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blazescompendium · 1 year

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Blaze's Compendium entry #2: Zhu Tun She: A pig? A snake? Both!?

This is a very mysterious creature, that supposedly has been spotted during the Song Dynasty, in China. (This being between 10th and 13th century)

Zhu Tun She (which means literally something like ''Snake Pig'' in Chinese) was described as a demon or monster snake, but it had four legs and behaved like a pig but violently, making squeaking noises. Some sources say it was covered in scaled and hair.

This specific creature caught my attention some years ago, and was one of the first Megaten Demons that i wanted to research by my own, because i found it very interesting. I ended up going to a Chinese Book Store in my city to research it, but it was relatively unknown even for natives. The internet has surprisingly few information about this demon, and since i do not speak Chinese, there's a huge language barrier. Still, i went on.

The most widely spread tale about Zhu Tun She in the west and Chinese web, is that it appeared during the Song Dynasty attacking peasants and soldiers, and (maybe) sometimes eating them. It was supposedly defeated by an officer who was also a magician, and managed to kill it.

From my initial superficial research in the topic, as well my more detailed one, it seems this creature is not a recurrent one. They are different from more recurrent characters, that have their own tales and whatnot. As far as i could pinpoint, at least, Zhu Tun She had just a small tale from a very specific time period. It's valid thought, that i affirm once again i am not a Chinese speaker, so if the creature appeared in other literary works, i was not able to read nor find it.

Zhu Tun She in Demi Kids. Sorry i stacked them...

The origins of the beast came from the Yijianzhi, a collection of folkloric and fantastic tales written during the Song Dynasty. This series of tales contained originally hundreds of chapters, which were complied by Hong Mai, a prolific writer from the time. Its believed that the first chapter was from around 1161, and the other ones from around 1198.

Hong Mai (1123 - 1202) was an author that decided to collect this old stories in a book. He gave the name Yijianzhi in honor to the author Yijian, which wrote according on tales he himself heard, according to Taoist Texts.

The Yijanzhi by itself is very interesting. It contains multitudes of texts, that travels around a lot of topics. From gods, to ghosts, to revenge stories, kings, fantasy, some bizarre stuff, and most important: Fantastical creatures that inhabit those legends.

In case you want to read the book... I have good and bad news: The good news is that it received a partial translation to English in 2018, i have read this version. It's called Records of The Listener and it's a simple and very rewarding read. There's also a 2007 version of partial translation. Both are properly archived and you can read it online.

The bad news is that, they are just a partial translation, many tales are missing and the Zhu Tun She one is among those missing. We do, however have a summarized version, this version was extracted from me from Chinese sources, but you can also find it on the western web. I used software to translate it, so please forgive me if i get something wrong. (See below)

But before, let's discuss it's origins a bit:

While the source mostly associated with the story, was the elusive Shigeru Mizuki book ''Dictionary of Chinese Demons'', and probably the same Kaneko took it from. There's hardly English sources about this demon, which made it very hard to research about it not being a native Chinese speaker, or at least knowing a bit of the language.

Me and some friends even pondered about it being made up by Mizuki, since it has happened before with other creatures. But with the help of the Chinese Web, i could pin down exactly where this tale was originally from:

-This was present in the book Siqu Quanshu. It's a compendium from the Qing Dynasty that contained some chapters of the Yijian Zhi including this one, you can read in it's entirety online here. (If you can read Chinese. If you can't, i will provide a translation below do not fear.)

The indexation in this book is as follows:

Siqu Quanshu -> Yijian Zhi -> 戊卷03 ( volume 3) - It's unclear how was it's original index in its original source.

(Thanks u/storiesti for helping me finding it)

The compendium in question was commissioned by the emperor Qianlong, and it's how this tales survived. That's important, because many Yijian Zhi chapters simply did not survived to the modern age, and the way some of them did was being republished in works such as that. So, at the very least it was not made up by Mizuki or anyone in the internet.

So... What was this story about then? What was our little piggy's tale?

Here's a brief version of it, translated via software, sorry it was the best i could do:

In the stationed army at Jiankang, there was a officer named Cheng Jun who was very experienced in the "forbidden spells" technique, especially in subduing demon snakes. This incident seems to have happened in the 23rd year of the Shaoxing period. (1130 AD) One evening, when the army was training outside the south gate, a snake suddenly appeared in a bamboo woods. The snake was as thick as a pestle, about three feet long, covered in fur, with four legs, just like a demon. When it appeared, it would make a sound like a pig and chase after people while making this noise, running as if it were going to devour them. People could only panic and flee with no way to deal with it. At this moment, someone nearby found a horse stable and quickly used it to trap the snake, then reported the matter to the commander. The commander immediately sent someone to investigate and also commanded Cheng Jun, who was famous for subduing spirit snakes, to take care of the snake. After a while, Cheng Jun arrived; as soon as he saw it, he recognized the shape of the demon snake under the horse stable. He said, "This is called 'Zhu Tun She', a type of demon snake that kills people once they get entangled by it." After that, Cheng Jun blew air from above the horse stable and began to use his spells. Soon, Cheng Jun commanded someone to open the horse stable, and they saw the demon snake curled up and motionless. Cheng Jun then closed the horse stable again, deeply inhaled as if he was absorbing moonlight, and then blew air from above the stable three more times. Afterwards, Cheng Jun commanded someone to open the horse stable again, and they saw that the demon snake had turned into a puddle of blood.

A.. lot happened here as you can see.

Shigeru Mizuki's depiction of the Zhu Tun She.

It's unclear how common this demon was supposed to be in that tale, since Cheng was able to identify it pretty easily, and was known to defeat monsters like that all the time.

But that is how far it goes, the creature was (to my knowledge) never mentioned again, and made brief appearances in popular media. I don't know how it ended up in Mizuki's table, but he helped to popularize it since most of sources end up in his book. This is of course because it's way more accessible to read a book from the 1990s than an old scroll from 1130s.

Zhu Tun She differs from other critters i'v researched about, because there's few to no nuance in its existence. There's no moral to the tale, there's nothing to explain it as well, it seems like a cryptid from the old world, or just an elaborated fictional tale to amuse the emperor.

My personal theory is that: If it was not made up to amuse the Emperor, it was probably a very weird capybara or something like that. Who knows?

Still it's a very fascinating demon, a creature that would be terrifying to find alone in a bamboo forest for sure. But the best part of this study was to find more about the work where it came from, the Yijian Zhi. This books are simply amazing.

It's a collection of tales from old China, some supernatural, others just common tales. Still, they are very brief and entertaining also shedding some light into old China, full of myths and stories. As i said, there's a partial translation to English available to buy, or read online! Go check it out.

As for our pig friend, i could not find out if it had other apparitions in Chinese folklore, as mentioned before. It seems Zhu Tun She was an very isolated incident, and has only known by us because someone republished the tale many years later.

You see, snakes are beings very present in Human collective consciousness. Snakes were natural predators to early humans, many of us are born with innate fear of snakes. Snake monsters, demons and gods are part of lots of cultures around the world. The Quetzalcoatl in Central America, the Hydra in Greek Mythology, Orochi in Japanese mythology. In Northeastern Brazil there's a tale of a Feathered monster Snake called ''The Lapa's Feathered Snake''. This is just some of them, while many other exist.

As our ancestral predator and a very dangerous creature, snakes ended up taking a lot of space in our minds.

It's possible that other creatures similar to Zhu Tun She have been written, but could be lost to time. Who knows? There's indeed many other snake demons around the world, so our pig friend here is not alone!

I'd like to thank sorenblr for helping me getting attention to this research, and also Atmaflare for literally accompanying me during this research. @sorenblr and @atmaflare thank you!

Hope you all enjoyed!

Sources: -Siqu Quanshu: Some Yijian Zhi tales (Original Chinese book where the tale is currently available, brought from the Yijian Zhi books)

-The Dictionary of Chinese Demons (Shigeru Mizuki, could not find it for buying but its the source parroted throughout the web.)

#mythology #chinese mythology #Yijian zhe #shin megami tensei #megaten #kazuma kaneko #shigeru mizuki #yokai #demons #monster #atlus #blazescompendiumentry

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kafkaoftherubble · 3 months

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Summary kinda of other project

The main character is a knight called Dagny in a walled city. The city keeps getting attacked by monsters so she makes a deal with a troll called Bannkjell*. She gives him her hair and he gives her enhanced sight and hearing. Everything is great for 6 months because she can kill monsters even at night, but then she slowly starts becoming inhuman. Eventually, she's exiled and forced to live outside the wall. Some days pass, and then she finds out the troll attacked the city basically as soon as she left. She feels horrible so she kills the troll and returns all the children he kidnapped to the city, except one.

The last one is called Filpa and he's from a Sami inspired city super far north so Dagny goes on a quest to bring him there. On the way, her former friend Levander joins the party and they become like a second set of parents to Dagny and Dagny forgives Levander for being the one to suggest she be exiled.

Will not talk about the ending

*fun fact, Bannkjell is a name given to him by the residents of the city. In Norwegian, it means child boiler because he eats children

Also sincerely apologize (not really) but Dagny is a Danish name pronounced like dao-nü. It means new dawn, which is fun because her character arc is that she regenerates as a person and goes from being a huge asshole to a sweet and selfless person Idk if I said but the setting of the story is a fantasy world based on Norse and Celtic mythology, so there's stuff like Jormungandr-like serpents, a few questing beasts, Levander is a selkie and parts of Dagny's character arc reflects the story of how Odin came to be all knowing

I couldn't screenshot and attach your other letters to this because Dumblr somehow thinks I'm suddenly past the character limit with those two images!

I'm gonna reply to this one this time because honestly, I LOVE THIS FROM THE GET-GO.

The name? Fucking slaps. I'm really into giving meaningful names and trying to learn the stories behind other people's names, man. Is there a story behind Filpa and Levander?

What does becoming "inhuman" basically entail? Do you mean physically changes form? Like... a werewolf-sorta thing? Or some other sort of transformation? Or do you mean something more psychological, but no less sinister—an appetite for human flesh? A healthy hunger for blood? A monstrous mode where she acts very differently from herself?

Who was the troll before he met Dagny? How was he different from other monsters that attacked the city? Was he the only sort of wish-granting troll there was?

Does Dagny have other friends? She's a knight, so I assume she went through knight training as a squire along with other squires. Oh! Is Levander a friend she met from back then?!

How is Levander like? What's the thing about them that Dagny like, and what's the thing about them that Dagny cannot stand?

What inspired you to start this project? 'Cause this has a really nice fairytale feel to it. It read like a story from this old book I used to own, where it showcased special stamps from all around the world and told local folklore and fairytales as they were shown on the stamp. I really loved those books.

OHHHH I SURE LOVE ME SOME NORSE AND CELTIC MYTH! I have only very passing idea of selkies, but I heard they are very pleasant-looking (fine, the stamp storybook said so).

I didn't even expect Odin himself to be featured here! I thought dude became all-knowing by sacrificing his eye. Or was it after he learned, er, seidhr? Seidr? It's some magic, I think.

Will this project be a written story?

Damn, I am jealous of how many stories your brain could craft. It doesn't matter if they aren't completed; I just think storytellers pulsate with human-ness! Humans are all about fables, after all.

#π-ting!

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margridarnauds · 2 years

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top five characters/moments/things from irish mythology you wish had more pop culture traction?

Thank you!

One thing I’m going to say, off the bat, is that I know that my idea of what has pop culture traction is going to be very different than what the general public sees -- When you spend a solid chunk of your life looking....and looking...and looking at pop culture retellings, that’s pretty much all you see, but I’m aware that what might be relatively common in depictions of this stuff might still be relatively obscure to the general public. (Especially if it’s not, say, banshees, selkies, or, God help us all, leprechauns. Even though those are all folklore, I know I’m never going to win that fight.)

1. The Tuatha Dé being dicks in general. Like, with all respect to the Professor, he did possibly the worst possible thing to Irish material (and that’s including when he dissed “Celtic materials” as being like shattered stained glass) that he could have done by sheer accident when he created Lord of the Rings. Because, since that series was published, every single low quality fantasy writer has been trying to shove the Tuatha Dé into Tolkien’s elves (and a specifically bowdlerized version of them.) And the TD are...they’re fascinating to me. I love them very dearly, I’ve been going back to them for years because they’re this group of superhumans who are also petty and spiteful and sometimes rigid in upholding distinctions. They haven’t always forgiven the Milesians for taking Ireland from them, they will do everything they possibly can to screw people over, they are sometimes only loosely tolerant of the mortals (and, on Samhain, for example, they sometimes lose even that loose tolerance.)

Like, I want the Tuatha Dé to be complicated and hypocritical and petty and spiteful while also being capable of being the best of humanity as well while ALSO being distinctly Off. I want Lovecraftian Tuatha Dé who are always just beneath the surface, I want comic relief Tuatha Dé who are still in denial over having lost Ireland and refuse to adapt to the modern world at any cost to truly ridiculous standards, I want the Tuatha Dé to be a big, high stakes family drama/reality show/soap opera with the entirety of Ireland having to deal with the fallout, I want tragic Tuatha Dé who are these kind of living artifacts in a world that’s more or less outgrown them. (I am obviously aware that they have modern worshippers -- I am saying that the TDD are drama queens and will still be mopey after having lost the entire island. Unless you have Brehon law actively being around still, they are still going to be mopey.)

2. Related to that, bruighean tales. This is not a term you hear very often outside of Celticist circles, and part of the reason for that is that these tales often haven’t been translated yet into English (though some of them have been translated from modern Irish), even though they had a wide currency in the folk tradition. What these are is, essentially...a story in which the Fianna are tricked by the Tuatha Dé to go into a magical fort, where the Tuatha Dé proceed to attack them throughout the night with a series of spells, illusions, and the odd monster or two. (The most famous of these is probably Laoi na Con Duibhe -- The Lay of the Black Dog.) Like, I feel like there’s a lot that a modern audience could appreciate about this, from the perspective of horror and the gothic. I think you could do a lot with the claustrophobia and the tension of it, with this group of legendary heroes possibly, for the very first time, being in over their head.

3. The Fir Bolg! It is so ridiculously easy for these guys to get adapted out of depictions of the battle between the Fomoire and the Tuatha Dé, but they’re so important! (Also, more Fir Bolg who are accurate to how they’re presented in Lebor Gabála Érenn -- so many pop culture references, when we do get them, have so much....uncomfortable baggage. Like, I don’t want to say too much because there are some papers coming out on this, and it’s like...I don’t know how much I can say, but it’s just...please can we toss away the idea of them somehow being these primal “primitive” people who are associated with the earth? Can’t we let them be competent and clever and strong settlers of Ireland who established the kingship?) Especially my boy Sreng who is quietly one of the single most fascinating and complex characters in the entirety of the medieval and early modern Irish literary tradition.

4. I firmly believe that we have never gotten enough Bres as a character, which is a little shocking when you consider how important he is to the Tuatha Dé -- so many central figures are related to him (the Morrígan is his aunt), he has a fairly interesting arc in Cath Maige Tuired (which is just a text that...I can never have enough adaptations of), and he gets a relatively large number of appearances across medieval and early modern Ireland. And, like with the TD, I’d really like to see him be done....well. Like, don’t settle for “he’s evil because he’s evil”; I want to see him get a large amount of interiority, I want to see him be complex, I want the audience to sympathize with him even as they realize that if he succeeds...it all goes down. Authors almost seem...intimidated by him, and I think part of it’s that heroes like Lugh are easy, especially when you remove the inconvenient little bits about them that might make them unpalatable. Villains like Bres, though...it’s like they’re having to hold up a mirror. We want to be like Lugh, we want to be that kind of superhuman, hypercompetent master of all crafts who is beloved and is able to conquer all the enemy. In reality, though, I feel like Bres is more...realistic. More human. And that’s why people struggle with him in adaptations, whether they excise him entirely or make him a caricature of himself. People don’t want the reminder of their own flaws. (Also I believe that he should kiss men.)

(On the mouth.)

(With both parties consenting to it.)

5. Relating to #2, I feel like there’s a thick pseudo-Gothic (pre-Gothic?) vein in a lot of the Irish material that could be a lot of fun to work with. @effervescentdragon once compared Crimson Peak to Togail Briudne Dá Derga, I personally love the incident with the dead men and the Morrígan from the Boyhood Deeds of Cú Chulainn, I was recently rereading the plot summary of the short story “Don’t Wake the Dead” and was reminded of the story of Sín in Aided Muirchertaig meic Erca, the Dead Man in Echtra Nerai, this one description of a bruighean tale...I think it was Eochaid Bhig Dearg, where every single one of the Tuatha Dé is described as having a smile on their faces as they surround the fort....waiting....while the Fianna can only look on in horror and dread whatever nightmares they summon next...Medieval Irish material is often likened to fantasy and, for what it’s worth, I do understand it, especially since all the great fantasy writers were very well in-tune with world mythology and Irish is an Indo European literary tradition (albeit one that, as of the time of it being written down, had intertwined itself tightly with Christianity.) Still, I would really like to see more of that Gothic element being teased out, because a lot of my roots are in the gothic tradition and I would love to combine my two favorite things.

