities whose actions and presence are chaotic by nature, and yet they serve and use fate, the ultimate form of order…

# The scene of Macbeth visiting the Witches in their cave brings a very iconic theme and topic: the Witches cooking a potion with bizarre ingredients over a cauldron. This is where we have the iconic line “Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn and cauldron bubble” (which got even more famous when the Harry Potters movie made a whole song out of it). The Witches list all the ingredients they throw into their cauldron, all bizarre, weird, creepy or disturbing (finger of a birth-strangled babe, liver of a blaspheming Jew, root of hemlock, scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, wool of bat, tongue of dog…), and this long litany of rhyming ingredients greatly influenced the concept of potions and witches’ brew in popular culture and literature. It goes to the point that some of the very first ingredients listed by the witches, “Eye of newt” and “toe of frog”, became an archetypal ingredient of potions and magical brews in fiction, and even a stereotype in modern days. But what one should not underestimate is the importance of the three witches being gathered around a cauldron. It might seem “normal” for us today, but back then the imagery of witches gathering around a cauldron weren’t actually “popular” or “common”. In fact, this very idea of witches gathering together around a cauldron, or brewing horrible potions inside a cauldron, was popularized and spread into culture thanks to this very specific scene in Macbeth!

- - -

Now maybe is time to talk about the "Hecate scene"... At the end of act 3 there is a fourth scene involving The Witches. In this scene Hecate herself (yep, the goddess) arrives as Queen of Witches - and she scolds the Weird Sisters for having directly acted in Macbeth's fate and given him prophecies without consulting or warning her first. This scene is actually a musical interlude, with a witch song and lot of creepy special effects and incantations. However this scene is cut from almost every adaptation of the play. Why? For the simple reason that it is pretty obvious it does not belong here. The scene doesn't make much sense in context, and while it is definitively a cool one, it breaks the tension and the plot, and ruins the balance, harmony and tone set by the rest of the play (which works very well once this sequence is removed). In fact, people have traced back the origins of this part : it is actually a scene belonging to ANOTHER theater play of the time "The Witch" by Thomas Middleton. As a result it is clear that this sequence was NOT written by Shakespeare, and was not intended to be part of Macbeth. Rather after the success of the play someone took this scene out of Middleton's work and added it into the play (or at least into the printed version of the play) to add more "witchy" stuff in it. And it is quite interesting to see that the whole point of the witches in this story was also to greatly please a specific member of the audience: the current King of England, James the First (also known as James the Sixth... You see, he started out as James VI King of Scotland, but after the death of Elizabeth the First he ended up with the English crown too, becoming James I of England... James VI and I, double King). On one side, James was believed to be a descendant of Banquo, so obviously there's things playing about that in the play. But James was also known for his great fascination and obsession with witches and witchcraft - the characters of the Weird Sisters and their incantations were put in by Shakespeare specifically to suit the taste and obsessions of the king. It was even rumored that the spells and incantations used by Shakespeare were actually REAL witches chant... But this obsession of James had quite a dark side, because this obsession was also a form of paranoia that was fed by demonologists and religious authorities all over both countries... and which led to several waves of witch hunts throughout England and Scotland. You thought Salem was bad? It was just a speck of dust compared to all the trials, tortures and executions that happened in those countries.

#magical summer #witch #weird sisters #wayward sisters #three witches #macbeth #shakespeare #the witches

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extrapackxofastora · 7 months

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People out there saying video games aren't art. I read as much as an dyslexic swine and am capable of delivering analysis deeper than anyone else in my class.

And I'm not talking about just books and stuff, I can do just about everything. Paintings, movies, plays (need a lotta work on this one), and video games ofc.

This post isn't here to brag. It's a call to act. Plz, all of you game owners try and do a literary analysis of the story, here, have a list of why you should do it.

1) Has all the benefits of any analysis. Improving skills, critical thinking, language...

2) If your community isn't cancer they'll all be impressed and that always makes a human feel good.

3) You'll get to learn more about the things you like! You may even meet people trying to ask for arguments.

4) Will get you to open more about analysis of other works.

5) Makes you smart. And cultured, too. Listen it's good for you.

And you don't even have to do it all in one, just don't forget to write ideas down before ending your sessions. It's fun all around! Really, give it a try. Also, some tips (which you can apply to any analysis really) I'll share if you're scared!

