"love Is What Makes Us Human" Actually It's 'select All Images With Boat' But Go Off I Guess

the year is 2056. Critical role is on it’s 11th campaign. Samuel Reigel drinks out of an 8 foot tall marble martini glass. He sets it down and unzips his jacket. His t shirt has a photo of Matthew Mercer’s birth certificate and social security card printed onto it. Matthew Mercer can only respond with a creepily realistic bottle sound of distress.

Vex (ft. Trinket)

I found a soft quietude come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last.

This segment gives me so much joy, but is a great example of what makes Jonathan incredibly unique among similar types of horror victims in Victorian literature.

A lot of academic analysis notes Jonathan’s traditionally feminine role in the early chapters of Dracula, but chalk it up to “the horror of emasculation”—that Dracula imposing femininity on Jonathan expresses the gender role anxiety of the time and is part of how Dracula terrorizes him.

But that’s just straight-up not how the book is written. Jonathan is comforting himself with his connection to the sweet, soft ladies of old, wishing he were writing love letters to his own love far away. He soothes himself with the image as a way to escape the horrors surrounding him. He encourages himself with the comparison to Shezerade and her cleverness earlier.

It’s the difference between “Jonathan is facing horrors traditionally imposed on female characters” and “the horrors INCLUDE the connection to female characters.” That distinction is enforced by how he, on his own, finds comfort and encouragement by thinking of himself among their number.

It’s a distinction that wouldn’t be obvious from just reading a summary of the story, which in all honesty seems to be what some academic analysis is working from.

Hi PLEASE go off about how the districts in The Hunger Games work. Thank you. 😘

ahaha OKAY!!

so I think the big issue with other YA dystopia that tried to emulate the hunger games was that it didn't grasp why the districts actually existed, and how the enforcement of their division actually served to benefit the capitol and weaken any resistance. tbh I didn't really think too deeply about this aspect of it until recently when i was watching someone on youtube's deep-dive into the divergent series and was struck by how stupid that series's idea of factions were. they're based primarily on personality traits, and not only that but they have a system where everyone has to be manually sorted into those factions? which is just way too much effort for a system so arbitrary that doesn't actually serve a logical purpose in maintaining a totalitarian regime.

meanwhile the hunger games's districts make complete sense; the capitol never had to corral people or even do much of anything other than draw some borders and then enforce said borders, and they did so logically based on preexisting socio-economic systems. district 12 is a mining district because it's located in appalachia, which is already an industrial mining area. by dividing panem based on available resources, the capitol can very easily maintain its control by forcing each individual district to be dependent on the capitol's allocation of said resources. no other districts can independently trade goods with one another, so if any district wants to receive everything it needs to survive, it has to stay in the capitol's good graces. if district four pisses them off, the capitol can just say "okay, good luck heating your homes this winter" and there's nothing district four can do about it. naturally this leads to certain districts receiving special treatment; district one supplies luxury goods for the capitol and as a result is allowed a level of wealth and comfort not afforded to other districts, which 1) motivates them to maintain the status quo to continue benefiting from it, 2) gives them a sense of pride and superiority to other districts that alienates them from others, and 3) breeds resentment for certain districts among the poorer ones, creating further division with minimal effort on the capitol's part. even if it's in everyone's best interests to unite and fight together, why would district 12 give a shit that district 1 is also suffering under the same regime? their families don't have to worry about putting food on the table.

and then the failed rebellion happens, district 13 is seemingly wiped off the map, and the capitol comes up with the hunger games, which is a pretty genius idea for a punishment that also serves to strengthen its power. "we destroyed district 13 and we have the power to destroy you, too, but all we're demanding of you is two of your children per year, and we're gracious enough to provide them a chance at survival." (i've seen shitty YA dystopias that have similar selection processes for whatever arbitrary system they establish where NO ONE who is selected comes back, which is insane and doesn't work because without that sliver of hope, no one who's being subjugated has anything to lose.)

and while every district is forced to sacrifice at least one child, some districts have a better chance of bringing a child home alive than others, which gives them the "privilege" of seeing selection for the games as something honorable. "yes, you might die, but you've had the resources to train for this your whole life, and if you win you'll bring more glory to our district, just like all the ones who came before you who now live in the victors' village" (and of course the more tributes who win in a certain district, the more aspirational being a tribute becomes, because you have plenty of examples of winners who now live in even more luxury than before; meanwhile district 12's victors' village is technically 'luxurious' but its only occupant is miserable and lonely and his life is hardly any better than the rest of them). and with this sense of competition comes even more division, because why would i see district 2 as my ally when their tribute, who i was forced to watch cave in my child's head with a rock, is now here on their mandatory victory tour celebrating the fact that they did so? sure, they still lost one kid, but they could have lost two like the rest of us.

so tl;dr the districts are a very logical, surprisingly simple aspect of the capitol's totalitarian rule: there's no arbitrary sorting system they have to create, it's based on the control of basic resources humans require to survive, it's relatively easy to enforce both through physical borders and a systemic "divide-and-conquer" approach appealing to human emotion. it's very believable as it merely takes real socio-economic disparity and class conflict to its most extreme.

