#so many visual artefacts

[waifubuki]

[acatwithstockings]

Could you please, please tell me everything about the 1990's Good Omens (very bad) Movie script? you mentioned not being able to taIk about it because no one is interested (which I very much relate to, but in just basically anything Good Omens related) I was not there for when it was leaked, so I'd really like to know like... all of it (I promise I am so interested, and also very very obsessed with Good Omens. I'll absolutely be your captive audience.)

the only things I think I know are that Crowley's mean and has a nightclub, and Aziraphale has a museum(??). and it's in America??

You don't know how happy it just makes me to ramble on about that one. Could write a whole essay tbh (I try my best not to bc my spelling is atrocious pff ).

Only snagged it myself after a whole year of searching when it got put up on Dropbox for a few hours. Got taken down quickly again. Idk if it was bc of a copyright claim or if the owner took it down themselves bc it isn't supposed to be spread around due to said issues and they (not quite so cleverly) posted the Link on a post that would make it especially easy for the copyright holder to find it. At any rate, I Got really lucky in that regard. The copyright issues around this thing are fascinating in general and could make for a great study in regards to the flaws of that system.

As for the script contents... Well it's something.

Yes Crowley is mean, it would be wrong however to reduce that version of him to that. (I will try and point out why later). Yes he owns a nightclub, the aptly named hellfire on a hill (? Idk enough about british topography to know if that's a hint towards a real part of town or just bc the visual of it is cool ) in London. So It does not play in America and Aziraphale is working at the British museum. Canon explanation why they try everything and anything to not give back the artefacts they stole, I suppose. (That was a joke. In the script itself it isn't even as much as mentioned that our favorite angel has any interest in collecting anything, missed opportunity if you ask me)

In general the whole thing plays out extremely differently from the story we all love. And sadly lacks the Prattchian humor... For obvious reasons. It does have it's moments tho not many but they are there. ( "Crowley un-snakes" will never not be funny)

What follows is a lengthy summary which will have a bit of analysis and personal interpretation mixed into it . Bc who needs good struktur if you can do stream of consciousness? Am I right?

We begin with the protagonist Crowley in company of Aziraphale, who in this version sadly takes a bit of a backseat, playing checkers in Aziraphale's study. In this version they are color coded: with pure white clothing and hair and pure black clothing and hair. Crowley remarks that 'everything is going too well'. To which Aziraphale points out, that complaining seems to be a favorite past time of the demon. in this version he has a knack for putting down/dismissing Crowley on basis of being a demon (" Oh, isn't that just like a demon? Six-thousand years and all you do is complain") and it's part of his ark , kinda. Cohesion and following things through isn't exactly a strong suit here.

It looks like Aziraphale is about to win, however Crowley uses the cliché 'Lock over there' trick to cheat. In the following dialogue we learn that they have been playing one checkers match a week for the past six thousand years. So basically it's presumed they played their first match in Eden before checkers was even invented. (Then again the stage direction describes a painting depicting Crowley as green snake wearing sunglasses in Eden, so they just have been trend setters from the start) . They then set a date for their next match, Crowley makes his distaste for earth known, they meet Aziraphale's assistant Polly, who is very unimpressed by Crowley and then he is off not without causing some mischief with a stolen wallet.

Aziraphale gets a little scene where he is appraising a painting for its authenticity. He gets called 'bramy as a box of fruit bats' and tells the ones that brought the painting that if it were real, he'd know bc he would have seen the master paint it. The interesting thing here is that this scene essentially is there to show us, that despite not acknowledging Crowley's cheating or directly calling out the forgery and its purpose (to gain money), even calling it pretty, he knows what's going on he simply chooses to play/be aloof .

Next we get introduced to the nightclub. Nothing much happens here at first except that we get introduced to the Barstaff. Or well at least Tina (my love) the barman. As it seems Crowley is managing a successful business and outside of a little rant, calling people sheep and wanting bigger cocktail umbrellas, he genuinely seems to be competent in his leadership and friendly to his staff. Even knowing them by name .

Other notable staff members are Warren, I think he has one line and is the handyman/security of the nightclub and Marjorie who gets a few more lines and is part of the waitstaff. Who by the way are put in full body imp costumes bc of course the nightclub is themed after hell.

Crowley then contacts hell, where he ultimately gets told that Satan himself has a special task for him. And we get the first clue that Crowley, who so far has given us very cool very early 90's style Anti"hero' is scared shitless. Not just that, hell thinks he is a bit of a loser, not being impressed by his mission reports and all that.

We then get to the good old Hyde Park scene with a nearly drowned drake safed by Aziraphale's intervention and everything. What is interesting here however is, that Crowley is a full blown nihilist and Aziraphale just very over enthusiastically positive. Aziraphale saying a woman is doing something good by giving her ice cream to a child while Crowley points out that the ice had first been dropped to the ground and been liked by a dog. (Script!Aziraphale as much as I love you but I am with script! Crowley on this one). Aziraphale points out that that hardly matters because the child is happy and that makes it a good deed. Crowley snarkily retorts that happiness is a stupid metric for good things and says he likes one thing about humans : that they are reliable in doing the selfish bad thing.

Aziraphale then tries to get Crowley to reveal why things are going to well. Crowley points out that they are enemies and he shouldn't give out that information despite the arrangement (sadly we don't get more information about that but I would love to know how it looked in that universe) and only is convinced by Aziraphale being hurt about it and giving him sad puppy eyes. Crowley then invites Aziraphale over to his nightclub after hours to talk about what head office actually wants from him.

We then jump to the nightclub again. Crowley is surprisingly decent towards people, Tina is managing the club and all seems rather nice. Madam Tracy is making an entrance. In this version she is an slowly aging out of it IT-girl. It's implied that she had a multitude of affairs and that she has now been payed off big time. (I enjoy Madam Tracy in this version a LOT). She never seems to be quite there but still owns any situation.

Her and Crowley have a little conversation that gets broken up when he decides to deal with a Troublemaker at the bar instead of letting Warren take care of it. (Side note that part of the script gave me the HC that script! Crowley is very short, definitely shorter than script!Aziraphale don't ask me why) . He is having a full blown Anime protagonist moment, including using the bribe the trouble maker gives him to give to the Waitress the Troublemaker had harassed in a very cool™ manner and stopping a punch with one hand. Just believe me it's very anime. But again Crowley seems to be actual decent boss, believe it or not.

He then gets a Call in the bathroom . Satan talking to him through the mirror without prior notice. He orders Crowley to get to a graveyard within 30 minutes. Crowley is keeping it together but he is panicking. He is having a short conversation with Tracy again in which he stays relatively friendly surprisingly enough.

Fun fact this whole film would have had "Every day' as musical theme. Bc from this moment the song gets mentioned continuously.

After speeding and vandalizing a cop car out of desperation since he is late and they determined to stop him, we get to meet satan. In this version he is a cold calculating (but very cool) business man . Crowley, in German we'd say 'legt sich erstmal ordentlich auf's maul' (meaning he trips and falls on the ground). He is groveling before him, bootlicking and trying to appease his Master (for real tho if that movie would have been made there would have been Satan/Crowley shippers bc that shit is some fuel for a toxic ship). At any rate Crowley is making a bit of a fool of himself and Satan is enjoying the Powertrip. In the end he gives Crowley the antichrist with the task to raise the baby or else suffer worse than anyone else in hell. However if he succeedes he is getting to leave the planet (again he supposedly doesn't even like earth in this version)

Anathema is introduced. She is just a little occult girl that felt the antichrist coming to earth. No mentioning of prophecies or anything. Our beloved Agnes does not exist in this universe. Just a little girl with green eyes and a sense for the occult.

Now with a baby he is supposed to take care of, Crowley makes his way back to the nightclub. There he hides the newborn from his employees and gets pulled away to discuss something by Tina. Since he is hiding the baby he puts the newborn down, right into Madam Tracy's money bag. And well, while he is off talking with Tina , Madam Tracy is taking her bag without noticing the child and off she goes. Leaving Crowley with the problem of a lost antichrist and for some reason a slowmo shot of him trying to catch up with a taxi.

He starts drinking. He knows he is done for so what's the point. (The first bottle he grabs is Aardvark Snapps idk why I finde that interesting) . At this point he has accepted that he will end up for an eternity being punished. Hours later Aziraphale makes an appearance and is a little bit judgemental about Crowley being drunk. (Side note: an other hc of mine is that script!Aziraphale is straight edge bc of that scene). Crowley tries to have him join him drinking but fails. And then just tries a to have a little heart to heart. ("I am doomed, Aziraphale") Only getting a little speech about being a demon and therefore inherently being doomed ('duhhh!') back.

Crowley eventually just confides in Aziraphale how much he has fucked up having a bit of a monologue about it. Eventually Aziraphale offers to help find the boy, but only if he is allowed to influence him. To which Crowley reluctantly agrees, because it would mean that he still fails his task of raising a boy that Satan could be proud of. But Aziraphale is a little bit manipulative (also Crowley is still drunk while Aziraphale is sober) so they shake on it. Anyway this exchange is one of my favorites in the script .

We finally jump eleven years into the future and get to meet Adam.

He has been adopted by Madam Tracy. And is now running a bed and breakfast in the quaint little town of Tadfield. Instead of an army base this Tadfield has direct access to the sea. Including it's very own pier. Anyhow I said Adam is running the b&b that's because Madam Tracy is a neglectful parent and as much as I enjoy her script version, she is not doing great here. Adam is running errands, making breakfast for his mom and generally keeping things together. His whole introduction is him being a little adult .

He finally gets some child time and we meet 'the Them' except they are not 'the Them'. Brian, Pepper and Wensleydale are a friend group and they try to talk to Adam because Pepper wants to be friends with him ( I think the intention was to make Pepper and Adam as THING but idk) . But Adam wants nothing to do with them and instead just wants his peace and quite. So he gets insulted for not having a father and sulks off.

Anathema has also arrived at the scene. And has a culture shock bc of the lackluster infrastructure out here. She arrives in Tadfield with some difficulties and now has to somehow find a place to stay. And while the town seemed overrun with places renting out rooms it also has a case of outdated world views and nobody is willing to take Anathema in for some reason or the other. She eventually gets pointed into the direction of Madam Tracy. Where she is informed that she can have a room . And Madam Tracy casually dunks on Picasso which I can support.

Anathema then repeatedly runs into Adam and tries to strike up a conversation but he just doesn't want to and runs off. As both of them eventually go home at the end of the day he accuses her of following him, since they both are taking the same path. As he gets told that Anathema also lives at the same address as him now he gets angry and stroms to Madam Tracy, disrupting a seance to scold her for taking on a lodger without his approval. He is angry that Madam Tracy is so reckless taking in people without proper background check.

Following that, Adam interviews Anathema. And they bond .

At night Adam sneaks off to the pier and we learn that he has build a model of Tadfield in an abandoned arcade.

He and Anathema bond a bit more over breakfast. (And honestly I like that version of them more relationship wise. As much as I love Prattchet, he did have a particular style of writing children that also came through in Gomens . It lends itself great to hypotheticals and punchlines, not so much for interpersonal relationships)

Back to Crowley and Aziraphale. Last time Crowley had been hopeful and appreciative of the angel. Well now he is running out of time and he is getting grumpy and down in the dumps and ready to give up. While Aziraphale is still unrelentingly optimistic. Poly makes an other entrance, Crowley puzzles together an ancient Etruscan pott. All riveting stuff.

Shadwell, or what's left of his character makes a short appearance as 'MAD OLD MAN' shouting and standing on a soap box as set dressing for Crowley to buy a newspaper and... Pay for it . (Honestly I would have not expected HIM to pay for anything)

He gets zapped into hell without notice.

(Side note Miss Ashtoreth is mentioned as secretary of Satan himself.)

Satan wants to check up on his son's progress. Crowley is shitting himself and lies, reassuring Satan that the boy is properly evil and all that . Of course Satan wants to see the boy real soon and tells Crowley to tell the boy that he is ready for when the boy wants to see him. And after taking a look at Adam by rearranging the universe itself to show a likeness in the stars (hell is a very surreal space with an office above the pit and direct view of all of the universe) Crowley gets zapped back to earth. (Also Satan calls Crowley 'Crawler' which is the script version of Crowley's name change, probably)

Crowley Is now properly stressed out.

On the other end of London (probably) Aziraphale's Crowley senses tingle and he just starts running (presumably) towards Crowley. This never gets brought up or explained. And is so bizarre I couldn't skip it.

Back in Tadfield Adam and Pepper get a bit of a bonding moment. Talking about action figures, Pepper giving Adam a lecture about not being sexist , getting fish and chips. The topic of Adams lack of a father gets brought up again and he lies. Telling Pepper he had met his father before and his father is some sort of international business man, that meets with presidents and is very busy. Eventually Pepper asks about Anathema and tries to convince Adam to take her (pepper) to the movies.

Back in London one Angel apparently unable to use public transport arrives at the nightclub. We can assume that he had been running the whole way. He gets pointed towards Crowley by multiple staff members, 'Every day' gets another cameo and he accidentally stumbles into the dressing room for the waiting staff, which is very embarrassing for him but not for the women.

When he reaches Crowley's office, the demon doesn't want to talk. He is panicking and packing to go on the run for the rest of eternity. (Which for him just means a suitcase full of sunglasses) . What follows is the infamous dialogue script!Crowley get his reputation from. (I might make myself very unpopular here but I think that reputation is not quite deserved. Yes he is an asshole but also the harsher exchanges only play out when he is stressed/panicked and usually if he goes too far he will try and paddel back. Still worst of the Crowleys without a doubt just not quite as bad as people like to paint him. Also script!Aziraphale isn't half as naive and helpless as people like to paint him either and in this house we let him have his agency! But also more on that later)

The exchange switches tone once Aziraphale lets his unbreakable optimism fallter and gets sad. To which Crowley immediately reacts bc trying to reassure him that they are in fact friends and that he shouldn't be sorry. Pointing out that he (Crowley) now knows what the boy looks like to counteract Aziraphale's pessimistic statement that they could never have found the boy bc they didn't even know what he looks like. They agree to hit one more town in their search for the boy.

In Tadfield Anathema finally gets to talk about her quest to find the SOMETHING with Madam Tracy. And have her witness a fight between Brian and Adam about Adam's father. (Srly Adam gets constantly bullied bc of that.) Anathema steps between the two to protect Adam. They make a deal to tell each other's secrets. First we get Anathema showing Adam stuff about the antichrist and the weapon she plans on killing him with.

Then we get an intermission with Crowley and Aziraphale discussing how they should choose which town to go to. They decide with a dart throw.

Back with Adam and Anathema. Adam shows Anathema his model of Tadfield. To the question what he plans on doing once that model is done, he tells her, he is going to build the rest of the world and rule over it. He also voices his desire to go somewhere else so he is no longer stuck in Tadfield.

Aziraphale and Crowley arrive in Tadfield during a Thunderstorm and face the same problem as Anathema. No one wants to rent them a room in town. And while with Anathema the whole thing was rooted in sexism, disdain for outsiders (aka read as Americans) and misunderstandings about her occupation, for those two it's the obligatory 'People think they are a gay couple' thing but with a giant side of Homophobia.