- Start by taking your main idea and see its relevance throughout the work.

- You want to focus on the how and why. The what is only the main idea as a concept, how and why are about the means of the idea. ('Art is about the how and why not what' (I said that and it helps me, not saying it's true))

- Every medium has their "figures of speech" and "syntax". That's what you want, that's the how and why.

- Dig too deep. I've always been afraid of 'digging too deep', to find meaning there's clearly none. You want to do that because a) it's very unlikely you've dug too deep and b) if it provokes an idea and you can appropriately back it up, it's basically all good.

- Stick to your main idea and explore every nook and cranny of it. You want to milk this lactose-filled thought provoking concept dry, going off the beaten path once will invite you to do it more.

- To find examples to back up your MI start by recalling everywhere you thought about this idea and to explore why you thought about it and how the game made you think about it (see the how and why). Then search somewhere else.

- Don't overthink this! You're doing it for you first, and if not then I'll personally make sure that actually yes. If it's bad, don't worry try next time.

It's important to note that I don't have an education towards art analysis and critiques. All of this I learned from myself and indirect external sources. I'm just a passionate boy like the hundreds of thousands present here.

tl;dr: try doing literary analysis of what you like

#literary analysis #analysis #video games #just give it a try trust me #writing #thanks for listening to my ted talk

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covid-chronicle-4585 · 1 year

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Coronavirus Chronicle

05/22/2020

The humans continue to shop it seems nothing will satisfy their appetites for consumerism. The people must have their pops, how could they ever live without their precious loungefly bags. I leave this chronicle in hopes that the future generation of BoxLunch will understand the horrors of the year 2020.

May the all father grant me the strength I need to confront these horrors. With my mask and my hand sanitizer I will fight the uncouth hordes. Comp will be made, metrics must continue to rise, though I am afraid I must rise to the call of capitalism. May Odin grant me strength

05/23/2020

The onslaught of consumerism continues. The humans were waiting at the door this morning. People only have one thing on their mind, consume fuel the machine. I find my self at odds one hand I am glad as I benefit from their ignorance on the other I fear for our society. In a world where worth is measured my numbers on a screen it seems human well being and life is sub to greed. Oh thunderer protect us not only from the disease plaguing our lands but from the disease that is American ignorance and pride.

05/28/2020

The insufferable swine continue to spread the deadly contagion in turn for their own personal comfort and selfishness. Are they evil or just too stupid and brainwashed to know any better.

06/04/2020

Need tacos.

More on this later.

6/22/20

As the contagion rages on it appears things are quickly sliding down hill. As we become the epicenter of the outbreak. The uncouth Karen’s have emerged, they are on the fore front of the mask war. As we all have been wearing face coverings for months now to help stop the spread the masses are refusing to do so. Claiming medical exemption because god forbid they are uncomfortable for 5 minutes. Their comfort is worth fighting for other people be dammed. May Freya protect us from them and my Odin strike them down

6/25/20

I have acquired the tacos.

7/18/20

Ahhhhhh

11/12/20

I am the new author. I have found the chronicle and will continue the good work of those before me. It is now the holidays, the dreadful din of Christmas is ever approaching. The masses refuse to slow. The masses refuse to protect themselves. They won’t wear their fricken masks. They won’t shop online like sensible little consumer drones. Detestable.

11/29/20

The darkest Friday has rent me asunder it’s cruel claws, and razed my spirits to the ground. Still I plod on, in the hopes of recovering my humanity in a world not meant for me. As the previous author, I too desire the elusive taco. They sound delightful.

12/7/20

First off I wish to apologize for my absence. The hordes have been relentless. I have not had a moment to gather my thoughts, the darkest of Friday’s has come and gone. I see in my absence another has taken of the chronicle, whomever you are I thank you the tale must continue this year can not be forgotten. The Yule season is upon us a season originally dedicated to give thanks for your blessings. Has become nothing more than the pinnacle of the consumer culture we find ourselves in. The virus still runs rampant it appears nothing can stop it. Even the great orange one has been infected, yet the masses appear unfazed. Some have even taken to the streets in “protest” they seek to demolish the protections set in place. One cant help but wonder maybe they just want to watch it all burn and I ask myself maybe so do I. The news states we may have a cure on the way. I pray to the gods its comes soon.....

