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bisclavret · 4 months ago

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like many who have suffered at the hands of bbc merlin before me, i recently indulged in a thought experiment in which i outlined my own version of seasons 3-5 that stay thematically and tonally in line with the show (except they're less fucking stupid). but then i quickly realized that focusing on details is pointless: all you need is to solve the one Big Problem the show has, and the rest will follow. the problem in question? ✨morgana✨

i like the first two seasons. s1 achieves what it sets out to do and has fun while doing it, and s2, while flawed, sets up a ton of potential that the following seasons unfortunately squander, beginning with the insidious season 3. you can only distract me with cute knights and goblins and fart jokes for so long before i start seeing through you, evil, evil season of television.

my hypothesis is that if the writers had crafted s3 morgana into anything more sympathetic than a violent half-alive poltergeist that can never be reasoned with because she's suddenly terminally off her rocker, everything would've fallen into place. a sympathetic morgana would've made real, valid arguments against uther (and arthur) that wouldn't just be the ramblings of a woman possessed. her betrayal of arthur would have stemmed from her feeling increasingly morally superior to him because of his complacency in the face of their father's tyranny. under morgause's guidance she would stop believing that arthur is capable of change, and the whole point would be that she might actually be right. arthur would have to actively try and prove her wrong, instead of getting praised for doing the bare minimum because the bar is on the floor.

furthermore, morgana's prophetic dream about arthur and gwen becoming king and queen and her decision to prevent this however she can is a direct parallel to merlin learning about that same prophecy and making it happen by any means necessary. merlin's desires about his and arthur's futures are subtextually fueled by gay love and devotion, so why couldn't morgana's be? why couldn't she properly express her bitterness that arthur gets to be with gwen in a way she can't "took gwen away" from her, instead of suddenly declaring that gwen is nothing more than a servant, after two seasons of demonstrating again and again that she loves, values, and respects gwen more than anyone else in that godforsaken castle?

following this, an angry and emotionally volatile but still sensible morgana asking gwen to stay by her side during the coup of the castle in the s3 finale and gwen going behind her back to help arthur and the knights would've hurt like a bitch. double-sided betrayal! gwen having a real plot! the proper beginnings of a toxic yuri that would shape a generation!

then there's the utter hubris of having morgana shoot arrows at the same civilians she worried herself sick over for 2 seasons — even morgan, her medieval counterpart that was rooted in every sexist trope in existence, doesn't just go around killing senselessly but instead has (often petty!) personal vendettas against gwen, arthur, and the knights. morgana had every right to be sick of the pretensions around chivalry in camelot (she was always quick to mock it, even in s1), and to lash out at the knights and soldiers after years of feeling powerless in a castle full of armed men that blindly followed her oppressor. the show conveniently forgets that morgana was victimized as a woman as well as a sorcerer those first 2 seasons.

but like i said, this is not just about morgana. allowing her to remain a real and multifaceted character even as she betrays everyone in pursuit of her ambitions would've given the rest of the core four more interesting conflict to work with: merlin because he would have to experience real consequences to his actions, arthur because he would watch his sister go against his father (and his knights, and his birthright) and experience some actual internal dilemmas about it, and gwen because she would be forced to choose between morgana and arthur without the pretense that it's an obvious or easy choice for her to make.

even morgause and gaius would come off more interesting as mentors: neither one inherently evil or inherently good, both jaded by events that happened before our protagonists were even born, both heavily influencing morgana and merlin into fulfilling roles that they think are appropriate, but that morgana and merlin may not have chosen for themselves had they not been under their care.

you get the gist. if the show followed its own setup, morgana's mistakes wouldn't lie in cheap and senseless acts of violence but in alienating the people she loves because she is too hurt and jaded to trust them. meanwhile, everybody else would feel guilt over "failing" her and yet they would be too caught up in their own (sometimes flawed!) beliefs of right and wrong to truly see her point of view.

arthur would convince himself it was sorcery that corrupted her. merlin would know that isn't true but he wouldn't be able to argue without confessing everything, which is the defining conflict between him and morgana and it's cheapened when she's just an evil witch caricature and merlin is framed as inherently virtuous in contrast. gwen, too, would become a more active participant in her own life by choosing arthur over morgana and choosing to rule camelot with him instead of just waiting politely to see where things go.

and, of course, uther's downfall and death would be quick, final, and completely earned — when and why did the show even decide he of all people was the sympathetic villain, anyway?

lastly, and perhaps controversially, i think morgana should've learned merlin's true identity by season 4. her being the first of the main characters to find out makes perfect sense considering their shared history and their interconnected and mirrored arcs. even the show seems to agree, considering she does find out a little before arthur. but the narrative itself tried pointing flashing neon arrows towards this way earlier — there is a whole entire episode in s4 where merlin being emrys is repeatedly spelled out for morgana and she still isn't allowed to see it. that episode makes her look like the stupidest person to ever live, which is pretty funny im not gonna lie, but also another frustrating thing in the endless string of frustrating things that make up this show.

morgana learning that merlin has magic would've transformed the source of merlin's anxiety from a crippling fear of being outed someday to the crippling fear of knowing she could out him at any moment. this would make him want to beat her to the punch (perhaps he'd consider killing her for a minute and decide against it because she isn't a cartoonishly insane evil person in my version of events) and maybe he would even feel some tentative excitement at the idea of coming clean, now that it seems inevitable. after all, he always intended to tell arthur eventually! and i think gaius would have to admit outright that he does not want merlin to tell arthur he has magic because he, gaius, simply cannot risk such a gamble. it would be so interesting to see gaius and merlin clash and disagree once it becomes obvious that it's not merlin that isn't ready for the reveal, it's gaius. delicious!

with morgana's knowledge looming, things would inevitably spiral into a magic reveal by the end of season 4. i picture this season as an absolute mess of miscommunication between everyone at camelot, which is, y'know, canon. growing increasingly cunning and vengeful, morgana would use this tension to her advantage, destabilizing the court from the outside while she creates alliances with other sorcerers outside of camelot (instead of living alone in a hovel for no reason — morgana le fay i'm sorry i'm so sorry they gave you agravaine instead of your all-female entourage oh my god).

and here's where the events would change beyond recognition (aka here's where the meta becomes the fanfic i refuse to write). picture it with me: a militia of sorcerers infiltrates camelot and arthur and gwen have to set aside their differences (assuming gwen kissing lancelot and arthur overreacting happens, which it should) for the good of the kingdom as well as for love. picture high priestess morgana in her element, side by side with a bunch of misfit sorcerers that aren't so easily vilified, chopping down camelot's soldiers and knights and assuredly making their way to the newly-minted king.

then, just as it starts to seem that all hope is lost, in swoops merlin (the actual merlin, not his old fart disguise) on dragonback (kilgharrah hates morgana so much i know his sexist ass would stoop to anything to stop her)!!! imagine merlin showing off the extent of his powers in front of everyone and preventing the sorcerers from getting any further, declaring loud and clear that camelot is protected by him, by emrys. imagine that display of power alone being enough to send everyone home.

imagine the loyalties clearly drawn: merlin on arthur's side, morgana on the sorcerers'. imagine arthur, feeling confused and betrayed by everyone at this point, banishing merlin despite everything he's done for him in the angstiest, most emotionally dysregulated scene the show had ever put to screen. imagine merlin starting season 5 free at last but very lonesome, an embittered dragonlord like his father. imagine the absolute mess camelot would become without him, even with gwen — now queen guinevere — there to pick up the slack. imagine arthur actually earning merlin back, finally growing into his role as king as he does so. imagine the reunion.

all this and more could've been not just possible but inevitable if morgana was allowed to remain a complex character that is neither inherently good nor inherently evil: it was undeniably the biased and one-note treatment of morgana's downfall by the writers that set the precedent for literally everything else that happened after merlin chose to poison her. the show wouldn't have even had to jeopardize its tone or the monster-of-the-week vibe, all it would've had to do is admit that even the "good guys" are capable of mistakes and what makes them good is the ability to feel remorse and change for the better. (as opposed to uther, who was miles beyond redemption since way before the pilot and deserved to lose everything and die alone. OBVIOUSLY???)

in a world where morgana remains multifaceted and sympathetic, mordred would get a better arc as well, so if we really wanted to, we could still end on the same tragic note that the show ended on. with so much harm inflicted onto so many innocent people by the pendragons for so long (including mordred and the many druids and sorcerers that raised him), it could realistically end up being a little too late for anything more than one shining glimpse of king arthur and the sorcerer merlin's short-lived golden age before fate catches up to them. glimpsing that reality just to immediately lose it would've been far more satisfying and far more tragic than whatever the writers thought they were doing with all that pointless carrot-dangling.

and finally, an ending in line with morgana's new and improved arc. in this version, rather than bleeding out on the forest floor alone, she would channel the morgan le fay we know from the legends: sobered up by the reality of her brother dying, she would use her high priestess status (and perhaps also her pendragon status) to be granted passage over to avalon alongside arthur on the boat — a one-way ride — just to make sure he gets there safely. this is her penance for the harm she has caused, the same way arthur's penance is to die and leave the true ruler of camelot (gwen) behind to achieve everything he was too slow and indecisive to build while he still had time.

merlin's penance, then, would be to stay behind and watch them cross over without him, waiting and waiting and waiting until they come back or until he can finally join them. which is a bit fucking harsh if i'm honest, so i'd at least make it slightly more faithful to the legends by having him return as an old man and letting him take a long nap under a tree by the shore, his body slowly enveloped by vines like the cobwebbed fisher king in 3x08, never fully sure if he's dreaming or if there really are strange shapes fading in and out of the fog over the lake. still tragic, but nevertheless a little more open-ended and whimsical than [TRUCK NOISES] THE END!

#[johnny the dragon voice] ✨ MORGANA ✨#tldr: if you treat your villain with nuance then more nuance will follow and your story will be better for it! groundbreaking i know!!!#what im also getting at is that morgana broke free FIRST so she DESERVED to become the morgan le fay of legend #way before any of the others grew into their own roles.#morgana #bbcm #bbc merlin #analysis #merlin meta #morgana pendragon #theres no focus on the knights here but if you know me you know how angry i am about s4 and s5 gwaine at all times #so in a story with a more nuanced portrayal of villainy and knighthood i think he would openly question his choice to become one #and maybe he'd leave for a while #go home and sort out his daddy issues. have some fruity subplots along the way. visit merlin during his dragonlord era. that sort of thing #and interact with lancelot at least once!!! for gods sake #but i dont see lancelot surviving sorry. that dude will literally die for anything #also scientists and tv execs had not yet discovered bisexuality in 2011 and he already had everyone acting unwise #in ways that barely got past the censors :/ unsustainable #elyan however shouldnt have died. i know gwen ruling alone with only the lamest knights in her service is “the point”#but its a stupid point. elyan is her best knight and they rule camelot together. working class heroes etc.#poetic justice for their father who was murdered by uther + a fun narrative contrast to morgana and arthur #nightmare siblings of all time. banished from the mortal realm for their crimes. could never rule together. stinky #ANYWAY. I HAVE THREE (3) EXAMS DUE THIS WEEK. HERE'S TWO THOUSAND (2000) WORDS OF BBC MERLIN ANALYSIS.

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rawliverandgoronspice · 2 years ago

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THE GERUDO POST

(aka an attempt at a critique of how gerudos were handled in BotW and before)

Oh no. TOTK being right around the corner, it might finally be time for the Gerudo Post.