In general, I suppose my tl;dr is that I would like, in general, for more nuance, more complexity, I’d like more writers to have fun with the material and to think outside the box that this stuff gets put into, I’d like to see less bowdlerization, less need to apply a Nationalistic brush to these things that hasn’t really been necessary since the 1930s. (Also, give me more Cath Maige Tuired adaptations.)

It’s funny a lot of the time, when I see, say, arguments about Arthuriana or Greek Mythological adaptations where people will be saying “I HATE when adaptations--” and I’m just kind of in this perpetual state of “What do you mean ‘adaptations?’ Y’all get your favorite works adapted more than one time?” Don’t get me wrong, I can sympathize with seeing your favorite material butchered, but I’ve had to read a LOT of really bad self published novels, Wattpad fiction, and MySpace RPGs from back in the day in order to get *anything* for my favorite characters. And if I was ever really, deeply personally offended by seeing my favorite characters done badly....I think I’d have gone insane at this point. I think people often expect me to be very strict but the truth is that I’ve never had the luxury of being very strict. Our most accurate representation of the material thus far’s been an animated film where the day is partially saved by a spirit cat attacking a Viking warlord. Our second most accurate representation’s been Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, where there’s an evil cult of human-sacrificing druids in 9th century Ireland that ends up spurring an Irish Inquisition and the 50 foot tall Lia Fáil, which is an alien artifact, exploding into smithereens. And I think that it’s fascinating to see what the public is really interested in and what authors and creatives are putting into their stuff VS the material as we understand it. So, a part of me’s a little sad all the time, but a part of me’s also always interested in seeing how these trends play out.

But, anyway, I hope this answers the question! Thank you again for the ask!

#long post

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dailyadventureprompts · 2 years

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Can we get a reimagining for golems pleas? They’re somewhat problematic in their current portrayal when you consider the mythological origins

Monsters Reimagined: Golems

For those not in the know, there was a discourse a little while ago about how golems and how their use in pop fantasy diverged from their origins as a part of Jewish folklore. While there’s different arguments to be made about whether you should use creatures from the folklore of other cultures (verging onto appropriation) most of the discussion I saw revolved around the fact that golems in d&d (and the fantasy genre that imitated it) bear little resemblance to their mythological roots, flattening a creature with rich cultural connections into just another brainless monster to be flattened by adventurers.

That said, humans have been imagining stories about artificial people for as long as we’ve been building things with our own hands, and just because we don’t use the name “golem” doesn’t mean we have to abandon the concept entirely. TLDR: While you could just default to calling them “constructs” as many have, I like to use the term “Malgam” for my artificially constructed servitor monsters. Not only does it relate to their nature as an amalgamation of particular elements, it also has the same mouthfeel as the original monster. This also lets you use “golem” in the specific context for the creature it was intended: An artificial creature given life through the working of holy scholars, in imitation of the way that the creator gave life to them.

There have always been stories of artificial beings: and in many ways the origin myths of most cultures have humans crafted by the gods out of something inanimate, which could theoretically classify all humans as something given form by the hands of another.

As someone with a childhood fascination with both robots and greek mythology, it blew my mind that accounts of the god Hephaestus had him assisted by mechanical beings. Despite the fact that the ancient greeks were living in the bronze age, they still had enough of an understanding of machinery to think “ yep, get good enough at this sorta thing and you could make people”

Golems are part of this tradition, but take on a particularly religious aspect in that it’s animation echoes gods own creation of humans, imperfect as all mortal attempts must be in comparison with their creator. Many golem myths likewise get into power hierarchies, as those golems that were not built for defence are often built to perform labour for their creators, growing rebellious and subverting the divine hierarchy

Logically then, if we’re going to write adventures ABOUT golems, we should do so through the examination of the creator gods, worshippers, and the things they both make, as well as how the relationships between them can reveal about our philosophy as an audience:

Through careful study of the teachings of his creation goddess, a sage has created a golem to act as his apprentice, seeking a blank and willing vessel to fill up with the purest form of her faith and knowledge without all the base humanity getting in the way. The golem turns out to be a prodigy, but over years of instruction the sage comes to care for them as one might a child, believing them to be just as ensouled as a person. The golem, pious to a fault, knows that it would be blasphamy for their instructor to claim powers equal to that of the goddess and denies the claim, causing a rift to form between them. Now the two wander the great temples and libraries of the land, searching for the proof that will

Brought to life by a miracle of Moradin, a tremendously strong golem has guarded a particular village for generations, dispatching monsters and raiders, throwing itself into danger to rescue those who dwell within the town, drawn to where it can help best by a divinely gifted sixth sense. The party just so happen to be in town when it rises from it’s traditional seat of honor before the steps of the village temple, takes seven long strides, and brings its fist down on a stupefied merchant, who’d just arrived in town. The townsfolk are divided, did their protector go mad, or did its orders to kill come directly from the allhammer himself? The merchants travelling companions are demanding retribution, while the golem returns to its seat and merely shrugs. Its role is not to question what it does, only to protect the village when it is called to do so.

on the trail of a diabolist who’s tortured priests and robbed monasteries, the party has finally realized that their foe intends to scorn the gods by creating a more perfect form of being than they ever could, and has been extracting the secrets of lifeweaving over many bloody years. Catching up to the villain in his lair, the party is aghast to discover that he has succeeded: using foul magic to birth a “perfect” specimen who quickly concluded that her creator was unfit for his position of power over her and tore him limb from limb. Now the party is faced with a very different sort of challenge: a superhuman entity who wishes to understand her place in the world but who has yet to be taught any reason why she should care about other beings beyond their usefulness to her.

Refocusing goelms in this way as a type of construct rather than the brand-name for lumbering animated statues lets us pay proper respect to their folkloric roots, while also giving us a new tool in our narrative toolbox in order to tell more diverse and insightful stories.

Art

#monsters reimagined #golem #construct #Religion #history #Cleric #diplomacy #random encounter #mystery #villain #mid level

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readermishok · 3 years

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Top 20: my favorite interactive stories

Hello, guys!

Once I saw that one of my popular and mostly likeable posts was about IF, I decided to share with you my personal top of the best IF authors I have known.

I read a lot of WIPs (work in progress) and finished novels since three long years, so I might recommend truly incredible stories. I apologies for adding pics and some additional info about my MC, but I wanted to bring spark of life into this top.

MC – Julia (deShanre), she|her.

I'll start with telling about quartet of works greatly affected on me. It was almost like… living my second life. It felt so real, so vibrant. In the darkest times it gave me the strenght to meet the next day.

1. Samurai of Hyuga, Books 1-4 by Devon Connell (WIP, planned 7 books). Patreon. Buy Book 1. Buy Book 2. Buy Book 3. Buy Book 4.

Samurai of Hyuga is a brutal, heart-pounding interactive tale. Prepare to enter the land of silk and steel, where fantasy clashes against grim reality, and where the good guys don't always win in the end. It's a harsh world with tough choices at every turn. Good thing you're the toughest ronin around.

My MC: Ronin, the master of the Jigoku Ittō-ryū, The Sword Who Cuts the Heavens

Jigoku:

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2. Fallen Hero by Malin Ryden (WIP, planned 4 books). Tumblr: @fallenhero-rebirth. Patreon. Buy Book 1.

Become the greatest telepathic villain Los Diablos has ever known! Once you were famous; soon you will be infamous. That is, unless your old friends in the Rangers stop you first. Juggle different identities and preserve your secrets as you build new alliances and try to forget the friendships you've left behind.

My MC: Sidestep Puppetmaster:

Jane (puppet):

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3. I, the Forgotten one by Bacondoneright (WIP, planned dilogy). No tumblr or Patreon|Ko-fi. Demo.

It has been five long years since the end of The Border Wars. Five long years without a purpose. Endlessly drifting around from one job to the next, serving your apathetic father only to receive no credit. Nobody in Kanton truly knows what you did. How you won The War, leading the armies of Kanton as a youth.

Nobody knows what it took out of you. Spending your formative years in war is not good for one’s outlook on life. Your emotions now lie behind a mask of stoicism. After all, all emotions do is cloud one’s judgement and wind up costing lives.

Nobody knows how much it hurt to be cast down from the throne and succession. To be disinherited, cast away from the family, and left aside to die.

My MC: The Marshal, the bastard child:

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4. The Exile by Pheo (WIP). Tumblr: @exilethegame. Patreon. Demo.

You’re the ex-commander of the Kingdom of Plaithus, and your name is known by all. It used to be whispered in fear by your enemies, and the very mention of it could send men fleeing. Your people had cried it out in battle, swords raised in your honor as they faced death fearlessly. You were a hero, and to some, a legend.

Until you weren’t.

You can’t remember what happened. All that’s left are blurry faces, screams, and the feeling of blood on your hands. The only reason you still have your head is because of the pity of an old friend.

And now? It’s only been a year since the incident, and already things are going wrong again when a rather peculiar sorcerer offers you absurd amounts of gold in exchange for protection from… well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t know.

My MC: the Commander:

Ex-commander.

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Shepherds of Haven by Lena Nguyen (WIP). Tumblr: @shepherds-of-haven Patreon. Demo.

Shepherds of Haven is a dark fantasy interactive fiction game. In it, you play as a Mage living in a world where magic is outlawed and your people—those possessing supernatural powers—are oppressed and reviled. The world is ruled by humans who believe in science, technology, and industry: at best, you and your kind are nothing more than a fairytale, and at worst you are the state’s greatest threat.

My MC: Human Mage, gunner

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God of the Red Mountain (WIP). Tumblr: @friendlybowlofsoup Demo.

You are a spirit born of the Red Mountain–though you’ve run away from it long ago. You’d be content to stay away, too, if not for the mountain god who suddenly comes looking for you. But what purpose do they have? And what exactly is your end goal?

Based on East Asian myths and folklore, you play as a powerful, nameless spirit in a shifting world. As a being caught between death and life, you are connected to a stream of limitless power, and the more you are known, the more powerful you become.

However, your journey will not be so smooth. You have been cursed by powerful, malignant beings known as Foxes, and it’s only a matter of time before you fall from sanity yourself.

My MC: Owl spirit, human appearance

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The Bastard of Camelot by Rebelgirl (WIP). Tumblr: @llamagirl28 Demo. Ko-fi.

Your child will be the undoing of Camelot. Born under an ominous prophecy, you are the incestuous bastard of King Arthur and Morgana Le Fay. Will you fulfill the prophecy, or rebel?

Be the villain they expect you to be, or the hero they don’t- be remorseful or unapologetic, make your destiny or be Morgana’s tool of revenge.

Arthur can’t have any more children, making you the sole blood heir, and sole other Pendragon. As a Pendragon, you have the power of dragons.

The Bastard of Camelot is a trilogy following Mordred as they become a knight of the Round Table, and save or destroy Camelot.

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The Seven Heirs of Ophaesia: Part One by (WIP). Tumblr: @fantasyfawkes Demo. Patreon.

The Seven Heirs of Ophaesia is a low-fantasy game set in a Renaissance-esque world where you play as one of seven heirs to a fictional kingdom rife with intrigue. As the King’s seventh child, you are a prince or princess of Ophaesia, a luxurious nation along the southern coast of Selanes. You are the first child of your father’s third wife, a woman hated throughout the realm due to the pervasive suspicion that she poisoned the previous queen, and her poor reputation taints your image in the eyes of the court and beyond. From your days in the palace nursery all the way to adulthood, you must navigate treacherous court politics and delicate foreign affairs while trying to find your place in the world — and your family.

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Attollo by A.E. Jendryke (WIP). Tumblr: @attollogame Demo. Patreon.

After several years of radio silence, you receive a message from your younger sibling that carries a strange sense of urgency to it. Either out of familial concern, or boredom, you embark on a journey from your residence to your siblings apartment in New Hampshire to see what’s wrong and then get on with your life. Too bad it’s never so simple.

Deal with cults, interdimensional entities, and far too many people with superpowers (where, for once, you’re the odd one out) in your journey to bring your sibling back from an underworld far out of your control.

My MC: lawyer

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Land of the Dragon (WIP) by Hilsee Foo. Demo. Last update was long ago... (crying)

Welcome to the Land of the Dragon! Here you shall experience an adventure in an ancient land, navigate court politics, forge friendships, and maybe even pursue romance if you so choose!

The Dragon Emperor sits upon the throne, as he inherited it from his father before him. But all is not well in the realm. In the provinces, an Uprising is gaining both strength and popularity. At court, the Elder Prince plots in secret to usurp his brother's throne. And within the Emperor's harem, the Empress and Imperial Consort vie for power.

As the Emperor and Empress' only trueborn child, you are at the centre of this power struggle. When all hell breaks lose on your 21st nameday, what will you do to find your place in this world?

All this, and more... In the Land of the Dragon.

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The Northern Passage by Kit H.J. (WIP). Tumblr: @northern-passage Demo.

The Northern Passage is a horror fantasy CYOA, where you play as a hunter sent up north to investigate a series of missing people along the border and in the port cities of the Blackwater.

Working with your handler, Lea, you will travel north and discover that things are far worse than you ever could have imagined, and that there is something powerful lurking out in the deep, dark sea…

My MC: Hunter

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The Nameless by Parker Lyn (WIP). Tumblr: @parkerlyn Demo. Ko-fi.

The Nameless is a low fantasy WIP that is character and romance driven, with your race (sheevra) loosely based on stories about the fey and other myths. Where deals are a weapon and a name is the most intimate secret someone can offer. You play as a sheevra investigating the city of Renescen after the complete disappearance of one of four sheevra Clans in the world, running across a ragtag group of both sheevra and mortalis along the way.

Will you find out what happened before it comes for you?

Mortalis appearance

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Virtue’s End by Crimsis (WIP). Tumblr: @virtuesend-if Demo. Patreon.

In a dark world overrun by monsters from the shadow plane, you exist as a hybrid monster hunter called a helvling, a human whose very soul has been Bound to one such entity. Travelling from warded settlement to warded settlement with your surly Keeper, Shea, you have the thankless task of defending the common folk against these horrors from Hel.

Usually, a fate such as yours is only reserved for the lowest of criminals, as penance for their loathsome deeds… You wouldn’t know if your fate has been deserved, however, since upon completion of your Binding seven years ago, all former memories of your human life have been lost.

You’ve been moulded into a weapon by the Virtuous Order, trained to be an unfeeling and ruthlessly efficient hunter… But is that who you are? Who are you, truly?

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A Tale of Crowns (WIP). Tumblr: @ataleofcrowns Itch.

A Tale of Crowns is a high fantasy love story with Middle Eastern roots, both on pc as well as mobile! It’s entirely text-based, with choices throughout to shape both your main character’s personality and skills as well as influence their relationships with others. There are four love interests for you to choose from, both female as well as male, each with their own stories and secrets for you to uncover!

Crown of Arsur

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Wayfarer (WIP). Tumblr: @idrellegames Demo. Patreon.

When your mercenary work backs you into a corner, you take the only option available and accept a contract: to travel to the city of Velantis and steal an ancient artifact said to be blessed by the gods. Simple, right?

But Velantis holds more than you bargained for. Gathering a ragtag party of malcontents and renegades from across the city, you must navigate enemy factions, meddling guilds, and escalating political tensions. Your choices will ultimately determine the city’s fate – and the fate of every person who lives there.

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When Twilight Strikes by evertidings (WIP). Tumblr: @evertidings Demo.

You are a bounty hunter. Responsible for taking in rogue supernaturals, you work for IAOS—the International Agency of Supernaturals—where, alongside your best friend and partner, you two have quickly become the best hunting duo of the branch. After a particular tricky hunt, you brief your boss, Caine Atheron, and come back to work the next day to find that he has mysteriously disappeared overnight, the company is now in the hands of his best friend, Sebastian Mai. And though no one else seems to question it, something tells you that there’s more to the story.

With bounty cases rising at an alarming rate and a second mystery unfolding, you and your ragtag team of allies set out to find the truth.

But as you go further and further, the secrets you uncover begin to make you question: who… or what exactly are you fighting for?

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Passanger by Pime (WIP). Tumblr: @the-passenger-if Demo. Ko-fi.

Do you like monsters? Do you think they are the best part of their respective movies, books, and shows? Then The Passenger might be the game for you.

The Passenger is a choice script work in progress in which you are an eldritch abomination that’s about to be devoured by another unthinkable creature. Good news is you are pretty crafty and know how to jump dimensions to escape your ghastly fate; bad news is, you’re now stuck on Earth, trapped inside a dumb human larva.

As years go by, you realize the amount of energy you need to leave this horrible dimension behind is a lot more than you anticipated. Not to mention the creature that almost ate you all those years ago never really stopped looking for you. But there’s no way it’ll pinpoint your actual location… right?

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Scout: An Apocalypse Story by Anya (WIP). Tumblr: @anya-dev Itch.

It has been over a decade since a worldwide natural disaster obliterated the natural planet and decimated human civilization. There are small groups of humans still alive, fending for themselves, trying to create communities amongst the rubble.

You are a 24-year old scout living in a small community on the edge of the Orange Plains. You lost your mother and your sister before finding your way here. You are primarily an academic, and you put your skills to use on regular scouting missions. With your best friend and your scouting team leader in tow, your small group is a pillar of the Community.

