#do you think Ancient Dragon Man explained literally any of what was going on because it surely Did Not Look That Way lmao

[blujaydoodles]

"...and you can see what appears to be... gnomes who... have just kind of accepted the fact that they're being dragged through the air by a very powerful creature; they're like being held by their shirts, with their arms kind of folded"

Originally posted to my patreon as part of a larger WIP that I just never came back to, here is the one thing we do canonically know for sure about how this rescue actually went, courtesy of our druid learning how to scry

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #character art #illustration #gnomes #do you think Ancient Dragon Man explained literally any of what was going on because it surely Did Not Look That Way lmao #this was also over a year ago idk if I'm ever gonna properly finish it at this point #the thing is the first drawing feels so stiff I'd actually rather completely redo it :'D #but I love Tuck's thousand yard 'this might as well happen. my life is already so goddamn weird' stare skgjhdfghkjh #man. the problem is I DO want it to BE finished I just don't wanna have to actually spend time on doing that :') #so since I probably won't I'm releasing (part of) it from patreon cause I never intended for it to STAY completely exclusive #on the meta Mel's parents are so funny to me because it took me like four real life years to think of ANYTHING for them besides 'they exist' #but as soon as I was able to start building them properly I got very attached immediately dkfhgkh I lov them so much #my OCs #tukklewyn #xenia #melliwyk #vale walkers #dungeons and doodles

[masuchu]

“𝐈’𝐋𝐋 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐈𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐃𝐀𝐘” [ZHONGLI]

what happens when you propose the idea of being zhongli’s birthday gift and letting him have you however he likes? ‧₊˚

genre. smut! very dom zhongli, mentions of punishment, kinda bratty reader, birthday sex!!! , mentions of dragon!zhongli, manhandling?, marking, roughness, biting, he cums inside, just pure filth ig, reader is afab and described as a woman !!!!!!!!!

pairing. zhongli x reader

love, masu. ohohoho. how could i not write a little something for my love? on his birthday? teehee, i hope you guys enjoy! lmk if there are any typos UGH

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, my dear. Are you insinuating you wish to celebrate my birthday by engaging in intimacy?”

You sighed at Zhongli’s blunt and perplexed words. Dating a man who had lived through many a millennia absolutely had it perks; it wasn’t everyday you could hear the history of tea distillery and other obscure topics. But in times like these, you really struggled to explain things that were a bit more ‘in this day an age’ to your ancient lover. Especially things regarding sexual matters.

“No, it’s— Because it is your birthday, the idea is that I am your present! That you can enjoy, um, however you like…”

“But you already gave me a present?”

A groan escaped your lips, “I know I did! It’s not literal, more— conceptual? I’m not actually your gift, I’m giving you a chance to let your fantasies run wild, for term of phrase. Do you understand?”

One of his gloved hands traversed up to his lips, and he gave the lower one a gentle tap of consideration. “I think I understand. It is less of a tradition or a custom, but more of a way for you to treat me in a more intimate manner, because it is my birthday. Am I correct?”

A gentle yet flirtatious smile engulfed your face. “You are correct, indeed. Sooo, will you … take me up on my offer?”

Zhongli’s eyes were overcome by an imperceptible change, so subtle and abrupt that no regular person would have noticed it. But you weren’t any regular person, you were his prized lover. The only soul in Teyvat that has ever had such a firm and unshakeable grip on his heart, leaving him with an inconsolable ache in his being whenever he was not with you. You understood him and saw every twitch or flip of his mood, no matter the size. So, that raging fire set you alight in his eyes did not go misunderstood. He wanted you.

“I think I shall take you up on your generous offer. But you may regret allowing me such freedom over your body tonight. It seems you are the only person capable of stripping me of my prided self control.”

You would have swooned over Zhongli’s words if it weren’t for the rasp in which they were spoken, the way his eyes traversed over your now quivering form, and the warning he gave that seemed to have left his lips calmly, yet seductively.

One of his arms suddenly wound around your waist, the other creeping up to take a stiff hold on your jaw; it juxtaposed greatly with the gentle caress of his thumb on your lower lip.

“I want you to go upstairs, undress completely, and wait for me on the bed. I will be up with you shortly. And believe me, I will not be going easy on you tonight. It is my birthday after all, and you are my gift. Do you understand, my dear?”

A humorous gulp resounded throughout the room, you embarrassingly realised that you were the source of the noise.

“Yes, sir.”

The wait felt like an eternity. The soft bed sheets you were perched on prettily were no consolation or comfort to the uncomfortable ache in your core; in fact, they only fuelled on your lewd imaginations of gripping them whilst Zhongli’s cock pounded into you mercilessly.

God, you were an enemy unto yourself. Why were you so hellbent on fuelling your own neediness and loss of coherent thought? Your pussy throbbed with greed and impatience, and without thinking of the consequences, you began to rut subtly and clumsily with into the soft duvet. Unbeknownst to you…

“I am disappointed. Misbehaving on my birthday, my love? I was only gone for a minute or two.”

An awful squeak was plundered from your lips, your cheeks warm and flushed having been caught red handed. You halted your ministrations and began to plead for forgiveness.

“Zhongli, I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to, I swear—“

Your begs were cut off when a forceful hand ran through your hair and tugged your head backwards. Zhongli’s grip was not harsh enough to cause pain in your scalp, but you understood the intention of his action. It was a warning.

“Morax, is what you shall call me tonight. You must show me proper respect on my birthday. And I am willing to ignore your little… mishap, so long as you are on your best behaviour for the remainder of tonight. Isn’t that generous, hm?” His words reverberated and echoed throughout the room, soothing and tender, but filled with undertones and reminders of his power and heavy dislike of disobedience. The underlying threat of punishment almost compelled you to spend tonight pushing his buttons and testing his thin patience, drawing out his harsher hits and crude tongue.

Almost.

“Very generous, Morax. How would like to— how do you want me?” You whimpered, his dominance having an extremely powerful effect on your slowly escaping pride and dignity.

“Ah, offering yourself up so plainly? I am honoured my love. On your back, please. I would like to see the expressions my gift makes when I ravish it tonight.”

Oh Archons. A sudden rush of wetness overwhelmed your aching cunt, jaw falling humiliatingly wide at his lewd speech. You remembered his order when he gave a you a gentle tap and a raised eyebrow, and you scrambled to present yourself on your back, pussy entirely on display to your partner’s hungry eyes. A dreadful moment of incomprehensible staring ensued before Zhongli finally uttered words that left you even more shamelessly horny than you even thought was possible,

“Absolutely exquisite. Hold your legs up for me, my hands are going to be occupied.”

You did exactly as you were told, like an obedient pet. Something aggravatingly inexplicable about Zhongli made you want to heed to his every call, devote your entire life to him, and pleasure him at every waking moment. Of course, that was impossible. You were an independent woman, and in normal circumstances where you were capable of rational thought, you were always firm about working and making a living for yourself— Zhongli always in agreement with this. But in lustful moments like these, when his pretty digits travelled to your slit and traced along it like he was inspecting a gem, when his other palm encompassed your breast and kneaded them softly? You desired nothing but to be a pampered little cum slut for your precious Geo Archon.

On the other hand, Zhongli was in turmoil. His hard on was uncomfortably trapped in the confines of his trousers, and his mind was dazed with possibly draconic, but absolutely primal urges to fuck you into a pitiful mess. His fingers roughly shoved into your hole, and your drawn out moan was nothing but pleasure to his ears.

“Aren’t you so lovely? Always so obedient— well, mostly. So beautiful spread out like this for me. Carry on making that face, and I won’t be able to wait any longer, darling.”

You couldn’t take his incessant rambling any longer. Could he not just ram you into next year already?!

“Then don’t! Please— I’m begging, just fuck me already! You made me wait, won’t you have mercy on me, Morax?”

Your cries were silenced by a soft pair of lips harshly planted onto yours. The Archon’s tongue traversed your mouth and his canines bit into your lower lip. All the while, his fingers were still plunging in and out of your wet pussy, causing horrendously lewd squelching noises to ricochet off of every wall in your extravagant shared bedroom.

Too caught up in pleasure to notice, you realised to late that Zhongli had taken his rock solid cock out of his pants, only registering the act when he roughly slammed it into you.

“Ah! Zhong— Morax, please!” You had no idea what you were begging for. Less? More? Both at the same time? Your brain was clouded with pleasure, nothing but cock and kisses appearing.

“What are you begging for, my love? You can’t possibly by overwhelmed now. I warned you that I was holding nothing back with you today. Were you listening, or is my cock that pleasurable you have gone dumb?”

“Ngh! Shut— ah, up!”

You regretted your words as soon as they left your bitten lips. Zhongli’s hips slammed vigorously into you, his balls slapping against your ass, and he hit the perfect spot— before stopping entirely.

“My apologies, I must’ve misheard you. You couldn’t possibly have told me to ‘shut up’ just now, hm?”

A rough thrust censored any answer you could have possibly given.

“Not when you have been so good? Not when you are spread out so divinely for me? So at my mercy? Enlighten me, my love, would you really like to find yourself tied down for hours, left with nothing but what I have already given you, whilst I resume my work?”

A sharp pinch at your clit told you the question was not rhetorical. “No, Morax! I am so sorry, I wasn’t thinking—“

“No, I didn’t think you were. Are you going to let me enjoy my gift without any further interruptions?”

“Yes— Agh!”

You could not even utter another syllable before your lover was pounding into you once more. With every snap of his hips, a new spot within you was discovered and abused so harshly you could think of nothing but him, him, him.

His still gloved finger perused over your clit, a string of heightened pleasure dangling above you so meanly. Zhongli did not care, his fingers danced along your sensitive area whilst his lips came down to you once more, this time to leave deep, red marks along your neck. At a long, desperate whine, the God chuckled and pressed down skilfully onto your sore bud.

“Zhongli! Oh my— please, please, please, please!”

“Are you going to cum, dearest? You have my permission, you are allowed to— ngh, come whenever you like. Paint my cock with your juices, I need it.”

His words, his thrusts, his lips on your neck, scenting you. It was all so much, too much. A familiar yet arguably foreign feeling bubbled up in your core. A fervid ache began to grow inside you, encouraged by Zhongli’s never ending praise and vulgar words. His resolve was beginning to crumble, too. You could tell vaguely through your state of disrepair and desperation that his moans were becoming louder, his thrusts ever so slightly sloppier. As if you had been transported to another dimension, everything that had built up began to burst.

“Ah, yes! Cum for me, darling. Don’t hold back, give your Archon everything.”

A screen of white filled your vision, unable to think, unable to feel, unable to breathe. You barely noticed Zhongli’s orgasm happening simultaneously, not until a burst of hot, gooey liquid erupted inside you. Everything felt holy, indescribably divine. The same climax Zhongli had effortlessly brought you to innumerable times, it whirled within you and left you completely immobile. A moment passed before Zhongli carefully fell on top of you, moving to avoid suffocating your almost lifeless form.

A moment of heavy breaths and mutual tenderness passed before Zhongli took at glance at your sore body and spoke,

“Ah, are you in any pain, my dear? I do hope I made you feel the amount of pleasure I felt.”

You breathily chuckled, “You did. Archons, you absolutely did.”

Zhongli came closer a smiled against your lips, before saying in a deepened, all too familiar tone,

“Then I do hope you are not too sensitive. I still have much in mind for my… gift. Remember to never underestimate the stamina of an Archon, my dear. Now, on your front.”

2023 © masuchu , do not repost, reword, plagiarise, take inspiration, translate or share my work anywhere!

#⋆ ˚｡⋆୨ sincerely me ‹𝟹 #genshin #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #zhongli #zhongli genshin #zhongli genshin impact #zhongli x reader #zhongli smut #*rubs hands together* #dinner is served

[minnowtank]

totk spoilers sorry this is my blog i can be silly and complain about the story lol. lol

AAAHHHH

ganondorf conveniently wakes up at the exact second link and zelda approach him in the underground passage. this couldve been solved by having them accidentally cause ganondorfs resurrection somehow like idk. make it so that they couldnt see the corpse and have it so that zelda is drawn to rauru's stone and grabs it without thinking. instead this doesnt happen and rauru's arm just so happens to fall down at the exact time they appear and the secret stone happens to roll down to the exact position for zelda to pick it up before ganondorf starts to fuck shit up. just kind of an odd scene really.

other coincidences include stuff like ok i guess the light dragon was just flying up sososo high for 100000s of years and conveniently came down to a low enough altitude when the upheaval happened. except shes a powerful dragon and they never stated that there was a cloud barrier like skyward sword so nothing really justifies her not being able to come any lower and have anyone else not only see her masssive ass, but also see the whole fuckass master sword embedded in her head. it makes no sense because she undergoes dragonification on the surface, not a sky island, and we see no cloud barrier being formed following her transformation, so basically there was no reason why she would not have been seen by anyone in hyrule on the surface before the events of the upheaval. correction i forgot most people cannot see dragons ignore this

ok so at some point before the upheaval(?) ganondorf despite being sealed is somehow in possession of the 5 secret stones the ancient sages once possessed. this is never explained & also why would the sages not enlist any protective measures for these extremely powerful items and WHY wouldnt they PASS THEM DOWN IN THEIR CULTURES but the biggest question here is why doesnt ganondorf fucking. use these free stones to power him up??? its never said that you can only be reaping the benefits of one stone at a time, so wouldnt ganondorf's first instinct be to collect them all the second he could?? of course he doesnt do this because then it would be joever for our heroes. but like auuggAUAAGJ

referring to my earlier point, this isnt a problem with the oot macguffin equivalent, the sage medallions, or anything else in zelda really unless im misremembering. in oot the sage medallions only manifested once you awakened the sages, and obviously only the hero could do that. even with the other macguffins in that game, the spiritual stones, WERE useful to ganondorf and he cursed jabu-jabu & the deku tree and threatened the gorons because he was trying to acquire them for himself without announcing his immediate presence as the evil man trying to take over hyrule. in totk you can just take a secret stone and it will power you up. its not even like the triforce where it manifests within a secret magic dimension blocked off by a sword and other shit its literally a physical object that you can steal...did anyone on the writing team even think about what these stones being accessible to ganondorf implied at ALL?? even if only one stone can be used at a time, it would have made more sense for him to keep them on his person instead of putting them in the exact places the sages would be found. like ganondorf is supposed to be a cunning trickster and the solution was so easy and he doesnt take it because Plot.

during the section of the story where you and the regional sages take down the puppet zelda/phantom ganons at hyrule castle, ganondorf himself does not appear, which prompts riju to claim that he is not at full strength yet. however at any point in the game regardless of main content completed, just like in botw, you can go underneath the castle and trigger the final boss fight. this implies that ganondorf was at full strength the entire time, but chose to dick around as puppet zelda, cause regional phenomena, and sit as a skeleton in his basement instead of just actually taking over the world for no reason. "waiting for link" or some shit could have been a somewhat passable reason, but ganondorf dismisses him as insignificant upon first meeting him and assumes him to be dead until the puppet zelda/phantom ganon fight, so that cant be the reason.

not much explored in terms of the gerudo being connected to ganondorf via blood besides "we didnt abort that thang and now we must atone." although i may have missed 1 line of dialogue here or there so take this point with a grain of salt. i believe the old lightning sage doesnt even bring up how the gerudo were literally involved in his plot to take over hyrule and instead opts for "he was one of us but then..he got crazey." also something thats never brought up is how there was simultaneously a gerudo sage on rauru's side and gerudos fighting with ganondorf. that couldve been interesting to learn more about but NO we have to make the story as boring as posssible!!

