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Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 3, Episode 3

Episode 3 picks up the day after the camping trip, and Wilhelm calls his mom to check on her. She dumps a massive guilt trip on him, maybe unintentionally, and Wilhelm is feeling a little bit down.

Culture: These are Swedish studentmössor. They originated in the 1800's among Nordic university students and they wore them as a common marker. Later, they were adopted as graduation caps for high school students, signifying that they were now allowed to begin studying at a university.

Culture: Valborg, April 30th, is a traditional Swedish holiday where you celebrate the coming of spring with bonfires. It is also the start of graduation season for high school students, and graduates are allowed to start wearing their caps.

Cinematography: This season they started writing most on-screen social media commentary in English, despite those users being pretty obviously Swedish. I suspect it's because it saves them having to subtitle all of them, it makes it a bit easier for all the viewers to follow along.

Subtext: No, keeping up appearances is more important than mental health for the royal family, which is why this is new behaviour that Wilhelm has never seen before.

Subtext: As a reminder of the increased interest, here's a paparazzi intruding on school grounds. Also, where the hell is Malin? Isn't it her job to shoo away photographers?

Culture: Vintern Rasat is a classic Swedish song celebrating spring that's often performed by student singers at Valborg.

Subtext: Boris cleverly offers August individual therapy, something he sorely needs.

Subtext: It's of course a bit ironic that pretty much the entire fandom hates August and has decided that he can't be forgiven or redeemed. Yes, you, dear reader. But Boris lays out a way for August to start his redemption arc. Will it work? Tune in for next week's episode!

Culture: These usernames reek of white supremacy. Norse mythology references are very popular, and 88 means H*il H*tler, so that's the kind of people we're dealing with. The show is also foreshadowing what's gonna happen at the end of the episode.

Blink and you miss it: Linda made Pabellón, a Venezuelan dish. In season 1 we didn't know where Linda was from, but in season 2 she was canonically made as being from Venezuela, just like Omar is in real life.

Subtext: I think August actually cares, Kristina is family to him too, but Wilhelm refuses to treat him as family, so he lies about how she's doing. Not very convincingly, though.

Cinematography: This is an absolutely hilarious shot with a bunch of students anxiously peering out through the windows as the dreaded enemy arrives: Skolinspektionen! Dun-dun-dun!

Blink and you miss it: There's a rainbow flag on the board to the left.

Subtext: Vanessa totally knew she interrupted a makeout session between our boys. Oh, and there's a lot of purple in these two scenes, colour theory exploded with joy.

Subtext: Simon will be proven wrong, someone will be honest.

Subtext: It's also ironic that Simon joins the rest of the Forest Ridge boys pretending to have a great meal together that is totally not stiff and awkward at all, absolutely not.

Lost in translation: Simon Walter says that May 1st is a "röd dag" - a red day, which is how Sundays and public holidays are usually marked in a Swedish calendar. "Bank holiday" is the term used in the UK for public holidays. There are 13 public holidays in Sweden each year.

Culture: Första Maj is the name of the International Workers' Day in Sweden, because it always occurs on May 1st. In defence of Henry and Walter's shared braincell, most Swedes actually don't participate, but it's a bit weird to not even know what it is.

Subtext: This entire sequence shows how Felice's dad tried to stick up for himself, but quickly learned to keep his head down instead and conform and roll with it. And it wasn't just the other students who were racists, the staff was in on it too. This goes for all the shit the students are doing, the partying, the booze, the alcohol, the bullying: The staff is in on it. They know. They're complicit.

And despite all of this, Poppe's immediate answer when asked how his time at Hillerska was, is that it was the best time of his life. This is why schools like this stay the way they are, why they never change, because they're very good and very bad at the same time. Trauma-bonding works, the kids will all get friends for life, they'll forget the shit and remember the good times. They'll become like him.

But when Felice learns what the school did to her dad, she decides to help shut it down, to stop the cycle of abuse. The reason she goes in alone is because she now knows she can't trust her dad, he's gonna defend the school, and she also doesn't want him to know that she snitched.

Subtext: In official surveys, students from schools like this generally rate them very highly. Student satisfaction is very high. Maybe they're lying, maybe they're delusional, but they sure care more about their schools than public school students.

Blink and you miss it: REAL SUBTLE THERE, SHOW.

Subtext: Keeping with the school theme, this is how students defend the shit that goes on. Outsiders are kept in the dark, you don't tell them anything, because they "wouldn't understand", they're missing the "full context", etc. Oh, I don't know shit about fashion, but Fredrika's jacket smells very expensive.

Blink and you miss it: While Wilhelm pinned a polaroid of himself and Simon prominently on his wall, August keeps a similar polaroid of himself and Sara hidden.

Subtext: Micke's redemption arc is in full swing, so why not play a song that reinforces the idea that people can change?

Subtext: August's redemption arc is in full swing, so let's cut to him nervously waiting outside Micke's place for Sara to come home, while the same song is playing. Is he gonna be a villain forever?

Blink and you miss it: Micke introduces himself as Micke af Eriksson when August introduces himself as August Horn af Årnäs. The English subtitles for some weird reason went with "Micke Eriksson of Bjärstad", but that's actually not what he says.

Subtext: Sara is pretty realistic about her expectations of her dad because she's seen this before, but this also applies to her expectations of August, because she knows that he can also slide back into his normal shitty self. Also, she's wearing a purple sweater.

Subtext: In case you forgot, August's dad also struggled with addiction, and died from it, so he and Sara actually has that in common. Maybe there's hope for this redemption arc thing?

Cinematography: I don't fucking know why they included this baking scene. It serves no purpose, and I suspect quite a few people in the production have a serious hand fetish, because what is this? What is this? Also, why are Simon and Wilhelm joining what appears to be a Manor House thing with the rest of the girls? How? Why? This makes no sense! It's very cute, though!

Subtext: Oh ok, we got a social media pic that Sara could see and feel bad for her lost friendships. But man, those Hillerska aprons! On point!

Subtext: This is unfortunately a very common thing for people on any kind of psychoactive medication. How can you tell if you need medication if you feel good right now? Is it lasting or temporary? Can you trust your own brain? Either way, fantastic conversation between Micke and Sara, which starts her on her journey to reconcile with Felice at least.

🎵 I can change, I'm not the same, not forever. 🎵

Culture: The official hat-on-putting ceremony where all the third-year students put on their hats, set to another traditional Swedish spring celebration song: Vårvindar Friska.

Culture: It's Valborg, so Hillerska has their own little bonfire. We saw some students with torches pretending to light it, but it's actually floating in the middle of the fountain so, uh, how did they do that? Normally, your local bonfire or Majbrasa is just a huge heap of wood that you set on fire.

Cinematography: Man, this is a pretty show. Look at that shot. The fire, the sunset, the pool reflection. The end of April is over a month after the spring equinox, so the days are getting longer, and the sun now sets at about half past nine in the evenings.

Subtext: Ok, let's do one more on-the-nose lyrics thing for when August sees Sara back at school. Yes, yes, he needs her.

Culture: I had to post about it immediately after watching the episode, because setting a sex scene to Uti Vår Hage is hilarious. Everyone in Sweden knows it, most people have sung it at school, it's a cute little song about enjoying your garden, flowers, and giving your loved one a wreath of flowers. I can now never hear this song without thinking about this scene. Thanks a lot, show.

Blink and you miss it: Simon fucks Wilhelm. Yay! Versatile supremacy!

Subtext: Sara is still so suspicious of her dad's behaviour, she can't make herself trust that his current good period will last.

Subtext: Even though this dialogue is about how Simon and Sara are so different, it of course also applies to how Wilhelm and Erik were different, because Wilhelm struggles with not being able to handle his duty the same way Erik could.

Culture: Alright, it's time for the actual local Första Maj event in Bjärstad. The town is probably a bit small to have a proper demonstration parade, but there's people with banners and socialist slogans, and a bunch of local organisations have joined in, including Bjärstad BK, the football club Rosh plays in.

Culture: Meanwhile, the absolutely not socialist rich kids at Hillerska are nursing their hangovers and enjoying the day off, and they're doing some yoga and playing some padel instead. As you do.

Subtext: Drugs. He looks like he's selling drugs.

Culture: These apparently confused a bunch of viewers, but they're just raffle tickets. It's one hundred numbered, rolled up, paper tickets stuck on a metal ring. When you buy a ticket you just tear it off at the perforation, and when all tickets are sold you can just break the seal on the ring and pour all the stubs in a bag or whatever so you can draw winners.

Blink and you miss it: Cute kiddo has a pride pin on his jacket.

Lost in translation: The show waited a bit with showing what it says on the banner behind them in the photo, but if you can read Swedish you immediately saw that it says KROSSA ÖVERKLASSEN - CRUSH THE UPPER CLASSES. Oh no, Simon, what have you done?

Blink and you miss it: Like a pack of rabid wolves, the social-media starved Gen Z kids rush to their phones for an hour of glorious feeding on Instagram and TikTok.

Blink and you miss it: I love Vincent so much, he's terrible, but he's just so much fun! The little fist he makes as he says "kampen" just seals it.

Subtext: The show still hasn't revealed the banner text to the non-Swedish audience, but Wilhelm immediately sees it and knows how bad it is and why Farima tried calling him seven times. Also, Vincent is just on a roll here.

Cinematography: Man, this is a pretty show. Look at that shot. Look at how they perfectly aligned the hole in the window with Simon, the police car, and the entrance to their house, as he discovers that someone decided to vandalize it.

#young royals #young royals subtext #young royals analysis #young royals season 3

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maniacwatchestheworld · 3 months

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We Need To Talk About Danny's Power Level.

I was hesitant to make this post, but the more I think about it and the more I see... We really HAVE to discuss this. Generally speaking, I really don't want to be seen as someone who is trying to ruin people's fun within this fandom. I want to inform, and while I have issues with some of the very prevalent ideas in this fandom, I don't want to tell people what they should or should not be making! I want people to follow what they find fun to create! But this power level thing...? I think that it has some rather concerning implications to it that need to be examined and discussed! This is an actual, decently serious problem, and after considering it for a time, it occurs to me that I may be one of the few people in this community that recognizes this issue as an actual issue and has the authority to speak on it...

You NEED to stop making Danny so incredibly overpowered in the DPxDC space.

Now please don't misunderstand me. I understand the value of a good fun power fantasy and making Danny more powerful than God can be fun and cathartic if you have a negative history with the Christian faith. But this insistence on the Ghost Zone being The Most Important Thing Ever and Danny being The Most Powerful Entity Within It is actually actively warping how people interpret and think about DC canon as well as certain characters within its canon to the point of unrecognizability as well as robbing characters of what makes them interesting, the point of their stories, and their agency within it. But most importantly of all, all of this is just... Generally, genuinely dismissive and shitty towards most religions, cultures, beliefs, and faiths that people practice, ESPECIALLY the faiths of POC and other minorities. And this is specifically an issue that DC does not have and that people within this space are making an issue by refusing to let the Ghost Zone and Danny have some limitations.

So that you understand where I'm coming from, please understand that I'm a person of color (I'm half Filipino) and that I'm Buddhist (a religion that I decided to convert to and embrace after a lot of thought and soul-searching, even if I'm not very good at practicing it). It also needs to be stated that in the DC universe, all religions and faiths are true and real at the same time, and they all have more or less equal footing as any other faith or religion or mythology explored in this multiverse. Christian heaven and hell are real. Reincarnation is canonical to the DCU. The Greek Pantheon is real and they are just as real and powerful as the Norse Pantheon. (By the by, just to let you know, yes, people in the real life modern day do actually actively worship both of these pantheons today.) Different alien planets have different faiths, and there is precedent for them being real as well. (Hey! Fun fact! Kryptonians are polytheistic!) It does seem that some form of animism is real within the DCU (within concepts of The Red and The Green)! And there is even representation for indigenous African faiths and beliefs within this shared universe! One of the genuinely wonderful things about the DC universe is that all of these faiths are real, they're all valid, and they are all more or less on equal footing to one another! If all the religions and afterlives and gods of each pantheon went to war with one another, it would genuinely be difficult to know who would win, or who would even stand a chance of coming out of this conflict alive!

