#especially the ones which have a sun and moon/day and night motif

[frosty-tian]

Warm-up painting of Niwa Kichiro for @eky11.

Thank you very much for your submission, they’re so cute!

[self-spaghettification]

Ok, might as well throw my two cents on this poem (what hasn’t been said already)

Gnash your teeth, O Dragon Fierce!/Night's not far away/In the sky that watchful eye/Does weep and stare and pierce

Night being “not far away” is in of itself extremely foreboding and we’ve got a lot of other concerning uses of night, like “stars all swallowed up” by the corrupted sun forge in After Darkness, in the Bookery how the banthers only came out at night, 6x03 being called Moonless Night, etc.

“While one may say it ends with a sunrise, another will insist it ends at nightfall. ” (swallowed sun) (falling stars) / Karim's "the rising sun is now a falling star” from here

This stanza to me read as about Sol Regem.

We also have the “watchful eye” in the sky which reminds me of how Sol’s eyes are potentially being healed?

Tho- I also like the possibility that the eye is the weeping moon and it connects strongly with the poster that we’ve just received (ON THE SAME DAY.) and The hopeless dragon could also be Luna, and it reflects her power being siphoned and her death.

Currently thinking about how the poem could refer to both the past and present simultaneously, especially if it’s from the perspective from Aaravos who loves writing multiple layers into what he says (at least, looking at the reflections)

Sol Regem&Janai vs Luna&Aditi.

Anyway.

There’s a lot of grief and hopeless tone throughout the entire poem and it is not looking good at this point in the season considering 6x03 poem at least started out hopeful then veered towards doomed, 6x07 poem started out doomed. Love that for this season. Love that

BUT it does veer towards hopeful territory right at the end. Similar to a line from one of Aaravos’s reflections: “The long, dark night had finally passed—for the sun must always rise, mustn’t it?.”

Eight in a line, O Chosen Mine!/Ready for a war/Endlessly burning—/Hopelessly yearning—!/That love will triumph once more!

I saw speculation that 8 could be the number of key characters could be chess or the number of sources who knows, it could definitely makes a strong point for the pawn motif/aaravos pov, but who knows. I’m not gonna worry about that .

Endlessly burning is something I associate strongly with Aaravos—and we see him burning up things, like candles, how he killed Khessa, and the matching burn in the map at the start of the show that divides Xadia and the human kingdoms.

Simultaneously endless burning is also associated with the sun, and the Sunfire plotline as it is with the passions of humanity and how they burn themselves out like they’re their own candles of dark magic.

Hopelessly yearning is also interesting—because we once again see (narrative of) war and love contrasted and if this is from Aaravos’s perspective, he’s low key once again taunting.

Y’know how people say hopeless romantic-> it’s like there’s no hope for you, you’re done for. It reminds me of how he teases Ezran—he sees it as naivety, and it once again ties into a hopeless tone, but in a different sense, as hopeless romantic and hopelessly yearning have a better connotation than hopelessness overall.

Final note is if it’s red wedding. (First letters of each stanza backwards) RED? and either sol+karim and/or aaravos crashes the wedding I’ll be happy for the rest of the year thank you (for angsts sake)

Regardless of my hopes or speculation, though it definitely seems that this is going to be the episode where all the tensions come to fruition, and the SUNFIRE Civil War begins or comes to a climax if anything. Which Also makes me think the rest of the episodes leading up to this focus more heavily on the other characters and plot lines.👀

On a sidenote, I think it’s really funny that Devon signed her name is Devonius Ghiel and it’s the first thing that stuck out to me here 

[happy-tori-friends]

Transformation Trinkets

'what about the transformation phrase!!!!" um. we dont need that i decided. (read: couldnt think of one thats cool off the top of my head)

Soul Crystals

The Soul Crystal is created by the user's soul (who could have guessed), and creates their transformed outfit, weapons, and give them their abilities they can use while transformed.

It heals severe and lethal wounds suffered in battle - the crystal will lose it's glow and become desaturated and will have to take more energy from the soul to recharge. Depending on how many wounds or how bad, the crystal's recovery process will take longer. Non-severe wounds will remain, though a warrior with healing abilities can heal them and lessen the severity of wounds.

During the recovery process, the user will be unable to transform. There will be lingering pain where the healed wounds were, as well as some evidence of it. (EX: You get stabbed through the throat, you're probably not going to be able to speak or eat for a while, and you migh struggle to breathe. There might be a scar there for a while too. Totally not planning this for anyone o3o) Both during the healing process and for a bit after it, they may become very tired or physically ill, as well as experiencing a range of intense emotions while the soul repairs the crystal, and then itself. Even though they can transform once the crystal itself is healed, they should wait at least a day or two to let their soul fully heal as well. If they dont, they may fall into a coma for a while.

Please recognize I am Not Good at drawing at all, especially perspective.

Flippy's crystal is in the shape of the sun, because it is necessary for life but also is a Deadly Laser. symbol got redone - it's a heart but one half is the outline and the other is the inside. This - and the crystal being multicolored, is to represent both him and Fliqpy.

Shifty and Lifty's crystals are moon but facing different ways. The moon represents the cover of night, and I associate night with 'spooky' tying into that phantom motif they've got going Their crystals are the same color to represent how they are identical, but their symbols, as well as the color of them, are different to represent that they are two very different individuals on the inside.

Shifty's is an alchemical symbol for gold...

...while Lifty's is an alchemical symbol for silver. This is just because I associate them with prrcious metals (and Shifty does have metal abilities)

Splendont's crystal is a 4 pointed star, differing from Splendid's normal 5 pointed star to represent that, though they walk similar paths, their approaches are different.

Splendont's symbol is fire because he has fire powers.

...and likewise, Splendid's is a snowflaje because ice powers.

I traced over some vectors for these two (poorly) because I'm not good enough to freehand.

Watch

The watch (based of Yes Precure 5's Pinky Catch in design) is the main device used. It may look like a digital watch, and shows the time, but it has two buttons on it. One opens it up, and the user can place their soul crystal under the screen, which becomes transparent so they can see the crystal, allowing them to transform. Pressing it again allows them to manually return to normal (Which will happen anywsys of their energy is completely spent or they are seriously injured.) The other allows their weapon to be summoned when transformed, and allows them to see a radar and track monsters.

It... doesn't have a concrete design or name yet..All I know is that it's a. Cooler version of this (bye bye butterfly). Probably black in color so it looks mor convincing as a watch.

Next will either be the plot or important magical world characters. Probably the plot so the characters can properly be fleshed out according to certain events.

Tori's Amazing Awesome Totally Cool Magical Warrior AU Concepting Post

AKA The post I will reblog and add to with Magical Warrior AU ideas - of which you can send an ask to respond to and add input. Yay!

there will be a lot of rambling. its judt how i am. next reblog will have ideas but first one must ask The Divine Hand Of Fate (dicebot) what i should focus on first.

thank you dicebot. that will hopefully be done soon. today or tomorrow.

[lilacerull0]

Been doing some spring-cleaning on my Amy playlist and driving myself insane thinking about Amy/11 as a sun and moon dynamic (obviously, who's who switches constantly, but always tied together, yet can never permanently be that way), so now I'm dead-set (see: deluding myself) on When The Day Met The Night being an Amy/11 song.

Because, and this is going to be a mini-essay, the song doesn't make it clear who's who between the sun and the moon + she and he, I think it's largely read as he being the moon and she being the moon but it can be read both ways -> Amy and 11 never really fitting neatly into one box.

And the song (and the album as a whole) has very overt fairy tale influences -> like a name in a fairy tale

As a bonus, the album this is on, but not this song sadly, has quite a few references to Rimbaud's A Season In Hell

But onto the song itself:

The links to the many gardens, especially the idea that the gardens are where he comes back to her (S5, the big bang Dr finding her asleep in her garden, S6, Amy finding out that he didn't die while she's in her background, S7, the scene with the convo with Rory where the TARDIS can be heard arriving)

Thinking about how 10's regen to 11 going roughly, collapsing and bleeding energy everywhere, literally just hanging on

But also Amy's "why did you say five minutes" in the garden and the look on her face when she says that -> the idea that she spent a lot of her 12 years barely hanging on to a sense of normality and sanity

Thinking about both of them making promises not to leave the other, textually or implied, and both of them breaking said promises....

To end this insane ramble, I'll leave you with the knowledge that if you queue Little Amy (the murray gold track) before When The Day Met The Night and then set the spotify crossfade to 3secs, the two tracks sync really nicely <3

This is an EXCELLENT match (thank you for the rant :")))) Keeping the reply under the cut because things got messy and deranged :/

Just... thinking about Night/Day imagery in general and how 11 and Amy meet during the night and each one of them thinks of the other as the sun while perceiving themselves as the moon. Considering how 10 felt about regenerating and how that predestined 11 to have his actual identity constantly creep up on him which he isn't  thrilled about because he's preoccupied with holding on to everything 10 was. (INSANE how Ten has to deal with Rose's ghost, the ghost of a living person and eventually ends up as one himself. He lives because Eleven wants to keep him alive, but it's not quite him... never a proper ghost, never a proper person...) it's only at the end of his arc that 11 acknowledges 10's vanity of all things. And then regarding Amy, there's the otherness she experiences in every timeline, even in the one where she remembers the Doctor, her drawings and artworks of him exist in her bedroom still. What a crooked solar system! The Moon chasing The Sun, 11 not allowing 10 to go, Amy waiting for 11.

Back to the Night/Day thing (the stuff above was a prelude, I guess), 11 comes back to Amy during the night (5x01) and leaves her during the day. (The God Complex) Key motif of The Romantic Period!!!! But also reminiscent of Symbolism. (Romanticism and Modernism as Amy's Art Movements Agenda is going strong) Actually your analysis here SCREAMS Verlaine's À La Promenade to me. ("and dying, like a sunshine of a dream" it says + mentions of costumes and vows, but again it's so much better in french dbdjdjjdjdjr modernism is freaky translated, but not the freaky that was originally intended to be portrayed bdjdjdjdjd)

Ooooooh the gardens, it gets even crazier with the gardens. The symbolism is ANCIENT, they are beauty and innocence and life, but are also wilderness and escapism and a ticket to nowhere. But for Amy, each reading of the garden kind of starts to exist with all these qualities exaggerated depending on the narrative moment, to the point of all of it becoming unbearable. She waits for the Doctor as a child and the green enveloping her house is too messy, she marries Rory and her new garden is too neat. Too messy and too perfect constantly being presented as the only two options Amy has, they only two ways in which she's allowed to be perceived. Truly haunted by her own dichotomy-defined presence. (never really fitting neatly into one box!!!!!!) "You could really spend a lifetime in here - not that I'm going to." on one hand she's been spending lifetimes in gardens like the TGWW one. On the other hand the TGWW garden is everything she wants, but Amy won't even consider it because she craves the Big Dramatic Moment, the feeling of having something happen to her even and especially if it's unpleasant ("kind of a good hurt") because she's been stuck in the in-between since forever and she doesn't want her dreams handed to her without the journey, without a sense of achievement. Wish fulfilment isn't appealing to her at all.

AAAAAAAND I wandered off here and this is INSANE and incoherent, but YAY for the Rimbaud cameos in music, I LOVE to see it.

[fire-lady-ilah]

Hey Angie, do you have more headcanons about Ilah or her relationship with Azulon?? Have a great day

Oh boy, do I

Ilah is a waterbender and from the Northern Water Tribe. This means a) she runs on a moon-based day cycle, and b) she is Not Prepared for the heat of the Fire Nation.

Fire Nation timekeeping is as such: sunrise is the start of the day and each subsequent hour after is entitled 1st Hour, 2nd Hour, etc. Sunset occurs and then it switches to 1st Hour After, 2nd Hour After, until sunrise again. Water Tribe timekeeping is instead based off of the moon and the tides. Ilah is late to a lot of meetings in her first few years as Fire Lady.

She also has a tendency to sleep very late into the night and wake up in the late morning. This is hell for Fire Nation nobility and government officials, who tend to schedule meetings for the early morning and take afternoons off since it's hotter. She suggests evening and night meetings and they balk

She can't heal worth shit. Not just "can only do simple healing", she can't heal at all. For a female waterbender from the North Pole, this means she had a very rough time in her childhood. I like to think benders need to bend and if they don't their emotional regulation deteriorates. As a woman and a princess she absolutely couldn't do combative waterbending. At least, not publicly. In the end, her waterbending brother started teaching her and her temper mellowed significantly.

She also dresses very scantily, especially for a Fire Lady, because she can't handle the heat. This, of course, leads to new fashion trends and makes it acceptable for even the nobility to wear a little bit less.

She visits the Northern Water Tribe every year before Iroh is born, spending time with her family. She loves her tribe a lot and in many ways wishes the Fire Nation was more like it (more emphasis on family and community as opposed to individual ambition). As Fire Lady, she tries to push the Fire Nation in that direction, while also preserving a lot of the aspects she has learnt to love about her nation.

After Iroh is born, she takes him to the NWT every few years as he grows up. She teaches him her language and culture, showing him waterbending moves even after he turns out to be a firebender. She's the waterbender he took inspiration from for lightning redirection. She would've done the same for Ozai, had she lived past his birth.

She hates sitting for portraits and there is only one portrait of her hanging in the palace-- most of the FN citizens don't know what she looks like, unlike other Fire Ladies. Iroh and Azulon have personal portraits of her, but the only one Ozai had growing up was the one in the Hall of Royal Consorts

It's really a wonder that Azulon and Ilah didn't have more children. They used birth control up until they decided to have Iroh, but after that point it was pure chance that they didn't have more. Ozai was a surprise and Ilah was recommended not to go through with the pregnancy due to her age, but she decided she wanted to. She was really excited to have another child in the palace and Azulon, though worried for her health, was as well.

Sunsets were their time. They would watch the sunset together as often as they could, often with Azulon falling asleep with his head on Ilah's lap, Fire Lord headpiece on a desk in his office.

Ilah, instead of having the customary gold detailing on her robes and sun motifs, chose to go with silver and moon motifs. It was just one of the ways she represented the Northern Water Tribe while being Fire Lady.

Don't think she was some kind, perfect person though. While Ilah supported her husband in making peace in the Earth Kingdom, believing it to be the best choice, she was of the belief that the Southern Water Tribes should be fully under the thumb of a greater nation like the Northern Water Tribe or the Fire Nation. She personally created and led the Southern Raiders, believing that the best person to fight and subjugate waterbenders was another waterbender. She was the one who made sure that the prisons for waterbenders were as foolproof as possible.

Both her and Azulon were rather religious. Azulon was partially raised by his older sister, who had a vested interest in spirits, and Ilah was able to see the mortal forms of Tui and La as often as she liked. It was one of the things their relationship formed around, and one of the reasons the peace talks in the North went so smoothly. They have shrines in their bedroom to Agni, Tui, and La.

Azulon made a betrothal necklace for Ilah. He used his firebending to make the pendant out of gold, and used his hair ribbon from the day he killed his older brother as the necklace itself. She wore it for the three years they were betrothed but hadn't yet married. She kept it in a box of her belongings that were given to Iroh when she died (a box he had never had the courage to open).

Ilah was like... 90% of Azulon's impulse control and humanity. Which is astonishing considering she herself had next to no impulse control and would regularly insult ministers and officials she thought were idiots, while Azulon actually had political skill.

In the end, things would've been a lot better if Ilah had lived. But she didn't, she died giving birth to Ozai and things just went downhill from there. She is incredibly mad in the spirit world.

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2021 Megaman Valentine’s Day Contest Results

Among the many things this past year or so has tested us with is delays, and I apologize that this year’s Valentine’s Day contest results are included in that. I certainly did not plan on this taking until March to get completed, and I am sincerely sorry to have kept you all waiting. But hopefully it is all worth the wait!!

Thanks once again to every single one of you who participated! I will be contacting the winners soon enough. Work will probably keep me from replying to everyone immediately, but I will send a message about prizes hopefully within 24 hours.

Also, my thanks to @subzeroiceskater​ for helping out with judging this year. Not to mention the promo pic above and other assorted bonuses that always bring me a big smile. I might say this seemingly every year, but you all made judging this VERY hard. It might have something to do with the themes as well, but I think both of us flipped and rearranged our rankings repeatedly, and even then, it was hard to decide on who would place. XD Each one of you did an amazing job!

After the break, you’ll see the winners for both categories, along with all of the entries. Raffle prize winners will be noted below by their alias, as well.

Category 1: Kiss From a Rosered (Talent)

For our talent category this year, the theme focused on your favorite Megaman characters giving roses to their special someone, along with incorporating the symbolism of specific rose colors within the piece. That rose color was also to be the predominant color within the piece, to the best of your ability.

A grand total of 9 entries were submitted for this category. You can see the full gallery of all entries at full-size [HERE]. Each entrant’s name will also link to their individual pieces at full-size.

