#katabasis crime
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Mirame
Omg this took so long, I hope you guys like my world and want to see more it, I did doodles of all the gods so you have a visual of them, lol let me know who's your favorite and why
So, in my story Mirame the world is high fantasy
let's start with the a little bit about the world then gods we'll go over the races in a different post
The world
For now we're calling this world Mirame (Spanish for look at me)
Mirame has floating islands kept up by waves of magic left behind from dead gods, hollow mountains, magic that flows through almost anything, different planes of existence such as Gahenna (hell) that can be passed through with the right amount of magic, demons, fairies, bug people and much more!
The world is entering a Renaissance when the story starts, technology has just begun, there are magic trains and cars.
I'll go more into the depths in a separate posts in the future
GODS
The gods have different jobs to keep mortals alive and the plane of existence from falling, even if they don't want to, they don't all get along with each other, they're at each other's throats in the present
Brugmansia
(concept art, still feeling out her design)
The weaver of life, she's quite narcissistic and looks down on mortals, she has a son called tentsosra, she cares deeply for him, she also has a right hand man, he's more rude than brugmansia.
Brugmansia created a race called Erklings, she created them in her own image, she has very high standards for them and if they don't meet them there are consequences.
Mortals always hunt down her creations as trophies or for rituals, in order to stop humanity from touching her beautiful creations (creatures and plants) she created monsters that solely attack mortals, such as sirens, forest guardians, trolls, etc.
Brugmansia often kills mortals in the most brutal ways possible, to teach them a lesson.
brugmansia is very injured at the start of the story due to Satra attacking her with a new disease, at the start of the story brugmansia is at her weakest and most vulnerable.
Tentsosra
(concept art)
God of the elements, born from a seed brugmansia found and watered with her tears tentsosra was born, treated like a son making him loyal to Brugmansia willing to risk his life to protect her
He is kinder than his mother and more curious by nature
Tentsosra created a race of people called Obi that can change from human to animal, however they have been hunted to extinction at least that's what most think, barely anybody knows of their existence
Known for hunting mortals on Brugmansia's behalf
Tentsosra is worshiped by huntsman seeking a bountiful hunt as well as protection from brugmansia's creations.
Katabasis
(Since I already did a post about katabasis I'll just dig a little deeper into them and where and what their domain is)
God of the afterlife, they control what happens to your soul, Katabasis has direct connections to Gahenna (hell) and is in charge of keeping the peace with them, as an all out war for the mortal plane can spell out disaster.
Katabasis fascination with mortals is quite disturbing, Katabasis used to torture souls or treat them kindly to see their reactions, like tearing a bugs legs off
Some see katabasis as a bad omen, others celebrate Katabasis hailing them as the greatest god of all
Katabasis domain is on the edge of life and death, they have subjects called psychopomps, they help Katabasis with sorting and escorting souls, unfortunately some souls are rebellious and still have fight in them transforming them into undead creatures, often distorted beyond recognition, they're often dealt with by Amelia Vilheart.
Satra Nosferatu
(concept art, I'm still redesigning her lol)
God of gluttony, disease, and cannibalism. Satra loves the taste of Ko'nari flesh specifically, but she's not picky she'll eat any mortal she can get her hands on. Satra hates brugmansia with a passion, they have fought countless times, however recently Satra had lost but left brugmansia deeply injured, she had slinked into the earth, recovering and waiting to attack any moment.
Satra is very childish, but also surprisingly smart in tactics, she used to be Brugmansia's ORIGINAL creation, staying by Brugmansia's side like her daughter until Brugmansia saw Satra devouring one of her creations that's when brugmansia banished and disowned her.
Satra has minions called nymes, they usually dig through the head of someone and drag their body for Satra to consume, they also grave rob, but there are ways to ward them off, by calling on your God to protect your loved ones graves of begging on your hands and knees fod satra to desecrate your loved ones corpse.
Moshi Yama
(concept art, I also need to redesign her, also yeah your eyes bleeding is supposed to happen-☠️)
Goddess of parties and lust but she used to be the god of prosperity, she was worshiped by the fairies, they loved her but ever since the incident they despise her and call her a disgrace to the gods.
Moshi Yama has the ability to bend and warp reality, some think it's just illusions though, it's like being on acid
she was born from the legendary gods Malachite and Parhassus, they died from their love for each other and decided to give birth to Moshi Yama and Amato Yama causing them to perish in a beautiful and tragic display of their love, Moshi Yama and Amato Yama were mischievous when they were younger causing the other gods problems
fast forward Amato Yama had betrayed Moshi Yama attacking her worshipers city at that moment Moshi Yama had given up and decided to lay low and have sex with many mortals searching for something, until one day she noticed great potential in one of Amato Yamas generals, a possible new god
Amato Yama
(still designing ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ)
God of war but he used to be the god of trickery
as you know he is the twin of Moshi Yama, he hated this fact, he felt like he was her shadow, constantly overlooked, until one day he decided he would rise up, so he ordered his worshipers to attack Moshi Yamas "pawns" and so began his empire
he grew a nation and ruled it himself, which is blasphemous for gods, they're not supposed to interfere to that extent, so when Neiths husband went to stop him Amato Yama was furious and so they fought and unfortunately Amato Yama won, feeling the rush of victory and the hatred of the gods he decided he would kill all the gods until he was left
Neith
Goddess of the sun and knowledge, she has a daughter named Mao, her husband unfortunately died by Amato Yamas hands.
She's about 10 feet tal and has been alive throughout creations of mortals, her godly form is said to be as big a 4 mountains by her followers.
Neith covers herself head to toe to conceal herself as she grieves her husband's death, nobody remembers how she looks, it's been lost to time, she has a horn that can be pulled out to reveal a spear, she never uses it unless the situation is dire, she often avoids confrontation.
Her followers are very secretive, and share knowledge with Neith
Mao (also known as the Phoenix)
The god of freedom and flames, she's only been around for 8 hundred years but it seems she already has a whole city devoted to her.
She has a horn like her mother that can be pulled out to reveal to be a javelin
Mao has left her mother's side and is now trying to inspire the mortals of the world and to help them just like her father, however she doesn't know what it's like to be mortal so sometimes she makes bad decisions and causes troubles for her worshipers.
Mao was born with the ability to control flames to the extent that she can cause it to not hurt but heal somebody, the same as her father.
Mao feels like she must prove herself worthy to be known as the daughter of one of the greatest gods to exist
Castile
(concept art)
God of the moon and entropy
She's a child, and possibly from the plane of Gahenna
She is afraid of becoming a monster and destroying everyone as prophecied
As she grows older the more stronger and uncontrollable she becomes, her body grows more and more with devilish features, she does not know her parents all's shes known is a giant empty castle and her ghostly caretaker Cerberus.
When the story begins Castile has herself in a deep slumber so she would not harm, using her astral protection to help her followers
Castile loves her followers as they love her, she does not care for what they do or harm she is just so greatful to be herself again.
