#I love this meta

[iamnmbr3]

This is so interesting. I have a similar headcanon about the pseudo latin dating back to the Roman Empire but I always personally imagined that the pronunciation just kind of mutated over time. So it started out with people just saying the Latin word for whatever they wanted to do but then overtime it changed and by the time the spells got standardized they had changed from their original form, as language tends to do. It's even possible that in-universe the pseudo Latin is some sort of "wizarding Latin" dialect that arose within the wizarding community.

And then I think using Latin as a basis to invent new spells just became standard practice for new spells even though it's not necessary. That's why you have a spell like "Point Me" in book 4 which is in English. Snape, of course, wanted his spells to be cool and high-brow sounding so of course when he invented them he used wizarding Latin as a basis. Tom on the other hand doesn't care about stuff like that (and probably never had any opportunity to study Latin) so when he invents the cauldron ritual it's chanted in English.

One thing that has always bothered me about the magical system in HP is how much it... doesn’t exist? No one questions anything, there’s almost no theoretical exploration, and Hermione Granger (someone I’ve always found to be of average intelligence at best) is the brightest witch of her age.

Some characters seem to be inexplicably more powerful, but I wonder if it isn’t simply a matter of discipline and will-power.

What are your thoughts on magic? We never really see what light vs. dark entails, so fanfic authors tend to make it up as they go along, but do you have any head-canons about how magic works in HP?

I mean, to be fair, it wasn’t really the point of JKR’s series. She just wanted to write about a kid going to a magic boarding school in Scotland with this quirky witch aesthetic. 

No need for her to placate us uber nerds who demand a sensible explanation to the minutia of her magical system. 

Right, but yes, it clearly bothers me too. No one questions anything, there’s no understanding of why wands and spells even work, or why it has to be in this weird pseudo-Latin. No one even bothers to learn Latin, for that matter, and you think they would given the damn spells. 

Hermione Granger is the brightest witch of her age given that “her age” is either around 30 people (the amount of people in her year) or else around 300 (the population of Hogwarts at a given time) which is a pitiful amount. She also is an extremely hard worker and actually reads her textbooks, sadly I think this gets you ahead of 95% of the population.

Part of the reason I think the Wizarding World thinks like this is that they’re this incredibly tiny, cut off, insular society. Generally, when you have a small society cut off like that you tend to lose innovation or even understanding of technology you have.

But that’s not what you asked. Right.

Personally, I think there is no light and dark magic. Magic is just this part of the natural universe that muggles, for whatever reason, are not able to directly access. It’s neither good nor bad, it just is. For that matter, I don’t think spells themselves really exist, or rather, they’re not what magic really is in its purest form but instead a way that humans can easily access and control magic to perform a certain task. Kind of a glorified API if you will. 

So, dark magic and light magic are instead arbitrary labels that wizards apply to their own tool box based on the functions of that tool. If you have a tool that is only designed for/can be used for the murder and torture of sentient beings: well, that’s bad, we’ll call that dark. That said, do I think the spells themselves are inherently evil? No. It’s like if you open up your tool box, pick out a sledgehammer, and go, “This, my child, is an instrument of pure evil and you must never touch it.” Well, that’s a bad comparison, it’d be like taking a handgun out of your tool box and saying “this is a dark weapon”. Now, this gets into a debate I don’t want to get into, but to me dark spells are a lot like handguns (they’re designed for only one purpose and there’s no squirming your way out of what that purpose is).

Now, I think wizards have forgotten this (mostly because they don’t understand what spells or magic is), and so they get very hung up on the labels of spells or even just your odd genetic trait (i.e. parseltongue). So, we have these weird moments where someone uses, say, the severing charm to cut somebody open in the middle of the street. And it’s less bad than if they had used the killing curse to kill them painlessly and easily, because the severing charm’s not dark magic. 

It’s like... If someone were to walk out and bash someone over the head with a sledgehammer until it kills them it’s less evil than if they shot them in the head with a handgun.

Wizards seem to miss the point of this. 

As for what magic is, I believe it’s... direct energy that wizards are able to access in a way that muggles (thus far) cannot. What do I mean by thus far? Well, look at electricity. In ye olden days, I’m sure that if you asked a wizard they would say that making artificial light without flame is a property solely done by magic and muggles are not capable of it. Well, muggles then did it, and suddenly the definition and parameters of magic change. Wizards are kind of like chess grand masters who suddenly lose to your AI du jour, who say that it doesn’t count because the AI didn’t really do it like a human would. It’s not real intelligence.

