#necro's analyses

[romance-of-three-memes]

You know a lot of people sort of narrow Wu's contribution to Red Cliffs/Chibi as 'oh they had the boats and Shu didn't' and I mean yeah, obviously they had the boats, they're Wu. They had the boats and the guys who were trained to use them in riverine warfare, yeah, but they also knew how to make it all work. The logistics you know, all the tedious boring nerdy stuff no one ever likes talking about or bringing up in media that involves war, because it's not as exciting as watching two guys with spears having a dramatic duel. Naval logistics tends to get a lot more complicated than terrestrial logistics because there's so much more to keep track of. Unfortunately, humans can't breathe underwater or swim very well since we're sad, weird little apes, and that's not conducive to effective combat. If Shu had managed to serendipitously come upon a ton of boats on their own AND had enough guys to man them, they still would've been screwed because they wouldn't have known how to use them effectively. Sure, you may have the navy but do you actually know how to *use* it?

Anyway what I'm saying is that this was an excuse to make another boat joke. Nerds.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

Including a character in a single player werewolf/mafia game who often doesn't make it to the end of rounds because they're such a jerk that they either get voted out or get taken out by the enemy, so you stop taking them seriously until you're reminded that actually, they can be a huge threat if they manage to survive long enough and get people on their side sure was a decision the Gnosia devs made, huh.

I used to falsely claim roles a lot but I hardly do anymore because the one time Raqio definite enemy'd me was so infuriating. Like THIS LOSER (affectionate) CORNERED ME WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS DOING GREAT???

I've only been definite enemy'd twice, but the other time I made it until there was barely anyone left and they figured out it was me by process of elimination... Also because it was mostly Gina and Otome who were using 'definite human' and 'definite enemy' and you know, they're not jerks. So getting caught stung considerably less.

[felidaefatigue]

messy notes connecting keys/trials/labs/lyctors/houses/8thfold steps cause i am cONFUSION under cut. I am editting this constantly.

1. "Preserve the soul, with intellect and memory intact"** Brown Key. 5th House. Augustine/Alfred Lab. Trial Unknown. Pal Solved.

2. "Analyse it-understand its structure, its shape"** Blue Key. 4th House. Ulyss/Titan Lab. Trial Unknown. Pal Solved.

3. "Remove and absorb it take it into yourself without consuming it in the process"** Black/Iron Key. Ninth House(?). Anastasia/Samael Lab(?). Trial Unknown. Silas Solved.

4 "Fix the soul in place" Silver/Green Key. 7th House. Cyth/Loveday Lab. Trial Unknown. Abigail Solved

5 "find a way to make it apart of yourself without being overwhelmed"** Scarlet Key. 2nd House. G1deon/Pyrra Lab. Transf/Winnow Trial. Solved by Harrow.

6 "consume the flesh .. a drop of blood will ground you"** Gold Key. Third House. Cyrus/Valancy Lab. Trial Unknown. Solved by Pal.

7 "spirit and flesh work the way they used to in a new body." Grey Key. Sixth House. Cass/Nigella Lab. Reconstruction Trial (made teacher). Solved by Cyth, held by Silas, copied by har/pal

8 "hook up the cables and get the power flowing" White Key. 8th House. Mercy/Cris Lab. Avulsion/Siphon Trial. Harrow Solved.

Notes:

Key colours match house colors.

Trial themes match original lyctors/houses not new house/necro specialties (cyth mentions theyre all mixed up/wrong) for this reason i am skeptical of the justification of the third house bein the eat people one just cause ianthe does it a bunch.

Im adding quotes of ianthes description of the process but my attachment is uncertain it feels more accurate to the trial and i dont think ianthe is listing them in the same order some ppl have attributed?

i am considering mixing around all the ** ones considering 5th house as speakers to the dead/river experts vs 4th being very comfortable with than/thal transfer as first on a battlefield to cause a bloom, isaacs discomfort with the soulvibes of the labs, and their mentorship by the 5th. Plus im not sure which quote fits the winnowing trial best and honestly i feel like muir changed smthn and left a slightly corrupted trail with the whole "pyras trial" mention in htn re: sinking into the river.

basically any ** means its total hearsay. everything else either has evidence or can be fairly reasonably assumed.

[artbyblastweave]

Gideon the Ninth Liveread, Chapter 12

Longest of these yet. In which we meet the sixth house, get even more of a sense of the shape of Gideon’s Harrow obsession, and analyse the incongruity of Canaan House as it relates to a certain suite of YA tropes.

We open with Teacher, the fucking comedian. The Tridentarius assessment was wrong; probing the priests produces zilch, The specifics of the trials, whatever they may be, remain unclear. Teacher, for reasons unknown but well-in-fitting with his would-be trickster archetype, fraternizes with the isolated weirdo.

