Dante666Powerslash

My Fandoms include Disney, Shakespeare, Mythologies of all types, Tolkien, ASOIAF, Phillip Pullman, The Divine Comedy, History, Ghosts, Urban Cityscapes (especially New York, Venice, Florence, Paris, and London), Magical/Mystical Stuff, the collective works of Rick Riordan, Classics (Greek and Latin), Literature, Star Wars, Sleepy Hollow, Fairy Tales, Kingdom Hearts, Okami, the Nancy Drew Video game series, and Psychology.You can say all "All Cops are Bastards", attack Capitalism, and praise Communism to me all day and I might agree. However, if you ever attack Disney (with unfair criticisms) in my presence, I will glare you to death! 23, White, Cis Dude of Uncertain...

[kaereth]

Part 1 of commissions finished for @blackcur-rants!

[blackcur-rants]

Let me do some image descriptions of these for those who might not be able to see them.

[Image Description One: A depiction of the character of Ghessel, who is an agender and demisexual shepherd living in the area of Salois beside the Long River on the continent of Kyrema over 25,000 years after the Collapse of Modern Civilisation in the Great Cataclysm of 2036-2037. Ghessel is depicted standing here underneath a clear blue sky full of white and fluffy clouds beside the ruins of the Gateway Arch. They are surrounded by a whole flock of fluffy white sheep and are dressed in a simple outfit consisting of a loincloth and a cape and a conical hat while carrying a shepherd's staff. The drawing is set in perspective far away from Ghessel so that the audience can see the whole of the field and the Arch most especially, though we can at least see Ghessel's dark tan skin underneath their cloak]

[Image description Two: A recreation of a Persian miniature designed to have the appearance of having been created in the city of Agrabah in the year 1485 CE/909 AH. It depicts Aladdin I and Yasmin I in their old age examining the Palace Garden which they have been tending for many years as a metaphor for all of the good things and fairness and justice that they have brought to Agrabah over the years of their rule together. Both of them are older and Aladdin I is wearing a modified version of his iconic Prince Ali outfit while Yasmin I is now dressed in a modest light blue outfit with a hijab and a light blue dress. The sky is a light grey above them and the whole of the painting is surrounded by a golden border decorated with brown-coloured depictions of leaves and flowers. There is also a fountain towards which Aladdin I is pointing while Yasmin I holds on to his arm. The whole painting is designed to evoke real life portraits of Mughal and other Persian descended rulers from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, reflecting how these two rulers are still celebrated and beloved by their people centuries after their deaths]

[Image description Three: A depiction of the character known as Princess Matilda of Otranto and Theadora, the peasant woman with whom she met and fell in love while she was imprisoned in the dungeons of Matilda's mother Princess Ippolita on the orders of Princess Ippolita's consort and Princess Matilda's father Manfredo. The two of them are sitting underneath a tree that casts its shadow upon them with Theadora being more covered by the tree shadow than Matilda is. Matilda has long brown hair and a dark blue dress and a circlet on her head symbolising her status as a noblewoman of this place and era. Theadora, meanwhile, is a trans woman while Matilda is a cis woman, and she is wearing a peasant woman's headscarf that is white in colour alongside a green dress and she also has long blond hair mostly concealed by her white headdress. The two of them have just escaped from the dungeons of MAtilda's family's castle, and Theadora is still stressed out and nervous about the whole ordeal and the possibility of recapture by Manfredo's forces while Matilda looks at her with concern and sympathy. Matilda is promising the woman whom now she loves that they will both survive whatever MAnfredo and his forces throw at them and they will soon escape Otranto on a ship and find a place where no one recognises them and they will be free to live their own lives free of the burdens of royalty and the generational curse that has plagued their castle and their family since the days of Ippolita's grandfather Prince Riccardo]

@cynicalclassicist @dachi-chan25 @carcosa-commune @the-blue-fairie @disregardcanon @bs-fangirl @kaereth

[trendernepeta]

non lesbians stop making useless / stupid / moron lesbian jokes challenge

for anyone wondering, “useless lesbian” jokes were originally made by lesbians as a sort of self depreciating joke, based on the fact that many of us don’t recognize when girls are flirting with us due to never learning about it + due to heteronormity.

when non-lesbians (especially men) make useless lesbians jokes is. gross. especially since many of them go really far (ex. lesbians are stupid / morons / clueless / too dumb to function). it’s really just. gross to go to someone’s blog + to see a bunch of “my lesbian followers are dumb + stupid + useless” or “lesbians are morons”.

if you’re a non lesbian, it would be super sexy if you’d stop taking our jokes made about our experiences + turning them into “every lesbian is stupid + dumb + useless! please give me notes!” lmao.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

Something I've seen people saying on the Other Hellsite regarding ST (No spoilers for Volume 2, fear not) which has been. Viscerally upsetting to me, is people saying that Will was "The heart of the show"

I think people forget that Will was quite literally a plot object with no agency and like. Thirty minutes of screentime total in the first season

People have seemingly taken to thinking that the show is about Will, but it's about Eleven and it always has been. Will's disappearance wasn't even the catalyst for the story- his disappearance was a byproduct of El's actions. It's always been her story, with Mike being the second main because of his significance to her.

All of this to say, I'm totally with you on the Byler stuff- that entire ship reads exactly the same to me as Soriku in Kingdom Hearts and JayVik in Arcane, in that it's the most popular ship in the entire fandom, despite the fact that one of the two guys in each relationship has a canonical love interest, a woman, who is always effectively erased in favor of the entirely non-canonical gay ship, which is fundementally based on people's inability to comprehend the idea of two boys/men having care and affection for one another without being explicitly romantic, which is just homophobia in progressive sheep's clothing.

The widespread popularity- and subsequent outrage over the noncanonicity- of Byler, alongside the widespread bad-faith criticism of Mille Bobbie Brown's portrayal of El this season, and the near-complete radio silence I've seen for Robin and Vickie paints a very unpleasant- but entirely expected- picture out of the reaction people have had to this season.

