#descended from the sun

[aspen-charminghearts]

Head canon that the sun is brighter in Auradon than it is in Wonderland and Red is already light sensitive so everyone thinks that Red is just generally pis*ed with everyone cause she’s always squinting so she looks angry (This Makes Chloe anxious cause she thinks Red is upset with her). Then there’s this incident where the sun gets so bright and Red starts tearing up cause her eyes hurt and Chloe thinks Red is crying and she panics and tries to comfort Red but then Red finally explains to her that the sun just hurts so much like “oh my rabbits, Chloe why does the sun shine here almost as bright as you” and Chloe of course is like seriously flustered and flattered by the sweetest thing that’s ever come out of Red. However Chloe is not just going to let her girlfriend suffer so that incident Red is gifted these weird shaped color tinted glasses by Chloe and Red doesn’t understand until she puts them on and then immediately hugs Chloe because the sun is “no longer attacking her”.

She never goes outside without them as she becomes seriously attached to anything Chloe gives her but overtime gains a mass collection of them because Chloe can’t help but buying Red a pair every time she sees one that she thinks Red will like. Chloe thinks this will make Red have more variability.

It does not. Red makes sure to wear all of them but clearly the first one is her favorite because it’s one of the first few gifts Chloe gave her. Red also always takes multiple of them with her whenever she leaves their dorm, because she wants to make sure Chloe knows she cherishes everything Chloe gives.

It doesn’t take a while for it to click to Chloe that Red didn’t get many gifts or really any at all during her childhood. But once Chloe figures it out she makes it her life goal to gift something to Red often to make sure her girlfriend can have nice stuff.

[starays13]

So I’ve had this scene rotating in my brain as if my brain was a microwave

[thefandomenchantress]

A Very Long Morgie Analysis

Warning: As the title says, this is a very, very long post. You should fear that keep reading button. /j

So I watched Descendants 4 with pretty low expectations a week or so ago, since I heard a lot of people criticizing the film. I’d watched the first three Descendants and thought they were a very fun kind of over the top, and figured that this one would be similarly kinda cheesy but hopefully in a charming way.

The first time I watched the film, I liked it. While I thought the beginning of the movie’s plot dragged slightly only for a far too hasty conclusion, I figured that with a supposed part 2 coming, things could possibly wrap up nicely in the future. That was my mindset throughout almost the entire film…Until suddenly Morgie got a scene.

This is a post mainly for people who’ve seen the film, but just in case I’ll explain the scene. Morgie, son of Morgana, is assigned as look-out during the villain heist. He then makes an amusing comment about what the signal should be if he sees Merlin, and no one answers him. We leave his character for a bit before coming back when Merlin returns to his office, about to catch the villains. Morgie does his signal as planned, and when Merlin looks at him, he hides behind a branch as though that’s going to do literally anything to hide him.

By the end of his little dose of screen time, I was quite amused and wondered how I hadn’t really noticed him earlier in the film, since his character archetype seemed right up my alley. After a day or two, my curiosity peaked and I decided to watch the movie again, but this time pay lots of attention to him whenever he was in a scene. I both wanted to appreciate his character more as well as reevaluate the movie after my first viewing, wanting to decide if it really was ‘bad’ like people said it was (spoiler alert: I had fun watching it the second time as well, while it is flawed it’s a fun movie and I like it and I will die on this hill—).

On my second watch, I realized that Morgie is surprisingly pretty well-characterized for a character that doesn’t have too many speaking lines. And I really wanted to hyper-analyze his character and all that, so now I’m making a very long post about it. I really just need to ramble for a bit because for some reason I have become deeply fixated on this character and NEED to blurt out all my thoughts.

So without further ado, how about we watch this movie for a third time and point out every single little thing about Morgie and appreciate it? Let's go!

(There's also my theory about how the new and old timelines work below all the movie analysis, in case anyone just wants to see that).

YAY HE SAID HIS FIRST LINE WOOOO!!! After a whole 48 minutes, the best character has finally entered the movie /j.

Now on to actual thoughts and stuff. Morgie's first ever words in this film are, "Son of morgana", which, from an out-of-universe perspective, can be easily explained by the movie needing us to know who he is, since he's one of the two completely unheard-of characters in the villain gang.

But Uliana, notably, only has her relation to Ursula mentioned after her verse. So the "son of morgana" line didn't have to be the first thing to ever be said by him, but it is.

That could just be because it flows best from a music standpoint, but in-universe, I think it could possibly represent how Morgie got into the villain gang in the first place.

You see, while I was trying to dig up all the Morgie information available before I made this post, I found these blurbs:

(From an official Descendents book, 98% sure it's called "Descendants: The World Of Auradon: Royals And Villains").

