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getvalentined · 2 months ago

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Decomposition Versus Dissolution: The Breakdown of Bodies in Final Fantasy VII

Warnings for discussion of death, dead bodies, and the desecration thereof, as well as references to digestive and gastrointestinal processes including illness. Features images of dead fictional characters and spoilers for basically the entire Compilation.

This is something I've been chewing on for quite a while, and this post is a bit of a doozy because of detailed examples cited to indicate support for this interpretation. It doesn't work 100% of the time, but it's consistent enough that I'm comfortable personally accepting it as accurate enough, and talking with @skadren about it earlier gave me the impetus to finally organize it well enough to put out into the public sphere. Consider this my personal standard model of Gaian decomposition—if and when we get a better canonical explanation, I'll take it, but for now this works for me, so maybe it'll work for you too!

In the world of Final Fantasy VII, there are four possible outcomes after the death of an animal lifeform:

Decomposition – Organic breakdown of physical remains over time after death, as seen in the real world.

Dissolution – The energetic breakdown of physical remains at the moment of death.

Delayed Dissolution – The sudden energetic breakdown of physical remains at some point after the moment of death, prior to the onset of traditional decomposition.

Rejection – Cases in which the remains neither decompose nor dissolve, physical remains left intact and energetic remains unabsorbed by the Lifestream.

Floral and fungal life appear to be subject only to decomposition, while the outcomes for native microbial and viral lifeforms are unknown. This piece considers all fiends, even those with characteristics similar to floral lifeforms, to be animals, although it's more likely that fiends in-universe comprise their own unique clade on the tree of life.

There's very little information within canonical lore to even directly imply the determining factors for any given outcome, but we can gain insight on these factors by noting when and where a given outcome occurs.

We do have to accept that some instances are based entirely on game mechanics rather than on any lore, as sometimes the field needs to be cleared in order to maintain the gameplay experience, but the fact that we see all of these in cutscenes through the series make it clear that it isn't only a game mechanic.

Based on known instances, prerequisites appear to be as follows:

Decomposition occurs in lifeforms with no or low mako exposure, or with a unique connection to the planet. These remains are able to rot naturally, as that's the most effective way for their remains to feed Gaia's life cycle, helping to "feed" the planet physically as well as energetically. If we consider the reabsorption of living things in terms of digestion, this would be equivalent to consumption of a so-called "whole food." We can assume this is the case based on the existence of livestock within the FF7 universe, and the known canonical instances of this outcome:

• Ifalna – body dissected by Hojo. (source: FF7R)

• Seto – body petrified and intact in Cosmo Canyon (source: OG, FF7R, OTWTAS)

• Aerith Gainsborough – body put to rest in water. (source: OG, AC)

• Dyne – body buried by Dio. (source: FF7R)

• Melphie Kusakabe – body found by Sonon. (source: FF7R)

• Kalm and Nibelheim locals – bodies used in experimentation. (source: OG, BC)

• North Corel and Gongaga locals – bodies buried by other residents. (source: OG, FF7R)

• Wutaian NPCs – bodies found outside Nibel Reactor. (source: FF7R)

• Rhadoran NPCs – bodies buried by Sephiroth. (source: FF7EC)

• Mr. and Mrs. Rhapsodos – bodies buried by Genesis. (source: CCFF7)

• Unnamed Turks – bodies buried by Genesis. (source: CCFF7)

• Most non-fiend animals – The presence of meat makes this pretty obvious. (source: OG, FF7R)

Dissolution occurs in lifeforms with moderate to high mako exposure, presumably due to energetic destabilization at the point of death rendering the remains much easier for the planet to reabsorb. Following the same digestion comparison as above, this is similar to the human body's accelerated processing of refined sugars as compared to raw sugars or whole foods. This also appears to occur based on the will of the planet, but the these cases are extremely rare, with only one known occurrence.

We can assume this is accurate based on the following known instances:

• Grimoire Valentine – body began to dissolve while still alive but actively dying, disintegrating entirely at the moment of death. May be a special case due to cause of death. (source: DCFF7)

• Lazard Deusericus – body dissolved at the moment of death. (source: CCFF7)

• Secondary Project G Subjects – bodies most often seen to dissolve at the moment of death in both gameplay and cutscenes, except in rare cases discussed below. (source: CCFF7, DCFF7)

• Midgar locals – implied by the dramatic lack of corpses following the Sector 7 plate drop. (source: FF7R)

• Shinra employees – implied by the dramatic lack of corpses following Zack's last stand, as well as the presence of equipment but no bodies in Nero's training room. (source: OG, CCFF7, FF7R)

• Various fiends – shown to occur in both gameplay and cutscenes. (source: CCFF7, DCFF7, FF7R, FF7EC)

• Kadaj – body began to dissolve while still alive but actively dying. Dissolution appears to have been based on the will of the planet rather than energetic instability. (source: AC)

Delayed dissolution occurs when the remains have been subject to certain types or levels of energetic corruption, even when paired with high levels of mako exposure. This appears to occur either due to an inability for the planet to reabsorb the remains immediately, or because of a partial rejection from the Lifestream.

Energetic corruption in the world of FF7 is stored in the Void and eventually consumed by Chaos, as shown in Dirge of Cerberus; it's safe to assume that these delays occur due to Chaos being more or less unavailable during the course of known canon, having been removed from its post in the mid-1970s and hosted in Vincent Valentine's body in the early 1980s. This explains the growing pollution of the Lifestream during the course of canon, as the planet's primary filtration system is missing or damaged until after Omega's premature awakening, but the energy in question is still compatible with the Lifestream to a high enough degree to eventually be reabsorbed.

Following the digestion metaphor established earlier, this would be similar to eating heavily processed or partially spoiled food with a damaged gut biome, leading to slow digestion, discomfort, and eventual illness.

These cases are slightly more difficult to confirm, but are proven to occur via cutscenes and narrative in the following instances:

• Zack Fair – body persisted long enough for Cloud to collect himself and leave after a year of catatonia, but neither present at later visits to the location nor indicated in any source to have been recovered following his last stand. Shown to have been "taken" by Angeal, although this may have been strictly thematic. (source: OG, CCFF7)

• Angeal Hewley – confirmed by Hojo's statement via mission brief that his body was not recovered, in spite of having persisted after death in Modeoheim. (source: CCFF7)

• Gillian Hewley – unconfirmed but presumable based on the persistence of her body during the razing of Banora and the delayed dissolution of all primary and some secondary Project G subjects. (source: CCFF7, FF7EC)

• Professor Hojo – as shown in the screenshot at the top of this section. (source: DCFF7)

• Lucrecia Crescent – indicated by her body's persistence even as her energetic remains have been slowly eroded by the Lifestream over time, even after her initial rejection from the Lifestream similar to discussion below. (source: OG, DCFF7)

• Secondary Project G Subjects – most notably a handful of Copies from both Genesis and Angeal. This may be based on their manner of death, as Copies killed in the presence of Sephiroth seem to persist for a time, while those killed elsewhere do not. (source: CCFF7)

• DeepGround SOLDIERS – shown to leave corpses persistently enough for Nero to play with them in order to scare his opponents, but indicated to eventually dissolve based on the presence of damaged gear but lack of corpses in Nero's training room. (source: DCFF7, FF7R)

• Various fiends – shown to occur in gameplay and cutscenes. (source: CCFF7, FF7R, FF7EC)

• Various NPCs – energetically only, shown to be incapable of disseminating into the Lifestream after death due to some polluting action or affect applied during life. Should not be confused with rejection, discussed below, as the energetic remains of these lifeforms will eventually dissolve properly. (source: DCFF7, OTWTAS)

Rejection is the most rare outcome following death, at least with regard to physical bodies; energetic rejection is slightly more common by volume, but only because of one very large group energetically rejected by the Lifestream at a point several thousand years pre-canon.

Rejection is only indicated to occur for one of two reasons:

Incompatibility with the Lifestream itself.

The will of the planet based on necessity.

In cases of incompatibility, it's similar to the concept of mixing oil and water, two materials that will always eventually separate if not subjected to a chemical change to allow incorporation. With regards to the will of the planet, this occurs when the subject in question is integral to the continued functioning of the planet itself, and can't be allowed to remain physically decomposed or to energetically disseminate. To complete the metaphor of consumption and digestion, rejection via incompatibility would be instances of eating materials that can't be digested and should be ejected from the body, while rejection due to planetary processes is similar to swallowing something important and intentionally inducing vomiting in order to reclaim the item in question.

There are only six known cases of complete rejection, and one population-wide case of strictly energetic rejection:

• Jenova – complete rejection, body in usable condition with will intact even thousands of years after death. Remains persist in usable condition even years after destruction of main portion just prior to Meteorfall. Rejection appears to be caused by incompatibility due to extraterrestrial origin, as most individuals with Jenova infection, even severe cases, are eventually capable of dissolution to some degree. (source: OG, AC, FF7R)

• Sephiroth – complete rejection, body mostly intact and will fully intact five years after his death in the Nibelheim Incident, with will remaining energetically active even after final destruction of body. Body also capable of being reconstituted based on force of will. Rejection presumed to be caused by incompatibility due to Jenova's extraterrestrial origins. (source: OG, AC, FF7R, OTWTAS)

• Vincent Valentine – complete rejection, body regenerates and reconstitutes after death on multiple occasions. Originally serving as host to Chaos—a Weapon—the powers bestowed by this role persist even after its consciousness returns to the planet, proven by Vincent's return to form in Chaos' cave following complete physiological destruction during his last stand to stop Omega. This repeated rejection from the Lifestream, both physically and energetically, implies Vincent's position postcanon is that of Chaos' successor, not its container, rendering him integral to planetary processes. (source: OG, AC, DCFF7, OTWTAS)

• Cloud Strife – complete rejection, rejected from the Lifestream and healed of mortal wounds and illness multiple times. Rather than being due to incompatibility based on his S-cell infection, Cloud's rejections being fairly gentle—similar to Vincent's—seems to imply he's integral to planetary processes, presumably due to his unique ability to subdue Sephiroth. (source: OG, AC)

• Nero the Sable – complete rejection, body reconstitutes in the Void upon death while will and energetic remains persist on multiple occasions. Genetic relation to Chaos through use of corrupted mako in his conception presumably lead to him being viewed as equally integral to planetary processes, even if this may not be the case. (source: FF7DC, FF7R)

• Weiss the Immaculate – complete rejection, body persists even after death with will intact in spite of assumptions to the contrary and canonical complete energetic purity. Rejection appears to be due to his position as vessel of Omega, another Weapon, which renders him integral to planetary processes in much the same way as Vincent Valentine. (source: FF7DC)

• The Gi – energetic rejection only, affecting the entire species, although some bodies appear to still be intact in Cosmo Canyon for use in merit trials; possibly reconstituted through force of will, but more likely maintained by locals for cultural reasons. Rejection is due to incompatibility with the Lifestream, as the Gi are extraterrestrial lifeforms much like Jenova. (source: FF7R)

Again, there are instances that go against this interpretation, although those primarily take place in gameplay rather than in cutscenes or narrative, lending credence to the concept that these exceptions are based on game mechanics rather than lore.