Gideon’s rundown of the necros and cavs conspicuously leaves the sixth unaccounted for, bar their general absence; this feels important. Potentially they’ve gone the route Harrow did of sequestering themselves. Her commentary on the eighth provides some clarity; they’re second-to-last house before the Ninth, their aesthetic inverse, and apparently aggressively pious; there’s a religious schism at play. Very likely the eighth wants to assume the duties of the ninth, and given the ninth’s sorry state would have very good grounds to do so if it got out how badly things are going. Other points of note: The second house dyad seems to not want to be there. Earlier I speculated that at least one house was going to turn out to have sent someone primarily to keep up with the joneses; I suspected that it was Dulcinea, given how she seems like she’s about to keel over, but given that the second appears to lean more heavily into the conventional military side of things, it might be them.

Something of note is that Gideon isn’t disdaining the idea of breaking down barriers and making friends; when she alludes to the tried-and-true pillar of the John-Hughes industrial complex, it’s in the context of feeling unhappy that it hasn’t happened yet. Once again she’s offloading her failure to fit in onto Harrow’s “Ambience;” without really taking into account the whole, “never talking or expressing yourself” thing that she’s stuck to like glue thus far. You can argue that that’s also downstream of Harrow but Harrow, again, isn’t around to enforce anything she told Gideon to do, and hasn’t been for several chapters; I get the impression there’s a form of learned helplessness going on. 

Interesting progression of Gideon’s relationship with Dulcinea. Hard to gauge the degree to which Gideon MINDS Dulcinea’s (expressly) master-servant interpretation of their (friend?)ship. Does Gideon mind less when the desire for service is explicit? When the requests are clear and specific? How much of the dysfunction with Harrow is that Harrow has no carrot behind the stick, never actually asked for anything and just impeded Gideon?

So Gideon wanted to do war crimes in exchange for a Big Ti- I’m not typing the rest of that out. But I think I called the flower wars thing! They kill people for thanergy.

This highlights something I’ve found extremely interesting about Gideon’s character; she’s essentially a protagonized Legate Lanius. Her goal and aspiration was to become one of the frontline hapless shitsacks that I hunt for sport whenever I boot up Fallout: New Vegas out of nostalgia. Everything we’ve seen of her childhood in the Ninth, and the myriad of ways that this fucked her up- this would be information thrown in near the bottom of an optional dialogue tree, a brief concession to the material causes that create evil people, before the player goes right back to coming up with the most over-the-top possible method of killing this faceless, unnegotiable final boss. And the fact that it’s Gideon- funny, likeable Gideon- being the one to narrate this, with no attempts to justify or rationalize it, no pause indicating that she feels a need to, is a fantastic signifier that a moral lens is absolutely the wrong frame with which to judge this story and these characters. Everyone in Canaan house is some flavor of bastard, maniac or dupe; that that’s price of admission. All that’s left is to watch them bounce off each other, to follow the horrible inexorable logic driving their characters. You are not invited here to Pass Judgement on their horrific ideals or moral behaviors; you are here to Bear Witness and hope they muddle through the Situation (capital intended) that they are about to be in. I like this.

Oh yeah. Immediate follow-up section of the fantasy. Gideon wants what she’s doing to MATTER to Harrow. Hers is not a fantasy in which Harrow is dead or deposed. Hers is a fantasy in which Harrow is comfortably in charge of things and receiving letters about Gideon’s exemplary success.

Interesting exposition on how only a select amount of Canaan House is accessible by default. A very specific section. This is a challenge.

And now Harrow is missing. Here we ought to note that Gideon only notices this because of how heavily she’s scrutinizing Harrow’s comings and goings, that she can notice no minute changes in Harrow’s bedsheets.

If “Harrow were the type (to run away) Gideon’s childhood would have been a hell of a lot smoother.” Okay. This is Interesting. Did Gideon think about cutting Harrow in on an escape plan at one point? If she tried 86 times, she must have thought to try this once. The incentives are there, for someone in Harrow’s position. I wonder if she got as far as voicing this idea to Harrow. I sense an AU point of divergence.

Big fan of the “their subsequent marriage” gag. I don’t remember if I’ve harped on this yet, but Gideon is a silent protagonist from the perspective of everyone in the story bar her own. To the extent that it is Gideon narrating, all of the commentary is for her own benefit. it’s just how she thinks. (I’m not sure if this is third person limited or not, there’s been a few spots where it felt like someone commenting on Gideon rather than Gideon’s internal monologue.) 

A brief detail in the prose search montage (which is very easy to visualize as a filmed sequence); the skeletons are cleaning the pool- the pool specifically, out of the entire massive complex- and neither Magnus or Jeanmary seem to understand why. But the space has been getting progressively less shitty over the last few chapters. How long is that door Gideon found going to go unremarked upon?

Once again, this focus on Gideon’s frustration at Harrow not THANKING Gideon. The written version of an old chestnut visual gag, wherein she  “gives up” and then immediately resumes the search in the next paragraph. The default behavior is to search.

