#why the hell did i do this traditionally.

[lethologicaee]

reveal of the assignment that took over the last month of my life. for a star wars film class of all things..... well. sorry for the shitty notes app scans it is what it is

sketches and stuff under the cut 😸

[sixxtytoo]

🖤✖🤍

[dododan]

Thoughts about Alastor after the episode "Hello, Rosie"

Perhaps first such a small summary for those who haven't read my previous posts about Alastor.

Alastor's deal with someone has worked out. Officially we don't know with whom, but my theory is that it is Lilith.

Alastor is obliged by the contract probably to help/protect Charlie. His intentions are not clear, and he harbours many secrets.

He is not fond of Lucifer. Theories are that he either sees him as a threat to Charlie's hotel and dreams, or he is redirecting negative emotions about his own father and how Lucifer treated Charlie onto him.

Alastor enjoys being in the company of women and probably likes/appreciates Charlie. Perhaps he sees himself as her mentor.

His help, although chaotic and initially incomprehensible seems to be having an effect and actually helping the hotel and Charlie.

Alastor has a weakness for jazz and alcohol, but we don't see him ever drinking alcohol in the series.

His enemy is Vox, but he is more annoyed by Lucifer (probably because he is stronger than him).

Alastor doesn't like to lose or be wrong.

Here you have a link to previous thoughts if you are curious.

Alastor’s true motivations? - Why is he helping Charlie?

Dad beat Dad - Alastor, what the hell are you doing?

Traditionally, there are loads of spoilers here!

From the outset, Alastor seems interested/intrigued by Charlie sitting in the room and spinning another plan. Clearly he saw an opportunity in. Charlie was alone, so he could talk to her in peace. A plan was already forming in his head.

On Instagram, one girl made a fair analysis of Alastor's facial expressions. What expression on his face signifies what emotion. Which proved to be very helpful in understanding him! Here you have ig: @/sasha_draws.bg She did a really great job! But back to Alastor.

When Alastor feels some negative emotion, lines/wrinkles appear under his eyes. Which is true when you pay attention to the previous episodes, but in this 'Hello, Rosie' it is particularly noticeable.

For most of the time in this episode, Alastor seemed concerned to me.

When Alastor was talking to Charlie I had the impression that he was provoking her. He made Charlie painfully aware of how badly her plans had failed, which seems cruel. Initially this could be understood as simply an opportunity to take advantage of Charlie and make a deal, but I think this is just an added benefit. Alastor is bound by his contract to the hotel and Charlie, so he can't leave her. But Alastor has besides made Charlie realise that she can't idly brood on the bed because she doesn't have that luxury. Her friends were waiting for a plan, they were waiting for Charlie.

Charlie gave up at that point, and Alastor made her realise that there was still a chance to make things right somehow. He exasperated her, and showed her that she couldn't give up - in a rather cruel way but still, it's not always kind words or words of support that help you up.

Sometimes the painful realisation of the truth is the best motivator to undertake change.

For a moment, Alastor seemed annoyed that Charlie thought she had him figured out because she smiles all the time. He made her realise that the opposite is true.

A smile can be a weapon on many fronts. You could say that he gave Charlie some cue about his own behaviour. His lecture about smiling shows a lot about him.

Alastor hides a lot - his emotions, motivations or goals. He revealed to Charlie that he himself puts on a mask. The smile gives Alastor a sense of control.

The question is, isn't Alastor also lying to himself in this way?

He is creating himself as a cruel overlord, a person without a conscience who inflicts suffering on others for fun. It makes me wonder if he hasn't started to believe himself in the character he wants to pretend to be?

Nevertheless, no matter how good Alastor's goals may be attributed to him, or that his actions have a good effect on the hotel and Charlie, he still made a deal with her. He was aware that Charlie would not give up her soul to him and would not do anything against herself. Their deal is that Charlie is to help him like friend to friend when he needs it without hurting anyone, and he will give her information. Quite a specific arrangement and very narrow. To me their deal is a bit of a lifeline for Alastor when he finds himself trapped by his own contract.

[As an aside, I've noticed that a lot of people think that the stitches appearing on Alastor's lips are a sign that he can't talk about his deal. I doubt this because of the design of his character. Alastor was shown at many points to be dealing with voodoo or somehow connected to it. This is indicated by the green symbols that appear when he uses his powers, and the stitching that appears on his mouth probably refers to the very design of the voodoo dolls, which also had their mouths stitched in this way. Ironically in my opinion, voodoo is generally good magic, focusing on healing or helping, which doesn't really fit Alastor. Unless one considers the distinction between white and black magic as it is known in New Orleans. But I also point out that I'm not an expert, but I'm just partly familiar with the subject of voodoo and just wanted to show a reference to Alastor's appearance here].

I think Alastor's worry or uncertainty is most evident when he leads Charlie to Rossie. You can see the look on his face and those wrinkles under his eyes. This could be interpreted as:

he's upset that the angels are about to exterminate in the hotel and the only person who can oppose it is preoccupied with his love problems rather than more important matters.

He is upset/worried that he realises he won't be able to help Charlie this time, so he leads her to the only person who is more knowledgeable about love than him: Rossie.

He is nervous because he sees that he might fail if the hotel is destroyed, and that this might somehow breach his contract.

Alastor and Rossie seem to have a very intimate relationship, which was implied in the episode " Scrambled Eggs" when they were at the Overlords meeting. Now we have confirmation that they are very close friends. Rossie can afford a lot in Alastor's company and he allows her to do so. It also seemed to me that when he met Rossie he relaxed a bit, as the wrinkles under his eyes disappeared for a few scenes.

All in all, I'm not surprised that Alastor and Rossie are friends.

Rossie is the opposite of Alastor in a way. She seems transparent in her feelings and genuinely cares about her cannibals. But she also has the strength and power to allow herself to do so. Alastor, on the other hand, plays and hides emotions all the time, and gains power through fear. Despite this, he gets along very well with Rossie, which may mean he's not quite what he makes himself out to be.

I also think that Rossie's words about it being actions that show true nature and feelings may apply to Alastor and his role in season two in the future. But we can already see this now, for example, in the fact that his duet with Lucifer, where Alastor sang that he wanted to replace Charlie's father, ultimately led to a reconciliation between daughter and father which Alastor seemed to be happy with.

We also have it made clear that Alastor is asexual.

Rossie commented that Alastor could learn manners from Charlie. It is possible that what is meant is that when someone annoys Alastor, he does not mince his words. He makes his opinion clear - Susan is a perfect example of this.

Alastor and Rossie really seem close to each other, such as when they look at each other when Charlie panics, or how they dance with each other or their negativity towards Susan. Additionally, Alastor must have had a close business relationship with Rossie since she had an assignment for him and when she said that he never let her down. I got the impression that this gave him considerable satisfaction. Plus it helped the image he wanted to create for Charlie - that he was reliable.

Alastor also seems to put his faith in Charlie after all. Rather than believing in her plan of salvation for sinners, he believes more in the girl's ability to draw crowds and motivate people to action other than through fear or deals. It is hard to say whether he admires this trait of Charlie's, but he certainly appreciates her for it.

Alastor supported Charlie during her song when she had to convince the cannibals to fight - either by giving her the microphone or showing her a thumbs up. I further related that he was slightly worried/nervous, but also pleased after seeing his actions bear fruit.

Alastor also made it clear to Rossie that he valued Charlie and expected nothing less from her than to thrill the crowds. But the important thing is that he referred to her as the Princess of Hell, not Charlie. Alastor has made it clear for the first time that he wants to fulfil Charlie's potential, this shows that despite the faith he has in her, he still only sees her as the Princess of Hell and not Charlie as someone who is more than just a princess.

A break for now, as it's quite late at my place, so expect the rest of the analysis tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow at the furthest.

[aziraphales-library]

Hi! Thanks so much for running this blog!! I was wondering if you guys knew of any good arranged marriage fics between them? Preferably with some initial angst that’s later resolved? No worries if not! Thanks so much!

Hey. We have an #arranged marriage tag, so check that out. Here are more to add...

Wicked dance by pirripipi (T)

The kingdom of Heaven and the kingdom of Hell have been at war with each other more times than all of the rest of the lands combined. Mostly due to the fact they hate each other. Therefore when the wedding of the century is announced. An union meant to bring peace. An arranged marriage between Crowley, the youngest heir of Hell, and Aziraphale, the youngest prince of Heaven… they know something is just not right.

Someone by Diminua (M)

This was a kinkmeme prompt and as usual I can't do better than to paraphrase the OP : Aziraphale is a frumpy, middle aged man, who's closing in on 50 : he's spent his entire life alone, mistreated by his family, and living like a modern times hermit in his familiar, reassuring bookshop. He thinks it's too late for passion. But he hopes that, maybe, he could find a companion for his latter days. Crowley has spent his entire life having a wild time: parties, sex, rock n roll, all that jazz. He flew through the 80s, the 90s, the new millennium like a car on fire. He thought he had time, thought he'd be young and surrounded by people forever, thought with fling after fling after fling, someone would find him. Someone would look at him and choose him. But no one ever did. To paraphrase (again) - they turn to an arranged marriage company. And they fit..

third law of thermodynamics by astrhae (M)

“As you may know,” Muriel started, “as a human police officer, I can unobtrusively monitor your marriage without raising suspicion.” Yes. What? Aziraphale stared. “Marriage?” “On whether it’s being,” Muriel hesitated, eyes cast up as they searched for the right word, “consummated properly.” ------------- Or, after the Antichrist cancels Armageddon, Heaven and Hell come up with a peace treaty. Traditionally, treaties involve a marriage between representatives of each side. It goes about as well as you might expect.

Match Made on Earth by ineffable_snowman (M)

The archangels receive a divine message that an angel and a demon must marry on Earth. No one really wants to do it. So why not send the angel who was responsible for the flaming sword fiasco?

Duty and Desire by Purple_Rose_Writes (M)

A Regency-Era GO Omegaverse Human AU Aziraphale Heavens has resisted taking a mate, but when the family hits hard times, he has no choice. His fears about being mated to an alpha he's never met are only heightened when Alpha Anthony Crowley is rather non-traditional. Is he doomed to a life of abuse and mistreatment? Or is there more to Crowley than meets the eye?

Married at First Sight by Aracloptia (T)

“Well, that was a thing,” Crowley said once they were out of earshot. Without talking about it, they were both heading down the field, towards the lake where the photographer (and likely a few more people from the TV crew) was waiting. “That was a wedding,” Aziraphale replied, surprised at his own annoyance that somebody called a wedding a ‘thing’. “Yeah, obviously, didn’t miss that part,” Crowley said with a shrug, and waved abruptly in Aziraphale’s general direction. “Neither did you, from the looks of it, since you’re dressed like a wedding bride and everything.” “Excuse me, I am a—“ Aziraphale stopped himself, and started over. In which Aziraphale ends up marrying a rude stranger who wears sunglasses.

- Mod D

[itsjustlux]

Screw It, Tony Baddingham Analysis

Yes, I said I wasn't going to do a Rivals essay. Yes, I totally lied.

** TW for unhealthy power dynamics and discussions of ab*se/violence/violence towards women. Honestly, the man is just a walking warning, read accordingly **

Let's talk Tony. Because I can't help but be constantly intrigued by this simultaneously devastatingly sexy and utterly rizz-less (did I use that right? Kids these days...) sad wet cat creature.

He's relatable. Understandable. Someone who's been constantly put on the outs for being "new money". As someone who's spent her whole life trying to fit into academia and traditionally wealthy spaces and failing spectacularly, I understand that. And I understand the thought process that having enough money, and enough status will finally make it go away. They can't make fun of you if you're the one in control. If you're the one calling the shots.

I see Tony as a character fundamentally motivated by deep, deep insecurity. We don't know much about his childhood (season 2 I beg), but I would put a fair amount of money on him being the sort of traditionally bullied nerdy kid. The kind that starts out well-meaning, but eventually just fucking snaps. Tony is the kind of character determined to either make those around him fall in line or pay the price. When put through this lens, he just sort of looks like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Because, while Tony's motivations come from a reasonable place, the actions he takes are so far out of the left field he blasts himself out of sympathetic morally grey dude territory straight into the land of big bad evil guys like a member of Team Rocket. See, it's Tony's continuous feeding of his bottled-up resentment and shame that fuel his ego and general shittiness. He is capable of being a decent human being. Everyone is capable of that, I think. But he's trapped himself in a cycle of rage and isolation. The more angry he gets, the more people will leave him. The more that happens, the more isolated and ashamed he becomes. The more that happens, the more angry he gets. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's why we get that sort of switching on and off of different personalities. That sad, wet cat creature I mentioned in the introduction? That's who Tony really is, underneath all his schemes. When you see that, you're seeing a genuine representation of what's going on inside his head. When he's angry and cruel, that's who he really is. Everything else is an act. Charming, confident Tony? A lie. Sweet, sympathetic Tony? A lie. Any time he needs something from someone, he puts on that charismatic personality. If he needs to draw them in, to pull them in closer so he can feel better about himself, he puts on an act. (Bonus points that DT is so good at what he does that it works on the audience, too)

The irony, of course, is that if any of that behavior was genuine, he'd probably have a hell of a lot of an easier time getting what he wants.

