#Technically pre ship but you know.

[aceofshitposts]

Well I've been tagged in a couple different wip games but honestly have just had nothing to show for them lmao but uh I've had this rattling around in my head for a while so I hope this makes up for it a bit lmao

-

Tim hikes his backpack up higher on his shoulders, weaving through the throngs of people in the airport. He got a few odd looks from the security people but even with hands clumsy with youth he was able to forge a convincing enough letter from his parents about him travelling to meet them.

It's before disaster, everything is a little relaxed and therefore it's simple, really, to get through with minimal fuss.

Tim isn't entirely sure how he ended up here, in a body too young and too healthy but he's never been one to waste an opportunity. He's perhaps lucky this was one of the weeks between boarding schools, where his mom pulled him out due to her beverage dissatisfaction with various school curriculums. It meant they were out of the country but he was still in Gotham and not being watched over by any teachers.

Gate 57B. This is where he should be. Tim scans the people sitting in the uncomfortable plastic airport chairs, all waiting to board. It's not a particularly busy flight so it's easy to spot.

Off white hoodie and baggy jeans, clothes designed specifically to not draw attention and disguise body shape. Black hair falling over turquoise eyes that are focused on the rough looking paperback in his lap. There's a duffle bag sitting against his beat up sneakers that Tim just knows the contents of without even trying.

"Jason?" Tim asks coming to stand in front of the other teenager with both hands gripping his backpack straps. He's aiming for curious. Disarming. He can't be too formal or Jason will really know something's wrong and not the way Tim wants.

Jason raises his head lazily. Like a bored teenager being called to answer a question by a teacher. But Tim can see the immediate suspicion, the slight tensing of Jason's jaw and the way his eyes scan Tim to identify threats.

Tim isn't a threat. Not yet, anyway. Not like this. He can sneak around undetected, can forge papers and send anonymous emails to Batman while hiding amongst a throng of other school kids. His mind remembers, knows all the how's, of course, but his body lacks the muscle memory to truly execute anything beyond simple defense moves.

Frustrating, honestly, but probably to his advantage right now. He still has his mind and that's the most important part.

"Do I know you, kid?" Jason asks.

"No" --not yet-- "but I need your help."

Jason raises a single eyebrow and Tim makes a bit of a show of inhaling deeply, gathering courage and whispers, "I need Robin's help."

Jason's eyes widen, all pretenses of calm evaporating with a single startled inhale.

It's a little bit of a gamble, Tim knows. But it's a calculated gamble. Telling Jason the truth was out immediately, as was telling Bruce. Waltzing up to Jason to tell him if he boards that plane he was going to die would probably only embolden him further. Telling Bruce would send him into protective parent overdrive. He was trying, Tim knows, to give Jason some space and independence.

Pleading for Jason's help, for Robin's help, it was at least going to get Jason interested. Tim being a kid was also in his favour. Even as the Red Hood, Jason always had a soft spot for kids in need. And with Jason knowing what he currently knows about his mother, that she was an emergency doctor in the Middle East, he would probably rationalize that his mom won't be upset if he shows up a little later than expected.

"Now boarding Flight AA6237, please form a line with your passport and boarding ticket ready."

That's Jason's flight. If Jason gets on that plane Tim still has backup plans but it would be so much easier if Jason just came with him.

Jason stands suddenly, hefting his duffle bag onto his shoulder with one hand and grabbing Tim's sleeve with the other.

"Alright kid, bathroom's this way," he says with maybe a little more volume than strictly necessary.

Tim beams, genuine and wide. Jason was at least going to hear him out. Jason Todd wasn't going to die, not today and not tomorrow or the next day.

This was only the first item on Tim's list but, it was a start.

And if for a moment, only a second really, Tim forgets about a terrible future, about the pain of a blade against his throat or a batarang in his chest or bruises and missing spleens and deaths and revivals, and simply relishes in the thought that Robin was now urgently leading him somewhere more private to probably interrogate him--

Well. That's just the adrenaline.

It doesn't mean anything.

[elventhespian]

So like... it's a Thing in all fandoms where fans sort of latch onto fanon versions of characters and their dynamics with each other that are actually completely off-base, right? I don't know if this phenomenon has an official name, but I've seen it so many times and it's fascinated me every time. Especially when a character's popular fanon selves don't end up just diluted from their source material, but straight up OPPOSITE their canon portrayal.

So one of my "favorite" variations on this was how the early PotC fandom used to get Will EXTREMELY wrong, especially in comparison to Jack, and it made finding in-character fics SO. DAMN. DIFFICULT.

I've talked about this MULTIPLE times before, as have several other fans. It's a dead horse being beaten. But basically certain prevalent takes on fanon!Will have in the past leaned towards a personality that was very patient and grounded and even demure to contrast against Jack's off-beat personality and Elizabeth's fiery rebelliousness. Because Elizabeth has the drive to push back against social norms, Will became the foil who fell back to his pre-pirate version, reluctant to break rules unless she pulled him into it, even in post-CotBP timelines. Likewise, Jack was the one with the WTF decision making, while Will was more rooted in reasonable decisions.

And by their appearances, archetypes, and certain elements of their world views, you'd THINK that's how it works. When we meet Will in the governor's foyer, Will is so lovestruck and doe-eyed and subservient to the governor, I think that people thought that's just Who He Is. Especially because he often acts as Jack's straight-man foil in the comedic elements. Straight-laced. Rigid. Even boring or timid.

But if you actually pay attention to the movies, it's very much the opposite. In canon, Jack's USUALLY the level-headed one who just happens to have chaos follow him, because of the way he can wield it. He thinks in long run, tries to solve problems with words and as little fighting as possible as often as he can. Ideal situations for Jack are more like a thief--he wants to be in and out of the job as silently and slick as possible. The scenarios he's in are insane, because the way he throws other people around with those scenarios is kind of insane, but he himself remains largely cool and collected.

That's Jack.

THIS is Will:

Canon!Will starts out literally so impulsive and rash, Jack has to physically manhandle him at certain points to keep him from blowing up his plans--and then still gets taken out because he underestimates his listening skills and impatience. Will corners Jack into what is functionally a cage match to the death by sanely locking the door with his sword and very nearly wins. He is constantly at 11, constantly demanding things be done faster, more directly, and at the same time quietly scheming behind Jack's back almost from the get-go. He does flashy jumps and flips off of things because using the stairs is too slow or whatever. He shows up in DMC yelling at Jack to give him his compass at the point of the sword, and insisting he'll get Davy Jones' key by just "cutting down everyone in his path."

Even when Will mellows out significantly in AWE, there are remnants of this contrast still there. Jack's plan for leading Beckett to Shipwreck Cove seems to have been a very reasonable and underhanded effort to deliberately make sure Elizabeth is inside the Cove while Will is on Beckett's ship, in command of the Compass. Meanwhile Will's plan was to leave a breadcrumb trail of vulture-sea gulls feasting on dead soldiers' corpses.

What I'm getting at is, yeah, Jack's a charismatic "rogue" and Will's a "romantic hero" TECHNICALLY. Jack makes quippy jokes, and Will glares and scowls and WTFs back. But not only are they are both more alike than people give them credit for, they are also totally opposite their roles' traditional personalities in ways that the fandom tends to overlook.

TLDR; Jack's crazy, Will's a sweetheart. But Will is also a manic gremlin, and Jack doesn't always know what to do with him about it, so they often end up something like this:

And more fans need to play with this fact, the end.

[bumblehoneybee]

I saw you take requests and I was soo happy!! I rlly loved that “easy smiles” Drabble u wrote abt curly n reader, so I’d like to request (pre-crash) having a late night conversation with him where reader is getting burnt out/struggling mentally and he can kind of tell? Romantic/platonic r both fine, maybe js some comfort from our fav captain? :) augehghh i want a hug from him so bad. if u don’t feel like writing this that’s more than okay, have a great timezone!! <3

You Can Talk To Me

He doesn't mean to catch you in such a vulnerable moment.

Curly only meant to get some water after hitting the john, but as he shuffles into the lounge, all he can hear is your shaky breathing. He blinks the sleep from his eyes, heart picking up speed as he spots you sat on the couch with your head tilted over the back, staring up at the ceiling.

You only notice him when he calls your name, stood at the edge of the couch.

"Ah," you snap your head up, obviously twinging the muscles of your neck, "oof." You rub the knots out, flashing a weak smile for Curly as he settles onto the couch next to you. "Aha. . . hi, Captain."

"Are you okay?" Curly asks, hands raised and unsure of what to do. Anya is asleep, and he's no real doctor himself, so the options for immediate help are limited.

"Oh, I'm fine." You waft your free hand at him. The lights of the fake window douse your skin in an almost sickly color, like all the blood is gone from your face. Your eyes look dull too. "Just, y'know. . ."

There's a long pause. Seems you can't think of anything to make an excuse out of.

Curly sits next to you, and tries to think. You've always been so. . . jolly, quick with jokes and ideas to lighten the mood. He knows you can't always be happy, but he's never been privy to the moments when your guard falls. This is a first for him, and he's surprisingly nervous.

He's comforted most everyone on this ship. He knows how to do it. So why does the thought of comforting you and doing it wrong scare him so much?

"You know. . ." Curly starts, frantically grasping at the words that are usually so easy. "I know it may seem. . . unprofessional, since I'm technically your boss-"

"You're captain." You agree with a nod that you immediately regret. The rubbing gets faster.

Curly huffs at you, burying amusement under concern. "You can talk to me. I'm higher up, but I'm not one of them." He gestures to the nearest poster of Polle. You shoot the horse a glare on instinct, but your face is quick to fall. "I just want you safe and happy."

The quiet returns, and with it his offer hangs heavy over the two of you. You stare down at your lap, hand still loosely clinging to your neck. Curly tries not to stare at you, but god, your eyes just look so. . . sad.

He wishes he could take your hand, show you he's here for you. But that wouldn't be smart, would it?

A heavy sigh rushes out of your nose. "I guess I'm just getting a little tired." Your face pinches as you say it, so Curly lets you piece your words together. "It gets repetitive, y'know? Everything is the same, day in and day out. I try my best, cause I know everyone here is feeling the same kinda stir crazy I am, but. . . I'm tired."

Curly lunges forward as your shoulders sag, palm pressed to the space between them before he can think better of it. "Yeah?"

"I miss plants." You tell him. "Trees, flowers, grass. I miss the sky and the sun. These damn monitors-" You throw an arm towards the screen in front of your both, face screwed up in disgust. "I hate them. They're not even close to something real. Hell, I'd take looking out into space over them."

Curly's thumb has started rubbing into the base of your neck without him realizing. He can't bring himself to stop, though.

"Back home, I could just visit somewhere new, meet new people, pet a dog and smell enough flowers to give myself asthma." You laugh a little at yourself. Curly smiles, and you return it, sheepish. "Sorry. I do like all of you. I hope I don't sound like I'm sick of ya."

"We like you too." Curly says with a pat on the back. "I get it, though. Days can blend together here, drive you crazy." An idea wiggles into his head, one he can't dismiss, even if it's technically against protocol. "If you want a change in scenery, I could show ya the cockpit?"

Your head snaps up again, and this time Curly is the one to rub the wince from your neck. "Really??" You flounder suddenly, and it strikes just how close he is to you. His face burns as he eases back, hand tingling from the touch of your skin. "I mean. . . if it's alright! I don't wanna impose if you're busy."

"Nah," Curly waves the worry away, "it's nothing. Hell, I could teach you how to fly, if you're interested?"

"Very much!" You chirp.

The lights dim further, probably a code Pony Express programmed to save energy while the crew slept. It doesn’t matter, though, for your grin and bright eyes light up the entire damn spaceship.

You have never smiled at him like this before. Curly desperately wants you to do so every day, though.

"Then we'll do a lesson tomorrow." Curly says. He stands up, a hand offered to you. You take it, squeezing his hand before you let it go. "Try and get some sleep, okay?"

"Aye aye, Captain." You do a mock salute, striding off with a wave. "Sweet dreams!" As you pass through the door, you make sure to bow. "Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow!"

With you gone, Curly lets a grin take over his face, hiding it behind his hand.

Seems he's getting some alone time with you tomorrow. He's going to be having sweet dreams indeed.

[lightandfellowship]

The Sewer Squad's designs are fine, actually

If you ask me, the Sewer Squad from KHUX are a really great visual example of Kingdom Hearts' approach to writing and design.

That approach being: it's fine to make design and writing decisions that come across as silly, campy, unbelievable, or "cringey" if those choices are meaningful in context and contribute something significant to the story.

On the whole, the Sewer Squad are a mess of character designs. Minus the Leader who just kinda looks like a normal character tbh, the remaining 3/4ths of the group don't look particularly cohesive or even...aesthetically pleasing? At least for me. If you were to judge these designs purely on a visual and technical level, using commonly accepted character design guidelines, I personally don't think they would score very high.

Function has been thrown out the window with their accessories, with a lot of said accessories looking either bulky, heavy, face/movement obstructing, or just plain uncomfortable, despite them presumably fighting Heartless on the daily.

Color palettes are all over the place, especially with the Gummi Girl who's sporting three different hues of pink all conflicting in one design. Themeing is likewise all over the place—using the Gummi Girl once again as an example, she's pairing futuristic Gummi ship wings with a ninja outfit and a modern-looking frog hat. Which like, normally you can marry vastly different themes/time periods together into one character design just fine if you do it well, but here these elements are just kinda pasted all over the design separately with no blending/discussion between them. (Yes I know this makes perfect sense given the lore; I'm getting there.)

And then characters like Fancy Bowtie Boy are wearing gimmick-y clothing pieces based off of canon characters, such as Ansem SoD and...Halloween Town Goofy, for some reason. Which makes the design look derivative and nonsensical. (There's a way to justify this in canon thanks to the Book of Prophecies and the medals, but it's still kinda weird and offputting to see one of the Big Bad's gloves on a silly side character.)

It also doesn't help that their outfits/hair/facial features weren't designed specifically with them in mind, and instead are comprised of various disparate, pre-existing Player assets slapped together haphazardly. And not being able to give these characters more thoughtful, bespoke design elements means losing the opportuntiy to communicate who these characters are more precisely.

They do have recognizable silhouettes though (along with some much needed diversity), so I'll give them credit for that.

But, everything I just said and criticized above? THAT'S ENTIRELY THE POINT, BABY!!!

They're not supposed to represent a typical character with a typical character design that follows typical character design rules because they're not typical "characters"—rather, they're supposed to represent the average, real-life players playing KHUX. The people who buy random outfits with whatever Jewels they have and then mix and match the pieces together regardless of whether or not they actually look "good" together or logically connect. The people who are just having fun with customization.

And this distinction is meaningful because the whole idea behind these characters is that they belong to the same party that the Player belongs to. They're not like Player's other friends such as Ephemer and Skuld who are main characters in the plot and thus require more visually pleasing and thought-out character designs; they're not "generic" NPCs that Player runs into only once or twice like the "my friends aren't my power" guy who can just wear one of the basic default outfits and it'll serve its purpose just fine; they are, specifically, Player's fellow party members. And if the Player themself is wearing a silly costume too, well, they'll just fit right in with the Sewer Squad, won't they?

Thus, they're meant to mirror the visuals and dynamics of real KHUX parties comprised of real people, hopefully making it easier for the person playing the game to relate to them (if said person belongs to a party themself) and intuitively understand the role these characters play in Player's life. And despite how unrealistic their outfits are (considering most of them are running around fighting in outrageous, cumbersome costumes), I would argue that their closer resemblance to the actual playerbase gives them the potential to feel more real, paradoxically.

This also just demonstrates KHUX's commitment to its story and gameplay integration. It doesn't matter how "silly" a gameplay feature might look or feel in practice, it is going to be properly represented in the story regardless. Lux, Guilt, Power Bangles, Spirits, Shift Pride, player costumes, it doesn't matter, if it's a part of the gameplay, it's going in the story somewhere. The game takes a risk and trades a little bit of immersion/suspension of disbelief for pure gameplay and story synergy. Perhaps it doesn't work for everybody, but in general it works for me, and I respect it.

[yamayuandadu]

Hecate, Melinoe, "Ereschigal": when a name becomes the ship of Theseus?