And I can't even start on how I've seen people talking about Kali, since I don't want to spoil it for you, but... god I wish I could say it was surprising.

agree with everything you said except Sora and Riku, those two boys are gay as hell (/half-joking. dont worry though i am a Kairi and Sorikukairi polycule WARRIOR)

It always comes down to misogyny and/or racism :)

[blackcur-rants]

"Stranger Things": this is a story of a young woman who has been gaslit and abused and brainwashed and manipulated for her whole life thus far desperately trying to find her own identity and sense of purpose and sense of self after a lifetime of said pain and suffering. Her father figure's arc and her boyfriend's arc are literally all about learning to see her as her own person separate from their wants or needs for her and the two main antagonists of this entire story are her two toxic/abusive father figures.

Fandom: WHY WAS THIS NOT ABOUT THE LOVE INTEREST AND HIS BOYFRIEND!? HOW DARE WILL BYERS GO ON TO DATE PEOPLE OTHER THAN THE GUY HE SAT NEXT TO MOST IN KINDERGARTEN!

Thing is, though, I get it. There is a criminal lack, still, of young gay male couples in media. Like, for all the wonderful sapphic couples we've gotten in recent animation (Catradora, Lumity, Korrasami, Caitvi, Polytrix, Sashannarcy, Mollibby, Skout's Honour, Weblena, Yasammy...and yes some of these are implicit rather than explicit), there have not been a ton of recent Achillean/Vincian/queer male couplings in these recent shows. There have been some, of course. Most notably Benson and Troy in "Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts" and also Sam's implied attraction to Looka in "Green Eggs and Ham" and of course the whole of Luca and Alberto's whole thing in "Luca", but other than we don't really see a ton of queer male characters in leading roles.

And also keep in mind that "Stranger Things" started all the way back in 2016, when we did not have most of these great sapphic shows or even much of any queer representation in mainstream genre shows, certainly nothing like what we have now. So of course a lot of people latched onto the obviously queer-coded Will Byers like a lifeline, especially given certain crap that happened around the same year as ST Season One, by the way. Especially since, if you just watched that first season, you would guess that the Party were the main characters and not El herself.

However, you should still be able to adjust your expectations of what a story is as you experience it and not just assume you get everything from the first glance. Not adopting this principle in life and for engaging with storytelling is how you get all the fan backlash and pointless discourse and hostility towards "The Last JEdi".

@whencartoonsruletheworld @dachi-chan25 @cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune @disregardcanon

[stochasticprocesses-deactivated]

I feel like “nerd culture” wanting to keep combat in games is heavily related to wanting to maintain their vicarious brand of masculinity.

[homieomorphism-deactivated20180]

I want Fallout and Skyrim and Dragon Age and all the rest without the combat. Why can’t I use magic to explore a beautiful world? Why can’t I just wander this post-apocalyptic wasteland and try to help survivors access clean water and develop agriculture? Why can’t I use diplomacy to unite and pacify warring factions? Why can’t I build a stable thriving economy and watch prosperity spread throughout the land?

I’m so sick of it, honestly. It’s to the point where I just turn on godmode and make myself arbitrarily strong whenever possible so I can minimize time spent in fights and enjoy the dialog and art that much more.

I need modern takes on Myst and the like.

[smalls2233]

if you want a walking simulator that badly just go buy gone home

[blackcur-rants]

What the hell are you talking about? A post-apocalyptic walking simulator would be freaking awesome. I would play an entire game set, like twenty-five-thousand years after the collapse of modern civilisation where you’re just a half-naked shepherd boy wandering around the ruins of a major ancient or modern (from our perspective) city and trying to piece together all of its long lost history and secrets as you try to imagine how it all came to an end.

And like, the whole point is that this is, like, thousands upon thousands of years in the future and humans have completely regressed into a queerer version of the Stone Age (Palaeolithic or maybe MEsolithic is what I’m thinking of) and you aren’t some kind of badass warrior of any type, just a twelve year old boy clad in a loincloth and nothing else and wielding a shepherd’s staff for a fight against predators. So think “Gone Home” or “What Remains of Edith Finch” crossed with a combatless version of “Fallout” or a robot free version of the “Horizon” games or “Canticle for Liebowitz” crossed with “Always Going Home” in literature terms.

[smalls2233]

Why did you get mad at and reblog a post from eleven years ago

[blackcur-rants]

I wasn’t mad at you (okay maybe a little because of you dissing Walking Simulators and I was worrying that you were dissing “Gone Home”). However, mostly I was just looking for a chance to talk about my ideas for a post-apocalyptic video game of this type, and I thought your post would be such a good jumping off point, in all honesty.

[stochasticprocesses-deactivated]

I feel like “nerd culture” wanting to keep combat in games is heavily related to wanting to maintain their vicarious brand of masculinity.

[homieomorphism-deactivated20180]

I want Fallout and Skyrim and Dragon Age and all the rest without the combat. Why can’t I use magic to explore a beautiful world? Why can’t I just wander this post-apocalyptic wasteland and try to help survivors access clean water and develop agriculture? Why can’t I use diplomacy to unite and pacify warring factions? Why can’t I build a stable thriving economy and watch prosperity spread throughout the land?

I’m so sick of it, honestly. It’s to the point where I just turn on godmode and make myself arbitrarily strong whenever possible so I can minimize time spent in fights and enjoy the dialog and art that much more.

I need modern takes on Myst and the like.

[smalls2233]

if you want a walking simulator that badly just go buy gone home

[blackcur-rants]

What the hell are you talking about? A post-apocalyptic walking simulator would be freaking awesome. I would play an entire game set, like twenty-five-thousand years after the collapse of modern civilisation where you're just a half-naked shepherd boy wandering around the ruins of a major ancient or modern (from our perspective) city and trying to piece together all of its long lost history and secrets as you try to imagine how it all came to an end.

