#the origins of this myth like. understood how to work with what this game was at the time to create a concept that you know. if you were a | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sakurarisen · 2 months

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So this one's gonna be kind of long, apologies ahead of time- XD

Despite her rough life, Sera has kind of always known there's more to her than even she can understand - And this is a feeling that only grows once she's finally able to settle down with Zack into a calmer, more peaceful life, and learns how to cope and face the things that've happened to her. The more she finds ways to cope and finally have the life she's craved and deserved, the more it feels like she's standing on a frozen lake; there's so much more under the surface, so much more to her, and yet she can't access any of it past the occasional tap on the ice and a temporary, slight bubbling up of the cold water underneath. So, so much more... Something, but she's never understood what, no matter how much she tries to find the answers to 'what makes Seraphina Fair tick?' - A question that comes up especially often in her FF7 canon, when she realizes the materia she picked up on her way to Gongaga is a summon materia for Shiva, eventually gaining the use of her aid and power, albeit at the cost of her own energy and needing serious bedrest after.

This question of what makes her 'tick' and what lies under that frozen over lake is now the same in every verse: Because Sera holds the power of one of many elemental phoenixes - In this case, the Snow Phoenix.

There's lore I wrote up a very, VERY long time ago (and need to rewrite and fine tune, now XD) for another OC of mine whose bloodline is descended from a phoenix - Essentially, the phoenix lived in in an era where gods walked the planet freely and many gained a following, with the phoenix especially enjoying a temple and a fair number of worshipers. But as humans do, war eventually broke out, and the phoenix himself was targeted for his feathers under the false claim they would give the power of rebirth and the inability to fall in battle, causing his temples to be overrun in the people's bid to get their hands on them.

The phoenix stood tall and protected his temple and the priests and priestesses within it, eventually taking human form to fight beside them, and at the end of the war, began a bloodline with his most trusted priestess that eventually, many hundreds, probably thousands of years later, to my other OC - Who, for multiple reasons, thought she was the last of the phoenixes despite being only a halfbreed.

Expanded lore I've been working on, however, adds more phoenixes; the original was a solely fire-based creature, while the others that existed among the world were of other elements - Ice, lighting, water... The original 'myth' had been passed down among the people of a pretty remote village, and the myth/legend had inevitably changed over time, like playing a game of telephone, until all mentions of other phoenixes and gods ceased to exist within it. Nobody knows there's others - But even so, Sera herself inherited the defensive, healing powers of the Snow Phoenix, while her older brother Thoma inherited some of the fire phoenix's power - Two phoenixes who were originally siblings, now echoed in Sera and her brother, linked closely together just the same as the originals.

However, despite Sera embodying the Snow Phoenix in just about every way - defensive and protective in nature, rose from her 'ashes' to keep moving forward (multiple times over her life, actually, this girl SHOULD have died several times over and managed to survive), an affinity for ice magic/abilities, ranged fighting, a healer, hiding in the form of a snow leopard/human/snow fox, etc., that's all for another post and not this one which is already longer than I intended it to be - she isn't strong enough to use it, at least not in full. The circumstances of her life/lives have made it so that while she HAS the power within her, she's too physically weak to access it, and using it in full would more than likely kill her - Though she can access incredibly tiny fractions of it when she desperately needs it, or with the aid of Zack and Thoma, her soulmate and the single blood relative/member of her birth family she has left she's super close to.

This lore also fits into just about everything I have running for her; reincarnation and rebirth is a thing across all my blogs (every verse and AU is another lifetime for the muse, with them all being connected in the end by being the same person reborn into a new life with the same soul, changed only by the timeframe and circumstances they're born into, otherwise the exact same person), and the snow phoenix follows her through all of them. In GI, it's an old power caught up in the rebirth cycle, in FF7 it was a familiar of Shiva she aided into gaining human form - Nothing like an ancient in any form, but a being connected to the goddess and the elements (who still needs materia even with her innate abilities), and so on.

This... This isn't implemented YET because I need to figure out how to rewrite the phoenix myth and organically insert it into Sera's stuff, but this is... This is just Sera. This is my girl, and it's taken me over a decade to FINALLY figure out this is what she's had lingering within her, even though I've known there's something there for a looooong time. I want to make SURE it makes sense and doesn't step on toes when I add it in, or buck anything in canon lores for any of the verses, and I really want it to work out - And since Sera is inherently fandomless/multifandom at her core, it should be easy enough to do that?

But also I've been rambling for FOREVER here so I'll cut this one here XD I'm just?? So excited to finally know what's going on with Sera in more detail, and I have SO MUCH MORE I'm working on on top of this! <3

#warofthebeasts #Out Of Poms [OOC]#Questioning A Flower [Asks]#Long Post #I was talking with Kasa about this yesterday - We were wondering why it is Thoma and Sera are SO close #Despite how they grew up? And how they seem to have an incredible understanding of each other that really goes far beyond anything other #than how ZACK understands her - And they literally share a soul as soulmates #I have SO MUCH LORE for this girl it's incredible and I love her so much #But I want to make sure her lore also fits in with what I have going for her before I add it in full #I'm not going to step on canon to make her 'special' - I REFUSE #So I wanted to be able to confidently say 'canon says this works' before I add it into any verses #But Sera as a fandomless/multifandom OC? THIS APPLIES NOW #May be time to bring back my fiery OC with this-#XD Sorry for the insanely long babble #I love talking about HCs and the like and I can go for FOREVER if I'm allowed #For all my muses XD

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nicsalazar · 2 years

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Wildfire || Leah & Nicole

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Leah’s home PARTIES: @phoenixleah & @nicsalazar SUMMARY: After finally revealing her true nature, Nicole meets up with Leah to bust a few myths about balam. Their research however, doesn’t get very far. CONTENT WARNING: Implied family death

The first time Nicole stood outside Leah’s home, she had a broken wrist; Leah was drunk. The second time was a hazy memory at best. Her hand needed healing tears after she broke someone's face while drunk. The third time, she had Alcher by her side. No one was drunk, but they had been cursed. In light of that precedent, her apprehension was instinctual each time she crossed the threshold. But somewhere down the line, as they both sought comfort in one another following Alcher's death, Leah's home transformed into a second home. A place she could turn up uninvited and still be welcomed with a warm smile.

This time, however, there was a particular reason for her presence.

Her stomach fluttered with nervous excitement as she watched Leah stack books on the coffee table. Nicole had learned a great deal about balams through her parents. Really, they made it a point to always remind her how unique, special, and powerful they were. They pushed for her to be proud of it, despite her questioning the credibility of their words. It always intrigued her how her species would be depicted with less bias. If someone who didn’t think they were Gods on earth tried to describe them.

She pressed her lips together to suppress a smile as she watched Leah, completely absorbed in her work. “You sure you don’t want my help?” Nicole tried again, with little hope of being heard. She understood Leah’s need to protect the scribary, she even understood that it was more comfortable to hang out in her living room, but she didn’t like seeing her going up and down the stairs with weight in her arms. Not with those frail bones of hers.

Balam. B’alam. Jaguars. Anything on the Quiche Maya. Anything that’s known to have origins in South America. Werewolves, even. Stack after stack of anything Leah could find that might give Nicole even an ounce of extra information and understanding about what she was was placed in front of her, and the piles were almost becoming unmanageable. “It’s quicker for me to do it on my own”, she said with barely a look toward Nicole, heading back toward the basement to grab all the last minute categories of scribe journal that popped into her head. She wasn’t being mean, just practical. No one was more used to going through those shelves than she was, and although Nicole’s height might have been a helpful factor, it wouldn’t have outweighed the swiftness in which Leah was able to maneuver the Ramirez Scribary.

With a final plop of a last book on the pile, Leah sat next to Nicole with a grin, her legs crossed underneath her. “I know this looks like it might be overwhelming, but it’ll be easier to sift through once we have a game plan”, she explained, pulling one of the books onto her lap. “If you wanted, I could tell you what I know about Balam, and then you can tell me what you know, and then we can fill in the pieces?”, she offered.

“I’m sure there was a great deal of personal time I spent with Balam in my past life, but unfortunately I have no way of knowing which writing is mine and which isn’t. I’ve been working on figuring out why none of my family’s past lives kept journals about who we were.”

“Okay… had to ask. Again”, Nicole held her hands up in mock defense. She knew the answer to that question before she even asked. Still, if Leah were to ever need help, she’d be happy to assist. In the meantime, she kept her eyes on the pile of books, stealing a glance at the woman every now and then. Just because she liked noticing new things about her. Things she hadn’t really thought about before. And when Leah was immersed in book activities, it was the best time to do so and not make her feel uncomfortable. Right now, for example, she was focused on the slight frown on her brow, which told her Leah was taking this far too seriously. But she loved how serious Leah took everything. She loved—

Her serious expression changed into a grin when she finally sat down on the couch, and Nicole allowed herself to put one leg on the couch. Comfortable. Close. Vastly different from the first time they ever researched together, when she was so stiff due to their closeness that she ended up walking home with sore shoulders. “It doesn't,” she shrugged, calmly. She had learned that everything was less overwhelming by Leah’s side. And really, more research meant spending more time with her, which sounded perfect. “Got better at this whole... book thing. You should be proud. "

Though their plan was to learn about balam from a different perspective, Nicole’s curiosity piqued at the mention of Leah’s past. “Right. We could do that, but—wait, not one journal? That doesn’t sound like you... or them. " Maybe phoenixes changed personalities every lifetime. That made sense, obviously. But Leah? Leah seemed stubborn enough to stick to the same one for centuries. “It’s weird, no?”

Leah grinned at that, and pulled a book into Nicole’s lap as a means of celebration. “Of course you are. All it takes is a bit of exposure to make someone a reader”, she beamed, settling back into the couch. It was true, and she knew it. Reading opened up vast worlds and opportunities to people who would otherwise not have it, which was why she was so passionate about solving the illiteracy problem in White Crest and beyond. But even people like Nicole who could read just fine but had some sort of aversion to it, ended up learning how many of their problems reading could actually solve.

Leah tilted her head, a slight feeling of annoyance creeping in at the inconvenience of the lack of journals. “You’re right, it doesn’t. And I know you haven’t met any of my family, but it doesn’t sound like any of us. Even Alfie, who’s… well he’s entirely too irresponsible.” Her gaze, which had been frantic and searching, landed on Nicole. “We would have kept something, like most of us are now. Especially knowing what we know about rebirth. Especially being scribes, you know?” She licked her lips, shaking her head. “Part of me thinks they exist somewhere, and something’s happened to them. I just can’t figure out what.”

She grinned, though, when she looked back down at the book on her lap. “But personal journals aside, lots of Ramirez have come across Balam and journaled about them.”

Nicole glanced down at the book on her lap, tracing the pages marked for reading. It would be a long evening, especially if they didn’t get started soon. It was hard not to get distracted when Leah spoke about the lack of family journals, though. Not knowing had to be the worst possible punishment for the woman. It didn’t take an expert in body language to figure out that it bothered Leah more than she let on.

Nicole would’ve liked to voice her willingness to help, if Leah ever wished to investigate. But instead, all her mind could focus on was a particular detail. A coy smile reached her lips before she said, “I’d like to meet them” without the nerves that so often accompanied speaking of her desires. “Not that– not now, I don’t…” stammering felt more familiar, however. “I could meet them, if that’s– Just to see where you get it from…” it referring to her intellect, of course. “The stubbornness…” she mumbled, biting the inside of her cheek to conceal her smile.

“Sounds like something we should investigate”. What if they ditched their intended research and focused on Leah’s mystery? Nicole was intrigued. And yes, apprehension about sharing her past still lingered. Which made focusing on somebody else's issues a lot safer. Comfortable. One glance at the pile of books on the coffee table was enough to dispel her idea. She couldn’t ignore all of Leah’s efforts because she felt vulnerable. “Okay,” she looked down at the book on her lap again. She let out a shaky breath, gaze flickering to Leah for a second. “I was…uh, about ten– When my parents sat me down and explained… the whole thing. You know, this was our version of the talk” she tried to lighten the mood, but it didn’t feel right. No amount of jokes would ever make it easy to talk about the subject. “The origins, they started with– They really like the whole… descending from Gods thing. Gotta be a bunch of bullshit anyway, no?” This was just how they liked to explain their powers, and it made for an entertaining tale, but she imagined not everything was as they painted it.

There was a warm chuckle that escaped from Leah. It was a natural reaction to Nicole’s confession, not from mocking or judging, but from joy that that thought had even crossed her mind. “I think they’d like to meet you, too. We’ll start with siblings, of course, and move on from there. Then of course we’ll move to-... My stubbornness?”, she asked, faking offense. Her hand rushed to her chest to add to the drama of it all, but she couldn’t stop her smirk from showing along with her open mouth. “If you want to know where the stubborn comes from, you’ll look forward to meeting my mother”, she quipped.

“That’s something we can save for another day”, Leah said, leaving no room for disagreement. It wasn’t often that Nicole opened up about anything regarding her past, so when she eventually did, Leah made sure to listen intently and with no interruption. “It might not be as bullshit as you think”, she offered sincerely. “Phoenixes supposedly have some sort of bird ancestor”, she admitted with a grin. As if to prove it, she ran her fingers along her hair line, moving close to Nicole so she could see. “Sometimes we sprout pin feathers, no joke. I pull them out just like I pluck my eyebrows”. It was something that sounded wildly unhinged, but it was the truth, and a fact about phoenixes she’d never told Nicole before. “So Gods aren’t so out of the question, either. You’re actually not the only family that thinks that, either”, she said, discarding the book that was on her lap to pull out another one.

“There are some reports of protective jaguars in the ancient Mayan times- they’d ward off diseases and trespassers”, Leah read, looking up at Nicole for her reaction every once in a while. “There was supposedly some sort of tiff between them and other gods, seems to be based off of jealousy of some sort, but regardless, it was the catalyst that led to Balams’ mortality.”

Butterflies. What a cliche way to describe what Nicole always associated with an unpleasant sensation. But it took Leah to talk about meeting her family for her to finally understand what the term truly meant. “Okay…” The warm and fluttery feeling spread throughout her body, rendering her incapable of saying much until Leah made a humorous remark. “Got it. I have your mom to blame then. Can’t wait to see what she’s like”.

She grinned as Leah moved closer, certain she was joking. She was acquainted with the top of Leah’s head – due to their height difference– she would’ve spotted feathers, no? “Yeah, right What…” Well, Leah wouldn’t show her if she wasn’t serious. Nicole leaned in to get a better look, squinting to catch any of those supposed feathers. Nothing. Maybe if she– not much thought was behind her actions when she lifted her hand to the woman’s hair. Her hand ghosted over the top of Leah’s head, hesitant. Butterflies. Her fingertips gently brushed the path Leah showed, waiting to feel something similar to a feather. Feathers that soon slipped her mind, the softness of Leah’s hair a lot more captivating. Her hand traveled delicately down auburn hair, tucking it behind her ear. Because of all the books she had to read, it was important for her vision not to be obstructed, right? Very important. Nicole smiled, pleased with the results and fuck, why was it so easy to get sidetracked? What were they talking about?

“Right, you’ll have to show me one… not seeing a thing,” she huffed, disappointed when Leah moved to discard the book. Nicole couldn’t dwell on it too much. Focusing again was a formidable task, but when she did, she heard Leah delve deeper into balam origins. She nodded, familiar with some of the stories. Protectors, yes. She had heard that before. “They said balam took care of the crops for their people. Makes sense, my family dedicated to farming for… centuries” Her ancestor’s green thumb was always attributed to their powers rather than actual talent with agriculture. Then it all evolved into real dedication to the skill.

Placing her elbow on the back of the couch, she rested her head in her hand, listening to Leah read. “See, don't think they ever lead with that. So, you mean– they had drama and that’s why we’re not Gods anymore? That makes so much sense” Nicole shook her head, “just thought they kept fucking humans, and that’s how they lost the uh, the God juice”.

Maybe Leah should have expected Nicole’s soft touch in her hair. Maybe, if she were being honest, you could have said she even prompted it. But that didn’t mean the action didn’t take her off guard in all the right ways. She all but leaned into the touch, soaking up the moment of gentle intimacy. It felt, suddenly, like they were impossibly close together, and for only a second, Leah’s eyes flashed down to Nicole’s lips. So distracting. She pressed her own lips together, feeling suddenly distracted. Hopefully a little bit of humor would get them back on track, somehow.

“Well, if I knew you were so interested, I would have been more prepared, Nic. I only just preened. Next time you see me mysteriously wearing a hat at the library, I’ll let you take a peak”, she teased, finally (albeit a bit reluctantly) turning her attention back to the task at hand. “So your family were still farmers when… everything happened? That’s pretty fascinating.” She was tempted to start taking notes on all things Nicole and her family, but it would have been wildly inappropriate, unfortunately. “Is it something you still feel a pull to do?”

“In a way, yes. Or, that’s one of the general consensus to explain it away. Another explanation could be that you were never gods at all, but the normies who explained to scribes what happened didn’t know what else to call you.” There were often multiple accounts of histories so deep, and Leah felt it was an expected job of a good scribe to decipher it all to figure out what might be closest to the truth. “I’m partial to the God theory, though. Most ancient societies seemed to have fallen apart after some sort of drama- same with the scribes. My basement might seem vast, but it’s because my family somehow gained the luck of being phoenixes and scribes. That whole rebirth thing makes it pretty easy to keep track of what we need to.” Leah through her head back in a gentle laugh at Nicole’s wording, but was sure to put her hand on Nicole’s shoulder to reassure her that she wasn’t laughing at her. “I mean, that’s not a bad theory either, to be honest. Do you think I should write it down?”

Nicole had always been uncomfortable with her ability to hear things others didn’t. It was exactly like prying, except she never had a choice. Things came to her, it was nothing to be proud of. But picking up the way Leah’s heartbeat raced as she stroked her hair? It might have changed her mind. That was all her doing, wasn’t it? She swallowed. It was reassuring that Leah –who did this for a living– was also struggling to focus. If the way the woman’s gaze flickered to her mouth was any indication.

You’d look cute in a hat, Nicole thought, thanking the stars or whoever was above that she didn’t say a single thing. “Deal,” she breathed out instead, searching for composure. When everything happened. Her fingers tapping against the cushion revealed her anxiety to Leah’s question. “Yes. Uh…It was my grandparents’ farm. Dad worked with them.” She knew Leah only looked to understand. Help solve a puzzle. She’d answer as much as she could. “Sort of, yeah– wouldn’t do it for money like they did,” she didn’t have the same skills anyway. Far less years of experience.

“I keep a garden. It’s not the same…but– but it’s nice. Similar principles” her eyes found Leah and her lips curved into a shy smile. “It’s nice cause… you get busy. But you need to be– uh…present. Pay attention to the details. It’s quiet. Slow… gotta– gotta be patient,” voice dropping an octave, she continued, “and then…one day, it all grows– comes into their own. Blooms” or it doesn’t, Nicole didn’t say. Sometimes it failed, sometimes it rotted, sometimes it didn’t grow enough to leave you satisfied. But maybe she was a romantic after all. She could be anything Leah wanted.

“Oh. My parents would’ve hated that” she laughed. It would have humbled them so badly. Nicole endured all those lectures for everything to be proven wrong? There was still a pang of sadness as she thought of breaking the news to them. But she chose to ignore it, paying attention to Leah’s words. “Hm. All those advantages, and yet you didn’t manage to journal about yourself” the early discussion still floated in the back of her mind. She couldn't help her grin when she achieved that laughter, reaching for the hand on the shoulder. Warm, comforting. Just like Leah’s smile. As her fingers found space between Leah's, the flutter in her stomach returned. “Yeah. You should. Do I get credit if it ends up being true?”

Leah, again, made sure to make it clear to Nicole that she was only there to listen and learn when it came to her discussion about her family. Not to judge or cast blame, but to piece together the puzzle of what once was, of how she came to be the Nicole in front of her. “A legacy, in its own way”, she offered with a smile, “Just like in my family.” They had been talking about farms and Nicole’s family and plants, and then suddenly and all at once, it felt like they were talking about something entirely different. “Patient”, she repeated pointedly. There was the tiniest hint of questioning in her voice. She thought back to Nicole around the time they first met over a year and half ago, so shy in the library that she could barely make eye contact. Or to Nicole as they watched the sunset together last year, the one who explained she just needed time. Time and patience. Leah knew she wasn’t imagining the subtle change to Nic’s tone. Like a skilled poet, Nicole was weaving a double meaning through her words, and Leah could read her like a book.

As if to confirm her suspicions, their fingers were lacing together without a second thought. Nicole was leading the charge, and Leah wasn’t complaining, though she was sure her beaming smile must have been warmer than her hand in Nicole’s. “Well, how would we prove it’s true, Nic?”, she asked, squeezing Nicole’s fingers slightly, teasingly. “And- I have to be honest, I don’t know how my parents would react to me writing God Juice in a legendary scribe journal.”

Hearing the comparison between families, Nicole only managed a half-smile. There was not much of that left, was there? No legacy. Oh, her family would’ve hated that. Somehow the least remarkable of the clan had been the one to survive. She clenched her jaw, eyes watering involuntarily. But it wasn’t Leah’s fault that such a simple sentence could make her want to run again. She hid her sadness behind a stifled laugh, fighting to keep those dark clouds away. They wouldn’t ruin this moment.

Nicole’s brow twitched as Leah repeated her words, puzzled by the inflection in her voice. Did she say something wrong? Leah didn’t look confused or offended. And maybe she still needed time to figure out microexpressions, but she almost looked… hopeful? She went over her words, hoping to understand her reaction. Growing? Patience? Time?

Her gaze bore into Leah’s when the implication dawned on her. Oh. Nicole felt her heart pound in her ears. The way she had spoken– she had known in some way, on an unconscious level, that it could be interpreted that way, right? The double entendre seemed almost intentional. A throwback to a past conversation. Blood rushed to her face, and she really hoped Leah couldn’t notice. Before she could lose her courage, she gave a slight nod in confirmation. Patient.

“Uh…that’s– perfect academic lingo” she muttered, feigning offense. She lowered their hands to her lap and idly played with their fingers. Nicole could’ve stayed like that forever. Quiet. Cozy. Content. With Leah’s hand in hers. If the librarian wasn’t complaining, she wasn’t about to ruin the moment by being the responsible one. Her stomach fluttered again, heart racing as her fingertips brushed against warm skin with more intent. What the intent was, she wasn’t certain –or she didn’t want to admit it to herself– but she kept her gaze on Leah, gauging her reaction.