(Triple Hecate on a magical apparatus from Sardis, via William Bruce and Kassandra Jackson Miller, Towards a Typology of Triangular Bronze Hekate Bases: Contextualizing a New Find from Sardis, p. 512; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

This article wasn’t planned in advance. It’s largely a side effect of trying to help a friend with tracking down a \specific source, the elusive reference to Melinoe from outside the Orphic Hymns, in order to determine whether it really treats her as interchangeable with Hecate. Investigating this topic revealed that it’s connected fairly closely with something I wanted to cover for a while already, namely the Greek (or rather Greco-Egyptian) magical papyri, a unique text corpus to a large degree focused on Hecate and in particular on supposed equations with a number of other figures, ranging from Selene, though Isis, to Mesopotamian Ereshkigal. The last of these cases is what I will focus on, as similarly as the supposed interchangeability of Hecate and Melinoe it is often presented online without context. While the two core goals of this article are establishing whether Melinoe really is just Hecate, a distinct but very Hecate-like figure, or something in between, and explaining whether references to “Hecate-Ereschigal” necessarily indicate some greater degree of familiarity with Mesopotamian theology, that’s not all I will cover. You will also be able to learn why Hecate gained an extra body in early centuries CE; whether it’s true that sources referring to her as genderfluid exist; which unexpected figure plays the role of messenger of Zeus in magical papyri; what the possible last known pre-modern reference to Ereshkigal has to do with Jewish angelology; and more!

Note that technically this is not my first Hecate article; I wrote one long ago - in the early days of this blog, probably around half a decade ago at the height of the initial covid lockdowns, if not in the even more distant past. However, it was subpar; for all intents and purposes, this is the first one which meets my modern standards. 

The case of Melinoe

Melinoe appears in a very small number of sources, all of which are fairly well studied. In theory this makes her fairly easy to write about. However, she is also fairly unique in that I can’t think of many other mythological figures who arguably received an enormous boost in prominence specifically thanks to their online reception. This is a double edged sword. On one hand, unique sources reach more people than they would otherwise, at least indirectly.. On the other, misconceptions and misreadings are abundant. For this reason, a brief introduction to her will be necessary before evaluating what, if any, connection existed between her and Hecate.

There’s no strong reason to suspect Melinoe was ever particularly popular in antiquity - more on that soon - and she had negligible presence in art before quite recently. A notable exception is apparently an offhand reference to her in one of Hugo Grotius’ poems (Edwin Rabbie, Editing Neo-Latin Texts, p. 42). I was sadly unable to track it down - if you want to check for yourself, it is reportedly to be found on p. 359 in the 1992 anthology Original Poetry 1604–1608  (De Dichtwerken van Hugo Grotius, I 2 A/B 4).

Melinoe in the Orphic Hymns

Grotius relied on what was the only source about Melinoe available to him and his contemporaries - the Orphic Hymns. They remain a pretty important point of reference for researchers today, though not exactly due to the presence of Melinoe. Even though they’re relatively late and fairly esoteric (as expected from an orphic text corpus), they’re one of the best preserved collections of Greek hymns which were undeniably performed in a religious setting. We don’t know the full history of their transmission, though. They were hardly discussed in other literature before the fifteenth century, barring a single reference in a commentary on Hesiod’s Theogony which might date to the thirteenth (Daniel Malamis, The Orphic Hymns. Poetry and Genre, with a Critical Text and Translation, p. 1). 

The full collection consists of eighty eight hymns, each dedicated to a different deity, ranging from major figures recognized virtually all over the at least partially Hellenized world, through personified abstract concepts, to local deities from the west of Asia Minor with few, if any, other attestations. Melinoe belongs to the last of these categories, alongside the likes of Mise, Hipta and Erikepaios (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 171-172). The seventy first hymn is dedicated to her. Multiple translations are available, the most recent one is Daniel Malamis’ (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 103):

The exact translation of some phrases remains a subject of heated debate, but the gist of it is fairly well understood: Persephone gives birth to a minor underworld goddess after Zeus impersonated Hades to seduce her. A minority position is that Melinoe somehow has two biological fathers (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 130). I’m not aware of any translator making it even remotely possible that Hades alone was her biological father - this is entirely an online misconception. There is no alternate account of her origin, the hymn is the only version - claims on the contrary are doubtlessly the result of online games of telephone. The friend whose Melinoe inquiry was a catalyst for this article informed me that there are online claims that the myth describes Hermes witnessing this event. It’s important to stress that nothing of that sort is evident here, as you can see for yourself - the only deities mentioned are Melinoe herself, Persephone, Zeus and Hades. I’d assume this misconception is the result of the river Cocytus also being mentioned in the hymn to Hermes Cthtonios (and nowhere else in the Orphic Hymns), which however doesn’t deal with Melinoe, let alone specifically with her birth (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 89):

To go back to the main topic, dedicating a lot of space to explaining the origin of Melinoe sets the hymn apart from the other eighty seven. It is possible that the compiler considered her obscure to the point it warranted explaining to their audience who she was by narrating her origin myth (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 266). As a result of this unusual focus, she receives very few epithets compared to most other deities praised in the Orphic Hymns. She shares this status with Nomos - in whose case the small number of epithets instead reflects the fact he was more a personified concept than a deity proper, though (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 270).

Thanks to the contents of the hymn, despite Melinoe’s obscurity we have a pretty solid idea about her character, too. At the very least for the compiler of the hymn, she was an appropriate deity to invoke to guarantee safe passage of the dead into the afterlife (Kassandra Jackson, ‘She who changes’ (Amibousa): a Re-examination of the Triangular Table from Pergamon, p. 465). Further insights might possibly be gained from her name, which has been variously interpreted as “gentle-minded” (from meilinói; this interpretation was seemingly proposed as early as in the sixteenth century, as evidenced by an anonymous translation into Latin explaining her name as placidae mentis) or “russet” (from mílinos), in this context a poetic way to describe the color of the moon (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 288).

The fact the hymn refers to Melinoe as a nymph warrants some further discussion as well. I haven’t seen this point raised in literature, but this would fit neatly with her presumed status as a minor goddess of strictly local importance. It was not uncommon for such figures to be labeled as nymphs when they were incorporated into the broader “Olympian” pantheon in one way or another, as attested for example for Callisto or Britomartis (Jennifer Larson, Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore, p. 7).

A potential issue for this interpretation is that Melinoe doesn’t seem to correspond to any specific natural feature, though - the localized character of nymph cults reflected the fact that they typically corresponded to a specific river, mountain, island, et cetera (Greek Nymphs…, p. 9). Alcman mentions underworld nymphs (lampads) from the entourage of Hecate, but this reference is entirely isolated (Greek Nymphs…, p. 284; note the wikipedia article asserting they are referenced in Hesiod’s Theogony is essentially a hoax, though admittedly a fun, creative one). For what it’s worth, the term “nymph” might very well just be used metaphorically to indicate Melinoe was imagined as a young woman, though (Anne-France Morand, Études sur les Hymnes Orphiques, p. 182).

Nymph-centric deliberations aside, the fact that the hymn associates Melinoe with ghosts and more broadly with the underworld, and that she might even have an indirect lunar connection depending on which etymology of her name is correct, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that it’s pretty much the academic consensus that overall her character was Hecate-like (though pretty obviously less multifaceted). The similarities even extend to terms used to refer to them (“saffron-robed” is a fairly common epithet of Hecate) and requests aimed at Melinoe in the hymn and at Hecate elsewhere (‘She who changes’ …, p. 465). However, as far as the Orphic Hymns are concerned, they are ultimately two separate goddesses (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 361). In the hymn dedicated to her, Hecate is actually portrayed as a veritable head of the pantheon (The Orphic Hymns…, p.165-166), directly addressed as the “queen of all cosmos” (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 27):

Ultimately it’s important to bear in mind that even if the compilers clearly cared about Melinoe enough to dedicate a separate hymn to her, they neither equated her with Hecate nor even attributed a comparable degree of importance to them. The investigation cannot end here, though. Melinoe has exactly one more further attestation.

Hecate-Melinoe, Hecate-Persephone, Hecate-Zagourê? The Pergamon tablet and its historical context

An illustration of the triangular magical tablet from Pergamon (wikimedia commons)

In addition to her considerably more famous role in the Orphic Hymns, Melinoe also makes a cameo on a peculiar object from Pergamon (The Orphic Hymns…, p.172). It dates to the third century CE. In contrast with the hymns, it doesn’t provide much mythological or theological information about her. It’s not even really a proper text. Rather, it’s a triangular tablet inscribed with a long series of epithets of Hecate, arranged into three columns under three depictions of her placed in the corners (‘She who changes’ …, p. 457).

In this context, Melinoe is explicitly one of Hecate’s (many) names (‘She who changes’ …, p. 464-465). This is presumed to reflect a level of familiarity with both figures sufficient to establish they were similar enough to warrant an equation (Richard Gordon, Another View of the Pergamon Divination Kit, p. 198). It’s also worth noting that Melinoe’s presence in the inscription was one of the arguments which lead to the formation of the generally accepted view that the Orphic Hymns must have been originally composed somewhere in the proximity of Pergamon, at least more broadly in western Anatolia (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 171-174).

This doesn’t mean we should conclude the Orphic Hymns were also written with the same arrangement in mind, though. Equation in a specific context doesn’t mean two figures can be considered interchangeable. It’s hard to think of better proof than the fact not only Melinoe, but also Persephone is reinterpreted as a title of Hecate on the Pergamon tablet (‘She who changes’ …, p. 466). It’s hardly the only magical text to do so (Eleni Pachoumi, The Concepts of the Divine in the Greek Magical Papyri, p. 130-131). It is probably relevant that a tradition in which Hecate was a daughter of Demeter is also attested - sparsely, but still. It might even be alluded to in Eurypides’ Ion, where Enodia is addressed as such (Ljuba Merlina Bortolani, Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt. A Study of Greek and Egyptian Traditions of Divinity, p. 232).

Hecate actually gets a fair share of other names which usually would refer to independent figures on the discussed tablet; the two cases discussed above aren’t unique in that regard. Some of the other notable examples include Leukophryne (“of the gleaming brow”), a designation used exclusively for the local form of Artemis worshiped in Magnesia on the Meander; Dione (sic); and even the angel Zagourê (“he whose fire glows), best known from the Eighth Book of Moses and other magical papyri, a genre of text I will soon go back to (‘She who changes’ …, p. 463-466). 

While as far as I am aware the last equation is unique, as a curiosity it might be worth noting that the words angele and angelos were actually sometimes used to describe Hecate elsewhere (for example by Hesychius), usually in the literal sense, to reflect moving between the underworld, the earth and Olympus (Rangar Cline, Ancient Angels. Conceptualizing Angeloi in the Roman Empire, p. 49). It’s tempting to speculate that perhaps this is why the author of the Perhamon tablet opted to equate her with a specific angelos they were vaguely familiar with - it’s not like the text preserved any distinct information about Zagourê’s character.

The Pergamon tablet isn’t unique - similar objects also inscribed with long series of Hecate names are known from Sardis and Apamea (Towards a Typology…, p. 509) - but as they don’t mention Melinoe I won’t discuss them here in detail. All three of these extensive collections of Hecate names reflect the same phenomenon, though. In late antiquity Hecate’s defining feature was arguably being “many-named” and “many-formed” (The Concept…, p. 137). It’s tempting to assume that the standard three bodied Hecate depictions, which the average person would be well familiar with, made her particularly suitable for equations with goddesses who shared some of her characteristics - which, as I outlined above, is definitely the case for Melinoe.

It's also important to stress that there was a pretty universal religious anxiety over getting the names and titles of deities wrong or omitting an important one, though. Simultaneously, it was believed that it pleases a deity to hear many of them, say, in a hymn in their honor; and, furthermore, that they could be compelled to act by sufficient familiarity with their names (The Orphic Hymns…, p. 218-219). It’s easy to imagine how this would influence composition of texts focused on a goddess whose very nature required turning this focus on names and titles up to eleven. Given that Melinoe is not attested on any other similar artifact, perhaps she was included just in case due to such a concern? Ultimately this is pure speculation on my part, though, and it’s equally if not more plausible that she is included only in this one list simply because she was exclusively worshiped relatively close to where it was found.

The long strings of names and magical formulas on the Pergamon tablet and other similar objects are also significant for a further reason: they make it possible to establish a connection with a specific corpus of Greco-Egyptian esoterica, the late antique magical papyri. The owners of the tablets were not necessarily actually well versed in Egyptian religious texts of the sort passed down in temple scriptoriums, but it does seem they knew enough about them to attempt to use the same principles - which is reflected, among other things, in the long strings of names assigned to Hecate (Another View…, p. 197-198). Melinoe is not attested in any of these texts (‘She who changes’ …, p. 465), and her role in this article as a result ends here.

Before I can move on to the second case of a peculiar link between Hecate and another deity I'd like to discuss, a brief introduction to the magical papyri themselves will be necessary.

A brief introduction to magical papyri

“Greek magical papyri” and “Papyri graecae magicae” (PGM) are the modern conventional names designating a corpus of unusual texts from, as you can probably guess, Egypt. 

The earliest example known dates to the fourth century BCE, but most are significantly younger (Jacco Dieleman, The Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri in Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic, p. 316). While they were composed under Roman rule, between the second and fifth centuries CE, the only languages used in them are Greek, and less commonly Demotic, with no trace of Latin. This is pretty much in line with other texts from Roman Egypt. It was culturally Hellenized through the period of Ptolemaic rule, but it never really became Romanized to a comparable degree, and Latin was restricted to military administration (Magical Hymns…, p. 3-4).

Why are these papyri “magical”? Despite involving deities and frequently referencing specific myths, they generally describe rituals which took place in private houses, as opposed to temples. The stated aims often can be only described as petty (securing the love of another person, gaining material wealth, or even a specific outcome in a chariot race…), and require some rather unorthodox solutions, like quite literally blackmailing deities, ghosts or other supernatural beings. Many of the texts also stress that their contents should remain secret. Thus, referring to them as “magical” rather than broadly “religious” literature is seen as optimal by researchers, to stress that they don’t represent the official temple cults, but rather a distinct sphere of activity (Magical Hymns…, p. 14). 

It needs to be pointed out that modern terminology reflects the Greek (and Roman) outlook more than Egyptian. The closest Egyptian term to “magic”, heka (ḥkȝ) originally referred to something that was ultimately a prerogative of temple priests, rather than an unofficial application of religious principles to private ends (Magical Hymns…, p. 16-18). Since at least some of the authors of the magical papyri were Egyptian priests, possibly ones who sought new sources of income in changing times (Magical Hymns…, p. 23-24), it is possible that they deliberately reinvented their practices for a new clientele to meet their expectations (Magical Hymns…, p. 19). It was pretty clearly important to make sure the clients were satisfied - at least some of the texts were composed ad hoc for specific unique cases (Magical Hymns…, p. 277). While the magical formulas were innovative and had no direct antecedents, they were deliberately presented as a secret ancient tradition to imbue them with more authority. Sometimes they were outright claimed to be passed down from famous historical authors or religious figures, ranging from Pythagoras, through Manetho, to Moses, or even deities, typically ones heavily associated with magic like Hermes or Isis (The Greco-Egyptian…, p. 312-313).

The magical papyri feature a plenty of unusual technical terms known as voces magicae. They’re magical formulas with no actual meaning which in the context of the magical papyri might have been treated as secret names of deities. While it is possible some of them were garbled transcriptions of words originating in Egyptian or in Semitic languages, many are pure gibberish, like sequences of vowels (aeēiouō is a genuine example) or invented palindromes (The Greco-Egyptian…, p. 285). The formulas sometimes label the voces magicae as Hebrew, Aramaic or Meriotic, but this is obviously not true - at best, it can be assumed that to the customers of the experts preparing the magical papyri they sounded sufficiently “alien” for these labels to be believable (The Greco-Egyptian…, p. 309-311). Some authors of the papyri evidently went even further, and claimed that the abra cadabra formulas represent the language of animals, for example falcons or baboons (The Greco-Egyptian…, p. 311-312):

The case of “Ereschigal”

It probably comes as no surprise that most of the deities frequently invoked in the magical papyri are Greek (Helios, Hermes, Hecate, Selene, etc.), Egyptian (Isis, Osiris, Seth, Bes, etc.) or, like Serapis, somewhere in between (The Concepts…, p. 10). What is less obvious is why a few of them contain references to Mesopotamian Ereshkigal -  or rather “Ereschigal” (Ἐρεσχιγὰλ), to remain true to the Greek spelling. In a single case a Demotic form is attested, but it reflects the Greek one, and doesn’t represent an independent borrowing from any language spoken in Mesopotamia (Daniel Schwemer, Beyond Ereškigal? Mesopotamian Magic Traditions in the Papyri Graecae Magicae, p. 67). What is perhaps even more surprising is that her name is effectively treated as a byname of Hecate - one of the spells is directly labeled as directed towards “Hecate-Ereschigal” (The Concepts..., p. 21).