Crowley want to give up, Aziraphale want to go on and eventually they end up at Madam Tracy's.

Madam Tracy mistakes them for the gas person, Crowley wants separate rooms, Aziraphale a shared one,(we never get to know which they now took bc the script has both, scenes with a shared room and with a separate rooms. It could also be that Crowley simply stays longer than Aziraphale and therefore the shared room becomes his single room. At any rate it is never specified. And to be honest there are multiple parts of the script where the author very obviously had given up on it , soooo) Crowley praises Aziraphale's skill as homemaker, Madam Tracy tells them, they have to wait for Adam. Adam comes home Crowley recognizes the boy.

Crowley and Aziraphale take a stroll on the beach and come to the agreement that each should spend a day with the boy, despite Crowley trying to avoid having Aziraphale influence the kid. They also witness how Brian's father is getting things set up and ready to tear down the pier.

In the evening they play an other game of checkers. Adam witnessing first hand Crowley's cheating as he gets the both of them to have dinner with the whole house.

At the dinner table they convince Madame Tracey to let them take Adam to London for a day. Adam being obviously overjoyed about the whole thing.

Anathema sees Aziraphale's and Crowley's true nature for a sec. And I am sorry if this part comes across as rather dry, it's also rather dry in the script.

Adam gets taken to London. First Aziraphale get to show him the museum and talk about human creations . (Side note , when I first got my hands on the script I thought I was missing a page bc the dialogue has a really awkward jump in this scene but no ... It's supposed to be like that and either it was the author giving up or it was supposed to be a kid thing. Jumping from one topic to the next with not much logic. We will never know)

Adam then confronts Aziraphale about Crowley's cheating. And here comes the part why I will never see script!Aziraphale as truly naive or helpless. Aziraphale admits to Adam that he had always known Crowley cheated, he just thought it virtuous to not point it out. Bc he played fair and in his mind that was enough to stand above the other and win in a sense and just let him do the cheating. Adam points out how it's stupid, and that was that. Aziraphale is stunned and does what most people with too much money and no idea how to handle kids do, exactly drag him somewhere, where he can buy shit.

Next up is Crowley. First he drags Adam to Soho. Not Good Omens there might be a cozy bookshop somewhere Soho but well 90s it's a bit of a cess pool Soho. With hookers and homeless teenage girls ( and for all those people that take Crowley being displeased with Adam for giving the girl some change as point to call him fundamentally mean/bad... I implore you learn what character motivations are. He has been tasked with raising an evil child, has promised an evil child, obviously he is displeased when that child is doing something selfless. And he wouldn't do something selfless in the presence of said child either bc again he is supposed to influence him towards evil) Crowley then gets him a milkshake and takes him to his club where they have the mirror conversation to Aziraphale's. Ending with Adam pointing out that it is pretty boring to always win for the wins sake by the means of cheating.

On the way back they have a short (also very old couple and married) conversation about their respective experiences with the boy. Accidentally letting it slip that they know who Adam's father is, believing the boy to be asleep. He is not.

That night Anathema finally succeeds in her endeavor of finding the antichrist. Her crystal ball revealing to her that it is indeed Adam. She is so shocked by that, that she lets the ball fall but luckily for her Aziraphale does his thing and it lands safely without breaking. (That another quirk of the script apparently Anathema and Aziraphale were supposed to be something and what ever that is, it's even weirder than Adam and Pepper)

Madam Tracy also finally recognized Crowley from THAT night and they have a honest heart to heart. Or whatever you call it when the otherwise always woozy character suddenly seem lucid and aware of what will happen.

That night Adam goes to Anathema for emotional support bc of the father thing. Anathema however is in the middle of a crisis bc she now knows what Adam is and had tried to get herself ready to murder him but struggles with herself to do it. Eventually Adam notices the knife behind her back and with the first flair of his antichrist powers forces her to show it to him before storming off hurt.

Being emotionally distraught he runs to his hideout on the pier and calls out to his feather. First nothing happens but then after Adam went off the pier and back again it is completely transformed into a bright happy carnival. His Father has arrived. Satan immediately takes Adam under his wings . He even dresses him up as a mini self.

The next morning the whole town of Tadfield is one giant carnival. There is a parade with elephants. And the people from around town are all mindlessly attending the celebration.

Crowley has a short meeting with Satan (on an elephant can't stress that enough) and gets told that he is supposed to come to Satan to talk about his promotion to alpha centauri. AND

( Don't ask me why I find this too funny to not share, my humor is very broken )

The town is being further transformed and more people are made mindless puppets. But now Crowley is happy to have gotten away with his stunt. He is roleplaying flirting with someone in a mirror. (Also in the script notes it literally says James Bond for acting directions for Crowley, and that's such a dorky idea I love the theory of it ... Bit of a waste in this tho).

Aziraphale tries to change his mind but Crowley shuts him down by pointing out that he was the one saying happiness alone is making things a good deed so it shouldn't matter if people have to be made into mindless puppets first. They are happy after all.

Meanwhile Adam is torturing Brian by throwing tomatoes hat him and having the rest of the town join in with the fun. He just wants his father to be proud of him (nawww ) (that naw was sarcastic). In the crowd Anathema is fighting to regain control over herself.

Aziraphale still tries to convince Crowley. Tugging at his heart strings but even the tried and true "I thought we are friends" won't work this time. Crowley wants to seize his opportunity, he wants out and up.

While those two are arguing, Anathema struggles. All she wants it the knife but she is exhausted.

Crowley is looking for a starting point for his launch towards alpha centauri. He is climbing onto a church tower. Behind him Aziraphale still hasn't given up. Despite not liking heights (!? Wasn't mentioned before will not be mentioned again but apparently script!Aziraphale has a fear of heights). He finally gets an idea and challenges Crowley to one last match.

Crowley for once doesn't cheat and it looks like he is about to win but then Aziraphale DOES cheat, desperate to keep Crowley on earth and have him fight at his side. And Crowley just shrugs and accepts. His next line after acknowledging the win already calls Satan his ex-boss and if that is not a very impressive 180° turn then I don't know what is. (Just a throw back to character motivation, we could speculate it's because most of what Crowley has said were lies and half truths and deep down he actually likes earth and bla or he just remembered how much he would miss his nightclub BUT I as number one script!Crowley (not really) defender say ... It's just unfinished/bad writing and there simply wasn't enough time or inspiration or whatever to finish his character ark)

Anathema manages to give both of them the knife. Crowley is so idiotic and tries to grab it but it burns him . I mean, duhh! Anathema literally tells them that this knife can hurt the antichrist why should it be harmless for a way lesser demon? So Aziraphale takes the knife.

After calling Crowley his best friend, Crowley himself calling himself stupid, Aziraphale, presumably (presumably is important here) with the knife, goes off to confront Adam. He tried to talk Adam out of it. Trying to point out that no good father leaves his kid alone for eleven years and if this is really what Adam wants. As he points out that Madam Tracy despite all her flaws still love Adam he gets discorporated, by Adam. But bc this is a Movie script and we don't have much time left he just stays in his true angel form (which is very much just white robes , wings and halo ) right where he is, further trying to talk Adam out of it .

(here is an other line in my mounting pile of evidence that script! Aziraphale is neither naive nor helpless and simply chooses to carry himself that way bc he thinks it's virtuous. He literally acknowledges that people can do bad things. Something he would not do at any point before that in the script. I rest my case )

While Aziraphale is trying to make Adam think about things, Crowley is off confronting Satan, presumably without the knife.

Satan acknowledges that Crowley had lied to him but is still in such a good mood that he still wants to give out the promotion. Even throws in the titel of fiend extraordinar. For a moment it seems like Crowley considers but ultimately he tells Satan that he wants to quit. Satan is not happy about that and after Crowley also pulls out a pink rubber glove and the knife (yhea Crowley had the knife all along , take that continuity or rather scree logic, like not showing how they get a rubber glove is fine, what ever but having the last scene with the knife be the one where it's shown that he can't touch it and Aziraphale had to carry it would have made it feel a bit too deus ex machina.) Satan forces him into half snake form and summens hands that try and drag him back to hell.

Thanks to his already established Crowley senses (probably ) Aziraphale suddenly shows up and charges at Satan. Who in turn is like 'An angel, really? You betrayed me,..' and then roasts Aziraphale to a crisp before destroying the knife .

Adam confronted with a robotic acting madam Tracy, listening to his every command, starts to reflect on his actions. Getting called in by his father to greed the four horsepersons he notices Aziraphale and Crowley.

Adam now faced with all the destruction says: no, I am not doing it. Stan tries to threaten him into obeying but he gets the good old 'You not my dad'. For being a deadbeat for 11 years. Adam then heals Aziraphale and frees Crowley. Now flanked by the two Adam banishes the horseman.

Satan demanding obedience once more, gets reminded by Crowley that he himself once rebelled. And after laughing about that revelation he tells Adam that it was interesting meeting him but as it seemed he wasn't cut out to be a dad. To Crowley he says that he is now banned from hell and to Aziraphale that he should tell his boss, that at least his son (the antichrist) had more guts than his(Jesus and yes the script sadly uses he/him for God).

After Satan vanishes they have to escape a collapsing pier. Noticing too late that Madam Tracy is also still there. Adam ends up releasing her from her trance by calling her mom and telling her that he loves her. Aziraphale ends up saving both of them, flying them to safety on the beach.

At the beach they also meet Anathema, who promises not to kill him, and Pepper . They watch as the pier explodes and burns to the ground. Anathema also has uncomfortable eye contact with Aziraphale while he ripples back into human form . (Don't ask me why it feels uncomfortable, Anathema is described as looking tens while he still full angel and softening once he is human again, so idk)

Apropos Anathema and Aziraphale. The next Morning, he comes to say goodbye and ends up offering a job bc (I forgot to mention it when it happened) Polly, his assistant had a promotion. So he is in search for a new assistant. She end up kissing him on the cheek and calling him angel but in a way where it's ambiguous if she now knows that he is one or if she just thinks he is a good person and something always makes her forget what he really is. At any rate Aziraphale says he had never gotten a kiss on the cheek in six thousand years and knowing a bit about history and cultural practices I am inclined to calling him a liar. But then again this is fiction .... So sure ... Cheek kiss virgin this one.

While that is happening Madam Tracy is asking Crowley if she can keep the boy now . And Crowley reassures her, that after this, no one is going to come for him. He even offers to throw a birthday party for her at his club, all she should do is to just to look after the boy. It's actually a very sweet exchange.

Outside Brian and Adam have a little exchange, Brain trying once more to get to Adam with the father thing. But Adam has no daddy issues anymore. Instead he asks Pepper out to the movies and Brian just tags along without being asked. Where is Wensleydale you asking ? Take your best guess, he was mentioned once said one thing and then fell off the earth. He probably exploded with the pier and nobody even remembers.

With the kids now finally as a group we have the last shot of Aziraphale and Crowley. They are walking along the street , Crowley one stolen apple in hand . Having their talk about good and evil. Accusing each other of being a little bit of a good person (press x to boubt) and just enough of a bastard (oh absolutely). How they both knew the other was cheating all along. And maybe alpha centauri isn't such a good idea after all. You can't even get booze there. The last thing that is said is Aziraphale telling Crowley to 'not start THAT again', after being offered the apple.

I lied one more screenshot bc Every ...it had been for told by the cursed script for ages now. (I am pretty sure it had been in the talks to put go to Every day' even before the script was ordered so that is just a joke)

At any rate I do have to go to work in ....eh three hours ... So I will leave it at the summary for now. I am dyslexic and English mu second language so I am very sorry for all the mistakes I probably made . If someone reblogs this before I get the chance to correct them, let it be said that at least nobody can claim this is ai pfff.

Also not I said the name of the author the two times I mentioned him simply bc I don't feel like acknowledging the name of the person. I got into Gomens bc of Sir Terry and I stay here for him. This little obsession with the shit script happened by pure chance and purely against my will pfff

[sandytree1]

Criticism of Blue Eyed Samurai

Well, I just watched Blue Eyed Samurai. Been spotting several positive clickbait thumbnails of it, so even though I didn't have high expectations based on the trailer, I gave it a go. And well, it was what I feared it was. I still enjoyed it though! And it's an engaging story, just not what I wish it was. Anyways, I wrote a comment on Reddit about it, which I thought I'd repost here.

Edit: I ended up going in and reordering some paragraphs under headings, as people on Reddit replied to by comment. Noticing people are nitpicking the historical accuracy of my commentary, which wasn't really what I was concerned about. It's more that certain cues in these stories make me expect certain things.

The main point of much of this text is to look into what makes Blue Eyed Samurai a noticeably American story, by comparing it to other jidaigeki stories with a similar setting made for and by Asian people, and stories set in Asia made by Americans (for Americans).

🚧 NB! I'm still working on the text. Text marked in cursive are just notes, so please ignore them for now! 🚧

Asian stories

So, this isn't the first time we've gotten an Asian story told by Americans (for Americans). And that in of itself doesn't necessarily make the show unwatchable. Beyond the cases of whitewashing and yellowface in Hollywood, we can also find a few love letters to Asian media.

For China, we have Kung Fu Panda, a love letter to Kung Fu movies with a Chinatown aesthetic. For Asian ethnicities overall, we have Avatar the Last Airbender. And for Japan, we have stories like the Ghost of Tsushima and Shogun.

As a period drama fan, what I expect coming into these shows are generally other pieces in the same genre, that is Asian stories told by Asians. Perhaps due to the lack of any relevant Asian American genre. In the case of Blue Eyed Samurai, I was expecting a jidaigeki more in the lines of Azumi, Oshin or Princess Kaguya. However, I felt that Blue Eyed Samurai fell short, even by the standard of other Asian stories told by Americans for Americans.

Overall, the story's theme is two fold: action and feminism.

Action and martial arts

While Blue Eyed Samurai throws around words like samurai and honor, it doesn't appear to actually understand what these entail. Instead, it feels like it only focuses on the superficial badassery of it. In contrast, Ghost of Tsushima did a great job with its Japanese localization. Although some parts was a little bit off still, they salvaged this by centering their themes around bushido culture and made references to terms used there, and the visuals references Japanese aesthetics of the transient seasons and impermanence, which is commonly used in haiku poetry. It features seasonal environments such as ginko leaves, reed, maple, and spider lilies to mention some. The same can be said for Shogun, which is more about the tension being lost in translation, and where especially Mariko recited actual Japanese poems at several occassions.

Meanwhile, Kung Fu Panda also has the tropes and artefacts of Chinese wuxia story, but it is ultimately based on Chinatown. A theme park-esque idea of China designed by and to cater to white people, as a Chinese American defense mechanism. Yet, it stands on its own as an American love letter to Chinese kung fu films.

In the west, many use Kung Fu Panda as an argument for successful orientalism. However, Accented Cinema points out, it may have more to do with China's own failure in representing themselves, and that Kung Fu Panda's lesson was just what China needed at that time: To stop doubting and to learn to love themselves. Even in the face of the traditional Chinese fantasy genre (wuxia and xianxia) losing foothold in Asia, they can still stay themselves as a new generation reinvents the genre. And the new stories coming out of China seems to have taken this classic hollywood message to heart.

