#and also my need to theologize everything

[lemonduckisnowawake]

You know, it's a tragedy that there are no (or very little) Vampire x Christian stories out there, not for angst or theology or forbidden seductiveness or whatnot but for the sheer comedy of it all. I mean, the Christian would technically be immune to all of the vampire's shenanigans, like for example...

Vampire: Fool, I am the most powerful vampire in the West. Nothing but the force of an entire holy temple could even deign to scratch me Christian: Idiot, I AM a holy temple. 1 Corinthians 6:19, fear me and the Spirit inside that can burn you to ashes

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[moonmoonthecrabking]

“does Jesus have a political agenda” i see the sexist theobros are going to be insufferable this week

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Insatiable Hunger

It's been some years since I did my overhaul on the lore of the gnolls and how they embody the weird de/humanization that goes on with various monsters over d&d's history. Ever since I've had more than a few folks write in asking about how I would handle the default Gnoll God Yeenoghu, who exists in a similar state of "Kill everything that ever existed" to Orcus and a good portion of the game's other late game threats, thematically flat and not really useful for building stories around.

For a while I've avoided doing this post because I thought it might skew a little too close to my personal philosophy, and risk going from simply being influenced by my views to an outright soapbox. I personally hold that despite being part of our nature hunger is the source of the majority of human cruelty, and if society and cooperation are the tools we developed to best fight against the threat of famine, it is fear of that famine that allows the powerful to control society and secure their positions of privilege.

I've also dealt with disordered eating in a prior period of my life, alternating between neglecting my body's needs and punishing myself for needing in the first place. I'm well acquainted with hunger and the hollowing effect it can have, though I'd never claim to know it so well as someone who went hungry by anything other than choice and self hatred.

Learning to love food again saved saved my life. The joy of eating, of feeling whole and nourished, yes, but there was also the joy of making: of experimenting, improving, providing, being connected to a great tradition of cultivation which has guided our entire species.

If I was going to talk about an evil god of hunger, I was going to have to touch on all of that, and now that it's out in the open I can continue with a more thematic and narrative discussion on the beast of butchery below the cut.

What's wrong: Going by the default lore, there's not much that really separates Yeenoghu from any other chaotic evil mega-boss. He wants to kill everything in vicious ways, and encourages his followers to do the same. He's there so that the evil clerics can have someone to pray to because the objectively good gods are on the party's side and wouldn't help a bunch of cannibalistic slavers.

This is boring, we've done this song and dance before, and the only reason that there are so many demon lords/evil gods/archdevils like this is because the bioessentialism baked into the older editions of the game's lore was also a theological essentialism, and that every group had to have their own gods which perfectly embodied their ethos and there was no crossover whatsoever, themes be damned.

Normally I'd do a whole section about "what can be salvaged" from an old concept, but we're scraping the bottom of the barrel right from the inset. Likewise my trick of combining multiple bits of underwritten d&d mythology to make a sturdier concept isn't going to work as most of d&d's other gods of hunger or famine are similar levels of paper thin.

How do we fix it: I want Yeenoghu to be the opposite of the path I found myself on, a hunger so great and so painful that it percludes happiness, cooperation, or even rational thought. Hunger not as a sumptuous hedonistic gluttony but a hollowing emptiness that compels violence and desperation. More than just psychopathic slaughter and gore, it is becalmed sailors drinking seawater to quench their thirst, the urban poor mixing sawdust and plaster into their food because their wages are not enough to afford grain.

This is where we get the idea of Yeenoghu as an enemy of society, not because violence is antithical to society ( I think we've learned by now how structured violence can really be) but because society fundamentally breaks down when it can't take care of the people who provide its foundations. Contrast the Beast of Butchery with one of my other favourite villainous famine spirits: Caracalla the grim trader, who embodies scarcity as a form of profit and control in to Yeenoghu's scarcity as suffering.

Into this we can also add the idea of the hungry dead, ghouls yes but also vampires, anything cursed with an eternal existence and appetites it no longer has the ability to sate. A large number of cultures across the world share the idea that the dead cannot rest while they are starving, which is why we leave offerings of food by their graves or pour out a glass to the ones we lost along the way.

On that topic, there's also a scrap of lore involving Doresain god of ghouls, who has been depicted as an on and off servant of Yeenoghu. Since I'm already remaking the mythology, I'd have Doresain act as a sort of saint or herald for the demon lord, the wicked but still partially reasonable entity who can villain monolog before the feral and all consuming demon god shows up.

Summing it all up: Yeenoghu isn't a demon you wittingly worship, it's a demon that claims you, marks you as its mouthpiece and through you seeks to consume more of the world. It gives you just enough strength to keep on living, keep on suffering, keep on filling that hole in your belly and feed it in turn.

The greatest of these mouthpieces is Doresain, an elf of ancient times who's unearthly hungers elevated him to demigod status. Known as the knawbone king, he dwells within a dread domain of the shadowfell, and is sought out only for his ability to intercede with the maw-fiend's rampages.

Signs: Unnaturally persistent hunger pangs, excessive drool and gurgling stomach noises, the growth of extra teeth in the mouth, stomachs splitting open into mouths.

Symbols: An animal with three jaws, a three tailed flail or spiked whip. A crown of knawed bones (Doresain)

Titles: Beast of butchery, the maw fiend, the knawing god

Artist

[room-surprise]

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES IN DUNGEON MESHI: INDIAN PHILOSOPHY

(SPOILERS FOR DUNGEON MESHI BELOW)

We know that Ryoko Kui spent considerable time at the beginning of working on Dungeon Meshi doing research and planning the series. Kui constantly references real world culture, history and mythology, but she also occasionally references real-world philosophy.

The story of Dungeon Meshi is full of philosophical questions about the joy and privilege of being alive, the inevitability of death and loss, the importance of taking care of yourself and your loved ones, and the purpose and true nature of desire. Kui explores these issues through the plot, the characters, and even the fundamental building blocks that make up her fictional fantasy world. Though it’s impossible to say without Kui making a statement on the issue, I believe Dungeon Meshi reflects many elements of ancient Indian philosophy and religion.

It’s possible that Kui just finds these ideas interesting to write about, but doesn’t have any personal affiliation with either religion, however I would not be at all surprised if I learned that Kui is a Buddhist, or has personal experience with Buddhism, since it’s one of the major religions in Japan.

I could write many essays trying to explain these extremely complex concepts, and I know that my understanding of them is imperfect, but I’ll do my best to explain them in as simple a way as possible to illustrate how these ideas may have influenced Kui’s work.

HINDUISM

Hinduism is the third-largest religion in the world and originates in India. The term Hinduism is a huge umbrella that encompasses many diverse systems of thought, but they have some shared theological elements, and share many ancient texts and myths.

According to Classical Hindu belief, there are four core goals in human life, and they are the pursuit of dharma, artha, kama, and moksha.

Dharma is the natural order of the universe, and also one’s obligation to carry out their part in it. It is the pursuit and execution of one’s inherent nature and true calling, playing one’s role in the cosmic order.

Artha is the resources needed for an individual’s material well-being. A central premise of Hindu philosophy is that every person should live a joyous, pleasurable and fulfilling life, where every person's needs are acknowledged and fulfilled. A person's needs can only be fulfilled when sufficient means are available.

Kama is sensory, emotional, and aesthetic pleasure. Often misinterpreted to only mean “sexual desire”, kama is any kind of enjoyment derived from one or more of the five senses, including things like having sex, eating, listening to music, or admiring a painting. The pursuit of kama is considered an essential part of healthy human life, as long as it is in balance with the pursuit of the three other goals.

Moksha is peace, release, nirvana, and ultimate enlightenment. Moksha is freedom from ignorance through self-knowledge and true understanding of the universe, and the end of the inevitable suffering caused by the struggle of being alive. When one has reached true enlightenment, has nothing more to learn or understand about the universe, and has let go of all earthly desires, they have attained moksha, and they will not be reborn again. In Hinduism’s ancient texts, moksha is seen as achievable through the same techniques used to practice dharma, for example self-reflection and self-control. Moksha is sometimes described as self-discipline that is so perfect that it becomes unconscious behavior.

The core conflict of Hinduism is the eternal struggle between the material and immaterial world. It is often said that all of the material world is “an illusion,” and what this means is that all good and bad things will inevitably end, because the material world is finite. On the one hand, this is sad, because everything good in life will one day cease to exist, but on the other hand, this is reassuring, because all of the bad things will eventually end as well, and if one can accept this, they will be at peace.

The central debate of Hinduism is, which is more important: Satisfying your needs as a living thing, having a good life as a productive member of society, serving yourself, your family, and the world by participating in it the way nature intended? Or is it rejecting desire and attachment, discovering the true nature of existence, realizing the impermanence of material things, and that one can only escape the suffering that comes from the struggle of life by accepting that death and loss are inevitable?

There is no set answer to this question, and most believers of Hinduism tend to strike a balance between the two extremes simply because that’s what happens when a person leads a normal, average life, however there are also those who believe that pursuing extremes will lead to ultimate enlightenment and final release as well.

BUDDHISM

Buddhism is an Indian religion and philosophical tradition that originated in the 5th century BCE, based on teachings attributed to religious teacher the Buddha. It is the world's fourth-largest religion and though it began in India, it has spread throughout all of Asia and has played a major role in Asian culture and spirituality, eventually spreading to the West beginning in the 20th century.

Buddhism is partially derived from the same worldview and philosophical belief system as Hinduism, and the main difference is that the Buddha taught that there is a “middle way” that all people should strive to attain, and that the excesses of asceticism (total self-denial) or hedonism (total self-indulgence) practiced by some Hindus could not lead a person to moksha/enlightenment/release from suffering.

Buddhism teaches that the primary source of suffering in life is caused by misperception or ignorance of two truths; nothing is permanent, and there is no individual self.

Buddhists believe that dukkha (suffering) is an innate characteristic of life, and it is manifested in trying to “have” or “keep” things, due to fear of loss and suffering. Dukkha is caused by desire. Dukkha can be ended by ceasing to feel desire through achieving enlightenment and understanding that everything is a temporary illusion.

There are many, many other differences between Hinduism and Buddhism, but these elements are the ones that I think are most relevant to Kui’s work.

