#and the attributes of each character above the book

[irregularcollapse]

In youth librarianship, we often talk about mirrors and windows when considering collection development.

A mirror is a story which allows someone (in this case, a teenager) to see their own experiences reflected back to them.

A window is a story which allows someone to clearly observe experiences which are not their own.

Numerous studies have shown that reading fiction has a positive impact on our ability to relate to others with experiences outside our own. A lot of these studies use the word “empathy,” but I’m of the opinion that what they are really looking at is “understanding.”

As the linked article explains, one particular study made use of a test which measures our ability “to comprehend that other people hold beliefs and desires, and that they might be different than our own.” It was observed that participants who read literary fiction showed more improvement than participants who read genre fiction. This difference was attributed to literary fiction being more character-focused, whereas genre fiction is typically more plot-focused.

Part of the benefit of reading windows as well as mirrors is that through windows, we can exercise perspective taking, i.e. assuming points of view which are not our own. This is obviously easiest to do through the perspective character: having access to a character’s interiority through narration allows us to more easily understand why they take certain actions (in theory—this is not always well-executed by the writer).

A more experienced reader can then apply the method of perspective taking to all characters. A sound and cohesive story should allow a reader to take the perspective of all characters in the story—to understand why they do what they do. This can be very difficult, especially when a well-written narrator will always be subjective. The key analytical question, which ties the concept of windows in leisure reading to skill from literature class, is:

Why does this character do that thing?

This process is not about ‘justifying’ certain actions, or ‘excusing’ them. It is about actively exercising and working on your ability to understand experiences which are not your own.

Not all characters or stories will stand up to the why question—as mentioned above, plot-focused stories often have very little why from a character perspective. Sometimes the why is really only ‘for entertainment.’

The why is also something which can vary in complexity depending on the target demographic of a story: a why in a children’s book will be more direct than in a YA book, and a why in literary fiction may be more obtuse again.

Characters are devices through which a writer communicates. The experiences of the characters, and their behaviours which result from those experiences, constitute a discussion which the writer wants to have. The curtains are not just blue, and characters don’t just do things without reason.

This works as advice for writers as well as readers: if you can’t consider the story from the perspective of another character, then are they developed enough? How does another character’s experience shape the way they behave within the narrative? And what’s more, do you understand what the experience of the plot itself is like for each of them?

#just sort of. musing about reading and writing today #trying not to be upset when i see misunderstanding #because it’s clear that people don’t always ask ‘why’ #and it’s a hard skill to hone!! #but it’s necessary to analysis imo #anywho. #mini lit lessons #books #my writing

[batrogers]

Civilized Or Not

So there’s some common Zelda fanon I wanna talk about, relating to civilization tropes I think some of y’all haven’t really thought about in detail before, and that’s Hyrule (Zelda 1 &2 Link), Wild (BOTW mostly), and Ravio (LbW).

I’m using the Linked Universe names, because that’s where most of it comes up, because these things happen most often where you can contrast the boys with each other. This is often done, quick and dirty, by people assigning “roles” to each without much thought. Ravio’s unfortunately tends to be extremely pervasive outside LU spaces, too.

But, in brief, there is a trend for people to craft these characters in a framework of innocent vs savagery vs trickery that can have some really unfortunate implications I’m not sure many are even aware of. Hopefully I can explain better where these ideas come from, why they’re so easy and appealing, and why we should try to avoid repeating them for more than just the sake of “easy” but also to stop repeating some really nasty historical tropes.

I would start from what’s probably the simplest one to address: the tendency towards a “feral” personification of Wild. This tends to come from two places: Wild’s amnesia, and the collapse of society around him and his lost place in it.

Now, brain damage is complicated. You can lose a range of things to any given injury because of the way information is encoded differently and in different places. You can lose memory and/or skills and/or coordination and/or balance, etc, because it all depends on what got damaged. But in-game a lot of stuff suggests that Link retains things like speech, reading/writing, coordination, and martial skills. None of the people who knew Link prior to his injury suggest he seems changed in any way not attributed to stress and anxiety...

And, more importantly, real people suffer memory loss just like that in the real world. Treating him like he’s become “feral” due to memory loss is cruel to actual people living with brain damage today, and if you go there you should have a good reason for it.

Social collapse is a wide-spread theme in basically every Zelda game. The threat that the Big Bad poses is almost always the destruction of society as it exists: Malladus literally vanishes the infrastructure of New Hyrule in Spirit Tracks; the Twilight turns people into spirits living lives they don’t realize are questionably real in Twilight Princess; Veran freezes the passage of time to force people to work forever in Oracle of Ages. King Daphnes and Ganondorf under the sea vie over the fate of the world above in Wind Waker: keep what’s been made, or start all over again?

In modern culture, people tell a lot of stories about the fragility of civilization and what happens in its absence. You get the range from Lord of the Flies, in which children wrecked on an island attempt (and fail) to recreate civilization on their own, Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” in which Mowgli is treated as reckless and innocent, and a much more obscure piece from the 18th century “Paul et Virginie” (and likely many more I don’t know offhand.) Essentially all of them play with the question of how do people become civilized, and what happens when they do? In Lord of the Flies, the children were civilized and failed to maintain it; in the Jungle Book, the boy wasn’t civilized and innocently interacts with it. In Paul et Virginie, the children were (relatively) uncivilized on the (French colonized) Mauritius, raised by their mothers but when the girl was sent away, she becomes civilized and dies tragically to preserve it.

The two Links most removed from civilization are Hyrule and Wild. Wild “lost” civilization, losing both his memories of it and the structure of it. Making him feral, without manners, and without a place to belong is that kind of Lord of the Flies savagery mixed with Mowgli’s innocent playfulness: there isn’t a structure to adhere to, so he’s a savage. Whereas Hyrule is more like the Paul eg Virginie side: innocent of civilization, he remains pure and sweet and kind, unable to conceive of big concepts like evil or money or so on. Neither position permits them to interact with the civilization that is right there in front of them! Wild can buy a house; he has people who know and care for him. He has social connections and social rights. The world exists, but the fandom does not seem to want him to interact with it in favour of remaining “wild.” In Zelda 2 – a game explicitly set within a decade of Zelda 1 – there are whole towns with trade and a castle and massive structures with on-going life in them... but very few fans seem to ever reach into that story or relate it back to the first. Hyrule, the character, does not exist within Hyrule, the country.

Strangely, Wind Waker does not fall prey to this, I think because the structures are presented as fait accompli: Link wakes up with his grandmother and his sister, he has a defined home, and a society in which you spend the entire game forced to engage with. Zelda 1 & 2 were not sophisticated enough to waste resources on going as in depth in social terms (although such interactions absolutely exist in Zelda 2!) and BOTW leaves such interactions as optional: you can survive the game with minimal social contact... but it’s a choice to play with it that way, not the default. The ways in which this edges onto the noble savage trope, in which “uncivilized” tribes are either innocent or brutish (rather than complex social systems in their own right) is fairly obvious.

There is one other character in Zelda who gets treated to the question of whether he is an innocent, free of civilization and all its rigour... or something else. Ravio, coming from the devastated world of Lorule, can often wind up slotted into the scared, innocent child trope and unfortunately that’s the better position people frequently take. The worse one evokes the Merchant of Venice: the deceitful, Jewish merchant who values money over people’s lives.

Lorule (and Nintedo’s approach towards their humanoid Zelda villains in general) is near-eastern-coded in many ways, down to the fact that Yuga’s outfit is the spitting image of Ottoman dress. Yuga being a depraved bisexual (a common historical trope about Muslim men towards Christian men and boys), and Hilda being deceitful and conspiring against everyone she was once allied to are a backdrop to the ways in which Ravio is a greedy coward. He’s not an evil character in the game; the mechanic of penalizing death without being too severe is interesting and works well! But that doesn’t take away the stereotype, just like it’s not okay Nabooru is pretty explicitly predatory towards child Link in Ocarina of Time, too.

Arab and Jewish stereotypes often converge, because both people's originate from the same region, and both are hostile "Others" to Christian Europe and Nintendo doesn’t have a great track record of their near-Eastern coding in Zelda. It crosses the whole gamut from harem and amazon tropes with the Gerudo to breath-takingly anti-semitic or anti-black (Ganondorf being green, eg. non-human, in various incarnations), all packaged neatly in the ideal of medieval fantasy Europe. The scale would be impressive if it wasn’t so damn awful, but we can at least stop repeating it in our fanworks.

Wild doesn’t have to be feral to be a playful little shit; Hyrule doesn’t have to be pure and innocent to be kind. Ravio doesn’t need to be innocent or scheming, and he shouldn’t place money over Link’s well-being (If you chose to respawn at home, he is consistently only ever concerned for Link! Once you buy the items outright, he promises he'll still be there to take care of you.)

Do better. It’s more interesting that way, and I want to see that variety grow!

[If any of y'all would like me to dig up better sources on any point, I can do so but I didn't want to bog this post down further. I have largely left the anti-arab stuff alone because it's not the biggest issue with Ravio's fanon presence, which is the focus here.]

#Zelda Meta #Linked Universe #Ravio #LU Wild #LU Hyrule #antisemitism in media #noble savage tropes #bad tropes #Unfortunate implications #LOZ meta #LU meta #Long post #like 1200 words #I'm having a week okay #brain damage #mental illness

[bigtreefest]

I dare you to write a piece using a character that you want to, but have never had a chance to write for before. With the sentence "Well that was a surprise."

Saint or Sinner?

College! Lloyd Hansen x Reader

Word Count: 1,331

A/N: Amber!!! Thank you for tickling my brain with this dare! I honestly wanted to do Andy so badly, but this quote was screaming Lloyd to me and I couldn’t resist. To be completely honest, I had no intention of writing him, but my fingers tip-tapped away and I lost all control. I might’ve been possessed.

I also always plan on writing a Drabble, and then it ends up being as long as one of my fic chapters, but anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, Smut (oral, m receiving), use of pet names, sociopathic tendencies, mean Lloyd, a twist?

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Ever since you were old enough date, you’ve been happily independent. You grew up in a small town, surrounded by blue collar families, including most of the members of your own.

You’d always had a keen ability to fit in anywhere, which you attribute to your upbringing. Your mom worked a corporate job, while your dad spent all day in a mechanic shop.

You were well off, but not raised like it, and you’d never judge those who had less than you, even though that’s what a lot of people expected.

Once you graduated high school, you got into Harvard where you met Lloyd. Lloyd was someone who was good at keeping his distance. You noticed it at first when you invited him to join a study group you had started with some other members of your cohort.

You received a terse “No thanks, Pumpkin,” punctuated with a curt nod and a wink, before he went to hang out with his other friends and his team.

You had made multiple attempts to include him in group activities, or engage in conversation when you could nab a seat next to him in class, but after some time, you stopped seeing him altogether. You could tell he was avoiding you and the study group you had become closer with. You’d probably actually call them your friends, becoming just as close as you were to some people back home. They picked up on the same things too, seeing that you were humble, and carried yourself in such a proper manner, earning you the nickname “the Saint.”

When word of that got around to Lloyd, he rolled his eyes. You were the complete opposite of him. Kind, welcoming, calculated, while he was cold, unpredictable, sociopathic. He couldn’t stand how successful you were, too. Professors and students alike constantly praised you, more than willing to help you in any way through your academic journey and career beyond. Where he schmoozed, you gracefully existed and got just as far.

You were perfect in everyone’s eyes, including his own, which is what infuriated him. There had to be a weak spot, somewhere where your surface would crack, and he had initially tried to find it by turning you down all those times, but it was unsuccessful.

None of the manipulation tactics he had worked so hard on perfecting for so long made you budge, either. He’d pluck out a random friend from your group to join his. Nothing. He’d sabotage your flash drive for your presentation, you’d have a backup in your email, ready to go. After you’d gone, you wished him luck and no technical difficulties like you had, with a giggle! He was enraged.

After being at the top of your class, the two of you were selected to go to a conference in DC. It was hardly supervised by your professor who had booked two rooms for you next to each other, getting himself a suite a few floors above.

You knocked on Lloyd’s door in the late afternoon, the day before your presentation. He opened it just enough to peek his head through.

“What do you want?”

You sighed with your signature smile on your face. “Did you want to go over everything one more time before dinner?”

He looked you up and down, face as stern as it ever was when he was dealing with you. “Not really, Sunshine.” He slammed the door in your face.

What Lloyd didn’t know was that all his little tactics were really chipping away at you. All you wanted was to spend time with him, to get close. You couldn’t help it. You’d be lying if you said it was in your usual friendship way, too.

No, you wanted more. There was something about how aloof he was that drew you in. You were obsessed and not willing to give up until you got what you wanted, what you deserved.

His little tendencies weren’t upsetting because he was rude, they were upsetting because they were keeping you away from what your body and the deep, dark recesses of your mind were screaming for.

The door slamming in your face was the last straw. Lloyd wouldn’t get away with this any longer. You could see what he was trying to do, and if you had any say, you’d make sure it failed. You were going to be the winner of the little mind game he was playing.

To be honest, by this point, Lloyd had given up, thinking you’d never break. You were just too sweet, a true Saint. Treating you like this had just become habit, which is why he was almost confused when he heard muttering on the other side of his door.

You had taken the magnetic clip out of your hair and maneuvered it against the hotel key card reader until it unlocked. The door flew open and your eyes landed on Lloyd, stomping towards him and pinning him with his back against the nearest wall.

He looked down at you, face unreadable beside his eyes being slightly wider than usual.

“Why are you being like this!? What did I do!?” You gritted out, your tone threatening.

Lloyd didn’t say anything, only the corner of his mouth twitched upwards.

“Tell. Me.” You slammed your hands against the wall, arms framing his head as you looked up into his eyes, your stomach pressed against his cock that was growing rock hard.

“Am I going to have to pull it out of you? Suck it out of you, myself?” Lloyd found himself at a loss for words for once. All he could do was part his lips slightly and give a small nod like he always did.

You began to unbuckle the belt of his ridiculously expensive pants, shoving them down just enough that you could see the hard-on pressing against his boxer briefs.

“Huh? Is that what you want? That what you need, Pumpkin?” You spat back at him, mocking his previous words.

His brain was finally beginning to catch up with the situation as he nodded down to you and you got on your knees.

“Yeah, do it. I know you want to. Suck me off.”

You didn’t need much more prompting, fueled by rage and control. You pulled down his underwear, his dick springing free.

You gave him no time to prepare, immediately licking from the base of his length to the tip before fully taking him into your mouth. Your mouth was stretching to accommodate his girth, but it was nothing for you in the lust of the moment. You set a vigorous pace, Lloyd’s head thrown back against the wall as he moaned loudly.

He pulled his head forward as his abs tensed, already close with the debauchery of the situation. He tangled his ringed fingers in your hair, helping to guide you along his length.

“That’s it. Keep going. Not such a Saint, are you?”

You hummed against his length in response, saliva dripping down your chin and his balls that you were lightly tugging in you hand. The other hand had its nails dug into his thigh, causing a slight sting that heightened the pleasure for Lloyd.

Before he knew it, he was coming down your throat. You pulled away as you swallowed his salty release, looking up at him and wiping off your face before standing up.

You caught his gaze again and Lloyd looked at you with bewilderment mixed with his post-orgasmic haze.

“Well that was a surprise.” He said between heavy breaths, pulling up his underwear and pants, buckling his belt again. Oh, he had no idea the tactics you had in store for him.

Your hands pressed against his abs in his knitted shirt. One stayed there as the other traced up his firm pec, past his collar and found purchase around his neck, lightly squeezing.

“So are you finally going to tell me what’s going on in the head behind that ridiculous mustache?”

Bonus A/N: Um… I don’t really know what happened. I think I blacked out.

#ST’s 100 follower truth or dare game #100 follower truth or dare game #truth or dare #dare #lloyd Hansen #lloyd Hansen x reader #lloyd Hansen x you #lloyd hansen smut #the gray man #Chris Evans #st answers

[lucyav13]

Dimentio

A more deep investigation about this emblematic character.

His name is a pun on "dementia" and "dimension". Like Mario and Mimi, he can flip between dimensions, but he can also manipulate them (an ability he shares with Merloo).

A theory says that the surviving son of the pixl inventor is his ancestor.

In the english version, Tippi seems to inmediatly recognize Dimentio upon encountering first. However, in the original Japanese script, her reaction is more ambiguous, afirmaning that Dimentio is one of the Count's minions.