I'll use this opportunity to shoutout some stories by China to come out of this new era: The Legend of Hei, the White Snake, The Untamed, Black Myth: Wukong, Genshin Impact, etc.

In contrast, Blue Eyed Samurai has the same attention to detail when it comes to the artifacts of a jidaigeki story. But it falls short, because it lacks in as meaningful a message as Kung Fu Panda had, and somehow lacks in the tropes (or whatever it's called?) that you'd expect to see in a jidaigeki. Instead, it focuses on superficial badassery and western feminism, and it feels like it clearly caters to white people's ideas and desires.

But overall, great choreography and compositing, engaging story and characters ... Blue Eyed Samurai is good, but does veer into the uncanny valley for me, which I know was an issue Asians had with ATLA. Guess I felt it a little bit more with Blue Eyed Samurai due how much (unrealistic) violence and (meaningless) sex is glorified, and made me question what exactly the overall moral message of the story was supposed to be beyond simply "revenge plots are cool but also destructive." As somebody else said, it's giving "guts and tits for the people."

I was hoping for something like Azumi

I do not mean that I wanted Blue Eyed Samurai (BES) to romanticize bushido and samurai. However, I did want it to explore these concept, because they made such a big deal out of it. The closest comparison I can make and what I was actually hoping for when going into BES, was something more like the manga Azumi.

The main character of both series, Mizu and Azumi, are similar in several aspects. Both are orphaned women who grew up to become fearsome assassins, whose sworsmanship is so incredible that they're able to fight off hordes of men singlehandedly. Additionally, both are mixed race, though where Azumi only has blue-ish eyes, Azumi has actual blue eyes. Additionally, both work as assassins during the sakoku policy, though while Azumi lives around the time of Tokugawa Ieyasu in the 16th century, at the start of the policy, Mizu lives further along in the 17th century.

Azumi is a gritty look into (among other things) both shinobi and samurai that does not romanticize either, and has won an award for its exploration of these concepts in relation to buddhism. In fact, everyone in Azumi suffers. The only one who is perhaps glorified is Azumi, who many critics compare to a boddhisattva.

Throughout the story, Azumi works to not become too attached to earthly comforts, but still suffers because of her attachment to her companions. As Azumi completes her pruning missions for her boss (the Buddhist monk Tenkai), she accumulates a lot of bad karma in the form of endless waves of people pursuing her for either revenge, the bounty on her head, the thrill of defeating a master swordswoman, etc. Because of it, 90% of her closest companions SPOILER die, and many of her friends are raped or permanently maimed, and has to deal with the trauma and practical inconveniences of it. Often because they are caught in the crossfire between Azumi's targets or those who pursue her.

By the end of the story, Azumi still ends up making new companions like usual and her boss continues wanting to send her on pruning missions. But she decides to leave them all behind, so that those she cares about will not be affected by her bad karma again. She knows she will have to stay on the road indefinitely and will never really be able to enjoy the comforts of settling down, because of her pursuers. The series makes the buddhist argument that earthly attachment in general causes suffering, and Azumi is enlightened by abandoning those attachments and by facing her karma, although that does not mean she will not end up with a violent death. The story ends openly with Azumi wandering off into obscurity.

Mizu is not a samurai

We could argue that she is a ronin, but then she'd technically must've been serving a lord as a samurai in the past. She should be at least be a tiny bit concerned with chivalry; At least enough to discuss or talk about it, which we know isn't the case. Mizu is closer to being a shinobi/ninja, since her goal is to assassinate her 4 maybe fathers. Another thing Mizu shares with shinobi is that both are often criticised by samurai because of their penchant for ambushes and lack of concern for bushido / warriors code. Yet she breaks the mold of being a shinobi, since she doesn't really sneak around in (civilian) disguise and will openly brawl her way through a dojo and into a fort. In this aspect, Azumi is much more like a shinobi.

While Mizu's motivation is simply revenge for the injustice she and her mother suffered at the hands of the gaijin faction, in Azumi the motivation is to prune the country like a bonsai tree off individuals which may threathen a new age of peace, and prevent the country from slipping back into the civil war that marked the Sengoku period.

But where characters in Blue Eyed Samurai is heavily protected by plot armor, allowing Mizu to be an almost invincible pin cushion, no one is safe in Azumi and injured characters requires months to recover and heal from cuts.

While writing this, I recalled that in episode 5, they interjected a story about a samurai marrying and fathering a child with a woman who descended from an enemy clan. He kills both her and their son, which turns her into a onryō. Mizu being an Onryō works, but I am left questioning how this fits into the story beyond its symbolism, as there's been no explicit supernatural elements in the story. Mizu is bullied for being the (devil) spawn of a quote "white devil" in childhood, I think it would be more interesting if they called her a "white ghost," since onryos (which could represent Mizu) are a type of vengeful female ghost. Furthermore, Taigen often compares Mizu to a dog, esp. when she does not live up to the samurai standards he holds her to. Not sure where that fits in either..

Orientalism

So the statement about samurai criticising shinobi was called out as orientalist. This was my reply:

As for orientalism, I guess Blue Eye Samurai is being orientalist then, which I was kinda feeling while watching but didn't really put into words. It's pretty stereotypical to connect Japanese with honor and samurai after all, contributing to why I felt the show was very American.

In the sense of samurai simply meaning warrior, then we can consider Mizu a samurai. But Taigen (and Akemi) connects being a samurai with honor and complains about fair play. By making this connection, he invokes bushido/chivalry and excludes people who ambush others like assassins from the definition of being a samurai, and by extension criticises assassins like ninjas for not shying away from "dishonorable" ambushes. To restore his honor, Taigen wants to arrange a formal duel and even writes up a challenge letter (hatashijou), which makes sense in terms of the dojo trope. But well, the series does contradict itself a lot in favor of cool one liners, and what it means to be a samurai or knight has changed throughout history.

Time period

Some people began nitpicking the historical accuracy of my commentary, which wasn't really what I was concerned about. I am open to artistic liberty. However, with BES it was a little bit harder, since they made so many historical references and leaned into the jidaigeki genre, but then broke it in ways that came off as uncanny to me. Looking back, I guess this uncanny feeling was the orientalism letting itself be known, though I couldn't put it into words back then.

As jidaigeki is a subgenre of historical stories, certain cues does make me expect certain things. Like when I see an English-speaking gaijin as the antagonist, I would make the connection that this story is probably set sometime after the Americans forced Japan to open up for trade in the 1800s. Yet this expectation is then contradicted when I learn that no foreigners are allowed in Japan yet due to the Sakoku policy, which makes me wonder what this Irishman is doing here all alone centuries too early and how he even managed to climb to such a powerful position while being so isolated.

Gaijins as antagonists

Why an Irishman as the gaijin antagonist? It'd make more sense if it was a portuguese or dutch. If Blue Eyed Samurai is set in 17th century Edo Japan, it's a long time off when the Americans forced Japan to put down the sakoku policy, and even then, why Britain/London? If anything, Japan and Britain liked each other enough to form an alliance for their shared fear of Russia.

Why not other colonial powers who were actually active in Japan and Asia overall at the time (the Dutch) or the ones who caused Christianity to be banned during the sakoku (the Portuguese).

My first thought of a precedent goes to Konishi Shizune, the Christian revolutionary leader in Azumi who's also mixed race like Azumi, which is based on the historical Amakusa Shiro.

(Depictions of Gaijins: Americans during postwar Japan in Hajime no Ippo. Senator Armstrong in Metal Gear Solid)

Japanese in Europe

With Mizu heading to Europe, I came across people discussing the plot armor and how Mizu wouldn't stand a chance against the guns nor London police. It came off as kind of white supremacist, and the entire thread was locked because of unsolicited opinions from outsiders.

To be fair, Japan had guns too at the time. According to Netflix themselves, Blue Eye Samurai takes place in the 1600s. If that's the case, it means that the guns were mostly muskets, rifles and pistols which took time to load, so people did still use swords even in Europe. And only a century earlier in the 1500s, when Dreamwork's El Dorado is set, people would still use firearms and crossbows side by side, and Oda Nobunaga also used firearms in his own warfare during the sengoku period.

Also, the police didn't exist yet, since the UK police were created in the late 1700s. As for the London battalion or royal guards storming her, it'd either amount to when she was stormed by the hand claw guys. The plot armor in the first season was a lot imo even then though. But sneaking up on them depends on the terrain and context, so I can see it happening.

Furthermore, it's not unrealistic for Japanese people to travel to Europe, because there's historical precedence for this. In 1613, Hasekura Tsunenaga was sent on a diplomatic mission to negotiate with the pope and the king of Spain, and some of his men even stayed behind to form the Japon clan in Spain. The expedition took 7 years, and ironically enough, once he returned, christianity had already been banned in Japan. The people who still kept the Christian faith in spite of this came to be known as kakure kirishitan.

Debauchery means it's for adults ..

The way characters (esp. Mizu) will throw out badass oneliners as if on a treadmill, only to contradict exactly what she said as short as 5 seconds later does mess with my suspension of disbelief.

The story also goes into protitution and patriarchy, though it also felt superficial to me. If anything it feels like an excuse for fan service, similar to Game of Thrones in a sense. Like they know that sex sells, and that's what "the audience really wants." That said, again I enjoyed both GOT and Blue Eye Samurai, even though some may laconically break the former down to "dragons and tits" and the latter to "guts and tits".

Token representation

Mizu's apprentice was born without hands, which could have brought about an interesting exploration of disability. But instead, he's relegated to being a quirky sidekick and comedic relief..

BES is an American story

Blue Eyed Samurai has all the visual motifs of a Japanese samurai story (jidaigeki), but the tropes and logic is extremely American. It does get the artifacts and set dressing of a jidaigeki story right (surprisingly accurate at some points), which is why it triggered the uncanny valley for me sometimes. When certain artifacts and set ups appeared, I expected it to follow certain tropes I'm used to from jidaigeki, but it didn't really do that.

Patriarchy and gender roles

While I understand and appreciate your critique, I don't think the narrative is grounded in realism. It's more like expressing the need that women do have to see themselves in the shoes of a physically invincible protagonist. Also the motivation isn't simply revenge - what has happened to Mizu has convinced that her very existence is suffering. She's internalized the hate to an extent that it no longer matters whether she lives or dies. She will slowly change as a person and her motivations will also change, which I hope we get to see . All the characters are somewhere trying to rebel against their gender roles, and that I feel is the 'message'. Also as far as the right antagonist to show goes, Fowler seems an indictment of British colonialism a few centuries too soon, but his attitudes aren't unfamiliar. At all.

Blue Eyed Samurai doesn't explore the concepts it references or markets itself with, but seems to throw them around because samurai and honor sounds cool and is a stereotypically Japanese/Sinosphere thing. Instead it'd rather explore gender roles and patriarchy. And the character Blue Eyed Samurai primarily uses to explore these themes with isn't the titular protagonist, but rather Princess Akemi.

But Akemi's struggles with patriarchy, also comes off as more a Western suffragette story than a Sinosphere one.

The Princess as a Caged Bird

Other stories about gender roles and patriarchy in ancient Japan to which we can compare this to is probably Isao Takahata's Princess Kaguya, though this one is probably set long before BES in the Heian period.

Like in Kaguya, the ohaguro set is presented as a symbol of oppression for Akemi. However, instead of being explicitly oppressed by outside forces like Akemi, Kaguya is instead pressured by societies and her father's idea of what a princess should be to become happy. Throughout the film, Kaguya questions what it is all for and even counters against her governess that "a princess is not a human then!"

Princess Kaguya as a roadside flower. To be plucked in a moment of fancy, and neglected once savored and bored. Merely a trophy to be won and stowed away in a display cabinet.

The film explores what makes life worth living, by exploring the difference between humanity and moon people.

Filial piety. Fulfilling your own dreams through your offspring. Showing off achievements to relatives (accumulating merit).

Geisha and maiko in contrast to the Oiran of the red light district. Streetwalkers. Prostitution - the world's oldest profession.

Oda Nobunaga's younger sister in Nobunaga Concerto and Azumi.

Hypergamy. Tradition of men being adopted into the wife's household. The Fujiwara clan of the Heian period, who continuously married their women into the imperial family for generations. Attitudes around cheating and monogamy (Genji Monogatari).

The Fallacy of the Stereotypical Asian woman

Oshin - Resilience and endurance.

Asian women as firecrackers. There's a reason why the stereotype of Tiger Mom even came to be, because Asian women and people in general are not weak and strictly submissive, although they are often mistaken as doormats.

Honne and tatemae

Yamato Nadeshiko

While writing about this, I ended up going on a tangent about Asian women, which you can read here: The Fallacy of the Stereotypical Asian Woman.

Gender roles in Genderbender

Kaze Hikaru

Ryou

Torikaebaya Monogatari, where a brother and sister in the Heian period is gender mixed at birth, to fulfil gender roles they're more "suited" for according to societal expectations. Another Heian period text about a guy who crossdresses as a woman to get close to a woman he has a crush on.

Gender fluidity has been the norm throughout most of history.

A wolf in sheep's clothing

I guess the show is more concerned about gender roles and patriarchy. I'm actually not all that concerned with historical accuracy, but I couldn't help but be thrown off by how it felt like vastly different time periods (and thus different expectations in terms of jidaigeki tropes) were meshed together. I still stand by that the show is a very (overseas Asian/) (Asian) American narrative, which made it uncanny how accurate it still was in terms of getting the artefacts etc. of a jidaigeki right. Sort of like a "wolf in sheeps clothing," though that doesn't make it a bad thing. For example, Akemi feels more like a Western suffragette, rather than an Asian feminist. Yet the ohaguro set etc. may be a reference to Isao Takahata's Princess Kaguya, which is about feminism.

The story came off as stereotypical to me. Yet it does get the artifacts and set dressing of a jidaigeki story right (surprisingly accurate at some points). I did cringe at some points or feel the uncanny valley, but again overall the show was engaging and enjoyable.

I've enjoyed other orientalist stories before, such as Kung Fu Panda and Avatar the Last Airbender. I've also enjoyed occidentalist stories like mohuan and isekai. Yet something with Blue Eye Samurai made me cringe sometimes. Comparing it to the others I've mentioned, perhaps it's because it's set in a more non-fantastical setting as opposed to a jianghu of sorts idk. Blue Eye Samurai is still entertaining though, and may be the start of a new genre.

It's hard to explain what it feels like for people who don't have the same cultural references, so here's an example of occidentalism. I noticed that when Genshin Impact (a Chinese game) released the new Fontaine region where they decided to mix Britain, Italy, France etc., which people claimed is just plain weird haha. But Fontaine has still been well received regardless it seems. On the other hand, I still cringe every time I see Senator Armstrong in Metal Gear Solid.