Notably, Morgie's entry says he isn't the most well-liked in the group. But in that case...How is he still in the group??? The villain gang don't exactly seem like the types to keep someone around just to be nice. So here's what I think the reason is.

Uliana wants to be the most feared person at the school. She wants to surpass even her sister when it comes to being mean and scary. And that means that her gang has to be mean and scary. And when she hears that the literal son of Morgana--Morgana, in this universe, seems to be a very powerful sorceress who almost took over the world--is attending her school, she knows that having him on her side will definitely give her more of a powerful, evil image. Afterall, if the son of one of the most powerful villains was willing to follow her, people would think that she must be very mean and scary.

Of course, she needs people to know that Morgie is the son of Morgana, so I wouldn't be surprised if she asked him to mention it the first chance he got, and he listened to her.

This was all a very long way of saying that Morgie says this line first possibly because Uliana told him to, since having evil, scary people on her side makes her look better. And it's also interesting that the first words he ever speaks are about his relation to someone else, not his own character, unlike all the others in his group.

But we're not done with this shot yet! I also want to add that the Son of Morgana's name is Morgie, which means that Morgana has joined the long, long line of Descendents villains who basically just name their children after themselves, (probably because they view them as a sort of mini-me). I wouldn't be surprised if his name was actually Morgan, though, and Morgie's just a nickname.

Also, something I noticed is that, if you look at the book-pictures above again, Morgie's paragraph is in past tense, while Morgana's is in present tense. Morgie's being in the past tense makes sense, since we know that in the future, the villain gang in Rise of Red no longer exists, all of them being their own solo acts. But Morgana's paragraph being in present tense means that she is still alive, powerful, and presumably still wants to take over the world. So I guess that means she's technically a candidate for antagonist in the next movie. But I'll get back to speculation about that sort of thing later.

Now we can finally talk about the next moment, haha.

(Morgie is the one singing the line here)

The first time I watched this I didn't catch that he called Uliana hot but--Yeah, he did. Which means that he either thinks she's so hot he must declare it to random strangers, or Uliana specifically asked him to say that she's hot. Either way it's kind of hilarious.

I am genuinely unsure as to whether they are trying to get us to ship Morgie and Uliana because:

-On one hand, we've got Morgie not being well-liked, and him "desperately wanting Uliana to like and respect him". Which seems to imply that, at least to some extent, she does not like or respect him, or at least not as much as Morgie wants her to.

-But on the other hand, we've got Morgie calling her hot, staring at her longingly, and Uliana calling him 'honey' later in the movie. Disney what do you want from us--

Personally, after reading that Morgana is cruel person who doesn't care about innocent people and who's first priority is world domination, I guessed that Morgie probably didn't have the most loving upbringing. It could've possibly been something like Red's, where his mother could be 'kind', but only if he did what she said and helped her take over the world and all that. In this scenario, Morgie tries his best to follow her lead, but most of the time still doesn't do well enough to satisfy her and fails to get much validation or love from her. When he goes off to school, he tries to get validation and love and respect and all that from Uliana instead.

But that interpretation sort of implies he sees her as a stand-in mother figure, which makes me think that no, them being a couple doesn't feel quite right.

But it's not like that interpretation is canon or anything, it's just something I came up with. So it can't prove that he has no romantic interest in Uliana and that's why he's so desperate to please her. But I did want to share my thoughts on that matter, so here you go. :)

Aside from Morgie getting hit by Uliana's tentacle and falling over being really funny, there is something else interesting that this moment made me notice.

I read somewhere that a character being lower in frame than another, or lower from a high angle in general, can symbolize them being less powerful. And I noticed that there are a few scenes where Morgie does crouch or appear at a lower angle than the other villain gang members, which reinforces the idea that he isn't the most powerful/well-liked member and is at the bottom of the totem pole in the group.

I don't know if I'm reading into that too much, and I don't know a lot about film-making techniques so maybe that's not completely accurate, but I thought that was interesting.

There's nothing too important about this one, I just think that all the villains frowning or glaring while Morgie goes :D is really funny. He looks so head-empty in this moment.

Morgie uses 80's slang confirmed!!

Also, Uliana lets Morgie call her Uli. Considering the fact that Uliana says her full name (Uliana) is what will strike fear into people's hearts, her letting Morgie use a semi-cute nickname is fun. It proves they're at least a little close, since she didn't sock him in the face for calling her that, especially in public. She cares a lot about her image, so her not minding definitely seems to imply she cares for him at least a little bit.

I don't have much to say about this one, I just think it's amusing.

Though the fact that so much of Morgie's dialogue can go unheard/unnoticed without captions on or on a first viewing is interesting. I couldn't actually hear the 'wicked' line, I'm just trusting the captions. And both this line and the last he says while not on-screen, which seems to put the other's reactions in more of a spotlight than what he's saying.