In fact, a lot of characters and storylines within the DC universe are actually DEPENDENT on all of these faiths existing and being equally valid at the same time. Do you know where Billy Batson gets his powers from? The phrase "SHAZAM," if you didn't know, is actually an acronym for the names of the gods and heroes that he derives his powers from. (Solomon, Heracles, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.) And it's implied that each person with SHAZAM powers has different heroes and gods that they derive their power from! (Black Adam derives all of his powers from the Egyptian Pantheon. Mary Marvel derives all of her powers from female gods and heroic figures.) Many of Wonder Woman's stories involve her interacting with various different pantheons. Xanthe Zhou gets their powers from traditional Chinese folk ancestor-worshiping practices. Ragman is a Jewish character whose suit is a powerful Jewish artifact- a suit made out of the souls of sinners that was created to protect the Jewish community. Sun Wukong is an actual character in the DCU and he is JUST as overpowered and immortal ×500 as he should be! And there are like... At least 3 entirely different characters that either are iterations of, claim to be, or pull their powers/inspiration from Anansi! DC celebrates a lot of faiths and religions and are bringing in more beliefs and faiths into their universe all the time! TONS of characters derive their powers from their religions, faiths, and beliefs! And DC celebrates them all as being real and valid to all who practice them! ... And you want them all to be forced to be under the same umbrella and less important and powerful as Danny and the Ghost Zone...

Bringing up ideas of ghosts and afterlives are always going to be loaded subjects because they often inherently rub up against actual living people's practiced religions and beliefs. But a belief in ghosts and dimensions better suited for them is also a valid belief that real life people have. And there is precedent for these beliefs also being real within DC canon. But DC only manages to get away with crossing over as many faiths as it does by saying that they are all real, valid, and while you might see less of some pantheons and more of others, they all exist and are doing their own thing just like they do in real life, just off panel... Are you beginning to see what the problem is...?

In the DPxDC fandom's eagerness to incorporate Danny into the DC universe and to make him powerful enough to go toe to toe with the likes of Superman, it seems that most people immediately overcompensated and that no one has really thought to slow down, stop, and actually think about what they are implying. Because the most common headcanons that I have seen regarding the Ghost Zone and other afterlives and religions? It's that they are all parts of the Ghost Zone, but are all ultimately subordinate to it. And since Danny is the Most Powerful and Important Person in the Ghost Zone... This implies that all religions, faiths and beliefs are less important and are indeed subordinate to the Almighty Danny. That all deities and the people following them should just bow down to Danny's might. This is something that DC, in spite of all of its flaws, has managed to avoid. These religions are REAL religions! Actual faiths practiced by actual people! We are NOT talking about dead, irrelevant pantheons that no one alive worship anymore! We are talking about living, active faiths and religions, some of which colonizers have tried to eradicate from the world! Some of these faiths have been suppressed! Some of the people who practice these beliefs have faced genocide for them! And so saying that the Ghost Zone is bigger, better, and that Danny is more important than any single other faith and afterlife...? THAT'S A SHITTY THING TO DO! You are literally doing the shitty Christian missionary thing, but with a fictional afterlife that consists of fictional characters that you know are not actual religious beliefs! You're landing on the sandy polytheistic shores of the DCU and declaring that the Ghost Zone is actually vaster than every faith already in the DCU and that Danny is more powerful and has authority over your gods! That your beliefs and faith and religion should just take a backseat to the Danny power fantasy! That your real, lived religion is not more important nor should it be respected when Danny is in the room! Of course the Buddha should bow down to Danny! Of course the Jewish people should renounce their faith and worship Danny instead because he's better and more powerful than the Jewish God! Why should people pray to their ancestors when Danny ultimately gets to decide what happens to everyone's ancestors!? If they want good things to happen to their ancestors in the afterlife, they should pray to Danny instead! Not like any form of prayer works or matters in this universe anyway because Danny is Almighty! And he doesn't hear the prayers! By making all faiths subordinate to Danny within these stories, you are saying that anyone who practices these beliefs and faiths within these stories are not valid in their beliefs. The only belief that matters and is real in this universe is the Ghost Zone and whatever will appease Danny the most. And while the characters in these stories are not real, the religions, beliefs, and practices they engage in ARE. And so you are implying that real people's faiths and religions don't matter. You are just dismissing real faiths and beliefs as not something worth thinking about or respecting within your works! You are saying that this fictional American white teenage boy and his goopy green land is more important to you than just being respectful of real people's faiths, beliefs, and religions. That your power fantasy is more important than saying that a person is valid for holding on to their beliefs. That when it comes down to it, that you would rather people choose your Danny power fantasy over their religion being portrayed as important and valid. That is honestly insulting. And really alls that you've done is impose monotheism onto the DC universe. You're just enforcing monotheism on people with extra steps. But instead of it being the Christian God, you've put Danny in that position. THIS IS A SHITTY THING TO DO! THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE DEFAULT HEADCANON THAT PEOPLE HAVE IN THIS FANDOM! PLEASE STOP!

Please understand. I know that you didn't do this on purpose or mean to imply this intentionally. I know that you didn't realize that you were insulting and undermining actual faiths and religions by pushing these ideas on the fandom. If one or two people had these thoughts and headcanons and didn't think very much about what they are implying, this would not be a problem. But for this to be the default is VERY disconcerting! As a Buddhist, it does feel genuinely shitty and insulting to imply that Danny has authority over the Buddha and that he outranks and is more powerful than Sun Wukong. It's not fun to think that my beliefs matter to you less than continuing to play with your Danny power fantasy. That you don't think that the pursuit for enlightenment and inner peace is real or worthwhile. That you would find my pursuit of compassion over everything else to be silly, stupid, and laughable when stood next to Danny. I know that you don't mean it. I know that's not what you meant to imply. But it is what you imply by making every faith subordinate to the Ghost Zone. And as someone who has a faith that is so often seen as subordinate to others and just a silly little play fantasy that doesn't matter and isn't real, it's depressing and uncomfortable to see this community as a whole unknowingly echo these sentiments. People in real life don't think that my faith is valid. People don't believe me when I say that I'm Buddhist. And as someone who is Filipino on top of that, I can't help but to think about the utter tragedy of my ancestors being forced to convert to Christianity or die. To forget their beliefs, pretend they never mattered, and embrace Jesus. To be forced to believe that their indigenous beliefs didn't matter. And so many of those indigenous beliefs are now lost and forgotten to their living ancestors (including myself) for it because to the Christians, their belief in Jesus was ultimately more important to them than just letting the Filipino beliefs and religions peacefully exist as they were. It's uncomfortable to me that you would rather I just embrace this view of Danny and let him be more important than and be an authority over my religion. That I should just be comfortable in Danny being more important and better than every religion that people actually practice in real life. That I should just forget the insult to my and any other religion that you make by placing Danny as more important than, and to "just have fun." But I can't. And these ideas are everywhere in this fandom. Even in stories where it shouldn't matter or doesn't need to be present, it's there. This reminder that you don't take my faith seriously- these ideas that Danny is more important than my faith are ubiquitous to this community. An issue that wasn't present in either of the original source materials. Because they thought about it and so went out of their way to not imply it. But here, people are just not willing to make that courtesy for even a second.

But it doesn't have to be this way. You can do better! I know that you can do better. And it isn't even difficult to do! All that you need to do better is to simply... Just... Think about it. When you imply or say "all afterlives are part of the Ghost Zone" actually think about ALL afterlives! Christian and Atheist and Greek ones, yes. But also Asian and Native American and African and South American ones too! Is that kind of thought fair towards Native American faiths, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Palestinians, Hellenists, Animists, and every other person and group that practices a faith? Or does this have majorly fucked up implications towards some or all of these people? If the answer is yes, you can proceed, but you need to be mindful of that fact and just think about it, even if only a little. Even if it's just a small acknowledgement that you don't know what you're talking about or that you are choosing to ignore some of the fucked up implications you're making here for the sake of the story in the tags. I just want you to take a moment and think through the implications of what you are making, and to make a choice on whether you should proceed or reconsider things. If you choose to proceed with the fucked up implications, that's fine. It means that you can do so with other mindsets in mind and can possibly use these ideas in interesting ways! At least you made a stance to possibly be shitty towards some people for the sake of your fun. At least you made the choice to say that some people's beliefs just don't matter to your story. This is a neutral statement. Some works of art are just not made for some kinds of people. And that's fine. But it is always better to knowingly acknowledge and make that choice than to pretend that it isn't there. And if you didn't realize that's what you were doing? If you reconsider and choose to turn back on this idea? At least you made that choice and didn't just passively follow the rest of the crowd to get here. Hopefully, thinking about it will make you more mindful about your art in the future and therefore make it better! The only thing to do about it is to acknowledge that you weren't thinking about the implications, but that you changed your mind, and move forwards with your life.

Now just to be entirely clear, I'm not telling you that I want you to feel guilty about being inconsiderate towards other faiths. That doesn't really do anyone any good. I won't get any satisfaction from you feeling guilty about it or internally punishing yourself for it. Just actually give what you might be implying more thought in terms of religion next time and do better. It's alright to make mistakes. We are all just human and we all make mistakes. Sometimes we don't even realize when we've made a mistake. Just strive to do better next time, be more willing to let go of these ideas that you're so attached to, allow yourself to see things from another perspective, and move on. Sometimes, it's better to just leave things alone. Sometimes you shouldn't meddle and try to rework ideas that were perfectly good on their own to begin with. Sometimes nothing that you personally can add will be a positive contribution. Sometimes the only thing that interfering will do is over-complicate things and rob the idea of what made it so interesting and powerful in the first place. But it's okay to leave it alone. It's going to be okay. I'm not angry. Just disappointed and a little frustrated. But it's better if you are able to just drop these things and move forwards with mindfulness in the future.

As an alternative, I think that it would generally be better for the Ghost Zone to just be its own thing separate from the other afterlives. Equal to other afterlives and not all-encompassing of them. It can be connected or related to other afterlives, but being greater than them as a whole is just a very uncomfortable and cruel implication. You don't need the Ghost Zone to be the most important thing in the multiverse. And Danny does not need to be the most powerful thing in existence. Please. It's okay to have power fantasies. But the invincible overpowered stronger than all Gods Danny should not be the overwhelming norm here to the detriment of everything else. It's only when you let go of Danny NEEDING to be the MOST important thing in the multiverse can you start to really dive into some of the more interesting sides of characters on their own terms and not on yours! Like... Did you know that there is one ghost character in DC called The Spectre and that he's the literal personification of the wrath of God? Did you know that Xanthe Zhou as a spirit envoy is actually half dead and half alive? Did you know that The Wizard Shazam is actually, secretly an aboriginal god? Did you know that in the DC universe that Judas Iscariot still walks the Earth to this day, doing vigilante work to atone for his betrayal of Jesus? Did you know that Ra's Al Ghul's mom has met and hung out with some of the demons that Sun Wukong fought against in Journey to the West? Hell, did you know that Damian is Buddhist!? Imagine that. Danny coming in and telling Damian that he's more important and more powerful than Damian's entire religion. That the Buddha is just a lackey of his and that he rules over all afterlives, including nirvana and cycles of reincarnation. I'm certain that Damian would take that very well and accept it wholeheartedly! Don't you agree with me?!!?!???!

I personally think that all of this is better and more interesting if characters, their religions, and ideas in general are able to interact with Danny's world on their own terms without being forced to fit within Danny's box! You don't need to try to force everything within DC's universe to fit inside Danny's. DC wouldn't ask for Danny's universe to conform to theirs! They would just add everything that Danny's universe has to offer on top of everything else they already have! And trying to fit the entire DC multiverse within the scope of Danny's universe... It's too small a box for too large of a universe! Sometimes you can just let things not be deeply connected. And sometimes things don't need a complicated explanation and it can literally just be magic. There's nothing wrong with trying to tie everything together in a neat and succinct way. But sometimes you need to pull your view out a little and look at what you're doing and genuinely ask yourself if what you're doing actually adds depth, or if it does more harm than good and makes everything worse, make less sense, and more complicated or not. It's okay to fall down the rabbit hole sometimes. I completely understand that happening and do it all the time! Just remember to be mindful about it!