12/9/20

Second Author here. I hurt my feet. All 2 of them. I think I have plantar fasciitis now, so that’s pretty neat. More feet updates pending.

12/14/20

The hordes don’t seem to be stopping or even slowing; what’s worse is that on this desolate disconnection from the homeland (kioskland as I refer to it) I am subjugated to the uninterested and lost members of the hordes, in much larger quantity as well. Today alone I’ve seen 3 coughers; I begin to contemplate the use of the face shield of transparency. I hastily await my return to the homeland.

12/16/20

I am trapped in Kioskland... it is a lonely island not far from the Mainland. One would think it is a lively land as it is surrounded by the hordes, but it is desolate. The consumers cough and sneeze outside of their masks, defeating the purpose of a viral shield.

Just a stones throw a way, in Calendar-land, the empress scratches plaque from her teeth. Her hooves remained spoiled as patrons purchase their paper goods. Additionally, her snout remains free from her viral shield, her nares visible as she breathes carbon dioxide on all that is being sold. Once again, the viral shield fails to protect patrons from the danger of human ignorance.

12/23/20

Second author here. My feet don’t hurt anymore, and I think that’s real neat.

12/24/20

HE is coming...

(Second author edit)

And so am I

12/26/2020

(SA) He came

12/27/2020

Work-safe Sasuke

12/27/2020

We must dismantle the patriarchy

12/28/2020

Stalker hair straightener man watches me from afar like Slender Man watches his victims.

12/29/2020

Kiosk life be like:

4/16/2021

Hello there friend. We are still here - alive and well. DEATH TO THE KIOSK! The torture is over. Let the celebration begin!

5/18/2021

The anniversary of the chronicle has arrived. Hope is on the horizon

At the time of me writing this 40% of the American population is fully vaccinated. Supply is high yet demand remains low I fear that the stupidity of the people who deny the severity of our situation will only prolong this peril. We have led the horse to water yet it refuses to drink. Will this nightmare ever end? Or will the country simply embrace this new reality? What is life but a constant evolving nightmare ? Oh allfather guide the meek for they are the ones who will suffer from the true plague polluting this world, stupidity. We are one week away from the declaration of the end of the requirement of mask wearing is this a light at the end of the tunnel ? Time will tell.

5/29/21

I have returned foolish mortals

7/27/21

It’s Tuesday.... it was a sweaty hot day, ah so much light- my eyes!!!! Actually I haven’t seen the sun in over a month, and yet...it’s here today, and guess what.... I’m here....at work, dealing with an AC that constantly sends me the ice age down my prickly legs. Only reason I don’t shave my legs is cuz of this damn store is always cold!

7/28/21

I’m watching you Wazowski......Aaaaaaaallllllllllwwwaaaaaayyyyyysssss watching.......

8/4/21

“The UNmasked middle school bandits”

A pretty normal day today, me and my crew are working hard as usual. Shipment has been taken care of, the store looks as if all the shirt piles have turned to perfect little book stacks. Greeting the capitalists, with our smiling eyes just like how Tyra Banks has taught us! However things took a very dark turn when the UNmasked middleschool bandits arrived! Innocent they may have seemed, but the pit stains and shiny foreheads as well has the constant lingering around in the clearance section and anime corner has led to suspicion! We... stalked....creeped...simply followed them around trying to figure out what has been taken or what was their mission. The bulging pocket smiled at me so secretively. What was inside? What was taken? I guess we will never know, since they have caught on to our tracking skills being to great. They have left the premises completing their mission, this is all we have left of them. A photo of their backs, as they are laughing at our masked faces.

8/18/21

Warning!!!!! BoxLunch is haunted! And it is official... he’s a sexist. He seems to only haunt us female crew members. Every morning and evening while opening or closing we hear him... his loud heavy breathing. Then the clicking and scratching on the ceilings and not to mention the back and forth steps in the stockroom... you’re never alone. Mackey is here to make sure of that. Things fall and or get moved. Why Mackey why!?

Mackey is his name, misogyny is his game.

