u/The1Sbeve

yes I reuploaded this due to image errors

Transcript:

By the nature of my travel, he was allowed about four cushy days to get himself together and run off, but I suspect those four days were rather a time spent on drinks and games. Not that he knew of my approach in a direct sense, but any outlaw ought to treat his tracks as followed—it was only smart. I don’t recall ever shooting a smart man, though.

Four days of drinks and games for him was four days of a sore ass and hot sun for me. Weather in the Territory was wicked as the men that flocked there, but keen shots and fast action don’t stop frigid nights like they do outlaws. As I lay against my steed Sunbeater for the third night, I find myself shivering and wishing for the sun again. Funny, I know I’ll want the moon by midday tomorrow. My horse’s head perked up in an agitated manner before the lonely sound of a coyote’s howl broke the silence. I patted her side to calm her. She was a rather keen beast, albeit anxious as a cat.

In the early morning of the fourth day, Sunbeater did her best across this awful desert, but dawn is a pleasantly cool time, so I try to make the most of it. She’s been my horse since my cowboy days, a pinto steady as a rock. Just being out of my second marriage, I’d like to think I’m more appreciative of her loyalty than the average handler.

On a steady trot, bouncing up and down just enough to ache after a while, I spotted the darkened silhouette of Auga Fria in the rosy horizon. Like an old world pirate spotting land after empty sailing for days, I felt a sense of anticipation and excitement overwhelm my heart and energize my body. I urged Sunbeater faster.

Seriously. It does so much with so little, and the smallest changes turn it from your standard fantasy monster to a truly horrifying foe.

The design does this by being unbalanced. So many cool cyclops designs, whether more traditional or more eldritch, are typically very balanced. Symmetry in the design, they move evenly and expectedly, and are well-proportioned.

But Nolan’s cyclops is awkward and clumsy. Watching it shamble to the shore with a crooked stance is terrifying because it’s like the creature itself knows it’s an abomination.

The eyes and nose are at a 45 degree angle rather than being uniform. Its eyelids blink horizontally rather than vertically. Everything about its face is slightly off in a really uncanny way, like it has a terrible birth defect or was mutated.

The beauty of the design is how little it changes and how much it accomplishes. You don’t need an eldritch abomination with 500 eyes and limbs and hooves (not that those aren’t cool). The eyes and nose are slightly off. It walks awkwardly. The whole design is off balance and so it’s very uncanny.

The moments of him biting the soldiers head off is also a neat homage to Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son.

The cyclops is the definition of excellent character design. Does so much with so little.

Seriously. It does so much with so little, and the smallest changes turn it from your standard fantasy monster to a truly horrifying foe.

The design does this by being unbalanced. So many cool cyclops designs, whether more traditional or more eldritch, are typically very balanced. Symmetry in the design, they move evenly and expectedly, and are well-proportioned.

But Nolan’s cyclops is awkward and clumsy. Watching it shamble to the shore with a crooked stance is terrifying because it’s like the creature itself knows it’s an abomination.

The eyes and nose are at a 45 degree angle rather than being uniform. Its eyelids blink horizontally rather than vertically. Everything about its face is slightly off in a really uncanny way, like it has a terrible birth defect or was mutated.

The beauty of the design is how little it changes and how much it accomplishes. You don’t need an eldritch abomination with 500 eyes and limbs and hooves (not that those aren’t cool). The eyes and nose are slightly off. It walks awkwardly. The whole design is off balance and so it’s very uncanny.

The moments of him biting the soldiers head off is also a neat homage to Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son.

The cyclops is the definition of excellent character design. Does so much with so little.

Wondering if anyone else had this interpretation of Odysseus’s character!

He’s a PTSD-riddled war veteran. His guilt weighs on him to the point where he’s afraid of coming home, a place he indirectly ruined by his actions at Troy.

Many soldier returning from their deployment wonder how their homecoming will be, they wonder if they’ve changed too much to feel welcome anymore or if they’ve changed for the worse, they wonder how they could ever go back to that life.

But Calypso, now matter how hard she suppressed his memory, couldn’t make him love her, and she couldn’t change who he was. When Odysseus returned, Argos recognized him.

