#(I'm linking this to Inform but also for my own reference for when I talk about Hikaris *canonical* *chronic issues* as young Hikari now)

[coffee-and-tea-time]

⁺˚⋆｡°⚝ You choose... me? ⚝°｡⋆˚⁺

thank you thank you thank you thank you Yandere! Hacker x Yandere Lover! Reader

Did you miss us? ( ๑‾̀◡‾́)✨

We honestly loved writing this geek, we end up adding some mention of yanderes games we play together! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ Coffee likes to watch me react to yandere vns oh, don't act like you didn't melt over some of them too shhh. Anyways, hope you all enjoy reading this as much as we enjoy writing it! ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ - Tea

Woah, feels like it's been a long time! (since I last have seen my son lost to this monster, to the man behind the slaughter) ♡ˎˊ˗ tbh I could keep talking about this for hours, I love yanderes (づ> v <)づ♡ * Jack Skellington is still in his Christmas phase? Maybe I could ask him for one as an early gift - coffee

if you want context, you can go here but it's not that necessary we think - the twins

word count: 3.3k

tw: yandere behavior, willing reader, writing in you/yours, this got some internet/yandere references hope y’all catch them (links will be below the story, please do tell us if we missed any) If you don’t know them, take them as recommendations ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ (weird to say that when there’s a blood soup reference on here, is like the canon event of everyone who likes yanderes), anxiety attack?, yapper yandere

Huh, honestly the one that struck you the most sure had to be Grier, you still can catch every so often from the corner of your eye how different security cameras move all of the sudden, probably hoping to find one not taped unsuccessfully, talk about stalkerish, cute.

“I will choose… Grier”

The seller gives you a soft sigh, almost of defeat but also relief, tapping his foot as he glances over at the one security camera that was moving now on the far right corner of the shop, moving frantically from side to side as if searching for something. He abruptly lifts up from his seat and groans. 

“Alright, I'll go get the ladder…” 

The seller goes down the wooden ladder after taking the tape off the camera lense and signs for you to come closer to it.

"The cameras here don't have sound but showing you to him should be enough of a clue all by itself"

You freeze as the security camera focuses on you, standing there, you wave awkwardly and the camera starts moving side to side abruptly before freezing,  like the person behind it moved away from it.

"Well, either he fainted or he is coming right away!"

The seller says in a cheerful voice as he goes to cover the camera lense again with a strip of tape. A couple of minutes pass before you hear the screeching stop of a car parking in front of the shop hurriedly, soon followed by a panting man who barges inside like his life depended on it.

“I’m here! I'm here!!” 

He says almost tripping on his own feet as he shoves in your face a bouquet of your favorite flowers.

"Oh, those are my favorites! Thank you"

"I-I know, don't worry, I made sure to do a quick background check on your medical history so I don't trigger any allergies, I promise I will gather more information tonight! Don't worry"

Well, you can’t really be surprised by his actions since you were warned, though you were by his speed, how did he manage to hurry here driving, buy you flowers and check your medical history in the process? I guess you’d never know, maybe he's a student of Penelope García.

“Well, Grie-”

As the seller attempts to congratulate you both, hand hovering over your shoulder to pat it as a friendly mannerism, Grier is quick to slap it away with a glare that makes you remember a surly cat.

“Is everything ready? I would much rather finish paperwork as quickly as possible” 

Wow, that’s a really sudden change of tone, the distant and somewhat professional posture he took in a matter of seconds makes you think if the Grier that was tripping over his feet, babbling nervously while giving you flowers was just a trick of your imagination, but the theory quickly dies as he places his stare on you again, his expression completely changing, getting all flustered and blushy again… cute. 

“Well, shall we get going? I hope you like my house but of course you can redecorate it- we can redecorate it oh maybe we should go first to your house to get an example? I can mimic your space so you feel comfier although if that makes you uncomfortable of course we don't need to I just would love to know more about you so that I don't messed up, well, not only things I mean get to everything about you, but please don't feel pressur-” 

“Grier, we got the memo, continue yapping out of the store. And for you Dear, I hope you find your happy ending with that parrot you bought, no refunds or returns are allowed."

The seller, who looks like he's about to get a migraine if he keeps hearing Grier, quickly kicks him out and says his farewells to you. As you exit the store behind Grier, he is quick to show you the way to his car.

"Thanks.. uh, do you mind if we go to my place real quick?"

Well, it's pretty obvious he will take you to his house and you can't really back up now so, you only need to gather some thi- oh, he's already panicking.

"Your place? Going to mine doesn't sound appealing? I-I can change it! What's the thing you would totally love that my house had? It's not like I don't want to see your house I honestly would love to but you do plan to come to mine after, right? Maybe you'd rather be in your place? But then we'd be so far away… or course I don't want to bother you I swear I can do and buy whatever will suit you best to be comfortabl-" 

"We're gonna go grab some of my clothes! I need my things, then we can go to your house"

The seller wasn't lying when he said Grier is a rambler type of person, but you can't really be annoyed by it, his voice is honestly so damn good, and the way it sounded when he went all serious mode talking to the seller was just… wait, no, no time for simping right now, you gotta think what do you need to gather from your house.

"Oh yes of course of course sorry I got worried for a momento although it would've nice to go shopping together if you forgot something of course we can also shop online if you don't really like crowded places oh, I… god"

As he was talking, you honestly were more focused on how pretty his watery eyes are, just hearing bla bla bla, you can't help but start caressing his hair, it seems like it took him by surprise but certainly not in a bad way, leaning into your touch as you run your fingers through his messy, wavy but soft hair, you must admit that you thought it was tangled at first but that isn't the case.

 Ah, right, your things.

"Well, shall we get going?"

You watch him nod, seeming incredibly out of words, as he red faced opens the door for you before going to his seat and searching for something in his phone before he starts driving. Uh, then you have full control over the music? He seems like in his own world and you hardly doubt he minds you changing the music when he still can't even cool down his blush… you must tease him from time to time for funsies, noted. 

Part of you wanted to put that one song from ayesha erotica but maybe it was a little weird, so you switch to the safe choice: do nothing. You switch to your phone to make a little note for yourself about important things you need.

Oh, right

You forgot to tell him your address because you were too focused on other things, well… just as you remembered he was already parking in front of your apartment anyways- 

Grier makes his way out of the car once the engine is off, walking around the car to open the door for you, helping you out with his hand, then walking alongside you as you make your way up to your floor and through the door of your apartment. 

"Here, make yourself at home, I’ll be picking  my clothes”

Although it doesn’t seem very smart to let someone like him snoop around, though you can’t help but also be curious about what he will do and, well, it’s not like he can do much since it's just your house… right?

Anyways, you left him for a moment to go pack clothes, catching him nervously walking around from time to time, but he seems really the quiet type, surely more on the soft yandere side, his droopy innocent eyes made him look the part.  damn wrong Dear, you seems like a yandere amateur, try again.

"Ugh, I still have so much to pack"

You murmured, already getting tired of the repetitive grap-and-pack motion, impatient to get to talk to your little yapper and get to know him better. Speaking of the devil, you feel his presence behind you, his shadow betraying his location as it engulfs you, then feeling a soft tap on your shoulder, so soft in fact it seemed as if your shoulder was made of needles.  

"You don't have to worry about your computer and stuff. I already have them backed up, t-to save you time! Since you seemed stressed and said I could snoop around I thought about helping a bit and backing up your devices… same with all your accounts- just to help of course"

Well, now you know what he was up to while you were busy.

WAIT A DAMN MINUTE

"...did you check my browser history?"

You blurt out the question as you run through the chance of any incriminating, possibly cringy, piece of information in your phone that might require some explanation… God forbid if he found your tumblr-

"...No"

He did.

"I have a tiny question though, if you don't mind of course- the last thing I want to do is bother you in any way"

He totally did.

"....depends, what do you want to ask, Dear?"

Okay, you got this, you got a yandere for something. Whatever he asks you, if it turns out awkward, there's little that can't be solved by some pampering when it's related to yanderes,  how he giggled when you called him Dear confirming this notion. You got this.

"I just was, you know, curious about what games you played, I wasn't prying! But, you know, it's good to know your interest to get to know you better and maybe play together while cuddling on the couch and have some hot cocoa with little marshmallows as we wrap ourselves in a big blanket…. Anyways, the point it's… what's exactly your type?"

Okay, you don't got this. 

"Huh, how is one thing related to another?"

It's better to buy a little time while you think of a correct answer for that. Would it be too cheesy to say something like 'you'? Maybe you really should have bought that manual for 'how to take care of your yandere' when they offered it to you on the website. 

"Well, wandering around a bit I found you seem to like playing something called 'dating sim'? According to what I saw it's like flirting and romance virtual characters although the stories really differ from one to another which makes it really confusing to figure out what's your taste to be honest"

Alright, you have to reply quickly to give him some peace, maybe he found one that really didn't resemble him and got nervous? It doesn't sound wise to let a yandere get insecure.

"My type is…"

You gently place your hand on his chin to make him look directly into your eyes.

“Let 's see… My type has gorgeous, green, droopy eyes, a bedhead that, I must say, is pretty damn soft, the kinda guy that rambles a lot and seems to have this nervous habit of straightening his clothes and, especially, my type is a certain guy that can't take his eyes off of me” 

You watch as a red tint paints his cheeks, a shivering smile appears on his face as he takes a step closer to you nuzzling himself onto your hand like a cat asking for attention.

"Really? Can you promise that? Will you willingly say that into a microphone? Just for the record, do you really really see me as your ideal?"

"Of course, of course, who wouldn't find an adorable hacker this endearing?'

"Then... you got a thing for hackers? So, your favorite was that seven zero seven?"

Did you really hear that right?

…

You can’t help but feel your past haunting your back. 

"It's a really good character, although, I find kinda sad that seven has this hint at him being aware of every reset"

Does this count as dodging the question? Maybe.

"Following that logic, I'm aware of every breath you take so does that means I can get more of your attention? Or maybe I'm being too greedy though you seem to have spent a lot of your time romancing them, obviously I'm not judging you but that means that it would be okay also for me to check on you at every hour, even if it's 2 am? Just to make sure you don't need anything, of course! That you're well cared for… or do I require something else to be worthy of that? Please tell me, is it my personality? I don't really think so since, well, I see you gush over intense personalities such as that… Damon? Deimon? The game isn't even finished but you seem to like everything about him although he doesn't really show you about himself. That means that what makes up your favorability is... The attention over you?"

Oh god, he found itchi.io, better start praying he didn't see anything weird.

"Well, they are just… games I played because I was bored, you shouldn't look too much into those”

"But you play more than one or two which means that you really enjoyed playing them and searching for more of that kind but I can't help but be confused and intrigued about what is that something, you even liked one where the characters shared the same body as a human and… a fae? I didn't really understand but they seem really different, which makes it very hard to find a pattern, but that isn't the only one you played like that, you also have one that switches between a shy boy and a flirty one, do you like the contrast? What exactly is that thing that makes you fawn over them? Maybe it would be good if I got two different aesthetics? I can't hide my name like that ‘redacted’ guy that looks mysterious…but I can change looks out of the blue and leave little clues of something? But, about what? I really don't have that much to tell and my stalking it's pretty much obvious, I also don't have superpowers to act like the hero one."

"Honey, it's okay, you don't need to do such a thing, as I said, I like you, those are just games I play in my free time to not get bored"

"Maybe it will be better if I go directly to straightforward characters? That 'Friend' was really honest most of the time, that… fan? Monster? Also was honest, why is there so much variety? But there also was people that were better at hiding it like that mushroom boy or that sol… it's difficult to stabilize a pattern if they keep variating so much, maybe I should put my focus on the ones you know the longer, I had to buy a seifuku and chase you with a chainsaw? No, there's the possibility I could injure you and I absolutely can't risk that, maybe I can buy a mannequin and put a synthetic deer head and say it my brother"

Okay, just how many did he see? Why does he need a pattern in the first place? You literally choose him, but well, he seems to want it to get more of your attention… Why don't give him so? Probably will help him to calm down, you aren't planning to do a crossover of Perfect Love with this guy.

"Dear, look directly at me for a second, did you hear what I was telling you? Listen to me, those are games, you are the one here with me, don't you think that you are already winning by far with that thing alone?"

You pinch his cheeks to get him to stop rambling about favorites, finally, and his eyes seem focused on you once again.

"Well, that's right, I'm the one feeling your touch, even if is a romance game, I'm the one closer to you although I'm not a big fan of you giggling and choosing flirty things but that hobby also means staying more at home where I can stick around more, if I think it carefully, it's something safe overall”

As you let go of his cheeks, he is quick to hold your hand in order to forbid you to move it away, leaning his cheek into your palm again as he talks.

"Yeh, there's a lot of people with the same taste in stories that me, so you can say they are pretty popular, don't look into it so much, there's no need to bother your mind with such a thing, these are just things I enjoy reading"

"It's true that they are just stories, you enjoy reading about lovesick so much? That's why you use tumblr? It makes sense since the blogs you follows also have the same theme and there's even one you seems to check frequent that's seems to have everything about yanderes… that's like you don't enjoy them in particular but the yandere part, don't you? That… sounds wonderful like it was probably obvious since you bought me but if you keep so much of your time looking for more of them that means you will just love my little antics too? please please say yes please please please"

Fuck, he did enter to your tumblr and even checks your followings, thanks god he end up with a good train of thought at the end.

"Yes, you're the one here, you shouldn't worry about the little hobbies I have, I just enjoy the reading, It's called dark romance and every character is different because one thing or another, you gonna get a headache if you think about it too much"

And please don't search more. Sadly, you can say that, he will definitely search more if you said it like that.

"Well, that makes sense, after all, you won't go into the yandere shop if you don't know anything about the subject, and there's a lot of options and… I win, because you chose me to let me be with you”

Well, your danger Kitty seems a lot more calm by now, you should note that if he starts rambling non-stop, focusing your stare at him totally works.

Well, you better start going before he start snooping on tumblr or worse: find c.ai

"Love, you know something? I'm getting sleepy, why don't we finish packing another day? I'm curious to see how it's your place"

"O-oh yes yes of course! I hope you find my house of your likeness but of course you can change whatever you don't like or if the neighborhood is not of your likeness we can also change that just differents methods I'd it the locations or the neighbors perse but I can totally take care of it you said you were sleepy, don't you? I have a spare room but if you are comfortable with it my bed is pretty comfy of course the spare room also has a comfy bed but…"

He keep yapping, you can't really help but giggled as he goes on with excuses on why you two should totally nap together for a better sleep as you two make your way out with some of your things to put them in his car, and as you get comfortable on your seat and he drives…. The unthinkable happens.