#totk spoilers #🐟

[percontaion-points]

Covet chapters 160 & 161, Epilogue, & Bonus Chapters

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 160

As the last one falls away, the beast throws back his head and bellows like his life depends on it. The roar bounces off the rocky walls and ceilings, echoing throughout the cavern for several seconds. 

And then he shifts, and a man is standing in front of me dressed in a royal-blue tunic, gold leggings with laces, and a gold and royal blue cloak tied over one shoulder and fastened with a large sapphire broach. 

He’s tall, with smoke-gray eyes and blond hair fastened into a braid. He’s also got a short, pointed goatee and seems to be in his late thirties. I shift back but don’t try to approach him. “Are you all right?” I ask this man who has suffered so much and who, in his own way, has helped me through so many of my own troubles. 

He looks at me like he doesn’t understand what I’m saying, but eventually it must sink in because he nods. “Th-th-thank you,” he finally manages to say. 

Do you guys remember when I was reading the series about the dragon people? And they found the iron dragon who had been held captive for decades? So long that he literally forgot how to transform back into a human, and speech was difficult for him. 

Yeah. I can’t help but think that the second this guy was freed, he transforms back easily, and also remembers basic human communication. 

Now I really do rear back in shock, because who is her? And why does she need to be protected if she’s already got the Crown?

Chapter 160 summary: Grace goes in and uses the key to free the beast. (He is never given a name, so I will continue to call him Beast.) As I mentioned, he transforms back to a human easily, and can communicate in passable English, despite his ancient-looking clothing. 

Macy brings forward some snacks she always has with her, but Beast is wary of anybody. Grace opens some water and drinks some, and eats a cookie to show that it’s okay. 

She then asks about the crown. He says “no crown” over and over. Everybody silently goes “What do we do now?” Beast then says “Her crown. Must have her protect crown.”

Chapter 161

I hold my hand up for my friends to see, and as they all crowd around, I can’t help asking, “Now what?”

Chapter 161 summary: Grace promises that they’ll protect whoever this “she” is that Beast is talking about. Hudson warns about making blanket promises, because what if it’s like his shitty mom or somebody? Beast goes on and says “Give mate crown”. This fills Grace with hope that there’s another gargoyle out there. This makes Grace agree to help his mate out. 

Beast then grabs Grace’s hand, but then pulls away and walks towards the entrance to the cave. The others want to go after him, but Grace says that there’s not really a lot of places he can go that they couldn’t follow after. But she looks down at her hand and realizes that Beast had put the crown into the palm of her hand (like the flowers had been). 

Chapter 0

I think it’s time I tell her about her emerald-green string.

Chapter 0 summary: For some unholy reason, we get a final chapter, but in Hudson’s POV. This is never explained, nor do I know why any of it is necessary, but here we are. 

As Macy opens up the portal to go back to the school, Hudson looks at Grace and wonders if his love for her is enough to overcome her lingering feelings for Jaxon. The feelings he knows came bubbling to the surface when she watched Jaxon die. (Which he doesn’t blame her for, and wishes it had been him instead.) Grace turns and tells Hudson that she loves him; he returns the sentiment. 

They go through the portal, only to realize that the forest around the school grounds is literally on fire. Everybody runs inside, only to find that the interior of the school has been completely and utterly trashed, and everybody is gone. 

They find the school’s healer, Marise, in the infirmary, and she tells them that Cyrus did this. They now think that the battle on the gargoyle island was nothing but a distraction, and think that this means war. Well, more war, since Cyrus attacking them on the island was the first declaration of war. 

However, they naturally think that Cyrus’s goons killed everybody, and that the 11 of them are literally the only ones who will be able to stand up against Cyrus. (Completely ignoring the fact that there’s no mention of bodies. The narration only said that everybody was “gone”. Besides, why would Cyrus kill those who were on his side?)

Beast says “She can save us”, while pointing to Grace’s hand. He then transforms back into stone, leaving the others to wonder what the hell he was talking about. 

Bonus chapter 1

Grace looks so knackered when we get back to Katmere from visiting the Crone that I want to wrap my arms around her and carry her to my room, but I have no idea if she’ll let me or not.

LITERALLY NOBODY ASKED FOR THIS. 

And I’m still not okay. More, I’m pretty sure I never will be again.

Bonus chapter 1 summary: We have the scene right after everybody came back from visiting the crone. Hudson and Grace are joking and flirting, and everything is kind of the same as it was in the original, only with Hudson oozing love for her. 

Then Jaxon attacks, and things are again, way too similar for me to say much about it. But when Grace calms Jaxon down and he admits that his soul is fractured from the breaking of their bond, Hudson’s heart starts to break. 

He slips away and goes to his room. Grace sends him a bunch of texts in a row, but he only answers the last one to tell her goodnight. And then he mopes around. 

Bonus chapter 2

And as we take off fading back up Denali, I can’t help thinking that sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the family you’re born with and the family you make coincide. And that makes all the difference. 

Bonus chapter 2 summary: Unlike the previous bonus chapter, this one is a scene that wasn’t included. Because Grace wasn’t there. Hudson goes to his brother in the middle of the night, and asks to go for a run. As Jaxon puts his running gear on, Hudson looks around the room. He finds a wooden toy horse that he’d made for his brother. Looking at the thing brings back all of the good times he’d had with his brother… and all the things his shitty dad had done to torture both of them. 

They run, but Jaxon doesn’t seem interested in talking. Hudson tries to talk about Grace, but Jaxon is quick to shut him down. Finally, Jaxon says that the two of them aren’t close, and never have been. Hudson brings up the horse, but Jaxon had forgotten who had given it to him before he was forced to go live with the Bloodletter. This brings back some memories previously buried, and he apologizes for having killed Hudson. They crack up over that, and ask if Hallmark has cards for that.

#Crave series #Covet (Crave 3) #chapter 160 #chapter 161 #epilogue #bonus chapters #Grace (Crave) #bad writing is bad #i have given up #Macy (Crave) #Hudson Vega #jaxon vega #Cyrus Vega #shitty leaders doing shitty things

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 4: But His Name Backwards is Nomolos????

World is still kind of a mess, so lets go back to Yugioh, during an arc that is so incredibly tame that no one has died. Not even a little bit. No one has risked the destruction of the ecosystem with Pegasus’ historical fanart drawn on digital playing card. No angry gods have done really anything. They’re all on break.

Except for Pharaoh, but Pharaoh isn’t that angry anymore ever since the Orichalcos thing. He mostly just talks about card matches I couldn’t care less about because it’s Grandpa and Joey.

hey you know what bro just noticed that I haven’t noticed over these past 4 seasons--Look at Yugi and Yami’s hair.

Yugi’s hair has 3 extra floppy down bangs by his eyes. I just always assumed those were the same number as Pharaoh’s bangs--but turns out no, those are Pharoah’s streaks but flopped down.

Which means when he de-charges, his hair just flops over directly into his eyes.

And now I have an urge to animate something for the first time in years (spoiler: I do not have the time to animate this.) because WHY would they never animate this hair flop for us??? The POTENTIAL.

Grandpa spends most of the time saying “Joseph, can you guess what card I’m holding???” and Joey is like “Why would I tell you that? I’m trying to play a game? Would you stop explaining the rules? it’s getting kind of weird.” and I got a little bit of an insight into what the homelife of Yugi Muto must have been like growing up with a Grandpa who is just always talking about cards.

It does explain why Yugi plays so freakin slow, though.

(read more under the cut)

This is clearly just a visual gag but also maybe this is also how the Doctor just gets around?

Speaking of visual gags and getting around, it’s our two most inconsequential minibosses, refusing to leave the series.

Y’all let me know last time that we are in fact, still in America, and I guess this is proof of it, because there’s no other way they could have walked here. I mean Yugioh is real bad at geography but they seem to have a good grasp of a big ass ocean existing betwixt Japan and the US.

Not sure where they got those rad Hobbit outfits, though. If this is their new look, I’ll accept it.

(Yes, this is a new font. Again, I’m trying out stuff to try and make it accessible. I will figure this out before the season is over)

Honestly, I didn’t think Rex and Weevil could get much worse than being dead. Thought that maybe waking up in a hospital bed after joining the Big Bad would be enough of a wake up call to the direction their life is heading.

But, considering that this arc has no real villain so far other than a guy who likes the color purple and bathing in milk...maybe that’s fine. It’s not a BAD thing to play cards, necessarily. This doesn’t make them bad people...it’s what you do with those cards.

Like destroying a Caltrain with it, for instance.

Unless of course, the amount of energy it takes to do a card hologram is the same amount as an NFT, in which case I guess that would make them bad no matter who you play against. But we live in a universe with Noah in it, who probably had enough energy pumped into that orb to fuel like 15 Americas. Fossil fuels seem to be just fine in this universe.

In fact I don’t think it’s ever come up? Surprisingly, Seto Kaiba has never had to deal with an eco terrorist, unless you counted Raphael. That is hella rare for a 90′s early 00′s show. I feel like they were contractually obligated to have at least one fossil fuel episode.

Well, good for the Yugioh universe, who managed to solve the energy crisis off screen. Good for them.

PS Hawkins said this and afterward was like “I just want you kids to appreciate what you’re seeing here today.” and it’s like damn Hawkins. Condescend much? This old guy is like King of Throwing Shade While Appearing to be Helpful.

Anyway, the gimmick of Solomon Muto is that he plays a bunch of history cards. Arthur Hawkins was super excited about it, but I feel like the other kids were like “We straight up have never heard of any of these old ass cards for a reason.”

Bro has informed that this card also sucks ass IRL, and like...I’m not surprised.

(grandpa’s font has also changed to something he’s actually wearing, and to something that is way more legible.)

To think that during the time Grandpa spent trying to get this dragon working, he could have been researching the damn God Cards and helping Pharaoh figure out his past history. Youknow...that history stuff that he devotes his entire life to studying.

Course, maybe Grandpa was smart enough to know NOT do that. I feel like Grandpa putting the brakes on revealing Pharaoh’s history is reason enough to just not open that Pandora’s box, but that will be another arc, I guess. This one we’re just showing some ancient dragon merch to sell toys to kids IRL. Gotta have your episodes to remind you that Yugioh is in fact toys.

Also, Hawkins proceeded to point out to Yugi in a way without literally saying it, that Yugi doesn’t go home often enough to distract his Grandpa with cards.

Which Hawkins followed up by throwing shade at Joey Wheeler for the rest of the match, since he was the only one here who stans Grandpa. You can see who Rebecca gets it from, is what I’m saying.

Joey reveals his only motivation to be here--which should be to get a plane ticket. Like their only reason to be in this tournament is already done?

But his other motivation is silly.

uh huh.

Tristan really did lay this specific dunk in the show. He is being given a plane ticket to do nothing. Wow, Tristan.

At least Joey’s motivation isn’t based on fixing some girl. For once Joey is just doing this for himself and not for a relationship that will never happen for at least several years, or to be a Father for his oblivious Sister. Thank you, show. Course I say that, and there could be another Mai arc right around the corner.

Anyway, there really isn’t much else to say about this arc other than Joey has finally bested his mentor in a card game. Still can’t best Yugi or Pharaoh or Seto or hell, probably even Tea or Mokuba if they ever pulled out cards again...

...but he bested Grandpa, who got polished off by being beaten up by several thug-like holograms.

Not sure why he fell over other than...something in the holograms must be real in this universe. There’s no other reason this would happen!

(honestly I can’t handle Grandpa’s face. It looks. SO BAD. There’s something  offsetting about it that I really do not like, and I think it’s the eyes and the tiny nose and the very skeletal bone structure--I don't like it)

Like every person here is convinced that Yugi’s grandpa is one step away from keeling over and it’s low key hilarious to me. The man has died and been resurrected. You think Pegasus did that bad of a job??? Grandpa Muto will likely outlive all of you.

This show really can’t lift Joey without taking two more punches to get him back down. Like the show keeps telling me that Joey is a complete idiot, and he kind of is, but I want to point out that he is a talented idiot who was second in most of the tourney’s he’s been in and he should have killed Marik straight up if he wasn’t like struck by lightning first.

Yes, he got distracted and raced after Mai last season so he prematurely died, but that was clearly just a phase because I don’t see Mai here.

Yes, in the actual show, they each said “ohhhh” and it’s like...the brain damage on these kids. We need to get them back to school.

I think there’s like 30+ other characters introduced but the only ones I know are Rex, Weevil, Leon, and...the girl who hugged Yugi once? I don’t remember her name. But they’re probably next. I feel like this is a bit of a slower arc, but hey, if anything it’s easier for me to cap.

anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in Chrono Order!

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I’ll have you know I wrote this whole thing thinking Nomolos is a Fleet Foxes song and it hellllllllla got stuck in my head, but it turns out the word I was thinking of is Mykonos.

#ygo #yugioh #yu gi oh #recap #photo recap #S5 #Ep4 #Yugi muto #joey Wheeler #Grandpa muto #solomon muto #tea gardner #tristan taylor #duke devlin #Mokuba Kaiba #professor hawkins #at least this duel was short

[ehyeh-joshua]

God of Dragons

@greater-than-the-sword - rather than dragging your post further off-topic, I decided to finally get around to writing this up.

If you honestly want to grapple with the Bible, it becomes essential to consider our ancient scaled friend/enemy the dragon. The Scriptures leave no alternative but to declare that man walked with dinosaurs.

The Hebrew word that we translate as “dragon” is Tannin, and like all ancient Hebrew thought, is not a specific species, but a genera – to us, we categorise things by qualities – we use “pencil” and “pen” and “quill” to describe specific classes of objects; to the mindset of Biblical Hebrew, they are all the same; you write with them.

