#seven subjugations
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lordmonsterbot · 2 years ago
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Project that I did over on Twitter where i took the seven deadly sins and designed them as robots
Repainted to be uh.... more tumblr friendly. I have an idea for this worlds protagonist and might ramble about the worldbuilding later, will add it to the thread when I do. Naming the universe Seven Subjugations for now.
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chemicalarospec · 1 year ago
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my favorite part about gacha games is that they would have ignited SO MUCH feminist debate 10 years ago, but 4th wave feminism has died down so much no one even cares that in their quest to have as many attractive (frequently over-sexualized) women as possible, many gacha games have the majority of in-game positions of power filled by women and even commonly have plots where the majority (say, 2/3 to 3/4) of the driving characters are women. People do occasionally talk about the hypersexualization of course, but the essays that would have been written a decade ago...
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skegulium · 1 year ago
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Contemplating today about the passage of time and how I spent a smidge over one third of my life in homestuck - specifically fantrolls - and how it has directly shaped both the way I write, the content I consume, the friends I still hold fast with today, and the fact that my wife whom I love and WILL start a family with met in a silly little fantroll join.me stream nine years ago
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thehumanwiki · 4 months ago
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hi and welcome to
✨bullshit that has ACTUALLY happened somewhere in the Pokémon franchise✨
-a teenaged boy runs away from home because of his abusive mom only to join a crime gang funded by his abusive mom.
-the player character is given a smartphone by and with direct contact to God.
-a man cosplaying God (the same God you got a phone from) attacks you with a demon banished to another dimension.
-a suicide cult led by an evil snowflake kills like one hundred other protagonists.
-there is an entire elemental typing consisting of abused and evil Pokémon that is super effective against everything else.
-the player falls into an alternate world and one of their friends is immediately arrested for playing sports.
-in the thrilling sequel, a bunch of ghosts kidnap children in their amusement park in the Shadow Realm.
-now that I think about it there are like three different games where the player character starts by falling from the sky.
-the protagonist of the TV adaptation has died like seven times, been crucified in Paris, watched several apocalypses, and has watched SO many people die in front of him, and I don’t think he’s brought it up like, ever.
-in one game, you can go on a crusade to brutally conquer the entire continent.
-the player of one game is part of a time loop caused by a magic turtle that indirectly kills one of their friend’s mother. Or father. Depends on the version.
-the player’s adoptive father is possessed by the personification of hate and sends them directly to Hell, then tries to do it again when they get out.
-the mafia’s plan for getting their boss back after he left is to violently hijack a radio station and ask really nicely.
-a space agency’s plan for stopping a meteor form colliding with the earth is to open a wormhole to another dimension. this plan is stopped by a woman in a torn cape who destroys their equipment and robs them.
-the protagonist’s father had a godlike clone fuse his consciousness with a mouse, and fights a man who fused his own consciousness with an alien.
-the one a cult leader chose to be king of his new religion is an abused autistic boy with green hair and wearing a baseball cap.
-you literally rob people’s Pokémon in one game and you’re still the good guy. …is there a gender neutral version of “good guy?”
And now for a BONUS ROUND!
✨shit that has gone down in the Pokémon manga adaptation alone!✨
-terrorists blow up an ENTIRE port city!
-one protagonist spent two years trapped in a Dream Realm™.
-you think that’s bad? TWO protagonists are trapped in the depths of space for like six months!
-you think THAT’S bad?! FIVE protagonists are turned into stone for an indefinite time period!
-a little orphan girl is hypnotized and trapped in a suit of armor.
-they crucify the gym leaders???
-one boy is whipped in the face with a chain used to subjugate the Gods Of Time And Space and he’s literally fine.
-a father punches his son in the face and hurls him down a staircase. The American translation censors this as a lightning strike.
-this same son fell into the ocean because of an earthquake like five chapters after he was introduced.
-one of the current protagonists is basically Wednesday Addams.
-two protagonists were kidnapped by birds and raised by a supervillain.
-two villains try to destroy the environment of an entire country, cause an apocalypse, and are stopped by being trapped in a flying car which crashes.
-a mysterious supervillain saves them— SOMEHOW— and makes them fight to the death for a suit of armor. The one that survives causes the apocalypse AGAIN but dies.
-they both get brought back from Hell to save the world, and after that’s over, they turn to dust and go back to Hell.
-the supervillain who saved them the first time also summons like ten gods and dips out, never to be seen again.
In other words Pokémon is weird (affectionate).
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thinemoonshine · 6 months ago
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LECHE OF THE SIRENS;THE MASTERLIST
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corrupt!enhypen x siren!reader content(s): enhypen being corrupted nobles, (y/n) is a siren, enha are obsessive and possessive, dark romance, mature themes, warnings will be specified at each chapter type: mini series (3 parts)
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this could be perfection—or venom dripping in your mouth. singing like a siren, love me while your wrists are bound. you’ve been seeing me in your dreams but, i’ll be there when your reality drowns… i’ll be there when your reality drowns
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warning(s): the boys being downright disgusting, enha are pathetic, lecherous nobles, reverse harem, mature themes, obsessive and possessive behaviours, (y/n) is manipulative and puts them in their place, unconventional 'love'
word count: 10.4k
synopsis: seven nobles who are corrupt—embracing the worldly pleasures of venereal activities and greed without caring for anyone nor anything they’ve exploited. seven nobles who know nothing of hardship and the slightest of goodwill as if they’ve been birthed from the fires of hell themselves, meets a girl akin to a celestial being. little do they know, that the maiden is anything but—as she is the bane to all abominable man, a siren.
𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 1
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warning(s): those stated in the first chapter, jay is a two-faced ‘gentleman,’ he sleeps with (y/n), members are sexually frustrated, sunoo is growing more obsessed with (y/n) by the second, riki and jungwon make their appearance, (y/n) feeds to the nobles’ delusions to get what she wants, heeseung grovels
word count: 8.9k
synopsis: (y/n)’s created a rift between them. she has sunoo wrapped around her finger and she who controls the puppeteer, controls the puppets—but she needs more. time is of the essence and she needs more influence on her side to effectively immobilize the nobles to her every whim within the limited period. so, what better left to do than to subjugate the real genius behind the genius?
𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 2
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warning(s): those stated in the first chapter, enhypen are all going insane—sunoo especially, betrayal, death and violence, (y/n) treats the boys like puppets on strings, suggestive themes, the boys sufffer and finally get what they deserve...and more
word count: 17.2k
synopsis: jungwon and riki are now smitten which means that (y/n)'s plan is near perfection. all the nobles have been perfectly strung to be her perfect puppets. now, all that's left is to draw the red curtains open and let the show unfold—finally bestowing upon them the 'reward' that they deserve. a truly picturesque ending is about to befall them... well, at least to (y/n), it is.
𝓟𝓐𝓡𝓣 3
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the-daily-dreamer · 9 months ago
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The targaryen ruled 130 years without dragons. And the most capable kings were all targaryen. After them it was a decline for the throne. Robert, joffrey, tommen, cercei were all sith ruler .
I see targ stans are investing in high quality air to fill their heads lol
But anyways. “The most capable kings were all targaryens”. You know who else were targaryens? The worst rulers of Westeros. Robert, Cersei, Joffrey, and Tommen aren’t even close to the worst kings and queen to rule. And bringing them up as evidence to show that the targaryens are good is so disingenuous.
Maegor the Cruel, Aegon the Unworthy, The Mad King Aerys, Rhaenyra (yes, I know that’s controversial), and Daenerys (yes, I know that’s even more controversial) are all far FAR worse than anyone you mentioned.