Dimentio originally intended for Dimension D to multiply his power by 256. Upon winning the battle against him, the player character claims that the dimension made them more powerful as well, leaving everyone's stats unchanged relative to each other. This may be a homage to 8-bit storage capacity: 8-bit integers have 256 possible values, so adding 256 (although not multiplying by it) will overflow the integer and result in no net change.

 The void is absent from the background of this dimension.

According to Carson, Dimentio approached the Count on his own, wishing to join him. While he was turned down once, he was hired after Bleck read about someone having a similar role in the Dark Prognosticus...

My theory: Dimentio is impure. But not the son of Blumiere or Timapni. The tribe of darkness knew the power and monstrosity of the impures thanks to him. As the tribe saw how dangerous it was and the consequences it would bring, he was left forgotten along with his parents. Maybe that's why he's an impure. For this reason, Timpani, in one of his many visits, was able to see him and his family being thrown out of the tribe. Since he has floating hands and teleportation powers, just like the Count Bleck.

But his mask doesn't let us see how he really is...

Aditional information:

Catch Card: 195

HP Max: 80

Attack: 4

Defense:

Score: 8000

Card Description: Dimentio is Count Bleck's dimension-bending mercenary. The question is, do psycho jesters get good benefits?

Tattle: That's Dimentio... A magician who works for Count Bleck... He's like an evil clown... He'll use many magic tricks, including making doubles of himself... It's hard to get a read on this suspicious character...

Quotes:

"And so I arrive, like a sudden windstorm at a kindergarten picnic!"

"Ah ha ha. Finally, you arrive!"

"Yes, yes, no one likes the icky stuff... Yessss... A perfect world... Sounds magical!..."

"It would be so very DULL if your journey ended so easily... Instead, it ends with...magic!"

"It is truly enchanting to finally meet my hapless victims."

"You must be Bowser. I knew the moment I saw the flailing nubbins you call arms."

"Well met, lady. Your beauty is as refreshing as a slap to the face on a crisp winter day!"

"At last, the hero... I know of you from the festival of hair that dances upon your lip!"

"Now we must duel, like two gleaming banjos on a moonlit stoop!"

"Can you pierce this...illusion?"

"Your blows are like miniature jackhammers wielded by tiny, angry road workers!"

"The next time we meet, you will feast on a deadly eight-course meal!"

"I am not violent by nature, you know. I'd prefer to settle this peacefully, in fact."

"Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Again, for dramatic effect! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA."

"You've proven to be worthy foes in the past, so I'm not going to make it easy."

"I'm saying that you no longer have value to me, so I'm ending your games."

"And so I strike, like an unseen dodgeball at an echoing gymnasium!"

"Ciao!"

The above text is from the Super Mario Wiki and is available under a Creative Commons license. Attribution must be provided through a list of authors or a link back to the original article. Source: https://www.mariowiki.com/Dimentio

(A:N) If you want to share any theory that you have had, let me know in the comments and I will rate your theory in a part of this book. Bye!

#spm #super paper mario #dimentio #my researches #MarioWiki

[qserasera]

#i feel like lee sookyung would be even MORE mocking and funny when news is that kdj is yjh's right hand man (via @righteousenjoymentofthunder)

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

enjoy this crackfic snippet based off the idea of a darker AU where yoo joonghyuk takes the absolute throne, and kim dokja ends up as his consort/right-hand man/advisor (im assuming in this canon-divergence AU that the scenario Catastrophe of Floods happens before the War of Kings to test out each king's strength or something; yjh speed-runs their established relationship development once kdj is back as a result :))

(i'm not going to write any more of this, so if anyone wants to use the above AU premise as a fic idea/ fanart thing, go Wild; would be nice if there was a link to the original post with the AU idea tho )

*using name spellings from my friend's summation, instead of the other variations {{ Now with an AO3 crosspost Here}} title: axis mundi rating: T words: 1,196 pairing: yoo joonghyuk/kim dokja "They're waiting inside," the woman with the sword says, to the masked figure.

The masked figure nods. Hears the tent flap flutter shut behind her, as she strides forward.

She stops and turns her head, assessing the room around her.

A contradiction in character. A polarity to be pondered--but one so balanced, it seemed to converge together to one perfect point.

The tent, though spacious, was a far too humble backdrop to serve as a royal hall.

One side, to her right, is sparse. Nothing more than a single sword rack marks out the space; a clean stroke of calligraphy against white paper.

The side to her left leans towards unruliness, moreso than the right. Papers scrawled in ink and scribbles flock over a long side-table. A tray, empty of any food, leans precariously on one corner.

A janggi board sits askew over one of the papers (a surprisingly old-fashioned choice for planning scenarios, she assumes; could she attribute it to that person's influence?). Next to it, a half-open book, laid upside down.

There are other smaller tables around, below the level of the dais.

Above everything else, the chairs at the center—one throne in particular, with a smaller chair on equal level besides it—loom large with their presence.

As did the Status of their occupants.

The one in white stands first. Rocks once on his heels, before setting his hands inside his jacket pocket.

"Lee Sugyeong," he says. He offers a smile. Perfunctory and polite, crescent-thin. "Mother. Why have you come?"

"Information," Lee Sugyeong says. Removes her mask, the wood of it smooth in her fingertips.

Everyone always said that Kim Dokja had inherited her eyes. Bright, when in good humor or with delight. And in other times, too many times—opaque as one-way mirrored glass, save for glints of light as his thoughts tumbled over each other, sharp and sharper.

"And to see the new Absolute King, of course," Lee Sugyeong says. A nod to the one behind Kim Dokja.

Yu Junghyeok stands to his feet from his throne. Fluid and swift, a shadow in motion. A presence that could not be ignored. Power rolls off of him, palpable as the bright shine of a strong sword.

The new Absolute King. Her son's protagonist; his hero.

And now, if rumors could be believed....She turns her gaze back to her child—the man in the white coat, fingers turning in his pockets. [The Fable, 'Kingmaker of a Thousand Strings' is continuing its storytelling] [The Fable, 'Cherished Consort of the Conquering King' is continuing its storytelling]

"Consort?" Lee Sugyeong raises a brow.

The cool line of her son's brow twitches. "Bihyung said even if it was a typo, it couldn't be changed once recorded in the system."

Lee Sugyeong opens her mouth to ask more, but Kim Dokja cuts her off with a wave of his hand.

"Better to talk if we're seated, I suppose. We don't have coffee. Tea will have to do." There's a hand, curling in over an elbow. The hem of a dark sleeve over white fabric, Kim Dokja's shoulders easing at the touch.

Yu Junghyeok, the Absolute King, speaks for the first time. "Mind the leaves." Kim Dokja's brow wrinkles. His voice turns light, lilting. "Even if I burned them, didn't you just say you would buy more for me, last time, Junghyeok-ah? Is the Conquering King going back on his words?"

The Absolute King tilts his head, but lets Kim Dokja go without further complaint.

He turns back to Lee Sugyeong, tips his chin in a rough motion towards one of the chairs by an empty table.

Lee Sugyeong shakes her head as she sits.

Well. It wasn't like she hadn't been warned about Yu Junghyeok's manners.

The silence that passes has as much warmth as a mountain blizzard.

Yu Junghyeok doesn't seem nearly as interested in finding out any information the King of Wanderers would have as he did in following around Kim Dokja's movements with his gaze.

She resists the urge to lift her hand, and rub away the wrinkle she could sense forming between her brows.

What sort of complications had her son gotten himself into, to invoke such a troublesome devotion from an equally troublesome man?

Kim Dokja returns with a tray, the teapot and small cups.

The Conquering King lifts the tray from Kim Dokja's hands without a word, setting it at a center. His wrist flips over the small cups, as if laying out cards.

The color is a light pale green in the cups. Faint notes of grain in its steam.

Kim Dokja's right hand rests against the table, his index finger tapping a three-note rhythm against the wood. He lifts his eyes to her, expecting her to speak.

So Lee Sugyeong does.

"The loyal hound, following behind the heels of the Conquering King. Was this everything you had wished for once, child?"

"Ah, well—I'm not following him, exactly—" Yu Junghyeok snaps his gaze upwards, his expression dark. Not at Kim Dokja—at Lee Sugyeong.

"Not a hound, nor a follower." He lowers a teacup in front of Kim Dokja, setting his hand down. Close enough to pin down the hem of Kim Dokja's sleeve. "Kim Dokja is my companion."

Kim Dokja nods. Again, a collected composure. Again, his eyes calm, steady as an undisturbed lake.

"You've met him now, Mother. And have seen me, besides. If there is other information you are looking for, you can leave it to us through the usual processes—"

Lee Sugyeong tips her head back, her eyes considering as she watches Kim Dokja, as he lets his words unroll from his tongue with a frightening ease, swifter than the arrows of a master archer.

"I wonder, " she says idly, "Is your bark more terrifying, or his bite?"

"Forgive us if you find our hospitality is lacking." The switch in tone from the Conquering King is also something that prickles of danger. Something he learned from Kim Dokja, in turn, she would guess. "King of wanderers."

Yu Junghyeok is holding out one of the filled teacups with both hands towards Lee Sugyeong. She takes it, resting the bottom of the cup on her palm, her other fingers holding onto the rim.

Then a pause, before a merciless blow from Yu Junghyeok. "Or would sieomeoni be more appropriate?"

At his shoulder, Kim Dokja makes a cut-off sound like a penguin choking on a fishbone, and slams a hand down on the table as he stands.

"Yu Junghyeok!"

"Kim Dokja," the Conquering King parrots back. For someone who has seen all manner of shocking things since the start of the scenarios, this nears the most shocking of them all. The lazy indulgence in the Conquering King's eyes. One of his hands tugs at the ends of a white jacket's belt at Kim Dokja's waist, wrapping the end of it loosely around his wrist.

"Sit," he says, in a voice that allows no argument. "You should at least finish your tea."

If she had a jot less of self-control, she might very well have dropped her cup.

One of Lee Sugyeong's masked guards a short distance away, puts her hand under her chin, and says quietly, but not quietly enough for Lee Sugyeong to miss hearing: "Sieomeoni? Or would Queen Dowager be more appropriate? Wait, no, what would be the right term...?" Notes *Sieomeoni - 시어머니 (mother-in-law) *Another video on family terms

#joongdok #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #yoo joonghyuk #kim dokja #orv fanfic #absolute throne AU #words words words #uhhhh...crackfic #have fun reading this SKDJFSLKJDF

[fantasyfantasygames]

Scramble World

Scramble World, Jenny J. Jensson, 2011

Scramble World is an extremely badly named RPG with a fairly generic premise and fantastic execution.

The titular world is one of those weird mixed-up dimensions where dozens of different worlds have crashed into each other for unknown reasons. You play characters from different RPGs, teaming up to prevent catastrophes or at least be there to help afterward.

The setting is like Torg, but without our world as the base and without the cosms having well-defined boundaries. It's like Rifts but again without our world as the base, and with all the most flavor-packed parts of each worldbook crammed into an area the size of Pennsylvania. And with less racism. It's a world whose major powers did not evolve in each others' presence, so their mutual existence explicitly does not need to make sense. Scramble World is in constant catastrophe and will be until the sky stops being red and worldbergs stop crashing through the bleed.

Remember We Were The First, where the alien species were all randomized in ways that made sense together? Well, here your character sheet is randomized. I don't mean that you roll for your stats, no, I mean you roll to see which stats you get. You get pieces of the character sheet, suggested locations to place them (you can change those), and half-pages of rules that connect to them.

One character might end up with a standard-six-stats block that goes 3-18, an extensive skill list, and a set of emotional attributes that trigger XP conditions. Someone else might have the same stats but they go -2 to +4, a set of Apocalypse World style moves, some Merits and Flaws, and a Vancian spell system if you choose to pursue it. It's an amazing setup. It was clearly well-tested: there was a character generator online to speed things up for you, using the same mechanics as the random roll tables, and I've never seen it come up with a non-viable combination.

Because there are so many options, some of them boil down to the same thing under the hood. For instance, everyone ends up rolling for (or otherwise generating) a Likert-scale success measure and comparing with each other to see what the actual winner gets. Each character sheet fragment has only half a page to get in, explain things, and get out, so a lot of things have to do double duty. Kudos to Jenny for keeping this as small as possible, even if "as possible" does a lot of lifting in that sentence.

There are lots of "world fragments" described in the book. Out of 304 pages (in 6x9 / A5 format), they take up about 200. Each one is roughly 5 pages, with one piece of art, descriptions of their leaders and common people, a few key landmarks, and a "heroes from here are like X" section. A corebook overflow supplement ("World Omelette") adds another 20 pages of rule fragments and 60 pages of world fragments. They range from "pastiche" to "homage", but none of them feel like "ripoff".

The art is taken from a dozen different types of action-oriented RPG stock art, thrown together with slashes or tears or glitches between them. I'd like to see a version that showcases a small number of artists rather than just stock art, but it's used very well for what it is.

I've already spent a lot of words on Scramble World, so I'll stop here, but hopefully you can tell that I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended.

* For those of you who are less mathy, 1d100 has a max of 100, a minimum of 1, and an average of 50.5. All numbers are equally likely. 1d10 x 1d10 has a max of 100, a minimum of 1, but an average of 30.25. Not only is the average 20 points lower, but it's also more closely concentrated. Less than 5% of the results are 60 or above. 🌈The More You Know!⭐️

#ttrpg #imaginary #indie ttrpg #rpg #review #we heard you like randomizers #so we put some randomizers in your randomizers #so you can roll while you roll

[beebopboom]

Always an Angel, Never a Man

Intro post - where we discussed some more Wizard of Oz parallels and some of the title sequence

Now though we are going to dive deeper in the character that is the Metatron, and for that we are going to be going into The Book of Enoch and who he is as an angel - at least for this part

Background info

I've said this before but I’ll reiterate here - yes I know that Neil has said…somewhere that the Metatron has always been an angel in reference to someone asking about Enoch - but I don't think we can throw all the books away especially when it seems ideas have been pulled from them.

This actually started out as a question of whether or not the Metatron had come down to Earth and paraded around as Enoch to further his agenda - and well, it was a start.

So for the most part there seems to be two explanations for the origins of the Metatron - one: he was always an angel - two: he was the human, Enoch who was then turned into the Metatron. Each of these versions vary from religion to religion but for the most part that’s the gist of it

ha yeah right you know me time for probably unnecessary long explanations to the best of my ability

Disclaimer (I guess): These explanations are not going to stick to just one religion and are going to be summaries to the best of my ability - summaries are the devil how tf do people do this all the time

Also this is quite long - it took me about ten minutes to read through

The Metatron

The Voice of God, King of Angels, Prince of Divine Presence, Prince of the World, Prince of the Countenance, lesser YHWH, Angel of the Veil

Just some of the titles that have been attributed to the archangel known as Metatron - the list could go on

Created before or along side fellow archangels - including Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel - he is considered to be above them and the one they defer to. He sits at the hand of God as their scribe and is one of the few angels able to see beyond the veil God sits behind, able to look upon and hear God. He is said to have immense Power and Wisdom

His main job is to write down the good deeds of both Heaven and the Earth and record those in the Book of Life. He is said to have connections to both the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life therefore having a special interface between the two realms, physical and celestial - he is a bridge between God and humanity. He is a patron angel of children, giving them the knowledge they had not received and can be said to have been the angel who led the people of Israel through the wilderness. He is in charge of guiding the souls ascending to Heaven.

He is often attributed to roles God, Jesus, and even the Archangel Michael has had - to the point where there is a story of Rabbi Elisha calling out that there were two powers in Heaven and the Metatron is punished by 60 fiery lashes and unable to sit in Gods presence again for not correcting the assumption

Which leads us to the other origin story for him and that is-

Enoch

Now he has one mention in the Bible in the book of Genesis and it is only to say he no longer walks among men because God took him. This then spawned the Book of Enoch - which is really three books. Among other stories that I will get into later - it is the story of a man that was so righteous God took him so he didn’t experience death and made him an angel with all the same roles as we just went over.

This book covers things such as the concepts of fallen angels, a Messiah, Resurrection, the Final Judgement, and a heavenly kingdom on earth

………we aren't going to talk about the Nephilim

But there are these angels called the Watchers who have banded together and turned away from God. Enoch is shown the destruction and knowledge these angels have put upon humanity and shown the four archangels and their task to go about fixing the Earth. Enoch is then tasked with telling the Watchers that they shall have no peace or forgiveness for sin. He then goes on to see the universe - the Earth, the cosmos, and both Heaven and Hell - guided by angels. He sees the fiery pit that is where the Fallen are held and the river where all the dead souls await Judgement. He is shown the cornerstone of Earth and the pillars(mountains) of Heaven, and on the highest one sits the throne of God. He is told the secrets of the stars and is shown the hierarchy of Angels. 