The consequences of her power include uncontrollable hunger, heightened ability to hear, increased strength, sharp nails, increased magical abilities and new spells, and if consumed enough a full vampirism transformation in which you can either lose yourself to the monster inside and only watch through empty lenses or gain full control with ultimate power and intellect, which is very rare the average is lost self.
The one major problem with castile is she doesn't know how to help mortals as a God and ends up making lives more worse and those around them but she sees her meedling as helpful, castile didn't even know she was God until she slumbered
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Holy shit, you get all of that? (• ▽ •;)
#art#drawing#my art#character art#artists on tumblr#doodle#oc art#original character#digital art#oc#katabasis crime#brugmansia crime#castile crime#mao crime#neith crime#mirame crime#tentsosra crime#satra nosferatu crime#moshi yama crime#amato yama crime#yama twins crime#digital sketch#digital artist#digital drawing#oc lore#character description#original oc#orginal character#sketch#god ocs
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Hi! Happy birthday to Bat-Swap!!!🥳🥳🥳
I was wondering if there were any deleted scenes/concepts that didn't make it into the final fic? Or a character you wanted to add but didn't get the chance to?
Love your writing! Might have to go reread for the fic's birthday!
The muse, the Michelangelo, the WOLF!!
Oh god so many, I thought this fic up with the ending coming like a week later and so much came up in between that got scrapped into the Outtake Doc for any later use.
I have a list of my minds bullcrap, hold up, gotta dig through the receipts
In absolutely no particular order-
Back when we met Pinky I planned to reveal the whole Vasquez extended Marvel family through a statue for each Marvel at the park, one basically guarding each path that all branched out of the center area Billy’s was at. By then I had already made plans to make the Sins and maybe Blaze a looming Big Bad so I had a concept of the statues having their own importance sometime in the final confrontation I have planned (bc we gotta have one, I love comics and comic are all about that big payoff fight) but that got scrapped for the longer buildup and the timeline I refined to make them heroes for too short a time to get such big memorials
One more overarching idea was to make the Batfam more hostile to Cap, not liking the situation as much as he wasn’t and not getting along well. I wanted to start off with a lighter note so I changed peoples tune
Was going to have a moment of some Batfam like Tim and Steph (who were involved with YJ) asking about Freddy and wanting to catch up with him, with the allusion to the Marvels being more tight knit with Billy seeming like the exception given how much he seems to travel more than his siblings.
One scrapped scene that might make a comeback with some editing is Bruce as Cap joining Pinky on a pre-planned stake out/take down, with more than a couple of playful jabs that “Look at us! The redder versions of you and Krypto-boy!” Plus some more Pinky love bc that kid was insane (like every Fawcett character honestly)
Actually cut the Katabasis chapter down; had an outline and some paragraphs done of Tim destroying SBP and getting a whack at him with a lot of unhealthy pent up issues that I doubt fully got resolved after the Everything™️ that was The Teen Years Of Tim Drake
Dick was supposed to have a scene visiting Damian in the hospital first but plans very obviously changed and I added a Dick & Billy focused bonding-ish chapter
Two things with Lucy’s reveal actually, was gonna have her book be a redo of the old Owlman and Pulchinella characters from Harley’s failed romance novel now turned turned adventure novel but changed it to basically be personally made story of a Lucy like sidekick to Capitano (Billy). More endearing to me to have Harley making books like she always wanted to that are aimed for her daughter’s wild imagination and Billy helping in recommending them. Also was going to have Lucy jokingly call Bruce-as-Billy “Batsy” as a riff on Billy’s last name and Bruce in his stupidly big brain for everything criminal put some pieces together about how she said that name and the kind of smile+laugh she’s got but have no chance to say anything before the doors shut. Just to fuck with him more
Was going to have Kit and Jason have a chat when Jason first woke up, with Kit realizing who the guy he scared unconscious was and adding my long desired “Oh this ghost is a kid I accidentally avenged by murdering a guy.” Moment. Will never forget that Jason killed Captain Nazi, top tier stuff to mess with
I had another small villain confrontation idea in Mr. Banjo Jr leading a crime spree parade, even had lyrics for him to sing about sticking it to the man I even named (bc I am insane at all times) “Rebel souls unfold” to work in more of a Music Miester-y way in leading the brainwashed Fawcettizens in attacking Bruce-as-Billy, all with lyrics of Banjo Jr hyping himself up and making it sound like a revolt against heroes. Honestly a lot of fun thinking up but it never got to the writing stage for a scene and I don’t know where I’d put it now that things are getting serious. I’ll probably post it when I have a full list of scraped concepts when this monster of a fic is finally over, haha
(Wow, I just switched to numbers instead of dots here, Holy moley)
There are a lot of scrapped ideas I feel confident in including later and other ones I want to foam at the mouth about with everyone but are all spoilers so aaaAAHHH but I continue on! Honestly, blame my brain for having so many ideas and only ever writing in flow of thought for this mess of brain matter in my cranium. Ugh
#Batswap#bat-swap#asks#ask me anything#ask#scrapped ideas#fic inspo#fanfic inspo#batman#shazam#billy batson#dc
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post onslaught/ajax analysis please
SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG I wanted to do it justice so I reread the tragedy, but basically Ajax is a figure in Greek Mythology who is present in the Trojan War and Iliad, and his titular tragedy, Ajax, originally written by Sophocles. (He’s also in Odysseus’ katabasis in the Odyssey) He’s considered the second strongest (next to Achilles), and is an extremely competent soldier.
Ajax’s tragedy takes place after a contest of who should take Achilles’ armor after his death—Menelaus and Agamemnon give it to Odysseus, the only other candidate. Ajax is incredibly angry about this, and wishes to slaughter Menelaus, Agamemnon, and Odysseus in particular. Athena clouds his vision, and he instead kills animals taken from Troy to be divided up amongst the men. Upon finding out what he has done, the other Greeks see it as a transgressive crime, and upon returning to lucidity Ajax becomes despondent, not seeing a way to live in a peaceful world after this, and kills himself.
Ultimately, Ajax’s story, and other ancient works like The Iliad, The Odyssey, and the Oresteia, represent a shift in the Athenian conscious of constant war and battle, where a person’s strength is based on their glory, to one of sophistry and wisdom, of a democracy. Figures like Ajax and Achilles die because their characters are prominent heroes, claiming great glory for themselves and their men, but that is no longer what Athens is. They cannot survive in a “peaceful” world. Odysseus, on the other hand, who represents a more “rational” and moderate perspective, makes a journey to go from the Odysseus that fights in Troy, to the Odysseus that fights for his family upon his return to Ithaca.
Now, moving on to Onslaught: Onslaught in Phase 2 (especially Till All Are One), is someone who can’t move on from the war. Whose purpose for millions of years was to fight, and he did this well! What then, is there, as she transitions from someone incredibly respected in wartime, to someone who he and his comrades are barely scraping by? Megatron has left her and her cause, Galvatron was… Galvatron, and Starscream both betrayed them and killed Swindle! Unable to cope in a peaceful world, he strives for purpose—for another war, and sets her eyes on Starscream. Where he was an excellent fighter, she is now cast to the side by the old faction leaders and the new Cybertronian leaders.