Maegor killed his wife and her entire family. He was a usurper (apparently it’s good when the targs you like do it lol), a kinslayer (also a thing only good when it’s targs you like doing it), raped and tortured many people, wiped out entire houses, killed any and everyone that he saw in any way as deserving, and created a huge war with the faith of the seven.
Aegon the unworthy was corrupt and lazy and legitimized his bastards leading to the blackfyre rebellions that led to endless bloodshed for 5 generations.
Aerys was so bad he had a rebellion staged against him that ended his family dynasty. He burned fathers and sons together. He tortured people and burned them alive. He abused and raped his wife when he would burn people alive. He wanted to kill the entire city of kings landing.
Rhaenyra (who like it or not went down in history as one of the worst rulers) known as maegor with teats taxed her people to starvation. She had daily executions. She had knights inquisitors hunt down and punish people.
Daenerys burnt down kings landing, was complicit in the rape and enslavement of hundreds, ruined city economies so badly slavery was a better option, then profited from said slavery, abandoned the people she conquered (no doubt ensuring they will be enslaved much more harshly after supporting her), raped a “free” slave that she admits still acted like a slave because that’s all she knew, oh yeah and again, SHE BURNT DOWN KINGS LANDING. And this is after the people you listed.
And this isn’t including non Targaryen rulers that ruined lives like the blackfyres. Or rulers that are bad but weirdly beloved like Aegon I who basically conquered people by threatening to kill them and everyone they loved, subjugating a country for hundreds of years.
The best rulers I admit were Targaryens. But that’s because they were the only rulers save for 4 people. Of those four, two were bad and two were incompetent. Not nearly the sadistic “mad” people I described above. And funnily enough, as soon as a Targaryen came back to power…things got worse again. Funny how that is.
Oh and by the way. Going with the histories of Westeros. Guess who is among the best rulers according to small folk Aegon II and Alicent. Seethe :)
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Today on popping the corn and feeding the children, what do you folks think of this discussion? :)
I'm always curious to hear what other Trek fans, especially queer Trek fans, think about our place in Trek history and how we fare as the queer participants within our fandom. What have your experiences been like?
Overwhelmingly I've found a great reception and a welcoming attitude, but I admit that has increased considerably since the 90s. However, there are still some Trek fans who seem to be vehemently in denial about queer history in Star Trek, or the fact that anyone who has worked on Trek has pro-LGBT attitudes. This always surprises me considering some of the blatant queer content we have already seen in Star Trek such as the Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn kiss.
Anyway, I enjoyed the discussion that followed and seeing the overwhelming outpouring of support coming from Star Trek fans in response to this thread.
Here was my two cents contribution:
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"No, what they said was factual.
Have you forgotten Nichelle Nichols was indeed an African American woman in the core seven bridge crew back in 1966?
Or the fact that Gene Roddenberry went out of his way to write The Motion Picture Novel, creating the term "T'hy'la: friend, brother, lover" so that fans could choose which interpretations of Kirk and Spock they saw fit? He also embraced K/S fans and hired a number of them to write the earliest Star Trek novels, including the very first official one (The New Voyages Vol. 1 & 2) which included slash fiction as well as Gene's approval/forward in the books.
In case anyone has forgotten, here's a little bit of background on Gene Roddenberry and his perspectives on queerness in Star Trek.
He admitted that in his early life he was very affected by how society and culture treated the LGBT community, and that he too found himself subjugating and judging others for that lifestyle because it was what people did at that time. As he got older and had more life experience, he began working with a number of queer artists in Hollywood -- and through TOS, a number of queer individuals began asking questions about Kirk and Spock.
Instead of vehemently shutting down this perspective, Roddenberry was intrigued, and saw potential to tap into a large audience (LGBT) that most others didn't want to go near or acknowledge publicity-wise. He saw it as an opportunity to expand the fanbase while also pushing yet another envelope.
But with the heat already on the show for what they'd already pushed, he found he was often stuck between what he'd like to do and what production would let him get away with. There are a number of Kirk and Spock scenes in scripts that got cut out for leaning a little too obviously romantic. Tiny trickles of that content still made it in were infamous moments like the backrub scene in Shore Leave. Even the 2009 movie had a K/S moment while Spock Prime and Kelvin Spock talked that was written and filmed that was cut out of the final product.
Queer subtext and coding has always been relentlessly weeded away at with an excuse ready to go for why they always try to cut us out, but we all know it's because they are scared of the homophobic backlash and ratings hits. Look how violently homophobes went after the gay romance episode of The Last of Us **just this year**. This has always been our reality, so for someone like Roddenberry to make efforts in the 70s? That was massive.
But Gene as well as the queer/slash Trek community managed to accomplish some things in the 70s which I'm surprised more folks don't talk about or give much credit.
In the same TMP novel which features "T'hy'la" and the famous footnote, Gene cleverly wrote Kirk with a bisexual/pansexual lens: Kirk describes himself as *preferring* women but being open to "physical love in **any** of its many Earthly, alien, and mixed forms." (Direct quote from Genes book). Basically, Captain Kirk was DTF with whoever if there was a connection, which was a very progressive take for a character in a novel written in 1979, but made sense for the future which would have a lot less hang ups about sex and love compared to our current rather puritan/conservative society.
I also prefer women, but I married a man. Shout out to Gene Roddenberry for giving us a seat at the table back in the 70's when folks *still* try to insist there is no place for K/S or queer concepts in Trek, because he made efforts -- however small -- to employ queer people and show queer perspectives. According to David Gerrold, LGBT+ representation was a big thing that Gene personally pushed for in TNG and wanted various depictions of love/couples in the Risa scenes, to name one example.
In the 70s, fanzines led to meetings and swapped fanmade magazines, which got so big that they needed hotel centers, then convention centers, then one day the TOS cast came to one and what we know as modern fan conventions were born -- inspiring even George Lucas who attended Trek conventions in the 70s and saw how popular Trek was in syndication; it was a great climate to launch his Space Opera. Star Wars then became so huge that we got TMP.
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But none of that would have happened without the level of organization, passion, and creativity that those fans poured into Star Trek and their characters after it got cancelled and went into syndication.
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Without queer folks we wouldn't have George Takei, Theodore Sturgeon who gave us Tribbles, Bill Theiss and his amazing TOS costumes, Mike Minor's art direction, Merritt Butrick, David Gerrold (writer for TOS, TAS, TNG) to name a few of many queer contributors to Trek that Roddenberry respected and tried to go to bat for wherever he could in a climate that was absolutely impossible to gain an inch in.
At a time during the 70s and 80s when so many people resented and feared the queer community and wanted us to disappear, especially in the 80s during the AIDS epidemic which many homophobes claimed was "God's punishment to the gay community" or "Gods's answer" to our "hedonism", thinking we'd gotten our just desserts and should just disappear . . .
During that time, Gene Roddenberry gave us queer folks a place to say: "You know what? Sure. Write your stories. TV says you guys shouldn't exist, they pull books with queer people off the shelves and burn them. Laws exist specifically to forbid you guys from loving each other, and call you mentally ill. You can't even hold hands in public. But I'm going to validate you guys and invite you to write novels or work for me, try to see what we can get by production, and allow you to see yourselves in my characters if you want to. There's a place for you in our fandom."
He gave us bi/pan Kirk, he gave us K/S is open to interpretation. In Phase 2 Kirk's surviving nephew Peter, son of his brother Sam from Operation: Annihilate!, was going to be written as gay and living on the Enterprise with his partner -- that also got chopped and reworked into a script that wouldn't get used until decades later. That was huge at a time that being queer was officially listed as a mental illness, and villainized due to the AIDS crisis.