Extreme hedonism involves seeking sensual pleasure without any limits. This could just be indulging in what people would consider “normal” pleasures, like food, sex, drugs and the arts, but it can also involve doing things which are considered socially repugnant, either literally or by taking part in symbolic rituals that represent these acts. Some examples are holding religious meetings in forbidden places, consuming forbidden substances (including human flesh), using human bones as tools, or engaging in sex with partners who are considered socially unacceptable (unclean, wrong gender, too young, too old, related to the practitioner). Again, these acts may be done literally or symbolically.

Extreme ascetic practices involve anything that torments the physical body, and some examples are meditation without breathing, the total suppression of bodily movement, refusing to lay down, tearing out the hair, going naked, wearing rough and painful clothing, laying on a mat of thorns, or starving oneself.

HOW THIS CONNECTS TO DUNGEON MESHI

Kui’s most emphasized message in Dungeon Meshi is that being alive is a fleeting, temporary experience that once lost, cannot truly be regained, and is therefore precious in its rarity. Kui also tells us that to be alive means to desire things, that one cannot exist without the other, that desire is essential for life. This reflects the four core goals of human life in Hinduism and Buddhism, but also could be a criticism of some aspects of these philosophies.

I think Kui’s story shows the logical functionality of the four core goals: only characters who properly take care of themselves, and who accept the risk of suffering are able to thrive and experience joy. I think Kui agrees with the Buddhist stance that neither extreme hedonism nor extreme self-denial can lead to enlightenment and ultimate bliss… But I also think that Kui may be saying that ultimate bliss is an illusion, and that the greatest bliss can only be found while a person is still alive, experiencing both loss and desire as a living being.

Kui tells us living things should strive to remain alive, no matter how difficult living may be sometimes, because taking part in life is inherently valuable. All joy and happiness comes from being alive and sharing that precious, limited life with the people around you, and knowing that happiness is finite and must be savored.

Dungeon Meshi tells us souls exist, but never tells us where they go or what happens after death. I think this is very intentional, because Kui doesn’t want readers to think that the characters can just give up and be happy in their next life, or in an afterlife.

There is resurrection in Dungeon Meshi, but thematically there are really no true “second chances.” Although in-universe society views revival as an unambiguous good and moral imperative, Kui repeatedly reminds us of its unnatural and dangerous nature. Although reviving Falin is a central goal of the story, it is only when Laios and Marcille are able to let go of her that the revival finally works… And after the manga’s ending, Kui tells us Falin leaves Laios and Marcille behind to travel the world alone, which essentially makes her dead to them anyway, since she is absent from their lives.

At the same time, Kui tells us that trying to prevent death, or avoid all suffering and loss is a foolish quest that will never end in happiness, because loss and suffering are inevitable and must someday be endured as part of the cycle of life. Happiness cannot exist without suffering, just like the joy of eating requires the existence of hunger, and even starvation.

Kui equates eating with desire itself, using it as a metaphor to describe anything a living creature might want, Kui also views the literal act of eating as the deepest, most fundamental desire of a living thing, the desire that all other desires are built on top of. If a living thing doesn’t eat, it will not have the energy necessary to engage with any other part of life. Toshiro, Mithrun, and Kabru are all examples of this in the story: They don’t take care of themselves and they actively avoid eating, and as a result they suffer from weakness, and struggle to realize their other desires.

Kui suggests that the key difference between being alive or dead is whether or not someone experiences desire. If you are alive, even if you feel empty and cannot identify your desires like Mithrun, you still have desires because you would be dead without them. The living body desires to breathe, to eat, to sleep, even if a person has become numb, or rejected those desires either to punish themselves, or out of a lack of self-love.

Sometimes, we have to do things which are painful and unpleasant, in order to enjoy the good things that make us happy. I believe Kui is telling us that giving up, falling into despair, and refusing to participate in life is not a viable solution either.

The demon only learns to experience desire by entering into and existing in the material, finite world. This experience intoxicates the demon, and it becomes addicted to feeling both the suffering of desire, and the satisfaction of having it fulfilled. This unnatural situation is what endangers the Dungeon Meshi world, and it’s only by purging the demon of this ability to desire that the world can be saved. The demon is like a corrupted Buddha that must give up its desires in order to return to the peaceful existence it had before it was corrupted.

The demon curses Laios to never achieve his greatest desires at the end of the manga, which manifests in several ways, such as losing his monstrous form, Falin choosing to leave after she’s revived, and being unable to get close to monsters because they are afraid of him. In some ways you could compare Laios to a Bodhisattva, a person who tries to aid others in finding nirvana/moksha, even if it prolongs their own suffering and prevents them from finding personal release. Laios gives the demon peace, but Laios himself will never be able to satisfy his desires, and must eventually come to accept his loss and move on with his life.

(This is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of my Real World Cultural and Linguistic influences in Dungeon Meshi essay.)

[theoxenfree]

TINCTURE OF ACONITE

werewolf x "magic" practitioner!reader | 2.4k

a man is told about a dilapidated inn on the outskirts of the village that houses a practitioner of unsavory sorts. he seeks you out to find a cure for his affliction—lycanthropy. with blood on his hands, at the mercy of a fate of cruel uncertainties, he has no choice but to take on the task you give to him and the catch that comes with it: he must decide if he deserves to live or die.

warnings; dark fantasy, mentions of blood and mutilation, a very dark interpretation of lycanthropy, very evasive interpretation of what a "practitioner" is, mc smokes, theological discussion, derogatory insult (e.g. bitch), roughly proofread.

this is the first of my prompts fulfilled for my personal october writing project! this was also the prompt that won the first poll!

i would appreciate it enormously if y'all would please reblog + leave me feedback on this! particularly if you'd be interested in seeing this as a full story down the line!

From the hawk-nosed widow selling stale bread and wrinkled, gray potatoes with mysterious growths, he'd learned about a dilapidated inn fringing the northwest end of the village. There, she had said warily, with keen and wise eyes showing wide whites and tiny bloodshot threads, he would find the answers to everything he had never asked for.

He would find the Practitioner.

It took him less time than he thought to find his way across the village, away from the cursory and reluctant and distrustful looks as he lumbered through in his heavy boots and loose-fitting black tatters he'd sewn together himself time and time again. His face was haggard, skin wet and ashen, and he couldn't remember the last time he held a blade to shave his face, tame his long, dark hair.

To the townspeople, he must've looked like a wildman; uncivilized; belonging to the deep wood and meadows and smelling thickly of untouched nature, mud, and musk. Perhaps, now, he was just that because he also could no longer remember a time where he'd been welcome to sleep in a bed, ate a meal cooked and seasoned to be used with cutlery, allowed himself to be gripped by scalding water and bath salts, reveled the touch of another person.

Upon reaching the inn sometime later, a tiered, hulking structure which seemed to rot from the inside out; the middle of the massive thing bowing inward as though slowly being sucked underground—into hell, he was greeted at the entrance without ever having needed to knock.

“Second floor,” was all the older fellow said. A man with unhealthy grayness to his complexion that rivaled his own. All of the vigor, pink liveliness was long gone from his face and his eyes reflected nothing—not a want, a wish, a worry, or thought beyond remembering to move one foot after the next to keep locomotion.

He moved beyond the gaunt, wispy fellow who quietly closed the door, then shuffled off through another threshold leading elsewhere. He'd been instructed to go to the left, to the end of hall and through the door which faced him.

When he did this, the somnolent dreariness of the world outside fell away and he was sucked into silence filled with static. The room was sentient, almost, swirling with immense wafts of burning herbs, fragrant flora, dark tendrils of smoke emerging from wilted candle wicks and the cherry flickers at the tips of them.

“Well, aren't you a sad sight!” Your voice was deceptively upbeat in comparison to this room, this place. He noticed you seated in a high-backed chair padded in ripped red velvet, a large table stretched out before you and sprawled with many, endless things. “It isn't easy to find this place. Who told you about me?”

“The potato seller at the village.” He said.

You pressed a flat, metal tip between your lips and sucked in on some weird instrument, blowing out a profuse cloud of faint, purple smoke which smelled otherworldly and familiar.

“You mean the widow with the crazy eyes?”

“I…suppose so, yes.”

“She's crazy, you know?”

“She told me you'd be able to cure me.”

You smiled like he'd just told you an amusing joke, wooed you a bit in the process. He watched your teeth come out from behind your lips and clench down on the metal tip.

“Cure you? She wouldn't have used those words. She despises me and likes to think people she sends my way meet their death. What a vindictive old bitch. She’ll get hers one day.” You said, then gestured to the empty chair opposite the table to you. “I’m flattered you think so highly of me, though. We’ve only just met. But, I know a desperate man when I see one. I know a cursed man when I see one.”

The chair was uncomfortable, not at all wide enough, strong enough to bear his form but it did not collapse under his weight, only creaked and whimpered. You were observing him as casually as he would have had a friend a long time ago, with such little regard for safety, little fear of this brawny and moody stranger sitting across from you at a table with countless, shatterable objects.

It occurred to him after an awkward moment of silence (on his end, you were perfectly at ease), you were waiting for him to diffuse his anguish, his worries, his curse—why he was really here in this room with you now. Only, he wasn't sure where to start, nor what information he could give that you'd consider pertinent apart from the rest.

He'd forgotten how to speak to people during his long, lonely solitude as well, it seemed.

“The woman—the widow—she told me you're a practitioner in the Devil’s Magic. Is that true?” he mumbled, for one second considering taking one of the hundreds of baubles on the table to turn over in his hands. “I do not much believe in any of that. The workings of any god or evil, it isn't related to my affliction. But, I want to know if you're actually capable of curing me, or a charlatan scamming the poor to be even poorer.”

You exhaled more of the luxurious smoke from your strange pipe before finally setting it aside to take up a round flask made of clear glass. Despite it appearing empty, something unseeable sloshed within—water, perhaps—and it smelled foul when you uncorked it.

“Devil’s Magic,” you seemed to consider his wordage with a derisive smile, but he had a feeling this wasn't about him. “That old wretch is something else. Handsome Sir, I am a lot of things and no one important. I am no witch, wizard, magician, druid, and I am certainly no charlatan. I might be able to help you with your case of lycanthropy.”

Hope reignited in his eyes, still but a dull flicker waiting to be snuffed as it had many times before, yet he always dared to feel this way whenever a possibility arose.

“I—never mentioned my affliction,” surprised as he was, he now knew he'd made the right choice spending his afternoon finding the inn rather than continuing onward for the next town. “How can you be so certain that's what I suffer—”

“A man of your destitute and good manners aren't the types who get stricken with vampirism or cursed by hags. You were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, I'll bet. A good man, loyal to a fault to an… owner? An employer? A lover, perhaps?”

