#i did a lot of research about death and death traditions

[writingwithcolor]

[Running Commentary] Zombies are Zombies: Cultural Relativism, Folklore, and Foreign Perspectives

She obviously started getting into media in Japan, and (from my research into Japanese media and culture), Japan’s movies about zombies are mostly comedic, since due to traditional funerary practices the idea of zombies bringing down society is ridiculous to a lot of Japanese people. 

Rina: OP, this you? https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-zombies/

Marika: Counterpoint: Parasite Eve. Resident Evil. The Evil Within. 

Rina: Literally all the grody horror game franchises that people forget were developed and written by Japanese people because the characters have names like “Leon Kennedy” and “Sebastian Castellanos” 

~ ~ ~

Based on the reception we received the last time we did one of these, the Japanese moderator team returns with another running commentary. (They’re easier to answer this way) (Several of Marika’s answers may be troll answers)

Our question today pertains to foreign perspectives on folklore—that is, how people view folklore and stories that aren’t a part of their culture. CW: for anything you’d associate with zombies and a zombie apocalypse, really.

Keep reading for necromancy, horror games, debunking the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Hong Kong jiangshi films, Japanese disaster prep videos, and Vietnamese idol pop...

Essentially, in my story there’s an organization who wants to end the world. They think this one woman in particular, a woman of mixed Vietnamese (irreligious, Kinh) and Japanese descent who spent her formative years in Japan, is the person to do it because she’s (for lack of a better term) a necromancer; powers are semi-normal in this world. She prefers not to use her powers overall, but when she does she mostly talks to ghosts and spirits that are giving people issues. She could technically reanimate a corpse but she wouldn’t because she feels that would be morally wrong, not to mention she couldn’t start a zombie apocalypse in the traditional sense (plague, virus, etc.) in the first place. 

(Marika (M): Your local public health officials would like to assure necromancers that reviving the dead will not provoke a zombie apocalypse. This is because necromancy is a reanimation technique, and not a pathogenic vector. Assuming that the technique does not release spores, airborne viruses, gasses, or other related physical matter that can affect neighboring corpses in a similar way, there should be no issue. However, necromancers should comply with local regulations w/r to permitting and only raise the dead with the approval of the local municipality and surviving family.)

M: I think it makes sense for most people of E. Asian descent, including Japanese and Vietnamese people, to find it culturally reprehensible to reanimate the dead. I imagine the religious background of your character matters as well. What religion(s) are her family members from? How do they each regard death and the treatment of human remains? Depending on where she grew up, I’m curious on how she got opportunities to practice outside specialized settings like morgues.

M: It’s true, space in Japan is at a premium, even for the dead. You note that most of Japan cremates, but, surely, it must have occurred to you that if there aren’t that many bodies in Japan to raise…she doesn’t exactly have much opportunity to practice with her powers, does she? I yield to our Vietnamese followers on funerary customs in Vietnam, but you may want to better flesh out your world-building logic on how necromancy operates in your story (And maybe distinguish between necromancy v. channeling v. summoning v. exorcisms). 

She obviously started getting into media in Japan, and (from my research into Japanese media and culture), Japan’s movies about zombies are mostly comedic, since due to traditional funerary practices the idea of zombies bringing down society is ridiculous to a lot of Japanese people. 

Rina (R): OP, this you? https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-zombies/

M: Counterpoint: Parasite Eve. Resident Evil. The Evil Within. 

R: Literally all the grody horror game franchises that people forget were developed and written by Japanese people because the characters have names like “Leon Kennedy” and “Sebastian Castellanos” 

R: And yes, the Tofugu article uses Resident Evil and those games to support its theory, with the reason that they are set in the West. But that only suggests that Japanese people consider zombies a Western thing, not that Japanese people consider zombies nonthreatening if they were to exist. 

M: Same with vampires - series like Castlevania also use Western/ European settings and not “Vampires in Japan '' because vampires just aren't part of our folklore.

(M: Also, realistically, these series deal with individuals who quickly perish after their bodies are used as hosts for the pathogen in question, rather than the pathogen reanimating a corpse. Although the victims are initially alive, they soon succumb to the pathogen/ parasite and their organic matter then becomes an infectious vector for the disease. It should be noted, infecting ordinary, living humans with viruses to grant them elevated powers, is not only a major violation of consent and defies all recommendations made by the Belmont Report (in addition to a number of articles in the Hague Convention w/r to the use of WMDs) and is unlikely to be approved by any reputable university’s IRB committee. This is why the Umbrella Corporation are naughty, naughty little children, and honestly, someone should have assassinated Wesker for the grant money.)

R: wwww

From what I know Vietnam didn’t have a zombie movie until 2022. 

R: Do you mean a domestically produced zombie movie? Because Vietnamese people have most certainly had access to zombie movies for a long time. The Hong Kong film Mr. Vampire (1985) was a gigantic hit in Southeast Asia; you can find a gazillion copies of this movie online with Viet subs, with people commenting on how nostalgic this movie is or how they loved it as a kid. 

M: “Didn’t have a [domestic] zombie movie” is not necessarily the same thing as “Would not have made one if the opportunity had arisen.” None of us here are personifications of the Vietnamese film industry, I think it’s safe to say we couldn’t know. Correlation is not causation. It’s important to do your research thoroughly, and not use minor facts to craft a narrative based on your own assumptions.

(R: …Also, I did find a 2017 music video for “Game Over” by the Vietnamese idol Thanh Duy which features… a zombie apocalypse.)

(R: The MV has a very campy horror aesthetic and zombie backup dancers (which I love, everyone please watch this lol). But the scenes at the beginning and end where people are biting their fingers watching a threatening news report clearly establish that the zombies are considered a threat.)

So at one point, she laughs about the idea and remarks how ridiculous it is to think zombies could end the world. What I’m struggling with are other ways to show her attitude on the issue because I’d assume most non-Japanese readers wouldn’t get why she thinks like that. Are there any other ways to show why she thinks this way, especially ones that might resonate more with a Japanese reader?

R: The problem is this does not resonate in the first place. Your line of thinking is too Sapir-Whorf-adjacent. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, otherwise known as linguistic relativity theory, claims that language shapes cognition—that you can’t conceive of something if you can’t express it in your language. This is a very weak theory that you can easily bring evidence against: think of the last time you felt an emotion you had a hard time putting into words; just because you didn’t have the language for it doesn’t mean that you didn’t feel it, nor does it mean that you won’t be able to understand or recognize it if you feel it again. Similarly, it’s not a sound assumption to say that if some kind of subject matter does not exist in a culture, then people of that culture couldn't possibly conceive of it. This excerpt from linguist Laura Bailey sums it up quite well. 

M: Just because ghosts may be more culturally relevant doesn’t mean that zombies (or vampires, or whatever) are nonexistent in a Japanese or Vietnamese person’s imagination when it comes to horror and disaster.

R: Really,  if anything, Japanese people are much more attuned to how easily a society’s infrastructure can be destroyed by a disruptive force without adequate preparation. Japan is natural disaster central. A Japanese person would know better than anyone that if you aren’t prepared for a zombie epidemic—yeah it’s gonna be bad. 

M: Earthquakes, tsunami, typhoon, floods: Japan has robust disaster infrastructure out of necessity. 防災 or bousai, meaning disaster preparedness is a common part of daily life, including drills at workplaces, schools, and community organizations. Local government and community agencies are always looking for ways to make disaster and pandemic preparedness relevant to the public.

M: Might “zombie apocalypse prep as a proxy for disaster prep” be humorous in an ironic, self-deprecating way? Sure, but it’s not like Japanese people are innately different from non-Japanese people. Rather, by being a relatively well-off country practiced at disaster preparation with more experience than most parts of the world with many different types of disasters (and the accompanying infrastructure), it likely would seem more odd to most Japanese people within Japan to not handle a zombie apocalypse rather like might one handle a combination of a WMD/ chemical disaster+pandemic+civil unrest (all of which at least some part of Japan has experienced). Enjoy this very long, slightly dry video on COVID-19 safety procedures and preparedness using the framing device of surviving a zombie apocalypse.

M: Living in Los Angeles, I’ve often experienced similar tactics. We do a fair amount of advance and rehearsed disaster prep here as well. In elementary school, the first and last days of class were always for packing and unpacking home-made disaster packs, and “zombie apocalypse” simulations have been around since I was in middle school for all kinds of drills, including active shooter drills, like the one shown in this LAT article. The line between “prepper” and “well prepared” really comes down to degree of anxiety and zeal. So, it wouldn’t be just Japanese people who might not be able to resonate with your scene. The same could be said for anyone who lives somewhere with a robust disaster prevention culture.

M: A zombie apocalypse is not “real” in the sense of being a tangible threat that the majority of the world lives in fear of waking up to (At least, for the mental health of most people, I hope so). Rather, zombie apocalypse narratives are compelling to people because of the feelings of vague, existential dread they provoke: of isolation, paranoia, dwindling resources, and a definite end to everything familiar. I encourage you to stop thinking of the way Japanese people and non-Japanese people think about vague, existential dread as incomprehensible to each other. What would you think about zombies if they actually had a chance of existing in your world? That’s probably how most Japanese people would feel about them, too.

#Youtube #asks #japanese #vietnamese #cultural differences #cultural relativism #linguistic relativity #zombies #sci fi #science fiction #necromancy #death #funerary customs #funeral #ghosts #vampires #folklore #natural disasters #disaster preparedness #rina says stan thanh duy #writeblr

[tip-top-cloud-surfer]

To Be a Man - Hangman

Pairing: Hangman / Wife!OC (Sophie)

Word Count: 2.2k

This work, all my works, and my entire blog are 18+ Only

Warnings: Secret Marriage; Non-Traditional Family Dynamics; Mentioned Death of Minor OCs; Marriage of Convenience/Necessity; Mentions of Type 1 Diabetes; Third Person POV, Named OC kids and Wife, No Physical Descriptions of Any OCs

Summary: Hangman is married. And it’s no one else’s business.

Prologue Part 2 Part 3

Master List

A.N. Disclaimer - I don’t have Type 1 diabetes and so this is purely based off of a little research and what I’ve seen my friends with Type 1 do.

“You’re married!?”

Hangman turned around at the accusation to find the rest of the Daggers, save for Coyote, who he was talking to before they were so rudely interrupted, staring at him like he had grown a second head. He scoffed and rolled his eyes, not sure why it was any of their business.  

“Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“Who the hell are you married to?” Rooster asked, earning a condescending smirk from Hangman.

“My wife.”

“Well, no shit Sherlock.”

“Where’s your wedding ring then?” Payback questioned, leaning on the table to inspect Hangman’s left hand. “I’ve never seen you wear one around.”

“It’s on my dog tags, dipshits,” Hangman replied, pulling out the chain to show them, even though he didn’t have to do that. “That a crime?”

“Why do you flirt with other women then?” Bob inquired, sharing a look with Phoenix. “Two women gave you their numbers last night alone.”

“Did you see me calling either one of them?”

“Well . . . no, we didn’t, but—”

“—When did you get married?” Phoenix intervened, tilting her chin up and narrowing her eyes a bit. “And where is she?”

“Two years ago. And she’s driving here right now,” Hangman stated, checking his watch. Pulling out his phone, he looked up his wife’s location before turning back to the Daggers. “She’s about five minutes away, if you want to be specific.”

“She’s staying here with you?”

“For a while, yeah. Like anyone else’s spouse would,” Hangman retorted, getting a bit annoyed with all of the questions. “Why?”

“Well, we’ve got to meet Mrs. Seresin,” Rooster drawled, folding his arms across his chest. “Since we’ve heard so much about her.”

“Do you even have a picture of her?” Fanboy questioned, causing Hangman to shoot him an annoyed look.

“Yes.”

“Well, are you going to show it to us?”

“No,” Hangman snorted, shaking his head. “No, I’m not.”

The Daggers continued to list of questions that Hangman half-answered, half-gave bullshit responses, before Hangman spotted a familiar silver car rolling into the lot. Ignoring the Daggers, he set his drink down and got up from his seat, slipping around the railings on the back porch of the Hard Deck to greet his wife. Coyote was about to take a sip of his drink when he found five sets of eyes trained on him.

“I’m not telling you guys anything,” Coyote stated, shaking his head. “They’ll be here in five seconds.”

“So, you knew the whole time that Hangman was married?” Payback questioned, causing Coyote to nod in return. “And you never thought to mention that?”

“Not my business to tell.”

“Jake!” a shrill voice that definitely belonged to a little kid broke through the air.

The Daggers all quickly pivoted from Coyote to the boardwalk where a girl, probably around six, sprinted down the wooden path. Hangman picked up his pace and scooped her into his arms, lifting her off the ground effortlessly. And if the Daggers weren’t confused and befuddled before at Hangman’s personal life, they sure were now.

“He’s a dad!?”

“What the hell is he doing with a kid!? This is Hangman we’re talking about, right?”

“She called him Jake, dumbasses,” Phoenix pointed out, though she watched the interaction closely. “What kid calls their dad by their first name?”

Hangman kept walking with the girl in his arms, chatting excitedly with her. Then another kid, a boy probably three or four years old, jumped up onto the boardwalk and raced towards Hangman as well. The Daggers grew even more confused. Hangman leaned over and scooped him up like he weighed nothing, pressing a kiss to the side of the boy’s head.

A woman finally stepped out from in between two cars and pulled Jake in for a tight hug, which he tried to return as best he could with two kids in his arms. The Daggers watched their interaction like hawks but gave each other confused looks when the woman, who they presumed was Jake’s wife, pulled away with just a kiss pressed to his cheek.

“That’s his wife, right?” Rooster asked Coyote, who nodded. “They’re not that affectionate?”

“Maybe five strangers staring at them makes them a little uncomfortable,” Coyote suggested, taking a sip from his beer.

Hangman eventually led his family to the back of the Hard Deck, dreading the conversation that awaited him. Jake’s wife glanced up at the Daggers, who were clearly waiting for them, before turning to Jake. Nudging him gently with her hip, she jerked her head in the direction of his squad.

“Did you tell them anything?”

“Nope,” Jake replied, shaking his head. “Not a single thing.”

The family of four made their way up to the back deck. Setting Leila on the ground and taking her hand as they walked up the stairs, Hangman finally turned to face the stunned and even more curious Daggers. Leila hid a bit behind his leg, always a bit shy around strangers, but he rested a hand on her shoulder to remind her that he was there and that it was all alright.

“Everyone, this is my family. Family, these are the Daggers,” Hangman introduced, half-assed, earning an immediate poke in the side from his wife. Gritting his teeth slightly, Hangman restarted. “Daggers, this is Leila and this is Tyler and this is my wife, Sophie”

After Hangman introduced her, Sophie waved politely in greeting to the Daggers, who awkwardly waved back to her. Withholding an eyeroll, Hangman started on the introductions in the other direction.

“Guys, that’s Bob, Phoenix, Rooster, Fanboy, Payback, and you already know Coyote,” Hangman listed off, pointing at each Dagger as he spoke.

“Javy!” Leila called, running over to greet him.

“Hey, Firecracker,” Coyote joked, picking Leila up and setting her on the stool that Hangman had been sitting on before.

From there, the awkwardness slowly dissipated. Very slowly, but it did dissipate just a bit. Leila and Tyler were running around on the back deck, laughing and stretching their legs after the long car ride down from Lemoore. Hangman had switched his beer for a water and returned from inside the bar with a drink for his wife, whose order he knew from heart.

They were in the middle of a conversation, though Hangman thought that it was bordering on an interrogation with some of the other Daggers when Sophie’s phone started to buzz with a weird ringtone. In an instant, Jake turned to where Leila and Tyler were playing.

“Tyler, come over here,” he called, causing them to stop.

Hangman picked up his wife’s phone and tapped it, causing Tyler to pout. Tyler begrudgingly trudged over to where Jake and Sophie were sitting and Jake quickly scooped him up and sat him on his lap. Meanwhile, Sophie had been rifling around in her purse, pulling out a separate bag.

“Fruit snacks or the granola bar?” his wife asked Tyler, holding out both items.

Tyler quickly leaned over and grabbed the fruit snacks before turning around to hand them to Hangman. Taking them without hesitation or delay, Hangman ripped the package open and poured the fruit snacks into his hand for Tyler, who started to slowly eat them one by one. The other Daggers seemed a bit confused, though Bob instantly recognized the situation.

“He’s Type 1?” Bob guessed, causing Sophie to nod sadly.

“Yes, he is,” she replied, checking her phone again. She showed Jake her screen, causing him to encourage Tyler to eat the remaining fruit snacks in his hand, before turning back to Bob. “You know someone with Type 1?”

“No, my dad has Type 2. My sister has the same set up on her phone,” Bob explained, causing Jake’s wife to nod slowly.

Tyler seemed a bit upset, though resigned to his situation, but Hangman did his best to try and make it enjoyable for him. Teasing Tyler for his choice in fruit snacks, hiding them and pretending to find them in random spots, and other very un-Hangman-like actions that caused most of the Daggers to grow even more confused at the situation, Hangman blocked all of that out and just focused on Tyler.

“Alright, just hang on for a second, bud,” Jake told Tyler, who clearly wanted to play again.

After they were sure that Tyler’s glucose levels were stable, Hangman set Tyler back on his own two feet. Leila, who had been chatting loudly with Coyote and Fanboy, let out a shriek and started to run after her brother again as if nothing had happened to disturb them in the first place.

“How long have you known that he has it?” Rooster asked, watching Leila and Tyler play.

“About two years now,” Sophie explained, folding her arms underneath her as she rested them on the picnic table. “He was only a couple months old when his doctor suspected something. Took some time to get an official diagnosis.”

“He doesn’t seem to let it get him down,” Payback commented, watching Tyler laugh and run around Coyote.

“No, he doesn’t,” Sophie replied with a soft smile. “He’s like my sister.”

“Your sister has Type 1 too?”

“No . . . she didn’t,” Sophie stated softly, her tone earning a few confused looks.

“Leila and Tyler are her niece and nephew,” Hangman supplied, gently resting the outside of his thigh against his wife’s own to remind her that he was there for her.

“My sister and her husband died a few years ago,” Sophie continued quietly, shifting a bit in her seat. “I got custody after they passed and after Jake and I got married, he adopted them.”

And suddenly all of the pieces were starting to fall into place.

Leila eventually came running over, asking if they could go down to the beach. Sophie got up to take them down herself, not trusting two kids who grew up in desert territory to know anything about ocean water safety. And when they were gone, all eyes fell on Hangman. After a long, drawn out sigh, he slowly narrowed his eyes at his squad mates.

“If any of you fuckers even think about going to the brass about it,” Hangman vowed, pointing menacingly over at the gathered Daggers.

“Dude, no one here is looking to take insulin from a little kid,” Fanboy stated quietly.

It wasn’t exactly uncommon for service members to get married for the benefits. And hell, you would have had to have been a completely selfish, heartless, brown-nosing government lapdog to try and get someone in trouble for making sure that a kid with a treatable condition lived happily without bankrupting his family.

“How did you meet your wife then? You knew her before the kids’ parents died?”

“Yeah. We were in a long term . . . situation-ship at the time,” Hangman recalled, earning familiar looks from his teammates. “And she told me that it was a lot to handle and she didn’t expect me to hang around, especially because I was deployed at the time. I came back home to visit her and saw how stressed she looked—she was crying, Tyler was still in the hospital at that point, Leila was barely talking . . .” Jake trailed off, a dark expression coming over his face. “I didn’t think. I just told her to marry me and I’d get it figured out. And I did. They live up with me in Lemoore now.”

“And you guys have an open relationship?” Rooster guessed, earning a sharp glare from Hangman immediately.

“No,” Jake replied bluntly.

“Not even a little?” Rooster asked, alluding to Hangman’s flirtatious personality.

“No,” Hangman stated, folding his arms in front of him. “We’re not.”

“But you’re not in love, are you?”

“That’s complicated,” Jake responded, loosening his posture a bit sheepishly.

“Yes, they are,” Coyote called back, earning a look from Hangman.

“Yes, they are what?” Sophie called out, strolling forward with Leila and a soaked Tyler beside her.

“What happened?” Jake asked, standing up from the table.

“Leila thought that it would be funny to push her brother into the ocean,” Sophie returned, shooting her niece a look. “She thought wrong.”

“He kept pulling on me!” Leila whined, stomping her foot on the ground. “I told him to stop! And he didn’t listen!”

“Well, that’s no reason to try to drown him. Go, sit on the bench right there. Now,” she ordered, causing Leila to huff but follow her order.