So Gideon finds her way into a lobby space, accessible through an extremely unintuitive path. Even when this space was in use, this would have been a very roundabout way to get to what’s being framed as a very officious space, in comparison to the very residential space of the main living space. I’m a little unclear of the topography here, but I think Gideon is out of bounds.

Here we meet the Sixth House duo.  Ignore what I said above about everyone at Canaan house being dupes, maniacs or bastards; Palamedes and Camilla are the protagonists of a very different kind of YA story than Gideon. We’re looking at Holmes and Watson. Artemis and Butler. One of the meaner Doctors and more militant companions. Encyclopedia Brown and the girl he kept on hand to beat up his enemies (Am I remembering that detail right, that he had some muscle on hand at all times? Anyway. These are the kind of protagonists who start out within the system but then reason their way out from under their conditioning due to their Commitment To Higher Principles Like Truth, thus bringing the entire system crashing down. Inside the first few lines- “there’s a wrong thing here.” “Anything can lie.”

And, to scrutinize what he’s saying a little more- Canaan house is weird. The lack of rhyme and reason in the architecture is reflected in the age of the building- not even room by room, but down to the individual materials within one room. The oldest successful psychometric reading is 9000 years old; but if I recall correctly, this is after people supposedly stopped using Canaan house for anything. Both of Palamedes’s theories ring true; it’s possible that the building was fished out the garbage heap, or that it is lying on a molecular level. I’ve got a theory about what’s going on here, which I’ll get into at the end of this.

Camilla is the first woman Gideon gets the opportunity to fight. She’s attracted to Dulcinea- oh my god, the Dulcinea effect, Don Quixote, how did I not notice this earlier. She’s attracted to Coronabeth because Coronabeth is incredibly hot. Camilla, she seems to be attracted to on the basis of their mutual kickassery. The Canaan house dating sim has revealed its fourth candidate.

This is the second time we see a Necromancer in combat, after Harrow at the drill shaft. Palamedes’s stunt with the fuck-you-and-the-meat-you-walked-in-on kill field tells us three things. It gives us context for what a top-tier necromancer from another house looks like in a fight. It gives us context for how powerful Harrow is in comparison to everyone else- Palamedes is only sweating a little blood. And it gives us a sense of why Cavaliers are necessary; Palamedes couldn’t have executed this without Camilla keeping Gideon pinned down. As he says in a few lines- if he’d tried this solo, he’d probably be dead, and he couldn’t keep doing this in a protracted fight.

“Policy Wonks on the Sixth,“ huh. I’ve been wondering what the governance looks like in the rest of the Empire.

Because necromancers lived bad lives, he added: “To clarify. Her intravenous blood. Her intravenous blood.” I love this book. I feel inspired to draw this scene specifically.

Gideon hears that Harrow may have maybe lost some blood and into mom-lifting-a-minivan overdrive she goes. In this sequence we learn that Palamedes is a man with an extremely strong understanding of Necromancy and that Harrow is panicked enough that she works right past everything he’s saying. This is an example of a situation where the narration diverges from what Gideon is actually aware of; We the audience get some juicy tidbits about the ins and outs of necromancy, and we get a description of how much of it Gideon retained, but this is implicitly being reported by a third party.

This is the first time Gideon has spoken in like 6 chapters; she speaks to a pair of individuals utterly unconcerned with addressing the discrepancy, instead focusing on the task at hand. I like the looks of these guys.

Everyone was issued a key ring and told not to open any locked doors. Well. It’s not a locked door if you unlock it first, and then open it.

It’s never a good sign when a lab is soundproofed.

So Harrow is in a Bone Cocoon. Gideon says she can take it from here; Palamedes pointedly (and rightly!) ignores her and runs a medical test on Harrow to make sure she isn’t about to die. Here we get an interesting split between “Curative Science” and Necromancy; presumably, there’s some stuff in this setting that necromancy can’t obviate the way it did robotics, and it makes sense that “making people healthy” is one of those things. (as opposed to “keeping them alive-” Hi, Dulcinea!)

Her fantasies where she.... dumps Harrow off the landing pad. Yes, Gideon. This is what you want to internalize the sensation of lifting Harrow up for.

Probably worth noting that the exact manner in which the bone cocoon collapsed was of interest to Palamedes; Gideon derides him for whipping out a ruler, but Palamedes has been pretty firmly established as a guy who Knows His Shit (tm). Anything of minute interest to him is probably worth remembering.

The last line- “I thought that would wake her up-” really cements my read on Palamedes as a little shit but also a fundamentally good person, which Camilla shores up with the “He did this for free” line; her loyalty to him seems earned. These seem like people who help people; they belong in another, happier series, where they walk the earth as private investigators, righting wrongs. It also shows that he’s self-aware enough in his little-shittery to simultaneously work over all of the egos at play, while still indulging his little-shit instincts.