(also this isn't related to the districts but other YA dystopia tends to portray their protagonists as "special" or "different" and that's why they're capable of taking down the system, but katniss is very explicitly Not Special. she's skilled in a way that makes perfect sense given her upbringing, but she's not overpowered; she wins because the pieces just so happen to fall into place in just the right way that allows her to win. the spark of rebellion she ignites by forcing the capitol to allow both her and peeta to win happens because she's intelligent, sure, but also because these poison berries happen to be available. it's a mundane victory made significant through circumstances where she happens to be the Right Person at the Right Time.)

obligatory "idk if this made any fucking sense lmao" bookend

So I rewatched the entire dinner scene instead of sleeping, and here’s my hot take: I don’t care about Trent. He’s an asshole abuser, so I will eat up others’ probably far more insightful meta on THAT topic.

No, I want to talk about Astrid, Eodwulf, and Caleb.

That scene didn’t go at all like I expected it to. I think I, and everyone else, were expecting the mind games, the subtle threats, the manipulation…

But I wasn’t expecting half of it to be directed towards Astrid and Eodwulf.

In those previous encounters, we kind of got what we thought the two of them would be – confident, duty bound, convicted, a certain sense that they were where they wanted to be, that they knew their environment and had some control. Astrid came from a place of slightly patronising pity for Caleb. Eodwulf didn’t bother talking to the Nein overly.

So we all sat here and made jokes about Caleb’s evil ex-friends, donning their scariest wizard robes and staring stonily down the table for the evening. That’s what we expected. People who didn’t hesitate. People who, though abused and brainwashed, were committed to the cause, were perpetuating the cycle.

That is not what we got.

They start that way. Annoyed at the Nein’s antics. Stern. Supposedly full of conviction. But there was no righteousness, and they got more and more nervous as the night went on.

Astrid and Eodwulf were afraid. Astrid was not one step away from coldly offing Trent and taking his place. She was leaning away from him, begging Caleb to stop provoking Trent, stop calling attention to her. Eodwulf was reluctant to talk, was worried about how Caleb would react, froze up as soon as things started getting confrontational.

Every moment of their interactions at that table screamed ABUSE. 

I’m sure our previous assumptions are true. I’m sure they kill, torture, and do worse for the Empire. I’m sure they defend it at every point, have parroted lines they refuse to let go of. It’s possible that they mean it.

But those weren’t powerful mages who’d grown up to shoulder the horrors of their youth as just and right without another thought. Those were beaten dogs.

On top of that, those were beaten dogs who know they’re not allowed to think for themselves. Every time Caleb asked Astrid a difficult question – every single time – she would look over at Ikithon nervously, steel herself, and then mimic him almost exactly.

I didn’t realise until rewatching the scene, but her speech pattern varies GREATLY between speaking in a manner I believe to be honest, and speaking about dicey topics like the Empire, her duty, their actions, and so on. When addressing more vulnerable topics, Astrid spoke softly and looked like this:

Whenever she had to speak about something that she clearly felt she was on thin ice with? She lowered her voice, evened it out, and changed her cadence to match Ikithon’s perfectly, the only difference being that her voice is slightly higher pitched. It’s so close I sometimes had trouble telling if Caleb was talking to Ikithon or to her.

Astrid straight up told Caleb that whoever is her superior is right, and she and Eodwulf will do as that superior says. Nothing more. No moral judgements of her own. Eodwulf, for his part, never directly defended his actions or their jobs. Whenever he was pressed, he looked to Astrid. Who, in turn, would look to Trent.

That’s a pretty obvious sign of what’s going on, here.

The only times Eodwulf is startled into genuine reactions are when Trent drops the first real bombshell on Caleb, at which point he makes these faces:

And afterwards, when Caduceus parted with a scathing last word to Trent, wherein both he and Astrid looked like this:

Astrid tried to share her hair techniques with Jester. She smiled when the Nein joked about kidnapping her. Eodwulf liked the moniker they gave him. Eodwulf decided he liked Caduceus right after he’d told Trent no one would mourn him.

As soon as that dinner was over, Eodwulf pulled out alcohol, took a swig, passed it to Caleb, who took a swig, and then to Astrid, who took a swig. That quick and unhesitating exchange speaks of long experience. Long experience leaving Trent’s presence and immediately trying to get drunk.