In the beginning of Till All Are One, we see Onslaught decide to refuse to ingratiate himself into the new peaceful society, choosing instead to hunt down Swindle, not for justice, but to use her to get at Starscream. To bring her Cybertron crumbling down, and find purpose in a new fight. Those who Starscream refers to as "monsters"--those who find purpose in conflict and feel lost without it, Brawl and Vortex, go along with this, and Blast Off, whose purpose isn't to fight, who has been trying to help the others persist in this society without Swindle, is the only one reluctant to do so. He knows Onslaught 1. needs a purpose 2. gets fixated on a conflict/an enemy and 3. is lost during peace time.
This focus, exacerbated by anti Starscream protests and Rattrap's leaks, culminates in Onslaught and the other Combaticons combining into Bruticus, with one goal: to burn everything. This is seen as a transgressive act of violence, to figures such as Blast Off's peers from Ironhide's new security program, and to colonists, who've for the most part only known peace. This is a similar act to Ajax's slaughter of the animal trophies from Troy. Both Iacon and the animals are the results of the fighting both Ajax and Onslaught did, and excelled in, but as a transition to peace occurs in both settings, Ajax and Onslaught, unable to cope with being left behind by it, destroy those results, or try to. Everyone is horrified by it, further pushing these characters away, so they can't adjust to peacetime.
Afterwards, Starscream, who also can't adjust to peace time and is looking for any form of power to hold onto in case war happens once again (whether it be with one of the colonies, or Optimus, or Decepticons, or Sentinel Prime, or Unicron), (remind me to talk about this also at some point) convinces Blast Off to help deceive the other Combaticons to be loyal to her. Blast Off does this to help Onslaught not destroy himself in pursuit of conflict and vengeance, but Starscream is once more using Onslaught as a soldier. And ultimately, at the end of Till All Are One, once Starscream confesses to his crimes, Onslaught and the other Combaticons are also sent to jail, and aren't mentioned again, left behind because they no longer served as soldiers.
I personally like to think that 1. they survive through Unicron 2. they are able to live better lives post Unicron, and 3. Blast Off and the other Combaticons (including Onslaught) do make up (I still need to read Escape Velocity...). I don't think any of this is easy, but to me phase 2 is about hope, about being able to embrace the peace they were all fighting for, and find their place in and with each other, especially as Onslaught and the others have their gestalt bond. This doesn't take away from the fact that Onslaught, to me, is very Ajax-coded, but rather that he, through people like Blast Off and the other Combaticons, are able to be given the chances and the love that someone like Ajax didn't have, having dishonored himself in a world that he saw as still prioritizing honor and glory above everything.
#i love onslaught a lot#combaticon#onslaught#onslaught transformers#transformers onslaught#till all are one#taao#transformers idw#tf idw#combaticons#blast off#blast off transformers#transformers blast off#ajax the greater#transformers meta#my writing#my meta
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might as well do a little TDOV promo, esp since ive got some new folks following me. hi, im rath! im a queer nonbinary game designer, and ive written a bunch of ttrpgs!
some quick blurbs under the readmore
BIG PROJECTS: - Disparateum, a game of exploring a city at the crossroads of many worlds. dance through dreams, swordfight your reflection, explore a fractal museum, scale the surface of your own soul, and more! - KATABASIS, fight your way out of a concrete afterlife as you try and return to life. your armor, weapons, and tools are crafted from your emotional baggage, and the monsters and environments youll face are all splintered and confused reflections of the world you're struggling to return to. - [BXLLET>, a post-apocalyptic cowboy game where bullets are your XP, and every shot fired kills your target. has a ton of supplements and reimaginings.
SMALL PROJECTS: - Charcuterie, three zine collections. the first two are compilations of small games ive written and released in various forms, the third is short stories and poetry. messy, weird, barely edited, stuffed with doodles, a lot of fun. - Stationkeeping, a small Animal Crossing-inspired game about renovating a dinky space station, slowly expanding it out and occasionally meeting aliens or other players on their own journeys. played on index cards you carry with you and fill out as you do various things in your life. - Maybe One Day, It'll Be Enough - a game about war gods sentenced to infinite community service for their crimes. played by throwing a ball against a brick wall. for hours. originally released as a tumblr post here. - NOT WEAVERDICE, half a core mechanic for a superhero game, half a ramble about superhero ttrpgs and how to have fun with them. im currently working on a game that expands out this idea, called Unskilled Labor. - MORTAL POP!BAT, a 616-page Funko Pop wargame. yeah, im including it in the small projects category. fuck you. - Wintergreen, an OSR game that fits inside a mint tin. one of my earliest released games, still has some pretty cute ideas.
thanks for checking this all out, it means the world! the last few months have been pretty tight, and every little bit of support really does make a difference. happy trans day of visibility everyone, love yall!
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REC: laiqualaurelote - The Katabasis Job
URL: https://ift.tt/98vuXfQ by @laiqualaurelote “Let me get this straight,” says Crystal. “In order to avoid being sent to Hell, Edwin is going to break into Hell, steal the most important thing in the universe — whatever the fuck that is — and escape. Again.” “Pretty much," says Charles. “That,” says Crystal, “is a stupid fucking plan.” - Instead of becoming detectives, Charles and Edwin embark on an afterlife of crime. When the long arm of the Lost & Found Department catches up with them, they are made an offer they can't refuse: earn their freedom by stealing from Hell itself. Heist!AU for Painland Week Day 6: Free Day (Words: 23,571) !!!fandom, !!fic, |site:ao3, +fandom:dead.boy.detectives.(tv), ::rating:mature, ~author:laiqualaurelote, character:edwin.paine.|.edwin.payne, character:charles.rowland.(dcu), character:crystal.palace.(dcu), character:niko.sasaki, character:monty.(dead.boy.detectives), character:night.nurse.(dcu), character:cat.king.(dead.boy.detectives), character:jenny.green.(dead.boy.detectives), character:david.the.demon.(dead.boy.detectives), character:kingham.and.litty.|.the.dandelion.sprites, character:esther.finch, character:demon.spider.made.out.of.baby.doll.heads.(dead.boy.detectives), character:modern.johanna.constantine.(the.sandman.tv), character:lucifer.morningstar, character:mazikeen, character:original.demon.character(s), character:death.of.the.endless, relationship:edwin.paine.|.edwin.payne/charles.rowland, ::category:m/m, \no.archive.warnings.apply, \graphic.depictions.of.violence, ~ao3:alternate.universe.-.thieves, ~ao3:heist, ~ao3:hell, ~ao3:alternate.universe.-.canon.divergence, ~ao3:body.horror, ~ao3:morally.ambiguous.character, ~ao3:nec
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could we hear more about your dainty l5r boy?
