#Panserbjorne

[nevermindigotthis]

I can only imagine how amazing cuddling a bear would be, so here‘s me living vicariously through art 😂

[his-dark-materials-trilogy]

A good bear! 🐻‍❄️

Once Upon a Time in the North

Illustrated by Chris Wormell

[communistkenobi]

i was gonna read lotr but it’s dense enough that it’s basically a fictional version of all the course readings I have to do so I’m rereading golden compass instead. and man there is a lot of orientalism in this book that I did not pick up on as a child

[ftafp]

[spiffyflypie]

hey how come there are no mulefa in the land of the dead

[melded-galaxy]

Fantasy race poll 3

[blackjackkent]

All right, returning to the increasingly chaotic adventures of Rakha in Act 3... we left off with the gang breaking her out of prison after she slipped and attacked the guards at the checkpoint.

Our girl's not really having a good day.

This is the first time I've ever had the PC go to prison and I was curious if there was any way to break Rakha out WITHOUT picking a fight with everyone in Wyrm's Rock (given that ostensibly the next story beat is going upstairs and getting scooped up into Gortash's coronation).

The answer is... yes, but it's complicated.

After having Jaheira unlock the cell door, this notification pops up on the side of the screen.

(This was followed by a brief segue in which I wondered what happens if the whole crew gets caught trying to pick the lock; it turns out, nothing, but they do all look pretty funny all stacked up in jail together.)

The "Fugitive" debuff lasts 17 turns (just over a minute and a half in real life time); however, the popup is telling the truth that by simply having Rakha step outside the cell and then immediately triggering a short rest, the debuff is cleansed and the guards once again cease paying any attention to us.

However, since this doesn't really make any sense from a story perspective, and also given that Jaheira has already smoothtalked a Flaming Fist once in this playthrough, I choose to interpret this as her once again looking straight into a cop's eyes and lying through her teeth.

She tells them that she has been sent to orchestrate a prisoner transfer on Gortash's orders, and Gortash's current rise in power has everyone so jumpy and confused that no one is brave enough to question it. (Sort of a combination of Star Wars' "prisoner transfer from Cell Block 1138" and Lyra's playing mind games with the panserbjorn in His Dark Materials. XD )

This also helps when, in the moment after Rakha steps out of her cell... Wyll realizes that Florrick is sitting in the next one over.

[betsib]

I made up a His Dark Materials AU over on twitter, where Law runs into exiled panserbjorn Bepo after escaping Doflamingo.

[hauntedfalcon]

I don’t think any adaptation of The Golden Compass has bothered with the scene where Lyra runs into a Gloucester scholar in the panserbjorne dungeon and wields academic rivalry to get information, and that’s a real shame

[viciousgold]

I knew I was forgetting something in that guide; terminology of marisa's world (this also isn't all of them, just some basic ones, I also took out the places and people bc we already covered that in the guide)

general terminology:

Aeronaut: Balloonist. Obsolete term. From the Greek aer 'air' and nautes 'sailor'.

Alethiometer: "The Golden Compass". Literally meaning 'Truth Measure'. From the Greek alethes 'truth' and meter 'measure'. Compare to the modern English philosophical term alethiology 'study of truth'.

Anbaric: Electric. From the Arabic anbar 'amber' and the Latin electrum 'amber'. Electric was originally adopted to describe objects that develop static electricity when rubbed, a property first observed in amber.

Atomcraft: Research into particle physics, specifically using uranium.

Cauchuc: Rubber. From the Quechua caoutchouc, meaning 'natural rubber or latex'.

Celestial geography: Celestial navigation.

Chapel: Scientific Laboratory.

Chaplain: Head of a Scientific Laboratory.

Chocolatl: Chocolate. From the Nahuatl chocolatl 'chocolate'.

Chthonic Railway Station: Underground Railway Station. From Greek chthonos 'underground'.

Cloud-pine: A type of wood used by Witches for flying.