1.) Sapphire: *$100 prize*

Subzeroiceskater said:

Oooooh, this is so cute and pink! Piiink~ Ehem. I love the depth, angle, and color grading of these—notice how Roll’s black linework is at the forefront of the pic but colors mixes with the lights and colors from the sun further along the pic. There’s a lot to admire about how everything easy to read with so many competing elements like the similar hues and bright lighting.

Pink roses usually mean a gentler sort of love but did you know that different shades of pink could signify different things as well? A darker shade may mean gratitude; medium shade could be about a first love or congratulations while a light shade may mean admiration. Tron holding a singular pink rose with varying shades of pink while literally tripping over herself and a Servbot could only mean—that this is hilarious.

Miyabi said:

From a technical standpoint, I think your piece clearly felt the most polished, crisp and virtually professional of the bunch. But more than that, I felt it also best gave off the vibe of the rose color dominating the piece, but in very subtle, beautiful ways. Where as the pink sunset causes many of the normally white areas, like Roll’s collar/sleeves, parts of Gustaff, and more, to ooze that pink lighting. Even with her klutziness, you still also portrayed the feeling of sweetness, admiration and appreciation that a pink rose conveys. Just so pretty, calming, and joyful to look at!

2.) Forceway: *$75 prize*

Subzeroiceskater said:

There is a sort of gentle irony with how Skull Man and Shade Man are both robots modeled after horror symbols—skulls and vampires—but are here surrounded by a soft sea of pink roses. The dark night is often depicted as a primal fear because it hides our deepest fears but here—illuminated by the bright shining moon—the night is transformed into a scene of love—perhaps devotion, with how Shade is gently cradling Skull, as well with the church bell in the background. This is a very tender piece mixing the shadows and the sweet.

Miyabi said:

I know most digital art programs have the brushes and shortcuts to make detailing things like roses a lot easier, but your bed of roses certainly look all done by hand on your own, and that alone impressed me a ton! Based off of the Ariga Megamix tale of Skull Man not feeling appreciated or having a family after Cossack stored him away, I felt the pink roses and Shade showing him that he is actually appreciated here was a fantastic conceptual choice. Purples in the sky and Shade’s body split the canvas and contrast with the pink well, including how you used the pink for some of the stars in the sky. Beautiful job!

3.) DigitallyFanged: *$50 prize*

Subzeroiceskater said:

Yellow is a bright color, often evoking the sun, warmth, light, joy and hope. With roses, its positive connotations continue with possible meanings of friendship, care and remembrance. Tabby’s piece seems to evoke the last one the strongest—with Zero, broken and forgotten in a lab—but, not entirely, because of a bond that is stronger than apparent death lives on—even if in this moment, it’s only a memory. Even the roses are not real—just projections of what was once alive. This is fantastic use contrast with the dark, moody blues against the vivid, almost defiant yellows; and the repeated little motifs such as X crying and the water drops falling all over Zero. It stands out from the rest of happy entries with how sad it is but it still manages to be hopeful.

Miyabi said:

Zero’s blonde locks certainly are an iconic part of his design, so playing off of that and focusing on yellow as your rose color fit perfectly. You definitely made this a very emotive piece considering technically, neither of these two are even alive and moving here! As mentioned above, the little details like the water droplets balancing against Cyber Elf X’s tears, the digital lines to make it appear like X has created the cyber-roses for Zero, and Zero’s battle damage caught my eye immediately. You certainly captured the yellow rose symbolism of remembrance and friendly affection beautifully!!

And the rest of the wonderful entries, in alphabetical order by alias:

AbilityField: [Page 1] [Page 2] [Page 3] [Page 4]

*Raffle Prize Winner* Captain N Mega Man Cel

Subzeroiceskater said:

It’s so poetic about how this contest theme is about how the language of flowers is used to communicate feelings beyond just using words; and so, the comic is completely silent, relying on actions to convey its meaning. Yellow roses could mean friendship, care and affection; and it’s shown wonderfully with how Iris and Lan are so thoughtful with one another. It’s so cute how Iris missed Lan only because he was already out buying roses for her. Given how hard comics are to make and how this is fully colored, I really wanted to give this first place—however I felt the color usage of yellow could have been stronger, especially with the last page, where it would have had the most impact. I had to squint and zoom out to even see if the lighting had changed. Still, it’s such a very warm and lovely work.

Miyabi said:

I always appreciate the effort people put into making multiple-page comics for these contests, and this is no exception! Even without dialogue, you did a great job at conveying your story through your art in each panel and it was easily understandable. Another utilizing the yellow rose, I certainly felt the friendship and warmth in your tale. As Subzero mentioned, the only thing keeping it from placing was that the yellow colors weren’t as dominant in other areas of the pic, besides the panel by Sal. Still, your coloring was very crisp and vibrant throughout each page, and it was an awesome submission!

aw-colorcat:

Subzeroiceskater said:

With the red for Metal Man, orange for Cut Man and the explosion of yellow flowers, that’s the trifecta of warm colors. Yellow roses could mean delight and this pic is delightful in all ways. Cut looks so cute practically swimming in the sea of flowers and greenery, as does Metal’s adorable expression—which is a feat since he only shows his eyes. I also really like the juxtaposition and balance of this piece from: the rust-brown car against green-yellow nature running wild, and Metal holding a bouquet meanwhile Cut’s covered with plants. It makes me want to get some fresh air myself!

Miyabi said:

Cut Man looks grateful for being able to ride in that pickup bed of flowers, and I have a feeling the two of them had a wonderful time just snipping and sawing away at all the stems to gather them all. XD Love how the yellow and oranges play off of both character’s color schemes nicely. The subtlety of the yellow flowers in the foreground, along with the sun and tree in the background all play off each other well, too! Just an absolutely cute pic!

Dark-Dullahan: 

Subzeroiceskater said: 

What a fantastic composition. Dark-Dullahan does away with most color, leaving the colors of the mixed-bouquet roses as the main focal point. Classic red for romance, a gentler pink for affection, mixed yellow roses to signify caring and probably so much more—seems like Nana can’t contain her feelings for Massimo. I love how the close up of the bouquet doesn’t just form a kind of heart at the top but serves as the divider between the two, like a diptych. With such a wonderful offering, Massimo would surely accept her feelings.

Miyabi said: 

As you brought to my attention, your mixed bouquet had a few different meanings, such as the dark pink representing thanks to Massimo for saving Nana from Silver Horn, and the red tips on the yellow roses to symbolize falling in love. Certainly got those vibes from her shy demeanor, as she sheepishly tries to hand them to him. Also agree with Subzero that the line from the bouquet nicely works as a way to separate them uniquely with the background. Sorry you weren’t able to complete it as fully as you had hoped, but the concept behind it certainly was strong!

Donnie:

Donnie also sent in an alternate version made during the creative process, in a different artistic style, that I still feel needs to be shared, as well. Fun to see the contrast, yet still have the same feeling and mood to the piece. 

Subzeroiceskater said:

Oh, I adore this one. It reminds me of a movie poster with the tagline. I love the extra PINK flourishes of the letterings like with the Mega Man logo color change and cute pixelated font and heart. Both Rock and Roll’s expressions are so cute, too—with his more subdued smile contrasted with her exuberant grin. Much like how the pink rose could mean many things like thoughtfulness, cheer or as a show of appreciation, this piece is positively sparkling with affection, hearts and all. It’s clever how the sunset is giving the picture an overall pinkish-red hue while having the yellow light as an outline. A darling piece.

Miyabi said:

With pink roses again, I truly liked the additional hue adjustments where you can feel the warmth and see the lighter pink mixed into their skintone, or areas normally of white - from eyes to teeth to the Megaman logo - that have taken on the pink in it’s place. With the painterly watercolor style you used, it all blends in nicely. Even in your earlier version, I feel you brought a strong game with the hues, but toned down the red from that version to make it feel much stronger towards pink, with a tighter crop of your canvas. It was fun to see how it evolved, and strengthened your piece in doing so! Fabulous job!

DragonMarquise:

Subzeroiceskater said:

No better way to show how madly in love you are than a bouquet of roses that run the gamut of—I can’t call these warm colors because these passions are running hot. Orange seems to be the dominant color here—which in roses could symbolize a love that’s passionate, fierce and deep. It’s also expressed nicely with the two lovers embracing, engaged in mid kiss, their bodies also forming a subtle heart shape, to emphasize the flurry of hearts around them. The bouquet is not just orange roses, however, but a mixed bouquet of the classic romantic red and the more affectionate pink—it’s a piece that’s bursting with all degrees of love.

Miyabi said:

You also certainly mastered the limited color pallette challenge as you tackled this piece! Orange, the color of passion, is certainly felt in their deep kiss and embrace. I too caught the heart shape their heads essentially form, which is then further enforced with the heart of hearts behind them. I thought that concept was pulled off very well. Perfect for the fiery intensity of Match, this turned out to be a very hot pic!

Mattasaurs:

Subzeroiceskater said:

This one has a very clever framing (eh? EH?). The color white is often associated with purity, innocence and hope, and with white roses—weddings and marriage. Sonia dons the classic white wedding dress which has a très élégante design—and the little Lyra on her belt is very cute. The pink background is also very romantic and a nice way to tie in with her theme colors. I dig the lovey-dovey feel of Geo doing the classic bridal carry while clasping a single white rose...but seeing the thorns, I think he better watch his hand!

Miyabi said:

For a theme emphasizing color within the pic, I salute you for taking the biggest challenge in choosing white. In many ways, it could have been the hardest to keep as a predominant color, but still make the pic interesting and visually appealing. Choosing to have the petals all around the frame, with the bouquet nearby was a clever touch. With white often used for weddings and new beginnings, I think the concept of your piece worked just right, where it was subtle, but still incorporated enough other color to give the piece some life. 

Category 2: Kawaii-rimi (Humor)

For our humor category this year, the theme focused on your favorite Megaman character gifting the plush form of another Megaman character to their crush, instantly created by a ninja-like character, to play off of the Kawarimi concept from the EXE series. 

With just 3 entries in our humor category this time around, every entrant placed. You can see the full gallery of all entries at full-size [HERE].  Each entrant’s name will also link to their individual pieces at full-size.

1.) Mattasaurs: *$100 prize*

Subzeroiceskater said: 

Y’know how blocks of wood are sometimes used by ninjas when they do that whole body switching thing? I think it’s clever how this pic has Sal—Woodman.exe’s operator—conjuring the doll. Everything about the pic is so fun and colorful: from Sal’s mischievous grin of accomplishment, Miyu being completely shocked by her chibi doppelganger (check out that body language!) and Masa’s confused expression.

Miyabi said:

Yes, while to some, Sal might not be the first one they think of when they think ninja in the Megaman Universe, but I certainly thought she still fits the bill in her design. Usually we don’t see this much emotion or shock out of Miyu, so seeing her torque her body, taken aback at a doll of herself, is amusing in it’s own right. Meanwhile, nothing fazes Masa. And a bit of randomness: oh man, seeing Masa’s head in profile, with his bandana...wow, I never realized how much his head shape with the bandana looks like a fish’s. I can’t unsee it now. Anyways, I also agree that the color, polish, and fun vibe made this a worthy winner!

2.) ColeManX: *$75 prize*

*Raffle Prize Winner* Captain N Cutsman Cel

Subzeroiceskater said:

E-Eyes? What did you mean by that, Mr. RT-55J?  Although judging from the sparkle on those booblights… I understand, Cinnamon—if that happened to me, I’d be making asides to the camera, like I was in “The Office”, too. Cinnamon’s enthusiastic smile with this whole bizarre scene really sells it for me but shoutout to Marino’s smug satisfaction in the background.

Miyabi said:

🎵 I kind of liked it your way How you shyly placed your eyes on me Did you ever know That I had mine on you?🎵

RT says it only has eyes for Cinny right now, but it’s also known to be a little grabby hands, so I don’t know if I’d fully trust it...but good thing this is just a plush version. Time for the tables to be turned, and Cinnamon to get her claws and paws on it, instead. Very cute, although after the DiVE V-Day event, we all know this is a ruse and your pal boobeyes only belongs to the Ferham Fanclub. XD

3.) Ronin-Apprentice: *$50 prize*

Subzeroiceskater said: 

This whole comic is so sweet and fluffy, nya!  ~(=^‥^)ノ☆ It’s adorable how Proto brings up his gift first and the surprise is how Shadow handmade his gift. The little cat-eared Blues design is so darling--almost as cute as him fussing how totally NOT a cat he is. “Did you steal my cat.” had me snorting. Now I’m wondering where Tango went off to…

Miyabi said:

FU-SION-HA! 

Aside from getting his own Super Adaptor, this is probably the closest we’ve got to seeing Tango and Blues merged as one. LOL I’m sure that plush would have a ton of fans wishing it actually existed. The panels where Blues embarrassingly hides behind his scarf and gets pet like a cat had me laughing! Very cute and adorable comic, that certainly had the most depth in terms of the theme of this category!

[littleeyesofpallas]

Bleach Cosmology 4/4

Last post in this series on Bleach world terms: [1] [2] [3]  The super super unaddressed Quincy realm from the final arc, soon to be adapted into the final anime season...

Schatten Bereich(シャッテン・ベライヒ) Sha-tte-n' Be-ra-i-hi, German for “Shadow Realm” and pretty literally interpreted in Japanese as [影の領域] “Realm of Shadow(s).”  A straight forward description of what it’s supposed to be as a place hidden in(?) the shadow of Soul Society, and the Seireitei specifically.  It’s a real shame we didn’t get any actual explanation of what this realm was or how it worked or really much of anything other than the super vague description...

Did the Quincy make it themselves to hide in?  Did the Shinigami make it to banish them to?*  What was that thing about Yhwach having a time limit he could spend away from it that just never came back???  If the Quincy were wiped out 200 years prior, how are there so many of them in there?*  Had they been recruiting new Quincy from the human world?(As Nodt having been in a hospital bed suggests yes)  How were people getting in there?  Or were they supposed to be original Quincy from the conflict 200 years ago, in which case... we were told Quincy were specifically humans who’d just mastered and passed down a set of distinct skills, so how did they survive 200 years without just aging and dying?

*[edit]: My mistake. It’s mentioned at the start of the second attack that they hid themselves in the shadows of soul society specifically 1000 years prior, and following the alluded to first conflict between the Shinigami and Quincy.  Although that event wasn’t really elaborated on either, so that just raises other questions.

Anyway...  none of that has to do with the locale itself, and frankly there aren’t really any answers to uncover in the sparse world building material the final arc gave us...  As to the physical features of the realm itself, Kubo really pulled an awkward repeat of Hueco Mundo with the stark white stonework in a realm of eternal darkness...  But this time, it’s more explicitly cold and also literally icy.

I feel like there was supposed to be some kind of theme about the Quincy living in shadows and not seeing the light of the sun, and being denied its warmth, which just seems like a tiny tweak of the Arrancar Arc’s night sky and day light/sun and moon imagery.  Was the Soul King meant to have a sun motif that we just never got to see? (equating light of the sun with love of god and loss there of, harkening back to biblical revolt of heaven imagery?)  Sun gods and sun king and god kings are all pretty classic to Japanese mythos, and also to Japan’s fetishization of some of classical Europe (although that’s more French rococo, ala Louis XIV, than German)  If there’d been a more overt Sun theme with the Soul King it would’ve made a much more interesting parallel with Ichigo’s Black Sun(opposite Rukia’s white moon) motif.

Sorry, off topic again, and mostly just filling space here...

Wahrwelt(ヴァールヴェルト) Vaa-ru-ve-ru-to meaning “True World” and written as [真世界城] “True World/Society Castle.”  Note that while [真世界] being read as “True World” obviously is meant to mirror Wahrwelt, [世界] can also read as “Society” which is probably meant to directly mirror Soul Society[尸魂界] although they don’t use the exact same construction to denote “Welt” and “Society.”  It suggests that Soul Society is a false regency over the spirit world, and that the Quincy are the rightful rulers, rather than being outsiders come to take over.  Although it feels a little misplaced that the Wahrwelt was specifically the replacement for the Royal Realm and not what replaced the Seireitei.

Silbern(ジルバーン) Shi-ru-baa-n' just meaning “Silver.”  Written as [銀架城] meaning “Silver Mounted Castle.”  I've seen people translate this is “Silver Cross Castle,” but I think this is a misunderstanding of the verb kakaru[架かる] meaning "to cross."  But that's not "(a) cross" like the Quincy cross, it's "to cross" like to cross a street.  The Quincy had a whole thing about silver stretching pretty far back in the series so there’s consistency there, but it doesn’t seem like there was much more going on with it...