If you read this far and this speaks to you, great! I'm glad I was able to shed some light on this particularly confusing fictional subject! If you read this far and this doesn't speak to you, that's also fine! Implications within canon don't necessarily make a particular interpretation the canonical one, after all.

Either way, thank you so much for lending me your time—I hope it was an enjoyable read, if nothing else.

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serpentface · 1 month ago

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Can we hear about some Wardi funerary practices? (and possibly Yotici as well, if you’re in the mood to talk abt them)

Okay I got some for both

Wardi:

The key function of a funeral is to ensure that the deceased has their soul fully detached from their dead body and sent away from the earth, allowing them to move into the afterlife rather than being trapped as an earthbound spirit. The soul remains attached to its body and the earth after death and needs the help of the living to guide it away. Funerary practices can be very complex and are effectively a series of failsafes to prevent the soul from being stuck behind. Technically the only Hard requirement is cremation, but if you want to ensure your loved one (or a politically important person) finds rest and rebirth in the afterlife, you go above and beyond to help them on their journey.

I'll describe the fullest extent of funerary practices here, though keep in mind that completion of All these rites does not necessarily occur for every funeral. This is also describing the standard funeral to the core doctrine of the Faith of the Seven Faced God, and you'll see variance in Wardi folk-religion funeral practices (as well as slight regional variation within the core faith).

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Core dogma holds that the body should not be allowed to rot or be eaten, with cremation being the only option for respectful treatment of the dead. The body being destroyed by these forces without a proper funeral will cause the spirit to linger trapped to the earth, which is a miserable afterlife. A body that has been found rotten, mutilated, or partly consumed by animals will still be given a cremation, but they will require additional and more extensive rites wherein their wandering spirit is guided back to the body so it can be properly sent off.

People are bound by filial piety and social obligation to care for their dead kin and see that they get a proper funeral (at absolute LEAST ensuring that they are cremated). This is especially an obligation of children to their parents (as is supporting them in old age). It's a matter of personal and familial honor, and failing to fulfill these obligations is regarded as a severe betrayal of your kin and is grounds for the family's current patriarch to disown you and strip you of your name. Priests to the face Kusomache can assist in funerary rites (and preside over most major funerals of public figures), but most of the work comes down to the family members of the deceased.

Cremation can be a challenging practice in a region that is mostly grassland, scrub, and savannah. In practice, fully wood fueled pyres tend to be the domain of the wealthy (the main exception is within the province of Lobera, which has a great swath of intact woodlands). Dry dung fires (the most common source of fuel in the region in general) are appropriate for cremation, but only the dung of cattle and khait is considered ritually pure for this use.

((SLIGHT TANGENT: Cremation has some specific philosophical justification in the Wardi model of primordial cosmic dualism (though note- the practice of cremating dead almost certainly predates this, and this philosophy is also not significant to lay religious practice and most people are not thinking about this during funerals). The universe is composed of extremes of primordial sky (hot/dry/bright/male) and primordial sea (cold/wet/dark/female), reflected in a rhythm of dualism in life and its cycles. During birth, the body is formed in the extreme of primordial sea (manifested in a human body as the womb) and the soul must struggle out of it to reach life. In death, the body is broken apart in the extreme of primordial sky (fire is an example of such an extreme in physical form), and the soul must struggle out of it to reach rebirth in the afterlife. Non-crematory funeral methods return the body to sea-elements (the earth is considered to be mostly Sea in nature), thus not forming a complete cycle. Both primordial forces are challenging and deadly in of themselves, but life itself is sustained via cycling through both))

Upon death, the body will (ideally) be packed in salt to slow obvious signs of decay while the funeral can be prepared. It is otherwise wrapped tightly head to toe in cloth and stored in a cool, dry place. When funeral preparations are completed, the body will be cleaned and prepared, ideally by blood kin (usually the adult children of a dead parent, the parents of a dead child, or the deceased's spouse). If the person was killed by a wound, the wounds will be treated like that of a living person- the soul is still in there and capable of feeling pain, leaving wounds untreated strengthens unwanted ties to its now non-functional body. The body is washed thoroughly and anointed head to toe with a sanctified oil. The oil both assists in cremation and intends to prevent the deceased from feeling the pain of burning. A priest (if present) gives the dead one last blessing with white amenchalme, which is smeared across the entire forehead (as is the case in other blessings of transitional periods- birth, the formal naming of a survived year old infant, marriage).

The body is then clothed as finely as possible and wrapped in a blanket. Protective amulets to safeguard their journey to the afterlife, and shed snakeskins (both evocative of the Face Kusomache and a reminder to the dead of the necessity to leave their body) are wrapped in with them. This process is the last time anyone is allowed to touch the skin of the body, doing so afterwords risks the soul being tempted to remain attached, to its detriment (it can feel the touch, and may miss it).

The pyre is built at the same time as the body's processing (usually in close proximity), and a funeral space is designated. When possible, this space is bound with amenchil rope wound right to left, designating the space inside as sacred and preventing harmful outside agents from entering. Attendants are ideally blessed before entering the funeral space, or should at least self-purify with the gesture against evil.

The funeral should ideally commence in the late afternoon, and the cremation must commence during the hour of sunset. If this cannot occur, it is delayed until the next evening (minimal decomposition of the body within the first few days is acceptable, disintegrating rot is not).

The wealthy dead will have at Least one khait and hunting dog (most often their own) killed to accompany them- the khait will carry them on their journey and the dog will act as a guide. Poorer families will often use clay effigies of khait and dogs instead (or sometimes captured feral dogs). A third component in some funerals is a guardian lion (this tradition is newer and the guardian role is filled by the dog in other circumstances). Typically only kings or Odonii(-kin) are able to get an actual lion killed for them, and it will be an effigy in most other cases. This lion will take the role of the Patriarch Odomache who protects Its family (the entire people) from harm, and will defend the soul of the deceased from threats during its journey.

During funerals of slain soldiers, captured prisoners of war may additionally be killed, which is in part seen as a means of soothing the dead's spirit by taking vengeance for them, preventing the honored dead from becoming stuck earthbound out of anger for their demise. In this case, the prisoners are killed prior to the pyre being built, with their blood being used to consecrate the ground beneath it. The prisoner's bodies will be removed from the funeral space and bound in amenchil rope wound left to right to contain their spirits and prevent them from doing harm to the honored dead (they will typically be cremated (usually without honors) or given back to a defeated foe for funeral rites afterwords).

Offerings are made of items to help the dead on their journey (food, water, wine, clothing, weapons, armor) and as sacrifices to the Face Kusomache, who will ultimately enable the soul to reach its final resting place. Everyone in attendance should offer something (these are nonfatal offerings of food, flowers, and drink), and ideally the family will be able to provide an animal sacrifice to be slain (the best of which for funerals is a cow that has never been bred or yoked). The deceased's kin will bloodlet from the palms of their hands, both in offering and so that Kusomache will recognize the dead by blood and be able to find them, even if the deceased's connection to God was somehow severed. The offerings to the dead are placed on the funeral pyre, while the offerings to Kusomache are burnt separately by an attendant priest.

The women in attendance lead a song when the funeral pyre is lit, the lyrics direct the dead on how to leave their body and undertake their journey, and are sung on repeat. All members will eventually join in. By convention, the song must continue for the duration of the cremation (which may take many hours), usually accomplished by attendants taking breaks and filling the silence when another member goes quiet. (Professional mourners are also available for hire to assist in this process). It is not sung beautifully, it is shrill and often wailed and screamed, which serves to frighten off evil spirits that may harass the dead in their journey (also providing a measure of physical catharsis for grievers).

When the body is fully cremated, a much softer prayer is sung (as best as the attendants vocal cords can handle after the ordeal) as an additional appeal for the dead to be brought safely to their place of rest.

The person's spirit is now undergoing a perilous journey to the lunar lands that will last until sunrise, but from the perspective of the dead it takes a full month. This journey is perilous, it begins in complete darkness within the realm of the earth in which evil spirits live and can potentially harm the deceased. If the dead has had their connection with God badly severed in life (this can be by curses, possession, or very severe spiritual pollution), they may lose their way and remain trapped upon the earth (this is why care for the body and the purity of its living spirit is important during life as well). The living have, however, done their best to give the dead a very good chance. The chant has guided them out of their body and gone a long ways to scare off evil spirits that may harm the traveling soul. The offerings to Kusomache intend to restore any severed connections to God's greater living spirit, bringing the dead back under Its protection. The khait (or khait effigy) will give the deceased speed and ease the duress of their journey, and the dog (or dog effigy) will guide their way by scent even through darkness, and guard the dead from further harm (the lion/effigy will fill the guardian role instead if used).