And like, the whole point is that this is, like, thousands upon thousands of years in the future and humans have completely regressed into a queerer version of the Stone Age (Palaeolithic or maybe MEsolithic is what I'm thinking of) and you aren't some kind of badass warrior of any type, just a twelve year old boy clad in a loincloth and nothing else and wielding a shepherd's staff for a fight against predators. So think "Gone Home" or "What Remains of Edith Finch" crossed with a combatless version of "Fallout" or a robot free version of the "Horizon" games or "Canticle for Liebowitz" crossed with "Always Going Home" in literature terms.

[blackcur-rants]

The fascinating thing about the idea of Victor Frankenstein being the true monster in his titular story is that, contrary to what that designation might suggest, he is not some kind of callous and immoral sadist who delights in the suffering of others.

Rather, the text shows us throughout itself that he is a man who is, in fact, deeply capable of love and compassion and affection. He adores his parents and is deeply heartbroken when he loses first his brother and then his boyfriend and then his wife. He is not simply a Complete Monster incapable of love or affection or good feelings.

Rather, the tragedy of Victor in “Frankenstein” is not that he is incapable of love, but rather that he does not extend that love beyond those like himself and whom he considers worthy of his time and affection. And that does not include his son the Creature/Adam, because the Creature is uncanny and weird and falls outside the spectrum of what Victor considers to be human.

And the book makes it very, very clear that this is by no means an attitude that is limited to Victor himself. It is also present in Clerval seeing India as a place to have his little colonial adventures rather than as a place where people live and breathe and work and love. It is also present in how the de Laceys claim to be compassionate and loving because they took in a friend’s daughter when no one else would and how they were screwed over by That Mean Old Turkish Man…and yet the moment that the Creature/Adam reveals himself to be something with which they themselves are not comfortable, they turn against him and reject him and drive him away, leading him directly into the fateful and fatal confrontation with William Frankenstein that causes so much of his later suffering.

And with regards to William himself, is death and its aftermath reveals how this theme holds true for the citizenry of Geneva as a whole.

Genovese People in Frankenstein: We are so much better than those filthy stupid monarchists in France and England because we are a proud and equal republic where all citizens have full and complete rights before the law!

Genovese People after the death of William Frankenstein: What’s that!? Our magistrate’s son is dead and we cannot find the culprit!? Quick! Let’s just blame the servant maid who was in love with him and give her a show trial before we quickly hang her and dispose of her corpse!

“Frankenstein” is often said to be the first science fiction story, and while that is not completely true (“A True Story” by Lucian of Samosata and “The Blazing World” by Margaret Cavendish both predate it by quite a bit), it was the first that placed its science fictional and fantastical elements (the Monster, namely) in an otherwise realistic and real world setting. And Mary Shelley uses that juxtaposition of the fantastical and the realism to comment on how much people of her own class and culture (and people in our own time as well, in all honesty) failed and still fail to see other kinds of people as fully human and thus the dangers of marginalisation and oppression as a whole. Victor’s failure to see the Creature as human and worthy of love is an extension of the failures of the whole society in which he exists and the whole society in which his story was written. And that is the reason why he is the true monster of this tale.

@muirin007 @dachi-chan25 @cynicalclassicist @carcosa-commune

[glindaselphie]

I will always say black panther 2 is one of the saddest films I’ve ever seen, not just bc of the story but bc you can feel that basically everyone involved in its creation was grieving for chadwick and how that’s reflected in the characters. it’s beautiful but so heartbreaking

[blackcur-rants]

But please tell me, oh some people, how Marvel movies are all just the most mindless form of slop that never means anything substantial! Please tell me all about how they’re all the products of this awful studio that ruined cinema forever and is responsible for all the problems of the modern cinematic age and are never the products of genuinely talented artists trying to tell interesting and compelling stories with meaning and with depth.

[blackcur-rants]

What she says: I am fine.

What she means: The way that Vladimir Vladimirovic Nabokov writes Humbert Humbert in Lolita is such a brilliant freaking subversion of the Sensitive Romantic Hero trope. Like, when you think about it all, Humbert is exactly the kind of person who would be the Main Protagonist Hero in most romantic comedies.

And the enitety of Lolita as a novel is just Nabokov taking a combination butcher knife and scalpel and eviscerating that trope, showing us how “Nope! In real life, thirty-eight year old men who spend their entire lives pining for and writing sonnets about the girl they saw on the beach when they nine or eight or whoever they kissed when they were twelve are almost never sexy or romantic or particularly hoeric”. And that is especially ballsy when you consider how much that trope of The Muse who was my childhood love is such a foundation of Western Literature from Dante’s Divine Comedy to the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Both of which Nabokov namechecks in the book, by the way, because of course he does. Humbert sees himself as this Grand Romantic Intellectual who is so far above the common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd, but he really is just a selfish, narcissistic manchild who can’t get over something that happened years ago that, while tragic, is not the sort of thing you should let define the rest of your life’s entire being. And so he doesn’t love Dolores as a person, he just loves her as a reflection and replica of his childhood love and never even tries to consider her as a full human being in her own right, to the point where his logic for why she owes him her love is just the Classic Nice Guy bullshit of “I was nice to her, therefore she owes me sex”. He’s not Mister Darcy (n o matter how much he probably thinks of himself as being that way), he’s just Gaston with a better vocabulary and capable of reading books without pictures.

Oh, and he’s racist because of course he is.

And naturally, of course, all of this is for a deeper purpose. As a story, Lolita can very easily be read as a harsh condemnation and critique of the White Feminine Beauty Standards of the time in which it was written and how much those standards infantilised and still continue to infantilise women. The horror of the novel is not just “Isn’t paedophilia awful and disgusting!?” or even just “Wow! Isn’t Humbert Humbert a horrible person!?”. It’s about the horror of how society allows people like him and Clare Quilty to get away with because they are conventionally attractive, conventionally articulate, and affluent/well-off White men who mostly do their crimes and atrocities to marginalised young girls and boys (like, say, the lower middle-class and rather gender-non-conforming Dolores Haze). And this is a large part of what John Ray Jr misses when he writes the Foreword at the beginning of the book. Instead of considering what Humbert’s story and narrative says about his own society and class of people such as himself, he just writes it off as the ravings of a very strange man and someone who is an aberration to the rest of his society rather than a direct consequence of so many of its values and customs and ideas. Because directly and actually engaging with the deeper nature of Humbert’s text would require him to think seriously about himself and the people around him, including most likely many of his own personal friends and acquaintances, and now we can’t have that, can we?