I don’t believe people have magic in and of themselves, any more than anyone else does at any rate, because we see too little differences between powerful and mediocre wizards. You’re either a squib or you’re not, there doesn’t really seem to be a spectrum, and those who struggle with spells appear to do so for other reasons (Neville has severe confidence issues and is traumatized, Harry’s an idiot, etc.) 

I think what separates the great wizards from the rest is hard work, the ability to read books and learn from them, even an inkling of understanding of how spells really work and how to create them (and this makes you Voldemort level right here), and a good ear to be able to pronounce your ridiculous pseudo Latin.

The wand is a tool specifically designed so that, with repeatable easy to understand steps, you can perform a whole array of tasks and even use them as building blocks to develop a new spell (combine swishes, flicks, and various garbled sentences together in such a way and BAM new spell).

Your wand, in other words, is your API to direct and access untold amounts of energy from the universe.

But people have forgotten that so instead what you memorize are very specific function calls that will prove useful in your daily life.

As for the wand and spells themselves, well, here’s my hokey ridiculous theory on how that came about. A long time ago, a brilliant foreigner enters the Roman Empire with a revolutionary idea that puts him on the level of Einstein/Newton/Feynman Name Your Stupidly Brilliant Physicist. He says, hey, how about instead of doing these time consuming magical rituals we develop a tool that, in a matter of seconds, allows us to perform truly complicated and powerful magic any time we want. No more relying on having the right ingredients about, virgin sacrifices, the full moon, etc.

Everyone probably laughs at him, but then he goes off and designs a rudimentary wand, and through probably some uber ritual that was dangerous as hell implements this system by which by flicking your wand a certain way and saying basic commands like “levitate”, “repair”, etc. you can perform these tasks.

Only, the guy’s foreign and Good Will Hunting (no formal education in the empire), so he doesn’t actually speak Latin. So what you have instead is this weird half-Latin like, “Leviupwards Fly”, “Repair-o”, etc. 

It sounds dumb as hell, but goddammit it works, and more it gives Roman wizards an unheard of advantage against their enemy wizards who are all stuck doing these stupid rituals. They suddenly have a vast military might, so long as they use these wands and spells this guy came up with.

Everybody who’s anybody, who wants to win a fight, is now using wands. Wandcraft becomes a huge deal and people specialize in fine tuning these things exactly so as to get the maximum efficiency for a particular user.

And they probably go up to our guy and say, “Hey, buddy, can you make this in actual Latin? I can barely remember what it is I’m supposed to say to get this to work” and after the hours, and hours, and hours he spent making this thing that nobody helped him with he goes, “DO IT YOURSELF, BITCH”. And they never do because they’re too damn lazy/have no idea how he actually did it and any attempt to recreate it ends up with something that’s pitiful and doesn’t work. 

So, they’re all stuck with it, and thousands of years later they forget this guy even existed and while there’s a recognition that not all magic has to be performed by wands there’s just this feeling that the wand is the magic. And so no one will ever come up with an English/French/Whatever version where when you say “Up” the thing goes up. 

And that’s “The History of Magic” as brought to you by The Carnivorous Muffin.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[ayo-edebiri]

When's the new season of Séance Dog coming out? You mean the show? Probably not for another year.

INVINCIBLE (2021 - ) I 2.07

[lucianalight]

#prev tags: I watch this scene daily I’m very normal about it#MOOD#I haven’t literally but the urge is there.#the rest of the show: 😑🫳#this scene: 👌🙌👏#and I think it’s probably the opposite of their intention but the symbolism of the tva outfit being shredded as he puts on this new outfit#because the tva styles were about him being a part of something 😒#Him wearing things he wouldn’t wear because it was more important to him to feel included even if it was meant in a demeaning way#him taking on the color palette that’s given to him. Blending in.#and then he’s here realizing who he needs to be. And it’s him in his own colors soft and without armor#all peaceful and benevolent -“monk king” as the designer called it#He can’t save people the way he’s WANTED to by being what he thought Odin wanted or Thanos or HWR (and the tva)#It’s not about being the perfect prince or a conqueror with armor or a part of a system#he’s gotta do it his own way#😌 in luxurious pjs (tags via @the-stars-descend )

People's choice for LOKI APPRECIATION WEEK 2023 @dailyloki Day 1 | Favourite Loki scene: Loki changing into his God of Stories look walking towards the Loom, his TVA clothes shredded.