The rest of the night is spent in vigil. Upon sunrise when the dead has reached their destination, the pyre will be broken down. The deceased's ashes and bones are stored in an urn and will be interred in a family tomb (the spirit should have no more connection to the body at this point, and these tombs are squarely conceptualized as a place for the living to honor and remember the dead, and as personal familial shrines to Kusomache). The mourners break off for a period of rest, and will reconvene at noon for a funeral feast. Funeral feasts are very special occasions, and warrant the slaughter of livestock (even among the poor). The spirit of this feast is to celebrate the rebirth of the dead into the lunar lands, and to honor the living left behind. Lavish funerals of kings and noblemen may involve funerary games during this feasting period (races, bull leaping, mock combat, etc) and performances by singers, dancers, and poetry reciters. The celebratory period lasts until the following sundown, at which point the funeral is over.

It's customary to cut the hair in mourning when the deceased is a parent, child, spouse, or sibling (and can be done by choice for other relations). The exact logistics vary- the South Wardi tradition is for men to enter the funeral with their hair in a topknot, and for women to enter with their hair bound in one long braid in the back. The men will slice through their hair under the knot, the women will cut their braid at the halfway point. Traditions on when this haircut occurs also vary, usually it is either just before the pyre is lit or just after it is extinguished. The cut locks of hair will be interred in the family tomb in a small urn along with the cremains.

A mourning period is observed for these close relations, lasting a full lunar month in recognition of the duration of the dead's journey. Women are generally expected to wear tight formal veils, while men will display their shorn hair unadorned. The blood family is considered ritually impure throughout this mourning period via contact with the dead, and cannot enter temples, participate in festivals, or bloodlet in prayer until its completion, and ideally should not touch other people. It's customary at the end of the month to undergo a full purification (which includes, or at the very least consists of, full body submergence in water and thorough bathing) before returning to their regular life.

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Preexisting sketch I had of the remaining Haidamane family at their mother's funeral, watching the cremains being interned in an urn. 2/3 of them are displaying attire appropriate for a funeral, in which nice clothing and formal veils are generally an expectation.

Janeys' hair has been cut in mourning. He's got a very fancy cloak and a formal khattanocuy (South Wardi traditional khaitsmane belt ornament) Faiza's hair has been cut too but isn't visible. She's wearing a tight formal veil and has kept her Odonii regalia to the bare minimum lionsmane band and armament in favor of a nice dress and cloak. Couya has refused to dress up at all, save for being persuaded to braid her hair. Her hair has not been cut. She doesn't technically Have to since Livya Haidamane was not her blood mother, and she doesn't Want to because she fucking hates her and is glad that she's dead. She can get away with all this because she's an Odonii and wearing full vestment is justified but it's not a great look.

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Yotici:

Yotici are an entire species so you're going to see a broad variety of funerary practices. The main variants of funeral practices are:

Cairn burials, in which the deceased is weighed down to the seafloor and a rock cairn is built over them. Practices will vary tremendously whether or not it's appropriate to bury dead within a Garden (an engineered ecosystem in which they maintain their egg masses). Some groups will have designated cemeteries outside of the Garden, others might bury their dead within the Garden and even build up its features on top of them, such as planting corals upon the rocks, making the mounds into nests for their shark eggs, or laying their own eggs on top of them.

Shipwreck burial, in which a body is stored inside or beneath wrecked boats, which are ascribed significance in some Yotici cultures (merely as shelters, as homes for valued animals, as the conquered vessels of malicious hunters, etc).

Sea burials, in which the deceased is weighed down but intentionally allowed to be consumed by wildlife. This will often be valued animals within the garden's ecosystem, or other significant or sacred wildlife.

Sky/sea burials, in which the deceased is allowed to float at the surface to be fed upon by seabirds and marine scavengers.

In both of these instances, there can be variation on what is allowed to consume the dead. In a majority of cases, there will be little attempt to restrict this consumption, but some may involve guarding the body for weeks on end and chasing unwanted animals away.

Land burials, in which the body is deliberately made to be beached. In some cases the significance of this act is wrapped up in the body being on land in of itself, in others it might extend more deeply- the body's direct exposure to the sun, favoring consumption by land animals, or consumption/other use of the dead by other sophonts (who may or may not be recognized by the yotici in question as sapient or notably distinct from other animals, and are commonly considered magical animals or a form of spirit rather than People) (the exact same tends to apply in reverse).

There are a few isolated cases in which a mutualistic relationship between yotici and a neighboring landdwelling people plays directly into funeral rites. Cases where mutually comprehensible languages have developed that can communicate abstract and complex ideas are very rare, so in most circumstances these practices involve both parties ascribing different meanings to their actions while being mutually satisfied with the outcome.

Deepwater burials, in which the body is brought into open ocean (where yotici cannot survive and do not typically travel) and left in this place, usually due to specific meaning being ascribed to this territory.

Kelp burials, in which the body is purposefully suspended by being tightly wrapped and tied in strands of kelp (usually in combination with other practices), which may have significance to some yotici groups, especially as a common staple food.

Abandonment, in which the body is brought far outside of the Garden's domain (or the surrounding seagrass altogether) and left to be treated as it will with no particular concern of its eventual fate. This may be a matter of simple disposal, there may be significance ascribed to bringing the body outside of the Garden's space, or the body may be considered a polluting element.

Enshrinement, in which access is maintained to the body in order to eventually remove its bones and place them in areas of significance. The body may be actively dismembered in some circumstances.

Funerary cannibalism, in which parts of the body are consumed by other members of the pod (usually in conjunction with other practices). As in other sophonts, instances where consumption is an aspect of honoring or treating the dead may occur. Yotici are primarily herbivorous and their beaks are unsuited to tear flesh, but can digest some animal matter.

#imperial wardin #yotici #couya haidamane #faiza haidamane #janeys haidamane

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blue-ten · 7 months ago

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Windows 11 and the Last Straw

Bit of a rant coming up. TL;DR I'm tired of Microsoft, so I'm moving to Linux. After Microsoft's announcement of "Recall" and their plans to further push Copilot as some kind of defining feature of the OS, I'm finally done. I feel like that frog in the boiling water analogy, but I'm noticing the bubbles starting to form and it's time to hop out.

The corporate tech sector recently has been such a disaster full of blind bandwagon hopping (NFTs, ethically dubious "AI" datasets trained on artwork scraped off the net, and creative apps trying to incorporate features that feed off of those datasets). Each and every time it feels like insult to injury toward the arts in general. The out of touch CEOs and tech billionaires behind all this don't understand art, they don't value art, and they never will.

Thankfully, I have a choice. I don't have to let Microsoft feature-creep corporate spyware into my PC. I don't have to let them waste space and CPU cycles on a glorified chatbot that wants me to press the "make art" button. I'm moving to Linux, and I've been inadvertently prepping myself to do it for over a decade now.

I like testing out software: operating systems, web apps, anything really, but especially art programs. Over the years, the open-source community has passionately and tirelessly developed projects like Krita, Inkscape, and Blender into powerhouses that can actually compete in their spaces. All for free, for artists who just want to make things. These are people, real human beings, that care about art and creativity. And every step of the way while Microsoft et al began rotting from the inside, FOSS flourished and only got better. They've more than earned trust from me.

I'm not announcing my move to Linux just to be dramatic and stick it to the man (although it does feel cathartic, haha). I'm going to be using Krita, Inkscape, GIMP, and Blender for all my art once I make the leap, and I'm going to share my experiences here! Maybe it'll help other artists in the long run! I'm honestly excited about it. I worked on the most recent page of Everblue entirely in Krita, and it was a dream how well it worked for me.

Addendum: I'm aware that Microsoft says things like, "Copilot is optional," "Recall is offline, it doesn't upload or harvest your data," "You can turn all these things off." Uh-huh. All that is only true until it isn't. One day Microsoft will take the user's choice away like they've done so many times before. Fool me once, etc.

#microsoft #windows 11 #recall #copilot #linux

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rev-xce · 7 months ago

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Honestly can't wait to find out more about this rot aggro that you've mentioned. I am quite curious on how that even works. Does it amplify rage or cause it? Again, really hyper for what you're cooking up there

NSH(puppet): Hunter's birth and rot are a causation of me speedrunning his biology and birth! After all, it's quite rare if not unnatural for a slugcat to come in a pink-red color. The original plan was to alter his biology to be stronger than regular slugcats so he would be able to survive the trip!

But…this…I think was what occured with HIM.. I had managed to recreate nearly the same thing as HE did. Only, I did it better. This rot may be different from what HE made and yet, I've sourced a cure within these cycles of experimentation. My cure might not apply to HIM but it would be quite…fun to dangle this hope over HIS inflated head.

Anyways, yes! My version of this "rot" illness is successful in enhancing the capabilities of many creatures! However, it does have the side effect of affecting their psyche and bringing forth their anger to a extreme. Hunter ended up making a rope out of 19 king vultures when I tested it on him. Really though, what's a mistake if I've gotten what I wanted?

#hunter violated 19 king vultures under the influence of “better” cancer #oh my i wonder who this “HE” in all caps in AHAHAGSH #rw lunacy au #no significant harassment #rain world #rw hunter #im gonna snumimimi now but i promise i will be back for other asks!#nsh is a mad scientist in my heart #also to clarify YE AMPLIFY RAGE HARD ON STERIODS

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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year ago

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Adventure: Through the Vine

Surrounded by some of the most coveted vineyards on the continent, your party sits in the shaded garden and listens to the old alchemist explaining why she needs your help getting drunk enough to see the face of god.

Every adventurer knows the name Ultani, at least those with coin and taste enough to order bottles of wine when they and their friends hit up a tavern after a delve. What an irony then for one of the Ultani family to ask for THEM at her table, and with a business proposition of all things.