If she let herself, Leah might have forgotten that there was anything else in her living room besides the two of them. Maybe she even could have forgotten there was anything or anyone else in the world. Like a book, it was so easy to get lost in Nicole’s eyes- so deep and full of curiosity and mystery. A sort of realization seemed to light those eyes, and Leah’s own eyebrows raised in response. She could feel her heartbeat all the way up to her ears, the only reminder that she wasn’t dreaming, despite the world around them slipping away. She let herself look down at their fingers, not knowing where hers ended and Nicole’s began, before she allowed herself to respond.

“Mm…nope”, Leah responded, moving her face close to Nicole to emphasize some teasing intimidation. And maybe to initiate something else. Between them, their fingers danced a delicate dance within each other, nervous and fleeting and comfortable all at once. “God Juice definitely doesn’t fall under the Scribe-Approved list of playable words. Wanna try again?”

The word juice was really starting to lose its meaning, Nicole realized, but it hardly mattered. The simple rise of an eyebrow shouldn't have made her stomach flip in the most exhilarating of ways, but shit. It felt like they were finally on the same page of the book. She smiled so wildly that she worried her cheeks would ache afterwards. She wasn't used to wearing that kind of smile anymore, nor did she consider it possible. Grief weighed so heavily on her muscles that a slight curve of her lips was all she was capable of.

Nicole held Leah’s gaze as she inched closer, even though fear still held her back, whispered to her to stop this. She wasn’t allowed to feel anything but guilt for the rest of her life. She had made peace with that, no? That was the price for survival. Did she deserve this? So when she found her words again, they came out small. Almost pleading. “C’mon. You know I’m bad at those”. Nicole swallowed because she was aware of what she wished to say this time.

If she had been good at words, Nicole could have explained her feelings for Leah that evening at the summit. If she had been good at them, she wouldn't have lied to justify seeing her the night of her birthday. She would’ve comforted her better after Alcher’s death. If only her mouth and her brain could agree for once, she could've said that there wasn’t a second she didn’t think about her when was in Portland. She could’ve admitted that life without her presence made absolutely no sense to her anymore. Words. Words. A simple tease shouldn’t have her questioning her entire existence. But Leah’s gentle touch set those doubts ablaze, igniting something different inside her. No more of that. There were more important things to focus on. Like whose heart was beating louder. Or how everything got quieter the closer Leah moved. So she leaned in, joining her in their own little world. It was just them. If she were to— Her lips parted, and a shudder escaped.

Leah felt herself move closer and closer still, even though it felt like their faces were impossibly close already. Closer than they had ever been, for sure. “I think you do just fine with words, Nic. In your own way, you know?” Her voice was low, barely above a whisper. “It’s just, you don’t let yourself see all the great parts of you. Like…” She let go of her hand momentarily, bringing hers up to caress the crease in Nicole’s brow, “...the way you look when you’re thinking hard about something.” She brought her hand back to Nicole’s, rising it up with their palms pressed together. “Or the tenderness you use in your touch. Soft and gentle, you know?” She let their fingers lace before their hands fell back between them. “Your words are soft and gentle, too. And few, maybe. But there’s always a meaning there. Someone who speaks with meaning isn’t bad with words. They’re the best at them.” Her eyes flickered down, and back up. Another invitation; maybe it was even a plea. “I quite like your words.”

Nicole couldn’t understand the virtues Leah saw in her. It wasn’t easy to shake off a lifetime of inferiority complex. So, her throat closed, and tears formed in her eyes as the woman broke it down into simple terms. Leah understood her words, but she also accepted her silence. She had no desire to change either of those. She couldn’t comprehend how she was able to attain such pure, unwavering love. The hard knot in her throat prevented her from asking.

A gentle touch softened her frown, and her eyes flutter closed without thinking. Healing hands, Nicole once thought; now she confirmed it. “Yeah?” she mumbled unsure, battling against heavy lids to get lost in Leah's gaze once more.

Nicole noticed how those brown eyes traveled down again, the implication clear as day now. Leah waited for her patiently, as she always had. She felt the rush of helplessness, a surging tide of warmth that left her breathless. All she wanted was to be the person Leah thought she was. She inched closer, lips a heartbeat away. She could no longer hear her apprehensions or her doubts. Her nervousness melted away as her senses took over, allowing her to surrender. Tentatively, she nuzzled Leah’s nose with her own, the scent she had come to associate with home flooding her lungs. With a tender motion, she closed the distance between them.

It wasn’t a crash. It wasn’t harsh or desperate like so many of Leah’s first kisses had been. Instead, it was comfort. It was realization and longing and release. For so long, she had waited for this moment. For Nicole to feel ready without pressure, or even for a physical sign that she hadn’t been imagining everything between them. And she didn’t mind waiting, not at all, but it sure was a perfect way for everything to come to fruition. Somehow, the night was no longer about researching Balam. Instead it was about a whole different form of self discovery, one Leah could get used to.

Leah didn’t know when she started smiling, but she somehow still was when they finally pulled apart. With their foreheads pressed together, she chuckled, her eyes searching Nicole’s. “Took you long enough”, she said, breathless. Without thinking, she went in again for another kiss, cupping Nicole’s cheek with her palm in the process. “Am I going to have to wait another year and a half before we do this again?”

Leah’s kiss tasted like silence.

Unfamiliar, blissful quietness. Her mind was cleansed of all the thoughts that could poison her. All Nicole could feel was Leah’s mouth burning like red, blazing fire. Lips moving gently, like flames tickling firewood. A soft crackling fireplace. A hand cradled her face, and she smiled into the kiss, completely dazed when Leah moved away. Nicole lingered, eyes closed, ready to chase her mouth. When she realized the kiss was over, heat rose in her cheeks, but the forehead pressing against her prevented her from feeling embarrassed.

A laugh caught in her throat as she heard Leah's remark. There was no time to think of a quip, however, because the woman’s mouth pressed against hers again. This time quick and electric, more determined. Nicole's heart pounded erratically. Until it was just the faintest brush of their lips, only for the sake of remaining close and Leah spoke again. “Hey!” she protested, feigning hurt. Knowing that there was truth behind the joke, the light in her eyes dimmed slightly. She rubbed Leah's nose with her own, in a silent apology. It shouldn't have taken this long. Excuses didn't matter. She was just so relieved Leah’s patience didn’t run out. “No. No, you won’t” she smiled confidently, rolling her eyes. “I’ll make up for lost time”. She was really fucking rusty when it came to romance – a decade worth of rust– but she hoped it’d be like riding a bike. She didn’t move an inch away from Leah’s face, grabbing the book that had ended up squeezed between their legs and placing it on the coffee table. “Fuck research,” she teased, eager to see where Leah’s priorities lay.

Nicole’s mock insult inspired a sly, proud smirk from Leah, and she raised her eyebrows, daring the other woman to challenge her uncanny ability to always be right. “I know you will”, she said earnestly. For whatever reason, she trusted Nicole. She trusted their bond together, however slowly it seemed to have been formed. To a phoenix, time could be confusing. Leah had spent a lifetime wondering who she used to be and who she might be in the future, of how many more cycles she might last and if she’d ever remember the old ones. Time somehow seemed both infinite and crushingly final, but time with Nicole… time waiting for Nicole… it was irrelevant when she considered the outcome. Her mouth formed into a shocked gasp when Nicole tossed the book aside, and she put both her hands on Nicole’s shoulders in a very pretend serious manner. “We do not speak of research in such a way in this house, Nicole. It is forbidden.”

It was almost as if Nicole had made a prophecy, though, because the rest of the night went by for the two with no more research done at all. Leah decided it would be much better for them to wait for daylight to pour over the books. As for the night, they would pour over each other, discovering whispers and giggles and archives of the other begging to be researched and explored with the expertise of a scribe and a desperately curious balam. There was still so much to learn, and Leah knew she’d never get bored of learning all about Nicole.

#wickedswriting #p: wildfire #p: leah #p #/this has taken almost?? two years?

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spectershaped · 4 months

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I was talking yesterday to a friend (hi Alex!) about how, while using "magical realism" as a genre label for Scott Pilgrim kind of...really decontextualizes the original genre, the broader moniker of "fabulism" also feels kind of inadequate - but there's definitely something it should be called, I think

Like, SP (and also, to some extent, Homestuck) is sorta different from, let's say, an isekai what operates on video game rules that the protagonist understands and exploits; in SP, the world is just like that with no real estrangement or detachment while also being "our world" in another way. The lack of a real seam between the mundane and what we consider the fantastical is a key element that does link it to fabulism (there are in fact video games within these universes, but the analogy with diagetic elements is seldom remarked upon); but a key difference is that the elements they are building on aren't really things that many people have at some point believed to be empirical like folklore (not that folklore and myth are always meant to be a literal description of reality, but you get my point). Elements like scores and loot and powerups and whatnot are part of the ludic-ness of video games; while it would be incorrect to say they find no analogy in or originate epistemically in concrete reality (see the powerful allure of Number Go Up), they were conceived as and are overall understood to be constructs themselves, so there's a solid tongue-in-cheek aspect built into them. It doesn't mean there isn't emotional honesty to the story, but it occupies a nice niche between simply doing the cool stuff a la Dragon Ball and the dreaded Well That Happened Zone

(Homestuck also fleshes out this a bit further by making the beta kids' lives before the intrusion of Sburb also a bit off-kilter and bizarre, which also works to make their blasé acceptance of all the weirdness feel less jarring)

OK KO also feels like a cartoon that exists in an adjacent space to this sort of quasi-genre: the signifiers of video games and cartoons (japanese and otherwise), all the markers of vibrant, poppy Coolness are so mundane as to be unremarkable; they're cool, but they're normal cool, and the show does a charming waltz with that very array of Coolness Signifiers that feels neither overly cheesy not detached

Anyway I wish there was a good word for all that

#vi mumbles #the vi digest

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doshmanziari · 2 years

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Elden Ring Ruminations

Having devoted a little over forty hours to Elden Ring, I think that I’m a bit qualified, or ready, to give word to some thoughts I’ve been having about it, with full awareness that these thoughts are initial impressions, and may (and likely will) change over the months and years, perhaps dramatically.

At the moment, Elden Ring feels like a sort of grab-bag. I don't mind this! -- but it’s not expressing a very strong identity to me. Nearly every part seems to ask for a comparison to something else, internal or external to FromSoftware’s catalogue. It is strange, somehow, to see things dragged straight out of Dark Souls 3 and tweaked just a bit, like the giant crabs, skeletons, dogs, imps, or Stray Demon (here taking the form of the Erdtree Avatar). For me, this goes past the level of certain games sharing a sound effect for enemy executions, or certain ambient audio. Environmentally, too, there are a number of carryovers; and, as someone who’s worked on a project documenting the architectural attributes of these games, I can say that this was a super rare occurrence among the stuff preceding Elden Ring.

Future discussions about Elden Ring might have to contend with what here is idiomatic, exactly, and how that’s serving the material, the underlying myth (there is, of course, also a practical dimension here; recycling assets can be a time-effective strategy), beyond its own reinforcement. It was easier to understand resemblances between the Dark Souls series, given its tripartite nature; and it came to be understood that a small set of things -- Patches, the Moonlight Greatsword -- had a more or less permanent place within the bigger picture. Here, these commonalities have rather the quality of a movie whose director has reassembled actors from all of their prior movies for a last hurrah, or sentimental recapitulation (I am reminded of Tim Rogers’ defense of Akira Toriyama’s character designs, specifically for the Dragon Quest series, by referring to them as the same actors in different outfits), if this or that archetypal formality can be characterized as an “actor.” Even names resurface with an explicitness exceeding the bisyllabic Lo-prefixed words (Lordran, Londo, Loran, Lothric) of before: the Church of Irith (as in Irithyll), for example, or Gael Tunnel (as in Slave Knight Gael).

At first blush, upon my exiting of the introductory catacomb area, what Elden Ring reminded me of was, unexpectedly, Evergrace. It was, I think, due to that mixture of a greenish sky and autumnal trees. As I continued to play, this raw impression was replaced by another more sustaining one: that this was -- irrespective of all those things linking it to Demon’s Souls, the Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, or Sekiro -- like a merging of Dragon’s Dogma and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (cited as one of Miyazaki’s favorite videogames). I understand that The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild may be the most common point for comparison, given its comparatively recent release date; but the spirit of Dragon’s Dogma¹ and Oblivion could not be plainer to me when I am, respectively, exploring a goblin-infested seaside cave with a group of helpers, or plucking glowingly colorful plants while atop my horse during a tree-buffeting rainstorm. These may sound like at once vague and over-particular citations, yet they do stretch out to encompass a long-term resemblance which escapes a mechanical explanation, and is more along the lines of an ambiently experienced “game feel” that includes details like the dun-gold coloration of stone from your lantern and the sight of masses of swaying foliage.

At some moments, the game has suddenly impressed on me this sense that it is, somehow, the return of what Dark Souls 2 was "originally", before it became what we know -- an odd impression, since this original form of Dark Souls 2 is largely an imaginary construct (that modders have chased, tantalized by its fragrant traces and infinite distance, for years). Stormveil Castle, for example, comes across as a bigger and fleshed out Forest of the Fallen Giants; and the design of a gauntlet like the Fringefolk Hero’s Grave, where a giant mobile mechanism chases you down a recessed route, has that hard-to-name videogame-y vibe that’s cold, bizarre, and vaguely comical. But then there are all of the other obvious cross-intrusions, like the (Oblivion-inflected) reinterpretation of what Bloodborne’s chalice dungeons could be, or the desire to continue certain environmental thematic combinations: academies and crystals, roots and swamps, storms and mausoleums, etc.

Present, maybe more than ever before, is that manner of disposition which I described in an article from 2016 with reference to the genre of “world landscape” painting: “...the scope is enormous, yet we can cleanly segregate this scope because each landmark or scene is given its own delineated space.” Indeed, Elden Ring’s scope is enormous, beyond any previous FromSoftware title. Rather than give its world a “naturalistic” bent, this scope frequently appears uncanny. Between the various qualities of daylight and the way everything is dedicatedly laid out, there is the impression of a diorama. What also comes to mind are select pieces of unrealized concept art from Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 3, the landscapes of which are visibly fractured, extensive, and loosely organized -- “apocalyptic”, to use a word inaccurately, but still, I think, understandably. Each of these visions remained strictly conceptual, until Elden Ring granted their kind life.

Elden Ring’s pedigree is an obvious reason to play it. That alone can’t support what seems like it’ll be a 100+-hours playtime, though. What has appeared to be engaging my main interest is wanting to determine the landscape’s vastness, to see how much there is (in this respect, I can’t help but bring a measure of skepticism to the extremely high scores the game has been getting and wonder if that’s not partially because it’s satisfying a demand for Maximum Content). Although this is fun, my absorption of environments’ constitutions is less concentrated, or attention-directed. It is impressive to is go to a place like Stormveil Castle or the Academy of Raya Lucaria, exploring, exiting, viewing the complex from afar, and seeing how all of its enormity is still but a fraction of the land. This dynamic contains the subjunctive element which I’ve written on before, with the added novelty that the sheer horizontal scale now explodes the sensibility very broadly . . . and maybe makes it a little less particularly interesting. Perhaps this was unavoidable. The majority of Elden Ring’s geography is “open world.” If it were all as tightly designed as the strongholds or dungeons, the game would just be fatiguingly overwhelming (and I don’t think any developmental team could realistically be up to the task of designing such a quantity of level design anyway). So, the overworld partly acts as a stretched-out breather, a pacing device; yet I’m not sure how often I’ll be returning to a game that’s as gigantic as this.

As far as the unavoidable matter of challenge goes, I’m sort of stuck, a little deflatedly, on the same place as I was upon the release of Dark Souls 3′s DLC where I could appreciate the intensifying behavioral complexity and dangerousness of mid-range and major opponents while also seeing how they were all pushing the limits for what had already been done with ambiguous mix-ups, the number of sequential strikes, and wide-range attacks. Sekiro I deeply enjoyed failing at for hours and rigorously learning -- and I had to learn it, because there was no co-op! Elden Ring, on the other hand (which I am playing offline), kinda feels strange, because I recognize the mechanics -- a mixture between Dark Souls 3 and Sekiro, without the latter’s central deflection system -- and general boss typology, but I don’t have the motivation to deeply commit these opponents’ patterns to memory for precisely the former reason.² So, I’ve been summoning in-game helpers when they’ve been available, after maybe a few attempts by my lonesome, and making liberal use of the Spirit Ash summons. This feels okay to me! -- even if it means that I’ll probably ultimately be not as qualified to write about these aspects later on.

Another curious, although predictable, thing: when I fought Margit, a major boss, he was maybe the second boss I’d fought up to that point; yet the pre-Elden Ring boss whose patterns most closely resemble Margit’s is a very late-stage boss from Dark Souls 3, the Dragonslayer Armor! Elden Ring’s design has to simultaneously account for everyone who’s mastered, or at least completed, around six other comparable games, while sticking to the knife’s edge of feasibility with regard to mechanics that aren’t fundamentally too different from Demon’s Souls’, wherein timing one’s dodges (and then punishing the enemy within a smaller and smaller window) takes precedence over, say, one’s positioning. This predicament of sequential design has been pretty obvious when comparing the earliest bosses of Dark Souls to Bloodborne’s, but I think that Elden Ring sets the bar higher than ever before. It’s kind of a funny situation, given that this is FromSoftware’s highest selling title thus far, by a couple- or several-million, and one of the fastest selling “open world” games of all time. That’s going to be a lot of disappointed people!

Well, then. Those are some thoughts.

──────⊱⁜⊰──────

¹ Dragon’s Dogma came to be one of my very favorite games of the past decade. I still highly recommend it! Elden Ring hardly renders it secondary.

² Maybe that’s not the entire reason. It could be also that my relative and current detachment from Elden Ring’s narrative is creating a detachment to committing to its bosses for as long as they require, mano a mano, too.

#elden ring

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lucky-sevens · 3 years

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mechanisms basics & lore

welcome to my updated mechanisms intro post! this post will cover both the topics discussed in my mechanisms basics post, which is geared towards people who don’t know what the mechanisms are, and my deep lore post, which aimed to be a comprehensive compilation of all the important character and world lore. this post should serve the above group, but it’s geared towards people who have listened but feel there’s a lot of lore that seems to be common knowledge they’re missing. we’ll start out with a basic introduction, and then go into crew lore and a semi-comprehensive guide on where to go for further information.

basics

the mechanisms were a steampunk concept band, known for their queer representation and their tragic stories. they are no longer together, their last performance being january 2020, but several of their members are still creating related spinoff content.

they follow the trope many steampunk bands do, which is albums that tell a story; think similar to listening to a musical soundtrack, but geared to a visual-less experience. what distinguishes them is 1) narration tracks between each song, making the plot very easy to follow, and 2) being meant to be watched live, meaning there’s layers of meta that are more easily understood by watching recorded gigs rather than studio recordings of albums. specifically, there’s a focus on the narrators, known as the mechanisms or the crew of the aurora, who are immortal space pirates telling the stories and occasionally inserting themselves into them. though they are tragic figures themselves, their banter serves the purpose of bringing a lightheartedness and dark humor to the stories. if there’s an aspect of the lore you’re confused on, it’s probably related to the narrators!

to watch the mechanisms live, you can find recordings on youtube, dropbox, google drive, soundcloud, or vimeo, which are all compiled in this post (including transcripts!). if visuals aren’t your thing, i’ve linked the studio recordings later on in this post when they come up, and here are the mechanisms’ official spotify, bandcamp, and youtube, as well as an unofficial comprehensive lyric videos channel.

the albums

regarding the albums specifically, there are 4 main ones (once upon a time (in space), ulysses dies at dawn, high noon over camelot, and the bifrost incident), 2 that are compilations of miscellaneous songs (tales to be told 1 & 2), 1 single (frankenstein), and 1 album that’s a high-quality recording of their last live show, including an alternative performance of the bifrost incident, 2 songs only performed at live shows, and 'the deathsong’, which details how they all eventually die (death to the mechanisms).

as you might have been able to tell from the titles, they’re all based off of various myths, folklore, literature, and/or fairy tales, using different genres on top of a sci-fi setting to add a fresh twist to them! for example, high noon over camelot is a western based on arthurian mythos, set on a space station. (the albums are known for all ending in tragedy, so be careful if that isn’t your cup of tea!) if your goal is to get into the mechanisms, i’d suggest sitting down and listening to them all in full; links will be provided below, or alternatively you can watch once upon a time (in space) live here, ulysses dies at dawn live here, or the bifrost incident live here. (there is no full live recording with visuals of high noon over camelot, sadly, but there are partial and audio only recordings.)

once upon a time (in space) - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

ulysses dies at dawn - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

high noon over camelot - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

the bifrost incident - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

tales to be told, volume 1 - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

tales to be told, volume 2 - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

frankenstein - spotify/bandcamp/youtube

death to the mechanisms - edited video with the stream corruption fixed + subtitles / stream / spotify / bandcamp / youtube / transcript pt. 1 / transcript pt. 2

reading the fiction is integral to understanding both the albums and the mechanisms themselves. the fiction is a collection of short stories set in the mechanisms universe posted on their website here and compiled by me here, with an extra high noon over camelot story here. (there are also audio versions for ‘mirror mirror’ and ‘a rebel yell’ included on both the website and the compilation).

the crew of the aurora

as for the crew, at their peak there were nine members played by people, as well as the ex-member dr carmilla, who has extensive solo lore and is still active (which we’ll touch on in a few paragraphs). there is also their ship, the aurora, who is sentient and has her own lore. in fact, every member of the crew has their own backstory, set in a different genre or historical period; for example, nastya rasputina's is historical, jonny d’ville’s is a western and marius von raum’s is a mecha anime. however, they’re all still different flavors of steampunk! below, i’ll list each member, their performer, and the main sources of lore about them. for the majority of them, they have their own song in tales to be told, but there are a few outliers. everyone also has their own bio up on the website, which can all be found here.