You were staring over his face searchingly at the end, carefully winding your wrist with the nauseating, invisible concoction in your hand. For a moment, there was nothing but silence as he considered the meaning behind your exact curiosity, trying to pry an answer from you with a stern look he'd used to terrify and award himself some small, scarce comforts.

When you didn't falter, he slouched deeper into his seat, clearly defeated by your eccentricity and dumb fearlessness.

“Thousands of miles away, I once served a Duke and a Duchess as their guard. One night, I was sent out as the baleful cries of some beast had sent My Lady into a frenzy, my My Lord into a fit of rage. Those lands were cursed, everyone was well aware, but I've never thought above my status and so I went.

“The night was all around me. Something lurked in the trees, perhaps lost souls, perhaps something else. The mist moved as though alive, a limb, an arm, an extension of the forest itself and I could scarcely see. But then, I saw it: an enormous, bent creature in a man’s torn clothes. It had the vicious face of a wolf, yet it could walk upright like a man and when I gave chase, it could sprint unlike anything I'd ever seen.”

You were leaning to one side of your throne now, an arm bent on top of the armrest while you swiveled the bottle, still watching him as though he were simply divulging some asinine discontent.

“I—” he paused, breathing arrested behind the rise of ugliness in his throat, something that tasted as vile as it was to remember.

Until then, he had been speaking to you quietly and sullen, like a man resolved to his fate. But now, he listened to his own voice fracture, quiver, and croak. Beyond that, his face and ears burned, aching from embarrassment, every emotion he had belittled himself into hiding away.

“I—was restrained by the damned thing and it took a chunk out of my side. I thought it would rip me apart; part of me wishes it had. Everything after that for a while is a blur to me even now, and I never remember the instances when I… change… only that the night calls to me, the moon a siren’s song.”

“Have you killed anyone as a beast?” you asked.

The mention made his gaze shift down to his hands which still groped the bauble, finding it a safe thing to concentrate on in that moment. Fortunately, the impossible heat in his head was quickly receding and he could once again fully regain clarity.

“I would have to believe so, yes,” he chose to say, honestly. “When I become the monster, I never have a recollection of the things that happen. But, I've awoken enough times covered in blood, surrounded by mutilation to ever claim otherwise.”

Now, you had the pipe back in your mouth and were inhaling the dreamy fumes. Letting the purple haze out of your nostrils. You were no longer looking at him, instead skittering the vastness of things across your tabletop, obviously in search of something.

“I want to be forthright with you, though you've only kept an air of mystery around yourself the entire time,” he started, replacing the object back on your table with the rest. “Either, I want your help for a cure, or I want you to develop a poison that will kill both myself and the beast inside of me.”

Your eyebrows ticked up, conveying the most emotion he'd seen out of you yet. “Those are both extremes. I cannot promise you anything because I am not a practitioner of magic or miracles. I am simply: the Practitioner. You will be the one to decide your own fate, for I cannot decide it for you.”

“I don't understand.” He looked at you helplessly, weathered and weighted.

From among the mass of stuff before you both, you pulled out a small notebook bound in leather, secured with a strap. You resumed puffing away on your pipe once he took it from you, studying it with some measure of apprehension and revulsion.

“This notebook contains many different specimens I've studied over, oh, some years. One of those specimens is a plant called aconite. You must find me a bushel, along with a handful of other things, and bring them back to me for me to create the tincture you need to either be cured or poisoned.”

He examined the notebook front to back several times, as though all of his answers would suddenly materialize across the covers. Of course, no such thing happened. “You have this table of the strangest things I've ever seen, and yet you don't have the things needed to create the tincture. I’m finding you to be a liar.”

You gave a great huff of exasperation, blowing purple smoke towards him in retaliation. “And I'm finding you to be among the dullest of men I've ever met. These things that I have do not serve a purpose to individuals. You must be the one to create the tincture for yourself. It is the intention behind it; your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires. You have to decide what you truly think you deserve—what you truly want.”

“That is witchcraft,” he said, incredulous. “It's magic!”

Again, you gripped the metal with your teeth and smiled around it. “Is it magic, or is it the power of your own thinking? Is your lycanthropy the result of a beast or your own illness? Will you live or die? I can't answer those things for you.”

“Then, I must go.” He found a pocket inside his coat that hadn't worn or torn with all his previous transformations and tucked it there. When he rose from the crackling chair, wood springing back to life once he was out of it, you surprisingly stood with him. “I'll find the answers I need. I'll return to you with these things.”

You were less awful seeming up close, a normal person dwarfed by his size. It was an odd feeling to be in such close proximity to someone else, one who didn't shrink and cower beneath the severity of his face—the dark brows and dark hair and unshaven jaw. But, you stood there with him next to the door to let him out, unafraid and fixed in your confidence that he would bring you no harm.

It moved him.

It moved him so deeply that he reached for your warmth, or your illusion, and kissed you deeply. He relished the touch of your lips, the press of your body against his, and the taste of your fragrant smoke which was effervescent and sparkling in his mind.

He could have taken you to bed right then, lain naked with you, damp with sticking skin while tangled together in an embrace, luxuriating in the afterglow.

But, he could not answer those desires while with his affliction as you would die, and he couldn't burden that sort of grief after knowing the touch of another. He even wondered, with some shame, whether he deserved to know someone of your caliber, your mysticism and wisdom, after slaughtering men and women whom he'd never know the names of. Those whose families would never know closure.

He kissed you once more, letting it linger and swell with his feelings before he let you go and went for the door.

“I'll return to you.”

You still had your pipe and smoked it, smiling evenly and contentedly.

“I wonder what you'll choose in the end.”

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Freudian Symbolism: Sauron x Galadriel in Season 1 of "Rings of Power"

There are no sex scenes in “Rings of Power” and never will be. But there’s a lot of sexual symbolism happening. And, as I’ve mentioned in my original post, Freudian symbolism has been widely used by cinema to covey sexual acts, especially in productions that can’t or won’t straight out show it to the viewer.

These sexual acts are taking place within in the narrative. The characters are interacting sexually. But the scenes aren’t graphic in nature, like we are use to nowadays. These narratives devices were very common in past decades, when cinema couldn't show explicit sexual content and the studios had to be creative. So these sex symbols have been widely used, and are recognizable.

Yes, I’m going down this rabbit hole, again, inspired by @princessfantaghiro and @rey-jake-therapist. Might do a post on Season 2, as well.

I’m like Sauron: rubbing symbolically Haladriel sex in Galadriel’s your face(s).

I’ve already discussed the Freudian symbolism of this gesture, several times, and it’s very obvious, too. It is penetrative sex: a crown (clitoral symbol) penetrating a sword (phallic symbol).

I would like to revisit and elaborate on my original post about this subject:

Enduring Headcanons

To get this topic out of the way: if you are still holding on to “Elven sex culture” or “Elvish sex magic” because the Tolkien fandom keeps neglecting context, Tolkien letters and Christopher Tolkien notes, you can find a explanation here.

In short, the “Concerning the "Laws and Customs among the Eldar” chapter in "Morgoth's Ring” is not how Elves actually behave sexually in the legendarium. There is no “magical bound” happening between Elves when they have sex; the “union of souls” the fandom keeps talking about is creating children (not the actual sex act); and for the Noldor sex doesn’t equal marriage, they need more than that to recognize a wedding took place (a tribute, usually a jewel); Ósanwë has nothing to do with sex, it’s telepathy. These are fanon, not actual “Tolkien canon”. By all means have all the headcanons you want, just don’t come crying about it on my posts.

So, yes, it’s entirely possible for Galadriel to have had sex with Halbrand-Sauron in Season 1, without it “breaking the lore”.

Galadriel the Virgin

Just before Galadriel runs into Halbrand-Sauron in the Sundering Seas, she’s evocative of Joan of Arc.

Which is very fitting for her character at the beginning of Season 1: Joan of Arc was put on trial because of blasphemy (wearing men’s clothes), acting upon demonic visions and refusing to submit to the authority of the Church. Galadriel is shipped off to Valinor because of her endless pursuit for Sauron (acting upon demonic visions), and her continuous disobedience of High King Gil-galad’s commands. And like Joan of Arc, we also see her wearing armor (men’s clothes).

Joan of Arc also took a vow of chastity and pledged her life to expel the enemies of France. This also mirrors Galadriel’s husband being presumed dead ever since the end of the War of Wrath, and her vowing to hunt down Sauron (the enemy of Middle-earth).

And now we enter theological territory: virginity (in women, because men are allowed everything, but that’s a question for another time) has spiritual power in many religions. In Catholic-Christian, a virgin body is considered the most sacred shrine of God’s earth, because it has the gift of creation. Joan of Arc was a virgin but she had her virginity questioned and put on trial, too, and was examined twice.

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake (fire) and her ashes where thrown at the river (water). In “Rings of Power”, it appears the Elves enter Valinor through the Sun itself (fire), but Galadriel jumps off ship into the sea (water). This is, yet, another connection between Galadriel’s character and Joan of Arc, only in Galadriel’s case represents rebirth.

Sexual Awakening

In Freudian symbolism, water imagery is, indeed, connected to birth, rebirth, renewal, and transformative experiences in general. Whatever happens to Galadriel next will be a life-changing situation.

Water is also symbolically of wish fulfillment, especially connected to sexual deviation and/or repressed sexual desire. Which is very interesting in Galadriel’s case, because she jumps off ship to continue her hunt for Sauron, but the words that echoed on her mind before her final decision are her brother’s, Finrod: “sometimes we cannot know until he have touched the darkness”. Interestingly enough, ships are also considered clitorical symbols.

"It's me. The object of all of your sexual nightmares.”

In Freudian symbolism, pulling someone out of the water, is meant to illustrate a hypothetical parent, usually mother-child relationship, and, curiously enough the first character who helps Galadriel get into the raft is a woman, but she also rejects her next. Symbolically, this scene is also rejecting this angle of symbolical interpretation. We'll have this meaning later on with Elendil and Galadriel, when he even compares her with his own children.

Who truly “fishes” Galadriel out of the sea is Sauron himself. The object of her obsession, which caused her to be condemned to be “burned at the stake” aka thrown into the sun (return to Valinor), by her “Church” authority, the Noldor. The scene is embracing the sexual deviation interpretation, as we'll see in a moment.

