#Darkness and Light

[violetmoondaughter]

Many are the faces of the Hellenic God Dionysus, but the duality of his nature is sometimes connected with two specific plants associated to the god. Dionysus relates to many plants such as Fig, Oak, Pine, Vine and Ivy, these two are specifically connected with two opposite faces of the god. 

Grapevine starts its annual growth cycle in spring with bud break. During spring and summer, the plant grows and after flowering the vine sets the fruits that are usually harvested in early autumn. Following the first frost the leaves begin to fall as the vine starts to enter its winter dormancy period. The following spring, the cycle begins again. Following the same annual cycle Dionysus is seen as a god that is reborn every spring, bringing during the hot season prosperity and abundance before disappearing in winter. Grapevine grows thanks to the hot weather and humidity and so it represents the warm fertilizing humidity power of the god. Grape is used to create wine which is the drink sacred to Dionysus because of its ability to release mental faculties.  

Ivy on the other hand, blossoms in the autumn when the vines are harvested and bears fruit in the spring. As an evergreen plant, ivy needs cold weather and humidity to grow and flower.  Ivy vines crawl as snakes and in the myth, ivy appeared soon after the birth of Dionysus to shelter the child from the flames that burned the mother's body. To its freshness was attributed the virtue of dispelling the ardor of wine, so Dionysus was believed to have commanded his worshippers to crown themselves with it. Ivy, in contrast to the vine that bore fruit bearing vitality and exaltation, produced a poison that sterilized and had medicinal virtues that were refreshingly depurative and narcotic. The plant is also connected with thunder and lightning and was believed to have the power to protect from lightning and cure sore throat and cough. 

Thus these two plants sacred to Dionysus are contrasted with each other in an eloquent contrast: the vine, drunk with light, is a child of heat and returns the rays of the sun by warming, with its libation, bodies and souls, while the ivy shows itself to be cold in nature; indeed the sterility and uselessness of its first sprouts recall night and death. 

Their affinity is rooted in the very essence of the dual-figured god, whose nature is expressed from the earth by means of them: light and darkness, warmth and coldness, intoxication of life and breath of death that withers everything; the multiplicity of the Dionysian aspects struggling with each other and yet conjoined with each other is manifested here in vegetal form, stands in struggle with itself and prodigiously transitions from one form into the other. 

Dionysus rules over all moist and hot creatures whose symbol would also be wine, as a hot and moist substance. In wine, heat is made ardor drink of fire that overwhelms everything, that ignites the soul and the body. But the moist heat is contrasted with the moist cold that as a Dionysian element, is manifested in ivy, a plant that greens even in winter when the Dionysian festivals take place.

[adventuresofalgy]

Fed up with the prospect of endless Scotch mist and rain under perpetually dismal skies, and the thought of even shorter, darker days to come, Algy had listened to the warbling of the robin and resolved to set out on a brave new adventure, in search of the light and warmth and jollity which he had once heard could be found somewhere deep in the heart of the darkness, even in the dreariest northern winter…

However, there was just one wee technical problem… Algy hadn't the slightest idea where to look, or which direction to take.

But as a fluffy bird is not easily discouraged once he has set his mind on a definite course of action, Algy didn't pause to worry about that; he simply spun himself round and round and round again, recalling his eerie encounter with the bat on the night of Halloween, and then set off in the direction he faced once the spinning in his head and body had finally stopped.

At first he made good distance, flying at some speed low over the ground, but despite keeping an eye open for any kind of clue which might help him in his quest, Algy saw nothing unusual at all, and when the night started closing in around him, Algy paused to rest in the crook of a battered old multi-trunk tree, having collided rather painfully with the branches in the encroaching darkness and bumped his forehead, as even the bravest will at times:

We grow accustomed to the Dark - When light is put away - As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye - A Moment - We uncertain step For newness of the night - Then - fit our Vision to the Dark - And meet the Road - erect - And so of larger - Darknesses - Those Evenings of the Brain - When not a Moon disclose a sign - Or Star - come out - within - The Bravest - grope a little - And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead - But as they learn to see - Either the Darkness alters - Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight - And Life steps almost straight.

[Algy is thinking of the poem We grow accustomed to the Dark by the 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson.]

[frostbyte744]

First bloom

[darkcrowprincess]

Blue equals darkness and Yellow equals light. Giving yin and yang vibes for byler right there. The blue meaning the wheelers/creels connections to Mikes family darkness. Will being associated with lights, lighting, sunshine. Will is yellow meaning love and hope.