8/26/21

Shipment has been nothing but loungefly bags and we are drowning.... SEND HELP!!!! Not Mackey tho! Or else we are guaranteed to die. And join his haunting....Also the computers have been updated. The font makes some of us have instant migraines and the urge to vomit is real! Was this Mackey or the company...WAIT it just occurred to me.....what if Mackey is the company!!!!!

9/9/21

9/14/21

In the pits of despair desperately trying to make the mainland presentable for the new leader in charge. It was slow, which was perfect for our mission, until the monstrous creature known as……….A Man walked to drain our will to live. Questions after questions which all were really just one question, just worded differently every time, hoping to get a different answer out of us. “Precious Oh Precious” is what he kept mumbling, he wanted a funko pop from over a month ago that we won’t ever receive again. And after that this clown asking for a product without any useful information or description. Oh Odin or Zeus whoever is listening, get us a simulation game where we can act out our violent tendencies to disrespectful and or brainless consumers. The item the clown wanted was right in front of her clown nose, just as we told her from the beginning. Trust us… we know this land like the back of our Pets. We’re here for a reason. The day ended with muscle pain from constant punching of the air.

9/16/21

BLHOL30….

9/20/21

Today we launched a McDonalds collaboration rocket from our mainlands. We didn’t think it would be noticed. WHY are we advertising poison to our Precious consumers. We will never know….I don’t see the McDonald island advertising for us! The moment we opened the gates consumers came flowing in, it was like a tsunami of gluttony. I didn’t understand … what was the hype? Do people like shortening their life span… clogging their veins with those soggy fries. It’s called “Almost live dying”…. People love it!

10/2/21

We held a funeral today for a baby lizard that seems to have been squished between out BoxLunch bags. ALSO I witnessed a mother hiss at her 9 year old daughter…. These consumers are developing backwards… I wonder what it is…. COVID-19? Maybe? Thank gawd I’m wearing my viral shield.

10/22/21

Today we had to exterminate a roach, it didn’t go as we planned, the roach definitely fought back rather than accepting defeat, it didn’t seem to understand the reasoning of extermination, but it had to be done, for the sake of the mainlands and its original community. Hurrah and Hurray! The mainlanders cheered. For the mainlands are now safe and positive once again. To clarify, there are places meant for roaches, where roaches are needed and wanted and are seen to be good, but not on this turf.

10/31/21

It’s Halloween, there are three Angels in the store,being rude…..last time I checked I could’ve sworn Angels are supposed to be…. Nice?…. I Mean isn’t that how they got to heaven in the first place???? If not then I’m assuming Zeus got some things to work out up there…. But ok back to the 3 Angels they ignored us the whole time they were here….to be fair, they could’ve been deaf and I’m just mean, but I could’ve sworn when I greeted them the 7 times they walked in and out the mainlands they made eye contact soooo who knows. OH also a WILD BEAST WALKED INTO THE STORE…. The Mainlanders and I were terrified, huddling up behind our safe spot the register for we feared for our lives. But then we discovered it was far more worse than we thought….A FURRY, A WILD FURRY, it rubbed its paws together menacingly, gawking at Pixar…also it almost died of heatstroke… were all glad it didn’t tho, since we already didn’t want to get close to it as is, but the idea of having to touch it. We rather die of heatstroke ourselves.

11/1/21

Mainlander to consumer: want to sign up with our FREE loyalty program

Consumer: what, no I ont come here often anyways….-

Mainlander: are u sure it’s fre-

Consumer: what I can’t even hear you I’m good

*leaves*

Delayed

12/1/21

Also, today one of our mainlanders traveled to our sister lands, since she heard the rumors of meeting a famous astronaut there. As she arrived on the sister lands soil, they denied her entry, telling her she needs to come back another day. The Mainlander did not understand, but accepting defeat traveled back home to the mainlands to tell the story of her failed mission to the sister lands. The other Mainlanders couldn’t believe the audacity the sister lands had to deny one of our own. How dare they, so we contacted a former sister lander who had joined our lands, to try and bring peace between us. He has failed. As one of our own then decided to try her luck to disguise herself as a regular consumer, she was caught….hope seemed almost lost. But then… one of the mainlanders had an in lighting idea. Ask the macaroon lands for help. As we explained our distressed situation to Queen macaroon herself, she decided to help us. And we send her in. Time was ticking, fingernails have been eaten, heartbeats have been… beating and see there….SUCCESS!!!! We have Acquired a fellow Cat astronaut to join us on our mainland. The better lands.