Oh and that last scene? Isn't that just the perfect epitome of all of this? Because it's a result of him trying and failing to pull in Cameron one final time, first with that false personality, and then with who he really is. And, of course, who he is is Not Great (TM), and she knows that. So, he's screwed from the outset. And she hits him with the goddamn trophy, the physical representation of what he's achieved. Proof that he can do more, that he is more than some misfit kid. Demonstrating once and for all that no, Tony. You will never be more than what you are. What you have always been. Even while your show plays in the background, even in your giant office, none of it matters. You have lost, and you will always lose. You will lose the girl, you will lose the company, you will lose the legacy. All of it.

So, now it's time for a little customary speculation. In the event he survives (and that's reliant on like...several factors so this all might be moot), I can see a few different directions for his character. Full disclosure, I haven't read the books. So, this is purely going off of the show and what they've put forward. There are a few places we know we're going to end up. Taggie/Rupert is endgame, Tony will 'lose' again in some fashion, and Cameron/Tony is pretty obviously done. The most likely scenario is that Tony will continue to lash out, and may become an even bigger threat now that he's heartbroken. Some grand final attempt to hurt his rivals, and then some final crushing defeat. I could also see them taking the route of a more obsessive Tony. Some Kilgrave vibes towards Cameron could be horrifying, but not unexpected. It would really push the question of how much he actually cares for her versus how much he thinks he cares for her. All of this keeping in mind he's probably going to have further conflicts with his wife, who's the only one who sees the real Tony and isn't scared off by it. Whatever happens, it'll be interesting.

I'll definitely be tuning in. ;)

[l3xdrigo]

I had silly thoughts run into my mind, Regulus igniting Vertin's passion to do art again by showing her an abandoned wall and bringing spray paint.

Vertin is more traditionally on painting but she has known about spray paint and has been wanting to try them for a long time and Regulus gives her the opportunity to test them out.

When first picking up one of the spray cans, she's not sure what she wants to create, what type of mural or artwork. Vertin is pretty unfamiliar on how to work with such a big canvas, and with a tool she hasn't quite got the grasp of yet. Regulus comes back with a bunch of paint buckets and big and small paintbrushes "What are these for? " "To help us with the painting of course, I may not be the best at any painting stuff but this pirate is passionate in anything art based and the freedom of expression! " Regulus happily chimed.

Vertin was grateful but she's not sure what to make yet, so she asked Regulus who gave her one of the buckets of paint, puzzled, she looks at Regulus "what am I supposed to do with this? "

"Throw it of course! Throw it against the wall and watch it splatter, let it be messy, let your artwork be free. It has been awhile since you last painted yes? So why not let all your creative ideas out now? "

Vertin looks at Regulus and then to the paint bucket in her hands, the swirling color inside it, she knows what she needs to do. Taking a slight step back, she throws the paint out of the bucket towards the wall, making a huge splatter to it and some to themselves as well. Regulus let's out a cheer "There ya go! Now, Let's get painting!"

Splashes of colors added to the wall, the more added, the more Vertin felt free. The paint flowing down like raindrops, the lines of contrasting colors overlapping each other, using the spray paints to add more texture and little designs and details. It was messy yes, but it was free, Regulus smiling wildly as she continues to paint the already very colorful wall, this felt nice, it felt great. Vertin was smiling, laughing even at times where they get hit with splashes of paint, Regulus's joy has been contagious and seeing Vertin happy made Regulus even more joyful.

After finally finishing their artwork, both sat down on the ground, facing what they've created. It was a messy mural, with designs of their interest, a music disk, some doves, a golden thread, butterflies and much more. Both were covered in paint and colors, it'll take a while to get them off but that's the least of their worries for now. "I think this pirate can say that, that is one beautiful mural" "It is, thank you Regulus, for bringing me out here and doing this" "No problem, you've been cooped up in that office for days now, I think you deserved a break.. And you did tell me you liked painting so, this was the best idea I could come up with" "One of the ideas you had that didn't end in disaster *pfft*" "Oi-"

Both bickered for a bit, laughing and giggling like children. It's moments like these that make all the work and sacrifices worth it, even with the weight of responsibility of being the timekeeper, others are lending a hand to carry the weight, just like Regulus. Both sat there, as the sun sets and hope rebuilds.

(Or platonic soulmate Reguvert my beloveds<333)

Bonus:

As both sat quietly, a song from the radio that Regulus brought suddenly plays "Oh hell yeah! I love this song.. Say Vertin, do you dance? "

The timekeeper pondered for a bit and gave her an answer "I do, why? "

"Well, would you like to dance with this pirate? I think that'll be fun"Regulus stood up and stretched out her hand, Vertin, slightly surprised by the sudden request, but accepted it, taking Regulus's hand into hers.

" Though be aware that this pirate may not be the best at dancing, but will certainly try her best" It's been awhile since both had danced, and more so with someone but none of that mattered right now, they're just here to have fun. Dancing to the beat of the music, as both moved to the rhythm, a few slip up's here and there but is still going strong. Going with the flow of the music, both have actually made a good dancing pair, being able to move to the rhythm easily and adjusting their movements to near perfection. Despite not even having steps in mind, both have their own, synchronized and adapting as the music goes on. It felt like walking on air as they continued to dance, they kept this on till the music ended and both were exhausted.

"I must say, you're a great dancer Regulus"

"Thanks, you're not half bad yourself, we should do this more often" "I'll check if my schedule can free up a bit"

They realized that it was near dark soon, both headed back into the suitcase, walking and talking about their interest, plans and anything really. They've grown into each other's company, and they wouldn't have it any other way, a captain and her second best mate, a bellwether and her first follower.

[vidavalor]

I'm having a total brain burp on finding the exact post, but your recent commentary about the 'vinegary Beaujolais -> surprised but acceptable Chateau Lafitte' bit in the book led me to another thought -- I'd generally interpreted it at either face value (yey autistic tendency to anthropomorphise everything!) or as a tongue-in-cheek nod to stereotypical sommelier-speak, calling wines 'impertinent' or 'cheeky but decidedly affable', for example

Given what alcohol -- especially wine -- stands for in Ineffable Husbands Speak, I had the thought that Mrs Sandwich could be considered a sommelier! ^^

(Sommeliers also being called 'wine stewards' and specialising in pairing wine and food, and generally knowing a heck of a lot about the ol' grown-up grape juice, ties in with at least two other past metas as well! ^^)

Hi Dear Philosopher! 💕 Hope you're doing well! *shares holiday cookies and hot chocolate* 🤗

Mrs. Sandwich is definitely a sommelier. Love that. Your mention of being a steward reminded me that it's actually in the wordplay related to Crowley a bit. It's part of the stuff around "the great Prof. Hoff", which I did a thing on over here.

<<...or as a tongue-in-cheek nod to stereotypical sommelier-speak...>>

It is a tongue-in-cheek nod to stereotypical sommelier-speak-- just flipped around. Where we'd often use language to describe wine that we'd also use to describe people-- "full-bodied", "peppery", "generous", etc.-- Good Omens is cheekily using that same type of wine-based description but to reflect the characters-- Crowley, in this case. It's in how the paragraph is laid out and the words that are chosen that the innuendo pops. It is a particularly fine vintage of queer-coded writing that continues to age very well. 😉

Another example of something like this in the novel, though not with wine but just in word choice? If you look at the passage describing The Arrangement, for example. There are a lot of lines in it that contain words that are chosen in a very specific way to convey innuendo even without someone picking up on hidden language. A lot of the more direct innuendo is actually so suggestive because the story is suggesting that we look at why these words were chosen, which also tends to lead people towards seeing the more hidden language.

If we notice the innuendo, it causes us to look a little further by asking why these things, in particular, are a source of innuendo between Crowley & Aziraphale. It's kind of a side-door way of calling attention to the cant vocabulary/hidden language in the story. It both works on its own and then even more so the more you dive with it.

Every line of The Arrangement passage is like this but this one, in particular...

If one was going to Hull for a quick temptation, it made sense to nip across the city and carry out a standard brief moment of divine ecstasy.

Without even looking at hidden language, that line is one of the many in the novel that just sounds like innuendo, right? You might notice that this paragraph that is also about them doing one another's work assignments (and is really entirely about them doing one another 😉) is describing performing a blessing as a moment of "divine ecstasy", which is a play on the blurred lines in art between religious ecstasy and sexual ecstasy. In the series, this is in the neighborhood of how much Crowley's use of 'thwart' and 'Divine Plan' are full of innuendo in the first episode.

All this in a sentence that begins with the hilarious pun of someone "going to Hull" for that "quick temptation", which phonetically sounds like "going to Hell" and, when coupled with the rest of this sentence and allllllll the sentences in the passage prior to and immediately following it 😂, makes one think about what type of temptation traditionally, in religious circles, has been something that people have been told will send them to Hell. This is all without getting into the fact that a hull is the body of a ship or the pod or outer covering of a seed or a fruit. As someone who was raised Roman Catholic, I can assure you that being told that we would go to Hell for opening up the ol' seed pod for a bit of divine ecstasy was definitely a thing.

This is also a really funny thing to throw into a paragraph describing activities of a couple where one of them is one of them is already one of the first beings ever cast to Hell. 😂

So, we already noticed the innuendo on a surface level enough to look twice at this sentence and, then, the deeper you dive into the words, the more innuendo you're going to find. For example...

The word standard is actually an old-time-y euphemism for an erection and a brief is, as we know, a type of underwear. If they're carrying out a 'standard brief moment of divine ecstasy', it's likely that they're doing more than the job assignments from Heaven and Hell here. And just as Hull was used because of its euphemistic meaning? So are the other cities chosen to be mentioned in the other parts of this passage. Cities and their names are euphemistic as well so if they are then "nipping across the city" to carry out that "standard brief moment of divine ecstasy", well, suddenly, this whole passage seems to be about more than their day jobs.

In all senses of the word, yes, we got it, Aziraphale...😂

If you go back and read The Arrangement paragraphs in the novel?Notice that the first sentence of it contains the words simple/simply three different times to draw our attention to it and then notice the word that lives within that word: imply. That's what the passage-- and the novel as a whole-- is doing with its language when it comes to Crowley & Aziraphale.

Both simple and imply are also in the series in moments of euphemistic implication, including in the scene about The Arrangement:

[ryin-silverfish]

LMK S5 Fix-it: the Four Divine Beasts

My feeling on LMK S5 has stayed pretty consistent after first watching the Chinese dub: "nice character moments, but what even is this worldbuilding?"

And personally, the Four Divine Beasts/Guardians/Symbols are the biggest symptom of S5's worldbuilding problem.

Namely, they feel more like plot devices that are just there to die and cough up the Color Stones, and as a result, 4/5 of the "Find the Color Stone" plotline felt like a worse version of S3 and the Samadhi Rings, but with even less flavor.

Now, I'm aware of the 11-minute episode constraint, as well as the pressure the studio change might have created that contributed to the overall feeling of rushed-ness.

However, my criticism here is about the writing and worldbuilding, not the animation quality——things that, in my humble and uneducated opinion, could have been done a lot better even if we were sticking to the "Find the McGuffins" plotline.

Thus, this post. As always: very lengthy, very Chinese-mythos inspired.

Four Guardians & Five Phases

A brief Google Search on the Four Symbols, aka Sixiang, will tell you this: the Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermillion Bird and Black Tortoise are divine beasts in Chinese mythology that watch over the four directions, each associated with a color and one of the Five Phases.

(An old post of mine briefly talked about their origins as personifications of four big constellations that occupy a quadrant of the sky each, and their relations to the 28 Lunar Mansions)

And S5 certainly paid homage to their elemental associations, however brief and surface-level it is.

The Vermillion Bird's ability to use fire and its flaming temple is the most notable example, but this screenshot of the seal that appeared at the temple entrances also shows five symbols:

From middle left, going in the clockwise direction, these appear to be the characters for Wood, Water, Fire, Earth and Metal in Oracle Bone/Bronze Script.