“I’ll take him,” Jake offered, walking forward to grab a soaked Tyler from his spot next to Sophie. “Come on, Ty, let’s get you dry.”

Jake reached out his hand for the keys, which his wife handed over without even a look in his direction. It was that smooth, that natural. Jake held Tyler, who had started to shiver despite the warmth, in his arms, not caring in the slightest that some of the ocean water was now soaking his own clothes. Coyote seemed rather amused at the shocked expressions on his teammate’s faces, which Jake blatantly ignored as he strolled away.

“What?” Sophie asked, spotting their confused expressions.

“Nothing,” they all echoed back to her.

Prologue Part 2 Part 3

#top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick #top gun: maverick #top gun #tgm #tgm fanfiction #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin #hangman fic #jake hangman fic #hangman seresin #hangman top gun #hangman fluff #jake hangman seresin x oc #jake seresin fic #jake seresin x oc #jake seresin fanfiction #jake seresin imagine #hangman x oc #hangman fanfiction #top gun hangman #hangman

[deadbeat-motel]

For my rewrite, I wanted to tie each sinner who's staying at the motel to a specific deadly sin to make it easier to understand what got them in hell and just for the fun of it.

It doesn't apply to the rest of hell to have a specific sin, but I thought it was interesting that the inhabitants of the motel will represent a sin.

Some of these characters are still rough ideas and will be subjected to some changes once i finalize the actual lores for these characters:

First up, Angel Dust is easy to confuse as Lust because most people might assume that since he's a sex worker, its probably what got him in hell right? Though, his sin had nothing to do with being lustful since he didnt become a sex worker until then (plus being a sex worker doesnt warrant someone a tacket straight to hell). Instead what really did him in was Gluttony since it was his appetite for vices that got him into trouble and also inadvertently lead to his death and it was that appettite that lead him to take any and all clients to feed his appetite for angeldust.

Nifty's sin is Lust, though not in the traditional sexual sense that we know. For her sin's sake, Lust is all about an uncontrollable desire that leads one to do horrible acts in order to attain what they've been obsessing over. In the rewrite, I was going to let her be a lot younger (most likely an adolescent-young teen) with a very skewed sense of what romance/love is like and have her lean in more towards a yandere-type character or a crappy creepypasta kid character (think Nina the killer levels of crappypasta). I'm torn between the two ideas at the moment.

[Also fun fact, hearing that nifty was a japanese woman from the 1950's kind of took me off because googling it, she wouldve been a woman who grew up in the middle of world war 2 and lived through a bit of the Post war boom if we assumed she's also american as well. Having someone with a background like that who acts like she's mentally a child makes it feel like Viv did no research at all.]

Husk's sin remains as Greed, as gambling just seems so hard to quit for him, even when his life is on the line, especially when he's cheating death so many times. Maybe it was after he had his first close encounter with death in his youth... or the few couple of times during the war... that he began to think of himself as too lucky to die. Unfortunately for him, he'd have to learn the hard way that whatever force that was trying to save him can't do anything about his own body failing from years of self-destructive alcoholism.

[Husk will literally kill me with all the research I'll have to do from 1910-1970 to get his story straight.]

Alastor is one Prideful mf. As an intelligent serial killer (possibly cannibal), he was able to evade the police whilst keeping the high-profile radio host job he killed others for. He enjoyed leaving clues and slipping little hints around his scene that stumped the entire police department. In the end, getting sloppy because of his own overconfidence in his abilities was what did him in and he was chased down and shot by a hunter in his escape.

Sir Pentious is Envious of the Victorian family and those above the middle class. He believed that he deserved to have the same kind of privileges they have especially since he was a brilliant inventor who believed he could forward Great Britain to a greater future. So he gave up 15 years trying to take over the monarchy by himself and failing miserably. He died due to an invention gone wrong and that was the day Great Britain was rid of its persistent annoyance.

[Some people may read about him in history books and confuse him for an anti-monarchist when this man's entire goal was to replace the monarchy with himself.]

Cherri Bomb grew up as a resentful youth of the Japanese 70's being a sukeban of a delinquent girl gang. Their Wrath was known all across the other local schools in their area and they were known for their sheer brutality. However, Cherri Bomb in particular was also feared by other members of the gang as she was ruthless punishing those who wanted to leave the group. She doesn't ever disclose how she died to others and thus no one is ever really sure how she ended up down here but no one really feels the need to ask.

[I'm extremely unfamiliar with Australian history so Cherri Bomb will have to have grown up in Japanese 70-80's delinquent culture.]

.

There's one sin left.... but since I don't really have anyone in the HH cannon that could realistically fit Sloth, I'm left with two options: Characterizing the blank slate that is Crymini myself or leaving the last resident as a community effort "Build-a-Sinner."

So first poll ive done but....

#hazbin hotel critical #hazbin hotel redesign #vivziepop critical #deadbeat motel rewrite #hazbin hotel criticism #deadbeat motel alastor #deadbeat motel angel dust #deadbeat motel nifty #deadbeat motel husk #deadbeat motel sir pentious #deadbeat motel cherri bomb

[toastandjamie]

You know how in a previous post I talked briefly about how Mat is subversion of masculinity? Yeah that but now I’m also going to talk about how all of that and the contradicting nature of his character can all be traced back to him being Odin. Bare with me lmao.

So let’s start with the fact that Odin as a god covers a LOT of domains, and a lot of them contradict eachother. He’s a god of war and death but he’s also a god of healing and poetry. He’s a god of wisdom and knowledge but also frenzy and bloodlust. A god of royalty favored by princes and also a good of thieves and tricksters. The Allfather indeed! Odin is a god but very importantly he’s Mortal, he’s a god of wisdom because he seeks it out, he is a surprising Human god, with complex and often selfish motivations. Which is very perfect for a character like Mat. But this post isn’t just going to be me pointing out every single thing about Odin that parallels Mat because we’d be here all day and even though I can because everytime a mythological reference appears in those books and twirl my hair and kick my feet I will refrain lol

The main focus of this post is talk about one really interesting facet of Odin’s domains and myths. And that is his connection to magic, specifically the distinctly feminine magic tradition of Seihdr(and that in of itself is a whole thing that’s makes me scream and blather in reference to wheel of time). Odin stands out as a male practitioner of Seihdr, which is traditionally considered a ‘feminine’ craft. Seidhr is a type of magic related to telling and shaping the future(so no shock Odin as the ever curious god of knowledge practiced it) but according to Snorri in the Ynglinga saga the practice of Seidhr leaves the practitioner weak and helpless thus male practitioners were considered ‘ergi’ a designation for men in Norse society who were unmanly and feminine. Odin was no exception being called ‘ergi’ by Loki in Lokasenna.

This is really interesting when we view Mat’s characterization through this lens. Specifically he’s described in relation to other more traditionally masculine characters and his relationship to the one power specifically Saidar. Long before I did any research involving Seidhr and Odin I had noted to myself that Mat would’ve had an easier time channeling Saidar vs Saidine. I’ve always felt that Mat was better at embracing and submitting to power and change than he ever was at forcing it, which of course is mostly because of his adaptability and flexibility which make him such a great general in the first place. There’s a reason Mat never got a handle of the flame and the void despite both Rand and Lan trying to teach him in books 1 and 2. Mat also acts the most like the women in the series in comparison to say Rand or Perrin. jokingly I’ve mentioned how in Shadow Rising a big plot point in Rand and Elayne’s relationship is a miscommunication because Elayne was upset Rand didn’t ask her to stay when she left for Tanchico, and Mat practically has the same exact fight with Rand over Rand not asking HIM to stay when he said he was going to leave before the battle at Cairihan. I also want to point out that in the Wheel of Time, daggers and throwing knives are mainly used by women(see, Min, Faile, Berelain, Tuon) with Mat and Thom being the only men we see using throwing knives(something something the idea that subterfuge and caution are feminine traits) while swords and axes are mainly used by men or women specifically breaking gender convention such as Cha Faile and Elayne’s Queen’s Guard. interestingly spears(Mat’s other weapon of choice) is an androgynous weapon used by both men and women(this is solely because the entire Aiel culture uses spears and will fight with them), bows are also a relatively androgynous weapon in the context of WoT used pretty universally. There’s also something to be said about how the entire subplot with Tylin puts Mat in the role of the ‘pursued’ or as Mat himself puts it ‘the woman’ where Tylin takes the commanding and dominant role in their dynamic. There’s a whole different essay to be written about Mat’s romantic relationships and the vast power dynamic disparity in them and how the relationships with Tylin and Melindra primed him for the way his dynamic with Tuon works but once again that’s a different essay.

Mat’s relationship with the one power is also really interesting, because for a non-channeler he’s pretty heavily linked with magic. He’s effected by the magic inherent in the world despite for all intensive purposes being perfectly normal to start with. The Aelfinn and the Eelfin, the fact that he’s hunted by the Gholam who was created solely to assassinate channelers. Both of his sisters being born with the spark and him marrying a woman who was trained as a sul’dam(and in a prophetic vision said woman literally collaring him after we had just been introduced to the concept of a’dams). His medallion that negates channeling, the cursed dagger and him getting the first powerwrought weapon of the series in his Ashandarei. Mat’s practically rolling in magic nonsense despite wanting nothing to do with it. Not all of this was created by the one power, but he’s still very associated with it whether he wants to be or not. It’s also probably safe to say that between his sisters and being Ta’veren it’s likely he could probably learn to channel if he wanted to, of course he never would want to learn and as I established earlier I think he’d have a hard time channeling Saidine in the first place. Trying to wrestle a force of nature using brute force isn’t exactly his forte.

There’s also another essay about Mat and Elayne’s dynamic and how I think Elayne is a Freya parallel, and how that relates to Odin and Freya being the two patron gods of Seidhr- but I digress.

#wheel of time #mat cauthon #wheel of time spoilers #major wot book spoilers #minor wot book spoilers #wot meta #long post

[slaviclore]

cheatsheet to your slav folkloric downfall

Since several people had questions about the lore that inspired this poll, I'll jot some notes down about what I was thinking. All of these have long and complex tradition that can't possibly fit in a tumblr post, but there's tons of great content on tumblr alone, so pls feel free to scroll through my tags for more info (you may like "demons", "witches", or "original art" for contemporary interpretations of the lore...) or use this post as a springboard for more research.

Because much of Slavic folklore was passed down orally and not written down, and because it covers a wide geographical range and is told in different languages, there are many versions of common stories, tropes, characters, etc.

