#and it's established that town rumors are spread unreliably

[noyzinerd]

Mistakes Literally No One But I Have Ever Noticed (After Watching Teen Wolf Seven-ish Times)

🤣

Haha! Didn't expect THIS of all things to be the most interesting thing about me, but, sure.

Gurl, you want receipts? I got yo' receipts:

1. Season 2, Episode 2:

Around the 8:58 mark, you can see a crew member under the principal's desk tapping their foot, near Jackson's knee. (Wouldn't it be funny if the principal was actually hiding a secret blowjob buddy under his desk this whole time and they didn't expect the fucking sheriff to be there that day?)

Anyway, it's more noticeable on a big TV screen then a phone, so I tried my best to brighten and zoom in on the foot tapping the best that I could 😓. You might be able to see it in the first gif if you turn the brightness on your phone up to retina-searing though.

2. Season 3B, Episode 21:

Bare patches of unburned skin on the Nogitsune that the makeup department missed (two patches on the neck and a whole wrist)

3. Season 3A, Episode 5:

During the fight with the Alphas, Derek swings at Kali in the background, and Kali reacts like she's been hit, but there is clearly a very wide berth between both actors

4. Opening Theme Starting from 3A, And Season 1, Episode 9:

Derek's tattoo in the title sequence from 3A onward is the reverse of when we see it in the show. The triskele spirals swirl counterclockwise in the intro while the spirals swirl clockwise in the show. (Also the lines are thinner in the intro version too.)

So, just so we're all clear:

Intro triskele direction vs. Canon direction

5. Season 2, Episode 7:

In the fight between Scott and Jackson, around the 20:55ish minute mark, you can see Tyler Posey's stunt double for several shots.

And also a brief shot of Colton Haynes' stunt double from that fight if you pause just right

6. Season 1, Episode 6, and Season 5(B), Episode 18:

Allison reads about her ancestor, sent by King Louis the 15th, to kill the Beast of Gevaudan, who killed from 1764-1767. Not only was this person a man called Argent, he was said to have hunted the Beast down after his wife and four kids were killed by it.

Later, this ancestor is changed to a woman, Marie-Jeanne Valet played by Crystal Reed (not sent by a king, but, instead, her own sense of responsiblity and justice since the Beast was her brother), who marries a man named Henri Argent AFTER she had already killed the Beast (who actually started killing in 1760, not 1764).

Also, Lydia says all her research said that the Beast was killed by a man named Jean Chastel...?? Out of nowhere and for no reason? Even though she was the person Allison had been telling her family history to in season 1??

---------

(I mean, there's also the obvious mistakes everyone talks about, i.e. Liam/Mason/Corey/Hayden skipping a grade and all the times the kanima doesn't paralyze someone in a fight, etc., but I wanted to specifically highlight stuff people don't notice)

Some people can run really fast or lift heavy things.

Me? I guess my superpower is watching a whole fucking lot of Teen Wolf and regurgitating micro-observations.

Man, what a shitty superpower.

#sterek #teen wolf #derek hale #stiles stilinski #mieczysław stiles stilinski #tyler hoechlin #dylan o'brien #Meta #Lore #continuity #teen wolf mistakes #That's my secret Captain. I'm always watching Teen Wolf. #Derek's tattoo is a chonky boy with them thick chonky lines #And I know they make a point to say the town burned all evidence of Sebastian Valet (the Beast of Gevaudan) #and it's established that town rumors are spread unreliably #But like even in the Argent family journal? #And if all evidence was burned how did the name Jean Chastel even come up in multiple records at all? #Where did this name even come from?? And Why?? #And I know there's a post discussing Derek's tattoo being foreshadowing of Derek being an imposter in s04 but clearly that didn't happen #And the reverse tattoo showed up in s03A anyway not s04 so their evidence was flawed #The tattoo was just animated differently in the s04 intro to curl out from the center but the spirals are still the wrong way in both intro

[eriquin]

The Prophetic D&D Game, Part 2

Part 1

Eddie went around the table handing out folded over pages like they were prizes. The boys were silent as they unfolded them, with some of them being more careful about keeping them secret than others. 

“Yes!” Mike said, throwing a hand in the air. “He’s really a paladin! Woo!” 

“Mike loves playing a paladin,” Lucas said.

Eddie nodded. “I had noticed that. We’ll see how he does with Joe.” 

“So I guess I should assume we’re all a little more powerful than the little level ones you reeled us in with?” Jeff asked. He was keeping his sheet folded over. 

“You should assume nothing!” Eddie said with a wave of his hand. 

“Maybe one of us is the murderer!” Dustin giggled. He gave Mike a little shove. “Maybe it’s you, Mr. Paladin.” 

“I would never,” Mike said. “That goes against the paladin’s code.” 

Dustin raised his eyebrows. “Maybe the murder victim was a terrible person and you were forced to kill them.”

“No way,” Mike said. “Maybe you’re just trying to throw suspicion off of yourself!”

“Jesus, we haven’t even started the game and the infighting is already happening,” Gareth said. “Nice job, Eddie.”

“I know,” Eddie said. He hadn’t stopped grinning. “Before we get started, does anyone want to change their seats? Rearrange themselves to be closer to their co-conspirators, as it were?” 

They all took another look at their character information. Gareth got up first. “Dustin, trade with me,” he said. “I need to sit next to Mike.”

