#Outlander out of context

[rikyos]

i think something kazuha is not prepared for when he goes to liyue / further nations is how welcoming most of them are in comparison to inazuma? especially considering he grew up in ritou where all visitors & imports are processed and there’s so much talk about “outlanders” he was definitely used to that…. animosity? and the clear line drawn between inazuman and not. watching people pass through there as a kid is definitely part of the reason why he had such a desire to get out there and see the world but it also set him up for a lot of pleasant surprises in how easy it actually is to do so, once inazuma is behind him

#even if you talk to the npc’s there after the aq is tied up the shogunate are still so Pissy about outlanders it’s kind of depressing #no matter which context or angle i think about inazuma from it’s just batshit. can they pls be normal about one thing #⋆˚ ─── ⋆⋅🍁⋅⋆ ── （ out of character . ) #tbd. #cute thought though is younger kazuha floating around pestering the businessmen and travelers that pass through ritou. #quizzing them about who they are and what they’re doing here and where else they’re going. where else they’ve been #absolutely an annoyance but but sweet enough in his curiosity that nobody can ignore him

[thebaffledcaptain]

is outlander worth watching, like, from a history standpoint? a man’s gotta know

#christheredcoat pointed out that their regimental uniforms actually look quite good…. proper facing colors and even regimental buttons…. #all that good stuff #I just haven’t seen enough from it to know if it’s like. tolerable #even if it’s like turn where it’s not accurate but captures the Vibe of the period pretty well I’d probably be open to watching #granted I don’t watch tv in like. a normal fashion so unless it hooks me I’ll probably take a year to get through it anyway #like I’ll watch potc because it’s potc but I’ll (not so) secretly resent it for the blatant disregard of historical context #if it’s anything like that it will probably remain low on the list #but I can tolerate inaccuracy if the Atmosphere is there…. if it Feels like the 18th century and not some fantastical place made up to #supplement an unrelated story #outlander #this is your captain speaking

[annebrontesrequiem]

Stanning the French King

#do not take this out of context #please #I don’t want robbespierre after me #outlander #bern liveblogs #bern speaks

[sgiandubh]

Labor of love

I was very interested to see what S told Mark Gillespie on the last episode of the latter's WhiskyCast podcast, @bat-cat-reader immediately shared with us.

It was a most instructive 35 minutes. I listened to all of it, because I wanted to also hear Gillespie's tasting notes forThe Sassenach. And I regret nothing: once you get past the traditional (and a bit obnoxious) 'why The Sassenach?' question, you're in for some interesting news.

You can listen to it here, by the way:

Before anything, who is Mark Gillespie?

One of the most respected professionals in the very small world of alcohol specialized podcasters, with a 37 years work experience in media and broadcasting, spanning household names such as CNN, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Gallup and MSNBC. But also, and this I found very interesting, given the current context, the owner of CaskMedia, a firm specialized not only in media production, but also marketing and PR.

The podcast was recorded at The Metropolitan Club's library, moments before the Keepers of the Quaich dinner, where S was a keynote speaker. So not 'just there for the Haggis Ceremony ' - a 'guest of honor' is never invited just for the show, people should have known better, eh?

S's 7 minutes interview starts at the 09:32 mark. Comments in brackets are mine.

Gillespie surely doesn't like to beat around the bush and after the customary niceties, asks a million-dollar question:

MG: 'I have to ask: did you have the troubles (problems?) in Germany straightened up?'

SH: ' Ha, ha, ha [not an organic giggle, but hey - gotta do what you gotta do, eh?]. Well, I am not entirely sure I should talk about it [speaks very quickly and through his teeth - visibly annoyed/nervous; not entirely sure I got it all correctly, so feel free to amend in comments], ah... ummm... not as yet... not as yet...ummm...we did fall into an issue with the name Sassenach, which was similar to a big brand in the US... ah!... in Germany, sorry... of a beer brand... I...I personally don't see the similarity [neither do I, S...neither do I], but I am sure once people taste our whisky, they'll know what it is, whatever the name is on it.'

Yes, this interview was probably rehearsed. Yes, Gillespie might have sent the questions to S/his people in advance for reviewing. No, he could not speak about a legally complicated situation before the final settlement with that Schoppingen beer brewer (penalties are probably still to be fixed and paid, but I will check that, so don't take my word for Gospel truth, yet). I will write separately about this whole thing, because I still think that was a very questionable decision of the EUIPO. Not because it royally pisses me off (so fucking unfair!), but because I really fail to see the proper legal reasoning and basis for it. His answer was perfect, under the circumstances. Absolutely perfect.

Anyways, FWIW, it would seem some sort of solution has already been found ('whatever the name is on it') and that most probably would be to rebrand it. And sell it on the German/EU market under a new name.

Lallybroch (https://trademarks.justia.com/981/67/lallybroch-98167525.html), perhaps? Time will tell, but that could explain this recent trademark application I didn't have time to properly look into, yet:

Further ahead (and fast forward through the cask version release, these things bore me to death), we land on another (as yet) unexploded ordnance:

MG: 'I have to mention your show MIK that you do with Graham McTavish, you visited a bunch of distilleries during that one... any visit in particular stands out?'

Now I am not very sure if that question was the best possible one, since that SAG-AFTRA strike is still an ongoing situation. And his answer was quite clever, changing the focus on their visit to Laphroaig's distillery on Islay and waxing lyrical about the casks, the peat, the landscape, etc. But other than a perfunctory and logical 'we', I heard absolutely nothing about McTavish, and it could have been so damn easy to further change the subject and mention his bourbon, with a few kind words. Therefore, I think things are pretty obviously not exactly on the sunny side, between the two. And I guess we all know why.

To end this long post on a cheerful note, I almost forgot to mention something very important. Answering a listener's question about Sassenach not being available in Rhode Island/part of New Jersey, S said something very interesting: 'obviously you can get it online, (...) we've just signed a deal with Southern Glazer's, so we're rolling it out. It is a limited batch, so you know, every year we do do a release and it is very limited, so it does tend to sell out pretty quick. But yes, it is available (...), but obviously you're not gonna see it in every bar, restaurant or retailer, because we just don't have enough of it. But online you can get it and great delivery service, it's very quick.'

I am taking two things home from this last answer: demand exceeds supply, which is both a blessing (solid yield, room for expansion) and a curse (lackadaisical market presence). On short to mid term, distribution will concentrate on the online market, with the help of Southern Glazer's superb infrastructure.

Remember the older guy he had lunch with in MIA, in May? You should, if you didn't focus on Mordor's inept babble about shirts, ballerinas and the like. That guy was instrumental into arranging the deal with Southern Glazer's. Just the biggest wine and spirits distributor on the US market, mind you.

Don't believe me? Check this out:

That company was founded in Florida. Its HQ is still in MIA. He didn't go there because he was looking for ballerinas at his birthday dinner. He went there because when these people are available to meet you, well: you leave everything aside and you damn GO.

Now who the hell is writing fanfiction, eh? You really should be ashamed, madam.

I rest my case.

#BoozeWars

[alovelyburn]

I was introduced to Berserk by a guy/(boy) I was involved with last year. He - attempting to grow his manga collection last summer - regretfully, turned out to be complete scum. How telling that he ended up becoming bored with the story after the Golden Age. After reading Berserk myself…what a red flag lol. ANYWAY - at least for me, a straight woman - Guts is the quintessential, most perfect and exemplary man written for the “female gaze”. His general disposition, unwavering love for Casca, fiercely masculine nature (both protective and healthy) and tenacity are exquisitely woven together. This behavior extends beyond Cacsa too - in due respect to Farese, Schierke, Flora, Danaan…even just in modeling proper masculinity to Isidro.

I officially committed to Berserk in June. (Context: The beginning of 2022 was the first time I began seriously exploring anime in general, and since have started reading manga.) But I ,as a woman who has always loved any escapist story with depth, have never come across a character like Guts - aside from one other male character. Prior to discovery of Berserk, Jamie Fraser from Outlander was the exemplar of perfection in this category. However, upon diving into this manga - albeit a series whose readership is mostly comprised of by men - Guts is superior above all men I have come across in literature.

Additionally, I will add that the men in this fandom (with exception to the bad apple I mentioned) who vocally idolize Guts, as well as ALSO consider Berserk a love story - give me hope that good men do exist. Thank you, Kentaro Miura.

