#And like I know that most names have some ancient meaning from long ago or in different languages

[mustang-sal]

The Deeper Meanings of Name Cloaks. Unless...?

I would find it so funny if we randomly meet a wizard with a name cloak of a proper noun that doesn't have another meaning (i.e. isn't already a word in English).

Sonder may be the closest we've gotten so far. It's a recently-coined word (at least in English) so potentially might not count yet as a word with a meaning outside of just being a name for this story (though I would not put it past Brennan to have heard of this word and use it for its other meaning).

Anyway, I'm hanging out for the day we meet a new character and

"What up, you can call me the Wizard Stephanie."

[covenists]

✦ FULL OF FAN BEHAVIOR, M. VERSTAPPEN

everybody knows that this account is full of max. from his first win to now, from his most random things to his glory time, she's always there to post his pictures. they only know her as his friend and nothing more, but who is she actually?

req: Saw your post for smau requests, maybe a Max Verstappen where people don't realise his girlfriends account is you know her official verified account. Because practically every single post is about Max. Full on fan behaviour, in the sense she was his first fan as his childhood friend, she has been there supporting him since they were kids, and now they're adults and together, but some habits doesn't change.

(bonus if the posts makes people question why she choose Max as her mans.)

2016 - 2018

verstappenight

liked by maxverstappen33, and 1,942 others

verstappenight WOOOO P1🏆🏁 congratulations to you maximus, i'm soo proud of you!

view all 125 comments

maxverstappen33 I won't say anything about the name Maximus, but thank you 😄

danielricciardo Well deserved! 👍🙌

username look how young he is

username I love a supportive fan ^^ Plz post more of this man.

   ⤷ yourusername glad to be on your service, ma'am

username how old is he?

username He's so happy, he turns red.

username I usually don't trust redbull after Sebastian, but he might be my new exception🤷‍♀️

verstappenight

liked by danielricciardo, and 1,230 others

verstappenight that eyes glint with mischief. #throwbackthursday

view all 65 comments

maxverstappen33 Oh my god, I thought I trusted you by taking this years ago

   ⤷ yourusername never trust anyone

username The half smile😂

username He's been pulling the red string with Red Bull from a long time ago, and look at the hat. I bet it's not a coincidence.

username how is she even managed to get this out? this looks so ancient

   ⤷ username It's not ancient, it's probably old, but not ancient.

danielricciardo He looks like he's planning to steal one of the cars steering wheel

   ⤷ username exactly! 😂😂

username if it's a throwback, how old is this pic then?

   ⤷ username i mean he looks way younger than him on her recent post, so just figure it.

   ⤷ username he always looks younger

verstappenight

liked by victoriaverstappen, and 963 others

verstappenight how is it feel to have a duplicates?

view all 72 comments

maxverstappen33 Why are you taking the second one?

   ⤷ verstappenight and why are YOU posing to that one?

username Why is he looks younger and younger each time?

   ⤷ verstappenight i don't know, but i definitely recommend him to have a slug treatment for anti aging.

   ⤷ username username it's him in torro rosso, so that's why he looks more like a teenager.

username it's not even thursday yet, but i had a bad feeling for this week's throwback thursday.

verstappenight

liked by carlossainz55, and 3,573 others

verstappenight boo! happy halloween #throwbackthursday

view all 269 comments

username what did i say, my feelings are never lying

carlossainz55 Got you! 😆🤣

   ⤷ maxverstappen1 If I got a heart attack next week, it'll be completely your fault

landonorris is halloween on 29 or 30?

   ⤷ username depends on what region you're in, i guess?

   ⤷ landonorris don't guess, answer.

maxverstappen1 And how are you even managed to take this?? Seriously. yourusername

username I can't believe it's actually Carlos who did this

   ⤷ username Yeah, but I think this is so Carlos-like behavior.

username i would do that face too if someone dressed as scream beside me

username Who is running this fanpage?

username why are you liking him so much?

   ⤷ yourusername because he is so nice, cool, and he looks like sid from ice age which is my favorite character.

   ⤷ danielricciardo we got a whole stack of characters here: first we got maximus the horse from tangled, sid from ice age, and then what? jimmy neutron?

username 😂😂😂ajajaja mira su cara!

verstappenight

liked by redbullracing, and 3,782 others

verstappenight found this on twitter and now i can't stop laughing! can't wait to send this to my family group.

view all 90 comments

maxverstappen1 I really can't trust you with my digital footprint 🤦🏻‍♂️

   ⤷ verstappenight i found this on twitter alright, it's not taken by me!

   ⤷ maxverstappen1 Still.

   ⤷ carlossainz55 Ooh, someone's upset...

username who is this person behind this account?

username Why is his reaction is always looking so hilarious

username Max: 😦

username i feel him

username you sure it's not throwback thursday?

MID 2023

verstappenight

liked by charles_leclerc, and 97,182 others

verstappenight i changed throwback thursday with this questionable sense of max's fashion. hope that's alright.

photo credit via verstauri on twitter.

view all 348 comments

username NOOOOOOOOOOOO

username #bringbackthrowbackthursday

charles_leclerc If you get rid of throwback Thursday, how am I going to tease him?

   ⤷ verstappenight by searching it on pinterest🤷🏻‍♀️

username Is that real or photoshopped?

username Okay, I know throwback thursday is made a long time ago since 2015 but man I really miss it sm... 💔💔

   ⤷ verstappenight same, but some people don't need that old max (except for charles). we need the new one because life goes on -max via my message

   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I don't remember saying it

   ⤷ verstappenight shut up

username oh cmon i know charles want it because he's in love with max

   ⤷ username should i be surprised?

   ⤷ username i mean if there's no throwback thursday, who's going to tease him with his past when she's not there

   ⤷ username Daniel and Lando or Y/n could...

   ⤷ username oh come on, i don't even know who's the person behind this account anyway, for EIGHT YEARS

   ⤷ username As if you've never heard of twitter, just search her username and you'll see her REAL face.

THE TWEET SHE MEANT:

verstappenight

liked by schecoperez, and 113,809 others

verstappenight guess which one is the real one

view all 462 comments

schecoperez The first one of course!😂🤣

username since when did checos ass becoming that juicy

   ⤷ username since he listened to daddy yankee's song on repeat

   ⤷ danielricciardo His actual morning routine:

username the first one because what else would he be doing if not eating omelette and seeing checo's ass in the morning

   ⤷ username even checo himself agrees

username I'm glad that she still post here, even though there's no throwback thursday anymore😞😔

   ⤷ username but i guess even though we did not have throwback thursday anymore, we still have this crack post of him😄

TWITTER, 3 DAYS AFTER THE COMMENTS ON VERSTAPPENIGHT'S DADDY POST:

maxverstappen1 added a photo to their story! 2h

ON THE OTHER HAND, HER ACTUAL IG:

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1 and 82,147 others

yourusername good moooorniiiiinggggg from my room<3

view all 97 comments

username Thank God it's not private

username damn yall work faster than the fbi

username Anyone come here from twitter?

username Omg I've never realized max pulled this hottie ever since they were born

username THIS IS VERSTAPPENIGHT ADMIN?????

   ⤷ username eight years of waiting is finally getting payed off..

username why are you even choosing max to be your man when there's charles or daniel who's sexier

   ⤷ yourusername sometimes i don't need looks to see to be having someone like max. he's my best friend first, and i'm glad i choose him right the first place.

   ⤷ username Oh that's sweet...

   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I love you too, My biggest fan.

   ⤷ username I LOVE YOU TOO??????💔💔

   ⤷ username oh my god max is having a REAL relationship with a fan account admin

   ⤷ username AWOOP🚨🚔 THEIR MEDIUM LAUNCH????

yourusername

liked by maxverstappen1, and 278,903 others

yourusername nobody knows that this phone addict is once my best friend. happy birthday maximus! 🥳🤍

view all 486 comments

landonorris happy birthday facebook dad.

maxverstappen1 I once again not going to take the Maximus name. It makes me feel like a horse from Rapunzel.

   ⤷ yourusername wait, you've watch tangled before?

danielricciardo Happy birthday, Big boy.

redbullracing Happy birthday to our number one champion! 🥳🥳

username awww baby maxiee🥺🥺🥺

lewishamilton Happy birthday, mate!

carlossainz55 To be honest, your real account is sometimes still kinda feels like your other one.

   ⤷ yourusername force of habit probably?

   ⤷ carlossainz55 No, it's because you're acting like Max's biggest fan everywhere.

   ⤷ maxverstappen1 That's probably because she is.

   ⤷ yourusername wipe that smug smile off your face while you're typing

username He looks the same weirdly or not

username AHA I FOUND YOU VERSTAPPENIGHT ADMIN

username i love how she just hanging to his arm like they're been a couple since god knows how long

username SHE'S SOO LUCKYYY

username i'm gonna melt

username i feel like it's a hard launch, but she have been doing this for a long time ago

sophiekumpen 🥳🥳🥳

maxverstappen1

liked by zedd, and 627,834 others

maxverstappen1 How was I going to get her bad side if she's there and looking so beautifully?

👤: yourusername, verstappenight

view all 446 comments

landonorris poetic. remember your other girlfriend's waiting

   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I don't remember having another one?

   ⤷ charles_leclerc How are you even forget about us?

yourusername awww i can't believe you tag the fan account one too!! i love you so much!!!

   ⤷ maxverstappen1 I love you too❤️

username #justiceforcharles #lestappenforever

username SHE'S SOOOO CUTE no wonder max pulled her

victoriaverstappen I didn't know you pulled this cutie

   ⤷ danielricciardo Me too until I found out yesterday at the club

username poetic max is going to be the end of me

username I really had a bad feelings of he becoming poetic and gets all over like this

username Okay, this is max's hard launch. And now I'm waiting for Y/n's

   ⤷ username i thought she already doing it for so many times at verstappenight? 😏🤭

yourusername

liked by redbullracing, and 579,420 others

yourusername 💌

📸: landonorris

view all 461 comments

username PARENTS CONFIRMED???

username YESS (adopt me pls)

username is verstappenight still going to be there? let's see for the next two days...

username verstappenight nation how do we feel after this? (we can get a new max pic daily)

username i'm gonna thank lando forever for this

username With the bouquet, the dim light, and the black and white + sepia filters. What are they doin that night?

username AWWW ROMANTIC😍😍

danielricciardo They left Charles in the back that night

⤷ landonorris aww poor him. but anyway...

username how are you converting from lestappen to this one so fast?

TAGLIST @queenofmanydreams @muglermami @4limq @avengers-assemble123456 @cabbyhabs @meowtastick @4mula-1 @miarabanana @amel1ee @dinosushilun1 @auggieblogs @namgification

[freuleinanna]

I'm still confused about Verna.. I thought she was a demon?? Because why would Death be going around making a bunch of deals with people? After Verna told Pym she decided to go "topside" I thought she was some kind of crossroads demon since it implies she came from below (hell)

Oh! I feel you, and I struggled with that a lot too. She does seem a lot like a demon. I'm not saying I'm 100% correct in my thinking either, but here's why I personally think she's Death. Kind of a long post, sorry. I hope I make myself clear, but feel free to follow up!

So, Verna. An anagram for Raven, that much is established. Ravens are wonderful - symmetrical even - creatures. Bringers of death in a wide understanding. Bringers of good luck in many cultures. The duality is amazing. To me, that also leans majorly into the theme of death being a concept of duality: an enemy for some, a friend for others. Each greets her differently. I'm not talking about the characters here, but people in general.

There's a proverb I came across a while ago that reads 'Death is a great leveller'. Meaning, everyone's equal before her. You have no leverage or buffer against death, and it doesn't matter if you're poor or blindly, feverishly, grotesquely rich (like our folks here). Everyone pays the last bill. For everyone, there's a day of reckoning. It's a major theme with the show, at least. Verna also says 'Buy now, pay the bill later' - although it can still read very demonic, I agree.

She's obviously ancient, and I was leaning toward the demon theory based on all of her talking. Yet - she also keeps ranting about Egypt and pyramids and Cleopatras and such. What's the one thing with Egyptians everyone knows of? They honored death. Death may have been a bigger part of their lives than life itself. The Usher Twins' obssession with all things Egyptian, antiquities, jewelry, swords and such, plays a nice parallel here too, because they're just collectors. They have no grain of honor for the real thing, for what these things are tied to. Kind of a nice thought, I guess.

Anyway, back to Verna. She says on multiple occasions how intrigued she is with us, 'adorable little things'. She saw the pyramids, the expeditions, and she wanted to see what else we do, she wanted to see what Roderick and Madeline will do (in her own words). It's all an experiment to her. She makes an offer just to see what we, people, do.

Here's where my beef with a demon theory comes in. No demonic creature I could think of, be it an actual demon, a trickster, or something else, is that sincerely intrigued. Something something death loving life something something.

Demons, in my understanding, are most interested in winning the deal. They come up with incredible challenges, they enjoy torture, emotional or physical, they never let anyone win. Verna has never once expressed this. Quite the opposite. She gives everyone a chance to step back. Even when the ink has dried and everything's decided, each Usher sibling is conditioned to make a choice: push forward, or step back. Neither of them steps back. Neither of them takes a long hard look at themselves (except Tamerlane, both literally haha and figuratively, as she's the only one to have realized how lost she was in her way - just at the end, when it didn't really matter anymore, but still). Verna is kind to those she takes (sincere pet names, regrets of having to do it this way, making sure they know it's not personal, etc). She grieves with them, just before. Grieving - 'The Raven' being about an expression of grief and trauma - ravens as synonyms for death... you get the gist. Oh! Except Freddie - cause Freddie struck a cord. Infuriated her. So he doesn't get an expressed choice. And he would've blown it like coke anyway, so meh.

And then Arthur Pym. Oh, Arthur Pym. I honestly couldn't imagine a demon kneeling and thanking someone who's refused them.

About Arthur Pym, by the way. It's the one story I hadn't reread, and I should have, it turns out! haha Anyway, a few notes about his travels:

In the story, Arthur Pym is expressedly afraid of white color (North Pole, yada yada, white being the absense of colors/life, and the absense of life is death).

Verna enumerates the moments she witnessed of his travels. Someone getting left in Sahara. Someone getting shot in the Arctic. Something bad that was done to an Inuit woman. Why would she follow Arthur so closely? She didn't know him, he wasn't her favorite. I think it's because she came to collect those deaths. If she is death, she would've been exactly there, where people died. She would have also seen Arthur not partaking.

Aaaaaaaand it makes her 'You saw me' line sound better, because he had sure seen death along his travels.

I think the part about a place of out-of-time, out-of-space creatures and hollow Earth was a bit unnecessary, BUT I can try and tie it in this way:

It showed us how Arthur might have coped with what he saw, and he 'saw a lot', even in his 70s it's difficult for him to recall, and it made him think of humanity as a virus, literally;

He might have thought up that ethereal realm simply because he was in an expedition? Exhaustive conditions for both body and spirit? Traumatic experiences? If he saw Death, he might have cloaked it in his mind to cope with it, thus came his stories;

Verna going 'topside' may just mean that she had to go take a look herself, actually be willingly present for the events - to see the brave little humans conquer the earth. 'Topside', as in, 'visible, present, participating'. If Death exists, I doubt it bothers with our boring human realm but lives downunder, among all threads that weave the world.

So that's that on Arthur Pym.