As you might expect from the kind of shoddily put together final arc, there’s not a whole lot else to go off of here.  Which is a shame, because although there’s not a wealth of potential the way the Arrancar arc had, there was certainly a lot of empty space to fill as far as world building or character motivations go.  It would’ve been nice to have actually taken the time to explore any of that...

In particular there was the super SUPER curious bit with what appeared to be Quincy ruins left in Hueco Mundo that we didn’t really get much of an explanation of.  Kubo even does a remarkably good job with visual story telling where the rough stonework we get only a glimpse of makes it very clear that the ruins aren’t the same same as the clean, sleek designs of Los Noches.

I think one of the light novels gave them the name “Negal Ruins” that the Bleach wikia references, but I don’t have Japanese copies of the LN to confirm that, and the wikia confusingly doesn’t cite where it got the name from or include any kind of kanji or kana...*  But as little as that is to go off of, I do LOVE the idea that the Quincy once occupied Hueco Mundo in the past, and it just feels like the first tiny tiny step toward what should’ve been a much bigger plot point.  Even the fact that Urahara is out there with scientific equipment doing some kind of research seemed to imply that he’d come back with some crucial information...  I guess that was supposed to be the hollow pills plot device?  But that wasn’t especially clear, let alone remotely satisfying either as follow up or even as its own plot development.

*no no, i was way off.  It’s right there in the same chapter they show up. [ネガル遺跡] “NE-GA-RU” + “Historic Ruins/Archeological Site.”  Dunno why my eyes just glossed right over that.  Not that it really clarifies anything.

Curiously, the Taiyou-no-mon[太陽の門] “Gate of (the) Sun” that plays kind of a deus ex machina role toward the climax of the arc isn’t named in German at all.  (it is mentioned on a few separate occasions, so it doesn’t come out of “nowhere” exactly, but it’s never really elaborated on either)  It’s not clear if that’s supposed to mean something, or if Kubo just gave up juggling dictionaries to come up with a new name on the fly.  It sticks out like a sore thumb by comparison though.  Very odd.

Anyway that’s basically it for big world terms across the major story locales...  There are a few misc. locations like the Valley of Screams or or Hell focused on in the movies and only briefly brought up in the manga, but they’re all pretty literal names: Kyougoku[叫谷] “Scream Valley” where the lost souls, Blanks wind up when they can’t make it to Soul Society, referencing their unheard voices.  Jigoku[地獄] just the actual Japanese word for an underworld, originally borrowed from the Chinese Diyu[地獄] and the mix of indigenous Chinese and Buddhist influences mythos, but at this point linguistically used as the translation for any kind of penitent underworld, regardless of cultural origin.  It’s written with the characters for “Ground” and “Prison.”

I may not have had a lot of take aways from all this, but I gotta admit going back over some of this material did kind of rekindle my excitement for the anime this year, so that’s something.

Bleach Cosmology posts: [Karakura] [SoulSociety] [Hueco Mundo] [Wahrwelt] [Hell/Naraka(allusions)] [Animal Realm(?)] [Preta Realm(?)]

[yoonzinow]

red moon - intro 

➼ So I never did anything on tumblr, but a while back I wrote something based on the 'Bad Clue' episode of Going Seventeen and I'm sooooo nervous but I decided to post a bit of it to see if anyone is interested in reading the rest. It does have a reader, but it's pretty neutral, (I'm pretty sure I didn't use any pronouns) but it's mostly Mingyu's side of the story, explaining why he did it. I removed completely the DID part because I wasn't into the idea of using mental illness for the sake of a plot. But there is talk of crimes, s*icide and trauma, so it can still be triggering. I changed a lot from the episode to match the ages and only mentioned a few other members. There is also work misconduct and probably inaccuracies regarding treatment so I apologize. I also apologize for my English, is not my first language so there might be some weird sentences and typos! I tried to add ‘keep reading’ so I hope it works. Let me know if I should post this. 

Since you became a therapist, you knew you who you would want to work with: the criminally insane.

Some people would say it was weakness to defend someone’s actions like that, or to treat a patient like anyone else while knowing the horrible things they had done, but to you, it was simply curiosity. There was a fascination behind getting into someone’s mind so deeply you could find answers to why they were able to perform such actions with no remorse whatsoever.

Sometimes, it was this single information from their past who would show something wasn’t right or the smallest trauma that would poke out eventually in a devious way, or sometimes, it was the extreme case of a psychopath, which was even more fascinating. And that’s all that instigated you: how much of the human emotion one could waste until they don’t have any left at all?

Kim Mingyu.

 You treated all of your patients the same, and even though it was a rule at first, it eventually became something natural. The own essence of your job was to not judge, but simply help those people by stopping them from hurting others and themselves.

There wasn’t much time to react or pick sides, once a patient was assigned to you, you had to assist them and report, simple as that. However, for the first time, in that boring morning, you stopped on your tracks as you read the name of your next patient.

The nurses all over the ward gathered at the break room were whispering and wondering about the latest addition to the Hospital’s list of criminals.

Mina, a short and small nurse who would eventually fill you up on the gossip from the staff came closer.

-So that boy was finally caught, huh? – she took a sip of her tea and sat next to you while you read the medical record and police report given to you earlier that day. – I think you’ll have him, considering the pattern they follow with your cases. Young people with childhood trauma who can still be saved?

You weren’t sure whether her comments were sarcastic or harmless, but you were too deep in your mind to even wonder.

-Sorry, I prefer not to talk about my patients at all. In fact, I’m not allowed. –You smiled politely and stood up, walking to your office.

But the name was still in your head.  You couldn’t help but wonder if treating him would be a conflict or unethical.

Your relationship with Jeon Wonwoo, if you could call that, was short lived. By the time you were in college, studying was your top priority, there being little to no room for relationships. Wonwoo was studying to become a doctor, but you two happened to take a few classes together. Sometimes, after classes, you would hang out, share notes and help each other with projects. Eventually, that became going out for drinks and hooking up. There was no label, since you both knew that he would be graduating soon and you wouldn’t see each other, so you decided not to push it too deep to avoid being hurt later. He wasn’t the warmest person you ever met but he was a good person as far as you knew.

Even though your relationship was no Hollywood romance, you couldn’t help but be shocked when you saw his name on the news, along with the several men who had been murdered in a single night by a mentally ill young man.

 Maybe you should have told someone about that, maybe someone would tell you it wasn’t appropriate and you would avoid the whole thing, but you didn’t. Instead, you waited for the next day when Mingyu would arrive.

The walk from the outside gates through the garden and into the facility would not feel any shorter, no matter how many times you crossed it. Sure, you could drive inside and hop out of the car right outside the main building, but something about the gardens and the purity of the flowers all around eased your insides a bit, considering you would be soon facing a heavy spirited space, filled with regrets and rage.

The vibrant green from the grass was a big contrast to the boring shades of grey on the walls, especially when the Sun was out, peaking through the clouds and shining over the field.

As you reached the front, there was a meticulous identification. Even though the guards already knew you, they still needed your badge. You finished the whole process and walked towards the Board meeting room where you’d be given all the details about the cases. You were told about the criminal part only, which, to be honest, wouldn’t really interest you that much. However, when it came to the murder of someone you somewhat cared about, you listened carefully to the version given in court, along with his sentence and alleged motifs. After learning the necessary, you left and got ready to work.

There wasn’t much time left for thinking when you heard the loud sound of the old metal gates opening and the beep of the electrical system indicating the door was opening. A quick knock on the door was heard and you knew there was no way out. You had to treat the man who killed your ex-boyfriend.

The talk with the first patient wasn’t out of the ordinary, since she had been with you for a few months, easily communicating and opening up. The moment she left, you started to get nervous, which didn’t happen that often, at least not since your first days on the job. You wouldn’t pursue that kind of career if you had any fear, but not being nervous standing two feet apart from a serial killer for the first time wasn’t exactly easy.

The amount of nervousness you felt showed exactly why people shouldn’t have patients with any sort of connection. As the clock got closer and closer to the time of his first appointment, you started sweating. Was it a bad idea? Should I just tell someone before he arrives? What if…

[blue-scorpion-king]

The Blue Scorpion King Sagas Prologue (Vignette)

:September 12th, 2007. 30:25 a.m., out of 96 hours

[BGM starts: ‘Behelit’, by Susumu Hirasawa {https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLg_wp0IXoI}]

The first day of school in this year’s autumn season marks a major change in Earl Zolubu's life. And he isn't at all pleased about it.

In the early, brisk morning hours of this autumn day in Scotland, a lush country free from monarchy since the 1700’s, two bright green eyes tensely glance at the soft-shaded scarlet colored sky, some of the planet’s 15 planetoids visible as they orbit it. Even the four moons, hazed by the mere presence of the 2 Suns’ light, which are in a diamond like formation and being in their full, beyond gibbous phase.

These shockingly grim, sunken eyes of this 12 year old boy, angular yet circular like a rounded cube, along with being sunken a bit, are hidden under his soberly dark blue gaucho hat, its thin shadow covering one of the bags under his bright green eyes, specifically the right one. It also partially covered his box-like, almost tiger-like nose partially, and the thick, sharp, curving eyebrow, where each brow has an almost sickle blade-like end point, giving this young lad a truly unusual soul-piercing gaze.

Then, the limber boy lets out a quiet, but heavy sigh as he moves them down from the calm sky that contrasts both his strained mood, even though he feels like he should not be, since he is going to a new school with his 2 best friends in the whole world. 

But, every day since he was six years old, he had to deal with brewing storm-like anxiety, onerous fear, & seemingly abyssal, ocean trench-like guilt. 

Like many teenagers his age and older.

In spite of yet another somewhat stressful night's sleep, Earl Zolubu, mortal Olympian son of Hades & Persephone, managed to reach the bus stop of a quaint Scottish village called Kyle of Lochalsh, within Ross-shire county, this morning, far from the town of Evanton, which he calls his home in the same county. This young mortal Olympian boy has unbridled, uncombed, winding, capacious, and long light blue hair, that covers two of the three words on his jacket, on the front of which is the motif from the Doom games, as well as a partially covered scorpion design in blue.

It is made up of a vast coral highland that consists of steep cliffs and dry coral, where they border the village and riddle the beaches. The coral appears white and pink in muted color, unlike the coral found in various red seas. This area also includes the spot where the Skye bridge reaches the island of the same name itself. A touch of coral in the air also tickles Earl's nose and makes him slightly sniffle in the morning.

It is a small part of earth's geography that Earl has little experience with.

As a result of his native land being picturesque, especially the mountains and nearly completely covered in forest, as well as appearing biochemical, surreal to extraterrestrials, and biomechanical, but one of these things being true underneath the front, which is being surreal in all layers. Even so, trees, plants, rocks, including mountains and fungi, and stones have been like this for 4 billion years, out of the planet's 100 billion year lifespan, based on all of the archaeological evidence that has been dug up and examined, from ancient Mesopotamians, to the ancient Greeks, all the way to the late 19th century and still ongoing in the modern day.

But, to get back on track-

The first day of his new school is an extremely breezy one, but something in the air, and within the quietness, even with the sounds of loud, songful birds, tells him that something might go wrong today.

Possibly on the academy's campus, or in the bus or at this bus stop.

Although Earl is *experienced* with things going horribly wrong that sting his soul, like the emotional version of a hornet’s sting, every time he thinks about the worst case scenarios, he remains mentally restrained to not assume the worst.

Even with the fact that this type of appalling inner episode is always annoying to him to deal with.

As he gazes downwards from the mild sky, he looks around at the Scottish village, peacefully empty at this block right now, along with the blocks next to it, due to it being a morning hours, with kids and teens having already set out out to school, with both their destinations, their primary and high schools, being at villages northeast of here like Plockton. Kyle of Lochalsh, coasted by its kind of narrow sea inlet, has its mixture of somewhat boorish modern buildings, like shops, so many shops, and the old, endured 19th to early 20th century Victorian era establishments, separated by road upon interconnected jaded and grey road, including the main road to Skye, A87, via the sign that Earl got a glimpse during his slow observation. The village also has a simple harbor and marina. All of those village parts truly reflects on the slow pace of life it embodies, like Earl’s home of Evanton, and is connected to its sister village of Kyleakin, on the east coast of Skye Isle, via the Skye Bridge, which is the freshest large piece of concrete, of the whole of Kyle, stretching from south of a village to east of an isle since 1995, being as old as Earl himself. And while looking at his somewhat familiar surroundings, and thinking of what he has seen when he got here via the van of the family of his 2 childhood friends, Earl feels the warm heat beaming down from the two stars, but getting touched by the cool morning autumn air as well. One sun is in the shape of a simple, pleasing heart, not resembling the real natural organ that is inside of a mortal being’s body. And the other spiky and yellow in color, bearing an almost uncanny, cartoonish face with white eyes on black sclera, a sharp pointed conical nose, and a vigorous grin, full of teeth-like formations, happy to be present. But, it will move down in a circle, as the day goes on before the four moons rise from the horizon, not having the suns shining on them, where they’re dimmed, and then circle around being above its larger ‘partner’ at dusk. It always has that face as long as recorded history was made in extremely ancient caves, and not considered resembling something that someone would see in their dreams or their nightmares. The solar celestial body duo which his cousin and uncle are associated with, shining on the coastal village while rising from the horizon, and the rest of the world facing them; Apollo and Helios.

However, the boy feels the exact opposite of the smaller sun’s vigorous energy right now in comparison, even though he should feel happy and hopeful for his first day in a new school.

"Well, this is a quiet day after having to see the same nightmare for the billionth time." He bitterly thought to himself.

Also, the four moons creep him out a little bit every time he catches even a little glance of them. The crater-riddled, dark gray & orange moon, with its deep red shaded four horned skull shaped front, being in its spot of the diamond-like formation to the left. The moon, Titan, with a front in the shape of a spider’s face, with a visage of a head and neck of a dark unicorn below it, with its light green and dye mixture, and its thick atmosphere that is thick enough for even mortal eyes to see it, being on top. There is a similar sounding moon of Saturn called Titus, like they are distant cousins in the reaches of space, separated by gravitational fields and distance among the stars, cosmic gas, and population extinction worthy rock. The third celestial rock, Io, sporting a coat of gold, silver, and copper in a trio of colors, its magma activity by its legion of 700 active volcanoes covered by only its thin, patchy atmosphere, bearing a front in the visage of two grim, gauntly skulls joined together by their only top jaws through ridges of mashed rock, in its place on the right. And the last moon is a crescent moon, facing ahead, that is somewhat deep yellow and has a sinister looking grinning face, riddled with craters, a triangular, protruding nose, two pale, pale red with black sclera, which is normally depicted in art in its crescent phase all over the world, down into ancient history and even some cave people paintings. Its ‘mouth’ is even uncanny looking, like its really grinning mouth having ‘lips’, barely visible ‘gums’, and even having 2 ‘nostrils’ as part of its nose. Truly, the creepiest moon out of all four of the night-time lunar object quattro.

All four of these moons in the sky, close enough to make the formation, but not hitting each other, look back at any who gaze at them in the full moon phase of their day by day rotation, along with their other six phases, except when they have their backs turned. These four rocky celestial objects are frankly demented in their visage in Earl’s mind and in the minds of so many others in this world.

He balled up his silvery cuffed gloved hands in quiet, heavy guilt, and fiery vengeance, after not protecting his murdered family earlier this year in his jacket pockets upon thinking on the tragic summer's day in Spain, in his family's vacation estate, which is to never be opened again, and never wanting to look at his hands without them, but for a different reason that he doesn’t even want to think about. Ever. As his fiery soul’s sorrow and anger gradually builds up like a lit bonfire, Zolubu looks to his sheathed basket hilt xiphos sword hanging by his left hip, covered by his black & white criss-cross kilt, then his black & blue brogue shoes, and moved them again to look at the worn, near rickety concrete bus lane road for a bit.

Earl looks away from the dulled, empty road as he reaches into his right pocket and pulls out a folded letter to silently read again. The boy sits on the stiff bench behind him, not letting his back touch its backrest, as he reads the letter. It basically states that he and his two childhood friends will be attending an academy called St. Backwater, which begins today, and wouldn’t have to attend their primary school any more. However, no other information about the academy is written in the letter.

From the back of his mind, the pains of continuously seeing spilling black blood on a clean marble floor, the brutalized bodies of his family members, and hearing the laughs of 6 out of the 7 people who ruined his life and the lives of his family suddenly came forth once again. All because the nice, delicate writing reminds him of his mother’s handwriting a bit, distressing his scarred psyche.

He then looks down at his beaded necklace, which is centered with a dime-sized star engraved with "Yours For Ever". He grasps it in his hands and he narrows his eyes in brief comprehension, as if asking himself "Why are they gone?", like he did so many times before since that day, before he puts it down.

Although his ireful facial expression belied his efforts, Earl tried to keep the inner strife to himself; To never show it to anyone.