On your first scouting mission of the hot season, you meet the leader of the People Across the Orange Plains. Will you break from the Community you have known your whole life? Ask a romantic partner to join you? Discover secrets that your own people have been hiding? Become a leader yourself?

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Body Count by Nell Bolton (WIP). Tumblr: @bodycountgame Demo. Ko-fi.

Your life isn’t going how you’d hoped. Despite having big plans when you graduated, you’re stuck in a dead end job and a crappy flat with zero romantic life to speak of. All until a friend convinces you to join the cast of a new reality TV show.

The premise is simple: 12 singles are sent to a villa on a tropical island and they live there together for a month. After 28 days, the couple who is voted by the other islanders as being most likely to withstand the test of time will win £500,000. In addition, the couple with the highest body count will win £500,000. Total prize pool? £1,000,000.

In this context, “body count” refers to how many people you’ve slept with… right? Well, that’s what you think when you sign your contract. Turns out, though, that not all of your fellow cast members will be using that definition to get to the prize.

Fall in love, win big money, solve some murders and try to stay.

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Project Hadea by nyehilism (WIP). Tumblr: @nyehilismwriting Itch. Ko-fi.

You play as an OPERATIVE of Scytha Industries, a highly selective private security company. As their most elite Operative, you possess many skills and talents, not to mention top-of-the-line equipment - including your very own AI module, IVI.

This, of course, puts a price on your head. An AI module goes for billions on the black market; carrying one around in your skull is, perhaps, not the safest idea. Sure, you’re more than a match for anyone who might come after you - but no-one outside the high levels of Scytha knows about it, so you should be safe anyway, right?

Wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I do want to thank all these tremendously talented authors for creating such complex and beautiful worlds. I love it with all my soul.

Thanks for reading, I hope you will find story for yourself. I’ll gradually extand this top!

Stay tuned.

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paperstarwriters · 3 years

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The arcana crew as beast-kin

Why? Because I wanna :P

General notes:

Everyone is based off of the card they’re associated with

Beast-kin tend to have magic that lets them look human (three forms; 1: anthropomorphic beast, 2: human with animal ears/wings and tails, and them as a normal human—I’ll be focusing on the animal aspects)

Just because they can do glamour magic doesn’t mean they can do other types of magic.

They still have their familiars, don’t worry.

If you wanna reference for the first form, just watch Beastars. The design is pretty similar (mainly thinking about the birds)

If you wanna reference for beast-kin in general check out the manga “Milady Just Wants to Relax” it’s what I’ve based the abilities off of and just beast-kin in general.

Asra

This sly fox :)

It’s probably because of my ties with anime but I imagine him like a multi-tailed fox

It’s purely so that you have more tails to cuddle and snuggle with.

You know how when foxes are in the snow they leap into the air then get their whole upper half stuck in the snow?

Well, when Asra hears something they want to catch, or they’re playing with Faust, they sometimes just... well....

It’s funny to see honestly.

Lowkey acts like a dog sometimes. They Loves the pats and chin scratches he can get and will whine until you give him more.

Sometimes you wake up to their tail(s) in your face. Good or bad, you decide.

In most folklore that have them, foxes aren’t exactly trusted, so often, Asra uses his glamour to make himself look like a human. However, when a customer runs unsavoury or maybe there’s just some mean brat that he wants to scare, his shadow still shows off his ears and tail(s)

Cuddles??? Cuddles!!!! Foxes are just so fluffy... Asra is no different. (In fact he might just be even fluffier)

Hate to delve a little into angst territory, but as a child since he was an orphan and all, Asra probably learned to basically act like a dog or a cat depending on the person to get more food, or to convince them that they’re a harmless beast-kin.

Nadia

Design wise, I love humanoid bird designs with their wings doubling as their arms and hands. Don’t ask me how this works logically right now we’re talking about crazy fantasy elements anyways, let me have this.

One thing I cannot get out of my mind is:

Nadia has her back to Lucio and he’s just talking and chattering nonsense. Then Lucio says something insanely stupid or offensive and whoever is talking to Lucio can see Nadia behind him just—

Whips her freaking head around 180°

It’s worse if she’s somewhere dark cause then you just see two red eyes coming into view as she slowly turns to glare at you.

Our queen is proud of her pretty talons, honestly probably spends a day sharpening them with Portia.

Goes out flying with Chandra at dusk if she has the time, and if you can fly (via spells, wings, a broomstick, etc.) you’re welcome to come along

Super accurate hearing. Honestly. It’s hard to hide an injury from Nadia even without her being an owl but she hears you Yelp in pain on the other side of the palace and she’s there in minutes.

Pretty problematic when she has headaches though :(

Preen feathers with her!! She’ll love having you card your fingers though her feathers making them less itchy. You’ll often help her preen after a bath, but honestly she’ll appreciate the sentiment anywhere but during an important meeting. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re providing her such wonderful affection.

Please don’t make owl jokes. She doesn’t like them. Sometimes she just avoids saying “who” so people don’t make that annoying joke. (It’s Natiqa’s favorite joke to make please spare Nadia the pain.)

“...and to whom will I be sending this?” “don’t you mean to “who” Dia?” *glare*

Julian

This is a happy raven ok? HAPPY. no birdie in a cage, ok?

The look we all know is probably his second form leaning to the first. Nadia’s would look somewhat similar

Crows & ravens are pretty dramatic birds. Reminds you of someone doesn’t it?

Idk if Edger Allan Poe even exists in this world, or any variant of it, but if it does... ooohhh if it does... this guy is totally gonna recite the poem in a dramatic flourish, and when he’s drunk you can sometimes find him chanting “ever more” same applies to any and all raven/crow themed media.

Screams. A lot. “Caw, caw b**ch” or “quoth the raven: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”

Once convinced a bunch of birds to just go n take a dump on Lucio & his statue. He helped the servants clean when the work was dumped on them but they all agreed the bleat he made was hilarious(more on that later)

Shiny thing collector. Portia tried to get him to clean his stuff up but he has since bribed her out of it with a ball of yarn.

He and Portia make an odd pair of siblings, they’re still pretty much the same though. Crows are kinda just cats with wings.

“One day Illia, I’m probably just gonna eat you.”

*overly dramatic offended gasp*

All in good humor lol

Speaking of, their familiars are the same animal as they are!

So sometimes Julian scoops up Malak and says in a dramatic fashion (because however else would he say it) “I’ve found you my long lost brother! Oh how I’ve missed you!”

Portia does the same (more on that later)

Because his sister is a cat, Julian sometimes does a lot of cat-like things. (Case in point, he bleps. Tongue just kinda left out after yawning or something.)

Flies around with Malak often, like Nadia does, and sometimes carries Portia around with him. Will do the same for you if you want him to, sometimes if you don’t want him to as well. Expect to be grabbed from the ground and flown up into the sky at some point.

Bread. Boy loves his lobster claws but bread is a close second. “Aww yisss motha freaking bread crumbs”

Sometimes on a bad day, he just walks in dragging Pepi behind him who has her mouth latched on his tail

Portia

(If this were modern times) “you know, like, nya~!”

Look. Portia is so sweet to be around. But take that plus PURRING? And a soft as all frick FUR?

Honestly I think that sometimes when with Nadia has a bad headache, Portia purring is a great way to calm her down. You—you lucky MC, get to fall asleep to that.

She falls asleep on your lap and you are stuck there. Bound by a rule that transcends time and space. Her purring does little to aid the fact that YOU NEED TO PEE. The universe does not care of your internal tides, for your lover, who is also a cat, rests in your lap.

When she’s chasing down Julian for something stupid he often yells about being hunted. All in good fun!

“Mazelinka!!! Portia’s hunting me again!!!” “I wouldn’t be chasing you if you’d just clean your stuff!!!!”

Small boxes are her jam! Julian hates them, and like other birds doesn’t like closed spaces, but Portia loves em.

Good at squeezing into and out of tight places. Which is really helpful for sneaking around, curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

Swishy swishy tail.

Cast a little light spell for her to case down. She loves it, you love it, Pepi loves it— everyone wins! (Except for the furniture she crashes into)

Yes, she has picked up Pepi before and yelled very loudly for Julian to hear (often after he’s made the joke of his long lost brother Malak) “Oh Pepi, you’re my favorite sister!!!”

On a bad day, Malak may be found in Portia’s mouth. He’s completely unharmed if only a little ruffled, but it’s gotta be a pretty bad day to find her doing that.

If Camio is in her mouth it’s same business as always. She won’t kill hem either but if Mr. Sh**bird doesn’t shut up she’ll make him shut up. You don’t even know why he keeps coming back.

Not all cats like cuddling, but like Pepi, Portia LOVES it. So long as you’re the right person and not someone unpleasant.

Please don’t step on the tail.

As much as she doesn’t like baths she still does properly was herself. She just really doesn’t like it when her fur is all wet and clings to her body. Do you have a spell to dry her off quickly? Please use it. Save her the misery.

Muriel

pretty sure he’s even bigger as a bear. Like, it’s probably because of the added fur but— woah... Big. Bear.

Big arse bear with scars is SUPER intimidating buuuuut you saw him sitting in the sunlight with Inanna once, just napping in the sun. He looked so peaceful and so dang fluffy!!

He enjoys headpats and gets very flustered at belly rubs. He’s seen you do so to Inanna many times probably kinda wanting you to do the same to him though he would never willingly admit it.

When you two get closer expect to spend some time with his head in your lap. Pat his head rub his ears, Inanna may get jealous if you don’t also provide her attention

Just don’t let him fall asleep there, he’s gonna have a sore back later and you’re going to have numb legs.

Hunting, swimming, carrying you, this boy can do it all.

Unlike his usual(cannon) self, Muriel probably doesn’t carve any bear statures. The only one he’d have was probably a gift from Asra. Carves birds, bunnies, foxes, and wolves instead. Does NOT carve goats. Never have never will.

Again I hate to go int angst but Muriel probably wants to get his claws removed somehow. It’d hurt and it probably insanely unsafe, but they were used as weapons before and its one of the things on him that everyone is afraid of. If he could he’d probably try to change his teeth too.

Show him that claws aren’t something to be feared. They don’t have to be a weapon. They help him climb and hunt food and sometimes to even carve wood. Like humans and knives, his claws aren’t bad or inherently evil, and neither is he.

Giant. Teddy Bear. You will be getting hugs and falling asleep with a Giant Teddy Bear.

He probably keeps in his mostly human form though, because he stands out less that way and he looks a little less intimidating.

Short little bear tail on his butt. Plz don’t touch, he’s going to be blushing so hard if you do (let’s be honest, that’s all the more reason to do so)

In “Milady Just Wants to Relax” Beast-kin are feared as monsters and I don’t think it’d do Muriel any good to have to live with that kind of fear from everyone. However, when you come around un afraid and eager to provide head-pats, but patient enough to let him get comfortable with it, Muriel will probably start using less energy to try and glamour himself.

Sometimes he’s so caught up with you that when you go to the market together he forgets to cast a glamour. While some do get scared off most of the people who you buy from are only a little surprised and take things in stride. They still treat him like he’s human, and he’s forever grateful for that.

If I could write a beast-kin version of his route, the moment you and Muriel meet Morga is probably when you first realize he isn’t human. And it’s because Morga pointed it out.

“Why didn’t you fight? As a beast you’re stronger than them.”

He knows you’ve spent time with Asra but he probably assumed they kept it hidden from you most of the time.

Just love him please. Platonic or romantic doesn’t matter, just give him headpats and belly rubs and boop his nose. Keep him assured that you aren’t afraid of this giant teddy bear.

Lucio

We know of both first and second forms. They’re pretty much cannon, but just not a ghost.

Which means you finally get to pet the fluffy white fur.

This also means his horns can do an irritating amount of damage.

Also he’s so much more noisier now

*loud stupid goat noises*

It’s fun to make him bleat a lot. He tends to bleat when embarrassed. If you’re topping him expect a bleat every time you pin him to the wall.

Tries to butt heads with EVERYONE. Please stop him, Lucio is the only prey animal in the lineup!

Seriously, how has he survived this long?? Muriel is a bear! he could just.... chomp.

not that he would obviously, but I don’t think Asra would hesitate after what he’s done to you and his parents...

Portia too for that matter, if she realized that Lucio had forcefully given Julian the plague, Lucio would be forever running from a feral cat.

I know he’s probably skilled in fighting or whatever, enough to take down various fantastical beasts, but stiiiiiiilllll.....

Is it obvious I dislike Lucio?

Grouchy bias aside, Lucio is really good at climbing. Like I’m pretty sure he’s a sword fighter so just imagine him leaping onto ledges in order to get the high ground.

Still uses eyeliner. I don’t know how since he has fur sometimes, but yeah, he still somehow uses eyeliner.

Honestly he probably keeps in a mostly human form or just entirely human form for that reason exactly. It’s just easier to look good when he’s more human.

But if you wanna pet his luxurious fur then he is all but willing to take on his goat form. In fact, if he turns into his goat form around you (which is always) he pretty much expects you to brush his fur or just run your hands through his fur. He will whine very loudly if you don’t.

Spare everyone else’s ears (especially Nadia’s) and just give him the head pats.

#the arcana #the arcana headcannons #the arcana portia #the arcana asra #the arcana julian #the arcana nadia #the arcana muriel #the arcana lucio #muriel the mountain man #muriel the hermit #muriel of the kokhuri #count lucio #lucio fontana #nadia stratinava #asra alzanar #julian devorak #portia devorak

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honourablejester · 4 years

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Celtic Pantheon/Campaigns (5e D&D)(Long Post)

Okay, so I’m just going to get this out there, because every time I glance at the Celtic Pantheon in the PHB I do giggle a bit. Mind you, it’s not anyone’s fault, but a couple of centuries of academics bundling stuff together under ‘Celtic’ has mightily confused just about everything, and it really shows here.

(Note: I have no academic qualifications regarding Celtic mythology/history/folklore whatsoever, I’m just Irish and grew up with a lot of the Irish myths and legends as a kid. This also means I know very little about the Welsh and other Celtic myths, just to say that in advance. This is all just what I’m familiar with from growing up and a little bit of research, and might have errors)

This post is also brought to you by my idly scanning lfg posts for Celtic campaigns and seeing a lot of historically inspired Celts-vs-Romans campaigns which is … doubly funny to me if they’re using the PHB pantheon list. This is because, as you’ll see in a minute, the majority of the PHB list uses the Irish gods and we … didn’t have those. Romans. We didn’t have them. So. Heh.

(We had Roman traders, especially around the Waterford area, it’s a relatively quick hop over from Wales/Cornwall, and we have evidence of Roman … tourists, probably? There are Roman offerings at various Irish prehistoric religious sites, in the Midlands especially. So we did have Romans, in the sense of we met them, but we didn’t have Romans, in the sense of invasion by the Roman Empire)

So. The thing about the PHB ‘pantheon’. It’s kind of borrowing gods from several different Celtic pantheons. ‘Celtic’ covers a lot of distinct regional cultures that are believed (I think for primarily linguistic and archaeological reasons) to be descended from an original proto-Celtic culture. For extra fun, there aren’t many primary historical sources for most of them, as in Celts writing about themselves and their faiths. Most of the texts we have are either medieval Christian (a lot of the Irish and Welsh) or Roman (a lot of the Gaulish, Iberian, Germanic, Brythonic), so there’s a lot of cross-cultural influence and interpretation muddling it up in there before you ever get to celtic-vs-celtic.

So they’re all Celtic, but they’re all very distinct in terms of stories, culture and the attributes of their gods. There are some gods that were broadly shared under similar names between various of the regional pantheons (Lugh and Brigantia are two examples), although they could be very different in portrayal between, say, the Irish and Gaulish stories. (Where the PHB uses one of these, I’m going with what name they’re using for guidance)

(The various attributes given to them by the PHB are a different muddle of influences again, with I think a lot of it being straight D&D invention, but that’s its own story)

So, to have a look at the D&D breakdown:

5e PHB Celtic Pantheon

Arawn (Welsh)

Belenus (Gaulish/Romano-British)

Brigantia (Gaulish/Romano-British)

Diancecht (Irish)

Dunatis (???)(Can’t find or remember this guy at all. Only thing I’ve got is that the Irish for ‘fort’ is ‘dún’, so maybe Irish?)

Goibhniu (Irish)

Lugh (Irish)

Manannan Mac Lir (Irish)

Math Mathonwy (Welsh)

Morrigan (Irish)

Nuada (Irish)

Oghma (Irish)

Silvanus (???)(Don’t know at all. I’m going to guess continental because I think ‘silva’ is the latin for ‘forest’, hence ‘Transylvania’ or ‘Beyond the Forest’, so the dude has a latin name)(… looking this up, he’s actually straight-up a Roman god, okay then)

The Daghdha (Irish)(I usually see it spelled ‘Dagda’, mind)

This all shakes out as follows:

Irish: Daghdha, Diancecht, Goibhniu, Lugh, Manannan, Morrigan, Nuada, Oghma

Not Sure/Maybe Irish?: Dunatis

Welsh: Arawn, Math Mathonwy

Gaulish/Romano-British: Belenus, Brigantia

Straight Roman: Silvanus

So that’s more than half the list being figures from Irish mythology. And that … there’s nothing wrong with using them for an Asterix-and-Obelix Romans-vs-Celts sort of campaign. I mean, it’s your own private fantasy game, not a history lesson. Go nuts! It just … reads oddly to me. Heh. Historically speaking, very few people with Irish names calling on Irish gods would have had much cause to fight Romans. Not on any large scale, anyway.