(aka half of the reason why I made a Zelda sideblog in the first place)

So I want to preface all of this by saying that, as you could probably tell already, I’ve always adored the gerudos. They have fascinated my small child brain when I was 7; then the obsession made its comeback when I was 14, and now, here we are, almost 28, and I’m still thinking about the gerudos. I think they might be among my favorite fictional cultures for their potential and their understated storyline. I guess growing up in a very Arabic neighborhood, coupled with being bi-culturally latinx (?? does Brazil count?? you tell me), also always made them feel like home to me –especially when I was very young and there was not a lot of cool female representation flying around that managed to involve fiercely independent PoC women, flaws and teeth included.

This whole weird-essay-thing tries to do two things. First: analyze the place gerudos have occupied in the series, their initial problematisms and their subtextual narrative arc during the Myth Era coupled with their relationship to Ganondorf. Second: tiptoe to Breath of the Wild and poke it with a stick to see what happens –and in doing that, explain why I believe a lot of their characterization was defanged in service of smoothing their past with the hylians instead of deepening the culture on its own terms, and why I’m a little apprehensive about what that might mean for TotK even though I adore seeing the best girls at it again.

Those are the uhh terms of service??

And now, we must go back to 1998.

OCARINA OF TIME ERA

There’s so many things about the gerudos that are noteworthy and rich, and they’ve made for a complex piece of Zelda lore ever since their introduction –and when I say complex, I don’t 100% mean it as praise. The very racially charged decisions made about their inclusion have been discussed at length by the fandom, especially when it comes to orientalist and Islamophobic tropes being deployed pretty thoughtlessly in Ocarina of Time (their sigil being literally a crescent moon and star originally, the parallels are pretty obviously there).

We’re talking about a band of amazon-like, big-nosed brown women from the desert ruled by a single Scary Evil Man born once every hundred years hellbent on conquering Hyrule who they apparently worship like a god, characterized primarily as thieves, decked in jewelry and orientalist-inspired harem/belly-dancing clothing, hostile to the white good guys of Hyrule (especially men), unblessed by the Goddesses and so deprived of elongated ears (this is true for OoT –we’ll come back to that), also known as a demon tribe with their deity straight-out described as evil-looking by Navi (on my way to cancel you on twitter Navi you watch out), and secretly led by evil twin witches who can turn into a single seductress and, as two mothers, raised their Scary Evil Guy king who happens to basically be the devil.

In so few words, gerudos are the future that liberals want.

It’s worth notice, also, that Ganondorf’s characterization in this game is… kind of relentlessly uncomfortable to play through, especially before the 7 year skip. The utter assumption of depraved and evil intents from every character surrounded by dialogue that does little to hide its biases in spite of having generally very little proof to back them up –even though, in the game’s context, every character is correct to call his eyes evil and the darkness of his skin a moral judgment in on itself. The scene where Zelda demands that we believe her conclusion that the sole and only brown guy in the entire kingdom is evil and will do harm, and the game straight out refuses to progress until we concede that her dreams are prophetic and that this man must be stopped at any cost even though she has no more proof than her discomfort… hits different on replay.

I’m restating all of this not to pretend I’m making a novel and thought-provoking point, but to bounce back on a tumblr post I saw a while back (that I can’t find anymore!! I’ll link it if I find it again) –and so express what it is that gripped me with the gerudos in spite of their pretty damning depiction… and actually maybe thanks to it.

There’s a surprising amount of texture to Ocarina of Time’s worldbuilding that exists folded within the things introduced and left hanging, or in its subtext –and whether on purpose or not, I believe it is why people keep coming back to this iteration of Hyrule.

What was that about the king of Hyrule unifying a war-torn country? Why did the gerudos break the bridge connecting them to the rest of the kingdom during the 7 year timeskip while still worshiping Ganondorf, and why are the carpenters trying to rebuild it against their apparent wishes? What was that about gerudos imprisoning hylian men trying to force entry into their lands? What was that about the secret death torture chambers right next to the Royal Family’s tomb and connected to the race of people who were, apparently, born to serve them?

Nothing? Oh okay… okay… okay….

The same can be said about this strange depiction of this hostile tribe, consistently described as wicked yet suddenly friendly once you prove you deserve their respect once you... defeat them, so you now have joined them? Ocarina of Time isn’t very consistent when it comes to characterizing them as their occupation (thieves) or as a proper culture, with a king and a strange system of rulership that seem to involve at least 5 people: Ganondorf, the Twinrova, Nabooru and the unnamed random woman who decides you’re now part of the gerudos because you slashed enough of them with your sword and hookshot, which, uhh ok.

They’re but a ragtag and negligible group when discussed next to gorons and zoras and hylians, but they also clearly have their own religion and at least a 400-hundred years old history (probably far longer than this) and hints of a written language of their own. I’m not sure the game itself knows what it wants them to be, beyond: intimidating and hot and cool, but also wicked and, because of Ganondorf and the way you barge in their forbidden fortress (heh) with the explicit intent to dismantle their king, in apparent need to be saved from themselves.

Speaking of rulership and the Spirit Temple, let’s have a quick tangent about Nabooru: I always found her characterization when meeting with Child Link pretty strange. I refuse to mention the promised reward, which feeds into everything orientalist mentioned above, but I always found her moral compass so extremely convoluted for someone coming from gerudo culture. Nabooru says that, despite being a cool thief herself, she resents Ganondorf for killing people as well as stealing from women and children. Stealing... from women. Nabooru. Why are you this pressed that he steals from women!!! This feels so out of place, that the only girl of that hostile culture that betrays her king and befriends you, is the one that upholds moral values that only a hylian could possibly hold.

Either way: the strange unquestioned contempt of the game for them as a culture, mixed with the occasional bouts of heart, friendliness and badassery, makes it hard not to consider their depiction as pretty biased in favor of the hylians finding them at once exotic, scary and exciting, and could hide a more complex reality you might only get one side of –especially when you know there were originally plans for Ganondorf’s character to be more gray and motivated than what the campy final version ended up being. To be blunt: even in the context of a game for children, and maybe because of that fact, it all reads like a reductionist and imperialist/colonialist reading of a more complex situation.

This might seem like A Lot coming from a game where the actual game writing can be this overall flimsy and simplistic due to the standards of the time (it’s rough, it's so rough). But I would have never dwelt on that thought about a little children’s game if not for the mainline entries that came soon after, because... ooo boy.

The sense you’re not getting the whole story was certainly not helped by the introduction of Wind Waker Ganondorf, and the chilling emptiness of Gerudo Desert in Twilight Princess.

AFTER THE TIMELINE SPLIT

(I’m skipping Majora’s Mask, not because I dislike them in the game or think they’re not worth talking about, but because it’s a parallel universe and they’re never even called gerudos and their reality seems extremely different from their sisters in Hyrule so I think it’s okay to call them tangential and not dive too deep in this particular depiction)

Here’s something I want to highlight about gerudos and how they were characterized before BotW came along: their absence. Not only their physical absence, the lack of any gerudo character that calls themselves gerudo, but their absence from the text itself.

It’s not that Wind Waker and Twilight Princess retroactively scratch them off existence: we can clearly see Nabooru’s stained glass art in WW as well as recognize them being mentioned in Ganondorf’s final boss soliloquy, and WELL there’s quite a lot to say about their imprint over the world of TP. They are there –or at least they... were there. But nobody ever talks about what happened.

In Wind Waker, there was the deluge. It’s assumed lots of people died then, and those who survived scattered across the Great Sea. Are they sealed under the waves? Have they drowned? Is Jolene, Linebeck’s ex-girlfriend in Phantom Hourglass, a distant relative of one of the rare survivors? It’s unclear, beyond the fact that Ganondorf is the only living gerudo we see in this entire branch of the Timeline split.

In Twilight Princess, the desert which bares their name is empty. The hylians never mention that it used to be the name of a tribe: they’re not even named when Ganondorf is introduced for the first time, reduced once again to a mere band of thieves. We learn his plans to steal the Triforce in OoT were foiled, and that he may have turned to war. Then he lost the war, and was executed in Arbiter’s Ground: a strange structure in the desert, a mixture between a temple, a prison and a coliseum. What looks like gerudo writing coexists with hylian symbols, which often look much fresher. This dungeon is the Shadow Temple of TP: a prison hosting the worst criminals the kingdom has ever known, now haunted and cursed. Besides the locations, the only character that vaguely look gerudo in the entire game besides Ganondorf is Telma, a character with pointed ears that never seems to identify as anything but a hylian. What happened? Who’s to say. Nobody ever says anything. Not even Ganondorf bothers to mention them the way he did in WW –and though the game’s story is quite focused on another exiled tribe seeking revenge and dominion over Hyrule as retribution, the parallel is never explicitly drawn. So who’s to say what happened there. Who’s to say.

And in A Link to the Past and the games forward? The only mention of other gerudo characters are Koume and Kotake, resurrecting their son in the Oracles games through their own sacrifice and failing to bring anything back but a monstrosity incapable of making conscious decisions. Granted, most games in that extremely weird Fallen Timeline predate OoT and therefore had yet to make gerudos up at all. Still: canonically, between the gap of OoT and ALLTP, whatever it may be, gerudos disappeared here as well.

I think there’s something subtle and a little heartbreaking about the fact that no matter what Ganondorf does, the gerudos always end up dying out. His yearning for Hyrule, its gentler wind and the Triforce blessing its lands always costs him the kingdom that he does have already.

Now, does he care? A lot of people would argue that he doesn’t, that he used them like pawns for his own ambition and saw them as servants more-so than sisters, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Nintendo’s official opinion, but… One very powerful thing about most of Ganondorf’s incarnations (focusing on the human ones) is that he never seems to reject his cultural heritage. They could have gone for him wearing more kingly hylian stuff given the whole underlying theme of envy and pride surrounding his character, but never once does he try to look more hylian, beyond the ear situation that seems to be tied to the Triforce of Power? Either way: he is gerudo. Several of his outfits reference his mothers, as well as general gerudo patterning and jewelry. His heritage is something he proudly displays, even hundred of years in the future when there is no one left to remember what it means but him. I think it’s a very potent piece of characterization, an arc that crosses over multiple game and says something pretty intense about this character’s fate and his inherent destructiveness over the things he touches –starting with the Triforce, all the way up to his very own body and mind. His mental breakdown by the end of Wind Waker, when the king of Hyrule himself forces him to give up on the thing he sacrificed everything for, takes a new kind of weight with the whole picture taken into account.

(not to excuse genocide or general egomania-fueled madness and violence, but one thing doesn’t mean the other isn’t also relevant)

Regardless of whether this is a tragedy for Ganondorf as their uhh complete failure of a king, honestly, it is undeniably a tragedy for the gerudos themselves: a once-in-a-lifetime joyful event turned into a never-ending nightmare from which there seems to be no escape, their legacy now condemned to fade to black, leaving nothing behind but a demon boar forever laying ruin upon the world.

One may say I’m taking on the bleakest explication for the gerudos’ absence when there could be others. It’s true! Perhaps the gerudos are just chilling off-screen, completely fine, not interested in whatever is happening in the kingdom nearby and their disaster child having yet another temper tantrum about not being the Goddesses’ favorite boy. It’s possible! But regardless, what little elements we do possess as players doesn’t seem to support this, even if it remains possible –and regardless of actual gerudo lives, gerudo culture is definitively a goner in every single timeline.

Even if they did survive... Hyrule still won its unification war.