A few other references my mind is too exhausted to tie in nicely:

Death takes Lenore. THE Lenore from 'The Raven' (mostly) and 'Lenore' (secondary). That happened. Also, death talking to a child of life? Regretting having to take her? Not very demonic of dear ol' Verna, in my opinion.

Her mourning veil, her last toasts to the Ushers at the cemetery? Demons don't tend to grieve their players. Demons don't respect and love them enough, and 'what is grief, if not love persevering'?

Death is the last threshold. Before death, we look upon our legacy (major theme with the show), we remember our losses and loves (Annabel Lee!!!!! love the poem, brilliantly done), we get heavy with regrets. We face death as an enemy & fight, like Madeline did. As a friend, like Arthur did. We confess, like Roderick did. All that is too significant to me overall.

And the last thing. It's Edgar Allan Poe. The whole Death tribute is a giant, incredible, thought-through-to-the-bits hommage to his literature where Death, figuratively and literally, takes the throne.

I hope I managed to express myself alright there. Thanks if you read it through, and as I said before, feel free to follow up or elaborate on some ideas. There are oceans to discuss. <3

[blueskittlesart]

can you expand on your purah thoughts

i've been waiting for someone to ask me about purah since botw came out. im obsessed with her. let's talk about it.

what we know about purah's life pre-calamity is limited, but we do know that she was a sheikah tech researcher in her 20s when the calamity hit. in her diary, she says this about the calamity:

Ganon had been dormant for 10,000 years. Perhaps his power had been building all that time. The slaughter that followed was arbitrary and merciless. The destruction complete. We lost everything... Hyrule Castle, Princess Zelda... Well, perhaps not everything was lost. A youth named Link was brought to me a hundred years ago, covered in wounds and on death's doorstep. Link... So young, yet so courageous. He was the youngest knight to have ever been appointed to the Imperial Guard at Hyrule Castle. He was also a gifted swordsman who was selected as captain of Princess Zelda's personal guard. I thought his skills would be enough to defeat Ganon in glorious fashion... Since ancient times, the royal family of Hyrule and us Sheikah researchers have had a strong bond. Their pain is our own. We took the swordsman and the Sheikah Slate Princess Zelda left behind to the Shrine of Resurrection. Although the Slumber of Restoration had not been fully tested, we decided to put the swordsman under to save his life. It was the best we could do...

What this tells us is that Purah was present and involved in the war effort pre-calamity, and she, like most other hyrulians, bought into the idea that Link was strong enough to defeat ganon. it was only after his defeat that she saw him for what he truly was: a child. "So young," she says. There's a clear undertone of regret in the way she talks about Link and the slumber of restoration. It wasn't fully tested, and she knew that it would likely cause him more pain in the long run, but it was the best she could do. It also implies that she believes Zelda is dead, or, at the very least, unreachable in her current state.

Purah was a researcher of ancient sheikah tech pre-calamity, and one who was very close to Zelda, meaning it's very likely she was heavily involved with the development of the guardians and divine beasts. When this tech was ultimately turned against hyrule and used to decimate their armies, Purah likely felt more grief than most. this was her tech, her brainchild, that was killing thousands of innocents. When link was brought to her, inches from death, covered in wounds inflicted by guardians, she would have known exactly what it was that did him in. For all intents and purposes, she killed him. it was her technology that led to this. Her decision to put him in the untested and potentially dangerous shrine of resurrection is an act of desperation -- not just an attempt to save hyrule from the calamity, but an attempt to prove to HERSELF that her tech is capable of more than senseless violence. that she's capable of saving this boy who she has caused such suffering for.

For 100 years, she has no idea if her gamble has worked. Presumably, it's only after nearly a century of radio silence from Link that she begins working on the anti-aging rune. in her diary, she says:

This technology will enable us to make retired warriors young again, thereby strengthening the Hyrulean army. When Calamity Ganon inevitably returns, we'll be ready. Our offense will be solid, and our defense impenetrable. The need for this tech pains me, but I truly hope to use it to attain everlasting peace for all.

it's interesting, here, the way she equates youth with strength. I think it's likely that, subconsciously or not, she is remembering Link and the other young champions. She believes that they COULD have won the war as they were, if only HER tech hadn't gone haywire. In her mind, the young soldiers and champions she saw weren't doomed until SHE doomed them. With this rune, she is once again clinging to the hope that her inventions will be able to do some good in the war, to somehow make up for the suffering she caused. I think this is also a big part of the reason why she tests it on herself rather than a third party -- she would rather put herself in imminent danger than let someone else suffer the consequences of her actions ever again.

The self-inflicted de-aging is also especially interesting. The way her BOTW diary is written suggests that the anti-aging rune affected not just her body, but her mind, too. there are noticeable changes in the way she writes as her body ages in reverse -- the diary becomes more juvenile and carefree the younger she gets. This is an especially important piece, the fact that she was mentally affected by the de-aging. Before the de-aging process, based on her diary, purah comes off as a very wise, very careful, very grief-stricken woman. Every decision she makes is rationalized and carefully tested in such a way that no one (except her) gets hurt. She looks back on impulsive decisions she made in her youth with melancholy regret -- "I thought his skills would be enough." "it was the best we could do." but she moves forward regardless, attempting at every turn to correct her mistakes in any way she can. "The need for this tech pains me, but I truly hope to use it to attain everlasting peace for all."

And her de-aging rune works. but when she tests it on herself, she accidentally takes herself back to the mindset of a six-year-old child. She remembers what she's doing and why she's doing it, but the wisdom and impulse control and regret that came to her with age and experience have all left her now. She has the boundless optimism of a little girl -- the same boundless optimism that likely led her to utilize the guardians and divine beasts pre-calamity, and with none of the fear of consequence she learned in those hundred years past. When link comes back, she's playful and carefree with him despite her knowledge of who he is and what his return means. She's dismissive of the choice she made to put him in the shrine of resurrection -- when link tells her he doesn't remember her, she says:

"Really?! Well! I'm so shocked I don't know if I'll ever be able to recover from this! Even though, 100 years ago, I took you to the Shrine of Resurrection after Calamity Ganon fatally wounded you... Even though I was the one who put you safely into the Slumber of Restoration... Hmm... As expected. After 100 years in the Slumber of Restoration, subject...has...lost...all...memories. Noted! Oh, sooooorry... I have a bad habit of taking notes rather abruptly like that. It's a charming quirk, isn't it?"

and in her diary:

I can't believe it... Our hero, Linky, has awoken from his 100-year slumber! As expected, he has lost his memory. The Slumber of Restoration... I really should have done a test run on that thing first. Well, live and learn. In any case, he got the ancient furnace working, so now I can start my research once again. Finally!! ☆ Only a truly gifted and heroic swordsman like him could have achieved all that. ♪ Speaking of...this seems like a good opportunity to get him to do some other chores for me too, heh. ☆

All the regret and careful wisdom she spoke with when she was still her accurate age has been replaced with childlike curiosity and mischief. She has, essentially, zapped the war right out of herself. In conversation, she consistently frames this as a mistake, an experiment gone wrong, but I almost wonder if that's truly the case. In totk, she re-ages herself only up into her 20s, the age she was just before the calamity hit, and her diaries reveal that this was a deliberate decision. She decided to put herself back into the headspace of a researcher unburdened by past failures, rather than putting herself back to a true "normal," i.e. her accurate age. I wonder if her regret over what happened in the calamity became too much to bear; if, after a hundred years of not knowing if her final desperate gamble had paid off or if she'd just killed a 17-year-old, she decided to take matters into her own hands and get rid of the guilt. Being the first test subject for the anti-aging rune, she had no idea what the effect on her body would be -- it was an act of self-sacrifice just as much as it was an experiment. Whether the consequences were intentional or not, whether she expected to die, or lose her memory, or nothing to happen at all, taking her life into her own hands with an untested piece of ancient technology was likely her attempt to atone for her sins -- to sacrifice herself to tech she didn't fully understand in the way she'd unwittingly sacrificed so many lives to the guardians during the calamity. the result of the experiment is a little girl with the mind of a seasoned veteran researcher but none of the inhibitions, and while that luckily ended up working out for link, it could just have easily have led him down the path of destruction again.

Ultimately, purah is a selfish character. she chose to put link in the shrine of resurrection in order to prove herself and her tech, ignoring the potential danger to his life. She chose to de-age herself and get rid of her guilt, ignoring the ramifications her experiment could have had on Link and his journey when he woke up. but for all her selfishness, she still cares very deeply for those around her; for her friends, for her family, for the soldiers and princess she lost in the war. She cares so much that she's incapable of dealing with her own guilt over their fates. She is a researcher, and all she knows how to do is make things, so she makes things that she desperately hopes might undo the harm she's caused.

[exactlycleverpirate]

What happened to Lemuria and Rafayel?

A mix of facts and theory. I try to quote where I got stuff from in the game, but let me know if something is unclear.

This is a monster. For TLDR, jump down to the bold words, as this sums up the general idea of this post.

SPOILERS for Main Story, Anecdote 3, and some Memories.

(MS stands for Main Story)

What we know:

Rafayel is Lemurian (Ebb and Flow and MS Chapter 7)

As a child, a long long time ago*, he lived in a Lemurian community in the ocean, specifically in the Deep Sea. He would sneak away from his home to explore the ocean and the surface world. (Nightly Stroll, Whalefall Lament,  Ocean At Night).

*(What is a long, long time ago? 10-15 years? 800 years? He says his age is “24…probably” (promotional video). What does that mean? Has he forgotten exactly when he was born or is he alluding to the fact that he is much older? He made his vow to MC when they were both children (MS Chapter 7.11). Was that current MC or a previous reincarnation of her? If current, then he must be actually around 24. If a previous life of MC, then he could easily be 800 or more.)

Lemuria was believed to be mythical, and/or to have disappeared thousands of years ago. It was confirmed to really exist when, on December 31st, 2034 (the same year the Deepspace Tunnel appeared and the Chronorift Catastrophe occured), a tsunami and earthquake southeast of Linkon opened a rift in the ocean, revealing an ancient Lemurian city (MS, in-game article, and promotional video). When asked how he can be alive today if Lemuria disappeared thousands of years ago, Rafayel says to think of him as “a lost pearl that washed up on the beach”.

Other Lemurians are still alive. Rafayel’s Aunt Talia appears to be a Lemurian herself (his only remaining family) as she has known him a long time, knows about Lemurian ceremonies and other Lemurians, etc. In 2047, a Lemurian named K died. Rafayel attended his Seamoon Ceremony (essentially a funeral of sorts, returning him to the ocean to pass on and return to the water from whence he came), as did other remaining Lemurians (Anecdote 3). 

Now that we have that foundation to work with, let’s start with Louis’ Tale in Anecdote 3. 

For the sake of argument, I am going to assume that Louis got most of the story right, since Rafayel doesn’t contradict him on most points, aside from dismissing him in general, which I feel was to downplay how close Louis was to the truth.

They are discussing the opera Rafayel just performed in, particularly, the Siren’s Ballad. In the opera, the siren is a woman and the human is the man (played by Rafayel). Louis says they got this wrong. The Siren was “a charming, handsome merman”. Presumably this Siren is Rafayel.

Simple enough so far, but now it gets confusing.

The Siren (Rafayel) “met a woman on the beach, but she took his tail and cut off his scales”. This sounds similar in some ways to MC, but opposite in others. MC was a child, not a grown woman. And Rafayel got stranded on the beach (No way out, no hope, and waiting to die) and MC rescued him from death, rather than taking his tail and scales. 

However, if we assume Fragrant Dream was a memory and not just a dream (Rafayel acts as though this dream is significant somehow), Rafayel gave a scale, his blood, and his voice to save MC, and ultimately sacrificed his life for her, in some past life. The perfume (bitter like fermented aquatic plants, the same description as the potion in the dream) that brings the possible memory to MC’s mind is from Your Fragrance. Rafayel has some very strange lines in Your Fragrance when he is under the apparently intoxicating effect this perfume has on him. He says the perfume smells familiar, then goes on to say:

“It must be an allergic reaction. This isn’t perfume. How dare they use such underhanded methods to trap me…”

“Who gave you the perfume?”

“Are you trying to run away again?”

“I’m not going anywhere. You’re gonna lock me up again… You’re with them, I just know it. Don’t think I’m unaware of what you’re about to do. (MC name), I won’t fall for it again. Not this time.”

This all implies that Rafayel was trapped and locked up in the past. And that on at least some level, he feels like MC played a role in him getting tricked. (Which might explains why he considers abandoning her when she is drowning in MS Chapter 7.11. See an alternate theory for this here.)

Back to Louis’ story, he describes the fate of the woman. The Siren is on the verge of death, and he sings the Siren’s Ballad. (Later, we learn this portrayal of the Siren’s Ballad is inaccurate: ““Siren's Ballad” isn't a song of revenge. It's an elegy sung for Lemuria”.) According to Louis, “Ultimately, the woman on the shore passed away with a smile as he sang.” Obviously, MC is currently alive. Did Louis get this wrong? Was this a past life? A different woman?

Louis then describes what he believes those who die by the Siren’s song experience. 

“People lured by the siren's ballad don't die peacefully. Their smiles are just a mask bestowed by the Siren. Instead, as they near death, they witness bizarre visions as they're plunged into endless torment.” 

The man, Mr. Fallon, who died during the opera is described as having died of no obvious cause with a smile on his face. After singing during the opera that Mr. Fallon died watching, Rafayel goes backstage. 

“A searing pain throbs in his throat, pulsating in tandem with his heartbeat, rapidly stimulating his nerves. As he touches his Adam’s apple, he pulls out a new tie from his leather briefcase, a smooth satin entwined between his fingers. The cool texture gradually envelops his neck. It’s like sheathing a blade.”

This strongly implies that Rafayel used his voice for something more than singing, hinting at it being a weapon. I think it is safe to assume Rafayel somehow killed Mr. Fallon man with his song, presumably in the way Louis describes.

Another interesting thing of note in this part of Louis’ description is: “A blue pattern, representing the Siren, appears on their chests. It's a constant reminder of the sins they committed against the sea.” At first, I thought this may be the pattern we see on Rafayel’s chest in Chapter 7.11, implying he sinned against the sea, but on rewatching it, I realized that the mark is red, not blue. So I am inclined to go with my first impression that Rafayel’s mark is related to his bond with MC (since it responds to her calling out to him).

So, now that we are thoroughly confused about what has taken place between Rafayel and MC, let’s move on to the next part of the story. This is when everything takes an even more heartbreaking turn.

“The Siren returns to the sea, believing everything has ended. But he discovers his underwater kingdom has turned to ruins, soaked in blood. His people have either vanished, turned into bloody foam, or were kidnapped. His homeland has turned into a silent, deserted city overnight. Oh, and as for the name of this underwater kingdom - Lemuria.”

(Interesting side note: After this part of Louis’ story, Rafayel’s meal is served: “a fish laying amidst white rosemary”. Rosemary symbolizes fidelity and remembrance.)

Later, in his memories, Rafayel adds to this scene for us.

“The young boy sits alone in the middle of the coral reef, softly humming “Siren's Ballad.” Waves lap the shores, staining it dark red. The color blends almost seamlessly with the bloody setting sun in the distance. Those who deceived him have long since sailed away on their massive ships, laughing all the while. “Siren's Ballad” isn't a song of revenge. It's an elegy sung for Lemuria.”

He also remembers:

“The dying cries of his people echo in his ears, fizzing and crackling like a broken record that's been ground into pieces.”

“In the darkness, the shadows of those he personally laid to rest emerge and drag him down, lower and lower into the depths.”