Dustin made a weird little hooting noise as he got up. “Are Maya and Joe secret lovers? Is that why his fiancée dumped him?” 

“No, dumbass, they’re siblings,” Gareth said.

“Well, kind of,” Mike said. “I mean, they’re actually—”

“Hey, no telling all our family secrets to strangers,” Gareth said as he took Dustin’s chair. He waved his finger in Mike’s face. “Come on, dude.” 

“Right. Right.” Mike nodded. He pulled a little notebook from his backpack and tore out a sheet of paper. “We can pass notes, right?”

Eddie nodded. “I expect you’ll be doing a lot of that in this game, yeah.” 

They all settled into place and started sharing small amounts of information. Everyone knew each other from a past adventure, where they had fought together and assisted a sorceress in banishing a demon. Caleb and Gaten had grown up in the same village, along with two other boys. The sorceress had been the long lost twin sister of one of the boys.

“That’s very Star Wars,” Dustin said. 

“It’s a pretty common thing in mythology, actually,” Eddie said. “But yeah, I might’ve been thinking of Princess Leia when I made Millie the Mystic.” 

“Leia should totally have force powers,” Dustin said. 

“She should!” Eddie yelled. 

“For the love of god can we not start this again?” Gareth sighed. “Okay, so half our friends took Millie back to the hidden village so she could recover, right? Does that matter? Like, is it close enough that we could get them to help if something goes terribly wrong?” 

“No, it’s too far. You usually send letters, but it takes weeks to get there, and none of you have teleport. There are magic items you can use to send a faster message, but they’re unreliable.” 

Gareth scratched his head. “So, it’s just backstory?” 

“Basically. To explain how you all know each other.” Eddie grinned. “But maybe it’s important.”

“You’re the worst,” Gareth said. He started scribbling a note to Mike. 

Once everyone had established how they knew each other, Eddie set up his DM screen and stretched his arms out over the table. He waited until he had their attention before launching into his story.

“The sleepy little castle town of Kiteshire has had its fair share of tragedies, but things have largely settled down in the past few years. It seems like business as usual one bright Saturday morning, with everyone going out to work or running errands, when the rumors start to spread. A body has been found in the thieves’ quarter. Now, this would normally not be news. Thieves kill each other all the time. But this was the body of a noblewoman. Lady Grace, beloved philanthropist, was found in a most horrific state. The guards have been trying to keep it quiet, but bad news travels fast. So far, there are only whispers of what happened, but they imply that it could only have been done with magic.”

“Caleb’s one of the guards, right?” Jeff asked. “Does he know anything?”

“He’s a junior guard,” Eddie said. “There’s a group of senior guards in charge of the investigation. He knows that Lady Grace was married to one of them. Lord Mason. Word is that he’s in his mansion, paralyzed with grief.” 

“So no suspects?”

“None that they’ve said yet.” 

“What about Sadie?” Lucas asked. “She’s a thief, and she lives in the thieves’ quarter with her mother. Did either of them see anything?” 

Eddie smiled and folded up a note to pass to Lucas. The boy’s eyes grew wide as he read it. “Woah,” he said. “I have to go talk to someone.” 

“Would you talk to Caleb?” Jeff asked. 

Lucas shook his head. “No. Remember how Caleb joined the guards even though Sadie was a thief?” He flipped his hand as if tossing back imaginary locks of long hair over his shoulder. “We’re from two different worlds, Caleb.”

Jeff clutched his hand over his heart. “But Sadie! Darling! My love!” he said. The rest of the table giggled.

“It’s over between us,” Lucas said. “I’m going to, uh—” He double-checked his notes. “Gaten for help.”

Dustin rubbed his hands together and turned to Lucas. The other boy leaned in and whispered something to him, then passed him the note. Dustin’s eyes also grew wide. “Wait, wait, wait,” he said as he flipped over his character sheet and pointed at a line on it. “Quinn? I know him! He’s the one who taught me how to be a bard.”

“You’re a bard?” Mike asked. “But halflings can’t be bards!” 

“Oh my god, Mike,” Gareth said. “I know it says lawful good on your character sheet but you don’t have to be such a little bitch about the rules all the time.” 

“Okay, we’re ignoring Mike,” Eddie said. “Dustin, what’s Gaten doing with this information?” 

Dustin grimaced. “I mean... Shit, we need some help, don’t we?” He sighed. “Okay, so Sadie and I are going to go to the archives to look up some things.”

“Hey, that’s where Maya and Joe work,” Gareth said, patting Mike’s arm.

“I guess we’re not ignoring Mike afterall,” Mike said smugly. 

“You’re not talking,” Gareth said. He put his hand over Mike’s mouth. “No-no-no. You just stand guard at the front door, like one of those Buckingham palace guys. You have to show no emotion and not flinch when tourists make fun of you.”

Mike squirmed out from under Gareth’s hand. “No. No way,” he said. “I do not agree to that. I’m at the archive desk with you. We spend the whole time filling requests and making fun of what people are looking up.”

Gareth stroked his chin and nodded. “I’ll accept that. Okay, so Joe and I are at the desk by the archives when you guys walk in. You need to get our permission to access them, so you’d better have a good story, or else I’m going to have Joe throw you out.”

“Joe would never throw me out,” Dustin said. “He loves Gaten like a brother.” 

“Only when you don’t bother me at work,” Mike said. “When I’m at work, you little shits better be on your best behavior.”