Coal-silk: Nylon. A synthetic fibre made from coal that was invented as a substitute for natural silk.

Dæmon: The physical manifestation of a human soul in Lyra's world. This distinct spelling is intended to evoke the older sense of an "attendant spirit" and thereby distinguish it from the Judaeo-Christian use to refer to an evil spirit or devil.

Dust: An elementary particle. Known as shadows, shadow-particles or dark matter in Will's world, and sraf in the mulefa world. The name Dust was chosen in Lyra's world based on an interpretation of the end of the Third Chapter of Genesis in the Bible, where God curses Adam and Eve for eating the fruit of the tree.

Fire-mine: A geothermal vent in which the panserbjorn work in metallurgy; supposedly impenetrable to humans and witches.

Gyropter: Helicopter. Obsolete term. From the Greek gyros "spiral" and pteron "wing".

Marchpane: Marzipan.

Naphtha: Oil. A petrochemical like kerosene.

Peaceable Ocean: The Pacific Ocean. Name given in the 16th century in recognition of the calm seas experienced by explorer Ferdinand Magellan. A direct translation of the Latin pacific 'peace-making, tranquil' into English.

Photogram: Photograph. Obsolete term. From the Greek photo 'relating to light' and gram 'something written'.

Experimental Theology: Physics.

Tokay: A rare golden wine. Probably based on the Hungarian wine Tokaji.

[his-dark-materials-trilogy]

Once Upon a Time in the North

Illustrated edition by Chris Wormell

[ryttu3k]

His Dark Materials season 3! Apparently the UK side is doing... some kinda tomfoolery (the US is doing two episodes a week for four weeks, Australia is following suit a few hours later, but the UK is releasing the entire season at once on the 18th on BBC iPlayer, including the entire half-season that hasn't aired anywhere else yet?), so should be interesting. I'll be using the tag 'hdm spoilers' for everything.

(But seriously, such a weird distribution method. Why not just release the first four, then 5-6 and 7-8 concurrently with the US/Aus broadcast?)

Anyway. Thoughts on His Dark Materials 3.01 and 3.02, The Enchanted Sleeper and The Break! Will mention later-season stuff, so spoilers!

It felt... a little underwhelming? Like it wasn't bad by any means, just kind of... okay, here's some stuff that's happening. Was lower on the Holy Shit Quotient than other episodes have been. On the other hand, the later episodes will be upping the Holy Shit Quotient exponentially, so that helps!

Mrs Coulter was fascinating to watch. There's that manipulation there, but also like? The apparent genuine love and concern for Lyra? The scenes with Will felt so tense, both of them loving Lyra but in completely different ways, the combination of hinting at a way for Will to save Lyra to instantly dismissing him when he was no longer useful. I was genuinely cringing when she was talking about Will's Mum, leading to the knife breaking. And in doing so, she damned herself, because the only reason she wanted Will close by was for the knife in the first place! Good job, Mrs Coulter, you played yourself!

Iorek is back! And being badass! On the other hand, was not a fan of how the scene with Will played out, it just... felt rushed. And they just left a chopped-in-half sky iron helmet sitting there, apparently? Like damn at least pick it up to reforge it. I would have liked to get more context on why the Panserbjorn were moving, too, although we may get that exposition in the next episode. On the other hand, moving the action to some random island in the German Sea instead of Literally The Himalayas might lessen that story element, because why would they move south if not to go somewhere where they still have snow and ice?

I don't know. TV adaptations and all.

Also unsure about the angels. They felt... quite abrupt? Like why would the audience care that Baruch died, we've barely got to know him. Balthamos' departure felt extremely abrupt, too. Also wow, Asriel and his angel torture chamber was. Rough.

(Also re: the torture chamber, I totally heard that as 'adamantium' and laughed because.  You know the material Wolverine (and his li'l clone Laura, played by Dafne Keen) has as claws? Thanks, Professor X :) Kind of up there with Pan taking a wolverine form last season (which still fits due to his preexisting preference for mustelid forms!).)