(I won’t mention Skyward Sword as they are not really a thing there, except for a butterfly that seems to suggest the Gerudo Province was a thing before the gerudo people –I don’t know what to do with this honestly– and the whole Groose situation, which, I’m not sure what to make of either beyond the fact that he may have gotten cursed by opposing Demise? And then went on to start the gerudo tribe, which ended up being an all-women group for some reason? Maybe? It’s not confirmed? I feel like it’s more of a fun tidbit than a central piece of the gerudo puzzle, so I’ll leave it there like I would a cool rock I brought back from a walk and that I don’t know where to put in my house)

Then, Breath of the Wild happened and changed things.

BREATH OF THE WILD

(Additional short note, but: while I won’t mention Four Swords Adventure, since it’s a weird one that almost nobody has played and severely messes with the Timeline, we kind of see the beginnings of what is about to happen in Breath of the Wild in this game –gerudos coming back without much explanation, then distancing themselves from Ganondorf to become friends with hylians because he was too hungry for power and now they are nice and have good reputation because they are our friendsss)

I was actually so happy to learn gerudos were making a comeback in a mainline Zelda game, and this got me more excited about Breath of the Wild than basically anything else the game involved. And getting to explore the Desert once again, meeting this new batch of impossibly tall buff girls, getting more about their language and their culture, Riju and the rest of the little girls are adorable, the grandmas are so cool, the sand seals??? sign me the fuck up??? And above it all, hanging around Gerudo Town at night and feeling as warm and cozy as little me liked to imagine how freeing it would feel, to stay there and watch the desert behind the safety of their walls in OoT… This was great. I loved it.

It was a huge compensation for the criticism I’m about to make, but did leave me with… questions regarding how their culture was going to be handled moving forward.

I’ll start with something small yet deeply revelatory, then work my way from there.

So... gerudos’ ears are pointy now.

This is pretty significant. Lore-wise, it’s been said that the elongated ears of hylians are there so they can better hear the voices of the gods. It’s considered a sign of holiness in-universe. There's a bunch of really thoughtful analysis on tumblr over that whole Ganondorf ear situation, which is a mess but also very interesting, but the short answer is: I think the absence of pointy ears was a clear design choice to originally signify them as Less Good. Even when Ganondorf gets pointier ears, they never get as long as hylians’. Worth noting: not every non-gerudo character has pointy ears: gorons, zoras and ritos (among others) do not possess this trait, and there are even some humans that have regular rounded ears in the series –though they always seem to be of lesser relevance, if not downright peasants in Twilight Princess. Pointy ears always tended to implied a strict hierarchy in the series: basically, the more pointy, the more Protagonist you become.

(also their eyes becoming green instead of the traditional yellow/golden, which looks more wicked and demonic --and cooler also tbh)

The pointy ears imply two things. From within the game, this could be interpreted in two ways: either that gerudos… converted, for a lack of a better term, and are now considered holy through their worship of the Golden Goddesses and/or Hylia, or that their mingling with hylians through tens of thousands of years had them acquiring this trait out of sheer genetic override (though they have kept their mostly-women birth rates, their big nose, darker skin –for the most part– and red hair). Probably a healthy mixture of both. Design-wise, it signifies something quite simple to the player: they are on hylians’ side now. They are good guys. We can trust them, even if they still have a little spice in them. They aligned themselves with us and against Ganon in all of its manifestations (even if he’s but an angry ghastly pig being parasitic to everything it touches in this iteration). They are on the side of Good, definitively, and will fight evil by our side.

On that note, I think it’s worth bringing out another major change from their initial iteration, which is their overt friendship with Hyrule as a whole, and with the Royal Family in particular. Despite not allowing any voe inside their walls (we’ll come back to this), their relationship with hylians is pretty neat. They have booming trade roads, travel and meet with the rest of the cultures, and are fierce enemies with the Yiga clan, who are renowned for being huge Calamity Ganon supporters. The tables certainly have turned. I want to bring out, in particular, Urbosa’s friendship with the queen and her role as the cool aunt taking care of Zelda and protecting her from evil (to be noted: I am not familiar with Age of Calamity so if I’m mischaracterizing her in any way, please let me know). The gerudo sense of sisterhood has been extended to the royals they used to fight against. I would go on and say the cultures peacefully coexist, but I think that what we’re looking at here is a case of vassal behavior, just like we used to have from zoras (in the non-Fallen Timelines) and gorons. This is a huge departure from gerudos being openly rejecting of Hylian culture in their initial iteration, and something that is worth returning to later.

Okay. Now it’s time to mention the weird obsession BotW gerudos have with romance. I didn’t take notice of my issues with their writing until I realized how prevalent of a theme that was. Now, the reason given for gerudos to refuse entry to males (of every race) has much more to do with preventing young gerudos to make mistakes than anything else, and is actively being put into question by the younger generations –which would make sense. But the amount of NPCs that either lament their lack of match, talk about their husbands (because they marry now apparently) or are invested in romance, and a very limited understanding of romance at that (heterosexual, closed, etc), makes for much more of the population that I initially expected. There’s no mention of what’s going on with their males, if there are new males being born and either exiled or abandoned, or if Ganondorf being technically still alive have have cut them off male heirs. Either way: no more kings, only girlbosses chiefs.

To have the gerudos so interconnected with Hyrule, not only through trade but through extremely coded romance where they have to make themselves palatable to a future male partner and enforce fidelity, was… a choice. The extremely brief and skippable mention of gerudos sometimes going to Castle Town in search for boyfriends in OoT became half of their personality traits in this game. We went from a race that was fiercely independent and mocking of the unworthy men who tried to mingle with them, to… this. Now I’m not saying some of the sidequests aren’t cute, or that I didn’t like the wedding, or that the grandma near the abandoned statue of Hylia (so she was worshipped at some point) clocking us and talking about her love life wasn’t one of my favorite gerudo conversations. I’m saying that the vibes have definitively changed. For the better? I’m not sure.

I once stumbled upon an article that said that Breath of the Wild gerudos were a huge improvement compared to their original introduction, because they were no longer presented as evil and hostile thieves groveling at the boot of a single man, but as a full culture allied with the protagonist and actively involved in the story, while still getting their Cool Girl Badass moment (again can’t find it anymore, I’ll link it if I stumble upon it again). I see where this comes from, but I honestly can’t help but consider it a reading that assumes something pretty major (though through no fault of their own, as the games tend to hammer this down as hard as they can), and that being hylians as the unquestioned anchor of Good.

Which, in spite of what the games want me to believe, I… feel uncomfortable taking at face value.

To me, regarding how gerudos are being incorporated in that goodie narrative, this is kind of a case of surface-level feminism trumping over colonialist/imperialist concerns. It becomes more important to perform the aesthetics of being cool and friendly and independent than scratching at any deeper problem that would risk making people uncomfortable. This is kind of Green Skin Ganon all over again: oh wait, isn’t it a little icky to have the evil bad guy being brown while faced by the most aryan-looking ass heroes of all time? Okay, then let’s take the brown guy and make his skin green so we don’t have to feel bad anymore that the conflict has racial undertones!! Solved!! There’s nothing questionable about changing a PoC's features to make it more monstrous and less human, right?

To me, it’s kind of the coward option: instead of accepting the messy reality those initial choices created (and their interesting nuances if taken at face value), let’s just… rewrite the PoC culture’s history to make it feel less uncomfortable for the white heroes. In many ways, it is an extension of what hylians have always done: scrubbing the weird and messy things about the past and shoving them deep down into the spooky well and far into the desert prison and away in alternate hellish dimensions, and then make up a very simple story where they get to feel good about themselves –except this time, it’s the fabric of the games, the literal reality, bending backward to make it happen. Which, in my opinion, makes it much worse than before. Now, there’s no conversation. The fabric of reality is changing their own history so that there is nothing to discuss anymore. Ganondorf was always evil incarnate. He never had any point. It was always 100% his own fault, his own hubris, his own fated wickedness. He was always demonic (and green, very important –having a flashback to people on twitter accusing artists restoring the TotK green skin to the original brown of wanting to make Ganondorf black, and like….. how do I put it gently…..)

And, above all else: gerudo are to distance themselves from his legacy so they can stay in the club of the Good and Just and Holy.

Because here’s the messy thing: as much as I love seeing the gerudos again in Breath of the Wild and as much I love for them to have survived the Era of Myth (??? somehow ???), this… kind of changes Ganondorf’s character arc. No longer do we have the story of a king who wanted more, either for his people, for himself or both, and led his culture to its destruction in his search for absolute Power, while remaining ironically incapable of maintaining what little he already had. This starts from him kneeling to the king of Hyrule in OoT and leads to the deluge, Arbiter’s Ground, his own mothers dying for the sake of his failed resurrection. Breath of the Wild changes this: now, the gerudo were apparently fine without him? They apparently did their own thing and became suddenly and inexplicably disconnected from his actions? I know it’s kind of implied they side with hylians at the end of OoT, but it’s honestly never really explored why they would cheer for the death of their king while never seeming to resent him before except for Nabooru –there are mentions of brainwashing for those who resist him (as well as “other groups in the desert”, tho they are never mentioned again), but it’s hardly a proper plot point for the majority of the tribe, aaaand they still die by Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, in spite of their potential alliegance…

(again, this shift towards submitting to Hyrule actually started with Four Swords Adventure, getting crisper with each iteration)

There used to be this polite blur regarding Ganondorf’s relationship to them, how much he used them and how much he acted in their name (with arguments for both sides), and I think this messy and debatable question mark was one of the most compelling aspects of his character. Gerudos rejecting their relationship at a near-cosmic, reality-bending level, removes a huge layer of complexity to both parties… all for the benefit of making hylians come out cleaner out of this whole exchange, their moral grayness barely a whisper in the distance.

I’ll kind of go on the record and say that I suspect the addition of Demise to the canon to serve a similar purpose (at least in part): if Ganondorf becomes but the manifestation of a demonic curse, and is no longer an extremely messy character brimming with agency and drive, forcing the heavens to reckon with said agency in a way he was never meant to access, born from a complex set of circumstances from which we clearly get only a limited and biased perspective, then it becomes extremely clear that he’s a Bad in a way that isn’t worth exploring further. Even if he does have some points, he is a Bad. It’s what matters most. Not to say I even hate what this angle can bring to the table or that I want him to become Good (I don’t –I’ll talk more about why I dislike most takes on him being a helpless victim to the curse), but once again, who benefits from adding another Unquestionned Baddie to the equation to rest upon? Not him, and not the gerudos, that’s for sure.

So. Why did I, me, personally, like the gerudos in the first place?

Beyond the inherent coolness factor of their culture and the fascinating mysteries of what is merely suggested, I think… I think I loved gerudos because we were obvious outsiders. Because their rejection of Hylian culture was so sharp and extreme, their value system so different, and their writing, their religion, their relationship to power and hierarchy and worth wanted nothing to do with hylians. They didn’t need hylians, beyond them having potential resources to steal. In fact, the threat of hylians influencing their culture was such that the entry to the Fortress was forbidden to everyone (I don’t think men were ever singled out, by the way, even though they are mocked relentlessly). I think there was something inherently hopeful about this semi-matriarchy resisting the outside world, and especially its notions of what girls were meant to be –it was 1998, and every other girl character in OoT, besides Impa and Sheik that?? is another can of worms entirely, is either helpless or someone to save. For them to reject this narrow vision of femininity was, in my opinion, much more radical than what we got in BotW. Less nuanced, more problematic perhaps? But also much more powerful. Gerudo Valley is home, not to a town, but a Fortress.

Hylians were worth being resisted.