@kimwexlers-brownhair @dachi-chan25 @carcosa-commune @cynicalclassicist

[glindaselphie]

James Cameron🤝Philip Pullman

Even though it hurt to be separated from the boy they loved so much, Rose/Lyra continued to live.

Make it the person they loved and you can add Gregory Maguire and Winne Holtzmann into this one but with Glinda / Gelphie

[blackcur-rants]

Quick Question for all my followers that I would love to see answered.

Which of these classic and beloved Kids' Fantasy Book Series would make the best and most amazing musical?

01. "The Wolves Stories" by Joan Aiken

02. "The Dark is Rising" by Susan Cooper

03. "The Earthsea Cycle" by Ursula Kroeber LeGuin

04. "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle

05. "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman

(Other possible options: "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin, "Something Wicked this way comes" by Ray Bradbury, "The Winter's Tale" by William Shakespeare, "The Oresteia" by Aiskhulos Euphorionides, "The Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha Shannon, "The Aeneid" by Publius Vergilius Maro, "The Fortunate Pilgrim" by Mario Puzo, "Dream of the Red Chamber" by Cao Xueqin, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "Barnaby Rudge" by Charles Dickens, "The Ramayana" by Valmiki, "the Mahabharata" by Vyasa, "He who saw the Abyss" by Sin-leqi-uninni, "Shadow and Bone" + "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo, "The Jewel of Seven Stars" by Bram Stoker and "The Moonstone" by Wilkie Collins, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" by Anne Bronte, and "The Tale of Genji" by Murasaki Shikibu).

And just to be clear, the HDM musical is just an adaptation of the first three books with maybe a few little nods forward to "The Secret Commonwealth" and "The Rose Field" and a quick little recap song at the beginning outlining the CliffNotes version of "La Belle Sauvage" just for flavour and a prologue. I love HDM with all of my heart and soul and daemon, but I am not letting this show bloat in length past the six-and-a-half-hour mark.

[queen-of-obsessing]

i love that people say "we'll never have another lord of the rings" when it comes to people writing fantasy novels and trying to create the Next Big Thing TM

because the current plot of fantasy novels - "there's evil rising and the chosen one has to defeat it before it takes over the whole world" isn't even the plot of lord of the rings.

the actual plot of lotr is "the evil is here, everything has gone to shit and we have no other cards left to play except trust this random guy to save us" with zero guarantees that it will actually work.

it's literally a hopeless, post-apocalyptic hail mary mission with barely any magic set in a fantastical world

we haven't had our next lotr because no one's bothered to divert from tired tropes to write one

[blackcur-rants]

I think it is absolutely key to remember that in LOTR, there is no Chosen One. There's no magical prophecy that says "A Hobbit will spring forth from the ashes to save us from Sauron and only they can fulfil this destiny!", except for maybe the rhyme that Boromir heard in his dreams. Frodo is only on the Quest because he chooses to go on the quest because he already knows from study time with Bilbo how bad Sauron and Morgoth both were and why Sauron should not be allowed to regain power again.

In fact, the only character who does have that expectation of being Eru's Specialest Little Boy and being entitled to a great destiny because of his birth...is Melkor. You know, the Main Villain of the Entire LEgendarium. His whole Start of Darkness in The Ainulindale is being unable to take Eru's constructive criticism and deciding he was going to ruin everything because of it.

@cynicalclassicist @disregardcanon @carcosa-commune @dachi-chan25 @forestelfin @frodo-baggins @uncleasriel @myrskytuuli

[myrskytuuli]

Paradise Lost!Adam🤝Children of Eden!Adam

Hating the fuck out of Hazbin Hotel!Adam if they ever somehow met him.

ooh boy! I don’t know anything about Children of Eden, but I am a nerd about Paradise Lost so let answer this ask a little bit too thoroughly.

Honestly, I could see Hazbin Hotel!Adam being exactly like Paradise Lost!Adam in the beginning. Whether he would hate what he later became, is a different question altogether.

But if I were ever to write a Hazbin fic taking place during the Eden era, I would choose to characterise Adam as he is in Milton’s epic. It fits.

Okay, let me make my case.

In Paradise Lost, Adam embodies all the virtues of an enlightenment era gentleman, as a matter of fact, he is written to be the platonic ideal of the enlightened man. He is rational, interested in science, reason, and turns away from temptations of desire and emotionality. He loves Eve in a paternalistic way which borderlines on loathing at times, and feels uncomfrotable whenever Eve manages to awaken any "baser" feelings in him. The only fault he finds in himself- and is at the time angry about- is his temptation to admire Eve’s sexual beauty- And if you’re ever been on the internet, you will know that every misogynistic reddit-incel fantasises about being this man. The whole enlightened philosopher king is exactly the insufferable archetype that weird, friendless, red-pilled guys latch onto, with no self-awareness for the fact that they fall apart shitting and crying every time there is a lesbian in a tv show. Anyway, this enlightened philosopher king is an archetype that is based on a real, popular ideal from 17th and 18th century, and Paradise Lost certainly employs it.

Adam first awakens in God’s light (he is enlightened from the moment of his creation) and proceeds to wonder at his surroundings with a scientific wonder. When he meets anyone from heaven, whether it be God or later Raphael his instinct is to ask questions, and more importantly, he understands all celestial mysteries without a problem. When Raphael reveals the shape of the galaxy to him, he immediately infers the laws of gravitational forces moving the planets from it. He’s a very special genius boy, as all the angels around him keep telling him!