"Yes, we can eat that after napping together dear"

"Awesome! I love to spend more time with you as much as possible, we can watch something as he eat, oh right, we can totally watch that anime you saw"

Just like your breath, the cars stop for a moment at the red light.

"...which anime?"

He smiles to you, like excited to show off he knows a cool fact and pull his phone to research something quickly, and show you a photo of that one anime.

"You did really liked tha-"

"We don't talk about that one"

You feel your past decisions haunting your back once again.

That one anime for me totally will be Diabolik Lovers ngl- don’t proud of myself on that (if curious, my fav Sakamaki was Kanato and fav Mukami was Azusa), although I saw weirder, I hope Grier doesn’t bring those up, I rather them buried  ~ coffee

My questionable past anime has to be Brother’s conflict…WAIT THAT SOUNDS SO WRONG- I didn’t like the brothers aspect, not one bit! I sort of started watching thinking the thing was going to be about brothers being into the same girl and competing against each other, I didn’t think they’d be competing for their FUCKING STEP-SISTER. so yeah… the ending and opening were sick though…Coffee still teases me by playing them from time to time. ~ Tea (I totally recommend playing those out of the blue around a person who watched that anime, it's always fun ~ coffee)

All the links to the things Grier mentions in his ramblings:

Penelope Garcia is the hacker of criminal minds.

Binary Star Hero

A DOUBLE SIDED MIRROR

MONSTER X MEDIATOR

The Kid at the Back

Mystic Messenger (phone app)

*coff coff*  I must say, the Tumblr blog Grier makes reference of, is totally talking about maleyanderecafe, if you like yanderes, you had to know them, they got everything about yanderes, I love them (so yeh, the mention is cuz I wanted to fangirl a little)  ~ Coffee

See Thru: Need a Friend?

Inclement Idée Fixe

Mushroom Oasis

Broken Colors

Duality

14 Days With You

Perfect Love

Blood Soup

sorry for any misspellings or weird sentence structure ❣

images from pinterest ⚘

[stardust-falling]

Hi! I keep seeing ppl debating if SQQ's eyes are canonically green or black. What do you think? Somebody said SQQ's eyes are green in the cover, but if you think otherwise, why? If you've discussed about this before in your page, may I see the link?

Hey! I posted this one on my meta blog (this might be what actually stirred up the discussion), but I still need to update the post there to include the timeline and all relevant information provided by various commenters.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and give a little summary here.

SQQ has black eyes in the novel, and they're explicitly described that way (黑， 乌黑 specifically, color words meaning black and crow-black (like jet black)).

This means that a depiction of SQQ with green eyes is contrary to novel canon.

At some point, people on the wiki said his eyes were described as 青 (qing）which is turquoise green/blue. I'm not exactly sure where this came from, but one very, very loose potential for this could be a misreading of the following description: 眉清目秀 which is used to describe the appearance of a young SJ. It's possible, perhaps, that the character 清 (clear) here was accidentally misread as 青 （green/blue) but i don't think that's a particularly easy misreading, especially since in that phrase the 清 is linked to 眉 （brows) instead of 目（eyes). But anything is possible, and this is the only place in the novel I could find reference to "clear eyes" in regards to SQQ, and the only potential way this misreading could have basis in the novel. Either way, his eyes are never described as 青, so that's an incorrect assumption.

So, the only thing I really consider canon proper is the novel itself, but that's my own stance. A wider stance would be considering the novel as primary canon, while the donghua/manhua are secondary canon, and things like official art could be tertiary canon. In this framework, details included in the donghua that aren't in the novel but aren't contradicted by it would also be considered wider canon and fill in those gaps, while things that contradict the novel would be canon as well, but specifically alternate, donghua canon. The same would apply to official art-- if it doesn't contradict the donghua or novel, it fills the gap, otherwise it's another kind of alternate canon.

Under this wider system, then Shen Qingqiu's canon eye color would go this way:

Primary canon - Black eyes Secondary Canon - Grey Eyes Tertiary Canon - Black, Grey, or Green Eyes

So depending on what you consider canon, then the answer can change-- but in my opinion, the novel overrides other sources.

Okay, so let's go into the secondary and tertiary canons, then. On the post on my meta blog that I linked earlier, in the replies and reblogs, there are some references about the evolution of SQQ's character design in donghua and fanart, so I'll leave those explanations to speak for themselves.

Let me talk a bit about the official art, then.

Though the English edition has the most vivid green eyes in character design, it is NOT the only cover art with green-eyed SQQ!

Across translations, he is depicted with varying black, grey, or green eyes, as follows (using purple color for grey since tumblr doesn't have a grey color):

Taiwanese (OG) - Black Taiwanese (Revamped) - Darker green, occasionally darker grey (some variety here) Thai - Lighter grey Vietnamese - Black Burmese - Medium grey or dull green (again, some variety) Korean - Black, but may vary to grey or very dull green (resolution not high enough to tell)

And then of course the vivid green of the English edition.

So when it comes to official art, it's basically evenly split, with three black, three grey, three green (counting the ones that vary).

Green-eyed SQQ is not exclusively a western fandom thing. I mean, on some levels, it makes sense for character design-- matching his eyes to his clothing color.

Personally, I wouldn't call it canon. And I think if anyone does want to claim it's canon (via the tiered system), that it would be a good idea to preface that you're going off of alternate canon instead of novel canon, so that it's not used as an argument when the discussion is specifically centered on novel canon.

There is a level of canonicity to either green-eyed or grey-eyed SQQ, but such depictions still contradict the novel, even if supported by other mediums, since his eyes are specifically described as black there.

I guess, it depends on how you want to define canon at the end of the day. I'm not here to tell other people how to play in their own sandboxes, I just personally like to play in novel canon only so that's my stance on it.

Hope this is the sort of info you wanted!

[cowboys-tshot]

A Beginner's Guide to Epic: The Musical

Are you new to Epic: The Musical and overwhelmed by four years worth of content to go through? This is for you! (Note that this is a work in progress post that will be added to in the future as new information and Sagas are released).

LAST UPDATED: 09/01/24

*There will be some spoilers in this! The Odyssey is thousands of years old, but Epic: The Musical is an adaptation, meaning things are different. I recommend listening to all the songs in Epic before reading this, as this guide is intended to clear up misunderstandings/confusing moments and provide context.

**All of the underlined bits are links to whatever it is I'm referring to, just in case I'm making no sense. I will try to include sources for everything, or at least indicate where I got certain information from if there's no link available.

General Info:

*This is basic information about Epic: The Musical as a whole. This includes where to find new information and content, BTS things, etc.

• First of all, here's a quick rundown by the creator himself. There'll be some overlap in terms of what I cover here.

• Epic: The Musical is created by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, often referred to as "Jay" or "Mr. Jalapeño" by his fans. This is who writes the songs, casts the characters, and voices Odysseus himself!

• Epic: The Musical was originally (pre-Ocean Saga) produced under Blair Russell Productions, but Jay has never been paid the royalties from the songs released under them (and they have yet to give back control of the Epic social media accounts), so Epic is now produced under Jay's own company, Winion Entertainment LLC. (source)

• Jay is most active on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. All videos that he posts to these platforms are generally the same, so don't worry if you can't follow him on all of them. He talks about several Epic-related things, including release dates, BTS, animatics, details about the music/story, snippets of released and unreleased songs, and also plenty of funny videos. He is very active within the fanbase, and you're likely to find him (and other cast members) leaving comments on posts by fans!

• Here are Jay's other links, including the Epic: The Musical Discord server. In my experience, the Discord server and Tiktok are the best places to get information as quickly as possible.

• Epic is still in progress. As of the latest update to this guide (09/01/24), the Wisdom Saga has just been released last week, leaving only two more sagas before the end. The songs are all part of a concept album, and there is currently no stage adaptation.

• Jay takes many creative liberties with The Odyssey for the sake of this adaptation of the story. He made a video recently explicitly saying to NOT use Epic as a basis for your knowledge of The Odyssey, at least when it comes to academic settings. Many of the things that occur in Epic DO NOT occur in the original story, and some parts of the original story have been cut out. Here is a video where Jay explains the purpose of Epic as an adaption. (I won't be including a list of differences in this post, but I might make a separate one if anyone's interested.)

• Although Epic takes a lot of these creative liberties, there are several little easter eggs sprinkled in among the actual plot points from The Odyssey. (I'll go into these later.)

• Jay will usually do a recap video before each new saga, going over all the events of the previous sagas for any newcomers.

• When a new saga is released, Jay will hold a LIVE listen-through. I highly recommend being there for these events, because they include lots of cool and important things such as:

official animations, animatics, and artwork, all of which provide insights into character design and events within the songs

Jay's live reactions (his facial expressions and little dances/lip-syncs are delightful)

details about the events within the songs that aren't made clear within the music itself (like what a character is doing, what is happening around them, etc)

Jay's comments in the LIVE chat, which includes details/easter eggs, BTS stuff, jokes, headcanons, and LOTS of love and praise for the actors and fans!

• Seeing as there is no stage adaptation for Epic, a lot of the visual elements come from artists and animatics/animations. Jay actually works with several of these artists for official trailers, artwork, and animatics/animations! Some of these artists include: Ainhoa Velasco, @wolfythewitch, @gigizetz, @_mircsy_, @drawing_angie, @anniflamma, Scilla_nimation, el_crafts, samantha_artt, and Giulia Toneatto. These people are all incredibly talented and deserve all the love from the Epic fanbase!

Info About the Music:

*I am not musically adept at all, and this post is already very long, so I am not going to list much specific information—just general common themes and some examples of them. Most of this information has been confirmed by Jay, in videos that I've linked below.

• If you're having trouble understanding the lyrics and/or the meaning behind the lyrics, Genius lyrics has the entire album and is full of helpful notes about the context within the musical. A lot of lyrics get misheard, so even if you think you understand what's being sung, I'd recommend checking just in case lol.

• The Troy Saga and The Cyclops Saga have been rereleased under Winion Entertainment LLC! This includes new vocals, altered music, etc. These were released alongside The Thunder Saga, along with new cover art. It's preferred that you listen to these versions of the songs, and NOT the originals, because Jay only gets royalties from the current ones.

• Many characters have their own musical motif, or even multiple motifs. There are also other motifs that are more general, like the "Danger is Nearby" motif.

• Many important characters have their own instrument that plays an integral part to the songs they're in. You can typically tell which instrument accompanies each character by listening to what is most prominent in a song that focuses on that character. (ex. Hermes with harps and the lyre, Athena with the piano)

• If you hear a character's musical motif or associated instrument in a song they don't play an integral part in, that can mean a few things (listed below). With the more general motifs, they have their own separate meanings outside of the characters.

That character is present, even if they're not singing. (ex. Hermes in "Puppeteer," signifying that he's listening to Odysseus' speech, which is brought up at the beginning of "Wouldn't You Like")

That character is related to whatever event/conversation is occurring. (ex. the same musical motif in "Ruthlessness" and "Storm," signifying that Poseidon is the one that sent the crazy storm)

The kind of instrument being played can indicate the emotion or tone of a scene. This is scene primarily with Odysseus, where the use of a nylon or acoustic guitar indicates that he is not being ruthless (source).

• When background vocals are accompanying a mortal, there is always a physical, in-universe source for those voices (ex. Odysseus' crew as background vocals in most of his songs). When background vocals are accompanying a god or other powerful being, there does not have to be a physical source for those voices—gods can basically summon a choir of voices at will (ex. "Ruthlessness"). (video explanation)

• Background chanting specifically is a common element in Epic songs. Typically, this chanting consists of the names of characters present/focused on in the song (as seen [heard?] in "Survive," "Ruthlessness," and "King").

Unclear/Vague Moments Explained:

*Some of the plot points, characters, etc. in Epic can be confusing on the first or second listen. So, I'll clear up some of the common things people (including myself) didn't notice or understand at first.

• The deep voice at the end of "The Horse and the Infant" is Zeus, voiced by Luke Holt. Zeus shows Odysseus a vision of Astyanax, the infant son of Hector, and tells him to kill the child.

• Odysseus drops Astyanax from the walls of Troy at the end of "Just a Man." Many people didn't catch this until the callback in "Monster" at the end of Act 2.

• "Warrior of the Mind" is quite confusing to those that don't have context. It is a flashback to a younger Odysseus, when he first met Athena and took her as a mentor.

• Athena has an ability called "Quick-Thought," which lets her have telepathic conversations with someone within milliseconds by pulling their mind into another dimension.

• Polites dies at the end of "Survive." He is the voice saying "Captain...". (I didn't realize this for a good while when I first started listening to Epic.)

• The voice telling Odysseus to wake up in "Keep Your Friends Close" is Penelope, not Aeolus.

• The lil' guys in "Keep Your Friends Close" are called winions (they're also the Lotus Eaters in "Open Arms"). Jay describes them as "little wind creatures that dance when they get excited and then float away uncontrollably." They don't actually exist in The Odyssey, but they're pretty cute!

• At the end of "Ruthlessness," the line "remember me" is said by Poseidon, who's basically sending his voice through the ocean fog (since Odysseus is very, very far away from him now).

• In "Done For," the yelling you are hearing in the background is essentially a Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh battle between Circe's chimera and the monster Odysseus summons using the moly plant given to him by Hermes. There is an animatic by mircsy to serve as a visual aide, which I find very helpful!

• In "There Are Other Ways," Circe was holding a knife and planning to stab Odysseus as she tried to seduce him. When he pulls away and rejects her, she quickly hides the knife.

• In "The Underworld," shades (souls) are in a constant loop, repeating whatever they were thinking when they died. Tiresias is an exception to this rule, seemingly because of him being such a powerful prophet. (confirmed in "The Underworld Saga" LIVE listen-through)

• I feel like this is fairly clear, but for those that aren't familiar with The Odyssey, I'll say it anyways. (Spoilers? I guess?) The prophecy in "No Longer You" is SUPER heavy on the foreshadowing. I won't go into it here, since many people already have, but let's just say the Greeks were big on self-fulfilling prophecies.