And during the challenge, he could still string the bow. Because ultimately he is still Odysseus. And his wife tells him, she’s been sitting in his ruins for 20 years. The moment he left it was ruins to her, it didn’t matter to her what he did while he was away. Because he’s still him.

I think that’s a comforting message to people scared to return home. With each adventure we take we always come out slightly different at the other side, but at our hearts, we’re still the same, and things will be okay.

I like it, because it’s almost an anti-character arc that he has. “Despite everything, it’s still you.”

For those of you not familiar with Epic: the Musical, please go watch it! It’s a free concept album on youtube that reinterprets The Odyssey with a Disney/Anime vibe to it. Lots of fun! In that interpretation, Odysseus is constantly pining for his Penelope and Telemachus to his crewmates, always wanting to go home, and makes rash decisions purely to see his wife and son again. He’s very close with Eurylochus in a brotherly way and emotionally very open. He’s more “head of the friend group” than a general if you know what I mean.

Compare that to the movie, Odysseus is very clearly a leader and general, and his relationship to his men are that between a soldier and his general. Eurylochus is his 2nd in command but their relationship is clearly professional, not buddy-buddy. Odysseus is a man burdened by guilt and responsibility towards his men, and he never openly expresses his longing for his wife and son. In fact, he never opens up to any of his crew or even mentions his wife and son. He’s very reserved and keeps those parts of him tightly wrapped under layers of professionalism and callouses. His one goal that he openly expresses is to get his crew home safe, as is the responsibility of any faithful leader.

But it’s clear where his heart is from his dialogue with Calypso—he wants to know if he has a son and wife, not only because he can start to feel them distantly in his memory, but because he is exactly the man to care deeply for his family.

He idly wonders whether his men are coming back, but he begs Calypso to tell him the truth about his family. Because the lotus can’t change who he is despite how well it can suppress his PTSD.

This culminates in his brief interactions with Telemachus; when the boy realizes he’s talking to his dad, Odysseus becomes vulnerable with him, not visibly (doesn’t cry, keeps a guarded face), but in the way he speaks to him, telling him just how proud of him he is, and how beautiful and worthy he is, even though Odysseus knows Telemachus has no obligation to want or care about his absentee father.

Odysseus is old and jaded and his deeper feelings struggle to breach his impenetrable eyes and face, but the inner workings of his heart are revealed through his words. Only with Penelope does he open up about Troy and lament his role in it and the damage it caused to society. Only with Penelope does he express the full weight of his guilt and his responsibility.

In other words: Odysseus is every workaholic old man wracked with a guilt he tries to bury like any other emotion. Thanks for the read!

I mean graveyard hate, combo hosing, etc.

What are some of the best sideboard pieces out there? And some spicy ones that opponents won’t see coming?

Edit: decklist here, Mono Red Midrange v14 (Pioneer MTG Deck)

While it can't outrace an annex... it is a card the list can do nothing about except try to thoughtseize it. Seriously! Zero artifact removal, and it quickly threatens their host of x/3s. Also good against Dimir midrange lists! turns out blue and black have real shoddy artifact removal.

Give it a whirl!

/s mostly, it’s not great but it provides the double function of dealing with indestructible 3/1s and can buff prowess guys with at least 2 toughness. I run 2of in my midrange list to some success. Better in the sb for sure.

Here's my current list, highest I've gotten is low platinum on arena ranked (I swapped out bonehoards with anticausals and the eldrazi have gone untested thus far) Mono Red Midrange v14 (Pioneer MTG Deck)

I can't settle on an easy "does it all" endgame threat. I have 6 slots open for cmc 4+, ideally i'd like to keep it under 6cmc. 2 slots I have dedicated for chandra tod which remains a phenomenal swiss army knife that closes out long games consistently.

I'd also prefer to stay away from legendary creatures because they can't be copied with fable. this leaves a very small number of interesting picks.

Glorybringer, this card is amazing but there are a lot of 4/5s in the meta so it gets beat out a lot (yorion, beza, sheoldred, annex demon). Has an amazing potential with fable and fomo but in a vacuum it gets beat out sadly.

