#i have a few other drawings im going to post here as we publish more ho(tm) chapters | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sineala · 3 years ago

Text

Tony Stark and Arthuriana

Coming to you by special request, a very long post about 616 Tony's interest in Arthuriana, with a focus on all of Tony's run-ins with Morgan le Fay!

I feel like I should disclaim the extent of my knowledge here, which is that I still haven't managed to read anywhere near every issue of Iron Man -- at least, not yet, anyway -- so I'm just going by the things I know I've read, and Morgan le Fay's Marvel wiki entry is frustratingly under-cited, so it's very possible I've missed something relevant, but I'm pretty sure I've got the big stuff down. My other disclaimer here is that I'm not as big an Arthurian nerd as Tony is, which is to say that most of my familiarity comes from modern retellings -- T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset -- and not so much the usual classic sources on the Matter of Britain, though I've read bits and pieces of them.

(This is because I wanted to read versions of them that were as close to the original as possible but so far have not ended up finishing any of them because, well, that's hard. So I've never read the Mabinogion because I do not know Welsh. I've got the Norton Critical Edition of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is probably the best student edition if you're looking for something without modernized spellings, as I was. I've also got -- well, okay, it's my wife's but I'm borrowing it -- a relatively recent Boydell & Brewer edition (ed. Reeve, tr. Wright) of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), which is, you guessed it, in Latin with a facing English translation. I haven't gotten very far in it because, in case you didn't know this about Latin texts, the beginning is pretty much always the hardest, so I gave up and read some Plautus adaptations instead. Anyway, if for some reason you too want to read Geoffrey of Monmouth in the original Latin I'd recommend that one, but I can't recommend any particular English translations because I've never read one by itself. I bet you didn't think you'd be getting Latin prose recommendations in this post. I mean, maybe you did; it is me, after all.)

Okay. Right. King Arthur. Here we go.

We've got:

Flashbacks to Tony's childhood in late Iron Man volume 1

A brief discussion of Morgan's origin story and Avengers #187

Iron Man vol 1 #149-150: Doomquest

What If vol 1 #33: What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?

Iron Man vol 1 #249-250: Recurring Knightmare

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom #1-4

Avengers vol 3 #1-4: The Morgan Conquest

Civil War: The Confession

Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11: Time Is On No One's Side

In terms of universe-internal chronology, we know from Iron Man #287, from 1992, that Tony has been a fan of King Arthur since childhood. This is an issue of a fandom-favorite arc which features Tony having a lot of childhood flashbacks, including the famous "Stark men are made of iron" line (in #286) that for some reason MCU fandom decided it loved; I mean, seriously, I've seen that quoted in way more MCU fic than 616 fic. But slightly later, in #287, we get an entire page devoted to Tony's love of King Arthur.

The narration reads: "Over the next few years, I learned as my father intended. Discipline of body. Strength of character. But in what free time I was allowed, I worked my way through the school's library. At thirteen, I discovered Mallory [sic], who showed me a whole new world. A world of dedication to a cause greater than oneself. Of chivalry and honor. And the fantastic deeds -- of armored heroes."

The art shows Tony as a child sitting under a tree, reading a book labeled Mort D'Arthur by Mallory [sic] -- no, don't ask me why nobody at Marvel checked how to spell either the name of the book or its author -- and daydreaming of King Arthur, the Sword in the Stone, knights, et cetera. Just in case you somehow missed the extremely blatant hint that we are meant to understand that Tony's knight obsession heavily influenced him becoming Iron Man as an adult, we see one of his armors mixed in with all the drawings of knights. So, yes, canonically Tony is Iron Man at least partly because he's a giant King Arthur nerd, which I think is so very sweet. I love him. He's such a dork!

(This issue is currently in print in the Iron Man Epic Collection War Machine, should you need your own copy.)

This isn't actually the only reference to Tony as a King Arthur fanboy in this era of canon, either; a little later, in IM #298, we see that one of Tony's passwords is actually "Mallory." (Yeah, no, they still couldn't spell. But it's cute.)

But in terms of actual publication order, this is definitely not the first time we have seen in canon that Tony is into Arthuriana, as I'm sure you all know. I would assume, in fact, that giving Tony a childhood interest in Arthuriana is because Doomquest is one of the most beloved Iron Man story arcs of all time, and that all started at least a decade before IM #287 here was published.

The villain of Doomquest -- the one who isn't Doctor Doom, at least -- is Morgan le Fay. Yes, that Morgan le Fay. Yes, Arthur's evil half-sister Morgan le Fay. Yes, all of this King Arthur stuff is canonically real history on Earth-616. Morgan's first appearance in Marvel, per the wiki, was in Black Knight #1 (1955), which I have not read, and judging by the summary I feel like this is probably just supposed to be a straight-up comic retelling of Arthurian legends for kids; I don't think Marvel really had the whole Marvel Universe in mind as a concept in 1955, so I'm not sure this was meant to connect to anything else. I feel like this is another one of those instances of Marvel discovering that they can write comics about characters in the public domain for free -- like, I'm pretty sure that's how we also ended up with, like, Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology wedged into 616.

As far as I can tell from the wiki, the first time Morgan tangled with the Avengers (or indeed the larger 616 universe) in any way actually predated Doomquest -- it was in an early arc in Spider-Woman (#2-6) and then Avengers #187, which came out in 1979, actually right when Demon in a Bottle was happening over in Iron Man comics. If you read #187, Iron Man is not in it because he's off the team due to his drinking problem and also his accidentally murdering the Carnelian ambassador problem. So Wonder Man's filling in instead. This issue is part of Michelinie's rather sporadic Avengers run, which makes sense, I guess, considering where we see Morgan next.

Anyway, Avengers #187 is the classic issue where Wanda is possessed by Chthon, but what you may not remember from Chthon's backstory (I sure didn't!) is that he was summoned by Morgan le Fay because she was the first person who tried to wield the Darkhold to summon him. As you can imagine, this did not work out especially well for her and her followers and they had to seal Chthon away in Wundagore Mountain, which was where Wanda found him. (The Spider-Woman stuff is only slightly earlier and also appears to be about Morgan and the Darkhold; the Darkhold is not one of the areas of 616 canon I am especially conversant with, alas. It's on my to-read list.)

Doomquest, as you probably know, was a classic Iron Man two-parter in Layton & Michelinie's first Iron Man run that set up Tony and Doom as rivals; Doomquest itself was IM #149-150, in 1981, and then in their second IM run they came back and did a sequel in 1989, Recurring Knightmare (IM #249-250), and then the much later four-part sequel to that was the 2008 miniseries Iron Man: Legacy of Doom, which was also by Layton & Michelinie but generally does not seem to be as popular as the first two parts. They've all been reprinted, if you're looking for copies; I have a Doomquest hardcover that collects the first four issues and then a separate Legacy of Doom hardcover. Currently in the Iron Man Epic Collection line there's a volume called Doom, which confusingly only collects the 249-250 part of the storyline (as well as surrounding issues), because for some reason the first Layton & Michelinie run isn't in Epics yet but the second one is. So the beginning of Doomquest isn't currently in print, as far as I can tell. I'm sure you can find it anyway.

So what's Doomquest about? Okay, so you remember how Doctor Doom's mother's soul is stuck in hell for all eternity? Well, Doom's obviously interested in getting her back, and the strategy he has embarked on is to try to team up with other powerful magicians who can help him out, and he thinks Morgan le Fay would be a good choice, for, uh, his quest. Doom's quest. A Doomquest, if you will. (If you've ever read Doctor Strange & Doctor Doom: Triumph & Torment, you're familiar with the part where he later ends up waylaying Strange for this and they go to hell together. And if you haven't read Triumph & Torment, you really should, because it's amazing.)

So Doom is off to his time machine to go team up with Morgan le Fay and Tony thinks Doom is up to something -- Doom has been stealing components for his time machine from a lot of people, including Tony -- and he follows him and it turns out one of Doom's lackeys has a grudge and wants to trap Doom in the past forever, and Tony gets caught up in it. Now they're both in Camelot. Surprise! #149 is actually all setup; they don't get to Camelot until #150.

IM #150 begins with Doom and Tony thrown back into the past; there's a fandom-famous splash page of them locked in combat, only to realize that they have found themselves in Camelot.

They are then discovered by knights; Doom would very much like to attack them, but Tony, who naturally would be happy to LARP Camelot forever, persuades him to play nice. Also Doom thinks Iron Man is only Tony's bodyguard so he keeps referring to him as "lackey," much to Tony's annoyance. Somehow everyone thinks they're sorcerers. Can't imagine why. The knights take them to meet King Arthur himself, and Tony has clearly had his introduction all ready to go, as he introduces himself in a timeline-appropriate manner, says he's here to apprehend Doom, and demonstrates his "magic" by levitating Arthur's throne. Doom's response is essentially "I'm the king of Latveria," which is, y'know, also valid. So they're guests at Camelot for the night while Arthur figures out what to do with them.

We then have a page devoted to Tony alone in his room, musing sadly about how alien he feels, how he doesn't know if he'll ever get home, how he could never fit in here without his beloved technology. Then a Sexy Lady shows up to keep him company for the night, and he decides maybe it's not all bad. Thanks, Marvel. I guess they can't all be winners.

Doom is using his evening much more productively; he compels one of the servants to tell him where Morgan's castle is, because he's still interested in having that team-up. Then he jets off. Literally. He has a jetpack.

The next morning Arthur's like "one of you is still here and one of you has punched a hole through the castle wall and flown off to join Morgan so I guess I know which of you is more trustworthy." He then explains to Tony who Morgan is, because Tony professes ignorance, because clearly we had not yet retconned in Tony's love of Arthuriana. Tony offers to go fight Doom and Morgan with Arthur; meanwhile, Morgan and Doom have teamed up and Morgan has offered to help get Doom's mother out of hell if he commands her undead armies against Arthur because for Reasons she can't command them herself anymore. So that's a thing that happens.

So, yes, it's Tony and Arthur versus Doom and Morgan. Fight fight fight!

Tony tries Doom first but then decides to hunt Morgan down, and in the ensuing fight we get what I think is Tony's first ever "I hate magic," a complaint that we all know he still makes even to this day.

Anyway, Tony freezes a dragon with Freon (mmm, technology) and Morgan gets upset and disappears, so the battle comes to an end, and of course Doom is extremely mad at Tony because he blames Tony for Morgan not sticking around to save Doom's mom, because I guess Doom trusted her to keep her word? Weird. (Like I said, for the next chapter of Doom saving his mother, go read Triumph & Torment.)

Doom says if he and Tony work together, the components in both of their armors can send them both home. So Tony has to trust Doom. Which he does, because he really has no other choice. They build a time machine and Tony makes Doom agree to a 24-hour truce when they get back, so they can both get home. So it all works out okay, and they end up in the present, and Doom tells him, ominously, that they will meet again. Okay, then. That concludes the original Doomquest. It's fun! You can see why fandom likes it.

So that's all well and good, but you might have noticed that Tony's ability to get home hinged on Doom actually being trustworthy. And Doom was. But what if Doom hadn't been? What if he'd just stranded Tony in Camelot forever As you may have surmised from the form of that question, that is in fact a question Marvel asked themselves, because, yes, there's a What If about this! What If v1 #33 is "What if Iron Man was trapped in the time of King Arthur?"

The divergence point from canon, as you can probably guess, is the very end of Doomquest. Instead of Doom bringing Tony home, he deceives him and leaves him in Camelot. And since Tony cannibalized a lot of the tech from his armor to make the time machine, he doesn't have a way to go home.

This is not a story where Tony comes up with a way to go home after all. He really doesn't get to go home. But instead of drowning his sorrows in mead -- because, remember, Demon in a Bottle has already happened and Tony is sober now -- he decides he might as well just play the hand he's dealt. So with what's left of his armor, he defeats some enemies that Morgan rounds up to send against Camelot. And for his services, he's knighted. He is now Sir Anthony.

Tony acknowledges that he is both living the dream and would also like very, very much to go home.

He does end up having some fun in Camelot; it's not all miserable. But he obviously doesn't want to be there.

So if you're at all familiar with King Arthur, you know how this goes, right? Arthur fights Mordred and Mordred kills him. And that does happen in this version. Except Tony is right there, and with his dying words, Arthur asks Tony to rule Camelot... and Tony agrees.

So, yes, Tony Stark becomes king of the Britons after Arthur's death and he never goes home again. The end. Man, I love What Ifs.

Heading back to main 616 continuity, there is still more of this arc to go. The original Doomquest was only two issues, yes, but it was popular enough that Layton & Michelinie did a sequel a hundred issues later, in their second run of Iron Man, and that's Iron Man #249-250, Recurring Knightmare. (In the intervening issues were Denny O'Neil's IM run, specifically the second drinking arc (#160-200), and then Layton & Michelinie came back and most famously gave us Armor Wars (#225-232). I would have to say that Armor Wars is definitely the standout fandom-favorite arc of their second IM run; for their first one, I think a lot of people would have a hard time choosing between Doomquest and Demon.) But anyway, yes. Recurring Knightmare.

Recurring Knightmare is... well, the best way I can describe it is "a trip." It is definitely a sequel to Doomquest, and it is also definitely not a sequel you would ever have expected to see for Doomquest.

Much like #149, #249 is pretty much just setup. Fun setup, but the big action is in the next issue. We open with Doom in Latveria, on his throne, pondering which of his servants he should have disintegrated. Anyway, he's just hanging out there when a mysterious object appears. In California, Tony is suited up and entertaining the crowd at a mall opening when the same object also appears! He takes it to his lab. Please note that this is after the Kathy Dare incident, so Tony is still recovering and is walking with a cane. Doom sees on the news that Iron Man has found the same object, which cannot be carbon-dated, and he shows up at Tony's house. He criticizes Tony's taste in art.

Anyway, Doom basically orders Tony to work with him. Tony refuses, and then Doom sends some robots to attempt to steal Tony's version of the object because he thinks if he has them both he will be powerful. Doom manages to steal it, and when he puts the pieces together, both he and Tony disappear.

So where do they go, you might ask? Camelot?

Not exactly. The future! There is a great callback to the Doomquest splash page.

It turns out they are in London in 2093. Merlin brought them there. Tony still hates magic. And in the future, King Arthur is still there, except he is now a child, because he has been reborn. But he does remember Tony from Doomquest, at which point Tony kneels. Doom, of course, is not impressed. He asks why they have been brought to the future.

The answer is that things are going wrong in the future. If you do not personally remember United States politics in the 1980s, I need you to google the words "Strategic Defense Initiative" right now. I'll wait.

Back with me? Okay, so this is a future where Reagan's Star Wars program actually happened the way he wanted it to, and the satellites are still hanging around the Earth in the future and messing everything up, and Arthur and Merlin need Tony and Doom's help to stop them. Doom once again flies away with his jetpack, of course.

Tony is game to help, but he's not in an armor that can stay in space for long. This is when Merlin takes him and Arthur to the mall and Tony manages to get everything to upgrade his armor at Radio Shack. You see what I meant about this issue being weird.

Tony is out in space trying to disarm the SDI platform, which is where he runs into his future descendant, Andros Stark, who is in armor you will probably recognize from Iron Man 2020. He is referred to as "the resurrected spawn of Iron Man 2020" so I assume he's actually directly related to Arno rather than a direct descendant of Tony; Wiki confirms that Arno is his grandfather. This is all from way before Arno was contemporaneous with Tony in canon. Anyway, he's fighting Tony.

Oh, by the way, Future Doom exists. Future Doom would like to rule this future Earth and for some reason Andros would like to help him. Meanwhile, Present Doom finds out from Merlin that he can't leave except by magic and he can't leave without Tony, so he is reluctantly on Tony's side.

They need help from the Lady of the Lake, except the lake has been paved over and is now a parking lot. Merlin makes the lake come back and then of course they get Excalibur. Arthur is a kid, so he can't wield a longsword; Doom assumes he's going to take it because he is basically a king, and he's pretty grumpy when the sword picks Tony. Tony then uses Excalibur to destroy the space lasers, and I bet that is a sentence you never thought you would read. It's pretty cool. Tony concludes that magic has its good points. Tony stops Andros and Doom stops, uh, himself, and the world is saved and they get to go home. Also, Doom finds out Tony is Iron Man, but when Merlin sends them back he conveniently erases their memories, so neither of them remember anything about this and Tony's secret is still safe. And that's the sequel to Doomquest.

And if you think that's weird, wait until you see Legacy of Doom.

Iron Man: Legacy of Doom is a four-issue miniseries from 2008, also by Layton and Michelinie. Even though it's from 2008, it's set during a much more classic time in Iron Man, continuing on from where we left off in this Doomquest saga. We start with a framing story in 2008. Tony, who has Extremis now, is busy scrapping some of his older armors and reviewing his logs when he suddenly remembers that there was a whole thing with Doom that happened that he seems to have forgotten about until right now. So the whole thing is narrated by Tony in flashback.

Tony's in space fixing a satellite when a hologram of Doom shows up and summons him to Latveria. It's not really clear why Doom needs Tony's help in particular here, but Doom tells Tony that he's discovered that Mephisto would like to bring about the end of the world, which Doom finds, and I quote, "presumptive." So Doom has his Time Cube, and with it he takes Tony to hell.

(Yes, I promise this is relevant to Doomquest. There will be some Arthuriana shortly.)

Doom brings Tony to Mephisto, and it turns out it's a setup! Doom trades Tony for an item he wants from Mephisto, leaves, and Tony's going to be trapped in hell forever! Oh no! (I mean, he's not. But it's quite a cliffhanger.)