So before you try to dismiss or tell K/S + queer Trek fans whether or not they deserve a seat at the table, remember that Gene Roddenberry was among the **first** to pull that seat out for us in a climate that was ruthlessly against LGBT+ folks." -- 1Shirt2ShirtRedShirtDeadShirt
P.S: Have some cute bisexual/pansexual K/S pride gifs. :) Pride month is a hop, skip and a jump away.
LLAP!🖖💚
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metamatar · 4 months ago
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Not a gotcha, just curious:I saw you say Hinduism isn't the indigenous religion of India. Do you mean like. Modern Hinduism? That there is no indigenous religion for India? That there's another one that is indigenous?
if you could link me to the post where i said that i could be clearer but i could have meant it in two ways.
one, indigenity as a political formulation, which is about how historically hinduism has functioned as a powerful, dominant and subjugating force on other local indigenous traditions. tbf the hindu was to some extent a label used by the british to categorise diverse non abrahamic indian religious practices, and nationalist hinduism as understood by reformers and sanatanis responded to colonial pressures by recreating it into a unified vision. but even predating that it was still an assimilative force on several prexisting, mostly animist traditions that it otherised as 'dasa' (cognate: slave or servant) in the vedic literary texts. post independence modern hinduism continues also to perform the standardisation of upper caste practices through sanskritisation of lower caste ritual traditions. hindutva in the modern day for example insists that marriages that don't perform the seven rounds around the fire are illegitimate hindu marriages. the use of state run reservation schools that forcibly convert tribal children is a particulary egregious example of hinduism's non-indigenity in the political sense. less obviously, how anyone not muslim or christian is characterised as "hindu" in the personal codes – excluding the distinct histories of sikhs and jains and buddhists with several hundred year old recorded origins in the country.
two: i could have been invoking the aryan migration hypothesis which examines linguistic, archeological and genetic record to suggest aryan, and therefore vedic tradition migrated into the subcontinent from iran.
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phyx-m · 2 months ago
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Beneath The Silk | True form Sukuna x Reader
🔗 Masterlist
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Prologue
“You will wed Sukuna Ryomen.”
You can still recall the ringing in your ears when your father informed you of your fate: you were to marry the King of Curses. And no, he didn't merely inform you—it was a command.
Your father—if that title even fits a man like him—was the head of your clan. Some people branded him as a tyrant and a bastard by others. His insatiable hunger for power was notorious, and he revelled in it, basking in its intoxicating grip like a pig wallowing in their own shit. Power was his only love, and he indulged in it shamelessly.
No one was prepared for a calamity like Ryomen Sukuna erupting onto the scene. He rampaged through the region, killing and cannibalizing as he went. He conquered land and subjugated villages, forcing them to worship him as some kind of god. The four-armed menace was an unstoppable force, thriving on death and debauchery. But your father, the power-hungry despot he was, could care less about the devastation and was more concerned about maintaining his control. And when threatened, he set machinations in motion.
This is where you played a crucial role. You would be the tool to bring down the King of Curses.
You possessed a unique yet horrifying gift: a single touch from you would cause living organisms to rot then combust from within, leaving behind nothing but a steaming mass of flesh. You first became aware of your ability as a child while playing with a cat. One moment, it was alive, purring contentedly. The next, it was a ripped-open bloody carcass. Terrified, you refrained from any physical contact with others, going so far as to wear gloves constantly to avoid any mishaps. As you matured, you gradually gained a bit of mastery over your cursed talent.
However, seven years ago, a tragic misfortune occurred when you inadvertently touched your beloved mother, who was pregnant at the time, transforming her into a nothing but a grotesque pile of mess. The horror, shame and remorse from this incident gnawed at you, as she was the sole source of maternal love and affection in your life. And your father, who should have been horrified by the incident, greeted this power with almost giddy enthusiasm, seeing it as a potent weapon he could easily exploit.
So now, you will be disguised as a lovely bride, perfectly poised to strike at the King of Curses at the ideal moment. You will embody the ultimate deception—a beautiful facade hiding a deadly threat in silk. And at first, you resisted—of course, you did. Why would you want to marry, let alone allow a fiend like Sukuna to touch you?
But you didn’t have a choice.
Your father was always one step ahead, manipulating you at every turn. He knew exactly how to control you, constantly leveraging the one thing that mattered most to you: your sister. She was innocent and pure, a treasure you wanted to protect. Your father would threaten her life, saying, "I will give her to a pack of men and let them rip her body apart," to force your compliance.
So, you said yes, and with that, the wedding day was set.
* * * * *
🔗 Chapter 1
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ruibaozha · 1 year ago
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The Inconsistency of Nezha's Age, a Short Introduction.
Put very bluntly, Nezha’s age varies greatly depending on which story you’re reading and who’s retold it. He is not always a child or an adult depending on retelling, though my intention here is to highlight the sheer variety available first and foremost - and perhaps shine a light on the Indian dieties which may have influenced him. If these varied images are unwanted, please keep scrolling.
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I happened to stumble upon a timeline error where Nezha’s brother Muzha is described to be using martial arts weapons referred to as “Hooks of Wu” which were specific to the 1800s, quite a long time after Canonization of the Gods was published, but also originating from a time period where numerous varied editions of that story were in circulation. Upwards of twenty different versions exclusive to the 19th century, actually.
The problem arises that Canonization of the Gods is meant to be occurring during the Zhou Shang conflict, that I will generously assume to be in 1045BCE, centuries before the Hooks of Wu would actually exist. It’s completely possible that the version Gu Zhizhong translated was one of these later editions as is makes no chronological sense for Muzha to have those kinds of weapons to begin with. So I have been on somewhat of a rabbit chase trying to pin down the edition Gu Zhizhong used.
Bearing such errors in mind, it’s easy to see where the confusion of Nezha’s age can come from. Before his origin story was integrated within Canonization of the Gods he would be roughly three to seven days old when his conflict with Ao Guang and the Lady Rock Demoness would occur - whereas within Canonization of the Gods he’s actually 6 or 7 years old.
Outside of that, a definitive age isn’t actually provided. Genuinely, within the scope of Chinese folklore and mythos it’s very rare to assign someone an exact age - which I do believe contributed heavily to the known discourse surrounding Nezha’s age to begin with.
He was imported as an adult from India, a child form not seeming to exist for a while until stories of Krsna were integrated to how the Chinese envisioned Nalakubara. Krsna, being an infantile disguise for the notorious Vishnu, also displays supernatural human strength and is actually successful in killing his father figure (1) — unlike Nezha.
As children, both Krsna and Nezha are able to wield heavenly bows and subjugate water spirits (2) while also being known to be dragon tamers (3). The inclusion of these stories to Nezha predates the sculpting of the Quanzhou Pagoda’s (which have been discussed briefly here) and are arguably the earliest evidence of Nezha being a dragon tamer.