He is also very aware of the fact that Eve is not her equal, and at the same time threat to his enlightened rationality. Eve, who awakens in shade rather than daylight (she was not created enlightened), Eve whose first action as alive is to stop in front of water to admire her own reflection for so long that God himself has to guide her away, or she would stay there forever “pinned with vain desire”, Eve who is “so lovely fair, [-] Yet innocence, and virgin modesty, Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth”, is everything Adam wanted when asking for a mate, but at the same time…not. Once God sends Raphael down into the garden to teach the new humans all the knowledge of the world, (so they would not be tempted to eat from the tree of knowledge)

At thy request, and that thou mayest beware By what is past, to thee I have revealed What might have else to human race been hid

(which an interesting aside, in PL humans already have free will when choosing to eat the fruit AND God has taken active steps to lead them away from temptation. Without the misogyny, I would be VERY into this interpretation of the story. Where the forbidden fruit is a literal red button which reads do not push or paradise will explode and the test is if humanity can resist the irrational temptation to push anyway)

Adam gets to eagerly attend the full lesson, while Eve excuses herself midway through because:

such pleasure she reserved, Adam relating, she sole auditress; Her husband the relater she preferred Before the Angel, and of him to ask Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute With conjugal caresses:

Eve 1. wants the pleasure of being explained things by Adam (a real mansplainers fantasy lmao) and it is hinted that 2. her sensual nature would prefer such lessons to happen while she is also being physically caressed. Unlike Adam, who gains pleasure through his rational mind, Eve only gains pleasure through sensations and submission to her husband. Of course, it becomes kind of inadvertently funny because the next thing to happen after Eve leaves, is that the BOYS immediately start to talk shit about her, behind her back. Maybe the vibes of that gathering were just rancid, and Eve was picking up on it.

 For well I understand in the prime end Of Nature her the inferiour, in the mind And inward faculties [-] All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded;

-Adam confidently states the second Eve walks off his sight, to which Raphael responds

Dismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh, By attributing overmuch to things Less excellent, as thou thyself perceivest. [-]

self-esteem, grounded on just and right Well managed; of that skill the more thou knowest, The more she will acknowledge thee her head, And to realities yield all her shows:

Which pretty much sums up with: yeah, I know she sucks, but that’s why she has you to manage her. Having had a wife for a day, Adam is already complaining about what a dum-dum his wife is, and he is getting: yeah women, can’t live with them, can’t live without them, am I right LOL, type of bro-bro affirmations from the angel Raphael himself. Guy is getting a speedrun in how to make MUH WIFE type of jokes from day one as part of the celestial plan.

And in the end Adam’s misogyny is validated, because the only fault he has, is that he put too much faith into his wife’s ability to use faculties of rational reasoning.

But know that in the soul Are many lesser faculties, that serve Reason as chief; among these Fancy next Her office holds [-]

Which gives me hope That what in sleep thou didst abhor to dream, Waking thou never will consent to do.

When Eve tells him off the dreams Lucifer sends her, Adam trusts that Eve will be able to overcome feminine fancy in favour of masculine reason. His trust in his wife is his sin. When Eve suggests to “divide our labours; thou, where choice Leads thee, or where most needs [-] ; while I, In yonder spring of roses intermixed With myrtle, find what to redress till noon”. Eve wants some space from Adam, while Adam immediately is against the idea. “Doubt possesses me, lest harm Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest What hath been warned us”. Eve follows her immediate desires (for some alone time AND to prove to Adam that she can be left alone) while Adam is capable of rationalizing why that would be a bad idea according to the warnings they have received from the angels. Lucifer is lurking somewhere out there!! Eve, who makes promises she can’t keep insists that “that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt To God or thee, because we have a foe” finally wears Adam down until he exclaims: “Go in thy native innocence, rely On what thou hast of virtue; summon all!”

Eve does not summon it all, because when Lucifer finds her alone, he immediately appeals to Eve’s vanity:

who should be seen A Goddess among Gods, adored and served By Angels numberless, thy daily train

So glozed the Tempter, and his poem tuned: Into the heart of Eve his words made way,

It has already been established that it is not a desire for knowledge which tempts Eve, because in literature supporting enlightenment ideals, seeking knowledge would never be villainised. It is instead stated that the evils of the world come from the lack of rational thought, and that women naturally lack the capability for rational thought, so this is what happens when their rational husbands let them out of their sight. Eve, incapable of pure reason, hears Lucifer’s words and thinks them reasonable.

and in her ears the sound Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned With reason, to her seeming, and with truth:

When Eve bites the apple, she is also immediately overtaken by this ecstatic, good feeling, like she is drunk. She thinks that this is the most awesome thing that has ever happened.

Her first independent idea is that she should plant an entire garden full of trees of knowledge and make sure that every living creature gets to eat one. (That’s right! The knowledge inside the forbidden fruit was communism all along!)

She goes back to Adam, afraid that if Adam also doesn’t partake of the fruit, God will simply make him a new wife “And Adam, wedded to another Eve, Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct; A death to think! Confirmed then I resolve, Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe:” Eve wants to share the fruit for selfish desires. Adam accepts as an unselfish sacrifice. He knows exactly what it means to eat of the fruit “Adam, soon as he heard The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed, Astonied stood and blank, while horrour chill Ran through his veins” but he still chooses to stay by Eve’s side. She is his wife, and she needs someone by her side. Adam is “Against his better knowledge; not deceived, But fondly overcome with female charm.”

Then they fuck, and unlike the first time when their “love-making was untainted by lust” this time they FUCK. Like nasty.

Sure, at first glance the fact that Adam chooses to embrace damnation to stay with his wife comes across as a real sweet wife-guy move. Expect that in the actual text it comes across as very paternalistic and guilt-trippy move. Sure, Adam does stay with his wife, but BY GOD does he milk that out later. Unlike in other interpretations, in Paradise Lost, Adam, technically speaking, never sinned, as such. He did not partake of the forbidden fruit because of desire or selfish curiosity. He’s going to prison for a crime everybody knows he didn’t really commit. He does it out of sacrifice and love, which kind of makes the heavenly forces treat him as not-really-a-sinner. The final judgement for Adam is not that he ate the forbidden fruit, but that “thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife”.