Historical references

Random, but here's a list of different artifacts and set dressings that appeared in the show. The little theatre play about the ronin and his wife uses kurogo (black clad actors) to manipulate the dolls, which was novel to see. Previously I've mostly watched kurogo being used to manipulate perspective such as in this Matrix Ping Pong skit and the Tokyo 2020 pictogram opening ceremony. Traditionally, Kurogo is used in Kabuki to create special effects and are supposed to be invisible to the audience.

Mizu's husband uses a naginata, which is basically a spear. Although also used by warriors in general, it was often used by women.

[indignantlemur]

What's Andorian jewelry like?

Hello! Sorry it took me to long to answer - it's been crazy busy over here! So, the short answer is: it varies. Andorian jewelry runs the gamut from traditional to modern, with a full spectrum of complexity and styles in much the same way that Human jewelry does.

Andorians don't generally go in for piercings, so their jewelry choices are largely limited to rings, bracelets, necklaces, antennae rings and/or antennae bells, fine hair nets, ornamental belts, and body chains.

Traditional pieces strongly resemble armor. Examples include heavy gorget-like necklaces and collars, rings that evoke images of gauntlets and claws, bracelets that were basically just bracers with decorations, girdles with overlapping plates and all heavily engraved with complex imagery, often specific to the family of the wearer. Hair ornaments in this same tradition tended to be incredibly sharp, be they hair sticks and combs or strings of carved beads featuring a sharpened metal point at the end of the strand. Most of these items originate during the warring eras of Andorian history, where form and function were blended heavily in function's favour. While the original historical artefacts are usually preserved in a Clan's vaults or a museum, recreations are still worn in Emigre's modern era, but as statement pieces more than anything else. That being said, it's considered somewhat... gauche to wear too many such pieces.

Courting and marriage antennae rings have been around for hundreds of years, if not longer. There are trends - this generation favoured rings with embellishments like stones or engravings, while that generation preferred more plain but lustrous metals, and so on - but the basic form stays more or less the same. It's common for high ranking Andorians to have particularly ornate courting and marriage bands, but nowhere is it actually required - a loophole Thoris cheerfully exploits, to his spouses' general exasperation. Likewise, there is nothing stopping a lower ranking Andorian from having complex and highly detailed bands. Unlike most Andorian ornamentations, one cannot tell a person's rank or Clan just from their marriage or courting rings.

More modern jewelry range from plain pieces polished to a mirror shine all the way down to stone-studded and filigreed. Lightweight and delicate ornaments (often perched upon the nose, hung over the ears, or even dangling lightly between the antennae) which emphasize the wearer's face, particularly the eyes, mouth, or antennae, are a newer addition the market and steadily gaining popularity across the board. Some have taken this idea a step farther and created custom works which are moulded to an individuals chitin patterns, which were initially regarded as odd but have since been embraced by the younger generations quite enthusiastically.

Conversely, there's also been an alternative aesthetic growing popular on the fringes which features blocky, unpolished jewelry designed to frame the jaw and lower face almost like a muzzle. Some of these pieces give the impression of jagged teeth, while others more strongly resemble parts of dull, blank masks. It's not the sort of thing one would see often, and never in public spaces; this particular kind of jewelry is considered subversive - and ugly - by many. Humans inquiring after why this is so generally find themselves confounded by vague explanations and exasperated comments of, "Look, you have to be Andorian to understand, alright?"

In terms of other options, body chains are popular due to their versatility, as are hair ornaments and antennae rings, and finger rings of the more ordinary (or rather, less claw-like) variety. Armoured girdles have gone out of fashion entirely, though ornamental belts are still acceptable so long as they remain tasteful.

I don't really have any visual examples for this at the moment, but I might try my hand at jewelry design soon!

Hope this answers everything!

[lairofdragonagelore]

The Claws of Dumat and the Tevinter Bird/Dragon

The Claw of Dumat was introduced to us for the first time, visually, in DA2, and it was not until DAI that we got information about it via a note. However, it was not alone; a second artefact that lacks of any information appeared beside it: a metallic sculpture of a bird or a dragon that I called along this blog the Tevinter bird.

[This post belongs to the series “Analysis and speculation of Statues”]

[Index page of Dragon Age Lore]

The Claws of Dumat

Where does this artefact appear? We have seen it four times already: In the Valdasine Thaig in DA2, in different places within the Fade of DAI, in Fairel's tomb in the Hissing Wastes of DAI, and in the DLC The Descent, inside a chamber of the Heidrun Thaig.

In DA2 game

The claws of Dumat appear for the first time in DA2, in the Primeval Thaig's entrance, at the sides of the main corridor that will lead us to the Thaig filled with Red Lyrium. This implies that this Thaig, which has no typical Dwarven decoration of Paragons and the writing on its walls was not traditional Dwarvish, was deeply related to Tevinter. The Thaig was located below the Deep Roads and was built before the First Blight [exact same characteristics than the Heidrun Thaig] .

We learn later that the Dwarves than inhabit this Thaig had strong trade relationships with Tevinter [they gave them lyrium, according to the codex Valdasine], and it is not clear if they were involved in the construction of Emerius [former name of Kirkwall]. The configuration of the Thaig makes us suspect that Tevinter made experiments here. There is a constant pattern along these rooms: blue lyrium, Claws of Dumat, and red lyrium, that makes us speculate that these three elements are related one another: immense source of lyrium that must have been used to feed the Claws of Dumat until the magisters used slave blood, which in the end, corrupted the lyrium and turned it into red one.

As we continue exploring the Thaig we find an interesting and mysterious codex: The profane. We interpreted it in details in the post Primeval Thaig and Red Lyrium : we assumed that these profane may have been dwarven or humans who were abandoned in this Thaig when it was closed, and hungry, started to eat lyrium, the "blood of the gods", becoming through the aeons into the "profane" creatures, that only endure hunger. Hence, they brought the attention of Hunger demons in a place where the Veil was already thin due to the experiments performed with Claws of Dumat. These profane creatures don't look similar to the abominations of the Red Templars, so we could assume that they only consumed blue lyrium and the corruption of it into red lyrium happened later.

As we continue exploring the Thaig, Varric recognises the last chamber as a Dwarven “Vault”, filled with many Claws of Dumat from which the red lyrium grows.  Here, we find a staff called Valdasine, which codex says that before the First Blight,  the Dwarven House called Valdasine provided lyrium to all the Empire. However, one day, they closed the doors of their Thaig and blocked communication with everyone. When the doors opened after a time, it was empty, no bodies were found, and there were no clues of what happened. From a design point of view, clearly the profane and this event must be connected: This thaig is the Valdasine’s Thaig, and the profane are all those families that were trapped here and forced to eat Lyrium. The age seems to coincide roughly: both events happened before the darkspawn existed. It's also worth noting that the presence of a staff implies that this Thaig had mages, since dwarven were unable to use magic. This reinforces the idea that Tevinter had a deep relationship with this Thaig in particular, and Tevinter mages were present here with some purpose [most likely, an experiment that required big amounts of Lyrium]. We have to remember that dwarves and Tevinter mages had shown another similar situation where Tevinter Mages experimented within dwarven Thaigs in Golems of Amgarrak. In it, a Tevinter mage was trying to recreate a fleshy alternative to Caridin's golems, crafting the mysterious Harvester.

In DAI game: The Fade

The second time we see the Claws are in the Fade of DAI. They appear at different times and contexts: In The Raw Fade - Part 1 among statues of the Free Marches eagle, implying a strong relationship of this artefact with Kirkwall. This may reinforce the idea we explored in DA2 in Kirkwall history and design and in particular with the Enigma of Kirkwall : It is likely that Kirkwall was where the breach to the Fade was done centuries ago, through blood sacrifice. This is also reinforced by the codex Claw of Dumat, where we learn that Corypheus trusted that this artefact would allow him to bring back Tevinter to its former glory.

In the section of the Fade that I called "The Tevinter Path" in The Raw Fade - Part 2 we find more Claws, implying that they were used in the process of reaching the gods that had gone silent. This event can be interpreted as the Magisters breaking into the Black City in the Fade physically.

In Flemeth’s Fade – Part 1 , we find another Claw in an intersection, where a statue of the Free Marches is shown in front of some Avvar Keepers of Fear. Again, this seems to represent the tumultuous history of the region of Kirkwall: Tevinter invaded natives of this place to build Emerius with a hidden purpose beyond the mere extraction of stones for the construction of the Imperial Highway [more details in Kirkwall history and design]

In DAI game: Fairel’s tomb

In the Hissing Wastes: Fairel tomb we find a Claw in one of the tombs, implying that the whole story of Fairel may have been related to Tevinter and its magisters as well. This makes sense if we remember that the Fairel were a clan specialised on Runecraft, and this art was used in the construction of Kirkwall. There is also a mention of runes/sigils that can only be seen from the Fade in the Heidrun Thaig in The Descent – The Sacrificial Gates of Segrummar.

The tomb where the claw appears displays a specific fragment of the story of Fairel:

Fairel, Paragon, fled from the strife his brilliance created, the strife that destroyed thaigs, sundered houses, from weapons that clan used against clan. His own clan and his two sons followed Fairel to the pitiless surface, the surface where they would hide from the war that took their home.

As we see, it is related to the exodus of Fairel and its causes: a weapon he developed, which provoked strife and destroyed clans. During this quest in DAI, we learn that this secret weapon is a kind of rune, but the game doesn't give it more importance later [it feels more because the rush of ending the game, than something lore-related]. This is the main reason why I think Fairel’s house, as runecrafters, may have helped magisters to develop Emerius [which is built following glyphs and runes patterns, for more details check Kirkwall history and design]. As a clan alone on the surface, during a time when most dwarves were underground, they may have relied on Tevinter or accepted any deal in order to survive.

There is clearly a link between the Fairel ruins and Corypheus: Corypheus knew about these forgotten ruins when nobody knew they were there, thus he commanded the Venatori to dig them and look for Fairel's particular weapon: a rune.

Also, the presence of Tevinter elements in this tomb must have been brought in the past, during the times of Corypheus when he was a human magister, since these ruins where not known by anyone until now: it was Corypheus who informed the Venatori about them. The Shaperate, the only other institution that may have had this knowledge, never knew about them since they “recorded Fairel as dead” as soon as he left the underground. So I think it’s reasonable to keep supporting the idea that this clan and these ruins were involved with the ancient Tevinters quite deeply.

In DAI game: DLC, the Descent

In The Descent – The Deep Roads we start the exploration of this region with a big Claw in the main room. It is flanked by two elven rounded trees in the dwarven style. This is already telling us that this Thaig, which predates the Blights, had Tevinter presence not only for trade: their blood ritual instruments had been incorporated to the decoration of the chambers of the Thaig Heidrun, built on a lyrium mine and then destroyed by and earthquake caused by unknown reasons [the stir of a woken-up Titan by an unknown event].  .

In front of the claw, there is a table with a game and a Dwarven stone-paintings that belongs to these strange paintings we found in Hissing Wastes: Fairel tomb, where we speculated that maybe represented Kirkwall, or another city Kirkwall-like.

Later, we find more Claws in another room where they are exposed in a way that implies worship. Since it's in here where the Tevinter bird appears, i will talk about this room later, in the Tevinter Bird section down below.

What do we know about the Claws of Dumat?

In the DAI Fade [ The Raw Fade - Part 1] we find an extremely juicy codex explaining about this artefact. The codex is written by Corpyheus’ slave who was sacrificed later. What we learn here is:

It implies that Corypheus has been developing different altars to “bring Tevinter to Glory” [Would that mean that the Tevinter bird is a prototype?].

We are informed that the Old Gods have been silent for a while and that has caused the loss of followers. This has been a source of fear in Corypheus. [This info is confirmed by Corypheus as well during Orlais: Shrine of Dumat]

This slave knows that Corypheus has been meeting with other “priests” to try to find a solution to the decline of the cult to the Old Gods. 

Corypheus took his name around the time the Tevinter Magisters entered the Golden City. So we can assume this is a narration very close to the time in which the Sidereal Magisters stepped into the Fade physically.

Corypheus knew that the old elves were tied to the Fade, and the mortal elves have something of that power in their blood, hence he wanted to use their blood for the ritual of entering the Fade.

The Claw of Dumat supports the victim on its top, with shackles, and seems to drip blood along the statue to a pool with runes. [Could these runes be a creation of Fairel?]

It is implied that Corypheus used little blood magic before the silence of the Old Gods. The loss of god's voice made him fall in despair.

These words were written and reflected/preserved in the Fade at the base of one of these Claws of Dumat we find just after we pass by some Free Marches eagles. Again, the presence of the Free Marches eagles around the Claws of Dumat may be a representation of Kirkwall, but it could also represent another thing, maybe related to the Tevinter bird.

The Tevinter Bird/Dragon

It is a metal statue of something that looks like a bird or a dragon. It could be the “Tevinter” style of the usual Kirkwall eagle, or something else that escapes me completely. If one is careless, these draconic-bird-like statues can be mistakes for Claws of Dumat, but they are not. They share the same style than the Claws: they are Tevinter, made of dark metal, in an angular and pointy shape.

When we compare it with the statue of Mythal dragon shape, we can see some similitude, as if it were the same one but in the pointy “Tevinter” style. Of course, if this were the case, this metallic representation of Mythal lacks of its iconic spike. 

In DA2 game

The first time we see this statue is in DA2, in the Primeval Thaig [read Primeval Thaig and Red Lyrium ], in a Chamber that Varric refers to as a Dwarven Vault but its key claims it to be a crypt. There are veins of red lyrium around these statues and around the Claws of Dumat.

In DAI game: Crestwood Caves

The next appearance is in Crestwood: Flooded Caves, at the entrance of a chamber of a Dwarven ruin.

This place seemed to be important, since it is decorated in this fashion. This entrance even has an illustration in the Book of Inquisition [image above], showing that these statues are placed at the side of the entrance completely on purpose. The position seems to be similar to Mythal statues we find in the elvhenan ruins or Temples.

In that illustration, however, we also see a big mask-face over them, reminding us those faces we saw in dwarven Thaigs in DAO, or in the Avril of Void. These faces always gave me the impression of being unconcious representations of the Titans within the dwarven culture.

Later on, I found a plaque close to this place, in a locked room, that seemed to imply this whole dwarven ruin was a route that connected Aeducan Thaig with Gundaar Thaig [another famous Thaig, and one of the first in falling under the darkspawn threat]. It’s interesting that the name Gundaar appears here, since it’s one of the three Thaigs that the lore considered lost and have been hiding curious developments [the other two are Kal-Sharok and Hormak, for more details read Orzammar, Witch Hunt, and The Horror of Hormak ].

In DAI game: Heidrun Thaig

The last appearance of the Tevinter bird was in DLC: The Descent – The Deep Roads where, despite the lack of information in a codex, we find a curious chamber in the Heidrun Thaig that may provide some insight.

The chamber in question seems to honour four statues: two Claws of Dumat and two Tevinter birds. This could have been a chamber of summoning or enhancing magic, since we know the Claws of Dumat were used with blood sacrifices to empower magic. So even though we don’t know what the Tevinter bird’s function could have been, the presence of the claws makes us infer that it may have been related to blood sacrifices and the process of breaching the Fade.