***

Baba Yaga is a witch, super popular, tons of great lore about her, historical and contemporary. She was never just one single entity, but rather a version of herself in many different stories (more like fanfiction than like canon). Her character is inherently unpredictable, existing outside our societal rules and moral compass, and the variability in lore makes her even more impossible to predict. A young woman named Vasilisa did manage to perform all of Baba Yaga's tasks to her instruction, but not without her own magical help. Sometimes Baba Yaga is helpful and reasonable, and sometimes she will just casually eat you like a handful of berries. You never know what you're going to get.

The fern flower is a beautiful mythical flower that offers its holder immense knowledge and magic. It blooms very briefly only once a year during Noc Kupały (in Polish, the EN is Kupala Night). If you want to find it, you'll probably grab your boyfriend (gender neutral) around dusk and poke around your local woods for a while before giving up and just making out and then meeting up with your friends afterwards like "did you find it?" "no we didn't find it :( did you find it?" "nooo :(". Really, this is about seducing the boy you like, since you probably need magic just to see the flower anyway. If you do manage to find it and pick it, tons of greedy demons will appear and chase you to attempt to take it from you (and your life). You have to outrun or outsmart the demons. The demons may be metaphors for the corrupting forces of great power.

There are tons of ways to get lost in the woods. Some people help themselves by tying ribbons to trees as they go, but anything can spook you -- you can run into a demon, a werewolf, a ghost, a witch, a cat, anything -- and if you have to run away, you will most likely lose your way in the process. More specifically, if you have annoyed a leshy (a forest spirit/god-type thing who protects nature), he will use magic to confuse you, and even if you're very good at Not Getting Lost In The Woods, you're kind of screwed. You think YOU won't piss off the Leshy? Oops you just stepped on his favorite beetle -- screwed. Leshy can be placated with offerings of food and drink, but sometimes he needs something bigger...

There are actually lots of hot girls who live in lakes, much to the delight of about 20% of you, but probably the most common are the rusalki -- dead girls who experienced some tragedy in life, probably ending in drowning, and are now exacting revenge on the living, especially men. They will seduce you, take you into the water, and drown you with their hair, or possibly tickle you to death. Baby marry me, amirite? The original rusalka lore was probably nicer to them, treating them more like water spirits than vengeful ghosts. Rusalki are not mermaids and appear as women with legs. We do have mermaids, but usually these are river or sea beings -- the most famous is probably Syrenka Warszawska (the Warsaw Mermaid) who lives in the river Wisła and will not attempt to kill you unless you're trying to invade Warsaw, but also she's a warrior queen and you have no shot.

Slavic mythological entities love riddles, and if you're good at riddles you are really going to help yourself, but you don't want to get into that situation unless you have no other choice. A common demon you meet on the side of the road will probably not give you a hard one, but Poludnica (the Slovak name) will find you at high noon while you're working hard in the fields and the sun's been beating down on your head since dawn and you're feeling woozy and dehydrated, and she'll give you the hardest riddle you've ever heard, and you're going to blow it, and she's going to cut off your head with her scythe or give you heat stroke. If it's any consolation, she may be hot (pun intended). Pro tip: you may also wield riddles to your advantage. Demons are as egoistic as you are and can be enticed into solving your riddle. If you stump them, you may assure your safe getaway.

Human characters in Slavic lore tend to be young and naive, representing the listener of the tale, since they can't use magic or navigate the world they are entering. Knowledge and magic are two sides of the same coin, so if you want to survive, you will need to gain some wisdom (learning some riddles will help). Being nice is not good enough, but! If by being nice you manage to seduce someone who has access to knowledge and magic, or get adopted by a bored witch with an axe to grind, you'll really help yourself out.

The path to the endless dead wood is guarded by a giant magical cat, whose name I never knew but have recently learned that the Russians call him Baiyun (latinized name, obvi). If you ask Vasilisa, she'll tell you that sometimes he lives with Baba Yaga, but generally he hangs out on the boundary to some other dimension. Probably, if you go to meet the cat, it's because somebody sent you there to get rid of you, so if you survive the cat, whoever is trying to kill you will probably keep trying so fyi. Baiyun will purr or tell a tale in such a soothing way that you fall asleep, and then he'll eat you. If you manage not to fall asleep, you may attempt to catch him and earn magic. But probably you're cat food.

***

There you have it. If you learned your story differently, let me know! And if you're ever lost in a Slavic forest, you can put your clothes on inside out and maybe that'll break the magic. Good luck.

#slavic folklore #your slav folkloric downfall #demons #witches #deities #baba yaga #leshy #original art #original writing #rusalka #poludnica #poludnitsa #cat baiyun

[barrenclan]

begging some of yall not to idolize deepdark and defiance how you do. i have a friend who’s actually lived through a cult’s wrath and they r mega not cool. like i know defiance is narratively AMAZING but we. shouldn’t put it on a pedestal of “oh this thing is so cool and its leaders are amazing” because ultimately it’s safer for everyone if we start recognizing that while yea defiance + deepgang are cool… theyre still a cult. and we should not be viewing them positively at all. cults are inherently models of rigorous and severe repeated abuse, and by romanticizing them you are inherently romanticizing abuse. i don’t think you’re bad for letting this happen, raz, i just think that if you have any sympathy for cult survivors you should have stopped it before now. Especially as the comic ramps up towards the inevitable climax of the cult in it doing many awful things to the main characters. I know no one here intended to romanticize it, but by treating deepdark and other leaders of this cult as silly uwu murder cult guys we are actively doing that.

thank you for listening if you did, and i hope this feedback helps us all grow.

Well, thank you for sharing your concerns, I appreciate it a lot, as well as explaining the reasons this is important to you. Nothing you said is incorrect or invalid! I do have a few other thoughts I wanna share along with this ask.

Firstly; Defiance is fictional, and more than that it's not based on any real world cult. I obviously had to do some research and take some general real-world influence, mostly because I wanted to capture the kind of personality that exists in cult leaders with Deepdark, but in the end it's a completely made-up group. I actually based their group structure much more on a mafia-like organization than a traditional religious cult. There is a sliding scale for these sorts of things in stories of course, topics that are treated with varying levels of severity based on our culture, and everyone is going to be affected by them differently based on personal experience anyways. I refer to Defiance as a "combination death cult and mafia" sort of flippantly (which is my own fault) because just calling it a "group" is sort of vague, non-descript term. But its structure and actions are way, way more dramatic and obvious than any cult that exists today, or existed previously.

With the kind of fanbase I've gathered, I would like to believe my readership is able to separate the difference between talking about real-world cults and fictional ones. No one I've seen is actually idolizing Defiance as something to genuinely be admired, outside of talking about and making up in-universe characters who do so. Deepdark is fun, and dramatic, and over-the-top, because I made him that way, so it's natural that people like him. But no one is saying that it's good to be like Deepdark, or that he's some sort of aspirational goal (I hope! If you are, we'll have words!). I do believe that in the story itself I've pretty thoroughly conveyed how cruel and malicious Defiance & its members are. In fact I've pretty intensely tried to emphasize the insidious way that cults hurt people, and the danger of charismatic leaders like Deepdark! Maybe I've failed a bit in that regard, then.

But besides all that - your points are very valuable and worth repeating, and I will be more on the lookout for anything treating Defiance's impact irreverantly, and either delete or correct it. I have a feeling people are not going to be happy with them anyways, as they continue to hurt more of our main characters.

Real-life cults are not as obvious and over-dramatic like Defiance. Many ordinary people like you and me are deeply hurt by them all the time, and any time you joke about Deepdark's murdering or silly lieutenant shenanigans, it's always important to keep in mind that there are tons of real-life people like Deepdark out there. I never wanted to come across as unsympathetic for real-world victims of cults. Making people think more deeply about the various shades of gray and subtle acts of evil that exist in our world, as well as the inherent humanity that exists in people who do terrible things regardless, are some of my goals with creating PATFW in the first place.

#ask #anon #deepdark #defiance #advice

[samwisethewitch]

15 Days of Freyja Devotion

Day 6: Relations to Other Gods

This is where it gets... controversial.

So. Keeping in mind that true, pre-Christian Heathenry is not well documented, and keeping in mind that "Heathenry" is an umbrella term for a collection of regional traditions that could and did contradict each other, it's hard to make generalizations about the gods and their relationships to each other. Two seemingly contradictory interpretations can both be supported by textual and archaeological sources, and may in fact have coexisted historically. This becomes especially clear when talking about Freyja's relationships to the other gods. What is presented in this post is my own interpretation based on research and personal experience. Other Heathens may disagree, and that's okay.

As I mentioned on Day 2, Freyja is the daughter of Njord and an unnamed mother and is the sister of Freyr. This, at least, is pretty consistent across all Norse Heathen traditions.

Freyja's husband is called Odr. Some scholars, such as Jackson Crawford, believe that Odr is Odin, and I tend to agree. Odr and Odin seem to be different forms of the same name, and Odr is described as a mad wanderer, which sounds a lot like Odin. There are also places in the Poetic Edda where Freyja seems to be referred to as Odin's wife or lover.

On a more personal note, I experience Freyja and Odin as deities that are very closely connected. There is a lot of overlap in their powers and associations, and they seem to frequently work together. Based on this and the textual evidence, I tend to see Odin and Freyja as partners and spouses.

Freyja is also sometimes said to be the consort of her brother, Freyr. Remember, the Eddas say sibling marriages are a common practice among the Vanir, so this wouldn't have been seen as a taboo, incestuous pairing. I think it's also important to note that while the gods are like humans in some ways, they are also abstract ideas and, in some cases, forces of nature. As siblings and lovers, I see Freyr and Freyja as embodying the male/masculine and female/feminine aspects of fertility. (This makes it even more interesting that they both subvert Norse gender roles in some ways -- for example, Freyr gives up his ability to fight while Freyja revels in warfare.)

I am comfortable saying that both Freyr and Odin are Freyja's partners and lovers. The Old Norse practiced what we would recognize as polyamory or open relationships, so it makes sense that Freyja, like many of the Aesir, would have multiple lovers.

In Old Norse society, marriages were literal legal contracts and were often used to seal alliances and treaties. (In Anglo-Saxon England, which is not Norse but is a related culture, brides were called "Peace Weavers" because of how common these political marriages were.) It makes sense that Freyja, who is important or possibly royal among the Vanir, would be married to Odin, the chief of the Aesir. We know Freyja and her family went to live with the Aesir as peace hostages after a war between the Aesir and the Vanir. A marriage contract between Odin and Freyja would have helped keep war from breaking out again.