I posted this on Reddit and got backlash, I did not write this to say he is the most perfect character….I am saying he is perfectly written FOR THE FEMALE GAZE. Please look up the ‘female gaze’ because there have been a few useless comments by people who missed the point of what I said. Even more confusing are the comments by some people who completely missed the point of the entire story Miura wrote too???????

Feminists love to bring up how he choked Casca. Respectfully, here are my thoughts.

First, he literally choked her during Golden Age. Casca’s resolution and grace towards that assault is universally praised and yet people talk about her acceptance of him/his trauma as if it would be an isolated incident???????

Second, the beast of darkness emerging in that moment in the later arc is to serve for Guts to realize, and be horrified/fearful of the evil within him. Casca is the most precious thing to him - so for him to assault her in that moment is (in my view) a device to establish how serious the darkness in him is.

There are two reasons I hate when this is brought up to me. As a woman, if I raise concern about it regardless of context and ignore the numerous merits Guts has - it’d be written off that I don’t understand his depth of character. On the opposite side - if I don’t bring it up, or even better, others think they need to remind me….then I’m something of an SA apologist if I lack concern. It that suggests that women can’t and/or choose not to recognize complex male characters. Something of a catch 22

Genuinely, I wasn't sure whether to answer this. I don't really understand what it is about me or any G/G type person that inspires Gutsca fans/Casca fans to write us these long lectures about opinions you must know we're not going to agree with, and I'm not sure I want to encourage that. And also because any argument that Guts sexually assaulting Casca just proves how important she is to him makes me want to die, and I do find the refernece to "feminists" to be a little strange.

That said, I guess I do want to address this attempt to counter the idea that Guts trying to kill and rape Casca is perhaps bad for their relationship.

First of all, there is a difference between the strangling in the meadow scene during the Golden Age and the one where he's trying to kill her after having a chat with the Beast over the campfire. Specifically, the Golden Age incident was a ptsd/trauma flashback that involved him lashing out at a hallucination that brought out his rape trauma, whereas the second incident is him literally trying to kill her because he's frustrated that she holds him back from chasing Griffith.

This is literally what is happening. It's enabled by the possession, yes, but Guts himself acknowledges that the feelings/impulses come from within himself. They are motivated by his exhaustion, his frustration, the fact that while he cares about her, he also resents her because he'd rather go chase Griffith around like he had been doing before Conviction.

This is not a PTSD flashback that she gets caught in, it's him venting his anger at her. That doesn't mean he doesn't care about her or that he actually wants her dead, but it is an impulse that exists inside him, and he's struggling to contain it under the circumstances.

Second, the sexual assault is again literally and explicitly him reenacting the Eclipse rape in an attempt to get closer to/more enmeshed with Griffith like the words are right there on the page, that's what he's doing.

Which brings me to the two-pointed root of this disagreement:

Casca isn't the most precious thing to him, Griffith is. I'm sorry, this comes up a lot. The Beast of Darkness tells him that he's carrying her around just so he won't heal and be forced to move on from Griffith. It also lumps her in with the rest of his current companions as fragile flames that he uses to sustain himself until he can chase Griffith, "the true light that burns (him)." The Beast is, let's remember, just Guts' subconscious/dark side. It's not some outside entity trying to lead him astray, it's the dark feelings he tries not to acknowledge. It also comes up in interviews, e.g. Miura stating directly that Griffith is the one that gives Guts his motivation to live. When she runs off alone, Guts' first instinct isn't even to go look for her - he only decides to do that after sitting in the dark moping about the Hawks, and he directly refers to her as abandoning the Band of the Hawk itself. In fact, every time he commits to staying with her and protecting her, it's directly in the wake of him being reminded/reminding himself that when he abandoned Griffith and the Hawks it resulted in him losing everything he cared about without even realizing it. And even then, the entire time he kept promising himself that he wouldn't abandon her, he also kept vacillating - should he find her a safe place and leave her there and go back to what he was doing, or should he try to make himself stay? When Griffith takes off with her, he literally doesn't think about her even once. And to be clear, I do think if Miura hadn't passed away he would have shown more concern about her. But that doesn't change the fact that when Miura relayed what was most important about this situation to Mori (who said he wouldn't make up or flesh out anything but would just put down what Miura told him), apparently what he said was something to the effect of "Griffith kidnaps Casca, Guts has a meltdown about being unable to hit Griffith." All the people saying he's melting down because he couldn't save Casca are living on Cope, I'm sorry there's no other way to put it. He's melting down because after all his years of growing stronger and obsessing over getting to Griffith when he finally got there he was completely powerless to do what he intended to do, which was fight Griffith on something like equal footing. While yes, this ended up resulting in his being unable to save Casca, it's just extremely evident from reading the book that what he's most bothered by is his inability to land a single hit on the man who he has, in a lot of ways, lived solely to try and catch up to ever since Promrose. Thus the callback to the first duel, when Griffith overwhelmed him, and he became "Griffith's." Which brings me to

Casca's importance to Guts is very complicated, and I'm not here to say he doesn't care about her or love her as a person or that he didn't have legitimate romantic feelings for her, or that he isn't motivated in large part by his self-imposed duty to protect her. But I *am* here to say a lot of what motivates him is that Casca is his path to redemption. Casca may be the woman he had intended to be with, but what she is more than anything else, is the embodiment of the Band of the Hawk - he literally refers to abandoning her in the cave as abandoning the Band of the Hawk itself, and the idea that she has come to represent the lost army is emphasized during the Eclipse itself when Judeau and Pippin declare that if she, their current leader, survives it means the Hawks are still alive in some form. With Guts, his decision to dedicate himself to protecting her is a direct result of his bad choices in the past: he abandoned Griffith, and it resulted in Griffith being imprisoned and broken, plus the Hawks being killed... and ultimately led to the Eclipse. He abandoned Casca and Rickert and Casca ended up running around loose without any protection (that he knew of). Hell even Godot died while Guts was off doing something else, and he didn't even bother to say goodbye. Guts' tendency to chase a goal at the expense of the people he cares about and how it results in him losing them before he understands what he's doing is a repeated theme in his character, and it ultimately resolves (for the most part) on the Hill of Swords when Griffith abandons him. This puts him on the receiving end of his own callousness for the first time - he realizes he hates it, and decides he has to change his approach. His decision to protect her, to dedicate himself to protecting her, is not a grand romantic gesture, though there is romance in it. It's his attempt to stop making the same mistake and make up for what he's done in the only way he can: by not letting it happen again.

#ask #anonymous #ariel talks about berserk #...this might be one of the people who sent me anti-griffith essays #not sure #but the spacing and writing style are very similar

[randxmthxughts]

Neteyam x Ta'unui ! Female! Y/N (water clan that was attacked by Quaritch) fic bits

upd: full fic is posted

I am currently writing a long ass fic but because I'm impatient, I want to share a few spicy bits with you. I will be posting the full fic in the upcoming few days, so lmk if you want to be added to the taglist.

For the context, the reader is the younger sister of Tsahik at the Ta'unui clan. It's the clan that the Quaritch attacks looking for Jake. In the movies, thanks to Spider, they avoid casualties, but in this fic, everything happens way more brutally: many Na'vi get killed, and basically the whole village burns down. Y/N escapes before she gets killed, and seeks refuge at the Awa’atlu village, where the Sully's happened to be.

Knowing that the only reason sky demons attacked her village was Jake Sully, Y/N develops hatred towards him. She thinks he's a coward for hiding and causing so much damage to the innocent clans.

Now, at Awa’atlu, she starts to develop relationships with the Sully kids before she finds out that their father is the Jake Sully. Things get complicated, because her and Neteyam truly start seeing each other as enemies. Of course, there's lots of drama bc he protects his father, blah blah, you get it. But hatred is a form of love, and well, I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers, so

Tropes: enemies to lovers, friends to lovers

___

___

“What do you want?” you ask, squinting to make out his features. His eyes and freckles glow in the dark and you notice the slightest flatter of his ears. Like he’s excited.

“It’s Neteyam,” he gestures. 

“I know,” you’re annoyed. You know who he is, does he think you can’t see him?