A crash course in Ereshkigal’s career, from Early Dynastic Lagash to Seleucid Uruk

Ereshkigal is a well attested deity, with a fair share of up to date publications dealing with her to booth. Sadly, as I’ve noticed while working on this article there’s a fairly significant issue with coverage of her in literature dealing with the magical papyri. In many cases even the authors of the most recent, rigorous publications in this field often seem to be far behind when it comes to Assyriology, and depend on and recommend questionable old scholarship. For instance, while I recommend Magical Hymns from Roman Egypt overall - it’s all over this article as a source, and I had a blast reading it - I really think it’s not ideal to use “Kramer 1960” (let alone “Wolkstein and Kramer 1981”) as the main points of reference. For this reason, I feel obliged to at least briefly discuss her history and character here. By the time Ereshkigal got to appear in the magical papyri, she was already a figure with a remarkably long history. She is attested in the textual record for the first time in an offering list from the reign of Urukagina, an Early Dynastic king of Lagash, from around 2370 BCE or so. The even earlier textual sources, like god lists from Fara and Abu Salabikh or the Zame Hymns, don’t mention her at all, though (Dina Katz, The Image of the Netherworld in the Sumerian Sources, p. 386).

Lu-Utu’s inscription on a dedicatory cone among other similar objects (British Museum; reproduced here for educational purposes only) While Ereshkigal’s very name - “queen of the great earth” -  is probably intended to hint at her role as the queen of the underworld, the first text which explicitly characterizes her as such is an inscription of a certain Lu-Utu. He served as the governor of Umma in the Sargonic period (ca. 2300 BCE), probably between the reigns of Manishtushu and Naram-Sin (The Image…, p. 355).

There are actually no other known dedicatory inscriptions mentioning Ereshkigal, Lu-Utu’s is one of a kind (The Image…, p. 352). Overall her cult evidently had a small scope, and later attestations of offerings made to her, let alone sanctuaries dedicated to her, are uncommon (Frans Wiggermann, Nergal A in RlA vol. 9, p. 220).  She is also absent from theophoric names, which makes her an outlier even as far as underworld deities go. However, it’s possible that the likes of Nergal or Ninazu would be primarily invoked in this context as the tutelary gods of their cities, not lords of the underworld (Wilfred G. Lambert, Lugal-edinna in RlA vol. 7, p. 137). The bulk of attestations of Ereshkigal are literary texts, chiefly from the Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000-1600 BCE) and the Neo-Assyrian period (911-612 BCE).

As far as I am aware, there is only one notable cuneiform text corpus dealing in any capacity with Ereshkigal which have some temporal overlap with the (early) magical papyri  - the administrative texts from Seleucid Uruk. They mention the existence of a “temple of Ereshkigal” in the city, though this term might actually refer to a cemetery, not a temple - or at least to a sanctuary directly connected to a graveyard (Julia Krul, “Prayers from Him Who Is Unable to Make Offerings”: The Cult of Bēlet-ṣēri at Late Babylonian Uruk, p. 74). Interpreting the term as something more than just an elaborate synonym for a graveyard is the easiest way to explain references to sacrifices made to Ereshkigal, though. These are at the very least implied by a set of instructions pertaining to daily offerings, according to which she couldn’t receive beef or fowl; in contrast with the other regulations (it is self-explanatory why Ningublaga, a cattle god, would be displeased to receive beef) the underlying logic remains unclear (Prayers from…, p. 62). However, even then, it was not really Ereshkigal herself who was actively worshiped - rather, it was her scribe Belet-Seri who enjoyed newfound popularity in Seleucid Uruk (Prayers from…, p. 76-77). Ereshkigal most likely was seen as an unapproachable, distant figure, just like before, and as such was hardly worshiped directly (Prayers from…, p. 75).

Julia Krul argues that Ereshkigal’s presence in the pantheon of Seleucid Uruk reflected diffusion of earlier knowledge about her status as Inanna’s sister, courtesy of the loose Neo-Assyrian adaptation of Inanna’s Descent (Prayers from…, p. 75). I’m skeptical myself - as pointed out by Alhena Gadotti, the term might very well be used as an honorary title, not necessarily as an indication of actual kinship (‘Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld’ and the Sumerian Gilgamesh Cycle, p. 13). No independent evidence for the existence of such a tradition exists, and the very same myth has ample evidence for use of kinship terms as titles - Ninshubur refers to three separate gods as “father” despite none of them ever being actually viewed as her family. It’s also worth pointing out that in Nergal and Ereshkigal Ereshkigal is addressed as the sister of all of the gods when an invitation is sent to her, which obviously can’t be literal. This is ultimately a digression; I plan to go back to this point in a separate article eventually, though - consider this a teaser.

Putting abstract considerations aside, to sum up Ereshkigal didn’t offer a very good parallel to Hecate, not least simply because she was not exactly commonly worshiped - while Hecate is arguably attested primarily in the sphere of cult. Furthermore, while she does appear in Mesopotamian magical texts (āšipūtu), she doesn’t play a particularly major role in them (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 67), and in contrast with deities such as Ea as Ningirima she was hardly a “deity of magic”. You probably could make an argument that if anything Ereshkigal offers a closer parallel to Hades - in the god list An = Anum a mini-section even lists names which did double duty both as her bynames and terms for the underworld (Wilfed G. Lambert, Ryan D. Winters, An = Anum and Related Lists, p. 24); the most notable example is easily Irkalla (An = Anum..., p. 196). However, as I’ll try to demonstrate in the next section, the matter of interpretatio graeca is not quite as simple as “the character of these two overlaps, so they ought to be analogous”.

Some notes on interpretatio graeca

Interpretatio graeca is a tricky subject in its own right. Equivalencies weren’t necessarily recognized universally. It goes without saying the perspective of Greeks and foreigners could vary considerably, too. For example, to Greeks the Lycian and Lydian goddess Maliya (Malis) was simply a nymph, as evident in her portrayal in Theocritus’ Idylls (Annic Payne, Native Religious Traditions from a Lydian Perspective, p. 242). However, both to Lycians and Lydians she was a counterpart of Athena - partially due to shared association with craftsmanship, partially because the Lycian kings wanted to emulate Athens politically in one way or another, and sought to portray their tutelary goddess as Athena-like (Eric A. Raimond, Hellenization and Lycian Cults During the Achaemenid Period, p. 153-154; Native Religious…, p. 241).

Oxus depicted in the form of Marsyas (wikimedia commons) Equations could be made based on very superficial similarity. For example, in Bactria a river god regarded as the head of the local pantheon, Oxus, came to be associated with Marsias (sic), and was depicted under the guise of the latter. This was the result of a random twist of fate - Greeks settling in Bactria after the conquests of Alexander largely came from Magnesia (Mary Boyce, Frantz Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. III: Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman rule, p. 180; Boris A. Litvinskii, Igor R. Pichikian, The Hellenistic Architecture and Art of the Temple of the Oxus, p. 57-58). Since Marsias was the namesake river god of the main river flowing through this area, he was effectively THE river god to them - and thus upon encounter with a different river god a transfer of iconography was possible. The fact the two shared few, if any, characteristics otherwise was of no importance. Needless to say, nobody ever recognized Marsias himself as king of the gods; but his river-related lore was sufficient for his iconography to be borrowed.

A possible Hellenistic depiction of Nanaya (wikimedia commons) This case is still not quite as outlandish as the official Seleucid policy of recognizing Nanaya as the counterpart of Artemis, which is yet another example of politically motivated interpretatio. There’s an obvious difference right off the bat - Nanaya was associated with eroticism first and foremost, Artemis demonstrably… wasn’t; the same goes for her association with hunting, a sphere of influence Nanaya had nothing to do with. The lack of similar traits was of no real concern, though - Seleucids simply needed local deities who could be presented as counterparts of their dynastic triad of Zeus, Apollo and Artemis. Marduk as a typical pantheon head made a decent fit for Zeus (despite lack of any real connection to the weather), Nabu as his son and, broadly speaking, a deity linked to the arts (primarily scribal, but hey, close enough) was proclaimed the counterpart of Apollo (Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Nabû and Apollo: The Two Faces of Seleucid Religious Policy, p. 20)… and Nanaya, as a Nabu-adjacent goddess, got to be Artemis (Nabû and Apollo…, p. 27). The fact Apollo and Artemis were siblings, while Nabu and Nanaya were not, was not an issue. It’s probably down to chance that it was Nanaya and not Tashmetum, who had a stronger and older claim to an association with Nabu who got this role, really - not that Tashmetum would be a much better match character-wise.

In particularly extreme cases it’s hard to attribute specific cases of interpretatio graeca to anything but confabulation about a deity one Greek author or another had only the vaguest idea of. Perhaps most notably, Herodotus (in)famously asserted that Persian Mitra was Aphrodite in a passage where he generally makes many claims about her foreign equivalents and moe broadly on foreign cults which make at best limited sense (Albert F. de Jong, Traditions of the Magi. Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature, p. 107-110). His mistake was repeated by Ambrosius, but to be entirely fair to Greeks and Romans, those two are outliers in this case, and other authors (notably Strabo and Nonnus, but not only them) were at the very least aware that Mithra was a male solar deity and/or that he presided over oaths, even if some of them were confused if he was Persian or Mesopotamian (Traditions of…, p. 286-288).

A unique problem with Hecate and interpretatio graeca is that in many cases we can’t really say much about the deities she was associated with in that capacity, which makes it difficult to determine what shared qualities or historical circumstances lead to the development of a close association. The likes of Roman Trivia or Thessalian Enodia are not exactly well represented in the historical record, to put it very lightly; they’re effectively epithets more than distinct deities which can be discussed in any meaningful capacity. There’s also the even more extreme case of Lydian Nenenene (sic). It’s not hard to find the assumption she was associated with Hecate in scholarship (ex. The Concepts…, p. 132), though the only evidence available is a partially preserved stela with a dedication to her found in Kula. The modern assumption rests entirely on the goddess preserved on it appearing distinctly Hecate-like thanks to the presence of a dog next to her, as no other attestations of Nenenene are available (Eda Nalan Akyürek Şahin, The Cult fo Hecate in Lydia: Evidence from the Manisa Museum, p. 38).

Ereschigal: deity, epithet, vox magica?

At first glance, even taking the difference in their respective characters, the case of Ereshkigal and Hecate might appear easier to parse just because the latter is pretty obviously nowhere near as ephemeral as Enodia or Nenenene. However, in reality the available information about her reception is at best troublesome to interpret.

Ereshkigal is not attested in Greek literature at all outside of the magical papyri and related objects, such as curse tablets and apotropaic gems (Magical Hymns…, p. 236). No cultic activity involving her is attested in areas where any of them were found (Korshi Dosoo, Magical Names: Tracing Religious Changes in Egyptian Magical Texts from Roman and Early Islamic Egypt, p. 123). To make it all even more complicated, not even once does the name appear in a context which would indicate any familiarity with Mesopotamian sources going beyond the awareness that Ereshkigal was an underworld deity. No epithets, no references to motifs from Mesopotamian literature, virtually nothing. When specific attributes are listed, they’re invariably those of Hecate or Persephone (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 66-67).

Of course, it is clear that at least the initial stage of transfer must have involved people who possessed some basic familiarity with the structure of the Mesopotamian pantheon, After all, even if none of the attributes are Ereshkigal’s, and no text where the name appears shows any familiarity with specific Mesopotamian myths or with Mesopotamian magical slash exorcisitic literature (the already mentioned āšipūtu), it is consistently clear it was understood the name designated a figure closely associated with the underworld. However, it’s hard to disagree with the view that the authors and compilers of the available texts mentioning “Ereschigal” pretty clearly had neither detailed knowledge about her character and position in Mesopotamian theology, nor much interest in it. 

Daniel Schwemer actually suggests the lack of familiarity might be central to why “Hecate-Ereschigal” arose in the first place. He suggests that the sole purpose of incorporating Ereshkigal into magical formulas was to provide Hecate with a sufficiently unusual, inexplicable new name, without much concern for its original context (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 67). He argues that the familiarity with her was so limited that it’s distinctly possible the transfer might have been indirect, though he doesn’t speculate about the identity of middlemen this scenario would require (Beyond Ereškigal…, 78).

If Schwemer is correct - and I see no reason to doubt him - we’re essentially dealing with a ship of Theseus. “Ereschigal” was understood by the magicians compiling and using magical papyri not as a distinct deity whose interpretatio graeca was Hecate, but merely as a title of Hecate, with associations derived from the latter’s character (more on that later). Rather than a strictly Mesopotamian contribution to the world of magical papyri, it is to be classified among ephemeral entities and formulas such as Abraxas or Sesengenbarpharanges (Magical Names…, p. 123). Or, to use a more modern example - somewhere near hocus pocus and abracadabra, if hocus pocus and abracadabra could be personified and assigned as names to one deity or another.

Of course, determining that still leaves many questions about the process of its transmission open - not least the problem of middlemen I mentioned already. Hopefully future research will shed more light on it. I’m fairly hopeful myself - it’s worth noting that a few years after publication of the article I relied on here, a team of researchers from the University of Würzburg lead by Schwemer received a pretty sizeable grant from the German Research Foundation specifically for a project meant to focus on comparative studies of magical papyri and other texts from similar genres.

A remarkable Syriac drawing of the archangel Gabriel (wikimedia commons) Speculation about future research aside, for additional context it’s worth noting that the adaptation of a name without much concern for its original context is not entirely without parallel in the magical papyri. For example, the names of archangels Gabriel and Michael frequently appear as “secret” names of invoked deities, in some cases respectively Anubis or Thoth, or alternatively with solar gods or astral bodies (Magical Hymns…, p. 68).  Ereshkigal’s case ultimately remains unique in other regards, though - her name is actually the only Mesopotamian theonym to appear in the magical papyri (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 66). There technically are two other potential suspects, but both cases are at best dubious.

Shamash, Semea, Nebutosualeth: Mesopotamian or magical?

The lack of references to Mesopotamian deities in the magical papyri might seem surprising, especially in comparison to the numerous sources affirming that reception of other arts and sciences, especially astronomy, was widespread. However, it’s important to note that there is actually very little evidence for interactions between specialists involved in Mesopotamian magic and their Egyptian (let alone Greek) counterparts. We do know that scholars and ritual experts from Syria, Anatolia and Egypt were present in the Neo-Assyrian court a few centuries before the composition of the bulk of the magical papyri, which might be relevant here, but this ultimately remains pure speculation (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 64).

As far as the dubious cases of Mesopotamian influence go, a handful of attestations of Shamash (Σαμας) are available, and they at the very least indicate knowledge of this name belonging to a solar god. In one case this theonym is mashed together with a Greek spelling of Ra into the unique “Samas-Phrēth” (Σαμασφρηθ). However, nothing really indicates we’re necessarily dealing with the Mesopotamian Shamash. None of the passages preserve any material which would require adoption of a Mesopotamian figure. In fact, the god is typically labeled as “Canaanite”, “Phoenician” or “Syro-Palestinian” in scholarship in this case (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 67-68). This might come as a surprise to some readers, since there’s a fairly common online trend of referring to distinctly feminine Shapash as “Caananite” or even “Phoenician”, but this theonym is exclusive to Ugarit, which was basically its own thing, and ceased to exist in the Bronze Age collapse. Meanwhile, Phoenicians spelled the name of their solar deity, who was male, with a m - so it is perfectly believable that we’re dealing with him in this case, not with the identically named Mesopotamian god, let alone the Ugaritic goddess. It’s worth noting that Phoenician conception of the solar god shows the influence of analogous Egyptian motifs (Manfred Krebernik, Sonnengott A. V. in RlA vol. 12, p. 616) - which I believe might be relevant here in the light of the pairing with Ra. The phonetically similar name Semea (Σημέα) which appears in formulas addressed to solar deities is most likely derived not from a theonym, but from the ordinary Hebrew word for sun, which was seemingly adopted as a “secret” term for the astral body (cf. σημεα inscribed on gems with compilations of such terms; Magical Hymns…, p. 124). -

The other alleged at least partially Mesopotamian theonym is the term Nebutosualeth (or Neboutosoualēth; νεβουτοσουαλήθ), sometimes held to be derived from the name of the god Nabu. For what it’s worth, Nabu was a popular deity through much of the first millennium BCE, and as I mentioned earlier at least some Greeks must have had some exposure to him thanks to official Seleucid policy. However, there’s no strong evidence for this etymology, and it doesn’t account for the origin of… well, the rest of it, really. Even if the first four letters are superficially similar to Nabu’s name, the rest bears no resemblance to any of his epithets (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 67). 