He goes on a few journeys through the Heavens and eventually turned into the angel Metatron - which some would say this is a reversal of the Fall of Man, where Enoch is given that “spark" back. Upon reaching the 6th sphere of Heaven the angels call out to God asking why he has been brought to Heaven and God answered that he was righteous and worth the rest of the people - this is placed in flood times I forgot to mention

But why is any of this important? Well we are working with around 10 minutes of screentime people - crumbs I tell you, crumbs.

What really got this going though was Metatron saying this when referring to his outfit and corporation

"This calls for much less attention, though”

This implies the Metatron knows how to blend in - with humans and angels……and demons

But particularly with humans - further proven with the line

"I've ingested things in my time, you know”

Whether or not this is true he is really pushing this in front of Aziraphale and Crowley - clothes and food wonder why - it’s almost like it’s reminiscent of another conversation, one between Aziraphale and Gabriel back in season one at the Sushi restaurant.

Anyway though - the Metatron may not have had the transformation from Enoch but the story is still relevant to who he is as a character - it’s actually a great combination of the two

In season one he only appears as a floating head but I want to start with right before he appears

Four lights come down and four pointed stars start to appear

The thing is I think these are meant to represent our archangel council

The number four and its connection to the Metatron has been sitting in the back of my head for a while now - it's a common grouping in good omens with the horsepeople, the them, the angels, and the demons - but I think it's also a call back to Enoch and the four archangels that guided him, here me out - I mean it’s four colored lights surrounded by stars cmon

The only one missing is Raphael. In season one he is replaced with Sandalphon - who has a special connection to the Metatron with a similar origin story as Enoch and is said to be his twin brother. In season two he is replaced with Saraqael who is also mentioned in the Book of Enoch, one of the only places to do so.

This council though is the last stop before reaching the Metatron - so they have to come first. Four angels at the trial and four (active) angels when he appears in the bookshop. Sensing a theme of needing four angels.

Aziraphale then asks if he is God which is quickly corrected by the Metatron saying he is only the voice and to speak to him is to speak to God which then Aziraphale calls him a presidential spokesperson - and yeah that all tracks for what we know to be his role, just no mention of the other things he is in charge of

Which let’s take a quick break to point out that the Metatron is supposed to guide souls into Heaven - Heaven is very much empty, where are you taking them our dark clothed angel hmmm?

Season two though we really get a look into his character

In the trial we get to see a bunch of floating heads and yet his is still different, as he has no body. He is still concealed with no corporation - behind that curtain

Now we have two instances of this both in Heaven and Earth - not something we see with anyone else who all have a corporation to move about - besides when Aziraphale gets discorporated but even then he is still shown with his whole see-through body. So here is that special interface playing out - his way of showing his position off and maintaining an air of mystery

An interesting thing to note during his speech is him saying that for one prince of heaven to be cast down to hell makes for a good story - in the habit of telling stories about fallen angels there Metatron?

Now we’ve analyzed the coffee shop scene to death and I don’t particularly have anything to add so we are just going to keep truckin

But the bookshop - the bookshop tells us so much.

He walks in and hardly anyone recognizes him - only Crowley and Saraqael. And this makes sense, he’s in a corporal form - out from behind the curtain. The thing that made him special, that put him above other archangels - he’s removed it. They’ve probably never felt his full essence and it’s not like it’s going to set off alarm bells when they are the same rank as you, essentially. Then Crowley describes him in terms he knew Aziraphale (and others) would recognize - finally cluing everyone in 

But why Crowley and Saraqael? What makes them special?

I’ll admit I don’t have a clear answer for Saraqael - for why they are different. Only a theory that they are one of the angels that he has keeping an eye on the angelic deeds he was told to keep track of - perhaps even the corporations that are being used, when one is needed and whatnot

Crowley though is a Fallen Angel - the series goes through great lengths to stress this point - this term. You may remember that this is the term used in Enoch to describe the Watchers. The group of angels that turned away from God and Enoch then had to inform them of their fate.

It’s been sprinkled in throughout the series that Crowley only ever asked those “damn fool” questions and went his “own way” with hints that those questions were never asked to God. Which leaves the Metatron. The Metatron who Crowley has seen.

"Oh I know you. Last time I saw you, you were a big, floating giant head, mind.”

The last time implying there was a Before - before the beginning perhaps.

So let’s say God gives this criteria of what qualifies as a rebelling angel which then the Metatron is supposed to carry out the acts of punishment - except he’s an angelic scribe not a fighter so he gives this confrontation job to fellow archangels, let’s say Michael, and tells them this what God told them to do, while he works on the way to make it actually stick - through the Book of Life and finally activating the threat of this book by crossing the angels out causing them to lose their names, their status, their place in paradise

and then comes in this pretty high ranking angel, a prince perhaps, asking these questions that just happen to fit into this criteria but different in the way that they don’t want it all to end and you still turn him away

(I’m probably going to do a whole other thing about the connection between Crowley and the Metatron but for the sake of not derailing this post even more I’m just going to move on)

The Book of Life - The Metatron is said to be the angel that writes in it - records all the names of the beings doing good deeds in both Heaven and Earth. He hears all, sees all, and he’s going through past exploits. And yet has only just recently made a move - he truly is a King

He immediately calls Michael out for their “you’ll be erased from existence” spew saying they don’t have the authority for that and sending them away - implying he does have the authority and he’s here to offer a way for that not to happen**

And here on out we get to see some interesting characteristics. The Metatron has always been one to offer shallow praise - even back in season one - and he is shown to be openly revered and feared. He has this all seeing - big brother affect on all the angels. He is said to see everything it’s only a matter of what and when he chooses to use it. And use it well he does - he’s manipulative with praise and interest, with the knowledge he reveals. He is also in the nature to wind them up and watch them go. I’d say this is a twisted take on the Patron Angel of Children. 

So when you take out the parts of those two versions of Metatron’s backstory that we know are not canon to Good Omens and mush it all together - this could be a narrative that comes out

But I want to take a quick dip back into his clothes before rounding this off. He is dressed in darker colors, usually associated with demons, there is just no way to ignore this. An angel with duality written into their clothes - An angel that can go into Hell - An angel that is supposed to guide souls to Heaven and yet there are none but there is an overflow in Hell - An angel that created the back channels.

Now hear me out - I know we are heading into a crack theory area.

Back in season one when Michael brings forward the pictures of Aziraphale and Crowley they say they got them from the Earth observational files - something that the Metatron would be in charge of as the angel tasked with the Book of Life - and ask Gabriel to use the back channels already knowing they were going to.

Michael is the only angel we really see have any connection to these back channels, through the phone and actually going down to Hell. Michael is also very quick to take up the Supreme Archangel spot without explicit permission, a role apparently the Metatron is able to assign. It almost like the Metatron has given them special permission before….

Why would Metatron have use for those back channels though? Well gotta put those human souls somewhere, not that he particularly wants to deal the predictable and dim humans - and why not make sure all plans are running smoothly for the inevitable next War.

There is also this concept called the Humbling of the Metatron - has it already happened or is that where we are heading? All I know is we have a lying***, manipulative, exploitative Angel on our hands

and I truly think that he has made his moves and revealed his cards - it’s only putting it all together

**I really don’t think the Metatron has access to this book like he is foretold to have, like he acts like he does - at least not anymore

***When he orders the coffee he asks for a dash of almond syrup but when telling Aziraphale he says a hefty jiggle - such a weird thing to lie about there Metatron

————————————————————————

This series is mainly just going to be exploring the character that is The Metatron with pretty much every route possible. I’m not trying to say which is the correct conclusion because this character could really go in any direction. This is just for fun. I tired to get all the religious stuff as correct as possible but there is always the room for error, things I’ve missed, etc

but anyway for the next part we are going to dive into another big influence over our series and characters, as Crowley calls them - Occult Forces.

part 2 is out!!

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #good omens character analysis #good omens analysis #good omens theory #the metatron #aziraphale #crowley #archangel michael #archangel uriel #good omens saraqael #good omens metatron #metatron

[sweetestpopcorn]

one of the things i find really interesting about your au is the fact that al****t found a sense of superiority to rhaenyra because she was skinny. like because she was not curvy like rhaenyra, she was more “holy”? besides from their differences in dressing yet she also kind of judged aemma for being a twig yet aemma was still winning over alicent because she had better kinds lol

Hi there 😊 and like almost always, sorry for this delay.

So this idea is not original. In the books, Gyldayn himself as well as Mushroom do make this comparison between Rhaenyra and Alicent, saying that Rhaenyra never fully lost the weight she gained with each pregnancy and that Alicent maintained her elegant figure even after four pregnancies. The author even places doubt on how many men would fight for Rhaenyra now that her body has "thickened" after six pregnancies.

Spoiler: A LOT did.

It made sense to me that the Greens themselves would comment on this, and Alicent too, as it is made obvious in Fire&Blood that her life revolved around Rhaenyra and what she was or was not doing (and insulting her whenever she had a chance). Likewise, the Greens and Alicent would use this like the narrative does - as something to make her look superior to Rhaenyra.

It is a common theme to make a character gain weight to show a sense of "corruption" and decadence, and George has plenty of examples of uses of this theme. Conversely, maintaining one's weight, or even losing, is seen as having other concerns and plenty of times associated with a sense of holiness - George himself is guilty of doing this with a variety of characters too - of being in control. Western society sees being above weight as lacking control, being lazy, amongst other negative attributes, and being thin is associated with mostly just positive attributes. In the Catholic and Christian faiths - ones I can comment on since I was baptised as Christian and raised Catholic - gluttony is considered one of the Seven Deadly, and strongly associated with an inability to overcome temptation and suffer to bring yourself closer to God - which is a common theme in Catholicism, you have to suffer to bring yourself closer to God and the Divine.

This would be the contrast between Alicent and Rhaenyra, someone who is fully in control of herself and thus associated with positive attributes, and someone who is not in control and thus is associated with negative attributes... or this is the message the Greens and Alicent would like to pass, reality is that while, yes, Alicent likes to maintain her weight to feel superior and uses this to add to her beauty, Rhaenyra is someone who enjoys pleasure and life and who has nothing to prove, even because, she continues to be considered the most beautiful woman at court even after she stops being as slender as she was when she was a maid. Her beauty is not dependent on how thin she is, and this is just one more thing amongst a larger theme that Alicent resents her for -> that she is not held to the same standards as Alicent is and does not need to do X to get Y; and in Alicent's eyes it just adds the feeling that everything is just given to Rhaenyra even when she breaks the rules and it results in more and more hatred.

Of course that Alicent is self-serving in almost everything she does, and her opinions will change depending on what the need dictates. When it fits her being too thin is negative - as was the case with Aemma. However, we see this hypocrisy in plenty of other spheres, for instance, she fears Daemon and thinks he is another Maegor, yet her sons are just fierce and young. Even with Rhaenyra's own weight, both Aegon and Helaena are much heavier than her, yet for Alicent this is not a problem and they just have "healthy appetites". Daemon is a creep for liking virgins and cheating on his first wife and seducing Rhaenyra, yet Criston who was obsessed with Rhaenyra's purity and tried to seduce her is fine and a true knight. Obeying men is something women should do, except when she disobeys Viserys to do what she wants to do.

Thank you so much for the ask I really enjoyed answering this one 😁

PS: Please note my fics are based on the asoiaf books only and consider only the asoiaf characters, not any of the events, characters or the like from a certain lizard redacted show.

#rhaenyra targaryen #asoiaf rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #asoiaf alicent hightower #the rogue prince #the princess and the queen #fire and blood #the blacks & the greens #dance of the dragons au #popcorn answers

[lizzybeth1986]

Nadia Park: The Moral Epicenter of "Perfect Match"

Nadia has, in some ways, been a polarizing figure amongst Perfect Match stans ever since the series debuted back in 2018. A lot of us loved her spunk, spark, humour and optimism, but there were just as many who found her "annoying", looked down on her for "ditching the group" in Book 2, and dubbed her love for Steve as a " crazy obsession". Of course, there is very little that is accurate about such descriptions and there would be very little chance some in the fandom would view her this way if she were a white woman - and besides, such views entirely miss the point on why Perfect Match needed a character like Nadia.

Nadia starts out as the only member of the MC's (canonically large) family that we see, and the Park cousins often see themselves as a unit, who do most things together and look out for each other.

Her attempts to find true love through Eros, and her recommendation of their services to the MC, is what kickstarts the story, and the series itself ends with the cousins reflecting together on their experiences. She is also an artist, and seeing her beau Steve describe her work as "indescribable" is our first indicator of the Matches' most obvious flaw: that they can't interpret meaning from, or attribute emotion to, the abstract.

But over and above all else - Nadia is the eternal optimist. While in the abstract, her thoughts may seem quite morbid, at heart she is someone who believes the best of the people she meets and tends to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. This is in stark contrast to Damien, who is known for his extreme skepticism.

There are different ways Nadia's optimism is viewed throughout the story. By Damien, by the MC, by the people around her - both those who love her and those who grow to love her. Sometimes as an optimism so extreme as to be borderline ridiculous, sometimes as naïveté. But the value of the perspective she brings can only be understood when you look at the theme that is so central to the series.

What Does It Mean To Be A Person?

Simply put, Perfect Match is first and foremost about personhood, identity, and what it means to be human. It starts out with the possible premise of whether androids are human enough. Both the characters in the book as well as many readers in the fandom initially viewed the Matches as inferior to the "actual human beings" in the series, when it was running. But PM managed to turn such an idea on its head. Even now, the narrative has a deft way of making us ask questions about what personhood and senitence could mean.

Shortly after the MC discovers the truth about Hayden (PM1 Ch10), Sloane says the following about the idea of Hayden being "a machine": We are all machines...Your nervous system works on electrical impulses, and your emotions are regulated by chemicals in your brain. It's just that you're a machine of blood and bone, and s/he's a machine of metal and plastic.

More specifically, the core theme of PM is about how personhood doesn't emerge merely from being creatures of blood, bone and brain; how there is a lot more nuance to the concept of humanity than just that, or just emotions, or just free will. It asks us to explore what being human means to us, what it means to have a soul of one's own. It questions the logic of feeling superior to any sentient being who isn't built exactly like us.

Hayden Young - the MC's Perfect Match - is the character that embodies this core idea, with their questions, their conflicts, and their desire to know more about themselves and their world. The fact that they evolve far beyond their programming challenges the simplistic notion that they are not "person enough", that they can be more easily controlled than humans. Their true beginning as a character begins from the moment they ask "How do you open your mouth and tell someone you don't feel real?" and keeps evolving from that point.

Other Matches show elements of this internal conflict too, though not to the extent Hayden does; Steve chooses to embrace the identity Eros has given him rather than challenge it, Dames' personality stops him from attacking the MC even when Cecile overrides his programming. Harley's mission takes a backseat when they fall in love with Cecile, who is ironically the more inhuman person in that dynamic.

Keegan has their own doubts about Rowan and Cecile, and attempts to find out - through their discussion with the MC - whether the outside world is really worth trusting. All the Matches are programmed a certain way, to achieve certain goals. Yet, each of these Matches find their own ways to exercise their independence.

How does the human end of this fare? That is a question that has varying answers throughout the book, across different characters.

Thematically, Rowan and Cecile perhaps inhabit the bottom-most tier of this hierarchy. They are the villains of the series, and their defeat is the high point of the story. Their villainy manifests in two ways: first, in the way they treat the Matches, their "children" (using and abusing them, discarding them whenever convenient, gaslighting the ones who have only them to turn to, violating every possible boundary to get what they want), and second, in the way they treat other human beings.

They celebrate the pain of other people (Khaan, Damien, the guard Hayden hurts at the SF HQ) when it suits their aims (The Siren Project, mapping the human soul).

Rowan and Cecile are the direct antithesis to the idea that humans could be "superior". They are proof that a person could physically be a "human" yet completely lack humanity.

You also have characters like Damien and Alana. People who are human, people who do possess some compassion and empathy, yet allow their cynicism to justify words and acts of casual cruelty, and engage in dehumanizing the Matches. They prefer to save their empathy only for those they like.

Damien calls Hayden "nuts and bolts, computer for a brain" in a dialogue option (PM1 Ch10), and insists on throwing Hayden and Sloane back into the clutches of Eros, even though they have literally just saved the group. Alana herself actually betrays the entire group to Eros with little to no remorse, and is shown often speaking of the Matches in dehumanizing terms.

