no thoughts head empty

Sitting here wondering if zathuda was being metaphorical or literal when talking about his "curse of ambition" thing.

Like, bro, elaborate??? Cause if this is an actual curse curse then it's maybe important to know the details of it if it's passed to Fearne?

Dude says something about flames and something about a curse of ambition and I'm just like: this smells like some devilry is afoot. Was zathuda cursed by the lord of the hells???

My second guess is lady elmenore, which is probably more likely but we've just come off of Braius almost getting cursed by a god and "Curse of Ambition" sounds right up Asmodeus' alley ngl.

Back on my Asmodeus and Ludinus are narrative parallels bullshit again. I've just been trying to put into words why, despite their massive similarities, I feel so differently about them. Like, Asmodeus is an objectively worse person than Ludinus Da'leth but I love him while Ludi's mere presence has me contemplating homicide.

Honestly, I think the biggest differentiator here is that Asmodeus is FUN. Like, he's being horrible but at least on some level he's having fun while doing so. It's the Disney villain effect! He's bad but he's also charismatic and funny (he's got jokes!) and has plots and schemes and is committed to the bit!

And he's tragic too! He's such a messy bitch and whenever he enters the room you know shit's about to get dramatic. Despite all his talk, you can see the longing he has for his siblings. He loves them so much! He loves them but his love burns and he refuses to accept his part in the breakdown of their relationship. It's so juicy!!! There's so much here!!!

Ludinus just doesn't have this! He's not fun, he's preachy. He's got reddit atheist vibes, fucking twitter accelerationist yapping in your replies about how fascism is a good thing, actually. He's so sweaty! Just a huge fucking nerd. JD Vance levels of negative rizz.

And its just like, yeah I guess Ludinus is tragic. On an objective level, I suppose. But its not entertaining, its just kinda pathetic. And I think part of that is because the man is so isolated he doesn't really have any relationships to give him tragic depth? There's Lilliana, and his weird projection with Imogen, and that's kind of it. Which, this loneliness could be something! It could be interesting! But it falls flat on the sympathy side for me because its entirely self-inflicted and just kinda gives off "male loneliness" vibes.

Like, other people survived Calamity. They're all dead now, but he also should be dead now so that’s a moot point. His foremost developmental years were spent with people who shared his experiences and understood his pain, and he *still* couldn't form connections and move on. At that point, his lack of relationships is just a skill issue.

Both of them ruin the party when they walk in, but with Asmodeus shit gets messy while with Ludinus it just gets annoying. Asmodeus I want to beat up and make him cry then hug him. Ludinus I just want to beat up, period.

One thing I’ve seen people talking about as a possible solution to the whole gods issue is turning the gods mortal—permanently.

Remove the throne entirely. Put gods and mortals on the same playing field. This option does have one obvious benefit: if the gods are like everybody else, then the damage they can inflict is severely reduced.

The thing about Ludinus is that he clearly doesn't have a plan for after. And I don't think it's a case of him not thinking that far ahead, I think this is him, in his arrogance, believing that mortals will just figure it out. The gods are dead, and mortals' great potential is unleashed! They'll survive and thrive, of course they will! Any casualties are necessary sacrifices for the great new order.

And what will Ludinus be doing? Nothing. He'll be dead. I think Ludinus desperately wants to be a martyr, eternally memorialized as Exandria's great savior. He'll die for the cause, but he won't live to see its consequences.

Been thinking about how Braius probably writes fanfiction about the Lord of the Hells, and how that leads to the funniest most insane questions about how worship works.

Do the gods hear every prayer? Do they know when you write fanfiction about them? Do the gods have to listen to every shitty h*rny thing written or spoken about them?

If I were Asmodeus, and I had to listen to every terrible h*rny fanfiction or lusty insane thought about myself for all of eternity, I, too, would want to burn everything to the ground and start over.

Prime Deities truly have the patience of saints for putting up with that and still loving mortals. Cause Jesus christ. Like, imagine all the weird daddy k*nks people project onto the dawnfather. And he just has to, like, deal with that. And heaven help any of the goddesses. I would immediately start smiting fools.

So funny that one of the first things BH's would be seeing in this aeorian vhs tape is sarenrae being a loving mother to her mortal children, and pelor the dawnfather being kind and sweet and trying to help everyone he meets.

Even when the city falling stuff happens, that's one of the first, most defining impressions of who these gods are and how they interact with mortals. Flawed yes, but also loving and parental and wanting the best for their children.

Ludinus, you are so cooked.

Was scrolling through the Ludinus tag because I enjoy seeing critters drag his bony ass, and suddenly had some thoughts about ludi and the gods. Keeping the narrative roles of gods and myths in mind, I want to talk about the gods' role in Exandria on a metatextual level, and how it ties into why Ludinus is a big stupid idiot (to put it in simple terms).

So, some preface: in real life religion and mythologies, gods aren't real people (shocker, I know). But the things they represent are real; gods and myths are just ways of explaining real world phenomena. This is why their characterization can be really whack. Zeus, for example, is a dick because in real life, kings are dicks. Artemis is both a protecter of hunters and their killer because, in ancient greece, when you went out into the woods to hunt, either you came back alive or you didn't. You can't analyze the gods as real people because they're not people-- they're concepts. You always have to keep these narrative roles and the historical context in mind when reading these myths. You can't judge them by our modern morals and values, because for one these myths are from ancient times, and also because the characters in these myths aren't humans that follow human moral codes or ethics.