Similarly as in the case of “Ereschigal”, Nebutosualeth doesn’t appear in any contexts which would reflect Mesopotamian tradition (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 67). However, this term typically also shows up in lists of voces magicae describing Hecate. It has been proposed that three of them, which at times appear in sequence - Ereschigal, Neboutosoualēth and Aktiōphi (ἀκτιῶφι; meaning unknown) - were designations of the three moon phases associated with triple Hecate (Magical Hymns…, p. 237). For what it’s worth, Neboutosoualēth is explicitly a lunar goddess acting on behalf of Helios (or rather “Barzan Boubarzan Narzazouzan Barzabouzath Helios”) at night in the London-Leiden papyrus (Jacco Dieleman, Priests, Tongues, and Rites. The London-Leiden Magical Manuscripts and Translation in Egyptian Ritual (100–300 CE), p. 124). 

The moon god Sin on an Ur III cylinder seal (wikimedia commons) Needless to say, this would reflect ideas about the moon and deities associated with it typical for Greek culture. In Mesopotamia, the moon was invariably imagined as a male deity, and the same holds true for virtually all the other cultures across the “cuneiform world” (Manfred Krebernik, Mondgott A. I. In Mesopotamien in RlA vol. 8, p. 360).

A Ptolemaic depiction of Wadjet from Edfu (wikimedia commons) As a curiosity it’s worth noting that an alternate proposal is that Neboutosoualēth was derived from Egyptian nbt-wḏȝt, “lady Wadjet” (Uto in Greek), though it also has no strong evidence behind it (Magical Hymns…, p. 237). I think it warrants further inquiries, though, not least because both the magical papyri and a variety of earlier sources actually associate Hecate with snakes (Magical Hymns…, p. 233).

While this is unrelated to the matter of Mesopotamian influence on the magical papyri (or lack thereof), as a curiosity it’s worth noting that least one more of Hecate’s epithets attested in them is at the very least an allusion to voces magicae. The unique Borborophorba (βορβοροφόρβα) from the “love spell of attraction in the presence of heroes or gladiators or those who died violently” (ἀγωγὴ ἐπὶ ἡρώων ἢ μονομάχων ἢ βιαίων) literally means “one who feeds on filth/mud”. However, it has been argued that instead of designating Hecate as some sort of Greco-Egyptian analog of Aztec Tlazeotl or something along these lines, it is effectively an attempt at smashing syllables commonly used in voces magicae both in the papyri and elsewhere into a semi-coherent name. The meaning was most likely of secondary importance, though, and the primary goal might have been to get something sounding vaguely like the barking of a dog (Magical Hymns…, p. 230).

deities in the magical papyri are limited to literature from the early twentieth century, and have been long since abandoned. Most of them were incredibly short lived, and depended entirely on superficial phonetic similarities between voces magicae and Mesopotamian theonyms (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 68). One such proposal warrants some further comments, though, despite being disproved - the assumption that the deity Iao (Ιαω) is Mesopotamian Ea (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 68). I would argue that this assumption was actually sound on some level - Ea (Enki, not to be confused with another unrelated Enki, though) was THE god of magic (not the only one, to be fair, but by far the most prominent). He’s all over āšipūtu literature (as a matter of fact, this art was traditionally represented as his invention), and continued to be worshiped well into Hellenistic times. When cuneiform was arguably at the peak of its prestige, in the second millennium BCE, he was known virtually everywhere from Hattusa all the way up to Susa - and in at least some areas he persisted outside Mesopotamia into the first millennium BCE. It would actually be much easier to explain how a Greek or Egyptian might have stumbled upon him despite limited familiarity with Mesopotamian sources than it is in the case of Ereshkigal. 

And yet, Iao is actually not Ea. As it turned out, the reality is much stranger than the early interpretation of the name in scholarship was. Yao is actually a Greek adaptation of the tetragrammaton. The result is effectively a new deity, as opposed to simply YHVH placed in a new context, though (Magical Hymns…, p. 67-68). A short hymn to Apollo preserved in one of the magical papyri describes him as a messenger of Zeus (Magical Hymns…, p. 62). The name also pops up in some gnostic sources, reinterpreted as an archon, which is also attested for a number of other designations for the Abrahamic capital g God (Magical Hymns…, p. 68). That’s well beyond the scope of this article, though. 

The references to Iao, as well as a variety of angels, reflect a broader phenomenon: ultimately, while outliers such as Ereshkigal, Shamash or Mitra can be identified, in addition to Greek and Egyptian only Jewish culture is represented to a bigger degree in this text corpus. This is not accidental: religious specialists from these three cultures were all present in Egypt in the relevant periods, and in at least some cases competed for clients. Combining elements from potentially competing traditions could give one an edge in this peculiar supernatural marketplace (The Greco-Egyptian…, p. 284-285).

“Ereschigal” beyond Hecate, Hecate beyond “Ereschigal”

While the other references to Mesopotamian deities in the magical papyri turned out to be dubious at the absolute best, it’s worth highlighting that there are a few cases in the magical papyri where the title Ereschigal is applied not to Hecate, but instead Isis or Aphrodite (Magical Hymns…, p. 236). Needless to say, this doesn’t match Mesopotamian evidence either, and I think it’s safe to say in both cases we are dealing with situations dependent on the associations between these goddesses and Hecate.

A Roman period depiction of Isis (wikimedia commons)

The identification between Hecate and Isis is an incredibly well documented phenomenon - I’m actually shocked how rarely it comes up outside of academic literature, honestly. It depended on two points of connection: like Hecate, Isis was associated with magic; and via a link to the star Sirius (Sothis), she was an astral (though obviously not lunar - deities associated with the moon were invariably male in Egypt) deity. It should be noted that Isis actually had no consistent interpretatio graeca, though, and based on which of her characteristics was emphasized could be variously linked not only with Hecate, but also with Demeter, Persephone, Cybele, Selene, Artemis, Aphrodite, Tyche or Nemesis (Magical Hymns…, p. 9-10; additionally p. 235 for the last two). It should be remembered that in many cases these one-off instances of syncretism had a political motive behind them, since Isis was regarded as a source of authority and legitimacy for rulers - this doesn’t necessarily mean the average person believed she was essentially a slurry of goddesses from all over the ancient Mediterranean (Magical Hymns…, p. 10). Sadly, questionable vintage scholarship lives on, in some cases leading to what Aren Wilson-Wright aptly describes as “Frazerian” attempts to present her as interchangeable even with deities she had nothing to do with, like Inanna (sic) or Tanit (Athtart. The Transmission and Transformation of a Goddess in the Late Bronze Age, p. 9).

As for Aphrodite, the matter is more complex. Her association with Hecate seemingly reflected the development of a new, quadruple form of the latter, which required the addition of a fourth deity to the common Hecate-Selene-Artemis set representing the phases of the moon (Magical Hymns…, p. 294). Hecate with “four faces, four names, (...) of the four roads” is attested in a hymnic passage from a text labeled simply as a “spell of attraction” - which also mentions Aphrodite in relation to her, in addition to the expected closely associated goddesses (Magical Hymns…, p. 283). The rise of quadruple Hecate appears to be the result of astronomical developments. As explained by the second century CE astronomer Cleomedes, while earlier on Greeks only recognized three phases of the moon - the crescent, the half moon and the full moon - in his times this number changed to four, with gibbous as a new addition. This also required the addition of a fourth face to the triple depictions of lunar deities (Magical Hymns…, p. 294). As a curiosity it’s worth nothing a late reference to four-faced lunar Hecate can be found in the writings of the sixth century Byzantine official John Lydus, who states that this was a visual representation of the moon’s control over the four elements - pretty clearly a secondary, philosophically motivated reinterpretation (Magical Hymns…, p. 293). The new moon seemingly had no direct impact on the notion of three-bodied lunar Hecate (or any other deity who came to share this characteristic). However, it does show up in the magical papyri in association with her in a slightly different context. According to one of them, the “inscription to the waning moon” (δέλτος ἀποκρουστικὴν πρὸς Σελήνην), it was easier for a magician to command Hecate to specific ends during the new moon. The spell bolsters the effects by having the performer make it clear they are aware of that, and pretend to be “Hermes-Thoth” and claim to know how to prolong the new moon forever just in case (Magical Hymns…, p. 251). This is seemingly a reflection of a motif already common in earlier Egyptian magical texts. It was believed that it was possible for a priest to influence, or even control, a deity by showing a high level of knowledge about their sphere of influence and using it to own advantage, or by threatening to cease to perform or to disturb regular temple services in their honor (Magical Hymns…, p. 253).

It has to be stressed that the connection between Aphrodite and (quadruple) Hecate is limited to only one of the magical papyri (Magical Hymns…, p. 293). There’s also a number of indirect connections between the two, though. Both of them were, in different contexts, linked with Isis, which might have facilitated the incorporation of Aphrodite into Hecate’s circle in the aforementioned magical papyrus (Magical Hymns…, p. 296). While this is less relevant, it’s also worth noting in Samothrace both could be linked with the local goddess Zerynthia (Magical Hymns…, p. 292). It’s worth noting that in addition to the singular case of apparent conflation, some of the magical papyri show what can be described as encroachment of Hecate upon spheres of influence normally associated with Aphrodite. In multiple cases she is invoked in erotic spells (Magical Hymns…, p. 289). As a matter of fact, they represent the single largest group of formulas invoking her (Another View…, p. 193) In one case this role might be underscored by turning the name of Peitho, the personification of persuasion frequently associated with Aphrodite and further with the nymph Iynx (a personified love charm, basically), into a further epithet for her (Magical Hymns…, p. 288). The only reference to Hecate in a vaguely erotic context outside of the magical papyri I am aware of can be found in Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica, though it’s hardly comparable. He states that dreams involving having sex with Hecate are an ill omen, “even if one delights in it” (Daniel E. Harris-McCoy, Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. Text, Translation & Commentary, p. 149). Curiously, going by the same source, it’s the opposite in the case of Selene - it’s an auspicious omen as long as you are, to paraphrase, a shipowner, helmsman, merchant, or at least examine the heavens, enjoy traveling or wander frequently. Otherwise - it’s a sign you’ll suffer from edema (Artemidorus’ Oneirocitica…, p. 149, 151). Excursus: genderfluid Hecate?

Putting the auspicious and inauspicious implications of dreams aside, the lunar connections of Hecate might be responsible for perhaps the single most unexpected aspect of her character attested exclusively in the magical papyri. A few of them attribute a degree of androgyny to her (Magical Hymns…, p. 259). In the already mentioned “inscription to the waning moon”, she is referred to as possessing “the heart of a man” and as “manly” (Magical Hymns…, p. 247). While Athena or Artemis could be sometimes metaphorically described in other sources in similar terms due to associations with pursuits conventionally regarded in masculine by ancient Greeks, in Hecate’s case the matter is much more complicated.

There might also be a lunar angle to it as well, though - Mene is a title of Selene with strictly lunar connotations, so it’s possible that the underlying idea was that Hecate slash Selene had different forms tied to different moon phases, with gender as one of the characteristics which shifted as the lunar cycle progressed (Magical Hymns…, p. 259). The fact lunar deities were uniformly masculine in Egypt might have contributed to this phenomenon (Magical Hymns…, p. 260). This explanation is obviously speculative, but especially the last argument strikes me as plausible. It’s worth noting that Greeks also came into contact with male lunar deities in Anatolia, most notably with Phrygian Men. While none of them seem to come up in the magical papyri, as far as I am aware, it strikes me as plausible that it could have also contributed to the idea of a genderfluid lunar deity.

The only other figure described as both male and female in the magical papyri is Kronos, though the passage is unique and links this characteristic with the deity’s role as a creator. It’s essentially a parallel of the Orphic creator figure Phanes (The Concepts…, p. 96-97). This is obviously a phenomenon very different from Hecate’s apparent occasional genderfluidity.

There’s a further instance of a connection between Hecate and a male deity in the magical papyri, though it’s much less direct. Two of them refer to her with the feminine form of Hades’ poetic name Aidoneus, Aidonaia (Ἀϊδωναία). This doesn’t really have similar implications, though. This title was only supposed to designate her as an underworld deity - in other words, as “Hecate of Hades” in the sense of a supernatural realm (Magical Hymns…, p. 318). 

Deity, epithet, spell, angel: the final attestations of Ereshkigal As far as I’m aware, no passages referring to “Ereschigal” overlap with these discussed above. It might be worth noting that in one case the standard “Ereschigal Neboutosoualēth Aktiōphi” sequence appears in a spell addressed to “Typhon-Seth”, who is obviously a male figure, but the context indicates it’s not supposed to be understood as a string of names applied to him, merely as a magical formula (Beyond Ereškigal…, p. 67) 

There actually is a single possible reference to a potentially male Ereshkigal, or rather Ereschigal, though. The name might have continued to circulate as a magical term for at least two centuries after the composition of the last magical papyri. It has been proposed that the name of the angel Erechsiel (’RSKY’L), known only from the inscription on an amulet from the sixth century Maon Synagogue, was one of the results of Jewish reinterpretation of the voces magicae, now personified as angelic figures. They’re all invoked to aid a certain Natrun, daughter of Sarah, who was apparently suffering from headaches (Anna Jordanova, Untersuchungen zur Gestalt einer Unterweltsgöttin: Ereškigal nach den sumerischen und akkadischen Quellentexten, p. 499). Obviously, at this point we’re effectively dealing with a double case of the ship of Theseus: a deity turned into a magical formula turned into an angel. I don’t think the situation is really comparable to the late survival of Nanaya in Sogdia. Still, it makes for a pretty remarkable final chapter in Ereshkigal’s history prior to her rediscovery more than a thousand years later - and even if the connection between her and Hecate was hardly direct, it is safe to say Hecate can be metaphorically credited with making it possible.

[genericpuff]

All That Glitters is Not Feminism - An Analysis of LO's Brand of "Feminism" and What Remains of its Fanbase (The Twist)

Alright y'all, I've been waiting a hot minute to talk about this because I wanted to see how it fully panned out before saying anything about it. And it's not even specifically about LO, but I do think it's very adjacent to it in a way that I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear. Much of it speaks to how we prop up white writers even at the expense of POC.

This is 'the twist' attached to my first post that I made just a couple hours ago that concerns an entirely other topic but I feel ties into this subject very well.

If you haven't heard, there's this author who recently fucked around in the Del Rey publishing scene.

Her name is Cait Corrain.

In the original tweet calling this person out, names were not dropped, but it was made very clear that what Cait did was unacceptable behavior.

You can read the entire thread that started it all from Xiran here:

There's also a GREAT recap thread from one of the affected authors, Bethany Baptiste:

I want to make it clear that Cait Corrain isn't just a debut author.

Cait Corrain is - or now, was (foreshadowing is a literary device that-) - a debut author who had an agent, a publishing deal with Del Rey (an imprint of Random House which is a MAJOR publisher) and even an upcoming Illumicrate deal - meaning, her book was going to be packaged in a monthly loot crate subscription shipped directly to people's doors, quite possibly one of the best marketing deals a debut author could ever get, usually unheard of in this industry. All the pre-reviews were strong and positive.

Cait's book was literally set up for success. All she had to do was sit back, relax, and watch the fruits of her labors roll in. She had written the book. It was ready for release. The hard part was technically over.