“Oh,” it surprises him? “Right, I just didn’t want to scare you, so I…”

“Shouldn’t you be checking on your brother anyway?”

“Technically, I can’t do anything except wait. When it gets suspiciously long, then I follow him,” he smirks like it’s the funniest thing.

___

“Sorry if we woke you up,” he scratches his head, “I was going to check on you anyway, just not at this hour.”

“Why would you check on me?” you frown.

“I thought you might like someone to talk to you, about moving and stuff.”

“I talk to Tsireya, I’m fine.”

“I know, she’s nice,” Neteyam crouches down, to bring himself on your eye level. He sighs, slightly embarrassed, “But she thought it would be a good idea for me to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“I get what you’re going through.”

This frustrates you. You and he had nothing in common. You were forced out of your home; you had given up everything without a choice. How can he relate to you? He has his family. You have no one.

“Just because we’re both outlanders doesn’t mean that you have to pretend to be like me, Neteyam. We’re not the same,” it comes out more aggressive than you intended. You notice his ears lower, along with his gaze, “I don’t need a forest boy teaching me the way of water. You’re not my savior.”

Neteyam’s face gets quickly covered with guilt. It’s like you hit a cord with your last words. He didn’t mean to offend you.

“Not trying to be a savior, just a friend,” he mumbles, standing up.

___

“What do they want? The islands?” Ao'nung asks.

“They’re looking for him, they think that he’s hiding in another clan,” you answer, noticing how everyone’s ears perk up.

“Who are you talking about? Who’s he?” Lo’ak suddenly gets suspicious.

“Jake Sully,” you reply, “I’m not sure what he did to them, but they were set on killing him. And killing anyone who’s protecting him,” you add with anger in your voice.

You’re met with a dead silence, like they know something they’re not telling you. The foresters hang their heads, and you notice as Tsireya touches Lo’ak's hand. 

“Wait, so they’re looking for your dad?” Roxto turns to Kiri, “They’re looking for you.”

“Your dad?” you turn to Kiri, “Is he your dad?”

Kiri nods, almost ashamed. You feel your throat hurting, as realization washes over you.

“It’s your dad!” you feel anger building up. You stand up, “They set my village on fire because of him! They thought we were hiding him but he was here all this time!”

“Y/N, it’s not anyone’s fault but the demons’,” Tsireya stands up too, trying to calm you down, “He wanted to keep his family safe, he doesn’t want war.”

“My father has done nothing wrong,” Neteyam stands up as well, his tone now serious.

“He should be facing them by himself, not putting other clans at risk!” you throw your hands in the air in frustration.

___

“That’s unfair, I’m not losing my dad,” he growls.

“I lost my home!”

The two of you hiss at each other, and as you struggle to free your arms, he flips you over. Your back hits the sand with a painful ache but it gives you enough room to kick him with your leg. Right in the stomach. Neteyam winces in pain, but pins you down, this time paying special attention to have your knees locked together.

“Skxawng,” you growl. 

___

“Why aren’t you angry at me?” you turn to Lo'ak.

“Why aren’t you?” he asks in return, “You’re angry at Neteyam but not at me.”

You pause. You’re not really sure why Lo’ak joining you didn’t affect you, as much as Neteyam’s presence did. Maybe it’s because Lo’ak seemed guilty earlier. He didn’t stand up for his dad, so there must be something both of you can agree on.

“I don’t like when people pretend to care. Because once something threatens their peace, they really show how they don’t give a shit about you.”

“Neteyam doesn’t pretend about caring,” Lo’ak disagrees, “Sure, he pretends all the time but not when it comes to caring. He cares.”

“Not about me anyway,” you scoff. 

Lo’ak falls silent. You got him there.

___

Distracted, you fall a little behind the group, and find yourself next to Neteyam. He was not a bad swimmer, but he was definitely slow compared to you. 

You watch him. It’s almost entertaining how greedily he admires the surroundings, oblivious to your presence. His yellow eyes seem almost golden in this light, and you can’t help but smile.

When his eyes meet yours, you feel tightness in your throat, and your smile falls. Why is he staring? What is he thinking? 

___

“Dad?” Neteyam’s voice grabs both of your attention. He leans against the entrance of the marui, looking between the two of you.

“I’ll be right there,” Jake says, standing up, “Do you want to join, Y/N?”

You nod in appreciation and follow him into the room. You exchange another look with Neteyam but this time he looks troubled. Like he’s trying to figure out what the hell you and his father were talking about.

___

Bang. All of a sudden someone throws you off your feet, your back hitting the ground, and you see a familiar face hang above you. So close, you can feel his braids touching your skin. Neteyam. You growl.

“What the hell?” you slap his chest angrily, but he won’t budge. His arms are by your both sides, knee rests between your thighs, restricting your movement.

“This is a familiar pose,” he smirks, and you roll your eyes at him, “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“I was trying to clear my head. Why aren’t you?”

“I’m guarding,” he smiles.

“You’re a guardian?” you snort.

Neteyam shakes his head amused, swaying his braids over your skin.

___

His fingers start tickling your stomach and your neck. You squirm underneath him, trying to get away.

“Neteyam, stop!” you squeak through your giggling.

“Then say you’re sorry!” he pauses for a second, to give you a chance to save yourself.

“Why would I lie?” your voice catches in your throat, as he continues tickling you, “I’m sorry! I give up!”

“Sorry for what?”

“Sorry for not telling you sooner!”

“And who am I?”

You feel out of breath, smiling like a fool. You know exactly what he wants to hear.

“The mighty warrior,” you let out with a giggle. His face immediately lightens up.

“Smart girl,” he lowers his face towards you, nuzzling your forehead. 

“You called me stupid two seconds ago,” you try to protest but he shuts you up with a gentle kiss.

In this moment, when his lips touch yours, and his hand cups your cheek, as you play with his braids, it’s impossible to remember why you hated him so much. Your grandmother used to say that hate is a form of love. 

___

Okaaay, I hope I did not just spoiled the whole fic with these bits lol, and I hope that you'd be interested in reading the whole thing, once I post it.

I'm finally writing the fluffy scenes, and I'm swaying my feet and giggling and shi, at how cute it's going to be. What you think about these bits? Do they make sense to you pulled out of context?

Again, lmk if you want to be added to the taglist. I will be posting the whole fic in a few days, and it's going to be extra long, extra angsty and fluffy

#neteyam x reader #neteyam x y/n #avatar the way of water #neteyam sully #atwow fanfiction #atwow #avatar 2 #fanfiction #pairing #enemies to lovers #jake sully #fluff #angst #spoilers #angsty romance #reader x sully #reader x na'vi #na'vi #lo'ak #lo'ak x y/n #tsireya x y/n #kiri x y/n #the mighty warrior #avatar the way of water fanfiction #avatar twow #avatar movie

[bcacstuff]

Hi! Love your blog / posts / insights! I’m new to Outlander and loving it. Learning more about Sam (love him) and Cait and I see why the shippers want them together so desperately. The chemistry is just nuts.

But clearly they aren’t a couple and I hate that they have to deal with this still. But curious if you think perhaps they might have been together early on (season 1)? They were so touchy-feely in press appearances. Was it just for show to sell the Jamie/Claire romance?

Also I’ve seen clips/gifs of an interview with Sam (LA Times?) where he mentions being with someone he works with and it going well. When was that and any insight / context?

Thanks for indulging me, as I’m sure this has been covered extensively in the past.

I really don't think they ever have been a couple. Yes good chemistry and they hung out together (more than today). So yes, fortunate for them they've become good friends as well. They've experienced a live changing thing together with the show and all the craziness around it. But that's all there is and ever has been.

The clip you're mentioning I think is the one that starts with the interviewer (Yvonne Villarreal) asking, because the fans were concerned Sam an Caitriona didn't do this interview together. The interview is a series interviewing Emmy contenders.

Anyway, Sam jokes a bit about not doing the interview together with Cait, but then says 'We are together, and we do work together and things are pretty good, she's just very busy'. Which as you can imagine was immediately used as a huge receipt for shippers. Other would say, he could have said it differently, but imho it would not have matter how he would have said it, it's the way people hear what they want to hear in the way they want it. Which isn't always what it actually is.

Also, take into account, this was the start of the 3rd season, where half of the season Jamie and Claire are separated, so filming would have been apart as well.