Speculatively a child god combination of both Nalakubara and Krsna named Nana is likely where a majority of Nezha’s child attributes come from, based in the Scripture of the Supreme Secrets of Nana Deva - which would see translations within China during the Northern Song period of 960AD-1127AD. Nana would be described thus:
At that time there was a Deva called Nana. His appearance was exceptionally handsome, and his face beamed with a gentle smile. He was holding the sun, the moon, and various weapons. His numerous treasures and abundant jewelry shone more brightly than the sun and the moon. He made himself a luoye robe (4) from the dragons Nanda and Upananda, and a belt from the dragon Taksaka (5). He possessed the same strength as Narayana (i.e. Visnu). He too came to the assembly and sat down facing the Buddha … At that time the Buddha emanated great light from his dharma body of meditation. The light covered the entire Buddha Universe, reaching all the great evil yaksas, the various types of raksasas and pisacas (6) and all the evil dragons as far as the heavenly constellations. When the Buddhas light shone upon them they all awoke to the truth. The Buddhas light returned to him and, after encircling him three times, entered his head. It then reissued in seven colors from his brow, entering Nana-Deva’s head. When the Buddha light penetrated his head, Nana Deva displayed an enormous body like Mt. Sumeru. His facial expression alternated between terrifying anger and a broad smile. He had a thousand arms, and he was holding a skull (7) and numerous weapons. He was handsomely adorned with a tiger skin robe and skulls. [Mightily Strong] He emanated blazing light and terrifying strength. When Nana Deva displayed this divine body, the great earth shook, and all who beheld him were terrified.
Both Nana and Nezha share the same residence of Vaisravana’s palace, are known dragon tamers, and both were known to use belts. The Supreme Secrets of Nana Deva predate all known connections between Nezha and dragons, perhaps lending to Nezha many more elements than initially believed.
Though without concrete evidence stating one way or another, I can only present this information speculatively - especially as it seems difficult for some to understand that Nezha does enjoy a known adult and child form. This answer has already become quite long, so if there’s still confusion regarding this please feel free to ask for more details.
Bibliography:
(1) Goldman, “Fathers, Sons and Gurus,” pp.350, 364; Masson, “Childhood of Krsna”; Ramanujan, “The Indian ‘Oedipus’”; Silk, Riven by Lust, pp. 164-170.
(2) Harley, “Krishna’s Cosmic Victories”; Matchett, “Taming of Kaliya”.
(3) It’s worth comparing Matchett’s “Taming of Kaliya” p.116 with Canonization of the Gods 12.103. Nezha is five days old within the Ming era Sanjiao yuanliu shengdi fozu sou shen daquan, p. 326.
(4) Luoye is the Chinese term for a garment Indian men tied under the armpit, leaving their right shoulder bare. See Xuanzang, Da Tang Xiyu ji, T. 2087, 51: 876b, and Li Rongxi’s translation, Great Tang Dynasty Record, p.53.
(5) Nanda, Upananda, and Taksaka appear in various Buddhist lists of the eight dragon kings; see Foguang da cidian, pp. 6378,6405.
(6) The rakasas and pisacas are two types of Hindu ogres, who Buddhists demonology incorporated. Both types feed on human flesh. See Foguang da cidian, pp6673-6674 and 3851; Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English dictionary, pp. 871 and 628; and Strickman’s survey of Buddhist demonology in his Chinese Magical Medicine, pp. 62-68.
(7) Geboluo appears frequently within the contemporaneous Chinese translation of the Hevajra Tantra (Foshuo dabeikong zhi jin’guang dajiaowang yigui jing), no. 892 volume 18: 587-601.
(8) Zuishang mimi Nana tian jing, no. 1288, 21:358b-c. hi
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lordmonsterbot · 1 year ago
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Scattering Stars
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rwby-encrusted-blog · 4 months ago
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More Overwatch/RWBY Crossovers
Rammatra: So Your kind has been subjugated by Humans as Well?
Adam: Yes. And I will make them Pay for what they've done.
Rammatra: Finally! Someone that Makes Sense on this Planet.
~~~~~
Brigitte: I hear you've got a large Family Too?
Jaune: Yep! Seven Sisters, and I love 'em no matter how many times they braid my hair or put me in dresses.
Brigitte: *Giggling* I've got Seven siblings too, but I can't imagine growing up the only Girl.
Jaune: Being the odd one out is always a hassle.
~~~~~
Moira: My, My, what an interesting Attempt at Grafting.
Cinder: *hiding her Grimm arm* I am not One of your experiments!
Moira: If you keep that Attitude up, you will be.
~~~~~
Ana: It's always nice to meet another that Fights the Good Fight.
Maria: *Chuckling* It's Always nice to get into a Good Fight!
Ana: That it can be, That it can be.
~~~~~
Arthur: GRRR! WHO MESSED WITH MY COMPUTER-
Sh4d0w: Nice Organization Sparky. It made it Real easy to find what I needed.
Arthur: *slams fist on Desk*
~~~~~
Cassidy: I Had a Boss like you Once. Didn't Like 'im all that much.
Ironwood: So long as you follow my orders, there won't be a problem.
Cassidy: That's Funny. He'd say the exact same thing.
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lesbiansovereverything · 8 months ago
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EVERLYN
A female family member of mine got married to a man in the middle of the COVID pandemic. So I watched the heterosexual coupling via Zoom. She wore a white dress with a long flowing train and a veil that hid her face; a spectacle of patriarchal heteronormativity. After the vows were said, and just before kissing the bride, her husband turned to the camera and announced with glee, “This is the first time we will be kissing!” They had been dating for three years.
In that moment, I saw the future and person my family had envisioned and engineered for me. One that I had escaped by coming out. The box and script that I was supposed to fit into and follow was made visible in the person of my relative and I mourned for her – wishing that this was what she genuinely wanted and had chosen and not the script that she was unconsciously following in order to win the approval of her parents and her community. But I’ve also known her since birth and I mourned because I knew different.
I’d escaped the same fate by coming out at 19. My rebellion had begun long before that in small ways, easily dismissed by family and community as eccentricisms that would be corrected once I followed the “plan.” But coming out as a lesbian sealed the deal for my family – as it was THE scarlet letter that could never be erased from my forehead. For me, however, it was a joyfully revelatory catalyst that embedded in me the surety that I could eschew scripts, jump from boxes, carve a life without templates of heterosexism, gender conformity, and sexual confinement – a knowledge that I had the freedom to choose something other than the life that had been set out by society and family.
My brother reacted by saying, “I feel as if you’re getting away with something. I just don’t know what.” I didn’t either – not then. But now I do. Somewhere deep inside, without having the words for it, I knew that what I wanted as a child–to be a Renaissance Woman who felt free to pursue a life of intellectual, physical, and creative freedom–was impossible under the regime of heteronormativity and female sexual subjugation that I saw all around me. And so many years later, having come out publicly at age 19, I look back and can honestly say that I am that Renaissance Woman I envisioned myself to be when I was seven.
*Everlyn Hunter immigrated to the US from Jamaica at the age of 14. Her educational accomplishments include Masters and Doctoral degrees in Psychology, as well as a diploma from Vancouver Film School in Writing for Television and Film. Concurrent with her professional work, Everlyn has held numerous leadership roles as a board member of non-profit human rights, Jewish, and LGBT organizations. Dr. Hunter currently lives in Los Angeles where she works as a Psychologist. In her spare time, she is a student pilot who loves flying, and an aspiring jazz vocalist. She is currently working on her first full length novel.
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bestworstcase · 8 months ago
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the only purpose of the shock collar was to subjugate, enforce cinder’s status as an object the madame owned. she neither chose it nor wanted it—and in the end, it was just a necklace. cinder breaks it with ease, with one hand. anyone might have set her free at any time with, literally, no more effort than it would take to lift a finger.
