#it is doomed to failure. Just give up and have them be evil in a fun way 😘
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I was watching LOTR with friends the other day and someone pointed out that a major reason film!Elrond is upset about Arwen being in love with Aragorn is because of Elrond's own broken relationship with Isildur.
In the films Isildur and Elrond are kind of set up as....a broken failed parallel to Aragorn and Arwen?
Arwen reassures Aragorn that "he is Isildur's heir, not Isildur himself," and "is not bound to his fate"-- but Elrond disagrees, confident that Aragorn will be just like Isildur.
Film!Elrond is so certain that trusting in mankind is a mistake that will only lead Arwen to misery because he once trusted in mankind, and the man he trusted ended up failing him. His ally from the line of Elendil ended up falling to the power of the Ring and dying; he believes Aragorn may do the same thing. He doesn't just want to save Arwen's life and keep his daughter by his side; he wants to prevent Arwen from experiencing the same betrayal/heartbreak he experienced.
Film!Elrond is very stoic and unsentimental, but there are all these hints at Elrond and Isildur's past relationship throughout the series. Everyone likes to make the joke "why didn't Elrond just toss Isildur into the fire?" but to me the answer is, partially, because he cared about Isildur. They were allies who fought side-by-side. After describing what happened in Mount Doom all those years ago, Elrond tells Gandalf that "It should've ended that day, but evil was allowed to endure." And I think it's interesting that he goes into passive voice for a moment, instead of saying that Isildur specifically allowed to evil to endure--because he's also blaming himself for allowing evil to endure, blaming his own failure to be harsh with Isildur and take the Ring from him by force. He's regretting that he was merciful and didn't "just toss Isildur into the fire."
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His complicated emotions about Isildur also appear again in the Two Towers. After insisting that Arwen needs to give up Aragorn as a lost cause and travel into the West, Elrond has a conversation with Galadriel where she guilt-trips him for abandoning Middle Earth/mankind. When she asks him "do we let them stand alone?" Elrond walks into the study, and spends a long moment looking at his mural of Isildur.
He then, in the film's canon, agrees to send military support to one of Isildur's descendants."I don't care about Isildur anymore, men are weak," Elrond says, standing in front of his elaborate mural of Isildur and his shrine dedicated to Isildur's sword.
And yes this is all, again, a drastic departure from his characterization in the book-- most of the Aragorn-Arwen-Elrond stuff in the films is a drastic departure from the book. The films radically alter their dynamics, including eliminating stuff like Elrond being Aragorn's adopted father and all the "their bloodlines are related" stuff and etc etc etc etc etc.
But honestly, now that I see it, this interpretation makes the film!Elrond-Arwen dynamic engaging in a way I hadn't recognized before?
In some ways it puts Isildur into the role that Elrond's mortal brother Elros played for him in the books, because Elros is cut from the films entirely. Isildur is the reason film!Elrond knows what it's like to have some kind of close relationship with a mortal and then watch them die. When Elrond angrily speaks about the folly of trusting men, or insists to Arwen that Aragorn "is not coming back" so she should just get over him, he's speaking from experience--he's projecting his own weird failed broken betrayal-ridden Thing with Isildur onto Arwen and Aragorn.
And in this context, his hopeless monologue about how Arwen will regret staying by Aragorn's side also feels like it's partially from his own experience. "If Sauron is defeated, and Aragorn is made king, and all that you hope for comes true, you will still have to taste the bitterness of mortality." When he fought three thousand years ago Sauron was defeated, and Isildur did become King, and yet...
TL;DR : Film!Elrond had a nasty kind-of breakup with a mortal man 3000 years ago and instead of dealing with it he decided "Men Are trash Weak" and began projecting all of his drama onto Arwen
#overthinkinglotr#lotr#XD#I like book!Elrond better in theory#but to understand elrond better id have to reread the s*lmarillion#sorry#no#X#also Im so glad the films cut all stuff about Aragorn/Arwen/Elrond being related#and all the Elrond being Aragorn's foster father stuff#I don't like it#hot take unpopular opinoin#alskdjfsdf#there are some things i wish the films hadn't cut but those aren't them#Youtube
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I think the other HB Take I've grown to dislike the most is
'When Via realizes what her father sacrificed for her, she'll be so thankful / sorry for doubting him!!'
and like, no?? no she shouldn't be?
it was never her decision for her parents to stay together all that time, they made that choice themselves. The kid is not responsible for what the adults are doing. The show pulling a "Stolas got hurt for her sake so she needs to be grateful for that when Stolas is the one who made the choice to do it" is lousy logic, imo. It's blaming Via for being too young to know what was going on and expecting her to answer for her parents' choices & actions
not to mention It's made very clear that all the fighting after Stolas cheated is making her home life miserable. Anyone who's been between two warring parents will tell you how much it sucks
and also like - maybe the show wants to frame it that Stolas gave her a 'normal life' but the show is wrong about that, gonna be blunt
nothing about the Goetia's home life was ever 'normal'. Stella & Stolas never wanted to marry. they never wanted a child together. Everything about their life was artificial from the get-go and doomed to failure, especially since Stella presumably never even put in the effort to playact 'happy families' once Via was born
and like, the show has written Stella to be so comically evil that she threw Still Not Divorced parties in their house, where Via was living, that she advertised in the newspaper. Via would have to be pretty checked out to not notice that Stella and Stolas can't stand one another. Kids aren't dumb about that kind of thing, they will notice. And given Stella does nothing but screech/insult Stolas every time she's onscreen (and it's implied she's physically abused him before), if Stolas actually cared about Via's wellbeing he'd want her far away from Stella. This self-martyring routine of his makes no sense.
On some level a lot of people judge parents irl for staying with abusive partners if they're subjecting a child to that environment, too, and that's with the understanding the parent loved/still loves the abuser on some level. Stolas never loved Stella. Why is he subjecting Via to her, especially when he's the one who's a prince and could easily have her thrown out of the palace?
it makes the shows' determination to never show what the dynamic between Stella and Via is even more frustrating, because if they did get one it would at least lend some credence to Stolas' 'I thought there was some benefit to us staying together for Via's sake' routine. if she has a relationship with her mother then it makes some sense, even if that relationship is strained at times. but the writers are terrified of giving Stella any dimension at all so I'd bet good money we won't even see them exchange a single line of dialogue by the end of s2 (unless it's for Via to be manipulated by her, since she needs to be the world's biggest dummy so Stolas can cry some more)
(also like, sidenote that's just been annoying me personally - why would a Hell noble be so hung up on the notion of having a nuclear family? he's royalty. he can easily afford to raise Via alone. what are the normative values of Hell, exactly?? why would anyone care if Stolas gets a divorce? why can't the show clearly indicate what is and isn't expected of royalty in terms of upkeep of behavior and reputation?)
(also also, if Stolas was written to be deluding himself about what he did being good for Via then this could be interesting. but I doubt they're gonna go there with the creator's pet he's turned into in s2)
She probably will end up running back to Stolas, apologizing and expressing her gratitude for anything. Because that's the kind of show this is and that's the kind of writer Viv is.
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Top 5 Beloathed Tropes, in No Particular Order
Hi beloveds. Because of a recent certain episode of what had previously been a favorite drama, I feel compelled to share some hate. Hate for these godawful tropes!