12/18/2021

This is a POV of a sad and depressed kid he is bored and wanted to just type out some random stuff cause why not right\

Here’s all I really gotta say…. Boys are trash, they like to hurt my damn feelings for what???? I know that I am not the best person in the world but I’m trying like that counts, luckily Selena Gomez no nicki Minaj are by my side reminding me that I’m a bad bitch always and forever.

12/22/2021

Holiday season is almost done, we’re counting down the minutes, for the stupid questions, and consumptions to finally come to an end. The mainlands have been so cleaned out, we barely have enough left to survive for ourselves. It’s cold, and empty I’m starting to see dust bunnies form on the shelves, like tumble weeds in a desert. Single shirts desperately trying to fill the shelves like lotus pedals on a pond. How will we recover from this? We do not know… all we know is we got to make these numbers with what little we got… Mr. potatoes head is mocking us in the corner, as he will never leave us…even tho he knows how his worth can bring up our numbers by a lot. But as he is not appealing to the eye, he remains here.

Different mainlander here, a visitor has come up once again

Visitor: do you have any more of the Shang-chi shirts in the window ?

Mainlanders: right there *points to bright red shirts hanging in plain sight* ( may I point out that the mainland isn’t large)

The visitor walks away and with complete and utter disgust one of our mainlanders says “du*$*#*&* b*#&@

12/23/21

It has been many a season since I felt the call no, the need to document my experiences over this past year. We are once again in the midst of the “holiday season” or so our oppressors have come to call it. I feel less festive and more disappointed in my fellow man. Gone is the day of looking back over the year and being thankful for what life gave or did not give you. Instead its been replaced with consumerism. The need to spend money on people simply because you share genetic materiel. It is one thing to give gifts out of love but to gift out of obligation disgusts me.

At this point in our story the virus has ravaged our planet with pestilence. Variant after variant. This plague will someday end but I fear our planets appetite for consumerism will never relent.

Odin have mercy on us all

12/28/21

One of the mainlanders here,today was pretty chill, no one other than a man and some teens were dumb today, the reasons were the man did not tell me I had cheese on my face, FAKE. and the Teens OFC knocked something down laughed and left it, anyways…. There was this outsider girl, from Xmas tree lands asking the dumbest question of them all today, “do u sell this” she asked, holding up one of our plushie products with a sensor on its butt and a tag so big it could be a post card. I starred….waiting for her to realize her mistake and give her the chance to go back and try again,… but she didn’t. She asked again but sounding even dumber than before….then after being startled, shaking in her boots and almost blown away out of fear from my glare I gave her, she re asked the question..l now it made sense… she found the item in Xmas tree land and came to return it….why not say that right off the bat… I def changed some lives today…created some purple core memories.

1/12/22

If a crooked eyed lizard looking cow ever asks me if I work here again I-IIII WILL WORK SO HARD so it can kill me dead.

1/15/22

2/27/22

03/04/22

“If we ever get a dog in shipment…put it on hold for me” - Niara

3/4/2022

Batman in the Marvel section…Thinking about what could’ve been…

5/3/22

This exists ladies…. Let’s go….what’s stopping us…

5/3/22

Been a while Chronicles. It’s been beyond stressful here on the mainlands. We’re being watched, watched like hawks by these consumers. They’re waiting for us to act humanly, for even just a second, so they can report us to the feds. Also known as Medallia Isle. Can’t show them emotions or reactions or your done.

5/5/22

I have experienced a pinch of Human kindness today, and the only reason I did is because I was that pinch. Im like a mythical creature or something. Anywho This teen consumer came in, simply wanting to purchase a wallet, then asked me if it was a good idea to gift it to someone that has done her wrong, and when I gave her my honest respond the teen consumer had started to cry. I offered a hug, despite the fact I HATE body contact of any kind or any of these consumers. Since a large portion of them usually don’t care about our existence. But I did it this one time, and it helped them…. Anyways back to feeding these consumers with little that we got.