(do not try the bullshit nonsense about cinder’s enslavement being legal with me. slavery was abolished after the great war, and when the madame is displeased she brings cinder into the kitchen to torture her behind closed doors. adopting an impoverished orphan from a foreign country and using a collar made to look like a pretty necklace is how she gets away with it, enabled by the complete indifference of her wealthy patrons to the plight of the "adopted child."
the thematic point of rhodes is that he enforces the law only when it’s convenient for him to do so: he knows cinder is being abused, but he’s a regular patron of the hotel and he chooses not to say or do anything to intervene until he recognizes cinder as a threat to the madame. “hurting them won’t make your life any easier.”
we see this pattern reoccur again and again in atlas, that those who hold political or economic power flout the law without consequence or contort it to work for them while those beneath are subjected to strict, unforgiving enforcement. everything robyn does before the election is legal and above-board but the ace-ops openly treat her like a criminal and hound her about obeying the law, while ironwood misappropriates construction materials earmarked for mantle. this is the idea that rhodes embodies.)
so the greatest injustice of the collar is that it had no real power, by itself, over cinder. she could take it off whenever she wanted, except that she was not allowed to; no one willing to help her, no safe haven where she could find refuge after, and when she becomes desperate enough to resort to violence to free herself she is immediately prevented from doing so by a huntsmen—exemplars of moral virtue as they are intended to be—who tells her that in order to be good she must endure seven more years before she is allowed to leave without her guardian’s permission.
as an instrument of control, the collar can exist only through the willingness of the hotel’s patrons to participate in the fiction that cinder, having been lifted out of poverty by the madame’s generosity (look, she even gave the girl a lovely necklace!), is now earning her keep, learning the value of hard work. pay the scars no mind. rhodes intervenes to keep protect the madame, and his fondness for cinder is circumscribed by that motive.
the first time he leaves after he begins to train her, rhodes says goodbye by placing his hand on top of her head; cinder flinches—
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—and the scene cuts right to the collar:
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in the same mode, the madame electrocutes cinder in a panic as cinder strangles her, and rhodes’ final act is to place his hand on cinder’s head, scaring her—
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—after which she cuts him down and stands upright to remove her collar:
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the collar and the gentle (unwanted) hand are one and the same, two faces of a single instrument. carrot, stick. neither figures cinder as a human being. rhodes is only gentle until she disobeys him, whereupon the covert violence of their first meeting is reified: he enters her only ‘safe’ place to catch her in an unlawful act; his first action is to pass judgment; his second, to draw his weapons.
now, that’s not yours, is it?—huntsmen are called to embody a heroic ideal, to protect others who cannot protect themselves. rhodes places his own weapons into cinder’s hands and declares that he will train her as a huntress on the condition that she agrees not to protect herself; he releases himself from his duty to protect her by moving her into the category of people who do not need to be protected, and thereby makes her both guardian and grimm: as a child who will become a huntress it falls to her to protect her family from the monster of herself.
thus she’s forced to become an active participant in her own abuse; before she can break free of the collar, she has to bite the hand that held it in place.
now to the grimm. during the montage of cinder’s training-and-abuse, there is a particular sequence that goes like this: rhodes and cinder spar with wasters late one night, he disengages and gives her an approving nod; we cut to cinder kneeling before the madame in the empty lobby, dusting a glass statuette of a sabyr for inspection. her work is found inadequate, and the madame finds quiet satisfaction in reminding cinder of the power she has over cinder:
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then the madame walks away, and although cinder strives to maintain the performance of being unaffected—indifferent—she can’t:
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in contrast to the scenes preceding cinder’s bargain with rhodes—wherein the larger-than-life glass statues looming over the lobby alternate between prominently visible or just protruding into frame and cinder’s face is an open book of angry resentment—this is the only instance of a grimm figurine being clearly visible and in focus during the montage, and also the one time cinder’s mask slips to reveal her anger.
similarly, in the time-skip at the end of the montage, the glass sphinx sitting on the coffee table in the mid-left is removed to signal the passage of time, with no other changes made to the decor:
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but guess who’s back as soon as the situation reaches critical mass?
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glass wolf. glass dragon. glass shoes.
the point is, throughout the flashback midnight leverages these glass-grimm to symbolize cinder’s true self, her anger which protects her and which the gentle hand demands she extinguish. the fantastical gilded opulence of the glass unicorn depends on cinder staying quietly in her cage. no, it isn’t fair—the gentle hand admits this—but it is her moral imperative to serve others. in this distorted unreality the defenseless and the indefensible become commingled. a huntress, as salem would have it, is a defender who lives and dies to protect a lifestyle. or she is, as ozpin defines it, one who guards the peace by killing monsters.
cinder’s instinctive understanding that this is not fair—that she is not nothing—that she has been wronged—is the monster she must slay to become the hero of this story, the story of the glass unicorn and madame and rhodes and all of atlas. and in the end she can’t.
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rwby has never been precious about depicting blood, but there is no blood in this scene: not not on the floor, not on the bodies, not on her weapons, not a single drop upon her white shirt. her hands are clean. in shadow, the monster snaps the chain around her throat and turns to looks up at the moon—and its light reveals what is true. her tears, her scars. a child who deserved better than she was given. a child who did nothing wrong.
ahem.
Keeping [grimm] in captivity has proved to be an understandably difficult task, as the creatures tend to either die, or kill those who imprisoned them in the first place.
hm! anyway. the narrative function of this flashback is to provide context and contrast with the scenes that follow.
to review:
the collar’s power is enforced by communal indifference and complicity.
the madame, though unaware of him, depends on rhodes to keep cinder under her control; rhodes intervenes to protect the madame from cinder.
the gentle hand is an equal to the collar, a mechanism of control by which cinder is made to participate in her own abuse, and when she disobeys, it turns to iron and inflicts violent punishment. even when he is gentle, cinder flinches under his touch.
by training cinder to fight but forbidding her to defend herself, rhodes casts her into the role of both guardian and grimm: she is expected to protect the madame by slaying her anger and turning the other cheek.
the glass grimm figurines symbolize cinder’s anger, which protects her. when she defends herself, cinder metaphorically becomes grimm: the monster of the glass unicorn is destined to be hated and hunted for the rest of her life, and the monster of the glass unicorn is a blameless child who refused to let herself be hurt. grimm, in this story, are good.
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the similar framing here.
now!—from the moment cinder wakes up, it is abundantly clear that she expects to be met with brutal punishment for her failure. “you—you brought me back here… we failed.” she’s horror-stricken at finding herself in this place and that hardens into terror as the reality sinks in that she is within salem’s reach.
later, on the bridge, she affects calm until salem pauses in front of her; her eyes snap open. she shrinks into herself at the sound of salem’s voice but hangs on every word. when salem mentions the winter maiden, cinder grits her teeth and braces herself.
cinder associates salem with the madame: that is why without you, i am nothing falls out of her mouth so easily when salem tears her down in 8.1 and again when salem threatens her in 8.4—those are the words to make the pain stop, to appease, to demonstrate that she is contrite and repentant and grateful. she believes that this is what salem wants to hear when cinder has displeased her. and she is, at the top of the bridge scene, waiting for the torture to begin so that she can choke it out again and survive this humiliating ordeal.
except that is not what salem wants to hear.
by now salem knows beyond any doubt that “without you, i am nothing” is what cinder believes she wants to hear, and it is obvious to anyone with eyes that cinder expects to be tortured. whether salem knows cinder’s history or not—i don’t think she does, not in any great detail—she knows people well enough to put two and two together. salem knows, then, that cinder expects to be tortured into groveling self-denigration.
she doesn’t want cinder to expect that from her. there’s no other reason for salem to be so thorough in dismantling the expectation.
if she wanted to make cinder afraid, the more effective way is to decline to torture her at all: cinder is so certain that salem will hurt her that withholding punishment entirely will only convince her that salem intends to wait until the moment she lets her guard down, or some other form of deferred retribution all the worse for being delayed.