What Tannin refers to is any large, dangerous reptile, whether on land, at sea or in the air, and while it would include them, it doesn't actually mean our modern understanding of dragon, which having being split from it's roots in historical creatures, is now mythical. (although such creatures are mentioned)

In the Septuagint – the Greek translation of the Old Testament that was considered the Old Testament for the Greek-speaking early church – the word Tannin is translated by “Drakkon” which is the root for our word “dragon”.

The word Tannin is used 23 times in Scripture:(note-all the citations are quoted in full at the end, truncated here for brevity)

Singular form:

Nehemiah 2:13; Psalm 91:13; Isaiah 27:1 and 51:9; Jeremiah 51:34; Ezekiel 29:3,  Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12,  and Genesis 1:21.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33,  Job 7:12 and Job 30:29, Psalms 44:19, 74:13; and 148:7, Isaiah 13:22 Jeremiah 9:11, 10:22, 14:6, 49:33 and 51:37 and Ezekiel 32:2.

The second word we need to have in mind is Leviatan – this is the creature we think of when we think of dragon. This word is used five times in four verses:  Job 41:1, Psalm 74:14 and 104:26, and twice in Isaiah 27:1. Like Tannin, Leviatan is translated in the Septuagint by “drakkon”.

Leviatan has the longest description, having nearly a whole chapter devoted to describing it at the end of Job – this is the strongest evidence, as this is God Himself describing this creature as an example of His own power.

One of the reasons I like Dragons so much is that God has set them as a testimony to Himself.

Sadly, this is perhaps the most mistranslated word in modern English Bibles; most English Bibles insert jackals into these verses wherever the Scriptures undeniably mean literal creatures, doing so because of the wrong belief that dragons are mythical.

The thing is, Hebrew has a word that actually means jackal; it is the same as that for “fox”, and for good reason, as they are known to be able to interbreed, and are therefore the same baramin. That word is “sha’ul”.

Nehemiah 4:3 for example; 'Tobiah the Ammonite was beside him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!”'

He’s trying to say that despite the fact that the fox/jackal is such a small and weak animal, it could crush the walls the Jews were building; he’s insulting them. By contrast, a dragon smashing down a wall is kind of what you would expect to happen, and throughout the Prophets, the threat of dragons overwhelming a city is used to express judgement.

Compiling all these references gives us a huge amount of information about these creatures, some of it (most of it in fact) directly from God describing what we would understand as a water drake.

Firstly, that the purpose of these creatures is to give glory to God.

Secondly, it tells us that these are huge reptiles that are very dangerous; enough that the mere threat of them is enough to put a city of people to fleeing for safety – a quarter of the times Tannin is used, it is referring to this terror.

If a city got overrun with jackals, a single person could chase them out; a decent thickness stick as a club, and they scatter. A host of people working together could do it easily. They are mildly dangerous, but they have absolutely nothing on levyatan, which the Scriptures equate to Tannin. A Dragon however? An armoured, fire breathing dragon?

That is dangerous; one dragon is enough to be a risk to an entire region, they are apex predators, there is absolutely no shortage of stories of the danger dragons possess.

Now, if you had an entire city overrun by dragons? You’re not going to reclaim that. Not on the Bronze/Iron age technology possessed by Ancient Israel. Roman Ballistae might have a chance, and a Macedonian Phalanx could make a melee fight in the open stick, but I wouldn’t want to try that kind of a battle without at least trebuchet, if not cannon. And this is from a guy who knows how to solo a T-Rex; T-Rex has one primary weapon, the bite. The solution is a fuck-off amount of three feet long spikes covering your whole body, that way it can’t bite you without facing it’s own mortal peril. You could probably win with a spear, but I’d rather have the spikes.

Dragons? Fire. The accounts of dragons possessing fire-breathing capability are nearly universal, and it is far more reasonable than you might think; using the Bombardier Beetle as a baseline, to breath fire a dragon needs the reaction of hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, catalysed by catalase and peroxidase; the reactants are ejected from separated storage areas into the front of the open mouth, where the reaction begins in conjunction with the rush of oxygen from heavy breathing out, causing both the reaction and the expellation of the reactants. Range could be comfortably over ten metres and still sufficient to cause burns and scalding on the victim.

Coincidentally, but rather obvious when you think about it, dragon stories generally stop after the invention of cannon, and by the 1800s, almost stop completely outside of Native American tribes.

It is therefore plain that reading the text and allowing the text to explain itself leads to the conclusion that Tannin/Levyatan are a race of immense and dangerous monsters, usually serpent-like but again not always, who’s presence is like the judgement of God, and which God Himself uses to say how awesome He is that He made them and controls their fates. Note also the contrast - the Babylonians had their gods being scared of these monsters, but right from the beginning God takes ownership of them.

The Bible tells us how these creatures lived, where they lived, their diet, their habitat, to an extent their way of life; and it exists as part of material from all over the world that shows that man and dinosaur coexisted. And if humans and dinosaurs coexisted, evolutionary beliefs about ages collapse.

----

Nehemiah 2:13;  “I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.”- presumably, the Dragon spring was a well or spring that was named for a resident/visitor dragon.

Psalm 91:13; “You will tread on lion and viper; you will trample young lion and dragon.” - the point is to talk about the protection of God; the claim about jackals makes no sense, and using serpent instead has already been covered. Further, the Septuagint uses Drakkon here.

Isaiah 27:1; “In that day GOD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent with His fierce, great, strong sword, Leviathan the twisted serpent! He will slay the dragon in the sea.” Again, entirely pointless unless it refers to either a real animal, or a mythologised version of a real animal. 

Isaiah 51:9; “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of GOD, awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not You who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon?” Again, a pointless exercise if not referring to an actual event.

Jeremiah 51:34; “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, crushed me, set me aside like an empty dish, swallowed me up like a dragon, filled his belly with my delicacies, rinsed me away.” Jackals cannot eat even a whole arm, and certainly cannot swallow a whole man as the similie depends on; whereas plenty of large carnivorous dinosaurs could.

Ezekiel 29:3, “Speak and say, thus says the LORD GOD: ‘Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh King of Egypt, the great dragon lying in his rivers, who says: “My Nile is my own—I made it for myself.” The idea is to convey that Egypt believes itself to be extremely powerful, before it is cast down in judgement.

Exodus 7:9, 7:10 and 7:12; “So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and did as Adonai had commanded. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a dragon. Then Pharaoh called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and they too, the magicians of Egypt, did the same with their secret arts. For each man threw down his staff, and they became dragons. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.” Not much to say here, although the Septuagint again uses drakkon both times, instead of one of the words that means a snake.

Genesis 1:21; “And God created the great dragons and every living soul that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly after their nature, and every winged fowl after its nature; and God saw that it was good.” This is one of the few times the Septuagint uses keytos (whale) to translate Tannin, however, dragons are traditionally associated with the sea and sky, so it makes sense that they are created on day 5.

Plural form:

Deuteronomy 32:33: “Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.” This also informs us that some dragons were poisonous, a feature noted of certain dinosaurs, and never with jackals.

Job 7:12; “Am I a sea, or a dragon, that you set a watch over me?” Again linking dragons to the sea.

Job 30:29; “I am a brother to the dragons, & a companion to the ostriches.” By this, he is continuing his theme, and he means he is alone, ostracised from the community. Jackals however, operate in packs. 

Psalms 44:19; “Though you have broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.” Doesn’t tell us much this one, as it’s relying on the nature of tanninim to convey the situation.

Psalms 74:13; “You split open the sea by your strength; You broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.” Possibly a reference to the Flood.

Psalms 148:7; “Praise the LORD from the earth, you dragons, and all deeps:” An intriguing statement, given extra-Biblical documentation of dragon intelligence, which some sources put as near-Human.

Isaiah 13:21; “But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance.” while it doesn’t say dragon, it says howling creatures, Wycliffe was happy to write dragouns as his translation solely from the sound identified, and it has to be inquired why he did so if humans could not have encountered dragons to record the sound.

Isaiah 13:22; " And the wild beasts shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.” Given the reference is about animals being used as tools for judgement, it’s no surprise that dragons are mentioned.

Jeremiah 9:11; “I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a lair of dragons, and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.” Again, a judgement making the city uninhabitable.

Jeremiah 10:22;  “Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.“ again, dragons used as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 14:6; 2and the wild asses stood in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes failed because there was no grass.“ This gives us information about how dragons breathed, which is something very difficult to know unless you either witnessed it or heard from someone who had.

Jeremiah 49:33; “And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.“ Again, using dragons as a symbol of judgement.

Jeremiah 51:37; “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant.” Jeremiah again uses the presence of dragons as a judgement.

 Ezekiel 32:2 “ “Son of man, raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him: “You consider yourself a lion of the nations, but you are like a dragon in the seas; you burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet, and foul their rivers.”Not much to say here.

[of-wrens-and-whirlwinds-blog]

How Do Dragons Flirt?

Commission for the beauteous @ikeracity​ !!! A Cherik fic including dragon talk! I hope you like it, friend! Commission info is here!

~

Charles was reading another book about dragons.

Erik checked and re-checked that there was no one around, then walked over and asked, “May I sit here?”

Charles looked up, blinking. The entire student lounge was empty, and he had claimed the saggiest, oldest, shittiest couch that everyone hated. But Erik needed to get close for this.

“Ah—sure,” Charles said finally, and moved his enormous backpack. Erik sat in the corner furthest away from Charles. There was close, and there was too close; sharing a couch was on the edge of too close. He nevertheless turned a little, and asked Charles bluntly, “What’s that book about?”

A slow flush of shame filled Charles’ face, and he looked down, fiddling with the edges of the heavy paper. There seemed to be quite a few full-color illustrations as well as fancy script. “It’s… um… it’s about dragons,” he mumbled.

Erik bit the inside of his cheek, cursing at himself for already fucking up. He tried to make it better by saying, “Like contemporary ones or mythological?”

The flush deepened, and Charles looked away. “Mythological,” he answered softly.

Erik bit harder, cursed more viciously, and asked, “Can you tell me about that book?”

Charles’ head whipped around, and he stared at Erik with naked shock. Erik’s face went pink this time. “I like dragons too,” he explained, “But I don’t know any good books on them.”

The slow, brilliant smile that spread across Charles’ face was so beautiful that Erik was almost breathless. It really brought home how very fake his normal smiles were.

“Well… what books are you looking for?” Charles temporized, slowly relaxing and turning towards Erik. Maybe it wasn’t even a conscious decision. “There’s quite a difference between books about pop culture and books about dry medieval mythos.”

“I already have a basic grounding of pop culture,” Erik said, thinking back on the past three days of reading absolutely everything he could get his hands on. “Read a lot of essays. But I don’t know much about ancient depictions and writings.”

“Well, you are in for a treat,” Charles replied with something close to unholy glee.

Charles didn’t just like dragons, and he wasn’t just well-read. He was obsessed. Apparently his son was autistic (how the hell did baby-faced Charles have a child?) and his special interest was mythological creatures; Charles had started out just reading to him, and buying him books and watching videos. But then Charles had latched on to dragons, so while his son David researched griffins, Charles collected more and more material on fire-breathing lizards. It wasn’t as bad as his obsession with genetics and biology, but as Charles rambled on and on excitedly, Erik began to realize why people didn’t like listening.

But they were wrong. Because he’d heard so often that Charles was “boring”, but no one had ever mentioned how beautiful he was when he was excited. His eyes were wide and bright, his smile was the same, and his entire face came alive in a way it never did in class debates. He gestured emphatically and his voice got stronger and he looked so relieved.

Not to say Erik wasn’t listening. He was impressed by Charles’ knowledge, and the challenger in him wanted to learn just as much and more. So he listened, and asked questions, and soaked up Charles’ words like a sponge. He even got out his phone and noted all of the books Charles referenced and where to find them, and which sources they used. Charles was only too happy to add to the list.

By the time lights-out rolled around, Charles was hoarse and Erik was in a daze from the immense wave of talking that had just been aimed at him. He didn’t regret it. He found, to his own amusement, that he had enjoyed listening. But, well, he was already in love with Charles. No harm in enjoying his happiness.

They went to the stairs, silently. As they reached the landing where they split ways, Erik asked suddenly, “Can I sit with you at lunch tomorrow? I can probably dig up the essays I read, and we can compare.”

How could anyone think Charles was less than gorgeous when he was happy? “I’d like that,” he said simply.

~

So it became their Thing. If Erik was angry and wanted to be distracted, he sought out Charles. If Charles was upset in any way and needed to calm down, he went to Erik. They laughed together (when they were alone) about how it was great that, when either or both of them wanted to be alone, they just had to find each other and talk about dragons, and other people would avoid them.

Erik was labeled a martyr and insane for putting up with Charles, but he brushed it off, and in fact snapped at several people who acted like he was “brave” for “trying to be his friend”. There was no trying involved. As soon as they had found common ground, they had become friends. Natural arrogance, similar tastes, and true respect had made a friendship that Erik craved.

And it was fun talking to Charles. Even when conversation veered and they ended up debating politics or queer rights or which pizza chain made the best food (Erik insisted it was Pizza Hut, Charles refused to let go of Dominoes), it always came back to dragons, naturally, easily. Dragons as metaphors. Dragon stories as direct replies to various events in history. Dragons and their place in the human psyche.

It was only natural, really, to spend an evening talking about all the various descriptions of dragon mating behaviors. Erik was of the opinion that basing a dragon’s mating rituals on mammals was an insult to lizards and bats; Charles laughed and said if humans stuck to the mating rituals of lizards and bats, no one would find dragons romantic or powerful. They eventually agreed that birds were a good compromise, since they both detested birds.

Then things started… happening.

Erik immediately linked them to Charles. Gifts of food left at his door. Pretty rocks slipped into his backpack. Beautiful feathers tucked between the pages of his latest book on dragons that he was borrowing from Charles.

And then there was the nesting. The first time Erik visited Charles’ house, they ended up curled in a mess of pillows, cushions, blankets, and sheets, doing something Erik had never expected himself to be comfortable with: cuddling.

Charles’ son, David, was visiting. He was nonverbal, but knew a lot of sign-language; and since Charles had been teaching Erik, he was able to convey to David that he was a friend and he liked mythological creatures too. David looked at him somberly with his big blue eyes, then nodded and sat on a cushion a foot away from Charles, who beamed at his son with so much love that Erik’s heart ached.

But cuddling in a nest, watching movies together, sharing popcorn… it made Erik nervous, but excited. Was Charles flirting? Was this how flirting worked?

He decided to try some himself.

He bought Charles CDs because the silly man wouldn’t upgrade to a digital library, because birds sang to potential mates, didn’t they? Erik also tentatively offered to watch Dirty Dancing with Charles, because birds dance but he couldn’t, and the delight on Charles’ face was worth the fact that Erik disliked most of the movie.