the aurora (n/a, ship)- on aurora (meta)

jonny d’ville (jonny sims)- one eyed jacks (song), jonny before he was mechanized (meta)

nastya rasputina (anonymous)- cyberian demons (song)

ivy alexandria (morgan wilkinson)- archive footage (fiction), crew bio

ashes o’reilly (frank voss)- lucky sevens (song)

drumbot brian (ben below)- lost in the cosmos (song), crew bio

the toy soldier (jessica law)- the story of the toy soldier (fiction)

gunpowder tim (tim ledsam)- gunpowder tim vs the moon kaiser (song/minialbum)

marius von raum (kofi young)- the death of byron von raum summary (blog post)

raphaella la cognizi (r l hughes)- crew bio

if you’ve noticed the crew bio doesn’t say much about raphaella, that’s because we know little to nothing about her backstory. the only thing we have to go on is a quote from the tv tropes page, which looking at the edit history, was likely written by one of the mechanisms. the quote is ‘Science officer who may or may not have cheated her way onto the ship after becoming a little too interested.‘ and the page is here.

the majority of fandom content is about the crew, working off of what we get from the tales to be told songs, the live gigs, and the fiction.

dr carmilla

speaking of characters with obscure lore, let’s talk about dr carmilla! rather than linger, i’ll just link my carmilla basics post, which is a comprehensive summary of who she is in and out of universe. to summarize, she’s a character based on the novella ‘carmilla’ by sheridan le fanu, commonly regarded as the first vampire novel, but her lore has diverged heavily from that original starting point since then. she is the oldest out of all of the crew, and made the majority of the other crew members immortal. she, as well as aurora, is from a planet called terra, which was destroyed partially as a result of her actions. her character is defined by her immortality and how she deals with it, her experiences on terra, her relationship with the mechanisms, and her dysfunctional relationship with her ex-girlfriend loreli, the last of which is the most covered by her songs. out of universe, she is played by maki yamazaki. all her lore lines up with what happened out of universe, and ties to the fact the mechanisms were originally dr carmilla and the mechanisms. she has two solo albums and two singles, which i’ll link below.

ageha (prototype edition) (album)- bandcamp | youtube

exhumed and {un}plugged (album)- bandcamp | youtube

the city {nex:type mix} (single, in-character cover)- bandcamp | youtube

eleven (single)- bandcamp | youtube

the majority of her lore is still to be officially revealed, and will be in the trilogy of albums maki yamazaki is working on.

further reading

if you’d like to delve further into the lore, there are a few sources i use! there are official, in-character, blogs, as well as things that are harder to dredge up; i won’t link them here, but some sources include @/thedreadvampy (the band’s artist, as well as morgan wilkinson’s sister and kofi young’s partner; don’t bother her for lore or anything, but she’s previously made posts sharing previously unknown information), old websites and deleted content found on the wayback machine, the tv tropes pages, and most notably the lore doc.

the ‘maki forbidden lore doc’ is an archive of all the lore maki yamazaki has shared on the mechscord, the official mechanisms discord which she’s on, and her own personal server, where she’s running an arg (alternate reality game) as a way of relaying more lore about the dr carmilla universe. for an idea of the scale, the doc is currently 91 pages and 28346 words, and recontextualizes much of what is known about dr carmilla and maki’s canon of the mechanisms universe. it is confidential to anyone not in her discord or the mechscord, as she’s said that this lore isn’t thought out nearly as much as the albums and is subject to change, so she’d rather it not be out in the open. however, information on how to join the mechscord can be found here. there is also a non-canonical fan project based on the arg in progress, but information on it is also confidential for now.

with regards to the above phrase ‘maki’s canon’ it’s worth noting that all of the individual band members have their own idea of what counts as canon and what doesn’t, and as you foray deeper into lore that division becomes more and more apparent.

with that, here are the mechanisms’ blogs. they are all both run in-character by the main nine band members and inactive unless i note otherwise.

twitter

tumblr

facebook

website/wordpress (run ic by tereshkova’s ghost, the blogbot, for the most part)

carmilla twitter (active, run ic by dr carmilla)

conclusion

now that we’re coming to the end of this, i’d like to thank whoever got this far, and to say a few words. my interest in the mechanisms has been slowly fading, and i’ve been writing less and less meta and lapsing in keeping up with new lore myself. honestly, i’m pretty worn out by how much i’ve done on this blog and in this fandom, and the commitments i’ve assigned myself. i do have plans for future meta, but it’s unlikely they’ll come to fruition. so, i thought i’d do a new version of my two oldest posts on this blog, and hopefully enable other people to look into the lore and theorize themselves with the new information.

to find more information, remember there’s a mechanisms wiki, and that my askbox is always open.

thanks for reading!

#the mechanisms #the mechs #meta #my posts

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kolbisneat · 2 years

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MONTHLY MEDIA: January 2022

First monthly media post of 2022! We’ve had -20 and -30 degree (celsius) days here so loooooots of time spent indoors reading and watching stuff.

……….FILM……….

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) I didn’t realize this was a 3 and a half hour movie so I’m warning you now. But I’m ALSO here to say I loved every minute of it. ‘Epic comedy’ is the only way to describe it and I really wasn’t expecting it to hold up so well for being a 60 year old movie. So fun, a great ensemble of characters, and an ever-evolving plot. Love it.

The Mentor (2014) Star Wars from Obi Wan Kenobi’s perspective! It basically takes Episode 4 and intercuts it with scenes from the prequels and the editing (by John Venzon) really sells Kenobi’s tragic relationship to the Skywalkers. Worth checking out and you can watch it here.

Wizardry 1 OVA (1981) I’m not sure how I came across this but it’s been in my YouTube queue for a while (you can watch it all for free here). With a bit of research it looks like it’s based off of a video game and it was a breezy D&D-esque adventure. Some very 80s stuff going on but worth it for some fun battles. Also the main villain is named Werdna and as an Andrew, I immediately knew what was going on (one of the developers is named Andrew so they just reversed his name for the villain). Classic Andrew shenanigans.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) There’s some capital “A” Acting going on here and once I understood what the genres were and the general concept, I thought it would be a lot more heightened than it was. Some solid comedy moments but overall, most scenes felt either 1) unnecessary or 2) predictable and that’s no fun to watch. Jake Gyllenhaal, however, is always a delight.

The Hobbit: The Tolkien Edit (2015) Another fan edit! The Hobbit is dear to my heart and the original trilogy of films never worked for me. This was much better! I still find anything after Smaug to lack the same weight (it is Bilbo’s story, afterall) but this 4.5 hour movie has a lot going for it. I’ve recently discovered there are OTHER edits so I’ll be checking them out next winter. In the meantime you can read more about this edit here.

……….TELEVISION……….

The Bachelor (Episode 26.01 to 26.03) You know I kinda like how dopey Clayton is. Would he have been my number 1 pick for this season? No. Does he have any idea what he’s doing? It doesn’t look like it. Am I enjoying the weird meta game that the main villains are playing? Absolutely.

Dorohedoro (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) It took me a bit to acclimate to the violence (I watch a lot of all-ages cartoons, what can I say) but the world is weird and consistently surprising. And a lot of time is spent on food prep so that’s a win for me. The characters are interesting and that’s enough for me to watch the rest of the season!

Adventure Time: Distant Lands (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) This is exactly what I wanted: self-contained stories that explore individual characters from the main series with a long enough runtime to really explore some fun stuff. I fell off of Adventure Time yeeeeears ago but this was a perfect return and yeah, Together Again got me right in the heart.

The Beatles: Get Back (Episode 1.01 to 1.03) Such a joy to watch. I mean I essentially broke up each ep into 3 or 4 smaller episodes, but that’s just me. The last episode hit particularly hard as not only the series wound down but so too did the Beatles. As a study in seeing how art is made, it felt remarkably honest and for that I appreciate it. Also I never expected to so thoroughly connect with Ringo Starr. Just a low key light that the rest of the band can turn to and rely on.

……….READING……….

Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett (Complete) I love the Discworld series and I love Rincewind as a character so this had a lot going for it. If you get past some of the dated humor around the setting (a mishmash of Asian cultures) then there’s a lot of great commentary about class structure and the power of myth. Perhaps not one of my top Discworld novels but even an okay book by Pratchett is still a joy to read.

Babes in the Wood RPG by Adam Vass and Kim Nguyen (Complete) This should probably go in the gaming section but I have only read through this RPG and not yet played it. Lovely concept and if you like Over the Garden Wall or Adventure Time then I think you’ll dig this.

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz by Eric Shanower, Skottie Young, and L. Frank Baum (Complete) Of Baum’s early books I found this was the first dip in enjoyment. Perhaps it’s because it’s a mix of neither being set in Oz nor featuring many of the main characters, but it just feels different. You know? Anyway the adaptation is fantastic and Young’s artwork continues to walk that line between creepy and adorable, as is appropriate for some of the terrors in Oz.

……….AUDIO……….

Bat out of Hell by Meat Loaf (1977) Early Meatloaf will always have a special place in my heart and really I’ve been listening to this and Dead Ringer on repeat since his passing. Such wonderful Drama Student energy.

……….GAMING……….

Spelunky (Mossmouth) I nearly gave up on this but boy howdy am I a fan. I mean I haven’t beaten the final boss and have no plans to try for all of the crazy secrets but right now I’m just happy to explore, set off traps, and see how far I can go. Highly recommend and know that there’s a system in place so you don’t need to start from the first as you get better.

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Forthcoming, Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 crew and I play D&D every so often and this month we thought we’d try out Oz! It was intended to be a one-shot but after a second session (and a lot of exposition) I think they’re keen to really dig into the city. Very exciting!

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) My weekly group continues to explore Neverland and this month they babysat some seniors and let them wander into another dimension! Whoops. Full campaign diary is over here on reddit.

And that’s it! As always, let me know if you have any recommendations and see you in February!

#Monthly Media #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

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istanleyff7 · 3 years

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TOTP, Episode Aerith, Scenes 22-27

Final Fantasy VII Remake: Traces of Two Pasts Episode 2: Aerith Scenes 22-27 A Light Novel by Kazushige Nojima Translated by Stanley (@istanleyff7 on twitter) Scene 22

After Meguro and his children had left, Elmyra went out on her own. When she returned home after an hour or so, she updated what had happened while she was out. First, she went to the Sector 5 House to apologise for failing to watch over Marcellus and announced that Rona's real name was Aerith and that she would be keeping the alias. But Elmyra hopes they continue to have good relations with her and requests them not to talk about Aerith's name outside of the House.

"As much as possible, I wouldn't want to lie to them. I didn't tell the teachers our reasons, but they understood where I'm coming from. Moreover, Jean is an imaginative and clever boy. I'm sure he'll be able to keep the children in check. I've also gone on to explain the situation to my acquaintances living across the alley."

"Okay."

"Well, I've told them not to talk about it to anyone else, but I can't say just by doing that is enough. I've discussed with Butch, and he mentioned that the members from the third in charge would come over to the house and look after us. That's rather reassuring, isn't it?"

↞↠

Elmyra's plan may or may not have worked. The time had passed peacefully. Aerith became accustomed to being Aerith at home and being Rona while outside, and she was getting used to living in the slums. She was also used to having one of the third in charge and his subordinate in the house. Meguro came to visit a few times a month but never brought his children. Butch retired because of old age, and Carlo filled up the vacancy as a third in charge. February came, and Carlo planned a birthday party for Aerith’s 8th birthday, where the members would bring over their families to gather at the Gainsborough house and celebrate Aerith's birthday. When Aerith heard the plan, she was so delighted that she hugged Carlo. It was also decided that the children from the Sector 5 House were to be invited. Aerith did not want Marcellus and Rona to be invited, but Carlo did not allow her request.

However, the party did not happen. The day before Aerith's birthday, Carlo brought his subordinates over to begin decorating the house for the party. Then Rodin appeared in a panic and reported that Meguro had a heart attack and collapsed. His life was also in danger. The actual head of the organisation had collapsed. For everyone involved, this was more important than a birthday party. Carlo flatly declared that the party was postponed. Aerith was stunned by this but was comforted that it was postponed instead of cancelled. However, the thought of the party being postponed on an ordinary day did not excite Aerith. The excitement and thrill had faded. While the adults were in disorder, Aerith shut herself in her room and cried. For one moment, Aerith's anger welled up towards Meguro for collapsing, and the next moment, she was tormented by guilt.

On the early morning of Aerith's birthday, Elmyra went out to visit Meguro. Someone from the House came over to invite her to play, but she ignored him. Elmyra came back home in the evening.

"Meguro is fine. His condition is no longer life-threatening."

"I'm glad he's fine."

"If something were to happen to him, he'd ask me to take in his kids."

"What!?"

"It's an absurd request, isn't it? Shall we pray for Meguro's complete recovery from the bottom of our hearts?"

Elmyra laughed, and Aerith could not help but laugh along with her.

"You finally laughed! Why don't we go somewhere more lively in the evening? Let's have something nice to eat."

"Okay, let's eat."

"We will. Actually, I've also hired a bodyguard. He should be here any moment."

"Who is he?"

Just then, the doorbell rang. A person's figure could be seen standing outside through the window of the door.

"Coming!"

Aerith opened the door with great vigour. It was an unfamiliar face, but she recognised his suit. She had an encounter with Professor Hojo one day, was not there a man in a full black suit standing behind him? During the one time she had seen President Shinra, there was also a man in a full black suit standing in the corner of the room. The Shinra Company came at last.

"Aerith, so you're here after all. Everyone has been worrying about you," The man in the suit said in a friendly manner.

"No... Go away!"

Aerith backed away from the door and hid behind Elmyra. The man did not care, and he walked in on his own accord. Elmyra stopped him, but the man ignored her and continued talking.

"Aerith... You know you're not just any little girl. You're a descendant of the Ancients."

"Who the heck are you? This is my house. Don't you think what you're doing is rude?"

"My apologies. I'm a representative from the Shinra Company."

"You're surprisingly young. Are you a newcomer? You forgot to mention your name. Did you think you could scare me off by saying Shinra?"

The man lost the composure in his eyes.

"It's Tseng. I'm Tseng from Shinra Company's Investigation Sector of the General Affairs Department."

"And, what's your business here?"

"I'm here today to talk to Aerith."

"I don't want to talk. I don't want to!"

"You mentioned something about the Ancients. What the heck is that? You sure it isn't someone else?" Elmyra stood forward and said to him.

"They were the original stewards of the planet whose boundless knowledge and wisdom shall guide us to the Promised Land. Some believe the promised land to be a myth. Others, an allegory of sorts. But we take the words of the scriptures at face value and believe it to be quite real. Which is why Shinra would like very much for Aerith to help us—"

Aerith couldn't bear the thought of being separated from this house. She never wanted to go back to Shinra Building.

"You're wrong! I'm not an Ancient!"

"But Aerith... Even when you're all alone, don't you hear voices whispering secrets?"

"No, never!"

Aerith ran upstairs to escape. She crawled into bed and pulled the blanket over her. It was not cold, but her whole body was shivering.

She felt this one year would disappear like a dream. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to chase away the fear she has never felt before. All that came to her mind were negative possibilities. Eventually, she imagined Elmyra facing a terrible situation. What should she do? But she was afraid to go downstairs to see what's going on. No, what should she do if he comes upstairs?

"We came to an agreement," Aerith heard Elmyra's voice close by.

Aerith looked up from my blanket and noticed there was no one else in the house. There was sympathy in Elmyra's eyes.

"You’ve been through lots of scary things, haven't you? Don't worry. He already left."

Elmyra sat down on the bed and held Aerith close to her.

"You're an Ancient?"

That was so Elmyra, with a straightforward question.

"I'm actually called a 'Cetra'. My mother was a Cetra, and I'm only a half-Cetra."

Elmyra nodded again and again.

"That man... from what Tseng mentioned, it seems that Shinra regretted not obtaining the information they wanted most because of the horrible things they did to your mother, Ifalna. It was regarding the Promised Land. So it seems that they decided not to ask you for any other information except about the Promised Land."

It was not that she did not know about the Promised Land. She had heard of such a place from Ifalna. But what kind of place is it? Where is that? She did not know the information that Shinra wanted.

"I don't know. I don't know anything about that."

"That's what Tseng said. But he also mentioned things like, even if you don't know about it now, the day you may know it may come."

"I don't want to go anywhere. I like Elmyra, and I want to stay here."

"That's very nice of you to say, and I feel the same way too. That's why I suggested this to him. You'll live with me every day, and I'll observe you, and if I seem to see any sign from you, I will inform Shinra. Until then, Shinra is to absolutely not come near you. Tseng contacted his superior, and we had an agreement right away. I think he's a pretty good kid."

"So, can I still live here?"

"That's right. And too bad for Tseng, I'll probably only be observing my daughter's behaviour."

Elmyra let out a laugh.

Scene 23

"When Shinra found out about me, I no longer had a reason to hide my name. So I could be Aerith, not only in the house but also outside it. For a while, it was really peaceful. The Turks didn't really come, and Elmyra's business was going well. Of course, it wasn't all fun and games. There were times when I felt terrible and wanted to cry. But that's because we were living a normal life."

"That's nice," Tifa said empathetically.

"But then, another incident occurred. And it's because of Marcellus."

"Oh..."

Scene 24

Carlo came to visit.

"Hey Aerith, are you well? Here's a gift for you."

He presented her with a bundle of sweets. It was a little childish for a ten-year-old girl. Elmyra thought that sweets were detrimental to the development of healthy teeth and made a glum face.

"I've got some business to attend to with Elmyra. May you take this and head upstairs?"

"Okay~"

This was a common occurrence when one of the in-charge came over. Elmyra, who used to tell her everything, was becoming more like a mother and distinguished what her daughter should and should not hear. After entering her room on the second floor, she slammed her door shut with all her might. There was a loud bang. And immediately after, she quietly opened the door. She opened the door just enough for her body to slip through, and she concealed the sound of her footsteps and crept close to the stairs. The house was old, and the floor would creak when stepped on, but she already knew the safety zones where no noise would be made.

"It’s bad. It’s really bad."

Carlo could be heard saying that out loud.

"How much do you know about Meguro's illness?"

"His heart is fine, right?"

"Well, yeah. But the rest isn't so good. He has three diseases I can't even remember the name of. Since Rona was born, he has gained weight at an alarming rate, hasn't he? After his wife passed away, his life was a mess. He ate all kinds of goo and slop."

"I also tried to warn him, but I didn't know if I should have been harder on him."

"Well, he will either ignore you or flip you out. I wonder what he would do, though. And besides, Meguro also decided to move to the plate to facilitate his medical treatment. He's willing to manage the business from the plate, and it seems that he intends to bring a third in charge along with him to be his liaison officer. So what does that mean? From the way we see it, that guy is practically the second in charge. He didn't consult with you about such an important matter, did he? You're the same rank as him. He’s taking you lightly, isn’t he?"

"What a bother. I'm just only a representative, and I've been leaving everything up to Meguro up till now. I don't wish to get involved in all of this politics."

"You live with this job. How can you not be involved?"

Aerith could not hear Elmyra's voice, but she probably would let out a big sigh.

"Anyways, I didn't come over today to talk about the organisation. It's about Marcellus. That cocky shitty brat ran away from home. I only know this much but Meguro had ordered all the in-charge to search for him. He told me to pass it onto you, and so I did.

"Marcellus... I haven't seen him for two or three years. He's thirteen or fourteen now, isn't he?"

"Yeah. I ran away from my shitty home when I was twelve. I thought he merely just caused a big uproar by running away from home, but..."

"Did something happen?"

"Meguro's condition was leaked out to the public, and there seem to be people taking advantage of the situation. Such as Corneo from Sector 6, all the way to the Manson brothers. Meguro thinks that these people may have kidnapped Marcellus. What do you think?"

"If it was kidnapping, the kidnappers probably would say something?"

"Not yet, it seems. It's been three days since Marcellus disappeared. He most likely just probably ran away from home. But the worst case would be what I had just mentioned."

"Okay. I'll keep this in mind. Even so, I live on the wholesome side of the slums. I don't think I will be of much help though."

"We'll be the ones to find Marcellus. You keep Aerith safe. If Marcellus is kidnapped, there is a chance that Aerith will be kidnapped too. Regardless of what we regard you as, from the outside, you're the second in charge, Elmyra. Aerith is her daughter. If I had to use her as a bargaining chip, I'd choose her too. You'd rather give up your business for Aerith, wouldn't you?"

Aerith was astonished and took a step back. She stepped out of the safety zone, and the floor creaked.

"Aerith, are you there?" Elmyra called out sharply, "Come down here."

She had been caught, so it cannot be helped.

"Did you hear everything?" Carlo asked her the moment she got off the stairs.

She had no choice but to admit it.

"Don't worry. Nothing will happen to you."

There was nervousness in Elmyra's voice when she said that.

"However, I think it's better if we take precautions. It's probably better to head out from here. There is someone in Kalm whom Gabriel used to take care of a long time ago. I think we can turn to him for help."

"If it's possible, that's probably better."

This saddened Aerith. She decided to raise Aerith on her own, and now Elmyra had to leave this house.

"Pack up your things tonight. I'll arrange for a car and a driver to Kalm. No, I'll drive. It's been a while since I drove, but I think I’ll manage. I'll pick you up before dawn tomorrow. You'll both have to walk to the gate, so wear comfortable clothes to move about in.

The conversation went on and on.

"Aerith, don't look like that... I’ll come pick you both up as soon as we solve this problem."

Carlo's chest tightened as Elmyra held Aerith's shoulders and pulled her close for an embrace.

↞↠

It was nighttime. Elmyra and Aerith stuffed their belongings into a small briefcase Elmyra and Clay used for their picnics and then went to bed. Aerith was so nervous she could hardly sleep. She wondered what Marcellus was doing. She had not thought about Marcellus in a long time. His voice suddenly came to her mind, as well as his malicious manner of speaking, the lemonade that he spilt on the table and the dirt that stained his pure white suit. However, she does not remember his face. She wondered what kind of face he had. His mouth leaked out blood. His nose. And then his eyes.

"Ahhh, that was it."

The moment she remembered how Marcellus looked, she felt goosebumps running down her body. Behind the shut curtains of the window, there came a flash of light.

"What's that?..."

She got out of bed and opened the curtains slightly. She could see the garden. In the garden, she saw Marcellus, around the area where Jean had pinned him down that day.

"What?"

The next moment, Aerith was in the garden. Marcellus was lying on his feet, covered in blood.

"No!"

"Ugh..."

Marcellus moved his hand and felt the toes of Aerith's bare feet. She felt goosebumps throughout her body again. The scenery surrounding them changed in a split second.

"Ehh!?"

An unfamiliar landscape was spreading across. Walls. Wired fence. When she turned around, she saw Midgar, and it seems that beyond the wall was the wilderness.