I suppose this is part of the reason I found Morgie harder to notice and keep track of when I wasn't putting my undivided attention on him. Throughout a good chunk of the movie, he's treated as nothing more than Uliana's lackey. Him not having too much to do besides follow her is true to his character, though. His entire role is all based around doing anything to gain her affection. He cares about her more than anything, and sometimes that leads to him not being a character of his own. Which is pretty cool, if done purposefully.

Hm, I've noticed that Morgie's main ship in this fandom seems to be Hook and him, and is this one moment the reason for that? I've heard people say they have chemistry on-screen, but after watching the movie a few times, they only have a few close moments from what I can see. This and introducing Uliana are probably where their friendship is most prominent. Hook and Morgie definitely seem the most dedicated to Uliana, so they are similar in that regard. And the ship is cool, don't get me wrong. I suppose I just wonder if there's some sort of logic behind it, or if it was more of a "ah yes two conventionally attractive men it's shipping time" situation, haha.

This is an interesting frame, because Uliana is suffering as she's turned into a...uh...flamingo-squid-human hybrid? And you'd think that Morgie, since he cares so much about her, would be the most distressed. Instead, in this moment he seems to be smiling (not sure if you can tell as much in this screenshot, though). This could mean a few things:

As stated in the Descendents book, Morgie is rather dense and still hasn't realized that Uliana isn't fooling around anymore and is in genuine distress.

He is happy Uliana is in distress because that means he gets to help her, and she will feel grateful for that and like him more in result.

As shown later in the movie, he likes animals enough to even learn how to mimic the sounds they make, so he's just happy that two of his favorite things are being combined, haha.

Some sort of theory about him secretly not being super loyal to her, though there's not much of a case you could make for that other than this moment in particular, as far as I'm aware.

I'm not sure which one I believe, though I think I'm probably leaning towards the first one, even though possibility 2 would be quite interesting. After all, he looks very visibly worried when she falls into the fountain later, so him just not realizing at first probably lines up the most.

Not too much to say about these two moments, besides the fact that they once again showcase how desperate Morgie is to please Uliana. First by him being the first person to try to help her (but he fails and falls over, which he seems to do a lot). And second by him being the first to sprint out of the courtyard after her. Though it seems Hook caught up and got him to stay with the others to cut off Bridget and Ella at the other side, since we don't see him running behind Uliana anymore in the next shot, and then we see him standing beside Hades after we move to the fountain scene, implying he went the way Hades did instead.

(Side note, I think that Morgie's the one who shouts 'Uli!' but the captions just say student so maybe not, I can't tell).

Okay, so, the captions claim that Hook says this line, but not only can we see that Hook has his mouth shut as he pushes branches out of the way, not speaking, the voice also sounds way more like Morgie to me. Originally, I was going to use the nickname Uli as evidence that it was Morgie, but then I remembered Hook also calls her Uli earlier in the movie. So I guess I can't prove anything, but I'm 99% sure this was a mistake on the caption-er people's part.

To get on with the actual scene, Morgie compliments Uliana in an attempt to comfort and please her, though it doesn't seem to work like he'd hoped it would. Other than the last scene of the movie, this is probably the only scene that remotely shows that maybe she doesn't like him as much as some of the others, like the book claims. But more on that later.

I had a hard time getting a good frame of it, but I wanted to point out that Morgie kinda froggy-hops on the first two stones in this scene, before jumping across them normally. Whether he stopped because he realized the others weren't doing it or because he simply remembered that he is Not A Frog, I found it to be a fun detail and wanted to point it out.

Pfft, he's so eager to participate, his worryingly excited vocal delivery never gets old to me here. You could also argue that this is another lower-in-the-frame moment, since he sort of crouches and then rises up here.

It's noteworthy that Morgie is the only one of Uliana's gang to not come up with his own idea for a way to get revenge on Bridget. Which at first glance seems like a strange choice, since all the members getting individual lines is a chance to characterize each one a little bit more. And that's especially valuable with a character like Morgie, since most kids probably don't know a lot about Arthurian legend and therefore Morgana. And Morgie's not even actually her, he's her son. Meaning in his limited screentime, they really need to put the effort in to make his general personality clear.

But the fact that Morgie just copies someone else's answer does characterize him. Like I said earlier, at least to me, Morgie seems a lot more eager to participate in the conversation than to come up with ways to punish Bridget for what she totally definitely did. In fact, he begins to climb on top of the rock-thingy to jump off it and excitedly repeat Hades' idea before Hades even has a chance to finish his thought (he's still on "we could"), meaning Morgie was probably going to excitedly parrot whatever Hades said no matter what it was (or maybe that just happened because the actor didn't have enough time to climb up, jump, and say the line if he waited until Hades finished speaking but shhhhhh).