He was stumped on pretty gifts, though. He didn’t have a lot of income, and Charles could afford literally anything he wanted. So Erik bought a ton of jump rings, a spool of wire, those little pliers jewelry-makers used, and pretty beads, and started making things for Charles.

The first thing he gave Charles was one of those bead-lizards, except he made wings to match. Charles almost cried, and hugged Erik so tight, which was… a nice feeling, surprisingly. Then Erik fussed and fiddled and managed to make three differently-sized hamsa, which Charles immediately hung by his front door, on his backpack, and in his room. David demanded a hamsa of his own, so Erik made a child-sized one and gave it to him for his birthday. David was so excited that he ran in circles, flapping his arms, and then shook Erik’s hand heartily. Erik actually found himself smiling.

Charles kissed his cheek so briefly before he left that night. It made him dizzy and warm, a feeling that lasted all the way back to his dorm.

They never talked about it. Not unless continued, hesitant mentions of dragon mating rituals counted.

~

It was a year after Erik had first approached Charles about dragons when he met Raven.

“Erik, this is my sister, Raven,” Charles said, beaming. “Raven, this is my friend Erik.”

“Nice to meet you,” Raven said neutrally with a lukewarm smile.

Erik nodded. “Likewise,” he said stiffly.

Charles was used to Erik by now, and was apparently used to Raven, because he didn’t seem upset by this standoff. If anything, he brightened further, and told Raven, “He likes dragons too.”

“Yeah, you told me,” Raven replied, taking Charles’ hand and squeezing gently. Then she turned back to Erik, narrowed her eyes, and asked, “What’re your intentions towards my brother?”

“Raven!” Charles gasped, immediately turning red with embarrassment. Erik was also pink, to his surprise.

“He’s my friend,” Erik said firmly.

“Then why are you flirting with him?”

Erik’s face got even warmer. “I… was not aware that I was,” he muttered, eyes glancing around to make sure no one was near.

“Hmph.” Raven turned back to a befuddled and sad—no, no, why was he sad—Charles. “He’s into you, dumbass.”

Erik looked at the ground, unable to hide how very red he was. Charles knew him now. He would know what his expression meant.

“Oh, hush, Raven,” Charles snapped, actually sounding angry. “You don’t know that.”

“Whatever. Did you want to get drinks or no?”

So the three of them went to get drunk. Erik was nervous about that; he was an angry drunk. But if he kept to a low amount of alcohol, he should be fine.

Raven and Charles were so hard-headed it made Erik a little afraid. Raven did eventually fall asleep on Charles’ shoulder, but she never acted drunk other than that; and Charles chattered on with his usual enthusiasm, his speech not slurred in the slightest. Erik was feeling a little woozy after maybe two beers and three shots of tequila.

“Do you like me?” Charles asked suddenly.

“Huh?” Erik said.

“Do you like me?” Charles repeated, looking very sharp and sober. “Raven said you did.”

“Well...” Erik rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the table. But, knowing that they would both forget in the morning, he felt safe in blurting, “Well, yes. I just… didn’t want to bring it up.”

“Why not?”

“Because… it felt weird. I like being your friend too much.”

There was a silence. Then Charles reached over and put his hand over Erik’s. “I like you too,” he said softly.

~

It was definitely mating rituals.

And Erik didn’t mind at all. Nothing really changed, except they started kissing in private, and then they got bold and kissed while drunk and in front of Charles’ friends, and after that it was just natural to hold hands and sit side-by-side and kiss each other on the cheeks or forehead. It was so natural that Erik forgot their reputations, and was honestly surprised the first time someone invited Charles to a party and asked Erik separately if he’d like to come.

Charles asked David if it was okay that Charles and Erik wanted to be boyfriends. David thought about it, and said his first sentence in six years: “Yes, because he makes you happy.”

“Thank you so much, Davey,” Charles said, smiling broadly with tears in his eyes. Erik felt a weight lift off his shoulders, too; so David wouldn’t mind Erik visiting more often.

Or moving in. Which Erik did, eventually. Because it was only natural. Dragons move in with their mates too, after all.

#Cherik #X-Men #fanfiction #writing #commission

[froggygod4]

im gonna be cringe for a second and overanalyze the teen titans animated show from 2003. 

BECAUSE its so close to being a good show. like they got SO close. but somehow they’re always like two inches away from that. and yes i understand that its meant for like seven year olds but why would you ALMOST get there and then say nvm. 

like some episodes will really ask some deep questions but the characters always avoid having to answer those questions because of some other plot item. like for example. im thinking. robin...in one of the episodes he’s like obsessed with slade who is literally dead but he thinks that he’s out to get him and robin is seeing things and hallucinating and yeah. and in the end he finally confronts slade by turning on the lights and realizing he was never even there. but then it’s explained away by saying that Robin was just affected by some chemicals in the basement that made him hallucinate. but yo??? what about the real affects of that kind of trauma and stress that maybe damaged his mental health and made him imagine a danger that wasn’t there???

i keep thinking of more so im gonna keep going. starfire. one of the episodes her sister is making her marry someone from a warring planet to make peace and starfire is like hmm i guess i have to :( and leave behind my friends :( for the safety of my people :( ... but in the end it turns out that her sister made up the whole conflict and her people weren’t really in any kind of danger at all right. BUT MAN. thats such a good question.... if it was real,, would starfire sacrifice her whole life and autonomy for her people ????? but that’s never addressed because in the end its not a problem anyway

next one is beast boy because his really got me. he started turning into like a monster but he couldn’t control it and he couldn’t remember what had happened afterward. so basically the rest of the titans found beast boy monster with an injured raven and realized that he had probably hurt her unknowingly when he was in monster form or something like that. BUT NOPE. turns out theres another monster that’s exactly like him and that monster was hurting Raven. BUT??? they missed such a good opportunity... what happens when you inadvertently hurt the people you love because of circumstances you can’t control??? you’re still responsible for that...but ??

ok Raven. hers was funny bc she was getting like. groomed by a dude in an ancient scroll who was teaching her dark magic so she could free him because he was trapped there by an evil dragon BUT plot twist the dragon was actually the one trapped in the scroll. but LIKE. what if the good guy was teaching her dark magic because it was the only way to free himself?? is he still good??? like??

i cant come up for an example with Cyborb because i feel like they do a pretty good job with him because his whole thing is am i human.... am i robot....and in the end they conclude that being human is all your willpower and memories and feelings and idk. i like that. 

as im typing this im realizing its really dumb because this is a show for literal children BUT maybe that’s the whole point....like it poses questions that are interesting to consider but doesn’t actually answer them for the sake of simplicity ... instead wrapping them up neatly for younger audiences while still letting older audiences think about them and consider them for themselves. anyway good show 

#as im typing this im realizing this is such a bad take #bc this show is for literal children BUT maybe thats the whole point #like it poses questions that are interesting to consider #but doesn't actually answer them for the sake of simplicity #instead it wraps them up neatly for younger audiences #while still letting older audiences think about them and consider them for themselves #anyway good show #teen titans #teen titans animated series #robin #starfire #beast boy #cyborg #raven

[minervahopebeyond]

Blood Daffodils.

Chapter 5: The wedding. (Part 3/3)

The ceremony had been beautiful, a perfect mixture of Fleur's culture with the Weasley's traditions...

 

Draco was enchanted with everything, he always loved weddings... The bride's dress, the groom's dress-robes, decorations, the vows... Magic always seemed to surround the recently married couple, bringing them even more together and making them even more in love than before.

 

Of course, that only happen when you got married because of love, not in arrange marriages like it was costumary in the pureblood families. His parents were an exception to the rule, because his mother once told him that she had liked his father since her first year at school. So since that moment, she asked Draco's grandmother, every summer, if she could arrange a marriage with Lucius Malfoy until it became true. His father was taken with Narcissa as well, so as their Hogwarts years went by, they fell madly in love with each other.

 

Draco always dreamed of marrying Harry Potter. He dreamed about having a summer wedding, just like Bill’s and Fleur's, in a beautiful garden, something small intimate with all the ancient traditions; the dances, everything. Now, to that fantasy, he added dancing to 'Love of my life' in their first dance.

 

Not that it would ever happen, of course.

 

He took a sip of his wine as he watched the happy couple dancing in the middle of the dance floor. Everyone was clapping around them as they danced.

 

He could see Mr. Potter smiling softly as he looked at Sirius who grinning wide and beautifully at Bill and Fleur as he clapped to the beat.

 

 Next to them, Remus was trying to explain to Nymphadora that he was quite happy not dancing at all... They were so cute together, it had been quite a surprise to everyone when, last year, after the battle, Tonks kissed him in front of the entire Order of the Phoenix. During the couple of times that they went to have dinner at the Potter's mansion, Draco had taken the opportunity to remind Remus of that scolding, the prior summer, that the blond boy had received for his joke about dating Charlie because of their age difference.

 

Draco's eyes drifted to look at the dragon-tamer. Charlie was laughing at something that Fred and George just said, glass in hand. His dress-robes were almost as dashing as Bill's given the fact that he was the best man, Mrs. Weasley had been quite insistent about keeping the forms and that included the dress-code; the twins were pretty much annoyed about the entire thing. Charlie must had feel his gaze on him because he looked at Draco. The blond boy looked away as quickly as he could, blush appearing in his cheeks.

 

"I think your brother caught me staring at him, be a good friend and hide me, Weasley."

 

The redhead chuckled and waved at Charlie. The blond boy punched him on the arm, which only made Ron laugh before seeing something that seemed to erase his smile automatically. He followed the direction of his friend's eyes to find the source of his discomfort. It was Granger laughing with her international quidditch star ex-boyfriend.

 

Draco brought his glass to his lips before before emptying its content. Hermione was too busy talking with Krum, and Potter was too busy pretending to be a Weasley cousin and talking with Ginevra; hence Ron and him being the bitter bastards of the party. Cheers.The alcohol was starting to low his inhibitions. He didn't mean to drink as much as he had but because of what happened that same morning, he thought that he deserved a bloody break.

 

He turned to look at his friend again.

 

"You know what would be considerably more fun than moping about our love interests, weasel?" The redhead looked at him with amusement in his expression.

 

"Are you drunk already?" Draco only moved his hand, gesturing that yes, more or less. "What's the plan?" Ron asked before leaving his glass on the nearest table. Draco just grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the dance floor.

 

The songs were more fun by then, not as fun as dancing to Queen or, well, any other muggle band, but it was definitely more entertaining than spending the entire night looking at Potter with longing eyes. The song was customary danced by couples, Weasley also knew the steps, probably because Molly or Arthur had force their children to practice before the wedding. Draco and Ron twirled and jumped to the beat, laughing everytime that the weasel stomped on his feet and the blond boy pinched his arm in return.

 

After a while, Draco noticed that almost everyone were looking at them, probably because they were laughing so bloody laud that they were interrupting the party.

 

"I feel judged, ferret."

 

"Couldn't agree more, weasel. How about a drink?"

 

"Yeah, no. You are not allowed to drink anymore, I don't want you tripping all over the place."

 

"I beg your pardon? I seem to recall that you were one who couldn't walk straight to your common room." Weasley smiled smugly at him.

 

"Well, at least, I walk straight sometimes." Draco barked out a laugh and nudged him playfully.

 

Suddenly, someone was touching Draco's shoulder. When he turned around, he found Charlie's gorgeous eyes looking at him, small smirk on his lips. 

"Nice dancing, very smooth, not clumsy at all." Draco lifted his chin.

"I'll have you known that I'm a spectacular dancer, your brother is the one who moves like a troll." Draco could hear Ron muttering a 'Fuck off'.

"Well, how about you dance with a more qualified partner?" The redhead said as he offered his hand to take him back to the dance floor.

Merlin, how Draco wished to don't give a fuck. To not care about Potter, to not think about Theodore; because maybe, if he didn't care about anything, Charlie would seem like an awesome choice. Tall, handsome, brave and kind... Good dancer too, he noticed, funny as hell, he kept whispering things in Draco's ear, trying to make him laugh. He praised him too, said that he looked dashing and that his make-up looked beautiful.

It was so fucking frustrating, he wanted to be able to look at people, really look at them. Like he looked at Theodore, and still, everytime that Potter fucking talked to him, the brunette would instantly disappear from his mind. Because there was no comparison. Yes, he loved Theodore but he wasn't in love with him and he definitely couldn't even look at Charlie, not more than admiring and enjoying his company.

A bright  light irrupted in the tend, a silver Lynx announcing what Draco feared since last year.

"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.”

No. Not now.

Everyone started to apparate away and in a matter of seconds Death Eaters were attacking them. Charlie was fighting, along with the rest of the Weasleys, except for Ron who was running towards Hermione. Draco almost ran behind him...

Yeah, no. The golden trio could take care of themselves, Mr. Potter on the other hand had already died once and Sirius tended to do reckless shit when someone was in danger. He found Potter trying to help Ginevra, shouting like a mad man and he caught him by his shirt to stop him.

"SHE IS GOING TO BE FINE! GO, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" Draco shouted in between the caos, As he pushed him towards Hermione who was already holding Weasley's hand. Hesitation flashed through the girl's eyes when she realized that the blond boy wasn't making any attempt of running away with them.

"GO. NOW." He commanded at her and the three of them apparated away. Draco couldn't miss the panic in Potter's face before they disappeared.

Good. Now let's find the other two reckless Gryffindors.

It was madness, people were taken away and he could hear the Death Eaters demanding for the guests to hand in Potter.  He found Sirius and Mr. Potter fighting back to back, quite literally, great method to avoid being curse on the back but still, the killing curse couldn't be blocked... They needed to leave.

He ran towards them, almost knocking them to the floor as he casted a Fumos Charm. The cloud of smoke started to surround them as Draco yelled at them.

“We have to leave! We have to find them!”

And that was enough explanation for James who caught both of their arms and apparated them into the middle of the living room of the mansion.

Silence. Fucking finally.

“Kid, you are bleeding.”

“I’ll get the Dittany.” He heard Sirius say before running towards the bathroom cabinet.

Everything was moving too fast. He felt the potion drip over the wound on his shoulder, closing it, hurting like hell. He let out a pained noise.

“Sorry, little cousin, almost done.” Draco shook his head.

“Not your fault, I drank too much.”

After Sirius was done, he asked him to fetch the map that was hidden under his bed. His cousin looked at him with confused eyes but did as he was told. Mr. Potter was frantically pacing around him, so bloody nervous.

“Hurry the fuck up, Sirius!”

“DON’T YOU YELL AT ME, YOU BRAT!” His voice sounded muffled because of the distance and maybe because he had his head under Draco’s bed to get the map.

When Sirius got downstairs to where they were, he had a frowned on his face.

“It looks like a regular map.”

“Because it is. Give it to me.”