"Help... me..."

A faint glow radiated from Marcellus' body. That was the form of life, and she felt as if she had known it all along. Now, at this moment, Marcellus was close to dying.

"Where? Where is this?"

"Sector 6... gate..."

"Ehh? I don't know where we are, but wait for me!"

Aerith started to run in the opposite direction of the wall — towards what appears to be the slums. She intended to call for someone. However, the landscape disappeared. When she turned back, she could not even see Marcellus. She ｗas within a lukewarm, white blur, and she could not see anything anymore. Her body felt itchy, and she could feel the blood rushing through her body. It was an unpleasant sensation.

"No! No! Help me! Elmyra!"

She could hear her own voice in the distance, and it gradually became louder. And the scenery returned. Her eyes seemed to remember their function. She was in her room, somewhere she was familiar, and was lying by the window. She hurriedly got up and looked out of the window. It was still dark, but she knew that dawn was approaching. She noticed someone in the corridor. The door then opened, and Elmyra peered in.

"Ahh, you're awake. Carlo will be here any moment now, so hurry up and get ready."

"Marcellus, he's at the Sector Six gate. He has injuries and is covered in blood. He looks like he's in a lot of pain."

Elmyra's stare made her feel uneasy, but Aerith did not look away.

"Let's tell Carlo about this."

Soon after, Carlo came over and called for them. He urged them to leave in a hurry, but Elmyra held him back.

"It seems that Marcellus is near the Sector Six gate, and he's injured. He appears to be in critical condition, so can you quickly go and save him?"

Carlo furrowed his eyebrows.

"Where did you get that information from?"

"Don't ask me anything, please. I owe you one."

Carlo first looked at Elmyra and then looked at Aerith's face. After that, he departed from the house.

Scene 25

"And then, Carlo found Marcellus collapsed near the Sector Six gate. He was in a critical condition, but I'm glad he somehow managed to survive."

"That's strange... Sorry, I'm repeating myself, but that's strange."

"I don't think it was just my powers, but I think the land had an influence too. It's because that area around my house was different from others."

"Such as the flowers being able to bloom?"

"Yup. I think that's the same way my mother, Ifalna, was able to come over to my room. But I can't even aim to try and do that. It's because I'm not a pure-blooded Cetra, and more importantly, I don't have the same state of mind as when I was a child. I think that's a huge factor. I can no longer tame that pure-like feeling similar to when I was a child. I wondered if I became insensitive once I grew up."

"Ahhh what a waste that you can’t have it anymore."

"Yea. Especially after starting this journey."

The two fell into silence. The definition of happiness changes from day to day.

"Oh," Tifa raised her voice.

"Did Marcellus run away from home after all?”

"Yup. It was just as Carlo thought. Marcellus didn't want to move to the plate, so he ran away. While he was aimlessly wandering around Wall Market, he got tangled up with Corneo's thugs, ran away, got lost, and lastly, he was attacked by a monster."

"Hey. Moreover, Carlo did a splendid job, didn't he?"

"Yeah, he did. He's a different person from the first time I saw him. He's like a dependable uncle. I used to think that he was an uncle, but clearly, he's like a brother."

"So, what’s he doing?"

Scene 26

Marcellus was brought under protection. However, the fact that the Corneo’s were involved, albeit they only had little influence, could not be overlooked. They cannot afford to stop being vigilant. The two young men under Carlo's care, Banquo and Zoot, were sent to the Gainsborough house to lodge for a while. They were still in their late teens. As they ate Elmyna's home-cooked food with relish, they seemed like children, and it felt that they could not be relied upon if a malicious enemy came over. Carlo, who paid a visit every other day, was seen to be very reliable compared to Banquo and Zoot.

One day, Carlo bothered Elmyra in an unusual way. He insisted that he wanted to eat deep-fried bread with meatballs. Elmyra refused, saying she did not have the ingredients. But Carlo was persistent, and in the end, Elmyra gave in. With Banquo and Zoot as bodyguards, they went out shopping.

"Hey, Aerith."

As soon as the both of them were alone, Carlo called out to her. He was very gentle in his voice.

"You know about how Elmyra told me where Marcellus was? How did Elmyra know about it?"

"Well, I don't know," Aerith responded bluntly.

She intended to pretend that she was calm, but she wasn't confident.

"I see. To tell you the truth, my colleagues suspect that someone was involved in the kidnapping. And in reality, it was Corneos' thugs who beat Marcellus up."

"Yup."

"And they believe Elmyra had something to do with it. Because she knew where he was, that's why she's a suspect and that her purpose was to warn the ones in command. Elmyra would be ready to make Meguro obey her. Something like that. Do you understand?"

"They suspect Elmyra?"

"That's the case. And they suspect me too. You see, ever since Clay passed away, I've been coming here frequently. Now that they suspect that we’re a couple... Ah, sorry, excuse me... that both of us are planning to sell the organisation away and stuff like that. To be direct with you, we aren't in a good position. And as a matter of fact, Meguro suspects us too."

"What should we do?"

She thought of the time when Meguro was angry. It sent chills down her spine.

"I need to know why Elmyra knows where Marcellus was, and if it's a reason that everyone can understand, we can be justified. It's hard to clear our name once we're under suspicion, but if I know the truth, at least, I will feel different about it."

Carlo looked at her with downcast eyes.

"You know, Aerith. Elmyra is in a terrible situation. That's why Aerith. If you know anything, please tell me."

She knew what Carlo was saying very well. No, she understood the meaning of his expression. Carlo would not continue supporting them anymore if she did not say anything.

"About that."

Aerith's voice was trembling. In truth, Elmyra had told her not to reveal it at any cost.

"She heard it from me. I saw Marcellus in a dream. It actually wasn't a dream. It was something else. But that's the kind of feeling that I can only describe as a dream. In it, I met Marcellus, and he told me where he was."

Carlo nodded his head several times as he listened.

"You don't have to believe me, but it's the truth."

"I see. Aerith, does this happen often?"

"It doesn't happen often, but... It's not the first time."

"I see. That's why Elmyra believed you. Is that so?"

Carlo lifted his head and gave a sweet smile as he patted Aerith's head.

"Aerith, you really like Elmyra, don't you?"

She did not know what Carlo was thinking. She was not sure if he'll stay on their side or not. Or had she let him down?

"Carlo. What's going to happen? I'm scared."

"I'm scared too."

↞↠

Eventually, Elmyra and the others came back home from shopping.

"Elmyra," Carlo called out for her, "The situation has changed. I'll have the deep-fried bread some other time."

"What the heck! I took the trouble to head out..." as Elmyra was saying that, it seemed that she noticed the unusual atmosphere in the room. "Did something happen?"

"Remember what I told you about going to Kalm? It turns out that it's probably better for you to go. If you don't wish to leave, then let Aerith go on her own."

"Are the Corneo's coming? Or is it Manson?"

"It's Meguro."

"What?"

"From the moment you knew where Marcellus was, he suspects you have connections to Corneo's. And they think I'm in on it too."

"Who's telling you that?

"Rodin, Marvin, Roger, Bowman, Louis and of course, Meguro himself."

"Isn't that all of them?"

Elmyra closed her eyes. Aerith wondered what she was thinking. Eventually, she opened them and stared at a point on the table. It was a picture of Clay and Gabriel.

Then, she transferred her gaze to Carlo and...

"Where's Meguro at?"

"He's at home. He has postponed the move and has been tirelessly working to solidify his security. Are you going to march into his place?"

"I just want to talk to him. I'm going to let go of the business and give up all my rights to Meguro."

"Woah woah woah woah! Are you serious?"

"I've thought about it several times, but to be honest, because when I thought about my livelihood, I couldn't follow through with the decision. Well, I guess this is the right time, isn't it?"

"Wait a minute. Even if you do that, that's not going to clear your name, isn't it? In fact, they might think that you're leaving us because you're going over to Corneo's. If you're not careful..." Carlo hesitated to say.

"I understand what you want to say, Carlo. But even so, I still have to go. Please take care of Aerith a little for me."

Carlo shrugged his shoulders.

"And Aerith?"

"No," a husky voice came out of Aerith.

Elmyra smiled and touched Aerith on the cheek.

"I may be back late, so go to bed. You can eat with Carlo and the others."

"No!"

Elmyra turned her back on her. Aerith tried to stop her, but Carlo grabbed her by the arm.

"Let go of me! Mummy, don't go!"

However, Elmyra went off. Banquo and Zoot looked at Carlo in disbelief.

"Banquo, Zoot, make us some food. Anything is fine."

"Carlo, I hate you."

Carlo had a sad look on his face. Moreover, he did not want to let go of Aerith's arm.

"Elmyra should clear up about this. We’ll be understood eventually."

↞↠

Aerith didn't have much appetite, so she caved herself in upstairs without touching Banquo's omelette at all. She was so worried about Elmyra that she could not concentrate on anything. She looked out of the window and peeped for signs of life downstairs numerous times. It was nearly midnight when the door opened.

"Elmyra!" Carlo called out in a lively voice.

"Let go of me!"

Aerith ran down the stairs and almost fell over. Carlo was scratching his head as though he was embarrassed, with Banquo and Zoot grinning at him.

"Mummy!"

Elmyra came over and squatted before Aerith's eyes.

"I'm home. You must have been worried."

Aerith could not resist it and gave Elmyra an embrace. Elmyra could not support the weight of her daughter and fell on her bottom.

"You've grown up, haven't you?"

"So, Elmyra. How did it go?" Carlo asked impatiently.

Elmyra helped Aerith to her feet and then took her time to stand up herself and fixed the wrinkles on her clothes.

"Meguro no longer thinks that Marcellus has been kidnapped, much less that you or I had anything to do with it. It didn't even cross his mind once."

"Eh? Is that so?"

"He said that you and I wouldn't go around doing that kind of stuff."

"Damn you, old man. You underestimate me!" Carlo tried to behave like a villain, but he couldn't hide his delight.

"So, what was with the talk that I heard about?"

"Who the heck did you hear that from?"

"Butch. I heard it from Butch. He retired, but he still meets Meguro often, so he knows what's happening inside pretty well."

Elmyra looked at Carlo in silence.

"Butch!? Butch set me up!? That old man!"

Carlo scratched his head off, swore, made his face funny, rubbed his eyes and paced around the room.

"Carlo, calm down. I'm not finished yet."

Carlo stared at Elmyra intensely. His breathing was still heavy.

"I have no idea how Butch was related to this, so let's put this talk behind us. I've brought something for you to keep from Meguro."

After saying that, Elmyra took a small box from her bag and presented it to Carlo.

"What is that..."

Carlo accepted the box and opened its lid. He was lost for words.

"It's Gabriel's ring. President Shinra also has the same ring. It was a token of their friendship. It was supposed to be Clay's, but that wasn't possible. So Meguro held onto it."

"In order words, that's..."

"It's to mark the first in charge, the head of the Gainsborough household. And this too."

Elmyra held out an envelope.

"Inside holds the title deed, a memo regarding Shinra's liaison officer to us, and the others are documents which you'll need for the job. It also has the blood-sealed certificates of the current in-charge of the household. I just did my blood-seal earlier too."

Elmyra then showed him the ring finger of her left hand. There was blood on the plaster.

"Big brother Carlo! Doesn't that mean you're the head of the household!?" Banquo excitedly exclaimed.

Elmyra looked at Carlo and gave him a big nod.

"Meguro has been sick and turned completely weak. He called upon all the other heads, and it looks like that was to prepare for his retirement. He intended to talk to you for the last time."

Carlo mumbled something in his mouth and went on to take the envelope. But then quickly withdrew his hand.

"I'm scared. It's too sudden. What should I do?" ― Carlo was worrying about all these as his men, Elmyra and Aerith, observed him.

"You're amazing, Carlo," said Zoot, sniffing and rubbing his eyes.

It took Carlo three minutes to make up his mind. He took the envelope from Elmyra's hand, who had been patiently holding it, and put it in his black bag, which he always carries with him. He then took his gun from the bag and placed it on the table. A heavy thud sounded in the room.

"I won't be coming here anymore, so I can't protect you both. You both have to do it yourselves."

"You won't be coming back?"

Aerith could not help but ask. Everything was settled, and things seemed to be going well, but Aerith could not wrap her head around why.

"I won't be."

Carlo suddenly made a weird looking face and looked as though he was on the verge of crying.

"If I keep coming and going to visit, won't nothing change? If members of other organisations know about this, you both will definitely become their target. It's not about the business anymore. Aerith, be a good girl, okay? Elmyra, continue being the great woman that you are."

After quickly saying those words, he left the house as though he was escaping. Banquo and Zoot hurriedly followed behind him. Right after that, the door opened once more, and Carlo came back alone. Once inside, he got close to Elmyra, and without looking aside, he embraced her tightly. He let out a deep sigh afterwards, lowered his shoulders and left the house.

He never came back.

↞↠

The days that followed were so peaceful that it was almost anti-climatic. Because nothing anxiety-inducing occurred, Elmyra put her gun in the attic after about half a year, when in the beginning, she would not even let go of her gun no matter where she went. Aerith wondered what Carlo and the others were doing. What happened with the hostile organisations afterwards? She wasn’t given any information. Elmyra probably knew something, but she did not say a word in the house. Elmyra is a workaholic and decided to earn her living by cleaning cafés, hospitals and orphanages in the neighbourhood. Elmyra told Aerith with surprise that she seemed to get a job no matter where she went in the slums. Even though she had enough on hand, she was often introduced to other customers, and there were people everywhere who cared enough to make sure that Elmyra and Aerith did not fall into poverty. Elmyra expectedly thought it was strange and asked them for their reasons, and they told her about the debt of gratitude that they and their families had for Gabriel Gainsborough. When Midgar only had its foundations, the wages paid to the workers were astonishingly measly. And a massive bunch of people who were neither from Shinra nor construction workers had money extracted from them in the form of referral fees, brokerage fees, and administration fees. It was Gabriel who reconfigured the structure and got rid of those who exploited the workers. There was lots of bloodshed, but workers' enemies were exterminated, and a large part of the wages paid by Shinra went to the workers since then. He also negotiated with Shinra and also won the workers an increase in remuneration. Many of them were able to open shops and start businesses because of Gabriel, and these people did not forget to pass on their gratitude to their children.

"I'm grateful for this."

Aerith heard Elmyra saying that numerous times.

↞↠

The children of the Sector 5 House would head out to work once they become thirteen years old. To mimic them, Aerith decided that she also wanted to work. However, Elmyra did not allow her.

"Why can't I?"

"It's not that I want to lock you up in the house, but I'm worried about you. You've been through a lot, haven't you?"

"I know, but for a long time, nothing has happened."

"That's true. But you know what? This is my problem, you know. Even up till now, this happens to me. Whenever I feel happy and secure, something happens. It's always been like that. I wonder if I had that kind of fate."

Elmyra let out a deep breath and shook her head.

"If I do that, I'd be restraining you as Shinra did. Alright, you may work. But, only around the neighbourhood, please."

"Thank you, Mummy."

Her mother's frank confession struck a chord in her heart. At the same time, she wondered about the possibility that she was one of the problems that she's holding onto.

Scene 27

"And my mother's fears were right on the mark."

"Ehhh?"

Aerith tiredly nodded to the surprised Tifa.

↞↠ You’re on page 119/142 of Aerith’s segment of the Light Novel Next Scenes: Scenes 28-35 Previous Scenes: Scenes 15-21 Back to Content Page (click/tap here) follow @istanleyff7 on twitter for updates support the TOTP translation project financially here (click/tap here)

#ff7 ff7r ffvii ffviir ff7rln ffviirln aerith

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frostops · 3 years

Text

I have some thoughts about how FGO has handled trans and trans-adjacent characters, and I’m frustrated how many people talk about the mishandlings without discussing the transmisogyny in it, but this is long as fuck, so its under the cut.

Its a good thing that FGO is having more characters with the genderless trait who aren’t given that trait for shitty reasons, but framing this as FGO being better at handling nonbinary characters, while technically true, ignores what caused many of the early issues. That cause is often transmisogyny.

Transmisogyny has been an issue in the game since Da Vinci’s introduction. Da Vinci doesn’t have the genderless trait, but she’s still important to discuss to understand FGO’s mishandling of trans characters. Mash and Romani are both angry at the idea of Leonardo Da Vinci not being a man, and call her a pervert, among other things. This is immediately after both find out King Arthur was actually a woman, but neither seemed to care then. Its understood by the writing that some believed to be a man turning out to actually be a cis woman isn’t deserving of malice, but that person turning out to be a trans woman is. The writing surrounding Da Vinci slowly got better, with characters being less shitty about and eventually respecting her gender. While Da Vinci initially describes herself as beyond gender, she says so in response to Roman and Mash’s reaction to her gender, where as whenever she is referred to as a woman (Lancelot saying he couldn’t hurt a beautiful women in Camelot, Napoleon calling her mademoiselle in LB2), she eats it up. Her early description of being beyond gender feels more like a tongue-in-cheek way of degendering a trans woman. While overall the writing treats Da Vinci better now, there are still times where it gets shitty, even as recent as the event where Van Gogh was introduced, where Hokusai talks about both Da Vinci and Van Gogh having an inherent maleness that bleeds into their art. This event did have a guest writer, but it was still allowed into the game.

The first character to have the genderless trait is D’Eon. Historically, D’Eon was intersex and trans feminine, and very likely a trans woman, but the fate version is introduced saying they were crazy in life, intended to be in reference to how they presented their gender. They are also presented as caring more about loyalty to France than what gender they are seen as, when the real D’Eon blackmailed the king into legally recognizing them as a woman. Transmisogyny, as well as intersexism, is pretty obviously what made Type-Moon take reduce D’Eon to just jokes about gender. D’Eon feels degendered in way similar to how Da Vinci is at time, though D’Eon gets it worse

Astolfo debuted in Apocrypha, where their presentation is used for a joke where Jeanne, believing Astolfo to be a girl, freaks out when she sees that Astolfo has a penis. The joke is that it is such a horrible thing to find a penis on some you think is a girl. I shouldn’t need to explain the transmisogyny behind that, or that Astolfo ostensibly not being a trans woman doesn’t make the joke less transmisogynistic. There are other, better things about Astolfo in Apocrypha, but most of their writing in FGO is in the same vein as the joke with Jeanne. This is crystalized in Agartha, where both Astolfo and D’Eon were used for many transmisogynistic, intersexist, and homophobic jokes.

The third, and for a long time last, character to have the genderless trait was Enkidu. They are given this trait due to changes to their myth. In Fate, Enkidu is made of clay, and had a nonhuman appearance until meeting Shamhat, and modeling their appearance after her. They don’t have a physical sex, but, due to originally being a male character and appearing feminine in fate, the writers and fans alike treat them similarly to how they treat Astolfo and D’Eon, though less aggressively. Usually when Enkidu appears in a fate work, one character has to talk about how they can’t tell whether Enkidu is a man or a woman, before settling on neither, but only reach that conclusion because they don’t have a physical sex. The transmisogyny isn’t as strong in Enkidu’s writing, but its still there.

Until LB3, no other character would be given the genderless trait, and what all 3 of them have in common is being AMAB or originally male characters who present femininely. Technically Da Vinci fits this description as well, but her body is considered female by Type-Moon’s standards, so she gets the female trait. Also, with the exception of Astolfo, have bodies that wouldn’t considered male of female by most people. In Deon’s case, this is the result of intersexism, and even more frustrating when you remember that D’Eon blackmailed the king to be seen as a woman. I’d wager the reason Astolfo is grouped with the other two is itself a continuation of the joke from Apocrypha. It’s a coy “We all know what Astolfo’s ‘real’ gender is, but we’ll play along with the joke.”

I think this also explains other characters who, arguably, could be included in the genderless trait, but were not. Nezha, like Da Vinci, only got a “female” body after dying, so they get the female trait too, despite not really being comfortable with any gender labels. Mordred, who consistently gets violently angry at being called a woman, and whose bio states that they don’t like being referred to as a man either (though this wouldn’t be implemented into writing until LB3, where they are clearly far less bothered by being referred to as man) also has the female trait. King Hassan’s bio has his gender listed as “?????” but he is treated as male by the game and has the male trait.

None of the newer genderless servants fit the same description of amab/originally male and presenting femininely, which does show a more nuanced understanding of gender identity and expression, but it doesn’t show anymore respect towards trans women and transfems. Both Shi Huang Di and Douman have somewhat androgynous presentations, but we still don’t really have trans fem character whose gender and presentation is treated respectfully other than Da Vinci, and that’s frustrating. For the most part, though, these characters are all pretty well handled.

Two of them, Mao Nobu and Romulus-Quirinus, are new versions of characters who already had the female and male trait respectively, meaning the game has at least someone moved away from equating the genderless trait to a character’s physical sex, but not entirely since part of the reason Shi Huang Di has the trait is their inability to reproduce.

There is some disagreement about how Caenis is handled, and I do have thoughts on that topic, but if I talked about that this would be twice as long. The short version is that the necessity to make characters fit into fanservice, something which negatively affects all of the characters I mention here, limits the ways in which Caenis’s relationship to their gender can be explored. Its also why we have Caenis and not Caenus, and why Caenis is rarely allowed to where a shirt.

There is also Dioscuri, who is two characters, one man and one woman, who are collectively on servant, so even though they have the genderless trait, they're not really relevant.

We do have more originally male characters now in female bodies. Vritra and Van Gogh, who were added recently (Vritra’s bio says she was originally male and now has a female vessel and Van Gogh is Vincent Van Gogh in Clytie’s body), Kama, an originally male deity possessing Sakura’s body, is being added to NA this year, and even back in part 1 we had Quetzalcoatl, another male god in a female vessel. All of them are given the female trait, and Quetz in particular seems to be very comfortable being a woman, but this still feels like what happened with Nezha, where the “physically female” body matters more than the identity of the character, especially with Van Gogh, who had no choice in being put in Clytie’s body.

Mechanically, the gender traits only affect certain skills and nps, having extra or stronger effects. The genderless servants are exempt from the extra effects, with one exception. Once of Blackbeard’s skills has an effect for female servants, but D’Eon and Astolfo (And maybe also Enkidu, but I don’t remember) were included in this effect as well. The joke here was that Blackbeard is written to be reflective of the worst qualities of weebs and otakus. many of whom would refer to those two as traps, a transmisogynistic slur, so Blackbeard is into them in the same way. Servants with the genderless trait added afterwards weren’t included in this effect, even though some of them (the ones who transphobic fate fans consider to be women) would still be seen as attractive by Blackbeard. So rather than coding each one individually to be included, they added a new trait, the female looking trait, for Blackbeard’s skill. The genderless servants included in this one all present feminine, but the inclusion of this trait is to make continuing a transphobic joke easier, which almost feels like a step back from some of the previous progress in handling trans characters.