This would imply that Morgie doesn't really care as much about evilly getting revenge and whatnot as much as he cares about getting to be included in the conversation and following what the others are doing. This may be getting into more headcanon-y territory, but Morgie seems to crave the love and companionship of his friends, and I think this scene sort of demonstrates his want to do what they deem as good and acceptable and what will make them happy rather than come up with anything on his own.

I suppose that's one thing that makes his character morally grey to some extent. Sure, he doesn't seem to take as much direct joy/satisfaction in torturing Bridget, but he still cares far more about his friends' approval than her well-being. As long as his friends are happy and want to keep him around, Bridget and anyone else's happiness doesn't matter.

I have no idea why they put in a random shot of Morgie jumping in the middle of the song, but it's really amusing to me so I'm happy they did. I just needed to mention this really quick, I find the hard cut to Morgie dramatically jumping off something way too humorous not to.

Off-topic, but since it's sort of implied Morgie likes animals at the end of the movie, I like to think he feeds this guy sometimes, and when asked why he'll say sadly, "No one comes here besides us anymore, so he hasn't been able to eat any innocent people in a long time :(" like it's this terrible, tragic backstory. Idk I just think it'd be funny. Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Ah yes, the scene I keep mentioning. The one that made me go, "woah, he's funny and has a discernable personality :0". The one where he asks what the signal should be and all that.

This scene finally shows us what the Descendents book from earlier kept claiming, that he wasn't the most well-liked among their evil clique. When Morgie talks, Uliana rolls her eyes in exasperation and walks off, not answering his questions. And the others follow suit, ignoring him.

For most of the film, Morgie seems to be on even ground with the other members, and at first, I thought maybe that wasn't on purpose and they just wanted to shove this in at the end, like how most of the ending was rushed. But now I'm thinking that maybe the reason Morgie isn't as well-liked is being shown throughout the scene, revealing why it's only more obvious now.

You see, Morgie's easily excitable personality fits in when Uliana and the gang are all just messing around, like how they were laughing and making jokes at someone else's expense earlier in the movie. Morgie just has to cackle evilly behind Uliana and be supportive. But when they try to do more 'serious' evil things, like this heist, his attitude doesn't translate quite as well.

Uliana wants to be taken seriously as the threat, and I assume the other villain gang members do as well. They want to be evil and scary and tough and all that. But Morgie doesn't really have a more serious, threatening mode. Well, he does, like when he's trying to be threatening during his introduction. But when there's no bystanders to impress, only his friends, the real Morgie isn't the serious type. He's still energetic and excitable, even in situations such as these. And the others find this a bit grating, since they want to be real villains. They don't want all of this to be childish or a game, they want to be taken seriously as villains. They want to be real villains. And Morgie's demeanor isn't as cut out for that sort of environment. Or at least his natural demeanor isn't, and he has trouble reading when they want him to be more serious.

Side-note: I swear I love every line this character delivers, something about the way he talks makes my ears happy. So I just wanted to point that out really quick.

"Ah yes, this extremely small branch will guarantee that no one will see me! >:D" I find this very funny. I want to say this isn't very smart of him, but I mean it works and Merlin doesn't see him so you can't argue with results--

Anyways, Morgie impersonates a few animals and hides behind a small tree branch. I thought about screenshotting all the animal noises but they're pretty straight-forward and for this you just need to acknowledge that they happened, so I didn't.

Morgie is the son of Morgana, and presumably has the capacity to be an extremely powerful magic-user like her. Which means there are a lot of cool magic things he could be doing. So I think the fact that we are directly shown that shape-shifting and mimicry are the skills he focuses his energy on the most, is important. Well, I suppose it's possible he isn't using magic to mimic the animals, but I've always assumed he is. And even if he isn't, the fact that even in scenes where he's completely alone he's still mimicking something else is rather telling.

...

...Oh, wow, we finished analyzing the actual movie! Yay! Time for one last thing, then!

Apparently, there was a deleted after-credits scene where Morgie finds the sorcerer's book. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate the original post, which supposedly came from Morgie's actor. It's not that I doubt it's real, I don't know how someone could fake this photo, but I would've liked to see it and know what he said about it.

(Warning, a lot of this gets even less objective than it already was, and most of it is just me theorizing with varying degrees of evidence to back my statements).

So what implications does this photo have? Well, it confirms my suspicions that Morgie being forced to stay behind wasn't for nothing and was setting up something else. I heard there was a lot of cut content in Rise of Red, and the fact they thought the 'Morgie barks like a dog scene' was important enough to keep over other things seemed telling.

If there was a scene dedicated to him finding the book, then him finding it must somehow be important. But in that case, I'm guessing we'd have to assume that Morgie can open the book. After all, if he can't open it, what's the point of him finding it? And it sort of ruins the original timeline, too.