Which begs the question...why would you spend so much effort on the tiny visual details, yet not show most of their elemental association through the narrative itself?

Like, suppose you are a foreign audience that knows nothing about Chinese culture and legends, who have just finished watching S5, and I ask you "What elemental powers do each of the Four Symbols have?"

Apart from Vermillion Bird = Fire (the obvious one) and the Black Tortoise = maybe Earth (which is not mythos-accurate, btw), can you honestly answer it, based only on what the show has given you?

Which leads me to my biggest gripe: their random-as-hell placement.

Even the Samadhi Rings have a map, however vague it is, but with the Color Stones, the gang basically just wandered all over the place in the hope of eventually running into one of the divine beasts——and they did, somehow!

Like, I'm not asking the writers for an entire mini-arc that's just them piecing the clues together. But will it be too much to let SWK or Tang make an off-hand comment like this?

"Well, legends said that the Four Symbols watch over the four directions and their respective elements. So if we wanna find them, we just gotta go real far in these directions, toward places with the most of that... elemental stuff! Right?"

And that brings me to the actual fix-it part. The Vermillion Bird can stay where she is, but the placement of the other three should also logically follow their elemental associations.

Oh, and though there's limited space for their characterization, they should at least get some individual characterization apart from "wise ancient guardians".

Xuanwu, Black Tortoise of the North

The fact that Xuanwu, or rather, it's snake half, can transform into stone at will might lead you to believe that its element is Earth.

Well...no, not traditionally; the Black Tortoise and the North correspond to Water in the Five Phases system, and I'm gonna both stick to that and build my fix-it off this foundation.

Instead of cosplaying a stone statue in the middle of nowhere, Xuanwu is gonna be residing on one of the islands in the North Sea, where dark tides and huge snow storms rage endlessly under the sunless sky.

So Sandy, being the water travel specialist, is gonna head out there on his boat. Mei would go to her great x N granduncle, Ao Guang's place, to see if he has any clues on, well, this big blue dragon that's also of the East.

Pigsy and Tang would head west, classic JTTW style, towards the mythical Mt. Kunlun where Queen Mother of the West resides (based on one of Tang's books that said the White Tiger was her emissary), while SWK performs an all-round search everywhere on his somersault cloud.

Which leaves MK: his dilemma is not about some random divergence in the road, but which of his friends to follow. Like, what if he goes with one person, and something bad happen to the others in the meantime?

In the end, even though he reluctantly goes with Sandy, he is still constantly distracted by his worries about everyone else, which segments nicely into the meditation training of S5E3.

But since they are doing it on a boat, there can be an external storm to go with the internal storm, causing further distractions for MK and also forcing them to seek shelter on the nearest island.

An island that, strangely, seems to be coated in a thin layer of ice. It isn't just the earth that's frosted over: all the plants, a few unfortunate multi-headed (???) seabirds, and a snake have also turned into ice statues...

Wait, snake? How does a reptile survive this far out in the north?

They have a bigger concern, however. The ice is slowly but steadily spreading, over the beaches and the surrounding seawater, and if they don't finish the search soon, the ice might get too thick for the boat to break.

So MK dashed off to do a grid-by grid search, then circled back to the place with all the frozen statues...and found the snake missing.

Cue, peak paranoia moment, and going on a wild-goose chase for the missing snake that might or might not be an ice-wielding demon waiting to ambush them.

In fact, the snake almost seems to be taunting them, seeing how they run into several "frozen snake statues" that turned out to be made of actual, solid ice. Sandy keeps reminding him to stop and think, while MK finds it harder and harder to put the lessons to practice.

By following the trail of ice statues, however, they eventually arrived on a little island in the middle of a frozen lake, where the real snake——the one half of Xuanwu lay coiling around the Blue Color Stone.

Just when MK is about to dash out and grab it, the snake comes to life with a hiss, and they barely dodged the ice spikes rising up from underneath their feet.

"Begone, foul spawn of Hundun! Return to thy conniving master, ilk of the Floodbringer, before I freeze every single drop of thy tainted blood!" "Um, I-I think you've mistaken me for someone else? I'm the Monkie Kid, and I'm here to collect your Color Stone so I can save the world——" "Doth thee mistake me for a fool, too?" The snake bore its fangs, rising its head high up into the air. "I can feel the flames of dear Lingguang on you, murderer, ripped straight out of its rightful owner's chest! She would not have perished without a fight, nor shalt I!" "Enough, Zhiming."

The tiny island itself begins to shake, revealing the other half of Xuanwu, the Black Tortoise itself. The snake still manages to half-encast Sandy in ice, before the Black Tortoise traps it inside a ball of flowing water.

She briefly apologized for her twin's hostility——whereas the strain of keeping the world together affects her body in the form of visible cracks, her other half has not been in his right mind ever since the Vermillion Bird's fall, living in the distant past and rarely able to perceive the present.

(The whole conversation is punctuated by the snake's psychic screeches in the background, which alternates between accusing her of betrayal and stating she must have fallen victim to the "poisonous blood of the enemy".)

Which makes the upcoming trial even more necessary. No, it's not "mercy-kill her twin". Yet. MK needs to prove his ability to control his body and mind, that his psyche will not break like her other half here under the tremendous pressure.

Thus, the trial of meditation. And he needs to act fast, for she cannot hold the snake back for long, as made evident by the slowly creeping ice inside and outside his watery prison.

"If you are truly worthy, then vanquish your fears, and stand before us in your true form. Brandish Lingguang's stone, so that we may be released from our watch in the long night."

MK succeeded, like he did in canon, with a small difference: his mastery of the monkey form is required for, and enables the limited usage of the stone's power.

So, holding the Red Color Stone, he unleashes a wave of fiery light that melts away the ice on Sandy and finally brings the snake back to his senses...somewhat.

He only managed to say the Vermillion Bird's name in a wistful voice, exclaiming "How I missed thy warm flames!" before melting into a puddle of water.

The other half of Xuanwu soon followed after giving him the stone, disintegrating into a mass of snowflakes that is swept away by the wind, but not before dropping one last bit of foreshadowing:

"Trust not the Floodbringer's Emissary."

(Sidenote: I think it'll be neat if the Four Symbols refer to each other using their IRL Daoist titles. Vermillion Bird - Lingguang, Black Tortoise & Snake - Zhiming, Azure Dragon - Mengzhang, White Tiger - Jianbing)

Azure Dragon & White Tiger

...And I thought Xuanwu's placement was random.

No, seriously, why is there a random music festival that just happens to be Azure Dragon and White Tiger themed that just happens to be near the actual place the two divine beasts are at?

To stay within the show's time constraint, I will not be giving White Tiger his individually themed placement, and instead try to come up with something that is appropriate for the pair as a whole.

Since Azure Dragon's associated element is Wood, it makes sense for him to have plant powers. Namely, whereever the divine beast resides, floras and faunas will flourish, no matter how out of place with the local geography and climate.

Once Mei learned that from Ao Guang, theoretically, it becomes quite the easy find: the mythical oasis city in western China, one that shows up multiple times in historical travel records yet has never been found by archeologists.

And the reason will soon become clear, as Tang and Pigsy make the drive from one desert city to another on their way to Mt. Kunlun (joined by Mei after she returned from the Samadhi Fire side-arc).

Namely, it's like a magical version of the famous Peach Blossom Spring of Chinese literature: an entire city that has been glamored over by the power of the divine beasts, occupied by people whose way of life hasn't changed since the Tang dynasty.

But as the guardians' powers fade, so does the illusion that veils it from the outside world, and the elemental magic that sustains this paradise.

Instead of a music festival, the gang finally discover the city that, according to the locals, has appeared out of thin air a few days ago, while it is in the middle of an archaic ritual procession.

The atmosphere is a lot more solemn, and it isn't hard to see why. Not only has the illusion vanished, exposing them to a profoundly alien world, the foliage of the oasis are growing and dying in rapid succession, clogging the streets with fallen leaves and yellowed petals.

An opera play is going on atop a nearby stage. It sings of a teal-robed immortal who rescued the refugees of a long-forgotten war, who turned desert into fertile soil with the help of a mighty divine general, concealing their existence from the greed and malice of the outside world.

The people in the procession knelt down and pleaded to the immortal for aid, to not abandon them in their hour of need. And their prayers are, indeed, answered, just not by the divine beasts in person.

The 14 Lunar Mansions that belong to the Azure Dragon and White Tiger descended from the sky, summoned by their masters, though they seemed to have been given different orders.

Namely, the Azure Dragon 7 spread out to guard all the major city gates, letting no one enter or leave, while the White Tiger 7 are ordered to round up all the residents and start setting up a teleportation formation.

Soon afterwards, Nezha arrived in the midst of the chaos. He is just as clueless as to what was going on as the Monkie Kid gang, but the moment he caught sight of SWK and friends, he's after them in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile, Li Jing is not happy about the Lunar Mansions suddenly acting without his orders, and commanded them to stand down or be arrested for insubordination.

"With all due respect, Devaraja Li——" Before the Moon Fox Star could finish her sentence, another stellar beast stepped forth, his tiger tail swishing behind him. "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Results: most of the Azure Dragon 7 get sucked into his pagoda, but while they were fighting, the White Tiger 7's formation activated, teleporting the majority of the city residents to god knows where.

While shit was hitting the fan, Tang hurriedly teleported the gang away, right into the sanctuary of the divine beasts——an underground temple.

"It's over, Mengzhang. Now that the Harbinger is on our doorsteps, and your pet mortals are safe at the cost of our loyal warriors, will you finally rest easy?" "Not...yet. There are still...stragglers, left behind." "Stragglers you have doomed yourself! Their fate is sealed the moment you cast your mirage over their ancestors and create this little utopia, frozen in time." The cracks on the tiger's body widened. A thick layer of condensation began forming on the metal reliefs, as if the very walls of the temple were weeping. "I should have never agreed to stay and help." "Yet you...still did. And I'm so glad you are here."

Yep, in this fix-it, I decide to use the Azure Dragon & White Tiger for some thematic parallels, with them basically repeating Nvwa and the Pillar of Heaven on a smaller scale.

The former created a garden city in the middle of the desert, while the latter uses his power to provide the water source that sustains the city (because Metal births Water).

As the end approaches, however, they are faced with the problem of ensuring the city residents' safety, since, upon their death, the entire oasis will revert to a desert overnight.

The White Tiger feels like there's no point in trying anything, since their death means the Harbinger will fulfill his destiny soon and give the world a reboot.

But the Azure Dragon insists on channeling his power into the land until the very last possible moment, so that the people's last memories will be a mundane, peaceful one.

Besides, they know very well that Fate and Destiny are no longer ironclad, when the very laws of reality are breaking down. How, then, can he be sure that the cycle will end and the world will be reforged as Nvwa intended, seeing that its premature beginning is already an outlier?

After a long argument, they had reached an uneasy compromise. Thus, the chaotic arrival of the Lunar Mansions and the hurried evacuation of the residents.

"You will understand, won't you, Harbinger?" The dragon looked into his eyes. "Even if you know it's selfish and futile, that you can't keep them safe forever, you are still going to give your all, just so their happy days will last a little longer..." "It is easy for Brother Jianbing to say, let go, face your end with honor. For Metal is the clashes of blades, the unforgiving axe of executioners." "I? This old fool just saw lives. Of men and women, children and elderly folks. And I cannot stand by and watch them wither."

MK nodded quietly, feeling Mei's worried, "are you not telling me something" glance on the back of his head. He reached out a hand, and the two divine beasts press their foreheads together.

The dragon faded away in a rain of falling leaves and petals, and when the Purple Color Stone hit the ground, nothing remains of the tiger but a thin layer of silvery, metallic sand on the floor.

Appendix: Inside the Pagoda

The fix-it is mostly over at this point, so the following is just me adding some additional worldbuilding and foreshadowing to MK's solution in E10, to make the whole "giving powers to everyone" thing a little less out of left field.

In the previous section, it was mentioned that a bunch of Lunar Mansions end up inside Li Jing's pagoda too. And when MK and friends run across them, they are in a pretty bad state.

Namely, the same cracks they see on the divine beasts are now appearing on the Lunar Mansions' bodies too.

"Isn't it obvious? Our masters are no more, so we now bear the brunt of the weight that was once on their shoulders..." "And are on our way of being crushed to a pancake." "Very tactful, aren't you?" The one-horned man sighed. "But yes. Lord Mengzhang is a stellar beast too——the greatest of all. He is a constellation, while we are merely the stars that make up the dragon's body, embued with a tiny fraction of his power." "And when the very sky of the East has fallen..." "How can the stars remain unscathed?"