Didn't mind the newer scenes with Ogunwe, it helped flesh out the whole concept of Asriel recruiting across the worlds by actually showing what that involves. I do like that Asriel's worked out how to cross worlds without having to murder small children, that helps :| The Intention Craft looked pretty cool too. Mary popping by just to see what happened was interesting, although I'm still ridiculously impatient to get to the Mulefa, so. Come on, guys!

Back to Ogunwe, lmao Asriel's expression watching him with his daughter. "Oh. Huh. Loving father-daughter relationship. Didn't know that was a thing that was a thing that could happen. Hmm. I wonder if I'll learn anything from this?"

Interesting take on the Gallivespians, although I miss the dragonflies. There were some interesting parts where Salmakia in particular looked like she had slightly inhuman proportions, not sure if it was clever filming angles or CGI?

Land of the Dead looks proper creepy. Felt so... well... dead. I did miss how they handled it in the book, though, with how abruptly those scenes cut in and out, which was something they could do on TV, so it’s not even an adaptation issue. Pan's comment after Lyra's dream, though, about not being able to follow her... oh god gonna be a mess during that scene.

One thing I really enjoyed - daemons representing inner turmoil. We didn't get to see as much with Lyra and Pan since she spent most of the episodes unconscious, but there were some really neat scenes with Mrs Coulter and the Golden Monkey (like watching Lyra escape before finally electing to alert Mrs Coulter), and Asriel and Stelmaria (where she's basically going, "Excuse me, Lyra and Pan are my kid/s too, you know you care about them, you ass!").

You go Mrs Coulter you fuck up that creepy Father Gomez! Because holy shit, creepy as hell. There’s a comment on the subreddit saying how if the spider wasn’t his daemon, he’d probably be pulling its legs off, and yeah, accurate. Also Will's stunned expression after shooting the soldier threatening Ama, the poor kiddo.

A minor note of silliness - since Australia is drawing from HBO, we're also getting their built-in subtitles, and they described Mrs Coulter and Ama as using ASL. The credits confirm that, no, that's BSL. That's a whole other language. HBO, it's okay to let American viewers know that other languages exist, it really is XD

Also, Pan hiding in Will's jacket. My heart.

[cateyedfox36]

Why... why does he look like a guy in a bear suit? Or like a furry version of a panserbjorn?

Do you have any bears to celebrate the Ides of March?

[boredgamehg]

Panserbjorn is a perfect example on what I wanted for my project. Although I didn't have enough time to do the armour, I did gain a lot of inspiration from the character.

They did an amazing job on creating the bear. Especially how the armour fits onto the body of the character. If I can I would also use armour like this, but wouldn't use the segmented design as I think thats quite impractical and personally, I don't really like it aesthetically.

[biwonderland98]

I... I really feel that this little image of a panserbjørn in my copy of Northern Lights doesn't quite do the armoured bears justice... just me?

[viciousgold]

"Don't chase the rabbit"

(I gotta write a happier one after that Gerard Bonneville one so have Lyra and Marisa in London)

One of Marisa's happiest memories was taking Lyra to the fair. Neither of them had ever been, a new experience for both of them. Lyra had seen it from afar and begged to go. Marisa had never thought to in all the years she lived in London. She considered it to be a waste of her time. With Lyra longing to go, however, she was more than happy to oblige.

They had ice cream, Lyra had this disgusting, overly fried thing that she begged to have, and they played carnival games. Lyra had been oh so delighted when Marisa's expert aim ended up winning a giant stuffed white bear. The girl's eyes had lit up as Marisa handed it to her, and she held onto it so dearly as it was a great treasure to her. She named it Ragnar Ivarsson and started talking about what potential panserbjorn adventures the two of them would go on together once Marisa finally took her to the North. Marisa was so enamored with the girl, her heart overflowing with so much affection.