So anyway. Here’s a thought I had, have, and will continue to have, which started around chapter 8 but, with the tomfoolery of chapter 12, is now basically cemented; I think that Canaan House is heavily, heavily in conversation with, and providing criticism of, the worldbuilding of Harry Potter. You’ve got the Houses, politicking and jockeying- except there’s an in-built artificiality, religiosity and militarism to it that makes it parse as rancid immediately rather than on reflection as an adult. You’ve got the kooky, wise-but-elderly mentor who clearly knows more than he’s letting on, who pays special attention to the outcast- except, as I brought up in chapter 8, he’s doing this from such a clear position of incredible institutional power that the Dumbledore routine is impossible to take seriously, because he’s a face of whimsy plastered over something bad. You have the massive, nonsensical academy, simultaneously labyrinthine and homey- except that Gideon the Ninth is holding the premise of a space like Hogwarts to the fire. It feels too big for the student body because it is, there’s only about 20 people on the whole planet, and upkeep is obviously prohibitive, and people are offput and unnerved by the space, they ask the questions akin to asking about why Hogwarts was built with so many moving staircases and hazardous flora. Out of universe, Hogwarts, and the whole wizarding world, is a thinly-conceived nonsensical playground, painted with a veneer of deep history but really meant as a vehicle for the core cast to get up to whacky, unsanctioned misadventures, all of which are, within the universe, not supposed to be happening. I think the exact same thing is happening in Canaan House, but it’s diegetic. I think that the whole space was engineered from the ground up, relatively recently, by people who’ve read YA, for the express purpose of providing a sandbox in which stuff like Gideon’s excursion with the sixies can happen as the candidates grope towards Lyctorhood. This has the energy of an unsanctioned sortie but it’s clearly along the lines of what they were eventually intended to do, given the keys. There is so much artifice, to all of this- and we have enough context about this society to know that it’s a sinister artifice. The light at the end of this carefully constructed tunnel is almost certainly an oncoming train. 

[sushisocks]

11 for the ask thing ^_^

Eeeheheheh!!!

From the Get to know your fic writer list!

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

Ohkay, oh my god, I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume these aren't my own fics bcz besides the ones I wrote back in like 2018, I only have 3 out, and one isn't even finished jnbhvghbjbh

I'm also gonna limit myself to RDR2 ones bcz how many of yall are here for Drarry and Klance fic recs these days anyway?? I thought so, lmao, SO

1) OBVIOUSLY I have to start out with Faithless, by my dear friend Necromantic AKA @absolutedisaster69 !!! RDR2, Charthur, Unreliable Narrator, still ongoing, and REALLY FUCKED UP SO FAR, I am simply in LOVE with it okay. If you're looking for a completely different take on Charthur, and the VDL gang as a whole, this is IT!! AND, lol, if you look through the comment section of that fic you WILL find me in there analysing the shit out of nearly every chapter, it's WILD and I'm WILDIN'!!

2) Is one I genuinely think needs more attention -- Burn Like Whiskey Flames by Lysandra_Lewis AKA @ithinkthiswasabadidea is still my FAVORITE MacSummers fic to date. Imagine me, STARVED for content, going into the Sean/Lenny tag only to find this TREASURE of a fic buried among fics that only really list them as a sidepair. It is funny, and wholesome, and so sweet it will rot your TEETH out. It's Francesca's only RDR2 fic and it is a GIFT to the fandom, okay, and thusly SEVERELY underappreciated. When Sean comes into the lodge and starts "wooing" Lenny? Bro I've read this fic so many times and I am STILL giggling and blushing EVERY TIME!!!! They are SO dumb, and I'm genuinely obsessed with them and this fic okay!!!!

3) I mean, come on, we've all read Lost Country by iridian(ryehouses here on tumblr), right? If you haven't, it's Charthur, and don't be fooled by the coffee shop au tag because there is SO much more to this fic. It's been a while since my last readthrough of it, and I'm nearing a point where I'll want to reread again for sure, but I'll leave you with my bookmark comment to give you an idea of how I feel about this fic: "this fic changed me irrevocably. i was and am obsessed with everything about this fic. i listened to the playlist for months. certain songs still make me go feral. ill never forget how this fic made me feel." DEFINITE recommend, always!!

(Honorary mention to Strange Visitor by Necro, which I was very autistic about in its final months of posting, and is where I decided I wanted to be his friend!! One year later and I am a pest in his DMs all the time <3)

I know this just said to list them, but who in their right mind doesn't GRAB at the chance to gush about their favorite fics whenever they can? Give me a break, and go read these fantastic fics if you haven't already!!!

[necros-writing-stuff]

Thank you for your service Necro. And by service I mean constantly providing us Eden content 🙏🙏🙏🙏 ur stronger than the US marines

I try my best! He's my favourite and when my brain gets tickled all nice and I get to make up more scenarios or analyse him it's very fun.

[ace-and-ranty]

Disclaimer: I’m trying to express a feelingTM or a vibeTM I get about TLT. Something here for which I don’t know if I have the right words, sssooo. I’m just gonna go with it and probably sound pretentious as hell, but let’s do it!!