whereas the most efficient way to puncture cinder’s terror of being tortured is—somewhat perversely—to actually torture her a little bit. because cinder does not BELIEVE there is any possible outcome in which salem spares her, if salem wants to introduce the possibility of mercy she first needs to enter cinder’s reality, where mercy doesn’t exist, by proving she can and will inflict pain to answer both defiance (“you chose to disobey my specific instructions”) and failure (“just to fail again…”)
a brief burst of pain to express displeasure instead of holding cinder under torture until she breaks isn’t really merciful, but it’s the lower bound of what cinder will be able to trust and it eases her into the idea that salem is lenient.
then, “and i’ve realized it’s all my fault. you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up; you deserve so much more than i’ve given you.”
aside from being a straightforward subversion of cinder’s clear expectation—cinder thinks she will be abused without mercy until she breaks, salem stops and absolves cinder by reframing cinder’s disobedience as a natural consequence of her own failures—salem has a few specific things in mind here.
the most obvious is the reversal of what she said to cinder in 4.11: “i thought you were the girl who wanted power. did you lie to me? then stop holding back.” and she’s also pointedly walking back things she said yesterday, in 8.1 and 8.4: “all you need concern yourself with is your ability to act when i tell you to” and the “she thinks; she wants…” bit are here flipped into implicit praise for cinder’s tenacity in pursuing what she wants and implicit apology for standing in her way.
but the most interesting angle to consider is that this is salem’s response to “without you, i am nothing.” salem does not verbally respond either of the times cinder says that to her in 8.1 and 8.4; the first time, she dismisses everyone with a gesture, and the second time she just walks away. both reactions are in line with what cinder expects—after all, the point is to remind cinder that she is nothing.
however, cinder has—from what we’ve seen—never spoken to salem this way before, and given she seems genuinely taken aback when salem shuts her down in 8.1 i do think it’s likelier than not that salem has never demeaned her like this before, and that together with having been in atlas for months is what surfaces the trauma association with the madame and thence the appeasing behavior.
so consider how this looks to salem.
the last time she spoke to cinder, she said “you’re free to speak your mind,” and cinder whipped around from the window without hesitation, outraged: “i don’t understand! working with bandits? leaving ruby alive? what’s the point? we’re strong enough to take what we want by force!”—not even a ma���am in there. cinder addressed her like she saw herself and salem as equals, notwithstanding that salem had final say, and salem clearly didn’t have a problem with that.
several months pass. salem is displeased about the loss at haven but trusts that cinder will make an effort to recover the lamp; she is also worried enough for cinder to toss her plans and divert nearly everything to atlas, not that she’s willing to admit that’s why.
cinder walks onto the bridge and the first words out of her mouth are “my queen.” a few minutes in salem curtly informs her that no she will not go rampaging after the winter maiden and cinder’s answer is a demure, “of course; without you, i am nothing.” and then a few hours later they quarrel about it and cinder repeats those exact words in exactly the same tone again.
unless salem knows cinder’s history in far more granular detail than i believe cinder would be willing to divulge, that’s… a really strange shift in behavior with no clear reason; yes, she had to make up the loss at haven (and she did), and yes, salem was unusually mean to her, but neither of those things add up to this plainly well-practiced self-abasement from the girl who only a few months ago did not appear to have a humble bone in her body. once might have been sarcasm; but twice within a few hours?
whereafter cinder ran off to attack the winter maiden and almost died again and salem had six hours to pick all of this apart in her head while cinder lay unconscious.
why didn’t she respond to cinder saying “without you, i am nothing,” if that is not what she wants from cinder? well,
“you disobeyed my specific instructions, just to fail again, and i’ve realized it’s all my fault.” both times cinder said that, it was in response to the specific instructions that cinder disobeyed when she went after penny: you will act when i tell you to, and you will remain here. six hours, salem had to think about this. “you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back, instead of lifting you up; you deserve so much more than i’ve given you.”
salem does not think of cinder as nothing. even when she is deliberately being mean, she makes a point to say that she values cinder (“just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn–”). cinder holds the key to her victory and cinder is also important to her in ways she cannot bring herself to admit except that she keeps bending her plans further and further for cinder’s sake. the first time cinder says “without you, i am nothing” to her, she seems bemused (brows up) and then wry. the second time, she doesn’t react at all.
then because she left it there, cinder nearly dies and is unconscious for hours. and once she wakes up salem hits her with:
this is my fault
what you want matters
i should be lifting you up
you deserve better
i will help you
IN A CLASSIC SALEM MOVE she does not actually say what she means, which is “you are not nothing,” but she finds an impressive number of ways to say it without saying it in just a handful of lines. and:
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she doesn’t touch cinder, but instead she offers, gives cinder a choice to take her hand or not, and this matters because no other character has ever given cinder that.
in 2.1 cinder touches roman’s face to assert her power over him; she does the same to pyrrha in 3.12 right before killing her; she slaps emerald in 3.7.
in 5.9, cinder reacts to watts grabbing her wrist like this—
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—and then sets his hand on fire. in 8.1, emerald starts to run over to embrace her, cinder snaps her head around and snarls “quiet.,” stopping her in her tracks. and after she wakes up in midnight, when emerald rushes into the room and grabs her, cinder tenses and verbally lashes out before jerking her hand away.
cinder really does not like to be touched and that all traces back to:
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rhodes patting her head. which is what he’s reaching down for when cinder kills him, because this time she senses him moving to touch her and can’t take it.
cinder bristles and retaliates whenever anyone touches her, and outside of grappling during fights the only times cinder ever touches other people is to hurt them or to remind them of her power to hurt them, because that is what touch means to her; it’s something those with power do to those beneath them, and something the weak must endure.
for salem to offer her hand to help cinder up is strange and unsettling; it breaks the rules. and cinder is very hesitant to take it—her fingers shake—but she does, and it isn’t a trick, salem pulls her to her feet without hurting her.
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whereupon cinder’s whole demeanor transforms from terrified incredulity to calculation. she doesn’t understand what just happened, but she knows touch is an instrument of coercion and a way to inflict pain. if salem were like the madame, she would not have done any of that; if salem didn’t touch her with the intent to harm her, then there are only two possibilities:
one, that salem’s resemblance to the madame is superficial and she is actually much more like rhodes; or two, that salem is the weak one and cinder holds some unknown degree of power over her.
the instant this thought enters cinder’s head, it becomes urgently important to figure out which it is, hence the murdering of colleagues and stepsisters and lying to salem’s face that cinder gets up to immediately afterward. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS POST IS ABOUT THIS IS A POST ABOUT THE GRIMM ARM. AND THEMES.
wheeze. okay
in the glass unicorn, cinder has two parental figures—the madame and rhodes—who act in synchronicity to keep her in her place. shock collar, pat on the head. stick, carrot. she is tortured and made to refract this violence inwards, against herself, by turning the other cheek. within this narrative, the symbolic purpose of the grimm is to protect cinder and cinder herself is symbolically identified as grimm; just as black glass is her signature in in the present, the white glass of the hotel’s grimm figurines reflects cinder’s starkly white-and-grey uniform.
glass, cinder. glass grimm, glass shoes.
unicorns, classically, are said to be ferociously wild and dangerous beasts tamable only by the touch of a maiden. those who hunt unicorns, then, should solicit a maiden’s assistance. she goes out into the woods alone; the unicorn finds her and docilely, fearlessly lays its head upon her lap and goes to sleep; and thus the hunters take it. this manner of hunting unicorns is called entrapment, and among medieval and renaissance depictions of unicorns it is by far the most common motif.
