#this post goes in circles and probably is only halfway coherent

[babygirlthor]

i think i joined this fandom at literally the worst possible time.

this post has been a long time coming but i am currently irritated enough to actually post it so here we go

(under the cut because this just got WAY too long)

personally i'm here for the art, the angsty headcanons, the jokes and fic recs... but the negativity continues to run rampant. i want to see different ideas and interpretations but... it's like there isnt even room for that anymore.

being in fandom has always been a very strange experience for me because i don’t enjoy conflict. i don't mind that other people like it, but for me, it makes me feel sick to my stomach and if i can't fix it i have to avoid it. there always seems to be parts of fandom that love to argue, but it's usually not too difficult to sort through it all and find some people i enjoy interacting with. and i'd just find my little corner and stick to that. but lately... that doesn't seem possible.

and the few of the more chill areas of the fandom (that i've come across) revolve around shipping. which still has the usual discourse, don't get me wrong, but they also seem to stay in their pockets of people and ignore most of the other kinds of drama.

unfortunately for me, i dont have the desire to interact with shipping most of the time. so i'm stuck in this weird limbo that... is too long of a detour for this post so i'll leave it at that.

at this point i see so many conversations, even light hearted meta posts quickly turn to arguments. actual conversations and discussions are a rarity. people spend more time making fun of each other than actually discussing the material. the different 'sides' of the fandom seem to get further and further away and it seems like sharing a differing opinion is impossible. I know plenty of people love to argue but like.... first of all- okay, I really don’t care (tbch I didn’t even finish watching the show because it wasn't my thing) and i dont care to see it.

personally I think some of the concepts from the show are neat- even though i don't have a desire to finish watching it at this time- and applied to fic could be fun. but even that has become such a divisive topic.

putting that aside, I get that people are upset about the show. but sometimes i see posts from both so-called 'anti' and 'positive' sides of the fandom mocking each other. and at this point? what is this achieving?

~and there's just too much to rant about in one post so i'll just zero in on one very specific type of post that is currently bothering me~

i really hate to see people making fun of each other, especially behind their backs. (i want to point out: there's a huge different between 'this hc makes no sense and here's why i think it's wrong' and 'wow look at what these idiots think'. i'm not talking about the first one or general discourse rn, which is a whole other topic)

if one feels the need to repost something because they know OP wouldn't want to see it on their post... shouldn't that make one stop and think for a moment? there's zero constructive purpose for mocking someone, especially on a public platform where they could see it.

vagueposting doesn't always bother me, but sometimes i think... if you're really dying to talk about this, wouldn't it be more fitting as a private conversation?

and every time a post like that come across my dash, it makes me angry and uncomfortable and it's not even about *me* or something i relate to. why does one feel the need to do that? why do i have to see posts like this every week? and why is it encouraged and perpetuated as so many chime in with agreements? i guess it might feel cathartic in the moment, but is it really going to make anyone feel better? is it really worth it to push someone else down just for a few seconds of amusement?

and if something upsets you i get making your own meta (or rant) post about it. there's plenty of hc that upset me as well. but again, there is a HUGE difference from that and making a post, not about the actual topic and hoping for a discussion, but purely with the intent to mock someone.

and you know the worst part? a lot of the ones i see making these posts are the same people that complained about 'toxic positivity' fans mocking the fans that didn't like the show. and now they're turning around and acting the exact same way.

this is just my viewpoint and i don't expect anyone to agree with me on any of these points. and maybe there's some nuance to these posts i'm missing out on or i'm making this into a bigger deal than it is, but at this point intent is pretty much irrelevant (for me) because this continues to taint my experiences with the fandom.

[ceies]

Vinland Saga “Prologue”

A Review!

So, yesterday I watched “End of the Prologue”. It was a fantastic season finale. It really completed the story arc of most of the characters and while there are some lose ends left to tie up in the Manga or a 2nd season and while surely Thorfinn’s and Knut’s story can go much longer, it would have also been a very satisfying end to the show as a whole, I felt.

Within just this Prologue everything seemed to go full circle. And I think, that is why this is a ‘Prologue’. Looking back at it the season seems like a very complete story by itself that can easily set up another possibly even bigger story but is not necessarily part of that story but instead stands alone. Of course, I could be very wrong as I haven’t read the manga but that is how I interpret the revelation that all these 24 episodes had just been the ‘Prologue’.

When I finished watching, I didn’t get around to writing down my thoughts as I did for most of the rest of the season. I didn’t write something about every episode of this season, but the more I progressed the more I had to say about it. And just like that, I had a lot to say about the finale… BUT! I didn’t feel ready to write anything coherent down. The events of the finale really had to sink in. It’s now 24 hours past, and I still might need some time.