Now, let’s talk about the painting Raymond bought from Rafayel. 

But first, let’s talk about Raymond. He is a former patient of Zayne’s with a congenital heart disease. In his mansion, he has a giant fish tank with no water in it. Instead, it has a dull and pale skeleton. (MS Chapter 2.2-2.3)

“Fin-like bones protrude from its pelvis. This skeleton lacks legs, its spine extending like a long string. Its pose is ominously beautiful, resembling a girl sitting cross-legged.”

I think it is pretty safe to say this is a real Lemurian skeleton. 

Additionally, Zayne notes that “According to the Akso remote monitor, your vital sign data has improved. The equipment also determined your age to be far younger than what it actually is.” In other words, Raymond’s health has improved, and he is unnaturally youthful for his age. Raymond even suggests he should be dead by now and asks Zayne if he is curious as to why he is not dead. Zayne admits to initial curiosity, but then moves on.

Before K died, he said “They took away my scales and drew my blood. Over and over again. I’m no longer Lemurian.” The doctor told Rafayel that K had endured “such agony”. This appears to be something many of the Lemurians on land are facing or trying to hide from.

In Rafayel’s Myth (Chapter 3), it says that the humans of that time believed:

"Every Lemurian was blessed with beauty. Their tears turn into glimmering pearls, their voices brought dreams of wonder, their blood made one live forever or could even resurrect the dead. Once you tamed a Lemurian, they were the most loyal, powerful servant. They listened to every command, even if it cost them their life."

Even if only parts of this are true, it shows that Lemurians are considered highly desirable as slaves or for parts. And the part about the blood seems to have at least an element of truth, given Raymond's health.

It seems reasonable to conclude that Raymond has been harvesting something (scales, blood, etc) from Lemurians to unnaturally lengthen his life and make him younger.

Now enter Rafayel’s painting. 

He used blood red coral, infused with Metaflux, from the ruins of Lemuria for this painting.

When MC resonated with the painting in Raymond’s house, this is what she experiences:

“A stunning oil painting hangs on the wall opposite of the sofa. It depicts a brilliantly blue sea with cascading white waves. Each brush stroke feels alive as if countless fairies are jumping out of the water.

At the edge of the sea, the water is gradually stained crimson like something is being torn apart, swallowed, and coalescing into a blood clot.

The gloomy weather, the sound of the ocean - a salty humidity slowly creeps into my hair.

A girl by the shore, the lower half of her body submerged in the water. Strange. It's almost like she’s crying and laughing at the same time.

The swirling fog carries a faint, ethereal melody on the sea breeze. It sounds like a song, yet is also a lament.”

Mermaid Song plays in the background while MC is resonating with the painting. The translation of it is: 

“A fish in your hand. Please burn with passion. Nets of moonlight. With coral, a prison. When waves kiss the morning sun. The scent of roses pierce. With a fish in your hand. Blood. Blood. Blood covers the sea.”

When MC visits Rafayel’s art gallery, we learn a bit more about this painting.

“When I was a kid, I had dreamed I turned into a fish.

I swam and swam and swam from the deep sea, seeking a place beyond the water's surface. Only to end up in blood-red seawater.

It was the first time I ever saw such a color. Who knows how many years I've spent trying to recreate it. But I never really could get that same shade of red.

It was always a slightly different hue, you know...”

All of this put together paints a scene along these lines for us:

A young Rafayel returns from an encounter with a human woman on the beach (MC?). He finds that Lemuria is in ruins and empty. He swims to the surface. It is nighttime on a coral reef. There is a smell of roses in the air. As the sun rises, he sees that the water is filled with blood. Perhaps there is a Lemurian girl there singing mournfully, or the girl in the painting is representative of Rafayel’s experience and the experience of other survivors. (Perhaps it is even her skeleton in Raymond's home). Some Lemurians are dead or dying in the water or on the beach. Rafayel hears their dying cries and returns those dead on land to the sea to become one with the water. He then sits alone on a coral reef, surrounded by bloody water, singing an elegy for Lemuria as the sun sets. He knows he was deceived and that his deceivers have already sailed away. Some of the Lemurians have been kidnapped and taken away with the deceivers.

("A fish in your hand" from the Mermaid Song seems to refer to the Ocean Emissaries (little blue fish) that come from making a Lemurian vow (though Rafayel also seems to be able to summon these on command). Is this a reference to the promise between Rafayel and MC? How does that play into the rest of this scene?)

Given how vulnerable Lemurians are on Ebb Day, I think it very likely that this occurred on Ebb Day. (Perhaps this vulnerability was revealed to those who killed the Lemurians by MC or Rafayel himself. Did one or both of them trust the wrong people with this information? This also might be why Rafayel was stranded on a beach in the first place when he met MC.)

So now we have some kind of a picture about what happened to Lemuria. Is this ancient or recent history?

Either way, Lemurians still live and are still being harvested for parts.

Louis concludes his story by asking Rafayel, “When the Siren returns to the beach…How does he exact his revenge on those responsible for Lemuria's destruction?”

To which Rafayel responds, “I think he’d first learn from them. He's gotta study their wits and cruelty, you know.”

Which brings us back to Mr. Fallon dead with a smile on his face at the opera. And also Raymond drowned in his bathtub after carving fish scales into his body. The painting has vanished from his home. (MS Chapter 7.3)

I think this is why Rafayel has a bounty on him, since those participating in harvesting Lemurians are being killed by him, but can't exactly go to the authorities about it.

I also think Rafayel is not solely motivated by revenge. He tells Aunt Talia “Not every Lemurian survivor can wait.” Somehow, what he is doing is supposed to prevent other Lemurians from ending up like K.

Talia notes that Rafayel has changed "After that incident in Lemuria." He seems unrecognizable. Past Rafayel was like a blazing flame, whereas he "now resembled a reef battered by relentless waves - outwardly cold and hard, yet riddled with cracks, vulnerable to crumbling from the next wave." Talia is helping Rafayel gather information for his goal, but she isn't convinced that they are doing the right thing.

What are your thoughts? Was this helpful? More confusing? Is Rafayel ancient or young? What the heck happened between Rafayel and MC? Let me know your thoughts!

[clockwayswrites]

Like Betta Fish Do Part 22

wc: 2556, Masterpost

Danny was flying to Chicago.

It wasn’t exactly his choice to be flying to Chicago. He’d much rather be in Gotham getting some homework done at Jason’s while stealing kisses and food. That was his idea of a good weekend right there and with the end of the semester swiftly approaching he had plenty to do. But no, Sam had told him he better get his undead ass to Chicago that weekend or she’d come to Gotham and drag him out by his hair. Danny had long ago drank his respect women juice (and knew Sam would follow through), so he was flying to Chicago.

Tucker, equally as whipped by Sam, was driving into the city that same day.

Apparently they had to talk about Jason.

In person.

Danny thought it was overkill, but no one wanted to listen to the dead guy about what counted for that, he guessed, so Danny was flying to Chicago.

At least the skyline was pretty to look at as he approached.

Staying invisible, Danny flew into Sam and Val’s apartment from the outside wall. They were six floors up and in a nicer place than two college students should be able to afford. Living somewhere with the security of a front desk was one of the conditions Sam’s parents had for her going to Chicago for college. Sam had complained, but Danny didn’t think she minded as much as she claimed after hearing horror stories from friends about the state of some of the places they had lived.

Danny didn’t see Sam in the living room, but Val was in the kitchen. He floated silently up behind her.

“Boo.”

“I still can and will end you, ghost boy,” she said.

Danny sighed and shimmered into existence. “You’re no fun, Val.”

“You used to think I was plenty fun.”

“Ah to be young and stupid,” Danny said, then had to dodge a punch with a laugh. He floated up to sit cross legged on the ceiling. “Hey! I’m just saying we are both better off not dating each other.”

“I’ll wait until after the interrogation to decide on how good your current situation is or not.”

Danny groaned. “Ancients, how bad is Sam planning to be?”

Val just gave him a look and popped a piece of the bell pepper she had been cutting up into her mouth.

“Okay, yeah. I sorta expected that,” Danny said in defeat and drifted morosely down from the ceiling.

“She’s buying ice cream though,” Val said after Danny had settled into a ghostly puddle. “So if you behave it might just turn into girl talk.”

Danny squinted up at the ceiling. “Real ice cream or vegan ice cream?”

“Both.”

So there was hope then.

Sam arrived with a bang of the door about fifteen minutes later. “Val! I found something scrungly on the street.”

“Hey!” Tucker protested as he followed her inside carrying most of the groceries.

“I found something scrunglier,” Val said, pointing to where Danny was lounging on one of the couches, back to his human form.

“I’ll own that.”

“You!”

“Me,” Danny confirmed with a sigh.

“You owe us so many explanations, Danny,” Sam said, setting bags down in the kitchen.

“Like how did you meet him?”

“So—”

“And when did you know he was a halfa?”

“I mean—”

“And how long have you been dating?”

“Our first—”

“And—”

“Sam! Ancients! You have to let me actually answer if you want answers!” Danny explained.

She stepped out of the kitchen to glare at him, arms crossed. “Fine, come help get snacks and then you are talking.”

“Sure sure sure.”

-

Talking took all night. The only thing, really, that Danny managed to keep from them were Jason’s last name, that he was a vigilante, and how he died (and was revived). The last one was easy, they knew better than to ask, and the first Danny was able to convince Sam it would just distract Tucker. He promised he’d let them have a video call with Jason tomorrow and they could learn his full name then.

But the chase with Johnny, the presents, Jason’s confusion; Danny went into it all. He explained helping Jason through the ectoshots and Jason genuinely becoming his friend. He admitted how early he was crushing on the other, but thought he had no chance because Jason was handsome and smart and so kind. He talked about how warm he felt having that kindness directed at him. And then the date! And the date that he planned… he sounded completely gone, he knew that, but he was.

Luckily how gone he was seemed to sooth a lot of Sam’s anger at not being told for so long. It all went better than Danny expected, and it was good to have his best friends finally know.

None of that made him any less nervous for the video call. He set up his laptop, ignored Tucker’s ‘dude, you still have that thing?’, and pressed call. He had sent Jason a warning text before calling, so it wasn’t long before Jason picked up. He must be on his tablet. It looked liked Jason had actually taken some time to figure out where to sit that would have decent lighting and frame his apartment well. The effort was actually really sweet.

“Jason, everyone. Everyone, Jason,” Danny said, motioning at the screen.

There was a pause and then Sam grabbed a throw pillow and just started wailing on Danny with it.

“Danny!”

“Ow!”

“A Wayne?!”

“Wait, what?” Tucker asked, pulling out his phone. “Wayne as in Wayne Enterprises Wayne?”

“A Wayne, Danny!” Sam landed a particularly vicious hit.

“Sam!”

“You could stop this, you know,” Val said to the screen.

“You know, I don’t really know if I could,” Jason, the not so little shit that he was, said with a grin.

Tucker looked from his phone to the screen and back down again. “Ancients, he’s a Wayne.”

Sam landed one last hit before she took a breath, pushed back her now wild hair, and looked to the screen. “Hi, I like your father’s move to zero impact manufacturing, even if tree credits are mostly a scam and he could do more.”

“Thanks?” Jason said with a bemused sort of smile. “That’s really Tim’s area, I work with the Foundation, not Enterprises.”

Tucker sighed, “You couldn’t be dating Tim instead?”

“He just wants to cuddle the new Wayne phone,” Danny explained after spitting out a feather.

“Got it. What’s your critique?” Jason asked Val.

“Oh, I’m his ex, I just enjoy watching the chaos,” she said, hooking a thumb at Danny.

Jason nodded sagely. “Valid.”

“So,” Danny said, drawing the word out. “As you have guessed, Jason Todd Wayne. Jason, this is Sam, Val, and Tucker.”

“Wait!” Sam interrupted. “If you’re, and you’re, that means then— shit, you really died, huh?”

“Yeah, well,” Jason said with a little shrug and a crooked, slightly somber smile. “The real surprise is actually that I’m less re-alive than I thought.”

“Yeah… Danny told us that you didn’t know you were a halfa. Sorry dude, that sucks,” Tucker said seriously before he brightened and flung an arm around Danny’s shoulder. “But like, the best guy I know is a halfa so you’re in good company! Mostly. The fruit loop is the worst but Dani is great! So you know, three for four is pretty good.”

“I’ve had much worse odds before,” Jason said honestly. “Besides, Danny has been helping me figure it all out. I’d be doing a lot worse without his help. Hell, I was doing a lot worse.”

“Danny said something about corrupted ecto? Sounds nasty dude. Glad that’s clearing up for you.”

“Thanks to Danny and Frostbite,” Jason said, he didn’t exactly shift in his seat, but Danny could tell the question made him a little tense. “It’s not all settled yet, but it’s a lot better and we’ll keep working on it.”

“And what do you do for work?” Sam asked.

“Wow, Sam, could you be any more obvious with that segway?” Danny asked, twisting to look at her incredulously.

“I work for the Martha Wayne Foundation. I do a lot with low income housing in Crime Alley, but also addiction rehabilitation. Literacy is a new project I’m pushing on,” Jason said like the question didn’t bother him. “I might go back to school so that I can do more for it.”

“That’s what you want to do or just what you’re doing?”

“You knew who I was on sight, so I figure you know my story,” Jason said, his tone finally hardening some. “I got lucky, not everyone has that chance. This is a way I can give help back. I still live in Crime Alley and I’m going to make sure that when I die, for good, that it’s a better place than it was when I was born.”

“See? He want’s to do good Sam, just like you, despite having money,” Danny said pointedly.

She looked like she might argue for a moment before she just huffed out an annoyed breath.

“Look, I bet you think I can’t say anything that would actually threaten you—”

Jason raised his hands. “I always respect the capabilities of a determined woman.”

Sam actually paused at that before she gathered up her scowl again. “But I have befriended something as close to a god as you will ever meet, and if you hurt Danny in any malicious way, I will sic Undergrowth on you and no one will ever find your body because it will be decomposing into fertilizer in the Infinite Realms.”

“Got it,” Jason said. “Do you want to meet Pamela Isley sometime? I think the two of you would get along.”

“Pamela Isley as in…”

“Yep. Her wife is my therapist.”

Sam turned to Danny. “Danny, I approve of your boyfriend, even if he’s a Wayne. Val, we’re going to Gotham for spring break.”

Danny covered his laugh at how quickly Jason figured a way into Sam’s good graces, not that Danny minded in the least. He’d take this weekend going well.

-

“Danny?

“Hum? Sorry?” Danny made himself drag his attention away from his phone and up to his friends. It seemed like Jason had missed Danny as much as Danny missed him by all the messages he’d gotten the last few days. There hadn’t even been time to see each other before the week started and now it was already Thursday.

By the expressions the others had, he figured he looked absolutely besotted. Well, damn.

“Do you want to head over to It’s a Grind with us to study for the test?” Cloe asked.

“Oh, I would, but my boyfriend got done with his stuff early, so he’s here to pick me up,” Danny explained with a little wave of his phone.

“That does explain the look on your face,” Fara said with a laugh before she sang, “Danny and what’s his name sitting in a tree.”

José rolled his eyes. “Dios mío, Fara, how are you so bad with names? It’s Jason. Danny only mentions him all the time.”

“Hey!” Danny and Fara said at the same time.

“A, Fara, you are, you still don’t know our econ prof’s name and we started our final project today.”

