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csolarstorm · 10 months ago

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Xerneas and Yveltal are Fungi: Let Me Explain...

Source: Bulbapedia, Wikipedia, Bulbapedia, Enchanted Nature

Xerneas and Yveltal are my favorite legendary designs. There's something weirdly alien about these bio-luminescent approximations of fauna, like they're trying to look like animals and failing. I've always thought they looked a little bit...fungal.

Xerneas and Yveltal are like batteries. They're life energy brokers; Xerneas distributes life, while Yveltal drains it. Supporting and draining life is one of the main characteristics of fungi. In fact, it's like their whole thing.

Some fungi have a mutualistic relationship with their hosts, where they actually benefit their health. And in general, fungi are essential to supporting the ecosystem. Then there's fungi that are simply parasitic.

Fungi can also go dormant, as well as their spores. Staying still is their thing, just chilling in dark places. Xerneas and Yveltal's dormant forms are especially weird, showing just how anomalous these creatures are.

Now allow me to lichen fauna to fungi.

Sources: Bulbapedia, New Forest Pics, Wikipedia, Mushroom Diary Blog

This is xylaria hypoxylon, also known as Stag's Horn fungus. (Not to be confused with Yellow Staghorn.) It reminds me a lot of the dormant form of Xerneas, or the "deactivated" form it takes in the PC.

Stag's Horn is also bio-luminscent, which means the tips of the fungus faintly glow - much like the tips of Xerneas's antlers.

Speaking of the first legendary Fairy Pokemon, mushrooms are often associated with fairies. Fairy Rings are circles of mushrooms that are connected by mycelium underneath. (I'll get into mycelium in just a second.) There are too many myths about Fairy Rings to get into here, so for now I'll just point out the Fairy Ring around Valerie's Gym in Laverre City.

Sources: Bulbapedia, Sussex Wildlife Trust, Enchanted Nature, UK Wildlife

I'm not sure whether Bulbapedia or Dr. King on Pokemon Amino first likened Yveltal to Devil's Fingers, but the similarities are uncanny. Like Yveltal emerges from its cocoon, Devil's Fingers emerge from what is called their "egg stage". I tried to find the least unsettling picture of this that I could. Enjoy...?

I mean, what kind of bird turns into a cocoon, anyway? Honestly though, fungus isn't supposed to hatch from an egg either, so this is all mixed up.

Okay, so Xerneas and Yveltal are based on different aspects of Yggdrasil. But if you were going to design Pokemon based on Yggdrasil, the World Tree that connects the universe, wouldn't you base it on fungi rather than an actual tree? Mycelium can actually partner with the roots of plants and other fungus to create a widespread beneficial mycorrhizal network, a truly interconnected ecosystem of organisms.

Source: BBC News - How Trees Secretly Talk to Each Other

And that's why Xerneas and Yveltal are fungi. Or it could be part of their inspiration, at least. They're not necessarily inspired by these specific fungi, but I think the concept may be part of their design. Either way, Gen VI is especially fun to research!

Reviewed by @fluffybunnybadass.

Check out my posts about Pokemon Legends: Z-A:

Poll: What Does the Λ in Legends Z-A Symbolize?

Pokemon Legends Z-A: What Is the Λ?

Is Z-A Just Zygarde-A? (%1000 Zygarde and the Fragments of the Tree of Life)

Aaah, it's an A! Is the A in Z-A the Tree of Life?

How much longer am I going to have to wait for a freakin' Unova remake?!

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bestworstcase · 2 months ago

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talking to myself ->

heart determination:

The Horned-Axe bears two blades; permits passage when passage is to be permitted; waits at the threshold. The Horned-Axe, who forbids contradiction, is the oldest Hour. Other Hours might seem older. They are not older.

made with heart, provides heart and knock aspect.

why heart.

liminal memory:

'We each of us have a memory of a moment when things changed forever, though at the time we never knew it. Perhaps the world also has those memories.'

the horned-axe looks both ways at the threshold. she was an edge-hour but is no longer (and while it "is not wise" to imply she may still have a trace of edge, it's evidently possible to ascend—or partly ascend—as half an edge-long dyad under the horned-axe).

before the gods-from-blood, vak was a name of the horned-axe.

eva dewulf claims that the great hooded princes ascended under the mother of ants but now revere the horned-axe—which would seem to be corroborated by conversations between arun and coquille.

twin-serpent tantra:

The Tantra describes the Great Hooded Princes - a dynasty of unclear origin - engaging in prayers, sacrifices and poetry in honour of the Key-Serpent, the Crossroads-Twins and the Mirror-Queen. 'Nagi encircles; Nagi arises from wounds; Nagi spares those who are already harmed.'