At the beginning of issue #2, we find out what the Arthurian connection is, which is that we learned that after the events of Doomquest, Morgan had been granted sanctuary by Mephisto in exchange for a shard of Excalibur that she had somehow stolen. Doom still wants Morgan's help with some magic -- he doesn't mention what it is here, but he says he needs someone of Pendragon blood, and that'd be her -- so he traded Tony to Mephisto in exchange for, I'm guessing, Morgan and the Excalibur shard.

I have probably mentioned this elsewhere, but Legacy of Doom #2 is one of my favorite issues of Iron Man ever, solely because of the next scene. We return to Tony in hell. Howard Stark is also in hell, and he is now a demon, and Tony has to fight him. Mephisto brings popcorn and watches. This is the one time in canon when Tony actually confronts his father, and okay, yes, it's a fistfight in hell and Howard is a demon, but that's comics for you. Howard spends several pages insulting Tony -- specifically insulting his masculinity, but that's a whole other essay -- until he finally insults Maria too, and that's when Tony fights back, because his mother taught him to be good. Honestly if you're a Tony fan I'd recommend this issue just for that scene.

Anyway, we go back to the Doom and Morgan plot, and Morgan casts the spell Doom wanted, which was fusing the Excalibur shard with Doom's armor. Then Doom sends her back to Camelot rather than hell, because he's still mad that she never helped him get his mom out of hell like she said she would.

Tony freezes Howard with Freon -- yes, the same trick he pulled on the dragon back in Doomquest -- and tells him, "You're no father of mine." It is immensely satisfying.

(I had been going to mention that I thought it was a shame that neither canon nor fandom seems to have really engaged with this confrontation, and I know canon never believes in narrative closure but fandom sure does -- and then, anyway, it occurred to me that since the framing story of Tony remembering this is set when Tony has Extremis, there's a very good chance that he no longer remembers remembering it. Goddammit, Marvel.)

(If I got to retcon one canon thing about Tony, I think "the entirety of World's Most Wanted" is up there. I mean, okay, a lot of things are up there, but WMW is definitely on the shortlist.)

Okay. Tony has now engineered his way out of hell, and he's back with Doom in Latveria. Doom has Excalibur. Doom would very much like to fight him. While wielding Excalibur. You get the sense that this is going to be bad. Another cliffhanger!

Legacy of Doom #3 opens with Tony destroying Doom's lab to buy time and running away from Doom and Excalibur. I should probably mention that Doom still doesn't know Tony is Iron Man (anymore), so he thinks he is dealing only with Iron Man, Tony Stark's lackey. Meanwhile, some scientists at SI think there's something weird going on with space. Meanwhile meanwhile, Tony is in a forest taking a breather when a mysterious old man walks up to him.

It's Merlin! Surprise! Merlin wants Tony's help to stop Doom from doing whatever he's doing with Excalibur. The sword makes you invincible and the scabbard makes you invulnerable, so Merlin sends Tony to Scotland on a fetch quest for the scabbard. Doom has now magically sent the sword in search of the scabbard, so the sword flies away to meet it and Doom follows. Turns out the thing that's wrong with space is a thing that's going to hit Earth at the exact place Tony and Doom are. What a coincidence! So Tony and Doom get trapped in a stone circle and fight some stone warriors and then Tony ends up with the scabbard. And by "ends up with," I mean it fuses to his armor. Next issue!

Legacy of Doom #4 is when things really, really get weird. A giant demon made of eyes (???) appears, and this demon is apparently what Doom had been preparing to fight (because it's mad that Doom stole one of its spellbooks), and now he can't, because the sword and the scabbard aren't together. Thanks, Shellhead.

That's when Merlin shows up and says all is not lost. They can defeat the demon... if they put the sword into the scabbard.

"But I'm the scabbard now!" Tony says, uncomprehending.

"Yes," Merlin says. "You are."

Then Tony gets it.

So, yes, Doom has to, um, penetrate Tony. With Excalibur. I love comics. I love comics so much.

So that's a thing that happens.

And then Tony flies off and, I guess, resolves to never, ever think about any of this again.

We head back to the framing story, in which Tony, now having remembered all of this, flies to Britain, buys the land the lake is on, and paves it over, presumably so it will be there for Merlin to bring back in Iron Man #250. The end.

Whew.

Okay, yeah, I know I didn't have to summarize the whole thing, but Legacy of Doom here really is one of my favorite Iron Man miniseries. And I just want to share the love. Please read it. It's great.

But the Arthuriana fun doesn't end there! In fact, now we get an Arthurian-themed arc that actually isn't in Iron Man comics. It's in Avengers! Iron Man is involved, though.

(There is also apparently a Morgan arc in Avengers #240. I actually haven't read it. It seems to be yet another Spider-Woman arc. I get the impression that this isn't really Arthuriana other than having Morgan in it fighting Jess, though, so it doesn't seem quite as relevant. Morgan also apparently has some appearances in FF, Journey into Mystery, and Marvel Team-Up, but those seem like more of just basic villainy. Also, probably not involving Tony.)

Kurt Busiek's 1998 Avengers run, volume 3, is in large part the kind of Avengers run that is a nostalgic love letter to older comics. Heroes are heroes and villains are villains and good triumphs over evil. The Avengers all live in the mansion and are BFFs. I love it. It does assume that you are already a fan of the Avengers, because it starts out by summoning pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger and is available to the mansion, and that is... a lot of people. Thirty-nine, by my count. Also, when the entire team is magically whisked away, we are treated to the following narration, as Steve disappears: "And Captain America's last thought, as the world goes white around him, and he with it -- is that Iron Man would hate this."

The narration doesn't tell you why Iron Man would hate this, or how Captain America would know that Iron Man hates this. This is not explained later on. But if you have read comics -- or if you have read the above summary of Doomquest -- you know that Tony is absolutely, one hundred percent, thinking, "I hate magic." And Steve knows it.

The reference is not relevant to the plot; if you don't get it, you'll be fine. But that's what I mean when I say this is a nostalgia run. There are definitely Easter eggs for people who have read a bunch of comics. Busiek does this a whole lot in his work -- there's a reason you can buy an annotated edition of Marvels -- and, yeah, it happens here too. Just know that there will be references you're not getting, if you're new to comics.

Anyway. So Busiek's run actually starts out with an Arthurian arc, #1-4, "The Morgan Conquest." The name is a dead giveaway. Yes, Morgan le Fay is back. Again. For once, Doom is not involved.

The Avengers are all back from their sojourn on Counter-Earth after fighting Onslaught -- don't worry about it -- and mysterious things are happening. There are a lot of monster attacks. So pretty much everyone who has ever been an Avenger is summoned to the mansion, at which point we learn from Thor about some mystical artifacts that are being stolen. (They are the Norn Stones and also the Twilight Sword. That sounds like something from a Zelda game, doesn't it?) The Avengers go to try to stop this, end up in Tintagel, and then they run into Mordred. He wants to capture Wanda, presumably for Magic Reasons. Morgan le Fay casts a spell on all of them, reshaping reality. Yes, all of them. Surprise!

So now all the Avengers are living in a medieval castle and/or town; Morgan is their queen, and thanks to the power of mind-control they are all basically living in Ye Olden Times. The Avengers are all some variety of knight, except for Wanda, who is chained up in the dungeon so Morgan can steal her magic and use it to fuel all this reality-warping.

Wanda calls for help, and that snaps Steve (Yeoman America!) out of the mind control (or altered reality or whatever you want to call it) pretty fast, because Steve's always been very good at resisting mind control, and then Steve promptly goes and snaps Clint out of it, because I guess Steve is also good at inspiring people to snap out of mind control. "Oh, man!" Clint says. "Not another alternate reality! Not again!" (I assume he's referring to Counter-Earth? Maybe?)

So Steve and Clint go around reassembling the Avengers and orienting them as to reality. They get Jan and Monica easily, but then Steve insists on trying to get Tony because, I guess, he likes Tony and would really like to hang around Tony, who is half-naked and asleep in his bedroom, and certainly I am reading nothing whatsoever into this. Clint tells Steve it's not going to work. Tony has historically been fairly susceptible to mind control; it was only pretty recently at this point that he'd been doing Kang's bidding in The Crossing. But the more serious impediment is that this is Tony Stark and he would obviously like to LARP being a knight forever and ever. Tony, therefore, does not believe Steve, and throws him and Clint out of his bedroom and into the barracks.

"Iron Man's a good guy, normally," Clint says. "But he's waaay too into his whole nobleman/lord of the manor trip. That spell musta hit him right where he lives!"

Clint speaks the truth, clearly.

Anyway, they go around and manage to make pretty much every Avenger in the room other than Tony snap out, and attempt to rebel against Morgan while Tony is stil fighting them because he is Still A Knight. There's a lot of punching, because some of the Avengers still aren't free; they weren't ones Steve found.

The day is saved when Wanda manages to channel Wonder Man and break free. This gives the Avengers a fighting chance against Morgan and the Avengers are all lending Wanda their power when Tony finally snaps out of it and is on the side of good.

Then they take Morgan down, go home, and attempt to figure out which of these thirty-nine people should be on the active Avengers team. Hooray.

But that's not the end of Morgan le Fay showing up to screw around with Tony's life! There's more to come! Not much, but there is one that I know of, and at least one more memorable reference.

(I haven't read all her appearances or anything, but one of them definitely involves Tony; I can't swear that he doesn't appear in any of the other books Morgan shows up in, but it'd be a cameo for him, because I only know of one more arc that she's in in a book that Tony stars in.)

In a few more years, we have now entered the part of Marvel Comics history where Brian Michael Bendis writes all the Avengers books at the same time for, like, seven years running. It was sure A Time. There were a lot of word bubbles.

And the thing about Bendis is, Bendis looooooves Doomquest. If you're familiar with the very end of his tenure at Marvel where he made Doom be Iron Man after Tony got knocked into a coma in Civil War II, you have probably figured out already that he likes Doom. But he also likes Doomquest, specifically.

I mean, if nothing else, the giant splash page in The Confession where Maleev redrew the climactic Doomquest fight while Bendis had Tony talk about how deeply meaningful to his understanding of the world this all was -- and how it allowed him to predict Civil War -- was probably a big clue, right?

As far as I am aware, Morgan le Fay makes exactly one more appearance in Tony's life. And that's in Mighty Avengers vol 1 #9-11. Only one of those issues is named, so I'm going to assume the arc is named after it: Time Is On No One's Side.

You remember Mighty Avengers, right? The deal with the Avengers books at the time was that after Bendis exploded the mansion and made the team disband in Avengers Disassembled, the main Avengers book was no longer called just Avengers. Instead, the main Avengers book was New Avengers, and that was the only Avengers book. Then Civil War happened, Steve got killed, and New Avengers became the book about what was left of the SHRA resistance (i.e., Steve's side) after the war. So about halfway through New Avengers, Mighty Avengers starts up, and Mighty Avengers is about an extremely fucked-up and grief-stricken Tony Stark trying to run the official government-sanctioned Avengers team, with Carol's help. This is the comic with the arc where Tony turned into naked girl Ultron. You remember.

So, anyway, there's this Mighty Avengers arc where Doom is Up To Something (there are symbiotes and a satellite involved) and somehow Tony and the Avengers end up in Latveria, punching Doom. Also, by the way, Doom is visiting Morgan in the past because he likes her. The Avengers attacking his castle made him have to come back to the present, so he's kind of cranky. And he fights Tony, and in the course of the fight, his time platform explodes and sends Doom and Tony and also the Sentry to... the past.

This is one of those times where you should definitely look up the comics if possible because the way the past is visually indicated here is that it's colored with halftone dots the way you would expect old comics to be colored, although they have modern shading and color palettes. It's very charmingly retro.

So the three of them are stuck in New York in the past, and naturally they would like to leave. There's one person in this time who has a time machine and it is, of course, Reed Richards. Doom and Tony have a lot of banter in this arc; I think it's entertaining.

Sentry has to be the one to break them all into the Baxter Building because of that power he has where no one will remember him. So they do that, travel forward in time, and end up in Latveria in the present again except Doom is gone and also things are currently exploding where they are.

Doom, of course, has made a side trip to visit Morgan again and he asks her to help him build an army, because I guess this is what their relationship is like. So the rest of the Avengers are captured by what look to me like Mindless Ones and are in a cave in magic bondage, because comics. Jess comments that at least they aren't naked, because she too is remembering that memorable New Avengers trip to the Savage Land. Doom threatens Carol in some creepy sexist ways and eventually it turns out that Tony and the Sentry are fine and everyone kicks Doom's ass. Business as usual.

And the last page of the arc is Morgan alone, wondering where Doom is. So technically Morgan and Tony don't come face to face here, but I think she counts as being at least partially responsible for ruining Tony's day here. And then Secret Invasion happens and Tony has a very, very bad day.

There are a few more Morgan appearances after this, but, as I said, I don't think any of them involve Tony. She shows up in Dark Avengers, apparently, which was one of the post-Civil War Avengers titles I didn't read, and I know that recently, on the X-Men side of things, she's been in Tini Howard's Excalibur one, which I have only read a little of. No Tony there. Just a lot of Morgan and Betsy Braddock and Brian Braddock and the Otherworld.

If you are interested in Morgan's other appearances, you might like this Marvel listicle that is Morgan le Fay's six most malicious acts. I pulled some of the Darkhold backstory from their discussion, but it's not really focused on Morgan and Tony.

So there you have it! That's everything I know about Tony's love for King Arthur and every run-in I know about that he's had with Morgan le Fay! One of two terrible people in Tony's life named Morgan! Actually, I don't think we've seen Morgan Stark in a while. I wonder if he's alive. There should be a Morgan & Morgan team-up. I should probably stop typing and post this.

The tl;dr point is that you should all read Doomquest and its sequels, especially Legacy of Doom. They're great!

#posts i actually wrote

64 notes · View notes

dickgreyson · 4 years ago

Text

dearest symeona

i’d like to join your little discussion and fill you in, since you were watching cat videos last year and seemed to miss everything. sounds like a much nicer time than i was having! because at the time i was being sent death threats and anti semitic hate for a holding a fairly uncontroversial opinion, or at least in the circles in which i run.

yes, i got upset seeing damian in a santa hat. because for the last few years, my dash every christmas is pretty jam packed full of christmas themed batfam posts and art. and as a jewish person, understanding that the creators of bruce and most of the batfam are jewish, i found this to be quite confusing and hurtful. and let’s just get this out of the way, bruce is jewish. dc has even published articles about this, and has confirmed it in a pussy way. but even without that, his mother, kate’s maternal aunt, is a jew. that means that bruce is a jew. unless he takes real concrete steps to renounce his faith and community, ethnically he’s still jewish. and he can be an atheist and STILL BE JEWISH. there are actually atheist rabbis, who just really love our culture and tradition, want to have a central role in the community, and guide other jews in a positive direction. and thats actually pretty wonderful. because again, judaism is just as much an ethnicity as it is a religion.

over the years, christians have written bruce as catholic and christian and atheist, and a broad range of other things. hell, in the 80s the phrase ‘caped crusader’ was coined by a christian writer, and i dont love hearing him referred to as that. i think it goes against the very core of why he was created as a jewish allegory. the same goes for people who believe superman is a jesus allegory - he isnt. he was written as a modern day moses parallel. also by jewish authors. he’s a jewish character to his core too. the author of the 1990whatever robin run even said he wanted tim to be jewish, and showed his mother in a jewish cemetery. its not as if intent isnt there.

comics as a whole were created by jewish people, to tell jewish stories to a wider audience. yes, there is some old official art of bruce and dick standing in front of a christmas tree. and that might maybe be because.... it was from the 40s. and i dont know if you noticed but in the 40s americans werent really fond of jews, and neither was the world at large. judging by the response of people in my inbox, they still arent. so these characters can still be jewish allegories, written by jewish people to convey jewish ideals and stories, in an antisemitic world. back then this lipservice needed to be paid in the name of assimilation, and i would have hoped today the need for this would have diminished.

i hope thats enough context to introduce what happened last year, i was upset that it was all going to start again, and made it known. the artist even reached out to me, and listened to my point of view. because this actually, at the end of the day, isnt a huge deal. and im not sure why it grew, and why other people got involved, when the artist, urs, and i had sorted it out. it became a lightning rod for ‘free speech/art’ anti semitic crusaders.

what is a huge deal though is the hate and vitriol and racism and anti semitism that poured out of the people who associate with your side. Urs, my brave friend who vocally stood by me, received countless hateful messages about her being a survivor and a first nations american. i cant even count how many times i was called a kike.

so the real problem here wasnt the santa hat, it was that a jewish and native american person expressed unhappiness about something, and was met with a disgusting display of hate. thats the problem. that your side was so ready to resort to death threats and slurs. because someone expressed an opinion.