But… I think I’m ready to make my first season review where I talk about what I thought about this show, what I liked (a lot) and disliked (not so much) et cetera et cetera…

Now, keep in mind, I have only watched the show once. I also watched the whole show within a week, so many events might be very fresh in my mind, but I didn’t necessarily give it enough time between episodes to process everything that had happened. Also, while this will be very long… I can’t talk about everything!

When I frist writing this review, I wrote down about six pages just on characters... I reallized I had to tone it down. So, this review will be more story and plot focused, and I may try to write something else about the characters (or maybe some few special characters) later on, in a second post some time later on.

Some technical stuff first: I watched the show with German Subs, so some of the names are a bit different to the names in the English Subs. I now know that “Knut” is “Canute” in the English Subs, and “Björn” might be known as “Bjorn” by the English audience. That said, I’m used to the German names and I really can’t be bothered to check every single character for their English spelling. So, for the sake of consistency… I’m just going to use the German spellings.

The Plot:

Thorfinn, son of the former warrior Thors, sneaks onto the ship, when his father is forced to join the war between England and Denmark. However, Thors is betrayed by his old comrade Floki who pays a pirate/viking/mercenary called Askeladd to kill him. After Askeladd through some trickery and underhanded tactics manages to kill Thors – who is the much more powerful fighter – in front of Thorfinn’s eyes, the young six-year-old swears vengeance. In the following years he follows Askeladd and his crew around always looking for a fair duel in which he can finally kill Askeladd to get his revenge.

About ten years later Askeladd gets his hand on the Danish prince Knut and thus they are dragged into the plot for succession on the Danish throne.

Overall, this story to me seems very character-driven. It’s the characters that keep me hooked, not so much the plot. Actually, I think the plot is nothing too special. For the most part it’s rather predictable. To me at least, it seemed, like nobody really tried to surprise me until the very end. Only around episode 21/22 did the plot really go into high gear and then there were a few surprising turns of evens.

Before that for the most part it was even somewhat difficult to actually understand, what this plot was about, if there even was much of a plot, beyond just Thorfinn’s pursuit of revenge. So up until around episode 10 when Prince Knut was introduced most of the story was just focused on establishing Thofinn’s family and the relationship between him and Askeladd. Something that I got the feeling doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Neither the crew nor the rest of the world and to be honest not even Askeladd himself seemed to care for Thorfinn’s revenge. It’s something that Thorfinn is utterly obsessed about, but the rest of the world doesn’t care. And that is very apparent pretty much from the start.

I at least felt like some bigger plot was missing for the first ten episodes. While Thorfinn grows up the war between England and Denmark rages on, but we don’t see much of it. There is no story here. Even later on, when we finally see some actual battles, it’s not really the war against the English anymore, but just Danes fighting Danes (although some of these Danes allied with the English for a while).

Thus, for most of the story, as a viewer I also felt like we were short an ‘Antagonist’. Of course, there was Askeladd, but the show from his introduction made it pretty clear that while Thorfinn might see him as his enemy, in the grand scheme of an overarching plot, he would not be the antagonist. But that Antagonist was still out there… and remained out there and unknown for a long time.

It’s really only in the later stages of the season that we find out what this story is really about: And it’s about Knut more than Thorfinn. It’s about the succession on the throne of Denmark. Thorfinn growing up in this mess I think mostly serves to set him up and establish his character as the protagonist for the next arc(s). But unlike most other characers in this show, Thorfinn on the question of the throne of Denmark which everybody else is focused on, has no own agenda. He just follows Askeladd round. That’s also why midway through the season Askeladd feels a lot more like the main character than Thorfinn.

So at this point I have written a lot more about the Plot than I had originally intended. Overall I just want to end with this: There’s not a point in this Anime where I felt that I didn’t know where it was going. Still I felt like the story was very character-driven, while the plot was rather weak. That changes around the midway point of the season. Once Thorfinn has finished growing up (for this season) the plot really thickens… and somewhat comes out of nowhere. Still, every step on the way up until the last four episodes seemed very predictable to me. The show makes no effort hiding that, when and how Thors would die, or Ragnar or how Knut would grow up, or even Thorkell joining Knut. There was no surprise here. And that might have been the reason why halfway through this show, I thought somewhat arrogantly: “Oh, I always know what’s going to happen, I could write this show.”

But looking back on it now, I realize that although I saw most of the tiny steps on the way a mile in advance, I still had no idea where it was going, and if somebody had asked me, what this story was about around episode 5 … I would have had no idea. I would have probably said: “Askeladd and Thorfinn finding some weird Mentor-murderer-surrogate father-relationship”, “Thorfinn getting revenge”, “the war between England and Denmark” or maybe even “Thorfinn looking for the fabled Vinland” (which I think will ultimately be what later arcs will be about). None of those assumptions would have been wrong, but none of them would be right either. I would have never in my life guessed that it’s about “Askeladd deciding the succession of the Danish Throne to protect his homeland.” Because all of that is only reavealed in the last few episodes of this show.