If Morgie can't open the book, then that means all of the villain gang couldn't open it. And in that case, how would they prank Bridgette in the original timeline? They couldn't, because none of them would be able to read the recipe and give the cupcake to Bridgette.

However, if Morgie can open the book, then things make more sense. I wasn't sure if I was going to share my whole theory here, but so far I haven't seen anyone have the exact same idea as me (though I haven't read every Morgie post out there, so it's possible), so why not share it?

What if the thing that changes the timeline isn't that the villains were able to get the book without getting caught by Merlin, it's that the villain gang knew Morgie could open the book?

Let me explain.

Let's start with the fact that I don't think we often acknowledge, at least in my experience, how random of a choice putting Morgie in this movie was. They could've chosen any classic Disney villain to be in this movie, yet they chose Morgana. A character who has never even shown up in any Disney project, besides a live-action film and Sofia the First. They could've chosen to round out the pirate trio from the second movie and added in Gaston, or chosen one of the core four's parents from the first movie, or picked literally any famous character from any Disney movie ever. And yet, they decided to go with not just Morgana, but the son of Morgana.

And personally, I think that if Morgie really was just a throwaway character, they probably wouldn't have gone through the effort of making a whole new character instead of just choosing an already established one, like with Hook, Maleficent, and Hades. There has to be a reason they did this, right? Anything Morgie did in this movie could've been accomplished by anyone, since his only large contribution to the plot was being a look-out and failing.

And there are two things I realized. One, that being the child of a villain basically gives you automatic redemption arc privileges in this franchise. The core four, the pirate trio, and Red in this movie are all proven to be good deep down in the end, and we're supposed to see them as heroes. And for some reason, they decided their new character couldn't just be Morgana, it had to be the son of Morgana.

My guess is that they want to be able to push the "Oh their parents taught them that being evil is right but deep down they're a good person" angle they did in all the other movies with the Descendents. Especially since it would parallel Red, who's basically the main character of these movies, even if Chloe is at a close second.

The second thing I noticed is that even if you read just the first paragraph of Morgana Le Fay's Wikipedia page, it says that a significant aspect of her character is her unpredictability when it comes to being good or evil. She has the potential for both, and since they seem to have decided to just make Morgana evil in this universe, I'm guessing that trait is being handed down to Morgie.

They needed a morally ambiguous villain who could open the book in order for the timeline to work properly, and choosing a villain we know is 'evil' thanks to their movie, wouldn't allow that. So obscure villain's son it is.

Alright, so if we assume my logic makes sense and isn't just incoherent rambling, Morgie can open the book. How does this tie into the way Chloe and red changed the timeline? Here's what I've come up with:

In the new timeline, Red and Chloe steal the book for the villains and the villains take it, opening it in front of them just to brag and getting frozen. Red and Chloe take the book and, assuming that Uliana and her friends can't go to the dance, leave the book behind off-screen. In the deleted scene I think they left it...Is that their room? I genuinely can't tell, but Morgie finds it. Possibly via following them after seeing them leave the building, since we know that the trip from Red's room to Merlin's office is in direct eyeline of the tree.

But even though Morgie found the book, the prank isn't enacted in this timeline. If Morgie can open the book, why is that? After all, he could just do the prank for Uliana, right? Well, here's what i think happened:

Uliana and the gang don't know that the book is enchanted so that non-good people are unable to open it. That's why they try to open it without a second thought. Which means there are two possibilities going forward:

Morgie did indeed follow Red and Chloe back to their room so he could get the book back for Uliana, and overheard their conversation about how the book proves Red is a good person and won't turn out like her Mom, etcetera. When he finds it, he's aware of what could happen when he opens it, unlike his friends.

Morgie doesn't know about the enchantment on the book when he finds it, because he didn't follow them or couldn't hear them through the door or something else.

Both options, for my theory, garner the same outcome, it's just that things take slightly longer to happen.

If we go with the second option, Morgie is unaware that opening the book with no side effects means anything and after he opens it, he decides to show Uliana and the others the book whenever Merlin gets the spell off of them and all that. But when they do meet up, Morgie asks how they got caught before he shows them anything. And Uliana's answer would be something along the lines of, "That stupid book was enchanted and froze us in place! Only some goody-two-shoes could open it without that happening" (she would know because she heard Chloe's explanation of the spell when her and Red were talking). And Morgie takes a moment to process that...Uh oh, wait, that didn't happen to him. Why didn't that happen to him? Cue Morgie having an identity crisis as he realizes that the book doesn't seem to think he's a bad person, even though that's what he's supposed to be. He's the son of Morgana. He's part of a group that knows their actions are bad and they don't care. His entire motivations are around getting his mother, Uliana, and whoever else to give him validation for being good at being a villain.