Dustin snickered. “Oh, you know who you sound like?” 

“I know!” Mike slapped his hand on the table. “Oh my god, that’s how I’m going to play this, isn’t it? That’s a terrible idea.”

“What is?” Eddie asked. 

“Nothing. Nevermind,” Mike said, rubbing his face. “It’s not important. Anyway!” He slipped back into character. “Welcome to the city archives. How can we help you?” His voice dropped from a chipper customer-service register to a deadpan. “Oh, it’s you. This better be good, Maya and I are working.” Gareth started to giggle. 

Lucas frowned and leaned in close to whisper in Dustin’s ear. He looked confused until Dustin whispered something back, and then he threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, that’s good. He even sounds like him.”

“Hey, shut up,” Mike said.

“It’s what you were going for, isn’t it?” Dustin asked.

Mike’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I mean... Still. Shut up and stay in character or I’ll throw you out of the archives.” 

“I gotta say, I’m loving this,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, I have no idea what’s going on, but this is great,” Jeff added. “Wish I had some popcorn.” 

“Just get to the point,” Gareth said. “Fill us in on what happened so we don’t have all this whispering back-and-forth all the time. I want to start investigating.”

Dustin spread his hands out “Okay, so, we need to do some research on curses and bardic magic,” he said. “It’s... Lucas, do you want to tell them?”

Lucas nodded. “Yeah, Sadie will fill them in. She tells them how the guards showed up in the building across from her this morning, and she saw the body of Lady Grace there. It was all twisted and broken, like she’d been tortured or done in by dark magic.”

“What kind of dark magic? Like, demonic magic?” Gareth asked. 

“I mean, maybe?” Lucas continued. “That’s why we’re here. To look it up.” 

“And also to help clear my mentor’s name!” Dustin said. “She was found in the home of Quinn the bard, and I know he would never dabble in dark magic. He’s missing and the guards are looking for him. We need to find him first.” 

Mike and Gareth wanted more information about what they already knew, and why they were so sure that Quinn wasn’t the killer. Dustin did a bit of metagaming then, saying that it couldn’t be the person that the guards suspected because that’d be too easy. Mike countered with the concept of double-bluff, theorizing that Eddie would try something like that, which was where Eddie stepped in and quashed it. 

“Don’t make me make you all do this in-character,” he said. “I will!”

“Then I won’t get to talk at all,” said Jeff. “I’m still stuck training with the guards.” 

“He’s got a point. We should get the group all together,” Lucas said.

Jeff frowned and gave his shoulder a little shove. “You’re the one who didn’t want to tell me.”

“No, Sadie wouldn’t tell you,” Lucas said. “I was trying not to metagame at the time.” 

Jeff chuckled at this, but Eddie cleared his throat and gave the group of them such a mean glare that they all got back on track in a hurry. Dustin and Gareth came up with some theories about how they would research the magic used without being able to cast anything at the scene while the rest of them listened. Mike suggested they talk to witnesses, but Lucas said there weren’t any. 

“Other than me, I guess,” he added. “I was the only one out on the street when Quinn ran away. Oh, but something weird happened right before. Maybe that’s a clue. Hold on, let me check Eddie’s note.” 

The rest of the team leaned in to listen as Lucas read from the note he’d been given and hear about how the gas lamps on their street had pulsed ominously. Dustin theorized that it was just the wind, but Mike said it wouldn’t have been written down if that was the case. Gareth groaned and poked Mike in the arm, whispering, “Metagaming!” 

“Oh! It has to have been different from what would normally have happened, or else Sadie wouldn’t have noticed it,” Lucas said. “Maybe it was, like, some kind of a pattern?” 

“Fucking thank you,” Eddie mumbled. He pointed at Lucas. “Roll against your wisdom to figure the pattern out.” 

Lucas rolled and Eddie stood up to describe the scene that his character had witnessed. How the gas lamps in the street had been shielded from all the wind, but in unison they had all gone out, then flared back to life, then out again. The boys all watched him intently, but it was Gareth who pulled his notes out and tapped them. “Demonic magic from another realm can be detected in the way it can suppress mundane flames,” he said, holding the page up. “Also, magical lights will turn strange colors in its presence. Jeez, Eddie, there are a lot of weird details here. You came up with this on the fly?” 

The younger boys were all staring at each other and looking a little grim. Dustin was the one to speak up first. “So, it’s like the lights were flickering?” he asked quietly.

Eddie frowned. “I mean, this is D&D. It’s not like they’re light bulbs burning out, but... I guess? Yeah, that’s kind of what I pictured.” 

“Were there any other signs of demonic magic?” Mike asked. He sounded cautious, and his question was directed at Eddie instead of Lucas.

Eddie looked over to Lucas, who was staring down at his notes but didn’t look like he was reading them. “Well, Sadie?” he asked. “Anything else you want to tell your friends?” 

Lucas looked up briefly when he realized the question was directed at him. “I mean. There weren’t, right? No, monsters or...” He looked between the notes that were specific to the events of the game and the ones that were background information. “Uh. No smell of brimstone or...”

Jeff, who had leaned in to read the details over his shoulder, chimed in with the rest of them when he hesitated. “Or flakes of ash in the air, like hell was seeping through to the material plane.” He chuckled. “Damn, Eddie, really leaning into the satanic vibe, huh?” 