On another note, I'm glad you asked, as I (re)watched the complete interview while looking for it. And what struck me is the differences between then (2018) and now. More authentic, less just hanging out the clown and showing he really studied the character he's playing and sharing the thoughts he had about it.

Here's the interview

[lost-technology]

Laughing through the Decades with Immortal Plants

So, in re-reading one of my reblogs - regarding Vash finding the little joys in life and relating it to happiness index, generational angst and proving something to someone with the top musical style of my generation (and yet how we who are alive and remain have found our ways out of darkness...) This lead me to thinking about the running joke in Bojack Horseman (video-ed in someone's Youtube video above, cut together out of context) about different decades' music and landscapes and how much I'd laughed at these various pardoies of musical styles and the "stereotypical decades" of the Hollywood street-shops and advertisements when I'd watched the show because I HAVE LIVED THROUGH EACH OF THESE DECADES. Yes, I'm old. I get the joke (as do most viewers of Bojack, I expect, given its target demographic) because they are parodies of worlds I've been in. The running gag here works best if you remember the 1980s, the 1990s and the early 2000s. (At least, if you are American - the gag is American culture). I just had the thought: Is there anything with Vash like this? He's been engaging with the culture of Planet Gunsmoke / No Man's Land for the last 150 years. Surely, he's watched the human culture grow and change and it couldn't have been "wild west" all the time. There, canonically, is a bit of Mad Max and Star Wars thrown in (and maybe even a bit of Fallout). There was definitely a survivor-scrapper culture in the beginning and it leveled out into more stable communities, cities. That might have been when the more "western-frontier revival" culture came in. In Trigun Stampede there is definitely a more urban culture with Jul-Ai being very Blade Runner looking (I have not seen that movie, but that style-influence is all over pop culture), leaving the "wild west" to the outlands, rural culture. But there's gotta be other stuff, little things - like various musical styles through the decades, various fashions, something in the distinctions between decade-cultures, cultural evolution, all those things you don't notice passed you by until you see something that makes you nostalgic, or someone's doing a parody of it or is just so out of place to current times. In other words, I'm wondering if Vash ever watches some kind of No Man's Land play or something in which he winds up laughing his ass off at either the *inaccuracy* of a period-piece because he lived through that decade that no one's alive to have been in anymore or, like me, finds himself laughing his ass off at something in parody of decades he's lived in, but it stretches out waaaaay farther for him? I can imagine Vash nodding and going "Yep, that was the Stardate 080s alright! I can't remember why everyone was wearing legwarmers then, it was just a thing!"

#trigun #trigun maximum #trigun stampede #vash the stampede #bojack horseman #decades parodies #the problems with ageless beings #the humor that ageless beings might find in laughing at culture #Youtube

[malicious-compliance-esq]

Okay, I have a (hopefully!) fun discussion question for you in line with the teaching tool I'm working on for my class: Do you think the show sets up Jamie Frasier and BJR as foils and, if so, does it do so effectively?

Goodness @lyledebeast you really cannot give me a better Ask than that!

Answering these questions comprehensively would take a very long time because there are so many different parallels drawn between the two characters across both versions of Outlander canon—the show itself and the novels that inspired it. Indeed, the establishment of Black Jack Randall and Jamie Fraser as foils happens early and consistently in both the TV adaptation and the book series.

So my short answers are: Yes, absolutely the show sets up Jamie and Black Jack as foils. And yes, I think it does so quite effectively!

As a refresher for readers, foils are characters established with intentional comparisons and contrasts to differentiate unique aspects of each persona. Protagonists and antagonists often get established as foils to elucidate one another’s positive and negative qualities. I would definitely say this happens consistently between Jamie and Randall in Outlander canon—and in both directions at that.

Although it would take quite a lot of words, even for me, to provide a comprehensive overview of all the specific things both the show and the books do to establish Black Jack and Jamie as foils for one another, I can give a concise overview of the foundational work each version of canon does to set up the continuous parallels drawn between the two characters. The original Ask addresses the show specifically, but I’d never miss an opportunity to encourage y’all to flex your reading muscles! So I’ll include additional details provided in the books for context that enhance the TV adaptation’s framing of Randall and Jamie as foils.

For my money, there’s no better illustration of the foil dynamic between the two men than the juxtaposition of the two main flogging incidents from Season 1 of the TV show and its equivalent content in Book 1 / Outlander in the novel series. First is the retrospectively narrated 1740 sequence set at Fort William, wherein Randall flayed the upper layers of skin clean off Jamie’s back with with a nine-tail whip. Second is the live-action 1743 sequence set at Castle Leoch after Claire Beauchamp gets rescued from Fort William, wherein Jamie beats her with a belt for disobeying him and thus putting himself and his clan in danger.

On the show the belt scene is played mostly for laughs, but we do get an edgy scene subsequently in which Claire menaces Jamie with a knife and tells him he’d better never raise a hand to her again unless he’d like to get dismembered. I enjoyed that scene quite a bit. Stick him with the pointy end and all that! That said, it’s missing a critical bit of intrigue from the books that further cements the foil dynamic between Randall and Jamie. Specifically: In the book version, Jamie explicitly tells Claire that he got a sexual charge out of beating her because of how angry she got and how feisty it made her.

If this sounds familiar, consider how Black Jack tries everything he possibly can to get emotional responses out of Jamie. Not just while raping him at Wentworth Prison, but also years before while flogging him at Fort William. His whole aim in whipping Jamie that second time was to get him to cave and have sex with him, having made a bizarrely earnest proposition the previous evening that got rejected after Jamie gave it some thought.

Rather a lot of thought, to wit. In both the show and the novels, Jamie notes that he ultimately turned Black Jack down because he didn’t want to let his dad down by ceding control to someone else. He doesn’t indicate being put off himself by the idea of having sex with another man. Likewise, he doesn’t think his dad would be disappointed in him for sleeping with a guy if he did that of his own volition. Randall seems fully cognizant in both versions of canon of Jamie feeling some conflicted attraction to him and enjoying winding him up. So he figures it’ll take more effort to persuade Jamie to his position.

I’ve explored this in my “Shaking in the Light” fic wherein Black Jack explains the Fort William incident to Mary in his own words. In both that “Dispatches from Fort Laggan” continuity and several of my other stories, Black Jack and Jamie discuss the flogging and each of their respective motivations in that interaction. All of this draws on the canonically established character traits of both Jamie (physically, as established by his own behavior at multiple timepoints including the beating he wholly unnecessarily jumps at the chance to take for Laoghaire MacKenzie) and Black Jack (emotionally, as established by the Duke of Sandringham’s comments about him) being gluttons for pain.

Perhaps the greatest irony here is that between Black Jack and Jamie, we only ever get evidence of one of them beating his wife—and it very much isn’t Randall. Confirmed later via Black Jack’s son Denys Randall in Book 9 / Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone wherein Denys contrasts his mother Mary Hawkins’s memories of his father with her experiences of being married to his stepfather Robert Isaacs, who did beat her. Tracks absolutely with what we knew about Black Jack when he was still alive, mind. Whatever else one might say about him, he was always good to his family and cared about doing the best he could for them.

Then of course there’s Claire herself constantly fearing losing Jamie to Black Jack in both versions of canon. An understandable fear given how resoundingly obsessed Jamie remains with Randall even decades after his death! During early installments when Black Jack still lives, Jamie keeps deliberately goading him into snapping and doing violent things to him.

NB: It absolutely is not Jamie’s fault that Randall rapes him. Anyone who thinks the survivor of a rape is ever at fault for what happens, no matter what they did, can shut the entire fuck up.

However, in many other cases Jamie does go out of his way to antagonize Randall and goad him into fighting with him. The best example of this is the duel (actually multiple duels given the first one gets averted) to which Jamie challenges Randall in Season 2 and Book 2 / Dragonfly in Amber respectively. Definitely one cluster among several, though.

And Claire is far from the only person who notices this. Perhaps the best narration of these observations though comes from Dougal MacKenzie, whose disparaging comments about Jamie in Season 1 of the show are amplified to a damning degree by additional context from Book 1 in the novel series. When Dougal is giving Claire his own retrospective on the events at Fort William three years prior, Claire asks him why he’s telling her all this. He says he thought it might serve as an illustration of character. She thinks he’s only referring to Randall at first, but he clears up this misconception swiftly. He’s definitely referring to both men—and he isn’t wrong in the slightest.