But according to this book, he's not one.

Morgie tries to play it off and decides not to show them the book. Uliana and the gang are all about being evil, and they are all he has. What if this was the last straw and they kicked him out of the group because they think he's not evil enough? He'd have no one left.

He's decided that he can't tell them about the book, but what if they figure out that he has it? As long as he has the book, it's a liability. So, he does the only thing he can think of.

Burn it to a crisp.

And with the book destroyed, the prank can't happen. The recipe that can turn Bridget into a monster is no more.

If we went back to those first two options and say Morgie knew about the spell when he opened the book, then everything is the same except the book gets destroyed sooner, the night Morgie's friends are still frozen and won't be able to catch him actively sabotaging their revenge plans.

So that's the new red-and-Chloe timeline. What about the old timeline? Well, in that timeline, let's say Uliana doesn't feel the need to show off and open the book in front of Red and Chloe, so they escape Merlin's office unharmed. That means they get to meet up with Morgie, and whenever they open it, they're around to see that oh, Morgie isn't frozen, that's weird.

And they can't know for sure why, since they don't know what the enchantment is or what its qualifications are, but they do know that Morgie can read the recipe and do the revenge plan, so Morgie is able to read the instructions and they're able to prank Bridgette.

And ta-da! That's how the timeline got changed! At least in my mind, there are probably tons of other possibilities, but this is the one that made the most sense in my head.

And with that, the post is finally finished! I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts or ideas on this! Despite this being an analysis, a lot of it is dictated, at least slightly, by my own opinions. Morgie is the centerpiece of the timeline changes for a reason, haha. With such a large fanbase compared to some other pieces of media I like, I'd love to hear what the masses have come up with and like or disagree about in this post.

Thank you so much for reading if you've made it this far! I can only imagine that if you have read all this, you're some sort of Descendents or Morgie super-fan, and for that you have my respect.

[angdacat]

Dreams of a Crimson Balemoon

Dreams of a Crimson Balemoon The crimson moon, hanging high in the pitch-dark night sky, suddenly turned around, revealing itself to be a titanic, horrified eye.

[ceiling-karasu]

World Building continued: Backstory for the wars involving Flower Hill, Teikoku, and Usuhan Jiyeog, and subsequent occupations.

Apologies in advance for this being so long. I wanted to know how widespread Japanese weasels are in real life, and found something interesting I could use.

Japanese weasels originate from three areas of Japan, that being Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku.

Coincidentally, Japan famously has three Ceremonial Regalia in the form of a sword, magatama beads, and a mirror. These items are not seen by anyone other than the royal family and certain priests (images on the internet are recreations of what they could possibly look like, and those seen in public are symbolic stand-ins), but they symbolize the authority of the royal family.

Which allows me to make a backstory for my AU to help explain the wars and occupations, very loosely based off of events and locations in history, especially since animal biology limits certain events from happening.

In the past, there was an Emperor, who preferred for Teikoku to be in isolation. Under his rule, and of those before him, are smaller prefectures run by princes, lords, or other lessor royal families.

Contact with the United States Alliance and other nations led to a period of aggression and imperialism surrounding the empire of Teikoku, as they strove to fight against a stagnating economy that believed in its own superiority in the world, as well as a strict caste system preventing innovation.

Eventually, after some time, three princes are sent out to conquer the final few neighboring islands, so that may join the empire, and provide a larger force for when they make a move for the peninsula and the mainland.

The three princes are named after their prefectures, and the Emperor has given them each one of the Imperial Regalia as proof of their superiority.

The Sword

Honshu is the main island of Japan, and is also known as the dragonfly island. Teikoku will call it Tonbo, which refers to dragonflies, which are fierce and deadly creatures. As such, their Imperial Regalia is the sword, Yūki no ken (the sword of valor), and is based off of Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (Grass-Cutter). Tonbo is the main physical fighting force of Teikoku.

The Magatama Jewels

Kyushu is smaller than Honshu, but it had a lot of trade circuits around the ocean and the mountains. So I will make a prefecture named Kairo (Circuit), and have the area be responsible for trade and roads around the empire, as well as in the fighting forces. I would use the famous Magatama jewels (Benevolence) to symbolize their rule.

The Mirror

Shikoku means four provinces, and is the least populated area of the three areas. Shikoku also has a lot of temples (perhaps run by green pheasants, the national symbol of Japan), which draws in a lot of pilgrims. But they also maintain a lot of gateways to other prefectures. So maybe Genkan for entryway. They are responsible for planning and strategizing for the other two. They can have the Michi no kagami, mirror of the path to represent wisdom/truth, based on the Yata no Kagami.

