pathetic and miserable death forever moodboard
FUDGECAKE-CHARLIE COMING BACK WITH A STEEL CHAIR AND A DREAM‼️‼️💥
was itching to paint so i cracked open rebelle again and did some portraits/studies for hermits i haven't drawn in. a while
There are TWO types of people
Seeing these two back to back when opening Twitter was sure something.
hm ok so interestingly, bdubs’s courthouse is built on an odd number of blocks. note the roof of the facade coming to a point, but more importantly, the nine pillars….
you don’t use an odd number of pillars. like ever.
let me get this out of the way first: i get why you’d build with odd numbers in minecraft. i usually do it myself, to not run into problems like double doors or two-wide pointed roofs or frustrating spacing/symmetry between decorative elements. however. to not even out the design of something so unequivocally done in every other example of columns and pillars…. fascinating implications…
every other example guys. every other building with columns like this has an even number of them.
doing so sets the line of symmetry at an invisible point between two pillars, an even number on each side. but an odd total number of pillars makes the central pillar itself the line of symmetry. this does a couple things.
one, it upends the sense of community and equality. which i know sounds crazy, but really, a group of columns are all put there to hold up a structure. there’s no focus on one because they are all are working as supports.
symbolically, at least when first used in ancient greece, pillars represented people. and it makes sense for courthouses, especially, to want to show an even, fair, equal number of people on each side. no focus on any one, no inherent bias right off the bat just looking at it.
with an odd number of pillars, though, one will always be placed front and center.
and THEN. and then you walk in the courtroom itself (also odd-numbered blocks) and you are immediately opposite the judge, bdubs, located exactly centrally. and true, courtrooms are often set up like this anyway. but bdubs ups the ante and reaffirms that no, focus is on him by staging it all as a daytime court show, boom mic just over his head, cameras pointed in, spotlights on him.
literally by design, it was not built for justice. it’s built for show, for entertainment. and just look at the credits to know exactly what sort of message you’re supposed to be getting from this show.
the biblical story he used, with king solomon. it’s about king solomon. isn’t really about the trial itself, or the babies, or the women. it’s about showing (off) how wise and just he is. that’s the point. hm. interesting.
now, getting to the second point that etho also picked up on: it feels like a prison.
it’s not just the color palette. when your eyes naturally draw to the center point, you aren’t seeing an open space. instead of feeling like an arch or gateway or otherwise some kind of opening, the pillar there makes it feel closed off. the overall effect is that of prison bars. not pillars lining the entrance to a place of order or a temple. bars of a cage, a cell.
imagine the lincoln memorial were set up with 11 or 13 pillars. he’d look so much more trapped in there.
having a central pillar blocks the entrance. it’s not welcoming. you have to go around it; it’s immediately inconveniencing you. and when you go to leave, it’s there blocking you again.
this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms. even if unintentional, i wouldn’t call it so much coincidental as i would… subconscious.
after all, y’know. form follows function.
YES YES fully onboard with that — even if it does look like what a courthouse should, it’s small details like the pillars that make it feel Off.
Building off the whole Ancient Greek architecture inspirations, importantly it comes from the Parthenon. The Parthenon was built within an Acropolis which are high points of Greek cities that also serve as warning signs and places of worship because they are placed higher (Closer to the gods). Back then and even now you’re not allowed to enter the Parthenon it’s untouchable- and yet you can here in Bdubs’ courthouse.
Thinking abt it more despite trying to be similar - u could even say that the courthouse is an inversion of the Parthenon. Like u said the pillars represent people and there is significance in a wall-less Parthenon the architecture is transparent and honest. Bdubs’ courthouse does not have that - that thing has walls we can’t see and secrets we dont know about.