Campaign Inspirations:

I’m going to just say, though. If you want a more historical and/or mythological feeling Celtic campaign. You have a couple of options. I’d say the easiest thing is to just look up the specific pantheons and cherry-pick your gods from there (there’s a handy Wikipedia list here)

If you want continental Romans vs Celts a-la Asterix and Obelix, use the Gaulish/Brythonic list.

If you want Romans vs Celts more along the lines of various modern interpretations of King Arthur, use the Gaulish/Brythonic and/or Pictish lists.

If you want Celtic more along the lines of full Arthurian, Excalibur, BBC Merlin, ‘dragons, druids, knights and romance’, a lot of actual Arthurian legend used Welsh myths as a base, so it’s a nice start, then throw some Brythonic on top (particularly if you want to do an 80s Robin Hood on it and throw in Cernunnos/Herne the Hunter in). If your setting is more of a fully mixed ‘Medieval England’ sort of setting, Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc, you can mix and match a whole bunch of folklore and mythology of various sources, Welsh, Roman, Norse, etc. (Alan Garner is a fantasy author who does this very well, if you want a high-fantasy example)

And if you want Celtic as in Irish myth to match the names …

If you’re going relatively low-fantasy for a more historical feel, use the Irish pantheon, and the sources you want to inspire the setting would be the Cattle Raid of Cooley and the Fenian Cycle/stories of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. The Five Kingdoms of Ireland (Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Meath, with the High King sitting at Tara in Meath) makes a pretty good setting.

If you’re going more high fantasy, like the Arthurian example, use the Irish pantheon, and you want the Book of Invasions and the Battle of Magh Tuireadh as inspiration. Setting elements you can have here are the Five Kingdoms of Ireland, the Four Cities that the Treasures of Ireland came from, Tir na nOg, and the Otherworld. (Note on the four cities and their treasures: they were each guarded by a legendary bard (poet/scholar/mage), so you could go classic archmage wizard or you could throw in some high level NPC bards for fun)

There’s some very cool magic items in Irish myth too, like the aforementioned four treasures, the magic pigskin (waterskin) Lugh had the sons of Tuireann quest for (heals all wounds, but charges of various healing spells per day would probably work), the sword Fragarach (I think other D&D editions had a version, but I’m particularly interested in its sword of truth aspect that forces anyone threatened by it to tell the truth), Cuchulainn’s Gae Bolg spear, aka Belly Spear (which is made from a bone of a sea monster and is nasty – it basically grows barbs/spines once it’s in someone’s body), and basically every item ever owned/gifted by Manannan Mac Lir, who is basically the Irish god of giving away cool magic items (as well as sea god, trickster god, elder god, and the god often in charge of starting quests). If you need a quest-starter god or a god to litter magic items around your world, Manannan Mac Lir is your dude.

If you want a fantasy author that I quite like who does great loosely-based-on-Irish-myth high fantasy, I would say Michael Scott, particularly (from my reading) the De Danaan tales and Tales of the Bard. I also grew up reading Cormac Mac Raois’ Giltspur trilogy, which is an awesome kid’s portal fantasy involving some Wicklow kids winding up in Tir na nOg and fighting the forces of the Morrigan, but that’s pretty much impossible to get outside Ireland, I think.

And I promise I’m not only saying this because I personally feel like a low-fantasy ‘historical’ campaign is about the least interesting thing you could do with any of the Celtic pantheons. Honest.

#d&d #dnd #5e #celtic mythology #irish mythology #history #inspirations #fantasy

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INTERVIEW: The Creators of The Ancient Magus' Bride and The Girl From the Other Side

In coordination with the recent anime announcements of The Girl from the Other Side and The Ancient Magus' Bride, Comic Natalie recently held an interview with the manga authors of both series: Nagabe and Kore Yamazaki. Crunchyroll News was given the opportunity to officially translate the interview in English between the two, posted below. You can read the original Japanese interview here.

Tetsuko Kumase held and composed the interview.

The Girl from the Other Side by Nagabe and The Ancient Magus’ Bride by Kore Yamazaki are the two stories that develop around the theme of "Beast x Girl," and probably have many fans in common. To celebrate the release of The Girl from the Other Side as a full-length anime OAD (news article embedded) and the development of a new OAD series for The Ancient Magus’ Bride (news article embedded), Comic Natalie has set up an interview with Nagabe and Yamazaki. In addition to discussing their commitment to their work and the concept of "Beast x Girl", they also shared their thoughts about the new anime productions. At the end of the interview, they asked questions to each other to learn more about one’s perspectives towards creating stories.

Respect for each other and the appeal of "Beast x Girl"

── There have been several projects you collaborated on, such as a joint event for the two works (see: The Ancient Magus’ Bride and The Girl from the Other Side fair where visitors could get the “Beast x Girl” playing cards) and the book of The Ancient Magus’ Bride including a trivia manga booklet, The Ancient Magus’ Bride: Quiet Talk, written by Nagabe-san (see: The Ancient Magus’ Bride volume 10 includes an acrylic stand and a booklet written by Nagabe). I know that many readers are fans of both of your works, but could you tell us about your impressions of each other's creations and what you like about them?

Nagabe: The Ancient Magus’ Bride initially grabbed my attention because of the obi (belt) on the book that said "Beast x Girl." But when I started reading it, I found it to be a fantasy manga that’s really well thought out. Dragons, mythical creatures, folklore, and mythology are well integrated into the modern world, and each magical being is given its own meaning. The non-human characters also have their own meanings, backgrounds, and cultures, and interact with the protagonists. It's not just a fantasy, but the way the characters are connected to the world and make it feel so real is exquisite! Of course, the non-humans in the story are also wonderful. I love Elias.

Kore Yamazaki: Thank you very much. I'm often amazed at the range of stories and pictures you create. I sometimes even question if there are any non-human characters you can’t draw. I don't know if it's appropriate to say, but there's a hint of darkness or something in your work. I think it's a little sexy or maybe there’s secret eros? I love that I can feel a little bit of naughtiness in your work.

Nagabe: Thank you!

Yamazaki: The other thing is that I feel like I can almost smell the lines and shadows you draw if I trace them. Also, your story can be either very sweet or disturbing. I know you've been working very hard to achieve this, but honestly, I envy you. I wish I could create pictures and stories like you.

── I can really tell that you respect each other deeply. Now, please tell us what you like about particular scenes, episodes, or expressions in each of your works.

Nagabe: Personally, I think that The Ancient Magus’ Bride is a human drama in which you see Chise’s growth and changes as she confronts the environment around her. So, of course, there are impressive episodes that correspond to that. However, if I get to choose one based on my own preferences, I like the story of magic in Episode 2 and the Christmas story of Elias and Chise. The former shows magical instruments in a fantasy world, and the latter shows the integration of the real world customs in manga. I love portraits that showcase slice-of-life stories, so I thought those were great!

Yamazaki: I really like the gradual development of the relationship between Shiva and Sensei in The Girl from the Other Side. I love the scenes where they are about to touch but hesitate and also the scene that portraits the cute fight that heats up through the door. There’s also a scene where they touch each other by accident, but that triggers them to touch each other intentionally after, and that made me go "Wow!” The distance between them is so... delicate and exquisite. The softness of the flesh and the temperature of Shiva and the lack of physical temperature of Sensei next to her, all give me the feeling of winter, which is amazing. I think it just fits my sense of winter perfectly. The coldness that mercilessly takes away life, the feel of the felt, floor, and walls chilled by snow and water, and the warmth of having someone by your side in front of the stove… they all exist together in the story.

Nagabe: I'm very happy to hear that.

Yamazaki: My favorite episode is episode 29 in volume 6. I really want them both to be happy! It made me feel the warm temperature of Shiva’s tears. The scene where they go see Mother gave me chills. The design of the children of darkness is also epic!

── Now, can you talk about what you both find to be attractive about the “Beast x Girl," which is a common concept in both of your works?

Nagabe: It’s not just about girls but more so about humans, but I think I’m into cross-culturalism. Different races have different cultures, languages, and maybe even different body structures. The two characters have great differences and that brings out interesting gaps and interactions which creates a good drama. It’s also nice when they see each other’s similarities and go “oh, that’s the part we have in common”. I especially like it when there are differences that are incompatible. For example, whether cannibalism is acceptable or not. The fact that taboos in the human world are practiced without hesitation in the non-human world creates clear divisions. Seeing how they deal with these negative differences is the best part and what makes this theme attractive to me.

Yamazaki: The concept of non-human exists because there are humans. I am personally attracted to things that are distant from humans in appearance and sensibility. I love non-humans who don’t speak human languages, but I also have to balance my work for consumer products. In The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I used fairytales from Britain and Ireland as references, so they all speak human languages fluently. Their sensibilities and appearance are quite human-like except for their rules. It’s probably because humans wouldn’t be able to understand them otherwise, and they can be very different from your ideas of non-humans. However, they are very rigid about certain rules they have, so I have to be careful drawing those concepts clearly. It’s quite difficult to decide how much of the original folktales and fairytales I include in my creation. If I put too much just because it’s interesting, the originality in my work will disappear. This is something I have to be careful not to overlook.

── You've taken special care to balance these concepts.

Yamazaki: The other topic to consider is the reason why a girl is matched with a beast. Personally, I think it’s because girls have the most flexibility and softness. For better or worse, children are soft, malleable, and flexible to their environment. But they also have their own answers to questions, toughness, weakness, rigidness, and acceptance to their worlds, questions, hesitation, tolerance, anger, joy… all sorts of ideas and emotions, which makes them very attractive and easy to draw. I understand that adult characters are interesting as well. Also, it’s just exciting to see humans and non-humans together like with animals, monsters, and so on. In reality, people often don’t understand each other, but in creation, we can hope differently. I guess I like seeing everyone getting along as a bystander. But from a business point of view, I can’t just leave it like that, so I give them lots of challenges!

Nagabe: In The Ancient Magus’ Bride, I think that emotions are portrayed as something specific to humans. The contrast between Chise, who is always changing based on her experiences, and Elias, who is certainly changing but lacking in some crucial way, is brilliant. It seems that this kind of dissonance is there because we see Elias’ emotions in the same way we see that of Chise’s or humans. In the story, Chise said to Elias “I can’t understand you”, and I think it’s great that you are taking this difference between the characters seriously and depicting it in your work.

Yamazaki: Thank you. I think The Girl from the Other Side provides the perfect sense in terms of closeness among characters. Other works of yours also showcase this as well. Sometimes characters are all over each other, and other times they are trying to figure out the right distance. There’s rejection, and there’s also adorable connection. I love it. I think the struggle between a being and another being is wonderful. Also, it’s simply cool to have two different concepts exist together like big and small.

── What kind of works have influenced the two of you in terms of drawing fantasy and the theme of "Beast x Girl"?

Yamazaki: It’s not that I’m only looking for the “Beast x Girl” theme, but it just triggers my sensors! Some of the books that caught my attention are the Darren Shan series, Rachel series, Koteki no Kanata, Dendera Ryu ga Detekitayo, Sukkuto Kitsune, and Hellsing. In terms of animation, I’d say the Monster Farm, PoPoLoCrois series, Brigadoon: Marin & Melan, and Blood: The Last Vampire series. Rather than finding the exact theme of “Beast x Girl," I find the subtle essence of that in these works. Also, I often use myths and folktales as references. I’d say the ones that influenced me the most are Ashiarai Yashiki no Juunintachi, J&J series, and Blood+.

Nagabe: I think Beauty and the Beast was influential for me! These are not about a beast and a girl, but Alice in Wonderland and Moomin also had a strong influence on my current manga creation. They are certainly fantasy, but not shiny and glamorous, and gives you a sense of antiquity,

── Are there any works that you would like to recommend to each other?

Nagabe: In my case, I am more interested in art books and picture books than novels, so my tastes are a little different. But I would like to recommend Arthur Rackham and Saint-Exupery! Arthur Rackham is famous for Alice in Wonderland, and Saint-Exupery for The Little Prince. I also recommend Jon Klassen's picture book series. I like the airy atmosphere and you can see his energetic watercolor touch. I hope you will read them if you have a chance.

Yamazaki: I'd like to check them out. It's hard to make recommendations to Nagabe-san, but I'd like you to read Ashiarai Yashiki no Juunintachi. The characters are more human-like in appearance, but there is also great diversity. There are lots of characters so I'm sure you'll be able to find one, three, or even ten that you like.

Nagabe: I see. I’ll check it out.

What they want to portray through their work

── Could you tell us about your own work? In a previous interview with Comic Natalie, Yamazaki-san, you said you wanted to create a story in The Ancient Magus’ Bride where "everyone is bad and everyone is good."

Yamazaki: Now that I think about it, “everyone is bad and everyone is good” is not exactly correct. If I could answer it again, I would say it’s about differences. It's like a sample of where various emotions and thoughts are. I hope that reading my manga will give the audience a chance to think about the differences in their lives. But they are free to dismiss it if they think it’s boring. I have my ideas of what I want to convey as a message in my work, but I try not to give clear answers so that people can think and feel what they want.

── Now, Nagabe-san, in a previous interview, you said that the most important theme for you was "gentleness."

Nagabe: After finishing The Girl from the Other Side, I felt once again that ‘gentleness’ is a difficult thing to express. I wondered to whom that ‘gentleness’ was meant for, what it meant, and what would happen if that feeling resulted in a bad situation. Is ‘gentleness’ shown in words, actions, or something else in the first place? Any of these can express ‘gentleness’ depending on the perspectives of each protagonist, so I was reminded of the ambiguity of emotions, the frustration that comes with interaction, and how difficult it is to depict those things. I’m glad I got to learn the difficulty of this theme, and I felt that I need to look at it from different aspects.

── I see. It's been a few years since any of the interviews I mentioned before, but has there been anything new you would like to emphasize in your works?

Nagabe: Since I’ve been thinking about the theme of emotions through "gentleness," I want to focus more on personality. In other words, I want to focus more on human dramas. In addition to that, I would like to depict a strange everyday life in a mysterious world. Of course, I want to include non-humans.

Yamazaki: I haven't really changed my main ideas. But if I had to say, I’d like to go back to the basics and draw non-humans again as I’ve been drawing only humans in stories lately.

The world of The Girl from the Other Side and

The Ancient Magus’ Bride in animation

── Both The Girl from the Other Side and The Ancient Magus’ Bride have been developed into anime projects in the past. How do you feel about your works being made into animation again?

Nagabe: My honest impression (after watching the animation) was "It's moving!” The artwork, visuals, and atmosphere of the manga are very important to me, so I was very impressed that the production team was able to recreate those of my manga with such care. In the previous short animation, the audience was able to enjoy the blank space created by the lack of words. It left room for interpretation. I was simply thrilled that they created such mature animation.

Yamazaki: In my case, I was looking at a hypothetical future where the project was in progress, but in the middle of the project, people would say, "It's not going to sell," and it would discontinue. I was thinking that I should at least be able to do enough work to feed myself, but it actually came true. Can you believe it? Now I can't quit so easily. Oops...

── Oh, no (laughs).

Yamazaki: I was just kidding and was actually very happy, and even though it was a lot of hard work, I had great fun working with many creators!

── What kind of messages and reactions did you receive from the readers of your manga who watched the anime?

Nagabe: The readers were also excited that The Girl from the Other Side was moving! That's how much they have enjoyed the world of The Girl from the Other Side in manga, and we’ve succeeded to meet their expectation in the anime.

Yamazaki: I've received a lot of feedback as well, but it's generally been positive and I’m relieved. I want to thank everyone for that!

── I believe that there are qualities that people are drawn to and ways of expression that are each unique to manga and anime, but when you saw your own work turned into animation, was there anything that you felt was unique to animation?

Nagabe: I think that the subtle movements of people and objects are best expressed through animation. For example, in the scene at the dinner table with Sensei and Shiva, you can see both a movement of Shiva where she tries to climb up on a chair and a smooth movement of Sensei at the same time. This contrast allowed the audience to feel a sense of life in our daily routines, and I thought that was great. One more thing is that the scenes like Shiva’s dreams and the star scene, in the end, achieved a better sense of realism because of the colors, and I think the black-and-white representation of manga won’t be able to quite do the same.

Yamazaki: I may have the same opinion. The manga is quite plain as I prefer low saturation, but I also knew that could be a hindrance for a consumer product. So I was impressed with the bright colors in the anime. Also, the animation complimented the lack of explanation in the manga and it made it more theatrical. I hope people will see both works!

Nagabe: That's right! I want people to see both, too.

── Both manga and anime have their own strong points, and I hope people will enjoy them both. And now, the development of a full-length anime of The Girl from the Other Side and a new OAD series for The Ancient Magus’ Bride has been announced. Please tell us your honest opinions about these developments.