Bonehoard Dracosaur, this card beats almost anything and can attack into almost any board state, basically wins you the game if you get a turn with it, but dies to doom blade before giving you anything, making this card extremely unreliable and polarizing. Still, when it works it can't be beat.

Sunspine lynx, can snipe games out of nowhere and shuts off a lot of garbage, and has good stats for the cost, but it does get outpaced when opponent starts playing their own endgame threats. good but not quite enough to break though enemy board states.

Anticausal Vestige. I haven't tested this yet the stats seem promising, 7/5 trades out with annex demon and dying draws a card + free permanent so it pairs nicely with fable. the warp for 4 doesn't do much but it lets you play a 4 drop + draw at eot, and exiling safeguards it from hand attack. 6 is a bit much, though, and it has no keywords or etb.

Thoughts? whats your build currently? thanks for the read! and if you have any questions about my build lmk!

I want to address some critiques I’ve seen circulating.

1. No greek actors. Yes, this movie has a lot of A-list celebrity actors, most of which American, none of which greek. I was apprehensive but they each did a phenomenal job in their role and never once let the movie down or even took me out of it.

2. Not historically accurate. Yes, the armor they wear is this weird black padded/leathery tunic thing. I don’t mind it because I think it looks cool and sleek. Agamemnon’s design in particular has Darth Vader level of aura, not even joking. And considering this movie was filmed in real locations instead of just green screened, you still feel immersed in the strange island-y nature of the Mediterranean.

3. Modernized language. Yes, the drop the f-bomb and say “mom” and “dad” instead of “mother” and “father”. The script itself is fairly modernized unlike LOTR which makes an effort to sound more flowery and archaic. I would have appreciated a LOTR approach but it’s not that bad and didn’t take me out of it.

Now to the good stuff. This movie is the most “epic” movie that I’ve ever seen. I wish I could go into more detail without spoilers but the scale of adventure is breathtaking. The emotional is very very good too, it actually made me cry during certain scenes and that doesn’t happen often! The theming is excellent. I wish I could go more into detail but everything wraps itself up sooo nicely. It’s 3 hours of thrilling adventure but the last half hour is everything and its so satisfying. Believe the hype. The story is excellent. There’s a lot worth watching for. I can’t wait to see it again. Thanks all.

Even if these particular soldiers never meant specifically her harm, what exactly would they have done had she refused hospitality? Odysseus tries to cover for them, saying they just want to go home, but Cerce was ultimately correct about their nature: they are pillaging and destructive people, and no matter how hard Odysseus fights to get them home, he cannot “save them from themselves,” as the oracle in Hades warns.

Everywhere they go they cause trouble. Polyphemus was just minding his own business before they intruded. Multiple small towns were sacked by them for resources (seen at the beginning). Odysseus simply cannot save them from themselves and he finally accepts this when they slaughter and eat one of Apollos cows.

This ties itself together nicely when its revealed that they were the sea peoples bringing an end to the bronze age the entire time. It was their behavior that broke Zeus’s law and threw the present age into ruin by the sack of Troy.

I do love the theming in this movie. 10/10.

It reinforces how cruel the Trojan Horse trick was, how it hurt even someone as young and trusting as Sinon, who looked up to Odysseus and would have given his life for him.

I also like Odysseus’s narration: “We turned a fight into a hunt.” It goes back to how Odysseus likes to hunt with honor, plucking his bowstring to alert his prey before firing, but this time there was no warning for his hunt. Only sudden and mad slaughter. Really chilling.

Odysseus being wracked with guilt, manifesting as Athena who presents as the innocent girl killed, was very compelling.

This is my favorite movie.

Why is she shooting people? Did Overwatch enlist her? Why would they enlist a woman who does’t even know swear words, that just seems like they’re taking advantage of her. Literally all she talks about is “wow earth is so cool I’ve never seen cowboy movies” or “i don’t know how to be mean, so heck you!” and then the gates open and its like okay enough chit-chat earthlings time for a live shoot-out i hope I make it back home! Like what???? She should be in college or educating herself about earth and having starbucks with her gal pals why is she armed and ready for lethal combat???