I believe that there is a difference between a person choosing to celebrate a holiday, and a non jewish artist drawing jewish/created by jewish people’s characters celebrating christian holidays. because the jewish person has a choice, but the character does not. at this point in time, there are very few practicing jewish and muslim characters in comics, and in media at large. so i dont think it’s appropriate to make everything christian and say no big deal. i think its more important to display diversity in faith and culture, even if dc is reticent because of cultural antisemitism at large.

when it comes to damian, i can’t speak to that with the same certainty and intensity as i can to the others, since im not muslim. but i do know that several writers have intended him to be muslim (again never committing in canon because comic fans are obviously not very progressive people), and muslim members of this fanbase have really connected with him. and i think showing art where he is muslim, and practices that in a loving and meaningful way, is way more significant and impactful than drawing him in a fucking santa hat.

it is actually very important for jewish people to conserve and practice our culture, and to be vocal about doing so. because people have tried to take it away from us time and time again. so to just brush this aside and say that ‘christmas is a coca cola ad so who cares’ (?) isnt good enough. because we were killed for practicing chanukah, so now its really important that we do. that we remember our tradition, and we pass it on. that we dont allow it to be wallpapered over in the name of assimilation.

all that needed to have happened was for someone to accept and admit that these are characters created by jewish people, to tell jewish stories, and act accordingly and respectfully.

so the problem, in the end, was that i was viciously and ruthlessly attacked for being a jewish woman with an opinion on something, and 10 months later deciding to get involved? i think thats a bad look babe xx

#lots of love!#good to rb #long post #lets just get this out of the way instead of vaguing lmao

130 notes · View notes

creampievampire · 4 years ago

Note

Could you go into the difference between the subtext and queerbaiting in it, I'm still kind of -well it's obviously gay but nothing was really ever said or shown that says that expect for people talking about it- Like are the characters and their relationship just queer-coded (positivly ofc lol) but the baitiness comes from them sort of confirming it off the show?

of course! im assuming by ‘it’ you mean merlin, but rather than explaining the reasons why i think bbc merlin is a matter of subtext (or queer coding) and not queerbaiting, i think it would be easier and more productive to explain the difference between the two in general. they are very similar - which is why i think a lot of people are unable to tell the difference between them - but they have important differences

just a warning, this is going to be a LONG post lmao ive bolded exactly what each term means below, after which i go into more detail on the whole issue. this is something im passionate about so,,, ♥

queerbaiting specifically refers to a marketing technique in which creators hint at but dont actually depict a queer character or relationship. They do this in order to attract a queer audience with the suggestion of a character or relationship they can relate to, while also avoiding alienating their queerphobic audiences

queer coding is the subtextual coding of a character as queer through the use of things like metaphor, allegory, hinting, recognisable traits/stereotypes/experiences, etc. This is done to build believable characters and create more complex plot lines, and it is also regularly used by people who want to tell queer stories but are unable to do so explicitly. it CAN be used negatively to enforce damaging stereotypes, but that is just a small part of its usage

both of these things utilise subtext in order to work. subtext is not only a crucial part of the creation of any piece of media, but is impossible to avoid.

an example of the most basic types of subtext is when a character tells someone that everything is going to be okay, but you can tell they dont believe it. or when youre watching a story unfold and you suddenly connect the dots and realise whats going to happen before its explicitly stated - you used subtext and the hidden meanings and hints to figure it out!

the people involved w a piece of media create their story with a specific purpose or meaning in mind, and they construct the subtext of the story to reflect that purpose/meaning. HOWEVER, the viewers dont always see things the same!

your experiences and personality shape the way you view and interpret every piece of media you consume. if you hate cops youll see the insidious undertones in cop shows - if you grew up with an abusive parent youll see the biting implications in a characters dialogue that others find innocent - if youre queer you will search for and fine queer characters everywhere, regardless of the creators intentions

now, both queerbaiting and queer coding use subtext to function, right? so how do you know which is being used and whether or not its a bad thing? its all about intention

to give a specific explanation of the difference im going to use two examples that are (arguably) very similar in the way their queer characters became canon

example 1: adventure time featured the characters marceline and princess bubblegum, who have been forever depicted as a couple in fan content. their interactions in the show were read into and latched onto bc we saw ourselves in them and we saw it as positive queer rep. but their relationship was never explicitly discussed during the course of the show and was only confirmed at the end of the final episode.

that makes 10 seasons in which their relationship existed only in subtext, and when it did finally exist in canon it was only for a few minutes, if that.

example 2: supernatural featured the characters dean and castiel (lol) who have been depicted as a queer couple pretty much since the first episode cas appeared in. i personally hung on their every interaction, analysed every glance between them, bc i interpreted deans character as a parallel to my own childhood trauma.

cas joined the show in season 4, so that makes 11 seasons in which him being gay existed only in subtext, and when it was confirmed he was immediately cut out of the show. the exact nature of dean and castiels relationship still remains in subtext.

so why is it that adventure time is widely considered perfectly fine but supernatural is dunked on as being the poster boy for queerbaiting?

its bc adventure time involved queer creators and was an earnest representation of queer characters, but they were boxed in by their publisher, Cartoon Network and thus the only way for the relationship to exist in the show was through subtext.

supernatural, however, consistently neglected their queer character and employed transparent tropes and stereotypes - bringing him in just sparingly enough to keep queer audiences interested while never being gay enough to alienate their macho manly man queerphobe audiences. they would have dean and cas stare into each other eyes for a full 30 seconds and then almost immediately follow it up with an episode about dean banging a disposable female character.

so imho adventure time falls under queer subtext, and supernatural falls under queerbaiting

when it comes to a show like bbc merlin i see a lot of debate about whether or not its queer coding or queerbaiting, and my intention is not to convince you of either. merlin was very much a product of its time, and i have argued the same about seasons 4-6 of supernatural as well, before the queerbaiting escalated and became exhausting to me

the purpose of this post is to start giving you the information you need to analyse any piece of media and come to your OWN opinion as to whether or not its queerbaiting or whatever else

people will ALWAYS have differing opinions about this shit yall. i have debated so many times w so many people about where the line is and whats okay and what should be ‘cancelled’ and if consuming something deemed problematic makes you a bad person or not

and my conclusion?

if youre capable of acknowledging the flaws and issues w a piece of media without trying to defend it as a shining beacon of purity simply bc you like it, then you do you. enjoy whatever you want to enjoy - if i think its reprehensible i simply will never interact with you lol

at some point everyone has to stop regurgitating these generic woke speak cancel culture speeches and buzzwords and formulate their own opinions

my advice to anyone reading this is to learn how to do close reading (ill provide a link to a wonderful short guide on it in a reblog bc tumblr hates links) and start really considering where you draw the lines with all types of content. decide for yourself whether merlin or supernatural or adventure time crosses the line into content you cant stomach, but respect other people whose interpretations differ from yours

i know a HUGE amount of people think supernaturals confession scene was homophobic and toxic - a slap in the face - but when i watched it i saw myself reflected in dean. a repressed bisexual whose emotions had been stunted by lifelong trauma, who wasnt ready to face his feelings for cas but quickly realising that his chronic avoidance and fear was about to tear them apart possibly forever. to me it was tragic and beautiful, and i loved it

i also think merlin is a tragic and beautiful love story, and to me its a pivotal piece of queer media that changed the way i viewed love and made me believe that it was a possibility for me bc i related so deeply to arthur

i hope that you can draw a satisfying answer from this, anon, and i apologise for this post being a full essay lol but i believe it needed to be said - i dont think there is a right or wrong answer here

#long post #bbc merlin #merlin #supernatural #adventure time #subtext #queerbaiting #queer coding #frog talks #anon #ask

42 notes · View notes

normal-thoughts-official · 4 years ago

Note

you talk a lot about magnus and camille dynamic and how they started and all that great meta content that you know i love but here's a question that idk if you ever got: how long do you think they were together? bc i can't think of a specific timeline and personally i love the one you talked abt at some point how she was pretty much right after asmododo or something like that, so he went from one type of abuse into another... but how long was he there? was camille with him for 20 years? 80? 130? any theories?

ugh that's a complicated one because i don't really have an answer for that and i think about it often as well

altho i think you got confused about her being right after asmodeus, i definitely don't think she was. i mentioned it my post about the timeline to say that magnus COULDN'T have been born close to the 1800s because that would make it asmodeus and camille way too close and that can't be the case because it would imply camille is basically the only person he dated before alec doajsdoaj and we know that's not true cuz there's also other ppl like george and etc. it was more a point in favor of "early to mid 1600s" for his birth date

anyway! let's go through this. i mentioned in another post that i think he got together with camille right after george, and that i think george died around the middle of the US civil war, which lasted from 1861 to 1865. so let's say they got together around 1863. now, we have a few pieces of information:

magnus mentioned that he hadn't been with anyone for "almost a century" when talking to alec. i know i think magnus is time blind but he can't be TOO off here. that was in 2016 so that would make their breakup date be a little after 1916 if magnus remembers correctly

literally the only thing about the timeline in that time period that i can remember is that one picture there was in his file of magnus surrounded by girls at a party, which looked to be in the 20s to me. since camille was an abusive asshole probably sabotaging his every chance to meet people, that couldn't have been when they were together. so i'd say 1920 is like, the limit for when they could have broken up. it's up to you whether or not you think magnus would be jumping into his party animal role immediately after the breakup or if it would take some time for him to heal; personally i think both make sense (i think she made a huge number on him so it would make sense for him to take a while to get back to that kind of thing; on the other hand, a lot of people turn straight to being party animals after breaking up abusive relationships, especially because for so long abusers have kept them from doing anything fun. so both work imo) so it's up to you

conclusion: they broke up in 1920 at the latest, so the max you could go for is 80 years, if you go with a timeline where camille was right after george (george can't be after camille because magnus has had no relationships after camille, but there could have been a bigger gap between george and camille than i personally hc). it could still be less tho, because we literally have NO information whatsoever on what happened between 1861 and 1920. even if you go with "they broke up and magnus immediately went full party animal" (which is perfectly valid), it's also entirely possible that this happened in say, 1901 and that pic just happened to be from the 20s, years later. but i also don't think it could have been a lot earlier than 1901 because magnus said almost a century, implying less than a century between the year they broke up and 2016. and while i do think that any immortal would lose track of time after a while and mingle years and decades together, nevermind adhd time blind icon magnus bane, if they had broken up in, say, 1880, magnus would remember that over a century has passed, if anything because so much has changed since then. so i think for him to say that the breakup should have happened in the 20th century at least

so that's the analysis from what we've seen in the show. personal opinion! i think 80 years makes sense, but is a bit much. it makes sense because there does seem to be a pretty obvious gap in magnus' file from the 1860s to the 1920s and then it goes back to having many pictures of him, and that "disappearance" makes sense in the context of him being in an abusive relationship (which limits your interactions and going outs by a lot). it does seem to be a bit much because magnus is at max 400, so, if they had been together 80 years, that would have been 20% of magnus' life spent with camille. or 1/5. added with all the time with asmodeus, it seems to be... a bit much dioadsoaijd and like look i'm not judging, i know abusive relationships can last many years and decades even for mortals, nevermind immortals, but i just don't like the idea of it lasting this long personally, especially because i think it makes him getting with alec seem actually a bit soon considering how long the abusive relationship lasted, and that's ignoring asmodeus' abuse on top of it

so personally, i like it morenif its around 40-50 years. i think it makes sense. it would mean the breakup was sometime around the 1910s, and while, okay, there is a gap in his file that seems to only end in the 20s, we must not forget an important fact: shadowhunters are stupid. so i actually think it makes sense that like, magnus emerges from his abusive relationship and is still getting back on his feet, and shadowhunters just don't care. like who is that guy? oh some warlock, no one's heard of him since like the 1860s lol. whatever happened to him? who cares. anyway, we love racism

and then around a decade later it turns out that magnus is healing enough to be a pain in their ass; say, that is when he becomes HWoB, or simply that they are reminded of how powerful magnus actually is once he is back in activity, and so they go back to like, investigating him and updating his file. so the file gap could be explained in that case. it also actually makes more sense that it would take shadowhunters a while to pay attention to him again, and since magnus was healing from an abusive relationship, the time it would take for him to draw their attention might well be around a decade

and with 40-50 years of an abusive relationship that would mean magnus has spent 10-12% of his life with camille; which is a LOT of time (for comparison: my first abusive relationship lasted a little over a year and i was 16 at the time; that makes it have lasted around 6% of my life at the time, and it did a HUGE number on me, taking me almost 3 years to have a relationship again), but not quite as much as a full 20%. not just that, but him taking "almost a century" (it would actually make it be a little over a century in this timeline, but again, magnus is immortal and time blind, so give him a break) to get with anyone again makes sense. that would be around double the time he's spent with her before he heals enough to be with someone else. that tracks, because abuse fucks you up fast and unfuckening yourself up takes longer. magnus isn't even fully unfucked up (which is okay, he doesn't have to be), but for him to be ready to take such huge steps as he is taking with alec, i think around double the time he's spent with her spent on healing makes sense

(again, i'm mostly going off my own experiences here; my abusive relationship lasted almost a year and a half, my next relationship was almost three years after the breakup. so almost perfectly double the time before i was ready to have another relationship. and again, i know recovery isn't the same for everyone and a lot of factors go into this, but i just think a timeline where he's been with her for 80 years and then gets with alec less than 100 afterwards is a bit too fast)

i still think 40 years is kind of a very long time to be in an abusive relationship and like holy shit i cant even imagine, but also i mean, mortals have abusive relationships that last that long and to an immortal itd feel like less time, and it does seem to be what best fits the timeline, so

and yeah i think those are my thoughts dadsajdsa

LAST MINUTE EDIT BEFORE THIS IS PUBLISHED CUZ IM NOT REDOING THE WHOLE THING: i got an anon today saying that magnus said something about not having seen camille in 130 years (link) which i didnt/dont really remember but i trust that theyre right and im wrong because i dont remember a lot of shit from this show. 130 years before 2016 would be 1886, meaning that if they broke up at that time and got together right after george's death as i personally hc, that's a 20-year relationship. that sounds like it fits the timeline as much as any other to me, and like i said in that ask, i think it makes sense that magnus would play it down to alec by saying "almost a century" instead of how long it's really been cuz it's a bit too vulnerable, and plus, we know one of the ways he protects himself is by not letting people pinpoint exactly some important dates from his past, particularly his birthday and etc

and okay i know that 20 years together, then 130 years recovering is a huge difference, but also i think with twenty years together as opposed to my comparatively short abusive relationship the scars of abuse would deepen a lot and quicker, so maybe it makes sense that it would take a longer time to feel confident enough to get to dating again. plus, like i said, there's no real math to be had in that process, everyone is different, has their own history and recovery process and etc so it's not like there is a deadline. so actually scratch everything i said above im going with this timeline. the one thing that doesn't track with that is the gap in his file but also like i said shadowhunters are stupid, so. yeah 20 years together is probably closer to it

in the end its kind of a relief cuz i was like "holy shit 40 years is so LONG" so... yeah udndidn

#me: i don't really now. also me: gigantic essay with lots of numbers and a relatively narrow time gap as a result #sh #shadowhunters #magnus bane #camille belcourt is an abuser #camille's trash party #magnus bane meta #anti shadowhunters #abuse tw #death tw #mentions of war #meta #ask #some-thrilling-heroics #there is too much math in this post tbh #q #adhd magnus bane #time blind magnus

14 notes · View notes

purplepalmdelight · 4 years ago

Text

why life is still okay (rambling fic rec pt. 1)

firstly: shout out to @trulyalpha for apparently owning my entire bookmarks page on ao3 (bc i only realised all my favourite fics were written by the same person,,, yesterday. bc im really smart like that) anyway breakdown of why she’s a stoncy saving grace thanks!!!

you ease my mind, you make everything feel fine.

(https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842039)

yes this fic is from 2018. yes i read it every other week. it’s good for the SOUL. jonathan getting taken care of is always just such a good and sweet concept (maybe it’s my intense, undying love of him, but he deserves to be taken care okay) and. okay i’ll admit, sometimes i forget how fucking FUNNY this fic is, but it’s genuinely hilarious, okay? you gotta trust me on this. it makes me cackle at inappropriate times absurdly often. ("Hi." "Hi." "I want you, you fuck." is a top line. i laugh so hard every TIME.) all three of them are so incredibly in character, and somehow this NAILS the fact that they’re all massive disasters pretending to be confident. and i’m not someone that reads ~smut~ often (though it’s more mentioned than described, very non-explicit) but this didn’t make me even the least bit uncomfortable. it felt very natural and in character and made me laugh as much as the rest of the story. all in all, i always come away a little more in love with the characters, and that’s a really precious feeling.

you could be the one to make me feel something

(https://archiveofourown.org/works/14269476/chapters/32912745)

i take back everything i’ve ever claimed. this IS the funniest piece of writing i’ve ever read, and it WILL remain so, probably until the day i die. i honestly... barely have words. my expectations were high when i started it, but in retrospect, they were LEAGUES below what i got. the characterisation, the progression, the dialogue, the story; from the overarching aspects to the tiny details, it’s impeccable. i genuinely read this twice in one day, and then again the next. every single part of it is so good, but in terms of FAVOURITES... the christmas section. hilarious. down to its bones, well crafted and heart felt. it hits me right in the chest every time. the story, from the beginning, has me just as in love with nancy and steve as jonathan is, and as everything grows more intense, so does my investment. it pulls me in and doesn’t let me go until it’s good and ready to see me leave. again, the sexy aspects are so in character and natural that it’s uncomfortable or weird to read and instead just leave me grinning like an idiot. also ( “It did frustrate me, in more ways than one. It’s also a weird plan, like … did you expect me to be so overwhelmed by the power of a boner that I’d just admit my feelings?” is SUCH a funny line, i think about it literally every day. literally. every. day.) the characters are afraid to be messy, to make mistakes, and they all feel so ALIVE that when i leave the story, i feel like i’m leaving a friend. it’s honestly beautiful and honestly breathtaking. this story is better than a lot of published books, honestly, and i’m so grateful for it. so thank you.

i crash my car ‘cause i wanna get carried away!