I also think some people are a little too eager to give FGO credit when it may not deserve. For instance, a lot of people liked Douman being included in the genderless trait, and on its own it fine, but the my room line where Sei talks about trying to check under Douman’s robes concerns me. Many people took it as Sei just being horny for Douman, but it could easily be intended as Sei trying to check what’s really in his pants, especially since the canon reason Douman has the genderless trait is that he combined himself with some spirits and deities, one of which is female.

None of this is to say its wrong to view any of these characters as nonbinary (I do view most of them as nonbinary), but I don’t think we should view the genderless trait as equivalent to nonbinary. Not only are there characters included in it who probably shouldn’t be (like D’Eon) and characters who don’t have it who probably should (like Nezha), doing so treat nonbinary as a third and wholly separate gender. And if you’re going to talk about the transphobia of FGO, please be willing to use the word transmisogyny.

#transmisogyny #transphobia #fate grand order #fate/go

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blackrosesociety-vampyres · 3 years

Text

WHAT WE ARE ABOUT – An Introductory Overview

You may have found us and equally found yourself at a loss to understand what exactly Black Rose Society is, what we are about, and where you might stand within all this. The purpose of the following texts is to give you a brief introductory overview of the central topics and avenues of exploration Black Rose Society focuses on. This way, we aim to provide you with a good idea of what you can expect to find in our community.

WHAT WE ARE

Black Rose Society is – first and foremost – a community of Vampyres, dedicated to Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture.

Black Rose Society is a place for serious exploration. We do not claim to possess all the answers, and we certainly do not speak for all vampire-identified people everywhere. Rather, we do our best to provide our membership with a conducive atmosphere to explore an extensive range of topics from within the perspective of Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture. We discuss how various groups of vampire-identified people arrive at expressing their varied experiences through self-identification with the vampire as a distinct category of person or archetype. We discuss how various groups of vampire-identified people have originated and shaped an authentic alternative subculture in the form of modern Vampyre Culture. We discuss the relationship between Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture – how one inspires the other, and how we in turn may be inspired as Vampyres.

Black Rose Society is also a social place of meeting. We provide our membership with a safe haven to gather, to mingle, to exchange news and information, to enjoy hospitality, to befriend, to learn on a basis of personal knowing. In this, Black Rose Society is explicitly open to all interested parties who might be sympathetic to us, both Vampyres and Black Swans, whether they seek closer affiliation with our sponsor in House Sauromatos or not, and indeed, whether they are familiar with the customs of Vampyre Society or still seek to learn more.

Lastly, we are about the celebration of being different, and we welcome all to have a good time in our spaces, as long as it is within the boundaries of our rules, guidelines and policies.

WHAT WE ARE NOT

Black Rose Society is decidedly not…

A roleplaying community Black Rose Society is a community of ‘Real Living Vampires’. This is not a game for us. While role players are indeed welcome to join Black Rose Society, we generally do not allow actual roleplaying in our regular community spaces. A dating community Approaching our community or any of our members with the sole intention of seeking a sexual or romantic relationship of any kind is firmly discouraged. Making another member feel unsafe or uncomfortable due to unwanted sexual advances or unwanted sexual comments may be considered harassment, and we will remove any offender from our community as soon as we become aware of any inappropriate behaviour. A provider of professional medical or legal advice Any information offered through Black Rose Society is considered to be for informational or educational purposes only, and is not intended as a substitute for, nor does it replace, professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Similarly, any information offered through Black Rose Society should not be in any way construed as professional legal advice on any subject matter. Should you decide to act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information offered through Black Rose Society, you do so at your own risk.

WHETHER WE ARE THE RIGHT COMMUNITY FOR YOU

Our community may not be the right fit for you, or it may indeed be the place you gladly call a haven.

You may have found the right place if you are at least one of the following:

– A Vampyre, someone who self-identifies as a Vampyre, or as Vampyric, or in any way identifies with the vampire as a category of person or archetype. – A Black Swan, someone who is a trusted friend to Vampyres and fully participates in the community, but does not or is not ready to identify as a Vampyre or Vampyric. – A Seeker, someone seriously questioning whether they are Vampyric, or whether they want to participate in Vampyre Culture in general. – Someone involved in consensual human blood-drinking between risk-aware adults, either as an active participant, blood drinker or blood donor, or as a close friend or family member of one, wishing to be supportive of them. – Someone engaging in advanced energy work, or Energy Vampirism, within the boundaries of Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture. – Someone pursuing Vampirism from the perspective of the Occult, open and sympathetic to Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture. – Someone with a genuine and enduring interest in all things ‘Vampire’, open and sympathetic to Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture.

We especially want to welcome you if you are at least one of the above and also:

– Someone passionate about furthering Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture, and ready to make meaningful contributions. – Someone intrigued by the aesthetic and mystique of Vampyre Culture, who wishes to actively explore its lifestyle aspects. – Someone with good questions.

You may want to look elsewhere if you are one of the following:

– A journalist or media worker seeking interviews. – Lacking the necessary maturity to deal with our topics. – Solely interested in hooking up. – Just curious for no particular reason. – Seeking to become a vampire in the hopes of gaining supernatural powers, lasting youth, increased lifespan, or things similarly fantastic. – Unwilling or unable to respect Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture, for whatever reason. – Unwilling or unable to comply with Black Rose Society’s rules, guidelines and policies, for whatever reason. – Scared of reading.

If you are unsure, you are most welcome to talk to our members on our Discord Community Server and have your questions answered in our #support channel or have a friendly chat in our #lobby, both of which are open to non-members.

BLACK ROSE SOCIETY ON VAMPYRE IDENTITY – There are no vampires in the Vampire Community

We begin with the Vampire Mythos. Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture are inevitably tied to the Vampire Mythos. We, Vampyres, are a people of the Vampire Mythos, in that our self-identification and our cultural self-expression as Vampyres will in some capacity reference the figure of the vampire from popular culture.

A vampire in the most common understanding of the word appears as a creature which drains the life (often in the form of blood) of humans to sate their own needs, enrich or prolong their own existence.

Vampyres do not believe that they are literal vampires as they appear in popular fiction or folklore. While some Vampyres might believe there to be some hidden truth to vampire stories, namely historical ‘Living Vampires’ who have passed into myth, Vampyres generally do not make any fantastic claims of possessing qualities commonly associated with the vampires of popular fiction or folklore. Vampyres are perfectly able to distinguish fact from fiction.

Indeed, the reality of Vampyres as a modern cultural phenomenon is a fact that is beyond any doubt. Since at least the latter half of the last century there are people like us – people who name themselves Vampyres for a wide variety of reasons.

What is commonly known as the ‘Vampire Community’ is in fact not a unified community but a collection of networks, groups and individuals who are associated with each other by virtue of their shared self-identification with the vampire as a category of person or as an archetype.

For our own purposes, we define Vampyres as individuals who are part of the Vampyre Subculture, or Vampyre Culture, and who identify as ‘Real Living Vampires’ specifically.

Note that we are observing the anachronistic spelling with a ‘y’ when referring to our kind, emphasizing and affirming our belonging to Vampyre Culture, with the benefit of helping to distinguish our kind from the vampires of fiction and folklore, spelt with an ‘i’ in the conventional way. (While not all vampire-identified people participate in Vampyre Culture, many are familiar with or adopt certain cultural ideas, customs, symbols and terminologies of Vampyre Culture.)

THEORIES ON VAMPYRE IDENTITY

Both outside of as well as within the ‘Vampire Community’ one will likely encounter arguments that Vampyrism may be a health condition or disorder, a sexual fetish, an escape fantasy, or a religious belief. We believe that Vampyrism understood as the phenomenon of modern ‘Real Living Vampires’ is severely misrepresented by completely reducing the whole diversity of Vampyre Identity to any one of the aforementioned explanations or rationalizations.

Despite unfortunately sounding like one, Vampyrism – as we understand it – is NOT a medical condition or psychological syndrome in the sense that Vampyrism cannot be sufficiently represented by completely reducing it as such, although attempts have been made to link certain facets of Vampyrism to various physical or psychological conditions, suggesting that there may be an empirical condition underlying some cases of Vampyrism.

Likewise, Vampyrism – as we understand it – is NOT a sexual fetish in the sense that Vampyrism cannot be sufficiently represented by completely reducing it as such, although there can be sensual, erotic aspects to Vampyrism, and individuals may experience excitement or receive gratification from or during certain Vampyric acts or complement their practice of Vampyrism with participation in fetish, kink or BDSM activities.

Further, Vampyrism – as we understand it – is NOT an escape fantasy, in the sense that Vampyrism cannot be sufficiently represented by completely reducing it as such, although Vampyrism has been proposed to be a reaction to trauma, abuse or feelings of isolation, and some individuals who regard themselves as outsiders or outcasts might be attracted to Vampyre groups, which in some cases can take on the role of surrogate pseudo-families.

Lastly, Vampyrism – as we understand it – is NOT a cult, religion, religious belief or religious practice in the sense that Vampyrism cannot be sufficiently represented by completely reducing it as such, although Vampyrism can have religious or spiritual facets, which can be studied in the context of alternative spirituality or new religious movements.

In Black Rose Society we prefer to regard the phenomenon of modern ‘Real Living Vampires’, or Vampyrism, to be primarily a matter of identity – personal, social and cultural. Approaching Vampyrism this way – as a social phenomenon and culture – allows us to appreciate a wider range of complexity and diversity of perspectives found within the different strata and subsects of Vampyric communities without confining us to a too narrow definition of the nature of Vampyrism, or – more precisely – of Vampyre Identity.

What makes one a Vampyre is – to the best of our understanding – ultimately tied to the very individual reasoning leading one to name oneself a Vampyre, to adopt the Vampyre Identity, and to participate in Vampyre Culture. Put more simply, a Vampyre is potentially anyone who chooses to name oneself a Vampyre for one reason or another. The individual reasons for why a person might identify as, or express themselves as a Vampyre, or as being Vampyric, are many and varied.

VARIETIES OF VAMPYRE IDENTITY

In Black Rose Society, you will encounter very different and sometimes seemingly conflicting perspectives being discussed – why one Vampyre might drink human blood, why one Vampyre might feed on human life-forces or subtle energies, why one Vampyre might do both or neither, ranging the more traditionalist to the more modernist, from the more materialist to the more spiritualist – as well as be offered some insights into the cultural development of the presented ideas and perspectives.

Black Rose Society is a community dedicated to the whole complexity and diversity of Vampyre Identity, and Vampyre Culture. In principle, Black Rose Society does not discriminate against and welcomes any individual expression of Vampyre Identity, so long as it does not conflict with Black Rose Society’s rules, guidelines and policies.

‘Real Vampires’

Some Vampyres practice consensual human blood-drinking between adults. Also known as ‘Sanguine Vampires’ or ‘Sanguinarians’, they often, but not always, claim to have an affinity or need to feed on human blood and that this practice is of some benefit to their physical, emotional or spiritual well-being, or that they experience some other form of relief due to this practice. Please note: In Vampye Culture the practice of consensual human blood-drinking often, but not always, happens within the bounds of a committed intimate relationship, but always strictly consensually between risk-aware adults. Black Rose Society explicitly distances itself from any acts of blood-drinking or bloodletting that involve and/or in any way abuse unconsenting persons, minors or animals.

Some Vampyres who are better known as ‘Psychic Vampires’, ‘Energy Vampires’, ‘Psi Vampires’, or ‘Pranic Vampires’ believe they have an affinity or need to feed on subtle life-forces which they believe they are able to draw or gather from another person or a group of persons by means of their innate nature or learned abilities. Similarly, they claim that this practice is of some benefit to their physical, emotional or spiritual well-being, or that they experience some other form of relief due to this practice.

‘Sanguine Vampires’ along with ‘Psychic Vampires’ are often categorized as ‘Real Vampires’.

‘Living Vampires’

Other Vampyres embody the archetype of the vampire by expressing it through facets such as Lifestyle, Aesthetics, Philosophy or the Occult, often, but not always, complementing the practices previously mentioned.

These individuals are known by many different terms and distinctions, but are sometimes categorized as ‘Living Vampires’.

‘Real Living Vampires’ or Vampyres

Be advised that any such categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Vampyres who – by virtue of their individual identity – may find themselves in both categories, and would be considered ‘Real Vampires’ as well as ‘Living Vampires’, we call ‘Real Living Vampires’, or just Vampyres.

Black Rose Society Vampyres are Sanguines and ‘Real Living Vampires’ in the majority – but we welcome all vampire-identified people and all those who may be sympathetic to Vampyre Identity and Vampyre Culture, provided they comply with our rules, guidelines and policies.

BLACK ROSE SOCIETY ON VAMPYRE CULTURE – What it means to be a Vampyre

Vampyre Culture, also called the Vampyre Lifestyle or the Vampyre Subculture, is an alternative subculture, meaning it exists as an alternative to – and apart from, yet within – larger society. Vampyre Culture in its current modern form originated with and is influenced by other alternative subcultures, alternative lifestyles or alternative spiritualities, and is often more closely associated with the Gothic Subculture, as well as with elements of BDSM, Paganism or Satanism respectively.

Although not all vampire-identified groups and not all vampire-identified individuals necessarily consider themselves part of Vampyre Culture, many groups of Vampyres or individual Vampyres follow their own authentic expression of Vampyre Culture. Vampyre Culture is often that which connects the various communities of vampire-identified people.

Vampyre Culture has its own complex heritage, with its own traditions and authentic lines of transmission. Prior to the advent of the internet, communities of Vampyres and groups of the Vampyric Heritage were – compared to today’s standards – relatively isolated from each other. This resulted in several more or less distinct traditions of vampire-identified people arriving to exist side by side in the current modern ‘Vampire Community’ with the turn of the century, each possessing an authentic history, each having an equally legitimate claim to what it means to be a ‘Vampire’, sometimes complementing each other, sometimes contradicting each other. Today there are multitudes of different Vampyre Houses, Covens and Clan-Families preserving, refining and transmitting their own piece of the Vampyric Heritage. Black Rose Society itself was founded as a Protectorate-Partner and functions as an Outer Court for House Sauromatos, a traditional Vampyric Household based in Germany.

MAKINGS OF VAMPYRE CULTURE

In Black Rose Society we are dedicated to the study and the discussion of Vampyre Culture from within the perspective of active participation in Vampyre Culture. We see Vampyre Culture expressed in our own ideas of social organization, in customs, in codes of behaviour, in etiquette, in philosophy, in spirituality, in our symbols, language and terminologies, as well as – to a limited degree – in our aesthetics, style, fashion, music, art, etc.

What makes up Vampyre Culture, and what Vampyre Culture means for us as Vampyres are among the most important questions Black Rose Society is exploring. According to our patron and sponsor in House Sauromatos there are certain traditions, fundamental ideas and concepts that one might consider to be essential to Vampyre Culture – its character, its values as well as its aesthetics and mystique: Feeding, Naming, Speaking the Language, Wearing Black, Secrecy, Education and Family

Feeding

For most outsiders and indeed for many Vampyres their interest in Vampyre Society begins and ends with Feeding. Although our words for and our ideas surrounding the practice of Vampyric Feeding may certainly differ, Vampyres as a category of person are nearly universally defined by the fact that we engage in certain Vampyric acts, or Vampyric behaviour, generally understood as a Vampyric person actively feeding on another person’s life-forces, often in the form of blood. The varied practices of consensual human blood-drinking between risk-aware adults, or the arts of feeding on life by certain subtle means are the most commonly expressed forms of practised Vampyrism. This is what we call Feeding. Our ideas of what it is Vampyres feed on, how and when Vampyres feed, why Vampyres feed, if there is a need for Vampyres to feed, of which nature this need might be and what it means for us as Vampyres will differ from place to place, group to group, individual to individual. Regardless of the variety of ideas present and expressed in Vampyre Culture, the concept and practice of Vampyric Feeding is central to Vampyre Culture anywhere. This is part of Vampyre Culture.

Naming

Names have power. At the beginning of one’s journey, one often chooses a dedicated name to be used for any coming interactions within Vampyre Society. Taking on a new name – a Vampyre name – can be considered an individual rite of passage in Vampyre Culture. It signifies a dedication or desire to be known and recognized by that name as a part of Vampyre Society. A Vampyre’s chosen name is often highly meaningful and should reflect one’s personal identity and journey as a Vampyre. Therefore, care should be taken when choosing a name for oneself. Under certain circumstances, a Vampyre may accept a name chosen by one’s mentor or a person of similar standing. It is commonly permissible to change one’s chosen name when one has outgrown it. For some, taking on a new name can mean the freedom of leaving the past behind to begin anew, discovering or re-inventing yourself, to seek out new experiences, to forge new bonds, to choose a new family. Indeed, when joining a traditional group of Vampyres, one might, in addition, take on the name of the House, Clan, Coven or Family in question, or a name honouring one’s mentor, signifying individual belonging and lineage. Among traditional groups, one’s naming is often accompanied by certain rites and ceremonies. While naming customs may differ from place to place, a Vampyre’s chosen name is generally an important expression of one’s Identity as a Vampyre. This is part of Vampyre Culture.

Speaking the Language

Belonging to Vampyre Culture is distinctly marked by the correct usage of specialized terminologies. While a complete Vampyric language never reached widespread use in Vampyre Culture, its specialized terminologies are similar to an argot, or cant, a type of secret language which can be employed to protect a group’s spoken or written communication from outsiders, establishing a subculture existing separate but within a larger society. To learn this secret language present in Vampyre Culture one would commonly access and study word lists, or learn directly from other Vampyres within an established group. This is part of Vampyre Culture.

Wearing Black

Subtle and elegant, black is the preferred colour of Vampyres according to tradition and suitable for any social occasion or function of Vampyre Society. To complement a classic black attire, silver jewellery is often preferred by Vampyres, as is the wearing of certain signets and symbols associated with Vampyre Culture. Traditional groups are known to recommend stricter dress codes depending on various factors – yet, the colour black enjoys almost universal acceptance in Vampyre Culture anywhere. This is part of Vampyre Culture.

Secrecy

Secrecy and confidentiality are paramount for Vampyres. From the earliest beginnings of what would become Vampyre Culture, our communities have relied on secrecy and mutual discretion. It comes with the territory, the deviant nature of our interests and activities, which are largely – and perhaps rightfully – considered to be taboo in larger society. Originating in traditional codes of silence, the importance of secrecy is near-universally recognized in Vampyre Culture, and it often is among the first lessons to someone introduced to Vampyre Society. Vampyres must ever take care not to disclose any information that could be in any way construed to threaten other Vampyres, their families, their friends, or themselves. The same applies to our trusted Black Swans, who know of us and keep our secrets. Do not seek the attention of the mundane. Especially avoid the sensationalist media like the plague. Do not misrepresent yourself as speaking for all Vampyres, or for any Vampyre groups you are not sanctioned to represent. When possible, entrust any outside public relations to those with more experience. Protect each other’s personal information. Keep your Vampyre life and mundane life separate. Do not reveal a person’s mundane name or any other aspects of a person’s mundane identity to anyone without explicit permission. Indeed, it is good etiquette not to inquire about a person’s mundane identity at all within Vampyre Society. Always keep the secrets entrusted to you personally. This is part of Vampyre Culture.

Education

With knowledge comes responsibility. In Vampyre Culture knowledge is traditionally passed on personally – from person to person, from mentor to protégé – forming traceable lines of transmission. Being of the Vampyric Heritage, it is a Vampyre’s duty and responsibility to share one’s knowledge with others and impart them with the necessary skills to feed responsibly, to instruct them in the language and traditions of Vampyre Culture, and to prepare them to serve as leaders and guides for the next generation of Vampyres, passing on the legacy so that it may endure. In a traditional mentor-protégé relationship, a mentor is called to protect, to guide and to correct any missteps of their protégé – always leading by example. For the duration of a traditional mentorship period, a mentor is – to a limited degree – responsible for the behaviour of their protégé. A good mentor will provide access as well as personal insight by introducing their protégé to relevant texts and resources, teaching them protocol and proper conduct, and inviting them to attend gatherings and social functions with them. A good protégé will demonstrate an eagerness to learn by asking questions and show respect by being attentive and valuing their mentor’s time. By tradition, it is the mentor’s responsibility to assess whether their protégé has acquired the necessary level of experience, self-control and knowledge to stand on their own and be formally recognized as a member of Vampyre Society. The successful end of a mentorship period will often be marked by certain rites and celebrations, depending on ruling customs. Vampyre Culture’s distinctly personal approach to the transmission of knowledge often stems from an appreciation of the living Vampyric Heritage and the desire to keep the flame alive by passing it on from one person to another, one generation to the one following. Our Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. This is part of Vampyre Culture.

Family

Blood is thicker than water. Vampyres traditionally organize themselves into clannish, close-knit groups of like-minded, kindred spirits. Traditional Houses, Clans, Covens, or Families of Vampyres often emphasize their familial nature as part of their self-image. Indeed, traditional groups of Vampyres can at times resemble surrogate families, providing safety, stability and support – a life among your own kind, where other support systems might have failed you. Someone’s Vampyre Family is a true family of choice, often just as important to the individual as someone’s original family – if not more so. For these reasons, belonging and loyalty to one’s Vampyre Clan-Family or Vampyre House are valued highly in Vampyre Culture. Vampyre Houses, or other equivalent traditional groups, form the backbone of Vampyre Culture, and are typically, but not necessarily, headed by one or several influential matriarchal or patriarchal figures, with a close inner circle of Family members and retainers, attracting an outer circle of prospective members and hang-arounds as well as various supporters and sympathizers. While a certain level of stratification is traditionally upheld, it mainly fulfils a need for stability and security, which is ceremonially reproduced by hierarchy and ritual. In reality, there is often a striking difference between the formal stratified structure and the informal familial nature of this type of group – even in the most traditional of Vampyre Houses. Apart from providing their members with a family-like network of support, mutual loyalty and trust, Vampyre Houses, or other equivalent traditional groups, serve Vampyre Society in various other ways. Depending on the group or organization in question, Vampyre Houses, or other equivalent traditional groups, may be actively involved in the preservation and furthering of knowledge, in structured education and teaching, as well as in organizing events and social functions for their local communities. While the vast majority of individual Vampyres does not belong to a group following a more traditional model, their ideas and values of Family are deeply embedded in Vampyre Culture in general. Without the bonds of Family, we are nothing: Loyalty to each other, to Vampyre Society, to Clan and House – honouring the Ancestors, in Life and Death. All this is part of Vampyre Culture.