in the world of remnant, if unicorns are real then they are undoubtedly a kind of grimm.
gestures at cinder, the fall maiden, who can tame the grimm. who feels for them. maiden. unicorn. maiden. unicorn.
the story of the glass unicorn is a story about a maiden-monster whom a huntsman instructs to tame herself lest she be hunted forever; an entrapment of the self; in the end she hears the baying of hunting dogs in the distance and awakens to the truth that she too will be killed, in spirit if not in body, if she obeys the huntsman. the unicorn is not to blame, and the maiden is right to protect it, and the unicorn is, has always been, grimm.
bearing all of this in mind,
is the grimm arm another collar?
i don’t think it…is, actually, in any sense except that cinder forms an association between the madame and salem in 8.1—the collar and the arm are diametric opposites, mirror-images of each other:
where the collar was fragile and easily removed, the grimm arm is part of cinder’s body. where the collar derived all its power from pretense (it’s only a pretty necklace!), the grimm arm is impossible to mistake for something other than what it is. where the collar’s sole purpose was to inflict pain and remind cinder of her place, the foremost purpose of the arm is to replace cinder’s missing limb. where the collar was forced upon her and she hated it, cinder trained hard to master her new arm and has grown more comfortable with it in every new volume.
paired with the way grimm function symbolically within the glass unicorn narrative, as representations of cinder’s justified anger and desire to protect herself… well. maiden, unicorn. lol
is it then an iteration of the gentle hand? that’s a more interesting question, because salem’s abuse of cinder is really quite a lot more like rhodes than the madame, but then there’s also… the reversal. rhodes’ affection for cinder is restricted by his interest in protecting the madame, and when cinder disobeys him he attacks her presumably with the intent to arrest her for murder. whereas salem has repeatedly and increasingly rearranged her plans for cinder’s benefit, and when cinder disobeys her, she reconsiders her treatment of cinder and offers an apology.
and obviously—
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—we have the way rhodes touches cinder’s head, which at best makes her tense up in discomfort and at worst scares her so much she kills him to make him stop, mirrored in the same episode by salem offering her hand and cinder choosing to take it.
salem is not by any stretch of the imagination good to cinder, but midnight places her in juxtaposition with the madame and rhodes in order to clarify the difference between salem and the parent-figures of cinder’s childhood. it’s salem who tells cinder that she isn’t nothing, that she deserves better, that she was right to become defiant when salem was cruel to her. it’s salem who gives cinder a choice to let salem touch her or not.
everyone who gets where the wind is blowing with cinder understands, because it is obvious, that her turnaround is going to be incited by someone showing her mercy, which will shatter her view of the world and open a door for her to change. but… that “someone” is salem. it is literally already happening.
the first crack is salem telling her you deserve so much more than i’ve given you, as she pulls cinder to her feet.
and cinder doesn’t know how to parse that, she has no frame of reference except the madame and rhodes and she’s superimposed them both onto salem; the discrepancies, the pieces that don’t fit, are small right now. they will get larger, and the cracks will keep widening until the looking glass breaks.
which is why the grimm arm is related to the collar in the specific way that it is, with cinder flashing back to her childhood and the pain salem inflicts ending when cinder shifts emotionally from helpless fear to defiance and salem then explicitly affirming the rightness of cinder’s anger. the moral of the glass unicorn narrative according to rhodes is that what cinder did is unforgivable, and she will never escape it; the moral according to salem is that cinder did the right thing, and deserves better. the symbolic function of the grimm figurines in the glass unicorn narrative is to represent cinder’s self-protective anger. salem, grimm, uses cinder’s grimm arm to make a point that cinder should get angry when salem mistreats her, and then rewards her for being defiant.
is that a really fucked up way for salem to make that point YES OBVIOUSLY but no one else is even trying. lol
little steps.
(whispers into a cup) the grimm arm is also a metaphor for learning to be vulnerable and trust others not to harm you
cinder feels its pain. when it’s severed, it hurts, but also grows back. it’s both powerful (superbly strong, inhuman flexibility) and vulnerable (aura can’t protect it). salem can use it to hurt her; it connects them both together, so salem knows she’s alive and cinder knows when she’s back. it refused to bond with cinder until she let go of her fear and welcomed it.
the shattering trauma that made her what she is now was rhodes telling her that defending herself made her an irredeemable monster. the grimm figurines in her childhood story symbolize cinder’s desire to defend herself. the grimm arm is part of her body that connects her to salem in a way that salem can abuse to hurt her, but salem is also the first character to look cinder in the eye and tell her that she is right to defend herself. both cinder and salem are in the early stages of developing villain -> hero arcs.
your newfound strength brings with it a crippling weakness, salem says. remember that it comes with a cost. take care to protect yourself; there is only so much i can do to aid you. cinder wants to be strong, but she is terrified of weakness, and it is the terror of weakness that drives her, that must be faced, that must be resolved before she can find peace. her story isn’t about “learning to be satisfied with the power she already has” it’s about learning to be okay with being vulnerable. with having weaknesses.
like an arm she can’t shield with aura, that grows back when it’s severed, which she feared and then hid in discomfort and now accepts as a part of herself. just because salem can hurt her doesn’t mean that salem is incapable of choosing not to. salem could also, like, smash cinder into a gory pancake with a snap of her fingers.
it’s a story. about trust.
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remus-poopin · 2 months ago
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What are your top HP fics based on writing? Like things that are just beautiful to read
Wow I think I’m answering this 3 months late sorry aghh. Again, I don’t read as many fics as I would like to, but I’ve been changing that recently and these are 4 that have really stood out to me in terms of writing!
Savour the Moment by - @evesaintyves
This fic made me both sad and hungry
This is a truly beautiful portrait of Molly and her relationship with Ginny. I really love how effortlessly this weaves in the food and cooking imagery with the emotions of the characters. The descriptions are so detailed and vivid that you can practically taste the cakes and pies off of the words alone.
Grief is hanging over this fic heavy, grief from Molly with her brothers and grief yet to come from Ginny. These two very different women, who also feel things very differently, have an extremely engaging back and forth of attempted connections. Both of them want it but aren’t able to easily get there with each other, and that struggle was very compelling to me.
Really such a great fic, I always find myself coming back to it
Favorite quotes:
“Molly has always tasted her memories. Perhaps that's why she's always been a bit thick round the middle: food relishes the good times, is the physical stuff of love. Ever since she was a little girl: plum pudding was Christmas and summers were cherry ice cream and chocolate flake. The time she broke her ankle jumping down from a tree, to this day, is the chalk flavor of Skele-Gro and a limp cucumber sandwich from the St Mungo's cafeteria. Her mother is sweet milky tea and her father is cottage pie with mushrooms, his favourite, flavoured with the smoke of his pipe in the air.”
“She learned to cook at her own mother's elbow and she is full of warm, creamy, ginger-flavoured memories of it. But Ginny's never liked being in the kitchen with her mum. She wants to be out with the boys, flying on broomsticks, getting jostled and scraped and braying coarse laughter through a mouthful of blood. That's why, when she thinks about Ginny, it's not the cream tea and swiss roll flavours she expected when she learned she was finally having a girl. It's rain-drenched popcorn at the Quidditch match and the salt of a kiss on Ginny's sweaty, gritty forehead.”
Sparkling Cyanide - @saintsenara
The house elf plot-line in the hp books leaves MUCH to be desired when it comes to fully and unequivocally condemning slavery. Due to this, you might find that me and my black ass are, shockingly, not its biggest fans.