Nagabe: YEEEESSS! I'm so happy. I personally gave the last short-length anime a perfect score, so I have…really...high expectations!

── I can feel your joy. (laugh)

Nagabe: This is all happening thanks to the hard work put in by WIT STUDIO, Yutaro Kubo (director), and Satomi Yoneya (director), and my expectations are very high and I have no worries at all! How about you, Yamazaki-san?

Yamazaki: I'm glad to be working with various creators again! I'm also going to be doing more work that I don't normally do, so in a way I'll be able to change up my routine. It's a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.

── What are you looking forward to and what are your expectations for the new animation?

Nagabe: I’m wondering how they will tell the story now that it’s longer. Of course, I’m interested in the visual expressions and the production of animation as I was for the previous short-length anime, but more than that, I’m looking forward to seeing how they will incorporate the world of The Girl from the Other Side into animation and how they will depict it. Also, Sensei and Shiva are going to talk… with voices. I’m pretty pumped about it and can't contain my excitement!

── As a fan, I'm really looking forward to it. What about you, Yamazaki-san?

Yamazaki: It's fun to have more opportunities to see the work of the animation staff. To tell the truth, I don't really have much expectation for my work. “New anime! Work is coming! I'll do my best!”, I don’t normally feel that way. It almost feels like a collaboration between the supervising team and the animation team, so I have to do my best for our audience to enjoy it.

── How do you feel about the fact that both of your works are loved overseas as well?

Nagabe: Is that so? I'm glad to hear that! Since The Girl from the Other Side is more like a poem or a picture book than a manga, I’ve been wondering how it would be perceived even in Japan. But I'm frankly happy that it's been accepted so favorably. I'm also happy that TThe Girl from the Other Side has “flown” to a foreign country (the Other Side). That gave me a smile. Thank you very much.

Yamazaki: I'm really grateful that there are people overseas who are interested in my work since I basically published it for Japanese people. As the story is set in England, I tried to avoid using gestures and phrases that are unique to Japanese culture, but I guess you could say that worked in my favor. I've been getting a lot of positive feedback and art from fans!

The influence of the pandemic

── I'd like to change the subject. In the past year, as I’ve had interactions with various manga artists, I've witnessed the impact of the pandemic in the writing process and the mental health of manga artists in general. Have there been any changes for you?

Nagabe: Due to the pandemic, of course, I thought about things like my daily life, how to go out, and how to enforce hygiene. But if I speak of The Girl from the Other Side, I feel that its world has gotten closer to our reality. In the story, there’s a curse, and one character would say “it’s safe to stay close to non-humans from the Outside as long as you take proper precautions” while another would say “we should eliminate the cause if nobody can take responsibility”, and they keep arguing. They are both right, and that is why there is friction. I think our feelings and societal reactions toward COVID-19 is very similar to that of The Girl from the Other Side.

Yamazaki: My assistant has been working from far away since before the pandemic, so our work itself hasn’t really been affected at all. But the fact that I can’t go out to gather information and materials for my work has put a damper on my mood. I can feel the significant influence on my work speed, physical condition, and mental health. I’ve always thought I was an indoor person, but in the situation where I am restricted to go out, it’s making me want to do so even more.

── I really understand. There are many people around me saying that they had thought they were indoor people but they got depressed when they couldn’t go outside for a long period of time. Along this topic, I have an impression that manga artists are more used to being at home than people with regular jobs, so you must have some useful tips on how to make it more enjoyable. Do you?

Nagabe: Leave it to me. After all, I am a professional at that.

── I’m counting on you (laughs).

Nagabe: In my case, I have three rooms: one is my workroom, one is my bedroom, and one is my living space, so I feel like I can make my home more comfortable just by not mixing up my personal and professional life. Also, it's exhausting to keep up 100% of my attention, so I think it's okay to cut corners where I can. I also wear pajamas except in my workspace. For me, it's important to keep my workspace clean and crisp and separate from my personal life. Otherwise, I think people should invest in hobbies. Yeah, I think so. Let's paint, everyone. Drawing is good. [To the reader] Why don't you draw pictures, too?

Yamazaki: Haha. I am an indoor person only when I have a lot of materials to read and work, so not being able to go out gives me a fair amount of stress. If I had to pick, I’d say looking at photo books, cooking, trying out musical instruments, or woodworking or something. Woodworking in particular is great because you can develop your concentration and you end up with a finished product in your hands. Just shaving the bark of a tree branch with a knife is fun, so I think it’s good to have a knife. It’s convenient.

Questions to each other from their commitments to creation to the favorite features of non-humans

─ Since we are here to talk altogether, I would like to ask you to interview each other. First, Nagabe-san, could you please ask questions to Yamazaki-san?

Nagabe: I’d like to know your process of thinking out and what you are particular about in creating your stories. When I read The Ancient Magus’ Bride, the first thing that struck me was that Yamazaki-sensei uses motifs from Western mythology, fairies, and folklore, and then creates a human drama about how those characters confront each other and express their feelings. So I am wondering how you incorporate the elements that exist in fantasy into your own stories and characters.

Yamazaki: A human drama…… Can I call it a human drama? I'd be happy if I can!

Nagabe: I'm sure you can!

Yamazaki: To be honest, there are many parts where I’m not really sure how I’ve applied the concept of fantasy to the characters. When I'm thinking about a story, my brain starts going "This is it," "This person is that," or "That can be incorporated into this development,” and it often puts different pieces together like a puzzle. On the other hand, when those things don't come out naturally, it's hard as hell to write a story (laughs). I usually read books on mythology and folklore, and I often have a stock of ideas that I can use in development. Perhaps it's because I don't think of fantasy as something that can't happen in reality, so I create a story where humans meet fantasy in an ordinary way. That's probably why I create the way I do. I feel that these things can happen right next to us, like the change of seasons.

Nagabe: Are there any techniques or theories that you consider in manga? For example, I'd like to know if there are any techniques that you use when drawing manga, such as creating a development every four pages or adjusting the number of frames.

Yamazaki: People have different opinions on this, but I try to include some funny parts here and there. I’ve had some people say they prefer for me to write seriously throughout weighty stories so that they won’t be distracted. But some say they enjoy those funny parts. Either way, I am enjoying drawing those scenes, so that’s the direction I’m going. Other than that, I only pay attention to the basics. Not too many frames, not too few, no more than three lines of dialogues because it’s hard to read, and wide horizontal lines for speech bubbles. When the bubbles are long in length, it's a problem when it’s translated into other languages.

Nagabe: Oh, I see. I'm just curious, but you create manga, illustrations, and novels, and is there any new field you would like to work on?

Yamazaki: I'm mostly satisfied because I was able to get my hands on all three of those (laughs). I originally wanted to be a writer, but I found it overwhelmingly unsuitable, so I got serious about manga. If I don't have to think about what I’m suited for, writing picture books or game and anime scripts sound interesting.

Nagabe: Now, I'm going to assume that you like non-humans, but what are your favorite things about them? I want you to talk about it as much as you can.

Yamazaki: I don’t know if I’m qualified to talk about non-humans just because I like non-human characters, but personally, I think it’s their differences that attract me. Compared to humans, they look different, think differently, speak different languages, live in different ways, and have different cultures. But when you think about it, this all applies to humans, doesn’t it? If you are from different countries or even areas, all of the things I mentioned can be the differences among humans. I think I enjoy non-human characters because those differences are easier to see. The further away they are from humans and the more difficult it is to communicate with them, the more excited I get. But that also doesn’t mean that I like all non-humans just because. They need to have attractive inner qualities as well. I do love non-human characters, but the basic premise is that characters have to be attractive and stories have to be interesting!

Nagabe: Yeah, I agree.

Yamazaki: Going back to the question, if I had to pick the best feature of non-humans, I would say that it's the fact that they seem to be able to understand humans, but can’t. Even when they are next to us and looking at the same things, what we see are different and we never understand each other’s point of view. I love the fact that we continue to be individuals who don’t intersect, don’t mix, and can’t be fixed into something. But even then, the human character and the non-human character stick around together! I love that concept!I love the fact that they seem to be attracted to each other but are not, and that they will forever remain different creatures. After all, the existence of humans is essential for non-humans because the premise of non-humans is that there are humans. Therefore, I don't get too excited when I don't know much about the non-human characters. If possible, I want to know their thoughts, tastes, words, and deeds of the being before liking them. Although, in some cases, I get really excited about characters based on their appearance only…. So, I guess it’s like an accident to find non-human characters I like.

Nagabe: Is that right? By the way, what do you think of cat ears? Do you like them or not? Is it a beast, a demi-human, or a non-human? Please tell me your opinion.

Yamazaki: There are many factors that I would personally consider, such as how the cat ears are attached, the facial structure, whether it has human ears in addition to cat ears, its lifestyle, and whether it seems to think like a beast rather than a human. Whether there are any features other than the cat ears that differ from humans is probably the main question. Personally, I don't think that a human with only cat ears can be considered a non-human, but in some cases, it can be, so it really depends on the character.

Nagabe: I see.

Yamazaki: For example, if the lifestyle is that of a feral cat or feline, it is a beast, if the lifestyle is culturally different from that of humans, it is a demi-human, and if the lifestyle is clearly different from that of humans, it is non-human. I think it’s important to keep in mind that people will judge cat ears, or rather animal ears, differently depending on who they are. I believe in freedom of what people think, each individual is wonderful, and you can step away from things you disagree with.

Nagabe: Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Lastly, I like non-humans so much that I draw them all the time, but I can’t find the appeal of human features. I don’t find it interesting to draw humans, so please help me.

Yamazaki: What? I'm not very good at drawing humans either! (laughs)

Nagabe: (laughs).

Yamazaki: To be honest, I feel that I’m not very good at drawing in general, but appeal… appeal…. I personally get motivated when I feel I’ve drawn something well, so I draw the features I like with my own fetishism in full swing. Eyes, hair, waistline, and facial expressions. That’s about it, I guess. So when I get into a slump, I am stuck there for a long time.

── Now it’s time for Yamazaki-san to ask Nagabe-san questions.

Yamazaki: I've heard that you draw very quickly, but do you have any weaknesses or strengths in terms of creating a storyboard, plotting, drafting, or line drawing?

Nagabe: I don’t like creating a storyboard and plotting. I get bored easily so I don’t like to spend too much time creating one thing. If I think too much, I don’t make any progress, and as a result, my focus shifts to other things. Creating a storyboard requires an awareness of the direction and progression of the story as well as its intentions. I’m not accustomed to these very well and I can’t supplement these with just my drawing ability.

Yamazaki: I also have a hard time with storyboards, so I understand. Are there any particular things that you can’t compromise in your work?

Nagabe: It's the composition of the picture. I like to deliberately draw blank spaces, and I think adding meaning to the empty spaces and adding emotion to the positions of the characters is an expression that is possible only in the framed world of manga, so I'm very particular about that.

Yamazaki: Thank you very much. Now, do you have any activities or something that you do when you just can't bring yourself to work?

Nagabe: At first, I would draw the easy parts. For example, I start with tasks that I think will be easy, such as drawing only one frame, drawing only persons, or drawing only speech bubbles. I don't know if it makes sense, but I think motivation comes after I begin the work, so I try to start with easy tasks to get the engine going.

Yamazaki: I see. This is the same question you asked me earlier, but I would also like to know what Nagabe-san’s favorite features about non-humans are.

Nagabe: Okay, you sure you have enough time to talk about it?

Yamazaki: (laughs).

Nagabe: First of all, I like the way they look. Sometimes they are human skeletons, sometimes they are four-legged, and they are just distorted and diverse. The visuals are beyond imagination, like a living creature or a sculpture, and I like the eeriness of it. Next is regarding common sense. For example, they may eat pet animals as food, and the pets just accept that they will be eaten. Is this similar to the Cambyses Lottery (Fujiko F. Fujio)? What is considered common sense in one country is considered heretical in another. I love the interaction created by these cultural differences.

Yamazaki: Yeah.

Nagabe: The other thing is their life expectancy. It doesn't matter if it's a long life or a short life. At the moment you are born, it’s decided that you will not live the same amount of time as others and I like the impermanence of it. I want to create a new feeling of discomfort that has never existed before through this concept. There's no end to what I want to say, but I think I put a lot of emphasis on appearance and external characteristics. It's like the characteristics of animal features, and I hope those shapes have meanings.

Yamazaki: I've always thought that you are so good at depicting the interaction between humans and non-humans who don't have control over human language.

Nagabe: Thank you!

Yamazaki: Regardless of whether you draw them or not, which do you prefer, the ones who can control human language or the ones who can't?

Nagabe: I think both are good. If they use words, they can at least communicate instantly, and if they don't, I can create drama through their trial and error process of interacting. But for a story, I think I like the ones that don't use words because it gives them a stronger sense of foreignness and makes it easier to depict the difference between humans and non-humans.

Yamazaki: So, do you have a favorite genre for a non-human with animal features?

Nagabe: All... of them?

Yamazaki: (laughs). Dogs, cats, birds, reptiles and amphibians, marine mammals, insects, etc. These are not animals, but robots and androids would be fine as well.

Nagabe: Anything is fine as long as it's not a human.

Yamazaki: (laughs).

── I can feel Nagabe-san’s love for non-humans (laughs). Lastly, please share a message to the readers who are supporting your work.

Nagabe: Thank you for reading. In my works, I try to eliminate or omit explanations and dialogues as much as possible, so there may be many places where you may wonder what's going on. I've tried to leave room for your imagination, so I hope you'll enjoy the intentional blanks!

Yamazaki: Thank you so much for your support. It's a story that has lots of twists, but there's always something beyond that. I hope you will enjoy it. Thank you for your continued support!

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By: Guest Author

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whetstonefires · 4 years

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Since you like the Hellboy...*perks up* Can I ask what you like about it? Does this need to be part of the ask game, if so, smash it in there. But opinions! I would love!

Ooh! Hm. This is actually surprisingly hard to articulate.

I’ve been ‘into’ Hellboy for like. Half my damn life now, and while I could have gone on at length about all the things about it I found fun as a teenager it was at its core very much a ‘this makes me Feel Happy’ thing. And now that glow is less intense but it’s bolstered by that habitual sort of attachment you feel to like. Family members.

Let’s see how far I can break this down lol.

I have never been able to much like most of the BPRD tie-in type materials and I was not at all pleased with the films, so to an extent I think I can say confidently part of what I like is the way Hellboy is situated in a superhero-comic-adjacent space while being very much coordinated by one overarching creative sensibility--like, other people were brought in to work on Hellboy a lot over the course of the run, but Mignola always had a unifying voice and even when I don’t actually agree with his taste or values that level of artistic...intentionality? Judgment? Presence? Something like that. Gives the work a sense of...integrity? Maybe just unity.

Anyway makes it feel less plastic than comics often do. This is a corporate product of course but it’s also just Mike Mignola hanging out doing whatever he thinks would be cool. Drawing rocks and monsters because that’s what he wants to draw. I like that.

Some of the higher-quality webcomics you get nowadays, when they don’t take themselves too terribly seriously but aren’t outright comedic, can land similarly in terms of voice, but even just fifteen years ago webcomics weren’t really at that point yet as a medium, and even now most are still amateurish as well as amateur. Which is fine, but different.

To get slightly less meta, I love the collection of genres that are smeared together for Hellboy--we’ve got a lot of detective noir stuff cut together with cosmic horror and like...the genre where people research folklore and then mostly punch it. Does that have a name? And then there are a bunch of other influences stirred in, sometimes for only a single issue, sometimes more.

Mignola managed to be significantly less offensive than average about the way he adapted world folklore into his weird groddy kitchen-sink fantasy system, which is pretty funny because he doesn’t come across as being careful about it at all. Not that I think there was no effort made, but also he just used research as a basis for narrative much more often than he started with a story premise and stretched the creature to fit, which by default gave him less scope for dickery.

Also I think the only god he ever fights is Hecate and she’s handled from a 19th-century-occultist angle rather than a Classical angle.

Also Hellboy fights Nazis and cyborg gorillas as well as like. Baba Yaga and vampires. The balance of schlock and gonzo nonsense to pathos and sensitive emotional bits is usually about where I like it.

The episodic format is really well used. It lets the storytelling style lean heavily on the late-19th-through-mid-20th-century short story genres that it borrows a lot from, and which honestly has always worked better for comics than end-to-end long-arc serialization. I like how the anachronic order of many sections of the series allowed for a lot of ‘building outward from the middle.’

Also it means the story can stay true to its roots and kill off a lot of characters in gothic excess without constantly sloughing main cast or having to do fakeouts.

...I can’t believe that since Hellboy isn’t really emotionally involved with the issue of his birth parents except inasmuch as it explains the world-ending stone hand, the single angstiest part of his backstory is technically when he went on a drinking binge road trip around Mexico in his teens and made friends with vampire-fighting luchador triplets but then the youngest one whom he was closest to was kidnapped by the vampires and Hellboy had to kill his best friend, and this is all established in a random side story that pushes the intentional genre absurdism to its breaking point and is equal parts comedic and grotesque.