VERY loosely taking inspiration from The Tale of the Heike, a collection of Japanese epic poetry with many translations and retelling (actually written down 200 years after said events supposedly happened), which says that the royal families that held these Regalia were defeated in a naval battle, and threw themselves and the treasures into the sea. Subsequent legends suggest that many search and diving parties have been led to recover the Regalia.

In my AU, I hold that the items were thrown into the sea, with the princes believing that they could return for them later even if they were captured, although they managed to escape. It was a complete disgrace for the Emperor, as without the Ceremonial Regalia, the legitimacy of the entire palace was thrown into question.

And then the box holding the Magatama washed up on the shores of the peninsula.

It is returned as a gesture of good will, but as no good deed goes unpunished, Teikoku believes that they must have taken the other Imperial Regalia for themselves, starting a land invasion. The small army is annihilated by farmers, fresh out of overthrowing their own monarchy, wielding guns, which Teikoku has never seen before.

Which results in a larger army being sent, which is also defeated and the princes captured and possibly executed by the hedgehog army in the north of the country. At this point, without the authority of the Ceremonial Regalia, and increasing economical desperation, the country is forced to undergo a reformation. While there is still an Emperor, he does not hold as much political power as he once did.

Teikoku left behind settlements of soldiers and colonists controlling the southern portion of the peninsula, which they name Usuhan Jiyeog, who take up ruler-ship and fish farming.

The hedgehogs use the proof of their power in defending their areas to take control of what they would name Flower Hill.

It is a strongly held belief that before they backed away from Usuhan Jiyeog, the Emperor promised that anyone who managed to retrieve the Ceremonial Regalia from Flower Hill would be reinstated as the next emperor, and be rewarded with power beyond their wildest dreams.

Did the other two, heavier, items, even wash up on the shores of the peninsula like the jewels, locked in an airtight box? Or did they sink to the bottom, as they were heavier? Who is to say...

But alongside the greed, desperation for power, and food production issues, the temptation of finding the supposedly stolen Imperial Regalia locked away in some distant stronghold is a good enough reason as any to attempt to occupy Flower Hill.

Now, I'm not about to retcon what I have already written and say that Commander Jogjebi wanted the sword and mirror, and Huinjogjebi is a weasel of science who would likely not be interested anyway. But claiming that Flower Hill stole precious items and symbols of their country in the past, and them not being able to disprove it, is enough of an excuse to make quite a few countries in the international courts turn a blind eye to the happenings surrounding Flower Hill.

Oil Production

I did figure out the oil and gas situation. I did go ahead and give the Jindo Empire a large amount of oil. The Venezuela country below the United States Alliance is now the República de Cultivos Oleaginosos, and is trying to prevent the wolves' country from occupying their regions.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world's oil in my AU is being produced in this country.

While it used to be many different nations in the past, the leaders understood that their vast oil and gas reserves would result in large scale invasions, and agreed to band together into the Equatorial Allegiance.

[froginamoodboard]

Mal x the daughter of Kristoff and Anna moodboard

Requested by: anon

x x x x x x x x x

[luuxxart]

running a guild type D&D series of one-shots irl; this is the leader and leader’s apprentice of the Daybreak Guild ☀️🗡️

[spoofyleaf]

Kinda wanna see MK become more and more scared about who/ what he is, and Wukong is just “:0 omg you’re like me :D”

[the-everqueen]

may i enquire about lucienne’s day off for wip wednesday, please?

so this fic is in answer to your V day prompt, actually! i'm very excited about it and last month it was my "comfort" wip, i.e. the one i defaulted to when words felt hard. eventually Luce is gonna take Coco on walkies. mirrors work both ways. :)

...

“Where would we go?” Her voice comes out weak.

“Wherever you like,” he says. “Although…”

“Yes?”

“There is a retrospective of Nakahira Takuma’s work at the MOMAT.”

Damn him. He knows her interest in photography. He also must know she just finished organizing their collection of Takuma’s amnesia dreams, which had of course disappeared during Morpheus’ absence and only recently reappeared in another, unrelated section (Toru Takemitsu’s orchestral compositions from the 1980s). Photographs are different, in dreams. Both more and less definite, relevant details brought to the fore whether or not they’re the subject, all the weight of nostalgia with none of the camera’s stark eye. Lucienne has spent hours comparing Takuma’s dreams to the Library’s copies of his post-recovery work, trying to identify the commonalities between them. If asked, she would say that her duties encompass reference and research, in addition to curation.

She has not seen a photograph in the Waking since—well, since humans invented the technology. Morpheus took her to an exhibition.

[hopeworth]

kishimoto might have been a mostly bad writer but he kinda went off with Breaking The Cycle as an overarching theme of the whole series

[goawaywithjae]

What was the first K-drama you watched that made you want to watch even more Korean shows? It’s different for everyone. For some, it may have been 2021’s “Squid Game,” while for others it could’ve been 2002’s “Winter Sonata” that drew them in.