Another detail that supports this hypothesis is that, in this Thaig, blood magic has been performed long time ago: we meet an Arcane Horror in The Uncharted Abbys, Bastion of the Pure, who still performs blood magic with animal bodies [we find some dead animals that are still warm]. The curious detail is that this chamber has a lot of elvhenan objects: several inukshuk, an eluvian with the same frame that Merril's, and a statue of Humanoid Mythal. In the same chamber we also find one of the Tevinter sacrificial altars, which makes us suspect that Tevinter and Elvhenan knowledge have been fused in this place. That these elements appear in this part of the underground may be related to the fact that the Bastion of the Pure it's where we find the densest amount of lyrium [important component to cast powerful magic].

However, I'm not sure if we can assume this Arcane Horror is an ancient magister of that time. I’m more inclined to think that it is the father of the builder of The Sacrificial Gates of Segrummar, who needed to be in the Fade in order to see the sigil that is present in all this Thaig, apparently. 

Speculations about the Tevinter bird/dragon

The information we have collected in here is rather scarce. We can have a good understanding of the Claws of Dumat, but it's hard to extrapolate all that to the Tevinter bird. So, I developed several hypothesis:

It's a prototype of a Claw of Dumat

According to the codex of the Claws of Dumat, Corypheus had been working on different prototypes, so we can assume this Tevinter bird may have been one of those: a mere prototype. However, if it was so, why would it be present in Valdasine's Thaig? You don't use failed prototypes. Unless its presence, in combination with the Claws, is what makes the claws work.

It's something related to Emerius

Kirkwall always had an iconic metallic statue of an eagle [1, 2]. We can even say that the geometrical symbol of Kirkwall [7] looks like an eagle extending its wings [7] even though the origin of that symbol has a strong resemblance with the original symbol of Emerius: a raising dragon [7].

In the Viscount's Keep, we see different other representations of the eagle [2, 3, 5, 6]. The origin of [3] seems to be [4] which is a symbol closer to the Emerius style than the current, geometrical one, so this design detail tells me that this symbol may have belonged to the time of Emerius. The fact that the claws of Dumat appear in the Fade close to the [1] eagle statues may represent something. Maybe the original rising dragon represented in the Emerius symbol was hidden later in a bird-like figure?

Since the dark metallic eagle represents Kirkwall [or Emerius if we are talking about old times], this draconic/bird statue may be the representation of another city with similar characteristics than Emerius, maybe less important during the time of the Tevinter Empire glory.

This idea is also suggested when we find a Claw of Dumat in the first chamber of DLC: The Descent – The Deep Roads , where we see one of those Dwarven stone-paintings, which is neither the usual painting we saw along DAO, nor the usual one representing Kirkwall in DA2.

There is also a weird "bird" statue that we only see in DA2, that I talked about it in Xenon and his Black Emporium, depicted as a humanoid bird with chains that holds a mask on it. I can't bring a decent, non-conspiracy relationship between them, but it's the only bird-like statue I can think of through all the games. This weird statue appears in many houses of Kirkwall in DA2 [specially noticeable in Danarius house].

It's a Forgotten One which, as a dragon, was taken by the Tevinter interpretation as Dumat [or any other Old God]

In the way it is presented in the Vault of DA2, and considering it has a draconic shape to it, we can even speculate that this statue is a small representation of Dumat himself.

Hence, this statue is attached to big chunks of metal and close to the Claws of Dumat in that Vault as a mere decoration.

I like to play with the thought that it may be Myhtal [as I did in the beginning of this Tevinter Bird section]: I already talked about the speculation of Mythal being of double nature [Evanuris and Forgotten One, that the unreliable oral tradition of the Dalish lore twisted to give it to Fen'Harel, details in Speculations about the Vinyl Art or Dragon Age Iconic Patterns: The Sun], and the Forgotten Ones being dragons that were worshipped by the Elvhenan until they claimed their divinity [read more in Attempt to rebuild Ancient Elvhenan History]. In that moment on, they may have erased the ancient gods turning them into the forgotten ones, who escaped to the Abyss [which is related to the underground, where we know many dragons hibernate]. Therefore, there is a possibility that these forgotten dragons were taken later by the newly arrived humans [the Neomerians] who developed the cult of the Dragons, aka The Old Gods, being completely oblivious of the relationship that these creatures had with the Elvhenan, a civilisation they hated and despised. So that, they took the image of Mythal and considered it Dumat, and for that reason, they used this statue as a decoration to place around the Claws of Dumat.

The con of this interpretation is that it's not clear what kind of Dragon was the real Dumat-Archdemon which desolated the lands during the First Blight: was it truly Mythal? Another fragment of her? or was another Dragon? We already made a lot of speculations about the true Mythal being trapped in the Black City in the post Speculations about the Vinyl Art that makes this current speculation to falter.

Considering this horrible counter-argument, we could assume that maybe this is another Forgotten One that we have no name at all, but again, why would you put it close to the Claws of "Dumat" then?

Conclusion

It's clear that all speculations are pretty weak and lack of consistency to be considered seriously. For the moment, we know this statue exists, and may have some relationship with Tevinter, the Dwarves, and Emerius, even though we can't detail how that relationship is. Let's hope that future games, if they are not meant to destroy the DA lore, may give us some enlightenment on this matter.

[sh00kspeared]

ooohh tell me more about Orien!! I just started BG3 recently also so welcome to the club lol

Ahhh thank you so much for being interested in him, and glad to see another new BG3 fan!! ♥️♥️

He’s not fully fleshed out yet, but rn I’ve got a few things— he’s a tiefling named Orienes who changed his name to Orien after setting sail with a band of pirates when he got into a financial bind in his late teens.

Funny story, I was recently in a play production of treasure island, where I played both Billy Bones and then later a generic pirate after Billy’s death scene. To help develop my character, I decided my pirate would be named Orien and was the son of Billy Bones who defected from his family and joined Long John’s crew. Since closing night was recently and I was sad to have to give up my character, I decided to immortalize him and turn him into my BG3 character, so a lot of his backstory is inspired by treasure island.

That being said, he spent his time burgling on the high seas. He lost all sight in his left eye after being given a magical artefact by a man he’d made enemies with years ago, which cursed him with blindness. (Inspired somewhat by the black spot from treasure island). He was able to destroy the item before his right eye was affected but began wearing an eye patch after his left eye grew pitch black and started spreading a magical ‘infection’ to the rest of his face and to the side of his neck. Luckily it didn’t continue growing and hasn’t seemed to have done much besides destroying his vision and causing the occasional dull throb in his head. Here’s a picture of the curse:

He later lost partial sight in his right eye after being slashed during a swordfight and now has trouble with his peripheral vision as well as being somewhat nearsighted. This is why he tends to favor stealth, ranged attacks, and magic— especially magic— he calls upon magical forces which help him tune into his non-visual senses, which allow him to still fight well despite his disability.

Orien’s crew broke up after the whole lot were captured by a rival band of human pirates who wholeheartedly believed that tieflings were devil spawns. They tortured him for three days; broke both of his horns and cut off the tip of his tail— before they could continue their torture, though, he managed to break free and decided to give up piracy once and for all, unable to deal with the trauma any longer. (Blind eye and broken horn visible here; still trying to get mods figured out which is why his eye curse isn’t visible in the pic and why only one of his horns is broken).

Flash forward to the events of the game. His past has greatly influenced his current beliefs and behavior. While he does harbor some internal bitterness toward humans due to many humans’ hatred of his kind, he’s also vowed to himself to never wreak violence on someone solely for who they are (though he does have a tendency to be defensive of tieflings in particular). He has no problem with stealing and killing, but does have a soft spot for children and animals.

Now, this man is so touch starved that he starts crushing on Astarion simply because he secretly loved how intimate the experience of having his blood get drunk for the first time felt, but eventually he started to actually fall in love and became enthralled by Astarion’s charm and flamboyancy.

I’m not far enough along to know much more, but I’m really loving Orien so far and am super excited to start Astarion’s romance lmao.

(More pics. And again, mods are wonky which is why both of his horns are intact in the last pic).

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 141 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: mowing the lawn.

JON: “Any better?” BASIRA: [Nauseously] "Not really." As much as I grew to dislike Basira in S4, she has my deepest sympathy here. I'm suffering from severe kinetosis and this shit sucks. Affects me almost everyday. Whenever movement and visual information don't meticulously match up - boom, nauseous! And it takes forever to subside...

JON: "Mikaele Salesa. You used to work on his ship.” SHIPHAND (FLOYD): "I don’t know you." JON: [Archly] "But I know you." Jon does sound quite hungry here... like neglected animal kind of hungry...

"It wasn’t a problem, not really" Not really-counter of S4: 7! (btw. for this I'm only counting the not reallys which emphasize a preceding negating sentence. Not when it’s coming up in a sentence itself or as an answer like Basira’s not really in the first bullet point.)

Seriously, the way Floyd portrays Salesa here makes me want to work for him xD Treating his crew well, doesn't threaten them... I have a soft spot for (criminal) characters who treat others with dignity and respect. That's why I also love Gustavo from Breaking Bad so much.

"My last voyage with him was the one that killed him. Seven years ago; I still have nightmares sometimes. Tried to escape it, but some things follow you no matter where you go." Hmm... What did Gertrude say? "Whatever nightmares your experiences left you with, I’m sure they won’t be bothering you much longer."

"I’ve gone over that memory so many times, trying to think what I might have missed, but even now, whenever I think of it, it just looked like an old camera with a broken lens." Oh, the foreshadowing! When I was on my first listen I remembered the artefact itself when Salesa talked about it in MAG 181. But I absolutely could not remember in which statement it was mentioned then.

"But there was something else. In the light of the flashing storm I could clearly see the waters around the island, and there was something there. A huge shape, a shadow surrounding it on all sides; getting darker, getting closer, coming up from deep, deep below the surface. It must have been huge, so large that the edge of it almost touched the ship, and had we been a few minutes slower I have no doubt whatever awful thing emerged that night, it would have taken us as well." I don't quite understand this bit. Huge creature, lightning, clearly Vast. It always sounded to me like that camera was keeping that thing in check, suppressed, since it only emerged after the camera was taken. But I don't think the camera blocks out all Fears, at least of what we'll hear in MAG 181. Annabelle for example, she's only being kept alive by the Web and yet she is very much not dead. And Salesa says there was once an insect of the Corruption finding its way into his bubble, that also clearly wasn't repelled. So was this manifestation of the Vast the keeper, protector? of the camera and emerged to express its anger or to try to get it back?

"He wasn’t making much sense. We managed to gather the two of them had left early to deliver the artefact, but something had gone wrong. There had been an argument. They had been betrayed. Salesa was dead." If you don't see a character die directly, there's always a chance they didn’t!

JON: "It’s alright, Floyd. You just… need a break." FLOYD: "Yeah… Sure.” So uhhh... The compulsion doesn't not only make people answer questions, whether being simple answers or an entire statement, it also order people to do things?

JON: "He didn’t exactly seem inclined to volunteer the information. Besides, you said I needed to be ready for Ny-Alesund. “Full power” I believe were your words. The statement helped." BASIRA: "And now he’s going to see you in his dreams as he relives that for the rest of his life. Because… because a tape recorder told you to do it?" JON: "Yes, Basira, he is. And I am sorry about that. But we needed it. Anyway you’re the one who wants to be like Gertrude. You think she’d give a damn about a few bad dreams?" BASIRA: "No." Yep Basira, check your priorities... Basira said Gertrude was the only person who got things done, but now that approach doesn’t sit with her either? And Basira said to bring the spooks, so better charge up the spooks.

JON: "No. She got the job done, and didn’t care about the cost." BASIRA: "But I thought you did." She got Jon there, still doesn't change anything about Basira's hypocrisy though.

JON: "I had to know, Basira." BASIRA: "It wasn’t right." JON: "You could have stopped me. … But you wanted to know as well, didn’t you?" Haha, got her right back! Good! Also, another example that Basira is clearly Eye-aligned.

@a-mag-a-day

[moonisthedoor]

i am still not over the fact that OOTD mirrors the Protocol arc so well... it's an explicitly parallel world from the usual Dreamcatcher universe, with ties to Deja Vu era which in itself was a parallel world and a special album. its main antagonist is/powers the artefact of desire that gives its bearer power and many people wish to obtain it. the title track is about being so high up you're untouchable, all that you wish for is in your hands. "celebrate, elevate, visualize, hypnotize". in Rising – "first plan is activated, you're already invited". I'm SICK

[whencyclopedia]

Behind the Scenes: Acquiring Images for the Encyclopedia

IMAGES are an obviously important aspect of a modern encyclopedia and, for this reason, our editors - both full-time and volunteer, dedicate quite a lot of their time to search for, upload, and describe images to illustrate WHE’s articles. We tend to publish two new articles every day and a text of around 3,000 words requires at least six images, both to help the reader visualise aspects of the subject and also to make the webpage visually appealing and not simply present a wall of text. 

The title image of an article is particularly important in enticing people to read the text, especially so on Social Media posts but also as a thumbnail preview on the encyclopedia itself. We need images of a sufficient resolution and our editors must bear in mind that a landscape format typically works better than a vertical one, and that posts on places like Facebook and Twitter tend to crop images at the top and bottom. This latter consideration, if neglected, can lead to readers seeing the midriff of a statue instead of the face, or a stretch of brilliant blue sky but not the monument beneath it. We also like to choose images that reflect a monument or artefact in natural conditions. A night shot of the Colosseum can look wonderful but it is not necessarily helpful to someone who wants to see the different architectural orders used in each level of the amphitheatre.    

The encyclopedia really has two ways of acquiring images. One is for editors to search the internet to find good-quality images that can be legally republished. Those two requirements are not quite as easy as they sound. Many of the most striking images we come across cannot be used because photographers have copyrighted them and they cannot be republished for any purpose without paying a fee, a fee which WHE cannot really afford given the number of images we require each week for new content. We would also much prefer to publish images that can be reused by readers provided they are not for commercial use. This allows teachers and students to freely use our images in class or for homework and assignments without any problems. 

Fortunately, as a registered non-profit organisation and educational website, we can legally republish images that many other websites cannot. This is particularly true for museum websites. Being able to republish high-quality images from, say, the British Museum, London or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is a great help to our work. These sites have the additional advantage that their image descriptions are very informative and reliable.    

A second way to acquire images is to receive them from volunteer photographers and our own staff. Some of our volunteers travel extensively and they are a great source of images of unusual places. Our own staff, naturally, have a strong passion for history and in their free-time and holidays, many members of the WHE team take photographs of archaeological sites, buildings, and museum artefacts that can be useful for the encyclopedia.

The advantage of having a photographer who knows their history is that we get very useful images that can be difficult to otherwise acquire. Finding a free-to-use image of the Parthenon on the web is not very difficult but finding images of rare objects like a Roman key, Egyptian comb, or Korean roof tile is a whole different challenge. As the encyclopedia publishes many articles on daily life topics such as food, clothing, entertainments and so on, finding suitable images for these texts can be a challenge. Often, the artefacts we need to illustrate these kinds of subjects are the ones that most people pass over in a museum and so they rarely appear on the internet. Consequently, having photographers upload these kinds of images not only helps our editors but also helps differentiate WHE from other history websites. We hope you the readers enjoy looking at the images we publish!  