To analyze the Freudian symbolism of the sea we have to go to a philosopher whose work inspired Freud himself: Friedrich Nietzsche. Especially since we are working with the themes of sexual deviance and repression of sexual desire in this scene. And here’s your explanation for Sauron’s unhinged predatory expression when he takes Galadriel out of the water. 

There is also a lot of phallic imagery in this raft design; symbolically Galadriel is also entering Sauron’s sexual domain, here. And she, literally, finds herself surrounded with symbolic penises.

Nietzsche uses the open sea as a metaphor for the unknown and the unexplored, where the traditional molds of morality are abandoned. The open sea is an invitation to embark on a journey into unchartered moral waters: a place where "right" or "wrong" don't exist, a moral grey area, and a breeding ground for moral decay.

For Nietzsche, the open sea represents a Godless world. Which is very fitting for a demon such as Sauron, who turned his back on God (Eru Ilúvatar) and sided with Melkor/Morgoth (Satan), and, at this point of his character arc, is seeking for redemption. In short, the open sea symbolizes infinite freedom and potential depravity; which are characteristics often associated with the Christian Devil (Morgoth), whom Sauron serves. 

The open sea it’s textbook “live dangerously”, where all sort of morally questionable and reprehensible actions can happen. And this idea of the “open sea as a grey moral area” isn’t exclusive to Nietzsche or Freud, we also find it in female poets like Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson; where the ocean is a symbol for moral and sexual exploration.

There’s also a storm in these scenes: in Freudian symbolism, storms are representative of emotional repression. Storms, heavy rain and thunder indicate feelings of sexual frustration, anger and sadness. Heavy rain is also associated with renewal, while thunderstorms reflect emotional conflict.  

Galadriel reaches out to Sauron in this scene. What does this mean? Symbolically, she wants to him to take her out her sexual “dry spell” existence. She’s sexually frustrated. and he’s in the same situation. Which makes sense with her unvoluntary chastity vow (Joan of Arc), and him being trapped in a cave being goo for hundreds of years. And he “accepts her plea” and jump into the ocean to rescue her, signaling he shares her want.

All of this symbolism will also echo in Season 1 finale, when Sauron “returns” Galadriel to the raft to pitch his proposal to make her a queen. What Sauron is truly offering Galadriel, on a symbolic level, is infinite freedom of self and raw sexuality.

She refuses his offer and says she “should have left him on the sea”. Galadriel is expressing regret over her own sexual impulses and returning to her chastity vow. Then, we have all of this splashing water around them, framed in a very different way from the scenes in 1x02.  Splashing water has been used as a device/symbol for fulfilled sexual activity in cinema for decades, now. So, yes, they most likely did it. Sauron-Halbrand and Galadriel had sex in Season 1.

"He really seduced her" (Charlotte Brändström)

Galadriel was reborn after she emerged from the sea. She was “fished” out of the ocean by Sauron, a symbol of sexual depravity whose sexual repression mirrors her own (open sea). She enters his sexual domain (raft). Halfway through their interactions, Galadriel reaches out to him, consumed by her own sexual frustration, but she’s conflicted about her feelings (storm). He shares her emotions and is willingly to give her what she needs (saves her from drowning). After the storm comes a calm: they have reached an understanding.

Interestingly enough this symbolic understanding of their mutual sexual desire and needs (clear skies) is them lying down on the raft:

Now, the seduction begins.

And Sauron initiates it by handing Galadriel a bowl of food. This is what Freud called “oral gratification”, connected to his theory about the psychosexual stages of development. Here pleasure is the core theme, associated with emotional and sexual nourishment. Sauron offers food, and Galadriel is emotionally hungry for it, and accepts with no hesitation.  

And he grins. Sauron is pleased with himself because Galadriel accepted his sexual invitation. And also, in Freudian symbolism the mouth is a symbol for the female genitals, while the spoon is a phallic symbol. The act of eating symbolizes sexual intercourse (= interaction between male and female symbols). He’s fantasizing all kind of sexual scenarios here.

In Freudian Symbolism, knifes/daggers/lances/swords (any object resembling the penis in shape or that can be used to penetrate the body and cause injury) are phallic symbols. Meaning, they represent the penis. An erection (in which the penis raises itself against the force of gravity) is usually represented in connection with an air element (it can be ballons, airplanes, missiles, rockets, flying, snakes, etc.).

Symbolically, this is the first sexual interaction between Galadriel and Halbrand/Sauron. He has an erection, and she is touching it.

That's symbolic handjob, for you.

In the same episode, the Númenórean smiths tease Sauron, and ask how close is he with the "she-elf". This Maia is eating ("sexual intercourse") clams, here. Worldwide, the clam is a clitoral symbol, meaning it represents the female genitalia. What does this means? Eating Galadriel out is, probably, what Sauron wants. 

In 1x05, after some flirtation happening between Galadriel and Sauron, she’s handling a bunch of swords (phallic symbols) right in front of him. Literally. She’s training the Númenoreans and is surrounded by men eager to… learn from her, and at awe by her. She’s very skilled with those swords.

Sauron decides to peacock and assert his dominance in this scene: the only “sword” Galadriel will be handling around here is his, and he’s the best at it, too. 

Speaking of objects representative of genitals: the roles are reversed in Galadriel and Sauron’s characters in Season 1. Galadriel is the one who carries the phallic symbol (dagger), while Sauron carries the clitoral symbol (pouch). But they do exchange these objects a few times throughout the season. In Freudian symbolism, the interaction of male and female symbols represent sexual acts.

“Come with me to Middle-earth and I’ll give you this… pouch.”

In 1x05, they are back to the ocean, aboard of a clitoral symbol (ship). And Galadriel climbs stairs to reach Halbrand. Staircases are one of those classic and universal cinematic devices to signal female sex appeal. Every man on board is at awe of her, but she only has eyes for Halbrand-Sauron.

But stairs, especially climbing, also have a well-established sexual meaning in cinema: they represent the sexual act.

However, we aren’t shown any interactions between these two characters on the ship, on a voyage that lasted from 1 to 2 weeks, depending on the weather conditions.

The only “clue” we got is that they were, at one point, awake at the same time, and that Galadriel has been up for at least one hour, as she tells Isildur, in 1x06. Sauron doesn’t need to sleep, but Galadriel does (even though not as much as if she belonged to the race of Men).

Galadriel has her hair braided, which is the first time we see this hairstyle on her in “Rings of Power”, because in 1x01 she had her hair down. Indeed a braid is more practical for battle, but braids also have Freudian symbolism attached to them. Braids are a phallic symbol, and Galadriel on a clitoral symbol (ship), meaning we have two sex symbols interacting, indicating sexual intercourse.

The next scene Galadriel and Sauron share together is their chasing after Adar, when they prevent each other from killing him. We know that Galadriel has some darkness within her since 1x01, but Adar tells her something interesting, that resonates with other lines in Season 1:

Halbrand (1x05): “What do you know of darkness?” Adar (1x06): “It would seem I'm not the only Elf alive who has been transformed by darkness.” Sauron-Finrod (1x08): “Touch the darkness once more”.

Is this an indication that Galadriel got “transformed” by the “darkness” (Sauron) somewhere in the middle of these events?

Because, as @rey-jake-therapist correctly pointed out, we underestimate the importance of the “touch the darkness once more”. This implies Galadriel has already “touched the darkness” and Sauron is asking her to do it again.

Back to 1x06, after the Adar business, we have the “I’ve felt it too” scene, where Sauron expressed his desire to bind them together. And if we remove the “fighting” (which is also be a symbol for sexual intercourse), Sauron’s quote sounds very intimate and romantic: “at your side, I... I felt... If I could just hold on to that feeling, keep it with me always, bind it to my very being, then I...”

But after Halbrand-Sauron is summoned by Queen Míriel, Galadriel has an intriguing scene all by herself. She cleans the black blood (Adar’s) from her dagger, and looks ashamed and guilty doing it. And she does this after saying "I've felt it too".

The subtext of this act can be very sexual, especially if we take into account her previous invocation of Joan of Arc (virgin), the black blood/seed (the same color as Sauron’s) and the symbolic penis (dagger). Symbolically, this can indicate she’s attempting to keep her sexual rendezvous with Halbrand-Sauron a secret. A dirty secret she’s deeply ashamed of.

And for my Half-Maia Celebrían enthusiasts out there: after the volcano eruption, in 2x07, the first place of her body Galadriel touches is her lower stomach, her womb. Why?

When she’s finally able to get up, she searches for Halbrand. And we also see her acting maternal with the angsty kid in town, Theo, next. After an episode where Adar mentioned “Halbrand’s” “woman” and “child”. You all know I’m not a believer in Half-Maia Celebrían theory but there are some intriguing clues on both Season 1 and Season 2. 

Next, Sauron pretends to be injured and Galadriel takes him to Eregion. In my opinion, the injury wasn’t fatal. I think he really wanted to be near Galadriel, even though he didn’t know for sure she would take him to Eregion and Celebrimbor, because Sauron doesn’t have the gift of foresight. Anyway, it was clear Sauron indented to forge two wedding rings, one for himself and the other for Galadriel.

On my original post I made the case for “sexy time” happening for the first time at Eregion, but now I’m convinced it might have been sooner. Sauron was there for three weeks, as that’s the time Gil-galad gives Celebrimbor in 1x08. Galadriel became suspicious of him the day after their arrival, probably. While something might have happened there, too, from the symbolism we got, it might have happened sooner than expected.  

[smileposting]

alright so based on That One Ask Yugo Posted here's my headcanon-theory-vision-thing of what the drain is/means: so, drain has a very Negative connotation within the context of the story. In General, for something to go down the drain is for something to be wasted, and for something to be wasted is to serve no use to the Bigger Picture — ergo, it is not Unreasonable to assume that the drain as a theological concept in great god grove's universe is shorthand for "the place where things that the world No Longer Needs go." this could be people, technology, concepts, entire species, etc.

given the amount of historical anachronism we see within the grove itself, it's very possible that there really is no rhyme or reason to what goes down the drain and what does not, but there are still people both in and outside of the grove who ascribe some kind of moral value to it, i.e. "well if you're here then you must have done something to deserve it because the alternative is Much scarier to think about." if the bizzyboys being from the drain is meant to prove that there are other sapient beings in there, then i imagine this could apply to the drain's residents as well. i'd say it's even possible that the grove exists in direct opposition to the drain, even if unwittingly, given how much of GGG's story is about the importance of preserving history and art, no matter how grisly or seemingly incomprehensible. either way the grove doesn't seem like the kind of place that's very keen on determining value based on usefulness, nor do its gods seem like the kind of pantheon that would come up with something like the drain. it's possible that the drain is older than even them -- i suppose i'd have to find whatever in-game info there apparently is about it to confirm lol.

anyways it'd certainly explain a few things -- again, the fact that every area seems to be in a different time period, the second-eldest god being a passionate historian, inspekta and capochin's whole [gestures vaguely] everything, even inspekta ascending to godhood in the first place. of course the bizzyboys were a legitimate organization once upon a time. but all i'm saying is that if i was a deity ruling over a land in which archival As A Concept was this vitally important thing no matter how "useless" the things being archived were considered, and one day i met a guy who literally pulled himself out of The Place Where Things Deemed Useless Go and organized a lil army of guys who are Also from the place where things deemed useless go so they could run around my land and help people, thereby telling that place to go fuck itself and that they are in fact, Not useless -- i'd be impressed. i would in fact be like "hey have you considered running in the God Elections bc that's metal as fuck." it may not have been what he needed in the end but like i see how we could have Gotten here is what i'm saying.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 7 thoughts

hmm. hmm. that is the sound if me pondering what i just watched.