After that, they basically exit the scene to fade away offscreen. But the information they revealed plants the seed of an idea in MK: specifically, that the Color Stones' power (and burden) can be shared between multiple individuals, like what happened at the end of E10.

Also, tiny fix: instead of MK learning the circlet spell outta nowhere, he's gonna tap into the power of the Color Stones during his fight with SWK, just like he did during Xuanwu's trial, to buy enough time to make his sacrifice.

[diamondwerewolf]

But what is it...?

on yet another pokemon related note, I have some questions about eternal floette's flower. why...is it described as terrifyingly powerful? Ominous??? Well, yes, that's a good word for it. Ominous, Mysterious, Unexplained. I'm sure she's very strong by herself, but what is going on with JUST this particular flower?

AZ [based on the ultimate weapon's leaked concept art] designed it to not only look like the flower she carries around, but to function exactly like it.

Floettes pour themselves into their 'sceptre', combining their energy with the power already contained in the flower of their choice. The ultimate weapon, made of organic material of mysterious origin, has thick roots instead of circuits that links it up to a power source. Xerneas', in the case of Pokemon X. It could be the roots of the tree that the pokemon sleeps in, but maybe not.

Xerneas [ and the energy of several other pokemon] replaces a 'floette' in this case. Channeling power through those roots, instead of a bright red stem to cast an exceedingly powerful fairy 'spell'.

My thoughts aren't as organized about this, I still have some details to chew on. But what I think I'm getting at, is that AZ designed his 'machine' after something that could use a hell of a lot more explanation. Bare bones exposition is not going to cut it for me.

A powerful floette, with a fearsome flower. It's like a relic of its own.

It's like, a regular sword, verses a rare sword of idk smite III or whatever... A powerful little wizard with a powerful wand. I hope I am making some kind of sense. What is that flower. Why is it so special that it's the blue print conduit for eternal life or mass destruction. Why does it look like shadow the hedge hog.

Why and Where did AZ's mother find it. Because she was Eternal Floette's trainer first.

i didn't make that up. that's real.

[ There's an entire sprinkling of subplot in the background of AZ's past that you can blink and miss if you don't take the time to read it and process it in game. It's a little bit of text with staggering implications I'm really going to have to talk about his Mother and Younger Brother later but I don't want to go completely off topic because what do you mean your brother was trying to usurp you in the middle of a war ]

returning to the point of this post

[these screen shots from the pokemon short animations on youtube always come in handy don't they...]

Look at the base of the ulimate weapon's 'control area'. Not exactly what you think of when you're told of a machine... Makes me question AZ's arboreal knowledge again. Makes me question how much Floette influenced his research or, clearly extensive knowledge of how to manipulate power to do what it is that he wants.

Here I was thinking AZ's 'technology' contributions to his kingdom may have been more ''traditionally mechanic'', but I'm starting to think his expertise may be in pokemon and organics. Hell...Alchemy??????? Is AZ an Alchemist?

what am i even talking about

this has been a post

[maespri]

danaganronpa 2 characters ranked by how painful their death was (and why)

yeah i'm doing this again but for danganronpa 2, what else is new. welcome! gonna talk about some of the anatomical science behind the deaths in dr2 and use that knowledge to rank how painful certain deaths would be.

spoilers ahead, and trigger warning! this post is going to go into detail about death. it's going to get descriptive and gory. if you'd rather not read about it, please keep scrolling!

everything under the cut, because this is going to be long, warning you now!

as usual, some backstory: i have a special interest in anatomy & physiology. i find it very fascinating to study stuff like this, which has led me to making my third post of this caliber! with all that said, i'm not an expert, and these are just my personal opinions- if i do get something wrong, please correct me! now let's get to ranking!

this ranking only covers traditionally "human" deaths (aka, mechamaru is not covered, because he's a robot).

quick glossary:

arteries: carry blood from the heart to other parts of the body. veins: carry blood from other parts of the body back to the heart. hypoxia: inadequate oxygen supply. exsanguination: death caused by bleeding out. hypovolemic: loss of fluid in the body, often referring to blood or water. shock: life-threatening condition where the body does not have enough blood circulating through it. asphyxiation: deprivation of oxygen which can result in unconsciousness and/or death. aspiration: when something you swallow "goes down the wrong way" and enters your airway or lungs. TBI: traumatic brain injury. immolation: death by burning.

the tier list:

OUCH!!! (most painful):

nagito komaeda: this is the longest analysis in this ranking for what i hope is good reason. to say i was horrified when i came across his body would be an understatement- it's brutal.

for starters, he slices up his legs quite badly. this is instantly going to cause bleeding, albeit not yet life-threatening. if it were, he would have had to slice his femoral arteries. i'll blame the fact that he doesn't on his luckiness. at worst, his legs are hurting and burning like hell. that + blood loss is making him dizzy/light-headed. but the fact that nagito is lying down is actually helping him stay alive, as doing so helps your blood pressure. i'd imagine the adrenaline is going to start pumping for him now as his body fights to keep itself from passing out/bleeding out; adrenaline may cause him to be in less pain as he's setting everything up to stab his hand, but he'll definitely be getting dizzier from pain + losing blood.

speaking of, let's move on to him stabbing his hand.

i first just want to point out that the amount of willpower + sheer strength he would need to do this is astronomical. it is not easy to lay flat on your back and slam your hand down onto something hard enough to go straight through. and doing all of that while your limbs are tied up and you're bleeding profusely out of your legs? it's absurd; i'd verge on saying it's impossible, actually, but i'll suspend my disbelief lol.

so, admittedly, i kind of lost my mind analyzing nagito's hand injury, because. i can't come to a conclusive answer about how painful it'd be for him. here's why:

my immediate thought was that this would hurt horribly, for obvious reasons. i thought nagito might actually might have something really interesting going for him when it came to this injury, which is that he somehow managed to avoid severing any tendons or nerves in his hand. i attributed that to his luckiness, once again. the reason i thought he didn't sever any nerves/tendons is because he throws the monokuma stuffed animal pretty far away from himself after sustaining the injury.

but then i remembered that if he did put a knife through his palm, paralysis would only occur distal to (above) the injury- aka, he'd only lose feeling in the area above his palm. therefore, you could argue he did actually sever his nerves and tendons. he just threw more with his arm, and that's why it worked.

but then i was like... throwing something that far away from yourself while you are lying down and your other arm is tied up would practically be impossible without utilizing a lot of power in your entire hand. not to mention- nagito should be feeling pretty weak, dizzy, and light-headed by now, considering the injuries to his legs- all factors that would make it even more difficult to do any of that.

so... there are basically two options here. A) nagito lost any feeling in his hand after the knife impaled it. he would have felt a blinding pain for a moment, and then total numbness. he somehow managed to throw the stuffed animal despite all of that. or B) the knife miraculously managed to avoid hitting any nerves/tendons, allowing nagito to throw the stuffed animal anyway. his hand would hurt horribly. it'd feel like a hot iron pressing on his palm. but this option is, simply put, egregiously inaccurate anatomically.

so... here's what should have happened when nagito injured his hand:

some form of hand/finger paralysis. your right hand has three major nerves running into it; to grossly simplify it, you've got the radial nerve (running across the top of your arm/hand) and the ulnar and median nerves (running on the underside of your arm/hand). nagito's injury, straight through the middle of the palm, should have, at the very least, severed his ulnar and median nerves. the radial nerve tends to stray more toward the right side of your hand on the right hand, so if he missed it by a few millimeters/centimeters, i could understand that- but as for the other two? yeah, he'd have to get insanely lucky to have missed them. it's. weird.

but even if the blade did miss these nerves, they could not have missed the tendons/bones/blood vessels/etc. in his hand, so that's just insane.

so basically: it either hurt really badly or it didn't hurt at all. before i lose my mind over this even further, let's just move on to him impaling his abdomen.

the angle in the game makes it a little hard for me to discern where exactly was punctured, but it looks like it hit his stomach, potentially part of his small intestine, his left kidney, and without a doubt, his abdominal aorta. if the poison had not killed nagito, the impalement to his abdominal aorta + all the other damage would have almost instantly killed him. we're talking within seconds. given that nagito is presumably dead when the spear impales him because of the poison, obviously he wouldn't have felt any pain- but if he were... um. i don't think i have to explain that that would hurt like a motherfucker.

so let's move on to the last aspect of his death- poison.

death by poisoning is actually grossly misunderstood by many different types of media, because most poisons rarely kill within seconds. even cyanide, which is considered one of the most dangerous poisons in the world, takes 3-5 minutes to result in death. so how do i think this worked for nagito?

well, there are a lot of variables that tie into this. how long it takes to die from poison depends on three main factors- the dosage, the type of poison, and the size of your body. the poison in dr2 is made-up, which makes my life a lot more difficult. i don't think we know the exact amount of time between everyone throwing the fire grenades and finding nagito's body, but it's gotta be at least a few minutes, which gives nagito some time.

i guessed he may have used phenol (very hazardous poison that can rapidly cause death), or perhaps hydrogen sulfide (can result in unconsciousness after a few mere breaths)- but using phenol or hydrogen sulfide would almost certainly leave a trace on nagito, such as irritation to his eyes or skin in general.

so my guess is cyanide. it’s most potent when injected intravenously, but it's second-most potent form is gaseous. with a high enough amount, it could probably kill him within a few minutes.

death by cyanide is incredibly painful. cyanide actually kills you by causing cell hypoxia- aka, your cells can't use oxygen, which makes them die. you'll feel like you're suffocating. your entire body will start to feel like it's burning due to acidosis (cells releasing lactic acid as they are damaged). your muscles will contract and you'll have one final burst of adrenaline throughout the entire body before actually dying. often victims of cyanide poisoning may slip in and out of consciousness- the fact that nagito doesn't makes me believe he used an incredibly high dosage of the poison.

so... yeah. definitely the most painful death in my opinion.

official cause of death: poisoning, resulting in cell hypoxia.

YOWZA! (very painful):

ibuki mioda: ibuki (my favorite character in DR2, so sad!) is strangled to death with a rope.

let's talk about how strangulation actually leads to death. it starts with the cerebral arteries. your brain receives oxygen-rich blood from the heart through these, the internal carotid arteries (which bifurcate, or divide, into the common carotid arteries), and through the vertebral arteries. these arteries ultimately come together to form the circle of willis, providing blood and nutrients for all parts of your brain.

when blood becomes deoxygenated (which happens naturally as it flows through the body), it is sent back to the heart. from your brain, this blood travels through your jugular veins, which are situated on either side of your neck.

when you are strangled, it puts pressure on these veins. this extreme pressure prevents proper bloodflow from the brain and ultimately results in hypoxia- this is what causes you to pass out before you actually die. the pressure on the windpipe also causes intense pain and makes it impossible to breathe, preventing the rest of your blood from getting the oxygen it needs.

within thirty seconds to a minute, ibuki would have fallen unconscious, but she wouldn't have been dead yet. mikan would have had to continue strangling her until her body became fully and truly oxygen-less (which may have taken another 2-5 minutes), at which point ibuki would actually be dead.

while all of this is happening, her body would have quickly kicked into panic mode. i know ibuki had despair disease which made her incredibly gullible and willing to do anything, but if i'm remembering correctly, we don't hear anything about mikan asking ibuki if she can strangle her... which makes me think this truly was a surprise attack on the girl.

in which case, ibuki would have been struggling and panicking the entire time mikan was strangling her. not to mention, in a lot of pain. eventually she'd become light-headed enough to pass out, but until then, her throat would literally be getting crushed by a rope.

overall, not a fun way to go out. very long and painful.

official cause of death: asphyxiation.

gundham tanaka: gundham is killed by a stampede of animals.

the most common cause of death in stampedes is asphyxiation; destruction of the thorax or upper body damages... literally everything in that area, most notably the heart, lungs, and major blood vessels/arteries. bones break in there and splinter. you can't breathe. it'd be blinding pain.

not to mention all the rest of the body that gets stepped on. literally all of your bones have the potential to be broken from the force exerted onto them. all of your blood vessels and arteries everywhere else are also going to be crushed and burst. your nerves? absolutely destroyed.

ultimately, gundham gets thrown in the air, lands (which probably hurt even more, and potentially damaged his back in some way), and has one final breath to smile at his hamsters before he dies.

the fact that he's able to smile before he actually dies is literally crazy, because this would be an insanely painful death. i mean- just imagine breaking all of your bones and not being able to breathe. you probably don't even wanna picture it.