The three freshmen shared a startled look. “Oh, come on, guys,” Gareth said. “Don’t tell me you’re freaked out by a little satanism.”

“You’re in a club called Hellfire,” Jeff said. 

“I promise, we only sacrifice virgins,” Gareth said. “Oh, wait!”

Eddie scoffed. “Please. Like membership in this club isn’t a bright shining ‘don’t fuck me’ sign on its own,” he said. “Quit teasing the sheepies for being intimidated by my disturbing imagination and get back to the game.”

Jeff and Gareth both rolled their eyes in unison. “Yeah, all right,” Jeff said. 

“I thought the club was named that because of the X-Men comics,” Dustin said. 

Eddie grinned. “It was, Henderson,” he said. “It has the added bonus of freaking out the mundanes in the rest of the school who don’t know about its innocuous origin.” 

“I mean, those same people probably don’t think of comics as innocuous,” said Gareth. “In fact, X-Men itself is pretty subversive, being about—”

“Bup-bup-bup! No! No more digressions!” Eddie slammed his hand on the table. Everyone shut up and he stared off in the middle distance, looking angry and frustrated. It melted away in a second, though. “Wait, where the fuck were we? In game, I mean. I’ve lost track.” 

Mike chimed in quickly. “No other signs of demonic magic!” he said. “Just the lamps.” 

“Still, that’s weird enough to keep it to ourselves right? If it’s demonic stuff again, we can’t bring it to the city guards,” Dustin said. “Let’s see what we can figure out about where Quinn would’ve gone. He might have seen something else, and we can’t let the guards pin it on him if it’s... You know. Demons again.”

The rest of the group was in agreement, but finding out where Quinn could have gone proved to be difficult. Dustin’s character knew him the best, but he rolled poorly in his research checks. Gareth had the highest int and wisdom and the background of having worked in the archives, but once again the dice did them no favors. Eddie chewed on his knuckle and glared at the offending dice, but he couldn’t push himself into giving them any hints they hadn’t earned.

Finally, it was Mike who came up with a new idea. “We should go find Jeff. I mean, Caleb. He’s in the guards, so he’ll be able to tell us where they’ve already looked. 

“Also, I know Quinn because I go to Gaten’s shows,” Jeff added. “And if there’s demonic stuff involved, I’m one of the few people in town who knows the truth.” 

They agreed to loop Caleb in, and the group went to the guard house. They sent in Mike’s character, as he was a former guard, and it didn’t take much convincing for Caleb to join them. Jeff and Eddie exchanged some notes and rolled some dice to figure out how much information he’d gotten from the guards, and thankfully the dice gods smiled up on them this time. He let them look through the reports that had been compiled and come up with a list of places that the guards were looking for Quinn.

Jeff looked thoughtful and held up his dice. “Hey, they haven’t found him yet, right?” 

“That is correct.”

“And we don’t actually want the guards to find him, do we?” He looked at the group. “Like, we know it’s demonic stuff, right? So there are two options. Either Quinn is the source of it, and we need to fight him. We don’t want the guards interfering with a fight, because they can’t learn about the demonic stuff. The king’s men would hunt us down for betraying the secret.”

“Right,” Mike said. “That’s true.”

Jeff continued his reasoning. “And the other option is that he’s an innocent witness to demonic horrors... But the guards are convinced that he’s the killer.” 

“So we need to protect him,” Dustin said.

“And the best way to protect him is to make sure he’s hiding in a place they’re not looking,” said Jeff. “Can I tell which of the places on this list are actually really good places to hide?” 

Eddie pretended to think about it for a minute. “Yeah, you have some idea.” 

“Okay, then can I mess with their system so that the guards lose track of those leads?” 

The rest of the table let out a low cheer and looked at Eddie. He grinned. “Roll me percentiles,” he said, hoping that the score would be high enough to justify it. 

Jeff picked up his dice and shook them dramatically. He let them fall in the middle of the table. The rest of the group leaned in to read the numbers off of them. “Does eighty seven work?” Mike asked excitedly. 

Eddie leaned back in his throne and steepled his fingers. “I’ll allow it,” he said. The group cheered. 

They made their way through checking all the locations that the guards had listed, while also dodging the guards. Eddie had a possible fight with the guards planned out, but once Jeff’s character joined up they were able to use his background to avoid patrols instead.

#my writing #hellfire club #stranger things #the prophetic d&d game

[askmerriauthor]

Hyrule's Future - Letting Go of the Past

ToTK lore chatter, mild spoilers below the line break.

I've mentioned it before, but something I really enjoy about both BoTW and ToTK is how they've addressed the timeline as a whole. The games basically scoop up all the events of the past titles, toss them into a blender, and dump out the rendered scraps into a big pile together. So it's become unclear exactly how much of the established lore is actually true and how much of the Legend of Zelda is just actual legend.

This has some interesting implications for how exactly Hyrule will grow going forward from the BoTW/ToTK point, especially considering Nintendo has confirmed that the BoTW-style games is what they want to aim for as a series standard. It also makes for a facet of story telling specific to these games' direction that I really enjoy. That, for all the importance of history and heritage in the Legend of Zelda, the way forward is letting go and accepting change.

There's a bit of a gag going that Link is essentially the Tony Hawk of Hyrule, in that just about nobody recognizes him and he's constantly being "mistaken" for the Legendary Hero Link. NPCs flat-out don't know who he is at all, or brush it off as a funny coincidence he "just happens to have the same name as the Hero", or even gaslight themselves into refusing to believe he could be the genuine article. Very few NPCs in the game actually know who Link is, what he looks like, or properly acknowledge what he's done.