Oh alright! I do not remember what I mentioned before and what I did not, so here goes. The system is L5R 4th edition.
Daidoji Senmei, courtier of the Crane. Low pain threshold, soft heart, haunted by the ancestor of Daidoji family (that badass with a spear who performed a katabasis for his sister's soul). I hope the ancestor is enjoying whatever this is.
Dabbles in every art, but his artistic ambitions are with painting (and the combination of painting and poetry). The work he is proud of is The Star's Travel, a tactile painting for his blind friend (shugenja of the Dragon).
Currently is helping the aforementioned friend marry into the Emperor's family for love. What can go wrong?
Being an Emerald Magistrate in turbulent times, developed an intuition-based method of investigating conspiracies by painting ripples on the water (it is about reconstructing the general shape by fragmentary information).
Served his office first in Kyuden Tonbo (that beautiful rainbow tower of the Dragonfly clan, next to Keen Eyes' Strike Village), then in the lands of Asako family. The proximity to Kitsuki crime theatre village did not necessarily make him a better investigator, but it did make him worse in a way that I cannot put into words.
Has a spy network, of course.
Two important things about his interpersonal relationships are (1) queer attachment to four people (one of them being the shugenja mentioned above); (2) conviction that nothing good can come from Bayushi Kachiko, in whose figure he found The Devil (as in, the set of meanings symbolized by this tarot card). Not going to unpack all this, but it is emotionally intense.
"He appears to be constantly on the verge of a breakdown, I like it" - my co-player.
In his teenage years, he met a Hida girl who could snap him in half. They drank and joked together, she saved his life, they spent the evening transfixed by the fireworks' reflections in the river and, in passing, exchanged opinions whether more is owed to the Empire or the Emperor. Eight years later, he dreams of meeting her again to confess that he was wrong, and she was right all along. She spent those eight years probably on the Wall, and he at sophisticated courts. She is another one of the aforementioned four people.
The only melee weapon he willingly uses is a pair of fans. The only martial skill he is good at is defence. His typical battle behaviour is deflecting blows from his friends (protect maneuver), which, surprisingly, proved to be quite useful.
Decent, and occasionally clever, with a bow.
Averse to participating in anything that so much as resembles professional sport.
If left to his own devices, will be just doing arts, picking gay little gifts for his friends, and trying to get into state secrets.
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Kat's Mechs Fic (General Mechs Edition)
For my ouatis fic specifically, see this post.
Series: Stories Grim as Pistol Lead (mostly)
A series of standalones all taking place in the same timeline. Mostly unrelated to, but compliant with, each other.
oh, peacemaker, draw your gun now: Nastya reflects on mercy and her evolving relationship with it. Character study/angst, T, 5.3k words.
a tale he told: Jonny has always loved stories. Character study, M, 1.2k words.
a nice night out: Marius and Ashes go for a nice night out, and Ashes wins a bet. Fluff/crack, T, 473 words.
wires through my veins and my tendons: The Briar Rose reminds Aurora of her past. Character study, M, 1.6k words.
tremble for yourself (you know that you have seen this all before): Jonny discovers Dr. Carmilla has made another mechanism. Angst, M, 5.6k words.
a new texas ghost story: One of the stories people tell about Jonny after he leaves New Texas. T, 684 words, 1/1 chapters. Written for Mechtober 2023.
now the aftermath will ring with songs you’ve sung: Dr. Carmilla is gone. Here’s how all the mechs (and her) respond. T, 3.8k words, 2/2 chapters. Written for Mechtober 2023.
as metal pierces flesh: Aurora finds out why she was kidnapped by Cyberia. Angst, T, 724 words, 1/1 chapters. Written for Mechtober 2023.
Mechtober 2023 (not otherwise categorized):
my feet knew the path (I never gave a single thought to where is might lead): how my mechsona met Dr. Carmilla. G, 1.6k words, 1/1 chapters.
we didn’t start the fire: Ivy mourns a damaged manuscript. Ashes tries to help. T, 842 words, 1/1 chapters.
katabasis: a second-person view of what it’s like to be in the Acheron. M, 1.3k words, 1/1 chapters.
Uncategorized:
dnd mechs what crimes will they commit: Jonny tries to wrangle the crew into playing dnd. It doesn’t go well. Fluff/crack, T, 517 words.
this song reminded me of you: a series of oneshots based on my mechs but not playlist. Angst/character study, M, 5.2k words, 8/14 chapters.
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here's some fics I've read recently that deserve more love!
This Angry Heart by FlynnReminisce
It takes a long time until Charles opens up and learns to accept himself and the anger that he can't seem to shake off. Follow him along the way.
tell the saint of lost souls where to find me by haledamage by @haledamage
When Edwin has a nightmare, he doesn't wake up screaming. Charles didn't understand it, not completely, not until Port Townsend. He didn't know what chased Edwin through his dreams. Some days, he wishes he still didn't know. Not as often as he wishes Edwin didn't. Or: one time Edwin has a nightmare, and one time he doesn't.
that trick is just to hold on (and so we do) by Chrome by @catalists
When Lucifer leaves the gates of hell unlocked and its creatures begin to walk the earth, the world gets more complicated and deadly for everyone--especially those who already linger close to the border between life and afterlife. For the Dead Boy Detectives, it means encountering a danger that, for the first time, they can't find their way out of together. or: Four perspectives on Charles Rowland, after Edwin Payne.
young blood (never get chained) by ghostinthelibrary by @ghostinthelibrarywrites
When Charles, a half-demon student at St. Hilarion’s University, steps in to stop one of his classmates from getting sacrificed to a demon, he accidentally binds Edwin’s soul to his own to save him.
The Katabasis Job by laiqualaurelote by @laiqualaurelote
Instead of becoming detectives, Charles and Edwin embark on an afterlife of crime. When the long arm of the Lost & Found Department catches up with them, they are made an offer they can't refuse: earn their freedom by stealing from Hell itself.
The Curious Tongue by PantryJesus by @many-gay-magpies
After the conclusion of a case involving a particularly insidious variety of ghost fungus, the possibility of Charles having been infected sends Edwin into an investigative frenzy—and leads to a series of rather exhilarating (if inappropriately-timed) revelations for the two detectives.
While contributor applications are going one, the DBDA Zine team wanted to challenge all of you to head on over to your favourite Dead Boy Detectives fanfic(s) on any platform and leave a comment! It can be as simple as a heart emoji or a keyboard smash or you can leave a detailed dissertation for the author! Whatever you choose, we want to foster a sense of appreciation for fanfic writers and show them just how much we care! So head on over to your favourite fic and let them know how much you love their work!
If you want to spread the love of fanfics, be sure to reblog this post with fic recommendations for others to go check out!
And if you're someone who appreciates Dead Boy Detectives, be sure to check out our CONTRIBUTOR APPLICATIONS and apply today! We're more than excited to have you on board!