Photos by: Diliff, Jan van der Crabben and Carole Raddato.

[ccohanlon]

castaway: an interview

Traveller and diarist C.C O’Hanlon spent most of the first half of his life at sea aboard a variety of vessels until marriage, children, and ill health held him ashore. He has come to think of himself as a ‘castaway’.

Now in his late 60s, C.C. is still as restless as he was in his youth. During the past decade he has wandered ceaselessly, from Australia to France, Germany, the U.K., Morocco, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Recently, he has come to rest on the Salento Peninsula, in southern Italy, where he and his wife of 33 years, Given, are restoring a 200-year-old limestone village house.

C.C. was one year old when he first went to sea, a long voyage to Italy from Australia aboard an old Italian immigrant ship, accompanied by his parents. He became a qualified sea navigator in his early 20s. He funded the building of a small yacht of his own by delivering other people’s yachts and writing and photographing for UK and North American yachting magazines.

He has the hard-shelled demeanour, brawny bulk, and gnarled, bearded features of an old salt but C.C. is a surprisingly thoughtful, informed observer of nature and an expressive writer. Earlier this year, the respected Dutch publisher, Thomas Rap, announced that it had commissioned him to write a non-fiction book about the sea and his uncomfortable relationship with settlement and the shore.

It felt entirely appropriate that we should connect by email from seas at opposite ends of the European continent — me by the Baltic in Jurmala, Latvia, he by the Adriatic, in Puglia, Italy.

How did you become a castaway?

I stumbled ashore, somewhat damaged, in my 30s and let others convince me it was time to settle. Big mistake. I ended up rootless, a nomad, more unsettled than I had been at sea. I’ve been stranding ever since on a series of different shores.

Which has been your favourite voyage so far?

My very first passage alone in a very small yacht from the island of Jersey, in the English Channel, to Crosshaven on the south coast of Ireland, a distance of about 290 sea miles. This was in the mid ‘70s, before everyone had GPS. I had a couple of compasses, a wristwatch, a radio receiver, a barometer, and an old sextant I was teaching myself to use. Paper charts. Hardly any safety gear.

It wasn’t an epic voyage. I was very inexperienced. It took about three days. But when I finally made landfall, I felt like I had mastered some arcane craft, an ancient magic. I could find my way across a featureless sea.

What challenges are there in leading a life as a castaway?

For me, living close to the sea — being aware of its presence, being alert to its constantly changing state — and yet being frustrated, often, because I’m unable to actually get out there on it.

I miss voyaging.

What inspires you?

Unusual young people, like Hannah Lily Stowe, whom you’ve featured here. And certain solitary, rarely remarked upon, but rather extraordinary people who live (and voyage) at the margins, like Kris Larsen and Nick Skeates.

Also maps. Or, more specifically, nautical charts, maps of the sea. I have, maybe, a couple of hundred of them, many more than half a century old. I read them as I would a book.

A chart is a wondrous artefact.. At first glance, it’s just an annotated image of a stretch of water and its littoral, a repository of essential data. But a chart is filled with history, geography, oceanography, metereology and several hundred years of maritime lore and experience, all conveyed in a visual language that has evolved over centuries.

A chart can pique your curiosity about the physical world: the magnetic anomalies of the north-east Pacific, say, or the inshore canyons of the Atlantic coast of Portugal, which can form waves that reach a hundred feet in height. Or it might draw you into a real-life adventure up the Congo, the world’s deepest and maybe most mysterious river.

Is there a book about the sea that you would suggest to read?

There are two:

My childhood favourite was Arthur Ransome’s We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, published in 1937. I wish more kids would read it these days and imagine themselves sailing the tiny Goblin without adult supervision across the grey North Sea.

The other is The Starship And the Canoe, an unusual double biography of a famed physicist who dreamed of designing massive, improbably powered rocket-ships and sending them on manned voyages to Mars, and his son who lived in a tree, in between voyaging in hand-built, sea-going kayaks along the north-west Pacific coast, from Canada to Alaska.

What does the sea mean to you?

Possibilities! Every encounter with the sea is different. Nothing there is fixed or immutable, nothing is ever the same. When you venture out into it, you can never be sure what to expect and that element of uncertainty — of expectancy, of risk — is at the heart of sea-faring.

The sea always provides powerful experiences, whether it’s excitement, wonder, awe, puzzlement, terror, misery, tedium, frustration, longing, self-doubt, deep satisfaction, loneliness, or enlightenment — but never quite when or how you might expect them.

You can never take the sea for granted — it might, after all, take your life — and whatever you get from it, good or bad, savour it, no matter what.

First published in The Sea Library magazine, Latvia, as part of a series, When I Grow Up, edited by Anna Iltnere, 2021.

[lowkeyclueless5137]

Winx Club au(S1)

Alright! But hear me out!

Like I have the creative zoomies(again) and I brainroted this for DAYS! Like you have no idea how on point I nailed everything.

Except visuals... We are here for the plot... :'3

I will accept any kind of visual suggestions tho... Plot too if you have :3

Anyway! I put the title! You know it: Winx Au!

Bc why not? Why tf shouldn't I smush together these 2 pieces of media that I like?

Anyway! We will have A LOT to cover... Because, much to the horror of moi, we will have 6 seasons. Like, if you know winx or were in the Fandom, you know the mixed opinions that started after season 3. It's just... A lot...

Even so, I enjoyed way too much the concepts and themes of the later seasons that I... Kinda forgot about plot? Shocking, I know...

Although season 7 was way too painful to watch and that's where I dropped everything and went my merry way. U-U9

Anyway! With that out of the way, we will dive into this Au, but first, some disclaimers:

I WILL go into more darker themes. Maybe Winx had a lighter tone, but it did go dark a few times. And I will go and shove it in even darker pits.

There will be swearing, much like violence... Because I need it for plot purposes.

This Au will start IN PARALLEL with Winx S1. So if you see mentions of og winx characters, locations or artefacts, you know why. I will also neglect season 7 and 8. Which means that for me, lore wise, will be irrelevant. I say this, because I will use lore aspects up until season 6, therefore it's just the bare necessities :3

At one point, the winx time-line and this au's time-line will meet up. So you should expect even a meeting in between the og winx and our group. :3c

Now, with that out of the way, we will go under ✨the cut✨ for it!

To start off: world lore.

Twisted wonderland was a planet full of magic. Unfortunately, due to political reasons, this planet didn't want to abide by the rest of Magix's quite tight rules and regulations, therefore it wasn't granted as many benefits as the other planets who agreed upon them. The primary reason was, of course: there has to be one singular royal family ruling over the whole planet. Twisted wonderland had multiple monarchies, democracies, republics and everything. And it was clear neither of them wanted to cojoin and be ruled by a single entity.

What was very special about twisted wonderland, was it's diversity in magic and how open it was. While it was very diverse, quite the array of categories of magic being able to be accessed, it was more or so notable that the common folk either didn't have magic affinities, or very weak magic, to the point they don't unlock even the base forms. Those people are called: stagnants, and could follow just primary magical courses at the very least.

Some notable institutes training people are:

NRC- an all boys school for fairies. Founded by the great 7, NRC is a 4 year boarding-school, whith a riguros training system. You can only boast about being in NRC after you passed in your 3rd year, because the exams are means of expulsion on their own.

RSA- the infamous specialists School. It trains magicless people into becoming knights and guards. It is quite renowned for it's 4 year training and great knights who could handle difficult situations.

NBC- the school of witches and wizards. Mostly known for it's long history and the very notable positive figures it housed. Despite training students into the dark arts, many came out to be protectors of their homelands or serving for good.

Now, for the first season:

We follow Jack. Jack was a Beastman, coming from a magicless family. His family had a very weak connection with magic since countless generations. But that didn't really stop Jack from living his life. He was a normal guy. That's all about him.

Alright, maybe not so normal, since he was close friends with the raising star in acting and modeling: Vil Schonenheit. Vil was known to be a fairy in training, just like his father, grandparents and so on. But Vil was also nice and always made time to go outside and hang out with Jack, so Jack really didn't think Vil was bad like the villain he was always portrayed in movies or plays.

But even so, Jack was never ready when he first discovered he could do magic. It was something more of a heat of the moment: his younger siblings were in danger, falling from a tree they climbed, so Jack, in a panic, summoned a layer of magic snow that cushioned their fall. It was clear he was the source, because it was the middle of the summer then.

With that, Jack really had his world rocked from it's feet. Vil just started his first year at NRC at that time, so he really wasn't sure if he should lay this news on his friend.

Nonetheless, Vil was excited when he heard the news. Jack was a terrible liar, so he figured he should fess up rather than hide it. Vil, obviously, was very happy and expected for his buddy to come to NRC with him. To assure he will get picked up, Vil would train Jack over the holidays, trying to get a grip on his powers before going into school.

Vil managed to get into his 3rd year when Jack finally got accepted and got in as a first year. Unfortunately for him, Vil did tell him that now that he was in his 3rd year, he would have to work even harder, so the best they could do is to text each other and maybe they could hang out sometime.

So Jack stepped in NRC, with a rough idea of how things work and clearly ready to learn more.

Vil told him about the sorting ceremony, so Jack really didn't expect to be so gloomy. When he thought about the fairies, he saw them so colorful and sparkly. Even so, someone did grab him, explaining that it's a metaphor for the butterflies process. They start as gloomy caterpillars before gaining their wings.

That someone was none other than a short boy with hair made out of blue flames. Jack was surprised of the hair, but the boy, named Ortho, was thrilled to meet another first year. He really hoped to be sorted for the Ignihyde courses. At that, Jack really didn't understand.

Ortho explains it to him: there are 7 courses, meant to train a future fairy in one of the 7 virtues the founders had. Each course has it's unique perks and special places on campus.

The 7 courses were:

The Heartslabyul course-focused mainly on a little bit of everything. It's a course that relies heavily on the rule abiding. A fairy must always aim to solve a problem without breaking rules or morals, which can affect their magic as well. Their special aera was the rose garden, where the students could relax or maditate. Jack noted that it would be a great course for him. He wanted to practice everything.

The Savanaclaw course- a course that relies mostly on limited use of magic. It trains fairies to be proficient even without magic, making it the best course in training great guards. They just never give up no matter what. Their perk was unlimited access to the sports grounds. Ortho said that even if he was energetic, he wouldn't stand a chance in there. He's a couch potato unfortunately. :'3

The Octavinelle course- they are courses mostly aimed at one's inner peace. Since the state of the mind also affects fairies, Octavinelle students are known to be always with their feet on the ground and able to deal very easy with spells that require a more deep understanding of oneself. Ortho wouldn't call it really a perk, but there is a cafe on campus that Octavinelle fully runs it. They also have an aera of the library allocated to them only.

The scarabia course- it's very popular for their focus on resources. These students are fairies who can easily use their environment to their advantage. Apparently their perk is access to a lot of supplementary courses outside. They could just crash in other course's expedition outside and be totally fine with it. Jack really didn't know what to say, but Ortho reassured that apparently the scarabia fairies are quite chill.

The poemfiore course- it's a course focused on antidotes and curses management. Their main perk is unlimited access to herbs and ingredients that are cultivated on the school grounds. Although they are also renowned for their impeccable looks and manners. Ortho did say that perhaps he could fit the bill for it, while Jack mentioned he had a friend in there.

The Ignihyde course- a course focused primarily on magic and technology. Since there is magic tech, the Ignihyde fairies can merge magic with tech flawlessly. There are many technological fairies in there, although there are also a few exceptions. Their perks aren't that known, but they have the underground workshops, where they can invent or tinker with whatever they please. Ortho said that his big brother is there, so he hopes to get also in there. Jack didn't really feel like he had a knack for tech, so he really didn't know what to say.

Then, the last one, Diasomnia- the practical magic course. Not only is the course where one of the most powerful fairies are coming, it is also a course with a lot of perks: status, more optional courses, meditation places and also a personal library section. It's the course that outshines everyone. Ortho did say that he hoped he wouldn't end up with a jerk from there in the dorm. Jack just awkwardly looks in the other part.

Ortho also mentioned that apparently the dorms are mixed. So there is a fair chance that even if they end up in different courses, they could still be roommates. Jack also hoped that, because ortho was literally the only 1st year he knew.

They do get sorted by the dark mirror. An odd name, but Jack didn't question it.

He ended up in Savanaclaw. And Ortho ended up in Ignihyde.

Jack was of course guided towards a senior: Ruggie. He presented himself as the prefect of the Savanaclaw course. A prefect, as Ruggie put it, was a student who excels in their courses while also embracing the virtues of the founder the course is based of. As a prefect, Ruggie had a job of overseeing the savanaclaw students. Mostly to guide the first years and nudge them into adapting. He also explained the school main rules to them, which Jack took a big note of:

-do not be off the campus after 22.

-do not smuggle in dangerous curses/artefacts.

-do not cross the restricted sections of the school.

3 big rules. Of course, there are the minor rules also, but these 3 are the ones that immediately get you expulsion.

Ruggie also gave to everyone, one by one, their programs and dorm keys. Thankfully Ruggie was the kind soul who smuggles in a map for the first years, so they won't get lost, then pushed them on their merry way to the dorms.

It took some mad orientation skills and also a small meeting with Vil, before Jack finally found his dorm.

And it was a mess.

The dorm itself was pretty big, considering it had 3 supposed bedrooms, all connected through a small lounge. It was very spacious. But it had things sprawled around, 2 guys arguing, one of them on the coffee table, and 2 literally throwing books and pillows at each other.

Oh and Ortho was there. He seemed to be texting someone when he saw Jack and happily approached him.

It took a bit to calm down and finally get around with intros and everything. There were 2 bedrooms, each with 2 beds and everyone was already pre-determined.

In the first room- Deuce Spade from Heartslabyul and Sebek Zigvolt from Diasomnia.

Second room- Jack and Ortho

Third room- Epel Felimer from poemfiore and Ace Trappola from Heartslabyul.

And for now, things seemed quite awkward, with everyone settling in at their own pace then sleeping.

The first few days were also awkward. Everyone had their own courses and still had to get to know each other, which was a bit hard. Still, for the sake of coherence, Jack tried his best to bring everyone together to bond.

Which leads them to a weekend hangout through the Sage city. Gradually, they had fun together, went to a cafe, arcade and walked through the streets, bonding. It seemed to do wonders as now they were all comfortable enough to crack jokes in between them.

But their fun moment is cut short when they happen to overhear a very sus conversation on an alleyway. Being the bastards they were, despite Jack, Deuce and Sebek being against it, the 6 of them decide to snoop a bit on the convo.

They overhear 2 people, cloaked from head to toe, talking about finding some sort of key. One of them seemed quite impatient as the other reassured that until they find the key, that a stone they showed should do the trick. Ortho recognised it as a black magic stone, which got the group to worry.