“I do too!” Fara protested with a pout. “It’s… ah… Barry!”

“Baramore, Fara, it’s Baramore.”

“I was close,” she said, tossing a fold of her hijab like it was her hair and she was a cliché valley girl.

José rounded on Danny. “And two—”

“Shouldn’t it be B?”

“And two!” José repeated more firmly, “Danny, you really do mention Jason a lot. Not in a bad way, but you were so gone for the guy even before you started dating that we had bets.”

“We did,” Cloe confirmed. “I won, of course.”

“Of course you did. Why do I always make friends like this?” Danny asked with a sigh.

“Because you only attract the best,” Fara said with a wink and finger guns.

Danny barked a laugh at that. “Sure. But anyways, I have to go, but I will totally catch you another day to study, it sounds like this test will be a beast.”

“Sure, I’ll message you about some time, but start studying before it since you’re missing today,” Cloe ordered.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll study,” Danny said, walking backwards away from the group.

As he turned and slid through a gap of the throng of people gathered outside of the science building, he caught the end of Fara exclaiming, “who I think it is?”

He supposed the cat was out of the bag here too, and for a lot more people. Everyone was staring (and trying really hard to make it seem like they weren’t staring) at the motorcycle parked by the curb. Or, more likely, they were staring at the man leaning against it.

Danny had no qualms taking a moment to stare himself. Jason looked great in tight, black wash jeans and a black and red leather jacket over a grey button up. Ancients it was good to see him again, text and calls just weren’t the same.

“Hey dead boy!” Danny called out. Heads swiveled to him with shocked gasps, but Danny only had eyes for Jason and the smile that lit up his face.

“Hey, fish.” Jason tucked his phone in his back pocked and leaned back in a way that let his legs fall a little more open.

Danny didn’t hesitate to slip in between them and tug Jason into a kiss by his jacket. He gave a pleased hum as Jason’s large hands settled on his hips, rubbing little circles there.

“Good surprise?” Jason asked. He exuded swagger and confidence, but Danny knew Jason well enough now to see the nerves behind the smirk.

Hoping to soothe the worry, Danny kissed Jason again. “Great surprise.”

Some of the well hidden tension bled out of Jason’s shoulders. Still, he apologized, “I think people might have recognized me.”

“Ya think?” Danny asked with a laugh. “As cool as your bike is, I’m pretty sure it’s you that drew this crowd. I don’t mind though.”

“Really?”

“Really. Now stop worrying, dead boy, I’m starving and your text promised food.”

“Oh, I see how it is, you’re just using me for food,” Jason grumbled and shoved Danny playfully away.

Danny let himself stumble back with a laugh and caught the helmet that was tossed his way. “Come on, Jason, feed your starving college boy.”

“And what does my starving college boy want?” Jason asked before he tugged on his own helmet and swung one leg over his bike.

“Hum, other than you?” Danny teased once his helmet was on, knowing only Jason could hear him now. His words were rewarded with a snort of amusement. “Let’s go to that great Greek place.”

“Your wish is my command.”

“Now if I had known that,” Danny said with a laugh. He settled behind Jason, pressing close and resting a hand on Jason’s hip. As they pulled away he gave a cheeky little wave to his friends who had come to gawk with the rest of the students.

Looked like he’d have more yelling over text messages to answer. Oh well, the reward of speeding down the streets of Gotham with Jason was worth it.

-----

AN: Well, more and more people learn about Danny and Jason Wayne. I wounder who else needs to learn about them? Huuuummmmmm.....

As always, stay delightful my darlings and maybe make sure to hydrate too!

I no longer tag people! You can instead subscribe to the masterpost to be notified.

[mask131]

About Tanit

I recently posted about how people should be looking more into other gods outside of the Greco-Roman pantheons. If you follow me for quite some times, you will also have noted I posted a bunch of loose translation from the French Dictionary of literary myths (which is truly a great reference). Well, I wanted to share with you today a loose translation – well, more of an info-mining at this point – of an article about a goddess that people often ignore the existence of, despite being located right next to Ancient Greece and Rome, and being involved in the history of the Roman Empire. And this goddess is Tanit.

Written by Ildiko Lorinszky, the article is organized in two – at first it takes a look and analysis at the mythological Tanit, at who and what she likely was, how her cult was organized all that. The second part, since it is a Dictionary of LITERARY myths, takes a look at the most prominent and famous depiction of Tanit in French literature – that is to say Flaubert’s famous Salammbô. (If you recalled, a long time ago I posted about how a journalist theorized in an article how Flaubert’s Salammbô was basically an “epic fantasy” novel a la Moorcock or Tolkien long before “fantasy” was even a genre)

Part 1: Tanit in mythology and archeology

Tanit was the patron-goddess of the city of Carthage. Considered to be one of the avatars o the Phoenician goddess Astarte, Tanit’s title, as found on several Punic engravings, was “The Face of Baal” – a qualification very close to how Astarte was called in Sidon and Ugarit “The Name of Baal”. These titles seem to indicate that these two goddesses acted as mediators or intermediaries between humanity and Baal.

Tanit is as such associated with Baal, the vegetation god, but sometimes she is his wife, other times she is simply his paredra (companion/female counterpart). She seems to be the female power accompanying the personification of masculinity that is Baal, and as such their relationship can evoke the one between Isis and Osiris: the youthful sap of the lunar goddess regularly regenerates the power of the god. This “nursing” or “nourishing” function of Tanit seems to have been highlighted by the title she received during the Roman era: the Ops, or the Nutrix, the “Nurse of Saturn”. Goddess of the strengthened earth, Tanit is deeply tied to agrarian rituals: her hierogamy with Baal reproduces in heaven the birth of seeds on earth. Within the sanctuaries of Tanit, men and women devoted to the goddess practiced a sacred prostitution in order to favorize the fecundity of nature. The women tied to the temple were called “nubile girls”, while the men working there were called “dogs” to highlight how completely enslaved they were to the goddess. We know that the prostitutes of both sexes brought important incomes to the temple/

The etymology of Tanit (whose name can also be called Tannit or Tinnit) is obscure. The most probable hypothesis is that the Phoenico-Punic theonym “Tnt” is tied to the verb “tny”, which was used in the Bible to mean “lamenting”, “wailing”, “crying”. According to this interpretation, the “tannît” is originally a “crier”, a “wailer”, and the full name of Tanit means “She who cries before Baal”. As such, the Carthaginian goddess might come from a same tradition as the “Venus lugens”.

According to some mythographers, Tanit (or Astarte) was the supreme goddess of Carthage, and might have been identical to the figures of Dido and Elissa. As in, Dido was in truth the celestial goddess, considered as the founder of the city and its first queen. According to this hypothesis, the suicide of Dido on a pyre was a pure invention of Virgil, who took this motif from various celebrations hosted at Carthage. During these feasts-days, images and depictions of the goddess were burned The word Anna would simply mean “clement”, “mild”, “merciful” – the famous Anna, sister of Dido, is thought to have been another Punic goddess, whose cult was brought from Carthage to Rome, and who there was confused with the roman Anna Perenna, a goddess similar to Venus. Varro claimed that it was not Dido that burned on the pyre, but Anna, and according to this angle, Anna appears as a double of Dido – and like her, she would be another manifestation of the goddess Tanit. Anna’s very name reminds of the name “Nanaia”/”Aine”, which was a title given to Mylitta, yet another manifestation of Tanit.

The sign known as the “sign” or “symbol of Tanit” seems to be a simplified depiction of the goddess with her arms open: it is a triangle (reduced to a trapezoid as the top of the triangle is cut) with an horizontal line at its top, an a disc above the horizontal line. This symbol appears throughout the Punic world on monuments, steles, ceramics and clay figurines.

Part 2: The literary Tanit of Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert’s novel Salammbô is probably where the goddess reappears with the most splendor in literature. While her essence is shown being omnipresent throughout the Punic world, Tanit, as the soul of the city, truly dwells within the town’s sanctuary, which keeps her sacred cloak. The veil of the goddess, desired by many, stolen then regained throughout the plot, plays a key role within the structure of this very enigmatic text, which presents itself as a “veiled narrative”.

The town and its lands are filled with the soul of the “Carthaginian Venus”. The countryside, for example, is filled with an erotic subtext, sometimes seducing, sometimes frightening – reflecting the ambiguity of the goddess. The landscape is all curves, softness, roundness, evoking the shapes of a female body – and the architecture of both the city-buildings and countryside-buildings are described in carnal ways. Within Salammbô, Flaubert describes a world where the spirit and the flesh are intertwined – the female world of Carthage is oppressed by an aura mixing lust with mysticism; and through the erotic nature creeps both a frightening sacred and an attractive morbidity. For death and destruction is coming upon Carthage.

The contradictory nature of the goddess appears as early as the very first scene of the novel, when the gardens of Hamilcar are described. The novel opens on a life-filled landscape: the gardens of the palace are a true Land of Eden, with an abundant vegetation filled with fertility symbols. The plants that are listed are not mere exotic ornaments: they all bear symbolic and mythological connotations. The fig-tree, symbol of abundance and fecundity ; the sycamore, “living body of Hathor”, the tree of the Egyptian moon-goddess ; the grenade, symbol of fertility due to its multiple seeds ; the pine tree, linked to Attis the lover of Cybele ; the cypress, Artemis’ tree ; the lily, which whose perfume was said to be an aphrodisiac ; the vine-grapes and the rose… All those plants are linked to the moon, that the Carthaginian religion associated with Tanit. Most of these symbols, however, have a macabre touch reflecting the dark side of the goddess. The cypress, the “tree of life”, is also a funeral tree linked to the underworld ; the coral is said to be the same red as blood, and was supposedly born from the blood-drops of Medusa ; the lily symbolizes temptation and the unavoidable attraction of the world of the dead ; the fig-tree just like the grenade have a negative side tied to sterility… The flora of this passage, mixing benevolent and malevolent attributes, already depict a world of coexisting and yet opposed principles: fertility cannot exist without sterility, and death is always followed by a renewal. The garden’s description introduces in the text the very cycles of nature, while also bringing up the first signs of the ambivalence that dominates the story.

The same union of opposites is found within the mysterious persona of Tanit. The prayer of Salammbô (which was designed to evoke Lucius’ lamentations to Isis within Apuleius’ Metamorphosis) first describes a benevolent goddess of the moon, who fecundates the world : “How you turn, slowly, supported by the impalpable ether! It polishes itself around you, and it is the movement of your agitation that distributes the winds and the fecund dews. It is as you grow and decrease that the eyes of the cats and the spots of the panthers lengthen or shrink. The wives scream your name in the pains of labor! You inflate the sea-shells! You make the wines boil! […] And all seeds, o goddess, ferment within the dark depths of your humidity.” As a goddess presiding to the process of fermentation, Tanit is also tied to the principle of death – because it is her that makes corpses rot.

The Carthaginian Venus appears sometimes as an hermaphrodite divinity, but with a prevalence and dominance of her feminine aspect. Other times, she appears as just one of two distinct divinity, the female manifestation in couple with a male principle. Tanit synthetizes within her the main aspects of all the great moon-goddesses: Hathor, Ishtar, Isis, Astarte, Anaitis... All are supposed to have an omnipotence when it comes to the vegetal life. Mistress of the elements, Tanit can be linked to the Mother-Earth : for the character of Salammbô, the cloak of the goddess will appear as the veil of nature. The daughter of Hamilcar is linked in a quite mysterious way to Tanit – for she is both a frightened follower of the goddess, and the deity’s incarnation. Described as “pale” and “light” as the moon, she is said to be influenced by the celestial body: in the third chapter, it is explained that Salammbô weakened every time the moon waned, and that while she was languishing during the day, she strengthened herself by nightfall – with an additional mention that she almost died during an eclipse. Flaubert ties together his heroine’s traits with the very name “Salammbô”, which is a reminiscence of the funeral love of Astarte: “Astarte cries for Adonis, an immense grief weighs upon her. She searches. Salmmbô has a vague and mournful love”. According to Michelet’s explanations, “Salambo”, the “love name” of Astarte, is meant to evoke a “mad, dismal and furious flute, which was played during burials”.

As a character embodying Tanit, Salammbô is associated with the two animals that were sacred to the goddess: the holy fishes, and the python snake, also called “the house-spirit”. Upon the “day of the vengeance”, when Mâtho, the scape-goat, is charged with all the crimes of the mercenaries, she appears under the identity of Dercéto, the “fish-woman”. The very detailed costumes of Salammbô contain motifs borrowed to other goddesses that are avatars of Tanit. By using other goddesses, Flaubert widens the range of shapes the lunar goddess can appear with, while also bringing several mythical tales, whose scattered fragments infiltrate themselves within the novel. When she welcomes her father, Salammbô wears around her neck “two small quadrangular plates of gold depicting a woman between two lions ; and her costume reproduced fully the outfit of the goddess”. The goddess depicted here is Cybele, the passionate lover of Attis, the young Phrygian shepherd. This love story that ends in mutilations bears several analogies with the fatal love between Salammbô and the Lybian leader. And the motif of the mutilation is one of the key-images of the novel.

A fish-woman, like Dercéto, Salmmbô is also a dove-woman, reminding of Semiramis ; but more so, she is a snake-woman, linked mysteriously to the python. Before uniting herself with Mâtho (who is identified to Moloch), Salammbô unites herself with the snake that incarnates the lunar goddess in her hermaphroditic shape. It is the python that initiates Salammbô to the mysteries, revealing to Hamilcar’s daughter the unbreakable bond between eroticism and holiness. In the first drafts of the novel, Salammbô was a priestess of Tanit, but in the final story, Flaubert chose to have her father denying her access to the priesthood. So, she rather becomes a priestess under Mathô’s tent: using the zaïmph, she practices a sacred prostitution. The union of Hamilcar’s daughter and of the leader of the mercenaries reproduces the hierogamy of Tanit and Moloch.

Salammbô, confused with Tanit, is also victim of the jealous Rabbet. Obsessed with discovering the face of the goddess hidden under the veil, she joins the ranks of all those female characters who curiosity leads to the transgression of a divine rule (Eve, Pandora, Psyche, Semele). And, in a way, the story of Mathô and Salammbô reproduces this same story: the desire to see, the desire for knowledge, always leads to an ineluctable death.

[katyspersonal]

Okay Lore Queen

What are your thoughts on Melina being the GEQ? Is there real evidence for it or was this another overblown “Miquella is Griffith” theory trend?

Awww, am I Lore Queen? 🥺

Okay, to be honest.. not only I am sure there is no solid evidence in the game itself for this, but also I completely missed the spreading of this theory, apparently fdhhfdfds The first time I ever heard that it exists and is popular was a video from Zullie! I don't remember which, but the line that 'many people suggested she might be Gloam-Eyed Queen herself' surprised me! Until that point I did not even consider the connection, I just thought that she was given Destined Death long ago just in case if things go BAD, or something along those lines?

As for the reasoning, there are a few things:

Maliketh is said to have sealed Destined Death, Gloam-Eyed Queen's power, and the seal on her eye DOES look like a clawmark! Melina only mentions that she will "give Destined Death" in Frenzied Flame ending, when this eye is unsealed, helping the assumption that the power of Destined Death was what got sealed in her until this point!

Her sealed eye is also pretty 'gloam'! More than that: her Japanese name is 宵眼の女王, and 宵 more specifically means nightfall, early night, late evening, twilight or dusk. Fun fact: her eye is similar to literal color 'Dusk'!