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Sjur Eido, from inventing war to pursuing peace
Three theses:
Sjur Eido started the Theodicy War.
Contrary to popular belief, her hesitation to kill Mara Sov doesn’t come from Mara’s “thoughtless grace and beauty”
She had learned Eliksni language and customs in an attempt for a diplomatic end to the Reef Wars and, potentially, partially redeem her past sins. Unfortunately, she was killed too early.
The first thesis is the one in which the third hinges upon. The evidence is circumstantial, but there is quite a bit.
I. The second crime ever committed
In Fideicide II we have this passage:
One of the 891 fell today, shot down by a matter laser, a coherent boson weapon: There was almost nothing left to burn. Matter lasers are the kind of appalling maltech weapon Alis thought she'd locked up in the Shipspire's vaults. She'd armed a few of her Paladins with them, just a few—women she couldn't bear to lose…
The thought that one might have defected to the Diasyrm breaks her heart.
And in Imponent III:
Historians were called to the court with bouquets of sweet flowers and grant money to speak of Sjur Eido. "She was one of Queen Alis Li's Paladins, but she was an Eccaleist, who believed that we would one day be called to repay the gift of our awakening."
There we have our defecting Paladin - and this was common knowledge after the war, that Sjur Eido was an Eccaleist and that she had been a Paladin. Nowhere it is said that this was the first shot fired in the War, though, but put a pin in that.
Flash-forward to Tyrannocide III, when the Awoken were already in the Reef, and Mara is starting to plant the seeds for her katabasis. Before she walks to her death, she confesses her worst secret to Sjur, both immersed in vacuum, isolated from everything else in a spacewalk.
"Sjur, I have this secret, this thing I did, and I don't know if anyone can know it without hating me forever."
"I had a secret too," Sjur reminds her. "The thing I did…"
"It's nothing compared to mine. Nothing at all."
As mentioned before, it was a known fact that Sjur was a Paladin, a deserter, and an Eccaleist. So what could her secret be, if not that she had been the first killer?
(Which is pretty fitting, given the parallels between the Osmium Court and the Awoken Royal Family. Oryx and Uldren, navigators. Mara and Savathûn, mistresses of lies. Sjur and Xivu Arath, incarnations of war)
II. Does blood wash blood?
The Theodicy War ends with the disappearance of the Diasyrm. This is the motivation for Sjur to declare her intention to murder Mara Sov:
Now in the court of one of the Scribes, there appeared a woman of stellar height and furious wrath, armed with a bow that could be strung only if she twined it around her body and used her whole mass to bend it. "I am Sjur Eido," said the woman, "and I accuse Mara of the ancient murder of my lady the Diasyrm. In my saddle, I have a weapon with only one death remaining. Take me to Mara, and I will deliver it."
The Scribes consulted and said to each other that this foul murder might prevent another Theodicy War. So they gave Sjur Eido all their knowledge to hunt Mara.
And here comes, in Imponent II, the infamous paragraph:
Sjur Eido deduced who among the Queen's court must be a disguised Mara Sov. She followed the hooded figure to her laboratory and watched Mara go to work soldering a makeshift bolometer to search for signs of primordial gravity waves. Sjur Eido's fury and grief whetted themselves against Mara's thoughtless grace and ancient beauty, until at last her heart unseamed itself and spilled its hot blood in a shout. "Mara Sov!" she cried, throwing down her maltech matter laser between them. "I cannot live while you live, but I cannot bear to kill you. I challenge you to a duel to the agony. I will fight your most beloved companion to the death and leave you forever maimed or else die in the attempt."
This can be easily read as “Sjur was too mission-abandonly gay to proceed with her vendetta”, but I think this is a superficial reading. Keep in mind the author of the Marasenna is Mara herself, and she warns you that
[a]ll things told, all truth revealed, if through mist and mystery. If you have grace, then see our sorrows, but swallow back your tears. We were made to pay this price. I led us to our fate.
Seek me in my place. Hear these whispers from the lips of Queen-Egged God.
This has passed through the filter of Mara Sov’s authorship. And later on Sjur Eido would become her lover, confidant, and closest thing to an equal she has had during her reign. Sjur’s internal turmoil, I think, is the kind of thing she would filter out of a history of the Distributary Awoken.
What kind of internal turmoil? The one that comes with having so much blood on her hands - the blood of immortals, no less, of immesurable value. Alis Li (well, Mara Sov, actually, but she does not know that yet) might be the biggest criminal by Eccaleist standards for having created the possibility of suffering and death, but Sjur has brought that potential into the material. She is a murderer (the first murderer) and she has had time to mull that over.
Maybe she could not kill a defenseless person in cold blood.
Maybe she wanted someone who could fight back and kill her all along. There is no evidence for that, this is true, but this would give Mara all the more reason to draw a veil over her lover’s motivations - Sjur’s mental health struggles were hers and hers alone.
3. Restitution and atonement
So we now have asserted Sjur as the first murderer in Awoken history, and as someone who regrets these actions. This contrasts with the end of her arc, when she has learned Eliksni customs and language to, presumably, understand them for a potential peace between their peoples.
In Misraaks, we read about her capture of a surly young Vandal who tries to kill himself by dashing off a cliff, and to take Sjur with him, before being a prisoner of war.
Drawing two fractal knives from sheaths on her thighs, she makes a perfect ireliis bow before him. Thunderstruck, he sits up straight. Stares.
"Not good?" she asks, and tries again.
Furious confusion takes him. This is some kind of trick. Blasphemous mockery. "Iirsoveks," he rumbles.
She shakes her head. "Nama." Sheathing one of her knives, she holds out her free hand with her fingers spread in supplication.
He draws his chin toward his throat with this fresh betrayal, narrowing his secondary eyes. It speaks!
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, she lays her other knife on the ground between them. The blade points toward her boots. He watches her every movement. How many secrets have the flesh-lovers betrayed, that this creature can make peace like a cringing drekh before his kel?
She taps two fingers against her cuirass. "Sjur," she says slowly, then she points at him.
Honor-bound even as he simmers in scandal, he replies, "Misraaks. Velask, Si-yu-riks."
"Mithrax," she repeats, then grins. "Velask, Mithrax. And welcome! Let's have a look about, shall we?"
She is trying so hard to meet Misraaks in his terms, despite the power imbalance! This is, of the three theses, the flimsiest one, but I think it is a very satisfying end for her arc. She is not redeemed, if she could ever be, for starting the Theodicy War - but she tries. And in trying, she has made an indelible impact upon a young Vandal who would become the Kell of House Light.
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bungie how can you be calus' sugar baby and look like that? 300 bd shaders, transmog cap, whatever you want, but these crimes against common sense? preposterous.
hello yes katabasis is mine now, bungo isn’t allowed to touch him anymore
commissions open :)
#destiny the game#season of the chosen#katabasis#presage#destiny#destiny 2#yall are a bunch of enablers is what im saying#i raided my years old abandoned inspo blog for the most opulent fashions i could find#and then i went and did my own thing even more outrageously#yolo#someone take away my call me by your name replay button or this will just keep happening#outfits
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– FICS.