Noble Idiocy - This is when one character sacrifices something dear to them (usually their relationship with another character) out of the mistaken idea that it's somehow better for everyone this way. LISTEN UP PEEPS! It's a lie. It's so disrespectful of others, especially if it's a breakup. It's assuming that you know what is best for them, that you know what they're thinking and feeling better than they do, that you know what they'll want. All without ASKING THEM or letting them make their own decisions. You know what this signals to me as a viewer? That your relationship is doomed to failure even if you eventually work through this stupidity. Why? Because if you're willing to do this once, what's to stop you from doing it again? Your worldview is inherently flawed in a deeply selfish way, particularly because you're passing off your selfishness as sacrificial "love" and "respect" when it is the opposite! I no longer trust you! In summary: don't sacrifice your relationship/work/happiness because of stupid reasons that you could easily work through with some decent communication!
Time skips for the ending. - Time skips can be a valuable narrative tool. They can give a character who just endured something dramatic or traumatic time to become stable again. They can provide a fluffy epilogue to a fluffy ending, demonstrating to the audience that a year later everyone is still happy. But time skips are evil if they come in the penultimate or final episode just to add drama, and they're particularly evil if they relegate character growth offscreen. THIS IS WEAK WRITING. This is wanting to correct a character flaw without doing the work to show me HOW it gets corrected. It's especially egregious if it's a character flaw called out by the narrative in prior episodes because then I have an emotional investment in seeing it resolved, and THE WRITERS JUST STOLE THAT FROM ME.
Intentional Miscommunication - Let's just call this what it is. Lying. It can be well done (and even humorous) if the main character is trapped in a lie by circumstances beyond their control and they must perpetuate that lie for Reasons. Think Unintentional Love Story and Business Proposal. These often begin as low-stakes lies of omission because a character doesn't know yet how involved they'll become in the other's life. But it gets dumb as fuck when it either drags on beyond a couple of episodes (think Twins) or involves an intentional outright lie (I'm looking at you, Last Twilight). Dear TV writers, as a good rule of thumb, please resolve all misunderstandings within the length of an episode. And if the entire plot happens to be built on a lie, at least make it accidental rather than intentional. Why? Because someone who intentionally lies to others, particularly someone they claim to love, is no longer trustworthy. If you throw this trope in at the end of the drama, I'm no longer going to believe these characters can have a Happily Ever After no matter how happy you show me they are on screen.
Mean/abusive tsunderes. - Everybody loves watching a cold or reserved or grumpy character come out of their shell and bloom. But stop making tsunderes who are downright mean or abusive! Particularly ones who miraculously fix fundamental character flaws as soon as they're loved by the right person. Do tsunderes right, please! They're supposed to begin the story coming off as harsh or severe, but it's supposed to be for a good reason that engenders sympathy once we (and the other main characters) understand them. They're not supposed to actually be abusers! And it's the worst kind of storytelling to show their abusive nature magically changing because they feel in love. All this tells me is that as soon as their fluffy in love feelings dissappear, their abusive nature will reappear. I actually fear for their romantic partner.
Amnesia. - I hate it when all the character growth gets undone by this magic trope. Not only is the amnesia portrayed on screen usually totally medically inaccurate, but it's just lazy and dumb to use this for drama instead of something more realistic or believable. I can only think of three stories that did this well -- Jack O'Frost, Naughty Babe, and Crazy Love. In those stories, the amnesia (if real) was momentary, but then they pretend it is still there for valid sympathetic Plot Reasons. I also don't mind if it's the literal setup of the plot, ie the whole story is about a character with some form of amnesia adapting to their new life (think: Momento, 50 First Dates, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). But please stop throwing it into the middle of stories just to be Dramatique™
@lurkingshan This is for you! Thanks for your Last Twilight rant spurring this on.
#kdrama#asian gay dramas#last twilight the series#minato's laundromat#thai bl#kdramas#jack o' frost#unintentional love story
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Mission Archnemesis (Was A Catastrophic Failure)
George Valley Centre for Sisyphean Supers, File M-BS-5
Superhero Alias: Bullet Storm
Archnemesis: Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity
Mission Report: It all started on a gloomy Monday morning. I was drinking my coffee, which to my dismay had gone cold during my intense session of preparing for my first fight with my sworn nemesis. The Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity. After several hours of searching restlessly for clues about the villain’s secret base, I found it. A warehouse in the shady depths of the city. It had been believed to be abandoned for years, but I knew better. With my magnificent powers granted to me by my mysterious magical amulet, I punched down the door with a single blow!
But alas, The Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity must have sensed my glorious presence, for he had already fled, leaving not a trace of his presence behind. Yet I did not give up. I relentlessly continued my search for the rest of the week, working day and night to scour every last inch of the city for clues to my archnemesis’ whereabouts. But alas, despite my valiant efforts, The Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity nimbly out of my clutches at every turn.
So I have returned, outwitted but not defeated, to gain my strength for the formidable battles ahead, no matter what form they may take. And I shall be prepared.
Signature: BS😎
Diary of Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity, Page 20
Dear Evil Diary,
Today marks the first day that I, the most evil villain in all the land, shall finally be greeted with someone claimed to be a worthy foe. MUAHAHAHAHAHA! I have an evil scheme planned that will surely show them that no hero could ever overthrow my mighty and tyrannical rule!
First, I shall send my most loyal sidekick, Mosquito, to muddle the path of their noble quest until they are completely lost! Then, should they somehow surpass this obstacle and find me, I will be draped seductively over my couch, holding a remote control in one hand and petting a cat with the other! And then the remote will activate my trap, The Horror of The Depths, Reaper of Pure Souls and Crusher of Dreams! MUAHAHAHAHAHA! It’s flawless I say, completely flawless!
The hero didn’t show up. Were my evil schemes not wicked enough for them to feel the heroic need to thwart me? Were my riddles not clever enough? Was my dark and secret villain basement too cliche? No. Of course not. I must have just been too bad for them, and they fled in fear of my power, only to return stronger after a mandatory training montage!
Who am I kidding? I CAN’T WAIT THAT LONG! Note to self: Get Mosquito to find me a new hero asap. The most pure-hearted in all of the land, the chosen one, the mighty saviour! Who needs a pathetic wimp like whatever loser couldn’t even bother to show up to my evil scheme? I will reign victorious! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Mosquito’s To-Do List
Wash the dishes ✔️
Male sure your Pong score is higher than Elgye’s. That’ll piss him off ✔️ (Go me!)
Do the laundry ✔️
Automate the system so that Boss can stop waiting a whole hour signing his stupidly long villian name on every single document! ✔️
Pay rent ✔️
Thwart the new archnemesis ✔️ (I didn’t even have to do anything! Free money, hell yeah!)
Cook dinner ✔️ (It’s always my turn. Ugh. Roommates.)
Evil cackle time with Boss ✔️ (He’s so dumb.)
George Valley Centre for Sisyphean Supers, File BS-6
Superhero Alias: Bullet Storm
Archnemesis: Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity
Mission Report: My tale begins on a foggy Saturday evening. I was on the way back to my secret base after another day relentlessly chasing after the Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity. Then, I saw him. A man obscured by shadows, trying to break into my secret base through the window! I checked the time, and much like I suspected, it was midnight. “Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity! I have caught you in the act!” I declared loudly, aiming a light in his direction.