Bent with age but bright of eye, Ivilia Ultani needs their help tracking down the location of an abandoned druid sanctum in the far wilderness and retrieving fruit sacred to the god of vintners and healers left over from a disastrous ritual. Her reasons? Apparently after decades perusing the alchemical mysteries Ivilia got her hands on a bottle blessed by the wine-god himself, and spent four days in a state of drunken revelation pencilling out her magnum opus. The bottle and her inspiration dry just before she finished, so rather than waiting years trying to trial and error the last piece or searching for another bottle she's decided to make some of her own.

Along the way the party will contend with family drama, the cutthroat politics of the wine trade, and the long echoing consequences of stealing from merciful gods. For their troubles they'll not only earn the thanks of a talented alchemist, but also potentially a new home should they hold true to their task.

Setup: Though she is the oldest of her of her merchant clan Ivilia is not the head of the Ultani winery. Her younger brother Valtar had the talent for cultivation and business while she veered towards eccentric scholarship, now Valtar's adult grandchildren run the business and the numerous sprawling vineyards associated with it while she lives in learned obscurity on the original family homestead.

While she occasionally helps out whit a new formulation of fertilizer or pest repellent, Ivilia is rather distant from the rest of the Ultani family who view her as a bit of a kook, who all to often uses her inherited share of the enterprise to buy obscure texts or finance futile experiments.

Challenges & Complications:

Actually finding the sanctum is going to be half the problem. Druidic orders are notoriously protective about the location of their secret clubhouses, and this order was scattered to the wind more than a century ago. Ivilia has tracked down the vague location where she thinks the sanctum might be, but unless the party wants to spend days combing the dangerous wilderness they're going to need to track down a more reliable source. Parsing through local rumours and records gives them three leads, an elf who still provides council to the local Count (goodluck getting an appointment), a vaguely helpful ditty that was recounted to a local bard (since dramatized in endless retelling), and an elder of the order who flew back to his home village in the shape of a falcon. Investigating the latter finds that the elder was apparently so scarred by what he'd seen at the sanctum that he transformed himself into a tree and has spent the intervening decades letting his mind and memory lignify.

The Sanctum itself and the landscape that surrounds it has been scarred by an act of divine wrath that still lingers in the form of dangerous fey and choking vines. Roots have undermined the walls and foundations, making chambers all to easy to collapse. In the centre of this ruin lays the undead corpse of Elmgrace , a once famed elven healer who sought the boon of the god Litirenn only to try and use that gift to reign the god towards his own purposes. Resentful at this deception Litirenn unleashed havoc on the sanctum, cursing Elmgrace never to die, never to rot, and never to rejoin the cycle of nature. Forever vinebound to the same altar he intended for the deity, Elmgrace's few last fanatical followers still tend to his broken body, attempting to brew up more potent poisons that will finally "free" their teacher from his torment.

Unfortunately, the fruit the party needs to pluck grows only from the plants impaling Elmgrace's body, which his followers are very protective of. Even after the party races through the wilderness and back to civilization with their prize they'll need to look over their shoulder for toxin obsessed cultists stalking their trail.

Further Adventures:

Milo Ultani has something to prove, the oldest of four siblings and a gaggle of cousins poised to inherit the winery he was raised to value hard work and loyalty to the family above all else. All his life it has irked him that his great aunt was allowed to dwell in their ancestral home, some of the nicest land his family owns, leaching off their enterprise like a withered limb. What finally drives him to act is Ivilia offhandedly mentioning that she intends to sign over her house and land to the party as a reward for helping her drink her way to enlightenment again. Resentment turns to rage in the young man's mind as a plan begins to form; A vine must be pruned in order to be fruitful after all.

When the party return with the godly fruit they're going to find Ivilia gone, her home broken into during the night her bed a mess of red that at first seems to be blood, but is infact wine. Surrounded by experts it doesn't take long for the vino in question to be identified as belonging to Jadash Hill, one of the Ultani's oldest rivals who are known for their unscrupulous business practices. It's at this point that Milo comes forward, reporting that some of their carters had gotten into brawls with those from Jadash Hill at a local tollhouse, sending the bastards packing and ignoring their threats of reprisal as idle boasting. This did indeed happen, but only because Milo is in charge of part of the family's delivery operation and instigated the fight himself.

The clock is ticking, the party has a bushel of miracle fruit that's going to rot and the alchemist they were supposed to deliver it to is nowhere to be seen. They can either find Ivilia quick, figure out a method of preserving the fruit, or read through her notes and attempt to concoct the divine wine themselves.

However badly he thinks of her, Milo would never kill his great aunt, having instead had his loyal carters drag her off to a small cottage on the edge of a property the family was keeping fallow for the year. In his reckoning the old woman won't live much longer, and while the emerging feud with Jadash hill keeps the family busy he can figure out a better place to keep his great aunt locked up. He wasn't delicate in his planning but he moves fast and the influence he has with the workforce as the presumptive heir cannot be overstated.

Art 1 Art 2

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #ttprg #pathfinder #adventure #dungeon #player home #Alchemy #mid level #low level #Litirenn #field #Forest #druid #patron merchant #dungeon forest #dungeon jungle

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whispersofbees · 11 days ago

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— 🌸 𝐓𝐄𝐘𝐕𝐀𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍𝐒

summary: general headcanons about the world of teyvat and, by extension, the gods that rule it.

warnings: spoilers for sumeru’s, fontaine’s and natlan’s archon quest.

inspired by @oliveden ‘s archon headcanons.

masterlist

visions are strongest in the realm dominated by its element — geo visions will be stronger in liyue, dendro in sumeru, etc. the amount the vision’s power increases is dependent on how in tune the vision wielder is with their element.

mondstadt is the youngest of the seven nations. snezhnaya used to border liyue, and a harsh mountain pass divided the two nations. it was only after the massacre that was the archon war that the new cryo archon, later called the tsaritsa, ceded the mountainous south in favor of retreating farther up north. with his newfound power, barbatos clumsily hand carved the jagged cliffs and sharp valleys that’s now known as mondstadt for the snezhnayans left abandoned by their former god. dragonspine stands as a reminder of what their home used to be before barbatos graciously gave them freedom.

all of sumeru used to be harsh desert. it’s no secret that rukkhadevata created the lush, fruitful jungles that most sumerans call home out of a barren wasteland, and it is because of the new dendro archon — nahida — that the jungle continues to flourish. flowers bloom in the wake of her footfalls and new forests sprout with a wave of her hand, its health inherently tied with her livelihood. should the dendro archon die and not reincarnate, appoint a successor, or relinquish their domain to irminsul, the vibrant and forested east of sumeru will wither and rot, the western sands reclaiming its old territory as nature returns to equilibrium.

the tsaritsa’s anguish hardened into bitterness, and bitterness into apathy. in turn, the pleasant and fertile rolling hills and gentle peaks of snezhnaya hardened and froze over, soft grass and fields of wildflowers being replaced with permafrost and tundra. much of modern snezhnaya is considered inhospitable and now lies above the arctic circle. only those with cryo visions are able to withstand its subzero temperatures and biting winds for extended periods of time, and one can find small pockets of life dotted throughout the glaciers and ice sheets — communities comprised entirely of cryo vision wielders and their kin.

i imagine snezhnaya’s music to sound similar to tennen composed by hania rani (listen to it here).

the archons are bound by their gnosis to their domain and thus physically unable to leave the borders of their nation. the capital city of each region in teyvat is rife with embassies and carefully selected diplomats to carry out international relations and their god’s wills.

natlanians are unable to leave their homelands for extended periods. phlogiston, being in the air and earth of natlan, has become a vital source of life alongside food and water. anyone born and raised in the nation of fire and war will quickly become dependent on the substance to live, and should a natlan native find themselves elsewhere in teyvat for too long, they will experience increasingly worsening fatigue, muscle weakness, loss of appetite, dehydration, dizziness, and hallucinations, which can lead to organ failure among other conditions. to avoid this fate, those who wish to travel must plan in advance and pack phlogiston inhalers, but the devices are only a temporary solution and cannot sustain someone for longer than a week or two at a time.

the pyro archon rises and lowers the sun and the geo archon the moon each and every day. akin to the circadian rhythm, they possess an internal clock that tells them when to perform this duty. during periods of war where even the pyro archon can’t afford to leave the battlefield, citizens of teyvat have recorded the phenomena of night or day lasting weeks at a time all while the moon completes its usual cycle. the longest period the daylight cycle remained unbalanced was during the archon war where it seemed as if even the sun and moon were fighting for dominion over the sky.

the anemo archon controls the winds and air itself and the hydro archon controls condensation and precipitation across teyvat. after the hydro archon’s death, this responsibility fell to neuvillette, who at first maintained a very rigid schedule and didn’t think twice about it before he read a bewildered meteorologist’s column in the steambird that remarked how it always rained for exactly five hours on tuesdays and fridays. he still struggles with creating the same level of spontaneity and diversity in weather that foçalors seemed to effortlessly have, but he’s noticed that the ability seems tied to his emotional state… it’s always overcast after a particularly troubling court case.

thunder and lightning storms occur when the electro archon wakes up on the wrong side of the bed.

rex lapis bleeds liquid gold, and there’s whispers of a band of hunters solely dedicated to profiting off this myth.

every nation has its own distinct language, but after the fall of khaenri’ah, its language was adopted as the lingua franca in order to keep part of it tangible and alive.

the pyro archon once targeted celestia with pillars of rock in the geo archon’s fashion, but missed. the displaced earth trail behind celestia’s orbit, almost mockingly, but a very keen eye observing from the right location and time of day will notice that behind celestia, it almost looks like a piece of the sky is missing.

being made out of a branch of irminsul, as nahida grows and ages, she will slowly become more lithe and earthen as white branches sprout from her scalp and limbs and moss climbs her legs. all dendro archons who share this origin have the same fate: they will one day root to the earth like any tree, and their final resting places can be found in long-forgotten lands of sumeru. it’s rumored that eating the fruit that grows from them will grant the consumer forbidden knowledge. if you place your hand on the bark, you can feel a faint pulsing, almost like a heartbeat.