mysteries of opening:

The Mother of Ants is the child of two rivers. The Horned-Axe is the last god-from-Stone. The Meniscate was born in the Moon from Light. The Wound and the Threshold and the Revelation are all the Gate's aspects, and here is their secret doctrine…

the key-serpent undoubtedly refers to the mother of ants—those are her enactments—and the mirror-queen is probably the meniscate. who are the crossroads-twins? not the sister-and-witch: they're neither knock-hours nor associated with the great hooded princes.

the horned axe is honored by the princes and identified explicitly as an aspect of the serpent gate alongside the mother of ants and the meniscate. ergo, the crossroad-twins must refer to her.

except for she isn't a twin

except for she used to be an edge-hour but isn't anymore.

spins around.

the horned-axe is the oldest hour. other hours might seem older. they are not older. the horned-axe distinguishes. she separates. she differentiates. yes?

ok. the giribrago – who contains, who brings gifts, who does not destroy – is identified with the god ilah al-jabal. aside from the lesson of many facets being named lesson.giribrago in the game files, he's attested by this name twice. the emperor elagabalus is, evidently, one of his names. or a name-emanation. he is also (per the weather factory catalogue entry) called the wound, an epithet he shares with 1. the mother of ants and 2. the wolf-divided (as "the wound of the sun's division").

giribrago seems to be intended to mean something like "rising bull" or possibly "rising bull of the mountain" from its etymological roots (the wf catalogue entry provides proto-indo-european as a hint).

xenodice half-face, name of the horned-axe:

One of the more enigmatic aspects of the Horned-Axe: Xenodice Half-Faced, who welcomes or slays strangers at the threshold. Xenodice is sister sometimes to owl and cat, sometimes to bull and butterfly, sometimes to dove and serpent...

owl and cat -> both animals sacred to the horned-axe; owls are otherwise associated with the striges, and cats with the velvet.

dove and serpent -> lol.

bull and butterfly -> butterfly may refer to the moth, but there are five lepidoptery displays in hush house (grail, heart, scale, winter, & moth). of these, winter ("excetridae") are apparently related to either the seven-coil or serpents (excetra being a latin term for the lernean hydra and meaning "snake" in the figurative sense) and heart ("trigintidae") apparently related to the monarch-at-the-crossroads (triginta being the latin word for "thirty," as in "thirty birds"/the thritige-kind). the horned-axe being a god-from-stone contemporary with the seven-coil and the monarch, my inclination is to assume the "butterfly" of xenodice's relation is either the seven-coil, the serpent, or the monarch. probably the monarch, given the jeweler's tale.

bull may refer to the giribrago. which is interesting, because

'The Foundation of the Sun' 'Long ago in this country, one did not build a church without first sacrificing a white bull to the Sun-in-Rags…' Solomon Husher brought this tapestry with him from - well, wherever it was that Solomon came from.

and

Chaima asks Yvette to interpret a dream - of a white waste west of the world where pale mutes redden the snow with the blood of a bull… [Lesson: Snow Stories]

and

'Supplication' The Sun-in Rags, but reversed, that is, blood is dripping down into the sun and being absorbed. Signed 'Nina Lagasse.'

("wherever it was that solomon came from" the answer is kaunas)

historically the god elagabalus became syncretized with the roman sol, and thence sol invictus. secret histories allusions to "pre-solar" beliefs likely concern, similarly, the assimilation of giribragan traditions into worship of the sun-in-splendour.

so. on the one hand: the giribrago, a pre-solar solar hour known by various epithets (the wound, the shard, the leak, the remnant) suggestive of a violent end and whom the priest names when preaching with heart alongside the blackbone and snow as hours who were "cast down."

on the other: heart-lore tradition leads the librarian to make the determination that the horned-axe is the oldest hour. vak, "the only entrance into secret light," was once a name of the horned-axe.

speak to lt arthur moore about the sun's design, and he says:

'I cannot read this script, Librarian, but I have seen it before, and it was translated to me - by one I held very dear. Long ago, you see, I made my own pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Elagabalus... though in that country they still call him Ilah al-Gabal. May I examine the stone?' If Death's direction is down, and Eternity's is up, which directions do we assign to Life and to History? It is a frequent topic of discussion, at the Labyrinth. I wonder, sometimes, if my teachers have nothing better to do with all those years of learning… but in the Labyrinth, more than any other place I have been, even Emesa, Sun and Stone and Silence are the first constants.'