Okay, so.

To me, personally, I don’t find the Catholic themes in TLT to be that thematically meaningful. 

To me, they’re much, much more aesthetic than thematic, and I think that’s like. The actual point of them.

Because like. The metaphor falls apart literally at the beginning. How could JOHN, who is supposed to be God in this Christian Metaphor, build a Christian Empire?? The Christian Empire was built.... wait for it........ AFTER CHRIST. Every Christian element in the TLT universe PREDATES Gideon, who is supposed to be the Jesus of this whole thing. How are you gonna have a Christian anything WITHOUT CHRIST?? 

To me, the point is much more that John is doing this on purpose.

We talk a lot about how Garbage Baby Fingers Guy references None Pizza memes, but y’all realise he’s doing the same thing to Christianity? He was born in our time. He was born in time not only to absorb Tumblr memes and reference Lolita, but in a time where the Christian Church is hegemonic. John was born in a world that is heavily, heavily culturally Christian. 

So when Garbage Baby Fingers Guy needed a basis to built an empire? Of course he chose Christianity. All the Christian elements in the Necro Empire had to have been carried over by John, and he’s using them on purpose to prop himself as “God.” He modelled himself after the Christian God, taking all the elements that suited him ---calling himself all-knowing and all-powerful and the conquerer of death--- without actually bringing the religion with him.

He’s picking and choosing the aesthetics of Christianity without the actual content.

I think any analyses of Christianity within TLT cannot ignore that John lived in our times. He is purposefully stealing off actual Christianity. Him being “God” is not allegorical, it’s an intentional lie.  

To me, that posits John much less as a God Figure than as like....... a Pope, at the time of the Crusades. A human man who uses the Christian faith for his own imperialistic, colonialist purposes, slapping the aesthetics of Christianity everywhere while totally ignoring its moral and religious tenets. He’s Carnegie from Book of Eli. He’s a Pastor in a Mega Church. He’s not God.

(Which ties back to my rant the other day, about how John certainly had no qualms claiming the omniscience and all-powerfulness of the Christian God whilst still functioning as a wholly fallible human being. He’s all Show, no Substance.)

[smallfrost]

I think I’m late to the party, but I saw your post which says that Scylla is the reason why Raelle is alive at the end of season 1 and I feel like I’m missing something, what’s the connection between Scylla and the myceliums effect on Raelle? Sorry if you’ve already answered this. Also I love your analyses, they’re super interesting

Ahhh yes! The Necro/Fixer duality cornerstone. One of my favorite things to write about. Not sure which post you are referring to but to explain, these are two asks in particular where I outline that without their love, Raelle would likely be dead and many of the plot devices would not have happened. What it comes down to is... why did Raelle touch the mycelium? It’s not that Scylla has a connection to the mycelium or the effect it has on Raelle (yet - give me that Necro/Fixer Witchbomb. Give it to me), it’s that Raelle touched the mycelium because she was on a quest searching for Scylla as a direct consequence of their love.

Raelle was heartbroken and desperate so she ended up in the Necro Facility searching for the girl she loves. In the process, she stumbles on the sentient mycelium which calls out to her so much so, she is drawn to it and touches it, exchanging DNA with it. 

And her touching the mycelium (which, again, she would not have done if she hadn’t been so in love with Scylla that she was searching everywhere for her) has had and will continue to have HUGE consequences for the entire show. It also saved her life by allowing her to generate Witchbomb.

So while Scylla didn’t physically save Raelle in the end, if it wasn’t for their love, Raelle would definitely be dead. (Raelle also would have likely overdosed on Salva when she went searching for Scylla’s lighthouse - but she had already touched the mycelium and likely didn’t die because of that too). So that is the Necro & Fixer aka Life & Death duality of Raylla and why I will never stop believing they are endgame. 

also yay! thank you and I’m glad you’re enjoying them

[romance-of-three-memes]

That saying that goes 'well behaved women seldom make history' isn't meant to be empowering. As much as I love a lot of female historical figures that break the rules or refuse to play the system, they're the ones who are more likely to stand out because they're more heavily scrutinized than their male counterparts by virtue of being women. The women who follow the rules or don't outright flout them, even when they accomplish very admirable or noteworthy things, often get overlooked because they're 'good girls'. They're doing what they're *supposed* to be doing.

I already talk about her a lot but look at Lady Sun aka Sun Ren/Shangxiang. The historical record exclusively notes her for A) being a daughter of Wu's ruling family and B) being deeply unhappy with her marriage to Liu Bei and making it very apparent by taking it out on others, even those who weren't involved in that decision. That's it. We know nothing else. Her hopes, her dreams, what she did after she left Shu. Nothing. She's pretty much entirely known for several years in her life where she was extremely unhappy. Once she escaped, male historians lost interest in her.