In Breath of the Wild, their refusal to let men enter their town is kind of boiled down to a fading tradition over-focused on romance, a meek little game of chase. Their entire goal seems to be finding a hylian to settle down with. Say what you will about the single man and the many girls (never explored and completely open-ended in its implications, btw), but at least it wasn’t… that. At least it opened the way for different ways for people to exist and imagine culture and civilization, outside of the heterosexual couple, the christian-infused patriarchy and its trickling down implications. What I want to say is: let my girls tell hylians they ain’t shit!! That they aren’t the end all be all of reality! This is what made gerudos so compelling in the first place! Where is that bite now? Where is that self-definition?

It’s gone, because hylians need to be Good. So we tee-hee at the creep running laps around the town, we disguise ourselves to breach their trust and infiltrate their town (though there is nuance to be had there, gender be complicated etc), we watch them pine after shitty dudes and take classes to become the perfect approachable woman and make love soups with ?? strange ingredients honestly, and we witness them get very friendly with the Royal Family they used to conspire against, dying to protect the princess against the manifestation of their ancient king reduced to a raving puddle of Bad Boar.

Hyrule, unified against him.

TEARS OF THE KINGDOM

For posterity’s sake: this post was made before the game was released. I’ll probably update my thoughts on a separate thing later on.

I don’t think gerudos allying with the hylians and burying their own legends about Ganondorf as deeply underground as they can until it blows up in their face is a bad setup at all. It’s actually pretty juicy, and there’s a ton of fascinating stuff that could happen here –even some involving gerudos taking a firm stand against him while still reconnecting with their past and the choices they made once. This is my hope with the title of the game: Tears of the Kingdoms. Let’s examine them all, account for the damage, and decide how we move forward from there with the full knowledge of where we come from.

What I am afraid of (and I already made posts about that) is the scenario where gerudos rallying against Ganondorf, which I expect will forcefully try to take back his place as their king, is used for cheap feminist points that completely fail to examine, well. Everything mentioned above. Where reality bends itself out of the way of the Goddesses, and hylians’ responsibility in any of this mess, so that everything bad is 100% Ganon’s fault and so he must be cast aside and torn away from the Cool Gerudo Girls and this is 100% justified and deserved because we are Independent Women Who Take No Shit from No Men (unless they are the king of Hyrule or any random hylian they wish to marry apparently).

I’ll say this here because it’s been burning my mouth every time I see discourse about Ganondorf and the gerudo: gerudos declared him as their king. To make a really bad comparison that I dislike: he didn’t run around to assemble girls and make a cult around himself, he was born with the cult already formed around him (and it’s not a cult, it’s just a different mode of governance –hylians also revere the Royal Family like gods, don’t they?). This heavily changes the dynamics at play. Not to remove any agency from him to do a little invasion about it, but chances are the ancestors to BotW’s gerudos fully expected him to behave in this way, at least to a degree –in OoT you see very plainly that they value physical prowess, feats of thievery, witchcraft and general violence. It’s more complicated than him being a Bad and making the poor helpless women go along with the plan uwu –even taking the brainwashing into account, AND Koume and Kotake counting as gerudos too, even if they might not be not fully innocent in shaping the culture and the man himself. If manipulation and forced servitude is the explanation given, I’ll be genuinely mad –because, once more, all the nuance and messiness would be flattened for the sake of making Ganondorf Bad and the gerudo Good (= on hylians’ side).

It bears to be said: I think feminism stances that require, not to criticize (which is fair), but to fully dehumanize and bestialize men of color to make any sense are uhhh bad, and it's worth questionning who they end up serving in the end.

The flip side of this would be to make Ganondorf a poor little meow meow that was secretly controlled by the evil Demise all along, and... I’ll be real. I really don’t think it solves our problem at all. It might even make it worse.

My problem with how gerudos have been handled thus far, being mostly connected to how they behave in relation to hylians Good, is that they’ve been systematically defanged not to threaten the status quo as much as they used to. I think it’s pretty clear why I’m not a fan of Ganondorf being a mere victim of cosmic circumstances; I have a post that goes more in depth about this, but to simplify: my man has legitimate grievances. To make him a mere puppet to Evil Incarnate would, to me, be just another attempt to erase the despotism of the Goddesses, the unjust hierarchy of the world, what hylians have historically done to the races they were in conflict with (looking at the Yiga for the most recent example…)

I’m not saying his fight is clean or even legitimate, that he isn't driven by his own sense of self-importance above anything else, or that he should win (he has no plan beyond domination and victory, that's not a future). But I think there’s something really important about having someone being willing to fully consume himself and everything around him for the simple fact that someone should resist the order of the world. Even if that makes him a heartless, cruel, and egomaniac demon-pig. Even if there’s no Hyrule left to rule. Even if his own people despise him, or are long gone and forgotten.

Is it a little heart-wrenching? Uhh yes to me yes most definitively. This is why Wind Waker Ganondorf hits so hard, and remains (I think) his favorite entry in the series so far. But… I still find this fate of eternal resistance more resonant and empowered, and far less grim, than if Hyrule’s lore absorbs his hatred and rage, gives it to another entity that would be Badder (= more opposed to hylians and the goddesses), and scrubs it off anything icky and uncomfortable, rendering it completely domesticated and non-threatening to hylian domination; rubbed of his skin color, of his complexity, of his own emotions, even made... kind of sexy now, in the same way his sisters have been made before him? I am very, very afraid of him being turned from furious and an unapologetic subject in his own legend to a "redeemed" (according to whom??) and palatable object in somebody else’s, that you now end up having to… save from himself.

Again, I want to trust that Tears of the Kingdom can walk that line and preserve everything sharp and contrasting and profound and thrilling about this fascinating setup. I don’t expect a philosophy course, this is a game for children –but it doesn’t mean Nintendo didn’t do an astounding job with similar setups in the past. Again, I’ll invoke the Wind Waker conflict, but Twilight Princess did a lot of great things as well (Zant’s speech, if you can get past the weird stretches and stumping and NNHYAAAs, is pretty fantastic) –and the subtle writing of Majora’s Mask is also proof enough this series can be complex without being impermeable.

So this is where my hope lies. Not really with BotW’s writing, which, I’m sorry to say, but I found to be below what the series has done in the past (I have no problem with the setup and how the story is explored, I think it was a great idea, but wasn’t ever sold on the actual writing the way I may have been with previous titles –it felt… very tropey to me overall, with a couple of highlights). But Nintendo has shown to know how to write compelling stories for children that know where to sprinkle its darkness and how to preserve its hope, and this is this side I’m relying on for this delicate storyline moving forward.

And now? Now… I suppose we wait and see.

(thank you for reading my impossibly long essay what the actual hell, at least I got it all out of my system, see you in part 2 for when TotK comes out I suppose aaa)

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aroaceleovaldez · 4 months ago

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hello! so I'm doing a revamp of a character and I'm switching over their god parent to Apollo. One of the prominent traits of said character is that they are cursed - do you have any thoughts on how I could use maybe the plague aspects of Apollo or if there are any nasty curses I could pull from mythology?

i actually have a perfect hc for this! One of my ongoing hcs for CHB (brainstormed with the help of my group chat) is that each of the main 12 cabins has a "bad omen" power that crops up once in a blue moon and is considered a curse or bad luck - basically every other cabin's equivalent of the Hephaestus cabin fire powers. Big 3 kids are just kind of omens in themselves and for Hermes cabin i usually go it's just the chthonic kids and they're less "bad" omens and more just omens in general + being more common than the "cursed" powers other cabins have. For the other cabins, I usually have their "bad omen" powers be: Demeter = Geokinesis, Ares = iron skin, Athena = vision/inflicting blindness (literal or metaphorical), Apollo = plague, Hephaestus = pyrokinesis (canon), Aphrodite = "Whispers" (similar to charmspeak but functioning slightly different and more malignant), Dionysus = insanity.

I imagine all of these powers would be extremely rare (same level as what's described with Hephaestus fire powers - like once every hundred years or so) (except for maybe chthonic Hermes kids or Big 3 kids - again they're kind of a technical inclusion to the Bad Omen Powers Club). They're generally the black sheep of their respective cabins. In my personal hcs I like to have Will be a plague child of Apollo (he considers his "bad luck" effect to be why most of his cabin died soon after he arrived at CHB and blames himself for it) and also have healer children of Apollo be often born at the same time as plague children of Apollo to keep them in check (Will is both!) - though healer children are less rare and can crop up all on their own, no associated omens required.

With Apollo and plague powers, you could also tie in his associations with insects (specifically midges and locusts, though he also has some association with bees if you wanna throw that in there too) and rodents (rats/mice). He's also the god of mold and mildew! Lots of fun room to play around with plague-leaning powers for Apollo kids. In canon, Apollo kids with prophecy powers are also implied to be somewhat cursed (such as Halcyon Green) so you could potentially play with that as well. Particularly that + Apollo's association with snakes as one of his animals, since snakes in greek mythos are heavily associated with prophecy.

One "curse" I'm always amused by associating with Apollo kids and their potential snake and prophecy stuff is Tiresias, who was "cursed" (in some versions by Apollo) for killing a snake or two to be turned into a woman (or man, or mouse, again depending on version - it varies which they started as) (curse in quotations cause if it's the sex-change options Tiresias sure did not care one single bit so "curse" not effective i guess), sometimes repeatedly. Depending on version Tiresias is either born blind or gets blinded by either witnessing a virgin goddess bathing (yknow, the standard) or for siding with Zeus in an argument against Hera. Depending on version as compensation for being blinded in either situation they are gifted prophetic abilities (sometimes by snakes - cause "snakes licked their ears and gave them the gift of prophecy" is a surprisingly specific recurring thing in Greek mythos) or they're just born with it. In some versions of Tiresias' myths they're also killed by Apollo. So just in general with all the snake and prophecy and mouse and Apollo associations there, plus the genderfuckery, I just think that's ripe for an Apollo kid getting up to shenanigans.

Another famous Apollo-associated curses include of course Midas' ass ears or. gestures to Trojan war. inflicting plague. Or just straight up killing a designated hubristic individual's children (usually Apollo killing the sons while Artemis kills the daughters).

Hope this gives you some ideas!

#pjo #riordanverse #chb #camp half-blood #headcanon #headcanons #twinklefwinkle #ask #godly parents #< dusting off that tag again finally #long post //#< long-ish #also i forgive if this is a little nonsensical i am ill (ironically) so i cant proofread this as much

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lopez-richter-fangirl · 1 year ago

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The Tin Can Bros have launched a kickstarter to celebrate their 10 year anniversary with SEVEN new projects, and they need our help!

Read on to find out how:

This is Brian Rosenthal, Corey Lubowich and Joey Richter

You may know them from Team Starkid, or you may know them from their own group the Tin Can Brothers (creators of projects such as Spies Are Forever and the Solve it Squad), formed in 2014. To celebrate 10 years, they’re raising a goal of $200k in order to stage seven projects

They’re currently a week into their campaign and have raised almost $50k with 675 backers. But they still have a way to go! And to help, we need to spread the word

TINLIGHTENMENT PROMO SCHEDULE:

Saturday 10th - The Great Debate

What is it?

A live comedy game show featuring Joey, Brian, Corey and special guests pitted against each other to win a debate. It gets silly!

How will I be able to see it?

Live shows in LA (and potentially other places!) throughout the year, digital tickets, and eventually some ‘episodes’ on youtube!

What can I share?

If you’ve been lucky enough to see past great debates on Patreon, talk about favourite topics and moments!

If you haven’t, share moments and clips from the first public great debate livestream happening on Thursday! (I think - if plans are changed then they’re doing a terrible job letting me help them)

Talk about guests! They talked about a Dropout crossover which I know people have been asking for with Starkid. I don’t know what that is but tell the people that do!

Tuesday 13th - Gross Prophets

What is it?

A brand new comedy musical featuring Joey, Brian and Lauren with music by Ali Gordon and Angela Parrish (shitty broadway! https://youtu.be/AZ-bOPiDqo8?si=F6guq3Pk_lOkCB5B)

How will I be able to see it?

Live shows (some workshop-y) in LA leading up to a run at the Adelaide Fringe, with digital tickets and eventual youtube release

What can I share?

We don’t know a whole lot about this project yet, but we do know it’s got a great cast and creative team - talk about those people!

That it’s going to Adelaide!! Australia is frequently in the top backing countries on kickstarters, and those people finally get a chance to see a TCB show live!

Theories on what the show might involve!

Saturday 17th - SIS at the Fringe

What is it?

An Edinburgh Fringe run of the fucked up Scooby Doo parody, with the original cast!

How will I be able to see it?

Live shows throughout the entire Edinburgh Fringe run in August, or a digital ticket!

What can I share?

This is an existing TCB property, so talk about what you love from the original! Share art, gifs, edits, anything!

That it’s going to Edinburgh! As above, UK fans have been desperate for this for ages, now’s our chance! Make sure people know about it!

Tuesday 20th - Spy Another Day LA and London

What is it?

A live concert screening (Hollywood Bowl meets Rocky Horror!) of Spies with most of the original cast for LA and TCB plus Lauren for London!

How will I be able to see it?

A live show in LA in Spring (likely April) with a digital ticket option, and a live show in London in early September following their SIS fringe run

What can I share?

Like with SIS, anything and everything you love about the original show! Angsty fics, art, memes, it’s all good

Joe Walker. To me personally he’s just A Guy, but some people are still shocked to be learning he’s doing a show again! Get those OG fans to support this!

That it’s going to London. I need Joey doing a passable to decent depending on how much he’s practiced English accent in London! And again, an opportunity for one of the highest backing cities to see them LIVE

Saturday 24th - TCBoB at 54 Below

What is it?

The songs from their musical This Could Be on Broadway in concert at 54 Below in New York City, with Joey, Brian, Lauren, Esther, Bryce and Clark, plus more performers to be announced!

How will I be able to see it?

Live in NYC in November, with a digital ticket option

What can I share?

The first workshop only got a digital ticket release but if you caught that, share favourite parts! And the soundtrack is available, so talk about how fucking good the songs are

The fact that it’s an opportunity for people to hear these songs live!

Tuesday 27th - Intelligent Life

What is it?

A reading of TCB’s queer sci-fi comedy TV pilot

How will I be able to see it?

Live in LA in early Summer, or by digital ticket

What can I share?

Like with Gross Prophets, this is a brand new (to us) project so we don’t know a lot! But we do know it’s gays in space! We love space gays

Remember, these are just ideas. Share anything you personally are excited for and think other people might be interested in! The aim is to make sure people are aware of these projects, what they entail and why they need to happen! Any other way you have of getting the word out about the projects and the campaign in general is valuable!!

Join our discord for more ways to help or to ask questions! https://discord.gg/4VNEBzpA

And if you’re hearing about all this for the first time, check out the campaign! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tincanbros/tinlightenment-world-tour

#i’ll probably share a lot of this info again when it comes to the promo days #cause this is a lot to read lmao #just wanted to get it all out there #tinlightenment #tin can bros #tin can brothers #tcb #starkid #team starkid

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greenwitchcrafts · 1 year ago

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Yarrow

Achillea millefolium

Known as: Allheal, angel flower, arrowroot, bloodwort, cammok, carpenter's weed, death flower, devil's mustard, Devil's nettle, eerie, field hops, gearwe, green arrow, herbe militaris, hundred leaved grass, knight's milfoil, noble yarrow, nosebleed plant, plumajilo, seven year's love, snake's grass, soldiers thousand seal., squirrel tail, stanch grass, tansy, thousand-leaf, thousand weed, woundwort, yarrowway & yerw

Related plants: Is a member of the daisy family Asteraceae that consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within it such as chamomile, coneflowers, dahlia, daisy, dandelion, goldenrod, lettuce, marigold, mugwort & sunflower

Parts used: Leaves & flowers

Habitat and Cultivation: This hardy plant is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in Asia, Europe & North America

Plant type: Perennial

Region: 3-9

Harvest: Harvest yarrow when the blooms only when they have fully opened. It should be cut right above the leaf node to encourage the plant to potentially flower again. Many choose to harvest the flowers in the late morning when the dew has dried before so that the plant is not stressed by the extreme heat. Hot, dry spells right before bloom seems to be ideal for producing the most fragrant leaves.

Growing tips: Plant in an area that receives full sun to encourage compact growth and many flowers about 1-2 feet apart. In partial sun or shade, yarrow tends to grow leggy. Yarrow performs best in well-drained soil. It thrives in hot, dry conditions; it will not tolerate constantly wet soil. Loamy soil is recommended, but yarrow can also be grown in clay soil as long as it does not always stay saturated with water. While this plant is technically considered invasive only in noncultivated settings, common yarrow still needs to be planted in an area where you don't mind proliferation.

Medicinal information: Yarrow has a history of being used for fever, common cold, hay fever, absence of menstruation, dysentery, diarrhea, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal (GI) tract discomfort, and to induce sweating. Some people chew the fresh leaves to relieve toothache. Yarrow is applied to the skin to stop bleeding from hemorrhoids; for wounds; and as a sitz bath for painful, lower pelvic, cramp-like conditions in women. Some people chew the fresh leaves to relieve toothache.

Cautions: Yarrow is commonly consumed in foods, but yarrow products that contain a chemical called thujone might not be safe because it is poisonous in large doses. Yarrow is not recommended for use during pregnancy or chestfeeding as it causes risks of miscarriage. Yarrow might slow blood clotting. In theory, taking yarrow might increase the risk of bleeding in people with bleeding disorders. In some people, it also might cause skin irritation & is toxic to cats & dogs.

Magickal properties

Gender: Feminine

Planet: Venus

Element: Air & Water

Deities: Achilles, Aphrodite, Cernunnos, Faeries, Oshun & Yemaya

Magickal uses:

• Add the flowers to a satchet or dream pillow to encourage prophetic dreams

• Hang a bundle above your bed on your honeymoon night to ensure lasting love for 7 years

• Place across your thresholds or plant near doorwaysto prevent negative energies & influences from entering your home

• Burn as an incense before or during divination to increase psychic abilities

• Wear as an amulet to attract love, friendships & give courage

• Place yarrow under your pillow & if you dreamt of your love, it was a positive omen. If you had a bad dream, or dreamt of other people, it wasn’t

• Combine with mugwort as tea to drink before divination to increase psychic powers

• Put near yourself while practicing divination to increase your psychic abilities

• In spells, use to re-establish contact with long-lost friends or relatives & attract their attention

• Braid into your hair to tap into inner wisdom

• The I-Ching divination was originally performed with dried yarrow stems

• Wash crystals& crystal balls with a yarrow rinse to bring about clarity of vision

• Drink yarrow tea & a cinnamon stick to release hidden truths

• Place on a coffin or grave to help the spirit cross over/ let go

•For powerful protection, pick yarrow flowers and charge them in the sun. Once charged, take the flowers and sprinkle them outside your home to prevent negative influences and energies away from entering your home

Sources:

Farmersalmanac .com

Llewellyn's Complete Book of Correspondences by Sandra Kines

Wikipedia

A Witch's Book of Correspondences by Viktorija Briggs

The Encyclopedia of Natural Magic by John Michael Greer

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer

Plant Witchery by Juliet Diaz

A Compendium of Herbal Magick by Paul Beyerl

The Herbal Alchemist Handbook by Karen Harrison

The Book of Flower Spells by Cheralyn Darcey

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hyperpotamianarch · 19 days ago

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Sha'ul HaMelech

So, I didn't get to write about Tanach lately. Since one of my daily studies (which only exists for my college, but it can still be fun sometimes) is a chapter from Nevi'im Rishonim, though, I have some stuff to say. Usually I pour my random thoughts on fellow Torah studiers around me, but that works best when they have a reason to study the same thing as me (Parashat Shavua`), or when they might have an interest in it for other reasons (Halacha). The study of the Tanach is a bit different, in that the people I'm around usually have a very different outlook on it than me, which makes talking to them about it a bit difficult. When I'm thinking of an original interpretation to a possuk, I'm not sure I want to hear the Midrash again. I know what it says, and I'm not sure this helps with the Pəshat, thank you very much.

So, that's just a preface to explain why I put my thoughts on Sha'ul HaMelech over here. To begin with that:

The perception of Sha'ul among Jewish circles is interesting. This is the failed king, after all. I hesitate to say which view is most common, because I was used to saying one is but have since (I think) encountered quite a few people who had the other, but two possible ways emerge: the sinful, bad king and the righteous king who fell and failed. As a general rule, I hold to the latter: Sha'ul had much potential, but he eventually failed. But today, I wish to talk about his coronation.

Now, picture this: you are but a humble shepherd (or maybe cowherd. Or just herd animals), of the youngest of the 12 tribes of Israel. You're not an important person, though you are remarkably tall.

Your father's donkeys have been lost, and naturally, you headed out with your servant to look for them all over the place. You might be vaguely aware that there is some turmoil among the Israelites - people asked the prophet for a king or something. That has nothing to do with you, though.

But you can't seem to find the donkeys, and you're hungry, and you tell your servant that at this point your father probably worries over you more than the donkeys. Your servant, however, remarks that there's a prophet close by and you could just ask him about the donkeys. When you raise objections over payments, the servant says he has some money. So they go there, and there seems to be a celebration or something.

To skip ahead a bit, when you meet the prophet, he starts telling you wierd things about greatness, telling him not to worry over the donkeys and that you'll eat with him. The next morning he talks to you alone, tells you of a few signs you will see on your way and anoints you as king. You go home and tell nobody about that, though they saw you start prophesizing, which is so odd there's a new phrase named after you: "Is Sha'ul among the prophets as well?"

A couple of days later, all the people of Israel come gather, for the occasion of crowning their first king. And how does Shəmu'el start this gathering?

“Thus said the Hashem, the G-d of Israel: ‘I brought Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and of all the kingdoms that oppressed you.’ But today you have rejected your G-d who delivered you from all your troubles and calamities. For you said to Him: 'set up a king over us!’"

-1 Samuel 10, 18-19, Sefaria translation with minor edits

I don't know about you, but if I was Sha'ul in this situation, and I know that I am the king who is to be crowned today... I'd probably have hid too. Usually it's viewed as him simply being humble, and there are certainly other occasions where we see him being humble - such as him not telling his uncle of his anointment, but here... here, I found myself wondering if this threatening opening made Sha'ul scared. He's realizing that he's being put in this position not because it's G-d's will to give the Israelites a king, but because the Israelites insisted. It doesn't help that many people don't appreciate him being appointed king and mock him.

Then, of course, the whole story with Yavesh Gil`ad happens: king Naḥash comes to take over the east side of the Jordan river, and the Yaveshites ask for help. Now, in the Tanachic context we already know that Yavesh is tied to Binyamin, Sha'ul's tribe, through marriage (following the Levite's Concubine story in the book of Judges). That may or may not have had an effect on Sha'ul's decision. However, his next act of butchering two of his bulls and sending it all around Israek serves multiple purposes: firstly, Sha'ul is still dealing with his own cattle. That's not exactly a kingly job. Clearly, his coronation led to practically nothing. Secondly, Sha'ul does assert authority with this - by saying "if you don't come with me and with Shəmu'el I'll do that to your cattle" he's showing that he's the king and he can choose to do that. Thirdly, of course, this parallels the Levite cutting his own concubine to twelve parts and sending it all around Israel.

I don't see a need to detail what happened later. Suffice to say that Sha'ul won. His first act as the actual king following that is pardoning the people who refused to accept him, not wanting to sully the victory with executions. And Shəmu'el declares that they're all going to the Gilgal to renew Sha'ul kingship.

Picture yourselves in Sha'ul's place, again. You just won a battle against the `Amonites, and against a king who was probably much more experienced than you. You saved your kin from enslavement. Your kingship is widely accepted, and you're celebrating before G-d. Then Shəmu'el, your mentor, says he wants to say a few words. You know he led the Israelites up until now, and that now that he's giving the reins to you, he probably wants to make his final speech as a leader. He's still going to be here as a prophet, of course, but he's no longer the Judge.

He starts it up with asking if anyone has unfinished business with him. Did he take anything from anyone unjustly? Did he accept any payment for his role? The Israelites all answer what all of you already know they will: no, he hasn't. He asks G-d and you - G-d's Anointed One - to be witnesses to that, which you accept.

Then he starts another speech about the history of Israel. This time it's more detailed. And, once again, he reminds the Israelites how bad them asking for a king is,

Now, logically, I'm sure Sha'ul realized this had nothing to do with him specifically. The mere idea of a king, or perhaps the idea of asking for a king in this way during this time, is what Shəmu'el is speaking against. G-d chose Sha'ul because he's fit for the task, because he really is a good choice. The fact he was asked to choose a king was bad, but the chosen king wasn't. Logically, Sha'ul must know that.

But from his perspective, it's different. From his perspective, this is the second time Shəmu'el criticizes his role - which he didn't ask for. He was forced to enter a position that Shəmu'el had something against from the very beginning. In his day of victory, the day he was recrowned as king, what Shəmu'el has to say is that he really shouldn't have done this in the first place. Sha'ul starts his kingship feeling that Shəmu'el has something against him, and that quite possibly colors the rest of his reign. Maybe this explains a couple of his bad decisions later on.

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fkinkindagauche · 4 months ago

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The Most Gourd-geous Pumpkin in the Patch

I did, in fact, start a fic based on this Wiggly Wednesday. The first chapter is up on AO3 - read it here, tags/content warnings over there. Brief description - No Upside Down Omegaverse AU, explicit, Steve and Eddie meet in their mid-to-late thirties over some pumpkins.

Here's a little excerpt.

“Hello?” a man’s voice said. Steve could hear loud music playing in the background.

“Um, hi,” Steve said. He hadn’t prepared a spiel like he usually did when calling someone, and he froze. Amos meowed loudly.

“Are you a cat?” the man asked, laughter in his voice. “Is a cat calling me? This is wild.”

“N-no,” Steve stammered. “I mean, yes, there is a cat here, but there’s also a person. Me. Steve.”

“Ooooh,” the man said. “The plot thickens. A Steve and a cat. What’s the cat’s name?”

“Amos,” Steve replied automatically. How had this conversation gone off the rails so quickly? Amos lifted up his head at the sound of his name and meowed again.

“Anus? You named your cat anus?” the man asked, incredulous.

Steve rolled his eyes. He hadn’t anticipated how common this response would be when he chose Amos’s name, but a surprising number of people did mishear it as “anus”. “No, no. Amos. With an M as in major. Amos, like the Famous Amos cookies. Or the minor prophet in the Old Testament.”

“That makes a lot more sense,” the man said. “So, Steve and minor prophet slash cookie cat, to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?”

“Um. I got a card. In my door today. From Munson’s Curiosities. About selling pumpkins.”

“You’re the pumpkin magician!”

“Well, I don’t know about that. It’s my first time growing them.”

“Even more magical. Those have got to be the most perfect pumpkins I’ve ever seen.”

Steve felt himself blushing. Over praise of his pumpkins. What was going on? “Um, thanks?” he said. “Anyway, I wasn’t sure what you meant, by your message. Did you want to buy my pumpkins, or did you want to sell me some pumpkins?”

“Why would I need to sell you pumpkins when you’re a pumpkin magician?” the man asked.

“The lack of punctuation on the note made the situation unclear,” Steve explained.

“Well I feel like the context clues made it very clear,” the man interjected, though he just sounded amused, not annoyed.

“What do you want the pumpkins for?” Steve asked.

“Need to make sure they’re going to a good home? I get it. I’m doing this Halloween-themed event in a few weeks, and I just thought they would be perfect for decorating.”

“Hmm. Alright. You can have six,” Steve said.

“Awesome!” the man replied, seeming genuinely enthused. “How much do you want for them?”

“Oh, you don’t need to pay me,” Steve said awkwardly. “I just grew them for fun, and wasn’t expecting them to all survive. I don’t actually need eight pumpkins.”

“Let me at least buy you a drink or something, man.”

Steve thought about it for a second. Did he really want to agree to getting a drink with this rather unconventional stranger? He had grown more introverted in recent years, and generally avoided potentially awkward social situations, preferring to stick with people he knew well. But he had actually been enjoying this odd conversation. “Alright, fine. I can bring the pumpkins with me, and we can meet somewhere for a drink.”

“Fantastic! You doing anything Friday night?”

“No,” Steve was slightly embarrassed to admit. “I’m free.”

“Great. Meet me at Bobby’s at 8? I have a lot of hair, I’m hard to miss.”

Steve laughed. “Alright. Wait, what’s your name? I never asked.”

“Eddie,” the man said. “Eddie Munson.” Again, Steve felt a vague sense of recognition, like he’d heard the name before, but he couldn’t quite place where.

#steddie fic #eddie munson #steve harrington #steve x eddie #stranger things #steddie fanfiction #my fics #steddie fanfic #steddie #steddie omegaverse #omegaverse

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jack-kellys · 5 months ago

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would u change anything about the jack and crutchie dynamic? how would u portray C? i would love to see a production where hes a little less sunshine and a little more realist (which i think uksies did well) buttttt i know thats your man so gimme some thoughts

- @we-are-inevitable ✨

how ~i~ would direct crutchie. ooough. major. hi again jac

give me some newsies issues and ill. i'll-

so i would cast him a year older than jack, or like. he turns 18 a few months before jack or smth. he just seems to understand things already that jack's whole arc brings him to at the end of the show. "I don't need folks. I got friends." takes jack two hours and a fifteen minute intermission to figure that one out. brotha.

i think making crutchie the only guy in the play who really knows what and how things are going to happen is really... just. makes him interesting. his sense of self-awareness, his personal knowledge of who he is and what he stands for- the wild thing abt him is he already. knows. crutchie stands for his friends. it's why initially he isn't for striking ("let's hit the streets while we still can") bc he knows any other action is going to get his friends hurt... but it's also why he's good with it pretty soon after- well, if they are gonna do this, he's not letting his family do it alone/without him... even if he knows what's probably going to happen to him afterward. give me a crutchie with foresight who doesn't ignore it, per se, but whose moral backbone refuses to make him a coward. (its why he and davey r like🤞🏼 to me.)

i would also let him fight. in the fight choreo. he's winning to morris delancey i do not CARE. i'm having the reason he gets caught be him shoving the jacobs out and away. because crutchie already knewwww. from the moment of "you mean like a strike?" what was goin down.

(i would also make the "romeo! finch!" not be a reaching out, but a "get the fuck out of here" wild gesture. as long as crutchie takes center, no one else is getting hauled through downtown in a police wagon.)

i also think that whenever race makes his little comments to davey crutchie is the one gesturing for him to back off, bc i think it's fun when racer and crutchie butt heads and i rly adore crutchie seeing davey and knowing his potential like. immediately. i think i'd have them be talking a lot in staging it- uksies does this already if ur looking for it, but it's so key to me.

tl;dr, crutchie is the most experienced person at the lodge, and i think it should show. and also like. u can debate me on that? that jack's more experienced or is portrayed to be since he's the leader, but... tell me why jack learns friends are equivilent to family when crutchie knew that shit at 00:00:00 in the musical. lmk. crutchie has almost prophetic knowledge in his brain ok he knows newsies the musical as well as us. i think that's fascinating.

also this is unrelated but the way matthew duckett uses the crutch as a true extension of himself is unlike any crutchie we might ever have again. go watch the boot again and just watch him. he points with it, gestures with it, sits in interesting ways, like. his comfortability with his body is smth crutchie needs to have bc he knows himself, more than the rest know themselves. im so serious.

#i just think. crutchie is the smartest guy in the show #i think i can make that realer than it already is #newsies #newsies the musical #crutchie morris #crutchie newsies #yall call him uhh #sean hanlon #charlie morris #yeah #rizz.analysis #fizz answers #fizz freaks

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skycrimedraws · 6 months ago

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Harlan Francis Lovell // PROPHET. Previously SOOTHSAYER, SEEKER,JOHN DOE, Lt. Lovell

Harlan F. Lovell grew in Seattle. His parents were unremarkable lower end corporate employees for Ares. His relationship with his father was strained, his expectations of him as the eldest were far more than he could withstand. Driving under the influence ended Francis Senior’s life, and put Mr. Lovell into a two week coma. Rescue attempts were quick enough to drag him out of the water in time, but Francis senior did not have the same luck.

Despite the potentially traumatic event, Harlan claims he has made his peace with his late father, and it is not a factor in his life. In current time, he has a good relationship with his mother and stepfather, as well as the younger siblings he helped raise afterwards, and speaks no ill of his biological father.

During the coma, Mr. Lovell claims he was aware to some extent, saw visions of a reality he should not have been privy to. He was twelve at the time so the possibility of an over active imagination is not out of the question. According to him:

“I kept sinking. I was drowning but I could not swim, everything around me felt like thick syrup, crushing my body. It was dark but I could see eyes staring back at me from time to time. Not like ours, different, somehow I understood they were eyes. I was trapped for what felt like years, feeling like my body was feeding something much larger than I was, but I was not being bitten to pieces, I wasn’t being chewed. My legs, my arms, my chest, it felt like I was being ground softly but constantly, losing more and more of myself. When I thought I had gotten used to the pain, it became unbearable once again. An endless cycle of numbing down and becoming aware. With what I know now, it was nothing like the astral world I can access. It was deeper. When I woke up from the coma, only two weeks had passed, and all I had lost was my hand. Doctors mentioned that I had more brain activity than expected, which led them to believe it was a case of locked in syndrome, but I don’t think it was that. I was awakened after that.”

Mr. Lovell’s current difficulties with night terrors and obsessive compulsions to understand things can be traced to that event whether it was real or an after effect of stress-induced awakening.

Mr. Lovell was inducted into an Ares educational program for the awakened children of employees. His studies of magic were based on the Unified Magic Theory school of thought, and a position in Ares or one of their subsidiaries was promised as part of his scholarship. Mr. Lovell finished his studies and was funneled into Knight Errant’s Awakened Crime Division. Lovell’s psychological evaluation was shaky, but excuses can be made for mages.

Mr. Lovell was a detective for six years. He cites his idealism as the reason he agreed to the Knight Errant placement. He cites the same thing as his reason for quitting. It was a one sided affair, as his contract left no wiggle room for him to stop working in KE until 40 years had been completed. Mr. Lovell explained many favors had to be pulled for his SIN to be burned, and mentions this was the only way for him to relocate to Los Angeles without being caught.

Mr. Lovell’s work in LA has been largely of a humanitarian nature involving the local anarchist cells and SINless people who have been failed by the governing bodies. His unlicensed Private Investigation agency (Manned solely by himself and his dog, Mac) accepts SINless clients, and even cash or barters. Although he doesn’t advertise himself as pro-bono, he isn’t a stranger to ‘forgetting’ to send the bill to a client or two.