Either way, if you're going to insist on desperately clinging onto these ideas of Danny being the Most Important and Powerful Thing in the Multiverse to the detriment of literally everything else, that's fine. But just be honest with what you're doing and why. This isn't a Ghost King Danny AU. Kingdoms don't have unequivocal power over other and all kingdoms. It's a God Emperor over all Gods Danny AU. Nothing wrong with that concept in of itself. Just tag it properly as something like "God King Danny" so that I don't have to deal with it and the implications you're making about my religion with it. That would be enough! I would be happy with that! Just make your choice. Think about what you're doing, why you're doing it and choose. If you choose to keep going, that's fine! All the more power to you! Have fun! But be honest about what you're making. I may not like it and think that it's an overdone, overplayed idea at this point, but you're free to do it! So go forwards and make what will bring you joy! But now that you've thought about it a little, hopefully you'll continue with a little more knowledge and foresight. And hopefully that will make your work even more interesting and better for it! And if you decide to change course, I'm glad that I was able to sway you and get you to see things from my perspective and come to my side on this. At the very least, hopefully this will help to vary up ideas within the fandom a bit and you won't just take ideas that are happening in this space entirely for granted and as givens! I have so many ideas on interesting ways that these intersections can go and characters that you can use, and ways to look at this community that offer so so SO many interesting story directions! I'm so happy that you've decided to come with me on this journey! You're going to make something great, I'm certain of it! So let's make something wonderful together! I believe in you! There's a lot of fun to be had! ^.^

#ghost king danny #dcxdp #infinite realms au #god king danny #dpxdc #dp x dc crossover #dp x dc au #dc x dp #dp x dc #danny phantom x dc #religion #religious discussion #religion tw #religion talk #danny phantom

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hiddenhearthwitch · 2 months

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📚 Small Intro To Polytheism📚

One of the most frequent asks I receive is how and where to get started when it comes to polytheism. This is a fairly broad subject and I’ll try to be as general as I can for advice but I will include specific references for Norse polytheists as that’s my shit. This information can be used to help you find a pantheon or to help you pick deities to work with it. If you’d like to use it to pick a patron deity that’s super, if you want to worship 20 gods and not have a patron deity that’s cool too. You do you dude. Please keep in mind this is all reflective of my research and personal practice. 🌻

Picking A Pantheon/Deity

This really boils down to personal preference. You’ll read a lot of posts and books that tell you many different ways and it’s entirely up to you because it is your practice. That being said, there’s a couple of different ways to go about it.

Research! This is one of my favorite ways to delve in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reading the stories of multiple pantheons and picking on that calls to you. You can also talk to other devotees and see what they have to say about deities and their religions. It is important to keep in mind that some religions are closed so please do proper research!

For example, I wasn’t originally a Norse pagan. I read some stories and thought the Hellenic pantheon would best suit me. I reached out to Eros for a while but after feeling no real connection to the pantheon I continued my research! After reading up on the Norse pantheon I decided to reach out to them out. Obviously, I fucking loved it because here I am. Point being, you can pick a pantheon based on research and not some divine message or whatever. You are also more than welcome to try out a religion, decide it doesn’t suit you, and move on.

Divination! You can use runes, a pendulum, tarot, etc.This can go a few different ways. You can write pantheon/deity names on separate pieces of paper, mix them up, and place them face down then ask the pendulum to pick. You can assign a deity/pantheon to each suit of cards or major arcana card or even do the same thing with runes.

For example, this is how I found a devotion to Frigg and Hel. I asked if there were any deities who were interested in working with me and pulled the runes Hagalaz and Berkana which read as Hel and Frigg to me. I followed up with tarot cards and pulled Death(Hel) plus the Queen of Pentacles(Frigg).

Asking/waiting for a sign. This isn’t something I’ve personally done so I don’t have much to say on the subject. You can go about meditating, praying, doing a ritual, or whatever and essentially wait for a sign after. It can come via a dream, something you experience, symbols you see in your daily life, it’s pretty much up to your intuition to decipher it. If anyone has information they’d like me to add in here please let me know!

If there’s a god you’re curious about and don’t want to do any of the above it’s totally cool to just reach out and ask if they want to work with you.

Idk How To Research

Same, tbh my keyword search game is weak. Anyways, good portion of us are looking up dead religions with little reliable resources. To give those curious about the Norse an easy head start here’s a compiled list of books by yours truly(click me!!) . It’s important to take everything with a grain a salt of salt when doing research. In my experience a lot of the retold Norse sagas have been Christianized or written under heavy Wiccan influences. It’s a good idea to do research on the author before reading one of their books.

Other blogs! There are tons of great witches and pagans on tumblr that have information waiting for you. 💗 You can search their blog/tags for good references for books, websites, podcasts, etc. Plus lots of blogs are open to answer asks. If you don’t know where to start for searching it’s best to try things based around your interest like: “norse polytheist”, “hellenic witch”, “gaelic polytheism”, etc.

Media! How lucky are we that we live in the age of technology? Knowledge is right at our fingertips! There are countless documentaries, podcasts, and audiobooks on youtube full of information for different cultures and religions. I’d personally recommend almost anything by BBC, Myths & Legends, and World Mythology!

Books! I love starting on goodreads to find good books and trust worthy authors. They’ve had almost every book I looked up with bunches of different reviews so you can get varying perspectives. Check out your local library as well! A lot of city libraries have online databases now of all of their books so you can “check it out” online and read the PDF(personal fave).

Feeling Lost Still?

That’s completely reasonable and your feelings are more than valid. It can be overwhelming and lot of information to soak up. Just do your best and take it at your own pace, there’s no rush to find a deity or pantheon. 💞 Below are a few other general concerns I hear a lot that I was hoping to address.

“I’m leaving a monotheistic(Christian, Catholic, Jewish, etc) religion and it’s giving me anxiety.” This is entirely common and almost expected in my opinion. I was raised Roman Catholic and my first year to two looking into polytheism riddled me with anxiety. I was constantly concerned that god would smite me down or I’d face an eternity in hell for worshiping false gods. While I can’t speak for everyone that fear was entirely erased for me when I found my gods. I’ve never felt so safe and strong and hopefully with time you can find the same in your gods!

It’s okay to want to learn more or to seek something more. I can’t tell you how to handle your anxiety but please know you’re not alone in that fear. There’s whole communities out there willing to support you and help you find your safe space(including me)!

“What’s UPG?” You’ll see a lot of posts, mine included, that mention UPG - UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis. This is essentially someone’s personal thoughts and beliefs about a deity. For example, I associate Sif with hazelnuts. There’s nothing in the lore or any book that says that she likes hazelnuts; that’s just a personal opinion(aka a UPG).

“How do I reach out to the gods?” I have a lot of information on my blog about this topic although a lot of it is Norse specific. You can check out my beginner polytheist tag here and my beginner norse post/ask here.

Altar! This is my go to typically. Altars aren’t limited to the cookie cutter image that comes to mind(no hate though I have a few); one thing you can make a side blog dedicated to your pantheon/deity, make a small one in a tin can, or even make one in a video game like Minecraft or some shit. You can be as creative or as to the book as you want. It’s up to you.

Prayer! You can totally just sit down and be like, “Hey man wanna work on some shit together?”. While I’m not 100% that all gods would be down with you being that casual it’s still something you can try.😂 You can reach out to them by sitting down in a quiet space and meditating into prayer, praying in the car or in the shower, or just pray at the altar you set up if you did. Again, I can not reiterate this enough, it’s your practice, reach out to them as you please.

Do something personal! This is more like devotional work in my opinion. Let’s say you knit and you want to reach out to a creative or domestic deity, you can knit something as a devotional act to them and as a way to reach out. For example I pick up litter in honor of the Vanir and Jörð, or I play Skyrim for Thor and Týr.

Most importantly just be honest and up front with the god that you’re reaching out too. Considering that statement be honest with yourself as well. There’s no point going into a relationship with a god if you can’t be upfront, it’ll end up in nothing but grief.

“Can deities reach out through gods/signs?” They totally can. However, it is up to you and your intuition if a deity has and it’s not likely another witch will decipher that for you. Sounds, experiences, images, all have different meanings to each of us - they may show you something that’s very personal to you but would be mundane to someone else. Trust your instincts. However, please remember that not everything is magical, sometimes a raven is just a raven and not Odin.

✨Take everything you learn with a grain of salt. Including this post.✨

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#my posts #witchblr #beginner witch #witch community #pagan tips #norse paganism #norse pagan #beginner pagan #paganism #heathenry #witch tips

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bones4thecats · 5 months

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I finally found it! But I had to find it on my laptop instead of my phone.

Can I request for a Reader who is a Dragon Rider from 'How to Train Your Dragon' (You can decide what her dragon is), being in relationships with the Norse Gods (Odin, Thor and Loki). Your choice is they want to have families at the end.

A/N: I haven’t watched these movies in so long so I had to dig up some information, thankfully it wasn’t hard to find. I also made this as Hiccup and Astrid’s child since it made more sense to me.

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

🪶 Odin first met you when he had a meeting with your tribe

🪶 Your parents, Hiccup and Astrid, had gotten older and you took up as leader of your tribe, which meant you needed to go to meetings with surrounding nations, Gods included

🪶 You jumped onto your Bewilderbeast, which you named Asger, and rode away to the meeting with the Norse family

🪶 Odin knew your family had these creatures, and when they landed, his birds, Huginn and Muninn, jumped and squawked at you all, demanding to know why your band of humans was there

🪶 Asger sat behind you as you walked up to Odin, bowing as a greeting, which caused Asger to do the same

🪶 Odin looked at your dragon and smirked, he had no idea you humans could tame the beasts to such size

🪶 After the meeting, Odin had invited you over a lot more, saying he wished to talk about your dragon and how your tribe came to tame the beasts

🪶 He admired your personality, strong-willed yet calm and collected

🪶 And he cannot lie, watching Huginn and Muninn jump whenever Asger opened his large mouth or poked at them with his large tusks got him laughing mentally

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

🌩️ You had gone to a meeting with your parents and they decided to have you take a step outside for a break

🌩️ You may be the heir, but they wanted you to have some freedom before taking the reins of the entire tribe and dragon relations

🌩️ Your Crimson Goregutter, Bjørn, followed you as you walked through the fields of Asgard, and you had to admit, it was surprisingly well taken care off

🌩️ Bjørn held his tail in front of you when a strong presence was felt, and it was your ally’s son, Thor, who radiated that aura

🌩️ Thor felt the ground shake as your dragon took his steps, and when he saw how tall it was compared to you, he had to admit, he was surprised you could handle him

🌩️ You hushed Bjørn and greeted Thor as the child of Astrid Hofferson and Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III

🌩️ The God of Thunder had heard about your tribe through others, your tribe had many dragons that you treated like family, and it made him smile lightly as you pet Bjørn’s wings

🌩️ He wanted to know more about these creatures, and he definitely would invite you to speak about them more

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・

🐍 Oh he was so interested in your dragon!