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inbabylontheywept · 1 year ago

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On Palestine

The Israel-Palestine conflict is not complicated. People will try to make it look complicated in the hopes that you will be intimidated and back away without study, but the truth is simple and can be presented simply.

Israel has full control over Palestine's borders - and among the list of things they've banned from import is rebar, concrete, water pipe, and a significant number of consumer electronics.

They say it's because these things can be used for war. They can. But so can rations, clean water, clothes, and air. Banning these is not a military action - it is cruelty. And in the case of Israel, the goal is to make destruction a one way ratchet. Every building that is bombed, every road that breaks, every pipe that bursts - they cannot be fixed. Palestine cannot get better. It can only rot. And when it does not rot fast enough, it is broken.

The people of Palestine know this. It's obvious. If you as an American don't talk about it, you'll get Ben Shapiro and his ilk all but bragging about it.

If you do talk about it, they'll accuse you of conspiracy. Demand to see credible sources - hoping that you'll forget that foreign journalists are illegal in Palestine as concrete, rebar, and water pipes.

I will not justify the crimes of Hamas. What they have done is unforgivable. But something like Hamas only happens when goading an entire civilization into becoming their worst selves. By condemning them to death by decay, then pointing and laughing. By cruelties beyond imagination.

Imagine being in this situation. Imagine that your water is not clean because a bomb hit your street twenty years and cracked both your sewage line and your water main. Now they leak and mingle. It stinks and you smell it. You see a hospital bombed, and the tragedy isn't just the people in the building - It's the fact that you can't build another. It's just gone. Everything that is taken from you is just gone. And as if that wasn't enough, your tormentors laugh at you. Mock you. Call you a savage that likes to like in open sewage. Call you an idiot that doesn't know how to build hospitals. Call you a zealot for the rage you feel when they shit on your prayer rug. A liar, because every crime you report remains unconfirmed, even as they lock the people who could confirm it out.

It would be very tempting to become a monster. And Israel banks on that too. They want more members in Hamas. It was Israel that raised the organization to such heights. And they did so because it justifies everything they do. Its mere presence in the region does wonders in delegitimizing the dream of a Palestinian state. Its violence is what gives Israel the thin veneer self defense. Hamas gets more members every time Israel drops a bomb, but Israel claims it needs more bombs to deal with the rise of Hamas. This cycle is not an accident. And with self reported casualty ratios of 2 civilians per 1 combatant, all Israel is really waiting for is 1/3 of the region to join. (Although human rights orgs have said the ratio is more like to 9 to 1.)

The world has spent decades watching a slow motion genocide. Now, it's not even slow. There are many things you can do to help Palestine, but the cheapest, easiest, and most effective actions are political. One man spending a day making bombs can undo the work of a hundred men spending a year laying brick. If all you do is keep track of the Zionists and make sure not to vote for them, you'll have done more than enough.

(And thanks for reading.)

#free palestine #Babylon-Lore #Babylon-TopPick

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cinderflower · 4 months ago

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I don't know if this has been talked about elsewhere but while writing Field of Reeds, I've found there's a very interesting amount of mythology and symbolism that ties in between Malenia, Miquella, and ancient Egyptian mythology. I think the concept of different soul parts (ba, ka, akh) is particularly insightful into a potential way to interpret how bodies and souls are referenced in Elden Ring.

One reason I think this may have served as at least some of the inspiration is the relationship between Elden Ring lore and real life mythology, specifically the Golden Order ties to Roman (and greek, irish, norse) mythology but also how those were influenced by ancient egyptian mythology. Miquella's character in particular seems to reflect on the past state of the world pre-Golden Order for inspiration on how to move forward in the future, similar to how the romans looked to ancient egypt in the past.

List of topics:

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Horus | Miquella the Kind

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

A few disclaimers: There is a vast amount of information on the mythology and there are a lot of contradictions and hotly debated topics within it and I'm no expert, so these will be mostly very surface level comparisons I think may have been used for inspiration, this is not intended to be a declarative comparison. I'll try to keep my sourcing consistent and most references will link back to a single source which compiled a lot of the references together. I did cross-reference these with other sources and will try to call out these additional sources as well as any contradicting opinions where applicable for additional perspective/context.

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Contrary to the name, the flowers referred to as "lotus" are actually two variations of water lilies, a blue and a white variant: Blue Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea caerulea) & White Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea lotus).

As you can imagine, this immediately caught my interest considering we have two variations of lilies in Elden Ring, Trina's lily (blue/purple) and Miquella's lily (unalloyed gold).

Unalloyed gold is representative of a pure gold and white is often the symbol of purity and that's no different here; additionally, at times white was even used interchangeably with yellow. Meanwhile for blue, you have the common themes of water and rebirth it's associated with but it was also commonly used in funerals. We know that water and this particular blue/purple hue in the game is associated with both dreams and death.

The lotus was also associated with alcoholic intoxication, and it was used as a recreational drug when soaked in wine; the roots and blossoms contain narcotic substances which are soluble in alcohol. It was also used in medicine (the juice has a mild sedative effect).

This last point is interesting in the context specifically of Trina's lilies and works well with my own interpretation of Trina's lilies being used as a sedative which I actually wrote even before stumbling across this fact.

The lotus was a symbol for life: at the very beginning of creation a lotus flower containing the god Ra was the first thing to emerge from the primordial waters. The lotus was strongly associated with the sun, as the flower retreats beneath the water at night and rises again each day at dawn like the sun-god.

As with many symbols of fertility, the lotus was also symbolic of rebirth after death. This again ties in well with the original concept of Miquella/Malenia being Abundance/Decay representing the cycle of death and rebirth.

The Egyptians looked forward to their souls coming to life "like a lotus reopening," and the Book of the Dead has a spell to allow the deceased to transform into one of these flowers. Faience models of lotus buds were sometimes placed in tombs. In many tomb scenes, the deceased is shown with a lotus flower held to his nose in order to breathe in the divine perfume.

Lotus Sources [x][x][x]

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Like the lotus/lilies there were two common types of scorpions: a venomous land scorpion and a harmless water scorpion. As such, the scorpion had a dual purpose and could be seen as either friend or foe depending on the context much like how we see the scarlet rot both harms and strengthens Malenia. We also know the Rot God under the lake is at least in part scorpion in nature and thus this is best represented in Selket, the Scorpion Goddess, who is seen as benevolent and is often represented by the harmless water scorpion.

[Continued under the read more]

Scorpions were greatly feared and scorpion stings were one of the main hazards of everyday Egyptian life. Scorpions were described as “A very small thing, a sister of the snake, a sister of Apophis*, sitting at a crossroads, lying in wait for someone who goes in the night . . .”

I believe the scorpion sting serves as an apt representation of the way scarlet rot manifests and which I suspect is clearly intended with the blade crafted from the scorpion stinger of the Rot God sealed beneath the lake of rot.

[* I think there's an interesting parallel between Apophis and the God Devouring Serpent and Rykard but this is already too long, so here's a link about Apophis [x]]

Meaning of Selket: “She Who Causes to Breathe.” Selket's name refers to her power over scorpions, as those who have been stung tend to breathe too fast and too shallow because of the venom.

Another great description which ties in with the Scarlet Rot as it's shown in Elden Ring, specifically through the state of Millicent when we first come across her: slumped against a wall and breathing shallowly because in her words, "My flesh writhes with scarlet rot."

Selket was depicted with a scorpion above her head, as a scorpion, or as a scorpion with a woman's torso. She often had green skin, a reference to her help with regeneration in the Duat.

The last note here caught my attention knowing that Malenia's Great Rune which is covered in Scarlet Rot is what grants her the ability of regeneration. The specific callout of "in the Duat" is also of interest since the Duat is the underworld, meaning she regenerates in death (decay).

Historically, the scorpion was regarded as a symbol of motherhood in many areas, as female scorpions carry their young on their backs. The protective goddess Selket, who guarded the coffin of the deceased, was often pictured as a scorpion. An ancient Egyptian proverb states: “I love the scorpion, yet I know its venomous sting.”

This last passage I find summarizes Malenia's relationship with Rot and Decay fairly succinctly and ties in well with how I've always interpreted rot as the force of decay seeking to reestablish the proper life cycle into the Lands Between which had been forced into a state of stagnation from the removal of Destined Death. But because of the rejection of this rot and decay aspect, Malenia suffers the consequences, the venomous sting of the scorpion rather than the benevolence of it. This cascades down to her "children" as well where rather than accepting the rot and motherhood, she rejects both it and her "children" alike. This is actually very well contrasted by Romina in the DLC who finds strength when she embraces the rot and accepts the role of motherhood to those rejected by Malenia.

And, lastly, the visual of Selket guarding the coffin of the deceased is a striking visual comparison with Malenia in the roots of the Haligtree guarding Miquella's cocoon (his coffin) before it had been taken.

Scorpion and Selket Sources [x][x]

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Another common concept seen in many religions is the association of birds as either representations of spirits passing or guiding them to the afterlife. While Malenia's title of Valkyrie is obviously a clear call to the norse mythology, there are once again roots of this concept that can be found in the Waterfowl, specifically the Heron and the phoenix variation of the Heron, the Bennu Bird. There's also the Vulture Goddess, Nekhbet, who serves as a protector of the dead/underworld.