(https://archiveofourown.org/works/17131202)

...you really wanted to make me cry, huh? i cried out of grief, yeah, out of the depth of nancy’s guilt and the pure rawness of her mourning, but i also cried out of catharsis as she came to terms, and out of laughter a few times. the bit about total eclipse of the heart as a motif was... that was so well done. i hate drawing comparisons, so please understand that this is criticism of a concept and not a particular story, but in so many stories then nancy’s grief feels... trivialised? that’s not quite the right word. romanticised, maybe. as someone who has lost a friend in the past, it’s just... it doesn’t feel realistic? and that’s okay, because it’s hard to nail something you haven’t experienced, and i wouldn’t wish the experience on anyone. it’s just that stories like this, where i can really resonate with nancy and follow the journey of her recovery WITH her are so rare. this story is a gem, it really is. i don’t love it for all the same reasons as the others, but i love it fiercely all the same.

there’s nothing magic going on, and then along came you

(https://archiveofourown.org/works/14994137)

sure, you could be the one is the funniest fic i’ll probably ever read, but nothing magic is such a close second. it’s laugh-out-loud, get-tears-in-your-eyes, fall-out-of-your-chair, and it’s also so goddamn SWEET i can hardly stand it. of the several fics i generally group together in my head (nothing magic, you could be the one + its sequels (might have to make an individual post about this series), laugh until we think we’ll die, and got nothing for you; all very similar, yet incredibly unique) nothing magic is the shortest, but that doesn’t mean it compromises on quality, oh no. it just means i can read it quicker, and therefore more often! when it’s late and i’m tired and i need a laugh to calm down before i sleep, i generally go search this fic up. remember when i mentioned the whole “being just as in love with nancy and steve as jonathan is” thing? it’s like that except... almost funnier. in you could be the one, it’s just that the story naturally tugs you into adoring these two messy, silly, sweet, amazing young adults, because how could you not? how else could you possibly feel? but here, they are genuinely just... that funny. they are actually just so funny that you as a reader click with them and find yourself grinning like an IDIOT because oh my god you’re disasters. maybe it’s the inherent relatability of a tired highschooler trying to make it through the summer and hating his job along the way, but this fic hits right in the heart every damn time.

got nothing for you other than love

(https://archiveofourown.org/works/17596658)

"You trust me," she says.

They both know it's a fact, not question, but he still says, "Of course."

and

By then, his shell wasn't something he could step out of. It was part of him. But that was okay. He didn't need more. What he had was enough.

He always did have trouble with wanting more.

and

"Hey, babe?" Nancy turns her head to look at Steve, touching his shoulder. "Can you buy me a drink?"

"Sure thing. What d'ya want?"

"Surprise me. Not like that time we were here and you snuck out the store, went to a smoothie stand, and came back with a mango smoothie."

Steve grins. "But I did surprise you."

and

"Do you have food in the backseat?"

"The sandwich has only been there for like, two weeks—"

and

"Ugh. Too much cheese. I'm lactose-intolerant, remember?"

"False, you're not intolerant of anyone except people over the age of fifteen with bowl cuts and guys who wear shorts in the winter."

and

"Where are you off to? I'm your only friend," Kali says, frowning.

and

"You good, man?"

"Yeah," he says, his throat dry, "I'm great."

"Yeah, you are," Nancy says, and he is. He is.

and i can’t continue because that’s, like, barely halfway into the fic and i’ve already skipped so many of my favourite lines and i would have to skip so many more. you see what i mean about sathana being funny as hell? and like all the others, it’s not just the humour here. i mean... it is, because it’s SO FUCKING FUNNY I LITERALLY CANNOT SAY THAT ENOUGH but the reason it’s so funny is because it’s so candid. it’s so smooth. the whole thing flows. you’re not left feeling that you’ve missed a piece or that anything was sacrificed; you just feel like you’ve read something incredible. this fic is an experience of its own that i honestly have never experienced before. it’s sweet, and it’s gentle, and it’s just so overwhelmingly good that i don’t think i’ll ever quite get over it. in short? it’s a blessing. my expectations were high, but holy fuck did you blow them to bits.

one more favourite line:

Things are ending, things are starting, and everything looks bright. It won't always be that way. The sun's got to set at some point. But, gazing up at the sky, at the pink bleeding into orange, Jonathan figures it'll have to rise again. No matter what happens, these two things are constant.

"Hey, you look awfully lonely," Nancy calls out, walking towards him, reaching out to him with the hand not in Steve's.

Well. Maybe not just those two things.

that scene, in general, is beautiful, and it wraps the story up on such a genuine note. it feels like a film with how clearly i can picture it. it feels like no fic i’ve ever really read before. it feels... good. i guess i don’t really have the words. it just feels so good.

as an overall statement on why i call her my favourite author... it’s the realism. maybe that’s surprising, considering how many times i said “funny” or “hilarious” in here, but in the end, i wouldn’t be so attached to her work if it didn’t feel so real. i can open a tab and instantly get transported to a home i’ve never lived in. it’s comfortable. it’s sweet. and the dialogue/banter is always perfectly crafted. there’s just never really a downside to her fics, honestly. even if i wanted to search, i don’t think i’d find one. not even one of those “their only problem is that there’s not more to enjoy” kind of comments, because every single one feels perfectly crafted in its own right. it doesn’t need more or less. it stands for itself and it’s goddamn good at it.

i didn’t anticipate having to do multiple parts on this post, but- surprise surprise- i haven’t even gotten to my favourite one yet! so yeah, pt. 2 will be written after i finish the history essay trying to murder me, god knows when that is. in the meantime, please go give her some love and adoration. she deserves it.

#stranger things fanfiction #stranger things #stoncy rights pls #stoncy #steve harrington #jonathan byers #nancy wheeler #fic rec #like HARD rec pls read #and if anyone who has read these fics wants to geek out w me....... come one and do it #sathana stans unite amirite

25 notes · View notes

sgnjoowon · 5 years ago

Text

hey hey everyone! this is my first time in seongnam and i’m super excited to be here. it’s kind of late for me, but i wanted to throw up an intro for my boi before i head to bed, so here we are! this is noh joowon, twenty two year old junior. he’s an animation major and a pretty popular BL webtoon author, but that last part is a ~*secret*~. he’s pretty loud and outspoken and often times annoying but he’s a... well... not good boy but a fun boy? anyway! i have his ABOUT, BACKGROUND, and PLOTS pages up if you’d like to take a look, but i’ll drop some info and wanted connections under the cut! and if you’d like to plot, please hit like on this post and i’ll pop into your ims, or you can reach me on TWITTER if you’d prefer to plot there! ♥️

QUICK FACTS !

so tl;dr - 22, a junior, majoring in animation with a minor in art. wanted to do things the other way around but he fucked up his registration forms and went with it

is also a pretty popular BL webtoon author under the pen name byungari (you can find more info about his webtoons here). only a handful of people know about this... it’s a Big Secret, he’ll have to end you if you find out

basically, entered a webtoon contest online in freshman year - didn’t win, but the company asked him for a story outline and quickly sent a contract over for a serialized webtoon to be published online. it did well, and then he got a contract for another one which was also well received/ranked

long story short, he just recently started publishing webtoon #3 which takes some heavy inspiration from the seongnam campus, so you’ll probably see familiar landmarks and faces if you follow it closely... honestly, he’s not all that subtle

anyway! he has a makeshift studio in the student centre and an assistant to help out with meeting deadlines and such. even then most days he barely submits his work on time and he’s always drawing in class instead of paying attention

considered a campus cryptid because he barely attends class and yet manages to pass most things... actually he’s there, just tucked in the back napping or quietly taking notes. he doesn’t participate much unless whatever’s going on is ‘interesting’

it’s just weird because he’s v. loud and opinionated otherwise - will get into debates right in the middle of class when it’s a subject he’s passionate (and right) about. some of his classmates are just straight up scared of getting into it with him

part of the art club (nominally; he joined because he felt obligated to but he doesn’t participate much), the cooking club (kinda; he’s just there for the food and also never like... ‘officially’ joined), and the paranormal club (this one’s legit. he loves paranormal stuff)

is the baby of his family; has 2 older siblings but they have a significant age gap with him so they were never close while growing up. they’re both like... very academically aligned with ~respectable careers~ (professor and doctor) so sometimes joowon feels like the odd one out with his focus on animation/art

his parents are divorced - dad has a whole other family that joowon has complicated feelings about!! he doesn’t like to think on it too much. was raised primarily by his mom while his dad really just pays for his education and stuff. compared to most kids from divorced homes he feels like he’s pretty well adjusted

his family isn’t super elite or wealthy, but they’re probably like... very comfortable but also very well connected with people who are considered elite (dad’s a lawyer and mom is the chairman/director of a elite private academy)

incidentally, went to that private academy before attending seongnam. it was very academics focused even though joowon was... not. but his parents are like whelp we did it right with the first two kids so it’s okay if kid #3 is into art and shit as long as he graduates from a good uni! hence him being at seongnam

really, his post graduation plans are just ‘i am going to make more webtoons and then maybe work in animation’ and he’s pretty happy with that

he’s very... hm... very blunt and straightforward in most of his dealings with people. super loud and confident and doesn’t hold back even if there’s a risk he might offend someone. he’s also pretty impulsive and short tempered so it doesn’t take much for him to go off. like, he’s passionate about a lot of things and sometimes that explodes out of him in a not-fun way

but he’s also like a very open, easy-to-befriend kinda guy, super supportive of his friends and generous where it counts. he’s very loyal and the kind of person who’d fight you but also fight FOR you in a heartbeat. he hates unhappy endings so he’s always trying to low key look out for his friends even if!! admitting he cares is embarrassing!!

he’s a cute kid who can be a lot sometimes. please be his friend anyway

WANTED CONNECTIONS !

friends!! some super casual friends to spend time with in between classes or grab a bite to eat with - he’s honestly pretty friendly when it comes down to it and even if you don’t know him well, he’ll probably consider you a pal. maybe you got paired for some activity during freshman orientation and stuck together, shared classes in the past, etc. you just know joowon as an entertaining dude

fellow animation / art majors or minors!! classmates, people to get stuck doing group projects with, we always work on our assignments together, looking for an empty studio to write and found you there so uh can we share. or on the flip side, department rivals?? getting into arguments / heated debates in the middle of class and getting sent out? always competing to see who’s better but they’re both good!

art club members who are like please come to a meeting please please come to just one meeting - or, y’know, forcibly drag or trick him into participating. someone who recruited him into the art club to begin with and now they have regrets. someone who finds an old exhibition piece he did for the club or something and is like omg please come back sunabe i want to learn from you--

cooking club members who he kind of follows around because they make really good food. people who don’t realize he’s not officially in the club and try to get him to participate but he’s like these hands are not made for cooking. someone who does realize but is like aw he’s harmless let him hang around. let him lick the spoon--

paranormal club bros... it’s the one club he’s actually serious about for reasons unknown (actually, it’s known: he wants to fuck a vampire) so members who share similar interests or just like his intensity or just think he’s a riot. maybe they try to film their own version of buzzfeed unsolved and hit up a bunch of supposedly haunted places or chase paranormal activity idk

people who read / have read his webtoons! whether they’re fans of him or antis... maybe someone he’s friends with irl who reads every update but doesn’t know he’s the author, or someone he’s friends with irl who hates the webtoon and joowon has to stop themselves from fighting them. or like... interacting on twitter about the webtoons, someone who writes fic or draws fanart and always dms it to him, idk, someone who leaves hate comments whom he fights with on a sock account??

he has a weird relationship with sunbaes in the sense that he can get really needy / attention-seeking around them (maybe he craves the close older sibling figures he’s never had in his life!) so sunbaes he can bother / be cute around. whether they tolerate him, shoo him away, or take care of him... idk

enemies?? for various reasons - maybe they’re rivals, maybe they just pissed joowon off or vice versa, maybe they just made eye contact and challenged each other to a fight pokemon style, maybe he just can’t stand the way they act, but enemies are fun...

some romantic connections like exes? hasn’t dated much recently maybe a few people in the past, or like people who have confessed to him but he turned them down pretty callously. or someone who falls in love with his art and thinks that means they like joowon but when they try to get to know him they’re like oh... oh no

i know i missed a bunch of stuff but i have more specific plots here if nothing sparks your interest + and i’m always open to brainstorm something as well!

#out of comics #/ idk if there is an intro tag but #/ anyway please plot with us we don't bite #/ :)

10 notes · View notes

mousehole5000 · 4 years ago

Text

tgcf lb the fourth chapter 23 - 33

“hmmm looks like theres people in the fertilizer. i shan’t say a word” ok king of minding your business i guess

oh looks like it has a long tongue. oh i dont care for that at all

The build of their bodies were similar, and atop their shoulders, all of them carried cudgels that were densely covered in sharp wolf teeth. It created an illusion that a pack of wolves had transformed into people. attack of the furries? okay.

It was easy to comprehend after thinking about it. This person had been buried in the desert sand for fifty to sixty years. The flesh of his body had long been transformed into nutrients for those Kindred Moon Herbs. He had been entirely consumed until the only thing remaining was a mere skeleton. when this book isnt being very funny its being very grim!!! yikes!! also this was an episode of hannibal

Ke Mo definitely had never heard someone ask to go first in this place. His eyes widened and looked like bells as he asked in astonishment, “You want to go first? For what reason??” Xie Lian naturally couldn’t reply and say it was because he wasn’t scared. Thus, he chose an answer that conformed with the norms of society. “General, these are merely innocent merchants just passing through. They even have a child amongst them.” - love watching the immortals trying to act like humans. would have been funny if xie lian had just hit em with “well i cant die so its chill”

That young man had crossed his arms. With an indifferent gaze, he thoughtfully sized up the deep Sinners’ Pit.　　 A bad premonition sprung up unbidden in Xie Lian’s heart. “San Lang?”　　 When he heard Xie Lian call him, San Lang turned his head. He smiled faintly and said, “Everything’s fine.” - edgy bastard lets go

What Ke Mo had been cursing was, “It’s this slut again!” - me when a corpse gets up and knocks all my soldiers into the sinner’s pit what a relatable reaction

oh now im switching translations here we go

does hua cheng just straight up transform in the darkness? edgy bastard. also hualian having their little discussion while ke mo keeps trying to attack im still amused by these kinds of shenanigans

banyue guoshi ma’am your backstory.... rough. im on your side im sure you had your reasons

why do the soldiers keep her up near the top of the pit of death if she keeps getting up and knocking them all in? am i missing something? or are they just that dumb/dead fjdf;adjsf

fu yao: y’all alive? lmk. if not ill guess ill go back to the the merchants who totally promised to stay put in the circle. in case its not clear i do not care what happens to said merchants.

hua xie... of course thats the fucking name he picked. also looks like that wasnt so much a parallel being drawn between xie lian and the general as it was the same exact line

fasdlkfjsldfdsf god xie lian really has a hard time. you help some orphans, you try to keep people from dying, you try to save an orphan and you trip and get trampled but you cant die so you wake up in a river full of corpses and just float away. actually tbh i really appreciate him as an immortal character this is the shit i like to see. love xie lian ready to defend himself from the slander of being completely flattened. he was only mostly flattened

cunty vibes so strong all the wildlife in a 10 foot radius just chuck up the deuces and split

ITS RAINING SCORPION SNAKES. THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO PUSH A REVEAL. love that the umbrella is just always on hand

okay i guess fucking. everyone is here now why not. we’re all in a hole covered in scorpions and everyone knows each other but not everyone is admitting it but we know. we know. still not 100% sure what is going wrt pei su/pei ming/general pei/pei junior im a bit confused idk

okay i cant explain it but im attached to him now.

i like banyue. i feel like theres going to be a few background female characters i really like but im not so sure theyll get a lot of development. wind master come back you and your lady friend i would like to know more of you. anyway fuck this pei guy(s?). also they just put banyue in a jar? fair enough

is xie lian another mc who cant cook? so much so that everyone who knows him just leaves if he offers? love that for him

okay we’ve got ONE identity admitted. i liked how casual it was. i wonder if hc was waiting for this bc yeah he was not subtle i feel like he definitely wanted xie lian to know. if he didnt then bruh. get lessons in how to act human please

screaming. no words. cant wait to meet him. and hua cheng please keep up the good work. i love that now we’re just. sitting. chatting. chilling. okay.

yeah it makes sense that hes an immortal i think you would have to take this attitude after 800 years

this authors note about not writing ugly characters.... fjkdalfdjfa obviously i dont think holding beauty as such high standard is good it warps our views and values etc etc but also i would expect nothing less from a story like this. yes we know everyone is going to be beautiful theyre immortal and beautiful and young forever

lmao at exile being a temporary banishment for crimes.... yeah that sounds about right tbh. rich elite fuckers

oh good we haven’t forgotten about human face disease boy. im wondering when we’re going to find out how important he will be bc he clearly matters otherwise he’d have been resolved already also yeah how tf does he have that disease that sure sounds like an issue

i dont like him. pei ming i also wish you to die of syphilis. also of fucking COURSE xie lian’s cultivation method doesnt let him read dirty books

im just saving this because its funny

okay lang qianqiu i see you falling asleep at the meeting. i like you already but you are not above suspicion. actually you know what i suspect you already. crown prince of the kingdom that conquered xianle? idk if youre good or bad but you know something i learned this lesson from beloved morally grey huaisang

okay last comment for this post. mxtx’s little authors note about everyone being straight except for hualian but you can make up headcanons as long as you dont split hualian up fjdlfakdj. i just find it silly to write a story thats so clearly for an audience that understands shipping and ships often and say not to split a specific couple up but i mean to be fair i kind of get it that sentiment as an author and not wanting people to do certain things with your work, although again i think its silly

i guess the point of this note is just to be clear that no one else is going to get together so no one argues about it and i dont actually know much about how this was published but it seems like it was serialized so i can see why that would be an issue. personally i dont really care for knowing stuff like that ahead of time but i know a lot of people do and it seems to be thing in other cnovels ive seen to know whos going to get together as far as major characters are concerned i guess thats part of the draw and i guess i kind of get it

not sure how much other romance will be in this but also i think its kind of ridiculous to be like “these are the only two gay characters” in a cast that just keeps growing but whatever shes really leaving that work up to the readers to make it happen which they’ll do anyways so whatever. also there had to be at least one of the 33 officials who fought hua cheng who thought he was hot. theres no way that didnt happen

#if theres a note that explains why some of the immortals have a whisk can someone point me to towards it?#im assuming its not actually a kitchen whisk although that would be something #is it like the feather dusters songxiao carry?#tgcf liveblog #mouse mumbles #i guess this is what im doing with my time now

6 notes · View notes

pocketbypass · 5 years ago

Text

HWASA IS JESUS + other christian symbolism and scenes explained by a fan

I’ve already posted this on Youtube. But it’s late, my fingers hurt, and I spent 2 hours on this. So...give it a read? Please?