(last two screenshots are from the Jazmine Cadena YouTube channel, and only show up if you didn't save Steve in Book 1)

While some may claim that Damien and Alana's suspicions and behaviour are understandable, and the narrative itself doesn't exactly require them to apologise for their behaviour...the harm that their language and beliefs generate lasts beyond those stray moments. For instance, Hayden themselves later confirms how much they dread being viewed as an object and the level of discrimination they will face, once they reveal who they are at Winona's talk show:

Eventually, Damien and Alana are required to change their mind to an extent at least. Once they're deeply involved in exposing Eros, there are less occurances of them using dehumanizing language. They are required to at least work with both people and androids whose views differ from theirs, and tone down the hostility, to achieve their goals.

Damien's story starts with him being a man who is forever suspicious and warning his friends about the relationships they choose to be in. As the story progresses, he learns to open up more, trust his allies more, and eventually even attempts to gently talk Keegan out of killing Cecile just to save them. While he never apologizes to Hayden and Sloane - the people he had harmed - for his earlier behaviour, he still manages to look out for them.

Alana's story begins with her desire to not be tied down yet still have some sort of home base to return to, as well as deep-seated insecurities about her own worth as a partner and friend. While it isn't fully known how much she changes with regards to her attitude towards the Matches, she does take a step back in her jibes and insults, co-operating with the ones who are clear allies, and following the law when it comes to Sirens like Harley.

Sloane and Khaan navigate their relationships with the Matches very differently, having played significant roles in creating and shaping them. Sloane, in particular, believes in the rights of the Matches, and is one of their most passionate defenders. She literally quits her job and betrays her company to save Hayden, and is disgusted by Eros' abusive practices towards the Matches. Khaan is fascinated with the growth the Matches have shown since he'd left Eros five years ago, and tries his best to ensure that Rowan and Cecile cannot make assassins out of them.

However, even with all these good intentions, even Sloane and Khaan cannot fully escape some of their own deep-seated biases as human beings. In PM2 Ch 6, Sloane and Khaan speak of Hayden's many skills as if they're a science project, and when the MC adopts UWU, Sloane repeatedly compares Hayden to them. Both times, Hayden voices their discomfort, which is goes mostly ignored.

After an entire day of grappling with different issues - including Sloane and Khaan leaning into technical-speak when talking about them - Hayden calls them out on the damaging impact of their words:

As with Damien and Alana, Khaan and Sloane aren't exactly required to apologize for this either, or even view the way they speak of Hayden as a problem. But the group as a whole doesn't repeat this behaviour again, especially once the battle with Eros is really on and they learn more and more about the other Matches. Eventually, as CEOs, the two can demand for the investors to stall the Match program and replace it with a rehabilitation program for the remaining Matches. When the MC shows an interest in rehabilitating Harley, Sloane confesses that she, too, finds that the best option. If we do not win Keegan's trust, it is Sloane and Khaan's plans to help the Matches, that makes them reach out.

The MC

Where does the MC fit in all this? That depends on the player. The MC begins by viewing Hayden and Sloane with suspicion (PM1 Ch 10), and rightfully so. Both they and Nadia were the ones directly affected - as clients who were duped and later targeted by the company (who - at this point - Sloane represents).

No matter which choices one goes for when they first question Sloane, the MC begins by viewing Hayden as a con artist who betrayed them. Once Sloane explains Hayden's plight to them, the MC has the option of either viewing them with empathy and compassion (like Sloane does), or with a distinct lack of either (as Damien and later Alana do). They can also choose to either trust Sloane, or demand she earn back the trust she'd lost.

As the series progresses, the MC becomes friendlier and nicer to the two by default, and advocates for the group to rescue Hayden at the Arctic HQ. By Book 2, whether we have saved Steve or not, the MC cares about both Hayden and Steve as an integral part of their group, by default.

Dames does mention, in PM2 Ch1, that the MC's response to learning his identity was different from everyone else's. "You sat next to me and asked me if I was okay [...] you didnt treat me like...whatever I am". By default, the MC is respected and trusted in the group for their compassion by default.

With the appearance of Keegan in PM2 Ch12, the MC is truly faced with the question of how they view the Matches in general. Not just the ones they are friends with/in love with - but the ones they have seen only in passing, the ones they have never met...the ones they have never built any sort of relationship with. The narrative treats this scene as a turning point for the MC - their response to Keegan dictates whether Keegan's flawed worldview (fed by Eros) will change. It dictates how they will act in the series finale - leaving Cecile to the authorities rather than killing her themself all boils down to whether they trust the MC enough to accept their sound advice.

Emphasizing the rights of every Match allows Keegan to learn to trust the outside world; admitting the MC only gives a damn about the Matches they know personally only confirms Keegan's biases. Even if you're a player who is vehemently anti-robot and would like to refer to the "Match" characters in the story as objects...the narrative itself encourages you to think otherwise, or to at least pretend to do so to save your own skin. It is, eventually, the MC who is credited with encouraging certain Matches (like Dames and Keegan) to trust more human beings and hope for a better future.

But How is Nadia the Moral Center of This Book?

So far, we've spoken about the different approaches the other characters (esp the LIs) take to the question of the Matches. We have the skepticism of Damien, Alana's prejudices, and the tendency to be careless with one's language in Khaan and Sloane. In the middle of all this, the MC is allowed to choose which view they align with more (unless it's Rowan and Cecile's). So where does Nadia fit in here?

To understand this, we must go back to the role Rowan and Cecile have to play in the story. As mentioned earlier, they are the villains that the group is meant to ultimately defeat. There is nothing particularly redeemable about them, even in playthroughs where the MC can turn on the charm and flirt with Cecile. Both of them are arrogant, power-hungry, and consistently look down on both Matches and other humans alike.

They also completely, and consistently, lack empathy. No matter who is harmed in the wake of their deranged experiments. We are shown, time and again, a Rowan and Cecile whose victims are left bleeding, hurt, and traumatized - and never given even basic medical attention (eg. Cecile celebrates the advancement of the Siren Project when a Match breaks Khaan's arm, and again when Hayden hurts the human Eros guard at the SF HQ... instead of actually calling for a medic to treat them). In fact, the more pain they inflict, the happier Rowan and Cecile feel.

You cannot find a more direct contrast to this mindset than Nadia's. Not only is she someone with an inherently nurturant personality, someone who protects the people she loves - she is also incredibly empathetic. Very often in the story (especially Book 1) we find her constantly regulating the group's emotional responses. When they seem morose and pessimistic, she demands for them to enjoy the moment. (Some good examples of these are the screenshots below and when she forces everyone out of their "sulky pity party" post the humiliation on Winona's show):

But when the group tries (unconvincingly) to maintain a sense of calm in an abnormal situation, Nadia is emphatic on being honest about the gravity of what's happening:

She also has a keen sense of intuition. When Steve goes missing, with a harsh note indicating that he is leaving her, Nadia is insistent that the real situation can't be as simple. She even formulates an "evidence board" to convince the MC and Damien that they should investigate his disappearance further:

The most obvious conclusion the Park cousins can draw, is that Steve wasn't who Nadia thought he was and had unceremoniously dumped her. But it is Nadia who takes the initiative to look back further on the experiences she has had so far with him, and understand that something doesn't quite add up. It is her insistence that gets Damien and the MC to search further and find Gary, that makes Eros have to recall the model, that eventually gives Steve and Nadia a second chance as a couple (either at Arctic HQ if you save him, or in Tokyo if you don't). The fandom often called this Nadia's "weird obsession", but a desire to not want to give up on others is a trait entirely unique to her and isn't just restricted to Steve.

Nadia is also unapologetic about how she feels or how deep those feelings go - nor does she take half-measures when it comes to protecting Steve. Especially once Eros demands for Hayden and Steve to be given to them (or, in the story where one doesn't save Steve at the Arctic HQ - where the group manages to take Steve with them in Tokyo), she looks out for Steve and makes more efforts to understand his needs. Her brief departure from the group (after funding most of their travel and staying expenses) is both an attempt to return to her job and to allow Steve the space to embrace the identity that Eros gave him. She ensures that he isn't too deeply involved in the fighting and investigating that the rest of the group does. She also understands that while the group can still operate pretty well without her, Steve still needs her support more, to rebuild his own life.

Both Nadia and Steve bear scars from what Eros did to them in Book 1, and - depending on when Steve is saved from Eros - seek to navigate their relationship differently from how they did in the beginning. You will notice that in PM1 (esp Chs 3-5), their relationship progresses at a rate that alarms everyone (including Eros, who note that it is going "ahead of timeline"). By Ch 3 they have moved in together, and by Cedar Rest, Nadia drops heavy hints about being interested in marriage.

Nadia learns and grows from this experience. Once she reunites with Steve, she doesn't take initiative herself to pop the question, instead allowing Steve to determine the pace he is more comfortable with for their relationship. If he was part of the group at the end of PM1, the relationship proceeds at a much more relaxed pace in the second book, culminating in a wedding proposal from him in the finale (he also seems hopeful about the prospect mid-book, responding to a speculation that they may get married in PM2 Ch 7 with "never say never"). If not, they have to rebuild that relationship from scratch.

In a lot of ways, the experience of losing Steve and then understanding who he truly is, makes her not only protective of him but also determined not to repeat what could be past mistakes ("rushing" the relationship, asking questions for which Steve may not necessarily have the answers).

At no point in the story does Nadia ever judge Steve, either before she knows the truth or after Sloane confesses. She senses deeper issues when he leaves, and is reluctant to hate on him as a person even after she confronts Gary. Once she discovers the truth from Sloane, she wastes no time in viewing him as a victim of this situation (which he is!).

On its own, this is great. But what perhaps makes Nadia unique from the other (esp human) characters, is that her empathy isn't restricted to those she is directly attached to, and she doesn't wait to have a deeper connection with Match before wholeheartedly supporting their rights and defending them.

The MC can choose to say similar things and act in a similar manner. But if the player has them respond otherwise, it is Nadia who consistently argues for treating the Matches like the sentient beings...for the persons...that they are. It is Nadia who consistently believes they are worthy of respect and deserve their rights. Anf It is Nadia who is, by default, the most powerful counterpoint to the twisted beliefs of Rowan and Cecile.

Even before Sloane can properly explain Hayden's predicament to a suspicious MC, it is Nadia who realizes that Hayden (and by extension Steve) is innocent. It is Nadia who stands up for Hayden against Damien and Alana, and agrees first to support them. Among the entire group, she is the one who most consistently calls out her friends when they dehumanize and objectify a Match. Even Steve, the Match she loves, is expected to understand this and lend his support to fellow Matches. If he does seem to falter in doing so, she doesn't hesitate to remind him.

This is an approach that most of the group, and most of the "good" characters in the story, follow by the end of the book - but it is clearly Nadia who follows it first, and exemplifies this respect and sensitivity for all sentient beings best.

If Rowan and Cecile are utterly devoid of empathy and humanity, Nadia is the one who is full to the brim with it.

The MC can be credited with changing their minds if they insist that every Match deserves the same respect, the same rights as any human being. But it is Nadia who - in every way, and in almost every scene she is a part of - truly embodies this principle.

At a very important turning point in PM2, Keegan can ask the MC why they care so much about the Matches, why they put themselves at risk for them. The narrative indicates to us that our response changes the way Keegan (who later becomes a powerful union leader for the surviving Matches in the series finale) views not only us but humans as a race. And if the MC treats them with respect and compassion, it allows them to break out of Eros' brainwashing and gaslighting and accept a newer perspective on the world.

--

Tagging @nadiaparkappreciationweek and @sazanes for NPAD!

#nadia park #perfect match #nadiaparkappreciationday #NPAD #NPAD 2023 #lizzybeth1986 #content: meta #content: essay

[adarkrainbow]

The Yaga journal: Baba Yaga in the lubok

Our next article in the Yaga journal (again, I skip a few which are honestly no fun or not interesting to translate) is “Baba Yaga in the luboks” by Galina Kabakova.

There has been research about Baba Yaga ever since the first publication of Russian fairytales. People kept debating the origins and symbolism of the character: is she tied to an initiation ritual, with death or birth, as Vladimir Propp said? Or is she rather a figure of the earth, or fertility? But all those questions are based on the analysis of folktales and oral fairytales. This article rather proposes to take a look at the folk-iconography of Baba Yaga, to study the way the character was drawn and illustrated to explore new roads and theories about the character - more specifically the article studies the Russian luboks of the 18th and 19th centuries.

I) Baba Yaga and her companions

When it comes to studying “popular illustrations”, two drawings keep popping up. One is “Yaga-baba goes to fight the crocodile”. The second is “Yaga Baba with a moujik, an old bald man, they jump while dancing”. Both images date from the 1760s and appear in the catalogue of Dimitri Rovinski. 

The first picture appears in two different versions. The first has an inscription saying “Yaga-Baba goes to fight the crocodile, riding a pig, with a pestle in her hand. They have a bottle of wine under the bush.”

The second version has a different inscription: “Baba Yaga wooden-leg goes to fight the karkadil while riding a pig, armed with her pestle. There is wine.”.

These two pictures are fascinating because they depict a character ignored by Russian folklore: the crocodile. The book of Konstantine Bogdanov “Crocodiles in Russia” talks about the place this animal has in the Russian culture, and it insists on its “exotic” connotations. The korkodil or karkodil appears in medieval bestiaries and symbolizes either the devil, either hypocrisy (hence the expression “crocodile tears”). However these bestiaries depict the crocodile as he appears in real life, while the luboks rather paint a much more fantastical creature: it has the mane and legs of a lion, the tail of a wolf, the claws and beard of the devil. 

Beyond the two versions of the Yaga with the crocodile, we also have the famous depiction of the Yaga with the Moujik: 

This other companion of Baba Yaga, the moujik (note: in French it is “moujik” but in English I guess it is spelled “mujik”, the same way we call “loubok” the thing English spell as “lubok”), with his bagpipe, is dressed like a true peasant, with typical Russian shoes - the lapti. His bald head implies he is old. The Baba Yaga is represented very differently from one image to the next, and two depictions can even contradict each other - but all in all, she usually doesn’t look like the way she is described in fairy tales. The famous “bone leg” does not appear. She looks like a woman, but with exaggerated traits. She has a big, large nose that is curved upward while also being hooked, and in the three pictures above we see her enormous tongue coming out of her mouth. Plus, the dancing Baba Yaga is depicted as a hunchback. 

In these engravings, Baba Yaga is dressed like rich Russian women of the 16th and 17th centuries. Her outfit is similar to the letnik, with embroidered sleeves and belts. She wears an earring and a necklace, indicating again a hgher status. Her cap is the one of a married woman (or of a widow) - but she is sometimes depicted with her hair uncovered and untied (such as in the second picture), which was thought to be indecent at the time. The Baba Yaga of the images 2 and 3 wear the lapti, just like the peasant-mujik, which creates a strange incoherence in her outfit, mixing rich and poor elements. In fact, some people point out that, with her cap, she looks like she is wearing a traditional Finnish woman outfit. 

Just as interesting are the attributes of the Baba Yagas. The mortar of the broom that she uses in fairytales are absent here, and she rather rides a pig or a boar. In the two first picture, she is seen holding both feminine and masculine items: the comb (feminine) and the axe (masculine). We also see the pestle she holds in her hand. In fact, the pestle used as a weapon in found in other luboks - and it is used by Baba Yaga in fairytales (for example in “Fedor Vodovitch and Ivan Vodovitch”, she hits an old man with her pestle). The pestle is also the weapon of the wicked woman in the lubok - in a book of the 18th century we find a popular image depicting an evil wife chasing her husband out of the house, holding in her hands a pitcher and a pestle. 

The strange couple formed by the crocodile and Baba Yaga has other interesting attributes: the bottle of wine near the crocodile, and a little boat that appears on the water. The symbolic landscape is also formed of flowers and branches - to signify a springtime flora. These depictions have been a mystery for the universities since more than a century. If the Baba Yaga of the luboks looks so little like her fairytale self, isn’t it rather an entire other character hiding under the name of the witch? 

Dimitri Rovinski was the first to theorize that these images might be a political satire of the first Russian emperor, Peter the Great, and his wife. The boat would symbolize the passion the tsar had for the marine, which led him to build a new sea-side capital (Saint Petersburg). The Finnish outfit of the woman would be a reference to the origins of his second wife, the empress Catherine the First. The wine would denounce their known love for alcohol, and the marital position of the wife would be to evoke their tumultuous relationship. Rovinski suggested that these drawings and engravings were created by “old believers” that had a strong hatred of the imperials as their sworn ennemy, and thus called the emperor names such as “cat” and “crocodile”. Other popular images could be interpreted as a satire against Peter the Great: such as the cat in “Kazan’s cat, or The funeral of the cat by the mice”. 