But I guess the racism brainrot got to her because as it turns out, since April - for EIGHT MONTHS - she's been making alternate accounts on GoodReads to review bomb the indie and debut works of her friends and peers, most of whom were POC and did not have the same opportunities set up for them as she did. There are loads of receipts to back this up that you can find in those above threads ^^^

To say that this is appalling is an understatement. This was an intentional and deliberate act of racism by a white queer writer who claimed to be "jealous" - of what, I can't imagine - so much so that she deliberately sabotaged her peers, people who had supported her and her book.

And then when she got caught? She doubled down on it and claimed it was a "friend", also an alternate account she made up.

The exchange between her and this made-up person is actually the funniest shit out of this entire thing, it's so poorly written and as soon as people noticed the time stamps were out of order, that was when it truly cemented her newfound clown status.

"oooooh he's standing right behind me, isn't he?" energy right here LMAO

yes keep expositing cait, that's really selling the "this is a genuine conversation that really happened with a real person" bit 🤡

Anyways, it became abundantly clear that Cait was just going to continue to dig her heels in over something she caused.

This has been a hot topic in the UnpopularLO Discord, not just because of how crazy of a situation it is that we had to talk about it - and we have people within the community who work in the literature and media sector - but because we noticed one very telling thing in the list of series that she had review bombed in her very own personal act of wrath.

You see, Cait made one fundamental mistake that led to her undoing - she didn't just review bomb the works of her peers, she positively reviewed her own book and others.

What's her book about though?

It's an Ariadne x Dionysus retelling set in space.

It's literally another "modern retelling" of Greek myth.

And wouldn't you know it, guess who else created a modern retelling of Greek myth that she included in her positive review raiding while she was sabotaging the work of her actual peers?

Now, I think it goes without saying that what I'm about to say should be taken with MOUNTAINS of salt, I'm sure a lot of you are reading the headline and going, "Ugh, really? You're gonna make this about LO? Could you give it a rest already???"

I need you to understand, with the current state of Rachel's fanbase and 'modern' Greek myth literature as a whole, at this point Lore Olympus - and the works that are literally inspired by it such as A Touch of Darkness - has basically become the shopping cart litmus test of basic decency. It's like when someone says they like Harry Potter - you can't take it automatically at good faith anymore, because there isn't a whole lot separating someone who simply liked Harry Potter as a kid and still rewatches the movies from time to time from someone who fully supports the politics and agenda of J.K. Rowling. No, not everyone who still watches the movies or reads the books fondly is a TERF by default, but it's justifiably a reason for suspicion when the consequences are often too dire to risk.

There's this thing that's been happening in the LO fanbase that I frankly saw coming, but has really recently started to hit its peak. It's what I call the "Kanye Effect", where the comic has become so absurd and backwards in its misogyny and white feminism that the only people who seem to be left supporting LO are the people who are legitimate white feminists and misogynists - because all the normal level-headed people fell off the comic ages ago (or transitioned into the critical side of the community).

I mentioned it in my last post, but it bears repeating - Rachel's fanbase has literally been shipping Hera, a victim of abuse, with her abuser, Kronos. I'm really hoping a lot of them realize how fucked up that is now that Hera herself has called it what it is - abuse - within the comic, but I also can't count on the LO fanbase picking up on that or even noticing it with how quickly people swipe through it each week, it's very apparent at this point that most of LO's readers don't know how to chew their food and don't pay attention when Persephone and Hades aren't onscreen.

But I'm digressing. Or am I? We're talking about Crown of Starlight after all. The debut Dionysus x Ariadne sci-fi/fantasy romance that was quite literally advertised using Lore Olympus as its baseline-

This. This is what the ongoing cultural erasure and white feminist uwu-fication of Greek myth is doing to the literary zeitgeist surrounding Greek myth as a whole. This is why we criticize Lore Olympus and works like it that are created by disingenuous people who only seek to use the assets of Greek myth material as a way to shoot themselves up into fame and stardom. This is why we demand better standards in the literature and webcomic industry, so that people like Rachel and Cait can't use their privileges to quite literally erase the source material that they used to make themselves famous in the first place.

If anything, Cait's actions didn't just affect the people she negatively review bombed, or the people she was affiliated with, but also the people she positively reviewed. While I don't support what Rachel creates, she wasn't the only one who Cait went out of her way to review positively from her alt accounts, there were many others as evident in the Google Doc - but all this really does is tarnish the legitimacy of these books and their ratings by artificially jacking up their numbers that are advertised to others.

Making Greek myth fanfiction or fun creative retellings was never the problem, but it's now being sabotaged alongside so many other genres and mediums by toxic white individuals who can't even keep themselves from committing hate crimes, let alone create something purely for entertainment that's transparent in its illegitimacy, lest it destroy the illusion that these people are qualified to speak over those whose voices are being stifled, often by these very same people. Many of these writers get caught and are still allowed to continue what they're doing - that was certainly what we feared with Cait.

Until today.

It was revealed today that Cait's book will no longer be featured in the Illumicrate May 2024 box.

Del Rey has dropped Crown of Starlight from their publishing schedule.

Daphne Press will be hopefully following suit.

And, most telling of all, Cait's own agent has severed ties with her.

For anyone not familiar with the inner workings of the publishing industry, Cait has essentially been blacklisted. Without an agent or a publishing house, she'll have to entirely rely on her own resources through self-publishing. Unless she manages to sneak her way back in under an alias (which I wouldn't put it past her to try) she no longer has access to the mainstream publishing industry that was already guaranteed for her before she let her 'jealousy' get the better of her.

Her career was already made for her. She had a red carpet laid out for her debut. Her book was getting good pre-reviews and she had quite literally nothing keeping her from her success. The best thing she could have done was nothing. Somewhere in her head, she made up a threat that didn't exist, and sealed her fate in acting on it, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think in these situations such as with Cait Corrain, Rachel Smythe, and - also recently and relevant - James Somerton, we need to become increasingly aware of how white voices are still overpowering POC voices, not just in their actions, but in the opportunities they're given over others which they then use to further stifle the voices of those they feel "threatened" by or feel entitled to speak over. While neither James nor Rachel have used sock puppet accounts to "take out the competition" (at least as far as we know lmao) James did quite literally steal the words and voices of queer writers who were deserving of their time in the spotlight, and Rachel's work is being quoted as "rewriting Greek myth" as if its blatant gentrification and appropriation should be marketed as some sort of positive.

It's all too common for these deeply-rooted prejudices to rear their ugly heads and for the people who carry them to act out in this way while justifying it as "jealousy" or "a mistake". This isn't jealousy. This isn't a mistake. This isn't someone "starting drama". This is genuine, targeted hate, with the intention of snuffing out the voices of others who should be empowered, not silenced.

All that time and effort, and for what? Racism and petty jealousy? It just goes to show, it doesn't matter how many opportunities you're given, how high up on the ladder you already are - it won't fix the deeply-rooted insecurity and racial pettiness that spurs people on to do such horrible things.

I've spent enough of my time and words today talking about Cait, and James, and Rachel. So to end this off, I want to join in with all the others who have highlighted the books that were review-bombed by Cait, and help in uplifting them so they can have successful debuts. I'll be pre-ordering a few of them, so I'll be happy to make dedicated posts for them in the future after they release. Please consider purchasing them for yourself if you want some new reading material <3

The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste:

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole:

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang:

Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White:

(I'm sure there are plenty others so if I missed any here, please let me know so I can add them here and check out their books!)

If there's any silver lining to this, I hope that it makes people aware of the media they consume and who it's being created by. I hope it makes people more willing to seek out the books that aren't getting the same opportunities as Cait Corrain and Rachel Smythe. I hope it's a wake-up call to the industry that matters like this need to be taken seriously and that POC writers are still being silenced under their own noses. And most of all, I hope it's a reminder that we shouldn't even need at this point that this behavior is not okay, no matter what level a person climbs to - that just because someone is part of one minority doesn't mean they're not capable of sabotaging another. It sucks that that has to be said, it sucks that despite these groups being so intersectional there are still people within them who submit to their deeply-rooted insecurities and find ways to feel threatened that they use to justify hateful behavior.

Having a platform is a privilege. It should never be weaponized against your own peers or those who you simply feel "threatened" by for no reason beyond your own imposter syndrome or doubts or internal struggles. Because as much as you may feel like you've earned where you are, that never gives you the right to weaponize your opportunities against others who were never given those same opportunities in the first place. "Feminism" is not using your power to crush "other women". "Progressiveness" is not exclusive to the progress that only benefits you.

I wish only the best to those who were affected by the actions of Cait Corrain. You deserve to be heard and seen and appreciated for the work you do and the abuse you've had to tolerate. I look forward to your debuts in 2024 <3

[fairy-writes]

COUNTING TIME

Reblogs and Comments are greatly appreciated!!

__________________________________________________________________________

Fandom(s): Trigun Stampede

Pairing(s): Vash the Stampede x Reader

Word Count: 1.4k

Genre(s)/Tag(s): Female!Reader, Plant!Reader, Pre-Beginning of Tristamp Ep 1

Notes: I have no idea how old Vash is at the start of Tristamp. So I’m making stuff up.

__________________________________________________________________________

The first thing you remembered was sand. 

When you opened your eyes, you were face down in the sand. With a cough and a sputter, you pushed yourself up with unsteady arms until you could see exactly where you were. 

Nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. Dunes and hills of desert in the freezing night sky. The dunes are lit with the light of at least five moons, and when you look up to the sky, you gasp. 

Ships streak the sky in fiery comets and plunge toward the sand with the fury of a god striking down a foe. You could feel your sisters dying, the fellow Plants onboard the many ships being crushed in the debris as the vessel carrying them crashed into the desolate planet you were trapped on. 

Where were you? 

What was happening? 

You never did get an answer. 

And it was many years later that you met someone like you. Not immediately, of course. Not for roughly one hundred years. Part of you lost track of how long you were on No Man’s Land, but there was the dark, obsessive part of you that kept track of every second you were alone.

Of course, you weren’t always alone. 

No.

Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne found you sixty-three years, four months, twelve days, fifty-two minutes, and four seconds into your solitude. They took you in on their little farm. As a young couple of twenty-three and twenty-six years old, respectively, they welcomed you with open arms. Sure, they put you to work generating power for their town, but it was worth it.

Because you had a home. 

The sound of your name being called roused you from your dozing. 

You were sat in your floral upholstery armchair by the window in Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne's spare bedroom. You could technically call it your room. But you supposed old habits died hard. 

Your name was called again, and you got up, stretching your arms above your head. 

“Coming!” You called down the stairs and quickly laced up your boots so as not to get slivers on the old wooden staircase. 

The Hawthornes had just begun to build their little raggedy home when they found you. Now, forty-seven years, eleven months, twenty days, twelve minutes, and fifty-four seconds later, it was getting run down. Sure, you had tried repairing it, but that didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things—especially on No Man’s Land. 

The first stair and the second to last stair creak horribly as you put your weight on them, alerting whoever was downstairs to your presence. 

You open your mouth to speak to Mrs. Hawthorne when you see someone unfamiliar. 

He’s tall. With floppy blond hair and the bluest eyes you have ever seen on this godforsaken planet. He’s dressed primarily in black, with a deep red coat over top. His left arm is a bit peculiar—a prosthetic of something you haven’t seen for over one hundred years. 

Something from the ships of Project SEEDS.

You barely stop yourself from blurting something out about his arm. But you can tell he knows you were caught up on it. There’s a certain tightness around his eyes hidden behind those orange glasses of his. But his smile is genuine enough, so you just grin and stick out a hand, offering your name as you do so. 

“Vash here is going to be staying for a few days. We owe him a favor.” Mr. Hawthorne says, and you just nod your head politely. What sort of favor? You had been with the Hawthornes almost their entire marriage!

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Vash says kindly.

“Likewise.” You chirp, and his smile warms. 

Vash ends up staying a lot longer than a few days. 

But you don’t find yourself minding one bit. 

He’s friendly, maybe a bit overly so, and a bit of a pushover when it comes to Mr. Hawthorne asking for help around the farm, but you find yourself liking him more and more. He’s funny, even when not trying to be, and something about him screams to your long-forgotten memories. 

You find out why three months, one day, thirteen minutes, and seven seconds after he shows up.

It’s early in the morning. And you’re sitting out on the front porch of the dilapidated cabin when Vash finds you. You jolt when the screen door opens but relax when he steps out. 

“Mind if I sit?” He asks, and you shake your head, gesturing for him to take a seat. 

“Not at all. It’s not like I’m taking up much space.” You say and he sighs in relief after sitting on the porch swing. You uncross your legs and use one leg to push you slowly back and forth. 

It’s a comfortable sort of silence. One between two comrades even though you were both more acquaintances rather than friends. 

Until Vash spoke. 

“How long have you been here? With the Hawthornes, I mean.” At this, you freeze, and your brain goes blank. You very well couldn’t tell him who you were. What you were. That would get you captured and put in a test tube. 

And you didn’t want that.

You couldn’t have that. 

So you open your mouth to lie when Mrs. Hawthorne bursts out of the house in search of you. 

“There’s something wrong at the Plant facility. We must go now.” She gasps, and you’re on your feet and down the road before anyone can catch you. 

The Plant facility is one of the cleaner buildings in town. The guards let you pass easily because you have been here a million times helping. 

Helping the town stay alive. 

Helping your sisters survive. 

Almost immediately, you’re bathed in a red glow. 

Screaming fills your ears, though no one else can hear it. 

Something has gone horribly wrong.

Your quick step hastens to a sprint until you burst through the main doors to where the Plants are in agony. Scientists flit past the nobs and switches, trying in vain to get things under control. 

But you don’t care about them. 

Your run carries you to the front of the globe where one of the Plants is outstretched, mouth open in agony, and it’s evident to anyone looking that she’s in terrible pain. 

“What did you do?!” You shout, and you can tell from behind you that Vash flinches at the sudden noise. It isn’t often that you yell or scream; in fact, the last time you did it was a meltdown just like this. 

The lead tech doesn’t answer, not until you grab his shoulder and spin him around. He backhands you across the face, and you go tumbling to the floor. Instantly, Vash is at your side and asking if you’re okay. 

But you aren’t.

Not with your sister in such horrible pain. 

“Get away! Get away, you’re hurting her!” You cry out, spitting a glob of blood out from the tech’s slap. You go to grab him again, but he turns with a snarl. 

“You need to back away. The Plant is just being dramatic. We need more power!” He growls back, but that doesn’t stop you from trying. 

You stand, taking a wobbly step toward where the Plant is still reaching for you. Or maybe she’s reaching for Vash. You aren’t sure. 

With shaky hands, you place them on the globe and lean your forehead against it. You feel something deep within you awaken, and there’s a tingling from your scalp down to the tips of your toes. 

A voice speaks behind you, pleading, begging even. But you can’t hear it over the utter pain that washes over you. You nearly stumble backward, but your commitment to helping your sister is more significant than what you can withstand pain-wise. 

Eventually, the light fades to blue, and you fall back with a gasp. Arms wrap around your waist, and you sag to the floor in Vash’s grasp. He’s awestruck, but you have more important things to worry about. 

Because you just revealed your secret to all the Plant technicians in the building. As you look through hazy vision, you realize that the markings that always appear when you touch a Plant are still visible. And when you look up, you realize that Vash has those same markings. 

But that could only mean….

“You’re like me.” You whisper before sinking deep into unconsciousness.

[izzabela]

Ok, here me out! We both love Tomas (sweet cinnamon roll) I was thinking about what would happen if Tomas and the female reader get into an argument and it caused them to distance each other for a bit and it causing the reader to go on a mission for Liu Kang and while the reader is gone longer than planned Tomas starts to worry and lose his patience and decides to go after her?

I'm Sorry - Tomas x fem!reader

in which you and Tomas get into an argument before your mission, and Tomas is a bit antsy to apologize

a/n: Tomas would def be the little brother who always apologizes, whether his fault or not

ship[s]: tomas x fem!reader

warning(s): little angst? pre-kanon story (see what i did there)

get yo ass up, white boy

=====================

The air between you and Tomas could light an explosion if one was not careful.

Though you were not present, away on another mission by Liu Kang, it was clear that the remnants of that strife still followed the European assassin.