His vision suddenly becomes blurry for a couple of seconds, before coming back into focus, with his two inch long canine teeth bare for a moment, still sheathed in their fitted holes in the boy’s gums, before letting out a slight rumbling growl, sounding exactly like a brassed adult tiger, not a cub, that would shock anyone who heard that, all because of the swirling dark thoughts causing more irritation.

“Hey, Earl.” Miki Makimura, one of Earl's two sylphlike childhood friends, wearing a subdued red & black Japanese schoolgirl-like attire, asks her friend while sitting next to him with a matching sylphlike pattern of voice. Since the two of them were two years old, her hair has been cut into a bob cut with black eyes, thin grass blade-like eyebrows, and a narrower face than Earl's. Their blonde friend, Ferris Matthew, who also has black eyes, but thin, string-like eyebrows that are blonde, sits to Miki's left, wearing a lambent pinkish headband with a yellow-and-white yin-yang button in the center, and wearing a , is simply kicking her legs while she patiently waits for the bus.

When Earl sees Miki's expression reveals the same emotion as him, he tightens up a bit and smiles back at her.

“I-I am OK, Miki.” Earl responds to Miki’s question with a little shakiness in his very thick, bass, & full-toned voice for a few seconds. Despite that, he sounds like a child even with that kind of voice. “But you don’t look OK and you have bags under your eyes!” The attempt of Earl assuring his friend backfired immediately. “Yeah, you look awful! Are you sure you really want to go to St. Backwater?” Ferris then chimes in, with a similar pattern of voice to Miki, but more chipper, as Earl leans away from the two girls. “Yeah-h, I do, you two. I am just reading the letter again that we got two days ago.” Earl answers Ferris’ question while trying to look at the letter in a nervous manner. “But, you were growling a bit a moment ago.” Miki retorts Earl’s attempt to assure them. “You can tell us what’s wrong, OK? We are your friends. Remember that we have told you that many times.” “Yes. Many. Many. *Times.* We don’t need to keep doing this, Earl”, Ferris says, empathizing with Miki’s point and sounding a bit peeved.

Earl's forced smile, to a small point, turns to a frown as he tries to suppress the canker of his inner battle, although he is happy around Miki and Ferris as well as Miki's parents and brother back home, to whom he feels like a second family. It is followed by a releasing sigh and him somberly looking at the two girls in the eyes.

“I had a nightmare about my family aga-”

The long awaited 82 foot long, rectangular bus finally pulls up as Earl is about to start recounting his recurring nightmares about his family's murders, scaring Earl badly as he lets out a short yell since it sounded like a big cat’s hiss.

While it is understandable to be scared by something like that, Earl feels a shock that would be considered abnormal for a kid his age, which looks distressing even to those in the bus who can see him. Many people in the vehicle have a look of worry as they see the boy, especially those who noticed his look in his eyes, as anyone in the vehicle could know someone who has that same abnormal look of pure fear when something spooks them that bad, even the hat-wearing, barrelesque, but kind of small, 70ish looking, glasses wearing, white bearded elderly driver, with his dot-like eyes take in the sight and noise of his glass magnifiers like he has so many times before.

“Oh no!” “Here we go again!” Miki and Ferris both alertly exclaim as they catch Earl when he is about to fall over after being startled like that. “We got you, lad! Let’s get inside, Earl.” Ferris said to him. “It’s OK, Earl.” Miki adds to Ferris’ assurance attempt.

After looking at each other in the eyes and nodding, following experiences in the past, Miki put on her pink backpack, while lifting Earl's black, kind of worn backpack with her right hand, where she struggled a bit, and Ferris took his right hand, being frightened herself of the sudden startle her friend got. But, she assured him as they stepped inside the bus alongside Makimura. Miki also folded the letter to put it back in its original place, trying to calm him down, while his eyes wide like a deer.

As he walked through the aisles of the bus, he recalled an encounter with a Scottish cougar he had 2 years prior, a disturbing event that is one of the most sorrowful experiences of his life, but trying not to let the panic overwhelm him.

As the trio walk down the aisle, the girls apologize to everyone for causing anxiety, and they smile at them to try and ease the half-palpable tension. The bus driver, once Miki has put Earl in the back and their backpacks are on the ground below their seats, slowly takes the card Miki shows him identifying passengers as those going to St. Backwater. “We are going to St. Backwater Academy, sir.” Miki tells the driver about her intent after getting Earl to the back of the bus where he was able to calm down next to a window. The driver checks the validity of the card and sees the official stamp of the academy's symbol, which is a ferocious, nearly demonic, snarling black-maned lion with glowing orange eyes and silver teeth. It also has six heads coming out of its mane; A scorpion, a unicorn, a monkey, a bear, a woolly mammoth, a Togruta skull, and a wolf face on its forehead, who are all as livid as the black lion, making that a total of eight heads. Below the entire symbol is the name of the Academy, written in Gothic font. Afterwards, he hands it back to Miki with a content, but somewhat cold expression on his face. “Alright, lassie. Get getting. We are moving out.” The high pitched, but full-toned sounding driver subtly prompts Miki to go to her friends with his hand. “Thank you, sir!” Miki thanks him as she quickly moves down the aisle to sit down with her friends and be relieved that Earl has gotten somewhat peaceful now, exhaling a brief exclamation of heavy air.

[BGM change: ‘Totenkopf’, by Sagisu Shiro {https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1vZhTl9TIU}]

Seeing a passageway between two shops, Earl could have swear to himself that he suddenly saw a preternatural knight riding a equally preternatural horse, wearing deathly white armor and a black cape, and the rider wearing an uncanny, spiked skull-shaped helmet with unearthly red eyes. It watched the bus leave the bench sporting bus stop of A87 road, only its head moving, until the building swiftly came into Zolubu’s view, replacing the sight. He was bewildered by what he saw as he wasn't able to get a close look at what he saw before the bus had already pulled away from the bench. Both Ferris and Miki also look to their left at his face in confusion as well, but less than their friend.

‘Wha…? Him? That knight again? Do I have to struggle with monsters and spirits again, like what he told me before…? Why was the Skull Knight there...?’ Earl thinks to himself after some sweat forms on his brow and temples.

It is here where the sagas of Earl Zolubu, the Blue Scorpion King, son of Hades & Persephone, start. He, Miki, and Ferris are on their way to the start of their journey to St. Backwater Militant Academy...

------------------

I don't know if I could continue to actually write the sagas of my main OC. But, I am glad that I have finally managed to write this prologue out, throughout a week, even with some days of letting this prologue sit.

So, I would like to know your thoughts about this prologue of the sagas of Earl Zolubu, mortal Olympian son of Hades & Persephone and the 40 years of his life that would happen from this moment onwards. And though he is not called the Blue Scorpion King, nor does the Blue Scorpion nickname/title has been said, he does have the latter, but be called king. But, not of a kingdom, just his home. *Yet.* :3 And do make sure to keep your criticisms constructive.

**Deviantart version: https://www.deviantart.com/hades-hando/art/The-Blue-Scorpion-King-Sagas-Prologue-886745019

~The Bat~

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 324

A JOURNEY IN THE ATMOSPHERE: Part 1

Those daily events to which we have become accustomed are the ones that least attract our attention and interest. For example, day follows night, summer comes after spring, water flows, a breeze blows, and rain falls. We take these for granted, unaware of the curtain that prevents us from seeing their real significance. Consider air, which we breathe continuously. We cannot see what is going on inside the atmosphere, but if we put on our scientific and intellectual goggles and employ our conscience filter, things will become visible.

At first, air seems to be quite simple” gaseous mixture of atoms, ions, and molecules; 78.1 percent nitrogen, 20.8 percent oxygen, and some trace amounts of carbon dioxide, hydrogen, argon, neon, and krypton, just like spice and salt for a meal. So far, nobody has disliked this meal,' whose mysteries and secrets are revealed upon investigation.

AIR AS A LIGHT SOURCE

Air is a mirror that illuminates our surroundings. We cannot read a book or a magazine in outer space, for there is no illumination there. Outer space is a vacuum. Since it contains no molecules or atoms off which the sun's light and heat can reflect, its darkness cannot be pierced. Since the moon has no atmosphere or layer of gaseous matter to scatter the sun's light beams, its surface is bright but the space just above it is dark. The Creator of the sun and the eye also created the atoms and molecules in the air and put them at our disposal so that we could see.

Now let's analyze air, since we depend upon it for our very lives. We inhale oxygen with every breath, and once in our body it burns our food and thereby provides the energy for all bodily functions and maintains bodily heat. It exits through the throat, mouth, and teeth in the form of words.

Nitrogen, the largest component of air, dilutes the concentration of oxygen and makes the air we respire more pleasant. Without it, oxygen would be hazardous and irritating to our lungs. Nitrogen also is a natural fertilizer absorbed by soil and passed onto various micro-organisms in the soil and then to plants. As a result, one of our basic nutrition source components is produced: proteins. This flow of nutrition from plants to animals to people is a fascinating example of mutual benefit and co-operation.

Carbon dioxide, another gas, has only a trace (0.03 percent) presence in air. And yet every year, with the help of plants, it is used to synthesize billions of tons of sugar in a process known as photosynthesis. Plant leaves absorb carbon dioxide, the roots absorb water, and when sunlight is added the final product is glucose, the vital food for every living organism.

Oxygen is another by-product. The resulting energy produced by burning glucose enables all bodily cells to function. Photosynthesis stores the energy from the sun as bond energy between carbon atoms in the sugar. Thus the sun is our food source, as the Qur'an points out: And if you ask them who sends down rain from the sky and gives life therewith to Earth after its death, they will reply, Allah!' Say: Praise be to Allah!' But most of them do not understand (29:63).

Let's travel in the atmosphere to learn more about this Divine source of resources. Now we are 10 kms above Earth's surface. We cannot breathe here, and so must use our oxygen tanks. At 13 kms, we start to feel a great pressure that almost causes our eyes and blood vessels to burst.

THE UNFELT LOAD

The gases forming the air apply a pressure of 1 kg per cm2 on our skin. The resulting air pressure plays the biggest role in the meteorological events, for strong storms and hurricanes occur when there is a 1 percent change in it. All living things live comfortably and unconsciously with this pressure.

As we go higher into the atmosphere, the density of gases and atmospheric pressure decrease. Also, the pressure of our bodily fluids rises (our bodies are 75 percent water) so much so that we might wonder if they will vaporize or rush out of our bodies. The air has a great weight, although we think the opposite. Most of us do not know that air applies a pressure equal to 1 kg on a fingertip-sized part of our bodies. We do not feel such pressure”calculated to equal 15 tons of air”because its Creator balances it with an inner pressure that is equally intense. Any disturbance in this balance threatens human life. This is why people cannot live at high altitudes, why mountaineers experience severe headaches and nosebleeds, and why astronauts have to wear pressurized space suits.

LAYERS OF ATMOSPHERE

Scientists divide the atmosphere into several layers, each of, which is unique in terms of its heat, pressure, humidity, and the events taking place within it. The first layer is the troposphere, which extends as high as 16 kms above sea level. This layer, which features the perfect circulation of air and matter, is the home for such events as rain, snow, and wind. At its upper edge, its temperature can reach -56'C.1

But the Owner of the universe, following His own rules, makes the atmosphere work as a giant water distribution center. Light breezes circulate thousands of tons of water (as clouds) and guide the water to the soil that needs it. Air's circulation is moderated so perfectly that no area is ever always wet or dry, and even deserts and rainforests receive what they need to survive.

As Earth's axis has a slant of about 23', northern countries receive less energy than southern countries. The result of this seeming disparity in energy levels is the efficient flow of hot air to colder areas so that each area has its energy needs met. Hot air forms low pressure systems as it rises, while cold air forms high pressure systems as it sinks. Wind patterns blow cold air to the south and hot air to the north, forming an ideal system that spreads water vapor, as well as heat, energy, and even pollen, throughout the globe according to need. All of this allows the storage of heat at the equator in the form of energy to spread air and wind around the planet”a sort of global heat machine programmed by its Creator to serve life.

Air temperature drops by 0.61'C for every 100 meters increase in altitude.2 When the ascending air goes into troposphere (the kitchen of the atmosphere), its steam condenses into small droplets. Then clouds, a sign of God's Mercy, start to form. The thin droplets in these clouds transform into separate ice crystals whenever the temperature drops below 0'C, just like a large army, and fall to Earth as snow.

While doing all of this, the air in our lungs and veins helps to weave colorful motifs on each plant's leaves and blossoms. While bringing rain with clouds, it conveys pollen from one flower to another. On its weak shoulders it carries tons of water as well as airplanes, spreads light and transports heat, and brings sounds of all frequencies to our ears and many different smells to our noses. No mistake is ever made.

In warm weather, air's lightness and gentle blowing bring subtle and deep meanings to our heart's ear. Sometimes it assumes the form of a storm, a blizzard, or a tornado that rips apart everything in its path to warn those who do not understand its acts and do not thank God for the blessings it conveys. Through such events, people understand their weakness and turn to their Creator. Those who read and ponder the Book of Universe carefully, especially the page for air, observe such events as Divine indications of truth or warnings that should be heeded

[allgirlsareprincesses]

Still More Search for the Lost Husband: The Revival of the Prince in Star Wars

Yes, there’s more! Though I covered this to an extent in my original folktale post, I felt a deeper look into the resurrection motif of The Search for the Lost Husband was necessary, especially in light of the new Hux comic. As the lovely @corseque has pointed out (have I tagged her in every post I’ve made so far? I hope so, because I stand on the shoulders of giants….), Ben Solo is clearly presented as the Sleeping Prince, metaphorically dead just like Anakin Skywalker. I’d love to delve a bit into the actual folktales that are the basis of this motif, how it appears as a pattern in Star Wars, and what that means for Ben Solo’s redemption and likely resurrection in The Rise of Skywalker.

In many versions of ATU-425, the lost husband is deathly ill, in a deep sleep, imprisoned, cursed, pretending to be dead, or some combination of the above. As with the flight of the fairy bride, this princely suitor is metaphorically dead, and in rare cases literally dead. After their separation, this is how the searching wife finds him when she comes to his rescue, and she may use any number of means to revive him: Sometimes she makes a blood sacrifice, others she might need to make him a special concoction, and often all that is needed is a declaration of love. Interestingly, the famous kiss of life doesn’t often appear in these tales as it does in the revival of the fairy wife, though sometimes Beauty kisses the Beast when she tearfully agrees to be his wife. Sometimes, the prince does not immediately recognize his wife after his revival, and she must complete another task or put on her royal raiment for him to know her as his true bride.

The most obvious place that this tale appears in Star Wars (before the Sequel Trilogy) is in the rescue of Han Solo in Return of the Jedi. Frozen in carbonite “in perfect hibernation,” Han is asleep, enchanted, imprisoned, and nearly dead when the princess creeps into Jabba’s throne room (in a palace of evil on a dead planet, no less) to rescue him. When she frees him from the carbonite, he falls to the floor as if dead, and then wakes to find that he is blind. I intend to cover this in a future post, but blindness in mythology is often used as a metaphor for death (which by the way is a pretty insidious form of historic ableism, but I digress). As Leia’s mask distorts her voice, he does not recognize her at first, but knows her immediately at her declaration of love and subsequent kiss of life. This one scene effectively crams nearly every revival motif from the Search for the Lost Husband into just a couple minutes of screen time.

The other obvious “sleeping prince” in the Skywalker Saga before the sequels is Anakin, although sadly we never see him revived by his bride. This is because his story ends tragically, as the Quest for the Lost Bride tales tend to do. That leaves only one more candidate for the classic rescue and happy ending of the Search for the Lost Husband, and that is our dear Ben Solo. Certainly it’s clear that Ben is in many ways metaphorically dead in the first two films of the final trilogy, but in the recent Hux comic, Lucasfilm has gone out of their way to show him sleeping, mask off, while Hux and another character discuss how much like his princess mother he is.