"Sun and Stone and Silence" are the first constants.

de bellis murorum:

The poem elliptically describes a war between beasts, weather phenomena, and arcane concepts. It's quite specific about their tactics. 'The Two-One joined, and the Horned distinguished. Consequently, blood.'

secret histories wiki proposes that "the two-one" is an epithet for the sister-and-witch (not unreasonable, as they're called "the two-who-are-one" in the geminiad). however.

de bellis murorum means, approximately, the war of the walls. the librarian learns a lesson in disciplines of the scar from this book:

To master boundaries through their determination. The Scar marks wisdom and regrets; one is often born from the other. The Scar The Mansus is the fortress of dream where the true Hours rule, and Nowhere is the scar beneath it where the Nowhere hours lair. Without the Hours above, that scar would be an open wound. So the Bright Arts teach us. The Crime The Mansus is the fortress in dream raised by the gods-who-were-stone. Nowhere is the inevitable scar beneath it. Monstrous, the gods-from-Nowhere; but cruel, the gods-who-were-stone.

and gets memory: contradiction ("something uncomfortable"). the heart determination suggests that the horned-axe is the oldest hour because she forbids contradiction; through separation, the hours become distinct from one another. de bellis murorum describes the first separation – the creation of the threshold. note:

We Come From Glory Our first sparks of self descended from the light above the world which we call the Glory. Without the Glory, we would be beasts in darkness, and the gifts of our past illuminate our future, which is Eternity. We Come From Nowhere The Thritige-kind of the Carapace Cross dreamed themselves out of black glass, to be their own Monarch. If we inherit the empty throne, we dream ourselves into every night to come.

and

A Tongue of Sky Cracktrack was a gift from the light above the world. When Glory touched the first life-motes with this language, they entered the waking world. They were Illuminated.

together with the narrative of 'the conference of the birds' and its relevance to the monarch-at-the-crossroads/thirty birds (namely: "what shadow is ever separated from its maker? do you see? the shadow and its maker are one and the same") – light was separated from darkness, the waters below were parted from the waters above, but Nowhere and the Glory are still in some sense the same.

but a thing cannot be darkness and light – that is a contradiction, which the horned-axe forbids. ok.

sun and stone and silence are the first constants.

blows a kiss to cygnifer.

aside from the sister-and-witch, there is one other entity which could conceivably be called "the two-one" – the lightning, which cygnifer identifies as "the joined serpent." the serpent whose mouth is a gate. like. the serpent gate, of which the horned-axe is an aspect.

hm!

the giribrago contains. he brings gifts. he does not destroy. his tarot is the world – completeness, above and below, harmony, union – with the lucid tarot specifically depicting an ouroborous. which, taps the "secret histories is explicitly jungian" sign again:

In the age-old image of the uroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. The uroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e., of the shadow. This “feed-back” process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the uroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which, as a projection, unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious. [Collected Works, Vol 14, para. 513]

the first constants – sun and stone and silence – everything begins with cleaving the ouroboros apart. the horned-axe distinguishes.

the horned-axe divides the giribrago – separates Nowhere from the Glory – light from darkness, sun from silence – this precipitates the emergence of the monarch-at-the-crossroads and the 'as below' feminine hour of the sea/ys... i continue to go back and forth on whether i think the blackbone is this hour or an ascended name like the elegiast, but given... this...

Chaima outright asks Morgen whether she - and the other Ligeians - are names of the Twins. Morgen responds with theatrical shock; she makes allusions that suggest it is so; she makes other allusions that imply she's associated with the Grail, the Meniscate, or the Blackbone. [Lesson: Sky Stories]

(sky stories. girl.)

I Just Don't Know. Maybe. the other candidate is the rising spider, for reasons of 1. her alarming interest in yvette and 2. the excellency gnathobasis being her name, implying she's a knock-hour, and 3. the serpent gate / spider door situation.

in any case. the giribrago -> (monarch-and-sea) -> serpent –> (wolf-and-snow) –> chandler. the horned-axe is the separation of the monarch and sea-hour. "crossroads-twins" thus likely refers to either:

the horned-axe and the giribrago

the horned-axe and the monarch-at-the-crossroads

the horned-axe and the serpent

or possibly vak and henavek as specific aspects of these hours.