And it’s interesting that the courthouse is built lower, on the ground with the rest of the shopping district. We see the before-state of the terrain how it is higher on a hill, until he yknow tears that down too. Even if situational you can interpret so much from what that metaphorically means:
‘this courthouse was not designed and built to be fair, nor accomodating, nor equitable, on any terms.’ — I love that from u op cuz he quite literally does the opposite. Bdubs doesn’t adapt to the land, the land accommodates to him. And as much as the established cultural meaning the source material presents otherwise, Bdubs as the Judge, the Jury, the Executioner, the Deity - will twist it in a way that benefits him alone.
hi i am about to get my degree in classical studies!! i watched this video and immediately went what the fuck this guy made pediment reliefs and fucking METOPE RELIEFS AS WELL he MUST have been studying ancient greek temples.
because thats what this is. its a temple. you dont. you dont get civic buildings like that. the aiakeion in athens was just a fuckin empty rectangle of walls, that was likely a law court. temples are the only things that are lavishly decorated, and thats for a reason. its fair to compare this to the parthenon, its like the most famous greek temple out there but it is also far from the only one. they were built all over, not just in high points. yeah okay a lot of them werent grand like the parthenon, but lots of them also. were. they were also often somewhat individually sponsored. you and/or your polis show your wealth with the temples and dedications you make to the gods, the bigger the better.
its difficult to get a proper measurement for the size of bdubs' courthouse in terms of pillars, because there was in fact a standard size. and that standard size had 6 pillars across the front. also i believe the vibe bdubs is going for here with his choice of the chiseled tuff is ionic pillars, instead of the parthenon's doric. i can see an argument for corinthian as well, the slender nature and pronounced base could be either, but definitely not doric.
again with the metopes, the choice of chiseled tuff seems to indicate another similarity to the parthenon, being the only temple we know of with relief on all its metopes. something more to say for the grandiose nature of it.
i also happen to have had an exam earlier today where i talked about what myth tells us about modern societies, so forgive my rambling here i have been studying a lot of this. there is something to say not only about which myths and parts of classical culture society places focus on, but also how they do so. its not always for the themes and understanding and the same reasons as it was in classical society, there is a tendency to allude to modern perceptions of classical conventions to seem sophisticated, and perhaps in this instance, highly democratic.
its a facade though. it doesnt have the same depth and care and meat that it would have in a time long past. the metopes are squiggles. the pediment relief isnt even a scene its just a bunch of figures standing around. the columns are way off, the dimensions aren't considered. i wish i knew what direction it was facing but i cant be sure. bdubs has constructed this building to make an impression, something grand and sophisticated and old and traditional and rooted deeply in democracy—it is, after all, a courthouse. but a little bit of a closer look reveals to you just how off it all is, just how skewed he's made it. he wants to liken himself to the greats and the gods, but his hubris gets the better of him.
this is to say this is a fucking excellent build, i was also fucking blown away seeing the tv set because I AM ALSO GETTING A FILM DEGREE anyways he seems to have his barn doors on. backwards. but that is another conversation for another time.
i have a feeling this is a lot of disconnected thoughts, you will have to forgive me, it is late, i had an exam earlier today, and i only just turned in my final essay about the archeological processes in minecraft and how they compare to the real world. anyways. what was i saying?
Absolutely love this cat. He's sherlockthecat_official on tiktok and his bit is for his fans to accuse him of the wildest shit while he stares blankly at the camera:
Bonus:
Doctor: $140,000 a year
Furry artist on Patreon: $160,000 a year
i think you’re lowballing the furry art amount tbh
I’m sorry for the inaccuracies, Doctor Yiff
no matter how I respond to this I don’t look good, well played. i walked right into that
Well, furry artists are typically more competent and courteous than your average doctor, so I can see that.
Did you just legitimately tell me that a person who draws wolf ass is more competent than a dude who spent 8+ years in a university to give you your lung transplant?
doctors are bullshit and furry artists perform an infinitely more valuable service to society compared to them
You will die in 7 days
It took doctor’s like 10 years to diagnose what was wrong with me, some insisting I was faking for attention while a furry artist I knew just went “that sounds like crohn’s” after hearing me complain once and ended up being right
Also I can’t go to a doctor and ask them to draw Rouge the Bat wider than she is tall with tits to match, now can I
You could if you weren’t a fucking coward