• As mentioned previously, background chanting is a big thing in Epic. In "No Longer You," the background chanting also serves as a prophecy detailing the future events of Odysseus's journey. Currently, only part of these lyrics have been confirmed by Jay: "SIREN SONG - SCYLLA THROAT - MUTINY - LIGHTNING BOLT." This leaves two lines that are not confirmed.

• In "Mutiny," after Odysseus is stabbed, he is tied up and knocked out before the crew sails to the nearest island. Right before he says to get to the boat and row away, he manages to untie himself.

Fun Facts/Easter Eggs:

• Circe is voiced by Jay's girlfriend, Talya Sindel.

• When Poseidon kills off most of Odysseus' crew in "Ruthlessness," he says that there are only 43 men left. But in "The Underworld," the souls of his crew say that 558 men died under his command. Considering Odysseus started off with 600 men ("Full Speed Ahead"), this math doesn't add up. This is because in The Odyssey, when Odysseus and his men party with Circe for a year, a man in his crew named Elpenor woke up drunk on Circe's roof and proceeded to walk off the roof and die from the fall. He actually has a cut song.

• Jay messed up the amount of years in "There Are Other Ways." It had not been 12 years, but 10. This little screw-up is referenced in "Different Beast."

• Odysseus' mother is voiced by Jay's actual mother.

• If you see people commenting "rawr rawr rawr" or "🦖" on Jay's videos, they're referencing his April Fool's prank this year. He made a video saying he'd completely changed the Act 2 closing song, "Monster," and proceeded to play a happy-go-lucky sounding song going "I am the monster, rawr rawr rawr."

• In every single saga, Odysseus says "what." in an absolutely bamboozled manner (or "huh" in The Troy Saga, and he does it twice in The Ocean Saga). It happens in "Open Arms," "Polyphemus," "Keep Your Friends Close," "Puppeteer," and "No Longer You." Occasionally, this "what" will be said by a different character (Poseidon in "Ruthlessness," the siren in "Different Beast")

• Perimedes (another man in Odysseus' crew, who lives all the way until "Thunder Bringer") and Elpenor were best friends.

[bloogers-boogers]

More Marriage au ~

Adam was dragged to a small office for more privacy. He was never the problem?, what was this bitch talking about??

Anyways he was being questioned in almost everything that happened, felt and did while freshly married to Lucifer, it got to the point where it went too deep, and thats when it hit to his first marriage.

"So in the Bible it states you were married two times, is that true?"

"No. It only states when I was married to my awesome smocking hot ex wife: Eve~ and us being created."

"So that's a lie?"

"Not entirely, they just covered up the small mistakes, glossing the story up a bit."

"Which was?"

"Lilith. That unfaithful bitch. They covered her entire existence. Everything related to Lucifer, his rebellion, they didn't even stated his real name in the bible, cause he wasn't "worthy" of being recognized as his angel self. I personally think it would've been a lot more harsher if they kept his old name instead of Lucifer but whatever I guess. Then somehow those nosy ass theorists from the afertmath of Noah's shit load started looking into it too much and found actually more dirt in the hole, that revealed more to our creation. And that's how we got many split versions of it in different scriptures."

"What's his real name?"

"We're not allowed to say it. It's an angel thing."

"Prehistoric heaven stuff huh. But you're no longer a angel, your highness.."

"Fuck you. I was originally a angel before I was murdered totally unjustified btw. How does any of this information does anything in fixing my marriage?!"

The counselor scoffed, but kept her own opinion on that matter (exterminations) to herself. She's a marriage counselor not a therapist, and she wasn't getting paid enough anyways, "you were human. Originally human. Not an angel."

Now it was Adam's turn to scoff offended, but said nothing. He hated to see that side of him after his death on earth. It only brought bad memories, linked to only negative feelings, sorrow and thoughts.

"Tell me more about your marriage with Lilith."

"Pssch what's there to say? Where do I even start? What exactly do you want to know. I can go all into detail about how shit she was as my wife."

"Go on. Tell me everything you want to share, I'm here until 8 and your paying so.."

"More like aPplE hUbBy is paying for everything but whatever, took his card and shit HAHAHAHA! HAAAA," Adam snicker for himself, wiping a tear; thinking he was being funny. But he wasn't. At least for anyone else in the room which was just Gladis (counselor's name) and the only response she did was write a note to that comment.

Note one:

'Apple hubby. A subconscious, possible meaningful name for his spouse. If it referring to events of the bible, may mean about the whole apple incident (weak spot?) or it could be related to King Morningstar's obsession with apples (concerning). Or both.'

"Firstly she cheated on me. Obviously. That's the whole tea, bitch. Secondly she didn't agreed on anything I did, suggest or thought. It's like she wanted to be against everything I believed in. Nothing I did to impress her sastified her. She made ME question my entire faith and existence!" The more Adam spoke the more his pupils shrank by the dark memories of his past.

Note two:

'First wife trauma.'

"Then Lucifer shows up and POOF! Now everything that twink ass looking angel did was 'amazing' and worth looking forward to. He only sang and dance with her, ONCE, and it was like, her whole world turned around.. facing away from me..."

"And did Lucifer have any connections with you at the time? Did he also approach you when he firstly approached Lilith? Did you two spend time together? Talk? Bond?"

"More like it was all a whole distraction for their affair to continue."

"So you two did have a relationship."

"It's complicated."

"Why was it complicated, Adam?"

Adam's face soften in sadness. The question taking him off guard. He wasn't entirely sure?

What went wrong. What did he do, to not deserve Lucifer and Lilith's loyalty? Friendship, honesty.

Why wasn't he ever worth something. Enough.

"I have no fucking idea, man. I was literally perfect, still am and yet they wanted more than what they could bite and CHOKE on it in the progress."

"You're including Lilith in this. Why's that?"

"Because those two bastards were a team. The damage was done by both, all planned out and ready for what was gonna come. Got both me AND Eve. It's plural. I wish I could say I was alone in all this but I wasn't which is why it makes things hard to forgive and forget."

Note three:

'Gayass.'

"So how did you two end up falling in love?"

"We didn't, we kinda just poofed into existence already married and stuff."

"I meant you and King Lucifer."

"Just call him Lucifer he doesn't deserve that sorts of respect, he's an ass. A snake full of cock that doomed humanity."

"How did you and Lucifer get together," she asserted much more frustrated seeing Adam was getting nowhere to the subject in hand.

Adam then realized immediately everyone actually thought they were truly an item. Well this went awkward all of a sudden. So he decided to keep up the lie.

"I died."

"And—— what else?"

"Wdym 'what else'? Bitch wanted to complete the full set y'know. First dick, father of humanity, the only one that refused to join him. I'm basically his forbidden apple."

"And you just let him?"

"Sure. Why not? What's there to lose y'know. That's my jam. I just go with the flow. If it works for me then let it be damn and fuck me hard, I'm fucking doing it."

"Adam, are you taking this session seriously?"

Adam in response digs his pinky finger inside his ear with indifference, "Look. I just want answers, babe. I don't want spiritual solutions or tips. Tell me how to fix this."

She sighed, "when was the last time you two were intimate?"

"WOW, wow. WOAH. Where going to that territory now? Little tea maker right here but whateves."

So Adam went on full detail on one of his sex escapes back in heaven, plastering Lucifer’s name on whatever freak he has fucked in the last centuries. He was not in any way gonna go on about sex with Lucifer (they did it only two times; one outta traditional terms, the second we don’t talk about the fucking second.) that shit was private and humiliating to say the least.

He blushed. Just the thought of Lucifer’s claws running down his skin and his fangs digging through his neck and wings. It sent shivers down his spine. Made his throat go all dry and his limbs all numb.

Previous >> Next

[dresshistorynerd]

Borderline begging you to not erase the gender non conformity of historical women by applying contemporary lenses of gender roles to them. Gender non conforming women existed then and still exist now. Wearing “men’s clothing” does not make me less of a woman and it’s incredibly insulting to see people in 2024 call women “they” and “he” because they wrote extensively about the misogyny they faced on a daily basis and chose to address and protect against by disguising their female form. Clothing does not a gender make—social roles do. Let’s respect historical women by referring to them correctly—not assuming what they would like to be called these days when we have long since dismissed European invert theory.

I'm assuming you are referring to that historical binder post and specifically this part:

Westner was also buried in men's clothing by their own request.

Firstly, I didn't call Ella Westner "he", not sure why you are implying that. I haven't read much about Westner, but I did try to look quickly if we have any record or second hand information of them talking or writing about their gender. I didn't find it, so I don't know what would be the correct way to refer to them. I referred to them with "them" since that is the pronoun in English language when you don't know someone's gender. By all means if you have any evidence to share how they liked to be referred, do share.

This is for all intents and purposes the same ask I got after my Julie d'Aubigny post so I'm going to link my response here (and the answer to the follow up ask) instead of rehashing the same points all over again. But I will rehash couple of main points since it seems they bear repeating. Firstly, I'm not talking about you, you are not Elle Westner and you have just as little access to her mind as I do. I don't have to assume your gender, you said you're a woman, and certainly I believe nothing you do makes you less of a woman. But I can't ask Elle Westner can I? For most historical people, I think it's fair to assume their gender to be the one assigned to them, but if there is evidence that might suggest otherwise, we should not assume. Of course we should neither assume it's not their assigned gender, it's entirely possible it is, but the possibility should not be discarded that their gender is different.

It's a little silly tbh to say I'm erasing gender non-comforming historical women, when literally in the same paragraph I mention how it was quite common for queer *women* to dress in masculine clothing. This is literally what I wrote:

Queer women and trans masc people, who dressed in masculine clothing, (which was pretty common) also sometimes bound their chests, but unsurprisingly that was not exactly celebrated like drag performances were, so there weren't binders made for queer people specifically.

(I admit I didn't mention the "mannish" feminists, who dressed masculinely, but they rarely bound their chests, and like many of them were queer also.)

What I will not do (even if you borderline beg) is to erase trans masc and non-binary people from history. Assuming all historical queer and gnc people were their assigned gender without extensive evidence to the contrary (for some people no amount of evidence is ever enough) effectively erases all trans and non-binary people from history, since the way gender was talked about, understood and allowed to express, was often so different from our current understanding and usually erased from historical evidence. That is in fact imposing our understanding of gender to historical people. Yes some women did cross-dress in order to escape misogyny, but that's certainly not the only reason people cross-dressed. Especially since many of them, those who couldn't or didn't try to pass, faced even more misogyny for cross-dressing, but they did it anyway because they had other reasons to cross-dress. The reason why cross-dressing can be evidence of queer gender identity (though of course as said, there are other possible reasons) especially in 19th century, is because in their culture the understanding of gender was heavily tied to gender expression. Even today, when gender and gender expression are seem much more as separate things, if you see a person who looks like a woman, but is dressed in men's clothing, you shouldn't immediately dismiss the possibility that they might not be a woman. Yes, they might be a woman who for one reason or another likes to dress in masculine clothing, or they might not be.

You say I shouldn't "apply contemporary lenses of gender roles" to historical queer people, but also that I should in this historical context dismiss sexual inversion theory, which was specifically a Victorian lens (shrouded in scientific essentialist terms) to look at queerness. Sexual inversion theory is not biologically true of course, like it was proposed, but really none of our sexuality and gender categories are. Because while there probably is some biological explanations for our feelings of attraction and towards our bodies (which we haven't really found yet), how we built gender and sexuality categories around those feelings is entirely cultural. So while sexual inversion theory is not relevant today, it is still relevant to understand the historical context, since it was an attempt to explain scientifically their cultural construction of gender and sexuality. And of course the flaw with all these cultural categories is that they can not contain and represent the whole breath of human feelings, and will always leave people out in their explanations, which is obviously true with sexual inversion theory (but also for example our identity based model). But the societal understanding of these things also shape how we understand and frame our own feelings.

So briefly, in 19th century queer identities were emerging (not seen as just behavior anymore) and first queer communities were formed. In the texts of Victorian queer writers the understanding of sexuality, expression and gender are all very fluid. Edward Carpenter (a Victorian gay communist) notably wrote about "the intermediate sex" and "transitional men and women" which he understood as a sort of third gender category. Basically his understanding of queerness was conceptually similar to sexual inversion theory, but he came from a non-medicalizing and queer liberation angle (though like his writings were not entirely free of internalized queerphobia but still very revolutionary for his time). He wrote about this third gender category as a sort of spectrum that goes from feminine men interested in men, and masculine women interested in women, to cross-dressing people and people living as opposite gender. Today we might see these ends of the spectrum as more or less gnc gay men and women and trans men and women, which to him were more or less extreme expressions of the same phenomena. This also aligns with broader Victorian understanding of gender and sexuality, as gnc queer people were generally seen as a separate gender category, often, especially in case of queer men and trans fems, called fairies. As said, certainly not all Victorian queer people would have agreed or felt represented by these ideas, but this does give us some understanding how at least some of the queer and gnc people might have understood their gender.

Maybe I will need to make a full post about how I think gender should be handled and studied in history, so I can just link it to when I inevitably get yet another one of these.

[llovelyclouds]

notes on alecto

hii!! so a few months ago i did a full reread of the locked tomb and took note of anything i thought seemed particularly relevant. I want to share what I have but I'm not sure exactly how i want to format everything quite yet- but im just gonna go for it so bear with me if its a little disorganized!

throughout the process i've started coming up with some of my own theories, but i thought it would be cool to post everything i've compiled, so people could use that to make their own conclusions as well :D

I have sections for anything that seemed important about all the original lyctors & their cavaliers, so I'm going to start off with all my information gathered about alecto! buckle in, folks, there's a lot :-)

you can find links to the other posts in the project here!

(also ofc spoilers for the up to the end of nona ahead!)