[binary-bird]

to no one's surprise i ended up liking the character struggling with her own fictionality

[joycrispy]

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.

[mischievous-thunder]

Logan not only held onto the photograph after the fight until he fell asleep but also kept it with himself until what he thought was going to be his last conversation with Wade.

Just prior to going into the chamber to destroy the Time Ripper, Logan gave the photo back to Wade because the man didn't think that he'd make it. He wasn't someone who expressed their emotions too eloquently but in that moment his expressions and voice conveyed what his heart truly felt. Seeing Wade teared up and realising that that moment could be their very last together, Logan let the voice of his heart take over.

That was their declaration of love.

[peachhoneii]

What I find fascinating is how Stan and Ford project onto Mabel and Dipper differently.

Stan sees a lot of himself in Mabel and Dipper. He sees the positive in Mabel and some negatives in Dipper. Stan misguidedly tries to correct those aspects he sees. He also worries about the Ford-like similarities in Dipper too.

Unintentionally, Stan's teasing pushes Dipper away but manages to pull him back in enough to reassure Dipper that Stan loves him unconditionally. He was misguided in correcting parts of Dipper that Stan saw in himself and hated. It was the method, not the intent that was wrong.

Ford saw 100% of himself in Dipper. In the show, the focus was on Dipper and Ford, because Ford could not separate the Stan v. Ford dynamic in his mind when it came to Mabel and Dipper. He loves Mabel. He finds her charmingly delightful, but he also projects his feelings of Stan onto Mabel. She is Dipper's Stan, therefore she's holding Dipper back from his true potential.

We know that's not true. Stan knows that's not true. It takes Stan "dying" for Ford to get this. It takes him losing his brother to open his mind to the idea that he and Mabel also have similarities. In the ARG, he realizes Mabel is as curious and weird as he is, and he effortlessly finds their similarities when he lets go of that Stan-projection and humbles himself.

Just goes to show that despite Mabel and Dipper's parents having their marital troubles, they've created a healthy home for their children where they can have their own separate identities. That's a major factor into Stan and Ford's issues is the treatment they received in their childhood. They were a single unit, not individuals.

While Stan was codependent on that dynamic, Ford felt suffocated. It's why he wanted to branch out so badly.

Carrying Stan suffocated Ford, but arriving at Gravity Falls forced him to entertain the idea that he also relied on Stan in an entirely different way than Stan relied on him.

[king-mera]

@mjrdm obsessed with these tags YOU GET IT

I love it when the seemingly all powerful all knowing trickster being shows a moment of vulnerability. Sheogorath apologizing to the player right before turning into Jyggalag in The Oblivion Shivering Isles DLC, the Cheshire Cat getting beheaded by the Queen in American Mcgee's Alice, Caine glitching out in TADC. Moments when you realize the guy you thought was running the madhouse is just another inmate like you. Inject that shit directly into my veins.

[speculative]

Two Guys at the Triangle Factory by ammnontet

[willgrahamscock]

Oh, god. I understand now. This look Aziraphale has right after Crowley kissed him. I didn't understand why he'd look disgusted when we as the audience know that their feelings are mutual, and as Neil hinted, they both wanted to confess in this episode, but the Metatron changed that. "Do it again."

Richard Siken//Good Omens

[candyskiez]

Y'know when I went into mp100 I wasn't expecting to get hit in the face with "flawed kindness is better than no kindness and it's better to start becoming a better person for selfish reasons than it is to do nothing because you think you're beyond redemption and keep hurting people" but I am not complaining.

[biboomerangboi]

Hua Cheng essentially cockblocking himself for possibly all of eternity will literally never not be the funniest thing MXTX ever wrote.

Xie Lian was pretty much completely in love with him the second he saw those lanterns (and completely oblivious about it) and then we get the wonderful first kiss underwater moment and Xie Lian is basically drawing hearts around Hua Cheng every time he sees him. While like quietly dying cause he literally has no idea what to do with it. Like at this point he doesn’t even really understand that he is head over heels totally gone for this man.