Alas, he escaped back into the shadow before I could glimpse his face, nimble as the night itself! “Yes,” he growled, voice deep and muffled, “It is I. Find me on the Devil’s Lane next midnight, and we shall have our grand battle.” I refused, determined to catch him then and there! But like a demon returning to the pits of hell, he was gone. Nevertheless, I return victorious, with more information about the mysterious Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity than anyone has ever learnt before! And tomorrow, I will be victorious!
Signature: BS 😎
Diary of Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity, Page 23
Dear Evil Diary,
Today was a beautifully evil day! I, The Midnight Devil, Lord of All Darkness, Master of the Fifth Spiral of Doom and Bane of Humanity, have finally encountered my mortal enemy! I found him, walking through my very lair like he owned it, holding a folder full of my darkest secrets!
He stood as still as a statue, clearly terrified by my mighty and powerful presence. “Are you the one that they call Bullet Storm? The only being believed capable of ever matching my unfathomable strength?” He stared back in noble silence, and I saw it all. His proud jaw, his golden hair, the subtle curves of muscle on his bare arms. Yes, I thought to myself, This is him. This is the one.
“Come, Bullet Storm, let us begin our glorious battle!” I declared, my cape waving dramatically behind me. But alas, Bullet Storm fled, as nimble as his name suggested. Nevertheless, my encounter with my fabled nemesis has sent villainous passion running through my veins. I began constructing my newest trap, a grand machine of unfathomable intricacy and evil glory. I shall name it the Hellfire Pit, Extinguisher of Light, Forge of the Darkest Flames and Death Bringer! And with it, I shall end this battle for once and for all! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!
Audio File Recorded By Mosquito, Deleted Immediately After Creation
“I don’t usually do this, but god, this week has been a mess. I’ll delete this after I’m done. Yeah, that’s a good move. Hell, I just need to say this insanity out loud.”
“First, I get caught by my roommate while trying to sneak back into the apartment. And for some reason, the dumbass thought I was my boss? So I just went along with it and it worked! God, he’s so stupid.”
“Then, I was leaving work without my suit to try avoid it happening again and my boss didn’t recognise me! He just thought I was his archnemesis for some reason? What is with me always falling in love with idoits? And why do I always play along?!”
“So now I’m playing the goddamn middleman for two conclusion-jumping morons. Why is this my life? What did I do to deserve this? …Ok, maybe that was a bad question, but still!”
New Satrie City Herald, pg 1
Two Rival Supers Fight Same Imposter
A small street on the edge of the city suddenly became lively with action last week when a pair of “eternal rivals” confronted each other. Despite believing to have fought each other for two years, neither recognised the other. And their true nemesis had been hiding just beneath their noses the entire time. More on page 3.
George Valley Centre for Sisyphean Supers, File BS-642
Superhero Alias: Bullet Storm
ID Number: 7188
Reason For Leave (please tick all that apply):
☐ Medical emergency
☐ Identity leak
☐ Pregnancy
☐ Career advancement
☐ Work commitments
☑ Familial obligations
☐ Jury duty / Court hearing
☐ Personal Illness
☑ Unexpected circumstances
☐ Religious holiday
☐ Death in family
☐ Doctor’s appointment
☑ Other (please specify):
I’M GETTING DOUBLE MARRIED!!!
Signature: BS 😎
@black-rose-events hope I'm not late!!!
#villaintine's day#my writing#villains and heroes#satire#oblivious hero#oblivious villian#misunderstandings#polyamory#my first poly relationship hope I didn't mess up too bad#moronsexual sidekick#hero x villain#hero x villain sidekick#villian x villain sidekick
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Bell's Hells are so stupidly reckless and refuse to communicate even though they're breaking down from the stress and have all decided their lives aren't worth living so they'll fatally gamble for the cause. But also they love each other very much from the trauma bonding of the last 81 days and if any of them died the others worried destroy the world in their grief. They are walking disasters who should not be relied on to make cookies for a pot luck but have just been tasked with one of the riskiest and most critical scouting missions in history that could be the only thing that stops or mitigates a second Calamity. They might end up fighting each other to the death.
I love them so much. They are each my blorbos that I endlessly rotate around my brain. I'm having fun with seeing where this goes precisely because it feels unpredictable. Or like Uncut Gems where the whole appeal is that the main character is digging himself into a deeper and more dangerous hole with every decision and you're just curious how far he's going to get. And because it feels so real.
Love my representation for people that are mentally ill in very realistic ways where you really do just continually sabotage yourself and suffer through it but that always feels like what you deserve in the moment. The desperate need to prove your worth while feeling like you've lied to anyone who deems you worthy and they're going to figure it out any second now and everything's going to come crashing down. It NEEDS to come crashing down. But like, it doesn't and all that does is dump all your baggage all over the floor and some of it breaks and is sticky.
Exandria Unlimited: Calamity was fun because three explicit premise was the heroes were going to fail and the world would be destroyed because of it.
Campaign 3 is between Calamity and Vox Machina. Vox Machina were chaotic but it was a deeply heroic fantasy story where good is supposed to triumph over evil. There was always the risk they could fail, but that wasn't the favored option. Calamity they were doomed to failure and couldn't win.
But Bell's Hells feels like there is 50/50 odds on whether they win. It's far more challenging and urgent to stop Ludinus. And crucially the CHARACTERS are meant to be more challenging to have win. They are getting in their own way as real people do. They're all teetering on three edge of a corruption arc.
Corruption is what doomed The Ring of Brass. Covering up experiments. Trusting the wrong god because of incredible hubris. Manipulating the truth. Enabling others to do the same. They were so focused on their own ambition that they ignored or minimized the risks in their calculations.
Bell's Hells' greatest weakness is they're all self-sacrificing and willing to embrace dangerous powers to make themselves stronger at whatever cost to themselves or each other. They don't think they're good enough but they desperately need to be because there is no one else. Chetney voiced what they all believe: that their biggest asset right now is they're expendable.
And that's not really something you talk about with your friends because it sucks when you verbalize it like that. Your friends (of they are friends) are going to try to talk you out of that line of thinking even if they're deeply empathetic about why you're feeling that way. Just voicing their fears was a lot. Imogen feeling disappointed with Fearne because she didn't take the shard was really that Fearne was more afraid of sacrificing herself (and giving into corruption) than everyone else.
What if the heroes weren't heroic? What if they were in touch with their feelings on the surface but struggled to ever talk about it or change? (This is a theme in a lot of queer media.) What if they aren't good enough? What if they could be but there's no guarantee. Everyone agrees in advance that failure is just as interesting and pleasurable and fun here as succeeding. Just to watch the world change as a result of your actions. It's a very different tone.
Three Mighty Nein were nobodies who largely stayed nobodies even though they had a profound impact on the world. Bell's Hells are nobodies getting a crash course in becoming somebodies caught up in a nightmarish struggle, and they're crumbling under the weight of it. That's the story that rarely gets told even though it's far truer than heroism.
This is in line with the kinds of stories being told in Candela Obscura where mortality and heroism are more troubled in the face of unending nightmares. D&D's Epic fantasy is just a rarer setting to tell that story than horror. Personally I find that more mature and nuanced storytelling. Equally enjoyable but here there's more room to say something less often said and progressively more exploded than power fantasies.