( x ) Not only pre-patched version mentioned her as Dusk-Eyed Queen first, but it also makes sense to name Fia's ending as 'Age of Duskborn'! Granted, I am not sure people thought under this angle, but even then, gloam means dark and Melina's eye still qualified :p

There is also that besides Marika, only her children got to be chosen as Empyreans: Ranni, Malenia and Miquella! So whereas some people believed GEQ was chosen by the Two Fingers as Greater Will grew dissatisfied with Marika (oh those pre-SOTE times...), others believed GEQ was a daughter of Marika who rebelled! Melina being daughter of Marika but strikingly "underwhelming" for a Demigod for the lack of better term could also mean that she had her true power taken! The Godskin prayerbook is also oddly found in Stormveil, so if we assume it was one of the treasures Godrick stole from Leyendell, what exactly was it doing in Leyendell to begin with? :p

Finally, the DLC added this bit:

So now we know Melina, rather than being given some sort of fire powers by Marika, was more likely naturally possessing "vision of fire"! Maybe cursed, or maybe it was just her nature connecting with the burning of the Erdtree!

So... yeah, these clues feel more like 'material for interpretation and speculation' than as a solid evidence that there IS something here, right? I think GEQ also feeling "too important" played its role! Fromsoft does have a strange brand of mentioned characters, so for me it was simpler to skip this theory as Elden Ring was not my first game from them! But they like to drop that mentioned character who feels so significant that the audience just CAN'T believe they only exist in memories and description but never were encountered in the game! Off the top of my head, Bloodborne for example has 'Suspicious Beggar is Izzy', and sometimes EVEN 'Rom is Caryll'! Again, as someone used to them doing the thing, I'd not be surprised that we never would meet GEQ!

OKAY you wanted my THOUGHTS, not just analysis, right? I think this idea is cool! It has to deal with several assumptions, but... most Elden Ring theories do anyway... 🙄 It would also make Marika giving Melina her purpose so funny fdfdsdh Just going "Hey, you wanted to slay gods once? Well I have good news-" before the Shattering fdshfhfds Personally, I go back and forth about it, and recently I am stronger on the side of not believing that Melina is GEQ!

My impression from GEQ is that she was an equal of Marika, chosen at the same time as her and on the same terms as her! Ancient Elden Ring not only featured Crucible and Divine Spiral, but also Destined Death Rune! Needless to mention that Destined Death Rune is opposite of Marika's Rune by concept, color and design!

This makes me feel as though GEQ and Marika were some sort of balance for one another: Marika was day, light and life and GEQ was night, darkness and death! GEQ's fire is God-Slaying Flame, something to ensure that nothing and no one can live forever. GEQ being a daughter of Marika does not have a very "equal" vibe to it. However, Marika wanted to be 'eternal' and believed herself to be worthy of seizing that power! She would decide who dies 'a true death' and how, and it sure would NOT be her or her children!

So, Melina was born with a curse for the same reason why Messmer was born with a curse. Karmic retributions for destroying GEQ, Fell God and what happened to Belurat where Romina is from respectively! Marika tried to deceive the fate and make a better world, but unfortunately as far as Greater Will was concerned back then, it made the world capable of "self-correcting". On the other hand, Romina is survivor of Belurat and it backfired on Malenia, whereas wraiths that haunt Omens are horned spirits so maybe Mohg and Morgott were result of victims of the Crusade cursing everyone living under Marika's light. No matter how much she tries, she can't remove 'dangerous', 'destructive', 'evil' things from nature.

Melina's eye also could imply something else!

(Images by Zlofsky) Shadowbeasts (Maliketh and Blaidd) do have this eye color as well! Maliketh doesn't have eyes, however Beast Eye he gives us as Gurranq is most likely his own! So, ignoring 'dusk-eyed' thing, what if his second eye was used to replace Melina's real one, similarly to how Marika used her seal to replace Messmer's real eye?

Alternatively, since Shadowbeasts are not just vassals of Empyreans, but also assassins in the situation if Empyrean resists the will of the Two Fingers, the similar coloration might be because conceptually Melina and Shadowbeasts are similar! Melina is our friend, helping us to grow stronger, but at the same time she is the one to come assassinate us if we fuck up big time, right?

I also agree with the idea that this statue likely depicts GEQ herself! Not just because non-optional Godskin Apostles, Wormfaces and actually guarded Destined Death itself are in Farum Azula! But also because these three wolves appear to be conjoined, which makes me think of a youkai Kamaitachi!

There is a youkai, Kamaitachi - a flying weasel spinning in whirlwhind and associated with strong winds in general that delivers sharp cut wounds but there is no bleeding or pain! Already sounds a bit like how Destined Death hurts in my opinion, especially seeing how some attacks of Godskins are also whirlwind-like! Kamaitachi's claws are also sickle-like! This is literally a name: kama is sickle and itachi is weasel.

So, unusual Shadowbeast for her! I also like to think that she had Scadutree like Marika had Erdtree. Removing Destined Death from the Elden Ring, and removing Shadow Realm, that IS the death realm, from the world's map..

I also question whether this statue's aesthetic is more akin to Rauh than it is to.. well, anything else:

There is an option Divine Beast boss fight in Rauh who, inexplicably, uses Deathblight in Phase 2 instead of storm-blizzard-lightning but there is NO Deathroot or Godwyn eyes in sight, so who knows?

______________________

So yeah, the theory does hold some weight and I can see that it is something fans could eventually come to even without communication with each other! It is not really just a fandom invention that became too popular! I just skipped through it because of how I read Fromsoft's lore personally, and now I bounce back and forth! I had a middle ground idea sort of, that it was not possible to kill GEQ but she became a baby and Marika raised her in order to control! (feel weaker on this one after Melina was called Messmer's just sister, not adopted or anything like that)

[seeker-ophelia]

Nothing in any lore connects my people to the Old God Dragons who became Archdemons.

Spoilers below, you've been warned, heads up, #Long Post

In the rotunda with Solas, you have the options to ask him some questions about Corypheus.

Inky: Tell me about his orb. I would like to know more about the orb he carries. As I said, that must be the means by which he created the breach. I suspect the blast that destroyed the conclave was more accident than anything. The result of unlocking power that had sought release for ages. What I cannot understand is how he managed to survive such an explosion. Inky: (Is the orb Elvhen) You said you believed that the orb is Elvhen? *Solas in the most snooty, condescending tone: I never would have believed a Tevinter mage could unlock such a powerful Relic. It clearly enhances his abilities, giving him access to power he should never have known. Inky: Like the power to control the archdemon? Indirectly, one assumes. Nothing in any lore connects my people (Ancient Elvhen) to the Old God Dragons who became Archdemons.

What? Why wouldn’t it? You got 7 Evanuris (+ Mythal), 7 Old Gods. People wernt stupid. Why wouldn’t you make a connection? THEY ALREADY MADE THE CONENCITON IN THE ASTRARIUMS.

And he doesn't say THERE ISNT or THERES NO CONNECTION… he says NOTHING IN ANY LORE… Did he scrub the lore?

Why would he? To prevent others from trying to ascend to godhood like he had?

Nothing in any lore connects my people (Ancient Elvhen) to the Old God Dragons who became Archdemons.

Sidebar: Im super mad at how a Dalish Inky DOESN’T question him more about this. Who are HIS people? We know at this point Solas does not consider himself Dalish. But he’s not a city elf. So what is he? WHY doesn’t the Inquisitor, especially a DALISH Inquisitor, ask him more about this? It makes me big mad.

And as of the leak today,

We absolutely 100% know that, if the Old Gods were not 100% The Evanuris, they are at last a third the Evanuris.

(OP why you making me do math, why a third? Why not half?)

Lets rewind.

Long ago, when time itself was young, the only things in existence were the sun and the land. The sun, curious about the land, bowed his head close to her body, and Elgar'nan was born in the place where they touched. As a gift to Elgar'nan, the land brought forth great birds and beasts of sky and forest, and all manner of wonderful green things. —From Codex entry: Elgar'nan: God of Vengeance

Lets take this to mean, not the literal birth of the man, but the creation of a God. The Sun bowed his neck (like a dragon neck), to touch the land (like a titan), and the first God was born.

Interesting Thing 1) He just called his clan leader a keeper. But a Keeper is the mage leader of a Dalish clan. We assume this is a dwarf because we find it in the Deep Roads, but this might be an elf. An elf who's whole clan was decimated and is going to join the Qun.

Codex entry: Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 2 Many of these pages are filled with sketches of elven statues matching the ones found in the area, along with notes and what look like attempts to practice Qunlat: They say the agents of Fen'Harel caused trouble in the Crossroads. I wish I knew. I wish whoever fights in the name of the old wolf was around to fight when the darkspawn took my clan. Mine is not to question. I have chosen the Qun. The Qun will protect me. Rethost: You all protect Rethadim: They all protect Rethsaam: We all protect These statues are older than anything I saw in my days with the clan. The area's dwarven, though. What were the ancient elves doing down here? Mining? Where were the dwarves? Easier to have them mine it. Not a trading post. You don't go into a friend's home, knock over their gods, and put up your own. War? I don't remember any legends about our people fighting the dwarves. Though I remember my Keeper telling a story about how the dwarves fear the sun because of Elgar'nan's fire. A metaphor for the elves of Arlathan driving the dwarves underground? The Qunari like metaphors. I should share that.

Interesting Thing 2) the dwarves fear the sun because of Elgar'nan's fire.

Codex entry: Dwarven Inscriptions: Hissing Wastes Fairel, Paragon, fled from the strife his brilliance created, the strife that destroyed thaigs, sundered houses, from weapons that clan used against clan. His own clan and his two sons followed Fairel to the pitiless surface, the surface where they would hide from the war that took their home.

"Oh yeah, I remember that. Fuck I hated the Hissing Wastes."

Codex entry: A Journal on Dwarven Ruins (Excerpt) … The statues here were chiseled thousands of years ago, I'm sure of it. … The writing talks about "the sad parting from the Stone." … … It's a Paragon. The man who lead the people here, who built this city, was master smith Paragon Fairel…. ... I was tracing heraldry etched on a wall when I noticed pictures of weapons with winged lizards worked into the decoration. I spent the rest of the day translating the inscriptions. This verse was apparently passed down through Fairel's house, through his father to his father's father and so on for hundred of generations: "From the Stone, have no fear of anything, but the stone-less sky betrays with wings of flame. If the surface must be breached, if there is no other way, bring weapons against the urtok, and heed their screams." "Urtok" means "dragon." Why was it part of an ancient crest? Why were these dwarves so worried about a monster they'd never see that they worked it into their weapons? This place becomes more impossible each day.

Lets Assume then, that the Elgar’nan’s fire, is Urtok fire. Dragon fire. That’s the Sun. It’s the Sun in dwarven legend, AND, it’s the sun in Elgar’dad’s story.

OK. We got Dragon and Titan.

Sun and Stone.

Sun + Stone + Elf/Mage = God?

Blue and Yellow?

Remember the Flemyth/Kieran Scene. (In my headcannon, these are called Navi-bitches)

We KNOW with 100% certainty that Urthemiel is a blue navi-bitch.

I think it is safe to say that all of the Dragon Navi’s are blue because of the last Flemythal scene in DA:I. A blue wisp goes through the mirror (Urthemiel we assume?) and another blue navi-bitch goes from Flemyth to Solas, effectively killing Flemyth.

So let’s assume ALL dragon Navi-souls are blue.

Blue and Gold waves (probably magic). – with the 8 pointed star (right elf) in light green, and the "sun" in red (center).

(I think its safe to assume now the center red sun is either a red lyrium grove or blighted lyrium)

The Gold Titan heart, with Anruils spear.

Only thing I cant figure is why the 8 pointed star in the gold elfs arms is green.

Its not blue, its not gold anymore.

And Corypheus’s orb is red:  (maybe because it got infected with red lyrium/the blight?)

OUR Mark (The Inquisitors Hand) is Green… so maybe when a Titan heart is taken out of the mountain it turns green?

Looks like Corypheus tried to overpower the orb and that’s why it fucked him in the face?

See green and green? And Corypiss is red.

“Dumat! Ancient Ones! I beseech you! If you exist, if you ever truly existed, aid me now!”

And the orb smack-fucks Corypants in the FACE. Get fucked scrub we don’t like your tainted power.

And the orb is green again.

Are ALL orbs green? Or only THIS one?

I mean, basic colour theory tells us that blue and yellow make green, but we already know the old gods were separated from their orbs because of Kierans blue Navi-bitch.

What happened to the rest of them? What happened to the rest of the Blue Dragon Navi’s? Does putting them into a warden and then killing the warden actually kill the blue spirit?

This is a screenshot from Varrics voiceover (Spoiler Alert).

Looks like an orb to me.

And she’s gold. Maybe slightly green.

SO, where does all of this lead.

Five Gold semicircles missing - 5 Blights. 5 Archdemons. 5 Old Gods. 5 of the Evanuris. But we KNOW their Navi's were blue. Why use Gold? [To erase the Elf-Dragon aspect, Solas you sly fox?]

And where are they now?

We can assume Morrigan has a Dragon-Navi. Solas has a Dragon-Navi. That still leaves 3 or 4 (if Solas has Mythals Navi or a different Old God Navi).

... It really really bothers me that the star outside of the titan is green.

“Emerald water of the Fade”? Is it because the fade itself whenever we’ve gone in it is green-ish? Is the Fade just green? Is magic green?

Fuck it lets go full circle.

Nothing in any lore connects my people to the Old God Dragons who became Archdemons.

Ok Solas. Why?

Solas painted the Trespasser Frescos. He catalogued the evidence of the Evanuris Sundering Titans.

WHY?

Why “remember” the killing of the Titans and NOT that the Old Gods were the Evanuris?

He wanted the Evanuris gone because he wanted to free the elves from the tyranny of the Evanuris (I’m assuming they were using slaves for blood magic-that’s another lore rant). He was angry that they “killed” Mythal.

Solas wants Him freeing slaves, and Him removing vallaslin, remembered. He wants his creation of the veil to be remembered, but he doesn’t want anyone to know the Old Gods = Locked up Evanuris Navi’s.

WHY?

Why show people essentially how to become gods, sundering titans, but ignore the dragon part?

Honestly I don’t know at this point my brain hurts. And I have so many questions now.

Where are the rest of the Evanuris?

Where my Shadow Twins at?

Looking way more likely now that Ghilly is actually Anduil-Ghilly Hybrid, w/ a bit of parasitic-twin-syndrome going on.

Sylaise and June? I have so many questions for you, we didn’t even get to meet you.

WHERE ARE YOU?

Yavana is an infamous Antivan (biiitch we're going there in DATV) Witch of the Wilds known as the "Beast of the Tellari swamps".

Yavana Quotes:

"The blood of dragons is the blood of the world."

(to Alistair) Your heart beats with the old blood, as well. Where do you think it comes from? It sings of a time when dragons ruled the skies. A time before the Veil, before the mysteries were forgotten. Can you hear it?"

Alistair: "You and Morrigan and Flemeth...all you do is manipulate and lie."

Yavana: "That is our craft, but not our purpose. Mankind destroys without understanding, yet I preserve."

Yavana, my girl. Hunny. Girlboss. What are you preserving sweetie? And WHERE ARE THEY NOW THAT ALISTAIR KILLED YOU? WHO HAS THE NAVI’S, YAVANA??

And WHY is it so damn important for SOLAS Mythal to stop the rest of the world from figuring it out?