Sage Island was very known to heavily rely on fairy magic, also dubbed as white magic. Black magic is used sometimes in here, but if it's used to affect the land, the island itself won't stand, since it's core is made out of fairy magic. At least that's what Epel explained to the group in whispers.

Their little cover is blown anytway, because they couldn't be discret to save their lives, so due to this, the 2 people summon a monster made out of trash, meant to dispose of them, while they fleed.

And rightfully, being the fledgling fairies they were, this group was absolute shit at it. Everyone tries to be leader and everyone is crashing one against each other. It doesn't help that only 4 out of 6 could actually transform. (Jack and Ace) which left 2 more vulnerable.

In the end, Jack comes up with a plan to defeat the monster and actually rolling with it, assuring them as the winners of the fight, while the monster returned to trash piles. But they made a mess out of it, so now they hurried back to NRC to just get a shower and talk about it, since maybe they were tired, but sleep was the last thing on their worry list.

Except that they get caught up by Ruggie. They came in late, but seeing how they were looking like shit, Ruggie decides to close an eye for the meantime, with the promise of not happening again. They didn't go that much over the curfew, so he could just assume they got lost on their way back.

At their dorm, the 6 of them gathered together after cleaning up and getting some comfy pijamas and decided to discuss about it.

Epel says that he is the fairy of earth, hence why he felt a slight disturbtion in the earth magic from here when the monster was summoned. That monster clearly wasn't a being with life and mind of it's own as Ortho put it, but their next dilema was: What was the deal with those 2 people?

Ace suggests that maybe they should leave it and mind their own business. Deuce said that he is worried about the monster returning, or even worse, more of them coming. Sebek was wondering what kind of key were those people looking for. Epel had mixed feelings about it, while Ortho was insisting to look into it.

Jack suggested to tell some authorities about it, which gained a flat no. They didn't know how the individuals looked like, nor did the monster they fought got caught by the public. They could be considered to be bluffing for clout, so for now, this stood in between them.

The conclusion: no one would believe the without evidence.

So in the spirit of their unanimous decision of investigating, Ace suggests a group name for them. They were kind of like a team so names were suggested around. The final draft was: Requix squad. It sounded sick by Epel's standards, so they decided that this was their group name.

So they start their investigation. Looking around for clues about what the key was meaning, watching the news, discovering that more and more monster attacks were spotted, thankfully the specialists and fairies were there in time. And of course, attending the courses and triaing to unlock their fairy forms or more power.

Early on, they get introduced to the concept of fairy forms: there are 2 main forms: base form and enchantix. In the first year, students are meant to learn the bases, including control of their base form. The 2nd year students are meant to unlock charmix, a power up for their base form, meant to signal them getting closer to enchantix. And by the final of their 3rd year, they have to get enchantix, so that on the 4th year they could properly train to be guardian fairies.

And like that, our Requix squad is very vexed about it. Ortho had an idea what that stone they saw could be, but he still had to do some research and confirm his worries before sharing a possibly flawed theory.

During this, Jack has Leona, his practical magic teacher, noticing his lack of attention. He does confront him about it. Maybe it was just the start of the year, but Leona could see that Jack was a vigilent kid, so him looking so troubled must've been because something happened. Rightfully, Leona assumes it's because Jack is a late bloomer with magic and all these monster attacks that leave the first year fairies to learn combat more early.

So Leona tries to reassure Jack that he needs to put more mind on his own self and only then he will be able to connect with his magic more.

Meanwhile, Ace has a nightmare. One that ends up waking Epel as well, the 2 having a talk about it.

Ace tells Epel that he saw something bad. A big monster, dark tunnels, and the same cloaked figure from the alley, hidden in the shadows. Epel wasn't the best at comforting, but he did his best. In the morning, Ace didn't share about it with the others, everyone assuming he just didn't sleep that well.

Meanwhile, Jack catches Ortho trying out a dark magic spell. When asking about it, Ortho realises that he has to fess up to the truth: he was half witch, mainly from his mother's side. Since the Shrouds had the heirloom of the first born to be the fairy of death, Ortho's big brother, Idia, gained that title, along with being a full fledged fairy, even if he did cary some faith traces of dark magic, those didn't affect him. Meanwhile, Ortho inherited both fairy and witch magic, making it hard to control and sometimes, his own body can't take it, manifesting as dizzy spells or even fainting when one of the sides takes over. So far, Ortho took many precautions, but he just can't pursue one side of him without feeling the repercussions, so sometimes he tries dark magic spells to balance it out.

Jack is a bit taken aback by it, but Ortho pleaded for him to tell no one. Jack had no option but to comply and help Ortho out with his little problem, mainly by helping with the research about the stone.

And they finally come with a rough idea. What that stone was, could it be a gloomix stone. The others are a bit confused, but Ortho tells them that gloomix is a witch form. Just like charmix is for a fairy, gloomix is a powerup for a witch's base form. Except that while charmix comes from making personal amends with oneself, gloomix is made through taking dark magic straight from a power source or given to you by a more powerful entity.

This leads them to search more about where could the gloomix stone could come from. They discover some aincent tunnels, so while everyone is asleep, the 6 sneak out and find a hidden entrance to the tunnels right behind a statue on the school hall.

Ace does become uneasy, saying to Epel that it was just like in his dream, which also got Epel a bit uneasy. They are exploring a bit the place, using an enchanted paper to map it out.

Thankfully for them, they find a big door. One under many locks. An idea coming from Sebek was to use a convergence spell. They were all a bit skeptical, but if they find something useful in there, they could pinpoint the one behind the monsters and finally report it to the authorities. Heck, maybe they could gain some nice grades out of it. It wasn't unheard of extra credits or good grades from fulfilling a very difficult problem/mission.

The convergence spell is wonky, not working at first. But a second time has all of the group finally coming to a comune agreeement: they need to open that door. They are a group and nothing can stop them!

And it works! The locks are down and the doors open.

And the place? A big library. Lots of stairs, both tall and deep, filled with rows and rows of books. There were also floating platforms going up and down as on the walls, different murals were painted.

They decide to go down instead of up, finding at the bottom, after a hell lot of stairs, some tables, armchairs and couches. There was also a big Cauldron in one side, some utensils and many more things, yet the most interesting of it was a crystal ball.

Jack nudges Ortho to do something with it, but the latter doesn't want. Instead, Sebek pokes it, wondering what it is. The ball does seem to light up and shake with life as from there, a spirit of a man in a lot of robes presents itself.

Also a cat, which immediately slaps Sebek for poking the ball. :'3

The man presents himself as Trein, the spirit of the aincent library. He thought that this place was locked, as no one really got on. The group is pretty quick to say that it was fairly easy to get in, because they did a convergence spell. Trein was a bit skeptical, since the convergence spell had to have both light and dark magic to open all the locks.

It brings a bit of suspicion among the group, Ortho growing uneasy and Jack trying his best to divert the situation towards their goal: finding the truth about the monster attacks. Trein couldn't help them that much, only show them present events through the crystal ball. Lucius however, could find for them any book they desire.

The group contemplates for a bit, before finally telling what they want: a book on monster making. Lucius finds it quite quick and gives it to them, starting to skimm through it and try to find what kind of monster did they encounter then.

It was found out that it was actually a simple type of dark magic spell, a monster made out of environment objects. Therefore their foe wasn't someone that powerful. Maybe they were even on par with them.

But their little research moment gets stopped when they hear a roar outside. Lucius reports to Trein that some sort of beast is trying to break into the library. The group decides to fight it, because that might be their next big clue after all.

In the fight, Ace and Jack also unlock their own fairy base forms. The monster doesn't get defeated that easily, leaving a few wounds on the group, who had to rest a bit in the library.

But, they managed to defeat it in the end. And fortunately, this monster leaved behind something: a wilted flower. It must've been created from that flower in question, so maybe they could find another big clue.

Trein seems quite pleased with the group in question. Maybe everything seemed a bit of a haze, all on the run and bearly they got a month since their started school, but Trein saw some potential in them. So he decided to test them: he gives them a riddle and they will have to bring him the answer to it. The library will only be open to them and them alone, so they shouldn't worry if the monster would return. To find the library again, Trein entrusted them with a magic bottle, that it will show them where the library is when unbottled. They only have 1 chance after all, so they all should think the riddle through.

As for the riddle:

You can't see, smell or hear me,

You feel me at your worst,

You know me at your best,

You, alone, can't have me,

I will be your power and your weakness.

What am I?

So the first years are left to sneak back to their dorm and contemplate.

Except that the next day, after classes, everyone is called for an emergency roll call. As it turns out, the island is suffering consequences of the dark magic monsters being more and more by the day. And so, it was mandatory for NRC and the locals to have some dark magic detectors around. Those were put a few days ago.

And already they went off a few times, getting everyone to realise that someone in this school was secretly a witch. This qualified as a traitor, given the circumstances.

And so, it comes to each group of students to be interrogated under the detector. Of course, knowing just how they got the library seal down, our group is a bit uneasy and also suspicious of each other. They tried to contemplate any kind of last minute plan to escape it, but so far, nothing came to them.

And of course, the detector goes off on them. In front of everyone. Of course, Crowley, the headmaster, gives them the option to fess up who's the witch or all of them to face expulsion and also be handed to the police for further investigations.

And Jack, desemned leader of the group, has no other option than to fess up that Ortho was half a witch. He tried to defend him, saying that Ortho couldn't have done such a thing, but everyone was obviously shocked and more or so disgusted by this.

Thankfully, before Crowley could do a decree, a student raises up, while the other leave for their dorms. That was Idia, very notable by his fire hair. When he goes to Crowley, the detector also goes off. Idia explains to Crowley. Since they remained alone, Idia has more courage to explain that because of their mother being a very powerful witch, both Idia and Ortho have traces of dark magic. It's not much, but enough to have the detectors go off. The monsters that plagued the city were getting more powerful, sign that perhaps gloomix could be involved, which Ortho clearly didn't have.

Also Idia pointed something out, that the Shrouds have a unique trace of magic, which would've let anyone know that a creation spell was done by them, mainly the 'heart of flame'. As an example, Idia himself creates a creature, which notably has a blue flame around it's chest. It easily dissappeared, but it did prove the case.

Crowley buys into it and leaves the group off the hook for now. But if they ever slip up again, he will have to take more drastic measures. For now, Idia is guiding them back to their dorm.

And rightfully, on the halls, Idia warns them. He saw them last night sneaking around. He is aware that they are mingling where they shouldn't, so he tells them to stay put.

He just doesn't want to repeat 'the incident' again.

Back at the dorm, everyone is silent. It was clear that Jack was aware of Ortho's secret and still, it felt like a betrayal. Ortho doesn't try do defend his case, but Ace is the one that breaks the silence.

Idia was going to save their asses anyway so Jack didn't have to just rat out a secret he was entrusted with. Jack tries to defend himself, saying that he didn't know about Idia having an intervention, even so, Epel adds that it's just fucked up that the headmaster was gonna hand them all on the police hands just for that. Deuce points out that now they all have big targets on their back and probably the culprit is happy they have a cover.

Sebek booms in, saying that they must find the true perpetuator, because this now is personal. The headmaster was truly too hurried with this thing, so something had to be up with it. They were 1st years, it was easy to weed them out. If perhaps they were 3rd years or more influencial, then it would've been harder to come up with a proper motive.

So now, Jack just puts his foot down. They are in this shit together. They have an advantage: the library. They need to figure out that riddle, find the object that is the answer, unmask the culprit and clear their name. Now it's the best time to just fess up everything that is on the plate. No more secrets and then they can work this shit together.

So they gather up in their lounge, with pillows and blankets. Sebek conjured a stick they called 'the stick of talky', so they started to pass it around.

Jack didn't have any secrets he hid from them. He was the fairy of snow apparently, which was also new to him, he tries to get around everything and hopes he can just get to the bottom of this.

Ace gets the stick, revealing that he is the fairy of tarot, which puts him in the future seeing fairies, quite the taboo type. His brother was the fairy of matchmaking, a graduate of NRC and Ace hopes to surpass his brother one day to gain more than just 'the little brother' title.

When it's Epel's turn, he says that he wants to be manly, not a cute sparkly ass fairy. But as the fairy of earth, he has to commit to it. He says that he's sick of the poemfiore's strict self care regime, which has him looking like a porcelain doll. And doesn't help that he absolutely hates the prefect's guts.

Sebek reveals that he trains to be a retainer for prince Malleus Draconia, the fairy of dragon's breath. He takes great pride in it, but with Silver, his fellow guard, being a year older and in the 2nd year, Sebek feels a bit overshadowed and ignored by Malleus and Lilia in favor of Silver.

The stick reaches now Ortho, who has a bit of a hard time, but the others were silent when the others confessed so Ortho finally got it off his chest everything, including why Idia was so worried to the point of intervening into their situation because the way Idia gained his enchantix was by giving his base form's wings in an attempt at saving Ortho. Ortho was not a fairy if death, rather a fairy of the souls, which isn't really something to brag about. The others didn't push more info and finally the stick reached Deuce.

Among his delinquent phase, Deuce admits that he has in possession something else. As the fairy of the night sky, Deuce got as a heirloom, the zodiac blade, a blade that was in the form of a bracelet Deuce had on his hand. This blade was insanely powerful and Deuce fears of using it as he is still incapable of controlling it. He fears he could hurt everyone if he uses it.

After the stick finally making a full round, everyone seems a bit awkward. Ace finally decides to address the elephant in the room: they are shit at getting along. This gains a pillow on the face from Epel, which quickly escalates in a pillow fight.

After the pillow fight, all of them were just laying there, laughing and taking a breather. They were absolute disasters, but at least they had each other.

And that's what gets Jack's gears turning. He finally got an idea of the riddle answer, so he prompts the others that the answer they were searching for was here the whole time.

The answer was them all. Their group. Maybe they had a way too fast development, maybe they just got in too much trouble for bearly starting the year and maybe it was all a very wierd streak of luck that got them here, but they are now here, all sprawled on the floor and laughing together despite in what deep shit they are now.

They were in all of this together and they will get out of there together too!

But how do they go to Trein to tell the answer? They were on close watch.

And that was painfully made obvious. Not only the teachers, but also the students put more attention on them. Except that the students also did give them some nasty looks too or even go as far as to prank them. Oh Deuce was on the verge of squaring up with someone if it wasn't for Ace.

But also Idia seemed more of a worrywart now, which the group really was a bit thankful, since Idia's gloomy vibes kept at bay the other younger students.

But still, they took the risk and finally sneaked in while everyone slept to find the library. They do so, surprisingly quick, seeing how there were several failed attempts and more than not some of them slamming into walls.

Trein does wait for them and the group presents their answer: their bond was the answer. Trein takes it as a close one since the answer was friendship (which none of these petty mfs is able to even admit it), but he takes it as correct and finally grands them unlimited access to the library, in the form of a mark on each of their hands. The mark will only appear when they wish to go to the library. And the mark will turn any door they wish to use into a temporary door to the library as to not go all the way through the secret tunnels.