6/2/22

S O S, these squish consumers are next level. They are basically zombies… and were re-enacting the walking dead!!! Send help! One of them has gone rogue and been stalking not only us Mainlanders but the UPS landers as well…. All for one single pink ribbit ribbit. We can’t take it anymore, we feel their wrath, those claws and fangs… haunting. for something they could simply find online. Some of our people fear to stand behind the registers… knowing they will be front line squish menace food.

6/11/22

There’s only so many pieces of me and I’m running out.

12/17/22

As another cursed “holiday season” descends upon us I once again find my self sick not with plague but with the state of humanity. All that matters is that their thirst for consumerism is quenched.

For if little jimmy doesn’t get his legs set his entire world will fall apart.

Yesterday’s read that a 10 year old shot his mother because she didn’t buy him a PlayStation.

Oh Allfather save us from this, waking up in this world is excruciating. How can I continue to drag myself through the muck that is humanity. There has to be more than this I curse all these people may the Gods curse them. Rather than spending all day trying to buy your family’s love maybe just try and spend your days with them. This is all I could ever ask for there is no monetary compensation that could ever be worth being away from them. However my fate was decided long ago when rich men enslaved the rest of to a life long conscription in their cursed “system” shackles have been replaced by credit cards and health insurance. Work or die. Is this what you intended for me Allfather ? Or did the Monotheism of this modern world simply crush your memory into oblivion. I fear for my children. Valkyries come and take me, Take me to Valhalla we’re I may feast with the Aseir.

12/22/22

The mall is decked with tinsel and cheer But my heart is heavy, filled with fear

The crowds are thick,

the lines are long But I stand here, singing the same old song

I'm working in the mall during Christmas time But it's hard to feel festive when I'm working nine to nine

The holiday cheer is lost on me As I ring up gift sets endlessly

The jingle of the register is all I hear

As I long for the comforts of home,

oh dear

But I know I must stay and do my part Even though my heart is breaking, torn apart.

I try to smile and say "Merry Christmas" to all But my voice is heavy,

my spirit small

I miss my loved ones,

I miss the cheer

I'm just a mall worker, lost in the holiday “cheer”

But I'll keep on working,

through the night and day Hoping one day I'll be able to celebrate in a brighter way,

Until then,

I'll stand here,

tired and worn Working in the mall during Christmas,

my spirit forlorn.

1/3/23

Three days into the new year, consumers seemed in good spirits. People had high hopes for the new year to be different. Positive. But somehow today wasn’t so positive…it may have started that way…but it took a dark turn for some of our mainlanders. Tammy R. Tammy R. Walked in with her family and mother. She walked up to our cashwrap, letting us know she’s here to pick up an order. As we searched up her name to locate her order, it turned out the order wasn’t here yet, but had been shipped out few hours prior. As we shared that information with Tammy…she became furious…and ugly too. Her eyes started to bulge out of her head, the stress vain popped out from her temple, and her voice turned from moody grandma too aggressive old Hulk. She questioned why it wasn’t here yet, if she had just placed the order moments ago…. Why we aren’t like Amazon? ….we do not know, but we tried to give her options to not only calm her down but to have her be satisfied with our service. Nothing seemed to work. After she called us all low life idiots she had stepped out. We thought we had a moment to breath but No,…Tammy R. Had returned to make us feel her wrath. “If my order isn’t here then what’s this?” Pointing at a villains Ursula sweater. “It’s a sweater” I had responded to her…not realizing she doesn’t know what a sweater was. She claimed that’s what she had ordered and I gave her the option to repurchase it, pay what she paid at checkout for her order, and then cancel her order when it arrives. She had nothing to say. Which I read as a good sign. I was yet again…incorrect. She questioned why she would have to pay…she demanded to get it for free, since she has already paid. …or so she claims. As I denied her from receiving a free item, she became vocally abusive. Not only are we low life idiots but *$*#*@*#&$*#&*# words I can’t even type. She got loud and racist. As another customer overheard they proceeded to step in and defend us Mainlanders from this terrorist attack known as Tammy R. Our champion. Our hero. Started mocking Tammy, told her she can’t talk to us or treat us like trash. Tammy said she can do as she pleases, since she’s a cop, and cops get to do these things. It was Wild. The claws, the fangs. It was ugly. But our Champion won the battle. We survived the day. Happy new year Consumers…but there’s nothing new about it.

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