ALECTO

titles:

Also referred to as “A.L.”, “Annabel Lee,”or “Annie Laurie”  John’s cavalier, the soul of the Earth. (And of course, nona <;3)

Annabel Lee poem  (mentioned htn. pg. 196)

Annie Laurie poem (mentioned htn. pg. 345)

notes from harrow the ninth:

Harrow's psychosis seems to begin after seeing Alecto for the first time (htn. pg. 51)

Augustine describes her as "more lucid" than Mercy as an insult to Mercy (htn. pg 168)

"'God, who did you bury?' [...] 'I buried a monster,' he said." (htn. pg. 195)

(depending on how much of The Body is real) Agrees that Harrow should kill G1dieon (htn. pg. 226)

“Augustine said, ‘To sisters, and to the women we‘ve left behind.’ God’s mouth was cheerful as ever, but his eyes were not when he said, 'Do I have to drink to that?’ For the first time, you were witness to the Saint of Patience discombobulated. ‘Apologies, John. Wasn’t meant as a jab.’ ‘It doesn’t hurt anymore- most of the time,’ said God, and he was still smiling.” (htn. Pg. 277)

"Even the devil bent for God to put a leash around her neck… and the disciples were scared! I cannot blame them! I was terrified! But when the work was done- when I was finished, and so were they, and the new Lyctors found out the price- they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm… Oh, but it is a tragedy, to be put in a box and laid to wait for the rest of time." - Teacher (htn. pg. 328)

Says she has to go away for a while immediately after Varun appears (htn. pg. 334)

John says that G1deon doesn’t talk about her, but Augustine and Mercy still feel guilty about what happened (htn. pg. 345)

“When I first met her I just called her First, One. She had a real name, but I buried it with her, and nobody says it anymore.” - John (htn. Pg. 345)

“Annabel Lee was my- what do I call her? Guide? Friend? I’d hope so… [...] She was the first Resurrection. She was my Adam. As the dust settled and I beheld what was left and what was gone, I was entirely alone. The world had been ended, Harrowhark. One moment I was a man, and the next moment I was the Necrolord Prime, the first necromancer, and more importantly, a landlord with no tenants. [...] I was dazed… I was bewildered… and she was my defender and my sole companion, and my colleague in the scholarship of learning how to live again. It was bloody difficult. I had never been God. [...] She lived to see what happened at Canaan House. Not that she took much interest. My first Resurrection was not a normal human being, Harrow, and she struggled to pretend. Anger was her besetting sin. We had that in common. And when the cost of Lyctorhood was paid, when the emotions were at their peak… we found out the price for our sin. The monstrous retribution. To be chased for our crime to the ends of the universe, to have our deed stain our very faces and follow after us like a foul smell. She died after that first terrible assault.” - John (htn. pg. 346)

"That freak would have gone for me already… she could never act human." -Mercymorn (htn. pg. 408)

the lyctors knew some amount of truth about Alecto's resurrection, likely that shes essentially a resurrection beast (htn. pg. 478)

"'A monster, John!' Augustine barked. "She was a bloody monster in a human suit! She was a monster the moment you resurrected her, and then you went and made her worse!'" - Augustine (htn. pg. 478)

Gideon & Pyrrha liked Alecto despite the fact that the other lyctors (at least Mercy and Augustine) didn't (htn. pg. 479)

One of the reasons the lyctors wanted her dead was because the RBs were partially coming for her (htn. pg. 479)

Appears to claim Harrow's body after Gideon "dies" in the river (htn. pg. 500)

notes from nona the ninth

"Sometimes, [...] I don't like when you do- the necromancy word- [...] -but it feels nice at the same time. It's mixed up. It's like when you do that, it makes me sad- not sad that you did it, but sad that you can do it." - Nona, to Palamades (ntn. pg. 65) 

"Nona loved the blue sphere as much as she loved everything else. She, and nobody else, could hear it sing." (ntn. pg. 125)

"'And I'm not scared of dying. Really truly, Cam, I'm not…' 'Why not?' said Camilla. Nona thought about it. 'Because I like letting go of the pull-up bars and falling off,' she said. 'I don't like the part just before you let go and I don't like the part where you hit the floor, but I like the letting go.'"- Nona and Cam (ntn. pg. 125)

"Dust of my dust- such similar star salt- what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill- we see you still- we seek you still- we murdered- we who murder- you inadvertent tool- you misused green thing- come back to us- take vengeance for us- we saw you- we see you- I see you." - Judith, (as Varun) to Nona (ntn. pg. 164)

Nona likes Gideon's (originally Pyrrhas?? maybe?) sunglasses, but only so long as nobody wore them (ntn. pg. 165)

"then she told herself sternly, Stop it! If she was going to do it, she thought, she might as well do it. She had some vague notion that when you committed to a thing you had to do it all the way. Who had said that to her? Who had taught her that? Once you've stepped in, said the voice in the back of her head, you're in. This isn't the Hokey Pokey. She had remembered something- she had finally remembered something! Only she didn't have anyone to tell." (ntn. pg. 203)

"Nona had thrown exactly two tantrums in her entire life. She couldn't remember anything about the first one, but Pyrrha had told her about it. Pyrrha had been laughing with her mouth, but not with her eyes: her eyes had been very brown and distant and uneasy, as though this tantrum had reminded Pyrrha of something her brain didn't want to bring back." (ntn. pg. 275)

"'But you see, Palamades, I don't mind dying,' said Nona, trying to make him understand. 'I've been doing it for ages. I'm not scared.'" (ntn. pg. 289)

"'I am glad you did not tell us this. We had no idea there was any recourse from Varun the Eater's effects, nor any beast.' 'Its pure theory,' Camilla said curtly. "Something's being transmitted through the light spectrum. Absorption through the eyes is worse for the brain.' This made Nona think of something. It tugged at the edges of her memory and stayed there, nagging.'" - We Suffer & Cam (ntn. pg. 322) 

Nona says that she never liked her hands (ntn. pg. 357)

"She wanted to shout. She wanted to be listened to. She wished the barrier had taken her hands. She wished she had thrust herself into it- become that big seething mass of flesh and meat and tendrils- ruined her body, just melted it; come back messed up, so that nobody could want her body but her, so that it would be hers and nobody else's. This was a horrible thing to think. Nona hated herself immediately and fervently." (ntn. pg. 358)

She hates having just two feet (ntn. pg. 390)

“You were the noise that was everywhere. It was like trying to talk to someone down a phone line with someone screaming through a megaphone in the same room. You drowned everything out. You were so huge and so complicated, and you were screaming, You wouldn’t stop screaming, You were so scared. You were so goddamn mad.” (ntn. pg. 405)

“You were screaming. I wanted you to stop, I wanted… I wanted you. I wanted you like a caveman wants a wildfire… or the sun. I thought you were going to take me, somehow. Purge me. Use me as an instrument. But you didn’t say anything…I was babbling, Show me. Come on. I’m ready. You kept screaming and screaming… like a baby in pain. So I tried to hurt you- I did hurt you. I reached out for you, and it hurt you… but I wasn’t strong enough. The caveman. The wildfire. The Neolithic priest staggering in front of the falling star.” (ntn. pg. 407)

“I wanted to make you the most beautiful body I could think of. He paused and said: “But I was stressed, okay? I was insane. Most of what had made me John had gone somewhere else. There were a few little thoughts left…a handful of things that made me me… a couple scraps of id. It’s not fair to judge me, right? I didn’t do this thinking… I didn’t do it like art. When I was seven, you know, all Nana had to play with in her house was some of Mum’s old toys. And my favourite out of all of them…” He gave a long, shuddering sigh. “My favourite was her old Hollywood Hair Barbie,” he murmured. “I loved her little gold outfit and her long yellow hair. She was the best. She got to have all the adventures. [...]” He said, from my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done. I made you look like a Christmas tree fairy… I made you look like a Renaissance angel… I made you Adam and Eve… Galatea. Barbie. Frankenstien’s monster with long yellow hair. He said, As the world went up I remade us both. I hid me in you… I hid you in me. And when we were together… once the shaman had claimed the sun… I became God.”- John (ntn. pg. 408)

“Do you remember what you said to me once I had done it? When we stood here together?” She looked at him and she said, “Yes.” He said- “You said, ‘I picked you to change, and this is how you repay me?’” She said- “What else did I say?” He said: “You said, ‘What have you done to me? I am a hideousness.’” She said- “What else did I say?” He said, “Where did you put the people? Where did they go?” She said, “I still love you.” He said, "You said that too.” - John & Alecto/Harrow (ntn. Pg. 410)                                                

Nona has some kind of blackout on top of the truck and something happens in that time that convinces Pyrrha of her true identity (ntn. pg. 413)

Also based on Nona’s reaction at that point, maybe Alecto didn’t like Pyrrha even though Pyrrha liked Alecto (ntn. pg. 413)

“She’s scared to die. You’re afraid of so many things, but she’s only afraid to die. Then when the disciples come to you and say the word Lyctor, she does not understand that they want the thing you did to her- she watches as you watch… watch them misunderstand the process.” - Harrow, to John, (ntn. pg. 434)

“In [Aiglemene’s] hands was a huge black-metal pike about the same height as her, with an edge that gleamed in the light. Nona couldn’t stop herself looking at that edge: for some reason it made her palms sweat, and the back of her neck itch again.” (ntn. pg. 454)

“I might not help you when.. I'm back," she said, not quite understanding I. “I'll be different. I'll remember everything. I'll remember the thing I'm trying to forget. And Palamedes-  I won't love him. I won't love Camilla, or Pyrrha, or Hot Sauce, or even Noodle. I won't love anything… I won't know how. I won't be me at all, or.. I'll be the me who knows the thing, and knowing the thing means I'm not Nona- I'm someone else." (ntn. pg. 460)

she recognizes the tower, and the devils (ntn. pg. 440, and 447, respectively)

“You let that monster out of its box," said Ianthe, "and you start us down a path nobody can save us from. If God truly wants her out… if Teacher set this all up… if he wants her…"  “Wants her? He told me to kill her. He said Make it quick, but kill her, said me with my blood could do it- said me with my blood, I was the only one… " [...] “He loves her! " Ianthe howled. “John loves Alecto - John needs Alecto! Without that piece of Goddamn fridge meat, he's nothing- and we need to keep him that way!” - Ianthe & Kiriona, accidentally prompting nona to remember everything (ntn. pg. 470)

“She had been taken down this corridor: she had squeezed through this crack in the rock- not a passageway, not at that point. John had told her he had something to show her. He had said, It's very pretty. You'll like it. [...] John loved her. She was John's cavalier. She loved John. For she so loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved her that he had made her she. for John had loved the world. [...] She hadn't come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it- the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen.The teardrop on the hand. The hand that John had fashioned. [...] John had said, It's so beautiful. Come and look. She had said, There are almost no beautiful things left. where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia. [...] Glowworms, she had told John. Technically beetles, said John, but I always loved them. Narrow beetles with long strands hanging off them- a carpet of shifting, dead, winking lights at the top of the grave. Greenish, orangish, yellowish, moving over one another silently with those long filaments hanging down. [...] And the water- the huge pool of real salt water, where she had knelt and drank- [...] John and she had swum to the centre hummock rising out of the pool. Not an island, not really. An outcropping. With the marble pillars, and the marble top, and the long low marble table. He said he thought it was a nice place to be. To lie down. She had liked hard things to lie down on. It was hard to endure having a spine.” (ntn. starting page 471)

“There she was; John had made her so ugly, so unbearably ugly. The terrible face, with the terrible arms and legs and the terrible middle part, and the terrible hair, and the terrible ears: the nose too short, the ears too brief. But there she was- and within her the child, asleep, with the strange sword. The sword- her sword- her own edge had been pushed out, her swinging edge, her toy. Her plain bladed sword. And her body was chained up…” (ntn. pg. 474)

“Then Alecto remembered the vow, and turned back upon the altar to face the second child and raised the sword with wrath in her heart, for they meant to bring destruction upon her. But when the black-eyed infant showed her countenance to Alecto, Alecto recalled her, for it was a face one dreamed in Alecto's dream. and Alecto stayed the sword.” (ntn. pg. 476)

“And Alecto said, Pyrrha, he laid me down as an appeasement to them; he fed you to them as an appeasement to them; but he has never appeased me, and now all he has done was teach me how to die." (ntn. Pg. 476) 

"Alecto said, I am very sorry about Samael. The child made no answer. Alecto said, I remember my vows. As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service until you bid me the favour, and whatsoever you appoint I shall perform, and consider the vow rendered. This is what I promised, until such a time as you deal with me as you see fit.” (ntn. pg. 477)

[cinderflower]

I don't know if this has been talked about elsewhere but while writing Field of Reeds, I've found there's a very interesting amount of mythology and symbolism that ties in between Malenia, Miquella, and ancient Egyptian mythology. I think the concept of different soul parts (ba, ka, akh) is particularly insightful into a potential way to interpret how bodies and souls are referenced in Elden Ring.

One reason I think this may have served as at least some of the inspiration is the relationship between Elden Ring lore and real life mythology, specifically the Golden Order ties to Roman (and greek, irish, norse) mythology but also how those were influenced by ancient egyptian mythology. Miquella's character in particular seems to reflect on the past state of the world pre-Golden Order for inspiration on how to move forward in the future, similar to how the romans looked to ancient egypt in the past.

List of topics:

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Horus | Miquella the Kind

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

A few disclaimers: There is a vast amount of information on the mythology and there are a lot of contradictions and hotly debated topics within it and I'm no expert, so these will be mostly very surface level comparisons I think may have been used for inspiration, this is not intended to be a declarative comparison. I'll try to keep my sourcing consistent and most references will link back to a single source which compiled a lot of the references together. I did cross-reference these with other sources and will try to call out these additional sources as well as any contradicting opinions where applicable for additional perspective/context.

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Contrary to the name, the flowers referred to as "lotus" are actually two variations of water lilies, a blue and a white variant: Blue Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea caerulea) & White Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea lotus).

As you can imagine, this immediately caught my interest considering we have two variations of lilies in Elden Ring, Trina's lily (blue/purple) and Miquella's lily (unalloyed gold).

Unalloyed gold is representative of a pure gold and white is often the symbol of purity and that's no different here; additionally, at times white was even used interchangeably with yellow. Meanwhile for blue, you have the common themes of water and rebirth it's associated with but it was also commonly used in funerals. We know that water and this particular blue/purple hue in the game is associated with both dreams and death.

The lotus was also associated with alcoholic intoxication, and it was used as a recreational drug when soaked in wine; the roots and blossoms contain narcotic substances which are soluble in alcohol. It was also used in medicine (the juice has a mild sedative effect).

This last point is interesting in the context specifically of Trina's lilies and works well with my own interpretation of Trina's lilies being used as a sedative which I actually wrote even before stumbling across this fact.

The lotus was a symbol for life: at the very beginning of creation a lotus flower containing the god Ra was the first thing to emerge from the primordial waters. The lotus was strongly associated with the sun, as the flower retreats beneath the water at night and rises again each day at dawn like the sun-god.