This is like an evil campaign where every one of them is a mostly good person that has the capability to do great harm that others will curse their name for. They're desperately trying to pull out of that nose dive while the winds of change push down on them.
Tybee point isn't to make optimal decisions, it's to make interesting decisions. Press the big red button just to see what happens. Be brave enough to fail and see what happens when your character falls down. As Travis said her plays by following intrusive thoughts.
I'm having a lot of fun with this one because I get to follow why the characters made a decision and by what twisted logic that felt like a good idea even though it's very likely to blow up in their face. It's juicy. It's dramatic. It reflects a mindset I struggle with. It's different.
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Hell Bent Spoilers!! Very many of them
Okay, so the characters! I am a character driven reader and Miss Bardugo always delivers on character-driven plots. I was initially disappointed with Hell Bent because I felt that the breakneck pace wasn't allowing room for the deepening of characters that I was expecting (I had definitely formed some expectations based on the trajectory of SoC and CK and how CK comes with more backstory and development for almost everyone). But I think that we did get more insight into our main cast--it just happened as part of The Horrors that were plaguing them. Not-Hellie and Not-Blake and the others were really clever ways to maintain the action but add some emotional torment and give us some insight into these characters' worst thoughts about themselves.
I was absolutely broken by Not-Hellie's haunting of Alex and her flashback to Babbit Rabbit. Alex wants to be a protector of innocents. She might scoff at that if you said it to her outright, but she has the tendency. She carries a righteous anger against people who prey on the weak and the societally vulnerable. It is her self-identification with Tara and her anger at how easily she was disposed of that leads her to investigate Tara's murder. The same righteous anger shows up when she defeats Belbalm and extracts the souls of her victims. So to see her wracked with guilt about all the innocent people who have died "because of her" destroyed me. We see that there's a part of her that believes that she is just like Belbalm: selfish, willing to leave a trail of innocents in her wake to survive. We also have further variations on the theme of Alex Is Not A Good Person; when Mercy learns about Alex's murderous past and her lack of regret she does not offer absolution. Golgarot wants to take her soul in exchange for Darlington's because unlike Darlington, she belongs in hell. The first time I cried in Hell Bent was this sequence: the Babbit Rabbit flashback followed by what initially looks like Alex offering up her soul because she, too, believes that she deserves this. She deserves it not because of her five kills at Ground Zero, but because of the one that she didn't kill. Because of Babbit Rabbit, because of Hellie, because of Darlington. Because she fails to protect the innocents, and in the wake of her failure they are doomed. I let you die. To save myself, I let you die. That is the danger of keeping company with survivors.
But that isn't what happens. Alex is not offering up her soul and she never planned to. Because that's the other key to Alex's character: And wasn't that the worst of it? she did. She did want to live and always had . . . I want to survive this world that keeps trying to destroy me. Alex is desperate, Alex is stubborn, Alex has lived most of her life subject to the power of evil men who try to manipulate her understanding of herself and her place in the world (Len, Eitan, Sandow...). Her power is her rejection of those narratives and her stubborn, stubborn survival. Instead of giving in to the guilt of those that she could not save, instead of accepting her place in hell, she offers Eitan's soul. She saves herself and her friends. There's something so deeply meaningful to me about Alex's persistence. That's really all I have to say about it.
I also meant to write about Dawes and Turner and Tripp and Michelle and Darlington, but Alex stole the show as she always does for me. I will say that Alex and Darlington's new dynamic is fantastic. Leigh really wasn't joking when she said slow burn, huh? We'll just have to subsist on Alex calling Darlington her gentleman demon for the next few years. I would also like to note that as soon as Dawes said that to descend into hell they would need a soldier, scholar, priest and prince I knew that Alex would be the soldier and Dawes the scholar.
#my dearest darlingest fucked up murder woman#hell bent#hell bent spoilers#alex stern#darlington#leigh bardugo
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How to Maintain the Health of your Resurrected Dread Dragon God:
It is commonly believed that human sacrifice, a taboo subject given the value humans place on their lives, is enough to not only resurrect your evil god, but restore their power to its previously unfathomable state.
The reality is with a single, or even a handful, of human sacrifices (and this even includes humans who have demonstrated capacity for magic or power!) the evil god’s “unfathomable” power will be quite fathomable. And this means your evil dragon god will be very vulnerable to plucky adventurers! A few human sacrifices does not have the physical or magical caloric content to get a recently revived evil dragon God’s body into a state where they will not only stabilize to a normal state of fell power but return to being untouchable divine.
The quality of human sacrifice matters, of course, but for a being the size of a dragon god both physically and metaphysically, bringing big, protein-dense warrior-kings or fiber-rich wizard-sages in only a handful of numbers won’t cut it, and is wasteful of your resources. You most likely need some of these strong kings and mages to bolster against the cunning of plucky adventurers.
To truly help push your god back to their vile cosmic destiny, you need to sacrifice strategically. You can’t bring a calories in, calories out approach to feeding the bottomless belly of a fell dragon. If your sacrifices in does not exceed your divine maledictions out, you have doomed your machinations to failure.
Now that you understand these core basic ideas, let’s discuss timelines. It’s natural to want to rush your way to an apocalypse, but you’re continuing to not only put your evil benefactor at risk, but you make yourself an easy target for a quick emergency power-fat bomb when those plucky adventurers threaten the evil God’s hold on this plane.
By slowly but steadily supplying a healthy balance of livestock sacrifices (for the physical caloric health of the dragon body vessel) and a few strategic high-power humanoid sacrifices (the crushing morale damage to the nation of say, an elven queen devoured in her own castle, is more nutrient dense than just a handful of magically gifted people picked up from any old place) will see you sustainably achieve an apocalypse in a matter of years. Additionally, you give yourself time to grow more powerful and valuable, and develop a deeper and more wretched relationship to your evil dragon source of worship. By being reliable and useful, you put yourself at less risk of being cast aside the minute anything inconveniences you. Dragon gods may be fickle, but they will remember fondly someone who has fed them well.
#bringing back a really stupid thing I wrote#my writing#fantasy#villain self help writing#sorry tails if this looks cringe to the viewers
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As we all know, I am a bit of an obsessive nerd. Not quite Silmaril hunting levels of obsessive but getting there
Today I shall use this power to draw up a few fun parallels between the most famous love story in Arda and Beren and Luthien (lol, I couldn't stop myself).
This is not going to be in chronological order because the parallels of the two stories don't happen at the same points and it might be a bit jumbled because I'm wicked sick with covid so bear with me
Let's start with the setup for both.
Broken down to its essentials, Beren and Maedhros are sent to retrieve a/the Silmaril/s from Melkor by a great elven King who happens to hate one part of the pairing.
Feanor is no fan of Fingolfin's line in general, Fingon being his half-brother's heir would not have been the most beloved person to Feanor. Thingol is also not particularly fond of Beren.
The difference is that Thingol is giving Beren this task because he deems it impossible and hopes Beren will either give up or straight up die while Feanor's sons swear the Oath so they can't stop unless they die.
In any case, the setup is quite similar at its core.