🐍 You were told by your mother and father to stray away from the nephew of Odin’s, as he was known as one of the most dangerous Gods in the Norse Pantheon

🐍 Loki had hopped onto your Deathgripper’s head, causing them to go berserk, seeing him as a threat

🐍 The Hobgobbler that you were petting and training for their first flight jumped and hid behind you as you tried calming Guenther, your Deathgripper, down

🐍 He flew off of it and landed nicely as you stopped Guenther’s tail from smashing into the man’s stomach, and thankfully, Guenther listened to you

🐍 Despite the rough meeting, Loki and Guenther got along quite well

🐍 From their dark, pet playful personalities, the two of them like messing around and pranking other Gods

🐍 While your parents are concerned about you being with the God of Mischief, they can sense the love you guys both carry for one another, and, because they don’t wanna hurt your feelings and restrict you from being free

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bywandandsword · 9 months

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Current brainworm, none of the Celtic cultures' creation myths have survived, even though they almost certainly had one. The closest we have is the Lebor Gabala Erenn from Irish mythology, but it isn't a creation story, it records the various settlements of Ireland, ending in the Gaels. However, it is thought that there are reflections of an earlier creation myth in the LGE and in the Tain, and there are similar themes that validate that the Gaels at least viewed the creation of the landscape in this way from various other stories. Additionally, we can compare other Indo-European creation myths to figure out what elements the Gaelic creation myth almost certainly would have had. These include:

Before creation, there is a void of some kind

In that void, fire interacts with water/ice to create the first life

A primordial bovine, most likely a cow (bulls were more common in IE cultures that emphasized pastoralism over crops. The Romans had a she-wolf, because they had to be edge lords)

One primordial being or possibly a set of twins who are sustained by the milk of the cow

One of the twins/the primordial being is dismembered to create the physical world

So already we have the makings of a general creation story, and if you're familiar with Norse mythologies, you might recognize it. In fact, it's thought that the Norse creation myth has retained the most elements of the original IE myth

However, scholars point out that the primordial being that is killed is called *Yemo, meaning "twin", which means there was likely originally two first beings. In the one sacrificing the other, the act renders the brother doing the sacrificing as the First Priest, who creates the concept of death, but in doing so turns that death into the living world. The sacrificed brother is then typically rendered as the First King and Ruler of the Land of the Dead. By setting up this order for the world, the First Priest establishes that life cannot exist without death (whether it be harvesting crops or butchering livestock), and typically, these myths continue and establish the role of the priests in society, who's job it is to ensure the continuity of the original sacrifice and maintain the living world

Now, here's where we get into my speculation;

I think it's likely that the Irish creation myth involved a set of twins. Off the top of my head, I think that possible reflections of this can be found in the brothers Amergin and Donn and in the Donn Cuailnge and Finnbhennach from the Táin. With Amergin and Donn, Donn insults the goddess of the land and is drowned. In doing so, Donn becomes a god of the dead and all the souls of the dead have to gather at or pass through Tech Duinn. Amergin however, secures the support of these goddesses and is able to go on and give order to the Gaelic rule of Ireland by deciding who will rule what and serves as the Chief Ollam (bard) of Ireland. In the Táin, after the main Plot has gone down, the Donn Cuailnge and Finnbhennach fight and the the Donn Cuailnge ends up killing Finnbhennach. As the Donn Cuailnge passes through the landscape, pieces of Finnbhennach drop off his horns and form/name part of the landscape. I think it's also interesting how in both these stories, one of the duo is explicitly associated with the color white (Amergin is called "white knees") and the other one is dark, but the opposite one dies first in the stories

Also, if we look at myths like the creation of the Shannon and the Boyne rivers, where in the goddesses Sionnan and Boann, respectively, die in the rivers' creations, we further see that the death of one figure to create an element of the landscape is a relatively common one, so a creation story similar to the one I hypothesize the Irish had wouldn't have been outside of pagan Irish belief

Additionally, if we look at the duíle, kind of like the Irish elements/natural features, we see that the nine elements/features are each explicitly associated with body parts. Stone is associated with bones, the sea with blood, the face with the sun, ect. I think this could be a call back to that earlier creation myth

Off the top of my head, that's what I've been mulling over. Idk, I might be completely off the mark, but if anyone wants give their thoughts, I'd love to hear them. I'm certainly not an expert in Irish mythology and there may be some key factor that completely sinks this idea

#Sword speaks #Irish mythology #Irish pagan #Irish polytheist #Celtic pagan #Celtic polytheist #creation myth #idk man my brain has been like a dog with a bone with this for days and I'm curious what others might think

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sserpente · 1 year

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A/N: Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates! ♥ Some naughty President Loki action seems like a fitting Easter gift to me, what do you think? Also, I’m proud to announce there’s an actual Easter egg in this Imagine that may or may not have something to do with my upcoming English novel… Enjoy, everyone!

Words: 2616 Warnings: assassin!Reader, violence, dub-con, smut

One and a half million—as a deposit. That’s how much you demanded to see in your secret bank account before you had even considered going anywhere near what used to be Stark Tower and now acted as a base for him. Loki. President Loki.

You didn’t particularly care who you were supposed to kill, nor who hired you to do it. Governments were corrupted all over the world—there was not a single politician who didn’t act in his own interests rather than the people’s. You were only in it for the money.

President Loki, however… he was different. That man was a god with abilities you wouldn’t even dare dream of as a mere human. Your raised fee would reflect the danger you’d put yourself in if you accepted this mission. And then once the God of Mischief was dead, you’d be ten million dollars richer.

You were the best of the best—you got hired when the job needed to get done. You doubted that anyone else would be capable of sending Loki straight to hell. Or was it Helheim? He was a Norse god, after all. Surely, there was some eternal hellfire reserved for the likes of him.

But then again, you weren’t exactly a saint either. You murdered for money, never questioning whether the person whose life you were going to end was innocent or not. Granted, most of them were not and had red on their ledger one way or another but occasionally… occasionally, they did not deserve to die.

You were pretty certain that Loki did though. He wasn’t the worst ruler this world had ever seen but at the end of the day… he was an alien king forcing humans into submission. You wouldn’t bow to anyone, you thought, as you polished the sharp and hidden blade inside your lipstick. The job was messier when you chose it as your weapon but with Loki, you’d have to be sure. A slit throat would ensure he was truly dead and for that, you would have to get up close.

This time, your approach was going to be a little… unconventional. You had thought about it for a long time—and you had come to the conclusion that there was no other way to get into that tower without getting killed yourself before making it even anywhere near Loki.

Judy Magenta. That was the made-up name you had used to register for the escort service to receive legal identification for offering Loki… your time. It had taken quite a few naughty pictures to lure him in, along with a bought recommendation from another escort girl one of Loki’s lackeys booked regularly.

You had to admit, you did feel a little silly putting on that green glittery cocktail dress after tossing your lipstick knife into your clutch. The black high heels were a lovely touch though. You’d keep them after this job, as a trophy.

“You’re here to… entertain the president tonight?” The bulky bald man who escorted you to the lifts after the taxi driver dropped you off right in front of Stark Tower licked his lips when his greedy gaze travelled up and down your V-shaped cleavage.

“I am,” you gave back with a sweet smile, batting your eyelashes at him all the while you imagined kicking him in the balls until he howled for his mummy. You could tell he kept staring at your body and your rather revealing outfit during the ride up to the penthouse but, for the sake of keeping in mind you were not really an escort girl, you elected to ignore it and said nothing.

President Loki was standing at his bar surrounded by power-hungry politicians eager for his attention. Dressed in a black suit with a green tie and those golden horns on his head, he turned to face you with a glass filled with what you presumed was bourbon in his hand. He lifted his chin in a curious manner, his blue eyes narrowing just a little.

“Mr President…” the bulky bouncer began. “Uh… this is…”

“Judy. Judy Magenta. Your company for the night?” you offered. The bouncer let out a relieved breath.

“Ahh… just in time. I was just about to call it a day.” Loki’s voice was smooth, charming. He had a way with words, you had to give him that. Under different circumstances, you’d even admit that he was outrageously attractive. He was a god, after all. That must have been the reason.

You didn’t know if he’d done this before—or if he’d done it back on Asgard but at the end of the day, it didn’t matter, right? You were only doing this because it would give you the perfect opportunity to get just close enough to kill him and get this over with. Pleasure had no place here.

“Gentlemen… I will see you tomorrow. And you…” His blue eyes fixated on you, involuntarily sending shivers up and down your spine. “…why don’t you wait for me in my bedroom? I will be joining you shortly.”

You almost scoffed. So formal… if the sex was going to be anything like that… ugh. Well, most men with a big ego disappointed under the sheets.

Nodding, you made your way over to the door he pointed at and slid inside, taking in the furniture. A king-size bed with green sheets, of course, hundreds of books on shelves towering up all the way to the ceiling, and a neat desk armed with ink and a green and gold quill. It was very old-fashioned but a surprisingly comfortable room, you decided, as you threw your clutch on the bed.

You’d come prepared. Condoms, lube, even a cock ring. Whatever would tickle his fancy before you’d draw your little knife for a different kind of climax. By the time his lackeys would notice he was dead, you would be long gone. You were wearing a wig tonight as well, along with some coloured contacts to conceal your identity. Life as an assassin was a dangerous and lonely one but you were pretty used to it.

You flipped around when you heard the door open, forcing a fake smile. Loki had removed his horns now, and swapped his suit for a more comfortable outfit. In fact, he was shirtless, putting his pale but trained chest and arms on display. He wasn’t as shredded as Thor but the God of Thunder had never been your type anyway. Loki on the other hand… remember, no pleasure!

Your feigned smile widened as you turned around and moved your fake hair out of the way. “Help me undress?” You felt his presence behind you after a few silent steps, his soft fingers ghosting over your back to unzip you.

Needless to say, you had relinquished wearing any underwear tonight even though you did carry a spare pair of knickers in your clutch just in case. Once he slid the green dress off of your body and you stepped out of it, you turned back around, trailing your fingers over his abs.

“Ready for some fun, Mr President?”

“Loki will suffice, pet,” he replied. Pet? Oh, of course. Complete and utter submission. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes at him and instead, took his hands in yours and started walking backwards until you could lie down on his bed, pulling him on top of you.

You had to admit, you quite enjoyed how hungrily he glared at your naked body, his blue eyes wandering over every single inch of bare skin as if he was a demon you had summoned and now aimed to please in exchange for his power. The bulge in his trousers grew quickly as he hovered above you.

“Loki,” you repeated, testing his name on your tongue. Then, you reached for your clutch on his bed, pulling out the lube.

“And what’s that when it’s at home?” he asked, eyeing the bottle in your hands suspiciously.

You smiled at him. “Lube will make this experience more enjoyable for the both of us, Loki.”

The God of Mischief frowned. You blinked at him when he began to chuckle as if you’d just told him a hilarious joke.

“I can guarantee you, we will not need it, pet.” You were about to protest when he cupped your cunt with his hand all of a sudden, two fingers lightly stroking over your outer lips. You dropped the small bottle the moment his thumb found your clit, applying just enough pressure to ignite… arousal. He knew what he was doing. You realised that the moment he bent down to pepper your neck with hot kisses and teasing licks, his digits working their magic. He had you wet and ready for him within minutes of this delicious treatment. Fuck… you were not supposed to be enjoying this!

“There we go… it seems your body thinks we don’t need your lube either…”

You gasped for air when he slid two fingers inside of you, curling them at your g-spot. Your hips were bucking up to meet his hand against your will the moment the slick sounds of him fingering you echoed through the silent bedroom.

“Oh… fuck…” That felt good. You couldn’t quite remember the last time you had taken a minute to masturbate. That… that must have been why. You hadn’t had sex in so long that Loki exploring your soaking pussy had you writhing because of your celibate lifestyle.

His dark chuckle went directly between your legs too. And it was only then you realised that his trousers had disappeared into thin air, willed away by magic. You could feel his hard length pressing against your inner thigh, eager to claim you. Much to your own surprise… you wanted him to.

“C-Condom…” you choked out panting. But your reward was Loki removing his fingers from your cunt to instead snatch your wrists and pin them down above your head to render you all but helpless beneath him.

“A condom? I don’t think so, pet…” And with that, he forced himself between your legs and used his free hand to guide himself into your waiting hole. Inch by inch, Loki pushed forward, sheathing his girth inside you until he’d claimed you to the brim. His growl made you moan as he filled you so deliciously well that you believed your pussy was made for him.

When he started moving, you almost forgot why you were here. Loki withdrew almost entirely and then began rutting into you like there was no tomorrow. He fucked the assassin right out of you—for when your eyes rolled to the back of your head, he made sure to attack your neck yet again.

Moaning, you arched your back, your breasts brushing against his bare chest with every single thrust of his and fuck, this man knew how to use his tool. Each and every stroke drove you further to what already felt like the best orgasm of your life as the sound of sex and skin slapping against skin filled the room.

“I can feel you tightening around me, pet. Cum. Beg me for my seed,” Loki growled into your ear. You wanted to disobey him—wanted to disobey that commanding tone, that entitled smugness. But you couldn’t. Loki played you like an instrument, taking that delicious climax from you whether you wanted to give it to him or not.