A bit of the same happens for Zelda. While it seems that everyone knows who she is by reputation, if nothing else, everyone is also very easily fooled by the doppelganger Zelda running around causing chaos post-Upheaval. Zelda is essentially a new entity in post-Calamity Hyrule; everyone knew of her as a legendary figure holding back Calamity Ganon, but actually having her around as a flesh-and-blood person working to build a new future for Hyrule is a new thing for the general population. So much so that, for the youngest and newest generations of kids in Hyrule, they don't really hold interest or reverence for the past whatsoever.

Another thing we come across around ToTK is rumors. Things like the fabled "Master Gourd", or characters gossiping about legendary beasts, weapons, and ghost stories. People fear the notion of a vengeful spirit lurking in the wilds, or a man speculates that the ghosts of slain Gerudo haunt the alleys of their town. Others dismiss the very idea of ghosts outright as fanciful nonsense and "unscientific" when there are very clearly actual ghosts in existence within the setting. The establishment of a newspaper and the ability to quickly spread long-form written information across Hyrule is a new thing and welcomed eagerly by the citizenry, but it's up to intrepid reporters and researchers to find the information to report. And, as is shown in several quests, sometimes they get things completely wrong and end up utterly confusing the whole situation.

What this all culminates toward is a very clear indication that the lore of Hyrule and the literal legends of Zelda, in all their forms, is entirely unreliable narrative in-universe. How much of Hyrule's own past has been completely lost to time or disaster? How much of it has mutated through repetition or been exaggerated far beyond what it originally was? The events we've played through in previous titles have been pretty wild in many cases, often cartoonishly silly; were those events actually things that happened, or just outlandish retellings and mixed-up tales? Are the drastic tonal differences between "Twilight Princess" and "Wind Waker" a case of different times or were they simply the personal preference in delivery as told by a given narrator? Are the repeated instances of many characters sharing names and natures truly coincidental reappearances, or are they because a person became a symbol and popular story element that crossed over into different tales? There's a firm sense in ToTK that Hyrule is growing toward a new future of its own making and that the past, while very much an important part of the world's identity, is far from set in stone. That it shouldn't be given so much power and importance over the future that's yet to be seen.

In ToTK, the heroes and the citizenry are looking toward the future. They're building - not rebuilding, but starting new. Side quests like Cece's mayoral race emphasize the importance of making a sustainable balance between the old and new. Mattison's parents respect the old traditions of the Gerudo by letting their daughter go off to learn of her roots in Gerudo Town, even as it pains them to do so, and even as Gerudo Town itself is changing from its old ways. The established language itself is being updated as the new generation of Gerudo kids abbreviate it (much to the chagrin of some elderly Gerudo). Link, a man, is freely admitted to defy the Gerudo's core "no voe allowed" law because of his proven loyalty to their people - a boon that was denied a hero of the Gerudo in the past, as we learn from the side-quest exploring their history.

Throughout all the communities we see a shift from the old to the new without tossing out their roots. The Zora welcome new leadership and combining of communities. The Rito show a proven rise in the next generation to maintain their way of life. The Gorons work with their changing environment and industry, maintaining a firm inter-generational cooperation throughout. The Gerudo gradually open themselves up to greater interactions not just with men, but with the world in general, joining more into the core of Hyrule rather than secluding themselves to their old ways. The Sheikah - by far the most deeply rooted in traditional standards of all - are rapidly changing with the times and set themselves at the bleeding edge of social development. Paya taking the Sheikah in a new direction as their chief, Impa stepping aside for the greater good, Purah and Robbie and Josha recycling all the old Sheikah Tech in order to build new Skyview Towers and develop technology that everyone - not just Link - can use and benefit from. The Zonai culture itself holds core belief in proving one's potential in rites of passage, of growing and rising to challenges, of building and progressing by use of the foundations laid by those who came before. Even the Bargainer Statues, seemingly beyond-ancient spirits or gods who predate even the Zonai, are all about helping the lingering souls of the dead move on without judgment or criticism. In the past, we see Zelda, Mineru, and Rauru all surrender themselves to a necessary change, giving up what they knew and held dear, in order to help move toward a positive future for all even if they wouldn't be there to benefit from it themselves.

It's the villains and antagonists we meet who are stuck in the past or who can't see a sustainable way forward. The Horned Statue - a demon who was petrified by Hylia for its crimes - emphasizes that it proudly refuses to learn its lesson and thus remains a statue for all time. In Hateno Village, Cece and Reede are at extreme ends of valuing vapid, short-sighted progress and hollow, rigid tradition because of pride, even while lying to themselves and others about their true feelings on such things. Kohga and the Yiga Clan are straight-up trying to undermine Hyrule as a society and ultimately end the world itself, abusing the progress of technology and tradition alike to achieve those ends. But these are minor compared to the big man himself.