[youkaigakkou-tl]

(sorry in advance for the long ask) i feel silly for not noticing earlier but i realized that "Sano Mikoto" follows the same "__ no mikoto" name pattern that several japanese gods have. but that also made me wonder: if the 佐 from sano's name means "help" then his whole name sounds like "the god of help/assistance". but based on how that doesn't align with his yakubyougami nature and how ebisu reacts to hearing the name in ch 53 (his reaction is a bit more clear in the jpn raws) (1/2)

佐 doesn't really mean "help" on its own, it only somewhat means that when it's part of the word 補佐 "hosa" , which means "assistant" (in an organizational structure to a chief or leader) rather than like "helping people". Most of the time 佐 is just used as a kanji to represent the sound "sa", which is somewhat frequently the case for the on-readings (similar to chinese pronunciation) of kanji.

This is particularly prevalent when it comes to ancient literature like the creation myths and stories around gods, where the stories originally only existed in verbal form, and when japan adopted the chinese writing system some 1500 years ago, they applied certain chinese characters to the sounds that existed in japanese (the 50 or so hiragana that exist now) in order to put the stories into writing.

(and then over time 50 or so kanji got simplified into hiragana for normal use but thats neither here nor there. but names got to keep their kanji, which is why creation myth gods often have stupid long names that are 1 kanji per syllable, and the kanji used dont mean much of anything by themselves)

(theres also that often the kanji chosen will have been positive words, stuff like "fast" or "wise" or "powerful", in addition to the chinese word sounding like the japanese syllable (which was the more important part). Its unclear whether all these attributes were all applicable to the god named, its just as possible people afterwards applied those attributes to them in future retellings of the stories because the kanji was in the name. sort of a chicken and egg problem. and anyway, does it really matter what the one "true" interpretation of a story is, if one exists at all? it's a very modern sensibility to demand one, when for much of history stories only existed in the air between a storyteller and a listener. im getting off track here)

this is a lot of words to say, what is significant about the 佐 in "sano", is that it's the same one as in susanoo-no-mikoto. susanoo, notable for being associated with storms and disaster, for being exiled from heaven after causing some sort of destruction, and for being a child of izanagi and izanami and born after their first child hiruko (or rather, ebisu).

the thing about the yakubyougami thing, as with every other youkai and everything about folklore, is that at the end of the day, it's a story. youkai are just a set of attributes and circumstances that are wrapped up as a story, and in turn given a name and a face. a kamaitachi is just the occurrence of "wind whipping up suddenly and dust and leaves cutting someone" wrapped up as a story of "what if an imperceptibly fast weasel with knives did it?!"

it's why there can be so many different versions of stories for the same youkai, with behaviors and appearance differing from place to place, or the same "story" being given a different "name" in different places

(relevant to the latest chapter, i sort of suspect this is why theres like 10 different monkey youkai whose lore is just "this monkey is a FREAK")

what im getting at is, this isnt really like scientific taxonomy classifications, where theres genes you can sequence or criteria you can check to see if something is the right species. (and even then, there's birds stranded on isolated islands, fish sealed in caves, microorganisms in general, etc etc) there's not like a "youkai auditor" that goes around auditing if you're Really the youkai you say you are.

nor is it like you intrinsically know what youkai you are and all the lore about it and what behaviors youre supposed to have and what powers you have etc. you're told that by your parents, and in cases where that isnt possible, you figure it out somehow. like with beniko (popped out of a house and raised by humans), they looked it up and people have come up with a name for the phenomenon, which was called "zashiki warashi". or in cases like odawara where you really do just come to life alone, i imagine you either make a name for yourself, or humans who come across you will make a name for you.

which is a lot of words to say, sano can call himself whatever the hell he wants to make his life easier and not have to explain his backstory or have classmates make guesses at his backstory, as long as his traits somewhat fit. especially since recently he's often in the same scenes as kurahashi, who is now confirmed to straight up not be who or what he says he is.

[undermounts]

and other forgotten things

Summary: One year into his imprisonment, Aerin receives his first visitor.

Or alternatively, my version of the ch. 2 prison scene because I wanted more angst and anger <3

Read it here on AO3

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Aerin is no stranger to envy.

He has spent his life wanting. Knowledge, affection, attention, power. Things he coveted but could never have from a family that did not want him, a kingdom that would not have him. Such was his lot in life, from the very beginning. He is Aerin Valleros, second son of the Gentle King, brother to the Crown Prince.

Or at least he was.

Now, Aerin is… well, he no longer knows what he is. A nobody, perhaps. Or worse than that, he is forgotten. He is a dark stain on a long and questionable legacy, the corrupt end to a line of corrupt rulers. He is an afterthought, a bad memory, an unwanted trinket that had long since lost its novelty, just another object to be tossed away with all of the other lost and broken things.

Aerin Valleros, brother to no one, heir to nothing.

And still, he wants. 

The thirst for knowledge—a most noble pursuit, his tutors had always said—has never waned. But affection, attention, power!—his ambition, his hunger, has been dampened. He has lived without each before, and he shall live without each again. He will do so gladly if it means he can have the one thing he now desires above all else: freedom.

A small window, set in cold, grey stone—his only connection to the outside world. The mingled chatter of people crossing the streets far below drifts up through the bars, too distant to be distinguishable. People, his people, living. 

In the hallway outside his cell, Aerin hears the scuffle of boots against ancient stone, the clink of armor, the whisper of fabric; his guards moving in another rotation. So soon? Aerin cannot help but wonder, questioning his own perception of time. How reliant he has become on the routines of his keepers, the punctual rotation of their shifts serving as his only means of marking the passage of time since he was left–discarded–in this cell a year ago.

Softly, distantly, he mourns, A year…

His name day–twenty one years now, he has lasted–came and went, alone in his cell. His father never even sent word, no acknowledgment that his second son–his only son, now–still existed. 

A metallic, shimmery noise, a dozen keys rattling together and then–click!

Aerin blinks as the door to his cell swings open. Too early for mealtime, his mind races, a tasteless bowl of sludge. 

All thoughts trickle out of his head as a figure enters his cell, clad in black leather armor, the scent of ash heavy in the air. For a moment, Aerin recalls volcanic fields and the constant presence of fear and agony all around him, but then his impossible reality reforms around him and he stares, slack-jawed .

“Iliana.”

Aerin does not mean to say her name, had vowed to never speak of her, never think of her again. But she is here, miraculously, cursedly, before him, in his blasted cell, a sight he never thought he would see beyond his dreams, his nightmares.

But it is in his nature to be wary, and life in court has taught him that deception is a means for survival. He stands, establishing equal ground, and lets his mask fall over him like a shroud.

“I wondered if you’d ever come and visit me,” he says evenly, each word pleasant but caustic. “It certainly took you long enough.”

How often, in the early days of his imprisonment, had he thought of this moment? At first, he dreamed that she would come to him, beg for forgiveness–how she had wronged him!– to proclaim her dedication to right this wrong, to free him, to undo the damage she had done. Then, as the days dragged on into months, and despair, desperation, and regret–the hurt!–set in, his visions of her shifted. She was vengeance: her blades, her bow, her fists–the arbiters of a swift and terrible justice, acting on behalf of herself, her brother, her friends, and Morella. Some nights, he even begged–let it be quick. 

It is hatred, it must be, he thinks, that threatens the stability of his bones now. And fear of her, the woman who had been his undoing. Everything that has come for him after is well-deserved; this he cannot deny, no matter how much it stings. His betrayal and hers, they are wounds he will never heal from.

And yet, Aerin is not prepared for the way Iliana winces. She had deceived him so thoroughly in the Dreadlord’s throne room, he sometimes forgets that she was not trained as he was to hide her emotions. They flit across her face now, pain and grief. Then, anger.

“Apologies, prince,” she snaps, her black leather gloves groaning in protest as she clenches her hands into tight fists. “I’ve been a little busy this past year.”

Aerin scoffs. “I’m sure you were. Celebrations and banquets in your honor must be exhausting.” He rolls his eyes, flinging the words at her like knives. “That’s the price you must pay for leading the life of a hero, I suppose. A heavy burden, you poor thing.”

“That’s not what I–” Iliana cuts herself off, eyes narrowing. She tilts her head and, oh, Aerin does not like that one bit, the way she studies him, as if she is looking right through him. Then, shockingly, pity clouds her face. “No one told you.”

Unease, slick and oily rolls through him. If the words come out a little harsher than he intended—well. Word from the outside world has not breached these walls in months. He is tired of being kept in the dark. “Told me what?”

Iliana takes a deep breath and turns away, her attention straying to the small window of his cell as she folds her arms across her chest. The silence drags on long enough and Aerin feels tempted to shatter it, to demand that whatever information she withholds be released. But then her eyes slide to him and she breathes heavily again, fingers curling against her arms. It occurs to Aerin that her posture looks less guarded and meek almost, like she is embracing herself, comforting herself.

And, damn him, his voice goes soft and careful. “Tell me what? What happened?”

To you. What happened to you? 

Iliana drops her arms to her side, then lifts one hand to her hip, searching. But whatever she is looking for, she does not find it, and her hand hangs limply in the air. “I was gone. In the Shadow Realm.”

Fear, shock, intrigue–it is a heady blend that races through him. Aerin takes a shuffling step forward, then halts. He does not know what he intends to do. Go to her? Comfort her? She certainly does not want that, not from him, and he does not know if he can bear it either.

“Why?” he demands instead, drawing a line down the center of his cell, a boundary he will not cross while she remains. “How?”

“Valax,” she answers, and the name clangs around Aerin’s skull with no small amount of dread. He knows it and knows to be wary of it. “She captured me. Experimented on me.”

“To what end?” he breathes out, blinking rapidly as spots cloud the edge of his vision. The Empire of Ash, playing their hand already. “Why you?”

Iliana’s gaze sharpens. “You know her.”

“Know of her,” Aerin corrects, shaking his head. “I never had the pleasure of meeting her.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” Iliana says shortly and turns away again. She drifts to the window, keeping her back to him as she says, “Before you ask again—I do not know why. I don’t remember much.”

Her falsehood rings clear in the air, Aerin can see it in her rigid posture, defensive and bracing. How? How had she ever deceived him, this orphaned elf from Riverbend, when she cannot even look him in the eye to lie?

He knows the answer: because he wanted to believe her.

Remember that night together in the forest glade? Our kiss? That was real, Aerin. And it’s still real.

He banishes the thought, grinds it under his boot, but something in him still aches, still yearns. She looks so unsettled that he decides to let her lie hold, something he will circle back to later. 

“Are you…” It is difficult, still, to force the words out. To ask this, it feels too much like an admission, an exposure of weakness. He swallows. “Are you well?”

Iliana whirls, and her eyes, glittering ores of emerald, cut through him. Whittling him down to the bone. “What do you care?”

Indignation flares up in him and he glares. “Do you think me incapable of compassion?”

She laughs, a cold and jagged thing, and slashes her hand through the air. She paces back to the entrance of his cell, her steps harsh. “Incapable? Perhaps. But I know better by now than to believe anything you do or say after you lied to us all.”

“Do not forget that you lied to me as well,” Aerin snaps, distantly aware of the guards shifting just beyond his cell. They are listening, he realizes. To report back to the king? To intervene and rescue Iliana if they deem him too dangerous, too volatile? They are listening, and political training be damned, he does not care. “That you would still have me. That we—it was real. You lied.”

He expects Iliana to shout at him, wants her to—her anger, he can bear—but she only sucks in a sharp breath between her teeth, her face at once stricken and furious. When she speaks, it is to the ground, the dusty slab of stone that spans the space between them. “It wasn’t a lie, Aerin.”

He barks out a laugh, full of anger and bitterness, because that is all he has, all he is, all that he can give. Anger, bitterness.

And regret. So much regret, he could drown in it.

“You don’t believe me, I don’t believe you,” he says coolly, forcing his voice to even out, despite how wildly his heart races. “Let us leave it at that.”

Iliana opens her mouth, then clamps it shut, looking for all the world like she might protest. But in the end, she only shakes her head, resigned, and leans back against the metal door of his cell. “Fine.”

“Fine,” he echoes and they lapse into an uneasy silence. It is the closest thing, perhaps, they will ever have to an accord.

Aerin takes their momentary cease-fire to truly study Iliana as she stands before him, glaring at her feet and refusing to meet his gaze. He still cannot believe that she is here, after all this time. Her black leather armor, he notes with grim consideration, is standard issue for Ashen warriors. Her blue skin is pale, but otherwise unmarred, save for the scars she already bore. No signs of physical abuse, or just the work of a really good healer.

An entire year in captivity. Gods… Despite it all, he is grateful that she does not remember much. There is no way to tell how she might have changed, how her spirit might have dimmed. No matter what he feels about her—hate, anger, sorrow—Aerin finds that he does not wish to see her harmed.

“When did you return?” he asks, breaking the silence between them with an easy question, a tentative olive branch.

Iliana eyes him warily. “This morning.”

“This morning?” Aerin starts at that, forgetting himself. For a stupid, pathetic moment, something flutters eagerly against his ribcage, although he squashes the feeling down. “I must be one of your first appointments, then,” he remarks dryly, tilting his head. “What brings you here?”

Iliana’s gaze hardens and her expression shifts into something like grim triumph. Aerin does not know where he misstepped but he gets the impression that they have entered a game and she already has the winning move.

“Tell me everything you know about the Ash Empire,” she demands, hands framing her hips. “And don’t pretend you don’t know anything. You already admitted to knowing about Valax.”

“Why should I?” Aerin waves a hand through the air, dismissive. “What would you offer me in return? You are clever enough, I’m sure you could find answers on your own.”

“Or I could get answers from you and stop wasting time,” Iliana bites out, pinching the bridge of her nose as she squeezes her eyes closed in frustration. Then, she drops her hand and fixes him with a look that speaks only to her exhaustion—with him, with the Shadow Realm, with everything. “You owe me. You owe me this much.”

He… supposes he does.

Aerin sighs heavily. Sharing knowledge is a task Aerin has always taken a shine to. Few things are more important than learning more, and helping others to learn. This attitude, he thinks, may be the best thing his tutors ever taught him. But the Ash Empire… The dark kingdom is a topic he does not relish remembering. 

Still, Aerin shares what he knows, some of it, at least. Foundational knowledge. The Ashen Empress is the true ruler of the Realm and the Shadow Court had been but a fledgling resistance to her reign, one whose hopes of success had been bashed repeatedly by failed attempts to take over the Realm of Light. He speaks briefly of his own role in the Dreadlord’s bid for power against the Empire, doing his best to tamper down any rancid feelings he still nurses about the entire ordeal.

Anything more, he must keep for himself. Future bargaining chips. Perhaps, if he can remain useful, well… Maybe not all is lost for him.

“With the Dreadlord dead, I imagine the Ash Empire is already hunting down any remaining members of the Shadow Court,” Aerin hedges as he wanders over to the window, drumming his fingers against the ledge.

He feels Iliana at his back, her attention heavy on him. “Sounds like the Empire will be coming for you next.”

She is right, he knows. It is a reality he has long since come to terms with, but still, the reminder sends a bolt of fear into his spine. His fingers go still against the stone.

“If the Ash Empire makes it to the Light Realm, they’ll probably take special care in how they eliminate you.”

What do you care? he wants to snap, spitting Iliana’s words back at her. Instead, he only shrugs, keeping his gaze trained on the city outside the window. Something like yearning tugs in his chest.