Given that the Lucasfilm Story Group is apparently being about as subtle as a sledgehammer at this point, what might we expect for Prince Ben in The Rise of Skywalker? Well, let’s review several ATU-425 revival stories to see the possibilities:

In East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon, the lassie arrives at the castle after her travels to find her prince imprisoned by an evil family of trolls. He is now betrothed to the troll princess, and will marry her in a matter of days. Using gifts given to her by those she met on her journey, the lassie buys the right to spend the night in the prince’s room. However, the cruel trolls make him a sleeping draught, and no matter what the girl tries to wake him, he sleeps on. The lassie tries a second night to wake the prince, but the same thing happens. However, this night, other prisoners hear her weeping and calling to the prince, and tell him when he wakes the next day what they heard. Realizing what has happened, he slyly pours the drink out instead of drinking it, and the third night is awake when the lassie is allowed into his room. They spend the night embracing and planning the defeat of the trolls the next day (achieved by the lassie washing a black shirt to pure white). Check out this stunning illustration by PJ Lynch, inspired by Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss:

**Trigger Warning for some dark and gruesome imagery in the following paragraphs, especially about blood**

In Pajaro Verde, the prince becomes deathly ill when shards of broken glass become embedded in his body, and flees to his father’s house. In her search for him, the princess comes across little birds who tell her that she must give them a sleeping potion, cut their throats while they sleep, and fill a bottle with their blood. Then, she must cover the prince with the birds’ blood, and the glass will be drawn out of him and cure him. The princess does as they say, and when she arrives at the palace, soaks a sheet in the blood and covers the prince with it. Immediately, he begins to recover, but he does not recognize his wife, and is instead pledged to another. On his wedding day to the false bride, the princess approaches him in all her royal attire and crown, and the prince suddenly remembers her, declaring her his true wife and love. The Enchanted Snake is an almost identical Italian tale, in which a blood sacrifice is again the cure for the ailing prince.

There is also, of course, the classic Beauty and the Beast, in which the neglected Beast lies dying in his garden when Beauty comes upon him after the visit to her family. Realizing her true feelings for him, Beauty calls out to her Beast, kissing him and accepting his offer of marriage. At her confession of love, he transforms into a handsome prince, and he and Beauty live happily ever after.

In The Ninth Captain’s Tale, the fair Sittukhan is the first to fall into a deathlike sleep and is revived by a sultan’s son, but is then abandoned by him. Sittukhan enchants herself into a rich and beautiful princess to entice her wayward lover, and failing to recognize her, he begs for her hand. To win her, she tells him, he must wrap himself in burial clothes as if dead and be carried in a funeral procession to a place of rest. This he does, and when they are alone, Sittukhan unwraps her lover’s burial shroud, revealing both him and herself. After teasing him for the lengths he would go to for a bride, she consents to be his wife and they marry. In this story, it is remarkable that the imagery clearly shows her raising her bridegroom from the dead, rather tenderly if somewhat macabre.

From these stories, we may perhaps assume that Ben Solo will indeed die, and that the keys to his resurrection may be a blood sacrifice of some kind and a declaration of love by his true bride. You could even argue that he’s already been baptized with blood in the imagery of cleansing salt in the red wound of Crait. However, few of these stories feature a notable villain comparable to the diabolical Palpatine who will be returning to menace our heroes in The Rise of Skywalker. Given what we know from the trailers, does the Emperor have a clear role in this part of the myth? Does Dark Rey have a part to play?

WOULD YOU BELIEVE I actually found in my collection a story that until now, I didn’t realize contained this motif? This is The Blood-Drawing Ghost (the version I have is simply called Kate Culhane: A Ghost Story), an Irish folktale over a hundred years old. In the story, a deceitful young man leaves a fine blackthorn stick on the freshly-dug grave of an old man. Kate, a young woman whom he is courting, offers to retrieve it, but when her hand touches the blackthorn stick, a ghostly voice tells her to open the tomb. Though she tries to resist, Kate is compelled by magic to obey, and she is forced to pull the gruesome corpse from his grave and carry him on her back. Though her burden is heavy and painful, she must carry the dead man a great distance until they reach a house in the village that is unprotected by holy water. Inside, the corpse searches for something to eat, but Kate can find only oatmeal. Upstairs, they find that the wealthy family has three sons, and the dead man forces poor Kate to hold a bowl under their hands as he drains the blood from each one in turn. He then has her mix the blood with the oatmeal and eats it, instructing her to eat it as well, but she cleverly hides the food in a handkerchief instead.

The old man then forces Kate to again take him upon her back and carry him back to his grave. On the way, she asks if there is any cure for the dead young men whose blood was drained. The old corpse tells her that if only a bit of the oatmeal mixture had been saved, just a bite in each man’s mouth would bring him back to life, and they would never know of their deaths. At the graveyard, the dead man tells Kate that as she has eaten his food, he will pull her into the grave with him before the cock crows three times. In my version, he does actually try to drag her into the grave, but thankfully dawn breaks and the brave girl is able to escape. She makes her way to the house of the three dead sons, where the family has discovered them and is lamenting their misfortune. She tells the family that she can revive the young men if only they will give her the eldest as her husband. They agree, and she feeds the sons the bloody oatmeal she had saved in the handkerchief, reviving them immediately. Kate marries the eldest son and they live happily for all their days.

Call me crazy, but this looks like a great plot outline for The Rise of Skywalker based on what we know so far. First, there is the brave girl who goes to retrieve a special stick, or in this case the legacy lightsaber, as Rey did in The Force Awakens. When she touches it, she is drawn into a dark struggle between good and evil, life and death. If Rey becomes a target for the risen spirit of the Emperor (who resembles nothing so much as a corpse) as many suspect, then he may attempt to use her to do his dark bidding, or convince her to become his apprentice/alcolyte. At least, this is what is suggested by the appearance of Dark Rey and some of the links she has to Palpatine in her musical theme and backstory on Jakku. Further, the Emperor has already tried to drain two sons of the Skywalker line (Anakin and Luke), and now it seems he may attempt to drain a third (Ben). There’s certainly been a lot of talk about Ben Solo’s bloodline, at least.

Just as Psyche was instructed not to eat the food of the Underworld lest she be forced to remain there forever, Kate has the sense not to share in the bloody feast of her deathly captor. Since we know Rey will likely have a “dark night of the soul” in Episode IX in which she is sorely tempted by the Dark Side, I take this as the model for her resisting that temptation to taste the fruits of death. And finally, just as the corpse attempted to drag Kate into his grave with him, Darth Sidious will make one last effort to entrap or destroy our heroine, but she will escape him. Unfortunately, it is still too late for Ben, the third son whose life he drained away. Or is it? Perhaps Rey, in her brush with the Dark Side, will have learned the cure to rouse her beloved from his deathly slumber. Perhaps it will be the sacrifice of Ben’s own blood that saves him, along with the love of a clever girl.

Hope you all enjoyed this latest installment! Let me know if there are any specific folklore topics you’d like me to explore in Star Wars. This has been a great way to pass the time during the agonizing wait for TROS!

[fatehbaz]

Thank you so much for the sources on oceania!! Thank you for not only answering, but giving an introduction to the topic! Folklore is very important to me, especially when it contains astronomical or horicultural practices. I'm not too familiar with Oceania mythology, aside from a few Hawaiian tales, so I would definitely be interested to know more about that if you have the energy and resources for that!

One of my favorite stories about the sophistication of Oceanian environmental knowledge for the purposes of finding food -  a story which clearly demonstrates the intertwined nature of mythology, folklore, and accurate science and knowledge of the stars and the sea - is about WORMS. Pre-European Polynesian societies living in the colder, seasonal, and more climatically diverse temperate seas south of the Tropic of Capricorn would augment their lunar calendar with folkloric stories promoting the importance of what were called the “Palolo months” occurring between September and November. These months signify the “seasonal rising of reproductive segments of the annelid sea-worm of the Eunicidae family” in certain nearby ocean currents. The presence of the worms marked a precise and definitive shift from dry to wet season, and thus the advent of yam-growing season. So, the worms seemed to respond to lunar cycles, but the invertebrates also seemed to be aligned with unseen seasonal changes in the ocean which could reliably reflect upcoming seasonal climatic shift. By observing the worms’ behavior, island residents could accurately anticipate the most successful times for food crop cultivation. Though the Worm Event™ was mostly limited to Tonga and parts of far western Polynesia, the seasonal event was apparently so important locally that stories of the Palolo months were ingrained in ecological knowledge systems and folklore so intensely that the Palolo months were still acknowledged in different Polynesian communities thousands of kilometers away, and the stories were so culturally ingrained that they exist centuries later in distant Polynesian cultures. (Read more about the worms: Sean P. Cunningham, “A Story of Yams, Worms, and Change from Ancestral Polynesia,” 2012.) Below, I’ll try to share some of my favorite examples of Polynesian environmental knowledge related to mythology and astronomy.

Another of my favorite examples of the synthesis of folklore with sophisticated environmental knowledge comes from pre-European Tonga and Samoa. It seems that most laypeople were intimately familiar with lunar cycles. For some time, the Tongan lunar calendar apparently prescribed a different name to each night of a lunar month; the individual name for each of the 29 or so days corresponded to a different type of seafood that was active on that day and available for harvest. Thus, many laypeople would be aware that, hypothetically, certain molluscs might have been most active 10 days after a full moon on the eastern shore; barnacles, crabs, and seaweed presence are just some of the easily available foodstuffs that could be tracked via lunar cycles. By consciously making distinctions between individual days based on their associations with both stars and the moon, Polynesian knowledge could be accessible to laypeople outside of the more guarded astronomer-priest and navigator practices. For example, it was apparently common knowledge that the acronical rising of Pleiades around 16 November in the temperate South Pacific would mark the arrival of tuna season in Tuamotu, Gambier, Society Islands, and Rapa Nui; alternatively, the heliacal rise of Aldebaran in the tropics signified the beginning of the breadfruit growing season.

Anyway, aside from the role of oral tradition in encoding and transmitting knowledge of plants and soil and food cultivation, it’s my understanding that where Polynesian environmental knowledge truly shines is in its deep and amazing understanding of astronomy and the ocean. (No surprise.) I’ll try to share a few resources or tidbits on that. Obviously, the understanding of astronomy was the critical element in Polynesian’s famous voyaging and navigation skills; the art and science of “wayfinding” necessitates deep knowledge of both the sky and the sea in order to guide voyages, so astronomer-priests were/are highly revered for their maintenance of this astronomical knowledge.

People of Kiribati maintained some of the most sophisticated star maps, utilizing a so-called “sky dome” map scheme which functioned as a “nautical almanac. Apparently, the mythology of Kiribati was especially intertwined with wayfinding and voyaging; the concept of the sky, referred to in many other Polynesian societies as some kind of analogue of “heaven,” was known in Kiribati instead as um ni borau, “roof of voyaging.” And yes, lunar cycles obviously play a role in tides, meaning that knowledge of the moon can help island communities to harvest seafood from the shoreline, but lunar cycles are also relevant to the migrations or activity of marine life in the open ocean. Lunar cycles seem to also be even more important to communities living outside of the tropics, in the temperate parts of the South Pacific south of the Tropic of Capricorn, where seasonal climatic changes and the resulting availability of sea life for food harvest is more fleeting, and the timing of harvest was/is important not to miscalculate. So, apparently, the most widespread myth-motifs across Oceania seem to be those stories that involve the moon, sun, and sea. (Again, no surprise.)

Pre-European astronomical temple sites are common, across both Polynesia and Micronesia, and are often oriented so that the architecture is accurately aligned with certain star constellations to mark solstices, equinoxes, and more-subtle seasonal re-appearances of less-well-known stars that can be used to mark the arrival of migrating sea life in local seas. Some great temple sites include the Maori observatories Koro-riwha-te-ao and Koro-riwha-te-po, oriented to view solar halos at sunrise; surprisingly similar constructions, also observing the sunrise’s solar halos, also occur in Micronesia. The royal temple of Fa’anui on Bora Bora was historically maintained by “chiefs of the yellow girdle” who donned the golden tapa cloth, which took its golden color from Capella, the distinctive golden crown of the Auriga constellation. In some Polynesian societies, astronomer-priests were afforded much more prestige than “kings.”

So, I guess what I’m saying is that it’s my understanding that historians and scholars, both of Polynesian descent and of the Euro-American academy, are impressed with the fact that some historical pre-European myth-motifs and pieces of folklore are relatively similar, retaining the same names and stories and tropes, on far-flung islands on opposite edges of the South Pacific, despite the great distance between the islands, despite the lack of of consistent historical human exchange between these corners of the ocean, and despite the centuries-old dates of divergence between these communities. (For more on the “classic pattern” of Polynesian myth-motifs existing at such distant corners of the ocean, see: Anthony Alpers’ “Legends of the South Sea.”) In other words, stories like that of Maui lassoing the sun or fishing-up islands occur on islands thousands of kilometers apart, suggesting the oral transmission of folklore, even over centuries was detailed and a serious undertaking. Other environment-related myth-motifs that appear across Polynesia are stories of Hina (whomst you might consider to be a sort of lunar maiden figure) or stories of Tagaloa the Creator. Myths of Tagaloa appear in locations as distant from each other as Tonga, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Hawaii, and the isolated Chatham Islands hundreds of kilometers east of Aotearoa. Polynesian environmental knowledge is so precise and sophisticated; accurate environmental knowledge is a matter of life and death, especially if you’re voyaging, if you’re lost at sea in the vast Pacific, or if soil becomes depleted on a small island, threatening the entire island’s human community.

I’ll just reiterate for anyone that missed my previous rambling about this subject, but I’m in awe of Polynesian traditional environmental knowledge for some of its unique implications. (1) The remoteness of islands in the Pacific means that environmental knowledge must be especially accurate and reliable, because you cannot easily call for rescue or aid from nearby island communities; (2) the small scale, essentially closed ecological systems, and relatively delicate health and limited supply of soil on isolated islands can mean that soil is easily depleted and food crops must be meticulously cared for; and (3) all of this environmental knowledge was maintained through oral tradition and storytelling.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, into at least the late 20th century, even some laypeople and teenagers in Kiribati could identify and name over 770 stars; this is recounted in anthropologist Maud Makemson’s firsthand accounts of getting to know Kiribati communities in “The Morning Star Rises: An Account of Polynesian Astronomy.” Some island societies had designated priest-like navigator classes or groups, who tutored acolytes and committed their life to studying astronomy. Some fun tidbits about the accuracy and importance of astronomical environmental knowledge:

- David Lewis, historian specializing in Polynesian and Micronesian voyaging, interviewed 88-year-old islander Sione Fe’iloakitoo Kaho, who was the oldest living Tuita at the time; Kaho’s great-grandfather was a blind navigator living in the 19th century who was recorded as having reoriented a lost flotilla by simply putting his hand in the water for a few seconds and provided the correct direction and distance to Fiji, saving everyone on the boats. [Source: David Lewis. “Voyaging Stars: Aspects of Polynesian and Micronesian Astronomy.” (1974).]

- Pleiades is especially important in the smaller and more remote Micronesian islands and also in temperate climates south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Even the Ryuku Islands, currently administered by Japan, still host intact hilltop stellar observatories oriented towards the Pleiades.

- On Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the presence of circular tupa dwellings on Poike Peninsula seems to suggest the presence of the astronomer-priests (tohunga) and their acolytes; the entrances to the dwellings are aligned towards various rising constellations.

- In historic Hawaii, at one time, a strict adherence to a man-dominated kupa system of social behavior sometimes prevented women from formally taking a role in cultivation of the taro cop, which led some women to become experts on seaweed harvest instead; eventually, these women’s ability to accurately interpret lunar cycles and tidal ecology signs in pursuit of seaweed became so respected that seaweed itself was somewhat anthropomorphized as a spiritual entity in myths. [Source: Isabella Abbott, “Polynesian Uses of Seaweed.”]

- There are more recorded Polynesian legends which reference the sky than which reference terrestrial plants and animals.

- Some navigators can/could accurately direct voyages of 800 kilometers, or 3200 kilometers if aiming for an archipelago, as recounted in Lewis’ “Voyaging Stars” and Ben Finney’s “Myth, Experiment, and the Reinvention of Polynesian Voyaging.” (Finney’s article might be of interest; it explores the realistic feasibility of the extremely long voyages recounted in older Polynesian myths.)

- For more information on the social importance of astronomy to food and culture in Tonga and Samoa, see Daniel de Coppett’s and Andre Iteanu’s “Cosmos and Society in Oceania” (1995).

So, I’ve got a long-ish list of sources for further reading about the relationship between Polynesian mythology and astronomy/ocean knowledge, which I’ll  put in a separate post. (Oh, and since you also asked about botany and soil health, especially regarding how soil replenishment occurred on Polynesian islands: I actually dug up some old essays and more material on that subject, involving breadfruit and seasonal shifting of cultivation. I’ll share the info in a separate post, too.)

I have such respect for Polynesian environmental knowledge. Really, the elevated role and importance of both the sky and the sea in Polynesian cosmology and human-environment interactions is fascinating. The sky and the sea are both so complex.

[0poole]

Some Retrospective Thoughts on Gen 7

Galar’s making me go nuts. You already know. Let’s look back on Alola because why not. I feel like I have stuff to say about it. Also, I just watched the last episode of the Alolan Anime, so there’s that.

Whenever I first think back to Gen 7, I think “Eh, it was alright. Nothing special, I guess.” The Pokemon were decent, apart from being almost universally slow, apart from like 3 speed demons, the starters weren’t much, the story was alright, the location was alright, etc. etc. 