Characters:

Now this is where this show really excels. Knut really impressed me, Thorkell is utterly hilarious, Thors is “larger than life”, Thorfinn is a dichotomy growing up in the image of two great men, I really grew to like Björn, Ragnar was bittersweet, King Swen did not disappoint as an Antagonist with the limited screentime he had and Askeladd… probably makes my top ten list of favorite characters of all time… And I don’t even have such a list. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Most of the characters in the show, as soon as they get just a little bit of screentime to shine… boy, do they shine. They are interesting and layered, and nobody is quite like the other. They don’t always defy character-archtypes that we already well know from other stories, but sometimes they do and when they do, it’s glorious.

Even some side-characters who are only introduced for one episode seem to be very well-done that we can understand who they are, why they are who they are, and what they do or what their purpose in the story is. Such as the old lady who saves Thorfinn in episode 5, the girl who witnesses her village being massacred by Askeladd or Master Asser in Wales.

Some characters like Atli and Torgrim or even Björn took a while to grow on me, other’s like Askeladd or Thorkell or Thorfinn’s sister Ylva were love on first sight. But overall I would say in this show there remain few (if any) characters who I can’t understand where they come from or why they do what they do. And WHAT they do is often disgusting, vile and evil stuff. But still, it feels like I’m not watching senseless violence but character-driven actions that make perfect sense in the environment they are and grew up in, even if it’s sometimes difficult to watch.

Overall, I think Floki was the weakest and most disappointing character with the screen time he got. And that’s saying something... However, I do have some hope, that we might get a bit more about him in a later arc. Especially in regard to him ordering the hit on Thors there are still some lose ends here.

This is everything I want to say about characters. As I said, I could fawn over Akeladd or Knut or Thors for hours, but... let’s move on.

Animation, Music etc.

Going to keep this short: It was great. Sometimes the animation goes completely crazy, like when in my otherwise least favorite episode 7 we suddenly get a first perspetive view on the battle. I have to be honest, I don’t like Thorfinn’s angry face, but it absolutely does it’s job. I loved some of the picturesque nature images. For example when kid Thorfinn learned how to hunt in a forest in autumn that was just beautiful. Snowstorms are... oh wow Very well animated.

I liked the Soundtrack though I have to admit, it didn’t stand out to me. One reason is that I have just a bad ear for music.

I loved the second opening more than the first. But the first was good too (although I think it spoiled much of the story for me).

The japanese synchronisation was amazing. Thorfinn’s voice actor in particular was really impressive whenever he got angry.

So much about that, I said this would be very short!

Other thoughts / Themes:

So again... this is one of those parts that could get very long, so I might make a seperate post sometime later on to talk more in depth about some of these ideas.

Ultimately I felt this arc was a lot about boys growing up. This is something that both Knut and Thorfinn have in comon. The story very centers and focuses around them growing up and turning into their respective adult selves. Especially Knut’s developement in the second half of the season was very entertaining to watch. The developement of both of these characters is vey much tied to the conept of “leaving the nest” and “the father’s death”. It’s something they both share with Askeladd himself - who did the deed of killing both their father(figure)s. While I don’t want to go too deep into it, I think this is (although in a more symbolic meaning of the word) is a critical point of growing up and maturing. Finding your own way, taking responsibility, not being held back by the expactations put on you. In this show this concept is used in the most twisted way possible. Askeladd brutally murders Knut’s fatherfigure for Knut’s character developement. And he is successfull in doing that. With Thorfinn however his father’s death leaves him shackled to the man he blames and hates for it - not so much because he is actually shackled to him, but because he is so obsessed with revenge. Both of them then learn and grow up under Askeladd (Thorfinn more so than Knut - although I find the relationship between Askeladd and Knut almost as fascinating if not more so) and ultimately lose Askeladd too which could almost be seen as losing their father a second time (in Knut’s case maybe even third or fourth time; Ragnar, God, Sven, Askeladd). And although Thorfinn always wanted to kill Askeladd it is ultimately Knut who fully steps into his role as king by killing Askeladd.

Another concept that is explored mostly with characers like Thors, the priest Willybald and Knut is the concept of “love”. What the show means with love is not so much a specific love for somebody in particular, but a more broader love for all beings / all humans. It’s something we see with Thors early on in the series when he give eight sheep to free a already dying slave and doesn’t regret it even when the man dies shortly after. Or when he refuses to kill Askeladd even if that could save himself, his son and his men. “You have no enemies, nobody is your enemy” is what he tells his son, and of course Thorfinn for the longest time doesn’t quite understand it - or if he does, he doesn’t follow this mantra. Instead it seems Knut - although never knowing Thors is most like him. They are often compared and they seem to share this Love that is undiscriminatory. Even if Knut is a bit more willing to kill than Thors being a more realistic character in this world.