I see Freyja's partners as reflecting different sides of her as a goddess. Freyr reflects and complements her associations with sex, fertility, love, beauty, and agriculture. Odin reflects and complements her associations with magic, battle, death, and prophecy. Interestingly, both Odin and Freyr are associated with kingship and were said to have fathered lines of mortal kings, which may hint at some sovereignty aspects for Freyja.

And because I know someone is going to bring it up if I don't: yes, Frigg is also called Odin's wife and is arguably given this title more often than Freyja in the Eddas. Again, because having more than one lover was socially acceptable to the Old Norse, I don't necessarily see this as a contradiction. Maybe Frigg is Odin's wife and Freyja is his concubine. Maybe he was married to both of them at different times, but divorced one and then married the other. Maybe they're a functioning polycule. I don't necessarily need to know the answers to love and respect the gods.

There is a popular academic theory that Frigg and Freyja were originally one goddess, and I do see some truth in it. Talking about this theory would easily double the length of this post, so I'll just link to Jackson Crawford's excellent video on this instead.

I mostly agree with Crawford's conclusion that Frigg and Freyja were originally a single sex-and-queenship-and-motherhood-and-magic goddess who was Odin's wife, and that they had recently split and were in the process of becoming differentiated when the Conversion began. In terms of modern worship, I see them as separate but closely connected goddesses with some shared functions, similar to how I see the three Morrigan sisters in Irish polytheism.

#15 days of freyja devotion #15 days of deity devotion #freyja goddess #freyja #freyja deity #norse heathen #norse heathenry #inclusive heathenry #heathenry #heathen #pagan #paganism #deity work #mine #polyamory

[put-me-out-of-my-destiny]

Family is an important theme in every DMC game. Dante and Vergil are always grappling with Sparda and Eva's legacy, and now Nero has to deal with Dante and Vergil's baggage. It seems DMC characters tend to have complicated relationships with their parents, and the supporting characters are no exception.

Lady is an obvious example. She became a devil hunter in DMC3 because her father, Arkham, murdered her mother in a bid for demonic power. Near the end of the game, Lady kills Arkham, which a line in DMC5 suggests has weighed heavily on her since. On the note of family, an ancestor of Lady's happened to be a priestess who aided Sparda in a ritual to seal away the demon world.

Side note, I've been told it's canon that this ritual killed her, but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Sparda didn't have to give a lethal amount of blood for the sake of the ritual, and Lady didn't give a lethal amount of blood to break it. Neither did Dante or Vergil, for that matter. It means little either way, the sacrifice was almost certainly willing, and she'd be long dead by the present anyway, but it still bugs me a little.

Trish doesn't really have parents in the traditional sense, but she was created by someone: Mundus. But Mundus saw her as expendable, easily recreated, little more than a tool to lure Dante to his death. Ultimately, Trish aided Dante in defeating him, and she became a devil hunter herself.

Trish was also made in the image of Dante's mother, Eva. While Trish never met the woman, it's an undeniable fact that Trish wouldn't exist in the same capacity without her - one could also consider her to be a parent to Trish, or at least like some kind of magical sperm donor.

Wether you choose to look at it that way or not, Trish has definitely endured both Dante and Vergil (as V) projecting their feelings about Eva onto her, though the former seems to have gotten over that, and the latter hasn't interacted with her much at all. Despite this, Trish continues using Eva's face, even though she can change her appearance.

On the subject of Dante, one could assume that she was adopted into his family in some way, given that she was trusted to wield Sparda's sword and his pistols. She carries his legacy just as much as Dante does, even though she doesn't share his blood.

Lucia, like Trish, was artificially made, in her case by a human sorcerer named Arius. Mundus only remarked that he could easily recreate Trish, but Arius actually proved it - Lucia is one of many "secretary" demons, and a defective one at that. She was discarded by Arius, and adopted by Matier, who raised Lucia as her own daughter. Later, Matier directly states that Lucia being adopted doesn't diminish their relationship, and that shared history is more important than blood.

Learning of her true nature was disastrous for Lucia: believing she would eventually become a threat to innocent people, she attacked Dante and demanded that he kill her. She later volunteers for a suicide mission because she sees herself as "expendable". I'm not aware that she ever came to terms with these feelings, and I wonder what would become of her if she no longer had Matier to support her.

I suspect that Nero and Kyrie's dynamic - as it's been said, Nero wouldn't be so well-adjusted without her - would be relatable to Lucia.

Moving on from characters who've been playable (so far), Nico's parentage is extremely important. Her father is Agnus, a scientist who created many kinds of artificial demons for the Order of the Sword, even becoming one himself. Agnus abandoned Nico at an early age, and when her mother died, she was adopted by her uncle, Rock Goldstein, who happens to be the son of Nell Goldstein, the gunsmith who made Ebony and Ivory. Nico became a gunsmith herself, and later used her biological father's research for the benefit of a devil hunter, Nero.

Finally, Kyrie's parents were killed before the events of DMC4, so the only family she had left was her brother Credo. In that game, Credo turns out to have become a demon, and to be involved in a plot by her religious organization to open hell gates in Fortuna to draw out and destroy demons (or something). Once Kyrie is used as bait to capture Nero, Credo turns on his superiors, and is promptly killed for it. Suffice to say, Kyrie must have some very complicated feelings about her family, as well as her religion, but such feelings haven't been made known.

It's also worth noting that Kyrie, along with Nero, has taken in three children - Kyle, Carlo, and Julio - further continuing the theme of adopted family.

With the exception of Lady, all of the characters above have some relationship with an adopted or chosen family. With the exception of Lady and Kyrie, all of them have had apathetic father figures who abandoned, discarded, or used them.

So if we ever get that female-led spinoff game (and it's actually any good), then family should be a major theme. But unlike the main series, this entry should have an additional emphasis on chosen families. And whatever tangible threat the cast faces, it should be one that can be a vehicle to explore those themes.

#devil may cry #my thoughts #lady dmc #trish dmc #lucia dmc #nico dmc #nicoletta goldstein #kyrie dmc #quen speaking

[maxwellatoms]

The Steam version of Dwarf Fortress is coming out next week, and I’m pretty excited about it. As much as I love the game, the UI of the stock version is a hot mess. Just like this fire snake that crawled out of the smithee and burned down the broker’s offices and lower tavern before the mayor finally chomped it to death with her teeth. When I start a new game, I usually research the world to help out with the RP experience. If (for example) my dwarves worship a giant Great Horned Owl of Death, I’ll probably have them build a big inverted temple where they can sacrifice goblins by tossing them down a forty level pit onto an iron statue of heir deity. I actually did that once. Usually a lot of fun stories and characters come out of the game, and it’s a tradition to draw them so I’ll try to share some stuff here once I start!

#dwarf fortress #steam #adventure! #hot snakes

[justagirl-with-thoughts]

unicorns are kind of horrifying

The Unicorn Tapestries, also known as the Hunt of the Unicorn, created around 1495-1505, and is made out of wool warp, wool, silk, silver, and gilt wefts, the tapestries are currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

If you didn't know, unicorns were kind of messed up at first.

In the Medieval Ages there was an incredible amount of lore surrounding the unicorn. There are different possibilities as to how the idea of this creature came to be about, but in whatever case, the legend was obviously lasting.

I'd like to detail some of the research I had been doing on the Medieval lore of this creature.*

The image above comes from a specific set of tapestries that detail a hunt of a unicorn. Every detail of these tapestries is honestly beautiful and often symbolic.

To summarize the key point of the legend, the unicorn was a very temperamental creature, and know one could go near it. In some tapestry scene the unicorn is shown to impale its attackers on its horn, so it was not exactly a defenseless creature.

Here is where the legend gets...annoying. The only person who could tame this creature was a young virgin girl. Obviously this is gross, and some Medieval writers and artists took this idea in really gross directions**, but I would like to attempt to understand the reasoning behind this aspect of the lore.

For one, the Middle Ages in Western Europe was where a lot of the traditional Catholic beliefs and traditions were really fostered, so naturally it affected the art made. In many cases, it is believed the unicorn was a symbol of Christ so this piece could have been an allegory for the life and death of Christ.

Then, the Virgin Mary was a highly worshiped holy figure, so the symbol of "the virgin" was respected. Having this idea of a virgin in the story likely had some secular motivations that meant to encourage this idea of purity in women, but it is also likely that the inclusion of the virgin figure was meant to amplify the importance of this creature.

Remember, people believed unicorn were real, and anything people could make into a religious symbol, they did. If an artist was trying to express that the unicorn was a holy symbol for Christ, they had to include other visual clues like "the virgin".

For me, this is one of those things that I found really interesting, and wanted to think further about. I am curious as to how you could interpret the ideals of this legend and artwork. The history of this creature is vast and strange, it is fascinating to see how it involved with pop culture today knowing the disturbing origins.

-

*In this case I am referring to the Middle Ages rather generally, but I am more specifically focusing on the Western European lore. There are similar legends that come from East Asia, however, as well.

**I really do not want to detail some of the more disturbing/graphic aspects of this legend, but the article The Unicorn: Creature of Love by Teresa Noelle Roberts addresses some of history and more gory details rather tamely if you really wanna look into it.

#art history #folklore #unicorn #medieval #medieval ages #medieval art #art theory #ramblings #academia #history #middle ages #western Europe

[ultfreakme]

Cn I ask your top favorite fics that you've written (feel free how much that you want to list)? Why they're special to you? Is there a specific inspiration when you wrote them? Thanks....

Hey anon!!! Thanks for the ask!! Favorite fics...I've written. You've given me too much freedom by asking my why I like them I am so sorry for the wall of text about to hit.

To Veer The Tides

It's a fic for Kuroko no Basuke which is basically just me slapping the character names onto a WILDLY different fantasy setting. It's for Akashi x Furihata. An arranged marriage AU where Akashi is the son of an emperor who went too power hungry and wanted to consolidate 7 mostly independent states(provinces??) into one, but he was defeated by the remaining states and to control Akashi, he is arranged to marry far below his station to Furihata, son of a destroyed noble house which is under the rule of Kagami's state. So it's about Akashi climbing back to power with Furihata initially thinking Akashi is pure evil but he soon realizes that maybe Akashi and his family aren't as evil as the people believe.