His cousin put the map on his hand and Draco unfolded carefully to lay it, on the floor, in front of him. Then he grabbed his wand and casted a Diffindo on his hand. He heard the two men gasp, surprised, as he closed his hand tightly, letting the blood drip over the map. Once it seemed like a good amount, he asked for more dittany on his hand.

‘This is going to work, if you could bring Mr. Potter back to life, you definitely can do this.’

He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the spell and only the spell, on the urge to find them. ‘Powerful spells need powerful magic sources, my Dragon prince. Hate or love are powerful enough to kill or save someone, always choose love. Always love deeply, Draco.’His mother’s voice was echoing in his head.

Love. Potter. Weasley. Granger.

He needed to find them.

He took another deep breath before pronouncing the enchantment.

“Reperio ones diligamus, datur nobis ad ones, quae sunt sanguine.” The drops of blood seemed to begin shaking as they listened to Draco’s command. “Reperio ones diligamus, datur nobis ad ones, quae sunt sanguine.” They started to move, slowly, leaving a trail of red as they gathered together and moved towards their destiny. “Reperio ones diligamus, datur nobis ad ones, quae sunt sanguine.” The blood settled on a little spot. Draco frowned.

“Oh for fuck’s sake! They can’t be this stupid!”

His cousin was frowning at the map as well.

“That’s Grimmauld.”

They went to fetch them when Draco said that he was feeling good enough to endure another apparition.

Wands out, entering the old house again, risking being found by Severus again.

They heard Potter casting a stupefy as soon as they crossed the door. Mr. Potter casted a protego just as quick as his son.

“It’s us, Potty. Lower your wand.”

But the three of them were holding out their wands still, and neither Sirius or James lowered theirs.

“What was the first thing that you said about hufflepuff when we met, Malfoy?” The green-eyed boy asked, suspicious.

“That I’d leave if I got sorted into Hufflepuff. When did we meet?”

“At Madam Malkin’s, your mother was looking at wands for you and you told me that you were going to drag your father to look at brooms after.”

Finally, Potter lowered his wand and everyone did the same.

“Why didn’t you come with us? You bloody scared me to death.” The boy hissed at him.

“I needed to find Sirius and your father, Weasley was wearing the necklace,I knew I’d find you after.”

Potter frowned, maybe the weasel hadn’t told him about it... Ron walk towards him and pulled him into a hug.

“This is really the best present that I’ve gotten, ever. Thanks for coming to get us, we didn’t know if we were being followed.”

Draco smiled softly and tightened his arms around the redhead.

“You are not getting rid of me that easily, weasel. I’m just glad that you are safe, really... and don’t you ever dare to take the necklace off.”

“I promise I won’t, ferret.”

Potter face was as moody as it could be, probably mad at Draco for separating him from Ginevra in the middle of the fight. Draco pulled away from his friend and turned to look at the rest of the group.

“Now, how about we really start that horcrux hunt?”

#drarry #fanfic #fanfiction #prongsfoot

[demigodsanswer]

Clarisse & The Lord of the Rings

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” 

When she was 12, Chiron noticed that she was the only year-round Ares girl. He pulled her aside one day and offered her a room in the Big House for herself, figuring she could use some privacy and alone time from her brothers. 

The room had a small TV and DVD player in it, and she had the only key to the room. She could use it when ever she wanted, as long as it wasn’t during training or school work. 

That’s where she found The Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs. She watched all of them in two days. 

She cried when Boromir died, but nothing prepared her for the raw emotion of this scene from The Two Towers . She thinks about this scene constantly, and it’s probably her favorite scene from any of the movies in the long term. The only scene that rivals it is the Battle for Osgiliath in The Return of the King. 

What really fucked her up though, was the Battle for Osgiliath/Pippin’s song from Return of the King. That scene made her realize, more than anything she’d encountered before, the ways in which war, while it can sometimes be comprised of glorious moments of good triumphing over evil, it could also be comprised of moments of leaders gluttonously and recklessly consuming those willing to fight for them. 

After she watched all the movies all the way through, she asked Chris to re-watch them with her. He agreed, because she was his best friend. She didn’t expect to cry at all, because she knew what would happen, but she cried twice, once at the Sam scene in The Two Towers, and "I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”. Chris didn’t judge her. 

When Chris was really sick, she would sometimes sing “The Edge of Night” to him, and it would calm him down. 

Chiron had large text print copies of the books, which he gifted to her. 

She read them all in one summer. She rereads them every summer. They’re ear marked and annotated to death. 

While she always loved Faramir in the movies, when she read his line: “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” She was so overwhelmed that she had to lie down. 

Tolkien’s ideology, philosophy, and stories have shaped her understanding of war, its purpose, and its consequences. 

Her favorite part of the main three books is the scouring of the Shire, because it is the part that helps her cope with the war the most. Camp had always been her home - her idyllic home where she could be herself, study at her own pace, and train as much as she wanted. But after the war, it had been changed. Thalia’s tree had been poisoned, people had died there, and it was no longer the same place it had been in her childhood. But she had also been changed by the war. Like Frodo, she felt like there wasn’t a way to remain in the place after a while - she couldn’t go home again. Unfortunately for her, there are no undying lands for her to sail to.

Her favorite book is The Silmarillion. When people (read: annoying Athena boys) question this, she just looks them dead in the eye and asks “Oh, I’m sorry, are mythological wars not in my DNA?”

She went to Tolkien’s grave once on vacation and read the tale of Beren and Luthien out loud and left flowers. 

Do not talk to her about The Hobbit movies or she will put forks in you. She was nearly kicked out of An Unexpected Journey when Thorin charged at the Orcs at the end because she yelled “THAT’S THE RINGrWRAITHS’ THEME!” and then spent a few minutes explaining to Chris that “thing mean things” and that “the ringwraith theme is a poem written by Philippa Boyens about the wraiths and then translated into the ancient language of man. It’s not just some random, intense battle music!” 

She slept through most of Desolation of Smaug. She was so out cold that Chris actually left the theater to walk around the mall for a while. He came back before the end, just in time for her to wake up. “How long have I been asleep?” “Since dwarf barrel boing boing. I brought you a soft pretzel, thought.”

She straight up left the theater during Battle of Five Armies when she heard Thranduil say: “Go north, find the Dunedain. There’s a young ranger among them; you should meet him. His father, Arathorn, was a good man; his son might grow to be a great one. He’s known in the wild as Strider, but his true name you must discover for yourself.” 

“Go north? Look at any map of Middle Earth and you’ll see that Erebor is the northern-most kingdom on the map. The only thing north of Erabor is desolate dragon territory. And go north to find the Dunedain? Dunedain literally translates to ‘men of the west!’ Why would you go north into dragon territory to find the men of the west?! And ‘there’s a young ranger among them known as Strider?’ The Hobbit takes place 77 years before the Fellowship of the Ring is formed, which means that Aragorn is TEN! When Aragorn was ten he wasn’t a ranger! He was living at Rivendell! His name was Estel! They didn’t even need Vigo to sign on to the project if they wanted an Aragorn cameo, they only needed some kid with black hair! And he wasn’t known in the wild as Strider! He was known in Bree as Strider, and he didn’t even like the name! This isn’t even deep lore! This is just stuff in the main books and appendices and the maps printed on every inside cover!” 

She has three (and a half) Lord of the Rings tattoos. 

The first one she gets is a pretty common design: it’s the white tree of Gondor with the shards of Narsil, but she gets the text “Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king” around the design. She has this on the inside of her right forearm. She likes this line because in the movies Arwen says them as if they are ancient prophecy, but in the books, Bilbo writes them in a song. It’s a little inside joke with herself. 

Some people have asked why she didn’t get the text from the ring itself, and her response is always “It’s an accursed language. Why would I want an accused language on my body?” “it’s a made up language.” “All languages are made up.”

The second one she gets on a bet. She gets a goofy illustration of Gollum from before JRRT republished The Hobbit to be more canon compliant with The Lord of the Rings. She has this one on the inside of her left arm. As goofy as it is, she does love Gollum as a character. 

She then has the door to Moria on her ankle. 

The half is her drakon tattoo. She has a tattoo designed partially after the drakon and partially after Tolkein’s illustrations of Smaug. The drakon is weaving itself through a hand, so it is proportionally very small. This tattoo is on the right side of her ribcage and was the first tattoo she got (Ares paid for it as a gift). 

When she was pregnant for the first time, she played The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and watched the movies a ton deliberately to train her baby to respond to the sounds. Her first kid ended up (by no accident) being calmed by The Lord of the Rings. 

However, her favorite book is The Hobbit, and she proudly proclaimed at three years old that she was going to be a burglar when she grew up.  Chris was very smug. 

(anyway, come talk to me about the lord of the rings @nohomo-mrfrodo​) (did I write this whole thing to go on that rant about that line from battle of the five armies. yes, yes i did) 

#wow look at the time #its time for emilys whitest opinions #clarisse la rue #chris rodriguez

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 17: Ranting About Bad Supports

Just more upgrades at the castle, so let’s move on to supports. I hope they’re good. I mean, I write the supports first so I know they aren’t, but let’s just pretend.

Support: Azura/Takumi

C: Azura tries to act nice to Takumi and he acts like a jerk to her. She mentions that Mikoto wanted them to be like real siblings and Takumi brushes her off. He’s actually a bit nicer in this than I would expect, considering how absurdly hostile he is in the main story.

B: Azura finds a lost child and tries to help him go home, but the kid is mean to her. Takumi talks to the kid and gives him a piggyback ride home.

A: Takumi reveals that the mean little kid reminded him of himself and apologizes for always being so mean to Azura.

S: Takumi has a nightmare about Mikoto’s death. Azura hugs and comforts him. Side note, Silas’s support also has her sneaking into his tent in the middle of the night, which I guess is just a thing she does. She says that despite not being blood relatives, they are family. So far, so good. Then Takumi reveals he’s been in love with Azura since the day they met and hated her because they were raised as siblings. And Azura says she feels the same way. Five seconds ago you were siblings. Also, Azura says that they’re finally a real family now that they’re screwing, which is insulting to real adopted people, the core themes of this game, and anyone with taste.

Review: It’s always the S-Rank that ruins these. Takumi being good with kids is a nice detail, him having a nightmare about his mother dying in front of him is a great bit of drama I hadn’t considered, and Azura comforting him is great. And then they have to ruin it with the weird incest shit. And I know it isn’t blood, but Azura literally said, a mere thirteen words earlier, that they consider each other to be siblings. The real family line pisses me off, as mentioned. Also, the thing they do in so many of these S-Ranks that aggravates me is saying that characters have been in love since the moment they met, which ret-cons past supports and, considering how prevalent it is in this game, is probably bullshit. Either every character falls in love with every other character the moment they meet and my army is a bunch of constantly horny middle schoolers, or the S-Ranks are bullshitting me. I highly doubt it’s true in this case, by the way, considering the fact that they were young children when they met.

Support: Orochi/Rinkah

C: Orochi offers to read Rinkah’s fortune and Rinkah explains that the Flame Tribe have their own divination methods involving oil and fire that they use exclusively to foretell the results of battle. Orochi explains that there are things besides fighting, which Rinkah disagrees with.

B: Rinkah requests a fortune about food. Also Orochi talks in third person for some reason.

A: Rinkah thanks Orochi for her food fortune, which was just Orochi listing off recipes.

Review: A passable support. I would have liked a bit more worldbuilding and contrast of divination methods, but Rinkah’s food fortune is amusing.

Birthright Chapter 14: Light Scatters

Ryoma takes the team back to the resistance base and introduces his siblings to Scarlet. He includes Azura when he introduces his siblings, because they are siblings, no matter what the shitty incest supports say. Scarlet is shocked to find out that the man who looks like the prince and has the same name as the prince and wields the royal family’s ancient weapon is actual the Hoshidan prince. Scarlet explains that the resistance seeks to free Cheve from Nohrian rule and joins the team.

Scarlet

A pre-promoted Wyvern Lord and leader of the resistance. She only has supports with Corrin, which is disappointing. I think she should have at least had supports with Ryoma. Her personal skill raises her crit rate when she’s low on health. Her design is fine, but I don’t really see any reason to get invested in her because she’s a throwaway character.

Suddenly, an explosion rocks the safe house. Nohrian troops surround the building and Azura suggests that there is a second traitor. Ryoma suggests fleeing deeper into Nohrian territory to end the war quickly. The gang escapes without having to do any combat.

Corrin and co arrive at a massive wall protecting Nohr, surrounded by an army, and decide to charge through it. This battle is split into two halves; one battling an army of enemies out in the open field, the other fighting in the tight corners of the fort. Standing outside the fort are Benny and Charlotte, a pair of unique characters who I killed without any hesitation. They’re recruitable in Conquest, but because they only have story significance in Conquest, having them be enemies really doesn’t accomplish anything. I think the way Three Houses did it, where you can talk to and even have support conversations with units from other routes works a lot better than how this game handles fighting the characters of other routes. With the exception of the royals, there really isn’t any reason to feel hesitant when fighting Nohrians on the first playthrough.

The fort is filled with tough enemies, but fortunately there are Dragon Veins that can be used to drop rocks on and almost kill all of them. The Dragon Veins are right in the entrance of the fort, which is a bit disappointing; if I had to do something treacherous to get to them it would give this map a layer of depth. The boss of the chapter, Daniella, is a weird mage with purple lipstick, an odd pose, and shaved eyebrows. She’s one of twelve capturable bosses in this game. None of them have personalities or story significance, but I grabbed her anyway.

After the battle, the gang rests in a forest. Corrin sees an injured Azura singing the only song she knows by a lake and asks her about the song. Azura refuses to tell Corrin anything. Purple ghost hands appear all over Azura’s body and she collapses. Azura explains that she’s cursed and using the full power of her song injures her. She’s insistent that the pain always goes away eventually, which means that it isn’t going to go away one of these times. I actually like the fact that Azura insists that she continue using her magic music, even if it’s killing her, to end the war.

#fire emblem #fire emblem fates #fe fates #fe 14 #corrin fire emblem #azura fire emblem #takumi fire emblem #ryoma fire emblem

[lo-lynx]

No cock = no sexuality? Geldings in ASOIAF

TW: Rape, violence, sexism, racism

Spoiler warning: Spoilers for all A Song of Ice and Fire books

“Lord Crow is welcome to steal into my bed any night he dares. Once he's been gelded, keeping those vows will come much easier for him."- Val, A Dance with Dragons, Jon XI

First of all, this is a great quote by Val. Second of all, I’ve noticed that this idea of gelding/castration to reduce/remove male sexuality occurs relatively often in ASOIAF. Before I go any further, I feel like I should clarify that one’s genitalia does not determine one’s gender. A person with a penis is not necessarily a man, and a man does not necessarily have a penis. However, both in our world and in the world of ASOIAF people insist on thinking that and tend to place quite a lot of significance in specifically penises. I’ve written before on this blog about eunuchs, masculinity, gender etc, so in this essay I want to look at that issue from another angle, namely the assumption that no cock = no sexuality.