Of course they do not set off alone. Maedhros is accompanied by his family and the host of Feanor, sharing the Oath with his brothers. Beren meanwhile cashes in on his own family's good relationship with Finrod Felagund (himself a relative of Maedhros and Fingon) and gets his own company for his quest. Now we have an Oath of some sort on both sides and Finrod to connect them further.
Next we have Luthien and Fingon, who out of devotion themselves set off on a journey to follow their partner. Now, I don't quite remember where this comes up but Fingon, if memory serves, goes for two reasons: 1, cuz he too wishes to build something new in Middle-earth, a call to adventure if you will, and 2, because Maedhros is going. Luthien follows Beren when she senses he is in danger, so like Fingon there's a deep bond there that motivates her.
Maedhros and Beren both end up captured by the enemy (Maedhros after losing a significant portion of his company and Beren loses them while captured) and against the better judgment of just about any sentient being Luthien and Fingon both make the solitary treck to some of the most dangerous places on the planet to save them. Thangorodrim are three mountains/volcanos atop Melkor's stronghold Angband, teeming with evil creatures and magic. Dol-in-Gaurhoth belongs to Sauron at this point, where his werewolves make their lair. Incidentally, Beren and Luthien also head for Angband later on.
At this point, Luthien does manage to save Beren from Dol-in-Gaurhoth with the help of non other than Huan, a hound of the Valar gifted to Maedhros' brother Celegorm, again drawing a connection between the two tales that is not quite a parallel but interesting. We won't get into the logistics of how Luthien and Huan came to be a team but like her, Fingon also receives the help of a beast close to a Valar - Thorondor, King of the Eagles
How does Thorondor know to help? Well, Fingon manages to track Maedhros down by doing what every elf does when they are distraught: he sings. And Maedhros, by a small miracle, hears his song and answers, the same way Luthien found Beren in Angband because when all else fails, sing. Well, he sings. Actually they both do, at different points.
Anyway, Maedhros is weakened and in agony, and begs Fingon to kill him. And Fingon, because he sees no other way, raises his bow and prays to Manwe that his arrow might fly swift and true. And Manwe, despite all the bad blood between him and especially the Feanorians, despite the Doom of Mandos promising that everything the Kinslayers do ends in failure, and despite everything that went down between the Noldor and the Valar...sends Thorondor instead. Thorondor, who also appears to help Luthien bring a dying Beren back to Doriath, much like he carries Fingon and Maedhros back to Lake Mithrim.
Beren is currently dying because Carcaroth bit off his hand and poisoned him that way. His right hand, to be precise. Maedhros is in horrific shape because he was tortured for decades and then had his hand cut off.
So if I had a nickle for every time Thorondor carried someone on the quest for some shiny stones back home after they lose their right hand, I'd have two nickles.
Luckily both Maedhros and Beren survive their ordeals...until they both die with a Silmaril in their hands later on. But that's neither here nor there.
Luthien, in her grief, sings her sorrow to Namo, who consults with Manwe on her behalf. And Manwe hears her plea and does what he can do help her, like he heard Fingon's plea and helped him.
So, to summarize, dudes taller than most of their families set off (together with their respective companies, which include Finrod at some point) to retrieve Feanor's shiny stones because an elven King said so and end up captured by the bad guys. Pretty dark haired people follow them, against all odds find them (one of them even twice) and beg the Valar for help, who answer in unexpected ways. Tall dudes lose their right hands, Thorondor is there to play Great Eagle Airlines. Someone is found through singing. Both Maedhros and Beren end up dying very soon after reclaiming one Silmaril.
I hope this is halfway coherent because again, covid. It's probably jumbled all to hell but I think I made my point
Thank you for coming to my tedtalk
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Jo'on Yorigami:
Bottom art by Rihito
The Yorigami Sisters are some of the worst, most hated people in Gensokyo, and for good reason. They bring nothing but failure and misery to people, including themselves.
Jo'on (pronounced John) is a god of pestilence. Touhou 15.5 and 17.5 are the only two Touhou games to have official English translations, and in those her name is spelled "Jyoon", but I'm going with the fan spelling because it's closer to her name's pronunciation. Jo'on is named after the Daisy fleabane (himejon).
Jo'on influences people to waste their money on frivolous things, thinking that they're doing it of their own free will. As they waste their money, she gains it, until they're left destitute. That said, she isn't really rich. She herself wastes her money on frivolous things and almost never saves anything from her heists.
Her older sister, Shion Yorigami, is a god of poverty and misfortune. But she'll be discussed later.
They are both the main villains and final boss of Touhou 15.5: Antinomy of Common Flowers. Jo'on Yorigami hatched a scheme to gain lots of money by robbing a concert. She took advantage of the urban legend incident by creating Perfect Possession just by spreading rumors that it was possible. Then, when the audience was in a distracted, dream-like state, she and Shion would possess each and every person and take all their money.
After the Yorigami Sisters are defeated, Jo'on is forced to go to the Myouren Temple, as Byakuren believes she can be rehabilitated. Additionally, her and Shion are to defeat and round up all the berserk Dream World counterparts unleashed by their incident. While Jo'on hated it at first, seeing Dream World Byakuren show off her hidden lazy, controlling side made her wonder if there was hope for her yet.
...Unfortunately, Jo'on quickly became bored and left. However, she may have learned a little compassion from it. Now she usually only targets those who actually have money to waste.
In Curiosities of Lotus Asia, it's revealed that before the Perfect Possession incident, Jo'on used her abilities to mind control Sumireko into bringing a ton of expensive meats and alcohol from the outside world, only to possess Sumireko and party. Ironically, shortly beforehand, Sumireko was bragging about how she had "true freedom" by being countercultural while her peers were slaves to mass media. Only for her to be mind controlled and truly LOSE her freedom.
In Touhou 17.5: Sunken Fossil World, Gensokyo suffers a massive oil spill. The Yorigami Sisters try to profit off of the oil... except they have no idea why oil is actually valuable. They go around basically splashing oil at people thinking it will allow them to buy things. This is in the greater goal of becoming rich enough to change their beings into gods of wealth rather than of poverty. Kanako even mocks them as the most pathetic excuses for gods in all of Gensokyo.
They seemingly have the last laugh, however, as they manage to become suprisingly successful tour guides of the oil fields. Of course, they then abandon the tourist to their doom after having them sign a clause absolving the Sisters of any responsibility for what happens down there. The narrator does say that this will likely end in failure, though, as nothing good will ever come of the Yorigami Sisters, even to themselves. Most likely Reimu will kick their butts again.
Jo'on is loud, crass, and obnoxious. She's incredibly arrogant, being willing to talk down to people far stronger than she is.
Still, deep down there is a shred of goodness to her, a willingness to change and become a better person. She just ignores it because being a good person is boring. Being evil and selfish is more fun. She can make some good plans, but they’re all very short-term and don't usually give lasting results.
Jo'on primarily attacks with the golden flames around her. She often embues them into her punches. As for ranged attacks, she shoots words at you! Golden characters for terms like "Gold", "Wealth", and "Treasure". She also attacks by throwing gold and jewels around. She even has an attack where she empties a whole suitcase of money and then burns it all! In general all her attacks are flashy and extravagant. In Sunken Fossil World, she attacks by splashing oil around.