However this fic is a brilliant look into elves’ oppression and enslavement AND their culture and agency.
This fic focuses on the death of Hepzibah Smith and the conditions surrounding and leading up to it. Specifically the subjugation of Elves and how that system encourages the idea of them as docile, unintelligent, and submissive (And how this perception can be wielded against the wizards that enslave them).
What I find so striking about this fic is how language is centered as a tool to illustrate the functions of colonial mindsets. I think this does a fantastic job at subverting the trope of “improper English = stupidity” that HP uses so frequently.
This was an extremely satisfying and moving read!
Favorite quotes:
“Come quickly and stop faffing,’ Mes Ebhsebbá says to Eokhí. She is clicking her fingers at Eokhí, like there is magic in her fingers. There is magic in Eokhí’s fingers. She is able to make the whole house fall to the ground if she is wanting to.”
“They is not knowing that we is knowing how to take the lives we is wanting from them. And that is why they is not thinking about how many weapons they is putting in kitchens.”
The Seven names of Mrs Zabini - @artemisia-black
And if I said that she did nothing wrong then what?
I’ve mentioned this fic several times before but I don’t think I’ll ever be over it. The way this is written is actually masterful; the attention to details, the poetic language, the characterization. I’m going to scream.
There is just something about this fic that entrances me. This is actually my favorite genre of story, the “good for her!” category, and whenever I read/watch these I go temporarily insane.
Because this is in first person we’re really getting into Mrs. Zabini’s mindset and the traumas that inform it, and this is extremely effective/convincing in making you stay on her side even while she is committing cold blooded murder.
Another thing I love about this is how the actual murders are so casually placed in the story, in comparison with how rich the rest of the imagery that Mrs. Zabini is describing. It’s almost like an afterthought. It makes her sound so much colder and more calculating than if there was a long depiction of each individual killing, so I thought that was a really brilliant writing choice.
If you love Gone Girl definitely give this a read!
Favorite quotes:
“There is a reason that Venus herself emerges from her half shell as a fully formed woman, blinking naively into existence. This is what men actually desire, a goddess who knows nothing of the world and so is more easily amused by the trinkets he throws at her. A divine being who is blissfully unaware of her own divinity. A being who had no thought but him and who cannot function outside of him.”
“I had gone to my wedding bed expecting a transformative experience where his penis would alchemise me from a girl into a woman. An expectation I had imbibed from a society that exalts the wonder of the male member. Instead, as I lay there shivering with his rotten seed running down my leg, I felt used and disgusted at the man I had been condemned to spend the rest of my life servicing”
“And as I rattled around our isolated country house, I believed him. Hiding myself from mirrors, starving my body in order to obtain the concave stomach and taut thighs that he so desired. But when I corrected one perceived flaw, he would find another. Peppering his insults with crumbs of tenderness that lured and trapped me in reality of his making.”
The Secret in the Heart of the Forest by @myrskytuuli
This one has it all: accidental cannibalism, ancient rituals, Snape sass, feral Lily, elf politics, generational trauma, fairy induced psychosis, and most importantly the Marauders + Sev and Lily + Regulus and Narcissa all teamed up. Oh yeah I’m eating this up
This one is longer than the others so I’m really going to try to make this as brief as I can but this fic is actually insane because it’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a hp fic and I think I could talk about it forever.
I was genuinely so giddy reading this. There were so many twists and turns and it remained gripping the whole time. This is a psychedelic fever dream, introspective character study, horror adventure and a beautiful tale of friendship all wrapped in one. I absolutely loved everyone’s characterization here, they’re all so beautifully flawed and you can really understand where they are coming from on a personal level but also on a sociological level, I think the author did a MASTERFUL job at this.
The worldbuilding is INSANELY good (the interlude chapters revolving around each of their mothers made me cry repeatedly. And Elieens chapter is just incredible, I have no words). And the pacing is just excellent, I never felt like any of the growth was forced or unearned.
This storytelling is also amazing, whenever there was a theme or reference brought up before in the story that got tied back in again, my mouth would physically drop because it was so seamless yet so meaningful and impactful.
(Sorry but I just need to talk about characterization for a brief minute because this has some of my favorite characterizations that I’ve ever read of some of these characters:
This is my absolute favorite Lily. Like ever. She feels so real here with her anger and flaws and quirks. She is neither villainized nor deified but a full fleshed out character. I just love her!
This is also my favorite James! James is usually a tough character for me to stay engaged with but this fic does an excellent job at balancing his strengths and flaws while keeping him compelling.
This Snape is PERFECT!!! I actually don’t think I can describe how much I love this depiction, all I can say is if you’re a Snape lover who enjoys him being a lil shit you should read this.
Also Peter is just incredible here, too often is he forgotten but this fic really does him justice.
Ok I’ll stop but just know that I could go on and on about all of these characters)
And seeing these characters who would normally hate each other come together to build meaningful bonds while they grow with their own issues is actually cathartic.
If you are a Marauder and Snape fan this is required reading, I really can’t recommend this enough!
Favorite quotes (there were way too many omg):
“Sirius had been angry for a long time now. Sometimes Sirius wondered if he had been born angry, if his first cry had never truly ended”
“Remus had said nothing after that. He was becoming a champion of saying nothing.”
“‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I won’t forgive what you did to me.’ Severus said back with conviction.
‘Good.’ Sirius said with equal conviction.”
“At this point, Lily had arrived like the loyal shadow she tended to be around Snape, spitting out an angry ‘What the fuck?’”
“Sometimes he burned with the need to yank himself free of Lily and the blade of love hanging between them. To hurt her when she stepped over Severus' abused body like an avenging angel that looked down at him and made him look small, dirty, used and worthless. A worm crawling in the mud.”
Ok that’s all for now! I definitely think you should give all these a read!!
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probablyasocialecologist · 1 year ago
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On one level, it is obvious that this weekend’s violence began with the surprise assault from Hamas. But this line of thinking presupposes that everything in Gaza was peaceful until Hamas decided to disrupt that peace, or that no Palestinians have been dying at Israeli hands before the last two days. The reality is that Israel has been slowly killing all 2.3 million people in Gaza for the past 16 years, systematically subjugating Gazans to a series of apartheid policies that have affected the most basic details of our lives. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are also subjected to daily violence and degradation. The aim is to dispossess the Palestinians to the point that the people are left stranded with nothing but mere calls for the outside world to end what so many have called a form of “collective punishment.” Israel does everything it can to make life in Gaza unbearable. It controls all of Gaza’s water resources. It imposes illegal barriers on all the entry points to the strip, effectively trapping Gazans inside (though some of those barriers have been breached in the last two days). It controls the flow of goods and services in and out of the strip, leaving it with the unilateral power to cut those services off, as it is doing now. It purposefully throttles Gaza’s economy. Palestinians who require medical attention outside Gaza often face insurmountable obstacles in obtaining necessary care. Similarly, young Palestinians are routinely prevented from pursuing their academic dreams at international colleges simply because they had the misfortune of being born as Palestinians in Gaza. The people of Gaza endure daily hardships and injustices, yearning for a resolution that will allow them to lead dignified lives free from the burden of occupation and blockade. And when they do attempt to peacefully protest these conditions, Israel slaughters them in cold blood. So the real question should not be “Why is this happening now?” It should be “How did this not happen sooner?” No people can be expected to endure the kind of oppression and discrimination that Palestinians face at the hands of the Israeli government forever without any kind of response. While Israel claims to be waging war against Hamas and other Palestinian resistance factions, it seeks to justify its war crimes and engages in collective punishment against the Palestinian people.
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