As with many symbols of fertility, the lotus was also symbolic of rebirth after death. This again ties in well with the original concept of Miquella/Malenia being Abundance/Decay representing the cycle of death and rebirth.

The Egyptians looked forward to their souls coming to life "like a lotus reopening," and the Book of the Dead has a spell to allow the deceased to transform into one of these flowers. Faience models of lotus buds were sometimes placed in tombs. In many tomb scenes, the deceased is shown with a lotus flower held to his nose in order to breathe in the divine perfume.

Lotus Sources [x][x][x]

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Like the lotus/lilies there were two common types of scorpions: a venomous land scorpion and a harmless water scorpion. As such, the scorpion had a dual purpose and could be seen as either friend or foe depending on the context much like how we see the scarlet rot both harms and strengthens Malenia. We also know the Rot God under the lake is at least in part scorpion in nature and thus this is best represented in Selket, the Scorpion Goddess, who is seen as benevolent and is often represented by the harmless water scorpion.

[Continued under the read more]

Scorpions were greatly feared and scorpion stings were one of the main hazards of everyday Egyptian life. Scorpions were described as “A very small thing, a sister of the snake, a sister of Apophis*, sitting at a crossroads, lying in wait for someone who goes in the night . . .”

I believe the scorpion sting serves as an apt representation of the way scarlet rot manifests and which I suspect is clearly intended with the blade crafted from the scorpion stinger of the Rot God sealed beneath the lake of rot.

[* I think there's an interesting parallel between Apophis and the God Devouring Serpent and Rykard but this is already too long, so here's a link about Apophis [x]]

Meaning of Selket: “She Who Causes to Breathe.” Selket's name refers to her power over scorpions, as those who have been stung tend to breathe too fast and too shallow because of the venom.

Another great description which ties in with the Scarlet Rot as it's shown in Elden Ring, specifically through the state of Millicent when we first come across her: slumped against a wall and breathing shallowly because in her words, "My flesh writhes with scarlet rot."

Selket was depicted with a scorpion above her head, as a scorpion, or as a scorpion with a woman's torso. She often had green skin, a reference to her help with regeneration in the Duat. 

The last note here caught my attention knowing that Malenia's Great Rune which is covered in Scarlet Rot is what grants her the ability of regeneration. The specific callout of "in the Duat" is also of interest since the Duat is the underworld, meaning she regenerates in death (decay).

Historically, the scorpion was regarded as a symbol of motherhood in many areas, as female scorpions carry their young on their backs. The protective goddess Selket, who guarded the coffin of the deceased, was often pictured as a scorpion. An ancient Egyptian proverb states: “I love the scorpion, yet I know its venomous sting.”

This last passage I find summarizes Malenia's relationship with Rot and Decay fairly succinctly and ties in well with how I've always interpreted rot as the force of decay seeking to reestablish the proper life cycle into the Lands Between which had been forced into a state of stagnation from the removal of Destined Death. But because of the rejection of this rot and decay aspect, Malenia suffers the consequences, the venomous sting of the scorpion rather than the benevolence of it. This cascades down to her "children" as well where rather than accepting the rot and motherhood, she rejects both it and her "children" alike. This is actually very well contrasted by Romina in the DLC who finds strength when she embraces the rot and accepts the role of motherhood to those rejected by Malenia.

And, lastly, the visual of Selket guarding the coffin of the deceased is a striking visual comparison with Malenia in the roots of the Haligtree guarding Miquella's cocoon (his coffin) before it had been taken.

Scorpion and Selket Sources [x][x]

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Another common concept seen in many religions is the association of birds as either representations of spirits passing or guiding them to the afterlife. While Malenia's title of Valkyrie is obviously a clear call to the norse mythology, there are once again roots of this concept that can be found in the Waterfowl, specifically the Heron and the phoenix variation of the Heron, the Bennu Bird. There's also the Vulture Goddess, Nekhbet, who serves as a protector of the dead/underworld.

A passage from the Book of Ani says that the first gate of the Duat was guarded by the Vulture Goddess, whose “tearing beak” could admit the dead to the place whence they rose again. Amulets of vultures were buried with the dead, especially royalty. Egypt’s oldest oracle was the shrine of Nekhbet at Nekhen (modern Al-Kab), the original “necropolis” or city of the dead. [...] Nekhbet was described as “she whose wings are open, whose breasts are pendulous.” She was usually depicted as a vulture hovering with her wings spread, clutching an ankh or the Shen Ring in her talons. When pictured as a vulture, Nekhbet's colors are rarely true-to-life - instead she is symbolically red, blue, green, black, and white, the colors of life, the sky, regeneration, and holiness.

I've always found the reference of Malenia as a Valkyrie interesting because purely in the base game, she doesn't have any role actively acting as a guide of the dead. Rather, her role is as a protector, an undefeated champion and Miquella's blade - a role she obtains after studying with the mentor who led her to learn the "waterfowl dance" and gave her "wings of unparalleled strength". The main relation she has to death is to those she defeated in battle or inflicted with the Scarlet Rot, and her place in the roots of the Haligtree next to Miquella's cocoon.

The Bennu bird was the mythological phoenix of ancient Egypt. It was associated with the rising of the Nile, resurrection, and the sun. The sacred Bennu bird was thought to be a heron, and [...] were thought to lead the spirits of the dead through the dangers of the Duat.

The context is more interesting, in my opinion, when considering her as trying to be a guide through the underworld - specifically for Miquella. She knows her brother's plan to divest himself of his body and be resurrected (regardless of if you're considering base game lore or SotE lore) as she states clearly she "awaited his return". It's also clear that those who served Miquella knew he had also "died" in some capacity, killing themselves in flashes of light in the hopes to "guide his return". Personally, I think this was a missed opportunity to have her take on this role in Miquella's plot directly but that's neither here nor there.

The Hymn of the Bennu says: “I am a blue heron, pure as bone. I know the stirrings of the Nile, the source where water rises overlapped by trees, where ibises dip and wade, where the fish are plentiful. I fly beneath an arch of trees straight into the eye of heaven. I make a long journey amid mud houses, singing. I know the cool mind of the sky and the hot mysteries of earth. I am a blue heron, the messenger, a reborn and dying god. By day I exist because I exist. By night I sail above the river, a single star wise in the darkness.”

Likely incidental but another fun coincidence is that it is specifically a blue heron and Malenia has the association with the blue dancer charm and her mentor's blue robes. There's also obviously the water imagery, flowing water never rotting, but also water again being representative of death and rebirth, specifically associated with the phoenix in this case. We know for Malenia to reach her state as the Goddess of Rot, she has to die and bloom three times.

The Hymn of the Phoenix says: “I flew straight out of heaven, a mad bird full of secrets. I came into being as I came into being. I grew as I grew. I changed as I changed. My mind is fire, my soul is fire. I am the seed of every god, beautiful as evening, hard as light. I am the last four days of yesterday, four screams from the edges of the earth – beauty, terror, truth, madness – the phoenix on his pyre. I will live forever in the fire spun from my own wings. I destroy and create myself like the sun that rises burning from the East and dies burning in the West. To know the fire, I become the fire. I am power. I am light. I am forever. This is my deliverance. I am the fire that burns you, that burns in you. To live is to die a thousand deaths, but there is only one fire, one eternity.”

I don't really have anything profound here other than I love the visuals of this passage in relation to how they might reflect on Malenia's character. Malenia upon blooming in the scarlet aeonia is strikingly reminiscent of a phoenix being reborn from the flames, but there's also the interesting role fire plays in regards to rot, supposedly being able to burn it away to hold it at bay. In a sense by rejecting rot and embracing it only when the situation is desperate enough, she is continually welcoming her own repeated decay and rebirth. But perhaps this duality is intentional, if we consider the following passage:

Trapping waterfowl in a net is a common tomb scene since the Old Kingdom, although the representation of bird-trapping in a hexagonal net occurs already on an item found in a 1st Dynasty tomb. The scene is said to entail two aspects: one positive, related to the duck as a symbol of fertility linked to rebirth, and one negative, the birds as enemies of the dead, necessitating their being trapped to re-establish order in the cosmos. The birds, as a collective sign, refer to two contrary meanings by condensation.

I think where I ultimately fall in tying these three concepts together is Malenia's own fractured sense of purpose. I think her rot affliction and influence of the Rot God can be seen in some aspects of the Bennu Bird, her desire to be helpful and to achieve a better world can be represented by the Waterfowl/Heron, but the role she ultimately serves is as a protector of the dead (Miquella's cocoon) and represented in Nekhbet.

Heron, Nekhbet, and Bennu Bird Sources [x][x][x][x]

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Which deity better to compare to Miquella the Unalloyed than Shed, the child god, a deity who also has ties to the god Horus which I'll be discussing below in relation to Miquella the Kind.

Shed was pictured as a young man with a child’s Sidelock of Youth, wearing a kilt and an aegis, with a quiver of arrows across his back, riding in a chariot pulled by griffins. 

We can largely see this exact imagery in the picture above and I found these interesting for a few notable reasons. The foremost is in his hunt of creatures, specifically snakes and scorpions as depicted above. We know from the earlier analysis there's the connection between Malenia's rot and the scorpion form of the Rot God - a nice parallel to Miquella fighting against her rot. There's also the bow and arrow, since it's strongly implied that Miquella invented both the pulley bow and crossbow, this also ties in well. But most curiously was the reference to griffins, given the only place in the entire game I can recall seeing griffin motifs is in the Haligtree. (Feel free to correct me if there's more elsewhere!)

Sure that may just be a Berserk reference, but that's so boring in comparison.

A protective god, Shed was pictured on many plaques and pendants. He was believed to guard against illnesses and wild beasts, and made sacred weapons of war. 

Unlike the strong implication that Miquella made the pulley bow, we do know for a fact that he made the Hand of Malenia, which is inscribed with an incantation of Unalloyed Gold to make it resistant to rot, aka a sacred weapon of war.

Shed was often shown grasping serpents and other dangerous animals, and standing on the back of one or more crocodiles, to indicate that he had power over them. In some instances Shed was pictured as a mongoose.

Despite being a child god, Shed is clearly depicted as having power over the most dangerous creatures, not unlike how Miquella is referred to as the "most powerful" and "fearsome" Empyrean, and we can see this power through his charm ability and how he makes docile those who would otherwise prove to be a threat.

Over time, Shed was absorbed into the god Horus, as “Horus the Child.”

As we know, Miquella the Unalloyed eventually becomes Miquella the Kind which I'll get to soon, but first let's talk about the body, death, and souls.

Shed Sources [x]

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

Rather than the concept of a single body and a single soul like much theology that came after, there's different facets of the soul that ultimately came to represent a person and each plays a different role in a person's life both while they are alive and after death. Understanding the nuance of each I think helps shed an interesting perspective on the Trina and Miquella situation in particular.

There are 5 main parts I will be focusing on: Khat (Khet), Ka, Ba, Akh, and Ab (Ib)

Khat (Khet) - The Body

Also called Khet, Khat was the physical body of the deceased, or mummy. On the day of a funeral, special prayers were recited over the mummy to aid in its transformation into a spiritual body, Akh, that could rise to heaven to dwell with the gods. The outer coffin often had a pair of eyes and a false door. This was so that deceased could "see" out, and their Ka (another part of the soul) could come and go.*

The physical body is the easiest, but we can also see in the description related to the coffin that the body still has a role to play in relation to the other parts of the soul, specifically the Ka. This is something to keep in mind when thinking about specifically Miquella's cocoon husk, Ranni's dead body, and Godwyn's soulless body.

[* Note: There is a heated debate in the community with regards to the specific role of the ka being able to return to the body and which resides in the Field of Reeds]

Ka - The Life Force

The hieroglyph for the Ka is two arms raised as if mirroring each other. The Ka is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to describe, for there is no modern translation for this word. Essentially it appears to mean "double" as well as "vital force" and is a clear reference to a part of the individual that transcends the death of the physical body. Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson explains that "in all periods it is used as a term for the creative and sustaining power of life."

This concept of the Ka representing the part of the soul linked to the body I believe ties in well with the concept of multiple deaths that characters in Elden Ring can experience. Now we know when any of the Remembrance bosses die, they're hewn into the Erdtree, taking their shape.

The Ka was something handed down from one's parents, grandparents, and ancestors, like spiritual DNA, traceable in the very remote past to a creator god by way of lesser deities. The Ka was not only one's double but also a guide and protector, imbued with the spark of the divine. According to pictures drawn during the 18th Dynasty, the Ka came into being when a person was born, often depicted as a twin or double, but, unlike the body it belonged to, it was immortal provided it received nourishment.

We see here that it is also believed that under certain circumstances a Ka can be potentially immortal.

The gods themselves were felt to possess a Ka. Egyptologist Dimitri Meeks explains that the vital force that the ancients ascribed to the Ka acts in such a way as to give each deity the ability to take creative form infinitely. Because of this ability, it was this essence, the energy of the deity's Ka, which was felt to temporally inhabit statues and other magical images during ritual, or sacred animals.

In essence, a Ka can vary in shape (when associated with a deity) and is closely bound to the body. It is also able to be imbued in statues or other images - think puppets, or dolls in Ranni's case. Essentially as long as there is something in the realm of the living for Ka to inherit, it can continue to exist in some regard.

The Ka of the pharaoh was thought to be the collective life force of all his subjects - crucial to their well-being, indeed to their very existence. The term "By the Ka of the pharaoh" meant "by the good grace of the pharaoh."

This gives and interesting twist to the concept of the Erdtree which we know is used to facilitate life and rebirth in the Lands Between by returning the bodies of those who perished to it, as well as giving a unique perspective on the concept of grace since only those granted grace by Marika technically "belong" in the Lands Between.

Dying was referred to as "going to one's Ka." Upon the body's demise the Ka rejoined its divine origin, but always remained in close proximity of the body.

One way to potentially conceptualize the Ka is any manifestation of the soul or spirit of the deceased that remains in the land of living rather than the underworld: Spirit Ashes, Puppets, Ranni's Doll(s), Sellen's Primal Glintstone, etc. In Godwyn's case, this implies that his body (Khat) may live, this part of his soul (Ka) was killed and Ranni's was the inverse which is how she's able to continue living.