This also goes hand in hand with how the show explores leadership or kinship. Askeladd is a leader whose men follow him because he is ‘lucky’. But he is also very much a king with no following or crown, even if he does not call himself such. On the other end of the spectrum is Sven whose crown gets too heavy and even controls him. Then there are the two people askeladd chooses to be his leaders: Thors whom he offers leadership of his band and later Knut whom he grooms into being a king and who coincidentally both share the “Love” as possibly the only two characters in the show.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was Religion. The season started with dreams of Vinland - this fabled place in the west (which I guess is America) where there is no slavery or war or cruelty, where the fields are rich with fruit and corn and... really a paradise on earth. It’s somewhat similar to how Askeladd’s mother described the country Artorius resides in in the west across the water. An of course it also is very similar to how christianity imagines “Paradise” to be. Halfway through the season we not only start dreaming about “Paradise” but there’s talks about Ragnarök, Last Judgement... People are waiting for these things to happen. Askeladd is waiting for Artorius’ return. Knut is trying to reach Paradise through prayer... All of these things however never happen and are doomed to fail. I loved this episode when Knut shortly after Askeladd said something similar in the episode before, realized he had to create Paradise himself, it was impossible to reach it just by waiting. Askeladd later says that it’s absurd believing Artorius would leave this fabled country in the west just to get back to this wartorn brittain... Both reached the same epiphany: I’m sick of waiting, I will do it myself. I loved this concept that is in a way criticising all kinds of religions while not really forcing this critical view onto anybody. Many people throughout the show find inspiration and shelter in religion - even Knut and Askeladd for some time. But ultimately you can’t spend our life waiting for things that will never happen.

There’s so much more to talk about like Thorfinn’s and Askeladd’s hatred and rage. The cruelty of war and slavery.... Or the overall morality of the characters and world. But I think I will leave it at that and just write another post once I’m done with it.

Conclusion

Overall I enjoyed this very much. Episode 7 was probably my least favorite episode and overall I think the second half and especially the last five or so episodes where much better than everything before that. The arc got better and better consistently.

I’m very glad how it ended. I still think the finale was fantastic. Now I still need some time to mourn and process everythig. This was overall a great season.

Watching it was sometimes a bit difficult.The show makes no effort to hide how brutal this world is. Characters - even characters I root for - ended up doing vile things on-screen. Murder, Rape and Slavery are everywhere, even if at least the latter two aren’t shown graphicly. So I would’t recomend it to anybody who is a bit squeamish in that regard.

But in general I myself loved this show!

[the-quiet-winds]

Let Me be the Ground Underneath Your Feet

or five times Jane soothed Katherine’s tears, and one time Katherine soothed Jane’s

I.

She hears the sniffles first, coming from Katherine’s room. Quiet, concealed sniffles that Jane obviously isn’t meant to hear, but she does anyway. She makes her way upstairs very slowly, wondering if Kat would hear her and force herself to stop.

“Kat?” Jane quietly calls from beyond the closed door. “It’s mum, love, what’s going on?”

Katherine, somewhat surprisingly, opens the door almost immediately after. She’s clutching that pink teddy bear to her chest, holding it like it might fly away if she dared to lessen her grip.

“What’s wrong, kitty-kat?” Jane asks, catching her chin between two gentle fingers.

Without a word, Katherine shifts her grip on the stuffed toy, and Jane can very clearly see he is missing an ear.

“He got stuck,” she chokes out. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jane murmurs. She runs a reassuring hand down her arm, stopping on her wrist and squeezing gently. “I can put him back together in no time, love.”

That’s when Katherine looks up with those eyes, so young and full of hope. “Really?”

Jane smiles. “Yes.” She tugs on Katherine’s hand. “I’ll show you how to do it.”

II.

After a particularly grueling week, it wasn’t uncommon for all the girls to basically go home and collapse. And this week had been anything but calm, so sleeping was an absolute necessity.

Jane is always the last to sleep and first to rise (except for when Parr pulls all-nighters, which she didn’t on this particular night) and by the time she arrives at her and Katherine’s shared room, her daughter is already sleeping.

Low moonlight infiltrates the room, and is the only thing that pulls Jane’s eyes to Katherine’s cheeks, decorated with starry tears and galaxy marks streaming down her face.

She climbs into bed beside Katherine, brushing gentle fingers against the girl’s cheek to wake her carefully. “Are you alright, honey?” She whispers.

Katherine’s eyes open slowly, finding Jane’s face. Once the face and name and place lock together into one coherent thought, she immediately lunges forward to wrap her arms around Jane’s waist. “I had a bad dream, mama,” she mumbles the explanation into Jane’s sleep shirt.

“It’s okay, love,” Jane says, catching the girl and beginning to rub slow circles up and down her back. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.”