And what about others that didn't behave like Jia Nanfeng, who was certainly no saint but who is also villainized to a near cartoonish degree? And of course this is from a few centuries later, but Wu Zetian is basically the poster child for this. Not even to mention so many other 'well behaved' women in those eras who we barely know anything about aside from their male relations?

Well behaved women seldom make history. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

Honestly I don't remember a ton of differences between the Death Note manga and anime, I know I watched the anime through once and liked it other than being annoyed about the ending being slightly changed. They tried to make Light a bit sympathetic and tragic and give him some dignity, which he absolutely did not deserve and was not given in the manga. The last few chapters of the manga were just 'LOL HEY EVERYONE GET A LOAD OF THIS FUCKING IDIOT GETTING WHAT'S BEEN COMING TO HIM FOR 8 YEARS!' and it was fantastic.

I *do* remember that L's arc took up 26 or 27 episodes in the anime while Mello and Near's took up 10 or 11 episodes, which is really weird seeing how their arcs were split almost evenly in half in the manga, with L dying in the middle of the 7th volume and Near and Mello being introduced soon thereafter in the same volume, and the series concluding with the 12th volume.

So whoever planned the anime clearly had a bias towards L which annoys me because I like L, but I like Near and Mello about the same too. I can't quite recall since I last watched the whole thing when I was 14 or 15 (I've watched the first and last episodes multiple times though, because aside from the last couple of minutes of the last episode, they're absolutely fantastic), so my guess is that the anime did Near and Mello dirty and that's why a good number of people see them as 'inferior' to L.

Typical anime adaptation problem, unfortunately. I remember being confused about why people didn't like them as much overall but I'm guessing it's largely because they'd seen the anime but not read the manga. Guess I might have to rewatch the anime for comparison's sake so I can complain.

[toomanyf4ndoms7]

ൠ - random headcanon for your OCs Michael necro, Lara Jackson and Lucy field, I'm curious about them

thank you for asking about my Ocs.

Michael: He believes himself to be the greatest mage in existence but his boasting doesn’t work when people point out that he can’t do much without summoning something else to fight for him.

Lara: almost always wears a kind of mask. on missions, during down-time, sleeping, She never has her full face showing. there is only one person she shows it to and... let’s keep that a surprise. her main mask is pure white with eye holes and a grin.

Lucy: sends her girlfriend Jennifer, souvenirs from the team’s missions. Jennifer has a special collection where she analyses them. “They may come in handy someday.”

Thank you for the ask.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

Man I'm trying to understand exactly why I hate Kazuma from The Great Ace Attorney when I usually love the insecure, traitorous fuck up best friend trope. I like Tetsuo from Akira and Nishiki from Yakuza and they're considerably shittier people than Kazuma. I think there are several factors but right now all I really have fleshed out is that Kazuma isn't considered a fuck up by those around him, nor does he have a proverbial devil whispering in his ear leading him down a potentially traitorous path or fueling his insecurities or any outside stressors bearing down on him. In fact, he's given preferential treatment, the Japanese and British governments agree to send him on an all expenses paid study trip to London because they think he's so smart and promising.

He's not like Riku from Kingdom Hearts, who had Maleficent telling him about how his friend doesn't care about him anymore (although exactly whether Riku counts as a 'fuck up' is debatable), or like Nishiki, who constantly had all the people around him telling him he'd never be good enough, along with the stress of trying to take over a crime family and pay for his sister's medical treatment bearing down on him. He's not like Jowan from Dragon Age Origins who knew there was a good chance he was going to get magically lobotomized soon because he failed a dumb, unfair test and whose friend had just passed with flying colors. He's not like Tetsuo from Akira, a kid that had been failed by his society in just about every way possible and who got psychic powers from government experiments performed on him that arguably made him go crazy.

Nah, Kazuma is just Like That. The shitty passive aggressive middle school girl schtick is all him, baby! He's like that from the start He feels more like a bully than a friend. But of course he's a bit different in that he's not a traitor... Not that I know of anyway?... Guess he might go down that path, I'm not done with the first game yet despite having been spoiled that he doesn't actually die in chapter 2. Oh yeah, the fact that so many AA fans just do not seem to realize any of this probably doesn't help, either, and the story also doesn't seem to really want you to look at him in a negative light.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

I've been playing Dave the Diver and I'm really loving it but if I had one gripe it's how they portray sharks. See the game kinda has some roguelike elements, you explore this location called the Blue Hole in the ocean. As you might expect there are a lot of fish, and most fish just swim away from you when you approach them. Some actively attack you though, and sure, not all of them are sharks, but l've encountered six or seven species of shark so far and every single one of them has been portrayed as aggressive and willing to chase you down and kill you on sight.

This is incredibly weird to me because the game devs are clearly concerned about ocean conservation and did a lot of research on oceanography for the game, yet portraying sharks like that only hurts them. Blah blah Jaws effect, you know the drill. I'm not against them having species that act more aggressively towards the player since it spices up the gameplay, or even a few sharks, but like. Seriously. Every shark so far?