Ba - The Ego

The personality or alter ego of the deceased. The Ba was said to be able to fly from place to place during the day and is often shown hovering over the mummy or resting on a shrine. Migratory birds were regarded as nations of the Ba, flying freely between tomb and underworld. Supposedly the Ba could assume any form it chose, and the Book of the Dead has many spells to assist the Ba in its transformation. Some of the most common transformations of the Ba were into rams, a lotus, and other birds such as swallows.

Now of course, I read this and immediately thought of Trina, and while I don't think the concept of the Ba in how it functions here is a one to one for the manifestation of Trina, I believe it provides a very unique framework for how to conceptualize her existence. SotE made it abundantly clear that there is a very clear overlap between sleep/dreams and death and if we take the freedom of movement the Ba has literally this makes sense. In the context of Miquella and Trina, this makes Trina an aspect of Miquella that is able to traverse the underworld, able to walk death.

Though the Ba seems to have been essentially nonphysical, it nevertheless could be viewed as a separate physical mode of existence for its owner, even prior to death. Hence, the sun was the Ba of Ra, the wind was the Ba of Shu, water was the Ba of Nun, and crocodiles were the Bas of Sobek. Deities often had multiple Bas - Ra was thought to have seven Bas, and it was claimed that Amun had ten Bas.

It's the line "even prior to death" that caught my attention and I think this mostly applies to Miquella and Trina but could also be applied to Marika and Radagon - though I believe the alchemy concept suits them better. If a Ba is a form of the soul that can exist prior to death and manifest in some way, traversing to the underworld, well that sure does sound like Trina doesn't it?

Every evening the Ba returned to the body, reuniting with it and thus ensuring the body's continued existence in Sehet Aaru (the Field of Reeds). The body had to be recognizable to the Ba, hence the careful mummification and elaborate mummy masks.

Revisiting the concept of Godwyn again, we know without his soul and with the Rune of Death corrupting his body, it begins to mutate and transform. It provides an interesting explanation for why the eclipse ritual may not have worked even if the eclipse did come to pass: his body in its mutated state, spread far and wide across the lands between is no longer recognizable. He cannot come back to life because of how his body was desecrated. It also provides an explanation for why Ranni was able to continue living: we find her body, still reflecting her form, at the top of her Divine Tower.

The ram was the animal symbolic of the Ba, a major aspect of the Egyptian notion of the soul; the Egyptian word for “ram” was “ba.”

Now this is purely a parallel I purely enjoyed thinking about when considering the Ancestor Spirits and specifically the concept of Torrent being a juvenile Ancestor Spirit.

Calling Back the Ba of Osiris says: “My Ba is a restless bird that leaves to seek itself. For the falcon who breaks the confines of the shell, even the sky it not enough eternity. He may be tossed by storms of whirling sand or ride a hot wind above dunes. Far from here his voice may ring though the forests from the branches of a fruit tree. By the Nile he may wait silent among the reeds, fish spawning as he sleeps, his head tucked in his wing. Burn saffron; remember my prayers. The smoke of incense will bring him home. Though far and sailing, my Ba comes back to me. In his copper beak he carries my thoughts. On his back my starry dreams fly over mountains, over seas, over villages. Above the grape arbor it is I sailing with the falcon, triumphant. Perhaps now he hovers near, flurry of dark wings beating the door; or he follows the rivers and canals of gods, leading them through mountains; or he binds the souls to the rags of mummies, filling dry hands with perfume. Old ones grasp their scepters and rise barefoot in the burning sand. Perhaps he twitters above boats with their cargoes of amethyst, sailing home. Ah, my Ba's a restless bird. On dark wings he flies from yesterday, love in his throat, the warmth of light among his feathers, the risen sun in his hard, amber eye. If you see him, send him home to me. The heart is uncertain country."

Nothing profound here, again, I just really love the way this passage presents the concept of the Ba.

Akh - The Enlightened Spirit

The Akh was the immortal, transformed self, which was a magical union of the Ba and Ka. Strudwick writes, "once the Akh had been created by this union, it survived as an 'enlightened spirit,' enduring and unchanged for eternity." [...] The Akh could return to earth, however, and it was an aspect of the Akh which would come back as a ghost to haunt the living if some wrong had been done, or would return in dreams to help someone they cared for. Letters and offerings were left at the deceased's tomb in hopes that the Akh would watch over those still on earth.

No image for this one, but I believe the Akh represents the process of ascension well, though in Miquella's case it would imply he has achieved a bastardized form of ascension given that rather than joining his Ka and Ba, he discarded (at least one) of his Ba: Trina. Perhaps some form of it was achieved through the chopping and mashing up of the souls of his family, especially if we think back to the concept of a Pharaoh's Ka encompassing all it's subjects - in this case, all of Marika's childen could be considered part of her Ka.

The Egyptians thought the Akh was a radiant light, something like a star. The Pyramid Texts tell us that when a man dies, his Akh goes to the stars to dwell with the gods - "the Akh belongs to heaven, the corpse to earth."

I love the idea of a version of godhood or ascension being represented by the stars given we know in Elden Ring, the stars are also represent primordial life just like the Crucible.

Ab (Ib) - The Heart

The most important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the Ab, or heart. The Ab was believed to be a drop from the heart of the mother of the child at conception. The heart was thought to be the source of good and evil within a person, the moral awareness and center of thought that could leave the body at will. [...] To the ancient Egyptians, it was the heart and not the brain that was the seat of emotion and thought, and was the key to the afterlife. To lose one's heart was a terrible fate, and to prevent such a calamity no less than seven chapters of the Book of the Dead were dedicated to help prevent this from happening.

This summarizes the tragedy of Miquella's ascension through discarding his love in the form of Trina better than I could. I'll leave you with one final passage I adore when thinking about the tragedy of the heart:

A spell called Giving the Heart to Osiris says: “My heart sleeps. My heart dreams. Give me a mouth. I want to talk. Give me my legs and I'll rise. Give me my hands and arms and I'll fight. I'll crush the skull of the snake. Open my blind eyes, straighten my bent feet. I know my heart. It stirs within me. It throbs in my right hand. Blood quickens beneath my skin. Give me my heart. Let it pump again life's power in me, infuse my hands and feet with spirit. Give me my heart. Let me rise and walk. I am quickened. No more sleep. No more dreams. No more death."

Death and Soul Sources [x][x][x]

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Another botanical reference that is common to a lot of religions is the concept of a Tree of Life, in ancient Egypt this is referenced by the Acacia Tree.

Sometimes called the "Tree of Life" in Egyptian mythology, the first gods were said to have been born under the sacred acacia tree of the goddess Hathor, and Horus was also said to have emerged from it.

I think there's some very interesting parallels as well between Hathor and Marika as well as Horus and ascended!Miquella which I'll get into below.

According to myths, the acacia protected the body of Osiris, and the acacia was known as Nht Hnmt Ntr ("The Tree That Encloses the God.")

Again, another interesting parallel to the function of both the Erdtree and Haligtree in how they are presented in Elden Ring. The Erdtree houses the form of Marika/Radagon while the Haligtree - designed to be a replacement to the Erdtree - which housed Miquella's cocoon at one point and is actively where Malenia is when she ascends to her "Goddess of Rot" form.

Acacia Sources [x][x]

Horus | Miquella the Kind

While not a perfect parallel, I think in relation to Shed who later becomes the precursor to Horus as "Horus the Child", looking at the deity Horus in relation to specifically ascended Miquella can provide a unique perspective.

Egyptian texts paint a dazzling picture of Horus: "when he opens his eyes he fills the universe with light, but when he shuts them darkness comes into being." When the Osiris myth became popular, Horus became the patron of young men and was often described as the perfect example of the dutiful son who grows up to become a just man. Weak as a child, Horus was nurtured by his mother Isis and grew into manhood. Mythologically, the sun and the moon represented the two eyes of Horus. 

Perhaps not the most insightful, but interesting with the knowledge that Miquella's eyes hold eclipses in them, representative of his goal to bring the state of Godwyn to one where he could provide him a true death.

Early hospitals at Alexandria were under the protection of Horus - Horus was thought to have become a doctor on account of the many illnesses he suffered as a child. Consequently, the Eye of Horus amulet was thought to have healing powers, and to ward off the evil eye and protect against all sorts of illnesses.

We know that Miquella cast so much aside in his effort to heal Malenia, and I still firmly believe was one of his primary goals and reasons for seeking ascension. So while not his own illnesses he suffered as a child, it would thematically still fit.

Lastly, here's two other interesting passages:

The Speech of Horus says: “I am Horus, the Great Falcon. My flight has reached the horizon. I have passed by the gods of Nut. I have gone further than the gods of old. Even the most ancient bird could not equal my very first flight. There is no god who has achieved what I have achieved. I am Horus, whom Isis bore and whose protection was made inside the egg. I am Horus, Son of Osiris.”

The Hymn of Horus says: "I come to the room where the sun rose. A falcon flies in and settles on my wrist. In his mouth hangs the skin of a snake. ‘I am Horus,’ he cries. ‘From the land of kings I come, riding through the hot winds on the back of a jackal. Where priests murmured in crumbling temples, I flew through their sacred fires dropping feathers. I come to shout the wisdom of air. I’ve come with a sycamore seed in my beak. By the river we’ll sow it and watch it grow through the years. You will die there, Osiris; and I will sit nine thousand years in the tree’s white branches, one eye on each horizon, waiting for your return. I am life rushing on, born from the egg of the world, born from the belly of a magic woman, born of my father’s dreams. I am the screech of wind, the rush of falcon wings, talons sharp as knives. I came after you. I stand before you. I am with you always. I am the power that dispels darkness. The seed laid into the void must grow. The candle’s only purpose is to shine in the darkness. Bread is meant to be ground to pulp in the teeth. The function of life is to have something to offer death. A man forgets, but his heart remembers – the love and the terror, the weeping, the beating of wings.'”

Horus Sources [x]

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

While I think Isis can be an interesting deity to consider for pre-God Marika, I find Hathor slightly more fitting for her ascended godhood.

Hathor is understood to be the deity who welcomes the worthy dead, offers them refreshments of food and drink, and leads the way into the blessed beyond. One of the desires of the deceased was to be in the following of Hathor - "I tread the stars and climb the sunbeams in the retinue of Hathor, I rise to the sky."

Despite the Land of Shadows canonically existing, I believe that's just another realm where death manifests while the Lands Between represents another, and in a sense could be considered something like "the blessed beyond" for those granted her grace. It also explains how those like the Tarnished could be cast out and only permitted back once she returned the vision of grace to them.

Hathor's attributes as a mother goddess were exalted - it was she who gave birth to gods, shaped animals and people, and brought greenery into existence. Hathor repelled the shadows and illuminated all creatures with her light. The inundation of the Nile happened on her command, and the winds drew near on her orders.

Quite a literal parallel to both her removal of Destined Death and sealing away of the Land of Shadow, also bringing light to the land in the form of the golden shine of the Erdtree.

In one Egyptian tale, Hathor was charged by Ra to punish humankind. So great was the slaughter that Ra feared people would be wiped out, and ordered the goddess to halt. But blood-mad, she ignored him. These two aspects of Hathor - violent and dangerous versus beautiful and joyful - reflected the Egyptian belief that women, as the Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown puts it, "encompassed both extreme passions of fury and love."

I hadn't expected to find something like this when first reading about Hathor but obviously this is reminiscent to how Marika lead her genocidal wars.

Hathor Sources [x]

Conclusion

This is all I plan to cover but there's a lot more I could have such as Apophis; gold, silver, and ivory; hair, braids, knots, and power; and so much more. But this is already super long so I encourage anyone interested to take a stab at looking into it yourself if you're curious. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts!

[nekole-doodles]

*slams open door* @mcytblraufest

IT'S FINALLY POSTING WEEK FOR THE MCYTBLR AU FEST!!! YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA NOW LONG I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT! Anyway, here's the art I submitted:

So, this is from my Rebirth DSMP AU based on the webtoon Rebirth! I haven't talked about it on here but it's definitely one of my favorite AUs :D For those who have read Rebirth, Wilbur takes Noah's place and Tommy takes Neo's place(and yes, they are brothers in this AU).

Also, it was an absolute pleasure to work with lemon_doodles(I don't know their Tumblr :']) and @deathshadowrules!!

Here's the link to deathshadowrules's fic:

And if lemon_doodles wants me to add the link to their fic, I'll reblog this with the link :>

Here's some info on this AU for a bit more context(this is pretty long btw):

(Also, quick note: The fanfics have a different interpretations of this AU and the information the art provided so the details might not line up)

Again, this is an AU heavily based on the webtoon Rebirth, I recommend it, it's really interesting :)

There are themes of time travel/time loops, zombies/zombie apocalypse, superpowers, and this is also a modern AU.

The world ended on November 16th(date idea credits to deathshadowrules) when during a solar eclipse, everyone on Earth passed out for an unexplainable reason and when they woke up the next day, half of those people became zombies, later referred to as the Undead due to them having abilities that exceed the zombies typically depicted in media. This day became known as Armageddon. Along with the rise of the Undead, some of the remaining humans gained abilities/superpowers.

Summary: Wilbur had experienced this apocalyptic world and survived for 6 years. In the later part of those 6 years, he ended up letting Tommy, his brother who he disregarded for years before Armageddon, get captured(I think by the military) for experimentation due to his unique abilities and body. (I'm trying not to spoil too much of Rebirth so some of this is vague TvT) He regretted this decision greatly because he found that he still cared a lot about Tommy, despite their relationship not being great over the years, so he decided to save Tommy from the experimentation. In doing so, he died right after he freed Tommy from the test tube he was being kept in, wishing he had one more chance to fix his mistakes, mainly to make sure that Tommy will remain safe and to (hopefully) mend their long-broken relationship. Then, Wilbur wakes up on November 15th, the day before Armageddon began, which was 6 years ago. He had traveled back in time after he died. He realized that this was his chance to save Tommy. Little did Wilbur know that Tommy has been in a sort of timeloop where once he dies in one timeline, he goes back in time near the start of Armageddon and starts another timeline.

Extra Details Time!

When Wilbur got sent back in time after his death, he got a white streak in his hair with a few gold strands(in the art, it literally just looks blonde because I messed up and couldn't fix it, I tried ahdkshj) Also, I was originally going to make one of Wilbur's eyes gold but I totally forgot while coloring and couldn't go back to fix it. Btw, the whole thing with the gold hair strands, butterflies, text, and eye makes more sense if you read Rebirth but I don't know how to explain it.