Jane feels a few tears cling to the skin of her neck as Katherine gives a tiny half-sob, before settling into the warmth and security of Jane’s embrace, tucking her head under Jane’s chin, giving her mother ample ability to kiss her head, which she did, before whispering, “get some sleep, love. Mama’s got you.”

III.

Katherine had never wished to unread words more than in that particular moment, staring at those particular words on her social media.

They were rude, quite unnecessarily so, and she couldn’t stop looking at them, over and over, on the blazing white screen.

Logically, Katherine knows, the words shouldn’t even matter. One gross and hurtful comment amongst dozens of much kinder ones on a post on her Instagram shouldn’t be having the impact it is, but Katherine can’t help the tears that begin to make their way down her face.

And Jane, because, as Katherine likes to say, she’s caring and notices things and is overall the best mum ever, looks over from the kitchen to see the girl, curled on the couch, sniffling quietly to herself.

“Kitty-kat?” She quietly calls. “What’s wrong, love?”

Katherine doesn’t answer, her eyes fixed on the phone in her trembling hands. Jane sets down the dish towel, drying her hands on her jeans as she quickly crosses into the living room and kneeling in front of the couch where Katherine is curled up. She reaches up and takes the phone, Katherine giving zero resistance to her doing so, and she looks at the screen. Horribly cruel words take up part of the display, and Jane immediately feels anger well in her stomach.

“They’re wrong, love,” she says fiercely, but with that maternal warmth that reminds Katherine of heavy blankets and cups of hot chocolate when it snows. “You’re beautiful, every part of you.” Katherine sniffles and doesn’t respond. Jane takes her hand, then leans up to kiss her cheek. “And who cares what some person on the internet says?” She asks quietly. “They’re probably just jealous, because you, my love,” she accentuates the word with a tap on Katherine’s nose, “are perfect, just the way you are.”

With no regard for the hard floor under the room’s carpet, Katherine pitches herself forward, Jane catching her on instinct as they fall backwards. Jane’s back collides with the floor with a sharp thud, but she pretends it doesn’t hurt as she lets Katherine cry into her shirt.

“It’s alright, lovey, I know it hurts,” Jane whispers. She sketches tiny patterns in and around Katherine’s spine as she cries into her shoulder. “It’s not true. I swear it’s not true.”

Katherine hiccups a sob and buries her face into Jane’s shoulder, the soft material of the sweater tickling her hot cheeks. “Thanks, mama,” she mumbles out.

IV.

The last show of the week, as a whole, had gone just as well as any other show had before. The crowd was engaged, the band on fire, and the girls had a blast, despite their tiredness. It was heading up to the dressing rooms after the show, however, when the trouble started.

Katherine, in her ridiculously high-heeled boot, missed one of the last steps, her foot twisting awkwardly as she tumbled down the stairs.

Aragon catches her before she gets too far, grabbing her beneath the arms to stop her momentum. Katherine bites down harshly on her lip to keep from crying out, which only adds to the pain as it cracks, splits, and starts to bleed. Aragon and Cleves help to carry her up the last of the stairs, Katherine desperately trying to keep tears back.

They bring her to the dressing room, setting her gently down on the couch, and Jane bursts in a few moments later. She hadn’t seen the event happen at all - she had still been on stage talking with Joan about something for her song, when Parr had yelled down the stairs to come quick.

Jane had never made it up to the dressing rooms as fast, and her heart nearly breaks when she sees Katherine on the dressing room couch, trying to hold back tears, blood staining her lips, her foot elevated by a pillow.

“Oh, love,” she murmurs. She moves slowly to grab a towel from the small bathroom, and when she turns around, Katherine is making what Jane calls ‘grabby-hands’, tears finally starting to fall as she silently calls for her mother.

Jane makes no hesitation and crosses the room to Katherine in a moment, kissing her forehead before moving to gently wipe the blood off her lips. After, she helps to get Katherine more comfortable, removing her shoe and helping her prop her foot better.

Katherine lets out a feeble whimper at the movement, but mostly silent tears fall.

“It looks like just a twist, love,” Jane says gently. “You should feel fine in the morning.” With a clean corner of the towel in her hand, she reaches to wipe some of the tear lines cutting down her cheeks.

Without another word or plead, Jane leans forward to kiss Katherine’s forehead, lingering there for several heartbeats before pulling back to look her girl in her red eyes. “You’ll be okay, my brave girl.” She knows those words always make Katherine feel just a little stronger, and there’s a slight adjustment in the jutted lip to show that Katherine reacted in exactly the way Jane wanted.

V.

It unfortunately wasn’t uncommon for Parr to become so consumed in whatever she was working on that she’d forget about things.

That thing is the game of Scrabble she’d promised Katherine to start at exactly two sharp, allowing them plenty of time before the show that night.

But two comes and goes, and there is no Parr.

Katherine still waits.

She sits.

She waits.

Two-thirty comes. Still no Parr.

