I've been thinking about the templars lately. they were promised honor, virtue, told that they would be charged with protection of the innocent... And then those same people are systemically exploited and abused, abuse others because they're taught to regard everyone else as either sheep who need to be lead or potential threats. Never equals, except in their brothers/sisters-in-arms. They act as the guard-dogs and military arm of an entirely different organization that they're only a functionary member of but have no governing say in. Even the chantry aren't their equals- they function as the templar order's supervisors! And all this isolation and closing of ranks ends in disability, addiction, death, and abandonment by the system they spent their bodies in service of.
To top that off, retaliations against them just confirm the paranoia they were taught to embrace. It's probably a long hard road to get out of that hole.
Like, listen. the dichotomy of mage vs templars is a satisfying and easy one, but the system is tearing them apart too. have you ever heard of a retired templar?
at the end of it, mages and templars need to unite against the real threat. the chantry.
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Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.
G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.
An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........
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Nghhh chewing on finweans and realizing how self-sacraficial is so deeply instilled in that family, and that that particular trait is prevalent in each generation.
Finwe knew he couldnt win against Morgoth, but he could try and protect his grandchildren. He fought regardless.
Fingolfin knew he couldnt twin against Morgoth in 1-on-1. He fought regardless.
Finrod knew he would die on his quest for Beren, and still fought the wolf to save his friend. He did.
Celebrimbor knew he could protect others by dying, protecting the knowledge about the rings. He did.
It stands to reason that Elladan, Elrohir or Arwen, would have come upon a similar fate.
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Oh I love when people take the metaphor of "losing pieces of yourself" in a somewhat literal context because it can create such gorgeous imagery. I liked the dash cosmic horror involved with Arceus as well as the more grounded idea of hastily patching an open wound. And the visual of then having to deal with it after like a back alley patch job. So wonderful. Do you have any more plans with this concept?
YEAH I LIKE IT TOO HSKJSH and yesss exactly re: the mixing of the cosmic/Higher Power aspects of arceus and the lake trio, combined with the extremely real & grounded imagery of being stabbed and bleeding through your shirt and then getting haphazardly sewn back up. theres just something about it.
i think everything involving arceus especially feels abstracted to the point of only being vaguely real—it's the backstage of the universe, occupied by a higher being that humans are barely capable of processing. it's mind-bending and holy and beautiful... and then it cuts a piece of your chest out with its fucking hoof. it's not even delicate about it, which would, at least, bring the two worlds together to the point of being sort of compatible. if it carefully and delicately excised that portion of your heart. but no, it just impales you, and leaves golden shrapnel embedded in your chest, and you're left there dripping blood on the pristine white tile. it's brutal and uncaring just as much as it is sacred. yknow, like a primal force of nature.
in terms of future plans... there's nothing solid rn but obviously there's a TON of potential in the idea of mental/spiritual fuckery being represented as physical violence. for that specific snippet, i think that the physical wound isn't necessarily visible in reality (though there might still be blood on the front and back of his shirt to mark where it was? i'm undecided) but there is some kind of Mark left on the skin. maybe red gemstone-like stitches to show where the lake trio tried to fix things. and then if he ever returns to a more metaphysical space (like, in dreams, or if the gods ever try to talk to him again) it'll still be there, since it's a wound still left on his soul.
additionally, wrt translating btwn mental/spiritual and physical, i think that ever trying to remember what he's forgotten is like picking at the healing wound. it's not good, is what i'm saying, and has the potential to do further damage. that's also part of what mesprit was concerned about, since in cutting the "ragged edges" off to stitch it closed, it was worried that they were just taking even more away. this all gets very conceptual very fast and i'm also rambling hkjhskjsh point is it's all very unfun for ingo there
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i had a dream that i made little cards that say "THEY!" on them that i handed out to people at work who got my pronouns wrong, immediately after they got it wrong. and in smaller text (or on the back) it said "i don't want an apology, i want you to do better" or "don't say you're sorry, DO BETTER" and ..... i kind of want to do it. maybe i'll get some moo cards made lmao
various scenarios included:
me slamming it down on a desk in front of them.
instead i had stickers, would slowly peel one off while they watched, and stick it on it on them.
handing out a quarter sheet piece of paper based on the 'i caught being good' tags we'd get in kindergarten which said 'i got caught misgendering hallie/my coworker'. it would have their name and date on it and a giant 🙁 face. i had them as a pad of paper and would hold up a finger to say 'wait a second', dramatically pull it out of my back pocket, take my pen out of another pocket, slowly fill it out in front of them, and hand it to them while staring them in the eyes.
getting a whiteboard for the outer side of my cubicle wall that said '[days] since i was misgendred' (with a bonus by saying 'last offender: [name]'
i also dreamt that i got into trouble for it because i was making people feel bad and was 'creating a hostile work environment'. i was just like.... okay and how do you think i feel? and my boss shut up real fuckin quick. dunno if that would be the case irl but if that does happen i can only dream.
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