Wilbur and Tommy are not biologically related to Phil and Techno but Wilbur is still very close with them. He's known Phil and Techno since he was young and treated them more like family than his actual family. Tommy never really interacted much with Phil and Techno and honestly kind of avoided them. He didn't really know why he avoided those two, maybe because he was salty that Wilbur was always more friendly to them than to him. But otherwise, Tommy feels pretty neutral towards them and gains more respect for them throughout Armageddon due to how stable their living situation is for the end of the world(they've got a good base and everything. Their roles are based on the Blanche family)

Wilbur's wife is Sally, but unfortunately, she's a pretty self-centered person and attempts to hide this but her actions really expresses this fact. She takes the place of Parish, for those who read the webtoon, and I deeply apologize.

Fundy is Wilbur and Sally's son. He doesn't really like Tommy but they start being a bit less aggressive towards each other as the story progresses. He takes Abel's place.

Wilbur's ability is advanced fire manipulation instead of blood manipulation like Noah from Rebirth. Since Noah's blood manipulation has an unbelievable amount of possibilities, I kind of had to twist the possibilities of fire manipulation so that Wilbur's abilities are still able to fill the role they need to. If you want to get a good idea of a way Wilbur uses his fire manipulation, think like- Colonel Mustang's flame alchemy from Fullmetal Alchemist but instead of using alchemy, Wilbur causes his fire to burst.

Schlatt takes Ian's role and is just as much of a prick but him and Wilbur aren't brothers. Schlatt is a businessman that comes from a family that is close with Wilbur's, so they've known each other since they were kids(they were introduced to each other at a young age in the hopes they would be friendly enough to be able to work closely with each other). They were sort of friends before Schlatt became a prick but Wilbur still had to deal with him because he is a genuinely good businessman for the company(btw, I should probably mention that Wilbur owns a pretty big business, for those who don't have that context from Rebirth. Idk if the business will be the same or if I'll change it to fit Wilbur better)

Tubbo is Schlatt's son(from a previous marriage) but Schlatt is a pretty distant father because he doesn't really care. Tubbo takes Iva's place but has a different personality because he's older than Iva, and therefore, less innocent.

Quackity is married to Schlatt but he isn't Schlatt's first partner. A few months into the marriage, Quackity began regretting the marriage but felt like he couldn't end it. He takes Lena's place but him and Tubbo act more like close friends. They're both happy with their friendship and don't feel the need to push it to "family". Quackity still takes care of Tubbo though since Schlatt definitely isn't :/

Niki takes Li's place but is a bit less emotionless/cold. Her ability is being able to control water and its temperature(basically waterbending). Also, since people usually ship Noah and Li, I would just like to specify that Niki and Wilbur are friends and only friends.

Some ages(these are still a work in progress though): Wilbur- 26/28, Tommy- 14, Fundy- ~8-10, Tubbo- 14, Niki- 21/22

I think that's enough lore dumping for today :| This AU is still a big work in progress but I'm having so much fun with it!

[gothhabiba]

I make video essays (not frequently but I'm trying to get back into it) and I have wondered about blind accessibility before but I haven't really found much information that isn't VERY general. Do you have any resources or tips? Because frankly, the reason I make video essays and not say podcasts or just blog posts about these topics is because it is both an audio and visual medium. I can show graphs for things, play clips of movies or songs, etc. and I use captions but when I search for how to make it accessible for the blind all the information I find isn't that applicable to content that's as, dynamic I guess. Like the most common things I see are "identify who's speaking" or "read out text" (which I generally do) but what about clips from other media, graphs, things like that? Especially if im talking about a visual topic like set design or something.

n.b. I'm not blind or low-vision & I'm just brainstorming here.

image descriptions & accessibility aren't quite one-size-fits-all, because thoroughness always comes at the expense of time. you have to ask yourself what information you're trying to communicate with an image or clip. if the entire video is an analysis of a visual artwork, for example, you'd want to describe the image in enough detail that people could not only understand your analysis, but also come to their own analytical conclusions. if, on the other hand, you're just pasting in a line graph to compare two of the numbers in it as a smaller part of a larger point, it's not necessary or worth it to state every value of every variable at every point in time on the graph... just give an idea of the trend you're referring to.

some thoughts:

Any image description is better than no description. Briefly describe something rather than allow the thought of describing it thoroughly to overwhelm you such that you end up doing nothing.

Relatedly: don't think of things in terms of "is the exact same amount and type of information available to sighted and blind people watching this," but rather, "without the visual component, does this basically make sense / can I basically follow the main point?"

What this means is that at no point should there be information that is solely visual in nature, like my example of several seconds of silence where you can only assume that there's probably text on the screen but have no idea what that text says and whether it's a clarification, disclaimer, or even a retraction. It would be best to read this text out, but I've also seen a "text on screen" section in the description box of a video that gives the text in full and the time stamps at which the text appears.

Briefly state what it is about a clip or graph you're inserting that makes it useful for your point. Rather than "and you can see the results of that decision here *a few frames of a graph*," say "and you can see the results of that decision in the sharp downward turn in profits starting in 2009 *a few frames of the graph*." If it's available, link the source of a graph or chart in the description box—it may have alt text or be screenreader accessible at the source website.

Inserting a brief image description into the script after introducing e.g. a photo of a set should be feasible enough, but I also think it's possible to fold the image description into the analysis. This just means making sure that there's never a visual component with no audio equivalent—rather than saying "the stuff that's going on back here *circle part of the screen* has a haunting effect," say "the fact that the furniture in the background is jumbled, worn down, and uncomfortable-looking has a haunting effect." I think explicitly pointing out what about a scene you're responding to is just part of good analysis anyway!

Introduce a clip with a rundown of who's speaking in it and what's going on ("you can see [main point] in this clip, in which Elizabeth confronts Darcy about his meddling in Bingley's affairs"). Play the clip, and then describe anything else about it that's relevant to your analysis ("the fact that she's sitting while he paces back and forth indexes the relationship between gender and space in the film" or whatever). Again, this is just good analysis.

If there's something really central that would take a long time to describe, you could use the description box to image describe it (the same way you would write any other image description) and give a timestamp, and say something like "image description in the box below" when you reach that part of the video.

Sometimes at poetry readings, conferences &c. I've seen people give a description of their appearance, what they're wearing &c. before they begin speaking. I'm not sure how necessary this is—probably some blind people find it interesting and others think it's a waste of time, lmao

[rodem]

Ok I did it I finally set out what I promised myself I'd do. I'm free! (Now I just need to stop stalling on the Cyrus scenario draft....................)

Here is my translation of the leaked rough sketches for the remake Rocket executives. These images are attributed to Takao Unno, the art director for HGSS. It was already known that he was the artist behind Proton and Petrel, because of the TCG, but it is nice to have confirmation that he designed all of them!

As you can see, because these are formally unreleased, wip concept sketches, I wouldn't take any of the "new" information here as gospel regarding their final game selves. Though getting to see the initial ideas behind their designs and personalities is a big treat in and of itself!

Also this probably doesn't need to be said here, but please respect the Gamefreak employees and don't bother them with anything related to leaks in any capacity.

If you want to share my translation of this leak on another site, please only do so by linking to this Tumblr post and don't repost the images directly. (This also probably isn't something to worry about, but I'm saying it just in case.....)

Under the read more is my translation notes and personal thoughts:

Archer: Archer's notes were the big bottleneck for this, ngl. I was unsure what the nuance was with "he wants to become Giovanni," so I spent a decent amount of time looking into it. Based on that, I can infer that the nuance here is that Archer's feelings of admiration for Giovanni are so strong that he either wants to straight up be Giovanni, or exactly like him. Either way, it implies a desire to be just like the other person so strong that you lose your own sense of self. So take of that what you will I guess…..

Ariana: I translated the last bullet point under the assumption that it was referring to the plot point where Ariana and her subordinate go after the player character in the TR HQ. Japanese doesn't have plurals so when I first read it I thought it said they routinely attack children together, but I am going to assume that that wasn't what Mr. Unno was going for here.

Petrel: Petrel and Proton's names being switched around here is not a mistake on my part, btw. Petrel's arrogant way of talking is present in the final game! I have no idea how obvious it is in the English version tbh, so I'm pointing it out here!

(Example: he uses "ore-sama" in HGSS like twice ok. He's so cute and I love him so so much.)

Based on the wording, I'm still kinda unsure if the mole was intended to also be fake. (I'm leaning towards yes rn.) So I will just leave this convo I had with a friend here:

Also in relation to lack of plurals, you could interpret the hat line as him hating hats in general, but based on the context it's most likely just referring to the TR hat.

Proton: I don't really have much to say here except that I've stared at his cleavage for longer than necessary.

There is another leaked image that shows Proton from the front (definitely made as an internal reference image). It is interesting that this reference gives him a grey undershirt while his official depictions from the front (Hitoshi Ariga's 3ds theme and Masters) have him wearing a white one!

[hastalavistabyebye]

okay i have got to hear about the seagulls stop it now Jedi Fox AU

and maybe also dragon raising?

Since @/ithillia asked about the Jedi Fox au too (I answered here) I'm going to talk about dragon raising for you my dear if you don't mind <3

But first, some more informations about Jedi Fox :

He doesn't get his kyber crystal on Illium. No, it's Fox, he finds his deep inside the Jedi temple, in one miraculously preserved Coruscanti cave. The crystal's color is a sort of rich copper/brown (it ended up being a relief of sorts for the guard because Fox could have had a purple one right ? But it would have been too close in meaning to the red blades of the sith and the dark side for their comfort) (it's also in reference to how Fox is often headcanon to have a lighter eye color than other clones) He was still healing and bound to bed when he went and got his crystal. Vokara Che was, of course, not impressed (everyone else was quite a little bit panicked because Fox just kriffing disappeared when he was still too exhausted and beat up to walk without support for longer than a hallway most of the time)

His master is Mace Windu and Fox and Depa adore being (padawan) siblings now and exchange so much gossip and blackmail material. Fox also learns Vapaad from Mace, but prefer to use Shii Cho usually.

Alright, that's for this au's tidbits.

Dragon raising

It isn't really a fic, it's more a worldbuilding file made of bulletpoints.

It's the clone wars transposed in a fantasy setting basically and started very self indulgented to progress as my worldbuilding project xD

In this au, the Vode are young mandalorians from Concord dawn raised as warriors, trained and raised to tame dragons and fight with them. Dragons are a very dangerous, wild and rare species that can only be found in the mandalorian sector. They were supposed to fight in a war they had nothing to do with but ended up putting an end to it (I'm still thinking about how they did that). Because of all of that upbringing, their link with dragons and a bit because of their armors, the rest of the mandalorians tend to despise them and see them as bad omens at best. Their armors is a problem not specifically because of how flexible it is to be adapted at riding and fighting with a dragon, but mostly because their helmets look featureless. As if they were blind, mute and deaf soldiers. Puppets that follows orders and rides a sithspawn creature.

After the end of the war and gaining their independency, the Vode still tend to keep their faces hidden and only wear their helmets around their own people.

Each battalion specializes in one type of dragons (toxins, ice, fire, electricity, desertic...) and their colors indicate that. Their equipment is also adapted to those specializations.

The Jedi are a nomad sorcerer sect that would have been caught up in the middle of the war. So the Vode stopping it, plus the fact that they're very close to the dragons and their general badass-selves makes them very favorable in the Jedi eyes. Both people are isolated from the rest of the population and knows what it is to have to survive against the rest of the galaxy. They get pretty close (sometimes very close depending on the people in question) and help each other's.

WIP game

[homeofwyrm]

Ive recently stumbled upon your blog and I absolutely love your style, i just wanted to know if you have any art tips?

also any tlt headcannons?

First, my inbox is doing this fun thing where I can see I have stuff in it, but I can't actually see it, so sorry if this is answered super late!

but THANKS! <3 That's very sweet and I really appreciate it :)

You have spoiled me by asking about art so I'm going to put waaaaay to much yapping under the cut to keep this post scrollable.

I have a LOT of TLT head canons, so here's a few: (Spoilers?)

Anastasia can't swim/doesn't know how to swim (Possibly taught how by someone else)

Samael was Anastasia's son (Heard about it once and loved it ever since)

Corona would actually be a pretty good Cav, as far as combat skill goes

Harrow is probably average height, if not a little bit below average, but everyone else is just fucking big.

Art Yapping below:

My art tips will probably sound really boring but honestly, regardless of what style or medium you use, fundamentals are super important. So 3D shapes, proportions, anatomy, perspective (my weakest by far) etc. It's very similar to music where once you learn the basic chords and scales, you can sort of extrapolate on that to create your own sound. Additionally USE REFERENCES! Holy shit, especially when branching out with subject matter, or shape, or just the angle of a hand, references are your friend and everyone should use them. All artists ever in history have used them at all experience levels. Drawing from imagination is awesome and super useful but you have to grow your mental library first to be able to do that.

It's also important to just do it, and to push beyond your comfort zone even if it doesn't come out exactly how you want the first 100 times you do it. At the bare minimum, it's far harder to practice something and NOT improve. Even just drawing boxes and cylinders at different angles is a great way to practice for anything art related.

Probably the most important is to be patient with yourself. Some days you'll feel great about the art you do and it feels easy, and lots of days it will feel impossible and you'll wonder why you can't seem to keep a line straight when just the other day it felt so easy. But those days are just as important. Even from just the time I started posting here, about 80% of these things I've drawn don't end up here because they didn't come out right or how I pictured, but it's still worth it to do them. Friction makes a fire, or whatever.

Anyway, I could talk about this forever, but instead here are some links to stuff I like/use (humanoid/character specific):

Masculine Head reference

Feminine head reference

FrameSet (Media stills)

Proko's art channel. This has a TON of free talks, demos and guest spots that are easy to follow and super informative

[jelzorz]

The Crack Quartet Timeline BC I'm sleep deprived and obsessed. Some housekeeping before we get into it:

For those unaware, the canon crack quartet, as @raayllum and I like to refer to them, is rayllum and the following insane trio of ships: claudiez, sorpeli, and corterry

You read that correctly

I got dragged onto this boat unwillingly so now all of you have to suffer too.