Oh, and sometimes she pulls a limousine out of nowhere and runs her sister over with it. Dunno how she got ANY kind of automobile into Gensokyo.
While I don't know for certain, I've heard Jo'on and Shion are based on the Post-War Economic Miracle and Lost Decade periods of Japan, which correspond to the 60s-80s and the 90s, respectively. Jo'on's spellcards "Queen of Financial Bubbles" and "Extortionist of the 80s" seem to suggest this.
Oh, and all her clothes are knockoff brands. Apparently Sumireko knows this.
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It's really too bad that Anthony didn't consider choosing a lady that was older than his sisters since she would be in charge of them and managing the household.
Because there was nothing wrong with the debutants from the first episode montage. They were just young.
I want to say that this is a product of the era where men were supposed to marry when they got older because by the time they reached their thirties they were usually in a financial position that was good enough to support a big family and traditionally younger women were more desirable because they were more fertile and the more capable of giving them a bigger amount of children in the years they had left before menopause.
But in the context of Bridgerton, Anthony intentionally did not go for a older young lady because he had this plan that he wasn't supposed to fall in love with his wife so he intentionally went after someone who was socially acceptable and didn't have the qualities he was likely to fall in love with. Aka the girls debuting that year.
I've said there's a lot of times Anthony is an idiot but in his quest to find the future Viscountess he is self aware.
So he tailored his search with the assumption that his mother will teach his wife the duties of the Viscountess and would be able to lead the household successfully if she didn't know how but considering that all girls being presented in front of the queen were expected to know how to manage a small household that wouldn't have been a problem.
The thing that's annoying about Anthony though is that he fully expected to have a mistress after marriage so he wasn't conducting the search for his future wife with any care for the lady's feelings. And was treating these girls as mere checkmarks on his Todo list until Kate show up and put him in his place
Anthony did not want to fall in love, he did not expect to fall in love , so thinking that he was being a smart cookie Anthony intentionally looked for a wife he was unlikely to fall in love with.
aaaaand then he met Kate. Don't you just love this delicious irony of Life my dear reader? The wonderful self-fulfilling prophecy that is Anthony looking for a wife he was not likely to fall in love with and finding a woman he absolutely could not shake off his mind in that same search that was doomed to failure from the beginning.
Please insert evil laughter from Lady Whistledown
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Final ‘Stranger Things’ Binge Watch Post - Season Four Done
What was the best part of season four of Stranger Things ?
Siouxsie and the Banshees’ ‘Spellbound’ at the end credits.
And if you ever wanted a metaphor of what an unwieldy over the top mess this last season was for the show, this was it ... 1986, the year Siouxsie and the Banshees’ ‘’Cities In Dust’ became their first significant US chart success ... and they didn’t even think of playing that instead as the cast watched the smouldering ruins of their home town belch plumes of volcanicesque smoke into the sky.
The 1986 spring break from hell season of Stranger Things not merely recycled the same old villains but the same plots.
With Will Byers trying to look so much like Daniel Radcliffe in the final Harry Potter movies so much it hurt, how ironically apt that in true Harry Potter fashion where everything is ultimately Voldemort, everything in Stranger Things is ultimately Big Vulva Into Evil Spooky World Of Bad Stuff opened by Evil Scientists in Government Conspiracy. Again.
Eleven - never the sharpest blade in the box, goes back to the Evil Scientists to regain her powers to beat The Big Bad. Big surprise, they double cross her and try to make her their forever lab rat again. Fancy that. Guys with no qualms about experiments on kids that put them into cardiacarrest, electrocuting them if they don’t behave, etc. can’t be trusted to keep their word. Whodathunkedit?
Meanwhile the Meddling Kids play the March On The Black Gates Of Mordor Diversion Gambit. Second Captain Obvious Plot Twist, the Big Bad’s knows what they’re up to and outflanks them. Duh duh duuuuh.
One mind numbingly elongated Perils Of Penelope Pitstop scene masquerading as complex villainous motivation explanation later, and the entire cast has died of old age waiting for their Impending Doom.
Well they should have.
Instead they kick his ass. Again. Huzzah - tea and muffins all round, chaps!
Inbetweem, there’s a bounty of ‘and let’s see who the fake phantom behind the mask really is, Scooby.’ moments interspaced with a thin veneer of the culture war against Dungeons & Dragons (largely the result of D&D creator’s Gary Gygax law court feud with Christian conspiracy theorists - Gygax’s viral attack against “those people who are looking desperately for any other cause than their own failures as a parent.” remains frightfully relevant ...).
An entertaining enough romp for the easily pleased or those who’d just like to f**k particular cast members, tortuous plot hole ridden drivel to the rest of us
... evil Dr Brenner returning inexplicably from the dead yet again
...Hooper breaking his own ankle to slip off his chains, then it miraculously reheals the next episode
... Max, Steve, Robin, Nancy and Eleven all manage to survive being choked for ten solid minutes without getting so much as purple faces, which means either they’re the toughest breathplay pervs on the planet ...
... or Stranger Things cares only for dramatic moment after dramatic moment for their own sake, and couldn’t give a toss about stretching credulity past multiple breaking points.
Which may explain why they stretch matters throughout the series out to quite ludicrous lengths. The Hooded Claw was quicker in his attempts to displace Penelope Pitstop than The Master from Buffy The Vampire Slayer clone Vecna was with Max in the big finale - a mere near two and a half hours of three quarters of a hour’s worth of actual story.
Thereby lies the irony - Stranger Things copies all the tired villain tropes that Buffy mercilessly lampooned and trashed with iconoclaustic glee (at least in the first three series, until it also took itself too seriously), and not merely doubles down on them, but gives you the 12 inch remix, club mix, dub mix, etc.
And ceaseless plugging of that Kate Bush song ... the most inappropriately placed apocalyptic finale battle song ever. They may as well have had ‘Nellie The Elephant’ by the Toy Dolls or something by Barnie The Big Purple Walking Abortion.
Let’s not even start on the whole too silly even for Twin Peaks and Once Upon A Time ‘rescuing Jim from a Soviet evil science lab’ sideplot.
Oh, alright then,***Sigh! ***
Eleven’s fat stepdad is now thin on account of several months in a Gulag Health Resort, having somehow survived the explosion at the end of the last series which atomised everything else in sight, only to be captured by inconveniently instantly appearing Commie bastards, who all somehow manage to get away from the bombcrater where once a mall stood 20 feet above them, without the masses of American emergency services, rubberneckers or media noticing, and return safely to Glorious Soviet Union. At the height of the Cold War. Yes, really.
At this point, the entirity of the Upside Down World - lovingly stolen from Skyrim’s Apocrypha and repainted scary crimson - has become the most realistic part of the show. In some ways, that Kate Bush song was apt - like Kate Bush, Stranger Things’ writers have disappeared up their own arses.
This isn’t up there with Game Of Thrones or any of the other ‘epic TV’ shows it has pretensions towards. It’s not a matter of even having lost its way big time up the maw of its own over-complexities. It’s about being plain old common or garden daft and expectlng the audience to swallow it ‘just because’.