As you all probably already know, the vita teaser of this song was published three days after the morte teaser version. And Hwasa is religious (Maria is her Christian name and she tricked Wheein into getting baptized as Gabriella - fun story). A Moomoo on Twitter pointed out that Hwasa probably intended to draw parallels between her and Jesus. Because like the teasers, Jesus rose from the dead after three days.

Now for my thoughts. I'm writing this after probably a hundred loops of Maria, so I could be crazy and wrong. But hear me out. This song and MV has so much meaning, including tons of parallels to Christianity. Let's talk about a few scenes and what they could mean.

At the very start of the song, Hwasa is shown lying in a pool of blood much like a swimming pool, while police safety tape is being drawn up and over her. Meanwhile, shadowy figures in the background are taking pictures. This is meant to represent a crime scene, with Hwasa as the murdererd. A spiked, thorny crown lies next to her. Pay careful attention to it.

Because a few moments later, Hwasa is shown again - this time standing behind the people taking pictures EVEN THOUGH SHE HAS BEEN SHOWN DEAD (metaphorically anyway lmao). I'll tell you what I think of this later. (but like: psst, Jesus rose from the dead. This could be. yknow...)

The next scene: lighters are being offered to Hwasa as she holds a cigarette, each one craving her attention, her recognition. Several people have already pointed out how this scene is meant to reference a film called Malena, so I won't go into too much detail here. Needless to say, Malena is a sad story about a sad woman who is reviled by women and obsessed over by men when she embraces her extraordinariness, and ultimately ends up hiding what made her special in order to fit in with society. I believe it parallels Hwasa's own story in so many ways. Hwasa never quite fit into the stereotypical mold of Korean idols, as harsh as it is. In her first few auditions, they would tell her that she could sing, just that it was a shame that she was so fat. That's..only the tip of the iceberg. As a Moomoo, I feel lucky every day that Hwasa joined RBW instead of giving up, and that those at the company and her bandmates support her. Ultimately, I feel like that's what the OT4 (BLESS) scene at the end is meant to represent - without them, Hwasa would have been Malena. She would have given up on her extraordinary talent and abilities, and we would never be here at all watching this MV.

I'm just. emotional. Ack. I love Ahn Hyejin so much!!!

Moving on. The bloody scene (yeah, you probably know what I'm talking about right? It's kinda unforgettable) where Hwasa sits at a table, surrounded by people. What is she serving? A plastic heart. What are the others eating? (I squinted really hard for this). A mouse wrapped in cords. Another plastic heart. Lego, CDs, and a bunch of cables. And yet, only the heart that Hwasa's holding has blood on it. The rest is all just plastic and machine. Cold and unfeeling. She looks at us, blood splattered down her front, with what seems to be a Malena-cigarette in her mouth. She takes it out. It's not a cigarette, it's a lollipop. What is Hwasa trying to tell us here? The people sitting at the table have eccentric, wildly different hairstyles and clothes. Is this a subtle dig at the Kpop industry? A part of me wants to say that since the song is about Hwasa affirming herself, this whole strikingly-gorey-yet-not-really scene could represent how cold and unfeeling some people can be, directing slurs and swears at a person who turns out to have a real heart behind the glamorous facade. This could very well be a representation of the hatred she receives for simply being Hwasa. That could very well explain the smile she gives them when she's seated at the head of the table, but the neutral, almost dark expression she gives the camera when her back is turned to them.

Likewise, when their heads are covered with red cloth, it could be symbolizing how their perception of her is already settled. They do not want to see her, the real human being, only taste the flavorless, hard plastic parts they already have.

Once again, the pool is shown. This time, there is no crown, no crime scene. Hwasa is inside a pool of white sprinkled with red roses. She looks far more alive than she did in the bloody water - she tilts her head and smiles. Remember what I said about Jesus? How he was reborn? My theory is that Hwasa 'died' and people took.joy in orchestrating her 'death', only for her to rise again, like a phoenix (yes im linking this to her red hair as well lmao).

Even the hospital scenes can be explained with this. First, Hwasa awakens in a dentist chair of some sort, dressed in a straitjacket. Then the camera cuts to a heart monitor, where the heart rate slowly rises from 50 to 51. For context, the typical human heart rate is from 60-100. Hwasa died. But she's alive again.

This doesn't come easily to her - she's shown huddling in a corner as pencils enroach on her. And yeah they're pencils. Extremely sharp ones. Representing the hurtful words of others.

...But also stakes. This might be a bit of a stretch, and I beg you not to think I'm stretching, but Jesus was nailed to the cross with stakes driven through his hands.

She goes a little mad in the next few seconds. We see her walking through hallways of a hospital as black wavy lines ripple around her. She reaches a crown - the same crown lying near the pool earlier - and picks it up. Puts it on her head. This, too, represents the crown of thorns that Jesus wore as he died. Perhaps Hwasa putting the symbol of her suffering on her head means that she's decided to embrace herself. Maybe she's just a fucking queen. I wouldn't know. After all, this is only my interpretation. I COULD be wrong. I still don't know what the scissors at 2:30 and 2:37 means. So I'd love for people to comment and tell me anything I missed or could improve on!

Or just like it, cause I spent two hours on this and I have homework rip.

tl;dr: Hwasa is Jesus. Thanks for reading! I love you. And I'm sure Hwasa does too.

#maria #ahn hyejin #hwasa #hwasa comeback #maria by hwasa #mamamoo #maria analysis #i run an insta with a friend thats kinda dead but if you wanna follow us its @butterwhee #cross posted from yt

7 notes · View notes

skyfallensoldier · 4 years ago

Text

Mobile Navigation || Rules & Mun ↓

DISCLAIMER: I just want to note here at the beginning that while I am considering this RP blog to be historically based, i.e. remaining true to the time period and overall details of John Laurens' biographical information and whatnot, I do not consider myself a historically accurate blog, not entirely. Historical fiction is a well known genre of literature and many, MANY creative liberties are taken within that genre. Think of this blog like you would if you saw an Anastasia Romanov blog. She's dead, we know she didn't survive, and she's been dead a long-ass time; so has Laurens. People still have included her in many works of fiction, even after her body was identified and it was proven she did not survive her family's massacre. I saw a romance book a couple of months ago where she survived that was recently published. Historical fiction, while a controversial thing at times, is a legitimate form of literature.

You don't have to tell me if you think John isn't acting exactly like the real man himself would have, I know that. I'm not going to call John my 'perfect sunshine boy cinnamon roll' or dismiss the privilege he was raised on due to his father, I'm aware he was a real person who had his own personality, virtues and prejudices. I won't deny that while he was certainly a progressive thinking man for the time he grew up in he definitely still had racist thoughts and actions that were indicative of his upbringing. But I'm not on here to debate modern, real life politics, or get into arguments about whether he was a good abolitionist or not. At the end of the day, this is still a hobby for me, and I'm writing for fun.

Basically, don't take it too seriously. I'm a 21st century bisexual woman writing from the POV of an 18th century (likely gay) male soldier, the way I write him is obviously not going to be a perfect representation of who he was. I know he wasn't an amazing, perfect person, but I've still chosen to write a fictionalized version of him for my own entertainment. Please try to respect that; thank you.

Mun Stuff

Name: Luna Gender: Female (She/Her or They/Them) D.o.B: July 23rd, 1996 Age: 24 Nationality: Canadian Sexuality: Bisexual Timezone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) Activity: Daily BIOGRAPHY (SORT OF)

Hello, there! You can call me Luna! I've been interested in writing ever since I first got the internet when I was 14 and discovered FanFiction.Net and now I'm an aspiring author and Roleplay enthusiast. If you include acting/talking out DnD like games with friends then I've been 'roleplaying' since the fifth grade, but I like to think there's always room for improvement. If you ever want to chat I'd love to make a new friend or plot out a roleplay, so don't be afraid to shoot me an ask or send me a private message. Just because my muse can be a jackass doesn't mean I am! I’m a huge advocate for mental health, and if you ever need someone to talk to, please don’t ever hesitate to reach out! Some of my hobbies including literature and writing (of course), digging into mythology from various cultures, practicing solitary eclectic paganism/new age spirituality, drinking tea, and collecting crystals/minerals.

Please note that for the sake of disclosure, I am considered ‘Neurodivergent’, in that I suffer from ADHD, diagnosed at about age six, and have Anxiety and Depression which are directly tied to it. This doesn’t often effect my life on here, but I sometimes have an unpredictable sleep schedule (stay up all night, sleep in late into the morning, etc). I’m usually quick to reply to threads for the most part! I work every Tuesday and Thursday from 5pm to 7pm in addition to odd jobs here and there, during which time I won’t have access to the Internet. The rest of the week I’m on and off all day basically, so you can feel free to contact me any time.

RP Style

⭐️ Please use basic spelling/grammar/punctuation when you RP with me. I'm not a drill sergeant about these kinds of things, I know that typos happen, and if you have a vision problem or such we can absolutely find a way to work around that, I also have no problem roleplaying with people whose first language is not English, so that's totally fine and I’m happy to accomodate in whatever way I can, but it does make it a little difficult to play with you if I don't know what you're trying to say. For this reason I prefer if you not use any text shorthand (lol, idk, brb, jk, etc) unless our muses are messaging each other. Using it in the tags is fine.

⭐️ I roleplay Laurens in a past-tense 3rd Person Point of View (think story-telling format), and generally I don't use icons or text formatting unless I notice my partner does, then I will try to match their style (for example if you use icons and small-text, I will try to do the same, though because formatting isn't possible on mobile, any mobile replies might take longer to be posted than if I were on my laptop). If you have any issues with how I'm writing or need me to adjust my style for any reason don't be afraid to ask.

Contact

⭐️ If you spam me with messages over and over again about something I haven't replied to, chances are I'll drop the thread. I don't mind being reminded because I know Tumblr's notifications are notoriously unreliable sometimes, and humans can forget/lose things, but if you keep poking at me after I've acknowledged you the first and second time, I won't be pleased. Things can get busy on here, or in real life, or sometimes you're just lacking muse for that particular thread, y'know? It doesn't mean I hate you and don't want to RP, I'm almost always up for plotting, but muse tends to fluctuate.

⭐️ My ‘Discord’ is available to mutuals upon request. I don't mind roleplaying on there if Tumblr is being glitchy or you're just not feeling up to formatted/heavily plotted threads, sometimes Discord is fun in that you can do immediate replies without needing the effort of putting icons and formatting into it. I also have a Kik but I never use it. I don't RP in Tumblr's IMs, that's purely for OOC interaction.

⭐️ I also occasionally stream movies/TV shows in group chats or play “in character” Cards Against Humanity game nights, Among Us, etc. If you’re interested, lemme know, I’m always looking for more people to hang out with!

Important

I have no actual triggers that I'm aware of, although snakes do creep me out (mostly shots of them coiled up or images of their pupils), but there are some things I will not roleplay personally for comfort reasons:

⭐️ Cannibalism. You can mention it, for example I won't freak out if someone tells my muse that somebody else ate a person (he might, assuming its not a Supernatural type verse), but I won't RP him engaging in cannibalism, not even in AUs (blood-drinking vampires are fine). I'm just not sure I could stomach writing about eating people. I managed to watch Hannibal, barely, but writing about it? Nah. I can handle lots of horror, gore and disturbing content but not this. Sorry.

⭐ Incest/Pedophilia. I do not SEXUALLY ship with characters under the age of 18. John is not attracted to children, and would never consider sleeping with someone much younger than him.

⭐ I will not write anything sexual with muns who are under 18 years old, even if your muse is an adult. I'll still ROLEPLAY with you if you are under 18 but probably no younger than 16 just because things tend to get explicit on my blogs and I don't want to be accused of corrupting the youth with my foul language and weird opinions, lol. Seriously though, this blog covers a lot of dark subjects and while I’m all for minors exploring that safely through writing rather than in real life, some people aren’t comfortable with interacting with under age people for legal or personal reasons, please respect that.

⭐ Necrophilia. Just... no. Vampire threads don't count, as they're undead and not 'dead dead'.

⭐ Rape. I won't write it with you. I'm okay with mentions of rape, with rape/sexual assault survivor/recovery plots, and even with one character intervening to rescue another from an attempted sexual assault (if an attempted assault does occur, it will be thoroughly tagged and under a cut). I'm fully open to discussing rape recovery/trauma plots as those are things that happen in real life, and it can be interesting to explore how a character reacts to trauma. But anything else is a no-go, sorry!

⭐ Please be aware that I write Laurens as a gay man. However! Because of the time period, violent homophobia and social stigma, he has slept with women before and may be seen flirting with or referencing relationships with women in the past. He is still gay, and still uninterested in being with women long term, he's simply closeted to all but a few individuals. So, unless your muse is Martha Manning (who Laurens DOES love in a manner, and he always will), shipping with female characters on here most likely isn't going to happen unless it's heavily plotted/developed and part of an overall plot, and you understand that it will not be a conventional sexual relationship. I'm sorry if that disappoints you but I've read Laurens as a gay male for so long I have trouble seeing him any other way.

⭐ I will not roleplay slavery plots. This is not up for debate. Roleplaying a highly fictionalized version of a long dead real person who existed during a troubling time is one thing, but I draw the line at that. For this reason, while I'll happily play with non-white muses, muses using non white faceclaims, and crossovers with characters of all sorts, I'll have to decline playing with any muse claiming to actually be writing slavery. There’s a difference between, say, roleplaying a character like Daenerys, a fictional character who was technically a slave-bride sold by her brother, and writing actual slavery from a very real, horrible time period. Slave ownership will of course be mentioned on this blog, that's unavoidable, but just like the mention of rape may happen on this blog from time to time, it will be in reference to a past event or speaking about the subject in general, not roleplaying a scene of it. Please respect this rule, I was hesitant to make this blog at first, because I know it makes some people uncomfortable, but I won't glorify such a horrible real thing that happened to so many people.

Exclusives/Mains

Just a head's up, unless I develop a bunch of chemistry with a particular portrayal of a muse I'm not likely to agree to being exclusives with anyone, unless perhaps it's a very niche or divergent character that has formed a good relationship of some sort with John and I'd have trouble interacting with other versions of that muse. For major characters I just feel it would be unfair to say no to someone who I click with in every other way, solely because I have already befriended someone else writing that character.

I will, however, discuss becoming mains with someone whom I've either developed or plotted out detailed storylines/interactions with regarding our specific portrayals of our characters. This means that I tend to reply to them quickly when I'm online, or may make little gifts (moodboards, aesthetic things, mini ficlets, whatever) for them unprompted, have a verse dedicated just to them, etc. Even if it seems like we haven't done much on Tumblr, there may be a lot of off-site development on Discord or whatnot that led to us plotting out intricate stories for our muses.

Current Mains:

Alexander Hamilton - @quillborn

⭐️ Send private messages.

⭐️ Send my character asks/starters/memes.

⭐️ Tag me in things.

⭐️ Ask to plot or ship.

⭐️ Ask for angst, fluff, etc.

⭐️ Submit things to me & my muse.

⭐️ Do crack and other ridiculous things with me!

⭐️ Like my RP threads.

⭐️ Like my personal posts.

⭐️ Comment on my personal/OOC posts (if you want to).

⭐️ Comment on my crack threads.

⭐️ Instant Message (IM) me if you'd like to talk, whether we're friends already or not!

DON'T

⭐️ Send hateful messages to me about other people and especially my mutuals; doesn't count if it's about the muse and not the person playing them, however. Also, if I’ve got beef with someone for whatever reason, don’t harass them/send hate to them on my behalf, please. I don’t condone anonymous abuse, attacking others, or harassment. I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself, I promise.

⭐️ Introduce yourself with ‘wanna ship?’ For one, I prefer if we’ve at least started a roleplay together, or have spoken OOC. Auto shipping doesn’t always work out and I hate promising people something only to realize there’s zero chemistry, because then I feel like I’m letting them down.

⭐️ Come into my inbox with just ‘wanna rp?’ and that’s it. Please at least have some idea of what you want to roleplay, it’s not very fun when someone approaches you to RP but then doesn’t offer up any suggestions at all. Remember, you are always free to send me memes, whether we’re mutuals or not, and hit me up for whatever plot you think might interest me! I want to hear about it!

⭐️ Spam me with "reminder" messages if I've already acknowledged you the first few times.