The first years obviously cheer for their success, so they get straight to work. Using Ace's future seeing powers and the cristal ball, the group is able to predict a few of the next attacks. The one they had to look out to was the one on the Halloween, which was when a big ball was held at RSA. Many students from other schools will go there after all. And it was also where their prediction showed that a big monster will come.

So they start to cook a plan. They obviously were forbidden from leaving the school grounds as they were still under suspicion, so they had to be more creative.

So countless hours of late night library studying and and searching. Ortho was a bit skeptical, but in the end decided to make a concealing spell, which would make all 6 of them unrecognizable and thus able to attend the ball. Thankfully it was an open gates event held outside.

Ace and Deuce were trying to assure the details about the ball, while Epel and Sebek were looking into a way to capture the culprit. And Jack was looking into the aspects the monsters had up until now. Ortho had to make the said potion, as a spell would be blown off immediately. It was chaotic and Trein simply watched them ferret from time to time, figuring out that they aren't aware over what source of power they actually stumbled upon.

Halloween comes around. The theme of the ball was, of course, masked ball. And with this, as to not swallow some nasty tasting potion, Ortho merged it into some masquerade masks, perfect to conceal them. To add to it, their casual clothes were now very eye catching gowns and their body proportions also changed. Ortho clearly was proud of his potion success, but warned that it might not hold past midnight, so they should hurry.

The ball itself wasn't that flashy. And it was a surprise that 6 random pretty girls presented themselves in there. To communicate, they had earpieces disguised as earrings, so they split up.

Jack does go to the food table and due to some 'unfortunate accident', a specialist accidentally spills some juice on his dress, which prompts Jack to excuse himself and go to the bathroom. The specialist, named Neige, apologises for it and decides to show Jack where the women toilets are.

On their way tho, Jack knocks out Neige with a spell and is on his merry way to explore the said school, in search for anything that could point to the culprit.

Meanwhile, Ace and Deuce dance together and look gorgeous, Epel hauled a food table, Ortho was hyping Sebek in chugging down a bottle of juice, much like the girls that gathered with them.

Back to Jack, man stumbles upon a quite nicely dressed specialist. Immediately Jack puts the excuse that 'she just got lost' and asks for directions. Except that the guy seems quite suspicious when leading Jack towards the ball location.

Because they didn't go the same route.

Jack is a bit taken aback when the guy tries to attack him, but he defends himself with a spell and so it starts the fight. Thankfully, even when in fairy form, the concealing potion was kept, which Jack was infinitely grateful for as he called for the rest of the team.

But the guy, who reveals himself as Prince Mandor, doesn't let down so easily, able to quickly knock out of the way Jack as he uses the gloomix stone in the form of a glowing collar hid under the coat, to summon a big monster out of the armour statues laying throughout the school.

The prediction was made true in the end, but that didn't stop the group from reuniting and all of them to put a face to the culprit.

Immediately it gets to a big fight as the monster leaves towards the ball. They also had to stop it in time, even so, they didn't have time, nor power to hold against a gloomix power up.

And in true villain fashion, Mandor reveals that he hated fairies from here, who always stole the spotlight from specialists. NRC fairies especially, who were all stuck up jerks. He hated them with a passion, to the point he wanted to put all of NRC to shame.

So our group decides to do a convergence spell, but not the way one may think. They all decide to aim at the collar with different beam attacks, overcharging it with power and thus destroying it.

The prince doesn't give out so easily and manages to flee via running. Jack wanted to run after him, but he was tired and Deuce warned that midnight was coming close. Epel found the gloomix stone smashed on the ground, so he grabbed the shards with him, together using their library marks to get to the library and flee the place.

Trein welcomes them back and the group all collectively are tired. But they present the gloomix stone shards. Nonetheless, Trein congratulates them on their good work. Lucius even gives them all a smol nuzzle. :D But even so, looking at the shards, Trein realises that the stone was made by a very powerful dark magic user, if not a dark magic entity. The price managed to run out of their hands, but right now, they got the gloomix stone shattered. So it was a victory still.

The next day, there are many cheers for the 2nd year group, who apparently managed to defeat the monster that threatened the ball. It was a bit of a collective saltiness from our first year group, because they work their asses for weeks, only to find the real culprit and prevent him from summoning such powerful monsters again. By a short research, it was clear that once the gloomix stone was shattered, the monster was gone, so in reality, they did all the work. Oh they were VERY salty about.

And Trein rightfully tells them that their battle is not over. They need to grow more powerful, not more popular. Begrudgingly, Trein declares himself as their mentor. As the spirit of the aincent library, he holds secrets for far more powerful spells and powers that an NRC graduate could only fantom about, let alone know about their existence and also pursuing them. This library constantly moved around under Sage Island via the secret tunnels, and not anyone could accces it. So for the team to have each a pass, it was quite the feat.

So of course, because they were in no position to accuse someone, let alone a royalty, the first years decided to take up on the offer and defeat prince Mandor and whoever is helping him reek havoc in here.

That's when season 1 ends.

next season

other seasons: S2, S3, S4, S5, S6.

[helldustedstories]

Very loosely inspired by a t.iktok by ate.zart:

When he was nineteen years old, shortly after Octavia was born, Stolas decided that he didn't want her to be subjected to the same treatment he had been growing up, that he wanted to give her a better life, where she could make her own decisions. And the only way to do that was to run away from his family, to take her and disappear, to raise her far from the rest of the Goetia.

He had already been working on a plan to escape if he needed to, quietly selling artefacts that wouldn't be missed from his father's collection, gathering up as much money as he possibly could. Because as soon as he left, he wasn't going to be able to rely on his name, his title for anything; it would just endanger them if he did.

Stolas took a cutting from his favourite plant, a few nondescript outfits to help keep him from standing out more than he already would, a couple of books on magic from the library (so he could fight back if anyone came after him, could keep learning, even without his tutors or additional training), and as many supplies for Via as he could carry, leaving behind the only life he'd known, determined to give his daughter a better chance than he'd had.

He ended up at the circus he'd visited on his birthday almost a decade before, wondering if his first friend would remember him, one of the only people outside of the Goetia family he knew at all. And with the words "I'll hire you" ringing in his ears, plus his own desire to reconnect with his friend, Stolas found Blitzo again.

The owl knew that he was going to have to find a job, if he hoped to give Octavia any sort of stable life, and he ended up 'convincing' Cash (by giving him most of the money he'd managed to squirrel away before his escape) that he could help bring in crowds with his fortune telling. It was that, along with a demonstration, that ensured Stolas' place in the circus. He would be able to give Octavia a home, while hiding in plain sight.

But little did he know that this new-found community would become so much more than just a job or a place to stay: they would become more of a family to him than the Goetia ever had been.

Some other basic points! This will probably expand!

Does tarot readings and 'fortune telling' for the circus. Those who are in the know (read: Cash makes sure some people are aware and pay a much higher fee to see Stolas) can receive a genuine reading from him, which involves looking to the stars for actual prophecies.

Definitely still has a crush on Blitzo.

Fast friends with Fizz, with the two of them bonding pretty quickly. Fizz is the one who suggests incorporating elements of drag into his performances, to also help conceal his identity, which Stolas embraces whole-heartedly.

Eventually starts learning aerial silks and the lyra to contribute even more, doing a majority of his practice with Barbie.

Does his performances using an imp disguise (visuals can be seen here!) since it's an all-imp circus, and having an owl demon as the only non-imp member would stand out too much.

Octavia is still absolutely his world, though he actually has help with her now.

More outgoing, though still something of an introvert.

Is slowly figuring out how to control his powers through studying the grimoire and other books he took with him, so that he'll never be powerless against anyone if they ever manage to track him down.

[vaxyl]

decided to go back over my fey flecks headcanon and flesh it out somewhat more, so don't mind me...

FEY FLECKS

Creatures born in The Fey Realm almost all have one trait in common besides the obvious - all of them with eyes have fey flecks.

Fey flecks are an interesting phenomenon where the iris has floating artefacts that resemble glitter, or bits of metal shards, harmlessly swimming around the pupil.

The genetic mutation does not harm your vision and appears to be merely visual.

At one point in time some scientists decided to dissect fey eyes to learn more about them and what causes them, dissecting eyes from many different specimens native to The Fey Realm during this investigation.

During the investigation it was found that fey eyes have thin membrane sacks covering the front of them.

These sacks are split into three sections by thin walls made of more membrane, one section covering the sclera, one covering the iris and lastly one covering the pupil - each segment being filled with a protective liquid.

The liquid is as clear and thin as pure water is, with a salty smell and taste to it.

The scientists believed this liquid could be the same liquid that tears are made of, but the technology at the time of their investigation was unable to confirm this.

In fact, unlike tears, this odd fluid appears to both boost dark vision in fey creatures while also simultaneously keeping their eyes from drying out in harsh climates.

Another interesting question regards the fact that the sclera and pupil sections have no artefacts in them, while the iris section has these so-called fey flecks.

There is no solid theory on what causes the bizarre flakes to form in these protective eye sacks, nor what causes their different colourations, but they seem to cause no harm or aid. 

Confirmed to be real metals, their creation is a mystery.

Though it is recorded that it's possible for them to appear in one of four types of metal; gold, copper, bronze or silver.

It's also recorded that eye colour doesn't dictate the colour of fey flecks you get.

While offspring are more likely to have the same eye flecks as their parents, this also isn't guaranteed and they could have completely different fey flecks instead.

Something else to be noted is that a later investigation had documented the fact that Exandrian-born elves also have these protective eye sacks and fey flecks.

The new investigation also reported that there's a 60% chance of half-elves and quarter-elves developing these sacks and fey flecks, but there's only a 10% chance for the offspring of quarter-elves to also develop these odd traits.

In conclusion, scientists believe that this genetic mutation came about in response to some event where The Fey Realm had been plunged in darkness for some time, resulting in generational blindness and/or other eye-related issues.

This evolution is labelled as a scientific mystery to date, with many theories trying to explain what caused it, but ultimately, we have yet to find a solid and satisfactory conclusion as to what caused these odd traits.

One final note to take stock of - elves are born with these fey flecks already formed, but half-elves and so-on may be born with them missing at first only for them to form as they age.

Typically, this starts to happen when half-elves turn 7 years old, the same time that their ears start to morph into slight elven points.

Unlike with ear morphing, the development of fey flecks is completely painless, and a half-elf may not even notice their development until they look in a mirror or until someone tells them about it.

[subzeroparade]

(From the ask meme, to distract from the woes of your current location.) 💖 What made you start writing? 🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories? 🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Writer’s ask here!

🧐 - I’ve answered the one about research in the previous ask - but if I can add anything, it’s maybe a rec for writers to add visual sources to their research for descriptive purposes. Paintings, etchings, museum artefacts (helpful for material!). I spent half my last trip to the V&A photographing and taking notes in the Sacred Silver collection for the liturgical objects and their uses. Many museums have digitised parts of their collection that are super helpful for this.

💖 - I’ve honestly no idea when I started writing - I’ve been writing since I can remember, same as drawing. The only time I stopped writing creatively was during my PhD and the corporate stint I had after that. It was only last year, with more spare time, that I suddenly sat up and went wait a second - I’m really rusty, but I love doing this. So I started again.

🤩 - Lately I’ve obviously been tickled by writing Laurence, but always from an external POV. Laurence is the type of character who is extremely compelling from the outside, precisely because he carefully controls the image he creates and knows the power it exerts over those around him. I would much rather write Laurence from someone else’s POV, who must wrestle with which parts of Laurence are sincere, or artifice, or even real weakness. Particularly from Gehrman or Ludwig’s POV, both at different degrees of knowing they are playing with fire (ಠ◡ಠ) and having to consistently and actively rationalise that because they are still, at the end of things, compelled to care for him.

My other surprise pleasure has been writing Maria - in Litanies, and now in the Healing Church work I’m almost done with. There is something a little meta about the way I write her for some inexplicable reason, and I’ve come to love it.

Thanks for this little distraction •ᴗ•!!!

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

Why do you post swastikas? Are you a nazi?

i like swastikas. it's a very ancient symbol. and so many of them are visually pleasing. it's fascinating how it appears in so many cultures totally independently. it's probably is one of the oldest symbols still in use today, after thousands of years. even in western cultures swastika was a positive thing up to very recent times - you can find pre-war photos of country houses with swastikas carved over the doors or ex libris swastika designs belonging to people not associated with nazism in any way. you can find and buy folk clothing with cross stitched swastikas from traditional designs today. there are graves of early christians with swastikas carved on their stelae. i always get excited a little bit whenever i find a ceramic vessel or other artefact with a swastika while looking through archaeology books. and that's why i post them. i collect them, so to speak.

do you think posting swastikas from time to time is enough to consider someone a nazi? have you seen me expressing any nazi views before?

[ghostlycoyote0]

I can’t stop thinking about Skulduggery & Valkyrie and Maxwell & Charlie as parallels both as duos and individually and it works surprisingly well

Major SP spoilers under the cut

(Also, I haven’t gotten around to starting Phase 2 yet, so please don’t spoil that)

It’s been a while since I read the later SP books so I may get a couple of details wrong

So, first of all. Valkyrie becoming Darquesse (or rather, Darquesse becoming her own separate entity) and Charlie being kind of split in half and then becoming one whole as the Queen. Also, dark-esse. It’s almost too on the nose there

Both always in black, sometimes with a bit of red, both very close to their respective Tall Suit Man who I will get back to. Shadow powers vs white lightning powers. Disappeared to become the night monster and later Queen, vs disappeared out of guilt for what she had to do in book 9 (also, the whole guilt about stuff one did with dark magic is a weaker but still notable parallel with Maxwell)

Then we have Skulduggery and Maxwell. Both are tall, very thin, and always seen in a very nice suit that they take pride in. Both have a sort of formal way of speaking, both have big egos, both are either very powerful sorcerers or at least confident that they are

Then there’s the magic. Shadowy powers from an artefact found somewhere vs innate elemental magic and a specialisation in fire and air. Not only is that a nice visual for complete opposites, but consider what Maxwell’s shadow magic looks like in the context of SP. It’s a control of shadows in which the power is all channeled through a specific object; it looks a hell of a lot like necromancy. And we know how Skulduggery feels about necromancy

That leads to the opposition(?) of Maxwell researching and trying to master shadow magic in order to gain power vs Skulduggery actively avoiding using his, even though it’s incredibly powerful. Maxwell lost his family and close friend because he was too laser-focused on the Codex and shadows. Skulduggery lost his family for reasons out of his control, causing him to take up necromancy

Speaking of Skulduggery losing his family, you could also draw a parallel between China and Charlie, but that one is a lot less in depth and more based on vibes

So many of Maxwell’s examination lines show how much guilt he feels for and how much he misses Charlie. He definitely wants her back, and we’ve seen in Encore that he’s willing to join her team (I say that, but I do really hope he isn’t actually going to betray everyone)

Then there’s the entire stretch of time where Valkyrie was missing and by missing I mean Darquesse was doing her thing. Skulduggery was entirely focused on getting her back and was very.. energetic? Aggressive? About it. You know what I mean, hopefully

But, yeah. It’s a fun parallel/set of foils