 When Arch-angel Michael shows up to kick them out of the garden, he first takes Adam up to a mountain to show him more visions of heavenly knowledge/plan, while knocking Eve unconscious. One of them is not treated like the other.

Adam’s bout of goodwill and sacrifice does not last long, because almost immediately after making the choice, Adam starts yelling at Eve: “Would thou hadst hearkened to my words, and staid With me” and Eve yells back how “Being as I am, why didst not thou, the head, Command me absolutely not to go”. Adam blames Eve for tryingt o be independent and Eve blames Adam for allowing her.

Adam then threatens to commit suicide, while wailing about women. Just in general.

O! why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven With Spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth, this fair defect Of nature, and not fill the world at once With Men, as Angels, without feminine;

(Also, considering that Raphael told us earlier that angels do have spiritual, ephemeral sex with each other in heaven, heavenly gay sex confirmed!! (This was actually something that really bothered C. S Lewis who spent considerate time trying to explain away the "homosexual promiscuity" in Paradise Lost))

Which finally prompts Eve to start soothing him. “with tears that ceased not flowing And tresses all disordered, at his feet Fell humble; and, embracing them, besought His peace”. Adam, finally seeing his wife “at his feet submissive in distress;” relents and stops threatening suicide. Instead, he once again finds that paternalistic grace, promising that if only he could, he would TOTALLY ask God to put all the blame on him and only punish him. “That on my head all might be visited; Thy frailty and infirmer sex forgiven” of course that’s impossible, so whether he would actually do that can never be tested. Adam and Eve promise to not fight and blame each other anymore and Eve is joyful that she is “Restored by thee, vile as I am, to place Of new acceptance, hopeful to regain Thy love”.

This leaves the couple in a situation where Adam rightfully can forever dangle the fact that he chose to be damned with her, that he had no fault, he never succumbed to temptation, that he exchanged his rightful place in paradise to help her survive the woe and wastelands outside of Eden, over her head. imagine trying to have an argument after that? Of course she should cater to his every whim and will!! Of course she should be forever grateful! What do you mean I need to do the dishes more, I literally gave up paradise for you!!!

though all by me is lost, Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafed, By me the Promised Seed shall all restore. So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard Well pleased, but answered not

(Not wife-guy behaviour, my man)

looping back to Hazbin Hotel, yeah, give this guy 10 000 years and I could absolutely see him growing into HH!Adam. The fact that he’s treated as the most special bean in Paradise and never gets knocked down a peg, expect for that one time he accidentally treated his wife like a person. PL!Adam is at that M’Lady stage of insufferable dudbroism where he fully believes that he is a gentleman willing to sacrifice his comfort to take care of his little wife. But we’ve all seen examples of that kind of personality very quickly morphing into those fucking femoids all deserve whatever’s coming to them types of personalities. It’s a pipeline we all know exists, and personally, I just think that PL!Adam and HH!Adam would fit into the two ends of that pipeline perfectly.

[myrskytuuli]

BEHIND THE BASTARDS: HELLUVERSE EDITION

Vincent “Vox Dei” Whittman was actually born as Vincent Arthur Wittebane in the town of Gravesfield in Connecticut on 20 December 1932 to David Albert Wittebane and Elaine Elizabeth Simmons and had earlier work at UBS as an apprentice of legendary newscaster Howard Beale before striking out on his own.

Don't tempt me. The temptation of writing a mockumentary fic about Vox' cult is SO STRONG.

[blackcur-rants]

I know, right? Particularly given how it ties into the historic rise of Televangelist bullshit and all the bullshit currently going on with Fox News and X as a source of Right-Wing disinformation campaigns, of course. Probably why Vivzie picked out the Vees as this season’s main villains, by the way.

Also, sidebar and slight tangent, by the way: Did you get some of the references I put into this ask, by the way?

[prettyeaves]

gotta hand it to wicked because if a random salesman from fuckass Kansas in the early 1900s got isekaid into a world where everyone was convinced he was a wizard he WOULD immediately invent fascism

[blackcur-rants]

Okay, so about this.

In the book, there is actually a brief line about how the Wizard learned where the Grimmerie was from a Madame Blavatsky.

For those who don’t know, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatskaya was an esotericist and occultist of the nineteenth century who was one of the major founding figures of the Theosophy Movement, a spiritualist and occultist movement of that era that (amongst other things), claimed to be a rediscovery of Ancient Europe’s lost pre-Christian universal religion. One of the other theories of the Theosophical Movement was an idea that Humanity was descended from powerful and magical “Root Races” such as Polarians and Hyperboreans and Lemurians and Atlanteans and Aryans (yes, really) and that there would one day emerge a Sixth Root Race and a Seventh Root Race with the last of them representing ‘perfected’ Humanity. And before you ask, yes some Theosophical believers/followers did form little communities where they practised eugenics in order to become the Sixth Root Race ahead of schedule.

And yes, Blavatsky’s oddness was a major influence on the Aryan Master Race bullshit of the Nazis. So it is not outside the realm of possibility that Maguire’s version of The Wizard is actually a Victorian proto-eugenicist who is trying to create his own twisted little Eugenicist/Sixth Root Race kingdom in Oz and/or use the Grimmerie back in our world/The Other Land to advance similar goals to the real-life theosophical Eugenicists. Especially since the book shows us how he favours the lighter-skinned peoples of Oz (the Munchkins and the Gillikins) and persecutes/oppresses/colonises the darker skinned Winkies and Quadlings.

@disregardcanon @whencartoonsruletheworld @dachi-chan25 @glindaselphie @the-blue-faerie

[blackcur-rants]

I think a key thing people need to understand about “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a novel is that it is, in many ways, a story about trauma and abuse. 