This interpretation was repeated several times by several searchers, and is still used to this day. But it opens quite a few questions. If the crocodile is indeed Peter, what would the beast’s large beard means, since Peter was known to hate and forbid beards? On top of that, the engravings we have come from the 1760s, and we have no proof that the originals were created half a century before. Diane Farrel in “Popular prints in the cultural century of the eighteenth-century Russia”, had doubts about the political context of thos pictures. She suggested that maybe the characters were tied to a carnivalesque world. Konstantin Bogdanov also insisted on a value of “pure entertainment” for those drawings, that are part of a long tradition of comical scenes depicting drunks and brawlers. These three engravings also seem to be part of an anti-feminist theme, to not say misogynistic, depicting women (especially young wives) as always trying to humiliate and abuse their husbands - sometimes this satire was aimed more precisely at foreign women. 

II) Searching for the origins of Baba Yaga

When the author of the article prepared an anthology of etiological fairytales (it was published in 2005 as “Contes et légendes de Russie”, “Folktales and legends of Russia”), they found a very short tale recorded in Eastern Russia - in the valley of Kama, a region noticeable by a high percentage of “old-faith believers”. The story goes as such: A devil decided to create Baba Yaga. He gathered the twelve most wicked old women, and he cooked them in his cauldron. He tastes the result, then made them cook a little more. He tasted a second time, and he sneezed so hard all the door flew open. He ate a spoon of the brew, and spit. From the cauldron, Baba Yaga then sprung forth. 

While the text appears in the Index of fairytale-types of Western Slavic tales (under the number SUS 1169), it stays an isolated phenomenon because no other version was recorded in Russia, and it is not present in either Bielorussia or Ukraine. It was after publishing this text that the author of the article discovered a lubok page, made of eight mages, forming a sequence depicting the creation of Baba Yaga. The fairytale quoted above seems to be an abbridged version of the tale depicted by the lubok.

This lubok is quite rare, as it does not appear in the catalogue of folk-images of Dimitri Rovinski. One copy of it is kept at the Museum of religious history in Saint-Petersburgh, another at the National Library of Saint-Petersburgh, and a final at the National Library of France. It is this last copy that was reproduced above, in the monography of Catherine Claudon-Adhémar, “Imagerie populaire russe” (Russian folk-imagery), 1977. Here is the full text of the legend:

Origins and formation of Baba Yaga. The devil in chief, or leader of all devils, while being a great chemist, decided to invent an evil that would be greater than his own power. In this goal, he cooked twelve wicked women, because physics taught him that it was the best and most profitable way. After mathematic calculations, he understood that each wicked woman contains bad alcohol, compared to a regular devil, in the proportion of seven against twelve, and against his own person a seventh. By cooking the particles of the bad alcohol he set them free with the steam, but since he had nothing to contain them, he caught them with his mouth and swallowed them. At the end of the cooking, there was in the cauldron only burned matter ; he spit in the cauldron, and the alcohol mixed with the saliva of the devil fell onto the ashes, and all of this fusing together, created Baba Yaga.The devil considered her to be the ultimate evil, and he placed her in a jar, wanting to create afterward a dozen more Baba Yaga like her, and by cooking them together greating an even more perfect evil. But by weighing the evil that she contained, and comparing it to the evil present in the high-society women, he realized, disappointed, that these ladies, even without cooking, were not outweighed by her. This made him so angry that, out of dejection, he threw the jar onto the ground, and it broke in a thousand pieces, and the legs of Baba Yaga were ripped and broken. This made the devil return to his senses: understanding he was freeing the world of a great evil, he quickly gave to Baba Yaga legs of bones, he taught her wtchcraft, and so she could leave hell he gave her for a drive an old iron mortar that was laying around in his laboratory, and an iron pestle to lead the mortar - and she is still using them to this day to travel the world, doing evil wherever she goes. 

This is a clearly satirical text that insists on the “scientifical” aspect of the creation of Baba Yaga, invoking mathematics, chemistry and physics. But it is clear that this lubok was clearly aiming to mock the wickedness of women. Even though for once, upper-class women are more clearly the target. This satire can have roots in a Western model: there is the famous Lustucru series in France where the smith by the same name tries to re-shape women, and he even uses an alchemical still to do so. The motif of creating life reminds the homonculus of the Middle-Ages, while Baba Yaga and the upper-class woman being weighed together reminds the religious icons such as “Saint Michael and Satan weighing the souls of the sinners.” 

But there are also several motifs typical of etiological tales, such as saliva being used to create a human figure (usually the divine saliva helps build clay figurines that become the first humans). In the oral tradictions, there are tales that depict the devil as a creator: for example, sometimes he is responsible for creating the different nations. An Ukrainian tale depicts him in this role, and the story is quite similar to the one of the lubok above: the devil puts herbs and pitch in his cauldron, and cooks them. After it cooked enough, he first takes out of it an Ukrainian, then a German, then a Tatar, then a Jew - and the latter is considered by the devil as the most successful of the four. Even if this tale is supposedly etiological, we find back here the permanent trait of the devil: he is a misfortunate creator, he tries to create man but fails, or he tries to imitate the work of God but ends up creating something else entirely. And in the case of those stories, he tries to create something new that could harm much more than he does, and in the end he merely re-creates the already wicked women of the world. 

The simplicity of the drawing makes the author think that the one who created this lubok did not copy a Western engraving (unlike other lubok - such as the one of a couple fighting each other to know who is going to wear the pants). The artist is quite clumsy. The devil looks like a man, but with the typical attributes of a Russian devil: a tail, horns and a goat’s beard, rooster claws, but also wings to remember his celestial origin (this last detail is not constant in the depictions of Satan). Is the great similarity in the designs of the devil, the women and Baba Yaga an intended detail? The author rather thinks it is because of the lack of talent of the engraver. It should also be noted that Baba Yaga and the upper-class women are depictedwth a great simplity: no sign of their status, no sign of vanity. The only details that form the portrait of the wicked witch are her two legs (instead of one in the folklore) of bone, and her mortar with its pestle.

Searching for the origins of the mysterious lubok led the author of the article into the world of peddling literature, which had a heavy role in adapting and re-creating folktales. This “lubok literature” existed long before the “scientific” publication of the fairytales in the 19th century. Alexandre Afanassiev used numerous books of lubok of the second half of the 18th century, because he believed they were the closest to the oral folktales. And as such, the author managed to find the text of the lubok in a fairytale called “Tale of the sir Zaolechanine, brave in service of the prince Vladimir” which is part of the “Russian tales” in 10 volumes of Vassili Levchine (published in 1780). This text, unlike the one of the lubok, mentions the term of alchemy “caput mortuum” (mummy-brown), which allows to create the worst of all creatures, Baba Yaga:

Of the origin of Baba Yaga. The devil in chief, or the devil above all other devils, who was a great chemist, cooked twelve evil women, hoping to obtain from them an essence of evil that would outdo him in wickedness. Physics had taught him that it was the best and most profitable material. According to his mathematical operatons, each wicked women contained bad alcohol in a proportion of 7 against 22 (against a regular devil) - against him, it was an 11th, and this is why he cooked twelve. But since the still hadn’t been invented, he caught with his own mouth the alcohol particles that escaped from the steam. At the end of the cooking, was only left in the cauldron “caput mortuum”. The devil spit in the cauldron, the alcohol mixed to the saliva of the devil fell on the caput mortuum and the devil saw something that was beyond all of his expectations, as Baba Yaga appeared out of the cauldron. 

In the tale of Levchine, this text is under a drawn portrait hanging on the wall of an enchanted castle, and it ends with a warning: “This tale is told to you, o curious reader, from someone who is protecting your savior. But, as it is agreed that the mystery revealed against the will of a woman must be punished, for your disobediance be transformed into Baba Yaga”. And indeed, when the character tells of his discovery to others, he is turned into a dragon. 

III) Baba Yaga in the lubok literature

In the lubok literature, we find back the same motifs as oral tales, but some are modified, and others added. For example the motif of cannibalism: let’s take the fairy tale type ATU 327C, “The devil brings back home a child in a bag”. In the Russian version of the tale, it is always the witch Baba Yaga who captures a child and tries to cook them in her oven. In popular versions of this tale, such as in “Hansel and Gretel” of the brothers Grimm, it is the witch or her daughter or both that end up burned into the fire by the clever child. In lubok literature, things are very different. For example, in “The tale of sir Zaolechanine”, the witch not only successfully captures a six-year old child, but she also manages to roast him and eat him. The assimilation between Baba Yaga and the dragon, who is the antagonist of the hero in the tale, is also quite different from oral tradition. In “The second tale of Ivan Tsarevitch”, from the Russian Fairytales of Piotr Timofeev (1787), the dragon-king Erakski captures Maria Morevna, and then goes to war against Baba Yaga, which allows Ivan Tsarevitch to save Maria whila the dragon is away. Usually, in fairytales, it is the job of the hero to fight and kill the wicked dragon. Simlarly, in the “Tale of Leviane the brave”, from the anonymous book “The Narrator of Russian fairytales” (1787), it isn’t the hero that is asked to keep the fabulous horses of Baba Yaga, unlike in the popular fairytale “The magical horse” (ATU 302C), it is rather Kachtchej the Immortal, another fearsome antagonist, that must take on this job.

In the “Tale of sir Zaolechanine”, we also discover some “romantic” themes invented by the author: Baba Yaga adopts the female protagonist, and she falls in love with the winged dragon, who doesn’t love her back. However she visits him every day, and sometimes goes back to her house in tears, and sometimes in “great anger that always ends up in sigh”. And to end, when Baba Yaga dies, “her petty soul leaves her miserable body and falls into hell”. But it is especially in the descriptions that we find elements absent from oral versions. For example, in “The second tale of Ivan Tsarevitch”, the witch lives in a palace protected by an iron barrier - instead of a hut on top of chicken legs. In an anonymous version of “The fire-bird and the gold-mane horse”, published in Moscow in 1860, we have a description of the witch as having the head of a pig, the tail of the crow or a tail of bones” - or she has “two horns, a dog head, a goose’s nose, a tin tail”. And other times, it is written “the awful Baba Yaga with long teeth, a bone leg, a cast-iron head and a clay tail.” It must be remembered that the folkloric character of Baba Yaga is barely described, and when she is it is another set of traits that is put forward. In folklore it is her traits tied to the world of the dead or the reptile that are brought forward: she only has one leg, and it is a leg of bones (or a bony leg, aka a very skinny one). Her nose is sometimes so long it touches the ceiling. Other times, the traits described are about an hypertrophied feminity: breasts so enormous they cannot be hold in the room and overflow out of the door. Finally, there are also a few mix-and-match details, such as a nose made of iron or a face made of clay. 

To conclude this study of iconography and engraving of legends, the author says that the lubok takes the character of the fairytales, this popular character of oral tradition, not to retell its story faithfully, but to mock through it the weaknesses and flaws of women, focalizing especially on upper-class women and foreign women. Folk-imagery is thus very revealing of social, racial and gender prejudices very common at the time.

#the yaga journal #baba yaga #russian folklore #russian folktales #lubok #russian fairytales #antisemitism in fairytales #misogyny in fairytales

[black-rose-writings]

I am currently working on a short story (probably 1 or 2 chapters once it's all done - I do have it mostly figured out, I'm just not happy with the pacing and Wylan - there are some other details I'm not sure on, but those are the big ones).

Working title is "Seven for a secret" (reference to the crow counting rhyme). It's a Crows centric-story, obviously, and I'm planning on shifting POVs, though mostly told by Kaz, Nina and Kuwei.

The premise is two-fold. One, all the Crows are Grisha and two, Kaz is Aleksander's son (I have had several discussions with the lovely @stromuprisahat about it and you can find pieces of it in her Kazimir Aleksandrovich AU tag).

Pretty much entirely show-verse, though padded out with the backstory details and worldbuilding from the books.

So, Nina and Jesper remain pretty much unchanged, save for some minor adjustments to put Jesper closer to his book counterpart (and also account for the 10 years added to his life) and Nina to an actually competent spy and Grisha who knows her shit. Kuwei is also mostly the same(he didn't ask for any of this shit), and he is the least aged up of the characters, being around 19.

(I am largely basing the Crows' ages on their actor's current ages, as they do largely feel appropriate)

Kaz, as mentioned above, is Aleksander's son, and he is roughly 30 (though he is treated as looking younger) and he's a shadow summoner. I don't fully have the backstory of how he happened figured out and it's not entirely relevant to the story. His backstory remains largely unchanged, though after Jordie's death, he does end up getting in touch with Grisha, who know Aleksander - they know of each other and have exchanged some letter, but do to the litaral wall of shadows between them, they have never met in person. Kaz recieved both regular education and some Grisha training from Aleksander's contact and only ended up joining with the gangs when he was in his late teens. He was still affected by the plague, due to being weakened by wasting sickness.

Inej is in her mid 20s. She is a Squaller, though it is not known about her. She met Kaz after she managed to run away from the Menagerie, when she was about 15, at which point, he arranges for her to not have to return. Though she does recieve some Grisha training in secret at this point, she mostly relies on the two talents she is natural at and does without much effort - sound manipulation and helping her balance. She avoids the more public use of her powers, for both money and safety reasons.

Wylan is around his mid 20s and he's an Alkemi, for pretty obvious reasons. There aren't too many changes to his backstory, save for adding 10 years to his age and the adventures he had in that time. Wylan was kicked out slightly later and his dad is somewhat more reasonable without the power-trip of holding the fate of the world in his hands. I have not quite figured out how to write him, so he is mostly the sticking point right now.

And now, for Matthias. I'm still not decided if I should fully commit to him being an adult and season Drüskelle or only age him up a little and keep him an initiate. He is a Corporalnik in this story (he's untrained, but leans more to the Healer side in his natural talents). He is aware that unusual things happen around him, but he attributes them to miracles or blessings of Djel, rather than being Grisha. He has a very good intuition for where people are (through his Corporalki sense), is very liked by animals (subtle and unknowling manipulations of their bodies), seems to heal faster than others and never gets cold. He also has a natural talent for syncing his heartbeat to the heartbeat of others, making him near unfindable for Heartrenders (unless they specifically can recognize his heartbeat). And I am absolutely planning to have a scene where Nina lists all of that to him, in the assumption that he knows what he is and is just a traitor and then realizing he genuinely doesn't know what she is talking about.

It is still very much WIP, but I do have the bones and it should be shorter than the other thing I promise yall before S2 came out.

I am also still open to short story prompts and ideas.

#grishaverse #six of crows #grishaverse fanfiction

[viscountessevie]

Unladylike Lessons In Love [ARC Review]

Release Date: 30th May 2023  [16th May for my US followers/readers!] Overall Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Spicy Level: 🌶️🌶️ My Review: 

Unladylike Lessons in Love by Amita Murray will always have a special place in my heart no matter what for two reasons: 1) It is the first ARC I was approved for 2) Lila Marleigh is a brilliant Indian HR heroine! 

This novel follows our heroine, Lila Marleigh, a gambling den hostess who is the eldest daughter of an English earl and his Indian mistress. The book starts with Lila being visited by a blast from her past, Maisie whose partner, Sunil, had been wrongly accused of attacking a lady. The lady in question is the hero, Ivor Tristram’s cousin Tiffany. Lila and Ivor cross paths throughout the novel to uncover the true identity of the attacker and his motivations behind it. 

First off, I’d like to commend Amita for her characterisation of Lila. She's just about the coolest character I've read about thus far. Just from the way she carries herself, runs her salon and how there are little nods of her homeland in her life. The inclusion of Indian details in this is so seamless and made me feel very seen as a fellow Indian girl. I also found it unique that due to the way the sisters had grown up, Lila doesn’t read as the usual type of Eldest Daughter. She is very much her own person. 

Another aspect I loved was how Amita has set up Lila and her sisters’ past. I  absolutely adored the way it was written - very compelling and well done. The Marleigh sisters were shipped off to England as children after their parents' passing. When they showed up at their stepmother Lady Sarah's doorstep, Lila and her sisters bore the punishment of their Father's sins. They would do so until each one escaped that terrible household. The language used whenever their past was touched upon was beautiful. It hit right where it's supposed to hurt. It also illustrates why and how Lila became the way she is. 

What little we get of the sisters and their descriptions leaves you wanting. Anya and Mira are definitely heroine material. I am hoping this would all pay off well in the subsequent Marleigh Sisters books.