IDEAL OF VAMPYRE CULTURE

In Black Rose Society we customary refer to the utopian ideal of a community envisioned by Vampyre Culture as Vampyre Society.

Vampyre Society is perhaps, above all, a community of shared values. Vampyres often believe themselves to be in some way different from other people within larger society. Many Vampyres have experienced or continue to experience alienation due to their unique experiences. Vampyre Society is a place where all are valued and embraced for who they are, and where to be different is celebrated and cherished. Vampyre Society is a place where all are largely free from judgement imposed by larger society, heeding only Vampyre-specific codes of behaviour, more appropriate to their way of living. Vampyre Society is a place of belonging, which – fostered by the personal relationships found in real community, strengthened through facing shared adversity together, and heightened by the very mystique of the vampire archetype – may engender genuine feelings of pride and awaken true solidarity with other members of Vampyre Society.

To make Vampyre Society a lived reality, whenever or wherever possible, at social gatherings, or in any interaction with other Vampyres and Black Swans – this is the meaning of Vampyre Culture.

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rigelmejo · 3 years

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I’ve read parts of this article on Pride and Prejudice translation three times now and so I suppose I should share it.

Misinterpreting Jane Austen? A Feminist Perspective on the Chinese Versions of Pride and Prejudice

http://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/vol38no1/yi/

It really makes me think about how easy it is to have huge themes in a work just lost or muddled intensely if they aren’t paid particular nuanced focus to during translation. How each line could have more nuance to it then a surface level “any synonym will get the point across” and how just lacking cultural context can cause big points in a sentence to be abandoned in translation (the use of “rational creatures” in Pride and Prejudice is a huge reference to bringing up feminist thoughts, but read literally could be translated as ‘i think’ or ‘i’m reasonable’ or ‘i’m regular’ and could miss a big chunk of meaning being conveyed). Meaning is usually lost somewhat in translation because its hard to maintain the nuance of the original words, even if you know all the context and are prioritizing themes in each sentence! So of course its a struggle.

I just think its something to be mindful when engaging with translations in general. And certainly webnovel ones where so often the translators are fan translators with various skill levels in language and/or translation and/or in meaning of the deeper themes of a text, and paid translators on big webnovel sites, often translating under time constraints to do a job Fast rather than ‘as close to accurate as possible’ which could take a lot more time. That’s not even getting into the machine translations (and cleaned up mtls) of webnovels, that some actual webnovel sites use (which can have very little if any editing done), and some fans do when its the best/fastest chance to ever read the novel (in which case even if its edited by people for improvements over time it will be constrained by the original mtl translator program’s failures in word choice and unawareness of story nuances). It’s already a mess to judge a work of art made in another culture, without being aware of that culture’s artistic goals and norms and expectations etc. Those values must be acknowledged, because to judge it as something outside its context removes so much. That applies to translations too - which can maybe be interpreted on their merit as localizations. When there is one - like maybe Drakengard 3 and if its localization changes were a good or bad thing for its story in the context of an english speaking market? or if Final Fantasy XV localization changes were? which i imagine the localization teams themselves had to judge its work on. On the case of like “how does this work as a localization” but still the questions of its original context in its original lanuage, intent, comes up. Do you get rid of ramen in favor of a different food? Do you get rid of San and say “Mr” - what is kept, why is it kept, does it require outside understanding of context, is that worth keeping even if it does?

Like perhaps the pride and prejudice translator changed “rational creature” to “ordinary person” because they wanted to abandon explaining the feminist idea of “rational creature” altogether, considering that context too far removed from a translation, and instead decided on making the line mean more broadly “like a normal person my rejection is serious - i’m not playing a silly game with you.” which is roughly fair in meaning, but has lost the concept of “i’m rational like Any Person, even though you consider women irrational that is incorrect.” I see why the translation could have made sense to do - and its what i’m sure localization translators deal with deciding every day - “what do we keep for overall story’s meaning understood by this new target audience?” versus “what details do we abandon at the cost of nuance, because it might make it harder for this target audience to connect to the overall story?” etc.

My point i suppose is just, sometimes I see arguments about webnovels and their meanings as understood BY the translation. And many people much better with words than me have made good points that one can’t judge a work based on english speaking culture standards when it wasn’t made in that context, was not aimed at that target audience, and has context surrounding it that in general an english audience will not be aware of. Just to add to that - the translations themselves.

The translations also are going to have context missing, or have changed some context and nuance to translators tastes. Like localizing to try and make it more comprehensible to the audience, or because the cultural reference needs some ‘equivalent’ the translator thinks the english audience will be more likely to know - i immediately think of Word of Honor choosing “chevalier” for “daxia” and “river of lethe” and greek myth metaphors, instead of the actual concept the dialogue refers to (and Word of Honor was professionally translated). Even among professional differences - just look at The Untamed that has different versions translating “zhiji” as bossom friend, good friend, soulmate, and gongzi as Childe, and names as just a whole range of weirdly varying ones different from what’s actually said. A lot of webnovels are not professionally translated (and of the ones that are, if they have speed deadlines they also might not get an ideal amount of time to decide how to ‘most accurately’ maintain the nuance, if that’s even a goal of a specific translator because different translators have different goals).

Not only is it not something created in the english audience culture (so why compare it on those specific cultural expectations it wasn’t made for), but also each translation is not going to be a fully accurate depiction of the original. Every translation will vary. Some translations will leave out cultural nuance, or even change it, or just not notice it was there to begin with. Word choice alone will change the meaning of some sentences and dialogue - and it can be as simple as one seemingly straightforward word change (like “rational creature” in Pride and Prejudice). Translation changes can affect the meaning you get from a story when its done professionally, when its been done and tried different ways multiple times for decades! Surely translations done for webnovels are going to have points where its like... to judge it is to at most interpret this translator’s work. Because there isn’t a full picture of the original work, a translation can’t give you that. Like others have said, its not great trying to expect works from different cultures to match up to a different culture’s expectations/aspects, but then also translations themselves will fail to retain aspects - or will all highlight such aspects in different ways and also in different ways for the reader to interpret (leaving more original context with footnotes, simplifying details and removing authors nuance, changing context to try and come up with an equivalent the reader might understand easier, etc). And that doesn’t even cover how any machine translator usage is going to also be destroying so much nuance, context, meaning, and even changing it in random ways - if its used for any of the steps, before the translator’s personal goals even start affecting the translation’s shape and meaning etc.

I have a huge newfound respect for the people translating Haruki Murakami... if Pride and Prejudice is this easy to change themes on/interpret differently even though its overall a very straightforward novel structure, I can only imagine how hard Haruki Murakami’s meanings and themes are to preserve...

#rant #april #translations #i just think about this a lot.#1 its a big reason i'm considering reading the mdzstranslations group's version of mdzs - i suspect #a number of complaints about mdzs come from translation choices. because that's been true with much of mxtx's writing #i saw the 'simple' svsss translation (which is fine and i like it) and a newer one ppl did and the newer one is WAY MORE NUANCED #and its like reading a trashy pulp novel to reading an Actual Novel with Depth and that could actually make me cry. All cause of translation #choices. Priest's writing too... i can thankfully read it in chinese (tho i still miss a ton of cultural nuance obviously)#and in english its translation is SO simplified it misses so much atmospherically and in mood. it makes priest feel like a 'less great write #' but then i read Mo Du/Silent Reading? And edanglarstranslations is one of my FAVORITE translators #i have the chinese novel and when i read? or listen to the chinese audiobook? it matches up wording wise and feeling wise so WELL with #EDanglar's translation of the novel. so translating work affects so MUCH how the story is interpreted. and nuance lost is like seeing a #masterpiece through blurry glasses and fog. u can make out the main impression and if its good then it will touch ppl even in translation.#but the style of translation/choices will effect how BLURRY the audience sees it - whether its black and white or blurry colors. whether its #50 ft away or a mile. it will always be blurry unless read in its original language AND by someone who gets its context/culture. but some #parts can be clearer depending on what translators choose to do. and Which parts are clearer depends on them.#its part of why i usually want to learn to read the languages i Do read? because i hate the blurry picture lol. i want to make it clearer to #myself what they originally intended. even tho its still blurry to me In the language. i at least get more of the original Feel even if #details still get lost on me.#just... whenever i think of this article it reminds me how MUCH translation is an art form with choice #and also how much a translator works - none will likely capture and retain everything in their goal even IF they want to cause #they're all bound to miss some things or have to sacrifice some things #perhaps i should say. we see a blurry image of the original IN a translation. but the translation itself is like an artist REDRAWING a #masterpiece FROM a blurry reference. the translators work IS crisp but details are off/changed/less nuanced/differently nuanced #to see a translators work as identical to the original is wrong because like. no its like an artistic rendition with creative liberties of #a reference image they cannot replicate (because they're using paint and paper and the original is clay with paint missing the translator #cant guess the exact colors of and the translator only has 3 photos of the sculpture. and the translator cant sculpt so they must draw #and a 2D painting just isnt the same u know.

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something-very-special · 3 years

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they ran over the seals

More Replicant playthrough observations and general nonsense under the cut. For reference, up to the keystone quest; completed the Forest of Myth and Junk Heap.

This fucking game I swear to god.

A vaguely coherent ramble about sidequests An observation about sidequests in general in this game -- and I don't recall if I ever voiced this somewhere public or it was just a personal observation from my time with the original -- is that the quests in the first half of the game are all relatively easy to complete. There's that one asshat who wants 10 goat hides, but other than him, most of the sidequests are either very much based on finding characters, or gathering a sensible number of items that are either relatively common, purchasable, or given a guaranteed spawn for the duration of that quest.

The sidequests everybody remembers having to do are in the second half, where everybody is demanding and awful and I'm sorry ten MACHINE OILS do you know how goddamn rare those are? They're goddamn rare.

(We'll not discuss Life in the Sands.)

This is generally agreed to, in the technical vernacular, 'suck'. And it's always funny that the most interesting sidequests are the ones with very minimal requirements (Yonah's cooking, getting Popola drunk, the Lighthouse Ladoh my god everything's gone blurry I'm not crying you're crying who am I kidding we're both crying). That particular aspect of the design also feels intentional, not really gating your ability to progress the really meaningful or funny sidequests behind an unreasonable number of rare items. The other aspect of the design is that these quests are not meant to be completed in a single playthrough; most of them are single-stage and just absolutely unreasonable, but if you're going through the game four times you have a... reasonable chance of getting everything you need more or less naturally.

Nobody does that but I think that was the intended design. I think it's a good idea, although the execution of expectation is flawed so I don't really blame people for saying those sidequests suck. (Although I will in turn blame people for saying the sidequests suck as a blanket statement. Yeah getting that guy who burned his kitchen down a billion Broken Motors is aggravating but did you not find that old man's dog? Speak to Ursula on her death bed? Solve a murder? Then again I think tracking down that rotten son who's trying to get away from The Family Business only to learn his father is a con-artist and get literally no reward is the height of comedy so maybe I'm not the greatest point of reference.)

But that asshole in Facade can get bent. I can't exploit my garden properly, jackass! I am no longer a god of time. (I kid, of course.) (This guys sucks even when you can fix your clock.)

Forest of Myth It didn't even occur to me to wonder how they would incorporate the comprehensive voice acting into the Forest of Myth. I like how it plays out, although I wish the voices maybe had a fade as you went deeper into the dream instead of just cutting out at some point, especially for the lines where the characters are being ascribed actions by the narrator that they themselves aren't doing near the start of the Deathdream. But it's just delightful to go back to it. The second half of the game really sticks in your mind both for emotional reasons and because you play it at least three times per full playthrough of the game, but the first half is just so much fun.

Protip: Talk to everybody after you've finished the dream sidequest. Weiss tries to dissuade you. Don't let him dissuade you. I'm still delighted by the Mayor; "We're building a statue of you, made of solid gold. I know you don't own a horse, but we're going to put you on a horse."

I forgot about Yonah being a disaster chef Papa Nier's reaction to the stew is better. Brother is still funny but Papa Nier just expecting to die is comedy gold.

For anybody curious, the joke about the cakes is that Yonah made 'fruit cake' using some of the worst possible fruits for cake-making. If only she'd thrown a tomato into the mix, too.

Lighthouse Lady Every time. what the fuck is a canal I'm aware of the addition of the new-old content but it didn't occur to me until Popola suddenly starts nattering on about fixing the canal when I'm expecting Yonah to talk about a penpal that oh, yeah, I guess Seafront would have had something going on the first half that would play into the second half? (I assume it does. Be weird to introduce these characters just to have groundwork for an added sidequest. ...but it was a cute sidequest.) But look Popola my boy is supposed to be in the next area I visit could we-- I mean he's on the way could we just-- no-- fiiiiiiiiiine. (It was short and sweet, though, and I appreciate that the couple's love is exemplified by them both calling Weiss a floating magazine in tandem.) On a related note but was I the only person suddenly concerned when the sidequest completion maxed out at 50% and not 51%? I had to double-check with a guide just to make sure, since I've spent the last decade telling people to make sure you hit 51% before going on to Part II.

MY BOY I love that nowadays, Emil is everybody's son. But I really wish I could go find somebody only familiar with Automata and just watch their reaction. (I'm guessing there are streams out there that fulfill this but man I'd love to get it in-person.) If you're only familiar with him from Automata this has to be a mindfuck.

Personal anecdote, but I've had the privilege of playing NIER with somebody else almost every time I've gone through it. I had a wonderful experience of doing a replay some years back with somebody who had experienced it with me before but didn't have the most solid memory of the beginning (and had actually missed the entire weapon's lab the first time through). I get to the boy at the piano introducing himself and the 'Wait, what?' was a thing of beauty.

MY ANDROID This was a welcome mindfuck for me; finding Sebastian and having him 'reactivate' in such an unnatural, mechanical way. I don't recall if it was ever officially confirmed that Sebastian is an android (I know that it's just understood that this is the case but I'm not I can't recall a specific one) but the little flair they added to his animation caught me completely off guard. I liked it!

Destroying the food source A lot of people will cite a major inciting incident for the game as being when the protagonist heading back into the village and killing the child Shades just outside the entrance. This moment is such a great bit of subtle foreshadowing that's so easy to miss... but kind of joining that, just before the Knave of Hearts attacks, I realized that the Shades out on the Northern Plains are clearly ramping up for an assault of their own by murdering the sheep. The sheep population at this point is decimated (which is great when you realize you haven't gotten the Sheepslayer trophy and you're about to enter Part II and you don't know if the boar drifting minigame got carried forward with the inclusion of 15 Nightmares). You go out onto the Plains and you will find not only small clusters of sheep left behind instead of the vast, terrifying herds from the start of the game, but until you get their attention the Shades are prioritizing killing the sheep. (Also annoying because that doesn't count toward my sheep murder number.) The Shades will be out there also killing sheep earlier on, but since the whole map is in Overcast mode after talking to Yonah it's especially prevalent to go out to the Northern Plains and seeing the slaughter. And I realized-- they're cutting the Village off from a primary food source. Shades don't eat and they don't have any beef with the local ungulates (at least, no more so than anybody else does), so why are they hunting down the sheep? To deprive their enemies of resources. Sheep are extinct by the timeskip. It's actually really clever of them, and a really clever indication of their sentience and intelligence before it's fully verified.

"Let's get these shit-hogs!" Everything about the way Kaine and Emil interact across the entire game is perfect I will brook no argument this is objective fact.

Emotive Rectangles I wrote an essay about this before but it really bears repeating that the job the original animators did with this scene is just phenomenal. The way Weiss drifts, flits, flips, fans his pages, drunkenly swerves, shoots around the room in defiance... He's a goddamn rectangle, but there is so much emotion and personality in this scene just based on the movements conveyed through a what is effectively just a box. Ten years later and triple-A titles with full facial capture don't have this much seething personality. I really have to give props to the cavia animators, wherever they wound up. That studio could really put some subtle love and care into their titles, utterly unnecessary and easy to miss but you can tell that whoever was working on it was giving it their all. The books are probably the exemplification of this, but every time I go into Seafront and visit the seals I can tell that the guy on seal duty was having just the best day. They made Emil so pretty There's an FMV cutscene right smack in the middle of the original game after the battle against Noir. I understand why it was a necessity on a technical level, but it always looked pretty out of place and a little uncanny valley compared to the rest of the graphical fidelity. That's no longer a necessity so this cutscene is rendered in-engine. I admit I was actually curious to see it redone this way and it looks fantastic. I single out Emil since he is the focal point of cutscene and because his particular high-poly model had some pretty weird difference from his in-engine model, but he and Kaine both look great. But, like, it's almost mean how pretty he is.

They made Brother Nier so pretty Yeah okay you got me he's kind of hot. Kaine's expression when she wakes up and looks him over is... significantly easier to read now. Good voice, too. (Ancient rumors tell that one of the issues with international releases of RepliCant was that they couldn't find an English VA with a voice that 'fit' Brother Nier. He sounded good out the gate but hearing him growl "Let's go TAKE CARE of those KIDS" during the thief sidequest-- I got chills. It sounds so silly but there's a kind of percolating fury to that delivery. Papa Nier was like frustrated but mostly disappointed dad; I felt like Brother was going to take care of those kids, and nobody was going to find the bodies. Younger Brother Nier just never stops looking goofy to me but Older Brother just looks great in motion, between the alterations they made to the movement and just the entire weaponry system. The distinction between the two halves of the game was always a little odd in the Gestalt version-- not odd enough to really raise eyebrows if you didn't know about RepliCant, but of course you can tell that this age gape between the optimistic doe-eyed dogooder and a man largely ruled by his fury and calloused by tragedy is what the timeskip was going for. Swab me down and call me Ishmael, it works. Younger Brother wasn't quite clicking with me-- not because of any writing or voicework issues, but I've got Papa Nier on the back of my mind and it's impossible not to compare and contrast the delivery and dialogue between the two. I know that this is intentional, too; Younger Brother is supposed to be that happy-go-lucky video game protagonist, always doing the right thing and helping people, in order to contrast against the man he becomes. Even just edging into Part II the effect is dramatic and it recontextualizes Younger Brother into a much more effective overall character. And let me reiterate, I enjoyed my time with Younger Brother just fine, I have no issues with him. But he's up against Well Meaning Big Dummy Part I Papa Nier. No contest. And I'm excited to see where Older Brother goes from here.

Speaking of voices I mentioned this before but the delivery on the character's lines is different. The entire game was re-recorded and quite a few lines are still pretty similar to the original, but there are some that are... definitely different. Part of this is a difference in the relationship between characters based on their life experience and ages-- Weiss is much more of an ass to Younger Brother but has a much more even respect for Older Brother (neither of which are like the rapport he established with Father). Some of Kaine's lines feel more aloof, dismissive, and almost tired in the front half of the game. I haven't really gotten to a point to dig into Emil's rapport with the other characters, but the delivery feels more hesitant and uncertain (which I think is more in line with his Japanese VO, but I'm prefacing that on an untrained ear and a presumption rather than recent memory). It's been interesting to see not just where hey adjusted dialogue (and how-- there are some lines that didn't need to be rewritten), but also how they adjust tone and delivery. Dealing with Younger Brother is one thing, but as I said, I'm very excited to see what's different in the second half, especially being much more familiar with that part of the game. Speaking of Voices! Halua got dialogue! I... preferred when it was inferred (and the implications of "I'll always be watching over you" are borderline malicious given the results of their fusion dance, yeah THANK YOU HALUA this is GREAT). Halua's delivery also felt a little too innocent and upbeat both for the situation and when compared to her narrative voice in The Stone Flower, where she comes across as much more cynical and cold. But given what she's been through and the nightmare she's finally escaping I guess she's allowed express happiness. She's certainly earned the right to having a spoken line. No matter what. Every fuckin' time.

"Here we go." This was always a great line to kind of ease in to the officially-official start of Part II-- every time you start up a New Game+ you're greeted with Emil musing about his conflation of Halua to Kaine, and then the phrase "Here we go". There's a lot in that one line. On a personal level he's grounding his thoughts in the moment and steeling himself for what comes next and pushing through his pain and sadness and fear. Whatever Nier told him in the facility he's still terrified, desperately terrified, that Kaine -- who was the one who told him his life had meaning -- is going to reject him. And why wouldn't she? Ultimately they don't know each other, not really. He understands at that moment that his relationship with Kaine is based on confused memories of his sister, that maybe the bond he thought they established isn't actually real. As soon as he frees Kaine he's going to have to confront her, like this, and how could she ever-- she won't-- but he can't just leave her. Whatever happens next. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. (God it matters.) "Here we go." On a meta level, that's our introduction into the second half of the game. The first half is all prologue. This is where we'll be spending the rest of our time, even to the point that 'New Game+' skips straight ahead to this moment. Now that we've finished the establishment, this is where it all builds and where it all matters. Here we go, audience. The ride starts now. You get up to this point now in Replicant. You get the same lead-in. My dumb ass even whispered "Here we go", because I can't help myself. And he says, of course he says--! "Anyway." ... ...a-anyway? What the hell kind of line is that? "Here's some deeply personal musings that are also an indication of my own discomfort as I babble to myself just to fill the void so I can stave off thinking for just a few more seconds. ANYWAY." What a... bizarre decision. Just bizarre.