Katherine hates that she feels stupid tears in her eyes over it. It wasn’t Parr’s fault, she knows that rationally - Parr sometimes forgot to eat when she got hung up in her work.

She’s so intensely staring at the Scrabble board that she barely notices someone settling into the seat across from her, setting a mug of tea down for her to drink, then spelling out the word ‘rotary’ across the middle of the board.

Katherine looks up suddenly, and sees Jane’s face looking at her imploringly, that soft smile on her pale lips. She sips her own tea and waits for Katherine to react. When she doesn’t, Jane reaches over to brush some hairs out of her face, her thumb stroking Katherine’s cheekbone and catching a few tears.

She doesn’t speak, and Katherine is almost thankful for that. Shaking out of her stupor, Katherine looks down at her own tiles and tries to build off of Jane, which she does with ‘totality’.

Jane knows this is going to be a game she loses, but she frankly doesn’t care.

Jane

As the leaves turned to molten gold and the air constantly smelled of bonfire, it wasn’t hard to tell that Jane was falling into a depression.

She’s less smiley, Katherine notices, the affectionate pet names and loving strokes of her fingers are disappearing more and more rapidly.

It hurts Katherine, and she really wishes she could figure out what was behind it. But everytime she asks, all she gets is a slightly stilted, “nothing, love. Mum’s just tired, that’s all.”

About halfway through the month, Jane doesn’t get out of bed.

When Katherine wakes up that morning, she is startled to feel a weight next to her - Jane is almost always up and downstairs bustling around doing a million things at once by the time Katherine wakes up.

But no, there she is, curled up with her back to Katherine, still as a stone.

“Mum?” Katherine tentatively asks, laying a hand on her upper arm. “What is it?” The contact makes the older woman shiver, then begin to shake with more intensity. Surprisingly, Jane turns over, and Katherine sucks in a breath at how devastated her mother looks, all blotchy cheeks and red eyes and stains on skin.

“Mama,” Katherine whispers, hoping to catch her attention, “what’s up?” In a move her Jane so often did to her, Katherine reaches up to smudge some of the clear cut lines from her cheeks. Then she curls up like a cat, tucking herself under Jane’s chin.

It’s then and only then that Jane speaks, her voice shattered and splintered in her throat and barely coming out as more than a whisper.

“It’s his birthday.”

Katherine doesn’t need to ask who ‘he’ is, and just pushes herself closer to Jane. She feels arms wrap around her back, a half-kiss in her hair, then the usually immovable force of strength begin to shake with sobs.

Katherine doesn’t know what to say, never has when Jane talks about Edward, so she just huddles as close as she can, hoping to reassure Jane that she’s there, she’s not going anywhere.

“I love you, mama,” she whispers.

All she gets is a choked half-sob in response, but it’s more than enough to tell Katherine that Jane heard her, that she understood, and most importantly that no floodgate of tears could possibly ever separate them.

[ansu-gurleht]

okay so i went through the datamined books from eso, taking notes as i went. @boethiah sent me a message this morning about it, asking what i thought. so i figured i might as well get real comprehensive about taking down notes to answer decently, or at least do it to organize my thoughts. 

before she sent me that i hadn’t heard about this, so i went into it bright-faced and intrigued. i didn’t think my notes would end up too long, so i just figured i’d send them to her when i was done, even “talking” to her in the notes (you’ll see what i mean by that). 

but uh. as all things lore-related, i got a bit carried away. stopped almost halfway thru to go to class, and by then i’d started to notice some really weird, kinda silly shit in it. and then i noticed everybody in tesblr talking about it, and finally realized, “oh. so it’s like that.” so i figure i’ll post it here publicly instead.

despite the uh. obvious nonsense in a lot of this, i think there’s a lot of interesting things hidden away. so what i’m going to do is just post my notes under the read-more. i’m too lazy to organize them into something more coherent lol. they’re basically just me commenting on certain lines and stuff. 

i won’t like, really go into why most of this is stupid, bc other people have already done so, and better than i probably could’ve. but you’ll know. somethings i quote things and just. have no idea how to even address them other than, at best, “??????” either bc it doesn’t make much sense, eludes useful analysis, or is just stupid.

anyways, here goes:

book 1:

azura: - "the Path"? am i wrong or has a "Path" never been referenced in khajiiti lore?

khenarthi: - alkosh comforts khenarthi after lorkhaj died? yeah right. - khenarthi's role as psychopomp for azurah mirrors kyne's role for shor. but azura doesn't factor into nord/atmoran mythology at all.

jone and jode: - azurah cares for jone and jode? interesting. (also, "Bright Moons"? full moons?)