You came around him with a moan, your toes curling and your walls pulsing around him, doing just what he had asked you to do. Your cunt was begging for his seed. He was merciful tonight. Loki reached his own peak with a low growl only moments later, filling you up and staining your walls until it came oozing out of you.

Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck, that arsehole had screwed you without a condom! Only now that you came back to your senses did you realise what you had let him do. Okay, don’t freak out… you can get a morning-after pill as soon as you are out the door. You’d ruin everything if you lashed out at him now. Besides… Loki was still hard—and it did not seem like he was going to tire any time soon.

It was three a.m. when he finally let you rest. Your pussy was sore, his cum leaking from almost all of your openings. He’d made you cum for him at least six more times before you’d lost count and now… now he was sound asleep next to you.

Time to strike.

As quiet as a mouse so you wouldn’t wake him up, you reached for your clutch that had at some point fallen to the floor, retrieving your lipstick knife. Then, you climbed on top of him, revealing the blade in the dark. You could barely make out his features with the curtains drawn but your eyes were trained to work in the shadows.

You gripped your weapon tighter, ready to slit his throat.

“I wonder…”, he mused with a start. You froze. “I wonder how much money you were offered to try.” He’s awake. “Are you going to tell me, pet?”

Your heart was beating so fast you worried it would jump straight out of your chest. Your paralysis lasted for only a second too long. By the time you reacted to finish what you’d started and kill him, he’d already overwhelmed you. Loki snatched your wrist so harshly you were forced to drop your weapon. He flipped you both over so you came to lie on the bed beneath him, his face only inches from yours. You winced when he ripped the wig off of you.

“Now… I’m impressed. You went to considerable lengths to get close to me. But you see, pet, I am the God of Mischief. I’m not easily tricked.” Cold shivers ran up and down your spine when he proceeded to call you by your real name. “But I must admit,” he went on, “that I am also a little disappointed. You know the punishment for attempted assassination of your king, do you not?”

Death. Execution. You swallowed thickly. How had he found out? He’d known. He’d known this entire time you were no real escort girl and still… he’d still fucked you! You gnashed your teeth, narrowing your eyes at him with anger usurping your growing fear.

“It’s a shame, really… you would make such a fine pet. Hmm…” He paused, burying his face in your neck and inhaling your scent deeply. “I think I’m going to keep you.”

Your eyes widened. “Kill me or let me go, Loki. I’m not playing your stupid games.”

“Oh, but you will, pet. You better get used to your new surroundings. You won’t be leaving any time soon.”

He made you moan involuntarily when he pushed inside of you without any forewarning. You hadn’t even realised he’d gotten hard again.

“Now…” he mused. “How much was it?” His lazy strokes made you even angrier—it felt good. Too fucking good.

“Ten… million,” you spat through gritted teeth.

“Ahh… well, I hope the money was worth your freedom. Because you are mine now, my little assassin.”

You wanted to punch him, scratch him and bite him, to wipe that mischievous smirk from his face. But you couldn’t. Not right now anyway—Loki kept rutting into you until you were sure to lose consciousness. My little assassin… you hated the depraved and lascivious part of you that enjoyed the idea of him keeping you as a pet.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow you’d finish your mission, right after… right after you’d let him give you another orgasm. You’d… find a way… surely…

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bitethedustfools · 3 months

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TWST Story Idea (10)

Twisted Wonderland is a very unique world. Their world has magic, and they have different species living together, ranging from mages, beastmen, fae, merfolk, and so on.

Yuu's world had something like those, but obviously, that was just in a story, a fiction, a drawing on walls and pots. Something that almost all people heard of but did not believe in their existence. Which is understandable because Yuu's world is just humans and animals, and that's it. There are no werewolves, no vampires or mermaids, not even a dragon, and so on.

Yuu had been the type of person who always has been interested in these kinds of things: mythology, folklore, and cryptozoology, and maybe a little bit of history. That's what Yuu loves in the whole world.

They know many things and the history of how it came to be. You can ask Yuu if they know about skinwalker, and they'll put up a presentation that they prepared for years, which somehow leads to other cryptids. The Beast of Gévaudan? Yuu's got a conspiracy board with a bunch of pictures of animals to prove this beast is actually so and so and where it ran off to. They are also very knowledgeable about Greek mythology, followed by Norse, Aztec, and so on.

So imagine Yuu got transported to Twisted Wonderland and got the shock of their life when they saw a beastman. Yuu expected to see a furry animal standing on two feet, the face a mix with man and animal followed by animalistic growls and piercing eyes. Not… not a goddamn handsome man with a pair of ears and tails!

Sure, they had seen this type before, but that's on some people's fantasy that they have written and drawn! Yuu is absolutely stupefied when they're face to face.

Every time Yuu met a new species, Yuu didn't fail to feel disappointed in what they saw. The dragon by the name of Malleus got a human form that he likes to use, and that has the most ridiculously handsome face Yuu has ever seen. Where is the fire-breathing dragon? Where is the gold they hoard? The wings? Yuu is not satisfied with this.

Yuu met Hades next, who was hailed as one of the prominent seven figures seen as a hero or something, which just conflicted with what Yuu knows about the Hades of their world.

Yuu took a look at the multiple figures next to him like the Fairest Queen, the Queen of Hearts, Maleficent, and Ursula, and was astounded to see that they also were hailed as heroes. Their story is so much nicer than the original story Yuu read that at least, 2 out of 4 stated above died horribly if Yuu is not mistaken.

The dwarves are just toddlers that can speak perfectly, the eels from the Little Mermaid are humanified, what was supposed to be a werewolf is not a werewolf at all. The ghosts are all the same as though they are copy and pasted many times, some had different clothes. Yuu saw Grim, and they're not sure what he is, but he's cute, so that's alright.

Halloween comes, and Yuu is ready to be the most terrifying monster of them all, and they did, but that's because the rest dressed prettily and not terrifyingly like Yuu expected!

Where's the horror? Where are the screams of terror and the nightmare fuel appearance?? Yuu wanted to see someone getting traumatized, and all they got is sparkles and annoyance. Those magicam monsters must be stupid and blind to be scared of such pretty faces.

The only highlight of the Halloween was the Spectral realm like yes! The gloomy atmosphere is here! The graves! The very gothic architecture is everywhere! It was what Yuu imagined where the wandering and unrest souls will go.

It got crashed by a disco ball, though.

In short, Yuu didn't like it.

This world is sh*tty and against everything Yuu believed in. It's like meeting an idol you like so much and find that they are not the same as your expectation or something.

Dissatisfied, Yuu complained to themself, unaware that NRC heard it. "This is not what I imagined them to be. What a let down…"

Seeing that NRC are full of prideful kids, naturally, they get offended being told by a magicless human that Twisted Wonderland filled with wonder doesn't excite Yuu in any slightest.

Now this. This made Yuu perked up, but at the same time, Yuu is also offended that the others think their world is nothing special.

Yuu made up their mind to take it as a challenge. Yuu won't lose to these rip-offs of their world. They're gonna prove their world is superior, and that's Yuu's pride as a human being from that world.

Twisted Wonderland might have 7-8 prominent figures, but Yuu's world has more, although they may not exist today. Yuu is gonna show them how there's charm in being a mystery and history.

Yuu proceeded to drop snippets of a bunch of mythology, folklore, and cryptozoology randomly in the different places.

Yuu would go camping with the friends and said in his world there used to be a Wendigo roaming around in the woods. They would describe vividly about its appearance and how it eats flesh and the origin of how it came to be, taking sadistic delight when said friends looked at each other shakingly.

Yuu would mention out of nowhere about how beautiful people would have been sacrificed to the gods to a rather vain person and said it's lucky they are not in Yuu's world.

They even talked about Salem witch trials down to the details when a group of their friends has a fight or something. Magic doesn't involve in that, of course, but they looked terrified that even humans would accuse and execute their own kin. A very dark history indeed.

The mer eel would have threatened Yuu about squeezing and biting and so on, and Yu would drop a myth in their world about eating mermaid would bring immortality and maybe that's why they don't exist anymore.

They even mentioned casually that the faes would replace human kids with theirs and also kidnapped humans as pets. They can also be invisible to the eyes so no one would know or even find them.

The others are terrified to hear what story sprouted out of Yuu.

#twst #twst wonderland #twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst yuu #writing prompt #Malleus: we would never kidnap kids #Yuu*looks at Silver: No but...#sometimes you gotta put the boys in their place #and how you gonna do that?#you dominate them by telling all the tales your world have to offer #they gonna call Yuu weak???#yea check out the world where Yuu lived #all these gods and otherworldly beings and the humans triumphed #they get to tell the tales

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the-au-collector · 18 days

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Scalan Names

So something I've noticed about Missing Link is the names. It's very interesting that they're Roman myth names when the rest of the times we've seen Scala, we've only seen Scalans having Norse names. Especially since we have characters like Freya, whose name does come from Norse Myth, walking around with characters like Remus (and Neptune). I doubt Nomura did this on accident, so I'm curious about the implications of the Norse vs Roman names in Missing Link.

So I went back through Dark Road and Union X and gathered up all the characters with mythological names (yes this includes Missing Link beta content and theorizing). It's a long post, but stay tuned for the end where I've thrown all my Remus thoughts:

Skuld

So in Norse Myth, Skuld is a Norn. Specifically, the Norn of the future. The Norns also closely resemble the Fates from Greek myth, which is interesting. I find it really interesting that Skuld is named specifically after the Norn of the future when her game takes place in the distant past. Obviously all the Union Leaders travel to the future--so why is Skuld the only one named after a myth figure that specifically has to do with that? I can't wait to see how this all lines up later, since so far we've only had one game with her in it.

Baldr

He's the important guy, both in Myth and in Dark Road. In myth, he's the son of Odin that's deceived and killed by Loki, however it is Hod who deals the fatal blow. I feel like his name lines up with his myth inspiration very nicely--he's tricked by darkness, which ultimately leads to his death. However, one really interesting thing is that Baldr is said to survive Ragnarok, so does that mean we'll be seeing Baldr again someday?

Bragi

So Bragi is interesting. In myth, he's actually a poet who was diefied as the god of poetry. He's also known for his wisdom. The really interesting thing though is that myth Bragi's wife, Idunn, had a tree with the apples of youth, which keep the gods from aging. Really interesting that Dark Road's Bragi is actually Luxu, a guy who does not die... Clues lying in plain sight, really.

Vor

There really isn't much to find about Norse Myth's Vor, other than Vor was a minor goddess of wisdom. I just think it's cool that Vor's name is based off of a goddess of wisdom, since Vor's whole arc in Dark Road is figuring out who's right and what she wants to do.

Hermod

So in Norse myth, Hermod is the messenger god and a son of Odin. He also uses magic. In one particular myth, Hermod tried to rescue Baldr from the underworld, but ultimately failed. He has other myths where he acts like a messenger too. I don't really have much to say about Hermod's name inspiration and how it ties to Dark Road, but it is interesting how Hermod dies immediately after visiting the Underworld trying to find Baldr.

Urd

I... I have the least to say about her (at least about the main DR cast). In myth, Urd is a fate like Skuld, but she's the fate of the past. It's just weird she's named after the fate of the past and not the present. Or maybe not since this game is technically Xehanort's past...

Odin

Can you tell he was based off of Odin? He has the long beard, he's old, he's got a long coat, and a wide-brimmed hat (those are how Odin is usually represented). In myth, Odin is the god of war and also poets. He's got a horse named Sleipnir and was a magician. I know there are also theories floating around about Yen Sid potentially being Master Odin and honestly? Yen Sid fits the description.

Heimdall

In myth, Heimdall is the protector of the rainbow bridge and the entrance to Asgard. He also had heightened senses and didn't need to sleep. He and Loki actually ended up killing each other in myth as well. I have even less to say about the upperclassmen, honestly, especially ones like Heimdall who are only in a few scenes anyways. It is ironic that Heimdall was killed by darkness, though (and darkness, in my eyes, takes up a very Loki-like roll).