official cause of death: hard to pinpoint exactly, but likely traumatic asphyxia and irreparable damage to internal structures and organs.

aughhh (painful):

impostor byakuya togami: the impostor dies from getting impaled multiple times in the abdomen by a metal skewer. looking at the monokuma file tells us he was impaled three times in the neck and around 5 times in the lower abdomen.

right off the bat, being impaled directly in the throat would result in a broken windpipe, esophagus, and potentially part of the carotid artery, making it impossible to breathe + causing hemorrhaging. he would literally be choking on his own blood. it also looks like teruteru manages to hit him directly where his subclavian artery would be, and we all know that any sort of hit to an artery is immediately going to cause some pretty huge problems.

on his abdomen, the area where his abdominal aorta would be is also highlighted as having been stabbed multiple times, as well as the area around it. two hits to two major arteries in quick succession... he's probably not going to be alive for longer than a few seconds.

those seconds are going to be excruciatingly painful, but the reason he isn't higher up is because of exactly that- it's a few seconds. all things considered, this is a relatively quick death.

official cause of death: exsanguination.

peko pekoyama: similar to the imposter, peko is stabbed to death. the first stab is to her back; quickly after, she is swarmed by the others, who stab her as well.

i don’t have much to say besides that the initial stab to her back is obviously going to hurt, unless the knife manages to land in her spinal cord, in which case, sensation could be cut off above the point of injury. but that’s just wild conjecture.

obviously, being stabbed to death is going to hurt. being stabbed to death by a swarm of minions? going to hurt even more. fortunately peko would likely not survive long enough to feel every single injury. the chances of her surviving past the first few stabs are low, due to the fact that A) she’s likely to be hit in an artery or vital organ rather early on which will lead to a faster death, and B) even if she somehow isn’t, blood loss in general is going to cause her to die.

when the body loses too much blood, it goes into a state of shock. without enough blood, nutrients, and oxygen flowing to the vital organs, the body quickly begins to shut down. i’d imagine peko lost blood at a more rapid rate than one usually would due to the sheer amount of stab wounds that would have been on her body, so… peko probably died after less than a minute.

overall… yeah, painful!

official cause of death: hypovolemic shock leading to exsanguination.

nekomaru nidai: nekomaru has a bazooka fired at his abdomen <- absolutely insane sentence??? ok anyway.

so… first of all, there is no shot in hell he’d be surviving that beyond maybe a minute or two. the damage that would cause to countless organs in his abdomen (his stomach, kidneys, intestines, pancreas, to name a few) plus the collateral of shrapnel presumably flying around (hitting his heart and lungs) would immediately be irreparable and fatal. he’d immediately go into shock and then just bleed to death.

you tend to feel far less pain when you go into shock as your brain tries to protect itself from trauma. but i won’t deny that because of nekomaru’s more muscular build, his body would be stronger and healthier and therefore fight harder to keep itself alive. it would probably take longer for these processes to kick into gear and actually spread across the entire body. so what i’m trying to say is- yeah, he’d be in blinding pain for a little, then likely feel numbness, then die.

official cause of death: shock, irreparable damage to abdominal organs.

owie (painful, but not as painful as others):

hiyoko saionji: hiyoko’s throat is slit by mikan. there are a few variables that changed the way i viewed how exactly this killed hiyoko, but the main one was time. mikan would have had to kill hiyoko in a way that would be short and efficient because she had a limited amount of time.

in order to die quickly from a wound like this, the carotid artery, the jugular vein, and/or the trachea would need to be cut. you have one of each of the mentioned on either side of your neck, and your airway is more in the "center" of your neck. (fun fact: the pulse you can feel on either side of your neck is the carotid artery!)

given mikan's anatomical knowledge + the way hiyoko's body looks (she only has blood trailing down off the left side of her neck), i would guess mikan likely cut the carotid artery and jugular vein on the left side of hiyoko's neck. i would guess she also cut hiyoko's airway in some way as well, as doing so would definitely kill hiyoko even faster.

all of the above would cause hiyoko to aspirate (sending blood down her windpipe), choke on her own blood, and begin bleeding profusely. death would occur within a couple of seconds from blood loss and asphyxiation alone.

this would hurt seriously bad. your neck is an incredibly sensitive area of the body. hiyoko would be terrified and in pain the entire time she bleeds to death. which is. so sad. but like i said- luckily, it would probably be over pretty quickly, within a few seconds.

cause of death: hypovolemic shock leading to exsanguination.

uncertain (i'm not sure!):

mikan tsumiki: mikan earns the only entry in the 'uncertain' category, because i was flabbergasted when i watched her execution.

um... being blasted into space... i can't say i'd really know what that might feel like? i can go check for you guys???

the most i can say for this is that mikan would asphyxiate from the lack of oxygen in space. she'd go unconscious within fifteen seconds. within three minutes, she would be dead.

so... official cause of death: brain hypoxia.

*EDIT: so i totally misunderstood mikan’s death. this wonderful person made this post talking about it and i added on with my own thoughts! check that out instead if you wanna hear a better explanation about mikan’s death.

so quick (too fast to really be painful):

chiaki nanami: chiaki is crushed with a tetris cube. she falls into this category because such a death would result in a very brief flash of blinding pain, then nothingness. the mere force exerted from the tetris block to the top of her head might actually kill her before she even has time to register pain in the rest of her body. and if the brain is damaged in such a manner... yeah it's all over.

official cause of death: could be a TBI, could just be having your entire body literally get crushed.

mahiru koizumi: mahiru is struck on the top of the head. her file very specifically clarifies that she dies instantly and did not feel any pain. so how exactly would you painlessly kill someone with one strike to the head?

well, for starters, it would have to be one hell of a swing. it's difficult, but not impossible, to hit someone's brain in a way that would immediately kill them.

think of the brain like a television; if you half-unplug it, the screen may glitch, and it may start cutting out, but it's still displaying whatever show you've put on. that's what happens if you injure your brain, but are otherwise still alive. but if you fully unplug it in one full motion, it just cuts out. black screen. that's what happened to mahiru's brain; it just unplugged.

when peko hit mahiru's brain, she likely damaged some sort of vital structure in a way that caused mahiru to go unconscious, but maybe not die. some sort of brain bleed may have started, which then caused mahiru to actually die, as her skull would swell and stop being able to function.

this makes more sense to me. like, i know monokuma says it's "instant," but... i really think mahiru was just unconscious, and then maybe a few seconds to a minute later, she was actually dead.

either way- official cause of death: TBI.

teruteru hanamura: teruteru gets put into a volcano full of lava <- once again absolutely insane sentence??? help? anyway.

you might be wondering why the hell he's in 'so quick,' but it's because he'd be dead in seconds. lava penetrates your skin, starts boiling you alive, swells your airway shut, etc. it's over in seconds dude. even if it weren't, he'd pass out from the shock within seconds at the very least. he may have felt a flash of blinding pain for a moment before darkness, but. that's that.

official cause of death: immolation.

...and that's it!

if you for god knows what reason read all this, thank you so much! anatomy is truly a passion of mine.

questions, comments, concerns (of which i'm sure there are many)- i'm an open book. i'm not a professional by any means, but i am insane. bye!

[asoulwithadream]

Proof of why Hozier pre-read the Good Omens S2 scripts and made Unreal Unearth based on it.

The song is very obviously "Crowley", as will be explained in this analysis that was very much not fueled by overconsumption of sugary pastries. You may believe that there is one line that does recall Aziraphale more than our loveable sad demon, however I do have a theoretical explanation for that to maintain the strictly demonic narrator. This song, much like its original meaning, is about how he feels betrayed and tricked, or at least, deluded by his own hopes.

You know the distance never made a difference to me. This is the metaphorical distance between them, as angel and demon. They’re considered the opposite of each other. Good and bad. The locations of their respective headquarters, (the basement and the top of the building) is also a physical show of the distance between the two in management and creature type.

I swam a lake of fire, I'd have walked across the floor of any sea The lyrics say that he “SWAM” past-tense, so this would refer to actual things Crowley has done: he did step into a whirlwind of Hellfire disguised as Aziraphale, right? And he did run into a burning bookshop for him. Metaphorically, he did swim through a lot of fire. Ignored the vastness between all that can be seen and all that we believe Crowley believes that what he thought their relationship was (“us”), in the end, was just his own imagination or fantasy of what he wanted them to be. So I thought you were like an angel to me This is one of my favourite parallels in the song, due to the changing definition of “angel” throughout the song, and how it’s used in the phrasing. Here, “angel” becomes the goodness and kindness that Crowley sees in Aziraphale; how angels are traditionally viewed by humanity. Then, he adds “to me”, alluding to their special relationship, different from the usual angel/demon relations between Heaven and Hell. He thought that Aziraphale had been, was, and would be, good and kind, to him.

Funny how true colours shine in darkness and in secrecy To not only Crowley, but most beings, the secrecy here is God’s Ineffable Plan™, and the darkness is the Metatron’s manipulative meddling. In light of fulfilling it (through the Second Coming), Aziraphale shows his true colours by siding with the angels. If there were scarlet flags, they washed out in the mind of me Crowley justifies putting Aziraphale on a pedestal that “he didn’t deserve” (because of said betrayal) because he was so blinded by love and hope, that he couldn’t realise the extent of Aziraphale’s religious trauma and character. Where a blinding light shone on you every night and either side of my sleep In the Divine Comedy, Dante is blinded by light in order to see God. Aziraphale has been systematically coerced into siding with Heaven, and this blinding light is what he sees as his destiny and responsibility to the world and to God’s Plan™. I wouldn’t doubt that Crowley would have nightmares of this, considering that he canonically does sleep. Where you were held frozen like an angel to me Here is the second parallel of the term “angel”. Angel has now become what demons see angels like: cold, callous creatures, only different from demons by look and power. Aziraphale trapped himself (or “held” himself “frozen”) in his vision of a grander future, encouraged by the Metatron, which made him become distant and cold to Crowley in the time-span of a poorly-timed confession.

It ain't the being alone (sha-la-la) Here begins a part where Crowley seems to try convince both Aziraphale and himself that some of the consequences of the divorce don't really affect him, to emphasise the LAST effect, as will be explained below. Thus, being alone is a big part of being Hell’s representative on Earth, so that wouldn’t be the biggest hurt that Crowley experiences post-divorce. It ain't the empty home, baby (sha-la-la) Though I can imagine that the bookshop without Aziraphale is not the same, he could still find some nostalgic comfort in the place. And after all, it's as cold as his own apartment now. You know I'm good on my own (sha-la-la), sha-la-la, baby Crowley repeating the fact that he's alone. He reminds Aziraphale that he really doesn't care being by himself, maybe trying to get a jab at the angel by showing that "Us" can just be Crowley if h wants to. You know, it's more the being unknown So much of the living, love, is the being unknown What I believe hurt Crowley the most about the entire situation is that he thought that they knew each other and shared an incredibly special relationship given their circumstances (even if it was just platonic, and never ventured further). However, through choosing Heaven, the entire worth of their relationship seemed to shatter into pieces, as if Crowley never truly meant anything to Aziraphale, as if they were never friends. And that hurts particularly, because to Crowley, Aziraphale was the only one to ever truly know him.

You called me "angel" for the first time, my heart leapt from me You could very clearly read this as from Aziraphale, however, it doesn’t make as much sense in the context of the song (as being predominantly Crowley coded), so I have another theory that could explain this line, that I, truthfully, like more: - Aziraphale has, through the history of their friendship, called Crowley a variation of “nice” due to different occasions (2500 BCE, 1793, 1827, 1941, 2019, and so on…) This calls back to the first usage of angel in the song, synonymous to the traditional qualities of holy beings (nice, kind, etc). Whilst Crowley does react negatively every time Aziraphale refers to him as such, imagine being seen for the first time in a positive light by someone you thought was your enemy after being condemned and judged as pure evil forever. Maybe this was what solidified Crowley’s feelings: the realisation (or, the fabrication of a delusion) that Aziraphale was different, that he was like him, that he could see through the pre-set prejudices. You smile now, I can see its pieces still stuck in your teeth Even in the end, during the 15 Minutes, you can still see Aziraphale smile, and I believe that Crowley recognised that Aziraphale in the one that was ultimately "betraying him". Of course, now there's this entirely new side of the angel, but I believe that in these moments he’s realising that both the angel he knew, and the angel he’s meeting now, were both Aziraphale all along. And what's left of it, I listen to it tick, every tedious beat Crowley’s hanging on to the last memories before they vanish completely. Their dying relationship is like a heart about to fail, a clock saying goodnight, and whilst I can imagine that Crowley would want to distance himself to avoid getting hurt any further, he would be able to completely, especially because of the lines after the next one. Going unknown as any angel to me Aziraphale, by becoming Head Archangel, has ceremoniously become the authority of Heaven itself, one of the many things that Crowley hates the most. By doing so, Aziraphale is now part of the group of angels that Crowley has as the second definition of “angel”. The ones that never knew him.