For a debut HR novel, I think it's well written and unique in the sense of historical accuracy. Amita dug into several real issues such as racism, sexism, class privilege and assault through the lens of the Regency era. She used Lila's father, Lord Marleigh, to demonstrate how white lords often had second lives and families with their foreign mistresses continents away from their first family. Maisie and Sunil were examples of Caribbean and Indian descent people respectively who worked for high society peers. Their lives were shown to be the harsh realities of the lower class at the time, and what they had to do to survive. Even Tiffany’s attack was written with such care and highlighted the complexities of assault and its aftermath. 

Each of these topics were written realistically without being overwrought. Amita certainly did not shy away from the truths that still echo through modern times now. 

The book tickled my fancy with Lila's brilliant character, the main mystery/conflict, a brilliant Act 3 that had me gasping every other page and a great host of characters in Maisie, Sunil and Lila's staff & friends. However, my main critique of the book is the chemistry between the leads was lacking at times. 

Ivor doesn't quite feel like the right fit for Lila. This can be attributed to the fact that he could have been a lot more fleshed out. Oftentimes he felt like an afterthought. The romance took a backseat to serve the mystery plot and topics mentioned ​​above that Amita wanted to bring across. Lila's feelings on her childhood trauma was also given priority which hinted at what's to come with the other sisters' backstories. (Not a bad thing, just could have been balanced more with her romance with Ivor). 

Despite Ivor not being on par with Lila, characterisation wise, I did enjoy their steamy scenes together. It built up steadily across each Act and got hotter each time. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It was great seeing an Indian heroine like myself in a genre I love so much. The secondary cast were so delightful to read about as well. They were all written with so much care and consideration. While this is my first Amita Murray book, I can see how she's transitioning from historical mystery novels to romance. She definitely played to her strengths in this novel. The historical research held up and the mystery took me for a shocking ride. Definitely recommending this for people wanting diverse characters in the HR genre who also love mysteries and plot twists. 

Amita Murray can only go up from here with this genre. I am certainly excited to see this journey over the course of the next few books in the Marleigh Sisters series.  

Thank you to HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

#NetGalley #ARC Review #Unladylike Lessons in Love #Amita Murray #Historical Romance #ARC #Unladylike Lessons In Love by Amita Murray #HarperCollins UK #HarperFiction #HR Blogging

[arcielee]

Interview With a Writer

Here is part 8 of my Interview With a Writer series with the super talented @annikin-annotates​ 💜 I am always grateful whenever a writer doesn’t mind me fangirling over their work, answering my questions, and keeping this series alive! Thank you!

You can look over the masterlist to see the other amazing authors I have spoken with. This is just a BTS of some of the talented minds on Tumblr and ao3. 💜  

Name: annikin-annotates

Story: Within a Wing Beat

Paring: Aemond x Winged!Reader   

Rating/Warning:  Death, grief, canon typical violence, blood, smut.

So, when did you start writing? I started writing when I was super young. I think the first thing I remember writing was a story for school based on Twilight when I was like eight years old? I don't even think I was old enough to watch the movie but I wrote it anyway based on vibes. But I officially started posting online when I was 11 or 12. 

What inspired the plot for Within a Wing Beat?  The plot came from a conversation I was having with a friend about the idea of a winged MC and how Aemond would interact with her. But some of the plot lines came from what I was experiencing around me at the time, in the later chapters, it deals heavily with grief due to the fact that I was going through a grieving period at the time. 

The MC was inspired by A Court of Thorns and Roses, which was a book both my friend and I were also discussing at the time. Her culture was heavily inspired by the illiryans in said book, an ancient Norse culture. I wanted to have that combination of real life and fantasy, and combining the two was such a fun experience.

Was there anything in specific that inspired your Reader portrayal? So, I feel I took a lot of myself and incorporated it into my Reader. I wanted my MC to be for those who know they wouldn't quite fit in Westeros, the ones who know they would be killed off immediately for running their mouths. 

Do you think your Reader complements Aemond? I think for Aemond and Reader it's a 'right person, wrong time' situation. Her and Aemond are the light and dark in each other, she sees the light in Aemond's darkness and he sees the darkness in her light. They complement each other, even if they don't agree all the time. 

I also wanted it to feel real, so many fics portray an idealistic portrayal of an Aemond who is kind, loving, and respectful all the time. It's simply not the case, Aemond has the ability to be vicious; he knows how to hit people where it hurts (literally and verbally). 

Both the Reader and Aemond are young, their mid teens so neither of them know what the fuck they’re doing. Never mind the looming threat of having heirs, a war, and death lurking around every corner–not to mention that Reader is trying to fit in at the same time and, unlike Aemond, she can’t hide the attribute that makes her different. 

So I think it adds a lot of pressure to the both of them, and makes it harder for them to be able to feel comfortable. Tensions are always high between them, but they both just want to love each other.

Explain your interpretation of Aemond. What drives him? Why is he the way he is in WAWB? I interpreted Aemond in the same why I did with the Reader, that he's just trying to do what he was raised to do, which is his duty. Despite the prejudice his mother had against her kind, even his own personal prejudice, he still marries her because it expected of him. 

Until that point, he only really knows demure women of the court and he struggles with a control over her. The Reader comes to the realisation that the Targaryens do not care what happens to her or her family, that it's their blood above all else. Aemond kind of tows the line between doing what is expected of him, by being with her.

Were there any other characters in your story that you enjoyed writing?   I had so much fun writing Aegon, Sigmund, and Eribus! Aegon in my mind is just trying to get by after all the things he's done and I think in a way he's trying to find redemption by helping Reader escape. That and having him being a serial dinner ruiner was so fun to write. I tried to write Sigmund as a father figure to Reader, kind of like a mirror image of what Cole was to Aemond. Last but not least, Eribus; I wrote Eribus as a very Loki-like character. Out for himself but simultaneously vying for his fathers approval.

What is your next project or will there be a sequel? I'm toying with the idea of a sequel! I'm not 100% sure I will write it though. But I do have a few things that are now in the works after being on the back burner for so long and I'm so excited to share them!

Lastly, do you have a personal favorite fanfic you want to share? The Price of Our Sins by xXRoweenaJAugustineXx [FF.net] A Girl Called Honey by @whoahoney​

#interview with a writer #iwaw8 #bts #of their brilliant writing #hotd fanfic #aemond x winged!reader

[coolcattime]

Home and Free: Chapter Two - No Matter What

Characters: Captain Capsize, Sonja Firefox, Skipper Redbeard, Jordan Captainsparklez, Tucker Jericho, Tom Syndicate, Martha the Mystic, Mot Screziato, Alyssa Countybat, Waglington, Farmer Steve, Prince Andor, Jeriah, Lady Ianite (mentioned)

Relationship: Captain Capsize/Sonja Firefox, Captain Capsize/Jordan Captainsparklez (onesided)

AO3 Link

Full Story Tag

Capsize found herself fixated on the current page of her book that she was holding in one hand as she walked, having flicked directly to her favourite part. She couldn’t quite describe to anyone else why particularly this part so close to the beginning of the story was her favourite, why this part that had lingered in her mind even when she wasn’t reading it. Of course, not many people actually cared to ask, but Redbeard had when she had described the story to him. He’d asked why, of all the adventure, the travelling, and the combat, within the story, things that she longed to be back in her own life, her favourite part was the comparatively mundane meeting between the two lead characters.

Now, to be clear, he had said it in such a tone that it was clear that he was joking, and it was not the sort of thing he would’ve said if she had at all been sensitive to such jokes. Yet it had given her a slight pause. Not due to questioning her own opinion, but rather the exact tugging feeling the scene gave her being hard to describe. There was something about the first meeting of the two women, who by the end of the story would trust each other above all else and would be so deeply in love, just swirled in her head. One a princess in disguise, one just an ordinary woman, with no reason for their lives to intertwine but a single decision binding them together. How could she not look at that moment in fascination? Obviously, there were more exciting moments in the story, but none she thought so much over as this point.

Even now, rereading over the words of the two locking eyes for the first time she just wanted to stop moving and completely lose herself in the pages. Though she resisted that urge, if only because she’d have all the time in the world to do so once the day was over. She wanted to say once she was home, but she needed to do the final checks over everything that would be going to the market. And she would want to spend a little time with her brother before he left for a few weeks. Obviously, that would take over most of the rest of her day, but she didn’t exactly have any plans for her near month of alone time. She’d have plenty of time to lose himself in the fictional world soon enough.

“Capsize!” She came to a sudden stop upon hearing that voice somehow in front of her. She cursed the fact that he wasn’t behind her, that she couldn’t just keep walking, pretending she didn’t hear him. No, that was quite difficult to do with him blocking her path. So, she looked up with as polite a smile as she could muster, hoping she would not be stuck talking to him for too long. There, unfortunately, stood Jordan, his usual hunting outfit on, with Tucker right next to him. She was unsurprised to see the other champion with him, as she rarely saw the two apart, though she was a little baffled to see them both panting slightly. Jordan typically tried to look a little more dignified at the beginning of a conversation with her. She attributed it to the two having been hunting, as the two still had birds hanging from their belts so clearly they were not long done with the activity. This spared them the embarrassment of her knowing they had sprinted through a side street to end up in front of her.

“Jordan, Tucker. A lovely morning isn’t it,” She said, giving a half-hearted attempt to turn whatever this was into just small talk. While she could deal with Tucker alone, every conversation with Jordan was draining and always went on far too long for her liking. While most days that would simply be an annoyance, she really didn’t have the time today for whatever he had planned. Jordan smiled, happily oblivious to Capsize truly not being in the mood for him. In fact, neither of the men read the annoyance coming off her, perhaps as it was the typical emotion she felt when Jordan was around, and it was hence being read as neutral.

“It is, and it’s turning into a lovely afternoon, so I was wondering if you might join me for lunch. We could go to the tavern, look at my hunting trophies. You know, like, a date,” He said, using all the charm that typically worked on people in town. He thought it was surely the perfect plan for properly wooing her prior to his proposal. A nice meal with a gift at the end, that was the type of thing women talked about wanting. He’d need to figure out the gift on the fly, but he’d be sure they’d be flowers or something shiny he could grab. Or maybe Tucker could find something while they were eating, he always had his back like that.

“Unfortunately, I’m busy. I’ve got a lot to do, you know, final stock checks, seeing my brother before he’s gone for nearly three weeks,” She said, a little more briskly than she typically would in the hope that they might get the point that she was busy. She wasn’t in the mood for whatever Jordan thought passed for a date. She already spent far more time with the man than she wanted. Unfortunately, neither man moved from her path, because apparently what she had to do today wasn’t at all important. She considered just pushing past them, but people were watching so she resisted, despite how much she wanted to.

“I’m sure he can wait a little longer,” Jordan said, more than a little confused as to why she’d prefer to spend the day with her brother than him. Sure, he didn’t have anything to worry about as the man certainly wasn’t competition, but surely, he was a better person to spend the afternoon with than Redbeard. She saw him all the time, why choose him over a lunch date when she was always so busy? Of course, Capsize was not actually busy nearly as much as she told Jordan. While she had work to do, she spent far too much of everyday with nothing to do. It was just that she found doing nothing more appealing than spending time with Jordan. She couldn’t actually say that to his face, so blatantly insulting a man that was much more popular than herself who also unfortunately happened to be Ianite’s champion would frankly be a terrible idea. That wasn’t to say it was completely out of the question, just that it would need to be at a moment when she had truly stopped caring.

“He could, but I’d prefer not to keep him waiting. So, if you’ll excuse me,” She said, her tone authoritative enough that Tucker moved out of the way without thinking. This gained him two different reactions, with Capsize smiling briefly at him as she was about to proceed with her day, and Jordan staring daggers. He could only give an embarrassed shrug in response to his friend. However, there wasn’t any time for reprimanding him, Capsize was about to make her escape. So, as she took the steps directly past Jordan, he grabbed the object in her closest hand to him. As the book was pulled from her hand, she turned back with barely concealed annoyance. “Give me my book back, Jordan.”

“I’m just looking,” He said in response, with a tone far too playfully for her liking. As he flicked through the pages, he treated the book with little care, just making her all the more desperate to grab it back. However, he just took her attempted grabs with a smile. She was agile, far more than he had expected when he first met her, but in a situation where she needed to take something from him, she was rather on the backfoot. After all, she needed to keep one hand on her cane, especially with the amount he was moving, and thus only had one hand to actually attempt to take the book back with. So, whenever her hand came close, Jordan simply turned 90 degrees on his heel, and it was as if she was never close in the first place.

Tucker, and indeed a few of the older onlookers who were not jealous of the attention Capsize received from Jordan, laughed at the apparent flirting. To them, Capsize’s frustration towards the man was feigned, a way of covering her feelings for the man. Because surely, she did have feelings for him, who didn’t? However, in reality her annoyance and frustration were not feigned in the slightest. In fact, she considered the only positive of her current situation to be that he hadn’t grabbed her cane as he had on a couple of prior occasions, when he had apparently forgotten that it wasn’t a fashion accessory. How everyone found him so charming was utterly beyond her.

“Do you really read all this? All these words, no pictures. It doesn’t seem very you.”

“What on earth do you mean?” She said, mildly exasperated, but much more confused. Of everything she had heard about her reading, the idea that it didn’t suit her had never once come up. And while she doubted that she was about to have some revelation about herself based on his opinions, she was morbidly curious. What impression did he actually have of her?

“Well, it wasn’t all that long ago that you couldn’t even spell my name,” He said with a laugh as Capsize resisted the urge to punch him. If she could choose the moment in her life that she regretted the most, it would be giving him that rose. She had just wanted him to go away, had thought that getting his name wrong might convince him that she didn’t like him, and gods had that gone wrong. Tucker, for what it was worth, saw Capsize’s anger. He did not, however, understand fully why she was angry.

“He’s joking,” Tucker said, with an exaggerated laugh as he took a hold of Jordan’s shoulders. He pulled him close, feigning a hug to whisper into his ear hurriedly. “She’s really sensitive about that, maybe don’t make jokes that make her want to leave.”

“Oh, yeah totally joking,” He said, batting Tucker away from him. He didn’t understand why she was so sensitive about this. She did spell his name wrong on the gift tag so why shouldn’t he bring it up? It was funny. But he didn’t want her to leave in a huff as she so often did, so he quickly came up with something else to say. “Obviously, I actually mean that you’re one of Lady Ianite’s favoured. So, you should be focusing on things important to her, like me.”

He leaned closer to her, hoping that was a good enough correction. Capsize became once again confused. What exactly did he mean by ‘like me’? That she should be spending more time training to shoot, like how he spent most of his days? Or, goddess forbid, that she should be spending more time focusing on him? As he came even closer, she realised, to her own unhappiness, that he definitely meant the latter. She had never wanted to leave a situation more in her life. Thankfully, there was one upside to his close position to her, combined with his attempted flirting making him forget what was keeping her here.

“I think I’ll stick with reading, but thanks for the suggestion,” She said as she managed to tug the book from his grip, batting his arm gently away with her cane as he tried to grab it back. He frowned, completely lost for what he was meant to do as she was turning away. Should he have brought a gift to start with? That probably would’ve made her more likely to hang around for a bit, wouldn’t it? In reality, no, but in his actual limited understanding of her, he had no way of knowing that. He looked towards Tucker for some help, the other man not really wanting to interject again. After all, this should really be a conversation between the lovebirds, but Capsize was leaving. So, he had to say something.

“Come on Cap, Redbeard can wait an hour.”

“No, he really can’t.”

“He must be able to. It’s eleven in the morning, he can’t be drunk already,” Tucker said, with a slight laugh. Jordan laughed too, unable to hold back. Capsize froze, turning back to look at them slowly. She took a shaky breath as she tried not to react, to turn back on her route and ignore them, but their laughter. Gods, how could she ignore them laughing like that.

“Don’t talk about my brother like that!” She so often heard people talk about Redbeard, and it was always frustrating. They treated like he was some incompetent drunk, a notion which would possibly be less infuriating to her if she hadn’t once also joked about such a thing. But that had been a joke between siblings, something said once in a while in good humour, not everyday relentlessly. She knew her brother wasn’t a genius, but he wasn’t nearly as stupid as people acted like he was. However, what she understood even less than the whispers, was how people could say such things to her face and expect her to be okay with it. Jordan, for once, did actually recognise the annoyance on her features.

“Yeah, don’t talk about her brother like that!” He said, elbowing Tucker a little too hard in an attempt to cover that he had also been laughing. Capsize was less than entertained. Frankly, she’d had enough of the two’s theatrics for one day.