Helgi and Sigrun

I'm merging these two since their myths are very connected. So basically, Helgi was a Norse hero figure that is the son of Sigmund. He fell in love with a woman named Sigrun and ends up getting killed by her brother, Dragr. Sigrun eventually dies of sadness, but both she and Helgi are reborn. Sigrun is reborn into a Valkyrie named Kara whereas Helgi gets to keep his name. It's very interesting that their myths have aspects of reincarnation tied to them, which isn't true for any of the other DR characters. It's also very curious that Sigrun got a new name... and DR Sigrun looks like Strelitzia...

But that's just a theory a--

Vala

So Vala isn't an actual mythological figure, though they do show up in myths a lot. Basically, a vala is a priestess/shaman. In myth, they could use magic, see the future, and influence battles. I don't have much to say about Vala despite her being one of the more interacted with members of the upperclassmen, but she does appear to be the most wise/level-headed of the group.

Vali

I could have sworn Vali was a girl but Vali is, indeed, a guy in Dark Road. Anyways, in myth Vali is the son of Odin who was born to avenge Baldr and killed Hod. Vali does survive Ragnarok as well. It's just interesting how he has a reverse to his myth inspiration, considering be dies to Baldr and Darkness, though he does try to avenge Hod's death.

Hoder

The blind god of the night in Norse myth and son of Odin. Hod was actually tricked into killing Baldr and so was told by the other gods to avenge Baldr's death by fighting Vali. Vali won, Hod died, but when Ragnarok happened, both Hod and Baldr returned and survived Ragnarok. Very interesting implications when it comes to Kingdom Hearts...

Vidar

In myth, he's the son of Odin and was also fated to survive Ragnarok. He killed the wolf Fenrir, who's Loki's son who ate Odin. That's about all that's known about Vidar from myth. I do think it's very ironic that DR Vidar died to a Heartless when his myth inspiration killed Fenrir. Also interesting that his is the name of someone fated to survive Ragnarok despite him dying in DR...

Sigurd

I nearly forgot him but here he is! His name in myth is Siegfried. He's a hero figure who fought a dragon and awakened a valkyrie from sleep. In some stories, he's of noble blood but was an orphan. He's also associated with the ancient Germanic princess, Brunhild, who had Old Norse origins. Basically the story of Brunhild is that she vowed to marry the man who could beat her in strength, and Siegfried was able too, but he won her for another person. Brunhild got vengeful, and Siegfried died. Not every story of Brunhild leads to his death though.

He's a lot more interesting than I thought, especially for a character who shows up for like 2 lines in Union X's secret ending lol. Likelihood is, he's from another Society or the people in charge, and he welcomed Brain in Scala ad Caelum (this we know). Judging from his myth and what we already know about him, he's likely of noble or blue blood and is probably a Keyblade wielder. I wonder if we'll see any grand feats like fighting a dragon or if he'll die in Missing Link, though?

Freya

I can't really say much for Freya either since she's so new and her game isn't even out yet. She is the sister of Freyr in Norse Myth and is the goddess of love, fertility, battle, and death. So just keep in mind that she's an option for the tragic siblings trope.

Now for the really interesting guys!

Nept

I've decided to start with Neptune since Remus is a whole can of worms. So Neptune is the Roman god of the sea, and used to be just the god of freshwater until the Romans identified him with Poseidon. His myths are the same as Poseidon's: get eaten by his dad, get vomited out, draw sticks to see which realm he gets, yada, yada, yada. He was loyal to the Roman Zeus, Jupiter, and married Salacia, though he had many affairs. He also created horses and bulls!

We really don't know much about Nept since he only has a few released scenes so far, but the fact that he's probably named after the Roman god of water is interesting (i've said it before but Aqua's ancestor??? Perhaps???). I'm a little worried about the loyalty aspect though...

Remus

This. This fucking can of worms. Remus do you even know the implications of your own name?

So the myth of Remus and Romulus! Their mother, Rhea Silvia, was the daughter of the king of Alba Longa, Numitor. Numitor got removed from the throne by his brother, Amulius, who forced Rhea to take a vow of chastity by becoming a Vestal Virgin. Well she ended up having the god of war's, Mars', twin children: Remus and Romulus. They were cared for by Mars' sacred animals (she-wolf and woodpecker) and taken in by farmers, Faustulus and Acca Larentia. When the twins grew up, they killed Amulius and restored their grandfather to the throne. The twins then went on to found a city, and after Romulus built some walls around it, he killed Remus, and the city was named Rome after Romulus.

So this myth is interesting for a number of reasons. First and foremost: the siblings thing. Tragic siblings being a staple of the KH mobile games and all leaves Remus and Romulus perfect candidates for being the tragic siblings. This is also why I'm so worried about Remus being late to showing Player the Astral Realm because--is he already dead? His mythological self dies! It's practically written in the Book of Prophecies at this point!

However the second most important thing about the Remus and Romulus myth is how Remus and Romulus are the grandsons of a king who got overthrown. What if, somehow, the Baroque Society is the very last remnant of Ephemer's line/society? Somehow, what if Ephemer's line gets usurped and its last remains of his society dwindles down to at least 4 people (the question is if there's 5 members considering Freya's "another one" line)? After all, the scientists do say the founders' societies. Who are these other founders? Are they even real? What is going on with Scala ad Caelum's governing situation? We already know that it can't be good, but we don't know how bad it is.

Another really interesting thing is that Player specifically, very weirdly, reaches out to Remus when they're by Ephemer's statue. That scene was all shades of odd. Which begs the question--is Remus somehow connected to Ephemer? Is Remus is the descendant of Ephemer, and all these silver-haired characters are just there to throw us off? Did Ephemer's bloodline somehow get usurped? Is Missing Link going to be about reinstating his family line, or watching it all fall to ruin? Is Remus going to get killed by his own brother?

It's just. It's all shades of interesting and worrying at the same time. And I'm not even mentioning Remus' similarities to Lea!

Conclusion

Remus nearly made me forget this post had a point: the differences between Roman and Norse names. I thought maybe there was a connection between the "sons of Odin" thing going on, but no. Baldr and Hermod both are sons of Odin, but Baldr has a gold Master's symbol and Hermod doesn't. Even for the non-sons, Heimdall has a gold Master's symbol but Bragi doesn't.

It's also too early to really tell anything distinct about the new Missing Link characters, since a) we don't see much of them and b) the naming doesn't differentiate them either. Freya is a member of the Baroque Society alongside Remus and Nept. There's no distinction there either. There is no visual disctinction between Freya, Nept, and Remus except for their underclothes, and I'd say those design choices are more geared toward their personalities than anything else. They also don't have Master's symbols (which is another interesting thing. Sigurd doesn't have one either. Do they not exist yet? Are they the symbol of another society?). Even if they did, we still don't really know the difference between silver and gold ones, though one theory is gold = blue blood, silver = non-blue blood.

There is definitely a naming convention going on here, though. It's no coincidence that all of Dark Road's characters have Norse-inspired names, but not all of Dark Road's do. I just really want to crack why there's this distinction. I'm betting it has something to do with these noble houses/blue blood families, though (I'm willing to overlook Xehanort and Eraqus as they existed long before these concepts were even thought up.). For now I'll leave it at that and post this so that we have a bit of a collection of all the name inspirations for our myth-inspired Kingdom Hearts characters in one place.

Also, if anyone knows more about ancient myth than what Google could tell me, please let me know! I absolutely could have missed something!

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breelandwalker · 10 months

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Sturgeon Moon - August 1, 2023

Buckle up, witches - with two supermoons in store, August is gonna be a wild ride!

Sturgeon Supermoon - August 1, 2023

The Sturgeon Moon is the name given to the first full moon in August. The name comes from the plentiful numbers of sturgeon which appear around this time of year.

Sturgeons are living prehistoric relics, examples of which appear in the fossil record as far back as 200 million years ago. Today, they are endangered due to overfishing, pollution, and habitat loss, but giant sturgeons growing up to 12ft (3.65m) long were once a common sight in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain in North America.

Other North American Indigenous names for this moon include Flying Up Moon (Cree), Corn Moon (Algonquin and Ojibwe), Harvest Moon (Dakota), Dry Moon (Catawba), Mountain Shadows Moon (Tlingit), and Black Cherries Moon (Assiniboine). European names for this moon include Haymaking Moon (Norse), Lightning Moon (English), and Grain Moon (Anglo-Saxon).

It's also interesting to note that in China, the seventh full moon of the lunar year is called the Hungry Ghost Moon, during which spirits of departed ancestors visit their relatives and homes, and trickster spirits may cause mayhem among the living if not properly appeased. Food offerings and incense are put out for ancestor spirits, families visit gravesites to offer prayers and site maintenance, and festival dances and floating lanterns celebrate the honored dead. In 2023, the Hungry Ghost Moon month will take place from August 16th to September 14th, beginning and ending on the new moons.

Blue Supermoon - August 30, 2023

Blue moons can occur when a full moon appears twice in a calendar month or four times in a season, as opposed to the usual three. August's Blue Supermoon is an example of the former, falling on the night of August 30-31 and peaking around 9:36pm EST.

This blue supermoon is especially notable, since it's the closest that our beloved satellite has been so far this year. The next time the moon will be this close to Earth again will be November 5, 2025, and we won't see another Blue Moon until August 19, 2024.

What Does It Mean For Witches?

Both blue moons and supermoons are particularly advantageous times for spellwork, especially that which involves the fulfillment of goals, desires, and wishes, or the culmination of long-term plans. It's also a great time to start new projects and set new goals for the fall and winter.

Blue moons carry your magical workings forward with a little dash of extra strength and vigor, and may provide extra clarity during divination or reflection. It's also the perfect time for spells related to second chances and abundance, drawing in that much-needed do-over or extra bit of luck or prosperity you've been needing.

What Witchy Things Can We Do?

In August, we harvest one set of crops and sow another, reaping the rewards of our previous efforts and planting the seeds of future success. Look back on the magical workings you've done so far this year - how are they working out? Have any of your spells manifested in especially notable results? Go back and add to your notes, making sure to record anything that worked particularly well.

Evaluate your progress and reflect on what you want to carry forward and what you might need to put on hold or just let go for the time being. If you're partial to divination, a reading may help to provide some additional clarity on your current status, as well as some perspective on the possibilities for the near future.

Celebrate the harvest of grain and corn with your favorite recipes or a summer picnic. This year's August moon falls on Lughnasadh, also called Lammas, and the baking of bread and corn cakes are traditional for this occasion. But don't just limit yourself to corn and wheat! Late summer fruits are also ripe and make a tasty addition to any table.

Set your intentions and your goals for the latter part of the year and start preparing for the autumn and winter. It may seem silly to prepare for the cold when the weather is still blazing hot, but it will be here before you know it. Take time for one more summer beach trip or camping excursion before the hustle and bustle of the fall sets in.

The observation of the blue moon as a magical occasion is a modern addition to witchcraft, but the lack of antiquity doesn't mean there's any shortage of metaphysical potential!

Dive into your stash of blue clothes and accessories for some color magic. (Blue is generally associated with peace, harmony, understanding, clarity, and truth.) Set out a big jug of potable water to catch the light of these double supermoons - it will be great for cleansing, protection, wish-making, and drinkable potion bases later!

All in all, August is supercharged with lunar energy and primed for magical workings, so make your spells count!

Happy Sturgeon Moon, witches! 🌕🐟

Further Reading:

Additional Lunar Calendar posts by Bree NicGarran

Sturgeon Full and Blue Moon: August 2023, The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Sturgeon Moon 2023: The Unique Supermoon Meaning of August, The Peculiar Brunette.

Blue Moon Meaning and Astonishing Spiritual Secrets in 2023, The Peculiar Brunette.

Hungry Ghost Festival, China Travel, June 20 2023.

Sturgeon, Wikipedia Article.

Lughnasadh, Wikipedia Article.

Everyday Moon Magic: Spells & Rituals for Abundant Living, Dorothy Morrison, Llewellyn Publications, 2004.

Image Credit: "Leaping Gulf Sturgeon," by Dawn Witherington

(If you're enjoying my content, please feel free to drop a little something in the tip jar or check out my published works on Amazon or in the Willow Wings Witch Shop. 😊)

#witch community #witchcraft #witchblr #lunar magic #full moon #Sturgeon Moon #moon magic #pagan #lunar calendar

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csolarstorm · 3 months

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Aaah! It's an A!