Ganondorf is very much an anchor on the ship of progress. He's not just stuck in the past; he's literally defined by it. He is the past and an outright denial of the future. His entire M.O. is establishing a state of unchanging chaos, as contradictory as that may sound, where nothing ever advances from the state he's put it into. He saw a flourishing utopian society as an affront - an effort to control him, a waste of "potential". Rather than join it and grow with it, he rebelled and destroyed it. His transformation into the Demon King and birthing of monsters into the world ensured a cyclical status quo of endless strife. Every Blood Moon, the monsters rise anew, undoing any efforts to purge them from the land. After he was sealed, his sole goal was to return to his heights of power. When he was challenged and defeated by Link and the Sages, he was so consumed by his attachment to the past that he literally threw away everything that made him who he was in order to try and retain that power. Ganondorf refuses to let Hyrule grow in any fashion and, in the end, his utter destruction is necessary in order for the world to have any hope of moving forward.

I like that as a theme. There's an emphasis on respect for the old and new alike. That it's important to understand one's history and roots, and that there's wonders to be found in the past. But that the future too holds so much, that change is inevitable. That it should be welcomed rather than scorned or feared, and that embracing that undeniable momentum is the way to thrive. That sometimes what we think we know isn't the truth and we need to be accepting of new ideas or corrections to our previously-established beliefs.

That digging in your heels and latching desperately to the past - to the lore, to the legends, to the canon - ultimately does more harm than good.

#totk #botw #totk speculation #totk spoilers #legend of zelda

[trippinglynet]

LSD: Hollywood's Status-Symbol Drug | Cosmopolitan, November 1963

While some psychiatrists have found LSD useful in therapy, growing numbers of doctors are gravely worried by evidence that the drug may cause mental distress rather than cure it.

by Bob Gaines

The Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the grass, merely remarking as it went, “One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.”

“One side of what? The other side of what?” thought Alice to herself.

“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar. . . .

In the hallucinatory world of Alice in Wonderland, where caterpillars talk, mock turtles cry and magic mushrooms abruptly alter the gourmet’s perspective of the world (a fact well documented by the Indians of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula), the extraordinary properties of the vision-producing drug, LSD-25, would seem almost commonplace.

But even Alice might blink twice and remark, “Curiouser and curiouser,” were she to learn of the current fad and controversy that has sprouted up about the drug. Suddenly LSD has become the sophisticated “fun thing to try among the smart set, the fast set and the beat set, and if you haven’t got a buddy who can run down to his friendly neighborhood LSD bootlegger and buy an apule of those little blue pills, you are simply not in, my friend. In New York the drug is bartered freely in Greenwich Village coffeehouses. In Boston, communal homes have been established where LSD communicates can share insights gained through better living with chemistry. In San Francisco black marketeers ply a busy trade smuggling the drug in from Canada, while in Los Angeles drug cultists gather to plan for the idyllic day when there wil be LSD therapists (similar to the ones now working in Europe) with cubicle-lined offices filled with happily hallucinating patients. Like winter colds and Asian flu, LSD is seeping the nation, and its eager exponents assure us it will soon be as much a part of the American culture and diet as Mom’s apple pie.

A Galloping Cure?

The cause of all this bizarre activity is d-lysergic acid diethylamide tartrate, a supposedly non-addictive drug so powerful that a minute particle barely visible on the head of a pin can send anyone who swallows it into dream delirium. It is classified-along with two other substances-a psychedelic or “mind-expanding” drug. Since its discovery in 1943 by a Swiss chemist named Albert Hofmann, it has been the subject of close to a thousand papers dealing with its effect on everything from Siamese fish to Asiatic elephants. Is supporters have suggested it may serve as a panacea for a melange of problems, ranging from stuttering to cancer. A few psychiatrists are currently using it as a kind of galloping psychotherapy. They claim it speeds up analysis and accomplishes in months what normally takes years. most physicists and doctors demur so does the Food and Drug Administration which recently seized over sixty thousand doses of black market LSD in San Francisco and wishes that it could get its hands on more.

So serious do physicians and psychiatrists view the fad for this drug that Dr. Roy Grinker, chief editor of the AMA’s Archives of General Psychiatry, recently wrote an editorial in his publication that the drug could be fatal if used indiscriminately and that many psychiatrists had become so enamored with its “mystical, hallucinatory state” that they were “disqualified as competent investigators.” He further complained the drug was being imprudently publicized and endorsed by “movie actors and television psychiatrists.”

Hollywood Had It First

The last crack was a direct slap at Hollywood, where LSD receive its first major burst of publicity, and where some of its most devoted rooters live. Actually, Hollywood was buzzing over LSD as far back as 1959. It began when two Los Angeles doctors published the results of an experimental therapy program they had conducted with 110 patients-including Cary Grant, his wife Betsy Drake and several more Hollywood actors, publicists and writers. The reaction to the paper was explosive. Joe Hyams, Hollywood correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, who did one of the first interviews with Cary Grant about LSD therapy, told me recently, “After my series came out, the phone began to wring wildly. Friends wanted to know where they could get the drug. Psychiatrists called, complaining their patients were now begging them for LSD. Every actor in town under analysis wanted it. In all, I got close to eight hundred letters.” Cary Grant today is still eager to offer this testimony to the efficacy of the drug: “If I drop dead within the next ten years, I will have enjoyed more living in the latter part of my life than most people ever know.” When I asked Grant if he thought his association with the drug had helped or hindered its development, he said brusquely, “A Hollywood name might have created some resistance, but many people will seek any reason to oppose a new idea, you know.”