I ended up doing so much research, world-building and character expansion. It's more political intrigue than romance, lol. I still love that fic to death, I think I honestly peaked there for world-building, at least. I wrote it immediately after reading and watching Mo Dao Zu Shi and being first introduced to the concept of cultivation as a magic system and really wanted to put all my faves in flowy robes and long hair.

I want to get back to it, but I've discontinued it because I am simply not qualified to right about Dissociative Identity Disorder, systems and alters. Akashi has a terribly stereotypical portrayal of it in canon and I thought maybe I could research enough to write that, but I just, I don't know any systems and I felt like if I can't respect it, I didn't want to do it.

But it's still my favorite in terms of the world and aesthetics I had going on for it.

2. Tell Me Your Story (I'll Tell You Mine)

My current baby. The one I incessantly post about and draw for. Single-handedly over saturating the kyoshi warrior sokka x blue spirit zuko market. It's set in the canon world but I had to do so much research for this one too. I learned a lot, I think, while writing this. Big lesson being never ever write in present tense but if you're 200K+ words into it there is simply no going back RIP.

It started as just a silly romance because I thought it'd be funny to have Sokka and Zuko be completely oblivious to who they like. But as I began plotting and writing, it transformed into me projecting all my issues with colonialism and using the ATLA setting as base to dip a little bit deeper into the themes the show itself brings up, and some issues that it doesn't. Like, how colonialism uses your own culture against you, how it makes you fear who you are, makes you do things you don't want.

I deliberately chose that title because lots of indigenous communities in the world have lost their stories because of colonialism. Oral traditions and tales that are forgotten because people were killed and forced to never repeat them, forced to forget their languages. And that, really got to me. How colonialism slowly strips you of what makes human beings what they are; stories, art, music, dance, etc.

So this fic ended up being about how colonialism steals from you, uses what is yours AGAINST you and how it is important to embrace who you are and fight back.

3. Tell The Neighbours I'm Not Sorry

It's for Jon and Jay from DC Comics and Superfam. I wrote it when I was seeing a lot of biphobia against Jon and racism against Jay. As a bi asian, even if it was towards fictional characters, it was getting to me. People kept talking about how there's a specific way to be bi. Why did Jon never have a crisis about being queer? Why did Jon and Jay move so fast? Is Jay manipulating Jon just to get what he wants? It was all filled with a lot of stereotypes and biases.

Superman comics especially often taken up real world issues and puts it into the story. So I took all my anger and frustration from the biphobia and racism and wrote it into a fic.

It's about how there's no one way to being queer, and about how immigrants and non-white people are immediately classified as some kind of 'other' and 'bad' with zero grounding. It's also a little bit about colonialism on Jay's end. It's so charged with me going "FUCK IT!" and still somehow came out okay as a fic and I think I like that I managed to turn my anger into something productive.

Bonus

4. An Itajun fic I have not published and am still writing

It's my first JJK fic! It's an absolute mess in my drafts right now but I really like it, it's very fun for me. Junpei starts seeing and sensing curses far earlier because of built resentment from his bullies going too far and severely injuring him, his mom finds out and they move to Yuuji's area of Tokyo to get away from the school since they won't do anything about the bullying. Yuuji and Junpei run into each other and meet early at school. So the dynamics are kinda reversed, where Junpei is the one who is into the world of curses first while Yuuji has no clue, but they slowly interact and come together, forming a tight bond.

Junpei trusts no one and is dealing with all this curse nonsense trying to understand what it means. Yuuji is seemingly happy and chipper but he's going through tough times because his grandpa got hospitalized. It's both of them supporting each other and making sure the other isn't alone.

#riki asks #zukka #akafuri #itajun #jonjay

[thestayathomedragon]

I've been thinking about Luis Serra a lot lately. Obviously. And I just feel even worse about the way things ended for him. And yeah sure there was hope at the end. He did save Leon and Ashley and by doing so probably a lot more people than he ever could have dreamed. But still I feel so badly for the way his story went.

And I know his death was meant to be seen as some kind of redemption in it's self but I can't help but think about all the lore you find on him in the village as you go through the game and how these events in his life turned him into what he became.

Like how losing his grandfather, the only family he had at such a young age left him out in the world on his own to have to figure so much out by himself. I mean he was born and raised in a isolated rural village out in the middle of nowhere Spain with a bunch of traditional devout Catholics.

What could he have possibly learned about the way society works outside of the village until he was actually outside of the village? How old was he when he left? I mean it's clear he was still a bit naive even after all he's already been through when we meet him, so imagine what he must have been like in the beginning of his journey.

Was he truly taken advantage of? And what exactly did that look like?

I mean he was convinced once, twice, almost three times that he was doing the right thing with his research that it was going to lead to helping people. Which he seemed obsessed with doing. So much so that he was blind to the consequences until it was too late. Even with Leon and Ashley. He wanted to help them so badly that he put himself into the line of fire time and time again.

I feel that he did truly do it because he wanted to feel better about his past mistakes but look at all the risks he took with Leon. Even Leon was scolding him about taking things more seriously toward the end. I don't believe he truly thought he would be killed.

I get that this was a remake but the story beats were always going to be the same. That Luis was doomed by the narrative that had already been written but I don't know how I feel about him having to die to be redeemed. Sure he made mistakes, a lot of them, but so does everybody. It's unfortunately the human condition. We will make the same mistakes over and over again, fooled every time because they're wearing a different coat of paint, or outfit, or name. But it's the same ones.

What we do in response to those mistake does matter of course but I don't know if the lesson here should be that someone deserves to die because of it.

I feel like once again Capcom and Resident Evil missed out of giving us a very complex and interesting character that we get to see move on from terrible, terrible things and potentially teach a much more valuable lesson.

#resident evil 4 remake spoilers #luis serra #luis serra navarro #resident evil 4 remake #re4 remake #re4r #and yes I do know it's just a video game but if you keep giving me such interesting characters I am going to pontificate about them dammit

[kingg-of-avidya]

hey so ik saw that post about the panel where jouno is referred to as king of avidya and as a desi person that really really intrigued me. I did some really quick research cuz ik the antonym of that word which is 'vidya' it's a sanskrit word for knowledge and its a pretty common word but the word avidya is not something that is heard often. So I was wondering why he was referred to as that and what it means for him.

Basically I dont think it's used in a negative when referring to him? I don't think it was used in a way to insult him by calling him ignorant(?) Cuz mainly no one uses it like that and also idk the og japanese translation of that so don't mind me anyway.

Idk if you are desi or a hindu/Buddhist and neither am I an expert in indian religions but I did some but I did some research and found some pretty cool stuff

and here goes my rant sorry for infodumping on you

so vidya means knowledge avidya is the antonym of vidya it literally means ignorance, misconceptions or incorrect knowledge.

But this is mostly used in religious contexts (its not really used in non religious contexts and ive never heard any word in indian languages which is derived from it so thats why i found it interesting this is my first time hearing it actually) and its a key concept in indian religions including Hinduism and Buddhism. It's been mentioned in many religious texts.

Basically according to indian religions, avidya means ignorance in the context of metaphysical reality. The usage is different based on the religion.

In vedic literature, avidya means illusion, spiritual ignorance.

Hinduism considers denial or misconception of Atman(soul/self) as avidya (aka the primal ignorance of who we are) and Buddhism considers denial/ misconception An-atman(non-soul)(aka in sentient beings there is no permanent substance called a soul) as avidya.

And since bsd happens to have a lot of references hear and there to Buddhism regarding certain things and characters in the manga I wanna focus on Buddhism.

Basically it is the misconceptions of the basic essence of nature/reality.

In Buddhism. Avidya is the root cause of Dukkha(sanskrit for pain, suffering) is the first link to rebirth. (you could say that that's kinda a not good thing in Buddhism ig cuz)

[In Buddhism (and hinduism), it is believed that a living being once born dies and rebirth and so on this endless cycle is called Samsara and the main goal of a being in these religion is to stop this cycle and achieve salvation(called Nirvana not the band lol in Buddhism and moksha(hinduism) this is achieved by enlightenment of one's soul. Anyway I digress]. Removal of avidya causes to overcoming dukkha (which is part of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism) the concept is sound in many Buddhist traditions and in most contexts it is specified to be the thing that bonds us to the endless cycles of life and death via dukkha and breaking this bond one can achieve Nirvana.

Buddhist teachings aims for cultivation of wisdom(idk what context in particular) so the ignorance ceases.

ANYWAY one thing I specifically wanna mention is the Twelve Link Of Dependent Origination (dvādaśāṅga-pratītyasamutpāda) also referred to as the Twelve Nidanas: they explain the Dependent Origination which is a key doctrine in Buddhism ig kinda means everything has been caused into existence. (Idk how to explain) kinda like "if this exists, that exists; if this ceases to exist, that also ceases to exist". Twelve links are the cyclic processes that explain the Dependent Origination they are: ignorance, mental formation, consciousness, name and form, the six senses, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, and old age and death.

I'll only talk about the first one which is ignorance (avidya) and I've already explained in detail about it so I won't repeat all that BUT BUT GUESS WHAT

acc to the 12 links avidya is symbolized by a blind man or a man wearing a blindfold groping for his way with a cane.!!!! That's interesting cuz jouno is blind!!

That's very very interesting and i wonder how else it applies to jouno cuz we know even if he's blind his other senses, including his smell and hearing, are incredibly strong that allow him to sense people's body processes like perspiration, body temperature, muscle sounds, heartbeat, breathing, and even their resentment and inner emotions. This also enables him to "hear" the secrets of his targets and apparently he is also immune to illusions and he can also sense ones location by touching the ground and sensing it.

Basically he's very very aware of all the sense and everything around him but idk much about him or his personaltiy/analyzed in the past so I can't really say much but it does make me wonder what the parallels are. And his name "king of avidya" maybe there's something deep or maybe I'm just thinking too much and if it's connected in anyway to the irl author but I couldn't find anything about irl!jouno by a quick Google search wiki showed nothing anywho this is getting long already.