Even species that absolutely do not act like that at all. They have megamouth sharks and yes, at one point you encounter one on a sidequest and it attacks you unprovoked. Like... What? Those goofy looking filter feeders? Them? These guys?

Ok, if you don't know much about them I can see how they still might seem intimidating but like I said, they're filter feeders. They swim around with their mouths open so they can catch plankton like some whales do. I dunno, I have a hard time seeing them as anything but sock puppet versions of great whites. I mean look at this video of one, they're trying *so hard* to make this shark look scary and it's just hanging out. (this clip is from Shark Week and as an aside, fuck Shark Week because it also loves spreading misinformation about sharks)

They also portray cookie cutter sharks in a similar way, which are another albeit very different species of goofy looking deep sea shark. Their deal is more of a hit and run kind of thing, they find a big animal, bite a chunk out of the side, and swim off as fast as they can.

They have given people nasty bites, but they're by no means man-eaters. The biggest ones only clock in at about 2 feet or 60 cm long. See, it would be fine if the devs of Dave the Diver made them ambushers in the game because it reflects their real world behavior and doesn't stigmatize them as relentless, bloodthirsty monsters, but no, they actively chase you around and try to kill you.

And oh, apparently there's a boss fight with a great white shark at some point like oh wow, how original and unexpected, never would've seen that one coming. So yeah I still really love this game overall and highly recommend it, but I find this aspect of it deeply disappointing.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

Thinking about how good it could've been if Nepeta had defeated Gamzee and saved Equius... How it could've paralleled their ancestors where Darkleer spared the Disciple and allowed her to escape, how ages and ages after they were both long gone, her descendant 'repays the favor' by saving his. God Nepeta deserved so much better, but Hussie had no clue what to do with her and didn't care so he killed her off.

I mean I also still think the whole 'sober Gamzee' thing is bullshit, but you know, I think a lot of things in Homestuck are bullshit.

[smallfrost]

MFSRI: The Burning of Scylla Ramshorn Comprehensive Analysis; Scylla as Ovid’s Phoenix

A while back I proposed the Burning of Scylla Ramshorn  as a theme for our Sexy Weird Necro (now re-branded, Sassy Sexy Weird Murder Nugget Necro). This was primarily about how she may have been burned in the past, either literally (her family was burned) or figuratively (Porter turned in her dodger parents). This evolved to include the fact that Scylla is literally wreathed in fire throughout the season, with actual flames and with more vague references to burning dancing around her. After having separate posts about this (here and here) in addition to my original theory, I figured I would first make a comprehensive list of all the times Scylla has referenced burning or is surrounded by actual flames throughout the season and then propose several options for what this might mean. Including, how the use of fire imagery combined with “nothing ever really dies” parallels to Ovid’s Metamorphosis and the Phoenix.

This one is a long one but come with me on this ride...

To start, we have all of the times she has used fire for Spree Glamour. (Note: Faux Raelle burning is still Scylla’s motif because she represents someone she cares about and loves, and the flames are reflected in Scylla’s eyes). 

Then we have Scylla and Raelle in Memorial Hall discussing if the Burning Times are really over, followed directly by a shot with a fireplace in the background and Scylla in the foreground. The same fireplace Porter is standing next to a few seconds later (re: Porter burned Scylla).

And we have Scylla saying she has been burned before and tends to burn. 

She also mentions the recent burnings of witches, even as recent as last year while she’s in the dungeon. 

--

So, what does this all mean? The strength of this theme for Scylla is ominous. Is it possible foreshadowing of a literal burning? Could be. Perhaps Scylla is terrified that she herself will be burned at the stake since a witch had been burned as recently as last year. She is terrified she will be executed. 

Perhaps this theme is referencing something that happened in the past, such as witnessing her parents being burned or being betrayed by someone she cared about as previously proposed. The parallels to Greek mythology in MFS have been a favorite topic of discussion amongst the theorist community and at the Research Institute, leading to many posts including analyses done by @captainjeclid​ and @trash-deluxe​. We know that Scylla is a Greek monster. We know that Odysseus, whom Raelle parallels, encounters Scylla on his journey home (after having visited the underworld). Could the Burning of Scylla be referring to her own personal Odyssey through the underworld; her own inferno? Would be quite fitting, seeing that she is a Necro. But I think there is yet another possibility… and that is fire as a form of rebirth; that which has died, transforms into the living - shedding a previous nature for a new one.

After seeing how Scylla and Raelle parallel the Odyssey, I hope to convince you of yet another series of mythological parallels, this time as it relates to balance, resurrection, and life becoming death, over and over again, all while linking Scylla to the phoenix as a symbol of rebirth [through fire].

Ovid’s Metamorphosis is an epic poem thematically contemplating transformation. Here we get stories like that of Narcissus, the man doomed to love himself, and Arachne being transformed into a spider. Over 15 ‘books’, the Roman poet, Ovid weaves his tales and ends on one containing the teachings of Pythagoras. And what do we learn? To quote directly, “All things are always changing, but nothing dies. The spirit comes and goes, is housed wherever it wills, it shifts residence from beasts to men, from men to beasts, but always it keeps on living”. Sound familiar?