“So,” Iliana continues, her irritation with his disinterest bleeding into her voice. “It would be in your best interests to tell me everything.”

Aerin arches his brow, glancing over his shoulder. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

“Knowing you for more than five seconds.”

A dry laugh slips out of him and he turns around, leaning against the wall with his hands laced before him. “Planning to protect me, are you?”

“I’m planning to protect everyone,” Iliana corrects, rolling her eyes. “If I am to stand a chance protecting the Light Realm against the Empire, then I need to know everything.”

She is so… She is everything he read about, everything he dreamed of being as a child. A hero. 

He pities her. For her naïveté, for believing that she can fix every problem that comes her way. Almost as much as he envies it. She has never known true failure, not yet. When she does—and it is inevitable—then, she will understand. What she has now, her determination, her purpose—it cannot last.

Aerin looks away, running his hand through his hair. One more bit of information, he supposes, he can grant her. In his best interest, as she said. 

“There’s only one other thing, and to be honest, I didn’t believe it until I saw it myself,” he admits slowly, gauging her reaction. “The Empress has a terrible creature under her power. I caught a glimpse of it in the distance when I was bringing Nia to the Dreadlord.”

At the very mention of Nia’s name, Iliana’s expression looks almost murderous, like she might strike him down just for mentioning the priestess, but miraculously, she refrains. “What was it?”

Despite himself, Aerin shudders, recalling the undead creature, crafted of the seven hells itself. “Massive. Skeletal. A beast from nightmares.”

“How vague,” Iliana remarks, but Aerin knows the information has taken hold. She looks unsettled, certainly. Maybe even afraid. 

His answering smile is wry and almost apologetic. “I know. But it is unlike anything I have ever seen before.”

Iliana nods, seemingly satisfied with this information. “Thank you for telling me what you know.”

The look in her eyes makes it abundantly clear that they both know it is not everything, although for now it is enough. Maybe—Aerin curses himself for even entertaining the thought—she will come back for more. The idea lights something within him, although he does not want to think about what it means, what it says about his feelings toward her, everchanging and impossible to curb. It isn’t freedom, but it is something. How nice it would be, to have just a piece of the outside world come to him.

Desperation claws its way into Aerin’s chest and he hates himself for the way he caves, for how small his voice sounds as he throws out a lifeline, begging her to take it. “I don’t suppose… you might visit me again?”

Iliana’s expression is guarded, her response measured. “Maybe. I doubt I will even have a moment to breathe since the world needs saving. Again.”

That is… something.

Aerin tilts his head. Always playing the hero. “And must it always be you who saves it?”

He is not prepared for the way her shoulders slacken and she glances away. Gone are any traces of the bravery and determination she had brandished at him moments ago. What faces him now is only solemn acceptance, weary resignation to service. “Apparently.”

Aerin wants to tell her to stop, that it isn’t her problem to fix. But he would be a hypocrite. After all, didn’t he behave the same once, long ago? Believing that the realm’s problems were his to fix, if only he had the power.

And look where that thinking got him. Trapped in an old cell.

“Look, I can’t make any promises,” Iliana begins, her eyes flicking around the room as if she can’t quite look at him, but cannot settle her attention anywhere else. “Things between us are… I don’t know what they are. But I’ll try to visit again. I may need more information. So.” Her tone hardens, all business once more. “If you conveniently remember anything else?” She gestures to the guards outside. “Send word. Maybe I’ll come.” 

Aerin suppresses a smile, amused. “Sure. I hope you do.”

Iliana shoots him a look he can’t quite decipher, then turns away. As if expecting her, the guards unlock the door, revealing the torchlit corridor beyond. Aerin takes a steadying breath and is about to retreat to his cot when Iliana pauses in the doorway, looking over her shoulder at him. Aerin watches her hesitate, mouth opening and closing, and then—

“Do you regret what you have done?” she asks softly. “Wish that you hadn’t…”

Wish that you hadn’t betrayed me? Betrayed all of us?

Betrayed your brother?

Aerin’s breath is hard in his chest, something solid he cannot get out. Yes, he wants to scream. Yes to all of it.

“Would you even believe me?” Aerin asks earnestly, but he knows it is a fruitless endeavor.  “Whatever my answer.”

Iliana is quiet for a moment, thoughtful. But then she answers, “No. I suppose not.”

Aerin nods, closing his eyes as she slips out of the cell and the metal door slams shut behind her. He knew better than to hope for anything else. They did not trust each other. He did not think they ever would again.

The lock slides into place with a finality that quakes through his bones, sealing him back into this forgotten place, made for forgotten things.

[evergreenalice]

having finally beaten ToTK awhile ago, I feel I can give some thoughts, I have many, but I'll focus on the story right now

my main feeling towards the game is frustration

this game had some of the best scenes in any Zelda game, full stop

Ganondorf's unsealing, fucking banger

the dragon scene? fucking AMAZING

drawing the master sword high up above the clouds? Beautiful

"Remember this name" as the main theme plays in the background, FUCK man

and that was possibly the coolest final boss of any video game I've ever played

but everything else is just... meh

and it's really frustrating, I feel like if given more time to cook, they could've made something really fucking cool

the story was really disorganized, and frankly, I got tired hearing the same thing 4 times, not skipping any of the sage cutscenes in hopes something, ANYTHING, would be different, but they weren't, I was fed the same thing four times!

and ultimately... I wasn't that invested in the story

some say that Zelda has always had bad stories, and this is just false

Zelda has always had relatively simple stories

but I was invested in stopping Ganon in OoT, I saw his impact on the world, and I saw how it impacted characters I'd grown to love!

I was really invested in the story of Link's Awakening, I didn't want the island to disappear, but it had to as sad it was

I think I cried the first time I beat LA as a child

but... here? Meh, I didn't feel the stakes, they were certainly there, but I mean, when it came to viewing the past, I cared about Zelda I guess, I like her, and I mean, the really fucking good scenes in the past are centered around her

I somewhat cared about Rauru and Sonia, but I mean, that was several millennia ago, I don't mourn dead people from the 2nd century much, of course they're dead, it was long ago, perhaps their death was tragic in some way, but, I don't feel that upset at it

and for the ancient sages... not even the writers cared about them! They don't even have names! WE DON'T EVEN SEE THEIR FACES!

and in the end, the most powerful part of the story, a beautiful scene of sacrifice... was just undone

and I'm not saying that Zelda shouldn't have been saved

BUT

let there be consequences

say that perhaps, she is very negatively impacted by her experience, it may take years for her to get over what has transpired. Which isn't impossible, and is still a hopeful note... but there were consequences, ones that will be overcome with great effort, and community, and support

but instead we are left with Zelda as she was... prior to her sacrifice, she doesn't remember it

I'm not saying happy endings are bad, but, a happy ending out of nowhere with no consequences? I don't like that

I grew up playing Zelda, and often these games had a sense of melancholy to them

Link saved the wind fish... and in the process lost that entire island of people, and Marin in particular

Link sealed away Ganondorf, and went back in time to warn the kingdom, and live out his childhood that was stolen to him... but he knows he's not a Kokiri, his identity was false, and he fundamentally, as Saria said, is of a different world from her, there is an innate barrier that will only grow between him and his former home, and in the end he will eventually become the Hero's Shade

Breath of the Wild did this well, it is a game about the aftermath of your failure, Zelda and Link have both lost their past, they can't return to it, they've failed, and time only moves forward, and they do

in all of these cases, it's not entirely negative, there is hope, there is a future

but there's also melancholy, there is loss, and I think that's something that ToTK just couldn't do

[mynamesaplant]

Yearning for Wood Floors

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Just a little short story about @critterbitter's hc of Elesa. This is not too long after her and her dad immigrated to Unova. Elesa is def not bitter about it, I promise 🤞

I'll probably post this to AO3 and I'll update this when I do.

Enjoy!~

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The floor was scuffed and dry, practically ancient judging by each crunch that crackled up Elesa’s spine with each step. The varnish looked more like those potato chips that were served in brightly colored bags at lunch. Yellowish, opaque flecks that made the room feel neglected at best and abandoned at worst.

Floors back in Sinnoh never looked like this.

Elesa’s frown deepened as she toed some of the loose chips at her feet, a spray of prehistoric resin sailed across the room. She stifled a sigh. It was kind of sad really. She remembered the wood floor at her cousin’s house, their mom always kept the floors spotless, and whatever cleaner she used made the house smell fresh and clean.

Things weren’t like this back in Sinnoh.

Aunt Johanna, like every other adult in Sinnoh, had everyone take their shoes off at the door. Elesa was used to padding around in her socks or bare feet, but Aunt Johanna bought her little Pachirisu slippers to wear around her house. That had to help keep the floors nice and clean from whatever was being trekked in from outside. It made sense. Meanwhile, Elesa watched the water puddle on the floor at her dad’s feet from his brogues. The rain had soaked into his laces.

That wouldn’t have happened in Sinnoh.

…

She missed the fuzzy Pachirisu slippers at her cousins’ house.

Elesa’s face scrunched up, her mouth thinning as she tried to suppress the flash of anger she felt toward her dad. He and the woman behind the desk were still talking – not that she could hear, she turned her aids off about ten minutes ago when the adults started getting into the paperwork. Even if her aids were on, it’s not like she could understand them. She didn’t understand Galarian.

Another stupid reason to bring her to Unova.

This office – what had her dad called it? – Unovan Disability Services, it seemed like a forgotten department in the government building. Elesa had pressed close to her father as they waded through the subways, up to pavement level, and through the dense crowds to this innocuous building by the harbor. The crowds were loud and made her feel claustrophobic.

There were so many people here compared to Sinnoh.

This woman was their assigned agent, her assigned agent, and she was here to help Elesa navigate this new environment while she learned Galarian. Elesa flicked her eyes up to the metal name plate. Her blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly in her attempt to read. The strokes and dots looked too limited next to the symbols for kanji she was familiar with.

“This is the agent, Talbot-san.”

What was written had to be her name. It had to be. What else could it be? Elesa might know what the letters said Talbot, but that didn’t mean she really grasped their significance. She offered Talbot-san a smile that didn’t really make in past her eyes, which prompted a sympathetic tut from the woman. Probably because she knew Elesa didn’t understand but might have wrongly assumed she was shy or nervous.

Elesa was mad. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to go home.

She didn’t understand why she couldn’t stay with her mother. Probably because her mother was busy with her work as a ranger. Headquarters deployed her all over the country and sometimes outside it to Fiore or Almia to help teach new rangers or to help with relief efforts after major disasters with displaced people and Pokémon. Elesa wouldn’t be allowed to stay at home alone or to go with her mother due to the nature of her work.

Aunt Johanna, Dawn, and Lucas came over to help them pack. Her dad didn’t even help at all really, Aunt Johanna did most of the work and scolded Elesa when she got frustrated with her dad. Her aunt had sighed and knelt down, lightly gripping her shoulders and giving her a sad smile.

Elesa knew what divorce was, but that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was understanding why.

“I know you’re upset, but please be patient with your father.”

She wouldn’t understand until later that her dad was heartbroken about his Staraptor. The death of his starter and the divorce with his wife broke him. He needed to start fresh, and Elesa was dragged along for the ride.

Something nudged into her shin, her dad’s work shoes, and she looked up at him. Leaning down, her dad asked Elesa what kind of Pokémon she wanted. That was why they were here after all, to get a starter Pokémon that would be able to assist Elesa on her journey when the time came.

That time couldn’t come soon enough for Elesa.

She had plans to find her way back to Sinnoh no matter what it took.

He kept listing ones she didn’t know. As much as she tried not to let it show, her face screwed up in frustration, because her dad never listened to her. She had a favorite type. His wife knew (her mother had gotten her a novelty pin from the Sunyshore gym giftshop – she treasured that pin). His sister-in-law knew. Why didn’t he?

Why did he drag her here?

She didn’t want to be in Unova.

She missed Sinnoh.

“でんきタイプ.”

Electric.

That’s all she wanted.

Her dad must have conveyed that to Talbot-san because she clapped with delight and brought up a few options for her to pick from. She swiveled her computer monitor toward them. The computer whirred hard enough to be felt through the floorboards, evidently working hard to only show names and no images.

Blitzle

Emolga

Joltik

Tynamo

Elesa just picked the first one, pointing with her finger before returning her gaze to the ground. It didn’t really matter. She always wanted her starter to be a Pachirisu anyway. She stared down at these messy floors, cracked and brittle, and Elesa had to stop the sudden tears that were threatening to drip from the corners of her eyes.

She missed Aunt Johanna. She missed her cousins. She missed Sinnoh.

She missed when her feet didn’t crunch down on hardwood floors like they were browned leaves in the autumn.

[wegotisms]

Sweet Panacea (Solavellan Fic)

Another one from forever ago I can't find on my blog anymore. Super fluffy fluff for the dragon age feelies.

AO3 here

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The cold of the stone floor seeps through the soles of her bare feet, but it is not why she shivers. She feels the weight of the purple bags under her eyes, the slump of her shoulders, the heaviness of her head; her body aches for sleep, and yet she pads silently towards the rotunda, one hand gripping at the fabric of her tunic, the other worrying at a lock of long, blonde hair.

Dalla pauses in the doorway, watching the elf hunched over a wooden table, his head in his hands as he digs through some ancient tome. She shifts her weight from foot to foot and wraps both arms around her waist. She should go. She should turn around and drag herself back up to her quarters and close her eyes and try to forget it. He has better things to worry about than her nightmares.

And yet his name slips from her lips, so quiet she hopes he doesn’t hear.

“Solas?”

He looks up at her and his face falls, concern etched across his features. “Vhenan,” he says, pushing away from his desk to stand, “what’s wrong?”

Dalla whimpers, the words caught in her throat. Tears sting at her eyes and she shifts her gaze to the floor. He deserves better than to see her facade of strength and confidence crumble. She really shouldn’t bother him with this. She should go. But her legs are so heavy and then his arms are around her, and she sags against his chest and the tears come. In one swift movement Solas bends and hooks an arm behind her knees, scooping her up in his arms and carrying her over to the white couch on the far side of the room.

He sits and cradles her against him, his cheek resting on her head, a hand tangled in her hair and massaging her scalp. His chest rumbles as he begins to hum for her, a melody slow and sweet. It is an old elvhen lullabye, she knows. She had sung it for him once, asked what the words meant, but she can’t remember them now, as her tears soak into his shirt, as she clings desperately to him, shoulders heaving. He holds her tighter and she loses herself in him, in his strength, his warmth, the soft scent of elfroot and ozone.

He feels like home.

He’s still humming by the time her tears stop. Her eyes are puffy and red and she buries her face in the soft wool of his shirt, sighs against his chest.

“Ir abelas,” she mutters, pulling away from him. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Vhenan,” he says, hooking his finger under her chin and tilting her head up to look at him. “Ar lath ma.” He kisses her nose and then rests his forehead against hers. “Dirth ma, what troubles you?”

“Mmhmm?” He runs his fingers lightly over her arm, tracing the crimson lines of her vallaslin.

She can’t say no to those dusty blue eyes. “Mnh.” She rests her head against his shoulder and nuzzles into the crook of his neck, her lips brushing against his skin. “I had a nightmare.”

Dalla sucks her teeth, searching for the words. They stick to her ribs, but Solas’ gentle touch coaxes them from her. She wrings her hands in his shirt as the words spill from her lips, barely a whisper. “I dreamt I couldn’t remember her face.” She sniffs. “My mamae.”