It said a lot about the three of them, I think. That little moment, the ease of it, how normal it seemed, displays a genuine (at least at one point, and maybe still) camaraderie between them, and also a genuine unease in Trent’s presence, even after a decade and a half.

And that leads to the other thing I wasn’t expecting, but maybe should have. Caleb.

He’d hesitated from condemning Trent. This was the man he had spent most of the campaign running from, the man who had groomed him into killing his family, and yet he was reluctant to speak about violence, even though his friends half begged him to give the okay on it.

I think we were expecting Caleb to hunch his shoulders, to look away, to be eaten up by anxiety. And maybe he would have been shrinkingly cautious through the whole affair. Y’know, if Trent hadn’t said Caleb’s parents would have been okay with him burning them alive. If Astrid and Eodwulf hadn’t desperately tried to blend in with the furniture at every opportunity.

Caleb starts the dinner making these kind of faces:

But slowly, that changes. He stops doing his usual habit of avoiding eye contact and rubbing at his arms. He starts glowering when Trent tries to insist that Caleb’s parents’ deaths were a good thing, were what they wanted, would bring honour to the family he had eradicated, somehow. He likes it less when Trent claims credit for his escape. He really looks pissed when Astrid tries unconvincingly to argue that what they did was okay, obviously signalling her discomfort with the situation.

By the end of the night, Caleb looked Trent in the eye and said he dreamed of murdering him, brutally, with his bare hands. By the end of the night, Caleb had THIS look on his face as he stared at the man who’s haunted his every moment for as long as he’s been a lucid adult:

This Caleb? This is the Caleb who isn’t paralysed by his own guilt and fear. This is a Caleb who is very, very angry.

So regarding the dynamic between Astrid, Eodwulf, and Caleb? The script was, in the end, rather flipped. We went in expecting three wizards trying to manipulate an overwhelmed Caleb. Instead, we got one wizard crushing the souls of two others under his heel, with the only one currently outside his direct influence growing more and more furiously bold as the situation became evident.

The fact that Trent was his abuser was never going to bring Caleb to violence on its own. But Caleb called Astrid and Eodwulf “friends,” present tense, the day before he watched them sit, afraid of saying the wrong thing, through a dinner with their abuser. I don’t think he’s going to be so hesitant about violence towards Trent in the future.

They may have learned very little about Trent and his true intentions. It’s even possible that everything we saw of Eodwulf and Astrid is some elaborate fiction, though I don’t think so. But whatever else, it did one thing I’m not sure Trent wanted; it solidified a path forward for Caleb that he wouldn’t commit to before, and I don’t think it involves Trent surviving.

if aught but death part me and thee

so idk if we’re getting a bard’s lament this season, but regardless of if we are or not i NEED to talk about my most favorite dynamic ever so i can get this convo back out into the universe before a bard’s lament happens because it makes me unwell.

vex and scanlan are, in many ways, the same. they’re deeply insecure, sad people that put on masks to hide it. they’re good liars. so that’s what they do. they stand in front of each other and they lie. and it’s not hard for them to know the other is lying. i mean vex LITERALLY SEES THROUGH HIS DISGUISE EVENTUALLY LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING?

and like, vex is snippy and she can be a bit of a shit and she says scanlan is just some guy without his magic. but he’s also the person she looks up to. she literally travels across the whole continent by herself to make sure his daughter can get to him and she sends kaylie back to him even though she’s distraught and terrified and alone. she’s the one person who actually gets through to him during a bard’s lament and she gets through to him by telling him to stop viewing his daughter as a sacred object. to fix his relationship with her. AND HE LISTENS. like again she is the ONLY person in that room who gets through to him and it’s because she implores him to fix his relationship with his daughter after he cruelly remarks that they went to the fey realm to “fix her daddy issues.”

and scanlan! he teases her and he deflects his seriousness around her with humor as much as he does to anyone. but he teaches vex how to use the broom and he gives her the hat to wear. and he ensures her success when he turns her into a dragon and directly tells a god that she’s mean and greedy and the most perfect one of all of them.

scanlan is a father with a fractured relationship with his daughter and vex is a daughter desperate for her father’s approval.

scanlan is not vex’s father. but when scanlan comes back she does everything she can to try and make sure he won’t leave again despite the way he hurt her.

vex is not scanlan’s daughter. but he walks her down the aisle and makes sure she can see her brother at her wedding and he’s happy to be like her father for a day.

scanlan is NOT vex’s father and vex is NOT scanlan’s daughter but really, aren’t they made of the same stuff?

Juri Arisugawa🌹🧡

POV your 12 year old coworker keeps saying insane shit