Mike is literally always being cast in shadows while Will is in light. Darkness protects light, light protects darkness.

[vxmpire-vxlle]

[theemeraldforestafterdark]

The Gathering

[academic-vampire]

“I see the darkness where you see the light.”

-Tom Odell, song: “Black Friday”

[crystalstylehexagon]

"The Light and Darkness Reversed"

Looking at their In-game moves from Naruto Ninja Storm and League of Legends, they're basically analogies of one another: Their Kit is similar, and their ultimate is literally the same. Both destroy things out of seeking "Justice", though Kayle is BLINDED by the "Just and glorious light", following in the shadow, much like Indra to Kaguya, of her mother, Mihira, who is the true aspect, if not, the holy light itself. This analogy works well with Indra as well, not only unknowingly walking under his grandmother's shadow, but also his father's. He, before fully coming to be evil, is the man who had been strict and a relentless teacher canon-wise, he was a "Just", or "By the book" type of character, or in other words, the perfect soldier/heir for his father, only to be betrayed by the very own ideals he stood for and this might just also be the case for Kayle.

This will turn into a giant post, but bear with me.

That reminds me,

We can't forget

Ashura and Morgana The Fallen:

While Morgana's Ideals of rebellion take a similar path to Indra's, binding her wings out of spite for her kin, the ascended (People who gain powers through a holy  variety of magic, chiefly celestial magic, granting them the ability to become something more than human, channeling that power through their connection to the celestial entities), sore the ground, to feel what humanity really was about, to find out why her sister spited them and called them "Deceivers and the unjust".

she's not driven by vengeance against her own kin, nor is fully spiteful towards them, especially her just-blinded sister, but driven with the hopes of making her sister and the ascended see the beauty of mortality, of making mistakes, of love and pain, of fear, so Kayle could see what she saw in these humans.

This was also a way to stop her sister from bringing forth the "Judgement day" (basically something out of a bible story. What else do you expect from good and evil story?), meaning she would "vanquish the evil and filth from this world." even if it meant burning the planet alive from the inside out granted by the flames of her mother.

Guess who else holds the ideology for love of humanity?

Ashura.

Aside from the still-confused Hagoromo, Ashura outside of all of the Otsutsuki was an empath. From a young age, he seemed talentless, despite being the son of Hagoromo, the sage of six paths, so he spent a lot of that time playing with children his age, helping out and loved his brother very much, but slowly, their relationship grew colder

Indra, much like Kayle was afraid of making mistakes, being the perfect son, following the path of ninshu, which we could arguably call the path of "ascension from something beyond human", teaching humans how to unlock their superhuman talents, but much like every mentor, he was biased towards strength, especially as black zetsu slowly poisoned his mind.

While Kayle was afraid of feeling pain, Indra honed it to his advantage, and with that he unshackled himself and became something, not human, but back when Ashura was away and he taught ninshu, he shared same sentiment as Kayle did.

"I must feel nothing to fight injustice" - "To find grace, I cannot rest, I will not" - "I have given up everything for the light" - "The law does not tolerate imperfection. I am no exception." "If I slip, I will fall, so I must fly." - Kayle.

And Indra before finding out he was, in fact- was not the inheritor of ninshu, basically shared the same ideals. He was afraid of being imperfect, he was afraid to make mistakes at that point, he was doing everything by the book, knowing he was superior to his brother, he gave up his childhood because he was given a promise of a rightful inheritance, he knew this, he was born for this.

But he got screwed over and completely fell into the abyss of darkness and rebelled and from what I can tell, Kayle's story is going there as well: To sacrifice your whole life for a cause, only to find out you were fighting on the wrong side/get absorbed by your mother (Probably, this is just my theory.)

And then, when she would know pain, she would probably take a similar path as Indra did: Vengeance and hatred.

(Mihira: mother of Kayle and Morgana)

Then we, once again have Morgana and Ashura: The empaths who took the side of humanity, who in a way rebelled against their own system and decided to explore what being human was like; hence, Ashura's Journey.

As we know, Ashura came back home much later than Indra, and that was because he accomplished great feats. While Indra was looked onto as a god for his power, Ashura humbled himself, working with what he had honed from his ninshu training, and he worked HARD for it.