Both the books and the show include a recurring theme of Black Jack and Jamie experiencing a lot of the same stuff emotionally but only one of them actually understanding the assignment of what’s going on between them. Nowhere is this more clear than in S1E15 “Wentworth Prison” on the TV series, wherein Randall sits down solemnly across from Jamie and asks him why he’d rather die than so much as talk to him.

The interaction that follows is about as close as Black Jack ever comes himself to saying the unsaid, which is fairly clear from both the show and the books. He’s trying persistently to get Jamie to understand that he understands what it’s like both to be pressured into sex and to feel ashamed of wanting something he knows will be destructive. The show makes it pretty clear that Randall himself is being coerced in all manner of ways, including sexually, by the Duke of Sandringham. I could probably write a full monograph on that dynamic alone! For now I’ll simply note that Black Jack’s explicit awareness of the similarity between himself and Jamie includes that particular dimension of shared experience.

Let’s not discount either that by this point Jamie and Black Jack have each saved each other’s life once already. Randall rescues Jamie from the gallows earlier in the episode looking like he’s about to shit a brick for almost not making it down to the Borders in time. And earlier in the season, in S1E09 “The Reckoning” just before he and Claire jump into the bay to escape, he leaves Black Jack unconscious on the floor of his office instead of slitting his throat. At this point Jamie doesn’t know that Claire has a vested interest in Black Jack remaining alive due to him being her 20th Century husband Frank Randall’s purportedly direct ancestor. He spares his life because he doesn’t want to kill him, and says as much later on.

We see this kind of parallelism a lot with the two of them. Including in Book 2 where we get an explicit retrospective from Black Jack about having “taken from him what he has taken from me” during the night at Wentworth Prison. Randall is both finding comfort in some of the only positive memories he has and trying to explain to Claire that Jamie actually does feel something for him—something particular that she can’t take away no matter how much of a hold she might have on him. Glorious bonuses abound in Book 1 as well given everything else we see from that night that didn’t make it into the TV adaptation. Including Randall sobbing copiously and telling Jamie he loves him, begging him to admit he loves him too.

Then there’s also a show bonus for that element of canon: the infamous “don’t stop” sequence from early in S2E02 “Not in Scotland Anymore” when Jamie is having one of his many dreams about Black Jack. TL;DR: A basic functional understanding of anal sex allows clear determination of which man is getting penetrated in that footage. Randall is eating it up and begging Jamie for more. Iconic. Also totally in character.

Again, every character-establishing moment we’ve gotten for Black Jack up to this point indicates clearly that he’s desperate for people to respond to him with passionate emotions. He’ll take what he can get obviously; if that means making someone furious with him or frightened of him he feels that’s better than nothing. But it’s not what he wants most. Jamie reflects this valuation of passion himself many times in both versions of canon, including but not remotely limited to the belt scene referenced above.

In the books it’s likewise strongly implied (before being confirmed later by Randall himself) that Jamie fucked him later in the night while they were both delirious and losing their minds in that dungeon cell at Wentworth. What he says to Claire in S1E16 “To Ransom a Man’s Soul” about Black Jack succeeding in making him realize things he wanted makes far more sense in light of this additional information from Book 2 and the show canon exchange between Claire and Black Jack at the tavern in Inverness where a grieving Randall is busily drinking himself into a stupor.

That about covers the early foundations here. Of course a key difference between the two men—and indeed a central driver of both their dynamic as foils and their antagonism of one another—is the difference from one man to the other in acceptance of sexuality.

Although very aware and resentful of the stigma surrounding both bisexuality and sadomasochism, Black Jack accepts his sexuality enough to be fairly open about it in comparison to other canonical queer characters in the Outlander universe. He does this with a considerable amount of internalized self-loathing, sardonically referring to his “unnatural tastes” and noting he’s well aware of how people see him. But he doesn’t deny his sexuality or attempt to escape it.

Jamie, by contrast, never manages (at least so far) to square with his capacity for attraction to people of similar sex and gender. He remains haunted for decades on end by his constant dreams about Randall, a plotline developed much more in the books than on the show. But damned if the dreams we do see on the show—as described above—aren’t incredibly telling.

In the books Jamie’s dreams about Black Jack only get more sexual over time. He becomes consumed with the dreams to the point of rambling about them constantly to his wife and his sister, both of whom have also experienced Randall getting frisky with them unsolicited. At one point in both the show and the books, Jamie notes to Claire that Randall absolutely succeeded in making him realized he wanted sexual intimacy with men. Then there’s also his sexually and romantically charged friendship with Lord John Grey, who himself has always been open with Jamie about his feelings beyond the platonic. But he still never acts on it—at least so far, though that could change in Book 10 and/or the final season of the show which will cover that content.

For now, I’ll note that Jamie’s dreams also clearly delineate the dynamic of him and Black Jack being foils. And for a final bonus, consider the dream sequence from Book 6 / A Breath of Snow and Ashes suggesting Black Jack as a foil for himself when he shows up in mirror image on both sides of Jamie. That, dear readers, is another topic for another time!

#ask dr. compliance #lyledebeast #foils #small fandoms #outlander starz #black jack randall #tobias menzies #jamie fraser #sam heughan #fanfic #ao3 #villain discourse #character analysis #evil redcoat pipeline #delightful #yes good

[phoenixyfriend]

God I want a time-travel fic of the variety where two characters that are like. Estranged marriage. Stuck in the past together. Reconnect as the only real touchpoint the other has to their old lives.

(I was watching the first episode of Outlander, for context.)

I kicked off with "well, obviously HanLeia from like a year before episode VII" because what says 'estranged but we still love each other' like HanLeia? I did consider like. Post-Empire Anidala but anything involving Vader turns into a war crimes discussion instead of estrangement so nah.

Next step: pick a drop point far enough back that they only have a vague idea of what's going on galactically, partly because so much of the information was scorched and burned, and also they've gotten old enough that some of the details weren't important. (The name of that bill that Palpatine got passed doesn't matter when discussing how he rose to power so much as the content, right?) This is Melida/Daan, where they both desperately want to help because dying children and also that's bb Obi-Wan but like. Absolutely none of the kids trust them.

And then my brain went "hey you know who would be fun to add? 23yo Padme who's already a Senator and seeing the Separatist crisis brewing but hasn't been targeted by Jango Fett yet." This detracts from the original intended plot but I got sucked in.

"Just tell people I'm an aunt you rarely got to see but always came home with stories about fighting pirates and liberating slaves with a smuggler and a loose sorta-Jedi, and you don't know if even a quarter of the stories are true, but it didn't matter when you were younger because all you cared about was that they were entertaining and came with souvenirs, like any eight-year-old"

Takes a lot of talking, bb!Obi and Padme are horrified by the future. (Most of the Young are just like 'okay cool let's get back to keeping US alive and you can talk about your weird Jedi things LATER')

Padme has no idea how to relate to Leia because Leia's just. A very odd person, but they're family, yes?

(Han is just like. Whelp. I do as Leia says. No, no, it doesn't get more complicated than that. She says jump and I don't even ask how high before I do it.)

Obi-Wan is almost crying because Leia is just. Taking charge and powerful and she recognizes "end the war with as few dead as possible" as a goal and she then does it with things like sabotaging weapons depots instead of hospitals and whatnot. Padme is horrified to find that all her political and academic expertise are less useful than her ability to grab a gun and Shoot Things, because she's not a General.

They get off-planet eventually, meet with the Jedi, etc.

Han gets sent off by Leia at one point to Tatooine, and she refuses to explain why to anyone until he comes back with a young lady by the name of Shmi who is just confused as fuck but Leia tells her "my father was a Skywalker, and I dreamed of where to find you because I have the Force" and Shmi is just like. Okay stranger lady. You took out my chip and offered to give me some cash and set me up wherever so I'll play along. Family, sure.

Han is probably bothering Qui-Gon because he is incredibly reminded of Future Old Ben, except Qui-Gon is somewhat younger, and looks much younger, on account of not spending twenty years on Planet That Hates You. (Han, you're almost seventy. Calm down.)

Padme thought she was a take-charge kind of gal but now she's met her future daughter and uh. Uh.