Scylla teaches us the same lesson in the graveyard when she shows Raelle the Death Cap. Death is not so cut and dry. Nothing ever really dies. Life becomes death which becomes life again. Over and over. Scylla is almost quoting Ovid verbatim here, “Nothing remains the same: the great renewer, Nature, makes form from form, and, oh, believe me that nothing ever dies.”

Pythagoras really says nearly these exact words several times. He explains that death is not what it seems and not to fear it, but to understand that our souls are deathless, and that when they leave our bodies, they will find new dwelling places. Things are not static. They are always changing. The soul, the life force, is recycled in a never ending and eternal circle… That which once was, is no longer the same but still present. It is a process of renewal… In other terms, while Necros cannot bring the dead back to life, the cycle of souls shifting residence is itself, a form of resurrection. So, even if Willa Collar is death, her soul is not gone. Just… repurposed. It’s going to be up to our little Necro to find it.  

Aside: I just want to point out that this portion of Metamorphosis is riddled with examples of duality (day and night, fire and water, life and death), one of our favorite themes throughout MFS. And the never ending, harmonious cycle of renewal fits perfectly into a magic system built on the foundation of maintaining balance. 

So besides quoting Ovid almost verbatim, giving us our MFS Necro “religion”, why else is this portion of Metamorphoses relevant? Because immediately following discussions on how the life of one creature can come from the death of another, we learn that while “all of these things have their beginning in some other creature, there is one bird which renews itself, out of itself. [They] call it the phoenix.”

Now, Pythagoras does not necessarily say that the phoenix is born out of its own ashes. In fact, the historical association of the phoenix with fire is hard to trace and I had difficulty finding anything related to the exact origin of flames. But the symbolism of the phoenix throughout its mythology associates with the sun and fire. In Egyptian mythology, the phoenix flies to Heliopolis, the “City of the Sun” and builds its nest atop the Temple of the Sun, or brings its remains there after rebirth. In various versions of this myth, the nest catches fire from the rays of the sun. I’m not about to make this a thesis on the origins of fire being associated with the phoenix, but for now, let’s fall back on our western mythology of being reborn in flames and connect them to the theme of “nothing ever dies” in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Indeed, Pythagoras discusses fire several times throughout Book 15 and how fire itself is part of these changing cycles. Including one instance where he literally states that “[They] set wood on fire by pouring water on it in the dark of the moon.” Considering @theycallmestephlee​ established that Scylla is Fire and Raelle is Water … the parallels are hard to ignore. 

The Phoenix from the Aberdeen Bestiary could lead us down another rabbit hole of parallels with Christianity and Lesbian Jesus Christ, Raelle Collar as @likethefoximalwayschanging​ has established. 

Ovid’s use of fire imagery throughout this portion of the poem, and the eventual association of the Phoenix with fire as a form of rebirth that is rooted in western legend, strongly suggests that Scylla is going through her own transformation by being wreathed in flames. She has lived her life by one set of values up until now, but her current nature is dying. Through that death, she will be renewed with a new moral compass. Scylla is questioning the foundations of her morality. She still believes that the Army is evil but knows that what the Spree asked her to do was equally horrendous (she has regret, she did not hand over Raelle). She has been through fire and brimstone, her own inferno. Her motivations were driven by that. She committed horrible acts. But now we’ve seen her begin strip away her old nature. Because Raelle, like water, found the cracks and flowed her way into Scylla’s fiery heart.

So even if there is a literal Burning of Scylla Ramshorn, she won’t die. She will be saved and “reborn” in a new light with a new nature. She has been scorched by fire in her past; what she has been through has led her to commit things which she regrets. There used to be no room for attachments, for love. But through her journey and through meeting and loving Raelle, her perspectives have changed. “That which has been, is not; that which was not, begins to be…”

Quotes from Rolfe Humphries’ translation of Metamorphoses.

[romance-of-three-memes]

Hello, welcome to Romance of the Three memes, a dumb idea inspired by my rereading of Moss Roberts' translation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, commonly attributed to Luo Guanzhong, as well as various history meme communities I've stumbled across.

This whole venture was enabled by a dear friend who also likes history memes too much. I may occasionally post more serious content like analyses of certain people, events, or translations, and memes regarding other periods of Chinese or perhaps even East/Southeast Asian history. I, aka Necro, speak Mandarin Chinese and read a decent bit of it as well, and I occasionally do light translation. I'm going to try to do those built in image descriptions that tumblr added somewhat recently for every image I post, we all deserve the good memeage.

If you have any requests for certain people, events, etc, you'd like to see, I'd love to hear from you. Same if you have any ideas for memes, if I make one along those lines, I will of course credit you with a link to your blog.