(The second angstiest is probably the bit in volume 1 when he finds his dad murdered by frogs.)

I also just love characters who wear trench coats and are actually really clever and knowledgeable and kind but tend to resort, in extremity, to just hitting problems really hard. Okay? I like that. That’s a fave.

Hellboy’s whole character design is very strong, a bunch of dramatic broad-strokes decisions that contrast interestingly against one another, and then a lot of subtler elements layered in crosswise.

The way his relationship to the narrative ‘occult-fighting antichrist figure’ could be really straightforward, but keeps stepping a little sideways off the usual shape of the tropes in a way that creates depth.

He’s a giant red demon guy who stopped aging in the 50s; he’s never going to be able to be ‘normal’ or pretend he isn’t what he is--but also he’s a dude with a government job and probably a Social Security Number who goes and interviews people about the situation and says ‘I’m Agent Hellboy’ and gets called ‘Mr. Boy’ and is just this guy who knows his shit and can take a beating.

(This was one of the major things I hated in the first movie, that they decided to make him this weird secret cryptid whose dad keeps him locked in a vault when he’s not fighting.)

The way the identity thing is never reduced to comfortable binaries with him except by enemies trying to psych him out is just really satisfying. He fights monsters not because he hates them or himself but because he was recruited into this career young and he’s really good at it, and he feels good about helping people who are being victimized.

When something occult isn’t hurting anybody he’s down to chill, and if it turns out they secretly are after all he’s always so tired and disappointed, and if they really aren’t then he has a new friend. Whom he may never see again or may hit up for a game of cards next time he’s in town.

(I also like how he combines ‘being pretty private’ ‘being very casually friendly’ and ‘being an asshole who makes a lot of enemies’; it’s not that unusual a combo for his type of main character but it’s one I enjoy.)

When he breaks off his own horns as part of his rejection of being Anung Un Rama it’s not ‘choosing humanity’ or w/e it’s choosing not to be used for this. His name is Hellboy, which is an objectively awful name but it was given to him by people he loved and who chose him, not the people who made him or brought him to this world to be used, and he chooses it.

And that has weight. That has force enough behind it to carry a world.

Just in general in spite of all the identity stuff he gets swamped with he’s really good at self-knowledge and letting other people’s ideas of who and what he’s supposed to be just wash over him. As the story goes on and shit gets weirder his sense of identity gets shaken, but he never quite loses that anchor in the knowledge that he is the ultimate arbiter of his own identity.

His exasperation on being told via stabbing that he doesn’t get to be King of England even if he is the first male descendant of King Arthur since Mordred is so funny. Why is this a thing, says Hellboy. Why am I finding out like this. Why do I always find out this shit like this. Why would anyone think I wanted to be King of England. I already punched so many skeletons about not wanting to be King of Witches.

He’s got so much righteous anger that comes out when people are treated as disposable, or as less for being not human or less human or superpowered, and of course it’s founded in his own experiences and his own fight for respect but it’s not about him. It’s about the person who’s suffering now.

One time his combat one-liner before shooting something started with ‘The Torch of Liberty said I was the worst shot he ever tried to train’ that’s so funny! I love that!

He’s my boy okay.

#have this rant lol #hellboy #my opinions #fandom recruitment pitch #i have all 12 volumes and a number of very disappointing tie-ins #i almost didn't get them all because i was collecting at a leisurely rate #and then all the bookstores stopped stocking it because it had wrapped up #and guess what???#volume 11 of 12 ain't easy to find used!#comics #writing #identity #names and naming #beastenraged #ask #hoc est meum

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aer-in-wanderland · 4 years

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구미호뎐 | Tale of the Nine Tailed - Lost in Translation EP01

In which my sister and I sat down with a pint of mint chocolate chip and wrote down everything that occurred to us while watching the fan-subbed version of TotNT EP01. Contains mild spoilers.

Prologue

We open with an excerpt from the Hyeonjoonggi (현중기・玄中記), which the internet informs me originated in China sometime between 265-317 CE. In Korea in particular, gumiho are typically thought of as being female, but this is an example of a classical text that says they can be either. From what director Kang Shin Hyo said at the TotNT press conference, the premise of TotNT began with the idea of challenging this base assumption by making the gumiho male and placing him in modern-day Seoul. I would translate the passage as follows:

When a fox becomes 100, it can become a beautiful woman, or become a man who has relations with women. A fox that lives for 1000 years communes with the heavens and becomes a cheon’ho (heavenly fox). Its gifts are like that of a powerful shamaness; it can perceive things more than 1000 leagues distant.”

To my sense, the passage was introduced to show precedent for the existence of male gumiho in traditional folklore, as well as to illustrate that foxes over 1000 (cheon’ho) can be closer to deities than monsters.

On to the show. The year is 1999. I’m surprised the subs left ‘Fox Ridge’ untranslated as Yeou Gogae since it seems like it would be relevant information that the place where the accident takes place is somehow tied to foxes.

When the imposter parents (who I believe are also foxes) chase little Ji Ah up into her room and her not-dad says, “You little brat!” (or at least, that’s what the subs we’re watching say), this is an example of what’s called ‘code switching.’ His phrasing is somewhat old-fashioned, which in this case helps to give the impression that he’s not human since it’s the cant of creatures in traditional fairytales. For anyone studying Korean, the line is, “요 년 봐라,” where ‘nyeon’ might mean anywhere from ‘girl’ to ‘wench’ or even ‘bitch.’

Okay, I have to ask. Does no one else in Seoul drive on Fox Ridge? How did Ji Ah have time to go home, get attacked, and then be returned to the scene of the accident (I’m assuming by Yeon) before anyone came across it?

Also, how did Yeon know where to take her? He tells grown Ji Ah that he just happened upon her after catching the scent of blood, but I get the sense there’s more to the story than that. I feel like this is part of a larger pattern wherein Yeon goes out of his way to rescue someone and then pretends as if he didn’t.

Episode 01 Title Card: What Happened on Fox Ridge

According to Yeon’s alarm, our current timeline begins on Saturday, August 29, 2020, and he has a wedding to attend. 2020 yet no COVID19? I guess this really is a fantasy drama. ;p

The BGM playing while Yeon gets ready is called ‘The Fox's Wedding Day,’ or, more literally, ‘day when a fox goes to be married’ (Yeou ga shijip ganeun nal) and it’s actually Yeon’s theme. I was expecting his theme to be the track entitled ‘Gumiho,’ but I guess not lol

The sun-shower. In both Japan and Korea, a sun-shower is known as ‘a fox’s wedding’ (kitsune no yome-iri/yeou ga shijip ganeun nal), so this is already cluing us in that the bride is a fox (I say ‘bride’ because both these phrasings typically apply to a bride marrying into her husband’s house. The phrasing is different for grooms, who ‘receive’ the bride). This is what Yeon means when he arrives at the wedding hall and says, “That’s because a fox is getting married today.”

It’s strange to me that the bride’s identity has completely dropped out of the subs. She’s Yeou Nui (literally ‘fox sister’), a folklore character of the Brothers Grim-style horror school of fairytales. Her thing is that she’s a gumiho who preys on families with only sons who desperately want a daughter. She insinuates herself into their lives, brings calamity down upon them, and finally, eats their livers. Like most fairytales, there are many permutations of her story, but many of them feature her saying she’s consumed 999 livers. I understand where - absent this context - some people might have seen Yeon as the bad guy here (spoiler: he’s not).

The subtitle here for Yeon’s line says: “But you need to know that changing your identity isn’t as simple as you think.” What he literally says is:

Yeon: How did you go to ground so completely? You think that if you change your face and your identity, your blood-stained past will change too, right? But changing lives isn’t as simple* as changing subway lines. [*Note: ‘simple’ is in English]

This is the first real dialogue we get from Yeon, and one thing it’s doing very intentionally is showcasing just how much he’s adapted to modern life. It does this both with the content of what he says (talking about changing subway lines), as well as with the amount of English loan words he tosses around. So I personally would have kept the bit about the subway in if I had been translating.

Yeou Nui’s line was translated as, “Please forgive me,” but it should more properly be, “Spare me,” or “Let me live.” Yeon is an enforcer, not a judge. (Also, ‘forgive’ is another word entirely).

Yeon’s line that’s subbed, “Listen, you fox. How could you dare dream of having a happy ending after eating so many livers?” is the result of what’s called diagonal translation, which is an unfortunate side-effect of subtitling conventions. What he literally says is:

Yeon: Yeou Nui, after eating the livers of countless adoptive parents and older brothers* how can you dream of a happy ending?

[*Note: The word he uses for ‘brothers’ here is 오라비들, which is a semi-antiquated word, and again, the sort of language used in folktales]

Yeon’s line, “Here’s a piece of advice” is more literally, “Here’s a bit of advice stemming from experience,” which is the first hint we get in-drama that he’s been in a similar position.

Nam Ji Ah

We get our first introduction to adult Ji Ah as she narrates the script she’s editing for her TV program on her way to the wedding hall. When Jae Hwan worries about her changing the script without the writer’s permission (again lol), Ji Ah's response translated literally would be:

Ji Ah: Then let’s go with this. PDs’ livers have to be swollen or coming out of their bodies.

That’s a pretty disgusting image in English, so I don’t blame the subs for changing it to something more sensical and less graphic. But as a cultural note, in Korea and Japan, having a large liver means to be gutsy or brave. Ji Ah’s character description similarly describes her as, ‘a woman whose liver is [so large it’s] coming out of her body,’ meaning she’s about as gutsy as it gets.

Okay, call me a cynic, but I loved Ji Ah’s line about not being able to digest wedding food due to the choking atmosphere of forced happiness pfft

Jae Hwan saying, “Who knows? You may meet your destined partner at a place like this,” as Yeon walks by in the background = Jae Hwan unwittingly hitting the nail of the head #1

Lol Yeon acting like a bored kid held captive at a dinner party while the wedding takes place. Bless Lee Dong Wook because I’m sure it’s all ad libbed. I feel like this could be a game: spot the LDW ad lib.

The Wedding Hall Incident

When Yeon returns to her dressing room after the wedding, Yeou Nui changes tactics from begging to putting her hackles up and challenging Yeon. Linguistically, that’s marked by her code switching to an archaic cant. Yeon, however, remains unfazed and responds with the most modern thing possible, completely undermining her bravado:

Yeou Nui: Oh former master of Baekdudaegan, what authority have you to condemn us?

Yeon: Get a hold of how she’s talking (rhetorical). Hey, if it wasn’t for you I would’ve been watching American TV shows while eating ice cream today!

Okay, I love the way Yeon materializes his sword. I thought he was (un-)transforming his umbrella at first, but he later does it with a plank of wood so I assume he can do this with pretty much anything?

On the topic of his sword, I posted a gif set not long ago referring to it as a sa’ingeom (사인검), literally ‘Four Tigers Sword’ (referring to the year, month, day, and hour of the tiger when such swords were supposedly forged). You’ll notice it doesn’t have a cross-guard since they’re traditionally ceremonial swords rather than actual weapons. The first sa’ingeom were made during the reign of King Taejo (1392-1398), but I assume they gave him one despite it being somewhat anachronistic because they’re also said to cut down evil spirits and ward against calamity. Mostly, though, it looks really cool and is very traditionally Korean.

Not for anything, but I love this BGM track that’s playing during the wedding hall fight (‘The Uninvited’). This short action sequence was so great. I wish we could have seen more of Yeon hunting down supernatural baddies. Also more of those gumiho eyes. More gumiho everything in general.

As he stabs her, Yeon’s line to Yeou Nui in the subs was rendered as, “Don’t do something stupid like falling in love in your next time.” I would have translated this as, “If you’re reborn, don’t do something so [useless] as falling in love.” Again, for anyone studying Korean, the phrase is ‘사랑 따위" (sarang ddaui). ‘Ddaui’ means ‘such a thing as,’ and it’s always used to disparage whatever proceeds it. There’s no good way to communicate that disparagement in English grammatically, so I opted for ‘useless’ in an approximation.

The BGM that plays the first time Ji Ah spots Yeon leaving the wedding hall is called ‘White Pupils’ (or literally ‘white eyes’). The imagery typically associated with that is death, so I’m curious what inspired the track title. Maybe they mean ‘white eyes’ like the fortune teller since it’s used at fateful moments?

“Who knows? That may be the story you were destined to cover.” = Jae Hwan unwittingly hitting the nail on the head #2

“Were they mass hypnotized or something?” = Jae Hwan unwittingly hitting the nail of the head #3. Thank you, exposition fairy. ;)

Okay, when Ji Ah and Jae Hwan examine the scene, Ji Ah’s line is subbed, “I need to see what that woman of this love story looks like,” which is ungrammatical in addition to being wrong. What she actually says is:

Ji Ah: I need to see the face of that protagonist of the Romance of the Age. [And I believe the ‘protagonist’ she was referring to is actually Yeon ;) This is bordering on meta, seeing as he’s actually the protagonist of the epic romance that is TotNT]

Kim Soo Oh

The BGM playing while Yeon sits in the park people-watching and then looks pensively at his hand is called, ‘Thread Rings.’ Between that, what LDW alluded to in his VLIVE, and some still cuts I saw of deleted scenes from EP16, I’m convinced there was something more to those rings that got cut due to time constraints. ㅠㅠ

Fun fact: This scene between Yeon and Soo Oh was the first scene of the drama that they filmed.

When Soo Oh asks Yeon what he’s doing there, the sub for Yeon’s response was, “Nothing other than waiting for someone.” That strikes me as off in tone as well as pacing. I would have translated it as, “Just.....waiting for someone.” (which is literally what he says).

When Soo Oh asks Yeon why he’s waiting, the sub says, “Because a fox can only love one person till death.” I don’t really have a problem with that translation, but what he literally says is, “Once a fox takes a mate they never forsake them. Until death.”

Sub: “How are you coping with that?” / “Not well.” > Literally: “Are you okay?” / “I’m not okay.” I actually like the sub here since it better conveys how precocious Soo Oh appears in this scene. He seems to alternate between precocious and adorably dim throughout the drama depending on who he’s with, though when he’s with Rang, it’s mostly the latter pfft

When Yeon turns down Soo Oh’s offer of friendship he says, “Your nose. I’m not big on men with runny noses. And human lifespans are too short to be friends with me.” Yeon's use of ‘men’ struck me as funny since I guess to someone over 1600 years old, an 8 year old and an 80 year old aren’t all that different. Also, Yeon giving serious life advice to an 8 year old is adorable. He talks to him like he’s an adult.

The Afterlife Immigration Office

Between the BGM and the way the camera pans up the endless levels of shelving, did anyone else feel like Yeon entered Hogwarts for a sec? (not complaining) ;)

For the record, Yeon uses banmal with Taluipa and calls her halmeom (granny). In contrast, Hyeonuiong is pretty much the only character Yeon speaks to in jondaetmal and addresses respectfully as ‘elder’ (eoreushin). He speaks to Ji Ah’s parents politely as well, but it’s mainly because they’re her parents.

The text introducing Taluipa’s character wasn’t translated in the version we’re watching but it reads: ‘The god who rules over the River of Three Crossings (Samdocheon), the boundary between this world and the next.’ The hanja for her name (奪衣婆) refer to her traditional role, namely, removing the clothing of the dead for her husband to weigh on the Uiryeong’su (su = tree) to measure the weight of their sins. This is the same tree that the Uiryeong’geom (the wooden sword that appears in EP13), is allegedly carved from.

Lol Taluipa saying she has to keep up with the times but also using a computer that’s positively ancient (come to think of it, it’s probably from the 80s since that’s her favorite decade)

Again, I’m surprised that Yeou Nui’s character name dropped from the subs completely. The subs here just say, ‘the female fox.’

For Taluipa’s line, the subs say, “You’re to obey the order and capture who you’re sent after,” but that’s a loose approximation. More literally, it should be: “If the higher ups say to bring someone in, then you just have to bring them in.” I’m only mentioning it because the line implys that both Taluipa and Yeon report to someone higher up the chain of command. Otherwise they may be misconstrued as Taluipa’s orders.

Yeon’s line, “My compulsory military service has gone on for 600 years. How could I not go crazy?” is hilarious when you consider that Korean men are required to complete 2 years of military service, and even that often feels like an eternity, so I think for any Korean, the idea of 600 years of it is just exceptionally cruel. The line is iconic enough to have been included in Yeon’s character profile.

I noticed this a while back, but ‘mountain god’ is being consistently translated as ‘mountain spirit.’ Technically, Yeon is (was?) a god, if a low ranking one in the grand scheme of things (the Korean word is ‘sanshin’ where ‘san’ = mountain and ‘shin’ = god). I understand the use of ‘spirit’ though, since he’s not a god as gods are typically thought of in western mythologies.

Lol Yeon sticking his fingers in his ears (I would bet money this was also an ad lib)

Taluipa has a line that’s subbed, “Foxes never stay in debt.” More literally, it should be, “They say foxes repay eunhye no matter what.” You can find my explanation of eunhye here.

Wow, the subs really dropped the humour ball on Taluipa’s line here. First off, she says, ‘Right now’ in English. And while the sub says “Do you want your freedom back?” what she literally says is. “Do you want to be discharged?” (since Yeon had just likened his duties to military service).