Then, I ACTUALLY think back, and I realize… I have no idea why I was thinking that. This generation was actually amazing.

First of all, they finally put the motif of the Sun and Moon into game types. It’s definitely a breath of fresh air after they tried to use the fucking dimensions in 3D space for titles in Gen 6 (Loved that gen too, but seriously “Life” and “Death” would both be more fitting and not as strange. Maybe they don’t want “Death” as a title tho). Really fits in with how naturally themed everything is too, which is obviously for the best, since this is the most “natural” game to date. Even though we technically already had an America-based region in Unova, Hawai’i is so unique in its own right it definitely fits for a region. I’m usually the type who doesn’t like super overt themes in things, and kind of just wants a very generalized experience, but it’s probably for the good of everyone that they don’t actually follow through with that idea. 

Probably the biggest thing to come out of this generation is the new habit of them posting short little videos on Youtube revealing new Pokemon/features/etc. Obviously they were super trigger happy with them then, but now it seems they’ve taken a step back a little. I do love this idea, though, because it actually hypes me up more than anything else ever could. I remember before, even though I was kinda-sorta trying to follow the updates on Gens 4-6, I never really felt like I could, and even though I was going to get the games no matter what, now I realize I really want to know what I’m getting into. 

I remember exactly where I was for some of the major announcements. For the starters, I was in my high school geometry class, where I watched and re-watched that video dozens of times just so I could keep looking at them. I started off on Rowlet’s side of course, but once I realized he was getting all the attention and ol Popplio was getting basically none, I changed my allegiance and stayed there to this day. Ignoring the fact that I don’t really like any of the final evolutions enough to actually use them in game, I LOVE Popplio himself. It’s seriously a shame that he didn’t become some clown seal like everyone was speculating. Unlike how it seems, I really, really like “normal” clown characters (as in, not “horror” clowns), so he could’ve easily become one of my favorites in that case. Decidueye is definitely my favorite of the final forms, and Incineroar I think is still underrated. Sure, whatever, he’s bipedal, and it’s weirder than it otherwise would be, but for some reason I love how his mouth was an actual modeled mouth and not just an image slapped on there like most Pokemon. It really made him more expressive than the average Pokemon. Plus, the animation for Darkest Lariat is really cool, with his hands flashing against a flat back background for a second before actually doing the move. Even better, it’s great meme potential when hacked onto other Pokemon, like Wailord.

I don’t remember if Solgaleo and Lunala were introduced in that first trailer too, but either way I love both of them. I was a bit more drawn to Solgaleo at first, but Lunala has since grown to be one of my favorite legendaries of all. The starry wings, golden rims, and white skeleton-y body are such a great combo. And yeah, sure, Solgaleo would’ve been more fitting as a fire type or whatever, but since stars form the heavy metals that make it onto planets it’s fine. I won’t accept that Lunala should’ve been a dark type, though. The Moon is a major embodiment of light in the night sky, so if anything it shouldn’t be related to darkness. As for Necrozma, I love his base form a lot. It’s such a strange look, especially how the back of his head is transparent. It’s the perfect “evil prism” pokemon. I really just wish Ultra Necrozma had more detail to him, though. He looks so flat for such a major figure in the games… At least he had a good battle and an even BETTER theme song, hot damn

Guess that’s a good transition to talk about the music, and I guess tangentially about Team Skull, since they were probably the best possible departure from the usual “Evil Team” formula. Them just being random hooligans causing trouble instead of a formal organization trying for world domination is a good change of pace, as pretty much everyone agrees… It wouldn’t have been so great if they didn’t at least try to incorporate rap/trap music into their themes. They’re probably the most music-oriented Team canonically speaking, so they’d have to have a great theme. Also, the idea that they feel left behind by the traditions of the Trials really makes sense, since something so important in their culture would definitely make someone feel left out if they couldn’t get through it. 

Other themes for the more calm situations, like Hau’oli City’s night theme, are also extremely good. I didn’t even realize how much I loved that track until I heard Insaneintherain’s cover of it. It almost sounds like something out of Steven Universe, for how pleasant it is (apart from the piano). Lillie’s theme still gives me the warm fuzzies every time I hear it, too. I don’t think a single game before this has ever done the credits so well, too. Apart from the fun artwork, the last shot of Lillie and the game’s legendary actually just kills me every time. She’s such an adorable, pure soul, it’s crazy to think that when she was first revealed, we thought she was the secret supervillain of the game, just because she looked kinda peeved in her official art. We weren’t far off, though, with the Aether Foundation and all. I love both the calm theme of the Paradise itself AND their evil battle theme. Even though one is obviously an evil theme, it does feel like it came from the same source. Same goes for Lusamine’s theme. I really love the Aether Foundation as a whole too, where we can now have “Good” Foundation archetypes to counter the Evil Team archetype. Plus, their designs all involve white with gold accents, which is basically my brand. I tried to design my own Aether outfit the instant I saw them, since I love their look so much. 

As for battle themes, I love how jazzy Galdion’s battle theme ended up. It made him so much more interesting than just a generic edgelord. The Elite Four’s battle theme might actually be the scariest theme to date for some reason, and yet all I can picture when listening to it is Acerola bobbing joyfully back and forth… Basically the same way, the Tapu battle theme is also pretty crazy, with tribal chants in the back of it. The Tapus are probably the coolest group of legendaries in the game, considering how unique they are, with their oddly wooden shells that represent animals. It really makes them feel like spirits brought about by the people of Alola themselves, instead of just some being that came out of nowhere. Probably the one theme that is the most nostalgic (yes, I know it was only 3 years ago, you can still feel nostalgia damnit) for me is the Kahuna battle theme. It was probably just some random comment on Youtube, but somewhere someone said that it was the perfect theme because it starts off intimidating, but quickly switches into a super fun melody, because ultimately, the Island Challenge is for fun. I just love that. I’m always looking for “Fun” stuff in pretty much everything, so I like a theme that represents that. Also, it’s just super catchy, and even expanded upon in Pokemon Masters. Let it be known that Hapu is the best Kahuna by the way. She cute. Also, watching her become the Kahuna is the best world building you could possibly muster up for this kind of setting. 

Of course, I’m intentionally leaving out a certain group…

You know what I think of when I think of Hawai’i? Pearly white sand beaches… Palm trees… Fruity drinks… oh, and let’s not forget fucking interdimensional aliens. 

The Ultra Beasts are the exact type of thing I’d want to insert into the Pokemon world, and that’s why I love them. They’re so weird in the best ways possible. When they were introduced in a trailer, I had the same reaction as I did with Type: Null. They put him up on the screen for a bit and was like “Haha here’s ‘Type: Null,’ okay next” like EXCUSE ME? YOU CAN’T JUST SHOW ME A POKEMON CALLED “Type: Null” AND NOT EXPLAIN WHAT’S GOING ON. Of course, that’s kind of what the games were for, but it was seriously a shock to the system to see Pokemon with code names instead of actual names. You also can’t convince me that Pheromosa wasn’t designed after Lusamine, and to a lesser extent that Xurkitree wasn’t designed after Guzma. I think it’s canon that Lusamine styled Lillie after Nihilego in her crazed state, but the uncanny likeness between those other two is pretty darn notable. I think from the first batch, Celesteela was my favorite of them all, being like a rusted copper rocket ship or something, who can even smack you with her two giant rockets. Also, Pokemon directly based on folktales are always welcome, no matter what. Meanwhile, with the Ultra games being the first sequels to introduce brand-new Pokemon, Blacephalon easily took top spot. I did say I liked clowns, didn’t I? Plus, the biggest evidence that he’s best boi is that in the anime when he appeared, he didn’t even try to attack anything. He just wanted to show off (specifically, believe it or not, by moonwalking… Whoever’s idea that was needs a raise). I also love detachable heads, which is a great idea to mix with clowns, and I guess also fireworks in this case… I just love him. I really hope that there will be future instances of Ultra Beasts, since it’s apparently super easy to just make them however the hell you want them, and since you’re not limited to a region’s natural environment. Lord knows whoever designed Buzzwole didn’t have any limitations. Exploring his, and really all of their worlds in USUM was extremely fun. It’s a damn shame Blacephalon and Stakataka (again, what a name) didn’t get the same privilege. 

As for the Pokemon as a whole, like I mentioned, off the top of my head I don’t feel super crazy about many of them, even though that’s a total lie. Shiinotic appealed to my inner mushroom-character-lover so much that I basically designed a character that looked identical to him. He’s easily the best mushroom Pokemon to date, where he looks pretty cute while also being just slightly creepy enough, with those souless eyes. The concept for Araquanid is amazing, where he’s a reverse Diving Bell spider. I might’ve designed him a bit differently, but he still looks super cool. The ideas behind Oranguru and Passimian are also cool, since we haven’t delved much into intelligent ape Pokemon enough. Wishiwashi is another great concept, and probably the best fish Pokemon in my opinion because of it. Lurantis and Minior are total cuties, the latter being one of those Pokemon that isn’t always in the forefront of my mind, but the instant it is it reclaims its place as one of my all-time favorites. Golisopod and Kommo-o are two of the coolest Pokemon designs to me, the latter being my all-time favorite Pseudo-Legendary. Vikavolt looks awesome, despite being deceptively slow. Dhelmise looks weird until you realize it’s actually insanely large (like, Wailord large). Mudsdale is just an all-around good-looking horse. Oricorio also looks really cool, especially in her fiery form. Tsareena is, well… Tsareena… That’s not even including the adorable Magearna and Marshadow, who are in generational limbo… Also, I think Mimikyu might be the overall best addition to the franchise ever. No Pika-clone could ever compare. 

I mean, specifically as far as a single Pokemon goes, Mimikyu is definitely the best addition to the franchise. Meanwhile, as far as concepts go, the absolutely HUGE idea of Regional Variants is the best addition. Again, I remember where I was when I heard the announcement: it was some sort of weird fantasy house, with a ton of cool details in it to make it look like a setting in some movie or something. It was awesome there, even if we were staying for only a night or so I think. Either way, the concept of different Pokemon adapting to different conditions in the region is the most perfect way to bring attention back to older Pokemon, and I’m so glad they seem to want to keep the idea for all future generations too. It’s especially fitting for Alola, since it’s a super remote island. I love how goofy Alolan Exeggutor is, especially because everyone else seems to love his goofiness too. Same sort of goes for Dugtrio, since his hair is actually based on a real thing… Marowak becoming a spiritual fire dancer is definitely the best possible iteration for him. My favorite might be the colorful Alolan Muk, though, even if Alolan Vulpix is infinitely cuter and better than fiery Vulpix in every way. I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Also, she’s a perfect fit for Lillie, so I guess I’ll use that as my transition into talking about the characters/anime. I’m just gonna be real with you. I’m not going to hold back. Alola has some of the cutest girls in the entire franchise. But first of all, let’s divert that train and instead lust after a man who is easily the hottest professor in the games yet, Kukui. What self-respecting researcher wouldn’t wear his professor-mandated lab coat without any undershirt? He needs his bulging abs as target practice for his Pokemon’s moves, people. He needs to let them breathe. Also, I was kind of enamoured with Sycamore before him, but you can’t deny the tinted skin gets to you a little. Burnet’s a lucky gal, let’s just say.

Okay, now that we’ve established that my pants don’t discriminate, we have to talk about Wicke. So now that that’s covered, can I just say I love Mina? I’d say she deserves more attention, but she was the only Alolan to make it into Lets Go for some reason, so I guess she’s well off? First of all, I love hippie-esque girls (idealized hippies, at least), so that’s a major plus… I mean, I should probably stop using the word “cute” altogether because it applies to every girl in the game, but yeah. Lana’s highly deserved spotlight in the anime made me love her too, where she was a perfect combination of extroverted while still more soft-spoken. I don’t know if that kind of characters’ an anime trope, but lord knows it’s not in western media, so I love how unique her personality is. Her interacting with Mallow and Lillie in cute, girly ways felt so wholesome. If the anime’s anything, it’s wholesome. 

One sec, though. I have to mention that I really like Hau. He’s obviously the one pinned as “Boo, he’s not a giga-asshole! That means he’s bad!” because I guess the fandom’s hive mind has collectively agreed that the only good rivals are assholes now. Like I said before, this stuff’s more about fun now. Hau’s a fun friend to fight, to the point where you beat him as the Champion you kinda feel bad for knocking him down so much. You feel bad because you like him, you know. Also, I forgot to mention this earlier but even though he isn’t entirely difficult himself, the trials in these games are actually both a difficult and interesting challenge. A 2v1 where you’re at the disadvantage is a great boss battle idea, especially with the strategies set out by a Pokemon’s different abilities and moves. Probably the best was Totem Lurantis, who of course summoned a Sunny Day-based Castform to activate her Chlorophyll and buff her Solar Blade, while adding a diverse fire type into play. It was really difficult, to be honest. Those who say it wasn’t either got lucky or have insane standards that cannot be met because they’re Pokemon Veterans who know every little thing about everything. I’m pretty much in that camp, and I still had to actually plan during the fight. Same goes for Totem Araquanid in USUM. I literally had to poison (not toxic, base poison) stall that guy because I couldn’t do anything to him otherwise. He was pretty much one-shotting everything I sent out, anyway, so I had to stall however I could. You can’t argue that that means it was “easy” because I knew how to beat him. It’s only “easy” if you can just send out pretty much whatever and do whatever and still win. Then there’s the Rainbow Rocket episode in USUM, which is just crazy… There’s not much to say that isn’t obvious there. It was fun seeing the villains that were victorious in a different dimension.

Anyways, for the anime, I also have a similar stance. It really seemed like the only people who started off hating it were anime nerds who had no concept of an in-between frame. I will say that it was a step down from XY/XYZ though, but those seasons’ quality was unusually high. Compared to the animation quality of every other season, it was so much better. First of all, I really don’t even like “anime style” that much, so a slightly more western style was very welcome. Like pretty much every show ever, the animation quality is seriously high where it counts, so there’s not much to be said about that, but I’d say the overall animation quality is a step up in general. The more simplified style only really looked weird in Ash because we’re so used to his more pointy style. Every other character looked totally fine, in my opinion. 

As for the story, I will say I would’ve wanted the scope of the plot to be much larger, like how with the other seasons Ash was going on an adventure, whereas here it was very contained, and centered around the Pokemon School. But, still, like I mentioned, I did enjoy the casual wholesomeness of it all. Not only do I just like mindless fun, but it made the crazy shit feel even crazier. The episode where Faba was trying to catch Nebby is a perfect example. It begins with a nice fun game of all the Pokemon and people jumping rope and having a good time, with some slapstick humor with Faba failing to capture Nebby. Then he does, and shit goes down. First of all, he’s torturing the little thing. Then, ASH (not his Pokemon, Ash himself) tackles Faba. Tell me, what other season had humans fighting other humans? I honestly can’t think of a single time when fighting was done with fists and not Pokemon (although surely I’m forgetting something, there’s gotta be at least one other example, right?) Then, Lillie re-experiences her past trauma of almost being abducted by Nihilego, except now her mom gets abducted in her place… Like, what happened? It was so cute a second ago. That’s always the selling point for any cartoon, for me. Stay casual for a decent amount, then break it with some uncharacteristically high tension. The same goes for the segment where Ash goes into Guzzlord’s post apocalyptic dimension. As for mega-feels, It’s great that they made Litten/Torracat an actual character instead of just some random Pokemon, with Stoutland and whatnot. The episode where they go into Tapu Fini’s mist and Mallow meets her mother, and Torracat meets Stoutland just destroyed me. It was strategically remedied by Lillie and Gladion not seeing their father, suggesting he’s still alive. There were some really great episodes in the season, for sure.

So, yeah… Alola was a good time. Don’t deny it. Galar’s gonna be great too. No game’s ever going to be perfect, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun.

[mythriteshah]

The Sultan’s Eternal Dance

The arid climate… the bustle of merchants… the exotic yet deadly displays of dance and song.  These were but a few of the favored traits for which this region was known.   Beneath the midday sun stood a resplendent mansion of mythril blue, its icy edifices shining in defiance of the Warden’s gaze.  An owl with outspread wings wearing a mythril crown and clutching a bar of the same metal within its talons was shown above the front entrance, and within the courtyard was a large crowd of people in a semi-circle, seemingly awaiting the commencement of some show.  The men of the crowd wore loose thobes and kaftans of various colors and designs, while the ladies wore lehengas and other midriff-baring blouses.

Before too long, the doors to the mansion would open, and a cold wind would blow from within, startling the crowd for but a moment before they saw six Lalafellin women adorned in ice blue evening gowns – each flanking a taller Lalafell male in the center who wore a fancy shirt-and-sarouel-combo of ice blue and gold with babouches to match, and just above his left ear was a beautiful corsage of light blue Hydrangeas with a tassel dangling from it.