(i understand that this episode was an analysis into mulder's self-destructive behaviors when faced with overwhelming grief, but. that does not mean i enjoyed vampire hookup time)

well. we shall start from the top!

i read that it was an episode about vampires which i thought was a weird narrative choice because. hello. scully still gone??? but then i remembered that i too ignored the main quest in skyrim to hunt some vampires and that i had no place to judge

(granted, my main quest wasn't finding scully though. might have given that a bit more priority than saving the whole world. because she IS my whole world)

we open with a guy that looks like joe biden meeting with an attractive young woman. they're making out in a hot tub and we just know someone is gonna get slurped upon. and woe, it be upon us! double vampire attack.

back in DC, mulder gets his old office back! it's covered in plastic. he takes some of it off. he adjusts his calendar from may to november, so we see how much time he and scully had been assigned to other tasks, which also has me wondering how she managed to get a new house that quick.

(also, this calendar is... scantily clad women posing next to tools such as hammers and saws. was this allowed? was this acceptable? was it normal? were the 90's a lawless wasteland and mulder an irreparable freak?)

well. scully is an x file now, and he puts her glasses and id into an evidence bag and closes the filing cabinet which was sooooo evil. but he can't bring himself to put her necklace away. oh man. oh he's gotta have it in case he finds her. he has to hold her close. i'm Fine this is Fine.

so. he goes out to california to deal with the joe biden looking fellow being murdered. and he is not wanted on the crime scene. we know this because someone greets him by saying "nobody called the bureau" and he says "well, they should have" and lifts up the tape to let himself in. because one thing about him is that he's gonna let himself into a place he isn't wanted.

he sees the writing of a bible verse in blood on the wall and says something about their grasp of biblical knowledge being "feeble and literal" and i was like okayyy need to have a theological discussion with him

he then scares the other guy who originally wanted to kick him out by reciting a LARGE amount of facts related to similar cases and it's very much giving photographic memory. got me thinking, have we ever seen this man forget something? (directions don't count. they're confusing. but everything else sticks in that man's brain)

he just needs one thing: a phone book. which he uses to call a blood bank and ask about a new guy. who must be the vampire who did this!

so he rolls up to the blood bank and i'm over here struggling because i do Not Do Blood, and i knew at this point this was gonna be a tough watch, but i didn't anticipate the non-blood related reasons why this would be true

anyway he's sniffing around the blood bank and he hears some slurping and wouldn't you know, this dude is tearing into a bag of the red stuff like it's a capri sun. somehow he gets him into custody, where the dude refuses to talk because the lights are on, and mulder comes in with a lamp he put a red filter over, because he was prepared for vampire interrogation.

the vampire is going on about how what he did isn't murder because it's not like animals hunting prey is murder which is. not the greatest approach in terms of legal defense. mulder tells the guard that the guy is delusional and it's best to play along, and he believed this to be true... until he, quite literally, burned to a crisp in the sunlight. and died.

he's talking to the coroner and rattling off a bunch of vampire facts and says he didn't believe in vampires which is so funny to me because like. why is that where you draw the line, my friend. not at bigfoot and definitely not at aliens. but man. vampires are just too out there for spooky mulder. until now!

the coroner has a very funny line: "you are really upsetting me... on several levels" which seems to be the general effect fox mulder has on people. and also because i felt the same way about his dumbass actions during this episode.

coroner finds a stamp on the dead body's hand, which seems to come from a nightclub. so naturally our fbi agent ends up there.

you often see posts saying that "(insert character here) should be at the club". i fear that this is not the case for fox mulder, but it's possible that it's his suit and tie that are throwing me off. he just doesn't seem like he belongs there. i ask myself, where should he be instead? perhaps some sort of star wars convention would suit him better. a book signing with some author he likes. idk, an interior decorating festival. not here.

i shall use my verbatim words to walk you through the next scene:

"pause. he's talking to a woman who was looking into a compact without a mirror. so. vampire suspect. and now why are they getting so close together. and getting a drink. okay now they're leaving to a new spot together? AFTER she admits to vampirism"

(here she did some stuff that required me to look away from my screen due to my Weak Constitution. but also it would have felt necessary to look away anyway because it was getting... charged)

she tries to get him to... suck on her finger... but he won't do it because aids. which is fair. i think that's a smart move, actually. it's just that getting flirty with a vampire he knows was involved with a ton of killings was such a stupid move, i don't know why it's now the braincells start to kick in.

that kills the vibe, though, so she gets another guy to take his place and things escalate.

mulder pulls in at a restaurant called ra. nice! the sun god! and he is... through a window, witnessing some more slurping action. he seems to want to intervene and save this poor soul being feasted upon...

but the poor soul is no poor soul at all! he comes out and decks mulder, and delivers this line with stunning conviction: "i don't know who you are, freak, but we're two consenting adults" and with this, he is forced to flee.

and yeah. it made me laugh. my expectations for the genre were subverted. he signed up for that shit! what he did not sign up for, however, was the next part, where he was killed by the other vampires.

cut to investigating the crime scene. mulder has brought along a forensic dentist, which is a job i had no idea you could go into. he needs to see about those bites, which are very human.

next they go to vampire woman's house. it's a very nice place. mulder... opens her oven. and sees a loaf of bread in there. and i'm thinking, man, i hope this doesn't go where i think it's going. baked goods... ovens... i never want a vampire pregnancy arc. but he cracks open the loaf and something red spills out and somehow, this to him means that she is gone and isn't coming back. he can read the signs of the bread. so add that to his resume. what did the bread tell you, my liege?

he seems to have stayed in her house, however, because he's there when she's back, and says he knows she was using the bread as a charm to ward off evil. because apparently that's an eastern european thing, blood bread to warn off evil. sound off if any eastern europeans in the chat wanna confirm or deny.

anyway. he's IN this woman he thinks is a vampire's HOUSE? what the hell. mulder seriously i need you to stop and think. like you should have stopped and done some thinking a while ago. honestly i'm not mad i'm just disappointed. and he's like "i want to save you come with me before they kill you" ohhh big tough man needs to save her huh. make him feel good inside. huh. certainly no ulterior motive here...

she's monologing about her horrible childhood and how sweet blood tastes. um girl. don't lie to him like that. i have busted my lip open before that stuff does NOT taste sweet and dangerous. it's like a penny with rust that you found in a parking lot.

it seems her vampiric origin story, if to be believed, is that things simply got too kinky. which is a new take on the genre.

(it's also about being caught in an abusive relationship and the damage that inflicts, but it seems abusive boyfriend came into vampirism at his kinky parties and things escalated from there. which. well. it blew the eyebrows clean off my head, to be fair)

at this point we see that he is WEARING SCULLY'S NECKLACE? he says something like "it's from someone i lost" and she says that she "hopes he finds her"

i did not like the undertones here and certainly not the overtones. because i knew where this was going. he was shaving in her bathroom. and let me tell you something: there is only ever a shaving scene in media because the writer needs a way to get some blood out of someone's body and into the real world. and man. i knew it was coming.

but what i didn't see coming was her SHAVING HIM??? girl. i am uncomfy. and she does, of course, cut him, and then they kiss. aggressively. terribly aggressively. can anyone answer what was going on in a satisfactory manner?

but the gag is: the original vampire- who burnt to a crisp in the jail cell, and was the abusive ex she spoke of- HE'S WATCHING THEM THROUGH THE WINDOW!

he breaks in and taunts the vampire woman about how he had to "wait for her to finish" and i was like cool. thank you SO much for that mental image i'm super happy with it. i definitely don't feel like i need a shower. but then he's going on about how he can't be killed.

here, at the tail end of the episode, we learn the rules of vampirism in this world: a vampire cannot be killed by a non-vampire. and a non-vampire BECOMES a vampire by consuming the blood of a believer and also taking a life. it is only here we realize that this woman is not an actual vampire yet, she just appropriates their culture by drinking blood unnecessarily.

mulder's still sleeping in her bed and she's like "you need to leave" and she stabs the wall to make her evil ex think she's killing him. but when they go to break out, mulder ties him up quite handily and he gets in the car to escape with vampire woman. until ANOTHER vampire woman jumps on the hood of their car. and main vampire woman knocks her out for a bit by running into her with said car, which is super effective.

mulder's leaving the place in shambles, his shirt still unbuttoned, wandering down the side of the hill. back at the house, now that we know the vampire rules, main vampire woman says she can finally kill the evil vampire ex. and he's like how!! you haven't had the blood of a believer or taken a life. so. she licks the blood off her hands (unclear if it's hers or mulders tbh) and says she'll take her own life. and drops a match after pouring gasoline.

so. that brings that to an end. and shabby looking mulder sits on a hill as he learns all four in the house died.

the episode ends with him playing with scully's necklace. which i don't even sort of feel like unpacking right now but maybe another time.

probably not, though, because i just didn't like this episode. and yeah, a lot of it comes down to me not wanting to see mulder hook up with people who aren't scully. can you blame me? is it so wrong to have preferences in this world?

but also, narrative wise- do you honestly see the guy fucking off to cali while scully's still missing to deal with an unrelated problem instead of devoting every hour of his life to finding her, like we saw him do in the last episode? you expect me to think he just puts it off for a lil while? the guy who, just last episode, pulled his gun on the ski lift operator to get to the top where she might be a little faster, and then choked his one and only suspect out of fury? you're thinking this is the guy that's gonna go soak up some west coast rays?

and yeah, he was obviously not himself through the episode- very cold and analytical- but c'mon. we all want to bang a vampire. he's not special. i just personally wouldn't do that if my friend were gone. like how is that gonna help the situation. be so for real. time and place!

and also the whole only learning the rules of being a vampire about 5 minutes before they need it to be plot relevant. that annoyed me too.

overall, mulder, like i said, i'm not mad, just disappointed.

let me know what you thought on this episode- i try to not be a hater, but i also understand that hating in small doses can be good for the soul. if it's a widely beloathed episode i'll feel better in my judgement as i join a long tradition of haters who have come before me.