“I’m going to help my brother because I want to help him, not because he’s some drunk idiot that can’t be left--!”

She was cut off by the noise of an explosion from her house, her eyes flying wide. She turned around, quickly rushing up the path as the two men began laughing uncontrollably. Neither tried to stop her this time, far too lost in the hilarity of the situation.

“It’s like he can hear her,” Jordan said as he managed to control his laughter enough to get out a sentence. He honestly had no idea how Redbeard survived when he went out of town without Capsize, but at least he could always be relied on to provide a few laughs. However, laughs could only distract him so much. He looked at Tucker. “I don’t get it though. Why didn’t she want to have lunch?”

“Well, she never said that. She said she needed to get back to her brother. But she also said he’ll be gone tomorrow, so…”

“Tucker you genius! There’s no way she’ll say no then!”

🌹 🌹 🌹

Redbeard lay on the floor wondering what he’d managed to do wrong for a box to blow up in his face. Dishevelled as ever, ginger hair had fallen in front of mismatched eyes as he stared up at the ceiling. Everything had been going so normally. One moment he’d been quite normally doing the stock check, the next that lockbox had spit an explosion in his face that knocked him flat. Is that really what Capsize meant when she called the thing temperamental? Just when he thought he understood the sort of things his sister was capable of. To be perfectly honest, he didn’t know a lot of what his sister did with the antiques she restored, though she would sometimes explain when he found her sitting surrounded with parts apparently to fix the tiniest fault. She always insisted that it wasn’t much different from the larger pieces he worked on. He, however, had never had a chair blow up in his face because someone years ago had decided it needed a defence mechanism.

“Red! Are you alright?” Capsize’s voice came in a hurried yell as she flung the cellar doors open. The natural light flooding in reminded him to move rather than continuing to lay prone. Thankfully, he didn’t feel injured, the explosion having apparently been loud and shocking rather than actually dangerous. Not that Capsize had any way of knowing that as she rushed down the stairs, only knowing her brother’s penchant for getting himself into danger from seeming just terrible luck. Hearing the speed of her footsteps, he realised how panicked she must be, and that he should probably assure her he was okay.

“Yeah, I’m good,” He called back as he properly got to his feet, pushing his hair back so he could properly see. He smiled sheepishly as Capsize came into view, seeing her visibly relax upon seeing him unharmed. That was good, he wasn’t completely sure he was uninjured, so her relief was as good a confirmation as any. Capsize chastised herself a little, of course she shouldn’t have expected the worst, but it was only natural to worry after hearing such a sound. She sighed slightly as she saw the lockbox, knowing that it must’ve been the cause of the noise. Something so small just had to be the cause of so much trouble.

“I thought I fixed it,” She said, mildly annoyed that it was no longer inert. She picked it up from the floor, cautiously as she knew that it may well just explode again. It didn’t, which she was both thankful for and frankly annoyed at the object’s inconsistency. As she set it down on her worktable, she looked over it, letting out a small huff as she saw a glyph that she had been so sure that she had deactivated glowing dimly. What on earth did that one do? How did she get it to turn off the first time? Gods, she hated dealing with magic. “I’m not going to be able to reset it again. We’re going to have to keep a hold of it.”

“I could still try and sell it,” Redbeard said, peering over at the thing. He knew himself well enough to know that he could sell a box that might explode in someone’s face, it probably wouldn’t even be that hard. It wasn’t necessary, they avoided meeting any one market trip to be successful to continue living or even to buy their next set of junk objects to restore. However, he wasn’t sure if leaving stock behind that was technically sellable was a great idea, especially when he didn’t particularly want to keep that thing.

“We can’t sell something that keeps exploding in our face. I’ll just need to spend another season trying to work on this stupid thing,” She said, beyond annoyed at the object. Restorations were a bit like a puzzle, typically fun to figure out and a good distraction when she needed one, but quick to become frustrating if they didn’t work the way they really ought to. The lockbox had been a fun puzzle at first, figuring out how to reset the code and have it stop trying to explode at every simple touch. But in the first few weeks she’d had the thing in her possession, the glyphs she’d been sure she had deactivated had started glowing again. She didn’t want to admit defeat, but when it happened at least once a week even when she was completely sure that she had actually done it successfully. Magic just wasn’t something she understood well or could easily figure out. Though, of course, she likely would not be so frustrated if it were not for her general frustrations gathered throughout the day, which Redbeard could tell as his sister slumped into a nearby chair, resting her forehead in her hands. He would hope that anyone could.

“Are you alright, Ize?” He asked, dragging another chair over to sit opposite to her.

“I’m fine, I think the idea of not having anyone to talk to for the next few weeks is getting to me a little,” She said, attempting to ignore the gossip and the encounter with the champions that were still sitting in her mind. Redbeard smiled gently. Jeriah typically didn’t leave town, and it just happened that the first time he did it coincided with one of Redbeard’s trips to market. It had obviously been playing on Capsize’s mind with just how lonely she felt in this town other than those two.

“Well, I mean, Jordan and Tucker talk to you, don’t they?” He said, not expecting the groan that almost immediately escaped from her. He knew that she didn’t always get along with the champions, but she typically didn’t have such a reaction to them merely being mentioned.

“No. Well, yes, they talk to me, but only about things Jordan wants to know about. He doesn’t care about me, he cares about what I can tell him about Ianite,” She saw him raise an eyebrow, which almost made her sigh again. She knew he wasn’t disbelieving her, or at least he wouldn’t describe it like that. It was just unfortunate that Redbeard didlike Jordan and Tucker, and for some reason he never had them belittle him to his face like he did her. She didn’t exactly want to bring up her latest conversation with the two, but she did wonder what he’d made of the two knowing how they’d blatantly insult him. She wasn’t going to do that though. It’d just make both of them feel bad. So, she tried her best to instead smile to convince him that she felt fine. “I mean, I’ll be fine really. I’ve just been lost in my own thoughts a bit, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You aren’t acting like normal,” Redbeard tried to be gentle as it wasn’t particularly often that Capsize actually wanted to talk about her frustrations. He was aware that she had quite a few with their current living situation, but she tended to push her negative feelings down and refuse to talk about them, leaving him to pretend everything was fine when it so clearly wasn’t. Pretending wasn’t all that hard. He could act the way he always had, acting as if he didn’t notice what people thought about him and how his sister was retreating inwards. But what bothered him was he wasn’t sure if she had gotten better or worse over time as, unlike her physical injury, it was a lot harder to notice if she was faking being fine.

“It’s been a normal day. Normal enough that it shouldn’t… that I shouldn’t…” She struggled to come up with how she should be reacting. As, while she was sure it was unreasonable to feel so upset about the gossip given how it was a daily occurrence and she really should be used to it by now, it hardly felt like something she could be neutral on. She heard so much said about herself whenever she went outside that she couldn’t just ignore all of it. It all kept scratching at her mind and making her question herself. Though it wasn’t until now, in this moment of quiet alone with her brother, that she actually voiced the question forced from this lingering uncertainty. “Red, am I odd?”

“What? No, of course, not!” He said quickly, in disbelief that she would ever need to ask such a thing. He was so used to her confidence, to her complaints about the town being her boredom, that the question had come as a shock, like he got a bucket of ice water dumped over him. His sister odd? That was a ridiculous idea. Yet her voice was so unsure, as if she could be swayed into believing such a thing.

It took a lot to maintain his composure. As much as he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and force into her head that anyone who would say such a thing was an idiot, that wouldn’t exactly be productive and there was little point expressing such anger when it was only her here. So, he took a moment, before continuing to speak as calmly as he could.

“Where did you even get an idea like that?”

“It’s all people ever seem to say,” She said, attempting to recall if anyone, bar Jeriah and Redbeard, really seemed to have any other opinion of her. Even Jordan, who continuously tried to get her on side, had decided to comment on thinking that reading didn’t suit her. Sure, that might have just been to try and get her to focus on him, but it was still just another person saying how weird they found something about her. Every day, over and over, she heard how she was strange, how she didn’t fit in. And that, in turn, had led to her beginning to question if maybe she had always been an outcast, that she simply didn’t notice how strange she really was because previously she was always on the move.

“Yeah… They do that with me as well,” He said with a frown. It was undeniable that the siblings didn’t match the town’s idea of normal. He knew everyone saw him as a drunk, admittedly it was not something he even tried to dispel the idea of, but that didn’t mean he appreciated the comments. However, there was also one thing that had been constant no matter how bad all the comments got. “But I also recall someone telling me not to listen to what they have to say.”

“I… I really thought it would stop. Or maybe we’d leave,” She hadn’t expected this situation to last years. She honestly thought it would maybe last a few months and they’d been off again, travelling as they always had. But life hadn’t lived up to her expectations. She’d been more injured than she initially thought, recovery was slower, and leaving a permanent home, even just for another one, would be an expensive process that could require months of planning. And the longer she had been stuck here, the more it seemed like she might never leave this town, the harder it had become to follow her own advice. She could no longer just ignore the gossip like she originally had. She couldn’t even pretend it was just one or two people saying such things. It was everyone. So, over time, a quiet voice had begun to stir, that perhaps there was some truth to the words. “But it’s been two years. Two years of being here and existing and living this life and… and I still don’t even kind of fit in.”

“Do you really want to fit in?” Redbeard asked. He already knew the answer, or at least he hoped he did, but still the question was gently prodding. She looked up, very aware of what he was doing. However, that knowledge didn’t stop it from kick-starting her thoughts, dragging them away from the loathing they had been spiralling into. Seeing the smallest signs of his sister’s unhappiness disappearing, he smiled a little. He could do this. He could get her out of this falter of confidence. “Okay, so maybe you’re the odd one out here, but that doesn’t make you worse than them. Take my word Ize, you’re better than the lot of them.”

He gently poked her, trying to see if she would crack a smile. She did, a small one, which was a relief to see because he truly meant what he had said. Obviously, he wouldn’t say it to anyone else, he wasn’t looking to cause arguments, but he felt the people of the town to be rather, well, closed minded. While they had been excited about him and Capsize moving into town, it had been apparent rather quickly that she didn’t really understand that people might like travelling. Others who, like him, had to occasionally travel to make money treated it like an undesirable experience and assumed he felt the same without any evidence. No one considered that Capsize could even have a desire to leave, seemingly unable to understand that she could be discontent living here.

“You are too, you know. You’re better than this town,” She said, her confidence coming back with each word. Redbeard almost laughed. Of course, she couldn’t just let him cheer her up, she needed to remind him of his own worth too. But to Capsize it made so much sense. He kept her sane in this place. She couldn’t thank him enough for that. And maybe she was still annoyed about Tucker’s comment earlier, upset that no one in this town treated him with any respect, but why shouldn’t she be annoyed about that? He was her brother and he deserved respect. “I’d be lost here without you. Really, I think I would’ve lost it by now. So don’t even think of changing, alright.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” He said with a laugh. Her last sentence was also her promising herself not to change, to not give into her negative thoughts. Neither of them were going to change for this place. Redbeard didn’t have any real desire to, and he wasn’t going to let Capsize waver when them both being here was all because of— He flinched a little as he caught a thought before it fully finished, as he knew precisely what it was going to be. He couldn’t keep thinking like that, keep dwelling on the past that when the way he worded it always just annoyed Capsize. Not when he’d just cheered her up. So instead of thinking back, he decided instead to look towards the future. “I mean we’ve come this far without changing. Why would we change in the last few months?”

“Don’t get my hopes up,” She said with a laugh before looking at her brother to not see his usual signs of joking. He looked, for once in his life, completely serious. Which didn’t make sense because he had to be joking. Yet he didn’t laugh or smirk or for even a moment show a sign that he might not be genuine. Her eyes widened as it actually sunk in that he wasn’t joking. But how could he possibly…?

“I’ve had a couple of conversations at the last market, working out the exact cost of moving us out of here. Obviously, I know this place was recommended by Lady Ianite and that she said she wanted you here for a—”

“How long? How long until we could leave?”

“If both this market and the next one are as good as the last few, we could be out of here in spring.”

“I…” Capsize found herself speechless. It sounded too good to be true. Sure, it was still half a year away and rested on a pretty big maybe, but it was also the closest they’d been the whole time to leaving this town. She wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip out of her grasp. She grabbed the lockbox back, it thankfully not exploding despite her enthusiastic movement. Her heart was beating wildly, her excitement barely contained, as she spoke again. “I am going to fix this stupid thing before you’ve packed everything else onto the cart and you need to leave. This is going to be the most successful market you’ve ever done. And… and we’re going to get out of this damn town.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Redbeard laughed, but he certainly didn’t lack confidence. Capsize was not the sort to have false convictions, if she said something it was because she believed it. And right now, she believed her words more than anything she had ever said. They were going to get out of this town. Even if they didn’t do as quickly as theoretically possible, they were going to get out of here soon enough, she was sure of it. The two of them together, in the life they were meant to have.

He really had gotten her anyway from her negative thoughts. And, as she began to busy herself with finding the vague notes she had made when being tempted to smash apart the lockbox the first time, she made the mental note to thank him for that later. She never told him enough how much she appreciated him, how sure she was that she couldn’t have survived here without him. But there was plenty of time for that. While he was away, she’d put something together for him. She didn’t exactly have the best resources in this town, but she’d be able to figure out something, she certainly had the time. It’ll be nice for him to come back to a surprise. Though knowing his luck, she’d set up such a thing and then he’d never see it.

She laughed at the thought. She’d just have to set it up in such a way that he’d need to not return to town to not see it. Then even her brother couldn't be so unlucky. After all, the two of them had always been together, and even if he left for a short amount of time, he always came back. They always had each other, no matter what.

#mianite #mianite fanfiction #cat's fanfiction #sonja firefox #sonja firefox/captain capsize #captain capsize #mianite batb au #jordan captainsparklez #tucker iijeriichoii #skipper redbeard

[theivydorms]

here is my Kind Brave Unstoppable Pillar from @rosewoodconch ‘sRosewood POP in Feb that i thought i’d share on here! okay have fun !

CW: mention of ED and hospital (very light)

I’ve been an avid fan of the Rosewood Chronicles since I was about eleven or twelve. I'm pretty sure I remember the moment I first saw Undercover Princess on a display shelf at a waterstones that has since closed, and asking my dad to buy me the “boarding school princess” book - two of my most favourite things in literature mixed together.

I immediately fell in love with Undercover Princess and pre ordered Princess in Practice as soon as I could. I screamed when it arrived a day early. And, to be honest, I’ve screamed each time a new Rosewood Chronicles book has been delivered to my house.

I felt like Lottie was me; a bookish, dark blonde, blue-eyed girl obsessed with princesses and dreaming of boarding school. I’ve tried to make my bedroom look like Lottie’s old room mixed with her dorm room with white wood, cosy blankets and many, many books and candles. I’m still searching for a purple persian rug, like the one in the ivy dorm. I’m always on the lookout for a purple tartan pinafore to go with my ivy jumper. My friend gave me a necklace with a silver animal on it for my fifteenth birthday which made me ecstatic since Lottie got her wolf pendant for her fifteenth! I know that having a character to relate to at such an extent is a privilege and one that I’m very grateful for.

Her mantra instantaneously became my own. For about five years now I’ve said to myself those three precious words nearly every day. I say it each night before I go to sleep, searching through my day to find the ways I’ve been the attributes Lottie holds so dear. I said it to myself during my drama performance exam because I thought that’s what my character would do, and it brought a little bit of me and my favourite book series into my exam.

During my darkest times, that little saying helped me through them. When I was in hospital for a month two years ago due to an eating disorder, saying Lottie’s motto helped me get to sleep; it gave me some normality and so much comfort during a time and place that was lacking such things. One of my main reasons to recover and get out of hospital was so I could get to my house in time for my delivery of Princess at Heart. The Rosewood Chronicles gave me hope, and for that, I cherish them endlessly.

For my birthday a few years ago, my sister made me a poster of the mantra. I’d said around that time that I’d been struggling to see myself as considerate or courageous or positively stubborn, so she made a gigantic poster out of four a4 sheets of paper with Lottie’s saying scrawled in gold pen. She blu-tacked it to the wall opposite my door so that way it was the first thing I saw when I got up on my birthday. I then put it above my headboard, surrounded by glowing fairy lights, and I’d read it most nights before going to sleep, reminding myself I was and could be those things.