As for the cast, Robin undergoes a ludicrous character change and abruptly turns into an annoy yappy dog with the IQ of suet, any reason for Finn Wolfhard has now entirely disappeared (he still can’t act and puberty’s saw him fall from the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down), and Lucas’ little sister - the Scrappy Doo of the show - still continues to live. Oh, and there’s the token W.A.S.P. bitch, the token crazy Ruskie, and the token latino stoner to piss you off. Eddie the Heavy Metal stereotype gets pass marks.
Will and Mike’s characters have become the leadless pencils of the show - utterly pointless and no conceivable means of sharpening them, whom the writers ought to have had the decency to kill off. Their underdeveloped characters are long passed the point they’ve any road left to run when even Lucas’ little sister now has more flesh to hers.
Thank plumbob for good old Dustin, Eleven, Tungsten Jaw Nancy and Mullet Steve - and a surprisingly strong (and critically underrated) series for Lucas, who doesn’t become the predicable Born Again Jock selling out his ‘uncool’ friends but sees right though his new buds almost from the start and Does The Right Thing to steer them away from the Meddling Kids at almost the cost of his life.
The only other real change between series is the overemphasis on Max - and it’s woefully obvious to see why.
Sadie Sink rolled a good D20 in her Puberty casting after all, and in the three years between seasons 3 and 4 came out hot just as the show’s originally ‘aesthetically pleasing’ draws of Noah Schnapp and Finn Wolfhard came out not. Which is the problem with any show with teens, never knowing which of the little buggers is gonna Matthew ‘Neville Longbottom’ Lewis on you without warning and turn into a Studmuffin.
Having lost their appeal to that target audience, the producers are changing tack and thus emphasis for some more conventional Tinseltown objectification. Remember folks, that spin off merchandise won’t sell itself, you know.
Having finished binge watching Stranger Things in its entirety these last few weeks, have to say it’s less a case of living up to its hype as believing its own hype. While the first two series were good, the last two are a real slog - and the fourth downright ridiculous at times. Can’t honestly say the prospect of that fifth, final series remotely enthralls.
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so since omega brought it up I've been thinking of the morality of venat, emet selch, and hermes' actions, and these are some of my (tentative) conclusions:
Venat: did nothing wrong. Sacrificing the lives of children to bring back the dead is fucked up and wrong and she was right to stop it. Furthermore, by sundering the world she gave mankind the only means possible to withstand meteion's attacks-- it would've been Game Over if thancred hadn't been able to use dynamis to keep us alive, after all
Emet-Selch: did everything wrong, but I can sympathize with his motivations for doing so. it's pretty clear even he knew he shouldn't have been doing what he was doing, but desperation drives people to all sorts of extremes. 'cool motive; still murder' taken to its most extreme degree
Hermes: did everything wrong, full stop. yeah, he was depressed and shit but so are lots of people-- fuck, so are you according to the dark knight quests (which were written by the same person as endwalker), and you would never doom countless sentient creatures to die for the sake of "testing" them. furthermore, what gives him the right to "test mankind" anyway? and further furthermore none of it would've happened if he had just properly socialized his unfathomably powerful empath daughter in the first place, which even he acknowledged was a failing on his part before things went to shit. as a bonus, he also did everything wrong as both amon and fandaniel, so he was just kind of an overall shithead (that being said, I still like him as a character; I just don't agree with the vast majority of his actions)
I think it's worth mentioning (bc if I don't someone else will), that a lot of his issues stemmed from him also having an excess of empathy. Putting his heart and soul into designing creatures he loved completely, only to have them be deemed failures and get put down wore on his soul and directly led to his actions. He believed all living things had a right to live and strive to the best of their ability and was unable to see putting those down that couldn't or proved a greater risk to themselves or their environment as an act of kindness and/or necessary evil, but like. Maybe just take a mental health break, dude. You need one
Hythlodaeus (wasnt mentioned by omega but still): did nothing wrong, ever, in his life. you know this, and you love him
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10/52 You won't believe this one neat trick!
Or: a peek into my brain as of this writing
So I’m taking a break from my unofficial reviewing of books to document influences on my worldview and personal philosophy.
(I still find it surprising that I ended up with so many blog posts being book reviews. Shows how important reading is to me, I guess)
(Also yay, me using my blog as an actual diary thing 😂)
(I should also make a blog post about me using emojis so much)
The common thread in the concepts I’ll outline is that they’re like pointing out an optical illusion - once you see them, your view on society reorganizes itself because it makes so much damn sense - and you start seeing it everywhere.
A part of me is concerned about this - because searching for A SINGLE UBER TRUTH THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING is a base human failing; it’s why conspiracy theories exists, because it’s comforting to the human mind to imagine a wrong, single and simple reason for how things are the way they are instead of facing the fact that the world is actually complicated.
Still, these ideas seem to serve me well.
First concept chronologically:
The housing market isn’t being taxed enough. Not enough houses are being built. Rents should not be profitable.
To use a quote from the links provided (that also have other links in them to explore in depth):
Georgism is a school of political economy that is really upset about, among other things, the Rent Being Too Damn High. It seeks to liberate labor and capital alike from those who gatekeep access to scarce "non-produced assets," such as land and natural resources, while still affirming the virtues of hard work and free enterprise.
The central idea is that rents - money that is being paid to a private person not for buying a product or service, but just to generally exist - are the root of all evil.
And that rents manifest in the real world as, well, rent coming from owning land or houses the landlord minimally maintains.
Landlords don’t add value to society, but siphon it from the middle and working class to hoard it for themselves - gradually impoverishing everyone while perversely becoming more and more powerful as a result.
To get an idea of what I mean, please realize that a king is the ultimate landowner - with scores of serfs under his unelected control who have to give all the fruits of their labor simply to exist.
And once this was pointed out to me…I kept seeing it everywhere.
See how the housing market works; you either rent, or to buy you get a mortgage which is effectively a rent paid to the bank.
Buying a house if you already own a house is relatively easy, but buying one if you’re poor or middle class is an ordeal.
And this is tied to how stupidly difficult building new houses has been getting for the past fifty years; supply is constrained and prices perpetually go up.
Housing, shelter, is a basic need for everyone.
But government provided housing feels like it’s been going the way of the dodo.
Every country I know of is struggling with houses being more and more unaffordable for its population - and there’s little sign of the situation improving.
The way I know of fighting this is to make taxes on land and improve the housing supply.
Second concept:
We’re not having enough children.
This is a bit depressing.
Having children is a huge cost to the people who have them.
It’s tiring, difficult, sometimes dangerous work that isn’t rewarded by society.
(absence of parenthood is sometimes punished - but it’s not by punishment alone you get people to do things)
It’s a rational decision to not have them.
This sets up societies for horrible doom and failure for the future.
Coupled with the fact most societies (Italy especially) are xenophobic and don’t let in enough immigrants….this is a recipe for failure.
I’ll leave this with a simple population pyramid graph:
Solution: pro-natalist policies with actual teeth. Taxing companies whose employees have fewer children than the national average. Equal parenthood paid time off for men and women.
(As an aside, I don’t understand why taxing things that hurt the collective is so frowned upon in politics. It should be a win-win, letting state coffers be replenished while helping society)
Third concept:
Monopoly power is a root of all evil
This comes from Cory Doctorow’s seminal essays on (sigh) enshittification.