☂ – angst | ☀ – fluff | ☾ – suggestive/smut | ❀ – personal favorite
L E E D O N G H Y U C K
— summer daze [teaser] | ☀, ☂, ☾ | road trip!au, friends with benefits!au, 7.5k
⎩ Painted in the most vivid, brilliant colors, Lee Donghyuck was a walking masterpiece. With your love for everything bright, everything colorful, you were bound to fall, one way or another. You’re sure he feels the same. After all, in all the nights you spend together, he holds you like no one else ever has. You felt safe in his arms, cozy in his warmth. His embrace has always felt like home. You’re so sure.
But Lee Donghyuck has never been one to be tied down.
N A J A E M I N
— it’s a crime scene, baby | ☀, ☂, ☾ | noir, drama, murder mystery, cabaret!au, detective!au, ongoing
CHAPTERS. prologue (1.6k) | one (tbd)
⎩ In the harsh neon glow of the ostentatious Neo district, there is a creature that hides within its shadows. A creature with a wide smile on its red lips, an innocence underneath the blood it begins to take.
Here, it will thrive.
— all those times are now memories (bye, my first…) | ☀, ☂ | college!au, 4.3k
⎩ There was no one like Na Jaemin. As beautiful as a flurry of glittering snowflakes drifting and swirling down from the sky with grace and tenderness, always an overwhelming kindness and compassion flooding out of his actions like water bursting out of a broken dam.
Just as much as you loved him – everything about him – you thought he felt the same.
Z H O N G C H E N L E
— it’s a crime scene, baby | ☀, ☂, ☾ | noir, drama, murder mystery, cabaret!au, detective!au, ongoing
CHAPTERS. prologue (1.6k) | one (tbd)
⎩ In the harsh neon glow of the ostentatious Neo district, there is a creature that hides within its shadows. A creature with a wide smile on its red lips, an innocence underneath the blood it begins to take.
Here, it will thrive.
P A R K J I S U N G
– katabasis | ☀, ☂, ❀ | urban fantasy, taxidermy!au, 4.3k
⎩ There’s an incomparable beauty to it – death wearing the skin of life.
Jisung sees it too.
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"It's still not done" Nicolas murmured, with mild irritation. Not at Armand, but at the music, or himself, for not quite finding the perfect thread. Nicolas could be exacting when it came to his compositions, and several of his 'failed' or 'imperfect' versions would sound beautiful, indistinguishable to the human ear. But he always knew when he could do better.
"It's another Katabasis" Nicolas explained. "Theseus and Pirithous enter the underworld together, intent on stealing Persephone from Hades. They are trapped there for the crime. Theseus is rescued by Herakles, but Pirithous is not. I thought it might make it easy for the human victim to have a vampiric escort in Theseus. And there we can dramatize the separation as an act of betrayal."
Love in Darkness
@symphonyofmalice
Lestat had left the boy behind. The theatre was a success and Armand was happy. He had a new purpose and his coven loved the fun of bringing people into the theatre to eat them.
The boy, Nicki as Lestat called him, was broken. The Dark Gift hadn’t taken properly inside him and he was a dark broken creature. Armand loved him and wanted to make Nicki his.
He tried to control the madness and give Nicki outlets that were constructive but he could also be vicious with his discipline when Nicki wouldn’t obey.
He stretched as he climbed out of his coffin and went to find Nicki. “Good evening” he said quietly as he knelt by the boys coffin.
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First Sentence Game
Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have fewer than 20, just list them all!) from oldest first. See if there are any patterns. Choose your favourite opening line.
THNAK FOR TAGGINF ME @aloera !!! LOOKS FUN
1. have mercy on me
Hajime rubs at his neck, smooths his fingers down to the hollow of his throat and presses there.
2. In April
First, it’s a girl.
3. Are You Listening?
“Iwa-chan, watch out for the log—!”
4. What He Knows
“Okay, what about this one: do you believe in mermaids or Atlantis?” Oikawa asks.
5. something slow, something good
It starts like this:
6. Monachopsis
“—and when we landed, the crowd went wild.” Pidge laughs. “It was crazy!”
7. a long way from home
“Kra dival zesaar bulirma, Chukar,” says a dry, derisive voice.
8. partners in crime
“If I die,” Lance whispers, “I’m blaming you.”
9. lmao keith
Keith has a secret.
10. Reflex
“Haha,” says Hanamaki. Then, “Wait, you’re serious?”
11. there, nestled against his pulse
The words on Keith’s right wrist say, hey kogane you alright.
12. fuck canon
"Launch base defenses according to protocol," Admiral Sandass says. "That's an order, Commander!"
13. (un)spoken
“What is this,” says Keith.
14. i killed sendak for this
“I’m married?” Keith blinks. “I’m married to you?”
15. this is what love looks like:
At some point in the distant future, someone will ask Keith when he fell for Lance.
16. skin hunger
When Lance walks onto the bridge, Keith is already in an argument with Shiro and Pidge.
17. on the line (stay with me)
Keith picks up on the third ring.
18. katabasis
They don’t know how it happened.
19. president of the krbk club
It starts with a comment.
20. baby sweetheart darling love
“—so after that, we’ll have Pidge disable the—Lance, ei-laa, bring up the prints, would you—”
Patterns: speech! dialogue!! really gets the scene goin fast!!
Favourite(s): 8, 10, and 14!
TAGGING @maplefudge @jilliancares @eijiroukiriot @gumrude !!
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Katabasis Patterns in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Or, in which I make use of my official Classics minor (and my unofficial film nerd minor) while ignoring my French major altogether.
Howdy, everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of Extremely On My Bullshit! Today we’re going to talk at length about how the trip to Davy Jones’ Locker in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End borrows elements from various classical narratives containing a katabasis, or a trip to the Underworld. This will be a slightly Tumblr-ified version of an actual paper I wrote for my Classical Antiquity On Screen final.
Shoutout to this post by @charlesdances, which allowed me to infodump about Hades/Persephone parallels in Barbossa and Elizabeth’s relationship across the trilogy, and to @aye-tortuga for requesting this longer post, which I teased at the end of the aforementioned meta.
Right then, let’s get started! Under a cut to spare your dashes from long post made longer still by screencaps and works cited (yep, it’s that kind of meta). For the purposes of this meta, only the first three Pirates films will be considered canon as the later sequels contradicted elements of the established lore.
I touched on this in the first paragraph, but I’ll begin by defining two words which will appear throughout this meta: katabasis and anabasis. Katabasis and anabasis are Ancient Greek terms which refer to “that narrative . . . that portrays the hero’s descent into, and ascent from, the underworld—the journey to hell” (Holtsmark 25). (If you want to get etymological about it, kata is down, ana is up, and baino comes from the verb meaning “to go [on foot].”)