Do you know, I could break beneath the weight Of the goodness, love, I still carry for you? I know that even though all of this happened, Crowley still has his feelings for Aziraphale. If he didn’t the 15 Minutes wouldn’t have been so painful, especially considering the weight and length of their relationship: they’ve been through Hell (literally) and knowing someone for so long can not be erased within a day. And I think that despite Aziraphale’s actions, Crowley still loves him, and with time will come to understand him. That I'd walk so far just to take the injury of finally knowing you The "ironic" line delivery is very much a testament to Crowley’s character and how he behaves, and most importantly, the betrayal which he feels. Anyways, Crowley has sacrificed both material and emotional value for Aziraphale. Not only did he give up God’s Ineffable Plan™ (not only for the angel, but he was a part of the reason), but he abandoned his position and allies in Hell and completely isolated himself to be on his and Aziraphale’s side, and helped the angel with the Gabriel crisis and its implication all throughout Season 2. And not only that, but confessing is also a pretty demanding and difficult task. Everything he’s done was for the person he imagined Aziraphale to be, only to be hurt by who Aziraphale actually is and what he’d actually do. Sacrifices thrown to the side.

It ain't the being alone (sha-la-la) It ain't the empty home, baby (sha-la-la, sha-la-la, la-la-la) You know I'm good on my own (sha-la-la), sha-la-la, baby You know, it's more the being unknown

And there are some people, love, who are better unknown Another jab at Aziraphale, trying to convey that Crowley regrets ever taking the time to know, befriend, and fall in love with the angel. He’s trying to convince the both of them that this was a waste of time, and that it was never truly worth getting to know each other, if heartbreak was the only conclusion of their relationship.

[spellbooksandcricketbats]

Thinking about why DBD managed to hit me so hard in the Older Queer feelings place.

I went to high school from 2002-2006 and it fucking sucked. For reference, YouTube wasn't founded until 2006, and this was before smartphones and social media and thus easier access to ~*~socially transgressive~*~ material.

The only queer characters I remember seeing on TV while growing up were punchlines (Will & Grace) or grimdark suffering and tragedy (Queer as Folk, The L Word, Nip/Tuck). The biggest slur hurled at us was gay ("Dude, that's so fuckin gay, don't be such a pussy!"). I never actually came out of the closet in high school, but I was still bullied for being perceived as queer because I dressed goth and, at the time, goth was still enough of a subculture to get mashed in with 'everything else society considers fucked up.' I knew two 'out' queer kids in high school, both gay cis boys who leaned effeminate, and dear god they were not treated kindly. Matthew Shepard's brutal torture and murder was still fresh in our collective memory. I also made the classic mistake of falling in love with one of my oldest, and straightest, girl friends. 🙃

And this was near the California Bay Area, traditionally considered one of the most queer-friendly regions!

So anyway, fast-forward to today, and here's Edwin, being unabashedly effeminate in all the ways that I learned to associate with getting a fast fuckin beatdown, and he's...treated with respect, both by other characters and ALSO the broader narrative. He's the recipient of multiple different kinds of love and attraction. None of his flaws have anything to do with being effeminate. And even the surface-level dynamic of Charles being his self-proclaimed protector has nothing to do with Edwin's own abilities -- that he is, in fact, able to endure in ways that no other character has been shown capable of yet, and again, not for any reasons that have to do with the narrative itself punishing Edwin for daring to be gay.

And then: the confession in Hell. When I eventually confessed to my best friend, she hemmed and hawed and put me off without a concrete answer, only that she was happy with her current boyfriend. Fair enough! But then she strung me along for a couple of years until I finally pushed for an answer on whether or not there was any hope, and only then did she said no, she's straight. In retrospect, both of us could have handled it better than we did; we haven't spoken since.

So when Edwin confessed, I found myself getting tense, bracing myself for the inevitable brush-off and awkwardness, which is a common reaction IRL, just...not the fictional wish-fulfillment one from a viewer, y'know? Except that's not what happened! It's not that Charles didn't give Edwin a hard 'no' (no one is ever, ever obligated to return affection), it's that Charles gave Edwin an HONEST one, AND it was kind, and there wasn't a sense that their friendship had lost any trust or anything!

And I'll be honest, that made my cracked, stoic heart cry just a little bit and healed something from my late teen/young adult self.

[pynkhues]

I recently read an article in which Quentin Tarantino stated that fewer movie stars exist as a result of "Marvel movies in Hollywood." I think Jennifer Aniston made a similar argument before saying that there are no longer any movie stars. I'm not sure what that means. I can think of a lot of movie stars right now, such as Zendaya, Timothee Chalamet, and Zoey Deutch etc. what do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this and Quentin's comments.

QuillBot's

Months ago, when you sent me this ask, anon, I wrote out a really long reply and as soon as I hit post, my laptop crashed and ate the answer, and I was so annoyed at myself for not saving my reply, that I couldn't bring myself to try and re-write an answer. I'm really sorry for that, especially because I think this is such an interesting ask (or well, two asks, because I think the death of the movie star and the impact Marvel's had on the broader concept of a movie star, are kinda two different things).

I've been thinking about it a bit again recently though, particularly as the Oscar race gears up, and Jacob Elordi and Charles Melton''s respective stars are rising in an industry currently desperate to find the new young Hollywood male 'talent', and I've been thinking about it again because honestly?

I agree with Jennifer Aniston, I think the movie star is dead.

We are a long, long way from Golden Age Hollywood where actors like Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe could captivate a public imagination in a way that translated to big box office effect, after all. Hell, we're even out of New Hollywood, an era dominated by names like Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, and Jane Fonda, and the Blockbuster era with Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone and Harrison Ford.

My original reply went into a lot of the different reasoning as to why this is (like with many things, I don't think there's any one reason for it), in particular how the advent of streaming has changed our relationship with films and TV shows, how the saturation of the market has diluted the staying power of celebrities, how social media and the perceived accessibility of celebrities removes personal mystique which in turn removes intrigue and increases a sense of entitlement, and the fact that so many people having stopped going to the cinema means that the experiential element of seeing a film in a setting larger than life has been diminished.

I think call out culture plays a role too, with any actor on the rise being torn down by tweets they made eight, nine or ten years ago impacting how their star rises, I think the dismantling of the studio system (which is a good thing!) also harmed actors in the long run as studios stopped investing the same resources into making and training stars (they used to be able to sing, dance and act! Now some can barely even act!), and I think, of course, the rise of prestige TV changed the industry substantially (after all, movie stars were movie stars - they traditionally did not, and would not, do TV, which created a clear class structure in terms of screen-based storytelling).

And yeah, I think the language shift from film and TV to content has done irrepairable damage to the artistry of filmmaking and the consideration of a movie star as an actor at the top of their field instead of an actor with the most Insta followers or YouTube subscribers (after all, if everything's content, isn't it the same thing? [no lol]).

Which I guess is kind of where Quentin Tarantino's argument comes in, right? What he's saying is that Marvel's made it so that the IP - the content itself - is the star, not the actor, and I'd say he's probably right with that.

Think of it this way - back in the New Hollywood/Blockbuster era, Harrison Ford was the movie star - he was leading new franchises left-right-and-centre between Star Wars and Indiana Jones, sci fi epics like Blade Runner, leading action thrillers like Patriot Games, The Fugitive and Clear and Present Danger and getting nominated for Oscars for Witness.

He was a movie star in every sense of the word because you could hinge a film - one with a new concept, not just remakes or sequels - on him and be virtually guaranteed a success. He was what sold the tickets, the director just hopefully had to make something good enough people would leave the cinema glad they saw.

Tarantino's argument is the Marvel model - - hell, even the new Star Wars properties, turned the franchise into the star, for better or worse, which means original films can't compete because nobody knows the IP. Back when Harrison Ford was at the top of his game, his name was what helped original films including smaller, standalone works like Witness find an audience, but the studios have changed that. Capitalism has changed that.

Properties with existing audiences and deep pockets for merch were prioritised, only now those franchises are faltering and you've got a generation trained that 'cinematic events' are reserved for blockbusters in established universes, instead of taking a risk on a new film because you know you love an actor who's in it.

Do I think we could go back?

Maybe, but probably not.

I think the place we are now in the history of cinema / TV / 'content' means you can't make a movie star anymore because I think the industry is simply so different that no actor can break through in the same way that even Leonardo DiCaprio could 30 years ago. That industry doesn't exist anymore, actors aren't guaranteed draws (Bones and All proved that for Timothee Chalamet, and Wonka I think could go a similar way), or they have to heavily rely on other industries to become household names which I think dilutes them as a pure 'movie star' (Zendaya's a great example of this - I like her a lot, but how many movies has she even been in? They built her career up in peripheral industries long before they tried to sell her as a movie star, and frankly, I'd question her even as a leading actress yet given she's typically only either been in ensemble casts or clear supporting).

It's a whole new world, and yeah, I think the movie star is dead.

[tansyuduri]

Merlin Loregasm Rewatch S1E4

Hi Everyone! Welcome to my rewatch of Merlin focusing on the lore. I am a giant nerd so pretty excited about this. We're on THE POISONED CHALICE

OKAY so @catsconflictscopicsandchamomile our resident Old English expert explained to me something really interesting. the spell used by Nimueh draws its power from the Spear-Danes, the semi pagan culture featured in Beowulf (Who had their own lake lady in Grendel's mother who was likely a priestess of the old religion And linguisticly called Disir) There is more though The first lines of the spell also seem to be Nimue saying she owes her magic to the spear Danes (that Grendel the monster in Beowolf ate) At this point I'm wondering if its meant to establish she is saying HEY MY SPELLS ARE PAGEN This will not be the only Beowulf reference in this episode. (Its never referenced or quoted after this episode) I'm wondering if the translators threw this in as a joke or easter egg Or in my freind's words "fuck it. lets canonize Beowulf in this universe real fast" (Okay I just discovered one of their choices I'll talk about later and HOLY FREAKING SHIT)

Mercia is traditionally thought of as a kingdom formed during the anglo-saxon settlement of Britain (Which occurs post Merlin acoirding to Merlin having saxons of enemies in later seasons) The historic king Arthur if he existed was said to have fought against the anglo saxons but this is just a footnote as we are focusing on Merlin Universe) HOWEVER a 13th century text says "“Pagans came from Germany and occupied East Anglia, that is, the country of the East Angles; and some of them invaded Mercia, and waged war against the British.” 

British here being Original pre-saxon inhabitents. SO it is possible that a Mercia existed before The Anglo-Saxons. This could also be the Historian using the name he knows. Bayard is not a recorded later King of Mercia either so good choice in name if we want him to be a Britonic king from a Mercia founded before the Anglo-Saxons apear. Fun fact Mercia also resisted leaving paganism longer than any other Anglo-Saxon kingdom! BUT Anyway in Merlin Mercia is a thing, Its ruled by Bayard, and its color is blue. It would be in the midlands of England most likely.

Also he was at war with Camalot, but now is not. I wonder if that has to do with Uther having not inherited but taking over the kingdom! Uther: The treaty we sign today marks an end to war and the beginning of a new friendship between our peoples

I also think Uther as a peacemaker is interesting, especially as we see this more than once. It might be why some people view him as "A good king."

So this at first glance SEEMS like it hints more toward paganism. Beltane is a Gaelic May Day festival. But its renamed version May Day was not exactly Christianized. See most other big Gaelic festivals (usually religious) Were kinda taken over by Christianity when it came. Yule became Christmas Samhain became All Saints Day (All Hollows Eve) ETC. Beltane was also celebrated in some places ALONG with Christianity until the 1800s. (Scotland did this specifically) In modern times Beltane is VERY Pagan. And it is very possible this hints further toward the Camalot is pagan or just nonreligious side of the entire debate. (Despite people using words like god or hell.) But it's not quite as conclusive as many other type of references would be.