“It’s him…!  One of Radz-at-Han’s most premier merchant-lords and his Angels…!” said a woman in a hushed whisper.

“The Mythrite Sultan…?! He dances?!” said a Hingan visitor in shock.  As the crowd’s whispers intensified, the Sultan clapped his hands twice and his entourage fanned out in a large circle formation.  Once they had gotten into position, he rose a hand into the air, then snapped his fingers.  As if on cue, the ringing of steel filled the air and the crowd jumped in response. The Angels drew circular blades from their hips and a chord would be played from a sitar, followed by the rhythmic clapping of hands as more instruments began to join in the melody.

The Angels danced and twirled gracefully in a clockwise manner, chakrams in hand, as the Sultan stood still in the center with his eyes shut.  The crowd watched on with bated breath until the silver-haired Angel tossed a chakram at the Sultan.  Some of the onlookers closed their eyes before the blade would find its mark, but with an effortless turn of his heel, the Sultan twirled as the chakram flew mere ilms from his cheek, and her blue-eyed counterpart on the opposite end caught it with her free hand.  Before the crowd could catch its breath, the malachite-haired Angel tossed her own chakram at the Sultan’s feet.  Just as it would hit, he sprung a half-yalm in the air and avoided it completely, the chakram skidding along the smooth marble as her onyx-haired counterpart performed a cartwheel and caught it as she returned upright, maintaining her dance all the while.

The crowd was beginning to watch in awe, some scattered applause being heard as others talked excitedly amongst each other.  Now came the amber-haired Angel’s turn.  With a sly wink, she hurled a chakram towards the Sultan’s crown, who had maintained his pose as he landed before dropping down into a perfect split, the blade flying over his head as her aqua-eyed counterpart easily caught it in her free hand. At this point the people were cheering as they repeated this pattern for about a minute, the Sultan gracefully avoiding the flying steel to the rhythm of the slow melody which guided them.

Then, the Sultan snapped his fingers and his Angels ceased their movements, frozen in fourth position as the music halted.  He then revealed a pair of large fans made in a Near Eastern motif, brandishing them proudly before he tapped his babouch on the ground twice, and the music would resume, but at a much faster tempo.  The Angels would repeat their pattern again, only this time the Sultan would manipulate the incoming chakrams with his fans, returning or otherwise diverting their course utilizing the power of the wind.

The melody intensified as the Angels threw in pairs, then in threes, each time resulting in a whirlwind of spinning steel before returning to their respective senders. As the crowd’s cheering grew louder, the spectacle would soon reach its climax.  For this deadly finale, the Sultan began gathering energy as the Angels’ dance increased in time with the music.  After making one full lap around the Sultan, they each simultaneously threw a single chakram at him.

He then pirouetted as elementally-charged aether began to exude from his fans.  That same cold wind from before could be felt as the Sultan span at high speeds, causing a gust to form from beneath him, and gathering the thrown chakrams in the vortex as it suddenly began to freeze over!

As the frozen pillar took form, the Sultan casted his fans away and replaced them with a chakram thrown by two of his Angels, and thus began another series of flowing movements as his body and that of his Angels began to glow violently.

“Wait… this couldn’t be…!” said a Thavnairian native.  “How will he execute it from way up there?!”

Somersaulting from the pillar, the four from his beautiful entourage still possessing a chakram would throw their remaining weapon in the air.  The Sultan landed on one and finally opened his eyes, glowing fiercely from the energy he had gathered.  In an instant, he would dash through the pillar in a streak of crimson, flower petals flinging in all directions as he descended onto the second chakram.  He would perform this same dash again, and once more, making his diagonal descent upon the bladed stairs as the final chakram was mere ilms from the ground; he gave a wink to their captive audience before one last somersault he would perform as the dazzling display of crimson blades carving the ice into diamond dust was all they beheld.

As the melody ended in a crescendo, the Angels caught their chakrams and struck a pose in a line formation, flanking their Sultan at the center, who landed perfectly in between as he gave a flowing bow.  A snowy owl with the symbol of the Traders on its breast perched itself upon the Sultan’s head, spreading its wings proudly as the performance had reached its conclusion.

The crowd roared with cheers and applause at the death-defying feats this troupe had accomplished.  The Sultan and his entourage basked in the audience’s ardor for a while longer before taking their leave, leaving them awestruck and wanting for more.

“A merchant-lord; a fashion designer, and a peerless dancer!  What can’t that Lalafell do?!” commented the Hingan visitor.

“Seeing stunts like that make me wonder how the guy’s still single!” spoke a fellow Hannish dancer. “The Crimson Lotus in midair?  Utter madness, I say!”

As the crowd dispersed, the Warden’s gaze would soon give way to dusk as the Lover now took Her turn to rule the heavens.  As night arrived upon Radz-at-Han, the people were still abuzz over the spectacle presented by the Hannish merchant-lord known only as Thiji Higuri, and his ever-growing army of Angels.  From his within their mansion – the Higuri Regalia Main Branch Headquarters as it is officially known – the Mythrite Sultan was garbed in his signature robes and turban, relaxing on the balcony adjoining his chambers.  An impressive view of the city-state and the region proper could be seen from this vantage point, and the moon shone brightly amidst the night sky.

Standing beside him was a Lalafellin flower born of Thavnair, with golden-blonde tresses, aqua blue eyes, and a smile as warm as the Near Eastern sun, pouring for the Mythrite Sultan a glass of his favorite lassi.  This woman robed in white was Veeveena Veena, Lord Thiji’s Main Branch Advisor.

After taking a sip and nodding in approval of its exquisite taste, Thiji gestured to Veeveena as she poured herself a glass, only filling it about halfway before setting down the pitcher.  She took the glass in her hands and would enjoy a large sip herself, savoring the sweet yet icy flavor.  When she exhaled, her breath was visible in a light mist, which made her giggle.

“Another day won, My Sultan,” she spoke in her soft tone.  “Before too long, the secret will come out – you will not be able to claim that you cannot dance once the adoration of the people reach Eorzean ears!”

Thiji took another sip of his lassi, paused, and placed his glass on the pedestal beside him, resting his folded hands on his lap.

“Plans within plans, Miss Veeveena,” he replied.  “The feats we perform here are vastly different compared to that which lies beyond the Sea of Jade.  And with adventuring back on the rise, there will be far more urgent concerns plaguing everyone’s minds than a mere spectacle of dance.  Which is where the PiB Catalogue will come into play.”

“Ahh, of course!  You meant fashion!” Veeveena chimed.  “That battle is definitely ongoing, is it not? Speaking of, did we not befriend fellow royalty about a moon ago?  Perhaps she can offer insight on the trends of… what did she call it – Norvrandt?  A fashion catalogue so prestigious that it transcends worlds!”

“I definitely like the sound of that,” Thiji stated, “but I did not want to press that matter too soon, especially considering Princess Kikki is still growing accustomed to this world with our allies.  But rest assured that there is yet much to do for the realm of fashion.  And we shall seize it, as we have done twice over now.”

Veeveena bowed low as she finished her glass, turning her head towards the entrance for a brief moment, sporting a grin on her face before taking the pitcher in her hand and leaving her lord alone.  Thiji sat in silence as his new company would arrive in the form of his younger twin brother, Horu.

He had continued moving until Horu could be seen from Thiji’s peripheral vision.  He wore robes were not unlike a palette swap of Thiji’s – switching the ice blues with the whites and golds.  He offered a glass of lassi to his brother – most likely left behind by Veeveena.  With a smile, Horu accepted and joined his brother at the edge of the balcony.

“How are you faring, brother?” Horu asked.  “It is good to know that your edge has not dulled since you retired from adventuring.”

“This realm is always full of problems,” the Mythrite Sultan replied, “and I must not become complacent in my new lifestyle in case the worst should occur.  Even if those “Tryhardeans” should continue their subjugation of Eorzea – or their incompetence thereof.”

“I see…” Horu pondered. “So this must be why you’ve developed your own methods of battle and aetherial manipulation…”

“Horu, you of all people should know that it extends far beyond that,” spoke Thiji as he turned away from his younger twin.  “I’ve endured enough hardships and battles to last ten lifetimes, and with each obstacle I’ve overcome did the Regalia grow stronger.  And with this growth I had made the discovery that many of this realm’s inhabitants willingly shackle themselves to stagnancy, reluctant and antipathetic in stepping out from their comfort zone.  Such potential has been squandered as a result.”

“This is true, brother…” Horu agreed. “However, not many have faced the amount of dangers you have during your tenure as an adventurer.  In their defense, not many are as fortunate to obtain the power that you now possess.”

The Mythrite Sultan shook his head and turned his body towards Horu.

“I never sought power, Horu.  ‘Tis not as grandiose as you may believe.  I became who I am today in order to distinguish myself from the dross; I wanted to show this realm that they are capable of accomplishing far greater than what they believe.  But I do not show this through battle.  I show it through my truest strengths – through mercantilism and fashion,” Thiji explained.  “Power in Beauty – ‘tis a way of life our clan has embraced for generations.  The realm shall learn this as well, and it is my hope that those same values will be embedded into the Eorzeans for the winters to come…”  He paused and returned to his sofa, heaving a large sigh as the next words he would say were ones he felt have been stated over and over again…

“…For I will not be on this realm forever.”

Horu knew what he meant. His older brother, now the head of his family after their father and mother retired, had just about everything he could ever wish for… everything save for one essential component in his life.

Thiji’s gaze would land upon Horu, almost expecting him to say it, but Horu refrained from doing so, only out of respect for his brother.  He would part his lips as if to speak, but before he could utter anything, two more figures would approach the balcony.

They were Lalafells just like Thiji and Horu – one male, one female, but far younger.  The female was the shortest of the pair, about half as tall as Thiji.  She sported long platinum-pink hair, an ice blue left eye and a silver-white right eye. The male, though a head-and-a-half taller, had royal blue hair of similar length, and had eyes of the same color.  They approached the two with hesitant steps and coy countenances, the girl holding some sort of parchment behind her back as they came closer.

“Kakasu.  Kakashoa,” spoke Thiji, sensing their presence.  His voice, though calm, commanded the two to stop several fulms from Thiji’s seat, looking around feverishly.  Horu remained silent as well, wondering how this would unfold for them.  “What brings you to us?  Has someone dared to harm you?” The two exchanged looks for a moment before Kakasu gestured to her brother to advance. Though reticent at first, he would comply.

“N-No, Uncle Thiji. Not at all,” said Kakashoa.  “We… We just wanted to give you something.”

“F-Father insisted,” Kakasu followed, nodding to Horu.  She resumed her approach as Kakashoa brought up the rear, stopping once they were in the center of Thiji’s gaze.  “We hope you like it,” Kakasu said as she approached her Uncle, handing the paper to him before walking back slowly.

As the Mythrite Sultan took the paper in his hand, the air stood still as his eyebrows furrowed.  Horu maintained his silent vigil from the sidelines as Thiji’s niece and nephew nervously tugged on their kaftans, waiting for a response.  What felt like the longest minute of their lives had passed until Kakasu took a deep breath as she mustered the courage to speak.

“Uncle Thiji?” she said with a bit of confidence.  “Mother and Father told us about your adventures and… everything that happened. They even said that you were upset at him because he… he helped make us.  And…”

Each word became harder to say as Kakasu continued her explanation.  So much that she was beginning to tear up out of fear of what may happen.  Kakashoa then backed his sister up, placing an arm in front of her.

“We… We hoped this would make you happy, Uncle Thiji,” his nephew followed.  “We wanted to find a way to show you that we still think she’s out there… somewhere.  We don’t know what she would look like, so we just drew someone very pretty and fashionable. We’re sorry if it offends you, Uncle Thiji… we didn’t mean to.”

They both lowered their heads in shame.  Thiji gave one more glance at the drawing before rising back to his feet and placing it on the cushion, taking a few slow paces towards the edge of the balcony.  Horu turned his head away slightly, feeling some guilt as well.  Since he married Umimi and bore them two children, he had this looming suspicion that his older brother despised and reviled him deep down.  But Horu never intended to bring any stress upon Thiji. Quite the contrary, in fact.  He wanted to lessen as much of the burden of being a merchant-lord and fashion mogul from his shoulders as possible, working behind the scenes to ensure the Regalia moves like the well-oiled machine for which it is well-known.

“Come, Niece.  Come, Nephew,” beckoned Thiji as he kept his gaze fixed upon the moon.  Fearing the worst, Kakasu and Kakashoa made their way towards their Uncle, slightly trembling as they flanked him on his left and right, respectively.  After a long pause, the next thing they would feel is the warmth of a hand resting upon their heads.  They looked up at Thiji in astonishment, their worries quickly vanishing from their hearts, as he gave them a shake of his head.  “Kakasu.  Kakashoa. I thank you both for this.  You as well, Horu.”

Thiji’s brother turned his head towards him, his eyes widened at what he beheld.  “Understand, young ones, that I am not upset at you for perpetuating our family heritage.  Just know that you two have been brought into this world by my brother and Lady Umimi brings me relief.  Yes, my dream may have died some winters ago, but that, too, can be replaced. ‘Twas then that I realized that my own fate lied elsewhere.”

“But your romantic dream was your biggest one ever!” Kakasu replied, practically in tears.  “The play Father said you loved so much that you could recite it from start to finish… We thought we’d prove to you that your sorceress is out there somewhere!  We don’t like seeing you all alone and sad and… Sultana-less.  We wanted you to be proud of us!”

“I am proud of you two, Kakasu,” Thiji said back.  Her tears would cease as she looked back up to her Uncle, who had his arms around their shoulders, and whose gaze was still fixed on that milky-white star.  “I’ve come to terms with this life in which I lead.  The Regalia is in good hands now.  You two are its heirs, and I am fine with this.  Just so long as this line continues to wed other Lalafells.”

This slight jest made the two chuckle, along with Horu.  Thiji then gave them a hug and kissed the crowns of their heads.  “I will treasure this gift.  ‘Twill remind me that there is something to which I can at least look forward in the winters to come.  And if it doesn’t… that is good, too.  With family like ours, coupled our numerous allies and our dependable Angels, The Regalia will prosper and flourish – with or without someone by my side.”

With this knowledge, the young twins were elated as they returned their Uncle’s embrace before rushing back to the drawing with the biggest grins on their faces.

“We’ll frame this for you, Uncle Thiji!  At least let us do this!” Kakashoa pleaded.  Thiji gave a silent nod of approval to them before they happily made their way out of his chambers, passing Veeveena on the way.  Horu would soon follow suit, but just as he would cross the threshold, he turned back towards his brother with a smile and said, “We were always rooting for you, brother.  And even now, long after you hung up your mantle of adventurer, we are still rooting for you.”

“Even if she never finds me – should I leave this realm alone – the Regalia will have a Sultana in Lady Umimi,” Thiji confirmed.  Horu would bow his head before leaving his brother to his thoughts, and his gaze turned back toward the moon.  The muscles in his face tensed as he kept his focus on that bright, white star… “Whether you’ve someone in store for me or not concerns me little at this juncture.  We’ve been through this song and dance for many winters now, and to be frank, ‘tis getting dull.”

The Mythrite Sultan went back to his sofa, taking the half-full glass of lassi in hand – still cool to the touch. He kept staring at the moon as he took a slow sip, enjoying the flavor before letting out a satisfied exhale.

“But you’re more than welcome to keep surprising me, Menphina.  You and Nymeia both.”

(Uncle Thiji & His Sultana.  Commissioned by https://artistsnclients.com/people/rizzart)

[queen-scribbles]

8, 15, 21, 39, 48 for Tavi; 6, 8, 25, 30, 33, 41, 50 for Adi; 5, 8, 14, 20, 24, 53 for Emiri?

TAVI

8. Weapon of Choice(?)

Her sabres or her fists. She can do serious damage with just about anything, but those are her areas of expertise, so to speak.

15. Can they sing? Can they dance?

Not well for both. Her singing voice especially is just awful.

21. Fave food(s) and drink(s)

Food–roasted boar and Edér’s venison stew(yes, specifically his; it’s the best, fight her)

Drink–I don’t really think she has one… at least not that I can remember without digging through her tag >.>

39. Your character walks into a cafe. What do they order?

Black coffee and a bear claw

48. What was their lowest point? What was their highest point?

Ah, an easy one! Lowest point’s for sure the night her family died, highest is the day she discovered not all of them did and she got her baby brother back after forty fuckin’ years.

ADI

6. Headcanon VA

Either Laura Bailey(since she’s Dagna’s VA in DAI and Adi is just orlan!Dagna) or Ali Hillis(bc I really like her Harding voice)

8. Weapon of Choice(?)

Her grimoire. Both for all the spells and to whack people with. 

25. City or Country?

Either’s good. There’s fewer distractions in the country, but more resources for reading/research in the city, and both can be explored, just in different ways.