His hand moves to her cheek, his thumb brushing across her tattoos. “Can you remember her now?”

She nods.

“Tell me about her.”

Dalla closes her eyes. “She… her hair was the color of the moon. And long.” She brushes her hands down her chest. “She always wore it down and loved to have me braid it.

“Her skin was the color of the earth, like mine. She chose Mythal for her vallaslin, green like the forest, like her eyes. I would trace them and she would tell me old elvhen stories….” She takes Solas’s hand from her cheek and clutches it in her own. “Babae always said I took after her, but her nose was smaller and she had… these big lips and round cheeks.” She relaxes against him. “She was soft and warm.”

“She sounds beautiful.”

“She was. She was the most beautiful thing in my world.”

“As you are in mine.”

Dalla smiles and spreads his fingers, kissing each one before clutching his hand against her chest and lifting her head to press her lips against his. He kisses her back, gently, his mouth demanding nothing, allowing her to melt into him with a soft sigh.

“You will not forget her, vhenan,” Solas says, breaking from the kiss and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “I promise.”

“‘Ma serranas.” She pecks him on the nose and settles back against his chest, curling up against him. “Do you mind if we stay like this for a while?”

 Dalla awakens to sunlight trickling into her quarters and she stretches across her bed, yawning and running her fingers through her hair. She doesn’t remember coming to her quarters -- though Solas is stronger than he looks. The thought of him carrying her to bed makes her heart beat quickly in her chest and she smiles. She feels like a lovestruck teenager, but, she thinks as she stands and walks over to her wardrobe, she can allow herself this indulgence.

“Of course, my heart,” he says, planting a kiss atop her head and humming, his arms strong and warm around her, the melody soft and sweet on her ears.

--

She hums an elvhen lullabye as she begins pulling her tunic over her head, but pauses when she notices something leaning against the wall near her desk.

Her hands fly to her mouth. Did he really…? How could he have known? Had he walked the Fade for this? For her? Tears sting at her eyes. She had known he painted, but had never known he could create something as beautiful as this.

The canvas is stretched in an oaken frame and she bends to touch it, recoiling her hand slightly before ghosting her fingers over the paint. The colors, the shapes -- it’s just as she remembered. Dalla is a child again, gazing at her mamae in wonder as she pulls back the string of her bow, as she bends to scrape bark from a tree, as stories spill from her lips.

It’s almost like her mamae was never gone.

Dalla runs from her room, sprints down the stairs and bursts into the rotunda, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. Solas is standing towards the wall, paintbrush in hand, and he barely has time to turn toward the rapidly approaching footsteps before she crashes into him, throwing her arms around him and nearly sending both of them toppling to the floor.

“Thank-you,” she mutters against his skin.

He smiles and wraps his arms around her, smearing paint down the back of her tunic and planting a kiss on the top of her head.

[sanctus-ingenium]

Been binge reading TVM and I LOVE IT. Bowman was already my favorite character but this story has already skyrocketed for me just how much I adore him. Though Felix is a very close second just cause of how he is with Carmen. I’d also love to know more about the Rangers.

1. Did you draw from any particular real world inspiration for them?

2. What’s the backstory behind how the Rangers came to be? Any little stories of particularly notable members you’ve thought up?

Yay awesome.. it's definitely the bowman book so I'm glad the focus on him is working hehe

1. Yes! The rangers are almost entirely a play on the Fianna, a band of heroes and hunters from Irish mythology. I strongly recommend you check out their stories because they're some of the greatest stories you'll ever read - start with the salmon of knowledge and then try diarmaid and gráinne. Fun fact, in older drafts of my books I call the rangers The Fianna but I found it messy.

As for real world inspiration, there's actual irl rangers as well, stewards of national parks and rare habitats. The rangers in Inver do not fight faeries so much as they manage the Ruad and ensure it is safe, and in Pascal's time (the far off distant future of 2017) rangers have become more ecologists than anything else, as their deep knowledge of the region and huge archives of faery activity over the centuries lends itself wonderfully to monitoring habitat health. So many of the ecologists I know were also used as inspiration hehe

2. The rangers of the Ruad (not the Greys) were founded by Finbarr Ó Casaide as part of the war that founded the state of Inver. He and the first rangers built the main Spikes barracks because (if you check the habitat map you'll see) there's a broad stretch of ancient yew wood north of the Lough, ideal for making bow staves. So Finbarr was a Spikes ranger. He and the others engaged in guerilla warfare against the werewolves led by the first D'Ouilly traitor, in particular the Tanet sect.

This is a short book I do want to write (it's on the table!!) eventually but you can find out more about Finbarr and his mortal enemy Olivier by searching the names on my blog. I'm stuck on mobile for the time being but I did write a pretty long summary of the pair of them and their relationship dynamic a few months ago.

Notable rangers include Finbarr himself but also Bowman André, who was the ranger who drafted the treaty between ranger organisations and the new werewolf monarchy, enshrining the terms of their operations in the Ruad into law. Although Finbarr's side lost their war, André's negotiations led to the current state of the ranger barracks as both gender neutral and independent of royal law, self-governing and so on. These wins came from the fact that any time the monarchy tried to employ its own army into the Ruad to protect trade or fight faeries or whatever, the soldiers would inevitably desert, or start pissing and moaning about it and why can't we just get the rangers to do the work instead. The flip side ofc was that most rangers are convicts who joined or were pressed into the service, because so few people willingly join an organisation that forces you to spend months at a time in the most dangerous habitat known to man, with no-one but other rangers for company.

Another notable ranger is Sharps Captain Torben, he's extremely famous and well-liked in the Régian [victorian] era due to his notoriously kind and gentle touch, as well as his good decision making skills meaning that there were almost no civilian fatalities under his watch for years at a time.

Finally another famous ranger is Hooks Captain Celeste, in 1969 she anticipated the disaster that almost swept Cánamac town away and ordered an evacuation before the tidal wave struck the town. I've written about that disaster on my sideblog @ranticore ;)

[thedawningofthehour]

Hi Fai, I know it‘s evil to ask you these questions bc your worldbuilder brain might go brrrrr, but if there WAS an Atlantis, I assume it would have turtle yokai? Do u think the fact that they mostly stay underwater allow some gigantism?

But my actual question; would there ONLY be underwater yokai? I mean, Gale can breathe underwater (probably? It‘s saltwater I mean, I think you mentioned it would fuck up his skin after a while in tfts?) but if they were to visit there, could Draxum use some sort of spell or air bubble to come, like in that one Bojack Horseman underwater episode? Or would he have to keep both hooves on the boat/other side of the portal, while Donnie can keep his eyes open for any billionaire submarines

(Hypothetically, apart from the fact that Draxum obviously wouldn’t ever let Gale go there alone, I mean)

Also, entirely unrelated, if the doth cast was dropped into a beach episode how would that go? Would Gale turn into a horror movie creature? I think that would make him healthy, unbothered, moisturized

(pls don’t feel obligated to give super detailed answers or any at all, I‘m just really curious about your ideas relating that)

Love!!

You're right, you are evil. 💕

That would depend on where Atlantis is in this universe. While, most likely, Plato was using Atlantis completely metaphorically and was not referring to any historical civilization in particular, there's still a number of places proposed that he could have been talking about. The very name Atlantis implies that it was located in the Atlantic, and Plato describes it as being located "in front of the mouth which you Greeks call the pillars of Hercules." (The Strait of Gibraltar-the channel in between Spain and Morocco, if you're bad at geography) Furthermore, Atlantis is also stated to be huge, Plato says it's really more of a continent, "larger than Libya and Asia together." (to my understanding, they used 'Libya' to refer to all of Africa outside of Egypt at the time)

It sounds...weirdly like he's describing the Americas. "a confederation of kings, of great and marvelous power," yeah, there were absolutely ancient American societies that grew very large and could be considered to rival kingdoms.

Except, you know, even though we know now that Africa used to be all snuggled up in between the Americas, that scale of 'used to' is measured in millions of years. Loooooong before anything resembling modern humans existed, and certainly long before we had any form of oral history we could use to pass the knowledge down. People came to the Americas the other way, from what is now Russia to Alaska, or by island-hopping the Pacific. And while Europeans absolutely did cross over to the Americas before Columbus, they mostly did this farther north. Where, you know, there was Iceland to stop at. And Greenland not too far from that. And it was a physically shorter distance from the coast of Iceland to Canada. And, important to note, this was estimated to have happened during the Viking Age, roughly a thousand years ago. Plato wrote this in 360 BCE, and claimed that Atlantis rose and fell 9000 years before his time, (though apparently he might have meant months, which would make it 750 years) I don't know much about ships but I think I can say with some certainty that absolutely no one had the technology to sail from Gibraltar across the Atlantic to hit the shores of West Virginia in, at the very latest, 1000 BCE. And even less likely that Athens would have particular beef with these people.

Of course, there's always the possibility that Plato's understanding of where Atlantis is (if there was even a historical equivalent to Atlantis at all) was misunderstood or mistranslated over the years. It's very possible that the island nation he spoke of was inside the Mediterranean-likely, even, considering the tectonic activity in many areas. We already know that Malta is merely the top part of a much greater island that has since sank below sea levels. And Greece itself is well-known for its volcanic activity-literally, it's a bunch of islands formed from the nonsense of the Aegean Sea Plate, it can't not have tons of volcanic activity. There were absolutely small island nations that exploded and were completely destroyed by Pele stretching her legs in ancient history. Hell, we have a pretty good candidate for what a Greek Atlantis might have been-

This is the island of Thera. You see that bay in the middle, with the bit in the middle not quite breaking the surface?

That's the volcano.

It literally destroyed itself. Civilization on the island was wiped out, some people survived and came back to see what they could retrieve and bury their dead but it remained unoccupied for a few more centuries. It caused earthquakes and tsunamis that destroyed settlements in the surrounding islands and as far away as Crete, causing 'apocalyptic rainstorms' in Egypt.

This happened around 1600 BCE, so while neither dates match, considering the imprecise nature an estimate on that scale would have in Plato's time, it's very possible that he was referring to the destruction of Thera.

If a Yokai Atlantis did exist somewhere around Greece, or somewhere around Italy where there's also a lot of that nonsense, it would likely built upon a now-submerged island. Maybe even get some coral reef activity going on? 'Googles something' Okay no, apparently coral reefs aren't very common in the Mediterranean. I guess it's too cold? You don't really think of Greece or Italy being cold, but compared to the waters around the Philippines and Indonesia I guess it is. Well, the map in Wikipedia shows some coral reefs off the coast of Sicily, plus we're playing with magic here so I'm saying it could happen.

And that would be sick. Like, sooooo many possibilities for aquatic Yokai. How their city is set up, their architecture and culture. How they communicate with each other, with other Yokai.

It would be pretty unlikely for gigantism to occur there though. I know we talked in the doth comments about how the difference in gravity underwater allows animals to grow absolutely huge without putting their bodies under such immense strain, but that's only half the equation. The other half is why they would need to.

Animals don't just evolve for no reason. I mean, sometimes weird mutations do occur spontaneously and end up getting bred into the species because it isn't detrimental enough to impact their survivability, (this is actually what happened with humans and why we can be vitamin C deficient, we lost the gene that handles producing it and it just straight-up wasn't an issue until we moved out of sub-Saharan Africa because we were living in the tropics with so much vitamin C-rich foods available) but if something's not broke they don't fix it. In this scenario, in a coral reef ecosystem or neritic zone, there would be little reason for gigantism because they wouldn't need to conserve calories so much-they have plenty of food available, and they'll have plenty of food tomorrow. They might get bigger, but there would be no reason to become truly giant. Getting big might cause more issues than it's worth if the waters are shallower, (it's my understanding that the Mediterranean isn't particularly deep on average, and this Yokai settlement would be built on a seamount and would be closer to the surface anyway) and would be hard to maneuver. Plus they can upset the food chain by becoming too big and consuming too much, which would cause a collapse and kill them anyway. Just too much of a risky move for evolution to take.

(of course, we're talking about a magical world where humans can be crossed with goats and then can go on to give turtles depression, so it's not out of the question that the mutation itself can give people gigantism but let's stick to science for now)

But as cool as that is, I know that isn't what you're asking for, so let's move to the other locational option.

So. In the Atlantic, but before you hit the Americas. What's there?

Uh...not really a whole lot.

Like, there are some islands and seamounts, but nothing compared to the Pacific. Someone smarter than me can explain how that works with tectonics and why so many islands arose within the Ring of Fire, but if I go down that Wikipedia rabbit hole I'll have written a dissertation on this. Basically, the Atlantic Ocean is pretty deep, and it just kind of...stays deep. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is still on average about a thousand feet below sea level, so even the high points are barely breaking the photic zone.

And the problem is, there at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, is that there's no sunlight. And you kind of need sunlight for a viable ecosystem-like, even if you're a carnivore, what you're preying on is probably an herbivore. Even if it's not, there's an herbivore at some point in the chain-and the plants it eats needs sunlight. So down at the bottom of the sea, where no light penetrates, they have to subsist on what floats down there or go to shallower waters to eat.

A lot of deep-sea creatures live off of marine snow, which is that shit that floats down I mentioned earlier-dead things, phytoplankton, and literal shit. These guys actually tend to get smaller in the deep sea-predation is much rarer down there-to reduce the amount of food they need to sustain their bodies. And a lot of them are hermaphrodites literally just because sexing is hard and they don't have the energy to fuck around finding one of the right sex.

The guys who travel to shallow waters for food, like our friends the colossal and giant squid, they tend to exhibit gigantism because the body becomes more efficient at processing and storing food the bigger it gets.

That's what this girl was doing when she was caught. She'd come to shallow waters and was chowing down on a toothfish she'd pilfered from their line. (she was already very close to death, deep sea creatures like this are adapted for high water pressure and low temperatures and don't fare well if they swim too close to the surface) So they do have to put themselves in danger to feed, and have to eat a lot to fuel their giant body. But they only have to make this trip every couple of years or so. The rest of the time homegirl was just floating and vibing in the deep sea, not doing much of anything to conserve that last meal. Their size also makes them quite able to defend themselves, and threatening enough that most predators won't bother.

(just to note, this beautiful lady was estimated to be about 10 meters long when they pulled her up-33 feet in freedom units. And her beak was significantly smaller than the beaks we've found before, implying that she wasn't even fully grown. These things are massive)

So how would that translate to deep-sea Yokai? Well, I think it would be really hard for intelligent Yokai to exist down there at all. Not to say it can't happen, but our big brains are very resource-intensive. Like, that's the whole reason we eat meat while other apes are mostly herbivores, our big brains needed more energy. (generally herbivores, they eat insects and will eat small game if they can get their hands on it, but that's true for most herbivores) And the combination of needing more fuel for our big brains and having the capacity to be bored would greatly interfere with the 'just vibing' method of survival and force them to be more active-which would require more calories, and thus the problem snowballs. They'd probably be blind, since there's no light down there. They also probably wouldn't be nearly as active as the Yokai we see, since moving their giant bodies and doing things and socializing would take so much energy.

Unless they can get their energy from like, geothermal heat or something? That might work. We're talking about magical creatures after all, it has to make sense but that doesn't mean it has to be realistic.

But generally, for deep-sea giant Yokai to work, they'd need to be migratory and return to shallower waters quite frequently to eat, which begs the question of why they don't just stay in those shallower waters and stop being so giant since they're already there all the time.

Or maybe they just have their own little greenhouses at the top of their city like these dudes: