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tiderideraa · 2 years ago

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐌𝐔��𝐄 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐄

FAVORITE TEA: Lemongrass ginger tea. Given the limited and often contaminated resources brought to the Isle from Auradon, Harry had pretty limited options as far as tea went and generally stuck to a plain fermented dark tea, bitter and which leaves a strong and dry aftertaste that lingers all day. This is the tea he’ll drink, usually when he’s having to sit and meet with other Captains or when he’s studying or learning the books. When the barrier fell he was introduced to a lemongrass ginger tea and it's been his favourite ever since but he drinks it sparingly, only having it as a luxury treat and typically only at night or on very cold days.

FAVORITE COFFEE: He doesn’t drink coffee.

FAVORITE SWEET SNACK: Crab cakes. Harry doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth and actually eating a lot of sugary things makes him slightly queasy, but crab meat (as well as crayfish, lobster, and shrimp meat) has a natural sweetness to it which Harry stomach’s pretty well, especially when combined with other savory ingredients. Another favourite would be Chili Pepper Dark Chocolate Truffles, they’re strong, bitter, spicy, leaves his tongue burning and like his tea, he’ll only get / eat them sparingly and as a luxury treat.

FAVORITE SAVORY SNACK: Roasted winged termites, he eats them like trail-mix. Most insects and rodents on the Isle became an ample food resource and most food stalls have roasted, fried or deep fried insects like spiders, weevils, crickets. The termites have a vegetable-like taste to them and are more of a seasonal luxury on the Isle, so again, Harry generally eats them sparingly.

FAVORITE FLOWER: Red Anemone. Harry doesn’t have much interest in flowers or any kind of flora and fauna unless it’s in some way useful to him and there were no flowers on the Isle until the barrier was removed so he also has limited experience with them. That being said, he likes red, and I can imagine someone telling him the story of Adonis and Aphrodite and thinking that a flower created from blood and tears is pretty cool. Forget-me-nots are a second favourite, he likes the colour and it reminds him of a few people he’s close with.

FAVORITE COLOR(S): Sea blue / sea green. The water around the Isle was dark, muggy, and dirty from trash and pollution but he was able to see the water beyond the barrier, he finds the colour pleasing, calming, it always reminds him of the sea, of the horizon, and of Uma. Red is his second favourite colour, it’s bold and loud, it’s an aesthetic warning and has really become his trademark colour, he prefers darker and more muted shades like wine red or blood red or oxblood red.

FAVORITE FRUIT: Lemons. Sour and bitter, he’ll eat lemon’s like most people eat apples. He likes other citrus fruits and eats them in similar ways, feijoa’s, grapefruit, tamarillo, dragonfruit, are other fruits that he enjoys. He’ll eat banana’s, oranges, berries, but he prefers the sour ones, if they’re too sweet he’ll generally make a face while eating.

FAVORITE VEGETABLE: Potatoes. They’re very versatile and the vegetable Harry has the most experience with and therefore is the most familiar, he hasn’t had a bad experience with potatoes, though he did react some kind of way the first time he had sweet potatoes (he’s not a fan). Likes peppered hash browns the most.

FAVORITE SEASON: Summer. The Isle didn’t experience the full spectrum of the seasons and generally they broke the year into Storm season and Not-Storm season. “Summer” on the Isle was just a somewhat dryer heat which Harry enjoyed because things weren’t as humid, when the barrier fell however, the Isle began experiencing proper seasons. Now summer is hot and breezy given the Isle’s coasts, sailing during the summer is a favourite pastime, as is visiting the beaches with the crew or attending concerts and summer festivals.

FAVORITE TIME OF DAY: Late afternoon. The Isle generally becomes most active around midday with most businesses opening and schools starting around this time, 3-6pm is when the entire Isle is awake, ready, and active, it’s the busiest time of the day and gives Harry a lot to do.

FAVORITE KIND OF WEATHER: Cool and slightly cloudy. Harry works and moves around a lot so he prefers cool weather and since most of his activities are spent outdoors extreme temperatures can be very annoying. He finds that sailing is easiest on cool and slightly cloudy days as the wind and breeze are usually fairly strong.

LOVE LANGUAGE(S) TO GIVE: Acts of service. Harry is very action and goal orientated, when the people he cares about need or want something done, he does it, whatever shape or form that might take. Whether it’s preparing or sharing food, fixing things, performing chores, finishing or helping with projects, taking them where they need to go, softer acts of service like helping them dress, tending to wounds or injuries, investigating, chasing down leads, finding things, a lot of the time Harry doesn’t need to be asked to do these things, he’ll just do them to make his loved one’s lives a little easier or to relieve stress.

LOVE LANGUAGE(S) TO RECEIVE: Physical touch. Harry is extremely tactile and he wants to be touched as much, if not more, than he wants to touch. He’ll often instigate physical contact with people, showing a possessiveness when he does it, but he likes when his people do it too, he finds physical touch grounding, physical affection (especially casual physical affection) endearing and pleasant and will typically gravitate towards that touch.

SPECIFIC NICHE LOVE LANGUAGE: Accepting him as he is. Harry is very self-aware, he knows that the things he believes, the things he does, the morals he has, aren’t universal and aren’t necessarily agreeable with most of the people he cares about and he knows that there are times when he can be a lot to take in. But accepting him as he is, not trying to change or manipulate him into being someone he isn’t, or doing something he wouldn’t otherwise do, is a love language that he’ll gladly accept.

FAVORITE HOBBIES: Drawing. It’s a relaxing pastime and is generally the only hobby he enjoys that is stationary. It gives him time to just sit and focus on something simple and trivial, there’s no pressure associated with it and it’s a thing that he can do on his own. Sailing. Obviously, he’s a pirate who loves the sea and seafaring. He’ll take any opportunity to take a boat or the ship out, especially now that the barrier is gone. He and the crew disappear for days on end just exploring, he even enjoys teaching and training others how to sail and navigate using natural signs. Sparring. Harry will never turn down an opportunity to spar or train and he can become extremely competitive. He always wants to leave a sparring match having learned something, either about fighting or about his opponents.

FAVORITE BOOK(S): The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams. Harry doesn’t and won’t ever have much interest in reading, beyond just not having the skill for reading for leisure or enjoyment, he just doesn’t have the patience. The Velveteen Rabbit is a short story, it has a more traditional writing style that makes it fairly easy to read and understand what is happening and I think the moral / themes of realness, love, identity, are things that Harry would empathize with. Generally however, Harry prefers to listen to adventure stories and prefers watching skits or plays.

FAVORITE MOVIE(S): The Blair Witch Project, or an in-universe alternative. I see Harry being a casual horror / slasher movie fan for the violence and gore, and I see him being more amused by audience reactions than actually fearful of anything happening within the movie or narrative, he’d be the guy sitting there laughing while someone gets impaled. However, given Auradon’s overall culture I don’t see there being any production companies that cater to that kind of genre and I think any kind of horror / slasher movie would be deep underground indie films acted, shot, and produced by students and aired in secret or in home movie theaters rather than at any Auradon cinemas.

FAVORITE SONG(S): Before I Forget, Slipknot, or the in-universe alternative. Harry’s a metalhead. When he’s with the crew it’s sea shanties, hip-hop, pop, alternative rock with a side of r&b all day every day, but when it’s just Harry chilling or Harry on his own, or Harry picking or choosing live performances for himself, it’s metal. He interprets the song as a person that’s breaking the mold so to speak, rising above while taking pride in where they came from and staying true to who and what they are.

FAVORITE MUSICIAN: Avenged Sevenfold, Fire from the Gods, Iron Maiden, Bloodbather or the in-universe alternatives. Like I said, he’s a metalhead so metal genre bands and musicians are going to be his favourite. I see Harry being a bit of an Isle Purest as far as music or entertainment goes, he’s always going to have a bias opinion and support and connect with Isle Born artists more than artists from anywhere else.

FAVORITE ANIMALS: Sharks, especially those around Fisherman’s Wharf which were probably Bull Sharks. While Bull Shark’s are typically solitary creatures they were likely forced to adapt to Isle life and began operating and hunting in packs and became man-eaters out of necessity and survival due to limited food resources. Harry spent a lot of time with the sharks both on and offshore, studying behaviors and hunting techniques, and like the rest of the crew he knows how to swim alongside them, how to avoid becoming the prey and how not to provoke them into attacking.

FAVORITE INSECT: Spiders. He just thinks they’re neat, so many legs, and they eat flies which are very annoying. Would be the type to pick them up and take them outside if requested, or leave them to hang out in the corners so long as their webs don’t get in the way, would hold someone’s tarantula, however he would also snack on them.

FAVORITE TERRAIN: The ocean. Harry’s explored the majority of the ocean terrain surrounding the Isle both above and below water level, discovering and exploring various caves, tunnels, gorges, and gully’s, with the removal of the barrier the ocean floor around the Isle has begun to heal and recover and now even has coral reefs.

#. dash prompts . › sailors knots .

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skekheck · 4 years ago

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All About the Seven Clans: The Dousan

This post contains everything I could find about the Dousan. Some information written here are from older material and may either contradict statements or is no longer relevant. I will do my best to string it all together as coherently as possible. If there is information that I am missing, please let me know and I’ll add it!

Clan Index: Dousan Drenchen Grottan Sifa Spriton Stonewood Vapra

Overview

An elusive clan that lived in the Crystal Desert, also known as the Crystal Sea and Desert of the Dead. Being the most spiritual of the seven clans, their lives revolved around Thra, its mysteries, and the cycle of life and death. For these reasons other gelfling clans were suspicious and even afraid of them. The skeksis encouraged this by spreading their own rumors and barred the Dousan from becoming guards at the Castle of the Crystal for they found their worship of death revolting.

The Dousan’s clan color was orange, their totem animal the Daeydoim, and their core elements were the skies, endless heavens and the studies of its celestial bodies, and lightning. Their sigil color was dark yellow/orange and their pennant colors were orange, blue, and yellow.

Characteristics

The Dousan had one of the most striking features among other gelfling. Their skin were mainly blue, but had hints of yellow that started at the forehead and could extend down the face. Eye color tended to be very light, almost off-white in some cases, sticking to yellows, greens, and browns. Darker eye colors were also possible. Primary hair colors were purple or white with strands of dark brown and/or white. It was commonly styled in braids, ponytails, dreadlocks, and sometimes a combination of all three. Some also preferred to shave their heads. In concept art, a Dousan’s wings were white with black spots.

As they were a minimalist clan, the Dousan dressed for function over appearance and adorned themselves sparingly. They wore long flowing cloaks that protected them from the weather and were light enough to travel. They were crystal-weaved from the crystals scattered along the desert which made the Dousan blend into its sparkling, ever moving sand currents. Much like their pennant, their clothing sported dark blues, yellows, and oranges although black, browns, and reds were also worn. It was common for Dousan to have head protection, whether it were hoods, headscarfs, or other head covering. Of the few accessories a Dousan had were their bone charms, attached with simple marble and string. Spiritual leaders carved their bones with geometric patterns.

Tattoos

Arguably the most prominent feature of the Dousan were their tattoos. They weren’t just tattooed on the face, but their bodies as well. Each tattoo told a story, usually of significant experiences from their adventures in the desert. It also doubled as protection from the Three Suns. Common colors were deep blue, green, and gold, found in abundance from the pollen and plants of crystal palms. Rarer colors were white and silver. If the Dousan desired these colors, they would had to go get the material themselves. This was one of the few instances of materialism they displayed.

The tattooing process was long and painful. It was performed with Crystal Skimmer scales, a mallet, and plenty of ink. The scales were laced with thousands of small spikes and could be cut and shaped into different patterns. The tattooer, which was always an elder sage from the Wellspring, would place the scale spines facing down and pounded onto the skin so it was kept in place. Drops of ink would then be inserted into an opening carved within the scale and then bled into the skin. Because the spines were not closely knitted, the process was repeated several times to get a rich solid color.

Connection With The Skeksis (and Mystics) and Belief System

They were one of the few gelfling clans far removed from skeksis influence. The Dousan even went as far as omitting prayer and rituals based around the lords which was considered heresy. SkekMal the Hunter seemed to have been the only skeksis that interacted with them, but his visits were rare. This doesn’t mean the Dousan were completely removed from their involvement with the Lords of the Crystal. They supplied them with incense and desert-specific animals such as the peeper beetle and guided the Hunter when he needed passage through the desert. Instead, the Dousan were influenced by the skeksis’ other halves: the urru.

There was conflicting information surrounding just how many were involved (either one or two) and the name(s) are not confirmed. However, according to Songs of the Seven Clans, “guardian” and “navigator” were named. Deduction suggests they could be urZah the Ritual Guardian and urGoh the Wanderer. It was also not exactly known why the mystics taught the Dousan as the mystic way was to observe not intervene. But the Dousan inherited their beliefs and adopted an introspective nature. They were taught how to meditate, guard rituals, and listen. They also had beliefs in sacred geometry, represented by the bone charms they wore. The Dousan believed they were given the responsibility by Thra to contemplate the mysteries of life. Much like the mystics, they surrendered themselves to Thra’s will and wisdom and never interfered in the grand scheme of things even if it meant losing the precious gifts Thra provided for them.

Then, of course, was their apparent worship of life and death. They believed the threshold between the two realms were very thin and thus created a tradition around the inevitable. That being said, the Dousan believed death was not the end nor should be caused for fear or sorrow. When life ended, it began anew in Thra’s lush beauty. For many Dousan, becoming comfortable with death was a lifelong spiritual pursuit. They were also the only clan who viewed Mother Aughra and the skeksis as mortal beings instead of immortal deities.

While the mystics taught the Dousan their ways, the clan eventually forgot who they were. Their likeness was illustrated within the Wellspring Cloister, but they were constantly misinterpreted as the skeksis (which was discouraged by elder sages). The Dousan had simply referred to them as ancient sages.

Lifestyle

When the Six Sisters were given their duties, the sister which would become the first Dousan maudra was given the heavens to study the suns, moons, and stars. It was there that they made their home in the Crystal Desert.

The Dousan were nomads. Living in an arid climate plagued by storms and sands that continuously shifted discouraged permanent settlement outside the Wellspring. They made their homes out of sand skiffs (also called sand ships), their trusted Crystal Skimmers, and camps. Because of this constant change and travel, the Dousan had particularly simple and immaterial lifestyles. They had very few possessions and only carried what they needed.

Due to the scarcity of materials, they used whatever they could find including the crystals found in the desert and the remains of deceased animals. They were particularly skilled in bone carpentry, utilizing bones and other animal remains for tools, shelter, ships, and instruments. Their preferred weapon was the bone dagger. The Dousan traveled all throughout the dangerous desert, but there were places even they refused to go. They believed the Circle of the Suns, a ruin located deep within the Crystal Desert, was cursed. The clan unanimously agreed to forbade anyone from traveling there.

Daily Routine

Daily work was put into two categories: body tasks and spiritual tasks. Body tasks involved food preparation, collecting water, seeking shelter from storms, scavenging, and other types of physical labor. They were assigned during specific times of the day or in cases of emergencies. The rest of their time were dedicated to spiritual tasks. Most of it involved meditation but also included minor things like incense making and fire burning. It helped remind the Dousan of their communion with Thra and the Crystal and reflect on their own mortality. These rituals helped the clan face the harshness of the desert, approaching dangers and finding the paths to precious resources.

Diet

The Dousan were mostly vegetarian but they weren’t strangers to meat. They refrained from eating diurnal animals and hunted nocturnal insects, birds, and other animals instead. Their primary source of food came from the flowers and vegetation that grew in the desert which, unlike animals, had no restrictions. Water was collected at night as that’s when desert dew was able to form and were collected in shallow water traps. Considering the environment they lived in, they rationed their food and water but doing so taught the Dousan about self control and restraint. Before eating, they would take a moment to acknowledge the plants and animals who gave their lives so that the gelfling could consume them.

Some notable Dousan foods were fruits found at the Wellspring. They had slightly hairy, leathery rinds with yellow meat. The taste was described as sweet with a “green” after taste resembling that of meadow grass. A delicacy among the southern xerics were raw spine flower blossoms drizzled with nectar from the flower’s pollen.

While not eaten for food, the urdrupe berries were another staple vegetation of the Dousan. They were hallucinogenic and when eaten helped one converse with Thra and see the future. Taking urdrupes was a notable occurrence among shamans.

The Xerics

The Dousan had a particularly large population, but rarely would congregate together and were always apart within the vastness of the desert. Therefore, a highly organized system of close-knitted groups called xerics were created. There were twelve in total, which were made up of 12 - 30 gelfling. Smaller xerics were solely reliant on sand skirffs while larger ones needed the aid of Crystal Skimmers, sometimes more than one. A Dousan was assigned to a xeric by the Dousan Maudra and her council of sandmasters and elders based on the gelfling’s aptitude and skills. When a gelfling was assigned a xeric and left the Wellspring it was an important day and often celebrated. Each gelfling were given specific roles depending on the size and territory of that xeric.

Sandmaster: Also referred to as a captain, they were apprentices selected and trained by the Maudra. They often made decisions and acted on her behalf as well as commanded over their assigned xeric. The sandmaster carried a horn made of bone that would summon the Dousan together in emergencies. They also carried a smaller bone-like whistle to command their Crystal Skimmer if they had larger xeric. They held the highest rank above the other roles in the xeric unless the Maudra was present.

Second sandmasters: Dousan who worked and trained under the sandmaster should they need to take over. They also served in the xeric’s council, making decisions along with the sandmaster and elders before action was taken. True to their namesake, there were two of them and they held the second highest rank in the xeric.

Guardian: Gelfling that were given this role were usually the elderly members. They were ritual guardians well versed in meditations and practices observed and performed by the Dousan. They were in charge of delegating daily spiritual tasks and acted as mentors. Being a well respected member of the xeric, they held a similar ranking to the second sandmasters and served on the sandmaster’s council.

Pilots: Important sand sailors who worked in and out of transit. They were in charge of controlling sand skiffs. They seemed to be specific to smaller xerics.

Navigators: Similarly as important as pilots although they were found in all xerics. They were readers of the skies and kept an eye on the constantly changing dunes. Some navigators were far-dreamers.

Crystal Skimmer Trainer: A role only found in larger xerics. An offset of normal pilots who directed and trained with Crystal Skimmers. It was said it took a great deal of bravery and fortitude to build strong bonds with Skimmers as they were headstrong but otherwise loyal. During bad storms, the Dousan would climb into a Crystal Skimmer’s mouth for safety. They would also use the insides of the beast’s gums to store supplies.

Sand Sailors: Also called Sand Mariners, these were ordinary ranked Dousan. Sand sailors was also synonymous for the entire xeric crew aside from the sandmaster.

Dousan Song and the Language of Silence

As with all gelfling clans, song was an important part of the Dousan’s culture. It was said that theirs were unequaled as it invoked the very song of Thra and knitted the realms of the living and the dead together. The Dousan believed they were carried to them by the winds of the Crystal Desert.

But the strangest thing about their songs was plenty of it were silent. Even outside of that, the Dousan rarely spoke with their mouths. Rather they used a form of sign language called vojeye and communicated with each other with quick articulated hand gestures. It benefited both the body and spirit. Speaking would take away too much moisture so not talking conserved it. The sign language granted them a greater spiritual connection, being undistracted and always listening, they were able to hear Thra. Even in environments like the Wellspring, the Dousan preferred communicating in vojeye.

They also sung in vojeye. When a songteller, an uncommon role in the clan, “sings” they did so in a flurry of hand gestures. It became a beautiful fluid dance where entire stanzas and verses were told without sound. Much like many things in their culture, their songs were highly protected. On the rare occasion a Dousan sung instruments weren’t always involved. The songteller would simply use their environment or own body to create sound, like tapping their fingers against their knee. The only other times Dousan sung out loud were at funerals and the chants and prayers heard within the Wellspring Cloister.

Day of the Dying Sun

The most sacred Dousan holiday was celebrated when the Dying Sun was visible in the sky. The Dousan would gather in threes, removed their head coverings, and performed what was called an empty dreamfast. It was a dreamfast with no memories or voice, instead a shared meditation in silence. It would last until the Dying Sun dipped below the horizon. The Dousan saw the Three Brothers as representations of life and death, with the Dying Sun represented as the journey to death. They believed that by empty dreamfasting they shared the journey of the Triple Sun’s dying incarnation, better preparing themselves for the day they too would make that journey.

Trial of the Daeydoim

The trial was inspired by a re-imagining of Raunip’s story, something that the Dousan deeply related to. A star that fell from the heavens was given a name by Aughra and believed it was a native of Thra until it learned the truth. In contemplation of everything it learned, it wandered the desert for all eternity to find its final resting place. From its footsteps sprouted the Daeydoim.

The challenge was performed only twice in a Dousan’s life: once as a youngling when they were preparing to leave the Wellspring and second as an elder when they retired from their xeric. They would go out into the desert with nothing but a red sheet of clothing, leave the Wellspring in the dead of night, and not return for three days. If they returned, they were rewarded with milk from the Wellspring Tree. If they were a younging, they were allowed to stand by the Maudra and council to be assigned their xeric and role. If they were an elder, they were granted their “Last Home”, a hut by the Wellspring and a seat at the elder’s council. It’s unknown what the Dousan do during the trial and not all return.

Dousan Funerals

While funerals performed by other clans were somber, the Dousan’s were livelier. These were one of the very few times instruments and verbal singing were performed. The deceased would be buried underneath the soil of the Wellspring Tree and their belongings be piled into a pyre. The Maudra lights it and the other Dousan would celebrate the life of the fallen through songs and dance. The members of the deceased’s xeric would sing about their favorite memories about the gelfling. What remained of the deceased’s belongings were scattered among the sands of the desert by wind, signaling a final farewell.

Incense

The incense made by the Dousan were highly sought out by the other clans and could be found all throughout Thra. Even the skeksis used their incense during their own ceremonies. Its aroma was described to be savory and heady and produced a blue smoke.

Incense making was reserved only for elders at the Wellspring. The incense took the form of palm-sized chips which were burned in torch wells under enchantment until their signature blue smoke filled the air. Traditionally, the incense was made from dried bark from aging parts of the Wellspring Tree. it was grinded into fine powder and compacted into bricks using sticky sap also found from the Great Tree. It was left out to dry in arid conditions where the fine dust dried rapidly and hardened which was then carved into chips.

The Wellspring and Oszah-Staba

The Wellspring was the hometown of the Dousan. It was an oasis found within a valley far up north of the Crystal Desert and nestled around the Claw Mountains. It looked like a dense jungle with amber red and gold trees and a large lake with the Great Tree towering over it. The Dousan’s communal hearth was located near the back end of the lake. Tents, canopies, and Last Homes resided near the lake’s edges many of which were temporary. Only elders and younglings who had yet to be assigned to a xeric lived there. Most other Dousan only arrived to trade, refill supplies, or had wounds tended to. Only times when all Dousan congregated at the Wellspring were for emergencies or certain celebrations.

The Oszah-Staba, or simply the Wellspring Tree, was the Dousan’s Great Tree. It was characterized as an upper canopy of enormously broad leaves that provided shelter to travelers and prevented storms from reaching the Wellspring. It also produced a white milk from its leaves when cut which had lightning repellent properties. Dousan would smear this liquid on their clothing and skiffs for protection.

In the J.M. Lee book series, the Wellspring Tree was barely a waterlogged tree trunk beneath the lake. All the Dousan believed it had died except Periss, who kept insisting it wasn’t. When Periss helped Naia and her group to the Wellspring, he had them assist him in reviving the tree. With the help of Amri, Naia’s healing, and (with convincing) the entire Dousan clan, Oszah-Staba was revived and sprouted back to its former self just in time to dissipate the incoming storm that would had otherwise destroyed the Wellspring.

The Wellspring Cloister

Walking down a promenade hidden under the sand lead to the Wellspring Cloister that lied within the crags of the Claw Mountain. It was a temple carved by the Dousan over hundreds of trine. The entire cliff face as well as its insides were etched with figures and pictographs. It was written record of the Dousan’s wisdom, which included illustrations of the passage of time and the clan’s history. Among its notable illustrations were of gelfling, storms, the Wellspring tree, and the mystics. Within the temple was a large effigy of the Crystal of Truth, which was the size of an average gelfling. The Dousan would come to the Cloister to pray and at least three would be found there at a time.

Relationships With Other Clans

Due to cultural differences, the Dousan rarely leaving the desert, and misunderstanding, other clans were highly suspicious and generally found the Dousan morbid and creepy. Many of the stereotypes revolving the clan were most likely perpetuated by the Skeksis, but these beliefs were held through the Gelfling Rebellion as well. The Dousan’s quietness and being highly protective of also created the assumption they were aloof and unfriendly. However, the Dousan never prioritized their traditions over connecting with outsiders. They just had an individualized connection with Thra that was sacred to them and them alone so they never felt they needed to explain it to others. They were otherwise friendly with other Gelfling.

That doesn’t mean they didn’t share the clan-first mentality. Taking a mate from another clan was seen as a capital offense. At least before they were taught by the mystics they treated gelfling who committed this crime more brutally, going as far as to hunt them down even when they left the desert.

The only true clan relationship the Dousan had with was the equally nomadic Sifa. On the rare occasions they left the Crystal Desert, they would go to Cera-Na and trade with them. It was noted that every time the Sifa’s mother ship, Omerya-Staba, were audibly amazed at the sight of it. They dedicated a song to the vessel titled “the Sifa Mother of Sa-Schala”.

Aside from Cera-Na, Dousan travelers were also spotted in Ha’rar’s port markets but these visits too were infrequent.

Legacy and Connection With the Firelings

The Dousan may be the only known surviving clan after the end of skeksis rule. A village within an unspecified forest was founded by Chal the Explorer, an exiled Dousan early into the Age of Division. While not clearly indicated, the inhabitants may have been descendants of the clan and practiced aspects of their culture although plenty seemed to have been lost. It’s unknown if this village was kept a secret during the Age of Division and gelfling lived there, it was the origin place of another clan, or the descendants found out about it and settled.

Other descendants of the Dousan were the firelings, or at the very least the first firelings, as Chal was the father of Cindrah. They remained untouched by skeksis influence and were able to flourish during the Age of Division. There seemed to be small evidence of some of Dousan culture as the firelings had a group system similar to xerics early on in their history.

Notable Dousan Members

Rek’yr: The charming and slightly rebellious sandmaster from the late Age of Division. He was the captain of the southern xeric and former guide for the Hunter. He helped the gelfling resistance by guiding the gelfling to the Circle of the Suns with his Crystal Skimmer Bennu.

Maudra Seethi, the Skin Painter: The Dousan Maudra during the late Age of Division. She took the legacy of funeral rites seriously and made it her duty to pass them on to the next generation. Her transcendental dream-etching were said to be glimpses into the afterlife.

Periss: Younger brother of Sandmaster Erimon. Because he had conflict with the Dousan ways, he ran away and became a thief who wandered around Cera-Na and Ha’rar stealing all the riches he could find.

Erimon: A well respected sandmaster who commanded over a smaller xeric. He constantly butted heads with his brother over their ideologies and always had to fix the messes he made.

Chal: A significant member of the Dousan who lived early on in the Age of Division. An explorer who was cast out by his clan for being eloped to a gelfling from another clan. He discovered Mithra and the future home of Kensho and was the father of the first fireling.

Kataal: A Dousan who lived early on in the Age of Division. He and his xeric chased Chal across Thra to punish him for committing heresy.

Maudra Io: A Dousan Maudra from an unknown time period within the Age of Division. Her Skimmer, named Urami, was famous for its lineage went back to the Skimmer of the first Dousan that entered the desert.

Kensho: A descendant of the Dousan born in the Age of Power. Once an acolyte who made himself an offering to save his clan, his destiny became intertwined with the fireling princess Thurma who got involved with the re-breaking and re-mending of the Crystal of Truth. Later he gained the power of absorbing the darkening and became the leader of the Gelfling Nation.

Kolba: Another descendant of the Dousan and mother of Kensho in the Age of Power. She resided in the village founded by Chal.

[Sources: Song of the Seven Gelfling Clans, The Dark Crystal Age of Resistance, Inside the Epic Return To Thra, Official Dark Crystal Website, Song of the Dark Crystal, Tides of the Dark Crystal, Heroes of the Resistance, Author Quest: The Gelfling Gathering, Power of the Dark Crystal, the Dark Crystal Bestiary]

#the dark crystal #dousan #gelfling #all about the seven clans #dark crystal #my posts #long post #this is over 3K words enjoy LMAO

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stillness-in-green · 5 years ago

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Changeling: The League (2/3)

Being the next installment of my deeply nerdy spur-of-the-moment decision to do up a bunch of My Hero Academia villains as Changeling: The Lost characters. For some introductory info and the League of Villains, check this post. Or hit the jump for the Meta Liberation Army!

THE METAHUMAN LIBERATION ARMY

Considerably reduced from what they are in canon (I don’t think there are 116,000 changelings in Japan, much less that many changeling dissidents!), the leaders of the MLA are instead a band of secret loyalists for the Keeper called Destro, who have spent a great many years preparing for a chance to bring him to the real world in full glory, unhindered by time limits or reduced powers. The requirements are many and arcane, with a huge number of ways things could fall to disarray. Thus they find to their great alarm that their prophecies are suddenly skewing when the truth of Shigaraki’s durance/Keeper comes out--there are two “heirs,” it seems, and fate is swirling, and it will only settle over one of them in the end.

The group has its fingers in some of the more obscure fluff-book magic--fate-crafting, oracular dreams and the like--and collectively share a massively decked-out Hollow.

Re-Destro

Quote: “Everyone has a purpose to serve.”

Type: Gargantuan Ogre/Treasured Fairest dual kith. The incarnation of Destro’s will. Born in Faerie, he spent his early years being instructed (and molded) always--stand up straight, speak more clearly, be stronger, be better, you are the one who will herald me. Re-Destro was delivered out of the Hedge at seven years old clutching a squall knife as long as his arm, his mind filled with the knowledge that he was the one who would see Destro ushered into the real world. He was welcomed, open-armed, by those changelings who had been sent before. He has spent over thirty years in the real world since then, scrupulously maintaining a startlingly high Clarity, but Destro whispers in his dreams more nights than not, and Rikiya (as he was named, though he has a true name his mother whispered against his head as an infant, now long forgotten) has always had the nagging feeling that the mundane Earth is not his true home.

A tall, stiff-shouldered man in his Mask, Rikiya looks much as he does in canon, though without the stress spots on his forehead and with a nose that’s merely prominent, rather than a cartoonishly huge beak. He’s quite tall and can go from mildly unassuming to toweringly imposing on a dime. In mien, his hair goes more coppery and his skin becomes unblemished marble, the palest shade of jade in color, tinging ever so slightly darker around his joints. His nose returns to its canonically proper glory, and the places where his hairline recedes in his mask are revealed to be making room for a pair of broad, curving horns, emerald green at the tips. He’s unusually clean-hewn for an Ogre, not handsome, per se, but undeniably striking. When he uses his kith blessing, he grows to profound sizes (shredding even the most cleverly crafted Hedgespun), easily as tall as a two storey building. Naturally, he tries not to do that kind of thing around mortal witnesses.

Rikiya’s Wyrd is getting quite high (it was high even as a child, as might reasonably be predicted), so particularly sensitive or addled humans will sometimes see or experience fragments of his true form--his unyielding skin, a brief glimpse of the shadow of his horns, the echoing weight of his footsteps on stone floors. His potent Wyrd and his affinity with the home of the Gentry means that his magic sometimes leaks into objects he keeps on his person for too long--it’s an issue he’s aware of, and practically speaking, it mostly means that he never wears anything more than a day in a row. He has a staggering variety of suits and ties.

Court/Mantle: Courtless. With high-ranking friends in a sprawling freehold overseen by Directional Courts, Rikiya makes rounds in all of them. He’s a deft hand with Hedgespun and his works are in high demand at even the most discerning changeling markets. His home is in the center--close to the epicenter, in fact.

Contracts: Barbarically focused, though he uses both of his contracts sparingly. His experience has gone more into his, shall we say, inherent magic.

Vainglory I-V. Even when playing the role of a popular but unranked freehold member, or a canny designer of mundane accessories, Re-Destro has never forgotten who and what he is, and when he’s using these Contracts, that comes out with psyche-bruising force. His higher-tier invocations tend to cause his colors to mottle somewhat, infusing to darker shades of green around his face--the hollows of his eyes particularly--and extremities.

Stone I-V. Unbelievably strong whenever he needs to be. He tries to avoid combat or let his underlings handle it when he can--he has very few problems maintaining his Clarity, but causing harm to others is a surefire way to disturb it--but when he does break these out, he’s as difficult to put down as a berserker. Tends to take relaxing vacations after any occasion where he’s had to really work this.

Curious

Quote: ”You’ve got the look of someone with a story to tell. I want to hear all about it.”

Type: Cleareyes Beast. Once upon a time, she was a journalist with a nose for a story--well, she’s a journalist still, with a nose like you wouldn’t believe. Talented and quick-witted, both traits won her attention from Destro’s “recruiters,” but it was her tenaciousness that finally saw her brought in from the snow and the hunts, a semblance of a human form returned to her, and the bright ambrosia of purpose poured down her throat. Delivered to Re-Destro when he was in his 20s, Chitose is a hunter and a dream-spinner, a trickster with a deft and ruthless touch for talecrafting. She remembers the headiness of blood on her tongue, and she can always smell a bleeding heart.

A fox changeling, though given her bent of viciousness and her unusual coloring, you could be forgiven for thinking her a kumiho or a particularly wicked kitsune. In mien, she has long, thick white hair and a pair of white tails (three in the dreamscape), tipped in black like stained ink brushes, that match her long, tufted ears. Her whole body’s covered in a fine layer of silken fur; she’s got a lupine lengthiness to her features and sharp teeth in her smile. In her mask, her hair’s rich and dark and she seems to have a perpetual healthy glow to her skin, tipping into a noticeably high, intemperate flush when her passions are aroused. A beauty in either form, she has thin, seemingly delicate wrists and ankles, but moves with a quick, decisive grace. Her eyes are blue with just a hint of the green they used to be, the color standing out sharply from the ring of her black eyelashes.

Court/Mantle: The South, seat of ecstasy. Chitose remembers the purity of her emotions in Faerie, remembers heights of euphoria and shocks of terror that stole her breath away, but out in the real world, she feels muted and muffled, never quite fulfilled, as if she’s always groping for an outstretched hand that’s just out of reach. The Court of Song gets her closest to that reckless, all-pervading sensation, and so she throws herself headlong into its giddy pursuit of obsession. Her mantle wraps her in a sensual warmth and, when she’s particularly worked up, wisps of thin white smoke scented like heady incense or burning sugar. Every so often, when her eyes catch the light in a dark room, they reflect red instead of green.

Contracts:

Den I-III. She considers herself to have every right to be wherever she finds herself and is not about to let a home security system stop her when she’s chasing any sort of rabbit.

Dream I-IV. Whether she’s digging for a story or pushing a narrative, dreams are fruitful ground with a multiplicity of uses, none of which she’s squeamish about implementing. Curious is a terror, asleep or awake.

Omen I-III. While she’s not much interested in fortune-telling as a method for long-term strategic planning (you want Skeptic for that), she does absolutely have a use for powers that give her visions of someone’s worst memory or upcoming major life events.

Skeptic

Quote: “Do you have any idea what kind of shitstorm we have coming down on us? What? You can’t see the future? I guess that means you should shut the hell up and stop distracting those of us who have something useful to contribute then, doesn’t it?!”

Type: Oracle Wizened. Destro knew that his followers would need someone who could properly interpret signs and portents, so set his recruiters to finding someone with an eye for secret signs, a knack for the languages of symbolism and metaphor. Most of them brought back psychics or sensitive children, but one particularly old recruiter, for whom “computers” were a new and strange novelty, brought back Tomoyasu. An electronics whiz-kid from a young age, Tomoyasu was in high school at the time, but already doing college prep. He was driven and competitive but, crucially, willing to explain things to people who didn’t understand them. In Faerie, his eyes were opened (forcibly, sometimes with clamps) to a great many more languages and codes, and his competitive personality honed to a vicious edge because you did not want to be a failure, not at any cost.

Now that he’s been sent back to the real world, Skeptic has a presence in many realms. He’s still quite good with computers, of course, but there’s the much more important work of Destro that needs to be done, and that involves both tasks for now and plans laid for later. As such, he maintains dream pledges with a number of psychics (mostly fresh ones, though there are a few shattered survivors from amongst his rivals for his current position). Unlike Curious, he isn’t interested in digging in their dreams or using them as staging grounds for larger projects; he only needs them to help him fill in his understanding of the future. He and Re-Destro do a great measure of the work in maintaining the group Hollow.

Rail-thin and gangly, Skeptic stalks about his environment with a constant sense of bloody-minded productivity. He’s rarely without a laptop or tablet tucked in one arm and wears exclusively black, which just adds to the impression of being The World’s Gothiest Scarecrow. His eyes are always hidden, behind his long bangs, razor-thin sunglasses, or--on more formal Court occasions--a broad silk blindfold, but glimpses of them are always alarmingly bloodshot. In mien, his hands and arms are dotted with tattoos and scarification, faerie glyphs and sigils, and his eyes are filmed with blood. He may not actually have eyelids--certainly no one has ever seen him blink. Usually has a sword or the emblem of one on his person somewhere--a custom of his Court, because the heavens know he’s no swordfighter.

Court/Mantle: The West, seat of honor. Very much a means to an end. Skeptic has little interest in martialtry, but the needs of Destro demand that someone do it, and his obsessive perfectionism and rigidly high standards for himself make him the best fit--and anyway, the Court of War does need strategists. He’s learned how to handle weapons in a perfunctory sort of way, but he’s a much better shot with a rifle than one would expect from the state of his eyes, especially if he’s got some time to spend fidgeting with one for a little bit before he has to fire it. His mantle is relatively low, compared to most of his motley-mates, and manifests as a penetrating chill to the air and a slightly sharper tang of blood-smell than just his red-rimmed eyes can explain.

Contracts:

Animation I-V. You don’t have to waste time learning how to operate anything if the object itself will tell you how to use it, and you don’t have to stand around waving a sword at people when you can have the sword wield itself. “Inanimate” nothing; as a rule, he likes objects better than people.

Artifice I. Object touchy because it’s busted? Nothing a bit of magic can’t fix (at least for long enough to get the job done.

Hours I-IV. The result of Skeptic’s understanding of objects crashing together with his oracular abilities. The time magic he can work on inanimate objects is very useful (and yes, the way Shigaraki warps the first clause of this drives him absolutely mad), but the real miracle is what the ability to control time dilation in the Hedge does for his and his motley’s productivity.

Trumpet

Quote: “I’m sure we’ll succeed. After all, we’re the ones he chose.”

Type: Fairest Muse. The only member of the MLA motley proper that has any ambivalent feelings about The Destro Revival Festival. He’s about Re-Destro’s age, but was kidnapped at a much less tender age than the rest, well into his adulthood. He was an up-and-coming civil servant at the time, then spent longer than he can remember in Faerie, rallying crowds and practicing speeches until his throat bled and cracked into silence, learning to channel some portion of Destro’s white-hot conviction and magnetic presence, for all that being vessel to those traits felt like it burned the soul out of him. Hanabata was charismatic and persuasive while he went in and his time in Faerie amplified those traits beyond belief, but he isn’t so broken as to believe that Destro did him some kind of favor.

He is, however, quite broken enough to believe that Destro is undefeatable and that he has no real choices in the matter. He was returned barely a week after he was taken in real-Earth time, dropped on Re-Destro’s lap when the latter was just getting started in establishing himself. He’s spent the twenty years since then doing whatever needs to be done in order to smooth Re-Destro’s path (he’s unusually prominent in human politics for a changeling; indeed, he’s amassed some fairly significant temporal authority) and watching the rest of his ordained motley grow up. They’re really the only people keeping him going; Hanabata thinks they’re far more damaged than he, and in many ways he’s right--he has a much clearer grasp on what they’ve all lost, even if some of them never had it to begin with--but he’s also very badly hurt in his own way, lacking even the devoted fervor of the cause to fill up the empty spaces left in what used to be his optimism.

His mask looks like the Trumpet of the canon, minus the ever-present sense of pomade and the facial hair that can’t decide if it wants to be a mustache or not; he’s just clean-shaven. He has a wry, expressive mouth and a nearly hypnotic voice, a baritone by turns soothing or rolling. There’s an indefinable sense of presence to him; just looking at him makes brave people want to strike up a conversation and timid people lurk about in vague hopes of leeching up some of his confident vibes. His mien just amplifies it; he’s impossibly magnetic, with strong features and eyes the kind of green you could get lost in. His voice is even more of a marvel here, resonant and penetrating in ways humans couldn’t typically manage without augmentation. When out in public, he wears a camera-ready smile as faithfully as a wedding band; in private, he’s markedly more subdued.

Court/Mantle: The East, seat of envy. Trumpet’s talents make him marvelously well-suited for this Court, but it isn’t just a matter of practicality, as the Court of the West is for Skeptic. No, Trumpet is intimately familiar with the thumbscrew feeling of envy--no free changeling can even begin to grasp how bitterly he covets their ignorance. His mantle can be difficult to pick apart from the gripping presence of his seeming, but when he’s working magic, it’s frequently accompanied by the bizarre sense to onlookers that he’s taller than he really is. Even if someone is standing right next to him and knows perfectly well that they’re taller than him, sometimes they’ll blink and their eyes will lie, vision inverting such that Trumpet seems to be looking down at them. Every so often, when he’s on a roll, his eyes will gleam the perfect yellow-white of the sun reflecting on newly-minted coins.

Contracts:

Vainglory I-III. Not as advanced in his understanding of this Contract as Re-Destro, but the effect is considerably more potent when he’s using it.

Hearth I-V. As engrossing as it is to listen to him talk, Trumpet’s real talent is in inspiring others, and the Contracts of fair and foul fortune just amplify that.

Fleeting Spring I and Fleeting Autumn I. First levels of the seasonal contracts don’t require Seasonal Court goodwill, but he’d probably get it from any Spring Court in the country anyway. Envy is close cousins with Desire, after all. Whichever the case, manipulating people is easier when you know both what they want and what they fear.

Geten

Quote: “Ice is never far away. Prepare yourself.”

Type: Snowskin Elemental. Geten remembers little of their time before Faerie--in fact, they have very little recollection of the passage of any of the time that must have brought them to their current age. Their memory is like one huge block of ice, solid from wall to wall with cold and scarcity. If some of that scarcity, back at the very beginning, is colored in a different palette than Destro’s winter, well, it’s still of a piece with the rest, so what does it matter? All of their life was the winter--until Re-Destro appeared and chose them. Out in the real world, Geten knows, intellectually, about the whole “herald of Destro” thing and devotes themself to the cause with admirable fervor, but in truth, that fervor is far more dedicated to Re-Destro than it is their True Fae Keeper, of whom Geten recalls next to nothing. Generally serious and driven, Geten enjoys feeling that their actions have meaning beyond just keeping them alive, so they’re never happier than when they’re fighting for Re-Destro in concrete, measurable ways. Generally poorly socialized in ways that would make their life much more difficult if they didn’t have Rikiya looking out for them.

In mask, Geten is a slight youth with shoulder-length, white-blonde hair and unusual pale gray eyes. They have a delicate-looking face that’s incongruous with their rather feral personality. In mein, their hair is fully white, as are the glowing pupils of their eyes. Their already fair skin goes bloodlessly pale, and even on the hottest day, their features are kissed with a rime of frost. They wear long sleeved, full-length clothes at all times of the year, though curiously, they dress more heavily in summer than in winter.

Court/Mantle: The North, seat of suffering. Something of an unusual case in their freehold, where the power of the Directional Courts holds sway, Geten emerged from the Hedge with a strong Winter mantle. No matter that they’re sworn to the Armor Court, that raw affinity to the Court of Sorrow remains. This odd duality, seen by some as untrustworthy, has largely kept them from advancing very far despite their apparent dedication to the Stupa’s focused, ascetic lifestyle. They’re frequently mistaken for being courtless, particularly in a freehold that’s less familiar with the look of the Silent Arrow than those who move in Seasonal Court circles would be. The lack of any obvious sign of a mantle is itself the tell--Winter always makes its changelings look more stark, as if somehow etched more clearly into the fabric of the world, unobscured by other connections. Likewise, their magic is all ice-themed anyway, so many don’t realize that the brief gusts of snow around them are a sign of their mantle--but every so often, there will be a brush of pale ash on those winds, a sign that, for all that Winter lives in their bones, Geten has still embraced the North.

Contracts: These speak for themselves. Geten’s power set, more than anyone in these posts, hews closely to canon!Geten’s quirk meta-ability.

Elements (Ice) I-IV. Exacts control over ice. They’re protected from it, they’re protected by it, they control it, and it answers their call (though their range is not anywhere close to canon!Geten’s).

Communion (Ice) I-III. Very unlike canon!Geten, the changeling version is ice-born enough that they speak with it like kin. Ice isn’t much of a gossiper, as elements go, but it reflects things, sometimes, and knows the shape of everything it touches. They can extend this awareness as far out as a mile in most weather, though the range is much shorter in e.g. a blizzard, when trying to take in that much information would be overwhelming.

Eternal Winter I-III. Don’t have ice? Make your own! Again, not as wide-ranging as canon!Geten’s, but serves much the same purpose. Geten can also, like Spinner, perform emergency thermostat duties, though Spinner’s control over heat allows him to turn it up or expel it, while Geten’s is only ever going to make things colder.

BONUS TIDBITS:

Changeling!Re-Destro needs to be able to get around in the human world without being prone to fits of hallucination and delirium, and his magic isn't dependent on his stress levels, so unlike his canon self, he gets to have actual vacation time, do soothing yoga, etc.

Geten and Curious had some durance overlap, but neither of them remember it clearly. Curious’s memories of that time are too patchy, while Geten’s are too hard to pare down into individual moments. Geten does feel a sense of familiarity towards Curious, but they don’t talk about it much after the one time they described it as being, “Like she was...inside me, for a while,” and everyone looked really weirded out.

Changeling!Geten is nonbinary because It’s My AU And I’ll Do What I Want. They are made of ice and do not really understand what the deal is with gender.

Magne doesn’t die in this AU because It’s My AU And I’ll Do What I Want. She and Curious have to team up to brainstorm a strategy for an epic oneiromachy duel with Destro that will decisively eject him from Rikiya’s dreams without reducing Rikiya to a drooling husk.

Trumpet is the true wild card in this AU. The other Destro-ites have never really even considered the prospect of breaking free from Destro; Trumpet has, but rather than that making him the person who’s the easiest to sway, it makes him the person most resolutely convinced that betraying Destro will lead only to suffering. The lengths that conviction will drive him to make him a severe danger to his motley the moment they begin considering abandoning their mission.

#bnha #re-destro #yotsubashi rikiya #bnha curious #kizuki chitose #bnha skeptic #chikazoku tomoyasu #bnha trumpet #hanabata koku #geten #meta liberation army #bnha spoilers #changeling: the league #changeling: the lost #my writing

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austencello · 6 years ago

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Training Day - Arrow Music Notes 7x15

Team Arrow tries to partner with the SCPD with varying levels of success while Oliver and Felicity have an extra goal of making the city a better place for their baby. The flash-forwards sadly reveal that things somewhere fell apart as Mia and William bond over trying to find a way to listen to Felicity’s message.

SCPD, Team Arrow, and Olicity

The opening sequence was quite hilarious as each of the vigilantes are personally suffering through training as recruits for the police. The music reflects both the humor as well as slightly changing with each person. The opening almost had a techno beat mixed with Arrow patterns to establish the merging of two very different views and later string patterns took over while guitar harmonics accompanied Oliver’s unnecessary force, and different electronic notes reminiscent to Wild Dog, Overwatch, and ARGUS accompany Rene, Felicity, and Oliver in their bored versions of hell.

Felicity is not thrilled about all of these concessions and mentions her concerns to a very zen Oliver. He is determined to make it work so they can make the city safe for their baby. As they talk about this future, the beginning of the Olicity theme “The one I love” (2x23) plays in harp (Felicity’s instrument) in the same way it did in Felicity’s pregnancy reveal to Oliver in 7x14. However, as the scene continues a new theme plays as they agree that they are partners and a team both for their city and for their family. It is a theme built on their relationship of trust and love, expanding that to their newest family member, bringing a sense of hope.

The overall music of this episode had great interesting moments from the amount of percussion (especially tom-toms) mixed with the Arrow hero theme when the SCPD and Team Arrow discuss the possibility of a new gang and melting skin bullets, to the raid including a glitch in the glissando (slide) after Dinah’s cry glitched, to the electronic beats as the SCPD officers had a tense moment with Team Arrow about procedure. It was a mixture of old and new sounds for this tense partnership.

Felicity and Oliver decide to prove that their way is better and as they discuss this, the music in the scene brings back fun music from 7x14, when Laurel realized Felicity was pregnant partially due to her lack of wine, caffeine and current chocolate consumption. The fun, cute music in the piano, punctuated strings, and electronics provides the atmosphere some levity as Oliver revels in the genius of his wife and she demands mint chip for herself and the baby.

Meanwhile, Rene and Dinah are looking for legal proof to get a warrant for Midas. Dinah tries to explain that it is her job and neck on the line while a brass version of her Canary theme “Cemetery Confrontation” (5x13) plays. She is trying to be the hero for the city both as the Black Canary and police captain and struggling with what it means to be both.

Later on, Dinah confesses to Rene that her cry doesn’t seem to be working, hurting her throat, which is why she is choosing to be Captain first. As she admits that she is struggling to be both since her identity as the Canary was connected to her cry, her water-glass theme first introduced in 6x05 plays. This was often used for scenes between herself and Vince as the Vigilante and now she is struggling between two sides once again. Rene reminds her that it is not her cry that makes her the Canary but who she is and her fight for justice and what is right that inspires Zoe and the whole city.

Oliver and Felicity go to the bunker to go after Midas in the Team Arrow style and Diggle drops by asking them why they are giving on the partnership with the police so soon. As they tell Diggle about their new baby, the shortened Olicity theme in the piano returns over the slow version of the Arrow theme in the strings, used for emotional moments especially for Oliver. In his concern to make the city better, he and Felicity are not thinking long term which Diggle brings up. The very beginning of “I forgot who I was” (1x05) plays as he reminds them that they would be back to where they started, that they have to make it work with the police for their family, to be something better as brass begins to play. Brass for the heroes they are and want to be. That theme was about tunnel vision both originally with Laurel and Oliver in wanting to see only what they wanted to see, having trouble seeing the larger picture. In the same way, Oliver and Felicity needed Diggle to remind them to look behind the immediate and consider the future for themselves and their family.

The team finally suits up, stops Midas, and then reconvenes afterwards. At that point, Dinah tells the larger team that her cry no longer works. Diggle reinforces that regardless of having a cry or not, she is the Black Canary while her Canary theme plays in a higher bell-like electronic and violins, emphasizing that statement musically. It adds even more weight considering that Dinah’s Black Canary theme has been played very sparingly throughout the series (3 times before this episode).

Felicity and Oliver have a sweet moment at the end as they share that they have been thinking about baby names. When Oliver mentions the name Mia, shortened for Moira, violins begin to play sweet and bitter-sweet harmonies over water-glasses (remember those? They used to be used for Felicity a lot in Season 3) as they talk about their dreams of a safer city for their children, being all together and there for each other as the harp adds a few notes at the end in open 5ths, bookending the episode with their hopes and dreams.

Flash-forwards - Mia and William

Unfortunately, things aren’t quite what Oliver and Felicity had dreamed for their children. As William and Mia travel through the underground market, the music is filled with unusual dissonances and seemingly random notes with pauses between notes in violin harmonics and piano over electronic beats and almost metallic percussion. It lacks a clear melody and gives a jarring unsettled feeling highlighting the lack of safety but using the piano gives a sense of home as the siblings work together, first with Mia trying to protect William and then later William using his brains to share a Canary sighting to protect Mia and get the mini-cassette player. Mia’s Blackstar theme returns when she punches Felix and they reclaim their item.

Once Mia and William are able to play the message from Felicity, brass (used for heroism) begins as they prepare to press play with a little piano (Oliver’s instrument) mixed in. Cellos and horn play a new melody in unison as Felicity begins to speak to both her children and apologizes for keeping them apart. This combination of instruments provide both emotional depth and a heroic tone but also a little bit of angst in the minor harmonies (it has been a long time since there has been this level of a melody in Arrow which just makes me excited!) as Felicity explains that she and Oliver made this decision together to keep them safe. As she gives them coordinates to give to the team, the higher electronic/bell-like theme from 7x14 returns over string patterns and a few harp notes join in with melody as she instructs them not to look for her. This theme was used as William told Mia that their Dad was a hero and that the hozen was supposed to lead him to her, his family. Now, they hear the message for them to leave but they quickly dismiss that, determined to find their mother. It is a melody of hope in the future, a new family melody quickly turning darker and sinister with electronics, lower brass, and string patterns as they look over the wall to the Glades.

Extra Notes:

- prison music returned (repeated note higher electronic music and contrasting low note) both when Turner demanded freedom or at least to see his son and then later when he told Laurel who killed Diaz.

- the music for the flash-forwards have been very different from a lot of the Arrow timbre this season so I will be very interested to hear what happens with this week’s episode.

@smoakmonster @ah-maa-zing @academyofshipping @herskirtsarentthatshort @jorahandal @dmichellewrites @almondblossomme @green-arrows-of-karamel @scu11y22 @mel-loves-all @withgraceandlight99

#arrow 7x15 #arrow music notes #olicity #oliver queen #felicity smoak #mia smoak #william clayton #team arrow #dinah drake

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blogzikan · 5 years ago

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HOW TO DESIGN WITH WHITE FLOWERS

The color white is always a problem in the garden. It seems gardeners can never figure out how to incorporate it without destroying the color scheme. While it is less of a problem because of the dearth of black flowers, the same situation exists for the color black. This is how you design for these two colors. 1. Place your square or rectangle on top of the color wheel so that the corners are touching specific colors. Any four dots now make a chord. 2. In practice, if not in theory, you can now substitute any single color for the color white. White will make a color chord with the other colors indicated on the square or rectangle. (You can do the same for black but as we don’t have any truly black flowers, it is not really possible to design for true black.) 3. Before you go planting white flowers in your garden however, it is important to read the discussion about the Contrast of Extension. The amount of white in the color balance is as important as the other colors that go with it.

Avoid white flowers in the sunny perennial border whenever possible for your first designs. White is a powerful color and draws the eye to itself quickly and dramatically. Beginners make the mistake of putting white flowers in a garden and then can never quite figure out why the garden never looks good. All colors pale beside white and its effect is to reduce the vibrancy of all other colors. Use magenta sparingly if at all. The plant, Lychnis coronaria 'atrosanguinea' is a major culprit here. It has a wonderful gray leaf, is easy to grow, but has a powerful magenta bloom that doesn't seem to fit with any other combination in the garden. Don't let it into your design because it robs the color from other plants. If you are trying to create an exciting garden, use flowers that contain the hot colors. Reds and yellows, the color of the sun, are considered hot. In the heat of the summer, a garden that is composed of hot colors will feel hotter to work in than a cooler-color garden. When our eye sees the hot colors, it influences the way our bodies react. Hot colors work to physically increase the temperature of the body; why this psychological influence actually works is not clear but all we know is that it does work. Cooler colors – green and blues – are for the relaxing garden. This was the first color lesson I learned. If you want to relax and unwind in your garden after a hard day at work, use cooler colors. If you want excitement, plant the hotter ones. A garden of cooler colors will seem cooler and will cool your body down more than a hot-colored garden. For maximum color interest and excitement, use contrasting two-color chords. Since they are on opposite sides of the color wheel, bright-red geranium flowers held against a dark-green leaf are one of the most popular plants in the garden center. This is why a red rose against a red brick wall is not exciting. Two shades of red are not as exciting as contrasting colors. Now, a red rose against a white clapboard wall or a white or very light pink rose against a red wall, those are another story. For equal excitement, use primary colors instead of secondary colors in your three-color chords

HOW TO WORK WITH FOLIAGE COLOR This is a book about design, but I would be ignoring an entire range of garden color if I didn’t focus your attention on the fact that leaves have color, too. The full range of greens that is displayed by leaves enables us to design for and with them alone, quite independently of any flower their plants may produce.

IF YOU LOOK at your color wheel, you’ll see that perennial plant leaves, ranging from reddish-burgundy right through to yellow tones, give quite a wide spectrum to play and design with. The same rules for flower-color design hold true for leaf-color design and while the most easily demonstrated gardens are shade-loving hosta gardens, leaf color can be designed in the sunny garden as well. For example, a golden leafed Hosta 'Golden Tiara' under a tree will lighten up the garden, make it appear brighter than a blue-green-leaved plant such as Hosta sieboldiana 'Elegans'. Visitors to our garden usually fail to notice a huge and wonderful specimen of 'Elegans' because it is right next to the 'Golden Tiara' and some other gold-leaved bloomers. The gold color catches their eye, not the size of plant. They would not notice the gold-leaved plant as much had I not placed a blue one right beside it to create a contrast in colors. In fact, many garden designers consider leaf color to be more important to the garden than flower color. Leaf color is a constant, it arrives in the spring and for the most part, continues right through the summer until fall frosts knock it down. Flower colors by comparison, arrive for a relatively brief but glorious period and then fade away. Some designers suggest using flower blooms as color accents in the garden rather than the mainstay of color. I’m not one of those given that I enjoy my perennials too much to substitute shrubs and evergreens in my garden to replace my perennials. However, the point that leaf color can be a design element is worthy of note when you have to make a choice about siting or purchasing a plant.

HOW COLOR CONTRAST WORKS IN THE GARDEN The easiest way to design great color in the garden is to think of the ways in which colors contrast with each other. You will learn how to contrast all the colors in the garden, not only those of the individual flowers. As you read, remember, your house has a color, the background to the garden has a color, and even the sky has an influencing color if the plants are viewed against it.

The dangers and advantages of variegated plants in color design. Variegated plants come to the garden with contrast built right into each leaf. The contrasting color patterns attract many of us to these plants but they do come at a cost to the overall garden design. Let me give you one example. Phlox paniculata, that wonderful garden plant that blooms for a long time in mid-summer and often forms the backbone of perennial gardens, has a particularly heavily variegated form named 'Norah Leigh'. The flower is a pale-pink with a slightly darker eye and the foliage is heavily variegated with cream-yellow and green. In sunlight, the heavy variegation draws out any vibrancy in the bloom, leaving a pale washed out appearing flower stalk. This is one plant that is very difficult to match with other plants. I currently have it beside a Buddleia and some early summer blooming roses in an effort to allow it to stand on its own without heavy competition from other leaves and blooms. I'm not sure this is the best place for it and will likely move it before this book gets to print. In a similar fashion, Chrysanthemum 'Barbara Bush' is a heavily variegated green-and-white-leaved fall mum. All summer, it looks wonderful if kept pruned short and bushy, but when the white flowers appear in the fall, I'm tempted to cut them off. White flowers on a heavily variegated green-and-white leaf disappear into monotony. In your garden designs, add variegated-leaved plants sparingly in sunny gardens. The Exception: Where You Should Use Variegated Plants In shady gardens however, variegated plants are treasures that provide some color and contrast all summer long and for this reason they are to be treasured. The wonderful variegations on plants such as Brunnera, Hosta and Pulmonaria almost demand to be let loose in the shady garden. Use them as much as possible.