30. What was adolescence like?

Lots of reading, not many close friends but everyone liked her, first crush(didn’t go anywhere), hanging out at Ben and Eztli’s a lot, that ultimately declined invitation to the Selona Academy    

33. How have they changed over time?

She’s gotten a lot better at tempering her curiosity with concern for other’s safety. (still not great at worrying about her own, which is why she explores with Kana/Xoti/Rekke a lot; she still needs someone going “Adi, maybe DON’T TOUCH THAT”). Gotten more tolerant of responsibility. She’d still rather be out exploring but she puts her duties as Roadwarden or Captain first with much less internal grumbling. 

41. What’s their morning routine like?

Rolls out of bed her cheery chatterbox self, usually before the sun’s up(she drives Aloth nuts, bc he’s also an early riser, but the “give me an hour and a good cup of tea before I talk to people” kind, and she won’t stop chattering at him), grabs whatever book she’s reading to pore over while she eats breakfast, there’s usually tea or murkbrew(thanks, Xoti, bc ADI needed caffeine), brushes and braids her hair, and then curls back up with the book til everyone else is awake. Unless it’s a circumstance where they need to get moving; then she’s walking around poking people til they roll out of bed. 

50. What are some motifs associated with your character?

Her grimoire(growth, learning, balance of curiosity and caution)

Apple spice tea(thinking of/missing home)

Her necklace(family)

Flowers(optimism, love of exploring) 

EMIRI

5. Height and Body type

6′8″ and lean muscles

8. Weapon of Choice(?)

one-hand war hammer and a dagger; her cipher abilities

14. Can they cook? Can they bake?

….Sort of? She’s learning. By the end of Deadfire she’s halfway decent.

20. Clothing/Aesthetic

Very casual and simple whenever possible; trousers and a loose shirt(she actually spent most of the first game in that one really raggedy peasant clothes outfit), comfortable boots. Finally starts wearing light leather armor in the Deadfire, just to be safe. Always has 3-7 of those macrame bracelets she makes on her wrist. The adra green one’s been fixed about six times by the time she reaches Ukaizo but she refuses to replace it, so it’s this dingy patchwork of old and new thread that stands out more the newer her other bracelets are.   

24. Fave Season

Summer, particularly the later two months

53. Expectations vs Reality: what did you expect and what did you get with this character?

I expected to play a moon godlike cipher who picked all the benevolent dialogue options she could bc I wanted a moon godlike for Deadfire and hadn’t played a cipher yet and didn’t think she was gonna develop any real personality. HA.

What I got was a former slave who rebelled against life trying to beat the kindness out of her by going “I THINK NOT, I’M GONNA CARE EVEN MORE NOW.” who bonded with Aloth to the point their friendship still makes me super emotional, who’s sweet and gentle and almost never curses and has a massive crush on the party chanter, who gets back up every time life or the gods knock her down bc living the way she wants and showing others the kindness she wasn’t is the best ‘fuck you’ to a harsh world she could think of. I love her.

Detailed OC Asks

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Hananim and other Spirits in Korean Shamanism and Sun Myung Moon’s cosmology

                      Updated November 17, 2019

▲ Sun Myung Moon wearing a crown with seven stars and antler motifs in 1995. 

“Ch’ilsŏng (Seven Stars) refers to the asterism of the Big Dipper [also known as the Plough], which was originally worshiped in China in Daoist circles. From there, however, the worship of Ch’ilsŏng spread to Buddhism, and it was in this form that it came to Korea, where eventually Ch’ilsŏng also became one of the most important gods of the shamans.” – Lee Younghee

▲ “Ch’ilsŏng-nim, or the Seven Star Spirit, is a guise of, or an alternative name for, the Ruler of Heaven, Hananim.” – James Huntley Grayson  (Note the seven stars in the painting.)

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Korea: a religious history by James Huntley Grayson BA (Rutgers), MA (Columbia), MDiv (Duke), PhD (Edinburgh)

Revised Edition 2002 A revision of the original work of 1989, which established itself as the authoritative work in the field, this book is an historical survey of all the religious traditions of Korea in relation to the socio-cultural trends of seven different periods of Korean history. Beginning in the middle of the first millennium BC, the work has been revised to bring the story to the end of the twentieth century. The book includes a discussion of the history of the study of religion in Korea, and a chronological description of Korean folk religion including shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, Islam, and Korean New Religions. There are also some final observations about the unique characteristics of religious beliefs and practices in Korea.

James Huntley Grayson is Reader in Modern Korean Studies in the School of East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield, and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. His research interests are in traditional Korean religion, Korean Christianity and Korean oral folklore. His most recent work, Myths and Legends from Korea, was published by Curzon Press in 2001.

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page 210: “In July 1955, Mun [Sun Myung Moon] was imprisoned for gross immorality, but was subsequently released.” LINK

page 211: “As one of the most important functions of the Lord of the Second Advent is the physical restoration of mankind, Mun selects suitable marital partners for the faithful and conducts sacred ceremonies of marriage in large groups. It should be noted with regard to the purging of physical sin that Mun has been accused of acts of gross immorality which are denied by church authorities.” LINK

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Chapter 17 contents MUSOK-KYO – Folk Religion in Modern Society

1. Historical Background

2. The Practitioners of Musok-kyo

a. Shamans

b. Ritual Leaders

c. Diviners

3. The Spirits

a. Hananim

b. Gods of the Air

c. Spirits of the Earth

d. Spirits of the Water

e. Nameless Spirits

f. Ancestral Spirits

4. The Ceremonies

a. Purak-che, The Village Ritual System

b. Household Ceremonies

c. Community Ceremonies

d. Non-village Ceremonies

e. Material Aspects of the kut

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3. The Spirits a. Hananim The spirit world of Korean Musok-kyo may be divided into six classes: the Supreme Being, the gods of the air, the gods of the land, the gods of the water, nameless lesser spirits, and the ancestral spirits. The Koreans from the earliest recorded period have worshipped a high god who resided in the heavens from where he exercised his rule. He has been known in Korean variously as Hananim, Hanallim, Hanŭnim, or Hanŭllim – the Ruler of Heaven. Everything in the universe was attributed to him, the lives of the people, their harvest, the rain and other natural phenomena. However, as is the case with other high gods amongst tribal peoples, there was only occasional, if any, worship directly offered to him. He was the invisible and ultimate cause of everything. Worship was given to those spirits to which he had delegated authority.

Another spirit of the heavens whose shrine is frequently found behind the principal hall of Korean Buddhist temples is Ch’ilsŏng-nim or the Seven Star Spirit, the Pole Star. We have encountered references to his worship in Koryŏ times, along with that of Chesŏk. Ch’ilsŏng together with Chesŏk and Ch’ŏn-sin are the guises of or the alternative names for the Ruler of Heaven, Hananim. As Ch’ilsŏng, he is the Ruler of the Pole Star, the central and pivotal constellation of the northern hemisphere. In primeval times, Ursa Major was probably thought to be the residence of the supreme ruler. From this belief developed the cult of this star cluster and its powerful spirit. The shrine dedicated to Ch’ilsŏng, the Ch’ilsŏng-gak, is invariably a small, tiled-roof structure usually situated to the left and rear of the principal temple building. The interior often contains only a simple altar with a painting of the deity who is often depicted as a Bodhisattva.

b. Gods of the Air 1. Obang changgun. Immediately beneath the Ruler of Heaven are his highest subordinates, the Generals of the Five Cardinal Points, the Obang changgun. Although the belief in these spirits is found amongst the Chinese as well, the source for their cult may not be China itself but Central Asia and Siberia. Tribal groups as distant from the Chinese world as the Samoyed and the Yenesei Ostyak in the far west of Siberia propitiate the rulers of the five directions. The worship of the guardians of the cardinal directions is not unique, as we also find the cult of the Sach’onwang or Four Heavenly Kings in Buddhism. What is distinctive about the cultus of these five spirits is the designation of the centre as a point of the compass. The use of the number five indicates that the origin of the cult may well be autochthonous to Siberian peoples as they use a five-directional division of the world.

Each of the directions is associated with a particular colour. Thus the Ch’ŏngje changgun (Azure General) governs the East, the Paekche changgun (White General) governs the West, the Chŏkche changgun (Red General) governs the South, the Hŭkche changgun (Black General) governs the North, and the Hwangje changgun (Yellow General) governs the Centre.

These five great spirits resemble the Siberian master spirits who rule or govern a portion of the cosmos. The division of the spirit world into five grand hordes is also reminiscent of the great tribal hordes which swept across the plains of Central Asia and Manchuria. Neo-Siberian peoples, such as the Mongols, often conceived of their spirits as being divided into hordes under the authority of a superior spirit.

2. Sinjong. These spirits are subordinate to the Obang changgun and may be thought of as the aides-de-camp of the generals. There have been estimates that there may be as many as 80,000 of these spirits. Beneath them in turn are minor spirits such as the saja which constitute the heavenly troops. This orderly hierarchy again reminds one of the hierarchy of the Central Asian hordes. The sinjang or mansin are important because it is they who are the confidants of the shamans and the p’ansu, the blind fortune-tellers and exorcists.

c. Spirits of the Earth 1. San-sin [Sanshin]. Without question, the most important of the earthly spirits is San-sin, the Mountain God. His cult is celebrated in two places, in small shrines behind the principal hall of a Buddhist temple, or in front of the village altar. We have seen that the cult of Ch’ilsŏng or Samsŏng (Three Star Spirit, another guise of Ch’ilsŏng) is also celebrated in such shrines. More common than the shrines dedicated to either Ch’ilsŏng or Samsŏng is the Sansin-gak or Mountain God Shrine. These plain shrines have only a simple altar behind which hangs a painting of the god. In this painting he is depicted as a benevolent, white-bearded figure of great antiquity seated on a tiger beneath a pine tree. Often to the side there is a small boy offering him a sŏndo (hsien-tao in Chinese) or Peach of Immortality from the Taoist land of the Immortals.

The unique characteristic of San-sin is that he is not the god of a particular mountain, but the god of all mountains, and the founder of the first Korean state. According to the myth, as the grandson of the Ruler of Heaven, Tan’gun was born on a mountain, and after completing his reign on earth he became the God of the Mountains. Historically, the worship of San-sin is very ancient. The oldest known stele in Korea is dedicated to this spirit and is dated to AD 85.

The association of the tiger with San-sin is significant in that the Tungus tribes of Siberia worship a master of the hunt, an old, white-bearded man who rides on a tiger. This spirit, Bainaca, is propitiated on mountain passes and river banks. So too with San-sin; Koreans to this day will place a pebble on a pile of stones at the summit of a mountain pass in order to propitiate this great spirit. The depiction of Tan’gun, the conception of his role, and the manner in which he is commonly propitiated would indicate that he belongs to the class of spirits known in Siberia as master spirits, rulers of aspects of nature.

Apart from the worship accorded to San-sin at the shrines in Buddhist temples and on mountain passes, the cult is practised in the villages, especially on Tae porŭm, the evening of the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. On that night, all the village elders or heads of households will gather before a plain stone altar or shrine erected beside the most ancient tree in the village. Written petitions for prosperity and health in the new year will be set on fire and allowed to float upwards to Heaven to be received by San-sin. Thus, San-sin is the benevolent protector of the household and of the village as a whole. There is one other simple rite which is offered to this god. Women who are barren or who have not produced male offspring will journey to some famous temple or revered rock deep in the mountains to offer up their petition for a child.

2. Ch’on-sin. The Ch’on-sin is a minor spirit of the land which is responsible for the fertility of the soil. It used to be common for farmers to offer a portion of their noonday meal to this spirit. The cult of this spirit is no longer widespread.

3. Changsŭng. in front of the entrance to most villages in pre-modern Korea, there were two standing posts frequently made of wood but in some areas made of stone. These posts, called changsŭng (which many early writers mistakenly called totem poles, or devil posts) were crudely carved in the shape of male and female figures and were labelled Ch’ŏnha tae changgun (Great General Beneath Heaven) and Chiha tae changgun (Great General Beneath the Earth). These spirits are the tutelary spirits of the village and are situated so as to block the entrance of malevolent spirits into the village precinct. The duality of male/female, sky/earth characteristic of the changsŭng is a primeval statement of the Yin-Yang Theory. In our discussion of Confucianism in the Three Kingdoms period, we have noted that Yi Ŭrho holds that prior to the advent of Confucian philosophy there was already in Korea a folk philosophy which had many of the characteristics of formal Confucian thought. The changsŭng are one important reflection of this folk philosophy. On the volcanic island of Cheju off the southwest coast, these tutelary spirits are represented on statues of carved lava called Harubang (Grandfather) and Halmang (Grandmother) in the local dialect.

4. Sŏngju and other household spirits. There is a variety of guardian household spirits worshipped in the home, among which are Sŏngju, the chief guardian of the home; Samsin holmoni, the guardian of childbirth; T’oju taegam, the guardian of the house site; Chowang, the Kitchen Spirit; and Pyŏnso kakssi, the guardian of the toilet. Although a minor spirit in the Korean celestial hierarchy, Sŏngju is the supreme guardian of the home. He makes his residence in a packet of pine needles tucked away up on the central beam of the maru or central, wooden floor room of the home. Worship is offered to Sŏngju at harvest, when a new home is erected, when there is a new male head of the household, and on other occasions. If members of a household feel that Sŏngju is punishing them for some infraction or that he is not performing his duties well, this spirit will be specially propitiated. Samsin halmoni resides in an earthenware jar of rice grains kept in the inner room or woman’s quarters of the house. Conceived of as a grandmother or matriarch, this spirit protects women during the ordeal of childbirth. T’oju taegam patrols the precinct of the household, while the Kitchen Spirit and the Toilet Maiden reside in those places guarding against the predations of evil spirits.

d. Spirits of the Water There is a variety of water spirits, all of which are conceived of as dragons. The yong or dragons live in the rivers and streams, in the springs and wells, and in the seas and heavens where they control the rains. The worship of these spirits is very ancient and similar in many ways to the practice of the modern Tungus groups. Stories in the Samguk yusa record various legends told about dragons during the period of the Three Kingdoms. One legend tells us that the construction of a royal palace was halted because of the presence of a dragon. Upon completion, the palace was named the Hwangnyong-sa, the Temple of the Yellow Dragon.

The most grand of all the dragons is the Yong-wang (Dragon King), also known as Hae-wang or King of the Sea, who is the ruler of the sea and all that moves within it. There are many legends about the Dragon King and his relations with the human world. The Hae'in-sa temple has a magnificent portrait of the Yong-wang, showing him dressed as a Korean king in state with a ferocious dragon-face and surrounded by his watery realm. Villagers propitiate the dragons at times of drought, while fishermen worship them before venturing out to sea. In addition to the normal village shrine, fishing villages will often have separate shrines dedicated to the Yong-wang.

e. Nameless Spirits Beneath the spirits discussed above come a host of spirits, ghosts, imps, and such which constitute the lowest level of the Korean spiritual realm. Some of these spirits are benevolent, such as the kitchen spirit and the spirit which inhabits the rice storage jar, There is also a class of malevolent spirits full of vengeance towards humanity. These spirits are often the souls of those who have died before fulfilling themselves, such as drowned persons, young boys, and unmarried girls. Another class of spirits would be the tokkaebi or imp-like creatures which delight in mischievous acts such as mislaying household items or cracking the kitchen crockery. All of these spirits had to be appeased to ensure harmony in the home.

f. Ancestral Spirits The Confucian cult of the ancestral spirits has been discussed above in relation to the chesa ceremony. It needs only to be stressed here that ancestor worship is indigenous to Korea. Confucianism only codified and organized a pre-existing practice. The Myth of Tan’gun, which dates back to the tribal states period, is one early indication of the importance of the cult of the ancestors. In this case, the ancestors worshipped are the progenitors of the royal family, and by extension the ancestors of the nation as a whole. In Siberia to this day there are ancestral cults presided over by shamans. In Korea there is a parallel to this in the shamanistic ancestral ceremonies which are unrelated to the Confucian ritual system, as well as the non-shamanistic, non-Confucian rituals.

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The Unification Church and shamanism. At its heart the UC is not Christian; but it presents a Christian facade.

Sun Myung Moon – the Emperor, and God

FFWPU Holy Grounds and the Shamanic Guardians of the Five Directions

Shamanism: The Spirit World of Korea Any understanding of the so-called New Religions of Korea would be difficult without some knowledge of shamanistic influences upon them.

Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han with shaman antler crowns which represent fertility

How “God’s Day” was established on January 1, 1968

The FFWPU is unequivocally not Christian

The Moons’ God is not the God of Judeo-Christianity

Moon: “It is not me that decided D-day, which is January 13th, 2013. The God of Night and the God of Day decided it together and so nobody can change it.”

Gods – William E. Padden