This katabasis narrative takes place in the first act of At World’s End. If you’ll recall, Dead Man’s Chest ended with Elizabeth chaining Jack to the Black Pearl’s mast: she knew the Kraken was only interested in Jack, so she sacrificed him to give herself and the others a chance to escape. However, at the very end of the film, Elizabeth and the crew of the Pearl pledge to retrieve Jack from his resting place in Davy Jones’ Locker (the Underworld), and Tia Dalma offers both herself and Barbossa as guides to those “weird and haunted shores.”
So, after the cinematic fucking masterpiece that is the opening “Hoist the Colours” sequence (I also wrote a paper on that lol), we find ourselves in Singapore, where Elizabeth, Barbossa, and co. meet with the pirate lord Sao Feng in hopes of obtaining a map to the Locker. The Singapore segment opens with Elizabeth piloting a lone craft along a murky river, evoking images of Charon with his ferryman’s pole:
As she poles the boat along, she sings a pirate tune with decidedly death-centric lyrics, tuning us in to the symbolism and themes at play: “Some men have died and some are alive / Others sail on the sea / With the keys to the cage and the Devil to pay / We lay to Fiddler’s Green.* / The bell has been raised from its watery grave / Hear its sepulchral tone . . .” (*A form of afterlife from maritime folklore)
At the end of this scene, we see something odd: Tia Dalma dressed as a blind organ grinder.
Plot-wise, this serves to divert the colonial soldiers’ attention from the pirates’ activity, but metaphorically, here she represents the blind seer Tiresias, whom Odysseus encounters when he first enters the realm of Hades (Odyssey 11.187-149).
When the pirates meet Sao Feng, the imagery starts to mix a little. The filmmakers present Sao Feng in a somewhat Hades-esque (Hadean?) manner (steam, flames, and warm tones, with a skylight to imply subterranean depths):
However, while he is a powerful figure, he does not keep the Underworld itself (that duty falls to Jones); he merely keeps the knowledge of its entrance. Barbossa attempts to gain this knowledge by presenting Sao Feng with a silver coin: a reminder of his duty as Pirate Lord as well as another Charon parallel. Barbossa’s tactic does not work, but like in the previous scene, the imagery prepares viewers for the descent to come.
After getting Sao Feng’s navigational charts another way, the pirates’ journey to the underworld continues in earnest. When Will expresses doubt about their path, Barbossa nearly quotes the Aeneid outright: “Trust me, young Master Turner: it’s not gettin’ to the Land of the Dead that’s the problem; it’s gettin’ back.” This echoes the Cumaean Sibyl’s famous words to Aeneas: “Easy is the descent to [the Underworld]: night and day the door of gloomy Dis stands open; but to recall one’s steps and pass out to the upper air, this is the task, this the toil!” (Aeneid 6.126-129, tr. H.R. Fairclough). Aeneas, guided by the Sibyl, passes through the mouth of a cave as part of his descent (“A deep cave there was, yawning wide and vast, of jagged rock” (Aeneid 6.237-238, cf. 6.262-263, tr. Fairclough)); likewise the pirates, guided by Barbossa and the charts, pass through a cave as they travel into stranger climes:
(Buuuut to be fair, this one is possibly just incidental or else more of a reference to Gustave Doré’s art for Rime of the Ancient Mariner rather than a reference to any specific classical text. Doré’s artwork is used elsewhere in PotC, so it’s prolly just aesthetic. Also caves are cool and the ultimate symbolic doorway.)
Next they come to a distant, shadowy realm with a misty sky and a sea tranquil enough to reflect starlight:
Again, this could also be incidental (and/or just a really cool homage to the sailing-to-the-moon scene in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)), but it does have a classical counterpart: “The ship took us to the deep, outermost Ocean / And the land of the Cimmerians, a people / Shrouded in mist. The sun never shines there [...] Nor bathes them in the glow of its last golden rays; / Their wretched sky is always racked with night’s gloom” (Odyssey 11.14-19).
Both of these qualities—the cave and the darkness—fit Holtsmark’s observations on katabatic patterns: “The entryway to the other world is often conceived as lying in caves or grottoes or other openings in the earth’s crust into the nether regions, such as chasms or clefts. . . . The lower world is generally dank and dark, and the journey usually takes place at dusk or during the night” (Holtsmark 25).
At last, the pirates’ ship goes over the edge of an enormous waterfall and the screen fades to black. Voices from the original Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride echo over the dark screen, ending with the ominous phrase “Dead men tell no tales.” However, we shall soon see this proved very wrong, for the pirates encounter several souls with tales to tell. As for these nameless voices, they may represent multitudes of “bloodless shades” (Metamorphoses 10.42) left to languish in other parts of the Locker/Underworld.
At this point, the narrative cuts from the pirate band to Jack in Davy Jones’ Locker. Jack warrants special punishment from Jones for disobeying the rules of a bargain they’d once struck (*yells forever about the good parts of The Price of Freedom and the crimes wrought by the DMTNT retcons*). Jack’s own special hell, recalling the punishments of Tantalus and Sisyphus (Odyssey 11.611-629), does include his beloved Black Pearl (explicitly stated, by Jack himself, to be a symbol of personal freedom), but now it rests completely beached upon an endless, windless salt flat. Jack is utterly alone in this wasteland, save for a crew of his own imaginary doppelgängers.
(I’m gonna be real with y’all: I don’t care for this scene at all and it brings the narrative to a screeching halt, so let’s just take a moment to angstily reflect on how profoundly this affects Jack-the-character’s psyche/mental state for the rest of the film and move on to better things. God bless RPers and fic writers who deal with this scene and its effects in a deliciously Watsonian way.)
Tia Dalma/Calypso’s crabs eventually come to bear both captain and ship back to the sea. This could be seen as classical-type divine aid/favoritism (a semi-literal deus ex machina) or as awkward, oh-no-what-do-we-do-now screenwriting, take your pick. The crabs take Jack and the Pearl directly to the rest of the pirates, who have washed up on the Locker’s desolate shore. In a twist on the classical formula, Jack initially thinks his rescuers the dead ones as they recount their past experiences. Additionally, Jack represents a sort of Eurydice figure as the dead-in-need-of-rescuing, while his Orpheus, Elizabeth, is ironically the one who “killed” him in the first place. All the pirates (Jack included) finally set sail in the freed Black Pearl and attempt to escape this Underworld: the anabasis has begun.
On their way out, when the sky grows dark, the crew encounter scores upon scores of shades floating aimlessly upon the sea:
This parallels Odysseus’ experience (“Then out of Erebus / The souls of the dead gathered / . . . They drifted up to the pit from all sides / With an eerie cry, and pale fear seized me” (Odyssey 11.34-35, 40-41)) as well as that of Aeneas (“Hither rushed all the [ghostly] throng, streaming to the banks . . . They stood, pleading to be the first ferried across, and stretched out hands in yearning for the farther shore” (Aeneid 6.305, 313-314)). Tia Dalma reveals that long ago, Calypso had charged Davy Jones “to ferry those who died at sea to the Other Side,” but he has since abandoned his duty, hence his current eldritch appearance. This explicitly posits Jones as a failed psychopomp who has now left these souls stranded like the unburied men of the Odyssey and Aeneid.