(For context despite it saying we've Arthur here is talking about Merlin, who just announced his cup was poisoned, exclusively which is interesting!) See slow gin is a type of alcohol made with juniper berries and blackthorn fruits. It was traditionally brewed (With a lot of home brewing) in October and November and used as a warming drink in the depths of winter. AS you can tell this episode does not take place in winter. I think there are two possibilities for Arthur picking this drink specifically to mention despite that. The first is that as a prince perhaps the drink is available to him year round if he wants it and he doesn't know that is not true of most people yet. The second is he is so panicked at the prospect of the trouble Merlin is in his mind latched on to the first drink that popped into it.

Okay, so Mort means death in Latin. And the ending suffix here Usually makes the word an adjective from proper or place names BUT often appears in flower naming. So basically this plant is named The "Death Flower" Flower or "Capital D Deathly" Flower

Gaius: it can only be found in the caves deep beneeth the forest of Baloch The flower grows on the roots of the Mortaeus tree.

Uh okay. THERE IS SOME SHIT GOING DOWN with this plant. First of all, flowers growing from the roots of a tree is just weird. flowers are basically there to attract things to pollinate a plant usualy. If a tree has flowers they do not grow from the roots. Second of all its kinda weird for flowers or trees to grow in DEEP caves. Sunlight cannot read them there. I would give it a pass if it did not say deep because if there were cracks in the ceiling of the cave that could put light though. It does kinda explain why they can ONLY be found there though. If its so odd and specialized it might be the only place it can grow.

This flower is either innately magical in some odd way or does not conform to evolution. So at this point I am pretty sure it was bred/engineered/magiced into being but some sorcerer. Likely specifically for poisoning people. and that person wanted to limit the people who knew of it and thus kept it in once set of caves. BUT SOMHOW news got out about it. Ok so I also looked up Baloch. In Welsh it can mean dig or sorry. In Irish it means boy and in scottish the same thing. So no info to be gleaned from that

Gauis: A cockatrice-- it guards the forest. Its venom is extremely potent, a single drop would mean certain death. OK first of all I'm doubling down on there being some past sorcerer, Because they were FOR SURE using these as guard dogs. Second of all I LOVE Merlin paying fast and loose with magical creatures from folklore because I can too in my fics A Cockatrice in folklore was a monster created when a toad or snake egg was hatched beneath a chicken. It could kill with a look, or a breath, or a touch, and was basically a two-legged dragonish creature with a rooster head. In the Merlin world it is very diferant. We'll see one soon! "Few who have crossed the mountains of Isgard in search of the Moraeus flower have made it back alive." Yeah can't find any meaning behind the name Isgard! BUT HAVE I MENTIONED I THINK A SORCER ONCE LIVED IN THE CAVES/FOREST.

Okay I think this is a reference to the actual historical job of taster. Basically important people (ESP royalty) would hire someone to taste all their food before thay ate it. That way if it was poisoned the taster would die instead of them. It was viewed as a pretty plum gig because poisoning didn't often happen (ESP if people knew there was a taster) and the taster got to eat REALLY good food and get paid for it. I think its also an interesting character detail that while this kinda implies that Uther might have someone (At least for his private food and not banquets) We see multiple times that Arthur in fact does NOT. It is quite possible he managed to put his foot down and get out of this somehow because he believes it to be wrong. Which not gonna lie is a very Arthur thing to do.

(Context: Arthur talking about how Gaius said they can save Merlin if they get the leaf so it is not a fools errand) Waiiit is this trying to imply that Gaius was the one who brought up the idea that one could use the old religion to give Uther a son? I mean we knew he was the messenger. but HOLY SHIT. And if that is true, Uther somhow forgave him? Why would Uther forgive him? The only thing I can think is if Gaius talked about how magic had tricked him and gave Uther something else to blame. This is all conjecture though. Uther could be referring on how Gaius is close to Merlin or something else. It just feels like it might be a nod at what all went down around Arthur's birth.

Okay so this is Merlin quoting Beowolf here. A Poem that is yet to be written down but might have had some oral tradition and actually takes place at the traditional time Arthur is said to have lived. Merlin is basically talking about how Arthur/Beowolf is endowed with honnor. This happens right after Arthur decides to ride out to save Merlin.

Magic Rule Established: Potions/Poisons can be more potent if magic is used in their preperation

Okay MORE Beowolf

Merlin says Arthurs name then basically talks about a young man doing good deeds.

Playing hard and fast as I said. LOOK Dinosaur!

Okay so more Beowolf At this point I am 99.99% sure the people hired to write the spells at the time where having the time of their life. Let me explain

This line talks about gifts of treasure (the light) he conjuress to help Arthur. Fine. BUT then it mentions Arthur being under his father's protection. Expect Merlinto protectg him. The spell writers used a freaking old english poem to let Merlin call himself Arthur's "daddy" I am not sure what I am expected to do with this knowledge. (It might have been chosen so they could use the next line of the spell but THEY DID NOT HAVE TO DO THIS) The next line (Which is actually also the next line in the poem) says something about how so that when Arthur is older his companions can stand with him when war comes.

Okay so yeah turns out there is no tree or roots. I'm chalking this up to he said she said. STILL GOING WITH THE SORCERER.

OKAY so it a potion is made using magic the antidote may ALSO need magic

Oh look our first hint Merlin is immortal. I find his brand of immortality intersting. HE CAN DIE he just comes back after a bit.

[delopsia]

Hi, I misread an ask and thought we were discussing omega! Rhett and Reader with Alpha Bob, and now I've had to do the copy-paste of shame 🧍‍♂️ This is just a cute little long-winded ramble about Rhett hailing from a long line of alphas and coming into his own after meeting Reader and Bobby 💐 This can turn into a one-shot if anyone asks me for it.

Not a soul could have expected that the infamous youngest son of Royal Abbott, beefy cowboy, and reckless bull rider, was an omega. Hell, Rhett hadn't even expected it.

Even in his toddler and early childhood stages, he fell into every tell-tale sign and stereotype that an alpha child would. A little too possessive of his toys, flashing his teeth on the playground, would prickle at the presence of alphas. He was damn near identical to Perry.

Royal was convinced that their youngest would turn out to be an alpha. Hell, he'd been bragging about his unbroken family lineage since before Rhett was even born. He knew every one of his children would be alphas. And it would only make sense, hailing from a long line of them; in fact, the Abbott family hadn't seen a beta or omega born since the late 1800s. Questioning it, in the family's eyes, was pointless. Why would the tradition break now?

And then Rhett hit those years, the awkwardness of becoming a teenager topped off by the sudden maturing of scent glands. Little patches of skin learning to produce thin oils; some kids struggle with overproduction, and some need specialized creams because their glands are drying out. As if dealing with acne and hormones wasn't enough for them to deal with.

Cecelia's suspicions came when Rhett's scent change didn't match Perry's. Where Perry had experienced a sudden shift, overproducing so much scent that Royal could literally lift his nose to the wind and know where his eldest was from a mile away, Rhett was a quiet change.

Over the course of six months, he lost that 'new' scent he was born with and acquired something that can only be described as smores at a campfire. Smokey and warm, with a slight sweetness, so well hidden that the only way to catch a whiff of it is to have your nose right next to the scent glands on his neck. And while sweetness isn't a scent reserved exclusively for omegas, it was an anomaly on both sides of the family.

So when seventeen-year-old Rhett came home from school early one day, complaining about his face being hot and an uncomfortable churn in his belly, Cecelia couldn't say she was surprised.

Perry, quite frankly, did not give a damn when he found out, it was none of his business, and even if it did bug him, he was too focused on the birth of his daughter to spare it much thought. But Royal was a firestorm of his own. He couldn't understand it. How could this possibly happen? And no matter how much he yelled and screamed, this wasn't a matter that could simply be remedied by words.

It was only during this argument that it became painfully clear that Rhett didn't function like the stereotype depicted. Even with Royal's barking and challenging, Rhett didn't fold like he was meant to. Being an omega didn't change his rougher nature, going toe to toe with his father, a mountain in the wind, refusing to be moved.

It frustrates Royal to no end; he breaks tradition in every way possible. An omega hailing from generations of alphas who refuses to act the way an omega traditionally should. Doesn't loosen his shoulders and slightly lower his head, when an alpha enters the room, no matter how hard Royal tries to pull it out of him.

Even stranger. Rhett fully commits to the alpha-dominated sport of bull riding. Is so disguised in his nature that not even his many, many hookups realize he isn't an alpha. It's an oddity that perplexes even Rhett himself.

A part of him is always tempted to skip his medications and experience a full-blown heat in the safety of a cozy hotel. He knows a handful of gentle-handed alphas who would be more than willing to take care of him, has toys and everything he could possibly need, but it just doesn't...do anything for him. He's tried it before, but even with the fever and hint of delirium, it quit being fun after an hour, and calling someone just filled his belly with dread. Watching TV, snuggled in the sheets, was all he truly did.

His friend Archie, an older guy who has been around the sun a few more times than Rhett has, suggests that it's simply because Rhett hasn't found the right people. And maybe he's got a point because one summer, everything changes.

You're similar to Rhett in the whole 'omega not acting like an omega' situation. It's never been something you've gone out of your way to adhere to; other than being rudely reminded of your heats when you forget to take your medication a few days in a row, you pass as all three.

Taking bits and pieces from each to create the unique design of your personality, unable to fall into the trap of being a carbon copy of everyone else in your gender. In the event you truly need to, you can get away with convincing others that you're a beta or an alpha. It's a nifty trick that not everyone can pull off. Where your friend has to bathe in special pheromones to trick those around her, you can simply open your mouth and make a claim.

Unlike Rhett, Bob comes from a patchwork of secondary genders. Alphas, betas, omegas, there's no true pattern to his family, and rarely does anyone display the behaviors associated with their status. His momma is an omega who is often mistaken for an alpha; his younger sisters are betas, but one acts like the spitting stereotype of an omega. It's such an afterthought in the Floyd family that Bob didn't even really notice he was an alpha until someone made a comment about it.

The spectrum of dominance is a much larger issue with alphas than it is with omegas. It's one thing for an omega to break their traditional roles, but the whole 'alpha' thing is a mess of its own. Some wise guy decided that being an alpha wasn't enough and started up a trend of "true" and "false" alphas, depending on how well you adhered to the stereotype. Bob, one way or another, has found himself labeled a false alpha; his presence simply doesn't command the submission of everyone else in the room. Frankly, he doesn't give a damn. So what if he's frequently mistaken for a beta?

So when he's dragged to a concert in the middle of nowhere Wyoming, and this rough and tough cowboy lowers his head at him, Bob doesn't know what the hell to think. And there's you, right behind the unnamed cowboy, downright confused about why you just submitted yourself to a complete stranger when you exclusively reserve that motion for your loved ones.

To you, a quiet alpha like Bob isn't all that out of the ordinary.

To Rhett, it's a breath of fresh air.

It takes some time to get out into the quiet of the parking lot, but one way or another, the three of you are perched in the back of Rhett's truck. Playfully bickering, bewildered about how Bob took one look at you and knew you were lying about being a beta. He'd identified you and Rhett so easily as if he were being asked as simple as what color shirt you were wearing. A feat that had made your skin crawl in the past, now an odd sense of comfort, like he was seeing you for you and not anything else.

Rhett's having the strangest experience of his life. All he can think about is rubbing his head against the glands on Bob's neck, like a damn cat dying to drown in the woodsiness of his scent. That's never happened before, and he explains it as such. He's rarely ever felt the instincts of an omega, forget learning to calm them. He only explains it because of a whine he didn't know he made. Doesn't expect Bob to tilt his head and invite him over.

But he doesn't know what to do. The instinct is strong, but it's not all the way there. Until you squirm over and nuzzle up on the other side of Bob, running the glands at your temples against the ones on Bob's neck. Here you two are. Strangers. Rubbing up on another stranger. Rhett's not sure what to do about the twinging in his chest as he nuzzles into Bobby's neck. Bob is just happy to be a comfort, kind in a manner that you haven't seen in a long time.

All things considered, it should be a one-night thing. An odd memory that you look back on and wonder what the hell you were thinking. But you're all in the same hotel, and it's so hard to stay away from each other.

Staying out late at a diner, falling asleep in Rhett's hotel room to the tune of the television. You come back from sightseeing with friends and run into Rhett in the hall. He sees you nuzzling your friends and has all sorts of questions about how that works. You're more than content to show him.

Bob returns from lunch and becomes a willing test dummy to all of Rhett's confused instincts. Where Rhett would usually lash out at someone asserting dominance over him, when Bobby tries, he bends and shows his neck.

When Rhett gets home, he starts acting funny. Before the trip, he never paid his phone much attention. Now he's buying a new one that won't overheat or freeze over a text message. He's found himself muffling whines over phone calls and jumping every time his phone dares make a noise 'cause it could be you or Robby. Over the course of a few days, he's gone from lone wolf to pack-oriented, physically hurting for the presence of people he's just met.