Relevant quote:
This is enshittification: surpluses are first directed to users; then, once they're locked in, surpluses go to suppliers; then once they're locked in, the surplus is handed to shareholders and the platform becomes a useless pile of shit.
The idea is that monopoly power is - well - power. And power corrupts.
And that’s how you get HP printers that cost a subscription to operate and spy on you.
(I’m ashamed at having bought one of those awful things a while ago. In my defense, I needed a printer STAT and this was the cheapest, cheapest option)
The solution to this is actually enforcing anti-monopoly laws.
—
I don’t believe in despair.
Despair is not useful. It doesn’t inform what you should do, it leaves you standing there and is honestly actually self-indulgent at times.
This is why when outlining these concepts I’ve always added a line to possible solutions.
It’s my own “and so what? And then?”
Doesn’t mean it isn’t hard of course.
But I find it much more satisfying to live my life with grim optimism.
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When I was making 8 k a month I was DROWNING because it was nothing compared to my bills
Like I need a lot to actually make a difference
If I only get a little and not as much as I fucking demand and need, then it might only be just enough to afford a way to end my life painlessly
Since I keep saying I can’t afford to live, if I can’t get justice and a family then I’ll just make sure I take care of my cats before I leave for good. I just wish kels and Anthony P and Joe S and Morgan from tht would kill themselves, that would be real karma or justice. They need to be punished at minimum 2 years and experience everything I went through the past few years .
I understand with things like this you have to be okay with it not going your preferred way and I’ve been wanting to die for over 20 years
And earlier my mom swerved the car hard and my cats crate flipped so I said omg are you trying to hurt my cat?! And she yelled yes!!!
So it’s the second time she’s threatened to hurt my cats …. She said she’d care for them if I died but I don’t think that’s a good idea anymore
I mean she’s been giving me bruises since I was a little kid so what can I expect, and from a nurse 🙄 dumb cunt tried to say that to me since I’m a nurse too like I really fucking wish it was her or dad that died instead of my sister or aunt.
Hell I could get money out of that like life insurance or they might have something saved but won’t tell me…right ??? Idk it would almost be like a reward lol and I could get their home maybe since I don’t have one
I just want to feel safe and that’s a fucking luxury
If I had a loving and supportive family I don’t think being poor would bother me too much
If I had a lot of money I don’t think having no family/an abusive one would bother me too much
In both situations there’s something to fall back on
I have neither. I never had a chance. I was always doomed from the start. I still tried to get both and that brings me some peace
I would hate to think…what would happen if I tried harder? I had to try to know if I could escape on my own and I found out I couldn’t. I’m not surprised I couldn’t do it. But I still tried my fucking hardest to survive. that’s why I assume everyone is lying to me anyways, don’t want to get my hopes up. Easier to assume failure
Noel I hope you and your cunt squidward kill yourselves. I just wanted to be your friend and you hurt me. Evil
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//King Deshret's bio/verses/what not:
Biography:
According to the legends of desert fairing people he was son of the sky, though in life he never really confirmed or denied such a claim.
His life (if there was even one) before godhood is deeply shrouded in mystery and while his loyalties were abundantly clear much of his goals, desires and ambitions were a tightly guarded secret he only told to one person, one of his dearest friends and his one of fellow ruling gods of Sumeru, Nabu Malikata (the goddess of flowers).
What is known is that in his pursuits he managed to convince her to follow with his seemingly impossible and grand ambitions only for it to seemingly be for naught as he ended up walking away a failure and lost the Goddess of Flowers as a result.
His sanity deteriorated after that, his pursuits not diminished but instead becoming more ambitious. So lost in his pursuits he led his people to casting aside outsiders, in an attempt to create a city free of the vices and evils of the outside world.
Eventually he would push away his other old friend, Greater Lord Rukkhadevata and with no one of equally standing to try to quell his ambitions he lost himself in paranoia and his ever burning desires.
This came to a disastrous end upon releasing forbidden knowledge upon the world, nearly dooming his people, stripping the land by the withering and killing his people through Eleazar.
Rukkhadevata would return from the forest she had created and had his priests to create temples to mitigate the damage, it was hardly a permanent fix so in hopes of giving his people and the world more time he sacrificed himself in hopes to ending the threat of the Forbidden Knowledge.
Unfortunately it was only a temporary fix and his once great civilization was mostly kept contained to Aaru Village.
Character Notes:
➢ NOTE TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN INTERACTING WITH HIM: I will not do any replies or starters with him if I have not spoken to the mun about plotting something out at least once. He has/will likely have multiple verses and since he is canonically dead in the main story line it just makes more sense to plot it out first. It doesn't necessarily need to be extensive I just want to know a verse and the bare minimum to work with. If I do get sent asks for him I will IM the mun first to get a general idea.
➢ Inspiration for his characterization is loosely based around Osiris and heavy based around Set/Seth, both from Egyptian mythos. If you want an explanation how expect a long disjointed rambling essay that probably will sound like a crazy conspiracy theory.
➢ Fair warning expect trepidation and/or distrust of non-desert dwelling muses depending on the verse.
➢ In all verses he has a Dendro vision.
Main Verse. v; was he a god among kings or a fool among gods? (main verse)
This verse is explicitly based around canonical information and is set BEFORE his canonical death. Sanity and openness to foreigners may vary. Any interactions in the main canon timeline following this plot line will be through Alhaitham.
Canon Divergent Verse. v; a gnosis in place of a crown (Canon Div. Verse)
Instead of denying the gnosis he became the Dendro Archon, because despite his complete lack of desire for it the gnosis was forced upon him and with little way of riding himself of it he still continued to rule Sumeru with his dear friends and fellow gods. Leading Sumeru with them well into the modern verse.
Much of Sumeru still a desert with various oasis' and forest still present but no where near as massive as it is in the canonical verse.
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i hate to say this but. when you try to make a villain that's irredeemable. like so super bad. that it's impossible that they could ever grow or heal or become a good person. so evil that the fangirls could never stan them. just not possible for em to be redeemed. im so sorry to tell you this. but because they're a fictional character that does not exist in real life. and like also because there's no person who has ever existed on earth who was truly and completely without hope of change. because redemption and change and growth and healing are by definition for everyone and accessible to everyone. and like thats the whole point. im so sorry but ur super scary evil villain is gonna end up getting fuckin redeemed 😔
#GBXNCNCJFJF IMAGINE STILL THINKING ITS POSSIBLE TO MAKE AN 'IRREDEEMABLE' VILLAIN IN 2K21... COULDN'T BE ME#this is a combination kai parker and draco malfoy post btw..#ik jkr never said draco was irredeemable (& to my mind he didn't rly need it anyway) but the sentiment toward fans is basically the same. so#I am NOT a draco stan but i WILL stand up for the right of his stans to do whatever they want w his character!!!!!!!!!#also. as a tom stan. it matters to me too lmaooo when will jerf kerf terf stop trying to create the 'perfect' totally evil villain.....#like How Is She Tho... i see you with your transphobic stereotype sociopath ma'am seems like you thought a few too many ppl felt bad for tom#But for real. All that aside. Stop trying to do a 'pure evil villain without a backstory' bc im sorry but ppl will find a way to sympathize#it is doomed to failure. Just give up and have them be evil in a fun way 😘#anyway julie plague is a clown final answer
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