The crew leave these shades in peace until Elizabeth spots a familiar face: her father.
At this point I must ask you to rewatch this scene so you can fully appreciate the parallels without me including a lengthy transcript in this already long post.
This scene comes directly from classical literature, as both Odysseus and Aeneas encountered dead parents in the Underworld. Odysseus saw his mother: “. . . At once / She knew me, and her words reached me on wings: / ‘My child, how did you come to the undergloom / While you are still alive? It is hard for the living / To reach these shores. There are many rivers to cross, / Great bodies of water, nightmarish streams, / And Ocean itself, which cannot be crossed on foot / But only in a well-built ship’” (Odyssey 11.151-158). Like Elizabeth, Odysseus had no prior knowledge of his mother’s passing (11.170). His mother warned him of the dangerous situation which had sprung up during his absence, just as Weatherby Swann warned the pirates of the dangers of Davy Jones’ Heart. Aeneas likewise encountered the spirit of his father, Anchises: “‘Have you come at last[?] . . . Over what lands, what wide seas have you journeyed to my welcome! What dangers have beset you, my son!’” (Aeneid 6.687-693). Anchises, too, offers some advice for the future, for he “tells of the wars that the hero next must wage . . . [and] how to face or flee each peril” (6.890-892). Having Elizabeth be the one to encounter a dead parent in the Underworld confirms her as the series’ protagonist, in case that wasn’t patently obvious from the rest of the trilogy (and the failure of Pirates 4 and 5). Weatherby Swann’s warning also serves to remind the audience of the stakes.
Finally, the pirates make their way out of the Locker. While the remainder of their journey takes more inspiration from Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Western European folklore than classical literature, the latter’s influence on the film remains quite clear. When the pirates return to the land of the living, it is daybreak:
(*Lawrence of Arabia theme, but on a cello*)
So, too, does Odysseus emerge from the Underworld into a new dawn: “Our ship left the River Ocean / And came to the swell of the open sea / . . . Where Dawn has her dancing grounds / And the Sun his risings” (Odyssey 12.1-5). The pirates thus complete their katabasis/anabasis, and with rather more luck than Orpheus.
In review: The pirates begin their katabasis in Singapore, which boasts a plethora of Underworld symbolism, including a death-centric song and images of Charon, Tiresias, and Hades. They cross various waters in their descent, mirroring locations from Homer and Vergil, and Barbossa quotes the Cumaean Sibyl. Elizabeth and the pirates retrieve Jack from the Locker’s punishments in a twist on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Like Odysseus and Aeneas, Elizabeth sees her dead parent in the Underworld, who warns her of things to come. In the end, the pirates emerge from the Underworld into the light of dawn, signalling their return to life. By borrowing from Homer, Vergil, and Ovid, At World’s End presents an Underworld narrative which is familiar in structure and yet easily incorporated into a new mythology: “Same story, different versions.”
(Please message me if you’d like to quote/reference this post in a paper and I can give you my name + details on the official version! Plagiarism is shitty and unnecessary!)
WORKS CITED
Crispin, A.C. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom. Disney Editions, 2011.
Fairclough, H.R., translator. The Aeneid. 1916. By Vergil. Theoi Project, www.theoi.com/Text/VirgilAeneid6.html. Accessed 4 May 2019.
Holtsmark, Erling B. “The Katabasis Theme in Modern Cinema.” Classical Myth & Culture in Modern Cinema, edited by Martin M. Winkler, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 23-50.
Homer. The Odyssey. The Essential Homer, translated and edited by Stanley Lombardo, Hackett Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 241-482.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Stanley Lombardo, Hackett Publishing Company, 2010.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Directed by Gore Verbinski, performances by Keira Knightley, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Bill Nighy, Chow Yun-Fat, Geoffrey Rush, Tom Hollander, Jack Davenport, and Jonathan Pryce, Walt Disney Pictures, 2007.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Directed by Gore Verbinski, performances by Keira Knightley, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Jack Davenport, and Jonathan Pryce, Walt Disney Pictures, 2005.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Directed by Gore Verbinski, performances by Keira Knightley, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Jack Davenport, and Jonathan Pryce, Walt Disney Pictures, 2003.
#dear god i hope this posts#pirates of the caribbean#potc#tagamemnon#meta#classics#long post#loooooooong post#katabasis#my meta#if you steal this i will physically manifest in your home and hand you the black spot
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I wanna hear more about your characters, please! Your wip sounds cool!
ahhhh thanks so much!
I’ll give you a brief summary of each of their personalities then :D
Isabella: In my head she’s like the female version of Jake Peralta from B99 in the early episodes; head in the clouds, kind of a dork and just generally in her own little world but at the same time will hold tight to those she loves with a grip not even death could detach.
Dustin: Whilst not the love interest, he is most certainly Isabella’s partner in crime! Very mischievous and can always be found egging her on - and of course, who can resist a good dare?
Alessia: An actual gift to the world. Katabasis is from Isabella’s point of view and as such Alessia is more often than not perceived as a literal angel. She’s usually the calm-headed one who pulls everyone back to Earth.
Miala: Does not give a fuck. She knows what she likes and will get it. Random fact, she’s also v fashionable !
George: Kind of pretentious but in reality he’s an insecure sweetheart and just masks it by accidentally being an arsehole.
Christopher: Often remarked to be the quiet, mysterious. He’s a man of not many words but follows along with everyone under the belief it would all go tits up if there wasn’t someone to help Alessia chain down everyone’s wacky ideas.
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Pushing this up because it'll be important to my next post ♪~(´ε` )
Flower Of Death
(my OC Amelia is there for scale)
This is [Oc] Katabasis the god of the afterlife, they manage all the souls that have "died" and decide if they're good enough to recycle (reincarnation) or go to the other four options
Just like Neith Katabasis has been around for all of time, katabasis wears a demon that came from a different plane (hell basically) as a victory and a subtle threat of power
Katabasis is fascinated by mortals they used to interfere in their lives but they were forced to stop for it was causing more harm than good, that's why they are chained to prevent themselves from interfering.....
.....buuuut that doesn't mean someone under Katabasis can't interfere airgo (is that right?) Amelia Vilheart chosen by Katabasis to act as their enforcer, Amelia is a recycled soul but a very very old soul which caused some defects (such as loss of some emotions and a bit of crazy a bit of immortality and constant reincarnation)
Katabasis really likes Amelia they think she's silly, oh yeah katabasis isn't a girl or guy, I guess they're gender neutral
Here's a simple doodle of their full body
Wow didn't think I had it in me to finally design my OC Katabasis mostly because they're a god I didn't want them to be simple I'm still workshoping the design, I'm not totally loving it, specifically the face it's too pretty, y'know what I mean?
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