[magickfromscratch]

This article talks about inclusion for people with autism in a Christian setting.

Now, obviously, I'm not Christian, but I *am* autistic, and I will tell you that pagan communities are NOT GREAT when it comes to inclusion for even mild autism.

It's really great that someone is talking about this topic at all, but what's left out here is that our struggles in religious communities go far beyond sensory issues.

One issue is that we navigate relationships differently. We bond differently. And frequently, NTs hate us for it. The word "autistic" was, last I checked, used as an insult in many of our circles. As a formerly high-masking autistic adult, I often heard "autistic" as a reason not to admit someone to groups that I was running.

How do you think that made me feel?

Pagan communities tend to be small and homogeneous. Unlike most mainline faith traditions, there is seldom room for more than one way of thinking, especially when it comes to magic, where the emphasis is on "doing it correctly" instead of on an individual's meaningful experience. Like, one time, there was a TikTok trend with spell bottles, and I saw people lose their minds because some people included salt, and insulted the young people who created this content, calling them "ignorant" or even "idiots" because of this, frankly, completely irrelevant deviation from the traditions they understood or practiced. How must you view us creatively modifying our spellwork to actually fit with our cognitive and sensory needs?

Asking questions, for us, is about gaining information. It is about obtaining clarity. For us, a question is not a statement, a challenge, or an implication. When you tell us, "don't question the gods," for some of us, that statement is identical to directing us not to form a relationship with the gods at all. "Why do you do this?" Is not "You are an idiot," but rather, a bid for connection through understanding.

It can also be a theological process. Many NTs find this process threatening, but when a stated theology doesn't make actually make any sense to you at all, there's really no option but to create one that does. If trying to create accomodations for my disability is a threat, don't you think that's, I dunno... a problem?

At the end of the day, my solution was in the creation of a working group that is nearly 100% neurospicy. We have an approach to both religion and magic that works for US. It's been, frankly, so refreshing. Everything is so much easier.

But should we have to do that?

[pygmi-says-hi]

writing tips - fictional religion

I'm gonna be honest, writing a religion is probably one of the hardest things you could do as a fiction writer. Religion is such a prevalent topic and so multifaceted. It's fascinating, but hard as hell.

This probably needs to be two parts because of how much information is out there (I'll link some sites below!).

What purpose does it serve?

Why are you creating the religion? Is the main conflict about theological differences? Is it just atmospheric?

Depending on your answer to those questions, it'll change the level of depth required for the development.

If it's a minor addition, don't worry too much about researching all the ins and outs. If it's the main conflict and/or occupation (priest, cleric, etc) of your character and book, you need to put in the effort.

Pantheons

Probably the most common in fantasy, pantheon religions are polytheistic, meaning 'multiple deities.' Pantheons are also commonly misrepresented.

For a pantheon to work, it needs to have balance. Gods are usually associated with common natural, physical, and emotional occurrences. And there are two sides to every coin. If there is a god of death, there must also be a god of life. Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction.

Underdeveloped pantheons have uber-specific deities, like the god of fireballs (stay with me) but no god/dess of harvest? Huh.

Pantheons are not excuses to add a religious element to a character's powers. Realistically, a civilization would have no reason to worship a Fireball god. It doesn't help or support their society.

Religion serves its people. If it doesn't have a benefit to them, why is it there?

Societies often structure their methods of worship around the way they structure the civilization. Think of it like a relationship (bear with me).

If you like making pottery, you're going to give the person you care about little pieces of pottery to show your appreciation. You're not gonna randomly start making side tables and give them an ottoman. If you live long distance, you'll arrange your dates so it's an equal commute towards the both of you, not fifty miles away from anywhere convenient.

The methods of worship need to make sense.

Can I use religion to give my character powers?

Sometimes.

Religion as a basis for character powers or development is interesting, but you need to do some creative thinking for it to read well.

Suppose you want your character to have fireball powers (we'll just stick with the analogy). Rather than having them worship a fireball god to receive these powers, maybe there is a god of fire. They worship the god of fire dutifully, and in turn the deity bends fire to the cleric's will. Then the cleric can choose to make fireballs.

Why do I need to be so careful about religion? It's fiction, right?

Yes, of course it is! And honestly, as long as the rules your religion subscribes to are consistent and make sense regarding the rules of your fantasy world, anything goes. Problems only arise when the religion is underdeveloped and lacks the explanation needed for the audience to appreciate it.

Major tip before you start writing a religion (specifically religious wars). If you are creating a religion based off of a real ethnicity (West African, Japanese, Indian, Latino, Jewish, Scandinavian, etc) PLEASE GOD HOLY MOTHER OF EVERYTHING do your research. What could seem like an innocuous representation could contain a harmful stereotype. "but silas, why do I have to do all that? won't people understand it's just fiction?"

no.

You are deciding to undertake a very precise responsibility of creating mythology based on a real cultural group. that means you need to be respectful. You're using their background, be nice with it.

xox i love you guys!

sites:

Writing Fantasy Religion

Pantheon Religions

[exvangelical-christian-nerd]

TW Religion

Look I understand why religious people take offense to Good Omens, the Hellaverse, and that type of media (I've made posts on this before, about how the church kinda made their own bed, and I stand by that). I'm religious. I'm a practicing Christian. There are things in the shows that bother me a bit at times. There are parts of the fandom that I think go too far, but that happens in every single fandom. I think many of us who've been in any fandom for a bit can think of an example where someone just took something way to far. I mean there are multiple stories out there, to the point you sometimes see jokes about it, where someone went from fan to felon pretty dang quick. Or cases where a group of fans got more than a bit culty. The difference with the Hellaverse specifically, is, I believe, that if you take it to far you can start messing with very real demons, who are not the same as the ones in the show, and I don't want to touch that.

Now all that said, the fact that I am religious is a key contributor in why I love this kinda of media, and why I gravitate to it. I like things that bother me, at least things that bother me theologically. I really like things that make me question my faith, or components of it. Also, if I haven't made this crystal clear, the church has caused me a great deal of pain, and continues to do so. I have a lot of religious trauma to work through, and it can be really hard, because I often feel really alone. Most people with religious trauma leave the religion in question. I'm still here. I have to grapple, almost daily, with separating my hurt from my faith, and separating what I was taught from what I actually believe. I'm exvangelical, but I'm still a church going, bible believing Christian, and y'all that's a special kind of hell. It hurts, a lot. Sometimes to the point where it makes me physically ill. People I love and respect, continue to say things knowingly or unknowingly that cut like a knife. And How many times can you get stabbed? How long? How long must I hurt?

These shows help me process. They help me look at things from another perspective and go "do I believe that? And if I do, why?" Also sometimes they call me out, and that's never fun... but it can be important. But one of the big ones is that it gives me a chance to process my hurt with the symbolism of my childhood. It's healing.

I latched onto Emily, because I see myself in her. I see someone who believed, and had the rug pulled out from under them. I see someone, who still believes, but feels betrayed. Someone who now has to confront and question, because "if this was a lie what else is?" And "I trusted this person and this is what they did?" And possibly worst of all, "I helped enable this. I allowed this to happen. I might not have known, but I still helped. What have I done?" I know those feelings. I live them every single day.

I understand Aziraphale's choice to go running back to heaven (whether I like that choice or not, and I don't). It looked like they would accept him as he was, even accept those he loves. He sees an opportunity to change things for the better, in this system he knows, and cares about even. It's not going to go well. We know it's not, and I think even Aziraphale knows that, but that need to believe it can change, that you change it, yeah I get it. I really do.

I understand Sera's desperation to protect. I remember feeling St. Peter's aversion. The desperate bargaining we've seen from the cherubs trying to convince themselves what they're doing is right, or at least not wrong, I've done it. I see myself in Vaggie, trying to mend the damage she did. I was an armored gay. I know I too caused harm. Lucifer's abandonment issues and desire to just leave it all behind him or try to. It's all to real. And Crowley's disillusionment with everything? His belief that he is "on his own side", because where else could he possibly go? Yeah I get that too.

And I could go on

And on

And on

[carmensapientia]

The Golden Way

Too many people focus on the how instead of the doing in manifesting. You all care about the methods and “theory” rather than the practical application. I’m in college right now and in all matter of academics, there is no point of talking about theory without putting into application. In my human rights class, we explore the thesis’es but also support NGO who do grass root work. In my climate change class, we ask why it is happening and then study accounts of sciences who actually designed and apply theories into action. All my coursework and any professor will tell you this: theories are nothing without practical application. Too many teachers on here focus more on sounding as smart, as philosophical, as professional as possible, devising thousand word posts and phd level thesises about the inner man, how manifesting working, states, the void etc. It’s not worth it. It’s redundant, it’s useless and half the time intangible and over complex. You do not need to bring in Bible quotes, quantum theory, physics etc to prove that the law works. To prove that it works, you need to use it! The only reason why everyone complains over consumes and over writes about the law is because they’re trying to justify their belief (or lack of) in it. You’re trying to explain and make it logical when manifestation is not logical. You cannot out write, out read, out Anything your way into successful manifestations. All the reading writing and consuming just takes you further away from your goals because let’s face it: you’re procrastinating and not even trying to manifest. For all you saying that you’re doing everything and it’s not working: you’re wavering, you’re whining, and you’re still affirming it doesn’t work. That’s why it doesn’t. You keep searching in vain when you could Have just spent the time to sit down and affirm. Here’s the truth: there is no better way to manifest than just doing it. Just do the work. You cannot avoid the work and no matter how many posts you read or post, it won’t bring your manifestation closer. The only truth or golden way is the way you provide it. You can only have the answers you seek. You are god! Act like it! Be empowered by your thoughts and do not fear them!! Like get real. What is understanding college level quantum theory gonna do if you don’t even affirm or visualize? It’s just an excuse and a short term ego boost. You’re not a better manifestor bc you can read large theological studies. You’re just a procrastinator who relies on outside sources to fuel their belief. You keep triggering a cycle of consume attempt fail and consume every time you tried to “cope” and bring “logic” into manifesting. You don’t need quantum physics the void or convoluted posts to manifest BFFR. STAND UP SISTER. Stand on some business and affirmmmmm!