I'm soo sorry for the long rant I just needed to talk about it to someone, ik all this is complex and new and many things hear mightve gone over your head I tried my best in explaining it properly but I'm no scholar or teacher so it might not be best but again so sorry for wasting your space agian idk all the parallels btw jouno and the religious stuff maybe it ain't that deep idk lol but agian the context might change based on thebog Japanese word used for this and idk that but yeah.

oh my god this was just so interesting to read, and don't ever worry about it being too long i was fully immersed in it

you see, despite the fact that i found jouno being called "king of ignorance" funny, i agree that the liutenant probably wasn't using it to refer to jouno in an insulting way. i originally thought that "the king of avidya" was some sort of ironic nickname, considering jouno being blind but also being able to hear and understand many things about people despite that, even the way the feel.

but when i read your thoughts about it, it all became much more interesting.

if we look at the word avidya in a religious context, mainly Buddhism, it is the first base of the condition of life that gives way to other conditions such as "formation" or "consciousness", and first of the twelve links that chain us to "samsara", the life and death cycle that causes suffering, which we want to escape from by achieving "nirvana" (enlightenment).

Literally translating to "ignorance, misconception, false knowledge, not-seeing", avidya is understood as the basis of suffering (a root of all evil kinda way) and as you said, it is described as a blind man holding a cane, VERY interesing detail considering jouno is also blind as you pointed out.

basically it is the misunderstanding or ignorance of the basis of our existence, and the delusion of perceiving a "permanent self" in the ever changing nature of existence.

now, in the context of jouno.

him being called "the king of avidya", avidya as in "misunderstanding or ignorance of the basis of one's existence", it may refer to jouno misunderstanding his own nature. think of the cruel, sadistic monster originally he thought he was. he just "wants to hurt people in the name of the law, corner them, and hear the sound of their destruction", in his own words. but that may not reflect his true self at all.

remember the words of tecchou; "no one understands jouno. jouno is cold, but in his core, he's a hero that despises tyranny and wants to protect the weak." it may be true, and jouno may not even be realizing it.

and when it comes to avidya as in "the delusion of perceiving a permanent self in the ever changing nature of existence", think about the moment when he talked about the appreciation that one old lady showed him that day. he was deeply affected by it, and it is clear that the way he saw his job (and himself, to some extent) changed that day, "punishing the criminals" became "protecting the innocent". but even with all of that, one can argue that despite feeling so much different about it all and now craving appreciation more than causing suffering, deep down he still believes that his nature is not good, and falsely holds onto his past self despite everything, still thinking of himself as that criminal, that sadistic and cruel monster from six years ago, before fukuchi recruited him, thus holding onto a permanent yet false self in his head, despite the ever changing nature of his existence.

i hope all of that made some kind of sense, it's 2 am and i wrote all of this in a whim haha i just find jouno's character so intriguing and the possibility of this nickname revealing many more things about his character and this little rant we are having over it just has me excited

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd saigiku #jouno bsd #jouno saigiku #bsd jouno saigiku #bsd hunting dogs #bsd theories #bsd analysis

[joyfulapostate]

Hey!

I was raised aetheist, and I never really realised how badly Christianity could screw people up. There were some people in my extended family who were religious, but it was always just this vague distant thing that existed on the periphary. The only times I entered churches were in a touristy way, and only then because my mum dragged me into them - I've always hated churches, they have bad vibes.

Then I met my best friend who was raised in a religious family, and they described a lot of the strange, disturbing rituals they would perform in church. Around the same time, I began watching a content creator who was raised in a religious family and was going through the process of reconciling their religious upbringing with their homosexuality.

Since then, I've been really fascinated by how this religion can screw people up and make people doubt their entire being. I think a lot about how on earth this one religion - or cult - from a city thousands of years ago became so persistent and all encompassing.

I was wondering, what do you know about the real-world history of the Christian religion and Jesus? One can assume that Jesus was a real person, but what are the details? Was he a cult leader? A rebel? Both? How did he make people believe he was a prohpet? Why did he make people believe he was a prophet? I'm fascinated by the real historical events that occurred to create such a long-lived ripple effect, but I'm cautious of researching "religious history" on my own because I don't know how to avoid the many dangerous people one would be likely to come across in that feild. Do you have any knowledge to share?

-🟪

My favorite biblical historian is Dr. Bart Ehrman (link to his website). He’s a former Christian, current agnostic which I think gives him a balanced view of biblical history. He talks about what it was like to believe in the Christian story, what it was like to figure out what is real and what isn’t, and what actual biblical scholarship should look like. His books helped me disentangle the complicated stories around Jesus and develop my own sense of scholarship.

Most historians believe that Jesus was a real person who existed around the same time and place as was claimed in the Bible. We have no eye witness testimony about anything Jesus said or did. All we have are copies of copies of legends that people wrote about him decades after his death. We have no real way of knowing what Jesus thought about himself or what he claimed to be.

That being said, we can try to understand the traditions of the stories told about Jesus. I’ve heard a lot of fundamentalists claim to be going back to the “early Christian church” but there were so, so many traditions that sprang up around the story of Jesus all believing different theologies. For example, early Christian mysticism is a weird, wild rabbit hole to go down if you’re ever curious. 

We can try to understand the man that Jesus was by looking at the stories told about him. These stories were based in apocalypticism under Roman rule: the belief that the end would come, but hey at least it would free people from Roman tyranny. Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher whose death caused shockwaves of grief among his followers. I do believe that he made promises about the coming kingdom and when those promises were suddenly impossible after he was killed by his government, his followers found a way to make those promises relevant again in their own minds.

I find this stuff interesting, but I really wish that this specific history didn’t affect people’s lives in the modern world. I wish it were just a weird history niche instead of a direct threat to people’s wellbeing. Being hesitant to research biblical history makes sense. There’s a lot of nonsense out there to dig through and it can be exhausting. Take care of yourself first. Biblical history is not as important as your wellbeing. But if you do enjoy researching, have at it! Find people that you respect, hold on to ideas loosely so you critically evaluate them, and be ready to take a break if you burn out. 

#exchristian #asks

[cloud-somersault]

This is in reference to your most recent post, but I honestly get so confused when people who watch LMK haven't read or at least done research on the source material(JTTW) because I feel like it dampens their experience of appreciating the characters. 

JTTW, which is what LMK is referenced from, is rich with tradition, meaning, and culture. Not understanding JTTW gives you a very one dimensional approach to all the characters but especially Wukong since he is currently one of the only original JTTW figures from the main cast. And in misunderstanding Wukong’s source material means that people really don’t understand shadowpeach like they should. 

Even if we were to only go from the context of the show, shadowpeach started out super toxic. LMAO! These guys were at each other’s throat constantly and were not amicable at all. The appeal is the fact that it is alluded to/shown that these two used to have a very close relationship but something happened to separate them. That’s where the intrigue begins, that’s what gets the gears turning in the viewer’s head. Something happened to make them this way and we want to know! In JTTW canon, Wukong did kill Macaque and it was actively against Buddha’s requests not to. Bro did not care, lol.  I think it is also important to realize that LMK and JTTW are still different BUT it’s honestly quite foolish, in my opinion, to completely disregard the book it is based on. And there’s nothing wrong with fans taking canon things from JTTW and applying it to LMK. Especially if it’s their own fanfiction or interpretation(like your fic). It has been a common theory that Wukong killed Macaque(pretty much since the show started), especially given a lot of the evidence we have been presented with. Disregarding one of the writer’s statements, it’s completely reasonable to make the connection between JTTW and LMK that Wukong did kill Macaque. Especially considering we are shown in the third season a flashback that they did have a violent brawl before his supposed death and subsequent resurrection. 

Shadowpeach IS inherently toxic, especially before there’s any character growth between them, and I personally feel like it’s okay to acknowledge that and embrace it. I understand people tend to gravitate away from any forms of toxicity because, yeah, it feels weird saying you like a ship of two people who hate each other. But that’s the fun thing about enemies to lovers! And shadowpeach has so much more depth to it because it can be interpreted in so many different ways. I wholeheartedly believe that their versatility and depth as a ship is largely the reason why they are one of the biggest ships in the fandom. And their depth comes from the fact that they are inherently flawed characters.  

This need to uphold Sun Wukong on a pedestal he does not deserve ultimately ruins the thing that makes them special. And that's how undeniably human he is. Someone wouldn’t know that just from watching LMK, especially since the show either glosses over the darker parts of JTTW or alters them entirely. Stripping Wukong specifically of the overflowing amount of wonderful source material he has completely dumbs down the beauty of his character. I think playing around with the idea that he did kill Macaque(in regards to LMK canon) doesn’t really change where they come from very much. Idk if anyone else has noticed, but the season 4 special is obviously still not the full picture. That little fight in the mountain is 100% not what makes them hate each other so much. That much animosity for an altercation like that?? It doesn’t make any sense. We still don’t have the full picture, and people are basing their attitude towards each in seasons 1-3 on insufficient evidence. 

Anyway, sorry lol. Seeing people not appreciate shadowpeach for the mess it is makes me so unbelievably disappointed and frustrated(especially if they know nothing about JTTW) and the internet is a great place to bounce off opinions. I promise this isn’t directed towards anyone in particular and it doesn’t come out of anger, I just think there is a common misunderstanding of shadowpeach’s complex foundation and I refuse to stand for it. /lh /nm

Okay, my weird rant is over, haha. I completely understand your irritation with comments like that, though, and I am so sorry you have to deal with them. 

Damn, I don't really have anything to add to this. I think you said it all. I can pack it up and go home LMFAO Can this be my new pinned post

Oh, I will say one thing. The fandom is def afraid or in denial that shadowpeach, in any iteration, is toxic. In order for it not to be, they'd have to be grossly out of character, and then guess what friends? That's not shadowpeach!