The essential plot of the story that Twain tells in this novel is that Huck and Jim are both fleeing from a truly terrible system of oppression and abuse. Jim is fleeing from White Supremacy and Slavery and Huck is, to a certain extent, fleeing from the Patriarchy. They are both victimised and failed not just by their individual abusers (The Widow for Jim and Pap for Huck), but also by the larger social system around them (that last point is especially present at the beginning of the novel when Huck’s life is ruined when Judge Thatcher sends him back to live with his father despite the fact that Huck already had a decent living situation with the Widow Douglas and should be immune to poverty ever again because of what he was doing to help Tom Sawyer in that book). And so neither of them have a place in a society that is cruel and exploits them, hence why they make such natural allies when the time comes for them to flee down the River together towards Cairo. 

And this is especially evident in how, yeah, a big part of Huck’s journey throughout this story is about learning to overcome the learned helplessness he has internalised for pretty much his entire life. The kind of worldview where you try to rebel and fight back against the abuse you suffer every day, but you still ultimately default to obedience just as a way to survive. And Twain, of course, draws a subtle but clear link between the mundane domestic abuse enacted by people such as Pap Finn and the vast, nationwide form of domestic abuse that was chattel slavery. 

And of course, this is very possibly a big reason why Tom Sawyer can’t quite get his head around helping Jim. To him (a boy raised in a very soft, privileged, and loving household), abuse is just another form of distant fictional villainy no different than dastardly knights and wicked robbers holding princesses and adventurers captive. He has never had to confront the systemic violence of his society either on a personal level or in having to see and empathise with someone who is one of its victims. He filters everything through the lens of his classic adventure stories because he has almost no other lens through which to comprehend the world. 

And I am sorry to all the Sawyerberry shippers out there (of whom I am one myself, in whole and complete honesty), but there is a reason why Huck decides to go out West with Jim at the story’s ending rather than staying in Saint Petersburg at the end of the story. For he has in fact realised the fundamental truth that he does not wholly belong in the corrupt and twisted society through which he and Jim have just travelled, and he knows that he must go out West to seek his own destiny relatively free from the constraints of the society in which he has grown up. And in all honesty, it is very likely that the very careless and rather selfish manner in which Tom attempted to construct the rescue of Jim from the Phelps farm is a big reason for this. Though he will probably never fully hate Tom in even the slightest degree and their love for each other will always burn eternal, Huck realises that both of them (Tom especially, in all honesty) need to do a lot of growing up before they can truly become the people whom they were meant to be. Especially since a lot of their love for each other at this young stage of their lives is based on them idolising the other in an unhealthy way (with Tom longing for what he sees as Huck’s freedom and wild-spiritedness and Huck longing for the warmth and happiness and stability that Tom enjoys in his own life) rather than truly and fully understanding each other as whole and complete human beings. 

@crusty-the-snowman @disregardcanon @dachi-chan25

[blackcur-rants]

Ideas for albums the Mechs could have done alongside their already existing ones

01. Cyberpunk retelling of events from "The Shahnameh" wherein King Jamshid and his Chief Engineer Mirdas create a powerful super-computer called the Zahhak to help them run their city...only for it to go crazy with power and absorb all the minds of the people into itself using a virus a la The Acheron before being defeated by the heroic hackers Kaveh and Fereydun (who are probably boyfriends in The Mechanisms Universe, because why not).

02. Film Noir retelling of the Hero Twins wherein they are detectives trying to bring down the Brotherhood of Xibalba crime syndicate society that runs their city.

03. Dickens crossover universe involving Fagin and the DeFarges as rival space pirates, Cartmanay and Twistperpip as polycules, Paul Dombey running a spaceship firm, the Dorrits having to escape from a prison planet, and Miss Havisham as a cyborg with Estella as her adopted daughter/repairwoman.

04. Steampunk crossover AU of all the Bronte works featuring Jane Eyre crushing on Helen Graham and queer tension between either Heathcliff and Rochester or between Heathcliff and Arthur Huntingdon or between Rochester and Arthur Huntingdon.

05. Retelling of a classic Shakespeare play, preferably one that hasn't already been adapted a billion times already.

06. Retelling of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as a space opera about a war between different planets seeking to rule over the same solar system.

07. "Journey to the West" but it's about explorers on an unknown planet.

08. Polynesiian mythology retelling wherein Maui is a biio-engineer who keeps creating whole new planets and ecosystems by accident.

09. Space opera retelling of either "The Ramayana" or "The Mahabharata".

10. Russian mythology retelling about Marya Morevna and IIvan Tsarevic facing down a Koschei the Deathless who's actually a clone of King Cole alongside one of the Bogatyrs who in this retelling is in fact a former Rose Red.

11. Retelling of "Dream of the Red Chamber" wherein the house is a virtual reality computer simulation.

12. Steampunk retelling of "Les Miserables" featuring Javert as a cyborg.

13. Retelling of "War and Peace" with a Rose Red as Napoleon and Pierre trying to shoot down King Cole.

14. Sherlock Holmes but make it Film Noir.

15. Dracula or something Dracula related.

16. Snow Queen retelling.

@lady-asteria @carcosa-commune @cynicalclassicist @miralines @cinderswife

[blackcur-rants]

17. Some kind of Narnia retelling.

18. Tolkien adaptation (either The Hobbit or The Downfall of Gondolin)

19. Some kind of Stephen King adaptation (probably "The Dead Zone" reset in South or Central America or "The Stand" or "Salem's Lot" or a "Shing" + "Doctor Sleep" combo)

20. Some kind of Kalevala retelling.

21. Straightforward retelling of some classic Haunted House story or another.

22. "His Dark Materials" retold as a sapphic love story.

23. Mexica Mythology album showing the tragiic falling out between the brothers Tezcatlipoca and Xipe Totec and Huitzilopochtli and Quetzalcoatl in a sci-fi solarpunk city.

24. A straighforward retelling of "The Dark is Rising"

25. A straightforward retelling of "The Locked Tomb"

26. A straightforward retelling of "Mortal Engines"

27. Something riffing on "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and/or "Avatar: The Legend of Korra"

28. Retelling of a classic Biblical story (probably Noah trying to maintain a garden in the middle of The City of Labyrinth or Revelations or either Daniyel or Hadassah fighting back against oppression).