A while back when I was doing research for this essay about Vary and masculinity, I came upon this quote from the book Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond:

Why were men castrated? Several reasons can be advanced: control and domination, punishment, political reasons, need for special qualities or abilities, religious, sexual or erotic reasons, and medical or health reasons. Some ancient writers emphasized that eunuchs were easier to control. (…) In the United States in recent years there have been several movements to castrate, either literally or chemically, individuals involved in sex crimes, especially those involving adults with children. (…) How effective physical castration is in preventing sex crimes is debatable, in spite of public belief to the contrary. (Bullough 2002, 5-7)

Now, I think we can all agree that sex crimes should be punished. But this quote made me think about the practice of castration/gelding as punishment as it occurs in ASOIAF, especially since this quote states that the effectiveness of this is debatable. When doing research for this essay I searched A Search of Ice and Fire for the word “gelded” and got 55 results. Now, loads of those were about gelded horses, but 21 are about gelding people. Of those 21 results I judged 13 to be about how gelding was being used as punishment (mainly for sex crimes), six about how gelding would be used as preventive measures against sex crimes (and two I didn’t know how to categorise). I’ll go into some of these instances here, as I try to explore what gelding as punishment/preventive measure against sex crimes says about the view on masculinity and male sexuality in ASOIAF.

Now, first some background on masculinity and male sexuality. I’ve written EXTENSIVLY before on how from antiquity until modern times for someone to be seen as a “real man” their body and sexual behaviour has had to fit certain criteria. If you want to read more on that, go read my essay on Varys. But briefly: to be a real man according to (Western) society (from Ancient Greece until now) you have to act manly (be strong, in control etc), have a penis, testicles, have penetrative sex (preferably with women), and father children (or at least be capable of fathering children). So, if you’re castrated you can’t be a “real man”? Well, according to Westerosi logic, the answer is pretty much no. (See this and this essay) The consequences of these masculine ideals are quite clear in ASOIAF, as for instance researcher Shiloh Carroll have pointed out:

Martin rejects the idea that chivalry created an ideal society where men fought only to protect their women or in grand, bloodless tournaments, instead creating a society in which chivalry is a thin veneer over a violent, toxic masculinity that victimizes men, women, and children alike. Martin’s Westeros does not reward chivalry, does not even really believe in chivalry as more than a masquerade behind which ‘true’ masculinity- violent, aggressive, and misogynist- hides. (2018, 56)

As Carroll also points out, one of the clearest examples of this is the prevalence of rape in the story. According to her, it seems as if most characters in story believe that most if not all men are capable of rape (ibid, 93). It also seems clear that most of the time, such crimes are not punished. But let’s look at some instances where it’s at least on the table:

A former slave came, to accuse a certain noble of the Zhak. The man had recently taken to wife a freedwoman who had been the noble's bedwarmer before the city fell. The noble had taken her maidenhood, used her for his pleasure, and gotten her with child. Her new husband wanted the noble gelded for the crime of rape, and he wanted a purse of gold as well, to pay him for raising the noble's bastard as his own. Dany granted him the gold, but not the gelding. "When he lay with her, your wife was his property, to do with as he would. By law, there was no rape." Her decision did not please him, she could see, but if she gelded every man who ever forced a bedslave, she would soon rule a city of eunuchs.

(A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys I)

 ‘King Stannis keeps his men well in hand, that's plain. He lets them plunder some, but I've only heard of three wildling women being raped, and the men who did it have all been gelded.’

(Jon in A Storm of Swords, Samwell IV)

 ‘Well now,’ the serjant said, ‘naked steel. Seems to me I smell an outlaw. You know what Lord Tarly does with outlaws?’ He still held the egg he’d taken from the cart. His hand closed, and the yolk oozed through his fingers.

‘I know what Lord Randyll does with outlaws,’ Brienne said. ‘I know what he does with rapers too.’

She had hoped the name might cow them, but the serjant only flicked egg off his fingers and signalled to his men to spread out. Brienne found herself surrounded by steel points. ‘What was it you were saying, wench? What is it Lord Tarly does to…’

‘…rapers,’ a deeper voice finished. ‘He gelds them or sends them to the Wall. Sometimes both. And he cuts fingers off thieves.’

(A Feast for Crows, Brienne III)

Now, the two first people on that list are people we as readers tend to sympathise with and think are good people most of the time. Randyl Tarly much less so. But what these quotes do show are that gelding as punishment for rape is widely accepted, both in Westeros and Essos (even if Dany doesn’t grant that punishment in that specific quote it seems clear that she wanted to and would in other circumstances). It’s also interesting to note how, in the passage about Lord Tarly’s punishment of rape, it is also noted that the punishment for theft is the cutting off of fingers. One can see a parallel here, with in both cases the ostensible guilty body part being cut off (with rape the genitalia, with thievery the fingers). This attitude to punishment can be seen as playing into the so called “disability as punishment trope”. Researcher Mia Harrison describes that trope thusly:

The ‘disability as punishment’ trope is one of the oldest disability tropes, with its roots stretching back to biblical and mythological narratives. The trope is frequently used in classical stories where characters are blinded as direct or implied punishment for wrongdoing such as the biblical Zedekiah and Tobit, Rhoecus and Phineus of Greek mythology, and Peeping Tom in the legend of Lady Godiva. (Harrison 2018, 29)

Now, while one might want to punish rapists, one should remember that it’s not clear that sure castration actually makes people less likely to rape again. So, we’re really just punishing people with a disability, and by doing that essentially saying that a disability is a punishment.

Now, as I mentioned earlier in this essay, there’s also several cases of what I’ve called “preventive gelding”. The most prominent of these are of course the Unsullied, but I want to begin with a quote from Jaime III in A Feast for Crows when he talks with Ser Bonifer Hasty, who have been tasked with holding Harrenhal:

He was sober, just, and dutiful, and his Holy Eighty-Six were as well disciplined as any soldiers in the Seven Kingdoms, and made a lovely sight as they wheeled and pranced their tall grey geldings. Littlefinger had once quipped that Ser Bonifer must have gelded the riders too, so spotless was their repute.

So, here, similarly to the quote from Val that started this essay, a joke is made about gelding men to make them not rape people. The whole premise of the joke that Jaime remembers is that men cannot possible control themselves, and their sexual lusts, if they still have their genitalia. But, as I said, the most prominent example of “preventive gelding” in the books are the Unsullied. Here, I will once again quote Mia Harisson, because while she analyses the show, not the books, her point still stands, and I simply cannot put it better than she does:

The Unsullied are the most normalized example of eunuchs in Game of Thrones. Children are sold from a young age to the Unsullied slavemasters, with males being trained as highly obedient soldiers. Their names are taken from them, instead being replaced with that of vermin such as ‘Red Flea’ and ‘Grey Worm’, and their genitals are removed in the final stages of training. They are described as having ‘absolute obedience, absolute loyalty’ (…) The Unsullied body is systemized into fragments that are categorized as ‘useful’ (the parts of the body can be used to fight) and ‘useless’ (the parts of the body that cannot. The slave master demonstrates the systemization of the Unsullied body by slicing off the nipple of one of his soldiers while explaining that ‘men don’t need nipples’. The Unsullied challenge notions of ‘able-bodied heterosexuality’ by considering the sexual, able body as not simply unnecessary, but an obstacle toward obedience (…) The Unsullied do not embody a masculine identity- they are not considered men at all. This is not to suggest, however, that the Unsullied should be considered positive examples of non-normative identity representation. Instead, they present a clear idea of what should be considered the ‘acceptable’ queer or disabled body: docile, compliant, and useful only in the service of others. (Harrison 2018, 38)

So, the idea of gelding the Unsullied is that they will be obedient, and that their bodies can be utilized in the most effective way. It is also clear in the books that one of the so called “perks” of the Unsullied is that they won’t rape and plunder, for instance:

‘Your Grace,’ said Jorah Mormont, ‘I saw King's Landing after the Sack. Babes were butchered that day as well, and old men, and children at play. More women were raped than you can count. There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs. The scent of blood is all it takes to wake him. Yet I have never heard of these Unsullied raping, nor putting a city to the sword, nor even plundering, save at the express command of those who lead them. Brick they may be, as you say, but if you buy them henceforth the only dogs they'll kill are those you want dead.’ (A Storm of Swords, Daenerys II)

So, soldiers who won’t rape and plunder, sounds great, right? Well, the drawback is of course that the only way characters can see this happening is by pre-emptively gelding them. Now, this is hardly unique to ASOIAF, during antiquity slaves were also castrated because it was believed this made them easier to control (Bullough 2002, 6). During this time eunuchs were also often servants to women at court, perhaps most famously in harems (Llewellyn-Jones 2002, 34). In part this connection between women and eunuchs seems to have been because both women and eunuchs were considered “imperfect creatures and incomplete human specimens” since they lacked testicles (ibid). Both women and eunuchs were also seen as sexually available, due to their lower social standing than men, which was the case in Ancient Greece as well as in “the East” (for a longer discussion about sexuality during antiquity and how it relates to eunuchs, see my essay about Varys). It is important to note here, that the contemporary and Western view of harems as a space where women were locked up is not necessarily accurate to historical sources. As Llewellyn-Jones points out, harems could often just refer to groups of women, not necessarily places, or something that were out of bounds (note the similarity to the word “haram”). Women in these harems could also often have great influence over court life, in many ways similarly to the noblewomen of ASOIAF. But, in the Western orientalist fantasy, the idea of eunuchs guarding rooms filled with women just waiting to have sex with men, seems to have stuck.

I want to briefly touch on another aspect of this, which is the idea of the sexually (non-)threatening man of colour. Now, throughout history, people from outside of ones own ethnic group have generally been seen as threatening (I’m not even gonna provide a source for that). In the contemporary Global North, this figure of the dangerous Other is often seen specifically as the non-western person (Ahmed 2004). Specifically in contemporary US (as well as historical US of course), one of the forms this takes is the racist idea of the dangerous black man. In contemporary America (and across the world), one of the ways this becomes clear is of course in the racist killings of black people (so I hope you all have supported the Black Lives Matter movement in whatever way you can!). Another way is, as black feminist and scholar bell hooks has pointed out, the way black masculinity is portrayed in movies. The good black man, hooks writes, “not only accepts his subordinate status, he testifies on behalf of and exults in white male superiority. (…) [this] character shows no romantic interest in the white female hero. He is merely protecting.” (ibid, 108). Now, I am NOT saying that this the exact same as with the Unsullied. For one, the fictional space of Slaver’s Bay is not the exact same as the real-life United States (even if there are a lot of parallels between Slaver’s Bay and Reconstruction, as for instance Steven Attewell has pointed out) And Dany actively tries to change oppressive power structures. But I find it interesting some of Daenerys’ most loyal fighting forces, who is very clearly Eastern coded (even if they have different ethnicities) are described as completely incapable of being a sexual threat to her. This can be compared to for instance the Dothraki, who are constantly connected to rape and (sexual) violence. As others have noted, the way that the Dothraki are described often invoke Orientalist imagines of the ‘Other’ as sexually deprived, and dangerous (Carroll 2018, 121) While Dany have some loyal Dothraki followers who respect her as a khaleesi, as soon as she interacts with one that is not from her khalasar, she thinks that this person might rape her (i.e. A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys X). Now, one could argue that this doesn’t have to do as much with race/ethnicity as just the fact that most characters in ASOIAF seems to assume that all men are potential rapists. But the contrast between these Eastern men (the Dothraki and the Unsullied), and how they are portrayed, is interesting. The Dothraki are sexual, violent, and a threat to Dany and other women. The Unsullied are not sexual, and while they are violent, they are not a threat specifically to women. They’re just a weapon, controlled by others.

 So, in conclusion, gelding in ASOIAF seemingly takes place as a punishment for rape, and as a way to prevent rape. Both of these practices seem to assume two things; firstly, that being gelded works to prevent rape, and secondly, that this is the only (or at least the most effective) way to control male sexuality. The validity of both of these things can be questioned. For one, I would like to believe that it would be possible for men to not rape people without their genitalia being cut off. But also, genitalia are not necessarily needed for sex or sexual violence. People can get creative. The last point that I want to address here is whether this argument about masculinity and sexuality (and race/ethnicity) is something that GRRM believes, or if it’s just something his characters believes. I honestly don’t know. As Shiloh Carroll has pointed out (2018, 56), GRRM sometimes seemingly makes deliberate points about how medieval society wasn’t just filled with chivalry, but also (sexual) violence. Does that mean he believes that male sexuality is uncontrollable? Probably not. But since he tries to get the point across about the darker side of medieval society, and probably also pulls on historical ideas of geldings and eunuchs, it might come off like that. This is especially unfortunate, in my opinion, when it also plays into racialized tropes about the ethnic Other’s violent sexuality, that must be controlled.

 References

Ahmed, Sara. 2004. “On Collective Feelings, or the Impressions Left by Others”, Theory, Culture and Society, 20(1):25-42.

Attewell, Steven. 2015. “A Laboratory of Politics Part VI”, Tower of the Hand. January 15, 2015. https://towerofthehand.com/blog/2015/02/01-laboratory-of-politics-part-vi/noscript.html

Bullough, Vern L. 2002. “Eunuchs in History and Society”, in Eunuchs in antiquity and beyond, edited by Tougher, Shaun, 1-17. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales.

Carroll, Shiloh. 2018. Medievalism in A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

Harrison, Mia. 2018. “Power and Punishment in Game of Thrones.” In The Image of Disability: Essays on Media Representation, edited by JL Schatz & Amber E. George, 28-43. McFarland & Company: Jefferson.

hooks, bell. 1996/2009. Reel to Real: Race, Class, and Sex at the Movies. New York: Routledge.

Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2002. “Eunuchs and the royal harem in Achaemenid Persia (559-331 BC)”, in Eunuchs in antiquity and beyond, edited by Tougher, Shaun, 19-50. Swansea: The Classical Press of Wales.

Martin, George RR. 2011a. A Storm of Swords 2: Blood and Gold. Harper Voyager: London.

Martin, George RR. 2011b. A Feast for Crows. Bentam Books: New York.

Martin, George RR. 2012. A Dance with Dragons. Harper Voyager: London.