For my latest K-Culture with Jae-Ha Kim newsletter, I gave a lot of thought to what I’ve heard repeatedly from readers here (and on social media over the years) about the shows that drew them in. Here, I’ve reviewed seven K-dramas that hundreds (thousands?) of people have told me were their gateway show.

[anotherrosesthatfell]

Explaining Frieda Hanani backstory in here because I know that I will forget if I wrote in wattpad draft

• ability

She can see everything even with her eyes closed. (though sometimes it had it own limit-)

Frieda can see the future when she is asleep, even so having such power, she didn't use it to help people but only for her own benefits.

Her necklace has some sort of magic that made people loves her no matter what she done. Unless if that person has strong magic/will like Chara and Alphonse, they will see her true colors. (yes, this is why people think Lux is innocent despite having so much proofs that she tormented Palette.)

Her umbrella hold lots of magic that were not actually hers. Whenever she opens her umbrella, it basically absorb any magics from people or things and keep it.

• Backstory

Frieda is known as the Saint or child of God in Empire of feelings.

But

She was a normal girl living in Quetzalcoatl kingdom before Nim basically kidnapped her- I mean take her away from her home.

Frieda was a noble lady that pretty close to the royal family in her kingdom. Her parents pretty popular with positive vibe so-

Yeah anyway, Quetzalcoatl had a twin brother named Xolotl who was married to Nim.

One day, Xolotl really miss his kingdom and wants to visit his twin brother because it had been 2 years. Nim let him visit it but she also came along with baby Passive Nightmare-

Frieda met Nim in the palace because her parents had a work needed to be done.

Nim sense a very great of magic coming from Frieda.

Nim then wants to take Frieda but her parents refused which made Nim boiled. So she killed them in front of Frieda and the reason was 'for disobeying an empress order'.

Frieda was traumatized but she still don't want to go. Quetzalcoatl and Xolotl arrived at the scene, they was so disappointed in Nim and now Quetzalcoatl is protecting Frieda.

Yet a year after that, Nim killed Xolotl. The reason is crazy because she said "That man was the reason my son has no magic"

BRO THE REASON WHY PASSIVE IS LIKE THAT BECAUSE GOD IS MAD AT YOU.

anyway, Nim threatened Quetzalcoatl that she will kill Passive if he doesn't give Frieda to her.

Quetzalcoatl had to do it just to protect what his brother remaining piece.. :')

Anyway, since Frieda got taken to Nim. She basically remembers everything because God blessed her with 'I see everything' so she remembers what Nim has done. (she was 4 years old btw-)

She plotting her revenge to destroy the empire even if it mean to ruin 2 kingdoms.

Also her necklace and umbrella? Where and how she gets it?

Well that's easy.

If you read the prologue 'destiny of sun descent', it will tells you that Nim hunts witches.

What happened to those witches after they being hunted? Well they will be taken to the torture dungeon-

Frieda in the other hand use this as her advantage and takes all of their bloods and form it into an umbrella and a necklace.

Yes, it was made of bloods, witches bloods.

No one, REALLY no one know about it...

[seasonofprophecy]

I love the Sexyman Descendants so here I am to toss my own hat into the ring ^_^

Meet Joy, the daughter of the Man in the Yellow Hat, and Jane, her pet aardvark!

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Guizhong (don't mind me re-dropping this with the fixed ones, shh)

[ambivalentatmosphere]

Name meaning tea part 2

Corduroy - It's the fabric (but the word itself is derived from cord as in rope)

Yuri Dimas - Yuri is a Slavic name written as Юрий, derived from the Greek word γεωργός which can be broken down into γῆ (meaning earth) and ἔργον (meaning work), roughly translating to one who works with the earth or, more simply, farmer. Dimas is a Greek surname derived from the word Δήμας, meaning sunset.

Since Cordie's a huge weeb, his given name sounds identical to an actual Japanese name meaning lily (although that version of Yuri is feminine). Dimas is also a reference to Saint Dimas, also known as the penitent thief, who is typically associated with the tradition of Easter.

By the way, if you're good at Greek you probably already know that the most common modern version of γεωργός is George but that didn't hit the same

[bookwyrminspiration]

quil if u want to read a book that’s not dogshit may i recommend A Lesson in Vengeance by victoria lee?

I would love to read a book that's not dogshit! I've heard of this one before--my sister might even own it...? Not sure about that, but I've definitely seen it at my local bookstore.

I admit I haven't looked into it at all, but now perhaps I'll give it a go! As always, i can never promise timeliness when it comes to reading suggestions, but it's now much more firmly on my radar :)