But a lot of people do that and are content with that. Which, okay, but stay off my porch LMFAO

#ask #thanks for typing all this out and sending it in #i feel so seen and validated #i'm glad im not the only one FRUSTRATED by people saying stuff like that #they don't realize they're being disrespectful to both wukong AND macaque when they pull that shit #and standing on the sinking ship of “it's not confirmed!” is just funny af to me #like okay clutch that last bit of fact to your chest fam #i don't give a fuck either way what happens in canon #i'm here for good animation and jokes #ngl after i made this au i'm kinda content and in my lane. flourishing even #fave

[quinn-gaither]

sam and drake as the trial before pilate; or, an analysis of the powerplant incident

religion is all over gone. it's there in abundance, from the names to the internal dialogue to the very acts and events that happen. the overlap of traditional religious idiosyncracies between different characters are so plentiful it is difficult to sit here and say that this character represents this religious figure; they are an amalgamation of different gospels, showing how theology and the themes of the bible can apply to gone as a wider subject matter to stretch out the dystopia, show how the worst of people brings out the very humanity of them.

as such, i don't know for certain if this parallel or idea was intentional or ever in MG's mind as he wrote the scene, but it is something that has stuck with me a lot in my reread: how the drake/sam whipping in the powerplant strongly mirrors jesus' trial before pilate. the extract sticks out to me particularly in terms of understanding how the whipping of sam impacted his arc and his character for the rest of the novel. full disclaimer, i am not an expert in christian theology nor am i christian, and this comparison only came to my mind recently, so it may not have the depth and nuance of others, but it’s something i have thought and researched a lot about, so i hope it will suffice!

under the cut i go into some brief religious context, followed by how this fits in with the scene in the powerplant alongside quotes pulled from the various books to underscore how pivotal the lashings were for sam. so, if you're looking for some unnecessarily deep analysis of sam and drake as religious paragons: look no further than under the cut!

pilate's court: a contextual debrief

for starters, what was the trial before pilate? in brief, it is as follows. in the christian gospels they refer to the final period before jesus' death as 'the passion'; or, 'the passion of jesus'. the passion includes jesus' entrance to jerusalem, his anointing, the last supper, his agony and arrest, for example. it does also include his trial before pilate, the governor of judaea.

this trial is what essentially preceded the denouncement of jesus before he was sent to be crucified. throughout the trial, much to pilate's confusion, jesus was silent, perhaps accepting his inevitable fate or not seeing reason to protest something when he knew he would never win. pilate, at first, didn't believe there to be enough reason to sentence jesus to death and, consequently, elected to flog him as punishment. the bible does not outright state the amount of lashings jesus received, but it is thought the number could have been 39 (due to jewish commands restricting the amount of flogs from surpassing 40).

and so jesus was lashed, and then he was sentenced to death. it is widely agreed that the punishments jesus endured represent him absorbing everyone's sin, seeing him become the icon of rebirth and allowing humans to start all over again.

so, i hear you ask... how does this relate to the drake and sam incident in the powerplant?

drake as judge, jury & executioner

as i mentioned before, i'm not here to say that sam and drake are direct reflections of jesus and pilate. quite the opposite is true, really, and it is more the themes rather than the behaviours and characteristics that tie them together with this gospel. the theory and symbolism behind the trial before pilate can apply in a somewhat inverted way; sam is whipped though he doesn't necessarily die (more on that later), and drake isn't necessarily trying to find ways to punish sam without killing him as pilate was for jesus. drake wants sam dead and, had brianna not interfered when she did, he probably would have killed him. the events at the powerplant are not a complete mirror image of the trial but are, rather, foils to it.

the lashing of sam sees drake attempting to denounce all the perdido beach kids, trying to assert a specific way of thinking over the whole fayz. whether that be the beliefs of caine and the coates clan or the legislation of the gaiaphage is up for debate, but he is still decidedly torturing sam in response to disagreeing with the word he is spreading and the way he is leading. in the same way the roman crowds saw jesus’ behaviours as undermining the king ceasar, drake is acting out as he sees sam undermining his own personal king.

in terms of the text, this all occurs within hunger. however, before diving into that, i'm flashing forward to plague for an interesting excerpt from a conversation between brittany and astrid. it is, in fact, the very passage that got me thinking about all this to start with:

here we have a direct reference to pilate in the books themselves! how crazy is that? pay attention here to the specifics of "and pilate... to crucify him so that he might redeem us." if, in this instance, we are perceiving sam as a jesus-emblem, what brittany is essentially saying here is that sam needs to be punished for hope he might redeem all people. all the perdido beach kids, all the fayz inhabitants.

sam stands to be the symbol for all those who follow him. he is a leader, first and foremost, but he is at base level the most direct representation of all the lives he, begrudgingly, protects. sam is a microcosmic perdido beach resident while also being one of the most powerful mutants. see, then, how jesus is said to represent all despite being the son of god.

the lashing of sam kickstarts the redemption of the fayz kids, even so early into the book series. this happens in hunger, before any of the real horrors begin, but it is in this scene when the tides perhaps turn and the chance of a tunnel out of here manifests within sam's mind. the lashing is part of the passion of jesus, or the passion of sam, and as a result it sets him on a different path that places him in the mindset to understand that murdering drake is something which must happen in order for the barrier to come down. even if he doesn't quite have the foresight to see it at the time - perhaps more focussed on the murder angle rather than the reason - the seeds for drake's death are set in motion right here at the end of hunger.

just to contextualise the whipping within the timeline of the book. it starts halfway through chapter thirty-seven, with 1 hour and 6 minutes before the climax of the novel. brianna appears at the end of the chapter. thirty-eight sees us with 53 minutes later. so, with that knowledge, we can assume that the lashing lasted, at most, thirteen minutes. brianna administers the morphine packet within this chapter, too.

so, after about fifteen minutes since the lashings began he gets his first pain medicine. in thirty-nine (47 minutes) he wasn't feeling particularly intense pain as he was starting to hallucinate. at 33 minutes, he is still under morphine but is once again in pain. note: 33 minutes is when he first declares his intent to take a life. this is, obviously, a very instrumental part of sam's character arc. when he goes from seeing killing as something to be done only as mercy, to put someone out of their misery, to something that is to be done to avenge.

sam notes that the morphine is wearing off with 7 minutes left. so, with all this textual information in place, we can determine that he underwent torture for approximately thirteen minutes, and saw the pain mostly off with a dose of morphine that lasted 46 minutes. it's important to note also, i think, that this lashing happens concurrently with the human crew hunting and essentially sentencing hunter to death in the church.

it is interesting that two heavily religious events are happening at the same time, especially as the events are both underscored by the overarching sense of sacrifice, lawfulness and establishing dominance. the human crew are wanting to metaphorically crucify hunter while drake is flogging sam: they both want to be the power in charge, and they do so without taking into account any jury or justice. they act singularly, for their own gain.

the first 'death' of sam temple

now, earlier up, i mentioned that sam "doesn't necessarily die". he is, after all, not crucified or murdered in any way, he is just flogged. however, i believe that he was fundamentally changed after his encounter with drake, and while he didn't perhaps die physically he did die mentally.

he was on the brink of real death, all but bleeding out on the powerplant floor, and spent at least 46 minutes in a sort of purgatory state where he was hallucinating his better moments in life and wondering if he was going to make it. under the effects of morphine he sees the school bus incident, perhaps a demonstration of him walking towards the light before he awakes and finds himself back in the powerplant.

the lashing of sam is unequivocally the worst experience he endures in his time in the fayz. the worst experience of his whole life, something that shifts his entire perspective of not only drake but also the type of pain he can endure. the memory of it lasts even through light:

even after everything - four more whole books of action - nothing lives up to or usurps the agony of his lashing in the powerplant. it does not kill him, but it kills his soul. similarly to how the darkness kills lana and sucks the light from her life, sam's experience with drake does the same for him.

taking this back to the gospels, then, jesus is battered and bruised when he gets to the crucifix and, as a result, doesn't last long up there. sam is similarly battered and bruised, literally on his last legs of life after drake is done with him. brianna is able to come and administer the morphine and bring him back to physical life, but he is psychologically different after the whippings. jesus's trial before pilate is a distinctive turning point in christian theology; it is where he essentially admits to his fate, refuses to put up a fight, and leaves the ending of his life in the hands of pilate. he understands that his people have given up on him, that he has lost the crown of king of the jews, that he has been so betrayed by those closest to him. and, yet, in the aftermath of the trial and even after the crucifixtion and rebirth, jesus is different. the world is different. it turns into a place where a better ending rests at the end of all the trials and tribulations.

sam accepts his fate. sam understands that he is losing control of perdido beach. if drake wasn't the one to beat him down, the human crew probably would've tried to at some point. in this analogy where drake is a twisted version of pilate, the human crew are perhaps the crowd outside the temple who are calling for the death of jesus; the death of sam. for fifty-nine minutes sam was reduced to nothing but a boy bruised. he was no longer a four-bar mutant, he had no use of his hands, and he was no longer school bus sam either. he was just sam temple, a fifteen-year-old kid dying on the floor at the hands of someone who took it upon themselves to play judge over his life. jesus, in his trial, became the same thing. just a person enduring the worst sort of torture. god couldn't save him, didn't save him, nor did his people or his reputation or his powers.

the powerplant scene puts the fayz over the precipice. it sends drake down a path from which he never recovers, and it pushes sam to the brink of something he almost doesn't save himself from. it sets in stone that sam will come back - stronger - and those who put him through the agony will repent for what they did. in such a short extract, MG essentially plots out the ending of their relationship: sam will prosper while drake will die.

so, overall

i could expand on this entire thing further because, as i said before, there is such an astonishing amount of overlapping religious theology in these texts that it's impossible to sum them all up in one go. but i like to think of this powerplant moment as an opening, as something thematically intrinsic in the way the rest of the novels work out. it's an instance which can be explored even more if one is to bring caine into the narrative too, and consider sam/caine as twin versions of jesus/judas. which doesn't even take into consideration the very on-the-nose naming of them as sam and david and the way that gospel plays into the whole series, too.

i could even bring in one of my favourite pieces of artwork, the angels hovering over the body of christ in the sepulchre by william blake, and perhaps analyse how the angels are symbolic of drake/brittany in later novels, how their constant back and forth as they oversee the rebirth of sam as he conquers them, and the fayz.

anyway… gone is crazy detailed when you look at it through these sorts of theological lenses. i think, to a certain extent, some of the overlaps must be intentional. the fayz is very much a microcosm of particular religions, of the way gods contend against each other and leaders prevail against crowds of opposition.

either way, to conclude: the meeting between drake and sam in the powerplant greatly mirrors the trial of jesus before pilate, just before his crucifixtion. it perhaps represents how sam is forced to shoulder the sins and the misgivings of the perdido beach kids in order to see through to a way of beating the darkness and freeing them from the barrier. though neither drake or sam are perfect reflections of pilate and jesus respectively, the way their actions correspond to and follow those of the gospels brings to surface really interesting observations about the ways the characters and their fates are almost predetermined, how you can see how the books will end even from only the second one in the series.

#gone michael grant #the fayz #the gone series #gone series #sam temple #drake merwin #caine soren #mini essay #this got very wordy! sorry! #i went off on one slightly #musings #sam #drake