Upgraded melee combat The introduction to the armored Shades always feel kind of rough-- the defenses on those Shades are significantly higher than anything you've faced and the new weapons you're given to combat them just aren't that good. (If you got lucky you could have a fully-upgraded Faith by now, which is nearly three times as powerful as the 'heavy' two-handed sword you're given; if you downloaded the 4 YoRHa pack for Replicant you've probably been able to upgrade one of those weapons once, which are also a really nice strength boost that leaves the freebie heavy swords and spears in the dust). As an introduction to the new weapon types it always feels like rough going. But then you get a chance to get decent weapons and the combat system truly opens up, and compared to the first game you really feel it. At this juncture I would always just bustle off to Facade and grab the Phoenix Spear and never look back-- the raw power compared to the rest of your arsenal coupled with the triangle dash is basically the bread and butter of the rest of the game. It's not exciting, but it's effective. No more triangle dashing, which was deeply disappointing... but both weapons definitely feel good. I am also somewhat ashamed to admit that it wasn't until now that I realized attacks weren't just about rhythmic input-- you can hold the attacks down to do different charged hits and combos depending on when you execute them in your combo, similar to Automata. I, uh... I felt a bit dumb. But hey, wow, it's a welcome adjustment and it makes all of the weapon types feel equally valuable for different purposes. I never liked using the heavy blades in the original release because they just felt too slow for the damage output they did, even if their 'point' was mostly to sheer off armor (and they definitely felt too slow for use in crowd control). Now they're still heavy and slower, but not to the point that you're basically leaving yourself open just trying to attack. Spears now do crazy sweeping combos and multi-hits. Both of these properties were borrowed from Automata and I find myself prioritizing melee combat and almost forgetting I have magic because honestly it just feels intuitive and fun. I feel like Kaine and Emil might have gotten a power boost as well? Not that I can really confirm this but going into some of the Junk Heap rooms I'd focus on killing a few robots in the corner and then turn around and just see a field of item drops and no more robots. Don't take my word on that, of course, but they felt a little more effective, and a placebo effect is still an effect. "You're staging a protest? That's fun!" Emil. Rebel without a cause. Will not hesitate to kill you if you trespass on his property. (Might explain the statues in the courtyard, actually.) I'll have to double-check this dialogue because I definitely remember more of a melancholia before we get to roasting marshmallows. I think Papa Nier actually offers to talk to/implicitly threaten the villagers to let them in the Village whereas Brother offers to sleep outside with them... which is actually kind of funny. In the former it comes off as Emil and Kaine maybe kinda-sorta not wanting to be allowed in the Village for their own reasons (they're not happy reasons but they're reasons nonetheless) and reassuring Father that no, it's okay, it's fun! The latter is almost telling Brother to stay inside because he'll ruin their sleepover.

(They're absolutely having giggly girl talk about him outside the gates, 100%.) they ran over the seals All I want in Seafront is to enjoy the music and run out to the big beach and hang out with the last living seals and they put a fucking pirate ship on top of them. Oh, wow. Gideon. Wow. OG Nier featured a Gideon that tried to keep himself together and then had fits of mania. You'd be concerned about him during some of the dialogue but generally speaking he came across as... functional. The delivery on all of his lines is now so insanely murder bonkers, like every line he's addressing you like you're already chained to the wall of his serial killer dungeon and it's glorious. I don't know if the distinction between the games is deliberate (in that Gideon in Gestalt was just more even-keeled between his 'rip 'em apart' snarlings and was always just totally nutso in RepliCant) but I do appreciate it. It's a good mirror to Brother Nier's own anger, which only ever seems to be mollified when he's talking to his friends (even kindly accepting sidequests there's a pretty consistent -- not universal, but consistent -- air of barely-bridled frustration). The other characters that Brother encounters are various reflections of himself if things had just been a little different-- Gideon was a representation of the kind of obsessive madness that would have eaten Brother alive if he hadn't had his network of support. Gideon's constant fury and bloodlust even bleeds into him just saying "What can I do for you?" He has no anchor to keep himself sane, nobody to stay human for; he's all mania, all anger, and he only takes any real interest in Brother on his return because he sees an opportunity to act out his vengeance. After defeating Beepy and Kalil he even goes so far as to not only blame Beepy for killing Jakob, but for also killing their mother, which is patently insane but really speaks to how far his justifications and fury have taken him. Papa Nier responds to his anger toward Beepy by basically backing away slowly and saying "Oookay then". Brother, however, actually commiserates; "That's enough. [...] We get it. We really do." This is definitely one of those moments where Brother's context works better than Father's; he absolutely sees himself in Gideon. He completely understands him and sympathizes. He recognizes the madness of his own quest, he sees where it could take him, and there's a resignation when he speaks to Weiss: "Revenge is a fool's errand." "...yeah." Papa Nier has a similar delivery and similarly implies that he understands how terrible his quest is, but there's something decidedly haunting in Brother's sympathy. Also just verifying something on the wiki and this bit of 'Trivia' really jumped at me:

Gideon is the only character to only cause the deaths of other characters. In his case, he caused a platform to crush Jakob and ordered the deaths of P-33 and Kalil, with P-33 surviving.

Metal AF.

#NieR #NieR Replicant #Rambling #He will always say 'here we go' in my heart #And that's probably a serious medical condition

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natsubeatsrock · 3 years

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Should Hiro Mashima die?

My answer is no.

Though, this isn't about actually killing Hiro Mashima. Kinda got you with the title, though, huh? (This was originally going to be titled “Is Hiro Mashima dead?” and released on his birthday. You’re welcome.)

This post is about a widely debated topic of analysis known as the "death of the author." I've talked about this a few different times in passing in a few posts over the years. You could argue that this belongs in my series rewriting Fairy Tail and I considered placing it there. However, I feel that it's better that I keep this detached from that series. This topic concerns criticism of any series. Naturally, being a Fairy Tail blog, I plan on engaging this with the context of Fairy Tail's author being dead or not, hence the title. Still, this is helpful to think about for analysis of plenty of other series.

Again, though, my answer is still no.

Let's start with the origin of this term. The term comes from an essay by Roland Barthes called "La mort de l'auteur". Use your best guess as to what that translates to. I highly encourage you to read the essay as it's pretty short. It's about six or seven pages, depending on the version. There are three main points to his essay.

Creative works are products of the culture they come from and less original than people expect.

The idea of the author as the sole creator and authority of creative works is fairly modern.

The author's interpretation of a work shouldn't be considered the main or only interpretation of a work.

Of these three points, I'm sure you recognize the last point. But first, I want to talk about the other points. I believe it is important to understand the arguments being made as a whole.

The first point should be fairly uncontroversial. The vast majority of creative works use established language, tropes, and elements to create a new thing. I wouldn't go as far as Barthes does in this regard. Not to mention, this is somewhat weird to know considering his third point. However, I agree that creative works should be considered products of the culture and genre they come from.

The second point is a bit trickier for me. To be clear, the point is true. You only have to look at various cultural mythologies as an example. There isn't a single version of the Greek myths. There are several versions and interpretations of the various stories and myths.

Even recent popular fictional characters have had several different interpretations. This is especially true with comics. There have been multiple different Batman interpretations, Spiderman runs, and X-Men teams that fans love. Fans even love and appreciate numerous forms of established characters like Frankenstein's monster and Sherlock Holmes. So, as a consumer and critic of art, I can understand this.

My problem is as a creator of art. I understand this being contentious when it comes to something like religious myths. But, if I create something, I want to get the credit for it. I want people to love my music or writing. But I also want people to recognize me for my skill in crafting it.

This is true even if you hold to the first point Barthes made. Even if you believe that no art is truly unique, isn't the skill of synthesizing the various tropes and influences around a person worthy of credit in and of itself?

Then again, I am not without bias in this. Barthes says that the modern interpretation of the author is a product of the Protestant Reformation. As a Protestant myself, I get that my background plays no part in my view of this. Barthes also blames English empiricism and French rationalism, but personal faith is the biggest influence on me that Barthes lists.

That being said, there's also something Barthes completely misses in his essay. In the past, stories were passed down by oral tradition. As the stories were passed down from generation to generation, they slowly evolved and became what they are known today. Scholars today can gather a general consensus of what a story was meant to be and some traditions were more faithful about passing traditions down than others. However, you can't always tell the original author of a mythological story the same way we know who gave us stuff like the Quran or the Bible.

As time passed, stories were written down. With this, it was easy to share single versions of a story and identify its creator. We know who made certain writing of works even before the 1500s. For example, we have the Travels of Marco Polo and Dante's Inferno and know their authors. We could tell the authors of works were before the Protestant Reformation.

By the way, the Reformation happened to coincide with one of the most important inventions in human history: the printing press. Now you can easily make copies of an individual's works and you don't have to rely on word of mouth to share stories.

I can't stress how important an omission this is. The printing press changed the way we interact with media as a whole and might be the most important invention on this side of the wheel. And yet Barthes doesn't even mention as even a potential factor in "the modern concept of the author"? In his essay about understanding written media? That’s like ignoring Jim Crow in your essay about Birth of a Nation bringing back the KKK.

Now, we get to the final point. The author's original intentions of their works are not the main interpretation. This is understood as being the case after they create the series. Once the work is written and sent into the public, they cease to be an authority on it.

It's worth recognizing how this flows from the other two points. Barthes argued that works of fiction are products of their culture and our current understanding of an author is fairly modern. Therefore, the interpretation of the reader is just as valuable as that of the author. As Barthes himself wrote, "the birth of the reader must be at cost of the death of the author."

At best, this means that a reader can come away with an interpretation of a work that isn't the one intended. With Fairy Tail, my mind goes to the final moments of the Grand Magic Games. My view of Gray's line "I've got to smile for her sake" has to do with romantic feelings for Ultear. I don't know of a single person who agrees with this. Mashima certainly hasn't come out and affirmed this as the right view.

It's good to recognize that a work can have more meanings behind it than the ones intended by its creator. Part of the performing process is coming to a personal interpretation of a work. In many cases, two different performances will have different interpretations of the same work, neither of which went through the creator's mind. At the same time, both work and are valid.

That being said, there is an obvious problem with this: readers are idiots. Not all readers are necessarily idiots. But enough of them are idiots. The views of idiots should have as much weight as that of the creator. Full stop. Frankly, I maintain that idiots are the worst possible sources to gauge anything of note. (At the very least, policy decisions.)

I know this as a reader who has not been alone in misunderstanding a work. I know this as an analyst who has had to sift through all kinds of cold takes on Fairy Tail. (Takes that are proven wrong simply by going through it a second time. Or a first.) And I definitely know this as a creator who has to see people butcher my works through nonsensical "interpretations."

At the same time, the argument Barthes made comes with an important caveat. He also argued that works are the products of the culture and surroundings of the author. Barthes isn’t making the argument that author’s arguments don’t matter.

As far as I can tell, Barthes doesn't take this to mean that those influences are worth analyzing. Doing so would be giving life to the author. However, there should be some recognition that a creative work didn't come to exist out of nowhere. There's a sense in which Fairy Tail didn't just wash up on the shore chapter by chapter or episode by episode. It came to be as part of the culture it came from.

Now, you'll never guess what happened. Over the years, the concept of "death of the author" lost its original intent. Nowadays, people usually only care about the third point. "Death of the author" is only brought up to dismiss "word of God" explanations of work, after its release. I'd venture to guess that most people using the term casually don't know anything about its roots. I honestly don't know how Barthes would feel about this.

I can understand what might fuel this view. A writer should do their best to write their intended meanings in a work. It would be wrong of a writer to make up for their poor writing after the fact. I don't love Mashima's "Lucy's dreams" explanation for omakes. I know Harry Potter fans don't love the stuff J.K. Rowling has said over the years.

At the same time, my (admittedly Protestant) understanding of "word of God" and "canon" is that they have the same authority. After all, the canon IS the word of God. It is a small section of what God has said, but it isn't less than that.

Of course, it's worth recognizing that nearly every writer we're talking about isn't even remotely divinely inspired or incapable of contradiction. This understanding should cut two ways. An author should never contradict their work in talking about it. Write what you want and make clear what you want to. On the other hand, writers can't fit everything they want to in a work. I'll get to this soon, but their interpretation should be treated with some value.

By the way, people will do this while throwing out the other arguments made by Barthes in the same essay. People will outright ignore the culture and context that a work comes from in order to justify their views. Creators are worshiped and praised for their works or seen as the sole problem for the bad views on works.

What worries me most about this modern interpretation of "the death of the author" is its use in fan analysis. People seem to outright not care about the author's intent in writing a story. They only care about their own interpretation of the work. Worse still, people will insist that any explanation an author gives is them covering up their mistakes. Naturally, this often leads to negative views of the work in question.

This is just something I'll never fully understand. It's one thing if you don't like something. If you don't get why something happened, shouldn't your first move be to figure out what the author was thinking? Instead, people move to the idea that it makes no sense and the writer's a hack.

If all of this seems too heady, let's try to bring this down to earth. Should Hiro Mashima die so that his readers can be born?

Hiro Mashima is one of many mangakas who were influenced by Akira and Dragon Ball. He considers J.R.R. Tolkien to be one of his favorite writers. Monster Hunter is one of his favorite game series. He's even written a manga series with the world in mind.

It would make sense to look at Fairy Tail purely through this lens. You could see Fairy Tail as a shonen action guild story. Rather than seeing the guild as a hub for its members, Fairy Tail's members treat those within it as family. Rather than focusing on one overarching quest, the story is about how various smaller quests relating to its main characters threaten their guild. Adopting this view wouldn't necessarily be an incorrect way to engage with the series. (Mind you, I haven’t seen this view shared by many people who “kill Mashima”.)

Though, there's more to Fairy Tail than the various tropes that make it up. If you were to divorce Fairy Tail entirely from its creator, you'd miss out on understanding them. There are ways Mashima has written bits of himself into the series. Things that go farther than Rave Master cameos and references.

My favorite example is motion sickness. I often think back to Craftsdwarf mocking motion sickness as a useless quirk Dragon Slayers have. It turns out that its origin comes from his personal life. Apparently, one of his friends gets motion sickness. He decided to write this as part of his world.

This gets to the biggest reason I don't love "death of the author" as a framework for analysis. I believe the biggest question analysts should answer is why. Why did an author make certain decisions? You can't do this kind of thing well if you shut out the author's interpretation of their own work. Maybe that can work for some things, but not everything.

I've had tons of fun going through Fairy Tail and talking about it over the past seven years. More recently, I've been going through the series with the intent to rewrite the series. I've made it clear multiple times in that series that I'm trying to understand and explain Mashima's decisions in the series. I don't always agree with what I find. However, trying to understand what happened in Fairy Tail is very important to me.

It's gotten to the point that I love interacting with Mashima's writing. I talk about EZ on my main blog. I can't tell you how much fun I've been having. I'll see things and go "man, that's so Mashima" or "wow, I didn't expect that from him." HERO'S was one of my favorite things of last year and I regularly revisit it for fun. It's the simplest microcosm of what makes each series which Mashima has made both similar and distinct.

Barthes was on to something with his essay. I think there should be a sense where people should feel that their views of the media they consume are valid. This should be true even if we disagree with the author's views on the series. But I don't know that the solution is to treat the author's word on their own work as irrelevant.

There's a sense where I think we should mesh the understandings of media engagement. We recognize that Mashima wrote Fairy Tail. There are reasons that he wrote the series as we got it and they're worth knowing and understanding. However, our own interpretation of the series doesn't have to be exactly what Mashima intended. We can even disagree with how Mashima did things.

I know fans who do this all the time. They love whatever series they follow, but wish things happened differently. Fans of Your Lie in April will joke about [situation redacted] as well as write stories where it never happens. You love a series, warts and all, but wish for the series to get cosmetic surgery, or take matters into your own hands.

And who knows? It's not as if fans haven't affected an author's writing of a series. Mashima's the perfect example. I've said this a few times before, but Fairy Tail has gone well past its original end at Phantom Lord (or Daphne for the anime fans). Levy rose to importance as fans wanted to see more of her.

Could Mashima have done that if we killed him?

Before the conclusion, I should mention another way “death of the author“ comes up. People will invoke “death of the author“ to encourage people to enjoy works they love made by messed up people. Given everything we’ve said up to this point, that’s obviously not what should be intended by its use. For now, though, I do think that we can admit that we like the works of someone even if we don’t agree with everything they did as a person. (Another rant for another day.)

In Conclusion:

“Death of the Author” is an imperfect concept, but it’s not without its points. I don’t think we should throw out the author’s intent behind a work. However, we should be able to have our disagreements with the author’s views without killing them.

#fairy tail #hiro mashima #death of the author #i'm back #and what a way to return #i've been meaning to do this forever #fav

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hothian-snow · 3 years

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Worldbuilding: Sith Magic (WIP)

An update to my original post.

I want to theorize about what magic may have been commonplace during the times of the Sith Pureblood, before they became influenced by the Dark Jedi. Some beliefs and practice may have evolved into what we know today, but many traditions will have likely died down, lost to time and to cultural colonisation. These are my headcanons, inspired by some headcanons others have made plus my own understanding of traditional witchcraft and Ancient Greek magic.

1) Magic of the Sun

Korriban is one of the original homes of the Sith Pureblood, and presumably the most prominent one. What could be seen the moment you step onto Korriban is the rocky red ending desert and the blistering sun. Magic from many cultures around our world are rooted in the land, and I believe Sith magic should be no different. In this case, their magic will be drawn from the sun, the bones that lie beneath the sands.

In the real world Greek Magical Papyri, a record of Greco-Egyptian magic spells, the sun god Helios is called upon in various rites ranging from consecration to restraining anger to bringing victory. In that same manner, I believe the sun may be called by the Sith to perform magical acts. In a lot of POC traditions, planets are also deified to be gods (something like astrolatry in Thailand etc), and so the Sith - who in my views are POC-coded - may revere the sun as a central religious figure (which makes it ironic that the concept of the Dark Side of the Force was later made to be the enemy of the Light). The sun nourishes, but it also burns. The light allows you to see, but too much can blind. It is the sun’s heat that rot corpses, freeing flesh from bones, rushing forth decomposition. The sun is life and the sun is death.

Just as Ancient Greek witches could be identified as descendants of Helios due to their flashing eyes, it is also possible that the Sith Pureblood may view themselves to be descendants of the sun. After all, their fiery eyes are like two miniature suns and their distinctive red skin are like the blood-red dawn.

2) Magic of the Bones

In many ways, the Force is similar to the real-world belief of animism. Inside everything is something that is alive and powerful. In the bones, buried beneath the sands, are a vault of memories. Through feeding the bones - feeding the spirits within the bones - one can cultivate a relationship with the dead. One can redden the bones with flowers from cactus mixed with drops of blood, or blacken them with roots and soot. Incense smoke can be like food to the soul. This works for both animal and Sith bones.

Once awakened, bones can be your teachers, or used both as an offensive and defensive tool. The empty eye sockets of skulls can be placed in strategic places, eternally watching guard. Fangs and claws can be turned into magical talismans, to protect their masters and shred their enemies to pieces. Bones may whisper their wisdom to you. Learn from the tuk’ata how to protect and defend. Learn from the K’lor’slugs how to poison and strike.

3) Necromancy

With the talks of bones, we cannot avoid the topic of necromancy. In a lot of POC cultures, ancestor veneration plays an integral part of bringing families together. As the Sith Purebloods are POC-coded, and because we have seen in-game that ghosts of ancestors (Lord Kallig) may wish to help their descendants (the Sith Inquisitor), I believe ancestor veneration would have a prominent role in Sith culture. Ancestors may send you dreams for you to be prepared for upcoming threats. Ancestors may work their magic from beyond the grave to influence situations in the living world.

Aside from having a ghost literally show up, transmission of knowledge through dreams is one way that tradition can be passed down, in spite of the Sith Genocide that occured. Children may have been made orphans, but it does not mean that their parents can’t speak through them in an oneiric vision. Texts may have been burnt, cultural artifacts may have been destroyed, but magic prevails. History finds a way to be remembered.

Dream incubation can be used to receive information that would be otherwise unknown. Trances can be used to induce visions from the dead and from higher powers. Ointments made from poisonous herbs, smeared onto the body, can be used to induce the liminal state required for a person to get in touch with the otherworld.

There is also canonical evidence that necromancy was practiced among the Sith before the Dark Jedi colonised them: Dathka Graush, a Sith King of Korriban active in the decades prior to the arrival of the Dark Jedi Exiles in 6900 BBY, was among the earliest practitioners of Sith necromancy. Necromancy can be as dramatic as raising zombies using occult incantations, reanimating the freshly dead and the buried skeletons. However, I also want to go for a different approach.

Inspired by Ancient Greek necromancy, I believe the dead can be split into many types. Perhaps there are the restless dead, like the Greek aōroi, the spirits who could be appeased and channeled to wreak havoc. Perhaps there are the mighty dead, (war) heroes who have been elevated to the point where they are venerated and prayed to for strength and miracles. The dead can be called upon to glean prophecies, and deals can be made with them, pacts sealed in blood. The dead can teach you secrets and grant you powers, and you can send them forth to haunt your enemies until they are maddened. A Sith may ask the ravenous dead to feed upon their enemy, and pray that the power of the tomb claims the rest.

Some parts of the current Sith cultural beliefs may have been influenced by the beliefs of the Sith Pureblood (pre-Dark Jedi arrival), but twisted into a reactionary belief in response to the Jedi code. For example, the Jedi seems to have an accepting attitude towards death (“there is no death, there is only the Force”) while the current Sith seems to wish to overcome death, whether through having a long-lasting legacy or through occult means (like Darth Zash or Emperor Vitiate). This is why a Sith like Darth Marr who are not scared to die are viewed as being terrifying. I believe this culture of immense fear towards death is a new thing.

In my headcanon, the Sith Pureblood originally viewed death as something to respect and fear, but also understood it to be a necessity - and in some cases, a beautiful part of life. Through death, grapes are transformed into wine. There is sacredness in the sweet and cloying rot, a holiness to decay and entropy. Because of this, there may be a field of magic that focuses not just on reanimating corpses, but on hastening (or temporary slowing- with consequences) the way and speed at which something decomposes. Imagine a Sith gripping their enemies with their bare hands, and from that touch comes a death sentence: bodies begin to bloat, festering sickness seeping into muscles and bones, flesh turning necrotic before death consumes them.

4) Potions and Poisons

The art of pharmakeia and veneficium is something that came up in the Sith Inquisitor storyline. Zash makes offhand remarks about poisoning her foes, and the ghost that taught the Sith Inquisitor how to Force Walk requires the Inquisitor to drink a cup of poison first. Poison can both kill and teach. In the real world, many traditional witches who walk the poison path have made allies of their poison plants. In Greek myth and religion, Circe uses potions to transmute men into pigs, and transforms women into monsters by poisoning water with drugs.

Ziost, which became capital of the Ancient Sith Empire after the reign of the Sith Overlord Adas came to an end, was described to be a planet of dark forests and barren tundra. With forests comes plants, and with plants comes poison. Perhaps dirt from graveyards and places of bloodshed can be mixed with foul herbs, along with powdered molts of poison insects, and then infused into oil to be made into a tool for cursing enemies. Should a hair or piece of armor from one’s rival be found, one could powder that and mix the blend into a poppet, enabling a Sith to feed their enemy poison from a distance.