A passage from the Book of Ani says that the first gate of the Duat was guarded by the Vulture Goddess, whose “tearing beak” could admit the dead to the place whence they rose again. Amulets of vultures were buried with the dead, especially royalty. Egypt’s oldest oracle was the shrine of Nekhbet at Nekhen (modern Al-Kab), the original “necropolis” or city of the dead. [...] Nekhbet was described as “she whose wings are open, whose breasts are pendulous.” She was usually depicted as a vulture hovering with her wings spread, clutching an ankh or the Shen Ring in her talons. When pictured as a vulture, Nekhbet's colors are rarely true-to-life - instead she is symbolically red, blue, green, black, and white, the colors of life, the sky, regeneration, and holiness.

I've always found the reference of Malenia as a Valkyrie interesting because purely in the base game, she doesn't have any role actively acting as a guide of the dead. Rather, her role is as a protector, an undefeated champion and Miquella's blade - a role she obtains after studying with the mentor who led her to learn the "waterfowl dance" and gave her "wings of unparalleled strength". The main relation she has to death is to those she defeated in battle or inflicted with the Scarlet Rot, and her place in the roots of the Haligtree next to Miquella's cocoon.

The Bennu bird was the mythological phoenix of ancient Egypt. It was associated with the rising of the Nile, resurrection, and the sun. The sacred Bennu bird was thought to be a heron, and [...] were thought to lead the spirits of the dead through the dangers of the Duat.

The context is more interesting, in my opinion, when considering her as trying to be a guide through the underworld - specifically for Miquella. She knows her brother's plan to divest himself of his body and be resurrected (regardless of if you're considering base game lore or SotE lore) as she states clearly she "awaited his return". It's also clear that those who served Miquella knew he had also "died" in some capacity, killing themselves in flashes of light in the hopes to "guide his return". Personally, I think this was a missed opportunity to have her take on this role in Miquella's plot directly but that's neither here nor there.

The Hymn of the Bennu says: “I am a blue heron, pure as bone. I know the stirrings of the Nile, the source where water rises overlapped by trees, where ibises dip and wade, where the fish are plentiful. I fly beneath an arch of trees straight into the eye of heaven. I make a long journey amid mud houses, singing. I know the cool mind of the sky and the hot mysteries of earth. I am a blue heron, the messenger, a reborn and dying god. By day I exist because I exist. By night I sail above the river, a single star wise in the darkness.”

Likely incidental but another fun coincidence is that it is specifically a blue heron and Malenia has the association with the blue dancer charm and her mentor's blue robes. There's also obviously the water imagery, flowing water never rotting, but also water again being representative of death and rebirth, specifically associated with the phoenix in this case. We know for Malenia to reach her state as the Goddess of Rot, she has to die and bloom three times.

The Hymn of the Phoenix says: “I flew straight out of heaven, a mad bird full of secrets. I came into being as I came into being. I grew as I grew. I changed as I changed. My mind is fire, my soul is fire. I am the seed of every god, beautiful as evening, hard as light. I am the last four days of yesterday, four screams from the edges of the earth – beauty, terror, truth, madness – the phoenix on his pyre. I will live forever in the fire spun from my own wings. I destroy and create myself like the sun that rises burning from the East and dies burning in the West. To know the fire, I become the fire. I am power. I am light. I am forever. This is my deliverance. I am the fire that burns you, that burns in you. To live is to die a thousand deaths, but there is only one fire, one eternity.”

I don't really have anything profound here other than I love the visuals of this passage in relation to how they might reflect on Malenia's character. Malenia upon blooming in the scarlet aeonia is strikingly reminiscent of a phoenix being reborn from the flames, but there's also the interesting role fire plays in regards to rot, supposedly being able to burn it away to hold it at bay. In a sense by rejecting rot and embracing it only when the situation is desperate enough, she is continually welcoming her own repeated decay and rebirth. But perhaps this duality is intentional, if we consider the following passage:

Trapping waterfowl in a net is a common tomb scene since the Old Kingdom, although the representation of bird-trapping in a hexagonal net occurs already on an item found in a 1st Dynasty tomb. The scene is said to entail two aspects: one positive, related to the duck as a symbol of fertility linked to rebirth, and one negative, the birds as enemies of the dead, necessitating their being trapped to re-establish order in the cosmos. The birds, as a collective sign, refer to two contrary meanings by condensation.

I think where I ultimately fall in tying these three concepts together is Malenia's own fractured sense of purpose. I think her rot affliction and influence of the Rot God can be seen in some aspects of the Bennu Bird, her desire to be helpful and to achieve a better world can be represented by the Waterfowl/Heron, but the role she ultimately serves is as a protector of the dead (Miquella's cocoon) and represented in Nekhbet.

Heron, Nekhbet, and Bennu Bird Sources [x][x][x][x]

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Which deity better to compare to Miquella the Unalloyed than Shed, the child god, a deity who also has ties to the god Horus which I'll be discussing below in relation to Miquella the Kind.

Shed was pictured as a young man with a child’s Sidelock of Youth, wearing a kilt and an aegis, with a quiver of arrows across his back, riding in a chariot pulled by griffins.

We can largely see this exact imagery in the picture above and I found these interesting for a few notable reasons. The foremost is in his hunt of creatures, specifically snakes and scorpions as depicted above. We know from the earlier analysis there's the connection between Malenia's rot and the scorpion form of the Rot God - a nice parallel to Miquella fighting against her rot. There's also the bow and arrow, since it's strongly implied that Miquella invented both the pulley bow and crossbow, this also ties in well. But most curiously was the reference to griffins, given the only place in the entire game I can recall seeing griffin motifs is in the Haligtree. (Feel free to correct me if there's more elsewhere!)

Sure that may just be a Berserk reference, but that's so boring in comparison.

A protective god, Shed was pictured on many plaques and pendants. He was believed to guard against illnesses and wild beasts, and made sacred weapons of war.

Unlike the strong implication that Miquella made the pulley bow, we do know for a fact that he made the Hand of Malenia, which is inscribed with an incantation of Unalloyed Gold to make it resistant to rot, aka a sacred weapon of war.

Shed was often shown grasping serpents and other dangerous animals, and standing on the back of one or more crocodiles, to indicate that he had power over them. In some instances Shed was pictured as a mongoose.

Despite being a child god, Shed is clearly depicted as having power over the most dangerous creatures, not unlike how Miquella is referred to as the "most powerful" and "fearsome" Empyrean, and we can see this power through his charm ability and how he makes docile those who would otherwise prove to be a threat.

Over time, Shed was absorbed into the god Horus, as “Horus the Child.”

As we know, Miquella the Unalloyed eventually becomes Miquella the Kind which I'll get to soon, but first let's talk about the body, death, and souls.

Shed Sources [x]

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

Rather than the concept of a single body and a single soul like much theology that came after, there's different facets of the soul that ultimately came to represent a person and each plays a different role in a person's life both while they are alive and after death. Understanding the nuance of each I think helps shed an interesting perspective on the Trina and Miquella situation in particular.

There are 5 main parts I will be focusing on: Khat (Khet), Ka, Ba, Akh, and Ab (Ib)

Khat (Khet) - The Body

Also called Khet, Khat was the physical body of the deceased, or mummy. On the day of a funeral, special prayers were recited over the mummy to aid in its transformation into a spiritual body, Akh, that could rise to heaven to dwell with the gods. The outer coffin often had a pair of eyes and a false door. This was so that deceased could "see" out, and their Ka (another part of the soul) could come and go.*

The physical body is the easiest, but we can also see in the description related to the coffin that the body still has a role to play in relation to the other parts of the soul, specifically the Ka. This is something to keep in mind when thinking about specifically Miquella's cocoon husk, Ranni's dead body, and Godwyn's soulless body.

[* Note: There is a heated debate in the community with regards to the specific role of the ka being able to return to the body and which resides in the Field of Reeds]

Ka - The Life Force

The hieroglyph for the Ka is two arms raised as if mirroring each other. The Ka is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to describe, for there is no modern translation for this word. Essentially it appears to mean "double" as well as "vital force" and is a clear reference to a part of the individual that transcends the death of the physical body. Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson explains that "in all periods it is used as a term for the creative and sustaining power of life."

This concept of the Ka representing the part of the soul linked to the body I believe ties in well with the concept of multiple deaths that characters in Elden Ring can experience. Now we know when any of the Remembrance bosses die, they're hewn into the Erdtree, taking their shape.

The Ka was something handed down from one's parents, grandparents, and ancestors, like spiritual DNA, traceable in the very remote past to a creator god by way of lesser deities. The Ka was not only one's double but also a guide and protector, imbued with the spark of the divine. According to pictures drawn during the 18th Dynasty, the Ka came into being when a person was born, often depicted as a twin or double, but, unlike the body it belonged to, it was immortal provided it received nourishment.

We see here that it is also believed that under certain circumstances a Ka can be potentially immortal.

The gods themselves were felt to possess a Ka. Egyptologist Dimitri Meeks explains that the vital force that the ancients ascribed to the Ka acts in such a way as to give each deity the ability to take creative form infinitely. Because of this ability, it was this essence, the energy of the deity's Ka, which was felt to temporally inhabit statues and other magical images during ritual, or sacred animals.

In essence, a Ka can vary in shape (when associated with a deity) and is closely bound to the body. It is also able to be imbued in statues or other images - think puppets, or dolls in Ranni's case. Essentially as long as there is something in the realm of the living for Ka to inherit, it can continue to exist in some regard.

The Ka of the pharaoh was thought to be the collective life force of all his subjects - crucial to their well-being, indeed to their very existence. The term "By the Ka of the pharaoh" meant "by the good grace of the pharaoh."

This gives and interesting twist to the concept of the Erdtree which we know is used to facilitate life and rebirth in the Lands Between by returning the bodies of those who perished to it, as well as giving a unique perspective on the concept of grace since only those granted grace by Marika technically "belong" in the Lands Between.

Dying was referred to as "going to one's Ka." Upon the body's demise the Ka rejoined its divine origin, but always remained in close proximity of the body.