#Leia Organa #Han Solo #Padme Amidala #Obi Wan Kenobi #Time Travel #Melida Daan #Qui Gon Jinn #star wars #phoenix posts

[always-outlander]

Outlander 7x01 Thoughts & Easter Eggs

Feel free to look below the cut, spoilers ahead!

First episodes are always interesting in that they have so much hype because the fans are starved for new episodes, but they rarely do more than set the table for the rest of the season. A hard thing to juggle and be able to hold peoples attention while also jamming a lot of context clues in there. I think overall this one served its purpose and I felt like it was a wise decision for there to not be a time jump between the last episode of season 6.

That said, we all need to keep in mind the parameters of season 7 going into the rest of the episodes of this first half. The first 4 episodes of season 7 were supposed to be a part of season 6. Then the rest of season 7 was filmed with the creators not knowing if they would be given a season 8, so they jammed 3 books worth of content into it. I don’t know about everyone else, but I certainly felt that pacing and quicker speed in this first episode. With a show and book series which historically takes forever for storylines and payoffs to come to fruition, it’s hard not to feel that change.

Opening scene and “vision” (? Or is it just a thought Jamie has?) of Claire being sentenced was impactful, excellent acting once again by Caitriona. I thought the internal monologue of Jamie knowing she’s not dead was lovely and a smart way to call back their vows. He does so twice in this episode.

Bree & Roger

Bree and Roger are such dweebs and their endless use of puns and 20th century references cracks me up. That said, if they keep it up I’ll get annoyed, sometimes it feels like a cop out for better dialogue and gives the impression that these two never share serious conversations between them. I understand their dynamic is different than Jamie and Claire’s, but there is a fear that the writers are solely using their conversations as the comedic relief points in the show.

Rogers preaching leads him to Indigo Donner (the actor is perfect, he’s a sneaky snake). The fact that Roger may likely have something to do with his escape is the ultimate irony. Especially given the time taken to find the date of the house burning in the future, and that he and Bree came back to try and avoid it.

Claire

Claire’s scenes in the jail cell are great, and the women in the jail were excellent character actors, especially Sadie. When Jamie and Young Ian finally reach the jail we see our first glimpse of vengeful Jamie and while I do sometimes get frustrated with Sam’s use of a furrowed brow, his anger and reactionary body langue is still in line with young Jamie. The continuity of the character has always been impressive to me, right down to his little finger movements and facial twitches.

Claire being a healer in action was so nice to see again, I feel like it’s been a while since she’s been actively healing others. Just like the books, her skills have granted her a literal get out of jail free card.

It may just be me, but I do feel like Claire is now capable of doing some bad things and has a bit more mischief in her eyes in her old age. Jamie is still a hot head willing to break every rule to protect Claire, and her moral compass is the only thing that keeps him in line. But the older she gets, the more Jamie’s willingness to bend the rules is rubbing off on her, and I really love that we don’t always know exactly how Claire is going to react anymore. She’s got a poker face now, and it makes her far more interesting to watch.

Major McDonald on board the ship is from the books but it’s also a great scene to help move the plot along. Governor Martin was a real historical figure and the actor who plays him is another great character actor. Forcing Jamie to gather men for the revolution and pick a side has been the trend of the last 3 seasons so it comes as no surprise that he’s once again being forced to swear loyalties to the crown (and finding a way out of it).

Tom Christie

Mark Lewis Jones as Tom Christie is a wonderful casting. He’s such a strong actor and his portrayal of Tom’s (very unfortunate) unrequited love is perfectly done. The scene where Tom tells Jamie his plan to free Claire was not shown in the books, just implied. Seeing that conversation was a perfect spot for Sam and Mark to wrap a bow around Tom Christie’s character and his relationship with Jamie. The callback of Jamie’s vow to Claire on their wedding night was also a very sweet bit of added dialogue. There are many moments where the show is able to add scenes and dialogue that seamlessly fit into the story, and this is one of them.

The way in which Tom was willing to lay his life aside for Claire was a beautiful thing. Jamie putting aside his pride to allow it was a big moment for him. I also loved the eulogy moment. Jamie giving Tom the eulogy he would have wanted and deserved was such a perfect way to close out their storyline.

The scene between Claire and Tom had so many lovely call backs to the books, and majority of the dialogue was straight from the text. The scene shed light on Tom’s brother, his wife, and the reasons Tom became the man he did. It also shed light on Malva’s upbringing and how that informed Tom’s shaping of his own motive.

Claire seeing through his lies actually reinforces why he fell in love with her. When he tells her that he loves her my heart broke for him, and for Claire. It’s not like she can do anything to persuade him, and she will never reciprocate. His life for hers is the ultimate sacrifice, and a debt she knows she cannot repay to him. I thought the acting of both Cait and Mark shined brightly in this scene.

Jamie

Jamie and Claire’s second reunion is cute, but this goes back to the timing issue I highlighted above. It feels off with all the abruptly cut scenes. In their first reunion, the two share a kiss and the scene immediately cuts to Jamie standing alone in the cabin with governor Martin. Then the second reunion, they meet on the docks and it immediately cuts to them laying in bed. You mean to tell me this man who just traveled for days and moved mountains to find his wife is given a literal peck of a reunion, then we skip their entire conversation and cut to them in bed hours later? It felt like they removed dialogue for the sake of run time and personally, I’d always prefer small talk with Claire and Jamie and a full two minutes of them staring into each others eyes than any B-Roll.

Third strange pacing and editing choice was when Jamie tells Claire to rest and she’s IMMEDIATELY asleep. It’s not even a minute later and he’s able to sneak out on her. At the very least they could have dimmed the lights and implied it has been an hour or so before he left.

But they redeemed themselves with the last scene between Jamie and Mr. Brown, that was great. Now that Jamie’s older and has greater responsibilities we see less of a fire in him. While his love for Claire is still strong, he’s not as reckless. But this scene shows the viewers that the fire is still very much alive in Jamie, along with his tactical mind. Having Ian go back to the ridge to implement his revenge was a great callback to young Jamie and his strengths. One of the best lines of dialogue in YEARS was:

“I’m also a violent man, any goodness that prevails in me is because of my wife. You tried to take her from me.”

THIS is what I hope we get loads of this season.

I’m optimistic after this first episode. Visually it was stunning as always, there was a lot of acting highlights for numerous characters, and the storyline and dialogue stayed true to the books when it needed to, and added more depth and context when necessary.

#outlander #outlanderedit #jamie x claire #jamie fraser #claire fraser #sam heughan #claire x jamie #jammf #caitriona balfe #james alexander malcolm mackenzie fraser #outlander 7x01 #outlander spoilers #outlander review #outlander ep: A Life Well Lost

[shoggothkisses]

i wanna hear about the lore but the moon lore only

YEAHHHH ANON WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THE MOONS!!!!

Okay so I'm going to keep this as tl;dr as possible because it would be VERY easy to go off on a tangent so I am sticking JUST to stuff where the moon or Moon Sisters are explicitly mentioned.

So according to Heart's Desire, vol. 3, there used to be three moons over Teyvat instead of one:

Aria - name is Italian for a single-performer vocal piece in an opera, but derives from the Latin for "air"

Sonnet - like the poem, but derives from an old proto-Romance word for "sound'

Canon - musical composition based around multi-voiced imitation; derives from Greek and Latin word for "law" or "rule."

(Make of these etymologies what you will.)

According to Moonlit Bamboo Forest(MBF), vol. 3 :

the Moon Sisters are older than Morax (more than 6,000 years old)

they're referred to as "daughters of prose and song"

they "ruled over the night sky," trading shifts in moving across the heavens in a silver carriage (think Helios in Greek myth with his chariot)

they were in love with "the stars of daybreak"/the "morning stars."

It should be noted that "morning star" is a term often associated with "dawn bringer," it may be associated with Phanes, the Primordial One (who is also known as Eosphorus/Phosphorus or Lucifer depending on which versions of Greek/Orphic/Latinized mythology you're looking at). Since MBF refers specifically to "the chambers of the morning stars," this may imply that the anthropomorphic "stars" are the Shades that Phanes made of itself.

Something caused the Moon Sisters to turn against one another, and the single remaining moon in Teyvat right now is the one remaining corpse out of three. (yikes.)