Rhett has never been great at catching scents, but when you and Bob appear at his rodeo, he smells you before he sees you. Has to be stopped from scaling the fence to join you two up in the stands. Nobody knew Rhett was an omega until after he'd ventured up and snuggled into the juncture of Bob's neck, nuzzling your temple, so completely and utterly content that he chirps for the first time in his life.

And so maybe the three of you are something more than friends now. Nobody needs to know that you and Rhett are boarding a plane to spend the week at Bob's apartment. It's no one's business that they spend weekends at your place and that Rhett sometimes appears for a night because he missed you.

You've been dating for two years when the decision is made to move in together. And you only spend a few months under the same roof when you come home on your lunch break to Rhett, red-faced and confused, lying in the bath. He's home from work early; didn't make mention of it to either of you.

"What's wrong?" You murmur, pressing a cool cloth to his forehead, stroking away the bits of hair that cling to his flushed skin. Clammy is the only way you can describe it.

"I'm..." his eyebrows furrow, doesn't seem to understand a lick of what is coming out of his mouth, "leaking?"

His heat started. The info script on his medicine confirmed breakthrough heats were possible, but the aggressiveness of it perplexed you to no end. You've experienced mild breakthroughs, but it's never left you weak in the knees and burning like a furnace. Getting him to cum isn't enough to relieve the ache in his belly; you can't imagine how confusing it must be, to go from zero to one hundred like this.

But there's a burning problem: Bob is deployed. On an aircraft carrier thousands of miles away.

You're trying your best, but you're in over your head. Rhett's going theory is that it's related to the uptick in instinct as of recent; getting into tune with his own body has triggered something that's been building up for years. Avalanching at the worst possible time.

It's not ending. Your strap-on has been enough to satisfy him in the past, but his heat cannot be fooled by prettily colored silicone. He snuggles on your chest and fucks you until you're too sensitive to go another around; he's cum three times, and he's still pawing himself through another orgasm.

His fever should come down after two days, but even using artificial pheromones isn't enough. They're not as subtle as Bob's scent, too intense to trick his overwhelmed brain into a false sense of comfort. Burying his nose into Bob's old shirts is the only thing that works, but he's producing so much of his own pheromones that it's lost in a matter of hours.

Bobby doesn't know something is wrong until Rhett whines pitifully at the sound of his voice. He mistakes it for Rhett, missing him, but it just keeps happening. You have to step out of the room to explain what's going on because Rhett genuinely cannot handle being able to hear Bobby and not feel him.

The worst part of it all is having a specialized doctor come out to verify that Rhett's condition is bad enough to warrant the Navy letting Bob come home. Not because it feels like an intrusion on your privacy, but because of how Rhett just doesn't know how to act about someone intruding in his private space. Doesn't understand these feelings or how to even begin to control them; he didn't get the chance to work through these when he was younger.

Heats rarely fit the criteria, but Rhett's fever exceeds it alone. He's burning up from the inside out; she gives him a shot of something to help take it down, but it's only temporary. He's lucid enough to manage the night. Wakes you up while he's rustling around the kitchen, biting on a slice of plain bread while he cooks a mini pizza.

His fever goes back up before morning.

Bob doesn't make it home until sunset.

It's strange. You expected Rhett to jump him before he was through the front door, but he doesn't budge from his spot. Quietly nestled on the bed, staring at the wall, in his own little world, unreactive until Bob's hand combs through his hair. And then he does to Bob what he did to you; he turns into a glue trap. There's no escaping his kisses and nuzzles and nips.

You're too damn exhausted to join the first time. Laying next to them, half awake, watching as Bobby gently works Rhett open, fucking him into the mattress, blindly holding your hand all the while. You'd expect it to be frenzied. Rhett's got this whole house reeking of his scent, and he's putting up a hell of a show, but Bob's slow with him. Thoroughly wearing Rhett out, shushing his mindless babbles. It's never mentioned, but you've got the feeling it's because Rhett's never been knotted before.

And when it does finally happen, you learn that Rhett's feet twitch when he's knotted. An adorable little spasm that you had heard about but never considered it to be real until now. It must tickle because he's giggling before his orgasm is over, straining to peer down at what's going on.

Evidently, that was all he needed, because the intensity drops overnight. Come morning, Bob wakes to the quiet shuffle of Rhett in the closet, suddenly overcome with the urge to build a nest but completely and utterly confused about it. He's got a pile of clothes and knows he's supposed to do something with them, but it's just not happening.

You wake up surrounded by clothes, blankets, and other soft oddities that Rhett's found himself drawn to. It's a crudely built nest, crafter only by instinct, with no memory or advice from others to guide himself with, but he's so smiling and accepting everything Bobby offers him. Your nests are primarily built out of things you've bought for the occasion, featuring your favorite colors and textures, but the warmth of this one is unrivaled.

Even after, Rhett doesn't necessarily act like an omega. He's still every bit of the rough-and-tumble cowboy from the first day you met, but he's in tune with himself now. He'll go from a bar fight to nuzzling up under Bob's chin and squeezing you to him, all in the same five-minute span.

Officially going off of his medications has finally let his body do its thing, regular heats that fall into sync with yours and little bits of fat collecting on his ass and thighs, squishy and solid in all the right places. He learns to handle himself and never truly conforms to your aesthetically pleasing nests, forever building a warm, messy patchwork of you and Bobby.

Purring is a function lost to the test of time in most, a function gone obsolete, but your contented rumbles teach him to make the noise, too. Most omegas are groomed out of making all their more primal, animalistic noises, but he chirps and makes all sorts of funny noises that you didn't know were related to your nature.

Bobby is forever the pillar that allows for all of your and Rhett's shenanigans, letting the pair of you love up on him or torment him to your heart's content. He's the sleeping giant that lets kids play on him, only raising issue when he's got genuine reason to.

And even now, with the normalization of these funny little behaviors and Rhett becoming fully aware of his own body, the fun of it all never dies down. Maybe it's because of the long-established dynamic or the nontraditional conformation of who you are as individuals.

Or maybe it's got something to do with the newly healed marks on your necks...

[irithnova]

About my Siberia ocs...

So I think it's important to balance their characterisation in a way in which they are distinctive characters with interesting personalities and backstories but also acknowledges the challenges they face without making their entire character essentially "They're sad all the time because of Russia" or "Stop talking about their struggles under Russia I don't like politics."

I think both are problematic however I find the latter to be far more distasteful because well. This is a nation personification OC we're talking about and not only that, they're essentially nations within a nation (Russia) by virtue of colonisation and so are minority groups within the larger nation. Hell - because of displacement and immigration from European Russia , a lot of these groups are minorities within their own lands. It's a special case when dealing with minority groups/occupied people personifications and it's particularly egregious when someone wants to forgo any kind of acknowledgement of these power imbalances yet still insists that their interpretation is sensitive.

I've seen some pretty bad OCs of Siberian groups which are the product of the creator going "I hate politics stop talking about politics!" or, an almost direct quote, "I hate when people shove politics into historical hetalia." Which... Is an interesting take to say the least considering how history feeds into politics and vice versa. Historical hetalia is a beast in an of itself and is one of the only hetalia communities/bubbles in which "no politics" will get you laughed out the door from what I've seen considering *gestures to my previous statement*. If you've ever taken a history course - you'll know how much history and politics are intertwined.

This is how you get interps which consists of the likes of "Russia was wandering around the empty lands of Siberia" which not only blatantly disregards the brutality of the Russian colonisation of Siberia but also promotes the concept of "Terra Nullius" or "Virgin Land". I'm quoting myself from an even bigger post I have in store which focuses on anti Mongolian sentiment however stereotypes about Mongolians and Siberian groups often overlap because of their placement in Northern Asia, hence why it applies to both,

"In addition, to hone in on Mongolia being an "untouched, pristine" land - this is also a common trope that is launched towards traditionally nomadic "unsettled groups” (such as Siberian and Native American groups). The concept of "Terra Nullius", a Latin word meaning "nobody's land". It completely disregards the presence and rights of the people who inhabit the land and has been historically used to justify the colonisation and displacement of such groups - their land belonged to "nobody" so it was essentially up for grabs...It divorces the people from their landscape and paves the way for dangerous misconceptions and justifications to blossom.

Here is an example of "Terra Nullius" in action in a Russian propaganda poster, encouraging Russians to move to Kazakhstan."

Or interps such as "[Siberian group] has forgiven Russia for everything he did/most things he did and is in love with him" which implies that the mistreatment of the Siberian groups is merely something in the past when it is in fact ongoing. The mistreatment of Siberian groups such as the Sakha, Buryats, Chukchi and Tuvans has been all the more highlighted in their disproportionate mobilisation in the invasion of Ukraine - and the heaps of scapegoating that was subsequently shovelled onto them.

That's not to say ethnic minority soldiers in the Russian army shouldn't be held accountable for their crimes - however that and the fact that they themselves are victims of Russian imperialism can both exist as true statements. The scapegoating is so bad that even Pope Francis joined in, blaming the brunt of the war crimes committed onto "Non Russians" such as Buryats and Chechens, as they do not come from "Russian culture."

Back to my main point... I think the resistance to do research on and publicly acknowledge how these groups live under Russia and what kind of struggles they face in some kind of bid to "not paint them as victims!!11" is sorely misinformed and ignorant. Because well. They are victims.

Not in the sense that you should portray them as sad, pitiful, weak little meow meows but in the sense that yes they are living under Russian occupation and are an occupied people who's been subjected to centuries of Russification, and so compared to making an OC of Mongolia who is an independent nation state at least I think there is far less room to be hauling around "leave politics out of historical hetalia!" "don't talk to me about politics!" "stop victimising them!!" because then it leads to tone deaf interpretations such as "They've forgiven Russia for everything and is in love with him ♥️💖", "Russia is actually [Siberia groups] father", "Here is my singular Siberia OC who represents ALL Siberian groups and by the way Russia is their father" (yes these are all real interpretations I've seen and I've made a separate really strongly worded post ranting about it) and worse. I mean I've literally seen an "aph Siberia oc" who was Russia and France's love child. Terra Nullius executed Hetalia-style.

I don't really think I need to elaborate on why a singular Siberia OC is problematic - Siberia is filled with a myriad of different groups who speak different languages, have different origins and ways of lives and practices, different religions, who've experienced eras of peace and conflict with each other, etc and yeah to shove them all into one personification is an erasure of the sheer diversity that is in Siberia. I definitely don't need to elaborate on why making Russia a father to any of these groups is problematic, to say very the least.

On the point of "don't only portray them in a victimising lense", I think making Siberian groups all depressed all the time is also a Russia-centric perspective. Of course it's ignorant at best to not acknowledge their shared suffering because of Russia however when this point and this point alone is central to their character I believe in a way that it strips them of their autonomy and ability to feel things and do things outside of Russia's gaze. There is absolutely a lot of joy to be had despite their current situation, perhaps even in spite of their current situation. It's ok to give them odd quirks and put them in funny situations as well as acknowledge that they are an occupied people and approach that territory carefully when need be.

For example, I made my Buryatia bubbly and loud but made my Tuva a bit more deadpan because I see them as a pair who often associate with each other and I think the dynamic is funny. I also made Buryatia an overbearing "husband" to Soyot who is perpetually tired™ from all the se- .

I made a crack dynamic between Sakha, Evenkia and Dolgan where Evenkia was Sakha's teacher at first but then became a deadbeat dad leaving Sakha to primarily raise Dolgan, thus Dolgan takes after Sakha and is uh lawyermaxxing👍. Yukaghir is the little old lady of the group who is often forgetful but very nifty and Chukotka acts like a big sister to people which Koryak (who I see as her brother) always finds annoying and they often bicker. Ket is on the slightly edgy side and is extremely particular about his routines and Nganasan terrifies Nenet because he eats reindeer whereas Nenet doesn't.

All of these quirks/ more lighthearted interpretations and "they are an occupied people under Russia" can coexist. One should not be thrown out for the sake of the other.

I think there's also problem - though I've seen this far less, in making Siberia ocs purely as a middle finger at Russia. As in, you made the OC because you wanted to say loud and proud FUCK RUSSIA which well yeah, fuck Russia, but I highly doubt your interest in this group lies outside of wanting to #own the Russians which is dehumanising in and of itself. At least pretend to care about the history and culture instead of using an entire group of people to make a virtue-signally oc purely to try and upset some Russians.

Anyways yeah Siberia 👍