One way to potentially conceptualize the Ka is any manifestation of the soul or spirit of the deceased that remains in the land of living rather than the underworld: Spirit Ashes, Puppets, Ranni's Doll(s), Sellen's Primal Glintstone, etc. In Godwyn's case, this implies that his body (Khat) may live, this part of his soul (Ka) was killed and Ranni's was the inverse which is how she's able to continue living.

Ba - The Ego

The personality or alter ego of the deceased. The Ba was said to be able to fly from place to place during the day and is often shown hovering over the mummy or resting on a shrine. Migratory birds were regarded as nations of the Ba, flying freely between tomb and underworld. Supposedly the Ba could assume any form it chose, and the Book of the Dead has many spells to assist the Ba in its transformation. Some of the most common transformations of the Ba were into rams, a lotus, and other birds such as swallows.

Now of course, I read this and immediately thought of Trina, and while I don't think the concept of the Ba in how it functions here is a one to one for the manifestation of Trina, I believe it provides a very unique framework for how to conceptualize her existence. SotE made it abundantly clear that there is a very clear overlap between sleep/dreams and death and if we take the freedom of movement the Ba has literally this makes sense. In the context of Miquella and Trina, this makes Trina an aspect of Miquella that is able to traverse the underworld, able to walk death.

Though the Ba seems to have been essentially nonphysical, it nevertheless could be viewed as a separate physical mode of existence for its owner, even prior to death. Hence, the sun was the Ba of Ra, the wind was the Ba of Shu, water was the Ba of Nun, and crocodiles were the Bas of Sobek. Deities often had multiple Bas - Ra was thought to have seven Bas, and it was claimed that Amun had ten Bas.

It's the line "even prior to death" that caught my attention and I think this mostly applies to Miquella and Trina but could also be applied to Marika and Radagon - though I believe the alchemy concept suits them better. If a Ba is a form of the soul that can exist prior to death and manifest in some way, traversing to the underworld, well that sure does sound like Trina doesn't it?

Every evening the Ba returned to the body, reuniting with it and thus ensuring the body's continued existence in Sehet Aaru (the Field of Reeds). The body had to be recognizable to the Ba, hence the careful mummification and elaborate mummy masks.

Revisiting the concept of Godwyn again, we know without his soul and with the Rune of Death corrupting his body, it begins to mutate and transform. It provides an interesting explanation for why the eclipse ritual may not have worked even if the eclipse did come to pass: his body in its mutated state, spread far and wide across the lands between is no longer recognizable. He cannot come back to life because of how his body was desecrated. It also provides an explanation for why Ranni was able to continue living: we find her body, still reflecting her form, at the top of her Divine Tower.

The ram was the animal symbolic of the Ba, a major aspect of the Egyptian notion of the soul; the Egyptian word for “ram” was “ba.”

Now this is purely a parallel I purely enjoyed thinking about when considering the Ancestor Spirits and specifically the concept of Torrent being a juvenile Ancestor Spirit.

Calling Back the Ba of Osiris says: “My Ba is a restless bird that leaves to seek itself. For the falcon who breaks the confines of the shell, even the sky it not enough eternity. He may be tossed by storms of whirling sand or ride a hot wind above dunes. Far from here his voice may ring though the forests from the branches of a fruit tree. By the Nile he may wait silent among the reeds, fish spawning as he sleeps, his head tucked in his wing. Burn saffron; remember my prayers. The smoke of incense will bring him home. Though far and sailing, my Ba comes back to me. In his copper beak he carries my thoughts. On his back my starry dreams fly over mountains, over seas, over villages. Above the grape arbor it is I sailing with the falcon, triumphant. Perhaps now he hovers near, flurry of dark wings beating the door; or he follows the rivers and canals of gods, leading them through mountains; or he binds the souls to the rags of mummies, filling dry hands with perfume. Old ones grasp their scepters and rise barefoot in the burning sand. Perhaps he twitters above boats with their cargoes of amethyst, sailing home. Ah, my Ba's a restless bird. On dark wings he flies from yesterday, love in his throat, the warmth of light among his feathers, the risen sun in his hard, amber eye. If you see him, send him home to me. The heart is uncertain country."

Nothing profound here, again, I just really love the way this passage presents the concept of the Ba.

Akh - The Enlightened Spirit

The Akh was the immortal, transformed self, which was a magical union of the Ba and Ka. Strudwick writes, "once the Akh had been created by this union, it survived as an 'enlightened spirit,' enduring and unchanged for eternity." [...] The Akh could return to earth, however, and it was an aspect of the Akh which would come back as a ghost to haunt the living if some wrong had been done, or would return in dreams to help someone they cared for. Letters and offerings were left at the deceased's tomb in hopes that the Akh would watch over those still on earth.

No image for this one, but I believe the Akh represents the process of ascension well, though in Miquella's case it would imply he has achieved a bastardized form of ascension given that rather than joining his Ka and Ba, he discarded (at least one) of his Ba: Trina. Perhaps some form of it was achieved through the chopping and mashing up of the souls of his family, especially if we think back to the concept of a Pharaoh's Ka encompassing all it's subjects - in this case, all of Marika's childen could be considered part of her Ka.

The Egyptians thought the Akh was a radiant light, something like a star. The Pyramid Texts tell us that when a man dies, his Akh goes to the stars to dwell with the gods - "the Akh belongs to heaven, the corpse to earth."

I love the idea of a version of godhood or ascension being represented by the stars given we know in Elden Ring, the stars are also represent primordial life just like the Crucible.

Ab (Ib) - The Heart

The most important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the Ab, or heart. The Ab was believed to be a drop from the heart of the mother of the child at conception. The heart was thought to be the source of good and evil within a person, the moral awareness and center of thought that could leave the body at will. [...] To the ancient Egyptians, it was the heart and not the brain that was the seat of emotion and thought, and was the key to the afterlife. To lose one's heart was a terrible fate, and to prevent such a calamity no less than seven chapters of the Book of the Dead were dedicated to help prevent this from happening.

This summarizes the tragedy of Miquella's ascension through discarding his love in the form of Trina better than I could. I'll leave you with one final passage I adore when thinking about the tragedy of the heart:

A spell called Giving the Heart to Osiris says: “My heart sleeps. My heart dreams. Give me a mouth. I want to talk. Give me my legs and I'll rise. Give me my hands and arms and I'll fight. I'll crush the skull of the snake. Open my blind eyes, straighten my bent feet. I know my heart. It stirs within me. It throbs in my right hand. Blood quickens beneath my skin. Give me my heart. Let it pump again life's power in me, infuse my hands and feet with spirit. Give me my heart. Let me rise and walk. I am quickened. No more sleep. No more dreams. No more death."

Death and Soul Sources [x][x][x]

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Another botanical reference that is common to a lot of religions is the concept of a Tree of Life, in ancient Egypt this is referenced by the Acacia Tree.

Sometimes called the "Tree of Life" in Egyptian mythology, the first gods were said to have been born under the sacred acacia tree of the goddess Hathor, and Horus was also said to have emerged from it.

I think there's some very interesting parallels as well between Hathor and Marika as well as Horus and ascended!Miquella which I'll get into below.

According to myths, the acacia protected the body of Osiris, and the acacia was known as Nht Hnmt Ntr ("The Tree That Encloses the God.")

Again, another interesting parallel to the function of both the Erdtree and Haligtree in how they are presented in Elden Ring. The Erdtree houses the form of Marika/Radagon while the Haligtree - designed to be a replacement to the Erdtree - which housed Miquella's cocoon at one point and is actively where Malenia is when she ascends to her "Goddess of Rot" form.

Acacia Sources [x][x]

Horus | Miquella the Kind

While not a perfect parallel, I think in relation to Shed who later becomes the precursor to Horus as "Horus the Child", looking at the deity Horus in relation to specifically ascended Miquella can provide a unique perspective.

Egyptian texts paint a dazzling picture of Horus: "when he opens his eyes he fills the universe with light, but when he shuts them darkness comes into being." When the Osiris myth became popular, Horus became the patron of young men and was often described as the perfect example of the dutiful son who grows up to become a just man. Weak as a child, Horus was nurtured by his mother Isis and grew into manhood. Mythologically, the sun and the moon represented the two eyes of Horus.

Perhaps not the most insightful, but interesting with the knowledge that Miquella's eyes hold eclipses in them, representative of his goal to bring the state of Godwyn to one where he could provide him a true death.

Early hospitals at Alexandria were under the protection of Horus - Horus was thought to have become a doctor on account of the many illnesses he suffered as a child. Consequently, the Eye of Horus amulet was thought to have healing powers, and to ward off the evil eye and protect against all sorts of illnesses.

We know that Miquella cast so much aside in his effort to heal Malenia, and I still firmly believe was one of his primary goals and reasons for seeking ascension. So while not his own illnesses he suffered as a child, it would thematically still fit.

Lastly, here's two other interesting passages:

The Speech of Horus says: “I am Horus, the Great Falcon. My flight has reached the horizon. I have passed by the gods of Nut. I have gone further than the gods of old. Even the most ancient bird could not equal my very first flight. There is no god who has achieved what I have achieved. I am Horus, whom Isis bore and whose protection was made inside the egg. I am Horus, Son of Osiris.”

The Hymn of Horus says: "I come to the room where the sun rose. A falcon flies in and settles on my wrist. In his mouth hangs the skin of a snake. ‘I am Horus,’ he cries. ‘From the land of kings I come, riding through the hot winds on the back of a jackal. Where priests murmured in crumbling temples, I flew through their sacred fires dropping feathers. I come to shout the wisdom of air. I’ve come with a sycamore seed in my beak. By the river we’ll sow it and watch it grow through the years. You will die there, Osiris; and I will sit nine thousand years in the tree’s white branches, one eye on each horizon, waiting for your return. I am life rushing on, born from the egg of the world, born from the belly of a magic woman, born of my father’s dreams. I am the screech of wind, the rush of falcon wings, talons sharp as knives. I came after you. I stand before you. I am with you always. I am the power that dispels darkness. The seed laid into the void must grow. The candle’s only purpose is to shine in the darkness. Bread is meant to be ground to pulp in the teeth. The function of life is to have something to offer death. A man forgets, but his heart remembers – the love and the terror, the weeping, the beating of wings.'”