⭐️ Reblog my RP threads if you're not a participant in them.

⭐️ Send me anonymous OOC hate. Hate for Laurens is fine, it's just another form of roleplay.

⭐️ Kill off my character or severely injure/maim my character without permission or having plotted something involving that with me first.

⭐️ Follow me if you're a porn blog. I don't mind blogs that post NSFW content, or smut a lot, etc. I mean blogs that aren't for RP and are literally just a normal looking blog until you click on it and the header and first twenty posts are hardcore nudity and porn. I hate those things.

⭐️ Shame my ships.

⭐️ Complain about my tagging. I put my smut under a 'read more' without exception and tag them as "NSFW //" with two dashes. Things that are not necessarily graphic but still have sexual undertones go under "Suggestive //". I use these tags to avoid attracting attention from porn blogs and porn bots that track certain key words, as such I do not tag my content with "Smut" or trigger words such as "dick, oral, anal, nudity, etc", please block my NSFW and Suggestive tags if you're uncomfortable. Triggery subjects (mentions of rape, animal abuse, torture, mental illness) will be tagged under the name of said trigger with a space and two dashes, example: "Self Harm //", “Suicidal Ideation //” or "PTSD //".

⭐️ Godmod my character. If you’re not sure what is/isn’t okay, come talk to me! I don’t bite! If you’re looking for an example of god mod behavior, here: “X lunged at Laurens, taking him by surprise, and hit him square in the nose, causing blood to spurt.” It might not seem like a big deal but it means that you decided how your character’s actions affected my muse, and not only that, didn’t give him a chance to dodge or anything. Not cool.

⭐️ Ship with me without permission (sending in shippy asks is A-Ok if you're interested in exploring a ship between our muses, I'm talking about things like claiming that our muses are in a relationship without discussing it with me, referencing dates or sexual acts that never happened, etc. I ship mainly with chemistry otherwise things get boring fast.

⭐️ Assume/act like our characters know each other/are closely connected (friends/family/lovers) if we've never discussed it unless it is established in canon/history. This especially goes for original characters. I'm open to Laurens forming deep relationships with OCs obviously, but those have to be developed in character, not just assumed from the first interaction.

⭐️ Attempt to roleplay with me if you are not a roleplay blog/or if you're just trying to RP as "yourself." I don't do Character X Reader imagines stuff. I don't RP with 'fan' accounts, only RP blogs. You can still send asks so long as you're not trying to initiate an RP scenario. For example, asking Laurens what his hobbies are, asking for a blessing etc? That's fine. Spamming me with different actions "you" are talking to Laurens is weird. Stop that. I will also not RP with blogs that claim to roleplay as real life people, such as Markiplier, that's super creepy. This does NOT apply to "historical fiction" roleplay (obviously since that's what this blog is), which is considered its own genre of literature. I'm talking about the above where people will 'roleplay' as real life, currently alive people like YouTube celebrities and ship them with their friends, even if they've made it clear that they're uncomfortable with it.

⭐️ Get angry at me for doing something you don't like if you don't even have a rules page for me to go by. It's not fair; you can't expect your partners to just read your mind and magically know how you feel. If something bothers you let me know, I’ll make a note about it so I avoid it during our interactions!

⭐️ Use me as a meme resource blog without ever interacting with me. I don't require "reblog karma" for you to follow me, partners are more than welcome to reblog from me, but if we never interact and I just occasionally see you reblog fifteen posts from my meme tag and then disappear again I'm not gonna be happy. Go to the source or to an archived blog no longer getting notifications, please!

⭐️ Reblog my Meta/Headcanons. If they're from a different blog it's fine but the ones I've personally written are for MY portrayal of Laurens. I work hard on most of my stuff and I'd prefer if you didn't reblog it, not because you aren't allowed to have the same headcanon ideas as me, but because then it ends up getting liked or reblogged by lots of other people, spamming my notifications, etc.

OCs & Multimuses

I love OCs and multi-muse blogs (I have my own multimuse sideblog over at @historyremembers, which has other 18th century characters including the Hamilton children and some OCs), so feel free to interact! That being said, please have an about page of some sort on your blog. I can't follow back blogs that have absolutely no information available regarding their character(s). I don't RP with OC children of Laurens. This is nothing personal, but I'm fairly certain he was gay in real life and prefer to play him that way, and he only had one child - who he never even got to meet - in real life, so it just wouldn't make sense to me for him to have other kids running around unless he'd adopted some. If you're a multimuse, I may not follow you back if I'm only familiar with two of your muses if you have a blog of fifteen characters, simply because I'd prefer to keep my dash clean and only have characters/fandoms I'm familiar with on it. I'll still RP with you if you have a character I'm interested in! I just might not follow back if the majority of your characters I do not know, I apologize for this.

If you’ve made it to the end of this, congrats! I know it couldn’t be easy (my ADHD brain was frustrated trying to just write all this up) but it’s necessary so there’s not misunderstandings on what I am/am not willing to RP. I won’t ask for a password since I trust most people to have the courtesy to at least skim the rules of those they want to RP with.

Have a nice day!

#Everybody Listen Up! {PSA}#Out Of The Field {OOC}#Long Post //

1 note · View note

entwinedmoon · 5 years ago

Text

John Torrington: A Portrait of the Stoker as a Young Man

(Previous posts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Different forms of art have depicted Torrington in different ways. In my last post I discussed how in music Torrington seems to be depicted as either some sort of restless spirit or reanimated man-out-of-time, with a focus on his death and the eerie undead appearance of his mummified body. There’s not much of a focus on what he was like when he was alive, with the inspiration for these works coming from the image of his dead body. Sadly, we don’t have any pictures of what he looked like when he was alive, but that doesn’t mean people haven’t tried to imagine it. In fact, Torrington’s depiction in visual artworks often focus more on what he was like when he was alive, with various attempts at reconstructing what he may have looked like before he died and was buried on Beechey.

One of the first attempts at recreating what he may have looked like comes from the Nova documentary “Buried in Ice.” At the very end of the documentary, there are artistic reconstructions of Torrington, Hartnell, and Braine. I’m not entirely sure who the artist was, but the credits list an illustrator, Wayne Schneider, and he may have been the one to draw these. I can’t find the illustrations outside of the documentary, so please forgive the bad quality of the screenshot I had to use below.

Here we have a John Torrington who looks aged before his time. He was only twenty when he died, but judging by the state of his lungs, he probably had a hard life, so he may have looked much older than his years. This is a very serious-looking Torrington, as if he were standing for a portrait or daguerreotype for several minutes and had to stay completely still.

This drawing also gives him almost shoulder-length hair. Owen Beattie was a technical consultant on the documentary, so he probably had a say in what the recreations of the Beechey Boys may have looked like. This makes me think that the hair length shown here is most likely how long his hair actually was. Yes, I know, I’m going on about his hair again, but due to the confusion over what his hair looked like, it tends to vary across artistic depictions, as we shall see.

Another thing of note in this recreation is the noticeable lines around his mouth. In the pictures of Torrington’s mummified body, there are prominent lines around his mouth, but how much of that was due to postmortem distortions and how much would have shown on his face in life is hard to know. The artwork above is not an official forensic facial reconstruction, and even official reconstructions are highly subjective, so this is just one possible interpretation.

There’s another artistic interpretation of Torrington from around the same time. Remember the children’s book Buried in Ice? Well, what’s a kid’s book without some illustrations?

Now that’s the face of a man who got sick of backbreaking, lung-destroying labor in Manchester and said, “Screw it, I’m going to the Arctic.” The hair here is similar to that depicted in the documentary illustration, but the lines around his mouth are softened. The illustrations for this book were done by Janet Wilson, and she brought a liveliness to Torrington’s face that the somber drawing from the documentary greatly lacked. He still has a slightly careworn face, but he looks closer to his actual age. Janet Wilson also did wonderful detailing on the shirt that he was buried in, which he is wearing in her drawing. The kerchief tied around his head in death is here tied around his neck—and I love the inclusion of the blue border around the kerchief, which is not really noticeable in the photos from his exhumation but is noted in the reports on his burial clothes.

I’m fond of this picture because it gives Torrington some personality beyond that of a sad, tragic victim. It makes him seem like a real person who lived, with a bit of a sly and carefree attitude. He also gives off a kind of back alley salesman vibe, like he knows a guy who knows a guy who could sell you a kidney. But I especially like it because he’s smiling as he’s speaking, and after seeing picture after picture of Torrington’s frozen death grimace, I would love to know what he looked like when he smiled.

There’s another artistic reconstruction which I found on YouTube. It’s by artist M.A. Ludwig, who has a YouTube channel (under the name JudeMaris) dedicated to facial reconstructions of various historical figures, including all three of the Beechey Boys. Here’s Ludwig’s interpretation of what Torrington may have looked like:

He looks much younger here than in either of the two previous interpretations. This John Torrington looks like a young man ready for adventure, with hopes and dreams of a long future. He has slightly shorter hair in this interpretation, but also, he’s blond. I’ve noticed confusion online about the color as well as length of Torrington’s hair, with a lot of people these days thinking he’s blond. I think that may have something to do with the wood shavings he’s resting on in photos, which as I discussed in a previous post, some people have confused for his hair. I’ve also encountered a few versions of the usual photos of him where the lighting looks different, resulting in the few visible wisps of his hair looking much lighter than official reports have described them. Interestingly, the blond hair makes him look younger and gives him an innocent and almost naïve appearance, completely different from the sly, I’ve-got-a-bridge-to-sell-you Torrington from the children’s book.

Now I’m going to move on to an artist who is well known to Franklinites. Kristina Gehrmann (@iceboundterror) is a German illustrator and graphic artist who specializes in works with a historical or fantasy setting. She has drawn many pictures inspired by the Franklin Expedition, and I have bought several of them from her shop on Etsy, including three different versions of the ships Terror and Erebus sailing in the Arctic or caught in the ice. Currently, those three pictures are on my wall next to a large painting I inherited from my grandparents of two non-Franklin-related ships that I pretend are Terror and Erebus anyway (I call this wall The Boat Place). Gehrmann also wrote and illustrated a graphic novel in German about the Franklin Expedition, Im Eisland, published in three parts and available through Amazon. But if, like me, you don’t speak German, Gerhmann has made an English translation, titled Icebound, available for free here.

Gehrmann has actually drawn two slightly different versions of Torrington, one of which is more like the artistic reconstructions shown above and the other is of a fictionalized Torrington in the graphic novel Im Eisland. I love both of her interpretations, but they are of two different styles. Let’s start with the graphic novel version.

Im Eisland uses a manga-like style, so this version of Torrington is based in that. It gives him a wide-eyed, youthful—and joyful—appearance (when he isn’t dying of consumption, of course). This is the happiest and liveliest Torrington I’ve seen. The manga art style results in some simplified features and a rather modern hairstyle, but there’s nothing wrong with using some artistic license to better convey the personality of a character.

Gerhmann’s other illustration of Torrington is possibly my favorite, even if it might not be the most accurate:

This is a lovely illustration, and it really plays up Torrington’s youth, making him look almost angelic. I’m going to be completely honest—he is very pretty. This version of Torrington is an incredibly handsome young lad, and if Torrington really looked like this, then I think he probably would have been very popular in life. I could go on, but I probably shouldn’t.

I also love the amazing detail on the shirt. You may have noticed some slight variations in these recreations when it comes to his shirt, and I think that’s due to the fact that his shirt looks downright complicated in the few pictures we have of it. There are horizontal stripes and vertical stripes. There’s a high collar and buttons and all these folds that it can be hard to see exactly what it looks like, and unfortunately there were no textile experts present during the exhumation, so there was no one to lay out the shirt and take a closer look at it before redressing and burying him. But every time someone gives their best attempt at figuring out the puzzle that is his shirt, I’m happy, and this one looks very close to how it may have actually looked. My one issue with this picture is that his hair is short and blond, which doesn’t fit the description provided in the autopsy report. But the facial features look true, so I tend to overlook that little nitpick.

This version of Torrington, by the way, is probably the most well-known interpretation. In fact, when you search for John Torrington on Google, this picture crops up:

I have even seen online articles about Torrington that use this picture as a reconstruction example. This is in no way an official reconstruction of him, but it is by far the most popular. (And yes, I bought a copy of this picture, too.)

While reconstructions of what Torrington may have looked like when alive are common among artists depicting him, there is some artwork that uses images of his mummified body as inspiration instead. Irish artist Vincent Sheridan has a gorgeous collection of work inspired by the Franklin Expedition. Several of these feature the mummy of John Torrington, including an etching aptly named “John Torrington.”

Torrington appears as a ghostly apparition in many of these prints, alongside the repeated imagery of a skull, two very physical signs of the human cost of the expedition. While most of the bodies of the men lost have yet to be found, their bones scattered or buried across King William Island, Torrington’s body is a stark reminder that this tragedy did happen, and that these men did die, not just vanish off the face of the earth. I’ve described Torrington as the poster boy for the expedition before, and here his death seems to represent the death of everyone who sailed with Franklin, his face a haunting piece of evidence for the fate that met them all.

Now, I’m not entirely sure how best to transition between that solemn reminder of death and this last piece of Torrington-inspired artwork that I would like to mention, so I’m just going to dive in. This next artwork also uses the image of Torrington’s mummy as inspiration, but in a completely different manner from Sheridan’s work. I refer, of course, to the John Torrington plushie.

This adorable little mummy plushie was created by craft artist Nancy Soares, aka sinnabunnycrafts on Etsy (@sinnaminie). Whether you think a plushie of a mummified body is in good taste or not, you have to agree that this little guy is freakin’ cute. I might be slightly biased, though, because he was originally crafted for a custom request from my sister as a birthday present for me. But now anyone can buy him or his Beechey buddies. This little guy even made a special appearance during John Geiger’s presentation at the Mystic Seaport Museum’s symposium, Franklin Lost and Found.

I think the fact that there’s a plushie of John Torrington is amazing. People used to take pictures of the recently deceased and use their dead loved one’s hair in jewelry to remember them, so this isn’t that different. To me, at least, it’s a memento to honor him, reminding me that Torrington was more than just a boy who died but a boy who once lived as well.

It is also super adorable.

Next: Torrington as depicted in literature. Spoiler alert! He dies. A lot.

<<Back | Next >>

Torrington Series Masterlist

#john torrington #franklin expedition

30 notes · View notes

comicteaparty · 4 years ago

Text

July 4th-July 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 4th, 2020 to July 10th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What was an unexpected aspect of making webcomics you didn’t realize before making one yourself?

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

How much our comic and it's story we're going to change during the years of creation was the biggest and most jarring aspect for sure. There's scripts and thumbs that were all made before we ventured out to make GJS with paths completely different from what we initially thought we would take that have completely changed how we approach not only writing but reading webcomics too. Webcomics as a medium have the biggest connection to time, whether it be production or the consumption, they have this opportunity to exist and transform in the long hours it takes to enjoy and read them. It's honestly one of the biggest advantages imho. To see a story slowly unfold, listening to ur audience reactions, peer critiques, or new inspiration can make such a drastic and intense impact on a long form work- its both jaw dropping and humbling to be apart of!(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

For me it was the community aspect of comics. I knew a community existed on the reader side of things (comments!), but I didn't expect the creator side to be how it is! I don't know why, but for some reason I kind of always thought that all of us were sort of throwing our comics out from the void... I guess that was me looking at comics from a reader's point of view! But as soon as I started making comics, I started meeting people who made them too... and it's been incredible!

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

@deo I never really understood what an internet community or internet friends were until I started making a webcomic

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah, I had been in (and quickly decided to not be in 0_0) gaming communities, but nothing really as wonderful as what I've found through comics. Closest I had gotten other than that was comments on social media

Shizamura 🌟 O Sarilho

Community definitely one of the big things, much like Deo pointed. I was kinda expecting to have get connections through readers, but it's much more with other creators, which is super satisfying in it's own way. Also gonna second Krispy's comment about how time affects how you see your story's past and future. A lot of things changed in the past four years that made my comic change as well and having so much time to think each individual scene allows them to be much more complex and interesting than they would when I first thought them through. Having the time really helps. This also kinda touches the topic of personal change too, which affects how I write and what feels most important to focus on and that's interesting to think about as well

eliushi [Keyspace]

How long things will take, the longer the story goes on! I started out being able to complete a page in 2h but then I found more I wanted to try on each page (colours, layout, composition etc) and even wanted to extend certain scenes. With 500 pages planned, I definitely thought I’d be farther along by now, heading into AWT’s first year anniversary in a month. That being said, I’m also enjoying the ride and it’s all thanks to the great community here and making connections with other comics folks/readers. I never expected to get comments and so each one has been a treasure to read.

Desnik

An unexpected aspect of making webcomics is how much people respond to them. I figured I'd be creating into a void but I met so many people as a result of publishing my dinosaur comic

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Ditto on the webcomic community. I didn't realize how far reaching it was to have a community that supports each other. And I've enjoyed meeting so many wonderful and creative people who raised each other up. Another thing I didn't expect, however, was how invested I got into my comic.(edited)

At first I was doing it mostly for fun. But the more I delved into it, the easier it was to get sucked into my story and want to draw it out. And as a result taking it a lot more seriously.

Desnik

yeah sometimes I miss my dinosaur comic even though I had some pretty good reasons for moving on. It was created out of desperation and evolved into something that made me feel good about myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

How much work and time it takes to keep a weekly update going with no backlog

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yeah same

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

For me, I didn't realize how much it would affect my life to make comics, and vice versa. In a weird way, I didn't know how interrelated the two were, or how easily life could interfere with my comic, or the inverse.

eliushi [Keyspace]

Making comics became a lifestyle for me

@Haruh2 (Colony Life) When I had no backlog I was updating every two weeks with 7 pages per update; so about 14h of work. But this is with a finished script. I am also told I work fast.