Let's forget about the Z in Legends: Z-A for a moment. What is this, ay? It's tall, green, pointy, and the bottom of it looks like veins on a plant.

My guess? It's the Pokemon version of Yggdrasil, or to be more general, the Tree of Life archetype. In many myths this is the original tree, the origin of life, and the "A" at the beginning of the alphabet.

Pokemon recently represented the similarly archetypal World Turtle with Terapagos, and the interesting thing is that some cultures have a World Turtle AND a Tree of Life. Take a look at the Tree of Life page - it's interesting.

Screenshot From: Reddit

To illustrate this point, there is a tree at the Cave of Origin in Sootopolis that grew from seeds that AZ brought to Hoenn. Everyone rightfully talks about the Eternal Floette flower underneath the tree, but nobody talks about the tree itself, planted at the Cave of Origin. Like some kind of origin tree.

X and Y are most known for its Norse inspiration since Xerneas, Yveltal, and all three of Zygarde are based on creatures that live in Yggdrasil. But interestingly, OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire return to the Hebrew symbolism of Gen 3, building upon it with themes of beginning and end. Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza take some inspiration from the Biblical "chaos monsters" Behemoth and Leviathan the making the Omega and Alpha symbolism pretty fair.

So if there are Tree of Life myths that this hypothetical Pokemon takes from, I'm guessing it will take from Norse and Hebrew myth as well, both Yggdrasil and the Tree of Knowledge. In fact, according to Bulbapedia AZ and the Eternal Flower may be based on the legend of the Wandering Jew, or "Eternal Jew". It probably is, since the Wandering Jew plants (now known as inch plants or spiderwort) look like this:

Source: Gardening Know How

I'd also like to point out that Omega and Alpha are just the Greek version of Z and A, end to beginning As in, OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire already did the Z-A motif. This kind of synergy makes me hopeful that Legends Z-A will expand on the cultural and mythical themes of Gen 6.

Okay, but the tree at the Cave of Origin looks nothing like an A, aye? Well, the "tree" part of it doesn't, but that's just the symbol mean to suggest the Tree of Life.

And I think the actual Tree of Life Pokemon is

Source: Bulbapedia

Think about it: what is an "Eternal Flower"? Floette's flower isn't a part of it, so for AZ's Floette to have an Eternal Flower, one has to exist in the first place as a living, organic flower, which suggests that the Ultimate Weapon is alive in some way. And the Eternal Flower planted at the Cave of Origin can't be the one AZ's Floette holds, because it's actually planted there.

Many Tree of Life myths involve searches for immortality. That's why the archetype is called the "Tree of Life". AZ originally built the machine to grant immortality. That's probably where AZ gets his name: the "universal remedy" of alchemy, Azoth, closely related to the Philosopher's Stone. It was only afterward that AZ altered the machine to make it into a weapon.

Source: Bulbapedia

I'm definitely not the first person to say that the "A" looks like the Ultimate Weapon. Either the machine was built on top of the Tree of Life Pokemon, or it was built from single giant Eternal Flower that blossomed from the Tree of Life Pokemon.

Every letter in Gen 6 designates a Pokemon, so I'd be very surprised if "A" does not designate a Pokemon too. Wait...

Edit:

*bangs head against table* How did I not catch that?! Sometimes it's even used as the "middle" letter of the Greek Alphabet between Alpha and Omega!

What is the title of this game, a secret message or something? Z crossing into lambda making A? "End making middle into beginning..."?

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melanie-the-artful · 5 months

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Genshin Character Names' Meanings

Hello there! So, I remember I once saw a post about meanings of some characters' names in another fandom, and while some of those names probably were given to those characters just because they fit, some of them certainly were chosen for their meaning, and well, it was just interesting to read! And yeah, here I am, in today's series of "I have freaking nothing else to do" I brought you a list of meanings for Genshin characters' names (today only Travelers and Mondstadt).

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Aether | Comes from the highest air layer - where the gods live, and from the god who embodies it in Greek mythology; Also not sure whether it's connected, but fun fact: in Latin "Iter" means «Journey»

Lumine | Literally «Light» in Latin

Kong (Chinese Aether) | «Heavenly», «Air» or «Sky» - Chinese Name

Ying (Chinese Lumine) | Literally «Glimmer», «Twinkling» or «Light» in Chinese and a Chinese Name

Sora (Japanese Aether) | Literally «Sky» in Japanese and a Japanese Name

Hotaru (Japanese Lumine) | Literally «Firefly» in Japanese and a Japanese Name

Paimon | Comes from King Paimon, the 9th of Goetia Demons

Amber | Well, in her case it obviously references her eyes that carry that color, and it is also similar to the word «ember», which underlines her being a Pyro wielder; Also «Fierce» as an originally Arabic or Celtic Name

Kaeya | «Monsoon Flower» - Sanskrit Name

Lisa | «God's Promise» - German Name

Jean | «God is Gracious» - Originally French Name

Barbara | Although in our world it is believed to come from barbarians, in context of Genshin she might've been named so after Barbatos, the Archon rulling over her nation. It also makes sense considering how her father also serves at the church; Also «Foreign», «Strange» as an originally Greek Name

Diluc | Comes from «diluculum» - Latin for «Dawn»

Noelle | «Christmas» - Originally French Name

Klee | Literally «Clover» in German

Albedo | Term for the fraction of sunlight that is diffusely reflected by a body; also a Latinicized alchemical term meaning «Whiteness» and «Purification»

Sucrose | A chemical element, also known as C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁, or just sugar

Mona | «Solitary», «Adviser» or «Wish» - German Name

Fischl | Considering German grammatics, literally means «Little Fish»

Amy | «Beloved», «Dearly Loved» - German Name

Bennett | «Blessed» - Originally French and Latin Name

Rosaria | «Rosary» or «Wreath of Roses» - Derives from originally Latin Name Rosarius/Rosarium

Diona | «Goddess» or «From the Sacred Spring» - German Name

Eula | Could be based on the german word for owl Eule or the German Name Ulla which means «Will»

Mika | «Who is like God» - German Name

Venti | Sounds similar to the word «windy», also literally «Winds» in Italian

Barbatos | Comes from Duke Barbatos, the 8th of Goetia Demons

Crepus | Comes from «crepusculum» - Latin for «Dusk»

Seamus | «Supplanter» - Originally Irish Name

Frederica | «Peaceful Ruler» - German Name

Alice | «Noble» or «Exalted» - Originally German Name

Rhinedottir | Originally Rhine was a name for someone who lived by the Rhine river in German, yet the word itself originates from the word 'renos', which means «Flowing Water» or «Raging Flow»; meanwhile "dottir" is «Daughter» in Icelandic

Barbeloth | May derive from the Gnostic aeon Barbēlō, a supreme, androgynous entity in Gnosticism known as God's first thought, being his "feminine aspect" and the Mother-Father of the aeons

Nicole | «Victory of the People» - Originally French Name

Varka | Likely based on the Old Persian 𐎺𐎼𐎣 (varka), meaning «Wolf»

Decarabian | Comes from Marquis Decarabia, the 69th of Goetia Demons

Dvalin | Comes from a dwarf in Old Norse tales, meaning «The Dormant One» or «The One Slumbering» (akin to the Danish and Norwegian "dvale" and Swedish "dvala", meaning «Sleep, «Unconscious Condition» or «Hibernation»).

Durin | Overally associated with a dwarf named Durin, who is also from Norse tales, though some say it is of Latin origin and means «Firm», «Enduring»

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Yeah, here it is! I know, I basically made a compilation of things you can find yourself in Google, buuuuuut in case you were too lazy or not curious enough to do so, I did so in your stead! And I have to admit that those are not names of my homeland, and I may not know all their variations or significance, yet I'm still interested, and I'll be happy if you're willling to correct me. And maybe I will even dig in deeper into the topic next time!

So, see you!

Edited: Yeah, I added a few more meaningful characters and Travelers' names on other languages + a few other tiny additions. I think now it seems a little more complete. Next up is Liyue!

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cursecuelebre · 15 days

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Devotional Playlist to Allfather Odin

This is going to be interesting playlist there is going to folk music but there is going to be some country. I don’t know why but everytime I listen to Johnny Cash I hear Odin. Though yes some may have Christian ideals, I think recognizing past that it’s a nice piece that resonates with Odin. This is obliviously still growing but I will put down some songs and see if it inspires you or thinks about the Allfather.

1. Unshaken - Red Dead Redemption (D’Angelo) but the version I like is by Geek Music. It’s very natury song that is very wise that reminds me of Odin, a particular line says “The pines they often whispered, they whisper what no tongue can tell, He who drinks from the deep water, May he know the depths of the well.” That just tells me that it’s a Odin’s song.

2. Man in Black by Johnny Cash, it’s a song about humility and recognition of how bad parts of society that are often ignored. Johnny Cash sings about wearing black to show he respects and a silent conversation about proverty, injustice, unwanted tragedies throughout the country and the world to have empathy and compassion to those who didn’t had it in the first place. I think Odin appears to those who have suffered a lot and who are lost in life, doesn’t come to those like a god but someone who understands what they’re going through. Man in black, wearing black is something that blends in that I am one of you not above you, Odin walks among us in his cloak with the hood up appearing as one of us as a wanderer and a old wise man.

3. Othan by Heilung, a experimental neopagan folk song that recites stanzas from the Havamal and it’s basically old wise words of Odin “the Pslams of the ancient Norse” this particular song describes his knowledge on spells of specific things.

4. Seidr by Munknorr, He is the God of Seidr and magic in general that he teaches mankind quite fitting it’s also a neopagan folk song.

5. Traust by Heilung, a enchantment song that tells of a woman binding her enemies with chants (a popular use of magic in old Norse witchcraft along with seidr) to drive them away. Again magic and Odin is very much partnered together for obvious reasons.

6. Ghost riders in the sky by Johnny Cash, another country song but the premise reminds me of the wild hunt which said he leads along with Holda.

7. Helreið Oðins (Odin’s ride to Hel) by Einar Selvik, specifically talks about Odin’s journey to Hel and speaking with the Seer who grants him a prophecy about his son Baldr. It also implies Odin is somewhat of a psychopomp a spirit or deity that guides souls to the underworld and back.

8. Alfadhirhaiti by Heilung, a collection of names that relate to Odin and references his sacred animals like Hugnin and Munin as well as his wolves Geri and Freki very much like a war chant which again Odin is a god of war.

9. Munknorr - Odin, a very meditative song and I recommend during meditations channeling Odin or invoking him.

Ps I did not realize I had put 9 songs I’m taking that as a sign lol.

#norse deities #norse pantheon #norse pagan #norse heathen #odin worship #odin deity #deity work #deity worship #norse paganism

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abby118 · 7 months

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Watching the Loki series is like watching an endless gag reel. It's so bad it's surreal. Loki doesn't feel like Loki. That's not Loki. It's like we're watching Tom Hiddleston just flail and flop around in a bad suit. He reminds me, (and someone else also pointed this out, I can't remember who), of the Edgar suit in Men In Black. And I can't help but wonder if that was a conscious decision Tom made, to act like a possessed, reanimated corpse? We'll never know, of course, but every time I see video clips and gifs, I just see the Edgar suit and if it wasn't so laughable, I could cry.

I completely agree. I couldn't even get through season 1 tbh. And I'd thought ragnarok was bad and out of character...

My advice would be to avoid it completely. I've got the tags blocked, I don't look at the new content and just stick to the original. It truly makes me so sad for the entire fandom, to see such complex and deeply interesting character destroyed and stripped of his very essence. I've been a fan of Loki and the characters from the Thor movies since 2011 and hyperfixated big time. I won't let some disney bullshit ruin that. It helped me through the hardest times of my life and I see parts of myself in the personalities of the characters, having grown up with it being a safe place. It even inspired me to find interest in the norse mythology despite it being so different. I read numerous books and studies on it and I feel like you can catch little glimpses of it in the original franchise.

Sadly, it feels like Tom is so out of touch with who he is supposed to be portraying. I hope this is the result of a contract and not entirely his own input. Although, I'm worried that might be my wishful thinking.