On his way out, Yeon actually tells Taluipa, “Halmeom, you’re going to go to hell” (which is not the same as the underworld/afterlife as it said in the subs. Taluipa’s job is literally to ferry souls, so she goes to the afterlife all the time anyway). Also, when he says “I’ll pray for it everyday,” his phrasing is that of an elderly person pfft

As I mentioned, Yeon speaks formally to Hyeonuiong, who in return affectionately calls him Yeon-ie or Yeon-ah, which I find adorable.

Lol I’m not used to Ahn Gil Kang playing such a friendly character. Seeing him wheedle Taluipa with aegyo is hilarious.

Code Red

Somewhat of a side note, I can’t help but wonder, is Shin Joo’s last name ‘Gu’ because he’s a gumiho, a la My Girlfriend is a Gumiho (2010)’s Gu Mi Ho-ssi?

I wish the subs had just left ‘Lee Yeon-nim’ as-is, instead of changing it to ‘Mr. Lee.' As a general rule, I’m in favor of preserving character forms of address when translating.

Personally, I would have translated the name of Ji Ah’s TV program as: ‘In Search of Urban Legends’ rather than ‘Unveiling Urban Legends.’

I really like the dynamic between Ji Ah and writer Kim Sae Rom. “Should we fight?” / “Yeah, let’s fight~” How great is it that this drama doesn’t have a single catty, bitchy, stuck-up or otherwise obnoxious female character?

For anyone keeping track, Shin Joo speaks to Yeon in jondaetmal while Yeon speaks to Shin Joo in banmal, underlining their master/retainer dynamic.

Side note: There are actually multiple ‘types’ of jondaetmal: what I think of as ‘neutral polite’ (i.e. simply adding ‘yo’ to the end of all your sentences), the more formal polite (i.e. ending with ~[seu]mnida), that which elevates the subject, and that which lowers the speaker. The interplay of the four allows for varying degrees of politeness. The way Shin Joo speaks to Yeon is pretty much the highest degree. That doesn’t mean they aren’t close. Polite language can indicate distance but also level of regard irrespective of distance. This applies to Rang and Yoo Ri as well.

Again, Shin Joo calls Ji Ah ‘PD-nim’ but that became ‘that female director’ in the subs. PD-nim is a respectful (and non-gendered) form of address, and it’s perfectly suited to Shin Joo’s genial and deferential personality, so I wish the subs had just kept it.

I read an episode recap where the recapper mentioned she wasn’t sure what Shin Joo’s deal was. At the time I was confused, but now I think I get it. In the subs, Shin Joo says, “When I’m a seasoned veteran? I’m now up to the point where I’m wondering if I’ve turned into an actual person.” What he actually says is:

Shin Joo: No way~ How long have I been living in this (the human) world? Recently, I sometimes even have an existential crisis wondering, ‘Am I a person or a fox?’

[So he flat out says he’s a fox here, but that wasn’t reflected in the subs.]

Fun fact: this was Hwang Hee’s first scene that he filmed with Lee Dong Wook, and the BGM as they exit is Shin Joo’s theme.

I love the way Lee Dong Wook played this scene where they pay their tab. That is all.

It’s only as Yeon and Shin Joo exit the restaurant that we see that the sign out front reads ‘The Snail Bride’ (Ureong Gakshi). This is another folktale in-joke, since the snail bride’s whole thing is that she cooks delicious meals for her human husband everyday.

For the record, the Snail Bride (Bok Hye Ja) also uses honorific language towards Yeon and calls him ‘Lee Yeon-nim.’ I just assumed it was in deference to his ex-mountain god status, but it turns out she has a personal reason for holding him in high regard as well that we discover in the final episode.

As Yeon and Shin Joo walk away, Shin Joo’s line is subbed, “That show’s actually quite famous.” Since Korean doesn’t require a subject, the sentence is somewhat ambiguous, but I understood him to be referring to Ji Ah herself rather than the show since he says: “[Something is] really famous around the broadcast station.”

Lee Rang

Lol Kim Beom. How are you 32 years old?

I love how sharp and no-nonsense Ji Ah is. It’s so refreshing to not have to wait for the characters to catch up to what the audience already knows.

Rang’s theme that plays as he transforms back into his suave self is so iconic. The music director (Hong Dae Sung) really is a genius. It’s funny when you think about how different Rang’s theme is from Yeon’s.

Fun fact: Kim Beom shared in his Instagram LIVE that Rang ‘picking the wrong shoes’ was actually intentional. He was testing Ji Ah to see if she’d notice.

Okay, Rang says here that he likes, “everything about her (Ji Ah) from head to toe,” (not in a romantic way but in a grudging respect/she’s fun to toy with kind of way) but what happened to that? Are we supposed to assume that he would have liked her if she hadn’t been the object of his brother’s affection? But he approached her knowing that’s who she was...? I don’t know. I do know I wish they’d had more scenes together. Their verbal sparring is great.

Side note: One Korean fan nickname for Rang and Yoo Ri that Kim Beom liked was ‘Hoket-dan,’ playing off the Korean for pokemon’s ‘Team Rocket’ (Roket-dan) and mashing it together with the ‘ho’ from ‘gumiho’ haha

Yeon’s obsession with mint chocolate ice cream is a hilarious counterpoint to his status as a cheon’ho and his ex-mountain god title. Point to the writer. In Japanese, this would probably be called ‘gap-moe’.

When Yeon tells the man behind the counter, “When I’m indebted to someone, I’m obligated to return the favor,” he’s once again talking about eunhye. As a fox, he’s supernaturally bound to repay good deeds done for him. As far as I’m aware, this is unique to the drama and not part of the traditional gumiho lore.

Yeon eating ice cream like a happy kid XD Lol Lee Dong Wook, how are you 39?

Fun fact: Yeon’s line when he answers Rang’s call, “The number you have reached doesn’t exist, you punk” was an ad lib by Lee Dong Wook. The combination of the formal phrasing found in a typical voicemail recording followed by ‘you punk’ is particularly funny. It’s so witty I actually wouldn’t have known this was an ad lib if LDW hadn’t confessed as much himself.

“Let’s meet.” / “I refuse.” / “I’ll set your house on fire.” Hahaha What is with these brothers? Are they 1600+ and 600, or 16 and 6? Are the zeros silent??

Bus 1002

Ji Ah: “If possible, pick a different dream. I’ve been on the clock for 22 hours straight now.” I like Ji Ah so much. She’s unpretentious, intelligent, honest, driven, resourceful and witty.

Lol As Ji Ah struggles with the old man, you can hear Yeon offscreen urging the driver to get moving. Only he calls him, ‘driver yangban.’ Yangban is originally a word for a nobleman, but much like the word ‘lady’ in English, what was once a term of respect is now...not. lol Also, I’m pretty sure this was another ad lib by Lee Dong Wook since it happens entirely in the background.

This scene with Ji Ah piggybacking the old man is so classic spooky-folktale. I love it.

"You’re the only person I saw.” *Close up of the totem pole* They managed to make that whole sequence creepy despite nothing actually happening. Cool cool cool.

So our old drunkard is revealed to be a Mokjangseung (mok = wood). Jangseung in general are totems that stand at crossroads and the entrances to villages. tvN published some backstory info explaining Ji Ah’s past with this particular Jangseung and why he elected to save her which I translated here.

Aaaand we’re back at Fox Ridge. I can’t believe I only just noticed this, but the episode title could refer equally to the accident in Ji Ah’s past and this bus accident in the present.

Of course Rang staged the accident at the site of Ji Ah’s greatest trauma. Also, the fact that he knows that about her is telling.

Appropriately, the BGM playing as Ji Ah arrives at the scene of the accident is ‘Fox Ridge’ (Yeou Gogae). Iconic.

Back over to Yeon. The first time I watched this I wondered where on earth he was heading in that downpour but it turns out he was in pursuit of Rang, who had given him the slip.

Seeing Yeon limping injured through the rain ㅠㅠ Also, while Yeon later tells Ji Ah he carries his umbrella everywhere because he hates his fur getting wet, he clearly isn’t bothered here, choosing to keep it sheathed on his back instead. I guess all bets are off when he’s in Gumiho Mode.

Detective Baek and Ji Ah speak in banmal and he calls her ‘Nam Ji Ah,’ which I assume means they’ve been friends for a while.

Wow, good for Ji Ah for having made note of the exact number of passengers in the midst of all that chaos. I certainly wouldn’t have.

Hospital Encounter

So after Rang gave his brother the slip, Yeon realizes the next day that he’s at the hospital thanks to the news article Shin Joo reads out to him. Idk but I like that shot of the two of them heading out. There’s something vaguely Avengers about it. Which is maybe not surprising given that was another early influence for the show.

I liked this conversation between Ji Ah and ‘Soo Young.’ We get to see Ji Ah’s own resolve and drive in the advice she offers: “Even so, I hope you’ll become strong. It’s way more fun to be a PD than a victim.”

As with when he arrived at the wedding hall, the cinematography + BGM as Yeon approaches the hospital with his red umbrella is just A++

The BGM playing when Ji Ah spots Yeon approaching the hospital information desk isn’t on spotify or anywhere else that I’ve seen. It reminds me a bit of the ‘Tubular Bells’ theme from the Exorcist (a movie I actually haven’t even seen). If anyone knows what it is, I’d love to know.

“My only talent is my face~” pffft Also, decidedly untrue.

When Ji Ah tells Yeon, “Yes, I’m scouting you, but not for that,” She literally says, “but not for that genre.”

And now the subs say ‘Fox Ridge.’ Okay, then.

When Yeon says, “From the sound of it, it won’t be well made,” ‘well made’ is in English. Again, the peppering of English through Yeon’s speech makes him sound more modern.

When Yeon says, “Plus, I’m very devoted” his line is more literally, “Plus, contrary to how I look, I’m the devoted type.” Are you saying you look like a player? pfft

Yeon is such a big softie, so why does he keep threatening to kill people? Does he not realize they might take him seriously?

For this entire conversation (interrogation?), both Yeon and Ji Ah are switching back and forth between polite speech and banmal, almost on a sentence by sentence basis. On the whole, it gives the impression of a verbal sparring match.

“It’s not as if this was a blind date. No thanks on a second one.” lol I do enjoy cheeky Yeon.

Oh, I love that Ji Ah thinks on her feet. Using her leather bag to lift Yeon’s fingerprints was a smart move. Although, I’m not entirely convinced it would work that well in real life.

The ‘grim reaper’s outfit’ exchange was a coordinated ad lib between Lee Dong Wook and Hwang Hee. I mean, of course it was lol Casting Lee Dong Wook is the gift that keeps on giving.

Was that supposed to be Yoo Ri entering ‘Soo Young’s’ hospital room in those boots?

Minor detail, but ‘Soo Young’ calls Ji Ah ‘eonni’ meaning ‘older sister.’ It’s common convention in Korean to refer to people by familial ‘roles’ that fit their general age range even when you’re not actually related. I could digress, but I guess I just find it jarring when they have her addressing Ji Ah by name in the subs since Ji Ah is older and virtually a stranger.

Okay, when ‘Soo Young’ hears that Ji Ah lives alone, the smile she gives is effectively creepy.

The contrast between ‘Soo Young’s’ narration and the events of what actually happened on the bus that we see as viewers is great. Point to the director.

Wow, Rang really just slaughtered a whole bus worth of innocent people without a thought. I feel like we all managed to forget that about him as the show progressed. Hats off to the writer and to Kim Beom’s compelling performance. I actually worried initially that Rang would remain a one-note character because that would have been such a waste of Kim Beom, who is a fantastic actor. I’m so glad that wasn’t the case.

I love the subversion of viewer expectations when it turns out that Ji Ah knew all along that ‘Soo Young’ wasn’t who she claimed. This is something TotNT does repeatedly and well. We get both the dramatic tension of her being in danger and the satisfaction of her having had the upper hand all along. Point to the writer.

I’m pretty sure Ji Ah knocked that pitcher over with the express intent of using a shard from it as a weapon. Point for character consistency. Past or present, Ji Ah is apparently a ‘stab first, ask questions later’ kind of girl.

The Brothers

“Hey you! I clearly told you I didn’t want a second date?!” Haha Oh, Yeon.

I saw comments from Korean fans about how Yeon burst into her house with his shoes on here, and now I can’t not think of them when I watch this scene: ‘Entering the house with your shoes on...in the Republic of Korea...Ha...’, ‘Even if you bust the whole house apart, you have to take your shoes off before entering...’ lol

I love Yeon’s line that’s subbed as, “As if, brother.” In Korean, it’s “Do you want to die, little brother?” The word he uses for ‘little brother’ is ‘아우야,’ which, while still used occasionally today, is an antiquated word Yeon might just as easily have called Rang 600 years ago. It’s also, in contrast to the first half of his sentence, quite an affectionate term of address.

Rang’s line subbed as, “It’s a long story, but the family has a dirty past,” should more properly be: “It’s a long story, but you might say we come from a broken home.” Saying they have a dirty past makes it sound like they’re the mafia or something. Also, as a fun language note, the expression is literally ‘a bean-powder household.’

“Are you worried I’ll be sucked into the Underworld?” should be: “Are you worried I’ll go to hell?” Not sure where they got ‘sucked into.’ Rang just means when he dies. Also, I wish the subs would do a better job distinguishing between hell, the underworld, and the afterlife. They’re three different words.

“It’s because you embarrass me, that’s why.” Lol at the way Yeon covers his eyes. That’s definitely another ad lib from Lee Dong Wook.

When Rang calls time here, he actually calls Yeon ‘hyung.’ I suspect this wasn’t in the script but rather something that slipped out subconsciously on Kim Beom’s part, since the writer was clearly saving that word for when it would hurt us viewers the most. ㅠㅠ

Yeon’s line is subbed, “Old habits really do die hard,” but it should properly be: “You still haven’t fixed that habit?”

“If you don’t find it until the end of the next month, this woman will die.” This should actually be: “If you can’t find [that] by the next end of the month, your woman will die.” The subject is actually omitted so it’s unclear to what exactly Rang is referring, which is intentional. I also understand hearing ‘your woman’ (ni yeoja) as ‘this woman’ (i yeoja), but when they later flash back to this conversation they use a different take in which the line delivery is clearer and I’m confident it’s ‘your woman.’ This also explains Yeon’s confusion, since at this point he didn’t even know she’d been reborn.

I Waited for You

For anyone wondering how Ji Ah got into Yeon’s apartment, apparently his house code is 0000 lol

From his expression as he discovers and then watches the video she secretly took of him, I feel like Yeon is impressed with Ji Ah in spite of himself and I’m 100% here for it.

For the record, from this point forward, Yeon and Ji Ah use banmal with each other. Ji Ah has a tendency to speak to many of the supernaturals in banmal, which is honestly the opposite of what I would have opted for in her shoes.

Yeon’s question of, “How did you come here?” could mean either, ‘What brings you here?’ or ‘How did you get [in] here?’ in Korean, and honestly they’re both valid haha

Minor note, but she actually says his Korean age is 36, which would be 35 by the typical reckoning...except he’s actually ~1636 so it’s a moot point, really.

Ji Ah’s line, “Now I can proudly say that it’s fate,” translated more literally would be: “At this point, it really is fate and not coincidence.”

I feel like Ji Ah’s strategy of throwing herself off the balcony here is possibly the only thing she does in this entire show that strikes me as dumb. Like, I’m pretty sure if Yeon hadn’t been both benevolent and able to fly (and she had no guarantee that he was either), letting her just fall here would have been the easiest way for him to resolve the matter/the only thing he could have done.

Yeon’s line, “Did you just test me?” is one of the rare instances in which he code switches to archaic speech. I guess using his gumiho powers put him in a Gumiho frame of mind. ;)

On the whole, I prefer the instrumental OST tracks to the lyrical ones, but ‘Blue Moon’ is just sooooo catchy. I wish they had continued using it more.

And that concludes Episode 1. I’ve never posted anything like this before, but hopefully it was at least mildly interesting. Let me know what you think.

#tale of the nine tailed #totnt #lost in translation #I've never done this before so think of it as an experiment #this is what happens when language nerds watch dramas #korean language #korean culture #kdrama #구미호뎐

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steve0discusses · 4 years

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S4 Ep 39: Pharaoh Can Fly (Selectively)

Guys, they’re back

Best storyboarder is back, and the visual difference between last episode and this episode is like when your art teacher picks up your charcoal and just fixes everything wrong with your gesture drawings. It’s like...I mean look at this:

I just really love and appreciate how illustrative this storyboarder is. And I say just storyboarder because this had about the same budget as the last episode--there wasn’t that much actual animation as per usual. But, all of the scenes were drawn so well, like panels out of a good manga. They just...they always nail it when they’re at the helm and I don’t know why they’re on Yugioh, but bless this storyboarder.

Plot wise, everyone got pulled into the dragon by gooey tentacles that came out of it’s stomach, don’t think about it.

Meanwhile, all of the minibosses could communicate with them and beg for help, yes, even the same miniboss who may have dressed up like Pegasus and catfished Seto Kaiba.