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

omg

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

That's soooo much, Eli!

That's at least twice as much as I do (edited)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

I hadn't realized how much I put myself into my comic! My friends who read it have all said that it's incredibly in my voice and reflects my opinions and worldviews Before I shared it with people I hadn't thought of it in that way at all

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

As an artist, I didn't expect how my comic production and mindset will change. Once I started comics, it brought out my ideas from thoughts to a physical form. I start to invest more time into it. Each project evolved through each chapter. How to balance script writing to a polished piece. I put alot of time and research in my works. It makes me glad to hear other creators do the same. I'm not the crazy artist who's wasting her time. One of the positive change was meeting other creators, how we give advice and receive praise.(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

The support has been amazing. It makes the work less lonely

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Fish, oh for sure! I didn't realize until recently how much my characters are all just facets of myself!

eliushi [Keyspace]

(I don’t work that quickly anymore and I’m making big changes to the format soon so it’s going to be a Transition)

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I've been in school with art students who never made comics, so when I came to CTP discord, reading comic discussions. It was comforting and fun. I enjoy the cooperation our group has, helping each other.

eliushi [Keyspace]

I like to commiserate about the unique challenges comics have

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Hahaha, yeahhhhh

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

I agree, it's different from illustrations. Different approach(edited)

eliushi [Keyspace]

I am perpetually balancing time spent on a panel vs how much time the reader will spend on it

Vs illustration: lemme make all the details

Joichi [Hybrid Dolls]

Oh I agree, each panel takes longer than it takes to read it. Hence I dislike when readers call manga creators 'lazy'

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

how much time does it take to read one of my pages?

20 seconds?(edited)

haha

e.e

wait is that emoji supposed to be someone rolling their eyes??

i jsut looked it up

i might've been using it wrong this whole time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Pacing

It's way different than in novels, and definitely came as a shock at the start

eliushi [Keyspace]

Yeah have to play to the strength of the medium. Still imagining AWT as an animated movie written from a novel, in the format of a comic

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Haha, same kinda

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

@eliushi [Keyspace] ah haha, that makes me feel better about my update habits, but thats a good goal for me to shoot for now that im learning a new way to make long comics specifically

cAPSLOCK (Tailslide)

I completely underestimated the amount of effort that would have to go into formatting, website design and maintenance, etc. If I got to do it again, a little more research beforehand probably would’ve saved me a lot of time and hassle.

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I really overestimated the "if you build it they will come" aspect of webcomics lol. Like, you actually have to work to advertise your comic in order for people to read it. Nobody ever got hundreds of readers just from posting their comic onto some hosting site without doing major marketing work.(edited)

dako

yeah, I feel that

I've never really been an advertising type before my comic, im learning to just get used to it

Deo101 [Millennium]

I've not really done much advertising tbh, it makes me uncomfortable

dako

it feels kinda...embarrassing? might be too harsh of a word

i dunno

Deo101 [Millennium]

its just uncomfortable idk! i feel awkward doing it

dako

yeah, same ive done it a few times on reddit but i have to force myself

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

it does feel, odd..hell most of the time it just feels like i open the door to my house and toss a bunch of paper to the wind hoping someone can see it

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah, I dont know if ive done anything other than posting updates on twitter and talking about it in groups like this

and twitter is mostly just me talkin to people who already read it...

idk talking about my work without being asked first makes me feel like im inserting myself where im not allowed

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Self promo got MUCH less intimidating for me when I started thinking of it like: "okay, so my comic is made for readers like me, people who share my tastes. That means I only need to answer one question: what can I say to get me to check out this comic? I don't need to impress anyone else. I just need to appeal to me." (since "me" is my target audience)

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm ^^

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

But take it with a grain of salt because I'm still not really promoing

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

exactly, thats why i find it hard to tweet about it most of the time, but i get the whole if i dont care about to talk without being asked no one else will either

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah lmao mood im like what would get me to read... hmmm... probably exactly what im doing.... I'll keep it up then :)

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea i get excited to draw out certain parts..but wouldnt want to just tweet about all the little tidbits of the story ruining it for others

Deo101 [Millennium]

sweats

dako

i made a whole side twitter for my comic cuz talking about it on my main intimidated me too much

it is my containment chamber

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

hm may do that, just to say i did it and to get my mind away from the thought

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

yeah same

Deo101 [Millennium]

My main is just whatever I want it to be idk. Its kinda for all my comics, since my comics are all I want to talk about

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

though my main is mostly just retweeting from my side twitter lol

Deo101 [Millennium]

it removes a lot of the pressure of like what if my followers dont wanna see this??

cause they wouldnt be here if they didnt wanna see it

cause its all Ive been doing the whole time

dako

thats a good point

i had my main way before my comic so most of my mutuals/followers dont follow for that

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

yea, it can feel abit disorienting when there is no interaction one way or another on anything you tweet (also if twitter has messed up and causes your tweets to not show up)

Deo101 [Millennium]

but yeah I dont really advertise cause it just makes me so uncomfortable >.<

dako

understandable

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm kind of somewhere in between. I advertise my comic mostly because it is all I wanna talk about, like Deo. But I also don't think it's gotten me many readers. Most of my readers came as far as I can tell because I was making something that appealed to them. (The whole "if you build it, they will come" thing.) Although, I really don't have a big audience, I do have an audience, and I am certain most of them came from me just posting.

I think it's determined a lot by luck, and also, how big your niche's audience is to begin with (and some skill tbh).

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah like I think "gay sci fi" is a p big niche so ive got a big amount of people I could potentially reach

which makes it much easier to draw people in

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I'm particularly lucky, I guess, that fantasy/romance has a lot of readers (also more competition, but...)

Deo101 [Millennium]

yeah fantasy romance is a damn big one

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

eh i think im in an awkward void with my action/drama story (since im not doing romance drama)

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I just go with the mindset: "what makes my fantasy/romance different from the rest" and go from there.

Deo101 [Millennium]

mhm

tbh I dont think my sci fi romance is doing anything special?

but im having fun so :) I dont rlly care about that hahahha

dako

having fun the most important thing

Deo101 [Millennium]

its not my goal to make somthing mindblowing ^^ truley im just here for a good time

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I mean, LGBT+-inclusive sci-fi is pretty unique

I haven't seen a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

It's clear that your characters are people, and that's special, regardless of how common/uncommon

dako

think if i didnt love my comic as much as i do id have stopped a long time ago

Deo101 [Millennium]

thats true keiiii, thank you <3

also yeah its Sad that theres not more LGBT+ sci fi cause its like youve got aliennnssssssssssssssssssss you can do whatever you waaaaaant

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I knooowww

Deo101 [Millennium]

guess it shows what ppl want or something

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

yup

Deo101 [Millennium]

off topic

so to make it back on topic

I underestimated how much people would like gay sci fi GJKLAGJLAJLKAGJSLAKGJKL

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

One thing I learned specifically with my current comic... I did not realize how much difference the reader's cultural background would make in terms of interpreting my story.

Deo101 [Millennium]

!!!!!

I actually almost mentioned you in class once tbh keiii

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Big oversight, in retrospect

Deo101 [Millennium]

saying "someone I know makes a comic which they noticed, it's interpreted completely differently just depending on cultural backgrounds" kind of a thing

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

like I would not have made the comic any different, but I would have approached the... presentation differently. Like, talk about it differently

Deo101 [Millennium]

cause we were talking about how narratives affect rt

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

I guess another thing that was unexpected about making webcomics was... there are way more people with my exact tastes than I thought

Deo101 [Millennium]

and I was saying that I think the viewer's narrative affects art more than the artists narrative

I mean, the artists narrative obviously is what makes it so.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

In the eyes of the beholder

Deo101 [Millennium]

but interpretations and all that... yeah!!!

so. actually I might have offhandedly mentioned you I cant remember if I did or not

lemme check

I did! very like "second hand" offhandedly mentioning though ahaha

hope that doesnt make you uncomfortable GSKLGSJALGJLGK no one replied to me so e.e

in the class I mean

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I am super uncomfortable and offended !!!!!

j/k

Deo101 [Millennium]

hgjkghsjkagskajgdhsakgjhgjd

but... yeah idk starting out I truly just was making it cause I really love my characters a lot, the idea that other people would like them too is very unexpected :) in a good way

I also definitely didnt expect how important enviornments were e.e

didnt plan those well enough.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

that relatable feel

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I really desperately advertise my comic everywhere. I don't really know how to do marketing effectively though & I don't know if its working

eliushi [Keyspace]

I find what increased readership most consistently is still the feature aspect from the hosting sites. It’s really about finding the right readers/right readers finding you

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Same, I'm basically a rounding error away from being 100% reliant on the features for subs

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

I don't think my comic has ever been featured on the hosting sites. My numbers have always been low on Tapas and maybe thast why

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Yeah, features help a lot

I've been featured on Webtoon, but not Tapas, and you can really see the difference in readership there

Deo101 [Millennium]

Ive been featured on both, uhh in a couple of diff places, if you wanted a breakdown of how many readers i got from the diff spots and stuff ever just lmk im happy to share

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I've been featured on both. It certainly got people to check it out and even sub, but retaining those people (even if they've subbed!!!) is a different story. I think my story is just not the right type for the platforms, but eh, even if 99% of the platform users aren't into the kinda thing I'm making, 1% increase is still an increase.

Which is another thing I learned over the course of running this comic, specifically (since the internet has changed so much after my first two attempts). Just because the majority of your subs don't actually read the comic, doesn't mean your work sucks. Today's internet caters to casual users, and there's a bajillion factors affecting who's actually reading your stuff.

dako

i agree

my comic has never been featured on either, and webtoons doesnt have a guideline on what they pick but tapas does and my comic doesnt really meet their featuring requirements so i dont think either site ever will feature mine haha

so i gotta advertise on reddit and use twitter tags a lot

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Don't go too crazy with twitter tags; they can make people zone out and not look at your tweet.

dako

i try to use 5 at the most, i know too many is unpleasant to look at haha

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh huh, my rule of thumb is to use 1-2 on twitter and as many as I can on Insta but I’m no expert lol

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Yeah, IG seems to be where you want all the tags XD

varethane

Webtoon's algorithms are like turning a hose on and off lol

The difference between views and sub growth during periods of being featured vs not is stark(edited)

carcarchu

i've never been featured by webtoons but i've seen series grow from 100 followers to 10k overnight

not an exaggeration

varethane

I put my new comic on webtoon in november 2019, and in 1 month I crawled up to.... maybe 50 subs?(granted I only put up one episode and then paused for a bit)

Then in December I started updating it weekly and got placed in the new and hot section of the app

And bam, 6k subs

It last 2 weeks and then the section updated and all growth stopped, and subs went down by 10 or so over the next week

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

(Omg featured is like the new Daily Deviation goals from DA way back in the day!)

varethane

Until it got another feature on a different part of the website and went up another 2k. It was like playing with the handle on a faucet lol

dako

I got some pretty good growth during canvas week, but beyond that not really

I get 1-2 subs after an update if I'm lucky

varethane

I feel like their algorithms are very reliant on the regular rotation of features that staff have to do manuallt

Outside of that, discoverability is quite weak

Mostly because of the volume of comics on there

boogeymadam

same boat as vare. the only thing i know about webtoons features is they have stated a couple times one of their recquirements is consistant updating, so if u skip a week that disqualifies u for a lil while i imagine

varethane

I wonder what they count as consistent. I was doing every 2 weeks for awhile, but this month I'm gonna try weekly to see if it helps me earn more $$ from ads :U

dako

I wish there was more incentive for readers to check out the new section on webtoons and tapas

carcarchu

i have found some amazing gems in the new section

i swear i've seen stuff in featured that were not at all updated consistently

dako

I have too, there's a ton of good comics that get overlooked because they're not in the front page

some featured comics havent updated in months sometimes

varethane

I definitely would not have considered myself consistent at the time of the first feature, considering there was a gap of a month between episode 1 and 2 lpl

carcarchu

the consistently updating thing is more of a recommendation than a requirement i feel?(edited)

boogeymadam

ooohh good to know!!

varethane

I'm sure it cant be a hard rule, especially for comics that have just launched

boogeymadam

im just going off their canvas qna's from last year

dako

if it's actually a hard rule for staff to feature comics that regularly update they break that rule a lot

i also heard a bot picks up comics too

carcarchu

well i at least think the staff or bots or whatever at webtoons are doing a better job with features than tapas is

tapas is always pushing their premium comics way more than their indie stuff

boogeymadam

tapas needs to bring new comics onto the frontpage more often than it does, yeah

dako

yeah I agree

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I mean, I get why they put premium on the front page. But I feel more variety would help them because it's more interesting for the readers?

dako

I can't tell whats premium or not with tapas sometimes

boogeymadam

i do like that they've been asking stuff like this in the forums tho

carcarchu

more distinction would be helpful to me too dako

i don't think its as clear as it could be

dako

yeah, webtoons at least it's clear what is and what isnt featured or canvas

Jib {WIP haha}

Huh, anyone remember that really popular writing podcast? I forgot the name

Or have any recommendations I guess

Moral_Gutpunch

Terrible writing advice? It's sarcastic

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

is this related to the topic?

Moral_Gutpunch

It's a podcast about writing, so I'm going to say yes.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

I think snuffysam meant the weekly topic for the channel

Moral_Gutpunch

Just for this channel, no. I'm too new to know that.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Please check #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Sound more like someone forgot context than the rules

That's why I'm hardly here. I don't know stuff people who've been here for a long time know like podcasts or older comics(edited)

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Basically each of the channels under "CTP Activities" on this server has its own topic of the week.

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

It's not a matter of being here for a long time or not. This channel is used solely for discussing the weekly topics, and such information can be found in #rules

Moral_Gutpunch

Kudos then. I came for creator babble only.

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

For general webcomic creation-related advice (either seeking or giving) and such, #shop_talk usually is the place!

creator_babble is for answering the topic of the week

It's not actually for generalized "creator babble" despite the name.

dako

looks like they left

Jib {WIP haha}

Oh my bad, it’s been a while since I read the rules, I brought up the new subject

keii’ii (Heart of Keol)

Happens!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

No problem, we were just reminding you all :)

Jib {WIP haha}

Ty for that then haha

dako

I think one unexpected thing for me is that no one tells you how crazy the highs and lows can be

well I guess people do but you really don't know until the highs and lows happen to you if that makes sense

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Oh God, that's so true

Burnout is way more dreadful than I could ever guess prior to experiencing it

Feather J. Fern

One unexpected thing for me was how many people I would meet because of my comic. It surprised me greatly that I found so many cool people through the comic community and made the friends I have made now. Love you all

rajmews

The unexpected thing for me was just how much you have to just...predict...what the market will want to read. Like even if you research a whole lot, and you draw really well, and have been doing art professionally, you can still strike out. It's a humbling experience, but being able to just let go of poorly received pages and move on and try things differently is a lot of the battle for doing a webcomic. It teaches you how to fail gracefully because...it's all a process of learning your readers better. Even if they're few at first.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

My major unexpected thing was how much my initial ideas change as I work through a page. Everything from the expressions, dialogue, and layout can change as I look at it and 'solve' it more closely than I did in thumbnails. There are pages I look back on and realize they are ENTIRELY different than what I had first sketched. And they're better for it. Allowing myself the freedom to edit during the artwork... it's created some majorly awesome opportunities.

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yes!!!!! Me too!!!

It's exciting thoufh

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

Absolutely same

Could plan something out meticulously but then change it in the last 2 secs before uploading

Deo101 [Millennium]

Yup... I don't thumbnail much ahead of where I'm at cause of this(edited)

I thumbnail a scene at a time, and then usually I end up changing stuff halfway through ahahfjjdkskdkss

varethane

Same hat, haha. I often make changes at every stage-- even the thumbnails will often depart from the script. If anything, I wish I made even more changes-- I feel like my page layouts tend to be pretty standard, I do a lot of pages with the 3 rows of 2 panels each, and I want to break out of that more. But... well, that's a work in progress.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

1 note · View note

bigskydreaming · 5 years ago

Note

I dont want to intrude on your convo with your friend but I've been reading all your posts about your changelings verse since you started making them. Is the Alicia you mentioned next to Boyd in the poart about the changeling market meant to be Boyd's little sister from TW? What's her change, if you don't mind telling??

LOL no worries, and you’re not intruding, I don’t mind comments or weighing in on any post I make ever, unless its specifically under a cut and I’m like ‘plz dont reblog Im gonna delete this in ten minutes anyway, IM JUST HAVING A MOMENT OKAY’ lolol.

So yeah, you’re fine, and if you follow me because of TW which you obvsly know well enough to recognize Alicia’s name, you probably know how much I love exploring minor or barely ever used characters, haha. Alicia Boyd is no exception and I have a ridiculous number of headcanons and places I’ve used her in various unposted WIPs considering that she made all of one appearance on the show and it was a hallucination/flashback. BUT WHATEVER.

Anyway, Alicia’s Change is one of my faves, and given that she’s such a barely there presence in TW, she’s a character I’m pretty comfortable keeping just as she is in my TW changeling headcanons, when writing the official ‘to be published’ stuff in this ‘verse.