lorkhaj: - lorkhaj as "White Lion?" - namiira (the Great Darkness) followed lorkhaj as his burden? - mention of a "path" again, made by lorkhaj with purpose. sounds yokudan. - "in conflict with himself" & "represents the duality of the Khajiiti soul" ... desert and jungle ... strife, hardship, and life, love ... both tainted deadly by nirni, according to ahnissi - "We honor his sacrifice by walking the Path with purpose and resisting the call of the Dark." ... the Path again ... the Dark? namiira? - (the khajiit seem to conflate namira and nocturnal. this isn't a new concept, as they both genuinely do overlap in many ways, but an interesting one.) - "the true spirit of Lorkhaj will sometimes appear" ... "by Azurah" - nerevar/ine, "or Khenarthi" - hjalti, "or by his oldest name" - ...ysmir?

magrus: - all of this magrus stuff is new, to my knowledge. - the importance of him fleeing from "Boethra and Lorkhaj" probably excites you :P - "fell into the Moonshadow" ... "too full of fear to rule a sphere" ... "tore out his other eye" (odin parallel? a "failed" odin, maybe? unless seeing "out of one eye" is metaphorical) - "Varliance Gate"???? "Aether Prism"???? they're the sun, but those names are brand new afaik. overall a strange alternative to the story of magnus and the sun - "Some sorcerers hold that Magrus left the eye willingly" - more odin stuff

book 2:

- azurah knows all the names of all the spirits, their protonyms? that's interesting. a lot of that "protonymic" lore is derived from the whole "true names have power" stuff, popular in magical circles from sources like kabbalah thru the lens of crowley. - "And Fadomai told stories of her children and her favorite aspects of each of them. When she reached Azurah, she smiled and told her favored daughter she could not decide. And Fadomai died." ;----; - "sat in the Great Darkness for timeless ages" ... sat with namiira? - seems to have carved moonshadow from the great darkness. (the great darkness seems to have dual meaning as both oblivion and namiira. then again, i think only clan mother ahnissi said the great darkness was namiira, so that (morrowind) lore might be outdated.) - this scene with lorkhaj and his empty dark heart is......interesting. - "UR DRA NA MII RA UR DRA NA MII RA UR DRA AZU RA" - you can pick out "namiira" and "azura" in this, but the meaning of "UR" and "DRA" elude me. - lorkhaj gets his heart torn out YET AGAIN. very rude azurah - the "Moon Beast" and its hunger remind me of the yokudan sep. - i think once upon the time "dro-m'Athra" referred to daedra in general, but i think eso has made them a specific type of daedra resembling khajiit. even more specifically, some kind of "dark khajiit" born from dead evil khajiit. - "lighting the fire with lanterns of love and mercy" - your vivec is showing, azurah. or i guess, the other way around. - this "ashes of Lorkhaj" bit gets me thinking about ysmir, again. but i'm not sure what to do with that.

book 3

sheggorath: - now THIS is a not shitty interpretation of sheggorath! he's not a "god of madness," but a god of mental fortitude, a god who tests convinction. - more stuff about "the Path" - "must be ... overcome before a Khajiit can visit Hermorah's library"? - "Sheggorath is dead and has been replaced by something Other" - the hero of kvatch? but if this is from eso, that hasn't happened yet? unless the mantling of sheogorath is a pretty common occurrence; i remember someone on tumblr suggested that this might happen every era.

orkha: - "Orkha ... followed Boethra back through the Many Paths" ... what does that mean? - "Lorkhaj, Khenarthi, and Boethra battled the demon in the ancient songs" - ... as trinimac? - "but Orkha could only be banished and would not die" ;) - "serve as tests along the Path" - so far these princes are being painted similarly to their house of troubles counterparts

dagon (also called merrunz.) - no reference to merrunz being the kitty cat. :( next - ...okay not really. "explore the Great Darkness rather than the Many Paths"? - molagh "tortured him until the creation of the World?" but "the wife of Molagh freed Merrunz"? who is "the wife of Molagh"?

molagh (balls) - "twelve Demon Kings"? should probably look into how they got that number - "Boethra and Molagh fought to a standstill before the lattice, but it was Azurah who shackled the Demon King with secrets only she knows." - i dont have anything to say about this really, just an interesting line i think. - "you will overcome him with the might of Boethra, the Will Against Rule." - interesting...afaik, aside from HAVING a khajiit name, boethiah never really factored into their faith that much, and wasn't ever mentioned in clan mother ahnissi. i wonder if azurah at some point attempted to unify her plans for the dunmer and the khajiit.

merid-nunda - interestingly, the khajiit seem to call her by her magna-ge name. - "False Spirit of Greed"? - magrus "loved only himself and his own creations"? idk if this seems all that congruent with the magrus from his own description - "cold spirit, born of light without love" - interesting - "blame her for orchestrating the death of might Lorkhaj"??!?!?!? what?????????? - "When Merid-Nunda dared assault the Lattice, Azurah struck her down before the Varliance Gate and dragged her away from it. She then cast Merid-Nunda into the Void and bound her there with mirrors. The nomads say she has since escaped." this whole thing is interesting

book 4

nirni: - nothing interesting on nirni.