He has grown a reputation, particularly among anarchist cells. In a night of riot, a marginalized slice of Downtown, home to foreigners and metahumans, caught on fire after reckless use of less-than-lethal ammunition. Despite police presence, emergency services did not make an appearance. Mr. Lovell happened to be on the scene, according to him. Fire fighting efforts from the community were underway, but the fire had grown wildly out of control with the way buildings were built with cheap materials, shoulder to shoulder.

Mr. Lovell acted selflessly, putting his own health on the line to employ the help of several spirits he had previously contacted for help. A powerful water spirit created a rainstorm over the span of thirty minutes, a spirit of man cast healing spells on several victims of the fire, while a third spirit of air gave way to fear in the authority’s hearts, enough to break the formation trapping the people in the area of the fire.

Mr. Lovell himself spent the next few hours casting healing spells on whoever else he could to the point of exhaustion. Mr. Lovell wasn’t keen on claiming any credit, but it was easy for the collective to learn of his identity. At the current time, Mr. Lovell resides in that neighborhood, mostly keeping to himself.

#Shadowrun #Art #digital art #ttrpg #rpg #cyberpunk #oc #Harlan

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sitp-recs · 8 months ago

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Hi Sitp!!! Thank you so much for your recs! You're a godsent! Do you have fics where Draco, or Harry, realise they love the other one and the feelings are so strong they decide to run away? And then they come back and grovel? Or just fics with groveling only :)

Hello friend! Great flavour of make up/break up, I’m not generally into (a lot of) grovelling but here are some recs that I hope will work for you:

Be Still by Writcraft (E, 5k)

Harry’s back in England and Draco tries to fix things before he disappears again.

What Real Thing? by loveglowsinthedark (E, 12k)

They don’t cuddle, they don’t talk about their relationship (or lack thereof) and they certainly never fall asleep in each other’s arms.

Make Me a Headline (I Want to Be That Bold) by dicta_contrion (E, 31k)

Draco never expected to see Harry doing that again. Especially with someone else, in a grainy photograph that's landed on his desk one Monday morning.

Potential Gravity by zeitgeistic (E, 32k)

Draco is not good at Cards Against Humanity, but Harry’s not good at being human, so it all works out. Except for the explosions. And Harry’s inability to live when Draco’s not around.

Red Thread (that will lead me home to you) by xErised (E, 35k)

It takes four years of travelling and mutual pining for Harry to realise that Malfoy is the only one for him. Of course, he has to express his feelings in the most scandalous way possible—by stopping Malfoy's very proper, very pureblood wedding.

All Roads by korlaena, Saulaie (M, 36k)

Draco hates his job at the Prophet. He hates it even more when he’s assigned to write an article on Harry Potter, who left the country three years ago after their falling out. Draco doesn’t want to face the truth about himself, but he’s stuck between Harry and his duty, and he’s out of options.

(We'll Call This Fixer-Upper) Home by phdmama (E, 52k)

Draco Malfoy hasn’t set foot on English soil in ten years. After the war, he fled to America, where he found himself in a community, and healed himself through following his heart into music. He’s now the lead singer and songwriter for an internationally known band, who have come back to headline the Wiltshire Music Festival.

A Sword Laid Aside by korlaena (E, 128k)

When Draco’s cover is blown during a deep undercover operation and the Ministry is compromised, Ron takes Draco to the only safe place he can think of—Potter. Hiding out with a taciturn Harry Potter, who has been missing from the Wizarding World for almost two decades after a shocking fall from grace, is nothing like Draco thought it would be.

Dwelling on Dreams by The_Sinking_Ship (E, 135k)

Draco thought he could avoid Potter for the duration of his brief return to England. He’d stick to his schedule and be back home in Paris, where he belonged, in a few short months. No trouble at all.

#asks #somethingveryodd #drarry reclist #realizing feelings and running away #a classic drarry trope 🤌🏼

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nataliescatorccioapologist · 2 months ago

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I unfortunately feel very pessimistic about Lottienat this season... I was somewhat hopeful for more of them in the 90s timeline given Lottie passing on the crown to Nat (for example Lottie trying to guide Nat, Nat feeling resentment due to the responsibility, etc, I could see a storyline there) and possibly paralleling the present with Lottie having an internal struggle between her belief in the Wilderness and its power and it causing such a tragic thing like Nat's death (like my dream plot would be Lottie ultimately having to double down on Wilderness, needing to convince herself in the Wilderness' greater good, that it loves Nat and she is in good hands with it, otherwise Nat's death, which she would partly blame herself for given she started the hunt, is for nothing).. But with every new bit of info on season 3 I feel worse..

For starters, at that panel them mentioning they're against fanservice and don't bring input from the fans into the writer's room. I do feel like this is pretty pointed, but not limited to, shipping. And the main fandom ships are Taivan, Jackieshauna and Lottienat. And of the three, Lottienat is the only one that's not canon/completely embeded in the narrative. So as soon as I saw that, my expectations, even platonically, kinda dropped to zero.

Then that photoshoot dropped with Misty wearing Nat's jacket and in another interview the writers were talking about how Nat's death impacts Misty the most, though the repercussions are felt for all of the women. So Nat's death ultimately doesn't affect Lottie more than the other women, implying her feelings dont go deeper (romantically, platonically) than the other women's do. And I feel like that's pretty crap generally, like even taking off my Lottienat goggles, given Lottie spent the last season helping Nat recover and ultimately played a part in what happened, I feel like no way she wouldnt also feel worse than the others (aside from Misty who literally did it), but whatever. I think she ultimately is doubling down on the Wilderness/this being the greater good, but not out of grief, which sucks.

Regarding the season getting more gay, my complete shot in the dark theory is actually Lottieshauna. Present day Shauna is now their new queen, according to the writers. And Shauna, unlike Nat, is someone who craves that type of power/recognition, and doesn't shy away from her darker side. This, coupled with a Lottie who's all in on the Wilderness again, I could see going somewhere. I could also see this tying to a theme of a Shauna who's been repressed, finally letting go, in terms of both her darker impulses, along with sexuality (and possibly calling back to homoerotic Jackieshauna?). Plus, Lottie had an interest in Callie from the moment she met her "she's so powerful", paralleling wilderness baby. Shauna most embodies the wilderness (as the writers said), and Lottie is the wilderness' prophet/serves the wilderness. So whether romantic or not, I do think Lottieshauna is gonna be a central dynamic this season.

In terms of the 90s timeline, given the tendency for parallels, I don't think we'll get much, if any, Lottienat. Especially if Nat loses the crown early on. I feel like we'll probably get a lot of isolated Nat or some Nat/Ben, before he probably kicks the bucket. And most likely Mistynat, since I feel like they gotta develop that at some point in the teen timeline, at the very least from Misty's side, to make sense of why she was so attached to Nat and it'd make sense to do so now to parallel her grieving Nat in the present. I can see this especially once Nat gets isolated, potentially exiled, with Misty possibly feeling a kinship towards her as another fellow outcast.

I was also thinking, with that intial teaser with the drop date, with what looks like Travis's hands around Lottie's neck, whatever that context is... we'd probably be getting more of the two of them to some extent as well given they have to maintain some kind of relationship in order for them to remain in contact post rescue.

Ultimately, as a Lottienat girlie I have dropped my expectations to zero going forward :(((

Ooh great predictions here, really interesting read!

•I love the idea of Lottie struggling with her belief in the Wilderness and her resentment of it for taking Natalie. Such a great internal struggle there that I hope they do end up exploring in S3.

•I know the writers said that Misty will be the most affected by Nat’s death, but I don’t think that means Lottie won’t be extremely affected by it as well. The writers said all of the characters will experience the effects of it. I think Misty obviously has the most guilt to grapple with as she was the one who killed her and she felt that Nat was her best friend so she is clearly going to struggle the most. But I don’t think that rules out Lottie struggling with Nat’s death, too.

I think Lottie will struggle with guilt of being partially responsible for Nat’s death and fear of the harm she is capable of causing others, but she will justify Nat’s death by telling herself that it was an honorable sacrifice to the Wilderness. At the end of season 2, we saw that Lottie was sobbing after Nat died, but she told Tai and Van “We gave it what it wants.” I feel like the expression on her face (that desperate denial) when she says this really shows us the internal battle she is going through. Grieving deeply but telling herself Nat needed to die. I think most of Lottie doubling down on the Wilderness is her way of coping with all of the loss and trauma she has experienced. She has to justify it and believe it was for the greater good; she has to believe there was a purpose for it in order to cope with the grief and terror of it all. The same applies to her feelings around Nat’s death.

•I do think the writers are at least partially referring to Lottienat when they say they are not listening to fan service. I unfortunately don’t think we’ll ever have Lottie and Nat kissing or anything like that. But I do think there’s a possibility of some more subtext, questionable interactions, or some canonical hinting that they have feelings for each other but will never act on them (or one of them having feelings for the other and it not being requited). But there’s no way those two are ever blatantly getting together, I’m sorry y’all😔

•So I’ll be honest…I have never been a huge fan of Lottie/Shauna. I’m not against it or anything I just personally don’t see the appeal of a romantic dynamic between them. That being said, I agree that Lottie and Shauna’s storylines will be very intertwined this season. I think Lottie will definitely take an interest in Callie and will argue that Callie has a connection to the Wilderness that needs to be explored. We saw in the promo pics that Lottie is going to be at Shauna’s house, which I can only assume is Callie-related. And, if Shauna does end up taking the throne from Nat in the teen timeline, I can see Lottie training her up to be the Antler Queen and being her advisor. This would be paralleled with Lottie and Callie in the adult timeline. I don’t see anything romantic happening between Lottie and Shauna, though.

•I am also worried about a lack of Lottienat interactions in the teen timeline due to the show’s tendency to parallel the teen and adult timelines. That’s a major worry for me about Nat’s arc this season in general. My hope is that Lottienat interactions in the teen timeline will be paralleled with Lottie dealing with Nat’s death. I am hoping Lottie will be on Nat’s side and will believe in her leadership (especially given Lottie’s “You were always its favorite” line in the Season 2 finale). I’m hoping that Lottie and Nat are actually allies this season, and that is part of why Nat resents her so much in the adult timeline (because she blames Lottie for leading her towards the Wilderness and all of the bad things Nat did as the leader of the group).

•More Mistynat in the teen timeline is basically a guarantee, which I am excited for! They have to start developing their relationship more in the teen timeline to justify Misty’s grief in the adult timeline. So far we’ve barely gotten any scenes of Misty and Nat interacting as teens. I think they might bond over not wanting to kill Coach Ben, and being outcasts like you said. I also think that Misty loves being a loyal follower to whoever is in charge, so we’ll see her being very loyal to Nat in the teen timeline.

•And we’ll definitely get more Lottie and Travis scenes. I really need to know what that choking scene is about. I like their dynamic and I think their interactions are interesting, I am just praying that nothing romantic is going to happen between them, I would personally hate that🤞🤞

#yellowjackets #lottienat

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sacrifical-lamb-core · 7 months ago

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Percabeth, planet au. (Except this is just a draft and is not the final product bc it's messy af and makes no sense)

@auroraofthesun1 @lemonsandsadness @ebony-reine-vibes (thanks for supporting me here it's making me really happy)

So if you've forgotten what which au god represents here u go bc I want everyone to always know and I have the clipboard feature on my phone.

Reminder that even though there are planet NAMES they are not related to the actual Roman gods. Separate thing. Like completely.