Contrast of Hue This is perhaps the simplest of the contrasts in the garden. We immediately and intuitively see the difference or contrast between red and green or between yellow and red. This contrast is quite clear and easy to understand. As the colors move away from the primary colors (red, blue, yellow) the contrasts become progressively weaker. A pale yellow does not contrast as much with a pale pink as does a bright yellow with a bright red. I note on the starred color wheel that different shades of a color can be designed for by simply increasing the size of the cardboard shape so that all the corners touch that ring in the circle. Contrast of hue assumes that all the colors in the garden are of the same intensity. Colors with different intensities or values, as artists like to say, are described under the light/dark contrast. Light/Dark Contrast Well, You know what is light and what is dark in the garden. What gardeners often fail to appreciate is how the light influences the way we all see colors. The fragile blue-pinks of spring-blooming Pulmonaria are much more intense in the semi-shade of a tree with emerging leaves than it is under the full glare of a full-sun garden. The light does not wash out the delicate colors in the part shade as it does in the full sunshine. It is easy to fail to appreciate how a spark of light that regularly crosses a garden can illuminate or darken the color of a plant. What you see in a catalog is often not what we see in our gardens. The major problem for garden designers is fitting the contrast in light/dark to the different hues of plants. What intensity does a ‘Hyperion’ daylily bloom at in its old-fashioned clear-yellow tones and what intensity is a-yellow blooming Coreopsis? Do they match or is there too much of a difference for them to exist together in the garden? Unfortunately, without a good eye for color or without art training (it is possible to learn such things), the garden designer will continue to hit and miss when it comes to the subtlety of light and dark contrast with closely matched flower colors. It is perhaps for this reason that some of our finest garden designers are visual artists on canvas as well as in the garden. Cold/Warm Contrast There is no question in the minds of color theorists and industrial designers that colors influence the way we feel heat and cold. Rooms that are painted in “hot” colors of reds and yellows will be experienced without complaints from those in the room more so than rooms painted in “cool” temperatures of blues and greens. In other words, the hot color made the room seem hotter, even when it was really cool and cool colors made the room seem cooler even when the room was at the right temperature. You perceive temperature based on color. For some reason, people see and feel the heat of the color and our bodies react to it in a physical manner. Bright reds and yellows will therefore increase the heat in the garden while cooler blue and soft greens will cool it down. This is a relative concept and it should be noted that while there are extremes of heat and cold in color, the position of the colors influences how they are seen. Let me illustrate. The right hand side of the wheel is the hot side. A color such as yellow is quite hot and the colors cool down as they progress down the wheel towards blue. Yellow is much hotter than orange. If these two colors are seen together, then yellow is hot and orange is cool, relatively speaking. However, if we compare orange and red, we see that orange is hotter and red is the cooler color. Orange becomes hotter when in the company of a cooler color and cooler when in the company of a hotter color. The contrast then is all important. You can make a relatively cool color such as violet or purple hot by putting it next to a flower that is a clear blue. In practice, this means that in designing a cool garden of blues and violets, the addition of a soft pink will add a touch of heat, of excitement to emphasize and lend some energy to the garden. One does not have to add yellow to increase the energy or heat level. It is a question of relative energy. If one wants a bit of energy in a cool garden, then one can determine that energy by increasing or decreasing the numbers of plant or the relative heat value of the plants involved. For example, adding one or two soft-pink plants to a yellow (hot) garden will cool it down while adding a blazing yellow to a blue garden will create a hotter garden. Remember, it is all relative. If my garden is designed around reds, violets and oranges, a touch of yellow will still add relative energy to the garden and create a warm-cool contrast. The yellow is hot while the oranges will be cool. Similarly, I could add a touch of blue Nepeta to a stunningly hot bed of orange and red Hemerocallis to cool it off and add contrast. Color is relative. The same color can be hot in a cool colored garden but cool in a hot colored garden Complementary contrast I’ve already touched on complementary colors but it is useful to consider some other qualities of contrasting pairs of complementary colors when applied to the garden. Remember that these colors are opposite each other on the color wheel. Flowers that are yellow and violet are also a perfect example of a light/dark contrast. Yellow Oenethera and violet Nepeta are not only complementary, they are light and dark. Reddish-orange and blue-green are complementary but are also the most extreme examples of hot and cold in the garden. Contrast of Saturation Pure colors, as you'll see on the color wheel, are rare in the garden. Unfortunately, flower colors rarely conform to the designer’s desires for clarity and consistency. The vagaries of the weather and growing conditions change flower color from day to day and season to season and prevent gardeners from designing in pure or consistent flower colors. Keep the following points in mind when examining those wonderful flower pictures. * Any flower that is paler than another (as if white were added to the original color) is cooler. Pale flowers are cooler than more intensely colored flowers. * Any flower that adds violet or “black” to its mix increases in warmth. Darker colors are warmer. * Green colors are very important in this as the darker green the leaf, the more intense will be the contrast with the surrounding flowers. A perfect, although non-garden, example of this is the new breeding of Christmas poinsettia plants. The newer varieties have much darker leaves which in turn makes the red bracts stand out so much more. This is a perfect example of contrast of saturation. If you have a choice between a light-green leaf on a plant or a variety with a darker-green leaf, the darker-green-leaved will provide more contrast with the flower making the bloom explode with light and color. The lighter-green leaf is useful if the leaves are the primary color source. The best example of this is the hosta family. We pick darker and lighter leaves to work together in the garden regardless of the flower color. We use pale or less-saturated green-colored leaves and grow them next to darker or moresaturated leaves to increase the contrast. Contrast of Extension While this sounds complicated, it is pretty simple to understand the basic principle. The primary question that contrast of extension is answering is, “What is the proportion of this color that I need to balance the proportion of that color?” This is perhaps one of the most important questions in the field of garden color design. An overpowering abundance of yellow in the fall garden is one such problem. The designer has far too many hot yellow and orange Coreopsis, Heliopsis, Heleniums and Solidago to work with when compared to the other softer colors. Balance the colors in the garden using these numbers (originally designed by Goethe, one of the last truly great Renaissance figures) as follows: * Yellow = 9 * Orange = 8 * Red =6 * Violet =3 * Blue =4 * Green = 6 As an example, the complementary colors of violet to yellow give a ratio of 3:9 (or 1:3) Because yellow is so much brighter than violet, use one part of yellow to equal three parts of violet. (Reverse the ratio to get the correct amounts) In the garden, use 3 square feet of violet blooms to balance the color provided by 1 square foot of yellow blooms. YELLOW IS much brighter and carries more power. Orange, with a value of 8 and blue with a value of 4 is a simple ratio to calculate. At 8:4 (orange:blue) the garden requires twice as much blue to balance an area of orange. Yellow (9) and red (6) combine at 9:6 or 3:2 so the garden requires 3 parts of the darker red to balance 2 parts of the brighter yellow. You will always require less of the brighter color to balance the darker color in your garden. Having said all of this, the reality in the garden is that this is never a perfect science so relax and enjoy yourself while you work out your own preferred colors. A PLANT of Coreopsis might be several years older than an Eupatorium or Aster and carry more flowers. Growing a well-designed flower garden is as much an art as it is a science. Don’t think in terms of individual plants, think in terms of square footage of blooms or areas of contrast of blooms. Think in terms of wide swaths of color as do painters rather than the individual flowers of gardening imaginations.

I have to point out that the ratios designed only have validity if the flower color contrast of hue is the same. In other words, a bright-blue fall aster has to be compared to a bright-yellow Helenium and not a much softer-yellow Solidago. When a color is paler, it will require a corresponding increase in ratio or area of bloom to balance a more intense color. This then is not an exact science but rather more of a guideline for the gardener. Don’t use tape measures to evaluate the flower sizes and relative contrasts of extension but do use your eyes and your judgments. It is this judgment that needs practice over the years to determine a good color proportion. As a last note, white is not mentioned in this chart but you can very quickly see that it will have a much higher number than even yellow. This means that a little white goes a very long way in the garden when compared to the rest of the flowers.

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