At the time, Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, manufacturer of LSD, was fairly liberal about releasing the drug for “experimental” purposes, and a number of Hollywood psychiatrists, lay therapists and even osteopaths jumped on the LSD bandwagon. The fad spread north to San Francisco, and shortly after, newspapers in Las Vegas began to report of ampuls of LSD in saline solution being sold to teen-agers.” “The fad here quickly divided itself into two groups, the hopheads who were looking for a kick and the thoughtful people who wanted to experiment with the drug’s effects on mental illness, creativity or extrasensory perception,” one San Francisco architect who tried LSD during this period told me. “Everybody seemed to have a pal who was working with the drug or could get his hands on it.”

LSD For World Peace

More and more of the California intelligentsia began to push the drug. From his houseboat in Sausalito, philosopher Alan Watts spoke of a society where LSD pills would be taken two or three times a year, like aspirin, to relieve temporary emotional headaches. Aldous Huxley wrote glowingly of his mystical SD flights; poet Allen Ginsberg urged that the drug be given to Khruschev and Kennedy in the interest of world peace. One of the Hollywood actresses who first tried the drug, who wrote of how it cured of frigidity in the book, My Self and I, under the pseudonym of Constance Newland Cultist groups sprang up in San Francisco and Hollywood, where it now had virtually become a status symbol among the cocktail-party set, and local officials began to hear of LSD parties where the drug was mixed with mescaline, marijuana and barbiturates - “they all cancel each other out and save you from a hangover,” explained one celebrant. The great American LSD binge was on. Not all this activity was harmless. Rumors about psychotic breakdown began to circulate. One prominent physician on the LSD scene had his license temporarily revoked for experiment with the drug while using it. There was also the much-publicized story of a Los Angeles detective who confiscated a bag of harmless-looking sugar cubes on a known narcotics peddler and took them home. That evening the detective and his son used the sugar in their coffee and shortly after began to have weird hallucinations. Both had to hospitalized.

At this point, Sandoz began to crack down on the distribution, and many therapists without proper qualifications abruptly had their supply cut off. The pharmaceutical company was worried that is might one day be sued for indiscriminate distribution of the drug. There was also the matter of the black market which seemed to be growing larger as the fad spread to the East Coast, where it now seems to be flourishing.

Danger: Uneven Effect

When I asked Dr. Carlo Henze of Sandoz about the problem, he was at a loss to explain the source of the illegal drugs. “We wish we knew. We only know that any competent organic chemist with the proper laboratory equipment could manufacture LSD. The danger in these drugs is that the quality is unreliable.

Currently, the Svengali of LSD cultists is Dr. Timothy Leary, former psychology lecturer at Harvard University and head of a group in Cambridge, Massachusetts called the International Federation of Internal Freedom, shortened colloquially to IFIF. Leary and his associate, Dr. Richard Alpert, also formerly of Harvard, having stirred up enormous controversy because of their stand on behalf of what they call the Fifth Freedom-freedom to expand one’s consciousness through “drug-induced satori.”

In the spring of 1960 (during what Leary called his “antediluvian” period), he was vacationing in Cuernavaca, Mexico, when an anthropologist at the University of Mexico introduced him to the “magic mushrooms” that cause hallucinations. “It was the first time I’d experienced the effects of psilocybin [the vision-producing chemical in the mushrooms] and it changed my life completely,” he recalls. “I had an intense transcendental experience. It showed me how limited my old conception of the range of human consciousness was.”

Leary and Alpert conducted several hundred private sessions with graduate students and friends, exploring the emotional and creative effects of psychedelic drugs. The drugs were frequently administered in apartments near Harvard where the subjects relaxed on mats or rugs in front of a glowing fireplace while music played on the phonograph. Eventually, the dean’s office of Harvard heard whispers about these soirees and, paling at the prospect of a host of Harvard lads benumbed on LSD, decided to act. In November, 1962, Dean John Monro of Harvard College and Dr. Dana Farnsworth of the University Health Service issued a statement to the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, warning that the use of “mind-distorting drugs” like LSD, mescaline and psilocybin “may result in serious hazards to the mental health and stability even of apparently normal persons.” The statement was accompanied by a Crimson article about the bootlegging of LSD sugar cubes about Harvard Yard at a dollar a cube.

By this time, Leary’s superiors had become genuinely anxious about the psilocybin research project. Rumors about psychedelic sex parties and undergraduates working their way through college by smuggling in shipments of LSD from New York were rampant. “LSD is so powerful” says Leary wryly, “that one administered dose can start a thousand rumors.” A faculty group was formed eventually to “advise and oversee” all studies involving psilocybin, and Leary and Alpert were asked to turn over their supply of the drugs to the University Health Service. As criticism mounted, Leary and his little band of experimenters drew closer together until finally, with the help of several small foundations, they formed IFIF in the winter of 1962. The group also opened two communal homes in nearby residential Newton.

The Harvard-hallucinogen controversy finally blew up the next spring when Dr. Alpert was fired for administering drugs to an undergraduate. The incident was reported to President Pusey’s office by the boy’s doctor, and Pusey immediately pulled the rug out from under Alpert, the first such dismissal at Harvard in the twentieth century. Shortly after, Dr. Leary was also fired for failure to attend classes. He denies this charge, say he had no classes in the spring, and is currently fighting the dismissal.

The “Modest Heroes”

"Said Cary Grant after his LSD analysis, "If I drop dead within the next ten years, I will have enjoyed more living in the latter part of my life than most people ever know."