Horus Sources [x]

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

While I think Isis can be an interesting deity to consider for pre-God Marika, I find Hathor slightly more fitting for her ascended godhood.

Hathor is understood to be the deity who welcomes the worthy dead, offers them refreshments of food and drink, and leads the way into the blessed beyond. One of the desires of the deceased was to be in the following of Hathor - "I tread the stars and climb the sunbeams in the retinue of Hathor, I rise to the sky."

Despite the Land of Shadows canonically existing, I believe that's just another realm where death manifests while the Lands Between represents another, and in a sense could be considered something like "the blessed beyond" for those granted her grace. It also explains how those like the Tarnished could be cast out and only permitted back once she returned the vision of grace to them.

Hathor's attributes as a mother goddess were exalted - it was she who gave birth to gods, shaped animals and people, and brought greenery into existence. Hathor repelled the shadows and illuminated all creatures with her light. The inundation of the Nile happened on her command, and the winds drew near on her orders.

Quite a literal parallel to both her removal of Destined Death and sealing away of the Land of Shadow, also bringing light to the land in the form of the golden shine of the Erdtree.

In one Egyptian tale, Hathor was charged by Ra to punish humankind. So great was the slaughter that Ra feared people would be wiped out, and ordered the goddess to halt. But blood-mad, she ignored him. These two aspects of Hathor - violent and dangerous versus beautiful and joyful - reflected the Egyptian belief that women, as the Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown puts it, "encompassed both extreme passions of fury and love."

I hadn't expected to find something like this when first reading about Hathor but obviously this is reminiscent to how Marika lead her genocidal wars.

Hathor Sources [x]

Conclusion

This is all I plan to cover but there's a lot more I could have such as Apophis; gold, silver, and ivory; hair, braids, knots, and power; and so much more. But this is already super long so I encourage anyone interested to take a stab at looking into it yourself if you're curious. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts!

#Elden Ring Lore #cinder rambles #long post tw #malenia blade of miquella #miquella the unalloyed #whatever i spent too much time on this i might as well put it in the tags #its also SO long like buckle up if you're going to read this #obviously not perfect parallels but there's enough that it made me go “HMM” and deep dive so here you go #if nothing else it's interesting food for thought

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crystallizsch · 7 months ago

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hi ian i come bearing angst fuel for the yuusha as twsted elsa (maybe an idea for her possible overblot idk she kinda reads to me as someone whod preemptively isolate in the case she feels...blotty)

(also seeing that art of her playing violin totally didnt fuck me up im still nursing my bruised heart 🥴🥴💕💕)

https://youtu.be/NDldNaEZTt8?si=Wm71pgTltuJLjFvk

^^this is from the frozen musical where they gave a song to elsa to explore her emotional turmoil and it just fleshed out her character so much more than the orig movie (ok i havent seen frozen 2 oops) but just this section here:

Is everyone in danger as long as I'm alive?

Was I a monster from the start?

How did I end up with this frozen heart?

Bringing destruction to the stage

Caught in a war that I was never meant to wage

anyways lmao i jus think the song is neat i think yuushas neat (i wanna see more of her ahehehe i love seeing infodumps abt ur yuus)

-diodellet

(throwback to this “what if yuu had magic” ask where i had a ✨realization✨ and this more recent yuusha lore drop that i gave zero elaboration on 🙃)

very rough ob yuu design??? idk i came up with it on the spot ;;; and it’s kinda based on disney’s concept art of elsa when she was supposed to be the villain.

evil ice queen vibes :3

also i know the ob monster is supposed to be based on the villain— which is elsa in this case— but lowkey. an ice monster is way cooler.

also also i just realized after i drew this i couldve done a grim/yuu tandem overblot ough 🤧🤧 (next time I'll do that instead if i ever go back to this concept)

(read more below because it got SO long)

AAH anyways hi hi dio!!! when i saw your ask i went —

— with this entire post

AAGH HOW MANY MORE UNINTENTIONAL CONNECTIONS ARE GOING TO BE BETWEEN FROZEN AND YUUSHA

i guess watching the movie everyday when it came out when you’re like 9 does something to your brain chemistry (and still haunts you at least a decade later) 💀

but anyways the angst ;;; overblot yuu ;;;;; my brain is rotting and the worms have taken over

also i didn’t even know that there was a frozen broadway musical so im gonna have to check it out later 🏃💨💨💨

(also dont worry frozen 2 is a nice watch for the most part but the way they concluded the characters did not feel 100% satisfying to me 😭 BUT i love some of the songs tho ;;; kristoff’s goofy 80s ballad song is one of them specifically, i need everyone to listen to it)

hfgnnfhfgv anyways thank you so much i’m chugging that angst fuel as i expand more on a possible ob yuusha with another infodump 💪💪💪

⚠️⚠️⚠️ ALSO IM SORRY BUT mentions of taking one’s own life so please proceed with caution ⚠️⚠️⚠️

i had to reread what my initial thoughts about it bc it was months ago??? and after rereading im just like, huh what was i on— (just that feeling when you just cringe at your old posts ;; but idk i think the insanity/cringe sometimes can loop back into being a genius and the cycle just continues)

anyways i’ve been on and off writing yuusha’s bio and overblot yuu was just at the back of my mind chilling but i didn’t really do anything with it.

but now that i have the opportunity,,,, im gonna go on the magicless route this time bc i feel like I've said all what i thought if it was an overblot due to her own magic.

so uh from what i gather overblots are a mix of overuse of magic + intense negative emotion.

since it’s magicless yuu, i guess the one of the general headcanons around the fandom is that they’ve been too exposed to overblots and then intense negative emotions suddenly just triggered their overblot.

uh anyways onto the elsa parts

Is everyone in danger as long as I'm alive? Was I a monster from the start? How did I end up with this frozen heart? Bringing destruction to the stage Caught in a war that I was never meant to wage

THE LYRICS ARE SO GOOD ;;; i really love how some broadway interpretations expand on the source material

and yeah you're right 🤧🤧🤧— yuusha would try to hide and escape, especially as she overblots bc she would try to avoid hurting people (and like elsa, it'd only hurt others more trying to escape bc of probably how she leaves destruction in her wake trying to make others stay away from her 😔)

(this is a small tangent but i remember thinking about an overblot kalim and i imagine him to be similar, like he would not hurt anyone intentionally in his overblot.)

anyways so the way it would go is that i imagine her friends got fatally injured either because a) she feels that she’s too “useless” without magic to help and wasn’t able to do anything OR b) her attempts at helping to try and prove that she can help without magic made everything worse.

and then she just goes into a guilty spiral then boom — overblot.

ALSO in the song, the way elsa briefly contemplated taking her own life but then realizing there’s no guarantee that would solve anything hnghgh (<- another unintentional parallel to my yuusha lore because that’s actually how she ended up in twst except she did NOT have the latter realization)

there’s this “yuu is dead” theory i’m just using and that the black carriage actually just caught yuusha’s soul after she took her own life from all the burden.

also some bonus angst context for that violin post :3

yuusha back in her homeworld is raised and known to be a gifted musician. people can feel the life and soul in her music but when people interact with her, they are usually met with an ice-cold (heh) personality.

the dead family member was the one who taught her music and the only one who was kind to her.

there’s always an expectation from her family to perform well and to keep up appearances as to not be a humiliation since anything she does can reflect on her entire family. (also hi, slight yuusha/jamil parallels maybe???)

the way she presents herself also stemmed from an incident as a child when she went apeshit on another kid bc she was defending a friend.

so from then on she was taught taught to conceal don’t feel those emotions — which just unfortunately extended to any positive ones, not just negative ones like rage.

so when she is brought to twst, there’s no memory of her being forced to hold back her emotions so she’s just unapologetically affectionate and open with everyone bc that’s how she really is.

but every now and then, memories of her breaking down haunt her in her dreams or as subtle reminders in the waking world.

then yuusha just goes on her day like she just wasn't reminded of her past.

(unnecessarily tragic lore my beloved, but anyway—)

another extremely brief tangent and bonus -> the two songs i had on loop while drawing pre-twst yuusha

lindsey stirling my beloved i love her music

the songs are such a vibe

her instrumentals in “lose you now” especially makes me feel some sort of way 😖

#AHH THIS IS /SO/ LONG #THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN IM GIVEN THE CHANCE TO RAMBLE #but thank you for the ask dio!! 🤧🤧#it makes me so happy to hear you like yuusha 😭💕💕#this also took a bit because i needed to like #actually turn all these thoughts into actual coherent words #and for them to actually. make sense together.#idk im proofreading this myself during the gamer hours of midnight hfdjslkf #i sure /hope/ they do make sense for the most part because this is pure massive brain vomit #[—✦ chatting #-✧ my art #-✧ oc rambles #(💜) yuusha #pretwst💜#-✦—]#at this point too i’m sticking to the twst elsa concept #it just felt weird admitting it bc i have a history with this movie and its fandom in general #kids would ask you “whos your favorite disney princess it cant be elsa” bc everyone would pick her so i'd have to pick another </3 #she was too famous and therefore too obvious and basic #not to mention “let it go” was EVERYWHERE and it did become annoying at one point 😭#the fandom around frozen back then was v questionable too ngl and i was also in that hole for a bit so it's just /ack/#but rewatching the movie i realize how elsa kinda speaks to me hgjkdsjfaljsd #i could lowkey highkey rant more about her but anyways #imma be an elsa defender and apologist for as long as i am able

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