29. A version of "Nimona" that leans into the more tragic and bittersweet tone of the oriiginal story.

30. Gilgamesh and Enkidu reimagined in a world with many similarities to Fort Galfridian but as a full planet rather than a space station.

31. Either "The Aeneid", "Watership Down", or Longfellow's "Evangeline" reimagined as stories about space refugees.

32. "The Phantom of the Opera" wherein the Phantom is a cyborg.

33. A version of "Peter Pan" that leans into the idea of Wendy being a trans man and PEter being his idealised self-image, a la "Peter Darling".

34. An adaptation of "The Owl House" that really leans into the Gothic Horror and Tragic aspects of Dana Terrace's original story.

35. An adaptation of "Amphibia" that leans heavily into the Bittersweet MElancholy of Growing Up themes already very heavily present in Matt Braly's original tale.

36. Japanese Mythology retelling wherein Izanagi attempts to bring Izanami back as a cyborg and fails miserably, but does successfully imbue Amaterasu and Susanoo and Tsukiyomi with the powers they need to heal and fix the world.

37. An Oz retelling that sets Gelphie and Dorzma up against each other as parallel couples.

38. A "She-Ra" retelling where the War against the Horde is allowed to be darker and more terrifying than it was allowed to be on the original show.

39. Mayhaps some kind of "STeven Universe" or Chtorr retelling.

40. Dune retelling.

[allseeingmoth]

41: dante's inferno but it's set on a spaceship that has suffered some sort of grievous malfunction rendering all but the top deck uninhabitable (for example, the layer of hell where everyone is trees is a hydroponics bay that's become wildly overgrown and absorbed everyone on that level,) and one guy who wakes up from cryostasis early is guided through this shit by the ship's central AI, Virgil :]

[blackcur-rants]

Oh, and the reason the Starship Hesperia is all fucked up is because two of its engineers, Doctor Boniface Guelph and Doctor Philippe Ghibelline, deliberately messed it up and destroyed it in various ways in order to spite each other. And this is a major plot point that comes up in various ways throughout the album. Oh, and did I also mention how the Dante character is a trans man

43. Sequel to 1984 where Julian retells his side of the story years after the English Socialist Party’s downfall and relates his side of the story while dealing with his complicated feelings about Winston.

44. A version of “The Handmaid’s Tale” that makes it very abundantly clear that Offred is bisexual and was in love with Moira this whole time and maybe they escape Gilead together and go off to find Luke somewhere.

45. Retelling of the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn stories that depicts Saint Petersburg as this seemingly utopian and wonderful future city that is secretly beset with rot and corruption caused by a horrifically unfair and unjust caste system and there’s a love story between Tom (a young trans boy whose aunt is one of the city’s powerful politicians) and Huck (a dirt-poor intersex/genderfluid kid who’s got basically nothing but himself in the world) and them going off together to get Jim out of the terrible city together and then various adventures ensue. They also help out a family called the Joiadas during their escape from oppression and also receive help from a heroic Rabbi named Reuven Marzullo, who misses his four daughters and his wife.

46. Retelling of “Fahrenheit 451” that shows Clarisse and Guy Montag escaping the city together and ending up with a farmer named William Halloway and his husband James Nightshade-Halloway and they end up telling Will and Jim their story, while Will and Jim tell their own story about how they had to deal with a sinister circus spaceship called “The Carousel” all those years ago.

47. “Encanto”/“One Hundred Years of Solitude” crossover wherein Bruno learns secrets of the universe from Melquiades that include how he and his whole entire Family Madrigal are descended from an Irish family by the name of Cahill.

48. Jane Austen retelling idea. After the death and downfall of King Cole, powerful New Constantinopolitan general Sir Thomas Bertram establishes his own miniature space empire over planets such as Wadadli and Andromaes that he rules with an iron fist and then Colonel Brandon defects from his armies to start a resistance group alongside Mister Darcy and Frederick Wentworth. Also, Marianne is being hunted because Sir Thomas wants to use her magic for his own.

49. Don Bluth “Anastasia” retelling that really leans into the idea of Rasputin as a manifestation of Anya’s trauma that she eventually confronts and defeats and overcomes in order to live her best and most fulfilling life.

50. Ghostbusters retelling. Short version: Egon’s family married him off to Walter Peck in order to make deals with the court of King Cole and then Egon went into hiding with Ray and Peter and Winston to get away from his abusive husband’s toxicity and now Peck refuses to forgive Phoebe or Trevor or Callie for…existing, basically.

51. What if Back to the Future was a bittersweet Miyazaki-esque fable instead of a traditional wish fulfilment fantasy?

52. Disney’s “Wish” but even more blatantly anti-theocracy than it already was.

53. Sundiata Keita’s story retold as a space opera.

54. The Canterbury Tales retold as various stories about life in space colonies.

55. Hemingway but it’s about the lives of veterans of King Cole’s Wars.

[glindaselphie]

it’s so wild to me whenever someone tries to claim cynthia’s elphie isn’t black simply bc of the green. as if the green isn’t a literal metaphor and as if everything about her elphie isn’t coded to represent especially dark skinned black girls, which cynthia has confirmed herself.

like there is even a metaphor in the fact a lighter skinned woman is playing nessa, the sister their father dotes on and much prefers, imho

[blackcur-rants]

Random silly hot take that Elphaba's greenness isn't just a blackness or racial metaphor, it's also a metaphor for albinism.

This is especially noticeable in how green makeup was often used to create paleness of skin in older films because of how it showed up in black and white film, or how Elphaba's issues with water parallel how hard it is for albino people to go out in sunlight because of how sensitive their skin is. And yes, a lot of times in history, albino people have been persecuted and hated and seen as...well, witches. It's honestly kind of terrifying how some of them are even murdered so that their body parts can be used in witchcraft spells. And of course, it is often used as a lazy shorthand for villains in popular media.

Sorry if this got upsetting, by the way. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this.

Is this okay to reblog with my own additions, by the way?

@disregardcanon @dachi-chan25 @intersexelphie @glindaselphie @cynicalclassicist