...and that's why ragged crossroads arts can be used to render nillycant from glassfinger toxin.

also the horned-axe is heart-aspected, in the way that surgeries & exsanguinations arts deal in the heart principle – the flow of blood. which, if committed to preservation:

The Golden In the times when nothing was forgotten, three flowers bloomed on the Watchman's Tree: Black, Red, and Gold. Red is the life that flows in the body's courses, but the blood of the Carapace Cross was golden. Preservation teaches what endures.

in the present, the three flowers of the watchman's tree are black (the velvet), white ([REDACTED]), red (the mare-in-the-tree). the velvet did not exist "in the times when nothing was forgotten" and the mare was merely a name-emanation of the wheel. Back Then – following the model of the four alchemical stages a la calyptra – i think:

black/nigredo – the sea (blackbone or rising spider)

[white/albedo – the horned axe]

gold/citrinas – the monarch-at-the-crossroads

red/rubedo – the serpent

which...tracks. black is the hour born from the sun's blood, white is the division of the sun, gold is the hour who arises before dawn, red is the sun-eyed forge-hour.

but why did she lose her edge? two possibilities:

the giribrago and the horned-axe were in contention, unity vs separation, and the horned-axe could not remain an edge hour after sundering the giribrago (interesting implications for the lionsmith if so, now the colonel is among the hours uncounted)

the horned-axe gave up her edge-nature as part of the pact she made with the malachite and the red grail, and became a heart-power instead (which might be why sickle & eclipse can be considered an art of preservation)

or both maybe. either way, i think it's more likely she's always been what we'd now consider a winter-hour and it was her edge aspect that grew into heart-and-knock: consider that heart is the principle which preserves and protects the skin of the world while knock is the wounding and unseaming of barriers. heart and knock together express the same contention we associate with edge.

bonus:

the "renegade knock-long" the exile meets at the fane of owls is fucking. arun peel

The eyes of the owls in the hawthorn tree glimmer pale gold. There's a flare of light, too, beneath the tree. A tall man in a snakeskin jacket has just lit a cigarette. In the match-light, his face is lean, dark, and familiar. 'Hello again,' he says. 'This is a surprise. I suppose the Double-Edged brought you here to make a point? She won't want any new Edge dyads in the world... do you have something to show me?'

<- snakeskin jacket.

if shown a pentiment:

The stranger nods, and stubs out his cigarette on the trunk of the tree. He begins to peel an orange instead. 'It's always too late, eventually,' he observes through a mouthful of orange, 'but until then, it's not. Alexandros thought that was important. The Lionsmith never did.' He passes me the remnant of his cigarette. 'Some things are better left unsaid,' he adds over his shoulder as he saunters off. 'It was nice to see you again.'

lol.

'Remember,' Arun tells Zachary, 'that it's always too late, eventually; but it never is until then.' Zachary lets out a long sigh. 'You always say that. It's less helpful than you think it is.'

if peel's secretary enigmatic with mission: revelation

'What was it I used to say? 'It's always too late, eventually? But until then it never is?' The servants of the Duties, shorn of the Calyptra's protection, scurrying about like ants without a queen; they're still trying to silence the dreamer and the dream… but it's too late; too late.'

lmao, even.

if he isn't shown a pentiment:

The stranger shrugs. 'Never mind. You might find this more useful, anyway.' He spits tidily into a glass vial and pinches the top closed. 'Don't tell anyone I did that,' he says conspiratorially. 'I'd get in trouble, again.' He passes me the vial. 'Always remember,' he adds over his shoulder as he saunters off, 'either it's someone's lion, or no-one's lion.'

he spits stenthic venom into a vial instead.

and he'd get in trouble, again.

'We all loved Vak, back home,' Arun sighs. Coquille nods, her eyes glowing. 'You remember the poems we wrote for her? In other languages, of course. Except me; I wrote a poem to her, in her. I got in a great deal of trouble for that. Again.' He recites a few verses, and Coquille claps her hands in delight. [Lesson: Vak]

he's a former great hooded prince who flayed himself to follow the thunderskin – who is affiliated with the horned-axe by way of the triple knot, and the great hooded princes all honor the horned-axe in any case. and this?

''Wisdom is the daughter of Regret, and regret the son of Wisdom.' It's more elegant than 'Look both ways quickly enough and you get a headache.' But the same principle: we can confuse the Hours long enough to win advantage. The Madrugad will take her due eventually, but I hope that with the great changes that are coming, that might be less important, now...'

is a horned-axe axiom.

the moth and the vagabond form an alliance with an unnamed third hour to move against calyptra; in every incident pertaining to that, peel takes their side. the third hour of the rival triad is the horned-axe.

and this is why the flayed tantra yields the lore it does; geminate invocation in cultsim (being a great hooded prince, peel invoked not the sister-and-witch but the horned-axe at the threshold, in her aspect as a crossroad-twin, as in the twin-serpent tantra); and maggephene mysteries in boh (which concerns the horned-axe's revenge and symbolic if not literal rebirth as a heart-knock hour through the pact with the triple knot, sealed by sacrifice of the thunderskin). and memory: storm, for the thunderskin.

#poking and prodding at: the horned-axe is artemis #horned-axe. horned like the moon. or like a stag.#labrys also but it's possible to specifically connect that to artemis through labryades -> laphria -> artemis laphria

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