y'ffer: - y'ffer "corrupted by the Great Darkness," (namira), who apparently killed nirni???!??! what??????? - worth noting that ahnissi doesn’t paint y’ffer as “corrupted” or evil or anything. in her words he’s kinda just a moron who doesn’t *get it* and does his own thing instead.  - don’t get the obsession with making namiira some like. crazy super evil being. feels like eso took a look at the list of princes and was like “who hasn’t tried to destroy/take over the world yet. that’s what daedric princes do right”

hircine - hircine doesn't get a funny ta'agra name, i guess. - graht-elk?

hermorah - hermorah helps azurah maintain the ja-kha'jay?

sangiin - according to what this says about sangiin, khajiit are actually NOT one of the most hedonistic races on tamriel. suuuuuuuuure, buddy.

book 5

- a look at the khajiit afterlife w/ azurah in moonshadow. - first you walk the sands, then you walk the glass, then you walk the thorns, then you have a good time, then azurah sends you back to nirn do something else (reincarnated)? but it might just be this one guy who goes off to do something ("Bring my children back"), he seems kinda special. no idea who he's supposed to be.

book 6

- all this shit about akha and alkosh and alkhan is bullshit. the fuck is akha even supposed to be? according to his name you'd assume an association with akatosh, but alkosh is akatosh, right?

akha: - this book says akha is the first cat. ahnissi says alkosh is the first cat. - "Pathfinder and the One Unmourned" - are we talking about akatosh or dagoth ur here. - "Many Paths"??? again?? what are they. knockoff walking ways? - "mated with the Winged Serpent of the East [akavir], the Dune Queen of the West [yokuda], and the Mother Mammoth of the North [atmora]. He then went to the South [pyandonea] and never returned." then alkosh shows up and says "yikes that akha guy was a little fucked huh?"

alkosh: - alkosh is "The Dragon King" and "Highmane." association with the Mane of the khajiit - "In time, the children of Akha overthrew [Alkosh] and scattered his body on the West Wind." ...??? is this a reference to the middle dawn? seems unlikely - apparently khenarthi put him back together. also seems unlikely

alkhan: - oh so the khajiit recognize alduin now too. cool.

boethra: - and boethiah i guess, why not????

mafala: - mafala has always been part of khajiit religion, tho, afaik. she is the og clan mother. - "She watches over Eight of the Many Paths, each of which a Khajiit must walk in time." ?????????? wtf are the many paths!!!!! why are there eight of them!!!!!! is this a reference to the spiral skein, or satellite realms (the spokes) of it? - forreal i think they gave up on pretense here when they started listing allies and shit. - "Her numbers are Eight and Sixteen, and these are two of her keys." this just sounds like something from the 36 lessons tbh. this doesn't sound like khajiit lore at all

book 7

lorkhaj (moon beast): - confusingly, lorkhaj as fadomai's favored son and lorkhaj as the moon beast are called by the same name, and despite this have separate entries in these books. - wonder if there's some equivalent in other myths to the moon beast. he seems pretty interesting, being "born of the dark heart of Lorkhaj" - there's UR DRA again, attached to namiira, again, who is apparently an enemy of the khajiit.

namiira: - apparently eso has rebranded namiira as like, an absolute enemy of the khajiit, with the dro-m'athra as her corrupted-khajiit minions or something? except i thought dro-m'athra originated from the moon beast? anyways, ahnissi only said that the great darkness became namiira. didn't say that was a bad thing necessarily. - also, her khajiiti ta'agra name, namiira, just so happens to be her protonym, NA MII RA.

noctra: - oh, so they do have nocturnal, as "noctra". - wait, so she's the "daughter of twilight"??? isn't twilight, idk, azura's thing???? (i feel like i've heard nocturnal be associated with twilight before, but it still makes little sense. it was probably from eso, too.) - boethra separated noctra from namiira. one could say she *stole* noctra from namiira ;) - noctra is ok by the khajiit, whereas her progenitor namiira is not. ok?

varmiina: - ok we have vaermina now too i guess. why the fuck not. - "The Lost Daughter. This spirit was not of any litter, but was born from Fadomai's fear of losing her children." - "Azurah killed this dark spirit in the Underworld" what the fuck is "the Underworld". they just be making shit up now

[?????] (no, really. that's what it says. dunno if that's a placeholder or intentional): - "[?????] A spirit of vengeance. It has no will of its own, as it was born from Azurah's grief after the death of Fadomai and Lorkhaj." ????? - "It sometimes appears in songs as a black panther, a warrior in ebony armor, or as a hidden sword." idk about "a black panther," but the "warrior in ebony armor" evokes ebonarm, who's technically still canon, and "a hidden sword" could be umbra. not sure what the connection here is.