The poeticness of Lottie’s saying warms my heart; it's so simple and yet so beautiful. Connie’s writing is gorgeous and spell binding - it captivated me from the first line of Undercover Princess’s prologue and has helped me see the beauty in small things. Helped me find those places where wondrous and whimsical things are more capable of happening and those people who are powerful enough to change or achieve anything.

Saying Lottie’s mantra has helped me go down dark streets at night and get me through my first cat calling experience. As a woman and a very feminine presenting person, the world can be a scary place, with thugs scarier than those teenage boys who tormented Lottie near the end of Princess at Heart, looking to make others feel uncomfy and scared with their crude comments. Mantras like Lottie’s can really help pull one through those scary, horrible moments. After I’d seen people make others uncomfortable, Lottie helped me be sympathetic and check if they were alright. After being told to “calm down” by a boy in my PE class, Lottie helped me be bold. After a binman had whistled at me, Lottie helped me be inexorable and continue running.

The three words can sometimes seem simple and plain, but if you look to the words used in the Rosewood Chronicles’ foreign language editions, they sound exciting and majestic; there’s bienveillante, courageuse, determinee in French; freundlich, mutig, gib niemals auf (unstoppable, here, meaning never give up) in German; bondosa, corajosa, imparável in Portuguese; bună, curajoasă, de neoprit in Romanian; życzliwa, odważna, niepowstrzymana in Polish; אדיבה, אמיצה ובלתי ניתנת לעצירנ in Hebrew. They all sound so beautiful - words I’d like to have as endless earworms, chanting for me throughout my day. I hope to read all the editions of the Rosewood Chronicles of the languages that I study - French, Spanish and maybe one day Japanese, although I’ll need to learn a lot more first!

I saw a tumblr post from @rosewoodconch the other day, saying how Lottie stuck to even the more negative sides of her mantra. It helped me come to terms with my stubbornness and selfishness and stupidity, as Lo had said it had helped their’s. I know I’m not so benevolent or courageous or resourceful all the time, and being reminded in Lo’s post that Lottie is also not perfect helped me too, to realise that perfection in morals and actions is not an achievable goal.

I may sound silly, like a girl who’s obsessed with princesses or something, but I’m so grateful for this mantra for helping me through for the past five years and forevermore.

I only have one more thing to say to you guys ( btw, if you got this far, I love you so much ! )

be kind, be brave and be unstoppable.

Jane from the.ivy.dorms

#rosewood chronicles #the rosewood chronicles #rwch #lottie pumpkin #connie glynn #personal essay #ed recovery

[legend-collection]

Jiaolong

Jiaolong is a dragon often defined as a "scaled dragon"; it is hornless according to certain scholars and said to be aquatic or river-dwelling.

A number of scholars point to non-Sinitic southern origins for the legendary creature and ancient texts chronicle that the Yue people once tattooed their bodies to ward against these monsters.

In English translations, jiao has been variously rendered as "jiao-dragon", "crocodile", "flood dragon", "scaly dragon", or even "kraken".

The jiao 蛟 character combines the "insect radical" 虫, to provide general sense of insects, reptiles or dragons, etc., and the right radical jiao 交 "cross; mix", etc. which supplies the phonetic element "jiao". The original 交 pictograph represented a person with crossed legs.

The Japanese equivalent term is kōryō or kōryū . The Vietnamese equivalent is giao long, considered synonymous to Vietnamese Thuồng luồng.

The Piya dictionary (11th century) claims that its common name was maban.

The jiao is also claimed to be equivalent to Sanskrit 宮毗羅 (modern Chinese pronunciation gongpiluo) in the 7th Century Buddhist dictionary Yiqiejing yinyi. The same Sanskrit equivalent is repeated in the widely used Bencao Gangmu or Compendium of Materia Medica. In Buddhist texts this word occurs as names of divine beings, and the Sanskrit term in question is actually kumbhīra (कुम्भीर). As a common noun kumbhīra means "crocodile".

The explanation that its name comes from eyebrows that "cross over" (交 jiao) is given in the ancient text Shuyi ji "Records of Strange Things" (6th century) (Luo tr. 2003:3508).

It has been suggested that jiaolong might have referred to a pair of dragons mating, with their long bodies coiled around each other.

Thus in the legend around the jiaolong hovering above the mother giving birth to a future emperor i.e., Liu Bang, the founding emperor of Han, r. 202-195 BCE, the alternative conjectural interpretation is that it was a pair of mating dragons.

The same legend occurs in nearly verbatim copy in the Book of Han, except that the dragons are given as "crossed dragons". Wen noted that in early use jiaolong "crossed dragons" was emblematic of the mythological creators Fuxi and Nüwa, who are represented as having a human's upper body and a dragon's tail.

In textual usage, it may be ambiguous whether jiaolong should be parsed as two kinds of dragons or one.

Zhang cites as one example of jiaolong used in the poem Li Sao (in Chu Ci), in which the poet is instructed by supernatural beings to beckon the jialong and bid them build a bridge. Visser translated this as one type of dragon, the jiaolong or kiao-lung. However, it was the verdict of Wang Yi, an early commentator of this poem that these were two kinds, the smaller jiao and the larger long.

Since the Chinese word for the generic dragon is long, translating jiao as "dragon" is problematic as it would make it impossible to distinguish which of the two is being referred to. The term jiao has thus been translated as "flood dragon" or "scaly dragon", with some qualifier to indicate it as a subtype. But on this matter, Schafer has suggested using a name for various dragon-like beings such as "kraken" to stand for jiao:

The word "dragon" has already been appropriated to render the broader term lung. "Kraken" is good since it suggests a powerful oceanic monster. ... We might name the kău a "basilisk" or a "wyvern" or a "cockatrice." Or perhaps we should call it by the name of its close kin, the double-headed crocodile-jawed Indian makara, which, in ninth-century Java at least, took on some of the attributes of the rain-bringing lung of China.

Some translators have in fact adopted "kraken" as the translated term, as Schafer has suggested.

In some contexts, jiao has also been translated as "crocodile".

The Shuowen Jiezi dictionary glosses the jiao as "a type of dragon (long), as does the Piya dictionary, which adds that the jiao are oviparous (hatch from eggs). The Bencao Gangmu states this also, but also notes this is generally true of most scaled creatures.

Jiao eggs are about the size of a jar of 1 or 2 hu capacity in Chinese volume measurement, according to Guo Pu's commentary; a variant text states that the hatchlings are of this size. It was considered that while the adult jiao lies in pools of water, their eggs hatched on dry land, more specifically on mounds of earth (Huainanzi).

The jiao did eventually metamorphose into a form built to fly, according to Ren Fang's Shuyi ji ("Records of Strange Things"), which said that "a water snake after 500 years transforms into a jiao; a jiao after a millennium into a dragon after 500 years a horned dragon, a horned dragon after a millennium into a winged dragon."

The hujiao or "tiger jiao" are described as creatures with a body like a fish and a tail like a snake, which made noise like mandarin ducks. Although this might be considered a subtype of the jiao dragon, a later commentator thought this referred to a type of fish.

The foregoing account occurs in the early Chinese bestiary Shanhaijing "Classic of Mountains and Seas", in its first book "Classic of the Southern Mountains".

The bestiary's fifth book, "Classic of the Central Mountains" records the presence of jiao in the Kuang River (貺水, "River Grant") and Lun River (淪水, "River Ripple"). Guo Pu's commentary to Part XI glosses jiao as "a type of [long] dragon that resembles a four-legged snake. Guo adds that the jiao possesses a "small head and a narrow neck with a white goiter" and that it is oviparous, and "large ones were more than ten arm spans in width and could swallow a person whole".

A description similar to this is found in the Piya dictionary, but instead of a white "goiter (ying)" being found on its neck, a homophone noun of a different meaning is described, rendered "white necklace" around its neck by Visser. Other sources concurs with the latter word meaning white "necklace" (or variously translated as white "tassels"), namely, the Bencao Gangmu quoting at length from Guangzhou Ji by Pei Yuan.

The jiao measures 10 chi or more in length. Snake-like in appearance, but it has four feet. The shape broad and shield-like, it is small-headed and thin-necked. On the neck there are white tassels. Its chest is sienna brown and its back flecked with blue-green spots. Its flanks resemble brocade-work. On its tail there are fleshy rings. The largest attain several arms' spans around.  

—adapted from Luo tr. 2003:3508. "Vol. 43: The Category of Animals with Scales", Bencao Gangmu.

A later text described jiao "looks like a snake with a tiger head, is several fathoms long, lives in brooks and rivers, and bellows like a bull; when it sees a human being it traps him with its stinking saliva, then pulls him into the water and sucks his blood from his armpits". This description, in the Moke, was considered the "best definition" of a jiao.

The description as "scaly" or "scaled dragon" is found in some medieval texts, and quoted in several near-modern references and dictionaries.

The Guangya defines jiaolong as "scaly dragon; scaled dragon", using the word lin "scales". The paragraph, which goes on to list other types of dragons, was quoted in the Kangxi Dictionary compiled during the Manchurian Qing dynasty. A similar paragraph occurs in the Shuyi ji and quoted in the Bencao Gangmu aka Compendium of Materia Medica:

Shizhen says: The book Shuyi Ji by Ren Fang:: The jiao is a kind of dragon. As its eyebrows cross each other, it is called jiaolong. (jiao ≅ come across). The jiaolong has scales. The variety with wings is called yinglong. The variety with horns is called qiulong. The variety without horns is called chilong ...  

—Luo tr. 2003:3508. "Vol. 43: The Category of Animals with Scales", Bencao Gangmu.

Several texts allude to the jiao being the lord of aquatic beings. The jiaolong is called the "god of the water animals". The Shuowen jieji dictionary states that if the number of fish in a pond reaches 3600, a jiao will come as their leader, and enable them to follow him and fly away". However, "if you place a fish trap in the water, the jiao will leave". A similar statement occurs in the farming almanac Qimin Yaoshu that quotes the Yangyu-jing "Classic on Raising Fish", a manual on pisciculture ascribed to Lord Tao Zhu (Fan Li). According to this Yangyu-jing version, when the fish count reaches 360, the jiao will lead them away, but this could be prevented by keeping bie 鱉 (variant character 鼈, "soft-shelled turtle").

Jiao and jiaolong were names for a legendary river dragon. Jiao is sometimes translated as "flood dragon". The Yuhu qinghua says people in the southern state of Wu called it fahong "swell into a flood" because they believed flooding resulted when jiao hatched. The poem Qijian in the Chu Ci uses the term shuijiao " or water jiao.

The Shuowen Jiezi does not commit to whether the jiao has or lacks a horn. However the definition was emended to "hornless dragon" by Duan Yucai in his 19th century edited version. A somewhat later commentary by Zhu Junsheng  stated the contrary; in his Shuowen tongxun dingsheng Zhu Junsheng explained that only male dragons (long) were horned, and "among dragon offspring, the one-horned are called jiao, the bicorned are called qiu, and the hornless are called chi.

Note the pronunciation similarity between jiao 蛟 and jiao 角 "horn", thus jiaolong 角龍 is "horned dragon".

Lexicographers have noticed that according to some sources, the jiao was a dragoness, that is, a dragon of exclusively female gender.

Jiao as female dragon occurs in the glossing of jiao as "dragon mother" (perhaps "dragoness" or "she-dragon") in the Buddhist dictionary Yiqiejing yinyi, and the gloss is purported to be a direct quote from Ge Hon's Baopuzi. However, extant editions of the Baopuzi does not include this statement. The (11th century CE) Piya dictionary repeats this "female dragon" definition.

As aforementioned, jiao is fully capable of devouring humans, according to Guo Pu's commentary.

It is also written that a green jiao which was a man-eater dwelt in the stream beneath the bridge in Yixing County (present-day city of Yixing, Jiangsu) according to a story in Zu Taizhi's anthology, Zhiguai. The war-general Zhou Chu in his youth, who was native to this area, anecdotally slew this dragon: when Zhou spotted the man-eating beast he leaped down from the bridge and stabbed it several times; the stream was filled with blood and the beast finally washed up somewhere in Lake Tai where it finally died. This anecdote is also recounted in the Shishuo Xinyu and selected in the Tang period primer Mengqiu.

Other early texts also mention the hunt or capture of the jiao. Emperor Wu of Han in Yuanfeng 5 or 106 BCE reportedly shot a jiao in the river. The Shiyiji has a jiao story about Emperor Zhao of Han. While fishing in the Wei River, he

..caught a white kiao, three chang [ten meters] long, which resembled a big snake, but had no scaly armour The Emperor said: 'This is not a lucky omen', and ordered the Ta kwan to make a condiment of it. Its flesh was purple, its bones were blue, and its taste was very savoury and pleasant.

Three classical texts repeat a sentence about capturing water creatures at the end of summer; 伐蛟取鼉登龜取黿 "attack the jiao 蛟, take the to 鼉 "alligator", present the gui 龜 "tortoise", and take the yuan 黿 "soft-shell turtle"."

There is a legend surrounding the Dragon Boat Festival which purports to be the origin behind the offering of zongzi (leaf-wrapped rice cakes) to the drowned nobleman Qu Yuan during its observation. It is said that at the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty, a man from Changsha named Ou Hui had a vision in a dream of Qu Yuan instructing him that the naked rice cakes being offered for him in the river are all being eaten by the dragons (jiaolong), and the cakes need to be wrapped in chinaberry leaves and tied with color strings, which are two things the dragons abhor.

It has been suggested that the jiao is not a creature of Sinitic origin, but something introduced from the Far South or Yue culture, which encompasses the people of the ancient Yue 越 state, as well as the Hundred Yue people.

Eberhard concludes that the jiao, which "occur in the whole of Central and South China", "is a special form of the snake as river god. The snake as river god or god of the ocean is typical for the coastal culture, particularly the sub-group of the Tan peoples (the Tanka people)". Schafer also suggests, "The Chinese lore about these southern krakens seems to have been borrowed from the indigenes of the monsoon coast".

The onomastics surrounding the Long Biên District (now in Hanoi, Vietnam) is that it was so-named from a jialong "flood dragon" seen coiled in the river (Shui jing zhu or the Commentary on the Water).

It is recorded that in southern China, there had been the custom of wearing tattoos to ward against the jiaolong. The people in Kuaiji (old capital of Yue; present-day Shaoxing City) adopted such a custom during the Xia dynasty according to the Book of Wei. The Yue created this "apotropaic device" by incising their flesh and tattooing it with red and green pigments (Treatise on Geography in the Book of Han, 111CE, quoted by Kong Yingda).

The jiao seems to refer to "crocodiles", at least in later literature of the Tang and Song dynasties, and may have referred to "crocodiles" in early literature as well.

Aside from this zoological identification, paleontological identifications have also been attempted.

The term jiao e or "jiao crocodile" (蛟鱷; Tang period pronunciation: kău ngak) occurs in the description of Han Yu's encounter with crocodiles according to Zhang Dus Xuanshi zhi or "Records of the House of Proclamation" written in the late Tang period.

As noted the Compendium of Materia Medica identifies jiao with Sanskrit 宮毗羅, i.e., kumbhīra which denotes a long-snouted crocodylid. The 19th century herpetologist Albert-Auguste Fauvel concurred, stating that jiaolong referred to a crocodile or gavial clade of animals.

The Compendium also differentiates between jiaolong 蛟龍 and tuolong 鼉龍, Fauvel adding that tuolong should be distinguished as "alligator".

Fauvel noted that the jiao resembled the dinosaur genus Iguanodon, adding that fossil teeth were being peddled by Chinese medicine shops at the time.

In the foregoing example of the huijiao in the "Classic of the Southern Mountains" III, the 19th century sinologist treated this a type of dragon, the "tiger kiao", while a modern translator as "tiger-crocodile”. However, there is also an 18-19th century opinion that this might have been a shark. A Qing dynasty period commentator, Hao Yixing suggested that huijiao should be identified as jiaocuo 蛟錯 鮫䱜 ) described in the Bowuzhi, and this jiaocuo in turn is considered to be a type of shark.

As in the above example jiao 蛟 may be substituted for jiao 鮫 "shark" in some contexts.

The jiao 鮫 denotes larger sharks and rays , the character for sharks (and rays) in general being sha 鯊, so-named ostensibly due to their skin being gritty and sand-like Compare the supposed quote from the Baopuzi, where it is stated that the jialong is said to have "pearls in the skin".

Schafer quotes a Song Dynasty description, "The kău (jiao) fish has the aspect of a round fan. Its mouth is square and is in its belly. There is a sting in its tail which is very poisonous and hurtful to men. Its skin can be made into sword grips", which may refer to a sting ray.

#Jiaolong #china #asia