I was studying the soundtrack of Thor 2 the other day and how much thought went into it and it made me weep internally. Brian Tyler studied the characters' personalities and brought that into what he crafted. It was full of care. He even named one track Lokasenna, which if you don't know, is the name of a poem belonging to the poetic Edda and is about the conflict between Loki and the Aesir (asgardians). I also love how the og Thor franchise had the recurrent theme of light & shadow. Returning back to the brian tyler vid- the theme he was talking about is named Shadows of Loki.

Now, compare it with what we got in the last years (sth that feels like a very badly written fanfic). That is just a single example.

For me, the ending of Thor 2 is the end of canon and I am writing my very extensive continuation. It's the best ending we could have gotten in terms of fanwork because it's an open ending. A still in-character-ending.

The series feels wrong, it feels like utter mockery and I'm not here for it. With that said, my blog is a safe space for everyone who feels like this or gets bullied by the new "fanbase" (yes that happens)

Thank you so much for sharing your opinion, I appreciate it more than you know 🖤💚

#loki #anti loki series #anti loki show #2011-2013 loki supremacy #og loki supremacy #og loki #ask #I love u anon

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11queensupreme11 · 6 months

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We already have the Percy baby au but are we also in that same au "The biggest custody battle ever"?

We start with the normal baby Percy, where instead of a teenage Percy we have a baby Percy, but this au is also a mix of the pregnant Loki au

In the PJ universe, Sally got pregnant and gave birth to Percy normally and since Percy is Poseidon's only daughter she gives her a little attention and affection, but during the night baby Percy is taken across the magic bridge, I forgot the name sorry) to the ror universe and reappears in loki's womb exactly the same way it happens in pregnant loki au

By then we all know what happens so I'm going to skip the part where the Norse and Greek family get attached and start to love baby Percya, my interesting idea comes after this

Meanwhile, in the ror universe, Loki gives birth to baby Percy, who during the gestation period became a deity, I will explain more about this concept below:

for the divining of baby Percy I am based on two myths the birth of Dionysus and the creation of the Milky Way, in the first myth it is said that after showing his real divine form to one of his lovers it is pulverized leaving it in the dust only the baby she was pregnant with and to avoid the death of the fetus Zeus opened a slit in her thigh where he placed it until birth and because he was generated for three months in a divine body when he was born he already possessed divinity, In the myth of the Milky Way, Ivy is tricked by the Antenna into breastfeeding Hercules, but he suckled with such force that he hurt the goddess's chest, who with a scream moved away and ended up spilling her divine milk towards the sky, ending up like this for creating the Milky Way

Percy had already been born when she was transposed into the Ror universe, but as she didn't yet have the Achilles curse, her little body would disintegrate, so to prevent this from happening, Bifrost placed Percy in Loki's womb (I can't think of a specific reason, maybe he was just the closest compatible person at the time? I kind of like to think that Bifrost is conscious and chose Loki thinking about his compatibility with Percy)

for being generated for another nine months (or less) in a divine womb, Percy's humanity was being consumed by Loki's divine power (imagine red paint and white paint, a small portion of the two was mixed which resulted in a pinkish tone, Now imagine that this same pink tone for months received small amounts of a new shade of red, the shade of pink that was once a perfect balance between red and white has now become a new shade of red, you and I know that this shade before it was pink but anyone looking at it now would be unable to know that as the pink/white tone has been diluted to the point where it almost doesn't exist; this is exactly what happened to Percy's human genes, they were consumed and eventually erased by the genes loki's divine genes until all that was left were ror poseidon's also divine genes)

In some myths it is said that a large part of Hercules' strength comes from the fact that he was suckled by the divine milk of Hera (who had the strongest milk among all the goddesses), so drinking Loki's divine milk would be the final nail in the coffin to kill Baby Percy's humanity (mainly because Loki spent several months breastfeeding Baby Percy, unlike Baby Hercules who was only breastfed once by Hera)

Meanwhile in the PJ universe the gods finally discovered where baby Percy went and how to get her back, Poseidon tells Sally that he is going to get their baby and after much imputation on Sally's part he agrees to take her along, the two of the other Greek gods use the Bifrost of their universe to reach the ror universe

That's when all the shit happens:

With an explosion of light from the Bifrost, the PJ Greek gods, enter the ROR universe and meet their ROR counterparts.the first thing Sally sees is baby Percy and she screams for her baby and that's what breaks everyone out of their trance, Loki is obviously offended as a random human screams that it's his baby's hand, pj Poseidon holds her arm stopping her to run towards Loki

The ror gods are exuding a huge murderous aura, especially Poseidon and Loki, so PJ Zeus begins to explain that they are from another world and that in fact Baby Percy is the son of PJ Poseidon

OBVIOUSLY the ror gods do not accept this explanation and a huge fight ensues, the ror gods and the PJ gods are arguing about which of them has the right to the child, and then someone (probably ror Eris) proposes to decide this in a divine court/judgment, the PJ gods argue that ror Zeus will be partial to his brother so everyone decides to bring in another Zeus from another dimension (maybe the Zeus from "BLOD OF ZEUS")

The entire trial would be a much more violent version of that biblical tale where King Solomon had to judge which of the two women was telling the truth about being the real mother of the living baby and which of them was lying and was actually the mother of the dead baby

The PJ gods argue that Percy's biological parents are Sally and Poseidon since it was his seed that impregnated Sally and it was she who originated, carried, cared for and breastfed Percy until she was kidnapped from her crib and taken to this world

The ror gods argue that they are also Percy's biological parents since Loki also carried, cared for and breastfed Percy, they also emphasize that Percy is a complete God and not a demigod therefore it would be impossible for Sally to give Percy the necessary care

Of course, the Norse ror gods also enter the discussion, I argue that if Bifrost chose the ror gods as parents, it is because he judged that the PCs would be incapable of properly raising the child, Grandpa Odin is not willing to let anyone take away his granddaughter. of the family and Uncle Thor (who will be a secret romantic yandere hahaha) won't let anyone take his niece (and future wife) out of his reach

This arouses the interest of PJ Zeus, who now really wants to take Baby Percy back (maybe he will also discover that Percy is essential to the future survival of Olympus) PJ Poseidon argues that he will take Sally and Baby Percy to live in Atlantica

which is countered by ror poseidon who points out that the tides over PJ Poseidon's domain are tainted and who asks why he didn't take Percy to live with him sooner (think that before the trial boz Zeus analyzed each of the worlds and how were the conditions of the parents)

I just imagine Sally crying and begging them to give her baby back, PJ Zeus says that if they want a child so much, just ror poseidon and loki make one instead of stealing one from a pair of worried parents

of course the ror gods are being supported by the other ror pantheon, everyone fears and hates Poseidon and Loki but they still love baby percy who is so cute and charismatic always trying to pull her hair and smiling whenever she is held by someone

Loki is not moved by Sally's crying and absolutely denies that anyone other than him has the title of Percy's mother, Ror Poseidon seems to me like those men who find it disgusting to create someone who has no biological ties to you but the way he is a hypocrite he will probably become the number one defender of that saying "father is the one who takes care"

Meanwhile baby Percy is being held by boz Zeus who is in the judge's place, she doesn't even have the mental capacity to understand what is happening so while the tension and the desire to kill grows she is playing with some toy until she feels hungry, at that moment she cries and boz Hera says that she is probably hungry and at that moment both Sally and Loki get up with the intention of going to Percy to breastfeed her

This is the breaking point because after seeing Sally get up Loki tries to attack her, the PJ gods defend her and in the end they all decide to determine custody in a battle to the death, so now years before Ragnarok the gods are organizing the coliseum to carry out the greatest battle that has ever happened, God against God with only one objective: to have custody of baby Percy

This conflict is so big and violent that it makes all the confusion that generated the Trojan War seem like child's play, baby Percy is literally the new golden apple that started a war between worlds, in the background the PJ and Ror Éris are wondering if MAYBE Baby Percy isn't actually a descendant of one of them

honestly it's very difficult to write an idea and in my head it had much more detail, I can't even imagine how exhausting it must be for you to write a fanfic, you DEFINITELY have my respect I would also love it if you could present how you think the ror poseidon would react, I tried but trying to write about him seemed impossible, and thank you so much for that comment you wrote about how I should be a dark romance writer, it inspired me and I'm really going to start organizing myself to start writing and post on my tumblr 😘😘😘)

first off, this was so beautifully written, i was entertained by every word you typed 😭 you are very big brained 🧠

i can just imagine, as an act of desperation, maybe one of the pjo!gods would (zeus??) would mention the great prophecy and how percy, as one of the children of the big three, would be a strong contender for being the prophecy child that could save/raze olympus

but that would be a huuuuuuuuge mistake to mention because that would just make the ror gods pissed 💀 they're essentially asking for percy back just so they could use her, plus, none of the ror!gods would give a shit if the pjo universe was in danger, they'd be happy if they were all to die

either way, i definitely see the poseidons having a whole cat fight in the middle of the court. idk, maybe one of them tried to teach percy how to say 'dada' and the other one just lost his shit 😂 as for sally, poor woman's gonna need to be guarded 24/7 cuz she's in the BIGGEST danger in here. not only is she human, but she's claiming to be percy's mother, i definitely see some gods trying to assassinate her when the chance comes

#👸🏻| asks #👸🏻| arsenic blues

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howtofightwrite · 2 years

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Hi, I'm not the person that asked about naming weapons. But the question got me thinking: how did weapons like Excalibur and Mjölnir get their name? If they're named like "people" would, if I'm understanding it right, then do those names have a meaning? Were those names ever a human name or are they derived from something? Is it like naming someone Rose, which derives from flowers, I guess? And could someone choose any name or does it need to be a specific name...like...an extreme example: instead of wanting to name the sword Excalibur, what if they just named it Peter because whoever named it liked that name better? Hope this all makes sense! 😖

Both of those names have meanings. Most names given to weapons have some kind of meaning, and you've picked two names that have been kicking around for over a thousand years, so the, “modern,” pronunciations are a bit off.

Mjolnir is either named, “lightning,” or, “crush.” It's just not named in English. (It's also not completely clear which translation is correct, and I wouldn't rule out the distant possibility that the name Mjolnir is, in fact, a millennia old pun.)

Excalibur is a bit of a trip, and somewhat better documented. The, “ex,” part came from the French translating Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey had already mutilated the sword's name when he translated it into Latin as Caliburnus (which, you'll sometimes see a sword named Caliburn. It's Excalibur, and if they sound a little different, you can thank a twelfth century British cleric.) Except, the sword wasn't originally named Caliburn, it's original name was Caledfwlch (which the spellchecker is extremely unhappy with.) Caledfwlch is Welsh. Caled translates to, “hard,” while, fwlch translates to, “cleft.” (As in, to cut or cleave.) So, through extensive linguistic mutilation, Excalibur was originally named something to the effect of, “hard cut.” If you're wondering why Excalibur originally had a Welsh name, it's because Arthur was originally a Welsh legend. (There's a few other names drawn from the same source, and these all, at least in theory, refer to the same sword, including Kalesvolg, and Kaledvoulc'h. There's also a bunch of variations in the French spelling of Escalibor, which do pop up as different swords from time to time.) One odd exception is Caladbolg, from Irish myth, which also translates to, “hard cleft,” but might actually be a distinct legend.

So, over a thousand years ago, some guy, who probably, but might not have existed, named their sword Hard Cut, which sounded a lot better in their language than ours. Nine hundred years ago, a British cleric decided to translate it into Latin, and may have just made parts of it up as he was going. Then some French monks tried translating that name into French, but, being French monks from the 11thcentury, they maintained a somewhat flexible relation with consistent spelling, and somewhere out of that entire mess, one of those spellings made it back into English as, THE name for the sword.

Also, turns out, some variation of, “hard,” is a very popular choice for naming your sword, as Durendal, the sword of Roland (an officer under Charlemagne, who would later take on mythic status in French epics), also derives from, “hard scythe.” (Again, “hard cut,” is probably a better idiomatic analogue, though there is some debate on the back half of the name, and, “hard strike,” may be more accurate. There's some interesting academic speculation on this one, if you want to dig into these names on your own time.) Also, much like Excalibur, