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cavernfullofexistentialdread · 23 days

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My thoughts on FIVE

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LONG POST AHEAD

I found it promising, I’ll tell you that much. I do have to acknowledge my bias towards to this piece of art. It’s WONDERFUL that a musical like SIX has sparked so much creativity and is even getting a parody!! WE’VE MADE IT INTO THE HALL OF FAME QUEENDOM!!

ALSO FUCKING JAIME??? STARKID FANS RISE UP!!

I’m was giving this thing the benefit of the doubt. I was sort of confused when I first learned about it, and I had this gut feeling that I’d hate it. I honestly thought it was kind of weird that we’re using this to make a parody of… TRUMP of all people??? Like these women are still ALIVE to my knowledge.

My only wish is that they acknowledge and give their opinion on this musical in some way because say it with me now; THEIR STILL ALIVE AND HAVE THE RIGHT TO AN OPINION ON HOW THEIR VIEWED!

However I have not seen it yet and I am excited to see what my favorite musical has inspired! …Is what I’d be saying if I hadn’t read some reviews. It seems the general consensus is that while it is funny it’s not as innovative in its humor as it could be. And it may not have done what it wanted

As this TheaterMania review states

“A musical send-up of the women in Trump’s orbit, Five: The Parody Musical, would seem to be just what the doctor ordered as we face the prospect of yet another Trump administration. So why wasn’t I laughing?“

I thought this article was being a little harsh on this musical, until I read THIS.

“The few genuinely funny moments in Five spring entirely from Jen Wineman’s adequate production — her choreography is both simplistic and sloppily executed, which is funny in its own way — and the ingenuity of the actors.”

I was surprised by this, the advertising leaned heavily into the humor of it all. The fact that it was a parody—“LOOK OUT SIX!” And “MAKE AMERICA LAUGH AGAIN!” made me excited to see how they’d creatively dunk on Trump. Like how SIX had done with Henry VIII

Then I remembered what else this article had said in regards to the humor

“The jokes generally hit three points: Donald Trump is orange, he has a small penis, and he likes getting peed on. This is territory that our overpopulated heard of late-night hosts have already stomped to death — without asking audiences to fork over the price of an off-Broadway ticket.””

And I was getting suspicious, so I looked at some more reviews. This article spends a lot of time dogging on FIVE and I was still trying to hold out hope.

This review from StageandCinema is a lot more kind! I was excited to find out what went RIGHT! About this musical!

“Five is much more sexual and crude in its descriptions of being fucked by Donald Trump. Hearing about his small prick and his sexual escapades (especially from pornstar Stormy), I struggled to immediately delete such images from my mind’s eye. The thought of Donald in any sexual act turned my stomach, which may have kept me from laughing. Perhaps nausea and comedy cancel each other out?”

OH… UHM…

Of course in the end they do have the same acknowledgment at the end of SIX, “Just because we were fucked by Donald Trump doesn’t mean we need to fuck each other over.” (A direct quote from the end of the paragraph containing the previous quote)

Through this article I also found out that this is actually a jukebox parody! (Which is when you parody existing songs in order to use it in the plot of a musical story telling medium). Which honestly was a welcome surprise. They’re not ashamed that is a BLATANT parody.

Okay! Let’s see what else we can find!

“It did seem like a clever idea, for at least five seconds”

WOW okay…

This article then goes on to discuss some political and legal matters that has come up surrounding the Sex worker that Trump is going against in court. He IS the first president with a criminal record (he went to court for sexual abuse, and also was impeached)

The article puts it perfectly

“Given such news of late, it’s increasingly difficult for me to appreciate, or even tolerate, a trivial show like “Five.” The creative team hasn’t read the room.”

This isn’t a fuck you to Trump supporters, this isn’t seriously discussing Trump’s effect on these women in ANY sort of fashion, this isn’t even ABOUT discussing Trump’s political status. It’s about parodying SIX and making fun of these women. The main selling point is “WHAT IF SIX BUT TRUMP!?”

“But even those who still view political humor as political armor will be disappointed, because “Five” seems little interested in Trump’s treatment of women, much less his threat to American democracy; instead, its main target is “Six.” As political commentary, “Five” is near witless, tasteless, and toothless. But even just as a parody of “Six,” it’s too on the nose. If some theatergoers will find “Five” entertaining, I suspect it’ll largely be because its talented six-member cast makes the most of the moments in the show that add up to a stealth, second-rate “Forbidden Broadway.”

This review is BRUTAL it points out the flaws it see’s in FIVE with wit full words. This article was my turning point. It made me genuinely start to be dissatisfied with a show I HAVEN’T EVEN SEEN YET.

““Five” is not an exercise in female empowerment; the women in Trump’s lives are most often mocked. Nor is it a takedown of a would-be tyrant; zingers against Trump rarely get more sophisticated than commenting on the size of his penis or calling him the orange bitch or orange troll.”

This is an insult to the very FABRIC of my opinions. THIS WAS A PARODY OF SIX. OF SIX. INCLUDE STUFF FROM SIX. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE MORAL DOES NOT MEAN YOU TAUGHT IT. TRUMP IS NOT A GOOD PERSON.

THIS IS A PARODY OF SIX. BE CREATIVE WITH YOUR INSULTS! IF YOU’RE MAKING A PARODY ABOUT TRUMP THAT HAS TO DO WITH THE SUFFARAGE OF WOMEN AND WHAT WE DO WITH TRAGEDY; FUCKING SHOW IT!

This is so obviously anti-Trump. But it does’t FEEL that way. It feels against these women as well. Which is strange, considering it’s supposed to be like SIX.

Don’t get me wrong I fucking HATE TRUMP CAN’T WAIT FOR HIS ACTIONS TO CATCH UP TO HIM. But HOLY SHIT this is NOT where I thought this musical was going!

I plan on looking more into this musical, but these are my thoughts for now. I was initially a hater, turned skeptic, turned confused and insulted.

Look—I don’t WANT to be so hateful about something I haven’t seen. But if THIS is what reviews are saying (and there’s barely any of them) then WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON WITH IT???

I WANT THESE ACTRESSES TO HAVE AMAZING CAREERS! But if THIS is the show their put on, a show that is INSULTING women… then what???

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koumeowkami · 1 month

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"omg lyn! it's been so long how have you been 🥰🥰" YOU WERE LITERALLY THE ONE WHO GHOSTED ME ????? HELP

#small rant in tags #idk how can she pretend we're still super close if we haven't spoken nor hanged out in MONTHS #she completely ignored me all this time cause “she's too busy with uni and her boyfriend” LIKE #imagine erasing your entire social life or cutting your friends off just cause you got a bf... yikes #she didn't even give me bday wishes and my bday was a fucking WEEK AGO #i'm so pissed off man #🌸 ; lyn rambles about stuff

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redrose-arrow · 2 years

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“Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”

Maddie had long since learnt that that were the talks of bards, tales, and songs. How else could she explain that her heroes, the legends of Araluen themselves, had died?

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense. It absolutely did not make sense that Crowley had been the first to go. The first to die. Years and years and years ago, he had been the one to bring them all together. Halt. Arald. Rodney. Duncan. David. Sandra and Pauline. All the Renegade Rangers. And sure - they were all good friends. But Crowley had been the glue holding them all together. So why did he have to be the first?

At least he passed with a smile on his face. At least he had been thinking of something funny, something that brought him joy. It brought little comfort to those he suddenly left behind, but comfort nonetheless.

The funeral was a bittersweet occassion. It was a time of celebrations and of goodbyes. At least it offered some closure.

Because closure was a privilege reserved for the lucky, apparently. Barely two years had gone by by the time that the news of Alyss’s death reached them. And with no body and no remains, there was no funeral. No closure.

Until years later. With Maddie’s graduation drawing closer and closer, she was not the only one having trouble with the upcoming changes. Will was, too. And Maddie knew. She knew that her apprenticeship was the only thing getting him out of bed in the morning. She had known, ever since she had overheard him talking to Sable in the middle of the night. She also knew that the end of her apprenticeship would throw him back into the dark pit he had only just pulled himself out of. And so Maddie talked to her parents and traded her graduation party for something else: a funeral for Alyss.

The funeral was short and simple. It took place at a small clearing in the woods, near a tree that had faint initials of several decades old engraved in its trunk. The minimalist decorations were elegant. The speeches genuine and heartfelt. It gave Will - and with him, also his friends - the thing that had seemed impossible to get when they had first heard the news: it gave them closure.

After the funeral, Maddie grew to be a Ranger in full glory. It took Cassandra some time to adjust, but she began to learn to trust her daughter and her abilities to keep herself safe. When finally, she had, it became time to trust herself and her own abilities, too: because Duncan had decided to descend.

‘You’ve practically been ruling this country for almost a decade,’ he told his daughter. ‘It’s time we make it official. It’s time you claim your birthright and become Queen of Araluen.’

The prospect of ascending scared Cassandra. It terrified her. But it also excited her. She found herself running up the stairs, ecstatic, a smile on her face, on the morning of her coronation, to get her dad and help him downstairs, where he could watch her promise to rule the kingdom of the people she was born to serve.

But when she threw the doors to his quarters open, Duncan had already gone.

Despite the shock and the grief, the coronation proceeded. It’s what her father would’ve wanted, Cassandra knew. The event was joyous, even if Duncan’s absence heavily weighed down on all of them. He never even got to see Halt bow for the only monarch he had ever, and would ever, bow for.

As for Cassandra herself, she was a little surprised that her people didn’t even hesitate to celebrate her. Duncan might have been loved, but so was she. The Long live the Queens were genuine and this time, Cassandra couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down.

She ruled the Kingdom for another decade, this time in full glory. One of her tasks as newly-crowned Queen was to appoint a new baron and baroness for Redmont.

Sandra had passed, and it had left Arald deciding to retire. He joined David and Rodney at David’s farm, somewhere in Caraway, where no one knew them. Despite promises and agreements, no one heard of them again. At least this way, some goodbyes had been joyful.

Only a few weeks later, Halt got sick. Sick. ‘Ferris would be turning in his grave if he knew that a cold is all it takes to kill me,’ he joked. Pauline and Will didn’t think it was funny. Gilan might’ve concealed a snicker when he heard. Horace was a little less successful.

There was one problem: Halt didn’t want to say goodbye. But throughout the years, he had made himself too loved not to be subjected to visits. So everyone made sure not to actually tell him goodbye, but they all came to visit him nonetheless, knowing full well that it would be the last time.

‘They’re too good at finding loopholes,’ Halt complained to Pauline. She smiled at him, from her chair next to his bed, the one she hadn’t left since the first cold symptoms had begun to show. ‘You taught them that,’ she countered. Halt knew she was right. And if he was truly, completely, utterly honest, he was thankful for each and every single one of them.

He passed away peacefully, one early morning. Will and Pauline were there. To them, the ghost of a smile on his lips was as radiant as the strays of sunlight that attempted to warm a body that was getting colder.

Sean had offered to send a delegation to retrieve Halt’s body and bring it back to Clonmel, but they declined. Instead, Halt was buried in a closed-off corner of the graveyard near Redmont castle. That had been, after all, his true home.

Pauline stayed at Redmont, to help the new Baron and Baroness settle in. When they had, she moved to a small and unimportant fief towards the north, where she helped to set up a school for the children of farmers. Alyss had always been toying with the idea of doing just that, and Pauline had been searching for a good way to spend her retirement anyways. She couldn’t think of a better way than to honour her mentee’s dream.

Cassandra was a good queen. A fair one. But the crown weighed on her heavily and the life accompanying it became harder and harder to bear. There was another full-scale war, this time against the Scoti. It was the fourth war that Cassandra found herself fighting in. It was the first one that depended on her leadership.

From her little school in the north, Pauline managed to send information about the Scoti’s plans. It’s how Cassandra first found out that they were coming. When the letters suddenly stopped, they knew that the Scoti had overrun another village. Pauline was dead.

But the war did more. Brought more destruction. It drew Arald, Rodney, and David out of retirement. Cassandra was incredibly, incredibly hesitant to allow them back into active duty, but she could use all the strategic help she could get. Together with Will and Horace, she came up with a risky plan. It depended on the expertise of old warriors, and the skill of larger-than-life fighters.

So Gilan had called half of his Corps to function again as a small elite force around the battle grounds. Included in the small group was Maddie. With her sling, she brought extra advantages. And she could support her parents.

Arald and Rodney died during one of the advances, fighting back to back. When Gilan came across their bodies, he knew that David could not be far away. He had been leading an neighbouring group of younger soldiers.

Gilan managed to find his dad in time to save him from a Scoti killing him, but David had lost too much blood. He died in Gilan’s arms, in the middle of the fighting.

Araluen emerged victorious from the war. Their national losses were small, but weighted heavily on Cassandra. Especially since amongst those losses were the people who had saved her from war twice before.

Cassandra persevered, but the restlessness kept growing.

It was Horace who suggested a trip, a vacation, but it was Maddie who suggested retirement.

After having played her own role in the war, her cover was blown. It had always been tricky, to work with barons and other high-ranking officials without them finding out that the Ranger was also the crown-princess, but she had always managed; especially with most of her work centralised around Araluen. Now, however, she could no longer do her job as well as she would want, because even Maddie recognised how much bigger the target on her back had grown and how much harder it would be to protect herself from it.

So, it was time to stop escaping from her duties as crown princess and to instead face them. Especially if that would help her mom.

Her mother had known her own share of adventures, of course. But she had never been allowed to escape her duties as much as Maddie had the past years. So Maddie decided help her mom in the best way she could come up with: to take over as Queen.

She ascended, and adjusted, and began gathering a close circle of advisors and experts. People who could help her run the Kingdom.

Cassandra stayed around to help her, until Horace re-embarked on his attempts to make her take a trip. He even wrote to their oldest friend to ask him for help one last time. Will could accompany Cassandra on this trip like he never could, Horace knew. Will was more unfettered, more unrestricted, and his hunger for adventures matched Cassandra’s. Only together, would they be able to travel for months, known by no one but each other, free in a way neither had ever been before.

Of course, Will accepted. How could he not? He retired, and soon after receiving his gold oakleaf from Gilan, he and the Queen-Mother set sail.

Cassandra wore leggings and a long tunic. She had cut her hair and Will had shaved off his beard. For just a few moments, they were sixteen again, with less worries and less responsibilities.

Horace eyed his daughter as Cassandra and Will departed. Maddie wore a soft pink dress and was surrounded by her closest friends and advisors. She had grown so much since they had sent her to Will to be trained as a Ranger’s apprentice. Horace was proud of her, as he knew was Cassandra. And Will.

Maddie’s back was straight, her lips a thin and strict line, her head raised. There had been many rumours about Will and Cassandra’s departure, but Maddie had suppressed them all. Her mother deserved a dignified and peaceful goodbye.

Because Horace and Maddie both knew that Cassandra wouldn’t come back. Not really, anyways.

They were proven right when, a few years later, a small Skandian wolfship moored. It had a heron at the bow and sailed under a only half-raised flag, bright red with a devious-looking fox on it.

Maddie watched as the Herons brought a simple casket onto the shore, Will walking only a few paces behind them. Her father had his hand on her shoulder. Her dress was black and tears were burning behind her eyes. But Queens didn’t have the luxury of crying in public. Not yet.

Cassandra’s funeral was grant and she would have hated every second of it - except, perhaps, the speeches by her husband, her daughter, her friend. They were, truth be told, a little unconvential - but more importantly, they were from the heart.

A few weeks after, when the national period of mourning was officially over, Will knocked on Maddie’s study. Coincidentally, Horace was there too. It made things easier, Will thought, because at least now he didn’t have to have the same conversation twice.

‘I have to go,’ he told them. ‘You know I do.’

They did, and so they let him go. Maddie and Horace watched from a balcony as Will rode away, towards the horizon, with only a sunrise before him.

Will didn’t look back. He never did.

He was found by some farmers a few weeks later, in the woods near Redmont Castle. His clothes and oakleaf were stained with dried blood and one of his knives was missing. His quiver was empty, its arrows in the chests of several bandits with badly-made fox masks barely a kilometre away. The old Ranger’s body was pressed against his faithful and loyal horse, his distinctive green-and-grey mottled cloak rustling softly in the wind.

Will’s cremation was small. Present were only his closest friends, and they formed a tight circle around his grave - one at a small clearing in the woods, near a tree that had faint initials of several decades old engraved in its trunk. There were no decorations. No music.

‘He deserved more,’ Maddie said bitterly. ‘He deserved better.’

‘Maybe he did,’ Horace admitted, ‘but he never wanted more. To be buried by two handful of close friends, people who cared about him, and loved him - it’s more than he ever thought he’d have. More than he ever thought he’d deserve.’

Only a few days later, Gilan was practically forced into retirement by Maddie. ‘It’d be nice if not everyone died on the job,’ she argued with him. ‘It makes it incredibly hard to find replacements. Plus, you’re getting old.’ Gilan grinned. Maddie had been the only one to ever call him old.

But she had a point. It was time for new, younger leadership, who could support Maddie in her ambitious quest to change Araluen’s systems to improve live for those lowest in the classes.

The young Queen had told him of her plans to divide the effective ruling of Araluen in two - half of the duties and responsibilities carried by the monarch, born into their duties, the other half carried by a representative elected by the people.

Gilan knew that he had no role to play in the restructuring. So he too exchanged his silver oakleaf for a gold one, appointed a replacement, and moved in with Jenny. They still didn’t marry. Gilan helped out at the restaurant, until Jenny decided to sell it. Life as a cook and restaurant owner was intensive, and came with little time off. Even Jenny realised that she wanted to spend her last years cooking and baking just for herself, and spend her last years just simply enjoying food.

They moved to David’s old farm. They were found there, some time later, both dead. It was impossible to tell who had passed first, and how. But no one really cared, because when they were found, Gilan and Jenny were holding hands and the smell of plum tart was somehow in the air. Plum tart was also at their funeral, but it just didn’t taste the same.

It was getting easier, Horace felt. Alyss, Cassandra, Will, Gilan, Jenny - with every single one of his friends who died, their funerals became a little easier to bear. Still, he was thankful that he wouldn’t have to sit through another one, when he got sick and the doctors told him that there was little they could do.

When even their antidotes against the pain began to fail, Horace knew that his death was drawing near. Maddie offered George a position as Araluen’s librarian, so he would be closer when it happened. And every few hours, she ran down to the kitchen and back up to her father’s quarters. One time - it turned out to be the last time - she even arranged a chicken and chicken legs to be placed on a plate in such a manner that it looked like a four-legged chicken. Horace got a good laugh out of that, before the laughing turned into coughing and the pain became too much. Maddie climbed into his bed. She was, after all, still his little girl.

They fell asleep together, Maddie’s head on Horace’s shoulder and his hands in hers. She was the only one to wake up in the morning.

Horace’s funeral was grant, as befitting the former king-consort of the kingdom. And yet Maddie had never felt smaller. She knew that it was selfish, but of all the people Horace had met, and worked with, and saved, and known, George was the only one she cared about.

‘Will you stay?’ she asked. George nodded. There was nothing keeping him at Redmont, after all.

They spent a considerable amount of time together, as George taught Maddie all he knew about the different leadership systems around the world and helped her construct a new one for Araluen.

It was inevitable that the adventure of himself and Horace in Nihon-Ja came up. Maddie could not ignore how in awe George was as he told of Horace’s conviction to support an Emperor he barely knew.

‘You really knew them, didn’t you?’ she asked softly. ‘All of them.’

George nodded. ‘Perhaps even better than they knew themselves,’ he said. ‘I might not have been there, during all of the adventures, but it gave me an advantage: I could see and understand and appreciate the true extend of their work. I could see what they were too close to see.’

‘Have you even thought of writing it down?’ Maddie asked.

Again, George nodded. ‘I have kept notes throughout the years. I’m sure I could construct it into a comprehensive story - if that’s what you would want...’

‘I would want nothing more,’ the Queen admitted. George smiled at her. ‘Then consider it done.’

Their time together grew less and less after that. Maddie was busy reforming the country, and George spent many hours in the library, assembling notes and scribbling new ones. After a few months, Maddie decided to seek him out again. She found him, in the depths of the archives, leaning against shelves that he seemed to have fallen against. She recognised the signs. Heart attack.

As the staff retrieved his body, Maddie cleaned up his stuff and his desk. On it, she found several large stacks of paper. They could easily fill twenty books, she estimated. On top of them, there was a smaller paper.

For Maddie, the note read. Here are the chronicles of Araluen.

There was barely anyone left to attend his funeral, but Maddie made sure it was a dignified one.

Afterwards, she crawled under her covers, completely alone, with the first stack of George’s writing in her hands.

When Ingrid knocked on her door, hours later, the sun had already risen. Maddie’s eyes were swollen and red, from the tears and the strain of hours of reading, but there was the hint of a smile around her lips.

She finished the rest of George’s stories and hired other scribes to make copies. One of the copies went to Skandia. One to Nihon-Ja. One to Hibernia, and even one to Gallica. One went to Macindaw. One to Seacliff. One to a castle made of red stone. And one to a secret spot used by Rangers to hide the most important and confidential of information.

Until, centuries and centuries later, an archeologist and his team find several bundles of paper in the remains of a little cabin in the woods.

Maddie never knew that she would be proven wrong. The legends of Araluen had never died. Not entirely.

#i cannot believe that i offered this and most of y'all literally JUMPED onto it #so here it is #i'm not crying it's allergies xoxo #also major shoutout to lyn for bearing with me ksdjfajs it sure was a rollercoaster this one #redrose's headcanons #redrose rants #ranger's apprentice #rangers apprentice #john flanagan #i'm not going to tag every character i'm too lazy

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lynsstrange · 3 months

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the feminine urge to stab at my chemistry homework and then burn the remains

#lyn rambles #lyn rants #school

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summertimelyn · 9 months

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I was teaching my 7yr old niece how to play the new Story of Seasons game, and one of the options during character creation is pronouns. She asked me what it meant and my sister was like, “Ah, don’t you dare.” I said, “I’m just going to give her the basic explanation.” So I told her that if I was talking to her mom about her, I’d use she and her or if I talked about her dad, I’d use he and him. This is basic elementary school language knowledge. Why did that piss off my sister?

#lyn rants #Lyn is confused

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podhouse · 2 months

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Plural rants below

by lyn and blurry.

1) Whenever i take the front I leave the body with a severe headache followed by dizziness which lasts upto hours if there are continuous switches -🌷

2) Host neglecting our existence after something good happens to her or spends some time socialising. I get it we give emotional support but that doesn’t mean you reject us and throw us away after communicating with “real people” or “outside friends”. I feel heavily neglected by such behaviour. Were we called back and let in just for this??? I thought you brought us back to heal us. And love us.

3) TW: RELIGION AND JINNS

Since the body is a muslim and we are supportive of it, she (the host) can’t stop believing we are possessed or something. Man we are harmless, we just want to grow and love together >:( Don’t get why she’s so upset

#lyn🌷#blurry #plural system #plural #system rant

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kyliivan · 6 months

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also (idk if this is what u meant in the tags of ur post but) saying u hate skk is so real imo i mean in canon i love them i love seeing their relationship n stuff but i HATE. FUCKING HATE how like 99% of the fandom treats them because. good fucking lord

literally the MAIN reason why I’ve grown such genuine hatred for this pair is because of the god awful treatment from the fandom. the dynamic and chemistry between Dazai and Chuuya are one of the most beautiful bonds I’ve seen and if it weren’t for that, as much as I’m not into romance I probably would’ve shipped them to, unfortunately though even BEFORE getting into bsd I was introduced to the god awful fandom.

I don’t mean to come off insulting but the majority of the skk fanbase are just really stupid and delusional at best and manipulative and toxic at worst, toxic is a huge understatement but I don’t know what else to call them. I’ve seen so much gross behavior from them I cannot even fathom but I am not gonna touch on that part.

I DESPISE mischaracterization in any form. my biggest issue with almost every ship is this, almost everytime it’s guaranteed to come with mischaracterization. in order for almost EVERY ship to work it requires that you break one or both characters and make them ooc and I hate that.

#turned into another long rant im sorry #i need to get these out of my system #sometimes i genuinely question if im reading the same series as some of these people #thats how awful their takes on chuuya and dazai’s characters are #bsd #bungou stray dogs #chuuya #dazai #osamu dazai #chuuya nakahara #anon #lyn asks

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lavenderlyncis · 1 year

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Huh. Really weird how next year is the anniversary of Waterloo. And now eurovision is held in sweden. How strange. Coincidence really. Doesn't leave an aftertaste at all.

#lyn's eurovision night #eurovision #i am fucking tagging eurovision with many of my rant posts because i am annoying like that #and mad #so mad

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lindalofbroome · 1 year

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02 - Ambition

‘The sad thing is,’ Britta found herself saying, ‘that Vashti could no doubt be a very good trader if only her father would trust in her talent and leave her alone.’

STAR OF DELTORA The Hungry Isle Ch 18 - Friends

i dont know if rodda would write more for this series because it's pretty closed now. but there's still a part of me yearning for more. and i want so bad for vashti to have some agency and some redemption. she was the antagonist in a literary sense and she does have that White Woman™ vibes, but she's also just a kid and i dont think she's evil at heart. sod didn’t really end up going down the direction of exploring the moral greyness of people and your individuality as much, but like i can dream.

i feel like her parent/s were in her ear ever since she was born, fuelling a desire in her to win the apprenticeship and to be The Best. they nurtured her as a tool, but not as a person. not excusing her bullying and undermining, because that’s horrible, but does she know anything else? if her ‘superiors’ are not treating her with kindness and goodness, why would she treat her perceived ‘inferiors’ any differently.

anyway this post could be interpreted as vashti’s ambition. it pushed her to want the apprenticeship enough to cheat and bully. taking every advantage she could. on ship and off ship. take no prisoners mentality. belittling and dehumanising her opponents in her mind, clouding her judgement. similar to jasmine’s opponents in the rithmere games. a burly del-ignorant brute? a devious scavenging rascal? a poor shopkeeper’s daughter? vashti let her assumptions cloud her judgement, and now her enemies are bonded against her. she didn’t really have a chance.

but this post was about her parent/s when i drew up the sketch. i don’t know if her mother, irma, was as directly involved. the books reference her father, loy, much more often in meddling. so i dont know if she’s just like, his trophy wife or something like that and just let things happen warily, or if she held the same ambitions and was his accomplice. either way i would still direct blame on her, even if she was only indirectly responsible because i can’t believe that she was in the dark on the matter.

the vibes im getting out of this parent-daught relationship reminds me of that B99 episode where peralta and holt are talking about the kid graffiting police cars

Peralta: His daddy comes in and bails him out every time. He’s a lucky little jerk.

Holt: No, I wouldn’t say he was lucky. I feel bad for this kid. I mean, what kind of father cares so little for his son that he lets him get away with everything?

BROOKLYN NINE-NINE S01 E02

it’s not directly the same. but, at least to me, it’s clear that vashti is not seen as a daughter to be loved and led and encouraged to a prosperous future by them, but a tool and a key to a prosperous future for them. you know?

‘From what I have heard since I have been in here, Vashti’s father has been training her and her younger sisters for years with this contest in mind. He already has three ships of his own, but he wants control of the Trader fleet as well — especially the Star of Deltora.’ [Jewel said.]

STAR OF DELTORA Shadows of the Master Ch 9 The Announcement

like bruh??? imagine. having the fucking audacity. i hope that in a world where vashti wins, she eventually learns that he doesnt and shouldnt have power over her and something she won. it doesnt matter that he raised her, that he taught her things she knows. not everything she has was from him, and theres room for stuff outside of him.

i. also forgot she had siblings because it’s never mentioned again except in that quote. but i guess vashti is always on the periphery anyway. but i was thinking that the other candidates are older than britta, who just scraped in at 15, but i dont have concrete numbers in mind lol.

as i was working on this i was thinking maybe vashti was 18. i cant remember if i really had reasons for that or if i chose that arbitrarily alskdj like i guess she might be more used to being composed and more experienced and stuff which makes her intimidating. but she can be younger and still act like that.

but then i was thinking about since she technically also just scraped in (but on the other end) and then the implications of that hit me in the face. like her parent/s were already on her case, but the fact that she just got in probably increased their desperation and longing, and it would’ve been even worse than previous years. the familiar anticipation was manifesting into a lustful grab for power. it was scary. it was overwhelming. there was nothing but a need to make them happy. it’s no longer about a personal accomplishment but a trophy to sate her parents’ hunger. and of course it wouldn’t last. and if they had a taste for something so big, they’d only demand more and more. where would it end.

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