Despite all setbacks, Leary and company still pursue their goal of psychedelic freedom and speak confidently of research groups starting in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Mexico City. IFIF’s home office in Cambridge now lists over seven hundred members, and new applications arrive in the mail every day. When I met Timothy Leary recently, he was able to say confidently, “It's only a question of time until the psychedelic experience will be accepted. We see ourselves as modest heroes, an educational tool to facilitate the development of new social forms.

“Our main concern is the social application of the drugs,” he says. “We believe virtually anybody who used them under the correct supportive circumstances can receive intuitive insights of astonishing clarity. We have an enormous amount of scientfic evidence to show that personal background makes no difference. You can be a convict or a college professor-you’ll still have a mystical, transcendental experience that may change your life.

Doing More Harm Than Good?

“Our basic philosophy is similar to that of the founders of all the great world religions. Man should turn inward. Man should examine his own consciousness. In a sense, we’re a very conservative, old-fashioned organization, and only in the present climate of hysteria can we be considered far out. We’re simply trying to get back to man’s sense of nearness to himself and others, the sense of social nearness which civilized man has long lost. We’re in step with the basic needs of the human race, and those who oppose us are far out.”

Statements like this usually can be counted on to infuriate doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists. The men I spoke to tongue-lashed Leary for being everything from “an irresponsible egotist and bad man” to a confirmed LSD addict (he candidly admits he has taken over one hundred psychedelic flights.) Drugs administered by Leary and IFIF are said to have caused several cases of mental breakdown. A few doctors admitted a grudging admiration for the man. One new York psychiatrist, who used LSD until Sandoz stopped the supply, told me, “I think Leary’s done a lot of harm to the cause of psychedelic medicine, but I give him credit for having the guts to stick his neck out. He’s convinced he’s right and he’s willing to jeopardize his career for these ideas. Only time will tell whether he's right.

Fortunately for the cause of psychedelic medicine, most researchers have shied away from Dr. Leary’s brand of religiosity and confined themselves to more mundane, pragmatic ends. The story of the development of LSD has been recounted so often it needs only brief retelling. In 1943, Albert Hofmann, a chemist with Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basle, Switzerland, accidentally swallowed or inhaled a minute quality of an experimental drug. He soon became dizzy and went home where he lay in bed and experienced fantastic hallucinations. Puzzling over the episode the next day, he deliberately swallowed a small quantity of the chemical and was soon lost in a world beyond time and space in which he could see his own “body lying dead on the sofa.” Since that day, hundreds of other experimenters have been working with the drug.

Originally, it was thought to have value in the treatment of psychotic patients. Today, doctors are not so certain, and some of the most interesting work going on deals with the use of LSD in the treatment of specialized problems like alcoholism, drug addiction, schizophrenia among children. In the late forties and early fifties, the Army and Air Force were interested in known more about LSD as a tool for brainwashing (i.e., had the Chinese Communists used it on American prisoners of war?) and as a weapon in drug warfare. Scientists were asked to investigate what might happen if someone were to drop several pounds of LSD in the municipal water supply of New York, Washington, or Los Angeles. The findings are still being kept under wraps by the Army Chemical Corps which handles such information.

“Profound” Character Changes

So far, the most fruitful, though controversial, work has been in the treatment of neurotics. Dr. Humphry Osmond, who curently is conducting a psychedelic program for alcoholics at the New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, believes the drugs can cause a profuon change in human character, though neither he nor anyone else seems to know the exact mechanism of this “profound change” Osmond and his associates only know that remarkable results have occurred under LSD Therapy.

While there is no such thing as an average LSD reaction, the experience of Ronnie Gilbert touches so many of the familiar bases that it is worth recounting. Ronnie is a blues singer and also sings with The Weavers, possibly America’s oldest and best-known folk song group. At present, she is a cheerful handsome woman who, when she is not on tour, lives in a happily cluttered midtown Manhattan apartment with her daughter. But one year ago, Ronnie was mired in a deep, aching depression from which she found it impossible to break free. During this period a worried friend told her of a New York psychiatrist who was using the new drug, LSD-25, and suggested she go see him.

Stripped to the Core

In the next six months, Ronnie went through twenty LSD sessions with the doctor. Each session began at 10 a.m. and continue until evening (for which she paid the standard psychoanalytic fee of twenty dollars an hour). Part of the sessions were spent in her doctor’s darkened office where she lay absorbed in visions, shimmering colors and forgotten scenes from her childhood. Sometimes she sat and painted the things she saw (the paintings she showed me were luminously nonobjective splashes of color and curiously pleasant); on other occasions, she and her doctor went for walks in nearby Central Park or visited art galleries and churches.

Walking through the park, Ronnie told me, she felt an “atavistic sense of life all around me. I looked at trees for the first time, really looked at them. Everything seemed so rich and intense. I think it is this intensity that gives the LSD experience meaning to a patient. Suddenly, all the phony concepts and layers of inhibitions are stripped away, and you are exposed at your intellectual and physical core. You have to believe what you see.”

By the end of her first six sessions in LSD land, Ronnie had thrown off her depression; she continued for several months more and then decided she had had enough. “For the first few days after dropping therapy, I felt a bit anxious and irritable, so maybe there is something to the idea that you can build a psychic dependency on the drug. But then the irritation stopped. Since then, I’ve been turned on to life and have never been so happy,” she told me.

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