Until Hua Cheng is like I have a beloved I just haven’t won them over yet. Which he thinks is perfectly reasonable because his self esteem is the worst and he doesn’t understand how he could have won Xie Lian over yet. (He’s only on step 22 of his Marrying Dianxia 3000 step Master Plan ((that he debates throwing out on a regular basis because he doesn’t deserve to even dream about wanting Xie Lian)). So course he’s like yeah I have this wonderful noble beautiful beloved I just haven’t won them over yet wink wink nudge nudge.

But Xie Lian is like oh of course obviously I don’t deserve nice things and fuck I actually wanted him so badly I’m actually in love with him and now I will resign myself to never being happy for his sake. (Their combined self esteem is truly a so low it’s a hole in the ground which is hilarious because they think the other person is to good for them and unattainable forever because they literally have the same neurosis.) So he starts boxing up his feelings forever constantly wanting Hua Cheng and feeling guilty about it and literally dying inside because he wants Hua Cheng like he’s never wanted anyone.

Like essentially books 3 and 5 only happen because Hua Cheng has now cursed them both by saying he has a beloved because Xie Lian believes he isn’t wanted and therefore any nice thing Hua Cheng does is just him being nice and not Hua Cheng pulling out steps 23-34 of his plan thinking he still hasn’t won Xie Lian over. (He has he so has but he shot himself in the foot so badly it’s painful to read).

Like thank the Gods Hua Cheng is so unhinged and created the cave of 10000 Gods cause Xie Lian would literally be at his own wedding to Hua Cheng still convinced he wanted someone else and this was in fact a thing they were doing to solve a case together otherwise.

Like he needed something that unhinged to put 2 and 2 together otherwise he never would have caught on he’s Hua Cheng’s beloved. Meanwhile Hua cheng is like 🥺 he’s going to think I’m a weirdo now and I’m only on step 50 of the plan 🥺 like the two of them wouldn’t have been fucking nasty 2 books ago if he just kept his mouth shut and didn’t cockblock himself so violently.

[catharsistine]

The scene in the Barbie trailer when Barbie is skating around with Ken and asks "Why is everyone staring at me?"

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE AN ADOLESCENT GIRL.

Living in Barbieland (childhood girlhood) but then suddenly you're all grown up in the real world subject to scrutiny and sexualisation (the guy slapping Barbie's ass) and feeling like existing is a crime?

Being forced by adult men into a box (which leads to the not like other girls syndrome) and exploring the 'real world' (being forced to grow up too quickly) while fighting the realisation that maybe the world sucks and being a woman is so difficult while hoping with all your heart that it's not always going to be this way.

Losing touch with the very things that made you happy because they're considered immature and girly? (The group of teens that said they hadn't played with Barbies since they were five.)

Older women telling you that you have to learn the truth about the world and that you can never have your old life back (Kate Mckinnon's Barbie) despite it being the only thing you yearn for, but also older women being a bright spot and support (the old woman on the bench) in the endless slough of life.

And this is just the trailer!!! I'm so excited for this movie I can't breathe, Greta Gerwig the woman that you are 😭

[gale-force-storm]

Thinking about the fact that, to pull Gale from the stone and get him in the game at all, you have to decide to try to touch an extremely dangerous looking swirling mass of unstable magic. Something that is, objectively, a terrible idea

Like, the options it gives you are to either touch the sigil or leave, and if you leave you just... don't get Gale in the party

You have to take the risk. You have to let your curiosity override your common sense. You have to look at this unstable, possibly dangerous malfunctioning magic sigil and go "...Ok, but what if I poke it?"

In short, to get Gale in your party, you have to do exactly what he would in that situation, and indulge in a moment of reckless curiosity. And I just think that's delightful

[homosexualslug]

realized that both the beginning and the end of the happy paris stage of Loumand's relationship has this same contrasting orange to blue/green color scheme. and like. the visual metaphor of Armand literally leaving his cold, lifeless world behind him and choosing the bright, golden warmth of life with Louis instead of killing him like he was supposed to in that tunnel. but as soon as he chooses the coven over Louis, he separates from the warmth like oil in water that was never supposed to be there. and now he's back out in the cold. I'm normal about this, btw.