#tw: rape #tw: violence #tw: sexism #tw:racism #asoiaf

[officialotakudome]

New Post has been published on Otaku Dome | The Latest News In Anime, Manga, Gaming, Tech, and Geek Culture

New Post has been published on https://otakudome.com/mortal-kombat-2021-review/

Mortal Kombat (2021) Review

Mortal Kombat is back in live-action with the beginning of a planned franchise of films. Following a slightly altered storyline to the lore new character Cole Young is a descendant of legendary warrior Hanzo Hasashi. Upon coming into contact with an old clan enemy he is forced into the Mortal Kombat tournament with the Earth and his family at stake.

 Mortal Kombat is a 2021 video game film, it is produced by New Line Cinema and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is in theaters now and HBO Max until May 23.

Editor’s Note: Near complete to complete spoilers for Mortal Kombat and potential spoilers for the source material may be present in this review.

Mortal Kombat pays respect to it’s deep lore.

Video game movies are making a wild comeback and the latest among them is Mortal Kombat. While the film follows most of the plot of the video game it also inserts additional lore and characters. On the surface this isn’t too much of a problem in of itself. However it more often than not feels like the film chickens out of said originality midway through. 

Historic characters take a backseat to new ones.

THE GOOD: Mortal Kombat opens with the historic war between Scorpion & Sub-Zero’s families in 1400s Japan. Sub-Zero kills Hanzo Hasashi’s wife and son leading to a battle in which the former wins. As Hanzo dies Raiden retrieves his surviving child in an effort to preserve the Hasashi bloodline for the future of Earth realm. The film then cuts to Cole Young, a family man and former MMA World Champion. Now he’s fighting in smaller independent circuits where he routinely loses. After his latest fight Jax introduces himself to Cole questioning his decision to fight in underground MMA scenes. While out with his family Cole is attacked by a very much alive Sub-Zero. Who has become much stronger since we last saw him. 

Jax saves Cole and his wife & daughter and informs him of the truth of the Dragon imagery on his chest. He allows Cole and his family to escape while telling them to find Sonya Blade who has more details. As Cole & his family leave Jax fights Sub-Zero, but is easily beaten to near death with his arms severed. Cole sends his family off to a cabin as he meets Sonya. Sonya who has captured Kano (a black market criminal for hire) reveals to Cole that the symbol is an invitation to Mortal Kombat a deadly tournament with worlds at stake. She also states that Kano earned his invitation by luck killing the previous invitee. The three are attacked by Syzoth, but Kano kills him with Cole and Sonya’s help.

The trio travel to Raiden’s temple where Liu Kang awaits. He explains that the Mortal Kombat is an ancient tournament where control over worlds were put on the line. With each world having a team of Champions defending them. He introduces them to Kung Lao who like Liu is also an Earth realm Champion. Liu Kang tells the others that they need to train to unlock their unique power which will aide Earth realm. Sonya and Cole are reunited with Jax who’s healing from his injuries. During dinner a hostile Kano unlocks his power after being egged on by Kung Lao. 

Raiden expresses doubt for the Champions being successful and Cole who’s worried for his family gets sent home. Returning to the cabin his family was held up in he’s suddenly attacked by Goro one of Outrealm’s Champions. Meanwhile, Shang Tsung the leader of Outrealm arrives at Raiden’s temple with several of his Champions. Including Sub-Zero, Milenna, Nitara, Reiko, and Kabal. Kano betrays Earth realm joining Outrealm and fights Sonya. She & Jax unlock their powers during battle with the former defeating Kano. Kung Lao kills Nitara with his hidden blade hat and Cole after unlocking his power kills Goro returning to the temple. Raiden reveals that Cole is a descendant of the Hasashi family angering Tsung & Sub-Zero. 

Kung Lao sacrifices himself to save Cole as Raiden teleports Earth’s Champions to a safe zone. Cole suggests a plan in which Outrealm and Earth have a pre-tournament. Outrealm’s Champions are killed and Cole & Sub-Zero face each other at the MMA gym which Sub-Zero has incased in frost including his kidnapped family. Cole’s blood resurrects Hasashi who now goes by the moniker of Scorpion & they work together to defeat and kill Sub-Zero. Scorpion leaves telling Cole to keep their bloodline safe. Shang Tsung vows revenge taking the corpses of his warriors back to Outrealm. Raiden states that he is gathering more Champions for Earth and tasks Cole with finding Hollywood actor Johnny Cage. 

Josh Lawson’s Kano is a scene stealer & it’s one of the film’s biggest issues.

The action of Mortal Kombat is some of the coolest you’ll see this. I may be reaching a bit, but there were times when the normal hand-to-hand combat reminded me of some of the fights in films like The Raid. I didn’t mind Cole’s character it made sense for the movie’s direction. Cole being an MMA expert was a nice modern touch up for the martial arts aspect of the franchise. The special effects were excellently done too. You know how these lower budgeted type of films tend to have CGI that looks noticeably like CGI (aka bad)? Even at a budget of $50 Million, of which I can only imagine went to the CG I never really saw any of it that just looked awful or wonky. Except for maybe a single instance with Syzoth. It’d have been easier to just use a humanoid ninja version of Syzoth honestly. 

The story is fine, I like the idea of the unique powers having a backstory instead of just existing. That’s a neat layer that adds some sense into the world. Granted, it’s not necessary to do so, but the fact that they did it is kind of appreciated. And yes Kano ruled in this movie. His quips and jokes were almost always on. I do feel bad for most of the cast who felt like they were playing catch up with Lawson’s energy. I also have to commend the writers for going out of their way to feature Scorpion & Sub-Zero’s backstories. They were spread across several games and it was done fairly well here for a two hour film. 

All the Mortal Kombat gore you can handle and then some.

THE BAD: Mortal Kombat some some good ideas, but it seems the movie loses confidence in itself quit a bit. For example, I mentioned earlier that I like Cole in the sense that him existing doesn’t bother me. However, Cole’s character direction kind of falls flat. Like him being there is cool, but there’s literally no reason why his role couldn’t have been given to Scorpion or Johnny Cage like in the original film. The former probably would have made for a much better movie honestly. Lawson as mentioned is awesome here, but it gets to the point where he completely outclasses the rest of the cast. And it really makes them look bad and dry. I also feel I have to say this respectfully as a fan of the source. I don’t like the idea of turning Liu Kang and Kung Lao who are arguably the main characters of the first handful of the games background characters. They could have given Jax’s role of informing Cole about the legend of Mortal Kombat to Liu, and they oddly do in the second act. It was also weird for the film to be called Mortal Kombat, but not feature the actual tournament. They do some makeshift pseudo-tournament. 

Mortal Kombat is a decent video game movie that still has time to be a great one.

OBERALL THOUGHTS: While on the surface Mortal Kombat is probably what you’d expect from most video game films there is a lot to like about it. It follows the story closely enough even with the original direction effecting it. The action, fighting, and special effects are strong and well done. Unfortunately, the film suffers from unbalanced character direction and the impact said original story has on the future of this reboot’s franchise intentions. If the issues can be looked on in earnest I think Mortal Kombat has a genuine shot of being a good video game movie franchise. And I say that, because we’re undoubtedly getting at least one sequel. Otaku Dome gives Mortal Kombat a 70 out of 100.

[dailyfantastic]

IT’S ONLY FOREVER: THE ETERNALS RECAP PART 1

ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE: THE ETERNALS ISSUE 1

Jack Kirby is the king of comics for many reasons, like his peerless art, boundless creativity, and frightening productivity. Also probably his amazing narration skills. Check out Mister Miracle to see what I really mean. But you can also check out The Eternals, which opens with the most powerful question of all:

“IS MAN ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?”

If you’re a thoughtful Marvel comics reader, though, you might recognize a flaw in this question. The year was 1976, and it had been 14 years since Jack Kirby conclusively answered that question in Fantastic 4 Volume 1 Issue 2, “The Skrulls From Outer Space.” Mankind is not alone in the Marvel Universe, because there are Skrulls and Galactus and Impy the Impossible Man. Likewise, Jack Kirby had also already told us mankind is not alone on the Earth, because he has written comics featuring Atlanteans (like Attuma) and mutants (like Unus the Untouchable) and Inhumans (like Aireo).

So what’s the deal? Well....

Literally in this first line, I realized something no one has ever said about the Eternals before: this book is not supposed to take place in the Marvel Universe.

Mankind is not alone in the universe, but the Eternals are alone in their own Universe.

This thought is something we’ll be tracking throughout our read-through. I’ll tell you now, there’s more evidence coming soon, notably that Not A Single Other Marvel Character Even Cameos In This Book.

Depicted: The kind of thing the Fantastic 4 usually would handle

Look, it makes sense. Kirby did not like having his characters messed with. We know he resented the way his ideas got treated once he was gone, and we know he desperately wanted to make his Own Thing. That was the point of New Gods, right? Kirby wanted to carve out his own part of the DC Multiverse; he wanted to tell one complete story that no one else could meddle in. And he tried, but then they did.

So it obviously makes sense that Kirby would want to just have his own little sandbox to get cosmic in, without needing Reed Richards to explain why the Celestials can’t just be threatened with the Ultimate Nullifier this time.

But it explains, already, one narration box in, why this comic feels like such a weird fit in the Marvel Universe. It isn’t about Skrulls or Kree or Kronans. You’ll see that it doesn’t really mesh with Marvel’s everyman themes. This is something new.

This is...well, it’s...something.

There’s probably more worldbuilding in this issue than in any other single issue of any comic, but the plot that happens is basically just a lot of people going to South America. Which is fine, I guess. We’ll talk about the plot later, but let’s take this time to establish some of the primary lore elements we’ve learned so far.

Eons ago, unknowable space gods called the Celestials came to Earth. They saw apes, and like any unreasonably powerful godlike beings, they decided to evolve them into three forms. 

Depicted: Some Deviant art

Humans are pretty run-of-the-mill. The Jolteons of the crew, if you will. You know them: they love to cause problems on purpose and on accident. The second bunch are the Deviants.  They aren’t artists who love Sonic the Hedgehog, but horrific monstrosities who love doing evil. Flareon, of course. And lastly, the Vaporeons: the Eternals. The Space Gods’ greatest triumph. We learn in this issue that the Eternals are beautiful, cannot die, can hover, shoot lasers out of their eyes, and probably do whatever. Then the Celestials left, only to return semi-regularly to check in on their cool evolutions. Throughout history, Eternals and Deviants have appeared in human legends as gods, heroes, monsters, and demons. And now, in 1976, we are finally becoming aware of this fact as the Celestials return to cast their final judgment on all three species.

They’re doing this in some incredibly-cool-looking Kirby space ruins, located in an Inca temple. Cultural appropriation is obviously a big problem in all Ancient Alien comics, but I can’t deny that the visuals are the best part of the Eternals.

Depicted: South America is basically space

We meet a few characters as well, who are going to show up a few times. The Professor and his daughter Margo are our two main humans. He’s studying ancient history, and has agreed to let a mysterious man named Ike Harris show him these ancient ruins.

Who is Ike Harris? Well, if you say that name really quickly, and pronounce the “I” incorrectly, you’ll realize he’s Ikaris the Eternal, in disguise to try to get to the Andes to send a beacon to guide the space gods back to Earth. We don’t know much about Ikaris yet, aside from that he’s a handsome blond man who can shoot lasers out of his eyes and rearrange the atoms in the air to turn it into a solid wall.

Also joining the fray in this issue are Kro and Tode of the Deviants. Kro looks like how the devil looks when he shows up in certain Twilight Zone episodes, except he has the sunglasses that the Koopa Troopas wear in the early Paper Mario games, and Tode looks like Jabba the Hutt with arms and legs. The Deviants have a couple of key problems. One is that they can’t produce consistently-viable offspring and are instead breeding Deviants who are basically just Humans. The other is that they don’t want the Celestials to return to Earth, presumably because they’ve been naughty and they’ll get in big trouble.

Depicted: Kro’s parents

Also they live at the bottom of the ocean and shoot down airplanes for no real reason.

So the last thing you need to know is that Kro and his henchmen ride a submarine through a stone dragon’s mouth to reach these Inca ruins from underwater, which is a little weird when you remember that most Incan structures are several hundred miles above seawater.

And then, here we are: Humans! Deviants! And Eternals! Together in an Incan ruin, with the Celestials on their way.

It’s a dense issue. We literally learn all of these facts here, and still have time for Kro to try shooting Ikaris with a laser gun. I have no idea how quickly they’re gonna attempt to explain all of this in a major motion picture, but we’ll worry about that later on I guess. For now, we’re left off an exciting cliffhanger: the Celestials are on their way back to Earth, and no one knows if that’s good or bad!!

We aren’t alone in the Universe, but I’m kinda thinking things were an awful lot simpler when we were.

And coming next issue...Does Jack Kirby know any Inca mythology anyway?

#eternals #the eternals #eternals 1 #it's only forever #marvel #comics #mcu

[not-so-secret-wonderland]

hi i need someone to talk about some shit with me because like, call me crazy but

Luna Lovegood

as half french/ greek on her father’s side

and half Japanese on her mother’s

with the lineage Luna draws from both ancient Kitsune spirits and the Oracle Pythia

no wonder she knows so many things she shouldn’t and sees things no one else can, she has her eyes opened and waiting for the truth

like the truth about her cousin Draco, how Narcissa doesn’t even care about the war, and how much better their chances would be if the Malfoy’s stood on the side of the light.

her mother always called her Myōbu after the silver fox that used to dance above her head, whispering and chasing the light

she hasn’t seen the fox since Pandora died, but she knows he’s there

Draco Malfoy

A mix of the Black and Malfoy families, both powerful in their own rights

inheriting the power of the Shadow People from his mother, sneaking around the castle and not getting caught, having to lie so much it becomes his second nature, his number one defense against Voldy Modly, because he knows what lurks in the shadows is much scarier than a troubled man

the Veela Hydra that the Malfoys have drawn from for centeries effects his every walk with beauty, arrogance, and a surprising amount of power when he’s forced into dangerous situations, or angered beyond control

he fears someone will find out what he really looks like when he gets angry, but when Harry manages to almost die and he ends up yelling at the boy until his eyes are flashing and his hair is levitating, Harry just calls him beautiful

and because his stupid boyfriend didn’t realize that all the old wizard families are connected to ancient magic, they dive headfirst into research with Luna’s help.