These are my hcs and I've already written some of it into fic (linked for convenience). Some of these @raayllum and I share but they also have their own separate ones and these are specific to what I've written already

It's important to note that the crack quartet can only ever take place 10-15 years from the end of canon. Everyone involved by this point is a fully consenting adult. Please keep this disclaimer in mind before you all start coming at me.

Now that that's out of the way

Some of you may have read the seed, so you may know already that I hc Soren and Corvus to be pretty steady at least until the end of the war, where the trauma is too heavy for both of them to be healthy about it. Soren ends the relationship and Corvus informally leaves the council. He's always preferred the serenity of the forest to the hustle and bustle of the castle anyway, and he returns every now and then to give Ezran reports about how things are going among the surrounding towns. It's on one of these journeys that he meets Terry, and their passing knowledge of each other is what gets them talking over a drink in a tavern. Corvus is doing his job and listening for gossip. Terry wants know if he's heard anything about Claudia. All the drama aside, it's nice to see a familiar face and to talk about old times.

In Katolis, Ez and Rayla bully Opeli into taking self defence lessons with Soren after she insists Ez keeps up his swordfighting lessons when she herself has never touched a weapon in her life. If you haven't already read the seed, this is how sorpeli starts. Soren and Opeli have been p good friends for years now, and he has never considered her a mother figure the same way Callum and Ezran might have. He was essentially an adult when everything started so he hasn't ever really needed that guidance, but he's always had a ton of respect for her too. He is 24/25ish when he realises he's caught feelings. He asks her to dance at Callum and Rayla's wedding. He starts having tea with her in the mornings and walking with her to Temple Hill (ia163a)

Claudia tries to leave but the other medics beg her not to. They need her help and her knowledge of medicinal herbs and potions. There's no one to replace her. She stays for a little longer, intending to leave the following week when a cart arrives bearing equipment and support and the king's seal. There is also a letter addressed to Lissa. In it, Ez promises her that her secret is safe, and that she will always have a home in the castle if she wants it.

The month before Callum and Rayla's wedding, the kids are called away to a skirmish in a little town near the border. Ez goes for a wander through town to assess damage and how much they'll need in funds to repair everything when he finds a small clinic that desperately needs financial support. This is where he finds Claudia. She is tending to the medicinal herbs in the garden when he rides past. She's been going from town to town trying to make up for all the trouble she caused by assisting in their clinics and apothecaries under the name Lissa. Ez recognises her immediately. He knows he should tell the others. He does not. He is 14/15.

Callum, snake boi that he is, is Not Having It. Claudia is thrown into a cell on arrival and he insists on exiling her as a minimum but Ezran, who's been in contact this whole time, knows she's been trying to make amends for her mistakes. He demands a trial on her behalf. Soren agrees. Opeli, as a stand in for Justice, argues that a trial is the fair thing to do. Rayla looks at Ezran, realises something else is going on, and agrees that a trial is the better way to go. The sentence her to service within the castle. Callum is Not Happy about it. (ia165)

For a while, everything is fine. Callum and Rayla get married, and castle life is pretty stable in amongst the political squabbles and the trips to quell conflicts in the surrounding towns. Soren hangs out with Opeli pretty regularly. Ez is writing letters to Claudia and personally funding the clinic she works at. Callum and Rayla start trying for a baby. Rayla falls pregnant three years after their wedding. She is 20ish weeks along when Claudia comes home.

This is one of the biggest disagreements Ez and Callum ever have. Rayla does her best to placate them both but she is also pregnant and doesn't want to deal with it. Frustrated that his brother won't trust his decision making and keeps treating him like a child, Ez spends more and more time with Claudia, who trusts him and treats him like an adult, until they're courting in all but name. Callum HATES this but reigns it in for Rayla's sake who's stressed enough. She goes into labour at the end of that summer and suffers a post partum haemorrhage so bad that the only thing that can fix it is Claudia's knowledge of Xadian herbs. The midwives kick Callum out of the room to let Claudia in and Ezran lets them. Rayla and the baby are both fine thanks to Claudia but Callum is FURIOUS with Ezran for allowing it to happen.

Opeli miscarries. She collapses during a council meeting, and it all comes out while the castle doctor and Claudia are attending to her. Callum and Ezran realise how stupid they've been because of the way they hadn't even noticed and they are speaking to each other again by the time Opeli is in recovery. Callum accepts Ezran and Claudia's courtship and does his best to process both this and Soren and Opeli (ia164) and things settle down again for a little while. Opeli resigns from her post as High Cleric and attempts to do the same from the council but Ez refuses her resignation and keeps her on informally. Soren and Opeli are married in a quiet ceremony. Opeli finds herself pregnant again six months later.

They're so caught up in the drama that no one notices Soren and Opeli having drama of their own. They are now having secret, hurried meetings in each other's quarters, knowing how absolutely Forbidden it is, especially for Opeli, both because of her age and her position as High Cleric, but they can't stay away from each other until Opeli starts throwing up in the mornings and she breaks it off in her panic. Rayla is the only one who notices and goes investigating. She is the only one Opeli allows to know of the situation. Rayla goes to Claudia to find the appropriate herbs to help Opeli with her Dilemma, and Claudia figures it out on her own 1) because she knows her brother, and 2) she's not an idiot. Rayla takes the opportunity to thank her properly for saving her life and their friendship begins here, while the boys are still at odds with each other. Opeli does not take the herbs in the end. (the fruit)

Viren returns to the castle that same year. It's Claudia's return all over again: Callum demands he be executed on the spot. Ezran wants to give him a trial. Claudia begs them not to kill him through her courtship with Ezran, her relationship with Soren, and her friendship with Rayla. Soren votes no, for himself and for Claudia. Rayla votes yes because, tentative friendship with Claudia aside, she can't trust Viren, especially not with her and Callum's little one running around. Ezran votes no because he wants to be a better king. Clio, the new High Cleric, Opeli's old 2IC, votes yes as the stand in for LJ. Barius, too soft hearted, votes no. Opeli is the deciding vote. She also votes no and all hell breaks loose all over again. (the snake).

Anyway, this is where we're up to. Obviously there will be more as I update the snake but I don't wanna give anything away BC hooo boy that drama is a doozy. I know, okay, these ships are Insane but the extrapolation you can do is just so Delicious and the drama is absolutely *chef kiss*

Now with part 2: electric boogaloo

[mayordeas-clone]

some thoughts on partitio and agnea's traveler stories and their ultimate contribution to the connecting plot of octopath traveler 2

i recently finished my second playthrough of octopath 2, and it was really fun because it reminded me on why this game is very special to me in spite of its flaws, as well as give me new reasons to appreciate it and its efforts to better connect all eight traveler stories to a grander plot than the first octopath game.

when i first played octopath 2, i thought agnea's story was pretty disappointing since it was the one that connected the least to the big bads behind the game's final chapter and was very low-stakes and lighthearted. however, after reading some folks' opinions on the game + reexperiencing the whole package for myself, i've softened up to her a bit and really appreciate the role she plays in the story, even if it might not be to the same level as the other travelers. (i'm also lumping partitio into this even though his connections are a little tighter + he's not as talked about regarding this issue since i feel like he and agnea's stories have similar ideas and tone)

this was originally apart of a grand infodump on the game i made after finishing the epilogue that i wanted to isolate into its own post!

some spoilers abound, up to the very end of octopath traveler 2 (with some mentions of stuff revealed in octopath traveler 1's endgame)

so the final chapter of octopath traveler 2 pretty much ties key characters and events together through the moonshade order, whose members were involved in all eight characters' stories in order to enact their plan to bring about eternal night. a common criticism of agnea's story is that her connections to this overarching scheme are pretty loose.

each traveler has a major member of the moonshade order involved in some way or another. temenos was acquainted with mindt, who turned out to be arcanette, the current leader and mastermind behind it all. castti's colleague trousseau was involved in the cult's activities as well, utilizing the shadow to spread pestilence after being corrupted by their teachings.

in agnea's case, her connection to this order is tanzy, who is a very minor character all things considered in her story. she was a member of giselle's traveling troupe, and she often mentions a "goddess" in most of her dialogue (who we later find out was referring to arcanette, who manipulated her into the order's cause). what gets to a lot of people is that agnea, upon finding out about tanzy's fate during the final chapter (that she was used and sacrificed by arcanette in order to further the moonshade order's ambitions), has zero reaction or comment about it. not even giselle, coda, and rico, the only other people that have actually met and interacted with tanzy, have anything to say about tanzy's noticable absence during the reunion during the epilogue, making tanzy as agnea's link to the moonshade order feel strange, especially compared to other members who had a slightly more active role in the other travelers' stories.

since i'm also talking about partitio, i might as well explain his connection as well: his story's moonshade order member is ori, a scrivener that always seems to appear out of nowhere. we learn in the final chapter that she was actually keeping tabs on a bunch of the other travelers (even appearing at osvald's trial at the beginning of his story) to gather information for the moonshade order. ori was a pretty important character, but her involvement with partitio's story is that she was Always There (that's the best i can put it), and partitio was sort of doing his own thing.

he and agnea's stories are the only ones to make no mention of The Shadow or any of d'arquest's shenanigans, and they're also a lot more lighthearted in tone, so they might feel a bit out of place when trying to connect them to the other travelers' stories and how they connect to the overarching plot. does that mean they served no purpose? not so! i think they’re relevant in their own way.

partitio and agnea’s story are about hope and forging a future that’s worth fighting and living for. partitio is all about bringing about prosperity to all and seeks to overcome the gigantic task of buying the rights to the steam engine so he can freely distribute it for the better. his resolve to help others is precisely what gets ori to doubt her nihilistic worldview instilled in her by the moonshade order, and it's what keeps her alive when she attempts to sacrifice herself at the fellsun ruins. ori states in her journal that she believes people, businessmen like partitio, are all destined to fall into the pitfall of greed that makes people suffer, much like how roque brilliante turned out, yet partitio’s compassion changes her mind. it’s really cool, even if it’s a detail buried among a sea of other stuff you have to read to piece everything together. (love the final chapter and its plot revelations, but yeah it's sort of disappointing that a lot of information is obtained through reading ori's journal rather than any kind of interaction between all of the members, but alas)

agnea on the surface has a really lighthearted story that doesn’t really have a natural place to mention the death cult lurking in the shadows of everyone’s story or the supernatural magic that will be used to bring about eternal night (see again, tanzy’s very minor presence compared to other moonshade order members). i thought the same at first after my first playthrough. HOWEVER! her story, more than anyone else’s, IS about hope, the main theme of the game. her final battle theme + the thing she works on her whole story is uniquely called the ‘song of hope’. she’s the only traveler to not have a version of the final battle theme; rather than being an epic clash between her greatest foe, it's a triumphant, uplifting song that she debuts in her "battle" with dolcinea ('song of hope' is such an amazing song too, perhaps my favorite in the ost). her journey involves inspiring others to keep moving forward in the face of adversity, such as motivating gill to pursue his ambitions as a musician or giselle to overcome her doubts or giving laila a reason to keep living and dancing despite her circumstances. it only makes sense then that she is the one to give the final speech that properly ends the story of the game, as it’s her journey that fully encapsulates that theme of hope for the future. it was the very thing the main villains thought there was none left in the world, that nihilism that made them want to put the world out of its misery by bringing about an endless night since the dawn was not worth fighting for.

agnea feels like the true protagonist of the game in my opinion, even if her story feels the least related to The Big Bads.

she’s not here to fight, she’s here to inspire, ya know!!! AAAAA

(if i ever play octopath 2 for the third time, ill definitely be picking her as my starter~)

(the reason why i’m kinda up on my soapbox defending my girl is bc i saw a gamefaqs thread of someone explaining this significance agnea’s story has to the main plot and themes and everyone dismissing it as a dumb, stretchy non-answer. YOU GAMERS KNOW NOTHING!!! /lh)

anyway, as far as lighthearted stories w a sort of vague goal go in octopath traveler, agnea’s heavily tying back to the main theme of the game makes it stronger than someone’s like tressa or alfyn’s since they kind of had their own plots that didn’t really relate back to anyone else’s. their only connection to everyone else’s stories were through their connections with graham crossford, which is PRETTY COOL!! but he was long dead/transformed into redeye before the events of the game and tressa and alfyn sorta do their own thing after he indirectly inspired them to go traveling. it just feels more vague i guess?

~

apologies this is really rambly. again, i lifted this from an infodump i wrote on the fly, so i was not really essay-brained, but i hope my point comes across adequately?

all the same, i just have a big appreciation and love for this game. i'm proud to call it my favorite video game, and though it has its problems, it's very special to me and i like talking about it. hopefully i got that across to any reader on this here post, and maybe it inspires a new appreciation for agnea's story and its place in octopath traveler 2 :)

[agentartemus]

Hiiiiiiiiii😙😙😙

I would like to draw Ethan and Artemus in one picture, but I'm not quite sure about Artemus' character yet, can you tell me more about his character?

He gives me the impression that he knows how to be sarcastic(?)🤨

YES YES YES A MILLION TIMES, YES!! Draw him to your heart's content <3333 (I'm currently working on my own piece including Ethan and Arty, but I have to put it on hold because I want to get art requests done first)

But you would be correct! Artemus is a very sarcastic and witty man, but really when the moment calls for it. You mentioned Ethan is very sweet and bubbly on the outside, and quite serious on the inside. Artemus is actually the opposite! (Sort of)

Artemus has chronic RBF (resting bitch face) so on the outside, he appears disinterested or unapproachable. But the second you talk to him, he's very sweet and gentlemanly. But don't be fooled, if you do something heinously wrong, he won't hesitate to show how similar he is to John Wick. (I like to jokingly call him the Star Wars version of John Wick).

But depending on the relationship you develop with him, there are,,,, 4? Likely outcomes:

1. He becomes your father figure (#1 dad ever, ask his Padawans)

2. He becomes your boyfriend/fling (also great, loyal to the GRAVE. Unless you do something deserving of his rejection)

3. Your cool uncle who somehow has a lot of money and doesn't tell you how he gets it

4. Your cool FRIEND who somehow has a lot of money, and still doesn't tell you how he gets it

I've got some more information regarding his character in the links below if you'd like to read!

Ask 1

Ask 2

Ask 3

Bio (unfinished)

Also here's his ArtFight profile if you'd like to look! (It includes reference images)

Profile

Thank you for asking!! Our interactions have been SO GREAT AHHHH!! (Don't forget to drink water and eat a snack <33)