I was going to put the best way to manifest right here at the top but chances are if you’re reading this you need a long post to over consume to convince you that can manifest. I’ll end my rant here and read below for the golden way to manifest aka Affirm and persist. That’s the golden way. It’s simple and here you go:

1. know that you control your life and your most dominant thoughts cause everything

2. Pick a desire, choose the how the what the when the where etc if you want. Script if you want. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter. Just pick the desire

3. Find affirmations to imply you have it. One that says you have it, another that says how quickly you got it, and another that affirm you were the only one in control. For example: I am God, I have everything I want, and I manifest instantly.

4. Repeat repeat repeat until it manifests.

[greenthena]

Why then was this forbid? Why but to keep ye low and ignorant

(If evil, why tasty?)

In the Garden (the one in Eden, not in Tadfield or Berkeley Square), Aziraphale is tasked with protecting the Tree of Knowledge. He is, as he says, "On apple tree duty," that day when Crawly suggests to Eve that the fruit might be extra delicious, and worth a rather significant gamble.

And about that fruit...what was it that was so corrupting to humanity that they had to be cast from paradise after consuming it? Aha! You just fell victim to one of the classic blunders. You thought I was here to argue theology. Even I'm not that much of a masochist. What I will say is this, the fruit gave them knowledge--specifically, the knowledge of Good and Evil--which made them like God. In Paradise Lost, where (let's be honest) Western Christians get most of their context for the Fall of Man, Milton describes humankind's experience prior to that Original Sin as being fully Good. Good (as defined by the Almighty) is available to Adam and Eve from their conception. But Evil can only be known by disobeying God...by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. And, oh, does does that Wily Old Serpent entice Eve to eat the fruit. The Serpent's temptation is a hefty stanza, but my most particular favorite part is this,

Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe, Why but to keep ye low and ignorant, His worshippers; he knows that in the day Ye Eate thereof, your Eyes that seem so cleere, Yet are but dim, shall perfetly be then Op'nd and cleerd, and ye shall be as Gods, Knowing both Good and Evil as they know.

(Milton, Book 9, lines 703-709.)

Ah, Crawly, you did such a good job. "Get up there and make some trouble." And you certainly did.

So knowing, knowledge...theologically these are heavy themes in the Eden narrative. Once Eve and Adam partake of the fruit (oh, spoiler alert...sorry...yah, they eat the apple) their eyes are opened and they realize that they are naked and everything changes. They're exiled from paradise, never to return to the sanctuary of creation's womb.

Remember what Aziraphale was doing that day? Well, what he was supposed to be doing, anyhow... Guarding the Tree, yes? Guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden, but also Steward of the Tree. Keeper of the Knowledge. Hold that thought; I'm going to need you to come back to it in a bit.

Crawly...well, Crowley and Aziraphale spend the next six millennia on earth addressing the assignments given by their respective Head Offices and eventually forming their Arrangement. And through this time, Crowley introduces Aziraphale to a vast array of different types of knowledge: the knowledge of what food tastes like in the definitely-not-a-temptation form of ox ribs; the knowledge of what wine does to an angel's corporation; the knowledge that he has more free will than he realizes and can lie directly to Heavens' Supreme Archangel; and, perhaps most impactfully, the knowledge that he has a friend hereditary enemy who will keep his secrets safe.

As Aziraphale experiences existence on earth, he accumulates volumes of knowledge that other angels will never have, and even begins to collect this knowledge for himself in the most human way imaginable.

He acquires books. Little storehouses of knowledge in which people express their ideas, ask questions, and perform humanity in a way that is really only possible because Eve took the apple and defied her Maker. If they'd stayed in the Garden, there would be no questions, no new ideas, no sushi restaurants, and no dusty little bookshops where angels keep their precious hoards of human knowledge.

Remember that little thought I asked you to hold onto oh, say two paragraphs ago? Here's where it fits. A.Z. Fell & Co. is the New Eden. It's a safe haven containing a vast store of knowledge guarded by the angel of the Eastern Gate. Even the physical design of the bookshop mimics the walls of the Garden.

Just as in the original Eden, where the angel gave the demon the shelter of his wing, the bookshop provides a true home for Crowley (especially in S2, when we see him consistently remove his sunglasses upon entering the shop as an act of vulnerability.)

And like God in Her Garden, Aziraphale is covetous of his Knowledge, refusing to sell his books just as the Almighty denied the breeding pair of humans access to the fruit.

(Also, I literally asked God, and She said that Aziraphale will get mad if you try to eat his books.)

[malicious-fisheeves]

Thoughts and Issues with the DLC

So I've made no secret I've issues with the DLC but in an effort to stop whinging and be less upset I've written up something a little more formal. To state first: if you enjoyed the DLC, by all means, I am glad. I'd much rather have people be happy than feel the way I do/did after beating the final DLC boss. And in talking w some people who did like the DLC story, I was softened a little bit in some regards.

However. Below the cut is ~3k words on my thoughts. I attempted some formatting but it might be a little disorganized. Needless to say, big dlc spoilers.

Marika:

I simultaneously appreciate Marika getting some much needed nuance back. Marika is complicated for a number of reasons. Her regime is oppressive and unrelentingly cruel, the Erdtree and its wars were incredibly brutal, and yet the DLC calls to mind that this is the outcome of her own people’s oppression, eg in that Marika was incapable of growing beyond the limited worldview transferred to her by living in a world wherein failed saints and ‘criminals’ were turned into meat goo. Cycle of violence and so on, but therein also lies some critique. Generally speaking, irl, such a thing is… basically impossible example wise, to think of off the top of my head. I suppose broadly one could perhaps liken it to the original Roman persecution of early Christians but that’s a fraught comparison for a number of reasons – wildly overblown for theological reasons, for one, and also makes an exemplar vs Roman generally crushing and enslaving ‘savages’. Also the current and historical violence committed via christian can by no means be rooted to mistreatment by Romans. So. It’s something I find interesting while also not jiving with 100%. Especially relating to what she’d end up doing to the Omen.

I think one can possibly point to a general corruption of goals, for Marika, by virtue of her godhood—once granted absolute power, she lost sight of her original goals of building a better world than the one she was born into. An empire of ruin built on top of a pile of corpses. Marika herself seems to come to this understanding and so sets in motion the events of the game—sending the Tarnished off, and shattering the ring—possibly incentivized by the death of Godwyn, or at least the understand of that her dominion was faulty.

Miquella:

Oh Miquella. Here’s the thing; I am by no means shocked or surprised that the question of Miquella’s charm/compulsion abilities would come into play for the DLC. I had a feeling that the NPC crew would be under Miq’s influence and that would be a source of conflict. I was not someone who thought ‘yay miq’s going to become god and fix everything.’ But the way in which this was accomplished felt not only like a dropping of the ball but a deliberate spiking of it at the ground.

In the base game, though we only rarely get information about Miquella, we have an understanding that he very much wants to do good. To create a new order not revolving around the oppression and subjugation of the masses. Miquella’s plans were already doomed in the sense his grand plans involved ‘what if I made my own Erdtree, but cooler’ and the fact the implications of certain items (the haligtree soldier ashes, the bewitching branches) indicate he has some ability to influence/control others, but this ability remained nebulous. St. Trina and sleep, the other half of his, again spoke to some interesting if troubling aspects, but also again spoke to a sort of attempted lighter touch in his approach. Someone confined to sleep forever can’t hurt you anymore, even if you basically doom them without killing them. When the DLC began with him shedding his flesh, his strength, his Great Rune and therefore ability to charm, I was very interested in how this all related. Except then he…. Becomes a God anyway? I’m still confused by this. Narratively, the game points towards him shedding these things to become a Perfect God, uninfluenced by things like love (which again, confuses me when he says that the new age will be guided by compassion, but I think the point here was to make the confusion The Point eg Miquella you can’t do both those things, sir) that might blind him or bias him. But Ranni also cast aside her Empyrean flesh… specifically so she could not become a God.

This wouldn’t bother me as much were it not for other issues, I think.

Miquella in the base game is defined by his compassion, outright bordering on naivety (hand in hand with his curse). He waters his new tree with his own blood rather than the blood of others. Elphael and the haligtree are specifically home to the unwanted and oppressed (namely misbegotten and alibnaurics)--he literally builds a secret treehouse. He forges the unalloyed Gold needle to save Malenia’s life. Of course there is a paradox here. To build his new order based on compassion, he has to betray the old. In the base game, originally I viewed this as a sort of corruption of his own goals ala Marika’s, by sending Malenia out to do this for him. She takes her army and conquers most of the continent save Leyndell and the Academy before getting defeat-by-tie’d with Radahn. Miquella does not want to do this but feels he has to, one might surmise. Given Malenia’s apparently reverence for him, we are led to believe that she did so because she really, really, believed in him, even if in doing so was at great personal cost.

And so the compulsion comes back into play in the DLC—just bend everyone else’s wills to your own as a God, is at least what I believe we’re supposed to take away. But this bothers me thematically in that why did Miquella not do this earlier? We kill Radahn and Mohg and suddenly game over, because Miquella brain-beams us into submission and we all prance around in perfect unending submissive euphoria. Why are we not only around long enough to stop it, but even able to? We (the Tarnished) have no influence on whether or not Miquella achieves godhood, unlike with the other ending options wherein we have quests to have NPCs fail or achieve their means by which they either create a mending ring or, in Ranni’s case, finally kill Marika for good and thereby have No Gods in the Lands Between. Even getting his great rune is just optional—if you don’t get grabbed twice, you don’t need to worry about the instant kill. So it all just feels a bit like a wet fart, especially given what happens after you kill him and Radahn. Which is a memory of when Miquella, pre godhood, asking Radahn to be his consort so that Miquella can achieve godhood and make the world better. You can’t even get ontop of the divine gate. It just feels so…. Nothing, in the end. We kill Miquella, and then that’s it, nothing. Nothing changes, no means by which to maybe try to make the world better. Annsbach tells us to be a lord of men and not gods but there’s no means by which to do so. Ranni’s ending takes us to the stars, the other endings have us become Lord Consort in various flavors, or we burn everything down. Elden Ring, to me, defined itself in some ways from Dark Souls and Bloodborne by having a certain hope where the others could be rather bleak. The DLC, giving you no means by which to make the world better, in any way, mostly going around just killing everyone and thing, and then returning to the sliding scale of ambiguously-good-ambiguously-bad-extremely-bad base-game endings. It’s just… it is something.