All Changelings’ physical changes and magic are in some way related to their personalities and individual traits, even if that connection isn’t immediately obvious. And even though the Changelings are supernatural in origin, given that their magic reflects who they are and who they are is a product of a 21st century modern society, I wanted some of them to have changes and magic that seems in some ways almost sci-fi or technology based, even while still definitively being magic at its source.

So for no particular reason other than just its my head, I’ll headcanon what I want, I’ve always pictured Alicia as a STEM girl, very much into science and math, and her change and magic ties into that.

Basically, she looks just like she did before she was Changed, so she’s a fourteen year old black girl who’s just a slightly older version of the character we saw briefly on TW….except for the fact that she’s at all times surrounded by what appear to be like…ghostly versions of herself.

Like, at any given time there’s a half dozen to a dozen different versions of herself, totally intangible and somewhat faded/transparent like a photo that hasn’t been fully developed….and they’re all ‘orbiting’ her, for lack of a better term….kinda like the electrons of an atom orbit it.

And these other versions of herself all look slightly different upon closer inspection - different hairstyles, clothing, a couple have glasses, etc….and some appear like they’re floating in mid-air, others like their feet are sinking into the ground….and most of them usually look like they’re just hovering or flickering around Alicia like half-formed images or ghosts that are all moving, doing something - whether appearing like they’re talking, walking, fighting, reading, any number of things….and all of them seemingly paying no attention to what’s going on around Alicia here and now, if they’re even aware of it.

Which they are though, because the thing is, these ‘satellite versions of herself’ are all alternate versions of herself existing currently in other parallel universes where the Change still occurred and they all ended up with the same magic as this Alicia.

So essentially, there are between ten and sixteen versions of Alicia, spread across an equivalent number of parallel universes….who are all Changelings with the exact same magic….which connects them all.

Just like they appear like ghostly images of this Alicia here, this Alicia appears as one of the ghostly images hovering around each of the other versions of herself in their realities.

And despite them always looking like they’re doing their own thing for the most part and oblivious to anything happening in a different reality, that’s just a matter of them learning after a loooot of practice and trial and error, how to primarily just focus on their main reality and only keep a vague/back of their mind awareness trained on what’s happening with the other versions of herself via their magical connection.

Whenever something big happens to one of them though, no matter which reality, like if one of them is in danger, the others can immediately stop what they’re doing in their home realities and pay attention to the one who’s actively in danger….because all the Alicias can communicate with each other, share knowledge and life experiences and skills with each other, and so whenever one of them really needs the others, the others can all focus on them and come to their aid or support them in a variety of ways, even without being physically present.

And some of these parallel universes are more similar than others, and some of them are just sliiiiightly out of sync with the others….like one of the Alicias lives in a universe that for the most part is almost identical to this Alicia’s universe….except its timeline is like, thirty seconds ahead of this one’s.

Meaning while its not foolproof, due to the very very minor differences in realities resulting in the people in each reality making slightly different choices….that 30 seconds ahead Alicia tends to for the most part be able to give this Alicia a 30 seconds heads up to any unexpected danger.

And there’s a bunch of other ways their magic is helpful too….each of the Alicias’ has their own fields of study…remember since Changeling magic reflects the person, the fact that these Alicias all have the same magic is because all of these versions of her are precocious little science and math prodigies in some way….but they all have slightly different interests and scientific and mathematic pursuits they’ve applied themselves towards or decided to study in earnest. Which means any one of them can at any time draw on the knowledge possessed by one of the others due to studying a specific field that the other one doesn’t know a ton about. Or they can just talk to each other directly, ask each other questions about something, or use themselves as a sounding board or to bounce ideas off of each other.

So sometimes Alicia will just stop in the middle of talking to other Changelings in town here to be like hang on a sec, I need to get this….and appear to just be talking to one of her own flickering reflections in the middle of the sidewalk, while anyone who knows her well is pretty used to this and just chills like someone waiting for a friend to finish up on the phone after she had to take an urgent call, lol.

And since the Alicias don’t have to be in the same or similar physical space to still appear as satellites of each other Alicia in her home reality, one Alicia can be physically present at one side of town and really need something like….from a book she left at home on the other side of town. And one of the other Alicias is usually bound to be at home and by focusing on her, Alicia can just ask her to read from her own book what this Alicia needs to know, or like, check something online, or solve a problem real quick for her and give her the answer while she focuses on doing something else urgent at the same time, etc.

Then there’s the fact that some of the Alicias have a lot of self-defense training and teach the others some tricks, and a couple are very practiced with a variety of weapons they can pass along expertise about….one Alicia excels at picking locks, which comes in handy as this Alicia, along with about five of the others, is kinda like….the Nancy Drew of their respective Bordertowns, the pint-sized, precocious PI that other Changelings often turn to despite her age, because Alicia (all the Alicias, really) is damn good at what she does.

Also via their connection to each other’s realities, when they focus they can basically see what’s going on around one of the others, so for instance, when this one is in danger or running from someone or something like that, and a few of the others are safe and sound at home, they can just focus solely on her and everything going on around her, and its like Alicia has preternatural awareness of her surroundings then, because she’s got five or six other versions of herself flickering around her head and at her back like ghostly shadows…and all of them are shouting instructions to her or to look out for this or that or turn here, etc. So there’s basically six pairs of eyes looking out for her and keeping her apprised of everything that’s going on in her vicinity at the moment.

That really comes in handy.

Everyone can see the other versions of herself that are most present via her connection at any given moment, given that that’s the nature of her physical Change, but since its her magic specifically, only she can actually hear the other versions of her or interact with them….with very rare exceptions. None of them have quite figured out yet how the connection totally works, in the sense that some of them are in sharper focus at times than others, like, there’s always some connection between all of them, but at different times some feel further away and are harder to communicate or interact with than others. And they’re not sure if that’s because like, their different universes are engaged in some kind of movement or orbit or rotation relative to each other, or if there’s some other reason for it, but a few of them are always working on that particular puzzle at any given moment, lol.

But on a related note, on three separate occasions, when one of the Alicias in one reality was in extreme danger, another Alicia was able to temporarily ‘jump into the driver’s seat’ of that Alicia’s body, via their connection….one time was when one of the skilled fighters jumped into one of the Alicias who was being attacked by someone she’d followed during one of her investigations and turned out to be more dangerous than she’d expected….another time one of the other Alicias jumped into the body of an Alicia who’d been knocked unconscious in an accident and the other Alicia was able to assume control of her body and get her out of danger until she woke up and it bumped the other one back into her own body….and then the third time, one of the Alicias saw that this Alicia was about to get hit by a car that she didn’t see coming, and the alternate Alicia tried to warn her by projecting through their connection as hard as she could, to look out….and somehow accidentally jumped fully into this Alicia’s body and threw her(self) out of the way, before almost immediately being slingshotted back into her own body.

Except none of them have figured out how to do anything like that on command, despite it vexing a number of them. They just know it most likely has something to do with the intensity of a life or death threat or situation making it possible…even though it doesn’t always seem to happen, so they try not to rely on it.

And on one particularly memorable occasion that none of them have the faintest clue why or how it happened, eight of them went from flickering around this Alicia like satellite ghosts….to manifesting physically around her in this reality in their own bodies, and shocking the hell out of the guy trying to intimidate her, who was not at all prepared for the teen girl to suddenly be just one of a literal crowd of nine girls all staring him down. So he turned tail and ran, and they all almost instantly winked back into their home realities and returned to just being afterimage-esque glimpses of them still orbiting around her.

None of them have any idea how that happened or why, let alone how to make it happen again, which irritates the crap out of most of them because ugh, screw magic, there has to be a logical explanation for at least the mechanism of this, damn you supernatural forces with no coherent consistency!

(All the Alicias rant quite often about their inability to pin down firm rules for a lot of Changeling magic and how and why it operates the way it does. Big fans of logic, the Alicias. Not so much the bafflement).

Sooooo….she’s a LOT of fun to write, even though she’s very challenging to…maneuver around, narratively speaking, if that makes sense, lol….but like, yeah, I have a blast writing her.

The main Alicia, the one who’s always front and center, is snarky but never in a mean-spirited way. More like….her mind is always twenty steps ahead of everyone around her, sometimes literally, lol, and so she rolls her eyes a lot and sometimes makes a show of being exasperated that she has to slow down and wait for everyone to catch up, but its not because of “oh I think everyone but me is so stupid” or anything like that, its usually just….pure impatience on her part.

The second she figures something out she wants to go, go, go, move on to wherever that leads. She winds up getting in various less than totally safe situations purely because she doesn’t want to stop and grab someone to go along with her when checking something out, but also just because the nature of her magic means she’s never truly completely on her own, and she sometimes forgets to factor that in, or remember that her other selves aren’t usually physically present and able to help her out of a jam.

She’s so used to their presences that every so often she just genuinely forgets that they’re not right there in the room with her, which has caused some confusion to more than one person when meeting her for the first time and realizing those silent movie-style images of her are actually real and she’s actually communicating with them, not just talking to thin air.

Fortunately, she’s smart and capable in her own right, so when you multiply that by a factor of twelve to fifteen similar minds all attuned to all of their best interests….there’s very few situations she isn’t capable of getting out of on her own. Not that this makes her big brother facepalm any less when she blithely handwaves off a recent escapade as no big deal and something she has no idea why he’s getting so worked up about.

(I mean, she does totally get his concerns and isn’t lacking in self-awareness, its just that she’s also committed to giving him gray hairs before he’s forty. She is, among other things, still a little sister after all.)

Due to her many alternate selves, and the vast array of personality differences between each of them, that many of her close friends are at least aware of by proxy, given that even though they can’t hear her other selves, they’ve all heard her casually talk about them often enough to know them in a sense as well….

Anyway, so a lot of Changelings have nicknames based on their Changes or magic, and she’s no exception. She goes by her own name and just introduces herself as Alicia, but its not uncommon to hear others address her as or reference her as ‘Sybil.’

When asked how she feels about that name, she tends to just shrug and stare off into the distance contemplatively. “I don’t know,” she’ll say at last. “Part of me loves it, and part of me hates it.”

And then she’ll just grin as everyone around her just groans, because she’s just Like This, and just looooves being literal in little ways like that - given that she’s literally acknowledging that half of her alternates feel the one way, and the other half feel the other way.

Another common line of hers is something like “Hey, I’m only problematic on Thursdays,” or “that wasn’t me, that was Alicia Number Nine, its not my fault she hates you.”

Her magic is just weird enough and behaves just erratically and unexpectedly enough, that its hard to be entirely sure when she’s just bullshitting you and when she might actually be telling the truth and some weird power snafu had one of the other Alicias in her body the last time you interacted with her and she was short with you.

There’s never a dull moment with her.

#changelings 'verse

5 notes · View notes

little-wintry · 5 years ago

Text

So. This is Different.

((I’ll cut to the chase. I’m absolutely sick as a dog, but somehow I have enough inspiration to write something for my big WIP. Like, the big one, the series, the one I wrote three books for. Am I gonna write book 4 today? Probably not, but hopefully sometime soon. But, I really really really wanted to post this here [so maybe I can get a tad bit of validation] before going into a cough medicine induced coma and binging [bingeing? binge-ing? don’t fucking know man] buzzfeed unsolved. I will explain a few things below, since obviously context will be needed for this sad 3 1/2 page passage, but just know this isn’t your average Destiny Shit(tm).))

Before we begin, know that this is from my main WIP, Paladins, both a well-fleshed out fantasy series and a bit of a plot-mess sci-fi series. The character this is written in the perspective of, Jacklyn, is the Champion of a goddess, Mirsith. Unfortunately, said goddess also has an evil counterpart, Minsar, which recently was able to corrupt Jacklyn enough after the death of her brother. This lead Kata, Jacklyn’s wife, to go after her. This whole thing is the battle from Jacklyn’s point of view. Yes, it’s a little whack, yes, I’m crazy, but I’m throwing this out into the void for some validation and also im sick, have mercy on a poor dumb soul. And like, this is gonna sound weird, but spoilers I guess? I dont fucking know man maybe i’ll publish this someday and if someone somehow manages to come across this i don’t wanna be a dick.

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

There was a burning pain the back of her head.

It had been there for what felt like hours, now. Pulsing, biting, sending spikes of pain through her skull. She flinched with every wave of it, white spots dancing in her eyes.

Her body ached. It was as if she was stumbling through a dream, a dream heavy with smoke and heat and blood, less of a dream and more of an all-too-real nightmare. She was a whirl of blades, and anger burned hot in her chest.

Who was she angry at? She couldn’t remember. Her own sense of self was beginning to crumble, she was now nothing but a name that escaped her. Grief ran in her blood, grief for a face that was… close? Someone she knew, right?

She couldn’t remember them. Why was she grieving?

She was fighting a shadow. Not a Shadow, capital-S, the mindless servants that plagued this realm otherwise. But… a shadow, a memory, a faint silhouette against the web of storm clouds in the sky, and words, scattered and fragmented, filled the air.

She pinned the shadow down. Something about their figure, the subtle feeling of the way they fought and the way they almost seemed to try to calm her, it was… familiar.

Her dagger hovered above the figures chest. For a moment, it was all silent.

DO IT, a voice hissed in the back of her mind. She flinched. SHE IS AT YOUR MERCY, STRIKE DEEPLY INTO HER HEART.

She paused. The grief was beginning to vanish, the hot anger solidifying into a chunk of ice within her chest. Her mouth was dry, her muscles aching, and her heart, her heart was beating softly, as if it was beginning to… remember.

“N-No,” She whispered.

DO IT, YOU INSOLENT CHILD. SHE TOOK AWAY YOUR BROTHER, YOUR HOME, YOUR LIFE YOU ONCE WERE HAPPY WITH. SHE DESERVES TO DIE IN AGONY.

Lies. This voice, this consistent presence she was feeling, was lying to her, had been lying to her, this whole time. She could feel it now - the figure she had pinned was beginning to solidify, the words becoming clearer and clearer.

“Because I love you, and I always will-”

“No,” She said again, stronger. “She, she loves me. She cares about me, she’s my home-”

NO! SHE’S A VILE DEMON, A BLIGHT ON THIS WORLD-

“It doesn’t matter how much you hurt me because I know this isn’t the real you-”

Her hands were trembling now, and though she couldn’t see the figures face, she could picture it, perfectly in her mind. Warm, coffee brown eyes, onyx-dark hair. A smile that could chase away the worst nightmares.

“Kata-” She said, the name finally finding its way into her mouth. “Kata, I-”

STOP! The voice boomed. Her limbs screamed in pain, and her violence solidified, taking her over again. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the knife, but her eyes screamed with hot tears.

The figure - Kata, her wife - was still speaking, the words still echoing in her mind.

“I know for a fact, that when this is over, when we’re sitting at home and you’re back safe in my arms, you’re going to regret this. And I won’t even be mad, because I know you love me back, Jackie.”

Jackie, that was her, her name.

The world around her came into view. Desaturated, crumbling buildings, a treeline in the distance, and Kata, pinned to the ground, bloody and bruised, with tears drawing lines down her cheeks.

But her mind was not her own. She couldn’t move a muscle.

With every ounce of her being, every ounce of this newfound self and love, she stood. The knife vanished in her grasp. Opposite of Kata, there was a woman, black ram horns and a blood-red gown, scowling and furious.

You are Jacklyn Storm, a Paladin, a protector, a wife and a friend-

You are a queen, not a pawn.

Not a pawn in someone else’s game.

The woman with the horns - Minsar, a name she remembered, a name that filled her mouth with venom - still held some control, still tainted her words, but Jacklyn found just enough independence to speak.

“Maybe being a Paladin did teach me a thing or two,” Jacklyn said, turning. Her mind ran quickly, thinking of how to purge the influence in her blood.

As a Champion of Mirsith, Minsar can influence you as well. As long as Minsar’s magic is within you, Minsar will always be there. You know what you must do.

Jacklyn did. But the very thought of it made her feel sick.

She turned her back to Kata for a moment. “I’m sorry, love.” She looked down at her hand, bloodstained, but through that blood a faint light began to pulse on her right palm, a tattoo of a snake.

She turned, and watched as Kata sat up, and called her name.

Jacklyn could not listen. Her own power began to pulse inside of her, in time with her heartbeat. Somewhere, far from this realm, she felt a flicker of hope. And a flicker of fear.

She felt like, at any moment, the world could go out from under her, like her very consciousness could collapse. Her heart kept beating, faster, more and more energy surging within her like a thunderstorm.

You are Jacklyn Storm-

She remembered the first time she touched that Shrine.

A Paladin-

She remembered running into the midst of battle for her friends’ sake.

A protector-

She remembered her wedding and long, late night talks with Atalanta and Lupa, with the rest of her team sitting by her side.

A wife and a friend-

Her coronation. The tall white spires of Neptune and the throne with an amethyst inset into the headrest and her own crown, which she was sure sat on her dresser back home.

You are a queen-

Minsar’s rage was tangible now. The rage of an immortal, an insane one at that, who was now having all of her delicate plans thrown away in an instant.

Kata was standing now, trying to make her voice heard over the maelstrom of magic.

Far away, her friends were fighting a battle they could loose.

Far away, eight immortals were locked in cells.

But here, and now?

You are not a pawn in someone else's game.

A mortal, a single mortal, is writing upon the currents of time and doing what dozens of others before her could not.

Minsar ran towards her, a fistful of destructive magic in one hand. Kata screamed her name again, and Jacklyn had to ignore them all. Her entire body now, was alight with magic, and Jacklyn sent all of it out in one final shockwave.

#ho boy #yknow i might take this down later #i'll probably get embarrased #also yeah i wanna publish this #wip #not destiny #personal #writing

2 notes · View notes