According to Records of Jueyun, vol. 4:

the three sisters were witness to a union between one of the Seelie and "a traveler from afar."

a great "calamity" fell 30 days later. (Whether the union is directly related to the calamity is EXTREMELY unclear, although some people [pooossibly myself included] theorize that the outlander who fell in love with the Seelie was the Second Who Came from beyond the firmament, who eventually challenged the Primordial One to the throne and lost. For more on this, see the Byakuyakoku Collection.)

For some miscellaneous flavor, here are some things associated with the moon/s that have caught my eye as I've played Genshin

Mondstadt literally translates to "Moon City" in German.

Liyue (璃月) makes use of the characters for "glass/colored glaze" and "moon."

Speaking of Liyue, the osmanthus flower is associated with the full moon and the Mid-Autumn festival. In Chinese legend, the first osmanthus plant is on the moon.

Glaze Lilies only grow at night.

There are WAY too many mentions of serpents consuming the moon and/or sun in various mythologies across the world. I'm probably going to have to make a mega-post about snakes and serpents in Genshin at some point.

Nahida calls herself "just the Moon" when we first meet her. In context, she means that she is only a reflection of Rukkhadevata's former glory, but I still find it relevant that she calls herself the moon when her appearance is so similar to what the Moon Sisters are supposed to look like.

The description for the Nilotpala Lotus refers to a moon goddess (singular) and the chariot. Nilotpalas only bloom at night. (It's interesting that the "fake" lotus, Kalpalata, is Nahida's ascension material and not the Nilotpala.)

The lore for the Xiphos' Moonlight sword suggests that the Moon Sisters were capable of "determining heroes' fates." This is most likely a reference to the three Fates of Greek mythology, who controlled the birth, life and death of all humans.

Aaand most recently, in Lyney's character teaser, we get to see him holding the full moon in his hands! In the Rider-Waite tarot, the Moon is a symbol for lies, deception and illusion. This doesn't just have to apply to Lyney - it's something I've been thinking about for as long as I've known about the Moon Sisters.

if you have any specific questions or want more clarification on any of this info, PLEASE ask!!!

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin spoilers #genshin #anon asks #lore rants

[redyn-nerevarine]

Here's some of my favorite out-of-context lines from my WIP Morrowind fanfiction, Chronicles of an Outlander.

#morrowind #tes 3 #julan kaushibael #morrowind fanfiction #morrowind writing #chronicles of an outlander

[spinnysocks]

young tlg crocodiles aus

i didn't realise i couldn't save ask answers as drafts! :( but anyway, @devilsrecreation asked: So what exactly are your ideas for the baby crocs in The Lion Guard I’m really curious 👀 so here's my response!!

as she already established in her hcs, pua is basically everyone's adoptive dad! in this context to makuu, kiburi, tamka, nduli and neema! he has different relationships with all of them but he's closest to makuu and kiburi for sure

i like to think that makuu is older than the other four; i was going to say don't question me on ages but i just found out it takes ~12-15 years for nile crocodiles to reach full adulthood! so it checks out that makuu could be a year older and still hang out with them. there's probably so many non-mature members of the float that they have younger groups within it

speaking of that, i actually think makuu didn't get along very well with the other crocodiles his age. but, one day, he briefly interacts with the younger kiburi's group and gets to know them really well. he kind of becomes their secondary charge behind pua. no danger was gonna get close to those four lmao

i think crocs are pretty wholesome & innocent when they're babies but get more into the crocodile way as they mature. it's just really cute to think of baby kiburi, tamka, nduli and neema innocently interacting

there's this song i fell in love with while coming up with the mjuzi nduli au called little fang by avey tare! for me personally it fits my ideas for that au, i think it's also sweet as a lullaby/poem that pua sings to the five kiddos. i really recommend it it's an adorable song

i'm a sucker for crack/uncommon ships, i saw pua x basi once and it kinda stuck with me. i'd just enjoy seeing their dynamic as two leaders who work together when it's the time of year for the crocs to share with the hippos. because of their bond (platonic or romantic idrk), i imagine one of the reasons beshte is so friendly is bc he grew up around and got to know the crocs when they'd share big springs with the hippos. he says "I know it's crowded, Kiburi. But it really is a good spot" because he remembers the crocs' younger years and knows they can be reasonable, but things changed that weren't under his control and he couldn't do anything about it.

he feels kinda dissapointed about how things changed, cuz to him the crocs were like the neighbour's family you get to know really well. to stir up some more sadness, it's almost always beshte who's kicking out kiburi's float. beshte sends them back to the outlands himself so they don't hurt his friends, even though he remembers when they were 'good' or more understanding/just before makuu and kiburi's rift in general

since it takes so many years for crocs to mature, i imagine the younguns would spend ALL THE TIME playing. pua has a soft spot for the five of them so their playtimes and adventures become kind of like a bluey episode where they learn something valuable. kiburi listens to him more than anyone, while makuu's a bit more like "Yeah, yeah" bc he thinks being older means he doesn't need to learn anything new

one of pua's lessons would be not to judge or underestimate someone for being different, such as neema for being mute or nduli for not being born in the float (my own hc is that he's from an outsider float that was really struggling which is why he's so small. he was found by pua really young and his parents agreed he'd have a better life in the pridelands)

pua taught the five a lot of good lessons but obviously not all of them stuck. i haven't come up with what caused the rift between makuu and kiburi exactly, but i think kiburi's float would still want to be friends with makuu, and even more so after he redeems himself. despite being fully grown now they still kinda see him as a cool older brother that they can learn from but they'll always stick with kiburi because, at the end of the day, it's them four against the world lol

whew. that's it for now! i could write for days about these guys. and i probably will make a follow-up post at some point

#the lion guard #tlg #tlg outlanders #tlg crocodiles #pua #makuu #kiburi

[atopvisenyashill]

I think a couple of the reasons we didn't see Helaena's birth is that a) it's not plot relevant. All other births either introduce a new status quo or major plot point (i.e Rhaenyra giving birth to Joffrey, as opposed to Jace - that way we can time jump and have all three kids already born but the notion of them being illegitimate is still introduced) or they end in death (Laena, Aemma, Baelon, Visenya).

And then another reason could simply be the optics of having Emily act out a birth scene. Ironic, given all the birth scenes are horrific, but this is a character introduced when she was 14. I don't think she could be more than 16 or 17 when she had Helaena. I can see why they shied away from it, or why it may never have even been a consideration to show it.

Well my argument here is that this whole show is about child birth and the way it affects The Family Unit and if we are establishing rival Family Units, we must include the basis of how the family unit is established, which is childbirth (in the context of feudal systems anyway). This show has a long, drawn out birthing scene with a lot of commentary over how dangerous and violent labor is and how dangerously violent our society treats new mothers with the birth scenes of Aemma, Laena, and Rhaenyra’s two (2) scenes, and these mark the beginning, middle, and end of the season, so it is an odd, frustrating exclusion to not at least attempt to include Alicent starting her labor and to straight up never see Helaena even pregnant at all. And when I said “have the plot happen while Rhaenyra is pregnant” you can easily do that with Alicent imo - if Helaena isn’t relevant enough (though I would argue Alicent birthing a Valyrian daughter is in fact VERY relevant to the status quo, it’s why Helaena is married off at only 13), we can easily futz with the timeline to include Aemond or Daeron’s birth around Rhaenyra’s wedding.

As for the second one……..okay idk how to phrase this without sounding like a sociopath here but if they were worried about “how are audiences going to react to Emily Carrey who is only 17/18 having a baby” my response is git gud ryan!!!!! they’re clearly trying to explore a concept they completely axed in the original, which is Structural Patriarchy And The Pedophilic Sexualization Of Young Girls in hotd, which was why they a) casted milly who was like 20 and has a baby face and b) aged down and casted Emily, who was roughly the same age as Alicent after the first time jump. And if you’re going to explore those themes, you have to EXPLORE those themes and that includes how (in show) Alicent and Helaena are not even of age by THEIR standards when they marry and give birth the first time, and Rhaenyra is massively sexualized and groomed by most of the men around her from the age of like 12 until she’s married at 17. This is the exact same violence that is enacted against Aemma being enacted on Alicent, and I think a more direct parallel of “yes Viserys forcing Alicent to have his kid at 15 is as god awful as Viserys cutting Aemma open” you NEED to have Alicent give birth with the younger actor and make the audience SQUIRM with discomfort, the same way they do when they have baby Laena parrot that stuff about giving Viserys strong sons, and Rhaenys say explicitly that she hates what’s happening.