Harry Potter

Snakes, he should’ve known snakes would be in his past, after all surely those who can Speak existed before Riddle

the ancestors on his father’s side are notorious for their snake dealings, some of them handlers, some of them working with the healing staff of Asclepius himself

drawing from Asclepius, Medusa, and Nagas, using magic like the distant realities he never got to know isn’t enough, but he doesn’t even realize his mother drew from the Sphinxes until Luna tells him

Harry learns the languages of his ancestors and wears them, and their snake affinity, with pride

his friends get roped into the new language thing too, don’t worry

Sirius and Remus

Harry demands they fire call the two and learn more, Draco doesn’t expect to but he does

Sirius also draws from the Shadow People, as most of the Blacks do. How else could he have snuck out of azkaban? Or hidden in plain sight for so long? but the Shadows don’t have to be bad, after all everyone always goes to the shade when it gets too hot

Remus can’t remember where he drew from before the Wolf. Once the infection is in ones body, werewolves mainly draw from the moon, it’s not all bad

Harry says that’s why he’s so calm all the time, Draco hits him for being rude, but Remus laughs and says the Shadows have always worked for him

The Weasley’s

Harry should probably be less surprised because of course they inherit most of their magic from Fire Spirits

though he does remember with fear the one time he actually made Ron mad and the air around them had gotten weirdly hot

he supposes it makes a lot of sense

but even more so is the Pranking Foxes of Huehuecoyotl Mr. Weasley calls on sometimes

Fred and George pefer that magic to the fire sprites, but not everyone can be so picky

no wonder their prank shop is doing so well, Mcgonagall is going to retire the second she finds out

Blaise Zabini

Blaise rolls his eyes when Harry asks, but Draco’s glaring at him so he divulges

His mother hails from the ancient Voodoo Priestesses and the Sirens that refuse to let sailors steal their gold

How else would she lure men in and get rid of them without a trace?

apparently the only reason his father made it as long as he did was because he drew from the Nymphs

Blaise refuses to tell him any Voodoo secrets and promptly kicks them out before Harry can start begging

Pansy Parkinson

It’s no secret that she’s the best seamstress in the school, rumor has it that she makes her ball dresses by hand because it takes less time than finding someone who actually does it right

Her family goes back nearly as far and the Potter’s, only instead of snakes she got spiders

Harry suddenly gets why Ron was always so afraid of her, but the more she tells him the more it makes sense

the eldest being the Djieien, and while Pans may not be a monster she’s defiantly hidden her heart ages ago so she didn’t get killed by Death Eaters

her father gives her the gift of being able a long defendant of Anansi, which really explains how she manages to know everything about everyone, even the first years

Harry decides that’s more knowledge than he feels comfortable with and makes a note not to cross her

Cho Chang

turns out her and Cedric are literally perfect for each other because they both draw from the dragons

Cho, her given name Nà-Huì after the stories passed down from her mother’s ancestors of the kind, gentle dragon Qilin that always wanted them of their choices and implored them to think of more than one solution to a problem

Her nickname comes from her father’s linage with Chollima. he tells her every day that she is too wonderful for anyone to ever control her

but when she meets cedric who hails from the water pixies and sunflower wyverns she doesn’t feel controlled she feels free

Millicent Bulstrode

They’re embarrassed to admit they have magic from trolls

Harry pats them on the back and says he sees it, which almost gets him punched in the face until he explains

Millie is a huge hoarder, but only if it matters. They keep the tickets from the concerts their mom used to take her too, the notebooks, poetry, dresses that they’ll never wear, makeup they hate, even the little squid their mom got them first year just because it reminds them of their mom

They also refuse to throw away the ugly blanket Pansy had made of the Slythetin crew as a joke, the ‘potter sticks’ button, or anything that reminds them of their friends.

Harry reminds them that there’s nothing wrong with being selfish when all you want is happy times with your friends.

Hermione Granger

after hearing about all her friends and how they all have some cool relation to magic, she feels rather down

Luna thinks it’s quite silly

so she gathers everyone around and tells them of the Owl of Athena, rumored to the greeks as a messager but really a creature so intelligent and woven into the daily lives of people that no one would think about their magic

something has to run all the owl networks and have a constant flow of information, but that information is so sacred it’s said the owl only chooses an inheriter every hundred years

but those who are chosen become the brighter spell casters of their times

and Hermione is near tears so she throws her arms around Luna, who can really only think of how similar her friend is to the owl griffin that’s so clearly in her bloodline

there’s just so much more that could happen?????

#draco malfoy #slytherin #wolfstar #drarry #slytherdor #harry potter #weasley family #hermione granger #blaise zabini #pansy parkinson #sirius black #remus lupin #james potter #narcissa malfoy #lucius malfoy #magic #folklore #fan lore #give cho chang better #cho chang #cedric diggory #the golden trio #the silver trio #hufflepuff #ravenclaw

[sibyl-of-space]

Finished a binge re-play of Ocarina of Time (3D) for the first time in a very, very long time. Long-winded thoughts below.

Disclaimer: I played the original n64 version (red blood Ganondorf and all) ad NAUSEUM as a kid. It was by far in my top 3 most-played video games, and if you all know me you know that I don’t play a lot of video games, I play the same few over and over and over and become obsessed with them. As such, OoT is not new to me. I also played the 3D version once before, but it was over the course of several years when I was in college and that was a no-lens-of-truth run for the heck of it. I have not touched either since though, so this is the freshest eyes I’ve had on the game since I was probably about 6-7 years old seeing it for the first time. Do keep in mind though that I already knew virtually all the easter eggs and secrets and story and progression and had a vague recollection of the vast majority of dungeon concepts/puzzles before going in, because this game was my entire world for many formative years.

This game has really excellent dungeons. I ranked them below because I was inspired by my friend ML’s ranking (in fact a desire to rank them myself is what caused me to binge replay this in the first place), but honestly I found all of them engaging. My least favorite was ice cavern but even ice cavern has a really cool atmosphere and an interesting concept, it’s just a bit tedious and bottle management gameplay is not particularly fun to me.

1. Spirit Temple - unlike Shadow which uses invisible walls as a mechanic to trick you, Spirit subverts every single mechanic and puzzle you've encountered so far to really throw you. It's extremely clever. The ambience and overall design is also just excellent.

2. Forest Temple - gameplay wise it is fine but as the first adult temple it REALLY sets the scale and tone for the latter portion of your adventure; the vibe in this temple is just so fucking cool. The sacred forest meadow honestly does come off as sacred, ancient, and haunted but in an ethereal way as opposed to a spooky way. Ooh, I love it.

3. Ganon's Tower - the concept is excellent and the execution is solid, the medallion portion is interesting but the gauntlet up to Ganondorf with increasingly loud organ music and hallways filled with bats and just cool fights and great atmosphere makes this one of the sickest final dungeons I can think of. I was starting to be like "eh maybe the medallion rooms are a bit underwhelming" and then I got hit with the fakeout room in Light that just won me over with how cheeky it was. All the medallion rooms felt a bit like Spirit temple with how they played with expectations, which (ironically?) made the spirit portion actually the least good.

4. Gerudo Fortress - I'm counting mini dungeons and the whole espionage thing is just SO much fun. Break into a thieves’ hideout, jump across rooftops and shoot people with your bow to sneak past them?? WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE?????

5. Water Temple - okay I gotta say this replay really sold me on water temple. It's a cool concept and a fantastic atmosphere, and 3DS quality of life changes (boot swap ease of access + very clearly visually marked water level change rooms) made me actually thoroughly enjoy playing it. Also Dark Link is rightfully hailed as one of the coolest, if not the coolest, miniboss(es) in the game, so extra points there.

6. Bottom of the Well - Shadow's invisible wall mechanic is much more interesting when you can't see through them and everything is a potential trap. Falling down to the basement does get frustrating but that room where you light torches to open coffins and a FLOATING GIBDO EMERGES makes up for it, holy crap. Shadow Temple is underwhelming because Bottom of the Well already did what it tries to do but better.

7. Dodongo's Cavern - hey man I like blowing up dinosaurs this dungeon is just solid 0 complaints

8. Fire Temple - Fire Temple is also solid I just a) am so used to the original music that this version feels empty and lacking atmosphere by comparison, and b) find the above temples cooler. Shout out to dragon whack-a-mole boss fight though.

9. Shadow Temple - this suffers from being the only temple I really had completely memorized (I think my weenie friends* must have made me beat it for them as kids) so playing it this time was really just going through the motions; it didn’t get the chance to win me over because I remembered all of it and nothing particularly stuck out to me as being super clever. The boat ride, however, is sick as hell.

(*disclaimer: I was also a weenie. Shadow Temple scared the absolute pants off of me. But I clearly played it enough times that the entire thing was etched into my memory regardless, so.)

10. Deku Tree - does its job as tutorial dungeon, nice atmosphere, thats about all there is to say.

11. Jabu-Jabu's Belly - redeeming feature is using Ruto as a projectile. Throwing her at the ceiling switches will never not be hilarious. Honestly not a bad dungeon, merely gross and I like the other ones better.

12. Ice Cavern - I used to dread Ice Cavern; this time around I just found it tedious. The atmosphere is successful - it really feels cold and chilling - but not appealing enough to make up for it being dull and kind of annoying. Has the potential to be really cool if the blue fire were used in a more interesting way than “fill your bottles and dump them elsewhere.”

BUT, I feel it would be a complete disservice to my younger self and my younger self’s reasons for playing this game so much, if I focus completely on dungeons and disproportionately on gameplay in a review. Because while gameplay is a huge reason I kept going back to it (hard to want to go back to a game if it isn't fun to play), that’s not what made me love it so much, and a replay has given me fresher eyes to enjoy everything else it has to offer.

Ocarina of Time creates a world and a story that I deeply cared about, and revisiting as an adult, I find if anything I have more take-aways than I did previously. I have always really enjoyed coming-of-age narratives when done well, and this is a coming-of-age narrative done REMARKABLY well. You see dumb bratty kids doing dumb bratty kid things and then see the mature people they’ve grown into 7 years later; the game does not make the mistake of projecting a personality onto a voiceless protagonist, but it does imply a narrative arc for him (and you) regardless just through how strong and cool and awesome you get by the end and all the rad shit you’ve accomplished over the course of the game. It manages to very, very successfully make its story about other characters who DO have personalities, but also make you as the blank slate mc cool guy hero very much have a part in that story that feels very earned and satisfying.

Link doesn’t have a personality. You can project whatever the hell you want onto him or nothing at all. Ocarina of Time makes that *work*, because it doesn’t try to frame him as either ~adult in a child’s body~ or ~child in adult’s body~, it just lets you experience the literal growth from a kid who has to jump to reach ledges and has to thwack things twice with a slingshot and tiny sword, to an adult who can LAUNCH MASSIVE PILLARS INTO THE AIR and one-shot previously difficult enemies, and interpret that however you will. I think the most powerful example of this is going back in time again after doing several adult temples, and entering the bottom of the well, where you see enemies you’ve previously only encountered as an adult, and feel confident that you can tackle them as a child, too.

I really love these kinds of narratives. Where the growth of the main character is purely in the sense of you as the player becoming more adept and stronger, and the context of the story makes that mean something, but the game doesn’t try and pretend the avatar itself has a 3-dimensional personality.

I also think the balance between narrative and gameplay is excellent once it hits its groove. The beginning is very hand-holdy (Navi taught me how to open a door after I had already opened a door elsewhere because she’s scripted to do it at a specific door even though you can technically get to a later one first. lol), and I very firmly believe that with Saria’s Song as a device that lets you seek advice when you want to, it is completely unnecessary to have Navi yell at you what she thinks you should be doing. That said, the game doesn’t stop you from doing whatever the hell you want, and the number and depth of dungeons makes exploring and killing stuff by FAR the meat of the game, over the story. There is a suggested dungeon order, but you have some freedom if you’d rather do them a bit out of order, and there is a LOT of fun side stuff you can do and get rewarded for.

Most of that side stuff is an excellent way to highlight the humor in this game. If you beat Malon’s horse race record she mails a literal fucking cow to your house. Your house in Kokiri Forest. You just show up and there is a fucking cow in your house. That is the funniest thing that has ever happened in a game in the history of forever, sorry. You can race the running man, and all of the other sidequests in the game make you think there is a beatable goal you’ll be rewarded for, and the fucker just goes “lol good try but I beat you by one second. :)” You can blow up the Gossip Stones and they turn into rocketships and launch into space. After you beat the game, and have a really poignant moment with Princess Zelda where she sends you back in time, there is a completely out of nowhere dance party featuring the entire cast in celebration. The game does not try to explain this. It just gives you a dance party, and after such a bittersweet finale and such a fun and engaging game, a no-context dance party is exactly what it needs. A line o Gerudo doing the can-can? Thank you, yes please.

There is SO much that this game does not feel any need to justify in-game, that it simply puts in there because it is fun or cool or both, and I appreciate that so much. There are easter eggs out the butt (still haven’t bothered catching the Hylian Loach and I have still NEVER found the sinking lure despite following every guide in existence). Most of the temples imply some sort of greater history that is not even the slightest bit touched on. It has a very cohesive “core” game that has a start-to-finish suggested progression and a matching narrative, and it has absolute mountains of random shit outside of that it in no way pretends to justify. It explains just enough to give it ground to stand on, but no more, leaving you with more questions than answers. That ambiguity drove me nuts as a kid, but now, I think it’s also why I kept coming back. I wanted answers the game wouldn’t give me so I felt compelled to try and find them myself.

Ocarina of Time’s ending is incredible in ways I am just now able to appreciate. First of all, Zelda is like “I’m gonna send you back in time now” and pulls up the Ocarina and instead of playing the Song of Time which everything in the game implies she should, she plays Zelda’s Lullaby and hesitates just enough on the last note as you are sent back in the past - oof, that’s a good moment. The entire game you’re told about how the Kokiri can’t survive outside of the forest and suddenly they’re at Lon Lon Ranch having a dance party. You walk away from the Master Sword and seal it back in the temple, but nonsensically are then able to meet Zelda in her garden as if nothing had happened, meaning she sent you back so far it erased not just the adult timeline but also everything you accomplished as a child too? So many questions, but the fact that it does not even bother to answer them and just leaves you with such an open-ended image of you and Zelda as kids, calling back to that very early moment after the first dungeon in the game, and you can interpret for yourself what exactly that means.

I’m getting rambly (HAHA as if I’m ever not) so I should wrap this up shortly. Ocarina of Time’s ending is why I am so vehemently opposed to the concept of a ~Zelda Timeline~. The ending is nonsensical if you try to apply concrete logic to it. This game proposes ideas and makes me feel a certain way about them and the ending succeeds in providing just enough closure to make me satisfied and just enough open-ness that makes me want to keep coming back to it to experience it again. It’s not an open-and-shut piece of history of a fake world, it’s a really remarkable journey thats ambiguity is what allows it to feel so very magical.

Ooh boy I can’t wait to replay MM again, but that is a game I’ve never stopped playing, so it’ll be anything but fresh. It hits different right after completing OoT, though. The only way to follow up on a story like Ocarina of Time is to be even MORE batshit, ambiguous, and loose with your definition of how time works.

#analyses #ocarina of time #i have a LOT of thoughts it is very long