Mercury main: sea, stars, mischief

Venus main: sun, leadership, education

Mars: electricity, fire, mechanics

Jupiter: human brain, joy, mischief

Saturn: healing, kindness, flowers

Uranus: anger, war, protection

Neptune: music, beauty/romance, deception

Pluto: home,love, family, death

Perseus Jackson, Son of Mercury-

Raised by Sally Jackson and later Gabe Ugliano, Percy Jackson is the son of one of the most important gods, Mercury. Percys' abilities include general water control as well as more prophetic powers (the average demigod receives 300 prophetic dreams per year is a statistical error, children of Mercury, who's dad is the ruler of divination and the stars, is a statistical error and should not have been counted). As well as this, he also rules over mischief, similar to Jupiter, so those children have more of a mischievous streak.

Percy grew up with his mom and Gabe, and he had to attend school after school due to anger issues, dyslexia and ADHD (everything that affects demigods in pjo also affects demigods here). Tbh percys' backstory is pretty similar to pjo. He receives dremas about the future a lot and is running a small tarot business in every school he goes to. Its not that he really believes in it, but it makes him money and he's...surprisingly good. (Honestly I haven't really worked on his backstory a lot)

Annabeth chase:

Daughter of Venus, the Queen of the gods, meaning Annabeth is even MORE stressed. It also means that Thalia is her sister. Daughter of Fredrick Chase and later Niaomi Chase when her dad remarried, she is the daughter of the leadership goddess. So her powers include enhanced smarts and logic, excelling in the field of academics (with a favourite for architecture, but that's formed by herself, really). She also has light powers and is able to know every single law. All of them, depending on her location (I'm struggling to think of any other leadership ones, if u have any help a sister out?!).

She ran away at age 7, meeting her sister thalia Grace and the child of Jupiter Luke Casteallen (idk HOW u even spell this man's last name). They arrived at Camp. But thalia was HATED by her mother, and vice versa. Thalia was turning annabeth against the gods before Luke even had a chance frfr. Bur annabeth learns to hate her mother, too, partly because of thalia and partly because Venus never actually saved her. But they get to Camp, and instead of thalia being turned into a tree for her insubordination, it's Luke. This is because Venus thinks that if her daughters nearly favourite person, who was also not her child (annabeth, who still had potential to be manipulated) was harmed due to thalias mistake of hating her mom, thalia was follow the gods not to let that happen again. and it does not work. She runs off after a year and often sneaks in to try and get annabeth, who is mostly a vulnerable, lonely child who is in a camp which she was already skeptical about, is left to basically fight for herself and be very much manipulated by her mom. Who does. She manages to convince annabeth that thalia was wrong, that the gods love her and if she does everything her mother says, she can be a minor god one day and be loved by everyone

And it works. After years and years of convincing, she basically grooms her own child into being the perfect godly daughter and leader of the Venus cabin. While also being mean to her half the time. :) After a while, thalai realises that she's basically never going to get her little sister back or at least the one she knew. :)

I hope this wasn't bad :)

#feeling weird about this one #planet au #to be edited #first draft #percabeth #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #percy jackon and the olympians #riordanverse #rick riordan #pjo fandom #percy jackson and the olympians

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imsosocold · 1 month ago

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Crack Theory To Celebrate Season 3: Min is the Missing Quarter to Time’s Clock. Or in other words, why I believe Liu Min has a superpower of his own:

Specifically, I think Liu Min is partially prophetic, specifically having the ability to see potential futures within his dreams in addition to being able to at the very least sense timeline ‘resets’ in some way. Whether he can only see his own future or also other people’s futures is unclear. Same with whether he can only see the futures of his current self or if he has the ability to see the futures of other versions of himself from different timelines. I’m going to continue on with the idea that the latter option for both cases are true along with the notion he (and really everyone) doesn’t have a good grasp and understanding on this ability.

This idea was sparked from the line Liu Min’s father said while blabbering on badmouthing him sometime I-don’t-remember- in season 2: “if only he had half the power his brother had!” (I’ve also seen the line translated as ‘if only he had half the ability of his brother’ which still carries the same potential hint/clue/messaging in my opinion, it just makes Liu Jung look less personally knowledgeable and comfortable regarding the brothers’ powers which would fit what we’ve seen from his character.) Now, that’s a very interesting statement for Liu Jung to have said, especially with how little screen time any of the Lius get and how little information we get on them during that time. Most notably know so little about Min, even less than Liu Xiao in some senses. He’s clearly a driving force similar to his brother but his motivations, nevermind his memories, we aren’t even close to being privy to. The word choice used is clearly selective and pointed but also ambiguous. Why specifically state ‘half the power?’ Instead of ‘any of the power?’ With how much the series loves foreshadowing I can’t help but find this not only intentional but telling. It implies Liu Min has some sort of power but nothing satisfactory or notable enough to actually be considered ‘powerful.’

Now, we’ve focused on powers centered around going back to the past with Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi in season one. We’ve focused on powers that alter one’s present conditions and abilities with Li Tianchen and Li Tianxi in season two. I believe season three will explore powers involving the future, specifically those that allow their holders to witness how the future changes. Liu Xiao is implied to have the power to see the futures of all timelines and how they’re altered/can be altered. It would make sense for Min to have a weaker, more limited version of this power. (We could also perhaps potentially eventually see powers that even that defy any sort of these categories regarding time and space.) Important character duos in Link Click tend to have complimentary powers such as Cheng Xiaoshi & Lu Guang and Li Tianchen & Li Tiaxni. I believe Liu Min and Liu Xiao also follow this pattern. ( I think Xia Fei and his sister will fall into this category as well. I also think Xia Fei and Vein, while their powers won’t be directly similar, will have powers that support each other greatly.) In addition, siblings, and overall the concept of siblinghood, plays a rather notable role in the Link Click series. The amount of sibling pairs are notable and the characters who specifically don’t have blood siblings are noteworthy as well. Again, it’s still unknown the extent of Liu Xiao’s and Liu Min’s connection and relationship. I wouldn’t be surprised if either Liu Min took Liu Xiao into the Liu family (like I’ve seen theorized) or inversely Liu Xiao took Liu Min into the Liu family as a parallel to Qi Rong and Cheng Xiaoshi. (Perhaps the duo met in Brighdon lol. I could definitely see Liu Min as being racially English and becoming ethnically Chinese over time.) Regardless of the weeds, Min having his own matching set of powers to his brother would make the Liu siblings be paralleling lines to each other.

It’d also tie up a bunch of loose ends and close all the boxes that have been opened.

Like when Xiao Li questions Liu Min about what he did to Emma, one of the few times we get to directly hear Liu Min talk for himself and specifically when he’s in a vulnerable position and not around someone he has to keep up a mask around, he starts rambling on about how he thought Emma was a zombie. It’s definitely an odd moment with no clear follow up and I don’t think it was simply to portray Liu Min as unstable (which was already obvious lol.) I believe that Liu Min had mixed up memories and had gotten his timelines confused. He remembered so vividly killing Emma he believed it was something he had done in the timeline he was currently living in. So when he saw her somehow alive he freaked out. Being around, talking to, even harming her right then with his bare hands didn’t clarify any confusion for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if all that, or even just her presence alone, triggered more alternate memories within him distressing him further. The reason he attempted to strangle her, even with no murderous intent in particular if we believe Liu Min’s claims, is him attempting to replicate what he assumed was a direct past event. An existential instinct almost.

And it explains why Min’s phone is wanted so badly by everyone in his family, Liu Xiao included. With how online Min was when he was alive, I think he kept information related to his powers on it. Perhaps notes on what was meant to happen in the future and in what ways he may have changed it. Less likely but still a possibility, perhaps Kyoka Izumi style Min needed his phone in some way in order for his powers to be activated. His powers, or at least traces of it, could even directly remain in his phone in some way even after his death.

Plus it’s not a power Liu Min can really have control over, nevermind wield, so that’s why he still has to rely on Li Tianchen to help him with his murders.

Now, this may seem like an odd pivot but this is relevant to this theory hatching, I promise.

I think no one song is written SOLELY for (a) specific character(s). Yes, even the labelled ‘character songs.’ I think all of the songs can apply to (an)other(s)whether the past, present, or future versions of them. (Even for said claimed character songs, for what version of said character at what time do those songs apply to?) I also think songs are often divided between multiple characters but aren’t always listed or even indicated as such. Some songs may currently be incomplete in understanding because we haven’t been introduced to a character / that part of that character yet. The core tenet I hold onto as a writer and reader is that metaphors can work in multiple ways and have multiple uses. Similarly, songs can have multiple subjects and many underlying applications and meanings. Keep In Mind IN SERIES was used in the final episode of the first season as a sort of tribute recap and primarily centered around Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi.(An exploration of the art that’s used to represent the song outside of the series can be its whole own separate post.) But I also think it could as easily apply to the Liu siblings as well.

All the exacts of why I think this can be explored another time, for this post I want to focus on this specific set of lines that previously had really confused me:

“Awakened every night

Surrounded by the devils

I saw the shadows taking my life.”

Again, very specific word voice with ‘devils’ and ‘shadows.’ The closest that anyone has used such pointed, occult and mythological based word choice is Liu Min . This also ties to the potential motive Liu Min could have for his crimes. I believe he saw his victims, or those who could potentially be mistaken to be his victims, harming him or someone he cared about in some way. Instead of trying to brainstorm different ways to potentially prevent such a future from happening or even just considering the events may be related to a whole other timeline that has nothing to do with the current him, he instead, in a twisted attempt to ensure that there isn’t even a possibility such a thing could ever happen, decided to take out anyone he considers involved with what he saw/who he thinks could ever do such a thing against him and/or that person. (Or maybe over time the term ‘threat’ evolved over time from ‘something life threatening’ to ‘anything that could cause any sort of harm however minor’, even applying to people he’s never seen before.)

In addition, parallels can definitely be drawn between those two specific duos especially in regards to the concept of ‘soul brothers’, a term that was formed in LONDON. There’s also a semi-popular theory I ‘ve seen where Xiao Liu is believed to be the future version and/or alternate universe version of Cheng Xiaoshi but not one of them has mentioned how that would affect people like Li Tianchen or Liu Min. So even darker mini theory within this theory. Imagine if Liu Min thinks he’s seeing a future related to him when it’s in fact someone else’s, making all his actions and crimes pretty much personally pointless in the end. Specifically Liu Min viewing Lu Guang’s future within that initial timeline and mistaking Cheng Xiaoshi as his (current) brother. Thus sending him spiraling down a crime spree. Considering Liu Min was possessed the entire time during his encounters with Cheng Xiaoshi with Li Tianchen really being the one interacting with the latter, it would really add to the almost mournful look Min gives Cheng Xiaoshi as he’s dragged out of the photo studio to the cop car. It also makes his confusion over hearing Cheng Xiaoshi scream when in his trunk so much funnier because Liu Min would be going “tf is that my brother in the trunk?” But just in a general sense Liu Min’s crimes being a twisted attempt to try to save his brother from ‘ any potential threats’ would make him a very interesting mirror to Lu Guang. It also makes Liu Xiao’s appearing apathy over his brother’s death that much crueler because Liu Min, despite the resentment that’s likely there towards his brother due to the mistreatment by the family, still does everything he can to look out for him. While Liu Xiao would likely consider such a practice pointless and not worth it. ( He may have tried in the past though, nee hee!)

Is this theory very dependent on dubious translations? Yes. Is this theory also primarily reliant on patterns that my mind simply may be making up? Yes. Can most of this ‘evidence’ be chalked up to correlations? Yes. Is this likely just me wanting Min to have more importance and depth? Yes.

Anyway I made this when I was really sleep deprived and high

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