He gave harsher punishments to the initiates under his care, prolonged training hours, and he even punished his own losses with starvation and excessive workouts.

It worried his brothers, though it was not evident on their faces. Watching their youngest do this to himself was something that... terrified them to say the least. Ironic, since they were formidable ninjas.

It would all resolve itself, though, since you would be coming back today. Though, the memory of that fight laid in everyone's head.

*********

"Do you not realize how insane you're being right now?" Tomas howled at you as you sat on your shared bed, head turned and arms crossed.

Tomas roughly shut the door of your guys' bedroom, but his brothers were in hot pursuit to make sure nothing would go wrong once you had woken up from the healers.

Their mistake.

"Insane is not finishing the job," you spat back, turning your head. "Was I to come back empty-handed? Disappoint my grandmaster, our lord, our mission?!"

It was a rough mission, but you got some valuable info on a threat against Earthrealm thanks to your superior skills. Though, those very same skills did not protect you from the serious bodily harm you endured. Cut up and battered, you returned home like an abused animal.

"Not when you return home looking as you are now," Tomas pointed out, "You've been blinded to finishing the job, to the point of neglecting your own health!"

You scoffed, "Says you! You can go get healed without a word from me. But when I have to go get it done, it's like I've committed treason!"

From the outside, Kuai Liang and Bi Han gave a point to you for that one. However, Tomas was more experienced, and you had only recently been getting sent on more dangerous and high-stakes missions. Tomas had been doing this for years.

"If you had trained more, you would not be in this position," Tomas sighed. "Perhaps it was my fault for putting your name in too early."

You jaw dropped at this.

"Don't you dare pull this on me, Tomas," you said low as you get out of bed. Sure, your legs and wounds ached, but the adrenaline of your anger was fueling you to heights unknown.

"I'll have you know-"

"Mind your place," Tomas commanded, voice dripping with authority.

Tomas may be a brother to Kuai Liang and Bi Han, a technical inheritor to his clan, but he never felt like it. He often humbled himself by refraining from using any sort of authoritative tone, especially since he began dating you. Yes, he may be kind to his friends, his brothers, you, but he was still second-in-command along side Kuai Liang.

Of course there were times he needed to use his voice- but now wasn't the smartest time.

When Tomas realized what he had done, it was within a blink of an eye that a mean left-hook took him in, and a deadly powerful palm push sent him flying through the door. Tank the elder gods Kuai Liang and Bi Han remained on the side.

"Do not even bother coming back in here," you hissed, water swirling in your eyes as you turned around to go to sleep.

*********

That was but a week ago, now Liu Kang, Kuai Liang, Bi Han, and Tomas wait at the fire temple for you to come through the portal after your mission.

While his brother's remained calm and still-faced, Tomas was a little more antsy and nervous. You had left during your fight, and without proper apologies being made (not saying you did anything wrong). Tomas wanted to fix it immediately, and that would begin as soon as you came through the portal.

Right... now!

As the fires that lit the portal up continued to crackle and burn, any sign of your presence was not found. Liu Kang, focusing all his energy into finding you, could not sense you either.

Strange, since you were very punctual for any of your missions. It was a trademark that earned you the nickname "Dead-line" from the other ninjas.

"She is late," Kuai Liang points the obvious out.

"She must have had a run-in with something, perhaps we should-" Tomas is cut off by Bi Han.

"Under no circumstances will you do such a thing, Tomas. She is capable of this, so she is capable of coming home."

Liu Kang agrees, "I will keep the portal open and watch for her. While punctual is a great aspect, not everyone is immune to a little tardiness."

The brothers bow before heading out, Bi Han and Kuai Liang walking a little behind to watch Tomas. How did they know he was nervous? Well, he walked right in front of them, forgetting the order in which they travelled. And his eyes were also downcast, like clouds blocking the sun.

As well-trained as he is, emotions were naturally human. So, naturally, Tomas couldn't hide these feelings no matter his skills and experience.

"Tomas, all will be well," Kuai Liang tries to soothe his anxiety. He turns around, nodding to his words, but his face looks as if he is not accepting it.

"You will see to it you keep yourself in check," Bi Han scolds, "All will be well, carry on as per usual."

Tomas rolls his eyes as Bi Han strides forward. Kuai Liang just puts a hand on his shoulder and offers a kind smile.

"He means well, let us carry on for her," Kuai says, patting his shoulder before walking to follow his elder brother.

Perhaps tomorrow Tomas thinks.

~~~~~~~~~~

Except tomorrow you don't come, nor the day next, nor the day after.

You were tardy by three days, and as much as Tomas buried himself in training, missions, and some paperwork, he couldn't shake the feeling off that something was wrong- horribly wrong.

So, after dinner with his brothers, he waited until everyone was asleep before sneaking out of the palace to the Fire Temple. Mask and attire on, he calls on a portal to be opened to the temple.

Walking through, he is greeted by Liu Kang and some monks on guard. He bows, and Liu Kang does so to reciprocate, though is skeptical on the smoke ninja's unprecedented appearance.

"Tomas, this is unexpected," Liu Kang notes as he sizes him up.

"Lord Liu Kang, please permit me to go (y/n)," he says, bowing again to further his desperation in finding you. Liu Kang chuckles, telling him to raise his head.

"You love her very deeply, that much is evident," Liu Kang said, pulling out a chi-director from his pocket.

Tomas stares at the device, back at Lord Liu Kang, and then back at the device. He takes the glowing blue compass and bows deeply, revering him in respect before fire pops and cracks, and the portal opens. Tomas runs through the portal and allows the compass to guide him.

As he takes his surroundings in, Tomas realizes he's in the hinterlands of Outworld, and a cold part of Outworld at that. Of course, he was trained to deal with such weather, but being out for this far for this long, you may be on the brink of your doom.

The compass glows in Tomas's hands, and the hand inside spins like a twister gone rogue. Finally, it focuses on a direction southeast, and Tomas trudges in the growing snow of the region.

After following the compass, he was led to a cave in the side of a mountain. Inside, he saw the faint glow of a fire and heard low breathing from within.

As he rounds the inside, he finds you tending to a gash on your shoulder. You have plants with healing qualities by your side and a cloth loosely pulled over the bleeding. Plus your magic was working over the open wound.

"Who goes- Tomas?" your hands were in defensive positions, but they went back to your wound at him in your sight.

"My darling," he sighs, running to your side as he tries to stop the bleeding.

You wince at the force in which he pressed a ripped cloth into your shoulder, but welcome it as your magic was dulling the pain.

"Fancy seeing you here," you say with a sarcastic tone.

"Dear, please," Tomas lightly scolds you, in which you silently allow him to treat you.

It's quiet between both of you, and the only thing to fill the void of quiet was howling of the wind outside.

Tomas begins to stretch the cloth out in little strings, to make a makeshift bandage for your wound. He's staring at your back, and your head is turned to the side as he tends to the horrid wound.

"Usually you aren't this late," he tries to lighten the mood, but it's clear you're not up to the jokes.

Once Tomas wraps your wound perfectly, he moves around to face you, but your head remains away.

Instead of speaking, Tomas wraps you in the warmest, gentlest hug, and your eyes are shining with tears are you inhale his natural musk.

"Thank the elder gods you're alright."

Your shoulders rack in his chest as you cry and wrap a singular arm around him.

"I'm so sorry," you sob as tears begin flow, "I'm so sorry for being so mean, sorry for being so brash, you're rig-."

Tomas shushes you, one hand rubbing your head and the other your back in up and down motions. You cry harder at his tenderness- why wasn't he angry? Why was he so nice?

You literally chucked him out of the bedroom, and he remains kind to you?

"I don't care about that anymore," he whispers. "The minute you didn't come through the portal that day, everything else fell away."

Oh, that's right.

If it weren't for a rogue blade from the enemy, you'd have gotten home earlier.

You wince as the adrenaline begins to wear off, and the pain in your shoulder finally begins to settle in.

Tomas notices, and he chuckles as he sets you down against the wall softly.

"At least you won't be chucking me through doors anytime soon," he laughs as he begins to clean the wound up a bit.

You flinch at the pain, but push through so Tomas can make sure it doesn't get infected.

"I'm sorry, dear," you begin again. "Truly, I'm so sorry for doing that to you all those weeks ago."

Tomas shakes his head as he rubs some healing plants on the wound, "I want to apologize. Using my tone against you like that, especially after such an experience. It was uncalled for, dishonorable for a man."

He wraps the wound up again, holds a hand out to you, and picks you up after you take it.

"Let's get you home, dear," Tomas says as he sweeps you off your feet.

In his arms, you finally collapse and give your eyes a rest from the crying.

The real talk can happen later, you just need Tomas for now.

=====================

no yap notes

see y'all in the next fic!

[spn20fest]

Each week has a suggested theme, but you should also feel free to simply post something about the season that corresponds to the week (i.e. something about s3 during week 3), or honestly just post whatever you want, we won’t stop you.

Tag us with @spn20fest to make sure we see your contribution and we’ll reblog! We appreciate it if you can add some identifying tags as well, but otherwise we’ll do our best to make sure things are categorized properly.

This will get long, so please continue below the cut to see the prompts for each week!

Please join us at our Discord if you'd like to chat about your take on the prompts or the show in general: https://discord.gg/Eaxx3dEXVA

1: May 31 Introductions How'd you start watching the show? What made you first fall in love with it? What was the first episode you saw, which was the first one you loved? How’d you get into the fandom? 

2: June 7 THEN

Posts/fics/meta about pre-series, Stanford era, weechesters and more — what happened before Halloween 2005? What was Castiel doing back then?

3: June 14 The Family Business

Saving people, hunting things: what does the job do to a hunter? What’s it all for? What does it mean to be a hunted thing? What about the society and rules built around it? What are your favorite monster of the week episodes?

4: June 21 Two of Us Against the World

Sam and Dean Winchester appreciation — favorite moments, favorite stories for each of them (or both). What are the most interesting aspects about the Winchester brothers to you?

5: June 28 Agents Beyonce & Z

Castiel and Crowley appreciation — favorite moments, favorite stories for each of them (or both). What are your favorite storylines for them? How do you imagine they got to where they were?

6: July 5 Ship Appreciation

SPN has enough ships to fill an armada — talk about your faves! Write a manifesto, share a rec list, comment on some of your favorite stories, etc.

7: July 12 Legacies

History looms large: talk about John & Mary’s joint legacies, the Winchesters and the Men of Letters, the Campbells and hunting society — all the way down from Cain & Abel. Alternately, what legacies do you think the main characters leave behind? What will people remember about them when they're gone?

8: July 19 Family Don’t End in Blood

Celebrate the tangled web of family and friends accumulated over the years: Bobby, Charlie, Jody, Kevin, Rufus, and more.

9: July 26 Heaven & Hell (& Purgatory)

Time to revel in the big hitter angels and demons and critters that populate the supernatural planes — celebrate archangels and the dukes of hell, or your favorite vampires and ghosts. 

10: August 2 The French Mistake

Supernatural’s fourth wall is so flimsy it might as well not exist. Whether it’s the “Carver Edlund” books, in-universe fanfiction, busting through to Vancouver to film an episode, hanging out with high school girls making a musical, Chuck’s “alternate universes” that give us a glimpse at other realities that might exist — talk about meta madness.

11: August 9 Cast & Crew

The show wouldn’t exist without them! What are your favorite things about the actors, writers, directors, showrunners, and general crew? Any technical work you want to shout out? What other projects that they’re involved with do you love? Favorite interviews or wisdom from Word of God you want to share?

12: August 16 Big Hitters

What’s your favorite overall plot arc? What are your favorite episodes? This is a great time to make top five lists — favorite characters, favorite moments, favorite fics. All the love!

13: August 25 Fandom History

Put on your favorite archeologist outfit and go digging — what are some great moments from the sprawling history of the fandom? Shout out some old Livejournal communities and groups you know about and rec some that are still chugging along; what do you remember about the transition to Tumblr and the move to AO3?; what are some of your favorite fandom creators throughout the years?; or, remember how SPN technically invented a/b/o?

14: August 30 #SPNFamily

Have you been to a convention? Have you made fandom friends along the way? Have you been involved in any charity or volunteer work or Random Acts that you want to share? What are some of the biggest ways the SPN Family has impacted you? 

15: September 6 Carry On

We come to the end. Time to talk about the montage period between 15.19 and the end, post-series, Heaven, new gods, new endings. But does anything ever really end? What do you want to see next? What ideas do you have to keep the love going? 

This week ends on Saturday, September 13: Pilot Day. We hope you look forward to celebrating it with us!

[fernsnailz]

FEB 2025 SHOP INFORMATION/FAQ

i've been getting a lot of questions about the next plans for my shop recently, so i'm gonna go ahead and answer a lot of them here as to update everyone. yay

edit: putting this shit under a readmore. shoulda done that in the first place lmfao 💀💥

WHEN IS YOUR SHOP REOPENING? March 21st at 1:00pm EST!

WILL YOU BE SELLING PHYSICAL COPIES OF BORN TO FAIL? yeah. they'll be on pre-order again. i'll have some b-grades available at a discount too.

ARE YOUR OTHER KEYCHAINS/STANDEES/PREVIOUS THINGS YOU HAD IN YOUR SHOP RETURNING? yes, i haven't retired anything. however, some things will be on pre-order again and other items may be pretty low stock. the band standees in particular are REALLY low, i think i only have one team dark one left.

WILL YOU BE SHIPPING TO MORE COUNTRIES BESIDES JUST THE US AND CANADA? no. i'm really sorry, i know this is something a lot of people want but i cannot expand shipping to more countries right now. i keep shipping limited to the US and Canada to keep the scale of my shop manageable, because my shop is technically a side gig i do on top of freelance storyboard work. additionally, i quite literally cannot offer international shipping to most countries through bigcartel (the service where i host my shop) without having to jump through a million hoops to collect and remit a number of different taxes + tariffs and comply with every country's requirements for international commerce.

the EU and UK are particularly difficult to ship to right now due to the EU's new GPSR (general product safety regulations) and the UK's VAT (value added tax) (which i would be responsible for collecting and remitting since i run an e-commerce site located out of the UK). the short explanation is that even though these are the two main locations people request i expand shipping to, i literally cannot feasibly ship to the EU or UK through my current shop without facing huge legal and tax obligations.

the best way for me to expand international shipping would be to sell stuff through a different shop hosting service that either does the complicated stuff for the seller or places tariff and tax responsibilities on the buyer, but please know that i honestly just do not have the ability or time to do that right now. i'm really sorry again, but i'm not going to be offering shipping to more countries right now.

ARE YOU GONNA HAVE NEW ITEMS? yes. i already have a few things i designed for my last convention that i have yet to sell on my shop, like some bluey and mouthwashing charms.

there's also a bunch of new robot related things i really want to design (transformers stuff, nge things, misc. other robot stuff), but i haven't finished them. this is the main reason why my shop isn't opening for at least another few weeks - i haven't had time to design my self-indulgent robot merch lol

HEY IS THE TARIFF WAR THAT THE US IS WAGING ON CANADA MEXICO AND CHINA GONNA AFFECT YOUR SHOP? yeahhhhhh probably. for those who don't know: i am based in the US, and our stupid idiot shit for brains country recently placed some absolutely insane tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China. this led to all three of those countries implementing their own tariffs on US imports and a "trade battle" breaking out.

the short rundown is that the US' tariffs on Canada and Mexico were put on hold for 30 days, but if this battle continues after that then it will affect anyone in Canada who orders from me. i'll likely still be able to offer shipping to Canada, but if the tariff battle continues then Canadian customers at my shop will be responsible for paying any tariffs Canada imposes on US goods. and since the 10% tariff the US placed on China is still in effect, i might have to raise the prices of my keychains and standees a little bit since that's where i get those from.

ARE YOU GONNA BE TABLING AT ANOTHER CONVENTION ANYTIME SOON? the next convention i have lined up is Animazement (Raleigh NC) in May! i'll be tabling in the artist alley there. hopefully i'll be tabling at a few other events later in 2025, but we'll have to wait and see.

that's all for now! if i get more shop related questions beyond this, i'll probably add them to this post.

[dragqueenstarscream]

shelter from the storm

monsterformers firedrake!optimus x harpy!starscream

my first transformers fanfic and they're not even robots. oh well, c'est la vie! this is the first fanfic for my monsterformers au, featuring my favorite transformers ship out there! it's based on optimus' hike through antarctica from "triangulation", or, as i call it, the starop episode. if you wanna know more about this au, i have the monsterformers au masterpost pinned for all who may be interested.

contains: cuddling for warmth, pre established relationship, mentions of megatron being megatron, starscream having a flashback, no smut

throughout his life, starscream had many things to regret.

he regretted believing megatron's lie that joining the talons of unicron would restore him to his former glory. he regretted leaving his home world at all. he regretted getting cocky and not outright killing the old dragon when he had the chance.

he regretted ever leaving skywarp and thundercracker behind. primus, he regretted that more than anything else.

but now, as he trudged through the hellish blizzard ripping through the snowy wasteland he'd found himself in, his wings wrapped around his body as his only source of warmth, he realized that he'd soon have another regret to add to his ever growing list.

because when he'd found the location of another relic which might help him should megatron ever come searching for him again, he'd been ambushed by megatron's new favorite, dreadwing. the snarling gargoyle had bound him in cuffs and was ready to take him back to megatron before help arrived. but, of course, because the universe seemed to laugh at starscream whenever given the chance, he'd been rescued from being dragged back to his dragon master by another blasted dragon.

well. a firedrake. but the technicalities didn't matter now.

what did matter was that optimus prime, the most powerful voice of primus, a colossus of scales and horns and teeth, terror of the talons of unicron, was currently looming over starscream as he guided the overgrown lizard to the destination of the apex armor. the harpy would rather be anywhere else, with his only comfort being that no drones or homunculi of shockwave's would be dumb enough to attack either of them, not when optimus could easily set them on fire.

fire. the thought of it chilled starscream to his bones.

he'd pleaded with optimus to set him free from his cuffs - he already couldn't fly in this weather, removing his binds wouldn't do much - but someone must've stolen from optimus' hoard earlier that day or something, because he wasn't having it. much to starscream's dismay, the cuffs stayed on. so, that was how the two traveled, starscream navigating towards the armor, optimus right behind him. he tried to fill the silence by talking with optimus, but the dragon, firedrake, it didn't matter to starscream, seemingly wasn't in the mood for conversation. after a few minutes of talking to himself, starscream fell silent.

the snow stretched on endlessly overhead, only broken by mountains pushing up through the snow like giant horns. the black sky seemed never ending, the whirls of snow covering up the starlight which guided starscream's way. and, of course, the air felt blisteringly cold, seeping beneath starscream's feathers and skin to try and freeze his organs.

hours passed, and starscream could feel himself growing weaker by the minute. right as he felt as if his knees might give out beneath him, optimus broke the monotony of the wind whipping around them by growling, "here. this way."

"s-sir?" starscream asked between chatters of his teeth. he turned around to find optimus diverging from their course, making for something starscream couldn't make out in the hellstorm of white. as he came closer, he realized that optimus had found a cave at the base of one of the mountains. the harpy felt relief wash over him at the thought of rest, though it was quickly followed by uncertainty. surely, something else would've found this cave and called it home by now.

optimus stuck his giant head into the cavern and sniffed the air. after a minute, he declared, "the scents in this cave are old. nothing has been here for quite a while."

"a-are you sure, sir?" starscream asked. optimus just snorted and made his way inside.

"we'll rest here for now," he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. starscream grumbled and followed optimus into the cave, not in the mood to argue with someone much bigger (and much grumpier) than himself.

the cave, thankfully, was big enough that they could both fit inside without being pressed up against each other. optimus began sweeping away snowdrifts with his tail, revealing the hard stone underneath. glancing to the stone walls all around him, he gave them one hard whack with his tail, shaking free some loose stones and debris. starscream shrank back beneath his wings, trying to hide from the falling stone. thankfully, optimus seemed satisfied, because he began collecting the fallen stones and arranging them into a circle near the middle of the cave, away from the entrance. starscream watched from a distance, curious.

once optimus had his stone circle complete, he took a step back to examine his handiwork. then, he drew his head back, like a snake about to strike, and opened his mouth.

starscream felt his heart leap into his throat as he saw the smoke furling from the corners of the dragon's mouth and the orange glow from within his open maw. with a terrified shriek, he scrambled backwards and pressed himself against the cave wall, covering his face with his wings. a few moments later, a fireball erupted from optimus' jaws, filling the cave with a flash of white light and searing heat.

for the briefest moment, starscream was back at the gemstone mine, cowering against the rock beneath him, as megatron reared over him, jaws open and ready to breathe a sickly purple fire. he could hear thunderous pawsteps approaching him, and he knew that at any moment, flames would erupt around him, setting his wings ablaze. he had to get out of here, had to fly away. storm be damned, he couldn't stay here with-

"starscream?"

a gravelly voice which definitely didn't belong to megatron disrupted starscream's panicked state. the harpy slowly lowered his trembling wings to see-

this wasn't the mine. and that wasn't megatron.

he was back in the cave in the middle of a snowy desert, with optimus standing in front of him, his head tilted like a confused dog. beside him, a bright orange and yellow, not megatron's unnatural purple, fire crackled in the center of the stone circle.

a fire pit. optimus had been building a fire pit.

you idiot, starscream. getting this worked up over nothing.

"why, you... watch what you're doing, you mindless brute!" the harpy squawked, clambering to his talons. "you could've killed me with that!"

optimus lifted his head just slightly, and his expression shifted, the confusion on his face washing away. starscream gulped. he knew what that face meant.

he knows.

"and anyways, what if i don't want to stay in here, hmm?" he challenged. he would've crossed his arms had his hands not been bound. "you seem very sure that i won't just leave this cave. what makes you think i won't go find the apex armor on my own? you need me to find it. what if i don't want to stop here?"

optimus just watched starscream for a moment, his scaly face still as stone. then, he started making his way over to starscream, making the harpy back up against the wall.

"i am giving you a choice," optimus said. he turned around and plodded over to the fire, laying next to it with his back to the cave wall. starscream's eyes lit up as he realized that not only were his hands now free to move independently, but the entrance to the cave was also open.

"w-what are you doing?" he asked in a shaky voice. optimus didn't respond. instead, he used one claw to lift starscream's bound hands closer to him, and with a single swift movement, snapped the chain keeping the cuffs together, like it was made of twine.

the harpy excitedly made his way to the cave entrance and rushed outside, only for the harsh blizzard wind to furiously buffet his wings, the cold sinking its claws into his skin. starscream felt like a fool as he realized the choice optimus was giving him. he could either venture out to find the apex armor and risk freezing to death, or worse, getting caught by dreadwing again... or he could stay in the cave, where he could rest, stay out of the nasty weather for a while, warm up by the fire, and find protection from optimus should dreadwing return.

even with his intense fear of dragons and their kin, starscream knew which choice he would make.

grumbling under his breath, starscream trudged back into the cave and sat by the fire, making sure to keep his distance from the dragon lying in the cave with him.

firedrake. whatever.

now that he was calm, he had to admit, the fire felt nice. he spread his wings in front of the flames, and he had to bite back a groan of relief as warmth sank into his aching muscles.

"why are you doing this?" he asked after a few minutes of awkward silence. "if you need to find the apex armor so badly, why are we stopping here?"

optimus stared into the fire, and starscream could tell that he was collecting his thoughts. "i have wanted to talk to you for a long time, starscream," he finally said.

"what do you want from me?" starscream asked.

"to talk," optimus repeated. he began tracing odd swirls and shapes into what little snow had settled on the ground as he talked. "your loyalty to megatron has been questionable for quite some time. the fact that you seek the apex armor now that you're not under his command tells me everything i need to know."

"i'm not joining you, if that's what you're asking," starscream snipped. optimus turned to give starscream a slightly frustrated stare, the tip of his tail twitching like that of an irritated cat. his body language said, just let me finish, and starscream got the message loud and clear. he cleared his throat and went quiet, allowing optimus to speak again. he turned to look back into the fire as he continued.

"you and i both know what will happen if megatron ever returns home," he said. "not only will he conquer both this human world and our own, but he will try to remake them in his image." he glanced at starscream and said, "no matter who may stand in his way."

the gentleness in optimus' eyes set starscream on edge. "i don't need your pity," he hissed, his wings bristling. "if that's the only reason you wanted to talk, you can keep it to yourself."

"that's not why i wanted to speak to you," optimus said flatly.

"then spell it out for me!" starscream snapped, his feathers puffing up out of exasperation. "if i wanted to hear someone talk in riddles at me, i would've sought out a sphinx!"

optimus went quiet for a minute, allowing starscream to collect himself. once the harpy had calmed down, optimus continued, "i'm offering you a chance at a new life. i won't lie to you, what i am offering will not be easy. you would be serving as an informant for the voices of primus, gathering intelligence on where the rest of the relics might be."

"you want me to be a spy," starscream huffed.

"correct," optimus said with a nod. starscream humphed and crossed his arms.

"and what's in it for me, if i risk my hide sticking my neck out for you?" he asked, raising an eyebrow in suspicion. at that question, optimus' face shifted, quiet confidence etched into his features.

"if you decide to help us," he said, "then, once this war is over, if we win, we will help you rebuild your home."

home.

starscream's eyes widened. his breath caught in his chest. the word hung heavy in the air like the smoke from the fire before them. the one thing starscream had missed from the moment he'd joined the talons of unicron, and optimus was offering to help him rebuild it.

no, he thought, forcing himself to hide the hope in his eyes. he could be lying to you. don't give in so easily.

"i don't need your help to rebuild my home," he sniffed. "i don't need anyone at all. i can do fine on my own. i did just fine on my own before this war, anyway."

"you'll forgive me if i find that difficult to believe," optimus said. "you must've had someone who cared about you before the war began."

"i did, once," he grunted. with a harsh, hollow laugh, he added, "primus knows where they are. they're probably both dead by now, for all i know."

optimus was right. there was no denying it. starscream felt his heart grow heavy with the memories of his brothers, still fresh as the day he left them.

optimus bowed his head, and to his surprise, starscream saw grief in his pale blue eyes. he reached out one big paw, as if to rest it on starscream's back to comfort him, but stopped and pulled away when he saw starscream lean away from his touch.

"starscream," he said softly, "i promise you that, should you decide to help us, when this war comes to pass, i will do everything in my power to help you find those you have lost."

starscream wanted to laugh. he wanted to ask optimus how dare he come up with such an audacious lie. but as he searched every inch of optimus' face for any sort of tell, any giveaway that he was lying, he couldn't find one. either optimus was a fantastic liar or he meant every word he said.

"why me?" starscream asked, his voice quiet and unsure. "why are you asking me to help you with this?"

"you are megatron's second in command," optimus explained. "you know more about his plans than anyone else in the talons of unicron, partially because you had a hand in some of his works. you would be the ideal choice for a job like this."

"well, at least you're honest," starscream mumbled, pulling his legs up to his chest and resting his head on his knees. he stared into the fire, letting the orange and yellow tongues of light consume his vision.

"and, starscream," optimus said after a moment's quiet, "i know what it's like to lose someone you love in this war. but unlike you, i now know that i can never get him back."

starscream turned to look at optimus, incredulous. he couldn't figure out who optimus was talking about. possibly someone from back home before the war? or did he mean-

"i'll give you some time to think about my offer," optimus said, interrupting starscream's thoughts. "but for now, we need rest. i'll wake you when it's time to get moving again."

unless...

with that, optimus closed his eyes and rested his huge head on his front paws. starscream watched as the big beast's breathing slowed and face relaxed as he started to fall asleep.

the harpy didn't move, still sitting in the same spot. how did optimus expect him to get any sleep in a place like this? the only thing in this stone hovel that was even remotely comfortable would be the snow.

no. no, you're not going to become bedfellows with a beast like him.

it didn't matter that optimus was probably the most comfortable spot for starscream to rest his head. he was still optimus, the foremost voice of primus, not to mention he was close enough to a dragon for starscream to want to keep his distance. no, he refused to entertain the thought any further. he could sleep just fine on his own, thank you very much. he backed up against the cave wall and wrapped his wings and tail around himself before closing his eyes, determined to get some rest.

five minutes passed, then ten, then fifteen. sleep evaded starscream, no matter how he reconfigured his body to make himself more comfortable. in his sleep deprived state, he weighed his options, few as they were, and came to as logical of a conclusion as his drowsiness addled brain could muster.

one time won't hurt, but just this once. and you speak to no one about this.

setting his pride aside for the sake of sleep, starscream got up and walked over to optimus, sitting in front of him. he turned over onto his side and started to lay his head down on optimus' ribs, when he looked up and found himself staring right into one open blue eye. he let out an embarrassing squawk and stood straight up, afraid that optimus might swat him into the fire with his tail for being annoying.

if optimus was annoyed with starscream in any capacity, he didn't show it. instead, he slowly rolled over onto his side, exposing his underbelly. starscream couldn't believe his eyes. no monster in their right mind would ever expose their most vulnerable side to an enemy, unless...

he believes i won't hurt him.

and to starscream's surprise, he had no desire to. in that moment, he had every opportunity to gain the upper hand over the voices of primus, to plunge his talons into optimus' stomach, tear him open, and leave him to bleed to death right there. he could send the voices of primus plunging into darkness, and maybe even return to his seat of power at megatron's side.

but he didn't want to. not after optimus had offered him home, offered to help him find skywarp and thundercracker. he still wasn't entirely sure about this offer, but it was better than going back to megatron.

no, he didn't want to hurt optimus. right now, all he wanted to do was sleep.

starscream knew that a dragon's underbelly was the weakest part of their body. it was valuable knowledge to keep in one's back pocket when living under the rule of a dragon like megatron. this seemed to apply to optimus as well, for when starscream experimentally rested a hand on optimus' belly, he felt not diamond hard armor, but smooth, almost leathery scales, its softness only marred by raised, puffy battle scars. when he finally laid down on optimus' belly, he could feel the warmth emanating from deep inside him, the perpetual dragonfire burning within. starscream couldn't help himself as he groaned softly in satisfaction, both from being surrounded by warmth and having a comfortable surface to sleep on.

he finally rested his head on optimus' side, and with his ear pressed to his chest, he could hear the slow, steady rhythm of optimus' strong heartbeat, and he felt the gentle rise and fall of his broad chest. in a bizarre way, starscream found it soothing.

hearing a dragging sound behind him, starscream turned his head to see optimus had moved his tail so it was curled up against his body. then, as if it had a mind of its own, it raised up and slowly wound around starscream's midsection. its grip wasn't constricting like a giant snake, as starscream had anticipated it might feel. rather, it felt more like a very strange, yet comforting one armed hug. starscream reached out to touch it, then looked back up at optimus, who was still watching him expectantly. he made no move to stop the harpy as he wrapped one arm around optimus' thick tail and squeezed gently, as if to silently thank him.

that seemed to satisfy optimus. he closed his eyes and let his heavy head rest on the stone floor. it might've been a trick of the flickering firelight, but starscream could've sworn that for less than a second, he saw a small smile on optimus' scaly face.

starscream took one last glance past the fire to look out of the cave entrance. truth be told, he had no idea how he'd let himself get here. one moment, he'd been hunting for the apex armor, with a certain gargoyle hot on his tail. he'd never imagined that, at the end of the day, he'd find himself huddled up next to optimus fragging prime in the middle of a mountain cave, but sometimes, truth was stranger than fiction.

at least things were now looking up. at least he knew another path he could take.

starscream smiled in disbelief and shook his head. his past self wouldn't be caught dead in a situation like this. once he'd realized just how megatron had deceived him, he'd sworn that he would never trust a dragon again.

but, as he reasoned, optimus was a firedrake, not a dragon. he didn't count.

with exhaustion weighing heavily on his body and mind, starscream closed his eyes and fell asleep, uneasy yet hopeful for what the future would bring.

i've never written fic for these two before, so i hope i didn't mangle their characters too badly lmao. hopefully i'll write more for them in the future!

[verdantwyrm]

Went back in and decided to have another look around.. is there any reason why Curly's quarters has a door with a lock on it? At first I had thought it was just an oversight since you're not supposed to see past the door, but everything in this game so far has been eerily intentional, that this simply can't just be an oversight. I'm not going crazy, am I?

And there really isn't any other doors of this exact type that we're not-supposed-to-see-behind to reference it too, as this is the only one that is technically inaccessible to us. (Maybe they had plans but scrapped it?)

It also begs the question of how Curly refers to it as such, My quarters. Not our or the quarters. His. We know very little about the sleeping arrangements around the ship beyond them not having locks on them, if they're separated at all by gender or if they're individual rooms. If they are individual rooms, then they probably might only have four rooms to account for the four members, which could mean that Daisuke doesn't have his own room or someone had to give up theirs for him. (Unlikely)

If they're separated by gender, then Anya would be sleeping all on her own in a large room. Which adds its own terrible implications considering what Jimmy did to her in a very empty, very lonely room.

But Curly's quarters seem to have a lock, and why is Curly's quarters the only one you can see and even interact with anyways? And wouldn't he mention this to Anya when she asks about the lack of locks on the quarters?

We can see the door pre-crash and we know based on Jimmy's post-crash dialogue that the showers are beyond the sealant foam and then stopping them all from showering. So is that where the other quarters could be? The layout of the ship confuses me, and I have absolutely no idea why Curly's quarters are so far away, right outside of the lounge room, and separated from the rest.

[tide-locked]

ok, you know what, fuck it, fic recs post. historically i try not to rec works in progress or things i haven't commented on and i'm throwing that fully out the window for this because honestly, fucking whatever.

if you're on this list and i haven't been fully unhinged at you in the comments, please know that it's because (1) i'm the worst and (2) i'm trying desperately to calibrate so i hit 'enthusiastic' and not 'kind of frightening, actually'. i swear that i have written at least several sentences of a comment for every fic on this list, it's just that i'm genuinely impossibly slow, sometimes. it's me, not you.

my previous rec post is here, in case you missed that. as a bonus, special for this rec list and as a concession to the horrors, i am attempting to guess how much any given fic will fuck up the average person. obviously this is a ymmv kind of situation, but i'm trying, at least?

everything else under a cut because i am longwinded.

and found by @dangerouscommiesubversive, explicit, every possible combination of di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua | li xiangyi; bless, but i am not typing all that out. starting off with a wip where i haven't left a comment in like four fuckin' chapters, breaking those rules real good. this fic is a fucking ride. i will admit that i wasn't entirely convinced by the premise when i saw the blurb, but i am nothing if not willing to admit when i was wrong, and i was—once again—totally wrong. this is the fic where i was like 'ok but…is anyone really, like, desperate for gen z li xiangyi?' and then i read it and i was like 'ohhhhhh fuck yeah, ok, i get it, i was actually fully desperate for gen z li xiangyi.' he is. such a little prick. i love him. there has been something unexpected and delightful in every single chapter of this so far, plus a number of impressively memorable one-liners. this fic is fun and distracting and at least as of chapter seven, i'm gonna say it's not even gonna fuck you up. (please note that this is only through chapter seven!)

and the days are bright red by @junemermaid, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. rip to my beloved tumblr mutual @junemermaid, because they're getting called out twice in this list, but: tough. this fic is so delightful. featuring: memories of slut era li lianhua, the mortifying ordeal of being known, an entire box of historically accurate sex toys, fang duobing and di feisheng communicating (sometimes silently) in a way that unsettles li lianhua (back from his months-long sojourn), some very hot sex that is both very much about sex and also about trust and being perceived, casual intimacy, and fledgling tenderness. there are Emotions in this, and they get moderately intense, but it's a very kind and surprisingly gentle feel-good fic.

a drink under a clear window by @momosandlemonsoda, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing and fang duobing/qiao wanmian. a fic that tackles the dreaded v-shaped polycule and makes it work. it seems like perhaps it shouldn't: fang duobing as the hinge, with di feisheng and qiao wanmian on either side, but actually it works perfectly, and is a lovely little glimpse at who they could become and the relationships they could have. i love the thought of qiao wanmian having come into her own as a leader in her own right, as more than just the representative of the ghost of li xiangyi, and this does a wonderful job of letting her be her own person. also, yes, ok, passing fang duobing back and forth like a party favour. this is a post-canon fic in which li lianhua is dead, but the fic itself a straightforward delight that is not at all fucky uppy.

the floating clouds, no resting place, again by @junemermaid (not sorry), technically gen and no ship, but functionally pre-di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. the hair-washing fic. ohhhhhh. i started jotting notes for this post the day that i finished this fic, and i really thought that they were in any way comprehensive, but instead, what i typed and left as a note to myself was this:

and honestly. you're right, hypothetical reader, that doesn't totally make sense, but i stand by it regardless, because i apparently had that thought in [checks date i last saved the file] fucking august, and i'm still nodding along with myself. that is that this is like. this fic is very beautiful and will make you ache and will leave you slightly better at the end of it than you were at the beginning. it may also make you cry; this seems to me a fair enough trade.

the floating lotus by @anndramarama, not rated, di feisheng/li xiangyi. pre-canon stuff doesn't always work super well for me, but i really enjoyed this one, featuring di feisheng and li xiangyi when they're both so young and arrogant and full of themselves—and stupid and naïve and young and almost hopeful in a way that they're often not, in fic, for all that they were barely but children at the point of the donghai fight. they just seem…vulnerable, i guess, in this, in a way that i find touching. seasonal bonus: a ghost story, of a sort. given that this is set pre-canon, i think it's hard to come in any softer than bittersweet, which this very much is.

from here one's hand could pluck the stars by @howlingmoonrise, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing. sex pollen fic! also featuring, a little surprisingly, given the premise, incredibly explicit and enthusiastic consent. look, this does what it says on the tin. di feisheng gets sex pollened. fang duobing is left to stay with him. the obvious ensues. unfortunately, it is also devastatingly charming? fang duobing is earnest and sweet; di feisheng is suffering beautifully terribly and trying so hard not to impose on fang duobing. they're both trying so hard to be respectful of what the other person needs, but they're also still bratty and argumentative and exasperated/exasperating, and it's very entertaining. this will fuck you up none percent, and may even make you laugh.

my war is done by @orchisailsa, explicit, di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. another wip, with the first of three chapters posted, but please understand that this chapter is nearly 15k and so fucking good and compelling. li lianhua lives! and returns to find that things have changed in his absence, and perhaps that he has also changed in his absence, and now wants things that he had told himself he didn't mind not even having to lose. bonus: road trip and—delight!—only one room at the inn. also some other stuff that i'm not spoiling, but that made me absolutely gleeful. this is definitely a work in progress, and while i don't think there's anything particularly upsetting in the chapter, it does end on something of a cliffhanger. i personally do not feel that this is an upsetting cliffhanger, given the information about the fic that's presented in the tags, but it is technically a cliffhanger.

awkward paragraph break, but it's also important, i think, to mention the absolutely stunning (and not at all safe for work) companion piece to my war is done, you'd be there calling my name, by saki the cup bearer, who i don't think is on tumblr. it's fucking incredible; i am very decidedly not an artist but i cannot begin to imagine how much effort went into this. just. holy shit.

not unlike him in shape and form by @philologicalbat, explicit, fang duobing/li lianhua. ok look. i fucking love when things are deeply emotionally messy, and this is so emotionally messy. li lianhua who's been attracted to fang duobing and not doing anything about it, then discovering that fang duobing is shan gudao's son and is very much going to do something about it. he wants in this, and he's cunty and manipulative and mean about it, and sometimes also almost sweet, almost tender, and i love that, because i feel like li lianhua is very often an object of desire and very rarely gets to desire. i love how human he gets to be in this fic. this is not a sweet or gentle fic, but it does end in a moderately tender place that is tentatively hopeful, i think.

unbecoming heir by @bettercostume, explicit, di feisheng/princess zhaoling. i am taking your hand in mine and begging you to trust me. i know what this fic looks like. it's noncon and a weird pairing and you might look at it and expect it to go in the obvious direction and: it does not. this fic is so good that it makes me angry. it makes me miserable and everyone in this fic is trying so miserably, miserably hard, and it's fucking devastating. i spent literally thirty minutes earlier today yelling at my wife about it. i cannot rec this fic strongly enough. this is not a happy fic, but it is a good fic. it will absolutely fuck you up. this is very complimentary but also you will be fucked up.

until you are its primary evidence by @ilgaksu, mature, di feisheng/fang duobing/li lianhua. the single most effective use of what is effectively a prologue that i've ever seen in fic, are you kidding me. this fic is nothing at all like what i expected it to be, and is something far better than what i could have imagined. it's fang duobing's point of view, which is a rarity already, and it's so well done, and it allows him so much humanity and so much anger and grace alike. there are so many tricky things about this fic—the prologue, the fact that it's set in the amnesia arc, fang duobing's pov, the fact that it actually addresses canonical disabilities and illnesses without being fucking weird about it, the tension between the three of them—and it's all balanced so well. this has some emotionally heavier moments but ends tentatively happily; tentative only because it's set during the amnesia arc, and, well. we know what comes next.

as a final note: if you wrote one of these fics and feel that i've wildly misinterpreted the emotional tenor of the ending, please message me in whatever way you prefer and i will correct it. i would not normally presume to guess how things are likely hit people, as i am in many ways not anyone's ideal reader, but today it seemed like it was kinder to at least try.

[musicalmoritz]

TBHK Mischaracterization

Imo the leading cause behind mischaracterization in the TBHK fandom is that most fans either don’t understand the characters or they dislike them, so they subconsciously rewrite the story to fit their narrative. I don’t have as much of a problem with this when fans are upfront about it, if I don’t like it I just ignore it; but many fans don’t even realize they’re doing it

This type of rewriting is further allowed by the fact that the fanon TBHK characters don’t look like stereotypical fanon tropes. Fanon Kou isn’t an abusive womanizer, he’s a helpless puppy who can do no wrong. They can get away with that because technically that characterization is drawn from canon, Kou is a very kind person and a gentleman. But they run with those two traits until he loses all of the agency and nuance that he has in canon

Similarly, fanon Mitsuba isn’t an uwu soft boy who needs Kou’s help to tie his shoe. He’s a grumpy edgelord that goes out of his way to be rude to people. This is pulled from him having no filter in canon, but that’s where they end his characterization. They take away all of the softness that makes his character so unique. If someone said Mitsuba is the type to cry when his boyfriend ignores him, many fans would probably call that ooc, despite the fact that it’s canon. Because they don’t want to admit that Mitsuba is emotional, or that Kou is mean to a lot of people

To give the fandom the benefit of the doubt, I do think this comes from a fear of going in the opposite direction with fanon. They don’t want to turn Mitsukou into fanon Baku//Deku, so their solution is to swap the roles and make Mitsuba the fanon Bakugou and Kou the fanon Deku. Those should not be our only two options. We should be able to talk about these characters without reducing them to tropes

This goes for all the characters, they’re mischaracterized to be more digestible. Fans don’t have to put any work into analyzing Akane’s character if they reduce him to a creep. They don’t have to think too deeply about the Minamoto’s home life if they make Teru out to be an abuser. They don’t have to wrap their heads around a female character having an unlikable personality if they limit her to one half of a wlw ship. And so on, and so forth

I will also say that since romance is such a major part of TBHK, you’re going to have to put extra work into maintaining accurate characterization for fanon ships. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy fanon ships, I’m like the biggest multishipper ever, but when you’re writing them keep in mind that you’re removing love stories that are integral to a character’s arc and development. They can still be kept in character but try to imagine what they would be like if they didn’t have that development, or if the development happened differently

For instance, if Kou never fell in love with Mitsuba, he never would have learned how to be selfish. He wouldn’t know what it feels like to be relied on, and a lot of his significant character flaws would be erased. So how does that play out if he falls for Hanako or Nene instead? Does he have a similar arc or do things go a little differently? What problems would arise within those relationships that we don’t see with Mitsukou?? If you’re writing them pre-Mitsuba arc then you won’t run into as many problems, but after that Kou falling for someone else would change things up a bit. Just like Hanako and Nene falling for other people would majorly change the direction of the story. It can be done, but do it carefully

A lot of the time with fanon pairings I see fans just sort of try to copy and paste the dynamic of the canon ships. With Aoinene, I’ve seen people write Nene to be the only one who understands Aoi. That removes all of Aoi and Nene’s canon conflict and turns them into wlw AoiAoi. Let ships have their own dynamics and conflict!!

That’s not to say canon ships don’t require any effort for characterization ofc, I did start this off talking about how Mitsuba and Kou are mischaracterized by Mitsukou shippers. They just have an easier start because Kou and Mitsuba being in love with each other already maintains a prominent element of canon. It changes nothing about the direction of the story the way a fanon pairing would. Keep in mind tho, just because that one element remains close to canon doesn’t mean everything else is gonna go right. I see fans butcher the canon ships all the time lol

I obviously give more leeway to AUs but like, guys. Can we please sit down and read the manga😭

[gilly-moon]

ROTG ship discourse is so insanely funny to me because they’re all morally wrong in some way either because of age difference, beastiality, or technical necrophilia 💀🤣

(Ok but the “I know Jack is over 300 but mentally he’s 17?” What????? That’s not how that works!!)

listen. everyone has a right to think age gaps of any sort are uncomfortable. whether it's blackice, or Twilight, or two legal consenting adults. you can think belle falling in love with beast pre-transformation is gross, or maybe furry porn makes you wicked uncomfortable. i don't care! everyone has a right to their squicks!

but demanding that everyone else share your dislikes is, frankly, stupid. as is treating fiction as anything but fiction.

if people want to think im morally reprehensible for what i ship, then cool. (they're wrong, but that's its own battle for another day.) all i ask is for those people to either walk away from my blog in silence or add me to their blocklist.

[elainsgirl]

Honey, e*riel has nothing like feysand or nessian. No threads connecting them like elucien. No musical connotations. They are all the same bonds but e*riel has no similarity and that’s. Not. Good. E*riels seem to think e*riel was always sjm’s plan and that’s clearly not true. Moriel was first, and sjm decided to copy moriel and e*riel for a reason.

The girls aren’t actually interested in him romantically and Azriel cares more about the bond than who it’s actually with. That’s why his shadows do the same thing with both girlies. 

Because the connections will amount to nothing in the end. 

Sjm decided to give him a special dynamic with a new girl. And the tension between Elain and Lucien is bound to snap because THAT is what’s been building for multiple books. 

The bonus was sjm’s way of saying Elain isn’t Azriel’s mate because his mate is legit living right under him and that’s probably why he’s so restless.

Sorry. 

*thread anon. Elucien have a single thread connecting them tied to Elains rib, which isnt the same as Nessian/Feysand.

Just racking my brain - What musical connections did Nessian have pre-acosf? also…book of breathings, “sing me” which is in reference to elriel so technically they do have foreshadowed musical imagery.

Well, I have never thought Elriel was alwys Sjms plan and I’ve been clear about that. It went from Moriel & Elucien being endgame -> elriel, Vassien and moriel.

Idk anon, Elain literally pivoted into Azriels touch. Gave him offer and permission, “put it on me?”. She actually observed and paid attention to him and got two gifts that has made him laugh, one he stares at every single night. That is the definition of romantic interest. Which you wouldn’t know about since your ships dont have such a thing, maybe stop projecting? Unlike Mor, Elain didnt reject Azriel.

lets apply a bit of logic - Stay with me now…If Az cares about the bond so much why on earth has he falled for someone who he cannot have a bond with? Doesn’t make sense, does it now? If he cared about having a mate so much, he would still be into Mor who he has a chance of being his mate.

Or hear me out - His shadows which are simply a safety mechanism, there to protect him - trust Elain so much they know they don’t have to protect Az around her or be there. When Az feels good emotions -> shadow lightens. Negative emotions-> shadows darken. Its quite simple really.

what special dynamic? What is so unique about Gwyn that makes her stand out from Azriels other Lis? The same Gwyn he wouldnt consider a friend, the same woman he left for 2 years without visiting once.

Yh the only tension between elucien is awkwardness. And it isn’t “snapping” anytime soon bcs there isn’t build up for it. When they’re on the same page together, it isn’t a “oooh will they wont they…ommmggg they brushed hands…ahhh they had prolonged eye contact!!!” Sort of tension more like a “im going to skip this part bcs its so embarrassing and awkward to read”

that’s embarrassing for Gwyn, her mate is upstairs fantasising about another woman. Whilst Gwyn isn’t even on his mind….yikes