(keep reading under the cut)

The whole process of getting absorbed into the Orichalcos demon was a whole lot of symbolism and it was...kinda gross. Also kinda sketch. Also, for Kaiba it is a neat little nod to S1 when he had a vision that his brother was absorbed into a dragon mass.

I don’t think that the makers of the show remember S1, but either they just really like goopy dragons, or it’s a coincidence or I dunno, on purpose? Probably a coincidence.

And like I made this joke and realized...what if they actually meant to make that parallel though? This is the America crossover season, and they have referenced America’s love of trickster rabbits before with Pegasus but do they know about Br’er rabbit in Japan? Do they know? It’s a pretty Americana Deep-cut, and I have no idea how common this folktale is outside of the states.

I see anime busting out absorbing goopy masses all the time so I’m gonna assume that there might be a Japanese folklore I don’t know about which uses a similar structure (although I’m also assuming it has an extremely different history and association ((which I won’t be going into because I don’t feel like putting a trigger warning on this recap)).)

And looking at Wikipedia, there’s people that think the original reference to moist, absorbing creatures could have even come from as far as India. Which is...fascinating to how it also developed in Africa, and then the Cherokee also made the same story independently and then it fused together here in the States to make it what was eventually made into a Disney movie that will never be released again--this is just a really old ass story, all in all, possibly like over a thousand years old.

And a FASCINATING google deep dive I won’t go into for obvious reasons but knock yourself out.

Also, lets get distracted for a sec and see how well this storyboarder drew a fitted jacket at that angle. Dear Lord, did they get reference for that or did their brain just already know that those folds would be there? You can even tell that Pharaoh has just a little bit of padding at his shoulders. Ugh. Guys this storyboarder is so freakin good at these little fitted jackets.

So, once Yugi and his friends are absorbed into the mass, where they should have died...and maybe some of them did, but I don’t know if I should add that to the Death Count because like...they could have held their breath in the amount of time they were stuck in there...maybe...Anyway, they are saved by being tossed into the figurative briar patch--by the souls all hanging out in the Leviathan’s stomach--which again makes me wonder...did they pull a folklore on us? Again, I have no idea.

Like a lot of the people in this dragon have been thorns in their side this entire season, they’ve all tried to kill them at one point--all the minibosses, Mai, Pegasus--but now they have decided to team up with Pharaoh (along with the rest of the human race) and offer whatever they can to free them from the grip of the gross dragon mass.

And like, the ending of the folk tale is that the thorny ass briar patch is also where the rabbit lives usually. It hurts everyone else, but the rabbit--the rabbit can deal with it. And likewise, Pharaoh is freakin dead. He’s at home here. He’s surrounded by spirit power, his friends and their friendship power, this is like his zone, and now he’s crazy powerful for it and will be for the rest of the episode.

And like Yami is a very trickster God (especially Season Zero Yami) so like...it does make sense that he would mirror a folk tale based on trickster Gods, even if it is by complete accident.

So Pharaoh imagines everyone’s tears as individual drops in a glass or something--it’s not a literal glass or anything--it’s just there because the only thing actually happening on screen was his hand hanging out of this dragon’s weird puss skin.

And he’s now a fully charged Sonic the Hedgehog and no longer needs Kaiba or Joey at all. Just gonna grab his God card demons and take charge of everything else from here on out.

By first exploding his buddies right the hell out of this lizard and across hundreds of feet of open ocean.

Joey decides to remind Kaiba that he lost the Battle City tournament.

Seto’s roast was actually in the show, PS. He is not super excited to be reminded that Yugi owns every card that he spent 2 seasons failing to get.

And then Pharaoh did something really, really...

...just really really wild.

OH OK.

YEAH JUST TAKE OFF.

GO AHEAD THERE’S NO REASON THIS WOULD BOTHER ME.

I mean he IS super powered right now but like...

Like...WTF?

4 SEASONS. 4 SEASONS I thought this guy was glued to Yugi like Peter Pan’s Shadow and apparently--he can bounce.

Can Pharaoh do this every time Yugi asks Tea out on a date and tries to instead make the ghost in his head do all the work now? Can Pharaoh just be like “NOPE” and then phase out of the house, leaving Yugi to actually do the hard stuff?

It really adds a level of complexity to their relationship if Yugi can get a room.

(If not a room for romance, but at the very least a room to poop in.)

OR has he been able to allow Yugi to wicked poop in peace this whole time, but the show just never felt like telling us because they felt like it wasn’t important (although it is crazy important)?

Either way I am just...floored at this character development.

Yami just let Yugi out of his sight for like...I want to say 8 full minutes. Just incredible amount of trust on Yami’s part. Incredible. Knowing Yugi’s track record, he should have died in those 8 minutes but...he was being babysat by both Kaiba and Joey.

So Yami summons the Gods and they shoot lasers--you kinda expect this sort of thing.

And this is...probably...the real reason why Dartz didn’t bother trying to attack Pharaoh 5,000 years ago.

I can still think it’s because of Bakura but like...this is probably the real reason. It felt pretty chump to just shoot a laser at the bastard. Pharaoh just had to be reminded that this is a thing he can just do. If he felt like it.

Which he never feels like doing, because he’s too busy watching Yugi’s every move, and getting distracted by High School shenanigans.

After this happens, the giant snake falls to the ocean, splitting into just sooooooo many ghosts.

Over 7.8 billion ghosts, if we’re to assume that this is most of the population on Earth.

(thinking the weird-o in the hat is probably a Duel Monsters card? The duel monsters were throwing themselves into the Leviathan at one point so this is probably like a dark magician boy or something...I just don’t get very attached to the monster cards so it was like...whatever. The cards die like constantly so who cares?)

It is a pretty set dressing. Like Christmas lights but...dead people.

We also find out that the lost family of our minibosses Alister and Raphael, have indeed spent the last many years inside the Leviathan stomach, which is pretty tragic. We get a bitter sweet conclusion to Alister and Raphael’s story--although it’s not a full on ending for either character. Their life still hella sucks, they are in therapy for basically forever.

Where is Gurimo?

I don’t know what sort of job or life these two are qualified to have now, but youknow...Marik’s boat probably has jobs available.

Hold up. Can we talk about the windows?

I know absolutely none of you care about this, but I do, not to be picky or condescending to an overworked art team, but because I just want to know what they were trying to aim for.

There’s an iron stained glass style windowpane thing going on and that’s what’s really getting me. Like...I know these guys were technologically advanced, but why did you use this WW2 background? What happened to Ancient Greece that you were doing before?

Like doing a super past with future tech is so cool to me--I love that sort of concept art. That’s going into like Black Panther stuff where you’re referencing the earliest stuff in Africa and then blending it with stuff beyond our science. But Atlantis is a real big shrug and a “listen we ran out of time and had to press print,” and it’s such a shame. It feels less cohesive than even when this show does Egypt.

And yo this show and how it draws ancient Egypt--I feel like I’ve already talked about that. I have a feeling I’m going to talk a lot more about it next season. I’ll get to it when we get to it. I’m hoping that they have more time and budget to actually DO Egypt for once. (I say knowing they won’t)

Like it’s one of those things where this isn’t a history show, like at all, and it’s very much a fantasy. I’m not going to be like those sewing people on youtube that get annoyed because their TV show doesn’t have handsewn stitching in their Victorian bodices they rented from the costume department from an LA discount warehouse. Because, yo, it’s TV, and I can stretch my own imagination because it’s acting. (although I confess, I watch every single one of those videos).

But...the potential, y’all...the potential.

Anyway, Dartz isn’t dead. He was just taking his toot sweet time getting down the steps of his Gazebo.

This is where things get very anime. I get this problem a lot with anime, I really do--and maybe it’s just me. But like...sometimes it feels like anime changes the rules during the boss fight.

That happens a lot, right? Where suddenly the final boss reveals something that like...should have been addressed way earlier? And he’s alive but you don’t get why?

Anyway, Pharaoh reacts by getting maybe way too attached to his newfound independence.

Which like...I can understand Tea forgetting that Yugi is one people that is two people all the time, but the writers as well?

And what’s kind of great about this scene is that Dartz does see Yugi as two people here. He doesn’t look at Yugi, he looks at both. When Pharaoh is like “Leave me, Yugi!” Dartz heard all of that.

Just kind of a neat thing that we finally have a dude that can just...see Pharaoh for what he is, but it probably won’t matter because there’s like only one more episode left of this season.

Anyway, Pharaoh and Dartz have a chat about where evil comes from...and like...it’s some Yugioh lore, all right.

So before the show decides to give us the Genesis on Yugioh and reveal where the evil of the Orichalcos comes from, or if all evil was created by Orichalcos itself (which is IMPLYING stuff about Orichalcos) the snake shuts him the hell up.

As it should. Leave that Pandora’s box freakin closed. That’s going into extended universe of Star Wars books territory (RIP.)

As an aside--pretty sure that Yugi is standing outside that tornado. Maybe it was just the editing of the episode but like...

Yo I’m pretty sure Yugi is just standing there. For the first time, it’s not his nuts getting roasted. Wow. Tables have turned so much since he was dead.

Anyway, here’s the link for new people so you can read these in order

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

There’s only one left! We can do it! We can finish this season in 2020! And actually get back to recapping Full Metal Alchemist! ~~Woooo~~

Oh man that movie better still be on Netflix or I’ll have to buy it lolol.

#Yugioh #ygo #Yu-Gi-Oh #Yami Yugi #Yugi Muto #Seto Kaiba #Joey Wheeler #Dartz #Alister #Raphael #Valon #Mai Valentine #My favorite storyboarder #who deserves to be listed as a character in the show #ep 39 #S4 #recap #photo recap #episode recap

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raeynbowboi · 5 years

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Dating Disney: The Black Cauldron

The Black Cauldron is a 1985 Grimdark fantasy movie based primarily on the first two novels of the Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander written between 1964-1968. A primary reference and inspiration behind the series being the Mabinogion, a collection of early Celtic myths written in Middle Welsh. The character names also follow a Welsh naming conventions as Fflewdder Fflam uses the “Double F” found in the Welsh language, as a single F by itself makes a [v] sound in the Welsh language. The name Taran is also Welsh, meaning Thunder. So the movie is very neatly rooted in Wales, or Welsh-speaking Albion.

The Mabinogion

The Mabinogion is comprised of 4 main branches recounting Welsh mythology, compiled in the late 12th-13th centuries based on older oral traditions likely dating back to some time between 1050-1225. However, there are many suggestions as to when the stories might date from. (To hear a story from the Mabinogion, check out Red’s summary of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed.)

Now, you may be wondering “why is there only 1 book on all Welsh mythology?” and I’m glad you hypothetically asked because it’s time to blame the Christians. Seriously, because Celtic mythology is loaded with god-like figures, Christian interpreters when they came to Albion censored or outright destroyed stories that implied that there was more than their God. Figures such as the Irish Tuatha de Dannan, which were godlike ancestral figures, had to be recontexualized as Faeries, Spirits, or Angels in order to avoid censorship by the Christian monks who transcribed these myths. Brigid, a very important Irish goddess, was Christianized into the figure of Saint Bridgette. This was actually an attempt by Christian missionaries to ease the pagans into Christianity. Essentially the mindset of “yeah, you can worship your holy figures, but uh, cut it out with the holy divine aspect. We can’t have that. They’re clearly not as top tier as our God.”

You may remember from my Sword in the Stone discussion that I mentioned that Rome occupied Albion before Christianity wormed its way in, and you may be wondering, were the Romans this bad? Haha, clearly you underestimate how awful medieval Christians were. No, the Romans just viewed foreign pantheons as extensions of their pantheon. You have a sun god? So do we. It must be the same god with a different name. This is what’s referred to as Interpretatio Romana. So the Celtic Sun God Belenus would be referred to by the Romans as Apollo Belenus. It’s the same god, but the Roman name always came first. Compared to what is known as Interpretatio Christiana, which boils down to ‘you’re worshiping Satan in the form of a false idol. Stop that.’ So, when I say that our lack of written accounts of Welsh mythology is entirely the fault of the Christians, I’m completely sincere in that statement because the Romans didn’t censor Celtic myths or history, only the Christians did.

The Black Cauldron and Mythological Parallels

Prydain

It might sound like a generic fantasy name, but the name Prydain actually comes from the Welsh name for Great Britain, Prydain Fawr. Unfortunately, the term Great Britain dates to 1707. However, Prydain is also the medieval name for the island, as the Welsh never referred to the Island as Albion.

Henwen

Literally meaning “Old White” in Welsh, Henwen is a sow under the care of Coll, a pigkeeper for Dallwyr Dallben. In the Chronicles of Prydain, Coll is a character, but in the Disney film, Taran seems to have absorbed Coll’s role as pigkeeper. However, the fact that he refers to himself as an assistant pigkeeper could still mean that he is ranked below an off-screen Coll. However, the Henwen of Welsh mythology could not predict the future. It was known that Henwen was to birth something terrible, and so she was chased off a cliff into the sea in Cornwall. She survived however and went on to give birth to many unusual things, including a cat, a wolf, an eagle, and a single grain each of wheat, rye, and barley. And three bees. I really wish I was making this up.

Gurgi

Gurgi’s name might take inspiration from Gwrgi Garwlwyd, whose name literally means man-dog rough-grey. He was a warrior in Welsh Arthurian Legend, and was possibly a werewolf. Gwrgi was a monster that killed a man every day, and two on Saturday so he would not kill on Sunday. The Gurgi in the books is far more monstrous looking with horns, but Gurgi in the Disney film retains the dog-like traits of Gwrgi.

The Black Cauldron

Known in Welsh mythology as Pair Dadeni or “the Cauldron of Rebirth”, it is referenced in the second branch of the Mabinogion. Like in the movie, the cauldron has the power to revive the dead, and is destroyed when a living person is thrown into it, in the mythological case, Efnisien pretends to be a corpse and is thrown into the cauldron for revival, causing the cauldron to be destroyed. There are other similar magical cauldrons in Welsh and Irish mythology, including the cauldrons of Arawn and Diwrnach, which would not boil the food of cowards, and Ceriddwen’s Cauldron of Inspiration, which caused those who drank from it to gain infinite wisdom. There is also The Cauldron of the Dagda in Irish mythology. One of the 4 Treasures of the Tuatha de Dannan, the Cauldron of the Dagda was stored in the mythical city of Muirius, and no man would ever leave the cauldron hungry, for it produced infinite food.

The Horned King

In the novels, the Horned King is a minor villain, subjugated to Arawn, God of Death. However, in Welsh mythology, Arawn is not a death god. Rather, Arawn is king of Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld. Aka, the Faerieworld. See, this is another example of Christians mucking up translations and trying to force other religions to reflect Christianity, so Annwn is often treated as the Underworld of Celtic mythology, but considering Pwyll wanders into Annwn completely by accident, I don’t think that’s how it was interpreted in traditional texts. The Horned King may also draw inspiration from the Horned God, Cernunnos. Little is known about Cernunnos due to being a very ancient god, but his role as a horned god of the wilderness has historians guessing that he’s one of the oldest gods or divine archetypes in human history, as ancient horned gods pop up with surprising regularity in older religions: namely Baphomet and Pan. Cernunnos is also sometimes but not always folded in with the figure of the All-Father as a sort of father to all creation in Gallo-Celtic paganism. Cernunnos is often regarded as a god of nature and the wilds, but is also a psychopomp god that guides the dead to the afterlife, and maybe is also a god of death and rebirth as a part of life. Again, this is kind of very uncertain because of just how ancient Cernunnos is, so don’t take this interpretation as law. But despite how uncertain we are about what all this figure represents, he’s a very interesting deity none-the-less, and very likely contributed to the Christian idea of the devil as a horned figure with goat legs. As a seemingly undead creature, the Horned King may draw parallels to a creature known as a Revenant. A creature found in Celtic folklore, a Revenant is a vengeful undead that seeks to torment all life until it has found the person who wronged it while it was alive and exacts its revenge. However, it should be noted that in the books, the Horned King is a living man wearing a horned skull mask, whereas the movie version is very clearly a corpse.

Taran’s Sword

In Welsh mythology, the sword Dyrnwyn belonged to the great king Rhydderch Hael, and when held by a worthy man would glow with fire. In the books, Taran’s sword is indeed referred to as Dyrnwyn. Similarly, alongside the Cauldron of the Dagda, another treasure of the Tuatha de Dannan is the Claiomh Solais or the Sword of Light, housed in the mythical city of Findias. This may also be the mythical origin of Excalibur, though scholars have not made a direct, perfect connection.

Conclusion

With so much of the story pulling from the single source of the Mabinogion, we can boil down the likely setting to around when the stories were written as our general setting. Luckily, we can roughly guestimate to about when the Mabinogion might originate from, and the general look of the movie seems to match with this time setting. So, we’re looking at about 1050-1225, around the time that the stories in the Mabinogion might have started to be told, thus inspiring the events in the film.

Setting: Prydain (Wales/Isle of Britain) Kingdom: Kingdom of Prydain Era: High Middle Ages (1000-1250) Year: 1050-1225 AD Language: Middle Welsh

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