The flipside of poison is medicine. Healers may have been as abundant as poisoners, or perhaps healers were poisoners and poisoners were healers, for the difference between killing and treating is just application and dosage. Potions may also be made to bless and enhance the abilities of someone - something like how stims are used in the current setting - and washes and ritual baths may be used to free someone from unwanted afflictions.

5) Force Lightning

I believe Force lightning has always been used by the Sith Pureblood, but its prestige and popularity only has sky-rocketted once Vitiate became Emperor. Dromund Kaas’ constant lightning and perpetual thunderstorms may have been “a result of the Sith Emperor's experiments in arcane and forbidden uses of the dark side of the Force”. Hence, it may be possible that the usage of Force lightning became a symbol of power due to Vitiate’s influence.

6) Sith Artifacts and Tools

The most well-known artifact of the Sith is the Sith holocron. I am not certain but I believe the oldest Sith holocron may be the Telos Holocron, and one of the earliest contributors to the Telos Holocron was Ajunta Pall who was a Dark Jedi. The holocron’s purpose in storing information and passing down the legacy of a Sith Lord is linked to my view that it is the Dark Jedi who want to be immortalized and are afraid of death, not the original Sith Pureblood. Thus, I infer that the Sith holocrons are made by the Dark Jedi who colonized the Sith, which makes sense considering that it just looks like an alternative version of the Jedi holocron.

However, one clear power of the Sith holocrons is how they are able to ‘corrupt’ its user to the Dark Side. This made me wonder if the Sith Pureblood may have had artifacts and fetishes that served similar purposes in corrupting, influencing and swaying their enemies. If knowledge could be passed down through ghosts and dreams, then there is no need to spend time crafting the perfect holocron and effort could instead be focused upon creating tools of defense and offense.

It would have been very practical to create an artifact out of roots and bones, place it in places of ruin, death and grief such as places of murders, and enchant it to soak in the horrific sympathetic energies of the locales it was placed at until it becomes full, brimming with misery and torment. It could then be buried on the plot of land that a Sith’s enemy lived on, hence bringing suffering to their home and family. Something like that - something folk-ish, something requiring only skill, cunning and determination, not fanciful ceremonial rituals like the ones we see the current Siths doing - is what I believe defined the practice of the original Sith Pureblood.

#sith magic #worldbuilding #swtor #Star Wars The Old Republic

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cosmosrival · 4 years

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there it is! kama interlude analysis by a kama fan!

WELL. LIKE IT SAYS IN THE TITLE: this is just my own thoughts!! youre free to think whatever u want !! i am just putting my own knowledge into words because i genuinely love kama, and i would like for kama’s depth to be understood by the NA fandom a little more!! i try to stay as close as possible to their character in everything i do because i believe that the more in character they are, the funnier/more interesting content ppl will produce.

and hopefully i understood them well ???!!!! HOPEFULLY ?!

i will be screenshotting the translated reddit post under this read more and stop whenever something i find interesting to develop pops up ! or else it’ll get way too long lol if you wanna read the interlude for yourself heres the link!

with that said, let’s go!!

kama’s interlude begins with guda passing the hell out because of exhaustion and then waking up in a dream sequence where kama treats them to some relaxing adventures, stuff to take their mind off heavy things!! first dream sequence is kama roleplaying a highschool setting where they’re dating.

i like this because they openly admit that its an illusion, breaking the immersion but as long as youre okay with roleplaying, they’ll continue it LOL at some point, caesar mentions the student council president and arjuna appears behind him

since this is an illusion that kama made, i’ve been wondering about the fact that the way servants conduct eachother in this interlude is mostly because that’s how kama envisions they would act in a highschool setting, in an amusement park and finally with eachother (mostly for confirmed couples such as siegbryn, consort yu and her hubby etc...). suzuka and sei being gyarus is obvious, but arjuna as the student council president... is so cute???!!! i MEAN IT FITS ?! THATS A GREAT IDEA KAMA!!!! ANYWAY

this is kama’s first monologue and since they’re primarily the god of lust, all of the more vanilla stuff they mentions such as sharing a pair of headphones embarrasses them since its so tame. ITS CUTE !!! kama expects you to be horny in class !! what are you doing thinking about hand holding !!! medusa saves u from that tho with a direct reference to her relationship with kama’s vessel

this is interesting !! and reassuring !!! i think that kama as a character has a lot of depth and just reducing them to “sakura” would be a waste and this interlude shows how different they are from her. but they’re also similar! sakura went through a lot just like medusa says and kama does have trauma related to shiva. its not the same circumstances but the same kind of suffering which explains the nuance here. and what i like about chaldea is that there’s been multiple instances where its been proven that servants can grow thanks to their relationships with guda (most common example: leveling up your bonds) BUT ALSO, saint graph evolution (alts). and as a kama fan i’d like to see them happy someday and this interlude as a whole is proof of their healing/coping because of the time they spent in chaldea and how they interact with others. more on that later ! here, they don’t recognize medusa which is normal since they’re not sakura (someone else entierly), but...

they care about her ! because of sakura’s influence being a part of the servant called Kama(assassin). the difference here is important !! but i’ll come back on this in a bit. quick mention to the greek cupid <3 kamadusa nation we were fed (i clap by myself because im the only one who has 57575757557 kama rarepairs-----)

kama is a delinquent whos horny in class but still takes a few notes, enough to do well on their tests! and thats tea<3 smart horny lazyass !! theyre a gift

SO ARJUNA WAS OUT FOR BLOOD ????? ANYWAY, this is right after the actual fight against weirdo terrorists, and im happy to know that kama DOES enjoy a good fight (as proven in their voicelines as well) but theyre not a farming unit because it’d be too much work (single target NP..)...!!!!!!! lavish god of love....

FINALLYYYYYYYYYYY THE REAL DEAL !!!!!!!!!!!! “it feels wonderful to be your girlfriend” christ, kamadeva was so used to being a husband and a good lover, it reflected in their servant version.... but ree what do u mean by servant version???

I MEAN THE OBVIOUS !! kama explains it very well in the screenie just above !

“You know very well how servants work.”

KAMA ASSASSIN (the servant in your chaldea) is neither KAMADEVA or SAKURA MATOU or MARA. they’re a MIX OF PARTS OF THE THREE. creating an entierly new person(in this case, servant) !!!! it might sound like i’m repeating myself, but this is important!!!!!!!!! i will say this multiple times so people remember it !!! and if u already had this figured out: GOOD JOB I LOVE U !!!

Kamadeva (the god) has many stories, ones where he was born from concepts (dharma and shraddha), one where his parents are brahma and sarasvati, one where his parents are vishnu and lakshmi, stories about his reincarnation after his death where his parents are krishna and rukmini, his love with Rati and so on. We all know Sakura’s backstory since this is nasuverse. And Mara is a demon, an entity that tried to corrupt Buddha and prevent him from reaching enlightenment/stray from the path. Kama assassin has parts from all of these entities which explains why they have a vague longing for Rati, why they have a soft spot for Medusa and why they have an affinity with Kiara(and also like talking about corrupting u !).

they then mention how a japanese highschool setting is fun and all i have to say is: i’m gonna make an indo fam delinquent vs student council au out of this one folks !!!!!!!! i gotta !!!

OK next

TIME FOR THE SECOND DREAM SEQUENCE WHICH I WAS VERY VERY VERRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYY AFRAID OF BEFORE THE TRANSLATION CAME OUT.

THE PART WHERE KAMA ACTS LIKE YOUR CHILD.

well with their stage 1 it was expected but without the translation i have to say that i was scared shitless! because people hate thinking! and even if kama clearly tells you that it’s a charade, u know a JOKE. A DREAM SEQUENCE. DONT BE A CREEP. KAMA INTENDED FOR IT TO BE WHOLESOME. i know some ppl wont use their brains. but u know its fgo and degenerates are everywhere.

anyways. family bonding time ensues until another monologue appears!!

exactly like before, kama mentions myths that belonged to kamadeva. Meaning that the Kama in our chaldea isn’t the Kamadeva we know and is not Pradyumna either but the fact that the writers chose to have kama acknowledge it is very reassuring !!! Because it means that they’ve chosen to make it a part of their (complicated) history. Kama says that Pradyumna is the myth about themself they know the least, once again proving us that the Kama in our Chaldea (Assassin) is a different entity and that they were summoned to the throne upon their death, the moment they were burned by Shiva’s flames and became Ananga, in any case they’re still familiar with all of their own myths. it allows us to keep heroic spirits separate from their original myths. Obviously! And in the case of pseudo-servants, it allows us to keep them separate from their vessels. Cuz this is a fanservice japanese game. Andddd the fandom likes forgetting this fact quite a lot i’ve noticed. As a person who loves thinking about tons and tons of headcanons for fun, this allows us a lot of space ! Because this is fate/grand order at its base. Nasuverse.

I’m glad that the interlude explains it so clearly, it’s very good !! Because the majority of myths from every culture are confusing, family trees are confusing, names are confusing, powers and attributes are confusing... its a mess !!!! the fgo characters we know are just cut from their own respective timelines/historial figures so the writers can organize themselves more easily. Like cutting halves from a big cake. Kama (Assassin) is the Kama that died from Shiva’s flames and became the universe ONLY. In Nasuverse, Arthur Pendragon is a woman. Anastasia Romanov NEVER had a demon familiar named Viy in real life despite the creature being part of russian folklore. u know ! im russian i can testify dude !!

hopefully everyone got this bc i wont be explaining this any further dude, its exhausting !!!!!! bangs my hands on the table !!!!!

ANYWAYS kama mentions “eternal pain that turns [them] into ash” being their key element. Their trauma is at the center of their heroic spirit self, what they are as a servant. This suffering is tied to everything they do, why they’re so lazy, why they’re so lax, why they’re so detached from their job. But they’re not detached from their role. And “job” and “role” have different connotations here. They refuse to work as a cupid because of obvious reasons. BUT. They’re not detached from their role as the God of Love, as the God of Passion. The embodiment of those feelings. This whole interlude is proof ! They’re giving u free therapy because they Love you. Passion. They feel your love. Passion. They acknowledge how much fun you’re having. How passionate you are about certain things. They might seem extremely detached and hateful, but they aren’t. They’re one of the most empathetic servants there is. And their ability to love everything, even the things they hate is what makes them so miserable. Because it’s a part of them. Because the concept of Kama in hinduism is linked to them. Be it lust or simply the passion born from anything you do where you’re enjoying yourself. (quote: “ the term also refers to any sensory enjoyment, emotional attraction and aesthetic pleasure such as from arts, dance, music, painting, sculpture and nature “. R. Prasad (2008), History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization )

... I’d like to say that this contrast with Mara is interesting. And that i’m glad the writers chose to add in Mara to the kama assassin Beast mix.

Because the anger Mara feels can become a drivepoint for Kama. I’ve always believed that anger and sadness are two sides of the same coin, it’d explain how layered Kama is and how valid their emotions are. Constantly torn between love and hate. An eternal grudge (i don’t deserve to be hurt like this) and an eternal misery(maybe i do deserve to be hurt like this).

i wish they were my roommate <3 oh fuck ree got emotional wait where were we.

OH YEAH

i think kama saying that they dislike being involved with other indian servants because theyre linked to shiva is a feeble attempt at trying to keep up a strong front because they still love them in the end. cuz that’s how kama is ! after a while they’ll get bored of bullying ganesha and ashwatthama. they’ll get interested in rama because their respective mythos are linked even if their servant selves have no connection. hell, at the end of the interlude they talk about parvati and how they themself changed and realized things. BUT OH WELL, THATS STUFF FOR ANOTHER POST HEHE thats just ree wanting kama to b happy yall move along !!

.....THIS ISNT A COLLEGE STUDENTS ROLEPLAY BUT ITS A CUTE JAPANESE COMPANY BOSS/UNDERLING SETTING AND ITS CUTE SO I THINK KAMA WEARING A PENCIL SKIRT AND POURING U ALCOHOL IS CUTE. CUTE.

further proof of kama’s overflowing affection and what i detailed above!! hopefully u all knew this one simply from reading this interlude/their profile page and dont need me to write it down for u. HOPEFULLY !!!!!

(I START BEATBOXING VERY RAPIDLY AND RUNNING TOWARDS YOU) KAMA IS A SADIST AT THEIR CORE AND I WILL NEVER STOP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they’re easy to fluster because theyre not used to being so vanilla, but whats underneath is how they truly are !! a beast turned servant, the sweetest sadist !! theyre very mature and this interlude is so well written (wipes my teears

this is directly linked to what i explained above, by burning you away, you’ll melt into nothingness just like they did. When they were the universe, they felt both everything and nothing.

But was it really relief ... ?

... IT WASNT.

AND PARVATI SAVES THE DAY !!!!!!! phew!! thank u paru, it’d still like to be able to touch kama’s huge titties and i cant do that if i turn into ashes (falls down the stairs

ok she summoned lovey dovey canon couples to annoy kama since they’re exhausted of seein them!!

...............(I TAKE OUT A KNIFE) TAKE THAT BACK. DONT TALK TO THEM LIKE THAT. TAKE THAT BACK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ohhhhhh im obsessed i love when theyre angry<3 i love when theyre fighty <3 i think they should beat the living shit out of a boxing bag DAILY to let out some of this steam. they’d be a monster on the ring... aaa kama in training boot y shorts aa a .. .uughg hg ouu... (you all shove me into a locker)

ok this is interesting !! i think that the interlude showing us that parvati feels a semblance of guilt is character dev. proof for what i mentioned before!! in ookuu parvati felt quite ..unsympathetic to me, even if kama is a beast who wants to annihilate humanity, when u think about it, at their core their grudge is because of her and shiva’s betrayal. and here, she properly apologizes for making kama so upset. this is heartwarming to me since i dislike thinking that members of the indo fam hate eachother :( same goes for arjuna and karna, at some point i’d like for them to act like bros normally and finally be comfy. but anyways !!

u wake up from the dreams and da vinci, mashu and paru are here to tell u whats going on. But its fine bc u remember everything and u have to go thank someone for helping u out!!!

CUTE !!!!!!! THEY CARE ABOUT U !!!!!! but whether it be because of their role or because theres a deeper meaning is entierly up to your own interpretation because...

of what they say here.

and here !!

ohhhhhhhhh this is so important !!!!!!

this is actual proof of kama’s growth as a servant and how servants evolve in chaldea !! chaldea is not the same as a grail war, its a special, cut-off place and thats what makes it even more relaxing to think about. Everytime u summon a servant in ur chaldea u give them a chance to have fun with you, to have fun with other servants, to make amends, to start from scratch, to discover things they would’ve never known in their time (movies, video games, tons of different foods etc...), u give them a chance to relax. to grow !! this is the headcanon that im most attached to and im glad to see it be confirmed in the interlude of a character i love tbqh i had to stop and talk about that.

everyone say thank u kama !! can we roleplay a college roommate coffee shop slowburn au next time <3

ANYWAYS if you’ve read it this far: thank you !!! im sorry if you expected something very serious, im not that type of person hehe im jus here to have fun and look at things i like, and the interlude itself was quite lighthearted and refreshing. By talking about the myths and all of kamadeva’s stories, the writers basically gave lore nerds a huge thumbs up like... “its ok now !! u can go ape now !! go be insane<3 love u<3″ and all of this kama characterization GENUINELY makes me so happy because i think they really needed that. kama assassin... (i blow a kiss to the sky) is a little mess of a servant... a god, human crumbs and a demon... a total mess... im in love with them...

..............tho now the wait for a summer alt where they interact with the entire indo fam begins (im sitting in a chair unmoving)(i have a gun in case minase begins acting gross

#ree's fgo hcs #kama #WONT TAG THIS ONE AS A WHOLE BC IM... A LIL SHY TO BE HONEST #its just a kama fan rambling bro....... jus a kama fan liking the interlude man.....#like i said at the beginning of the post its just my thoughts<3

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margridarnauds · 3 years

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Wishlist for AC: Wrath of the Druids

Because my field is literally only relevant ONCE in a blue moon and I’m making the most of it.

Look, I’d pretend that this is going to be some sort of profound meditation on Irish Mythology, the nature of medieval literature, etc. But no. Here is the list that, after 9 years of studying these texts, 15 months of which have been in an intensive MA program in Ireland, I have come up with as far as “Members of the Tuatha Dé Who Are The Most Slappable.” I’ve also tried to go with the high profile members, since, if Curse of the Pharaohs and Atlantis were any indication, we’re primarily getting the high rollers here. (I would like to make it very clear that I say this with the utmost of affection - I would not have studied these guys for 9 years if I actually HATED them.)

First off, I’m ready and willing to bet money that the Tuatha Dé are going to be controlled by the members of this druid cult mentioned in the adverts, not unlike what we saw in Curse of the Pharaohs. I suspect that the cult will get ahold of an apple of Eden and summon up images of the Tuatha Dé to be a part of their wicked, wicked schemes. A part of me WOULD like for something different, but...well. It’s a proven formula, and why mess with success?

Lugh. One of the most easily recognizable members of the Tuatha Dé, and SUPER slappable. Would make an EXCELLENT final boss, and would guarantee that I would buy it. Like. It is literally impossible to overstate exactly how much I would be willing to buy this game just for the chance to bitchslap Lugh.

The Dagda. Another HIGHLY recognizable member. Not as imminently slappable as Lugh, but a massive thot, and, let’s be real, who DOESN’T want to slutshame the Dagda, at least a little? Albeit this time with. A sword. Also has a SICK staff that can bring people to life/kill them, depending on which side he uses, and canonically has a zombie xylophone. Would make a FANTASTIC boss.

Lugh.

The Morrigan. Look. I don’t WANT to fight the Morrigan, not really. Honestly, of all the Tuatha Dé, I have the most personal respect for her, because she’s very honest about doing her own thing, but do I really think that Ubisoft would pass up the chance for a bloodthirsty raven lady? No I do not. And, tbh, it would be kind of sick.

Lugh.

Cú Chulainn. Is Cú Chulainn one of the Tuatha Dé? No, he isn’t. Is there a hint that he’s anything BUT mortal? Not....really, despite some speculation that he might have been x god or y god, he fits fairly firmly into the demigod mold. That being said....(1) I WOULD like to fight Cú Chulainn, on a personal level (#JusticeForAífe) and (2) .....Look, can you imagine fighting against the warp spasm? Yeah. Yeah. Also, given they made you fight King Tut in the Curse of the Pharaohs DLC, it’s obvious that they’re going off of name recognition more than accuracy, and CC IS easily the most recognizable figure from medieval Irish literature. (Bonus: Fighting CC and getting the Gáe Bulg as a reward?)

Lugh. As Cú Chulainn’s father, it’s only appropriate to get the family combo here.

Midir. Do I think that they WOULD use Midir? No. He’s a little too specialized, even though Tochmarc Étaíne is, arguably, the single most popular of the Mythological Cycle texts. And he is oh so very slappable. That, and he does have a history of fucking with mortals, so he could be a REALLY fun fight. If I was designing the game, I would have him and Óengus in a tag team duo, and there would be horse urine involved. (This is why I do not work at Ubisoft.)

Lugh.

If Midir is too specialized, Bres is REALLY too specialized, along with the fact that, if you bring Bres in, you HAVE to bring the Fomoire in. But also. I’ve got to request my boy. He would be so much FUN. But. Unlikely. He tends towards the obscure side, though, and even when people remember he exists, it tends to be in a very small role. I would put more money on Balor being in, because he’s kind of the breakout star of Cath Maige Tuired (and the folklore around it), but I really want Bres.

Lugh.

Dían Cecht. Grumpiest. Doctor. Ever. And you could do a lot with his whole. “Killing his son”. Thing.

Lugh.

Aillén. A little on the obscure side, but imagine. Fighting a member of the Tuatha Dé who breathes fire. Talk about a BADASS boss fight. Also getting to walk in the footsteps of Fionn mac Cumhaill, aka one of the greatest of Ireland’s heroes. It would be a very tempting prospect.

Lugh.

....look. I want to emphasize this: I do NOT want to slap Bríg. Bríg is quite possibly the purest of the TDD, and that’s because we know next to nothing about her. But also...she IS really high profile, and I could see her acting as a sort of guide or counsellor ala Aletheia. AKA “One of the few sane Isu hanging around.” You could go some really interesting routes there, IF you wanted to. I’m not sure they’d be willing to, but I would personally like it.

The Otherworld as a location you can visit, like Asgard or the Duat. Bonus if it highlights how reality twists and bends in the Otherworld, because some of the leading scholarship on it at the moment says that the place, as it was understood in medieval Ireland, was batshit insane, and I would LOVE to see them taking it on in a game. Bonus for also bringing in Sidhe mounds.

Also. I want to fight Lugh.

Danu - Look. I don’t want to fight Danu. Mainly because Danu, as a figure, doesn’t really EXIST in the myths, as such. The general consensus of the field, at this point, is that the original name for the TDD was....Tuatha Dé, which you’ll note is the term I use. It gets complicated when the name does gain traction, and the question as far as how old some of this goes back is long and extensive and not something I want to tackle at an ungodly hour of the evening, but. I don’t WANT her to be here when there are so many other figures who actually have a presence. But. Well. The cult’s name is “Children of Danu”, so a bitch has got to accept it’s likely. But I’m still putting her at the bottom because I don’t like it.

For what it’s worth, my final guesses are locked in at Lugh, the Dagda, the Morrigan, and finding some way to bring Cú Chulainn in. Nuada might make for a dark horse option, though....I hate to say this, Nuada doesn’t really have the PERSONALITY to really function as a boss on his own. They could try, but I feel like they’d have to either expand quite a bit or riff off of his Early Modern portrayal as a bitter, jealous king, and...I still don’t trust them to have done the research for that. (I’m sorry, but after the Mari Lwyd, they will have to go a LONG way to earn my trust, especially with my baby.) Danu is...likely, but I won’t be happy if she is, even though it won’t make or break my decision. I feel like the Otherworld has GOT to be a lock, but I’m ready and willing to be disappointed. Also, despite this being based allegedly on the Mythological Cycle materials, I would be VERY surprised if they didn’t bring in later folklore like the banshees, because, let’s be real, why wouldn’t they?

#assassin's creed valhalla #ac valhalla #ac: valhalla #irish mythology #celtic mythology #long post #wrath of the druids

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