I also have more meta-textual critiques, which leads me to…

Mohg, Malenia, Radahn, or Incest et al.,

Mohg in the base game is defined by his evil. He bears on-its-face evil satanic imagery, growling and gurgling at you during his fight. He kidnaps and tortures war surgeons, the only one of which who survives relatively in-tact, Varre, is cast aside. Varre dies, begging for Mohg’s help, and Mohg could not care less, because Mohg is the self styled leader of a cult. He kidnaps Miquella with the hopes of raising him to godhood so he can establish his own dynasty. Albinaurics who come to him seeking assistance/shelter are also tortured. It speaks to a great evil. However, we also come to understand that Mohg is the opposite side of the coin as Morgott. Both were omen children of Marika, given the relative ‘mercy’ of not having their horns cut off and abandoned to their fate in the sewers beneath Leyndell. Morgott spends his whole life desperately wishing to be loved by the Erdtree and gets jack shit. Mohg abandons it, rightfully, but is violated by the Formless Mother and has his blood set on fire. Mohg’s tragedy actually serves better to illustrate how suffering makes no one a good person than Marika’s story in the DLC, in some ways, given that Mohg literally replaces the austere and thinly veiled cruelty of Marika and her Order with just outright violence and terror. And then the DLC goes ‘actually, Mohg was manipulated into being evil by Miquella for his elaborate plans for godhood!’

When I read this, I almost felt insulted.

Not only does it strip Mohg of his agency, making his evil the fault of someone else, it also completely demeans the original tragedy of the kidnapping. Miquella, trapped in a state of suspended animation, forever sleeping and therefore failing Everything he set out to do, because he was kidnapped by someone who he would’ve wanted to help? Mohg, kidnapping and abusing a person who abhors what was done to him and his people? This tragedy again spoke to the themes of Elden Ring. Having it so that someone who, while flawed, is shot in the foot by someone warped and corrupted by a life time of abuse suffered first by their mother and then by a greater cosmic deity? That the violence put upon by Mohg resulted in yet more needless suffering? Heart breaking.

Instead, the DLC makes it so Mohg is abused yet again, and this time it is far less meaningful.

Radahn’s story also frustrated me greatly. I am biased, as someone who went insane trying to piece together his motivations for the past 2 yrs and writing nearly 200,000 words about it, but during that time I came to the conclusion that the explicit point of his lack of motivation spoke to a sort of glory seeking that is why, while he had some apparently good personal qualities, also made him a war lord. In the base game, Radahn’s established as someone who cares about having a ‘good death’, who stopped the stars for Reasons, and learned gravity magic in-part to ride his favorite horse forever. However he also is the General of a large army, who at the very least in his absence have taken to stringing up corpses and setting people on fire. Grant it, it might be due to the Super Plague, but it’s just vague and unsaid enough it is entirely probably it was not Just That (nor makes it less horrific, burning plague victims caused by the Stupidest Fight Ever). He admires Godfrey, who served Marika in her genocidal wars. He tries to take Leyndell for reasons not known to the player, but one can surmise either A. he was trying to help Rykard (Rykard, who’s war in the Shattering was considered one of if not the Worst) B. he was just doing it for a laff (eg conquering for conquering sake, morally vacant and also abhorrent, but speaks to a glory hunting that says Something) and/or something to do with Godfrey. It speaks to, if nothing else, a Giant Ego.

So it felt really weird and out of left field to go. Yeah he and Miquella made a vow that Radahn would become his consort so he could ascend to godhood and establish the kindness brigade. Like, huh? Nowhere in the base game does Radahn, at any point, seem to especially care about being kind or helping the oppressed. There are certain elements that indicate he might not have sucked As Much, but by no means does that make him a good person (especially since he seems to hold some relationship with Rykard and Rykard is Extremely Awful to the albinaurics). Not only that, but again if we are to believe Mohg was not at fault for any of the evils he committed because Miquella forced him to be evil, then we cannot believe that anything about Radahn and Miquella’s relationship was consensual (not that any incestuous relationship can be but it adds another layer of coercion).

So they make this vow and Radahn later reneges. Maybe he realizes he’s been charmed and breaks it, somehow, but we don’t actually know. And so Miquella sic’s Malenia on him like a dog, dooming Caelid. Firstly, overall it just makes Radahn less compelling as someone who could’ve potentially been better but decided he loved war too much, doomed by the world he was born into to want something that destroyed him and everything he loved. Secondly, it just really hurts the construction of Miquella’s character as someone perhaps jaded and optimism crushed by a shitty world built by his mom (and also Malenia’s). But thirdly, and most importantly to me, it completely decimates one of the most powerful narratives themes to me in Elden ring.

The deliberate obfuscation of Why Radahn and Malenia fought in the first place was one of the most important pieces of the narrative to me. It spoke greatly to Elden Ring’s themes about war and violence. That there are no real winners, that it leads only to death and destruction. That whatever reason why they fought was not important enough to result in all the devastation. The point was that it was pointless. It spoke to both Malenia and Radahn’s weaknesses and showed how even great people (even people with good qualities) have those qualities ruined by war. The fight dooms both of them; Radahn becomes a zombie, Caelid is turned into a rotten hell hole. Malenia has to be dragged back to the Haligtree and without her brother, she basically just Waits To Die, now aimless. It is, again, tragic.

And again, in comes the DLC. It is now just a punishment for not wanting to marry your half brother. It turns Miquella into a childish abuser, and Malenia into basically just a dog Miquella can send out on other people, his original enforcer/tool to be discarded once she was at her usefulness's end before he even stripped himself of his love for godhood. It also becomes Extremely dark if you consider that Malenia knew of Miquella and Radahn’s vow and decided to go and kill Radahn anyway, but there’s also no way to say for certain. Speaking to Malenia and Miquella’s relationship, there is a part of me that wonders if she was originally supposed to be in Radahn’s shoes. It would still create issues, but others would at least be partly remedied. It would be bad and fucked up, but it'd feel way more cogent and meaningful. Their toxic and codependent relationship resulting in them both being at their worst would actually fucking say something. Giving Malenia and non-rot afflicted body, even if it means doing something incredibly fucked up to someone he already victimized? the sort of ruthless goal seeking that better speaks to how Miquella is flawed even as a god, because it’s impossible to be a Perfect or Good God?

Meta-textually it’s also just troubling to, yet again, only depict mlm relationships through coercion and incest. Fromsoft does not traffic in good or healthy relationships but the unhealthy heterosexual relationships are given much more depth and apparent care to its members at least somewhat. Marika and Radagon have a Whole Thing going on but its clear they’re equal players in their one million year psychic battle against one another. Radagon and Rennala had a loving relationship (though there are misogynistic elements of Rennala being So Crushed after Radagon left her, she at least was powerful and active at one time). Marika and Godfrey’s relationship is somewhat vague, but we do know Godfrey believed in her vision enough to give up many aspects of himself. Not healthy, but again Godfrey and Marika are both active agents in their relationship (and he does come back for her, even if either by feeling because he Has To or for other reasons it still says something about His character). Tanith and Rykard are on some Insane Shit but they are insane for each other in a mutual sense. Even the incestuous elements in both Miquella and Malenia’s relationship, and Lorian and Lothric’s in ds3, correctly points to incest arising from unhealthy family dynamics/life situations. Now we’ve re-contextualized Miquella’s kidnapping so that it edges dangerous close on 'victim of incest lying, actually, was manipulating everyone, should die.’ Like What Are We Doing Here, man.

By comparison, Mohg is completely stripped of almost all the elements of his narrative that made him interesting and compelling and Radahn is weirdly pigeon holed into being the victim of Miquella’s violence and coercion. Radahn is dragged back from the dead after an end to his suffering, and turned into Miquella’s new enforcer. Freyja says something to the effect that it’s ‘what Radahn would have wanted’ but given how the rest of Fromosft’s entire library of work operates I do not take the word of a single NPC as gospel. And then we kill him, and Miquella. Mohg’s body gets desecrated, the end.

To some points, one might say that Miquella viewed all these evils as a means to an end, and I can’t say you’d be wrong. To me, though, it feels like many of these actions needlessly muddle the narrative, speak to the worst impulses society has around coercion/abuse, and ruin a lot of the interesting character narratives of the base game. Cards on the table, I felt utterly crushed by the DLC, and am still feeling really raw. Partly because the flaws of the demigods being products of Marika and co., were fascinating and impactful. The changes made, to me, cheapen a lot and feel somewhat like Fromsoft was sort of spitting in my face for attempting to piece together all the item descriptions, dialog snippets, and environmental storytelling elements to make a hazy image of a group of people we don’t exactly get to know, or rather only get to know by their actions and the outcomes of such. I’m less upset than I was, but ultimately I still feel so sour.

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Happy sleepover Saturday!!

Lately I’ve been thinking about going to collage. I’m in my mid twenties and I didn’t do the greatest in high school. (Graduated by the skin of my teeth and all.) I’m also in America and as you know we’re famous for collage debt. (Although I think it might be like that all over the world rn.) So I’ve always been apprehensive about going to collage.

But I’m not entirely satisfied with my job right now, and I had seen there was a job with nature in an area I would go for the summer. And I would either need a bachelor’s degree or one year of experience. And the thing is, my mom has suggested I’d go to collage for that sort of thing. I have thought about going to collage before in the past, if anything to just get generals done… but I never did. Now I’m tempted to go to college.

My only thing is that I also want to travel abroad this summer. I’m being so indecisive and everything is so expensive 😭😭😭

I'm so sorry I'm so late to these!! I was at a farmers market all day with someone who had never been so it took extra longggg

Here's a fun fact about most collages and universities - you can infact ask permission to audit classes. I have a friend who has been auditing Harvard's theological courses from an island off of Vancouver for nearly a year now she just doesnt technically get any credits bc she hasn't paid anything.

A second fun fact, is a lot of classes and courses you can test into a certain teir of class.

So we put these 2 fun facts together and *theoretically* you could audit classes to gain the info to test for the exams/courses and shave a year or so off of a degree debt free.

You might not be able to do it entirely, but you could possibly put down a professor here or there as a resume without ever having to pay for the class itself which is a cool anarchy way of going bout things.