So, in Exandria, the gods are real. And from what we've seen so far, they exist in a weird sort of space. They are both people, and concepts; mortal-like but also not. When analyzing the gods as concepts and roles in a narrative, it's pretty clear that the gods act in ways that align with their domains. The Everlight is merciful because she represents the concept of redemption; Asmodeus is hateful and cruel because he represents tyranny and domination; the Wildmother is both nurturing and brutal because nature is both of these things. You can't remove their actions from their domains, it is an intrinsic part of themselves.

Additionally, the actions they take represent certain themes. The Changebringer defeated Asmodeus in the calamity because freedom is the only way to beat tyranny. Same with the Everlight and the Dawnfather being the ones to strike down the Crawling King (with help from the Moonweaver and the All-Father), because these two gods represent hope, which defeats despair and suffering (I know despair isn't technically Torog's domain but it fits with the rest of his character so I'm gonna throw it in there.) The Raven Queen's ascension is representative of the Age of Arcanum as a whole, of the dominance of wizards over the world. The actions of the gods cannot be separated from their domains, and they cannot be separated from the general narratives seen in Exandria.

These overarching narratives can also be seen in the actions of mortals, too. The Age of Arcanum fell because of hubris. Because mortals thought they could best the gods and the world itself and it backfired on them. It's those rich guys who tried to go to the Titanic and their submarine got imploded by the water pressure. If you fuck around, you're gonna eventually find out. You can't beat the world you live in.

This detail of besting the gods is one I want to focus on with Ludinus. His whole thing is killing the gods to get revenge and "free" Exandria. But how is killing the gods freeing Exandria? The gods are Exandria. Even if they can't physically manifest avatars, they're still a part of it. The gods, being concepts, are written into the fabric of Exandria itself; you can't separate them from the world because they are the world and the world is them.

This fact is why the complete banishment of the Betrayer Gods didn't work; they are a fundamental part of Exandria and how it functions. Their return was, narratively, inevitable, because you can't remove concepts like violence or tyranny or betrayal from the world; they are here to stay, whether you like them or not. That doesn't mean you can't minimize their impact, just that you can't remove them entirely.

This is also why the Matron's ritual did work. When she killed the god of death, she wasn't destroying the concept of death itself, just putting it under new management. The same with Vecna ascending and becoming the god of secrets-- he took over an already existing domain. No fundamental concepts were created or destroyed, it's just that the faces that represented them changed.

Ludinus, in his denial of the gods, is denying the world itself. Both the good and the bad parts of it. He thinks he can remove the gods but keep Exandria mostly intact, but that's not how that works. He's so caught up in his trauma and revenge that he misses the bigger picture. In forsaking the gods, he forsakes the world. In killing the gods, he would be killing Exandria as we know it. (And that's why he's a big dumb idiot).

This comparison has been made before but rewatching calamity has got me thinking about the similarities between Asmodeus and Ludinus. Like, it's a lot, ya'll. And that's sooo funny because if you pointed that out to either of them they would both get so mad about it.

Like, there are the obvious similarities of being fascist tyrants obsessed with getting revenge against those who "wronged" them. And by doing so they actively harm the people they think they are "saving". Also, just the general sense of entitlement that the world owes them recompense for what they've lost (asmo's relationship with his siblings/the age of arcanum for ludi).

They both idealize and glorify a past that really wasn't all that good (pre-mortals for Asmo/Aeor for ludi) and blame those who "stole" that past from them. They deny all responsibility for their own wrongdoings and assign it to their designated scapegoats (mortals for asmo, and in ludi's case, assigning the blame of calamity and the destruction of Aeor onto the prime deities instead of the hubristic wizards who created the conditions for that to happen in the first place).

Like I stated earlier, they're both tyrants who prop up fascist regimes/institutions to consolidate their own power. Both are extremely manipulative and cherrypick the truth to fit their own narratives. They're egotistical and prideful, unable to admit they could be wrong. And neither care about casualties or collateral damage in the pursuit of their revenge.

And, one of biggest similarities between them, in my opinion, is their ability to never stop ranting about shit. These bitches can yap. Just absolutely unable to shut up and stop talking. They both love the sound of their own voice. Annoying ass mfs.

Can I just say, critters trying to figure out what "Braius Doomseed" is an anagram of is giving big night yorb energy.

Expanding upon my previous Graz'tchar post:

It's so funny how little effort graz'tchar was putting into lying to chetney. Like, it was lying so blatantly and obviously, and escalated it's "the council of taldorei is corrupt" bs so quickly. 0-100 real fucking quick

And it's not like the sword is a terrible liar. It contains the essence of the demon lord Graz'zt in it, the literal prince of indulgence and seduction. The sexiest demon lord out there. It has a charisma of 18, insight checks made against it have a dc of 26. This sword knows how to lie good. And still it put the least amount of effort possible into lying to chetney, presumably because it thought it was funny, and that's amazing

I really love how Matt's voice for Graz'tchar is slightly different every time we hear it. I don't know if it's intentional, but it definitely helps with conveying that everything this sword says is complete bullshit. Like, this sword has no fucking clue what it's doing, it's just riding the wave of chaos babeyyy.