I get the issue surrounding “emily was very young on set” but a) that’s why this whole series should have been animated and b) you can do this without even showing Alicent too much. One point of criticism I tend to have for another Historical Fantasy Show (Outlander, no one laugh at me, it’s a good fucking show and Catriona has been ROBBED of recognition for it) is how often they just throw in graphic ass rape scenes where I don’t feel it’s necessary but a point i give them credit is that when they got pushback about how often we are seeing People Straight Up Raped On Screen they got creative with how they filmed those scenes.

(spoilers obviously) but for the rape scene involving Brianna, where she enters a room attempting to get her ring back, and is raped as “payment” for it by Bonnett, the camera has Bonnett close the door so all we see is the people outside listening to Brianna scream. Some of them look uncomfortable. Some of them look at the door but do nothing. One woman trips over Bonnett’s boots outside the door and fixes them. The door opens and you just see Brianna in shock, getting her things, and leaving, but you otherwise see Nothing. The scene after that involves Claire being kidnapped from her home and gang raped over the span of a day or two, before being rescued by her family. Every time the rape starts up again, Claire enters a fantasy in her mind. She’s in the present day (in canon she lives in 1700s America, but she came from the 60s) and the family she’s made in the past are at a celebration with her, dressed in the present day. Characters that have died are there and happy. Her adopted son sits next to her biological daughter. The scene shifts and Claire is in her 1700s clothes in her 1960s house with Jamie, her husband, and she’s crying and he cups her cheek and whispers “it’s just the two of us now.” The rape scene ends. Later, as she’s struggling to deal with it, we see the bruises on her body because she is naked in bed with Jamie, wanting to be intimate but scared of sex, and he cradles her and says “you’re a strong thing” as the camera lets us see the damage done to her.

So, you can have it there without us seeing it. You can have Alicent be afraid as her contractions start. Viserys somewhere else not giving a shit. Rhaenyra outside the room wanting to comfort Alicent but not enough to swallow her pride. Otto more worried about the baby and quipping to Rhaenyra than he is about Alicent. Alicent laying in bed, upset, shaking, unable to hold her baby just yet. There’s a lot of freedom to get creative when you’re working with a visual medium!

#asks #anons #hotd critical #once again caveat i am not mad i do understand the pushback here. my ire is aimed at condal and hess lmao #rape cw #child birth cw #idkkkk we’re getting a bit graphic here

[coldbloodedstrike]

Disclaimer: I just started Genshin Impact so I'm not familiar with every piece of lore. So this isn't going to cover everything about The Travelers and Venti's relationship. But I wanted to point out some very interesting details I've picked up on so far:

1.) "Beloved of the Anemo Archon" Achievement.

Beloved is a very interesting choice here. While beloved isn't exclusively romantic, it is often used in a romantic context. Beloved indicates that someone is deeply loved... and having the traveler sit in the hand of the statue is a really interesting choice.

2.) "The Outlander who caught the wind". Kind of losing my mind over this because it implies that The Traveler caught the god of Anemo - who is also the God of Freedom.

3.) Venti's association with birds [teaching the first birds that they only needed courage to fly] and the Travelers being winged beings who lost their powers. His association with birds is also consistent with his relationship with Xiao - as Xiao is based on the Golden-Winged Great Peng [which is a being that looks like a half man/half bird. But in Genshin Impact, Xiao is represented as a bird, rather than the bird/man hybrid depiction of the Golden-Winged Great Peng.]

Article about Xiao: here

4.) The very, very interesting pattern of having the Traveler be saved by anemo users during the final moments of major story arcs.

Xiao: saves the traveler from falling to their death. [ And Xiao sacrifices sacrifice himself to save the traveler and their friends in "At Tunnels End".]

Kazuha: saves the Traveler from getting killed by The Raiden Shogun.

The Wanderer: saves the traveler from getting beamed by the Everlasting Lord of Arcane Wisdom.

"May the wind protect you" indeed...

5.) Windwheel Asters, which are used to level up the Traveler, say:

"A plant that adores the wind. To the proud children of the wind, or the citizens of Mondstadt, the Windwheel Asters are "the visible winds".

Having Windwheel Asters be one of the materials to ascend the traveler is interesting... because the ascension materials didn't have to include this flower. It could have even been some made up flower related to the stars. Like a "Star Flower" or something... but it's a flower that "adores the wind"... Also this material could have been any random material.

6.) Venti's very suspicious piece of dialogue "Ah, Traveler! We meet again. What? You don't remember me? Aha, Well allow me to join you on your quest once again. I must see to it that the bards of the world tell the Travelers tale."

Ontop of this, Venti's Windblume poem implies a connection to the Traveler. The Windblume poem is about the Traveler because in the Chinese script "you" and "your" change depending on who you pick. Since Archons can enter peoples dreams and Venti went to sleep for a period of time - it's possible he could have met the Traveler while they were sleeping. And he kept them company during their 500 year sleep - a sleep which was implied to be full of nightmares in the trailer for the beta version of the game [which is voiced over by Venti jsyk].

The reason why I think he met the Traveler in their dreams is because of this line in Ventis Windblume poem:

Who was it that embraced your noble soul in dreams deep

Here's the full Windblume poem:

"Who was it that stroked your bloodied, determined visage By stream flowing small By boulder standing large Who was it that embraced your weary yet noble soul in dreams deep In skies soaring Dear friend I am leading you by the hand Into the night where lanterns shine bright To tell you a tale of freedom and dreams The tale of where this festival begins.”

I highlighted the "noble soul" part because of the description of the Anemo Archon statues:

A monumental stone statue that watches over Mondstadt. Legends say that it was sculpted in the image of the Anemo Archon. "Seeds brought by the wind will grow over time." The statue silently anticipates the arrival of a noble soul to arrive, while thousand winds of time will soon unfold a new story...

[Jsyk you get the "Beloved of the Anemo Archon" trophy by sitting on the hands of the Statue of Barbatos in Mondstadt.]

This is extra interesting when we take into account Venti's close association with The God of time and his roll of being the wind that brings the "seeds" to where they're meant to be. It's obvious that Venti is guiding the traveler to some kind of end goal we're not aware of. And thematically, he's protecting them even when he's not directly involved in their conflict through Anemo users.

Venti also says: "There is not a single song I do not know, whether it be the past, present, or future"

I'm not sure if this is supposed to mean he is ALSO the God of Time - like when "The Anemo Archon" goes to "sleep", "The God of Time" awakens. Or if Venti is given visions by the God of Time to carry out certain events - to be the wind that delivers the seeds to where they're meant to be. But the point is is that he obviously knows future events and he's intentionally keeping them from The Traveler, while guiding them along a certain path. He's not keeping secrets from The Traveler to be malicious, but to make sure they take a certain path to a specific end goal.

And again, he's also been waiting for them to come to Teyvat for an untold amount of time.

7.) When Venti is describing what a Windblume can mean the camera switches to Ventis POV, then it pans over to the Traveler when he says "flowers of love". This is very suspicious because the camera didn't need to pan over to the traveler at all nor did we need a perspective shift to begin with... but it does when Venti says "flowers of love"... how am I not supposed to interpret that as him being romantically interested in the traveler?

Yeah. "love" - at least in english - can mean any kind of love, but it's the choice to have the camera shift to Venti's perspective, then have the camera pan over to the traveler [while still in Venti's POV] as he's saying "flowers of love" is what has me thinking "love" is supposed to mean romantic love in this situation.

8.) Venti and the Traveler missing someone who shares the same face and grieving a time they can't return to.

9.) Traveler to Venti: "Your eyes are the color of the sky in my homeland"

10.) Venti calling the Traveler "My warrior". Again, this is really interesting to me because Venti has been waiting for the traveler to come to Teyvat. He needs the Traveler to be his warrior so that some kind of end goal can be obtained.

But honestly... his teapot dialogue is very sweet.

#Venlumi #Veneather #not an exhaustive list because I just got into this game... not a very polished post either #but I will keep adding more details about their connection