Eventually he, in a way, became a part of this community and even gained followers from his journey back, told his story to Hagoromo and hence got chosen, because not only Hagoromo saw a strange darkness in Indra,(I can't live that down, like, how could he not suspect. He has THREE EYES for fuck's sake, counting his marking as the third eye.) but because he saw HIMSELF in Ashura. He remembered his journey, his bonds and his connections with people. He saw all that was good in him (Basically the Cain and Able analogy).

And guess who does the same thing? Morgana

While she conflicted between her celestial and mortal natures, Morgana bound her wings to embrace humanity and inflicted her pain and bitterness upon the dishonest and the corrupt. She rejects laws and traditions she believes are unjust and fights for truth from...

While this may sound like Indra, i'd say it is more of an Ashura analogy.

Ashura, in his own way, rejected the traditional ways of ninshu and teachings of ninshu from a young age, because he was simply bad at it and got mocked for it, even in this journey, their father sent him to do... Whatever and come back and tell him the story so he could choose a successor.

Unlike Indra, Ashura, much like Morgana bound her wings, learned more about humanity, and bound himself and his overpowering ass. He instead felt the pain and suffering of humans, he felt their sorrow and cries for help, and he empathized with them. While being an extrovert, we cannot forget that Ashura was still - partially alien, and much like Kaguya, we don't know how Otsutsuki's emotions work. We only know that Kaguya hypothetically managed to humanize her emotions, actually felt them, maybe she mimicked, maybe Otsutsuki, when coming close to emotions, simply get overwhelmed by them (Stone-faced: Ishiki, Momoshiki, Urashiki, who, if you take a closer look, simply did not function like human beings, have similar emotions. It was either a stone face or a sadistic look, which points to Otsutsuki simply being born as dickheads, but you may prove me wrong since I hadn't read or watched the full Boruto series, only snippets).

And while being on earth for decades, I believe those genes got mixed and mutated, hence Ashura and Indra developing more but the inner conflict, something aching deep within would likely stay.

Because they're both basically demigods and they're alien demigods, I'm pretty sure both had some struggles and questions about their humanity and otherwise, and Ashura is a perfect example of overcoming that "darkness within". While Morgana uses darkness to inflict suffering on those who do evil, power does not matter, what matters is that these two have similar views about humanity, love, and family.

Ashura loved his brother dearly, and even at the end of the fight, he tried to check on him.

Morgana loves her sister despite all, and just like Ashura, she wants to make her sister see the truth, blinded by light, only Indra's vision was blinded by darkness.

When i watch Naruto, i come across some very interesting characters and analogies like these and I think out of all of them, this one is the most beautiful and poetic one out of all.

Siblings, ripped from one another by fate, forever to battle one another.

Darkness vs Light

only in League, the Light is the true evil.

But both of these come to the yin and yang theory: One cannot exist without the other, darkness needs light, and from mythologies, the Sun needs the Moon.

In Naruto, true evil is taken as a concept, not an actual literal thing, and I think Kishimoto tried hard to point that out with the end game and executed it beautifully: Evil does not exist, black and white make grey, it is all about the balance, hence Naruto and Sasuke:

The Moon and the Sun come together to defeat a great threat to protect their world, the cycle of hatred between Indra and Ashura ends with them, and both accept their roles in the world. Naruto being the light, and Sasuke being the Light's shadow.

And pretty much, if Riot doesn't come up with some weird shit, or drops the whole concept altogether, I believe that the path the story of Kayle's and Morgana's story will take is the same as Ashura's and Indra's/Sasuke's and Naruto's, which, out of many other Anime/Stories, is one of the most perfectly executed story, if we look at Naruto series like the "Good and Evil, Cain and Able, Lucifer and God" analogy path it had taken towards the end of Shippuden.

"Through light, we find darkness, and through that darkness, we find the light once more"

That's all i have to say about this.

[soulinkpoetry]

On fire from within…

.

.

[violetmoondaughter]

In neopaganism the horned god is seen with two different faces representing the duality of nature and the changing of seasonal cycle. The theory of these two aspects of the god was debated by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough and by Robert Graves in The White Goddess.  

According to these theories old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. Frazer based his thesis on the pre-Roman priest-king Rex Nemorensis who was ritually murdered by his successor. The king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the Earth. He died at the harvest and was reincarnated in the spring. This legend of rebirth is central to almost all of the world's mythologies. Some examples of this archetypical figure are the gods Dionysus, Osiris, Tammuz, Dumuzi, Adonis, Janus, Attis. 

 The two aspects of this figure take the names of Holly and Oak king. 

The Holly King is seen as an old version of the green man, ruler of winter, death and darkness. He starts his kingdom at summer solstice when, after the longest day, ruled by his opposite king the oak king, the days start to get darker and shorter entering in the dark half of the year. The holly king is so called referring to the plant that is fruitful during the winter season.  The holly king is also referred to as a black knight and is also connected with the dark aspects of many pagan gods. 

Counterpart of the Holly King is the Oak King that is usually seen as a young green man, ruler of summer, life and light. He starts his kingdom at the winter solstice, when after the darkest night a new light is reborn, signing the beginning of the light half of the year. The oak king is called over the name of the plant that is fruitful during the hot season. Opposite to the Holly King, the Oak King, relates to the light aspect of many pagan gods and its sometimes referred to as a white knight. 

According to the theory these two kings may be seen as two brothers fighting for the throne or as a father and son passing the kingdom to each other in a perpetual cycle of death and rebirth. This cycle of life and death represents the seasonal cycle of death and rebirth of the sunlight and vegetative world.

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy set out early the next day, hoping to make some kind of discovery which would show him the way to a land of light and warmth in the midst of the winter darkness.

With his hopes held as high as his head, he flew and flew and flew through the dense Scotch mist, but still he could see nothing out of the ordinary, and as the day grew ever dimmer, Algy became more and more tired…

By the late afternoon he was quite exhausted, so he fluttered down slowly to the ground and landed on a patch of long grass, which though inevitably wet was at least nice and soft, and reasonably comfortable, providing one was accustomed to the soggy sensation of damp tail feathers…

But no sooner had Algy settled down to rest than a fly started buzzing round his head and crawling across his face. Round and round it went, then returned to bother him some more. It just would not stop, despite Algy's attempts to politely discourage it.

After a while, Algy realised that the fly was attempting to communicate with him, so he listened as carefully as he could, and tried to understand what all the buzzing might mean. With some effort he managed to work out that it was apparently quoting a short and rather mysterious rhyme by one of his favourite poets…

Although surprised, Algy was glad to discover that the insect kingdom was properly educated, but unfortunately it left him none the wiser with regard to his journey, and eventually he decided that the fly must simply be intent on annoying him…

Some things that fly there be— Birds—Hours—the Bumblebee— Of these no Elegy. Some things that stay there be— Grief—Hills—Eternity— Nor this behooveth me. There are that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the Riddle lies!

[The fly is quoting the poem Some things that fly there be by the 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson.]

[my-jokes-are-my-armour]

Happy Ruin day everyone ❤️

I just wanted to celebrate Scarlet Scarlet and the Blue Furious Boy in their dichotomy and complementarity.

They make me escape with cracked and wrinkled emotions bursting out in notes and voices, with blurred lines between reality and fantasy contained and unleashed by words.

Sources : Joey CV photo and Madeleine photo from on IMDB. Contains freepik resources. Edit with Gimp and Gridart

[darkcrowprincess]

Hanbrough being yin and yang:

Bill and Mike being yin and yang. But Bill is the darkness out in daylight(meaning the world) and Mike is the light trapped in Derry darkness. Bill who makes stories from horror and evil. And Mike who is so kind and compassionate despite everything bad and horrible this town has done to him. Bill wants to help, but he knows bitterness, his soul has beem craked and traumatized by darkness of his brothers death. But Mike, even with trauma always seems to be like a bright sunflower always believing in good.

[mississippimemoir]

In a captivating scene where light meets shadow, an angel gazes into the still water, only to find the reflection of a demon mimicking her every move. This powerful juxtaposition symbolizes the eternal struggle between good and evil, beauty and darkness. The serene water surface acts as a mirror, revealing not only our outer selves but also the inner conflicts we face. What do you see when you look deeper?

[amethystina]

Darkness and Light

Fandom/Pairing: The Devil Judge - Gahan

Length: A collection of shorter ficlets, more will be added as I write them

Rating/Warnings: Ratings and warnings will be stated in the author's notes of each chapter

Summary: This is a collection of shorter Gahan ficlets, unrelated to my other fics unless stated otherwise.

Each chapter is a separate story of varying lengths.

Enjoy, my darlings! 💜

GO HERE TO READ

[awehaven]

Draft.

©Robin Fifield 2023.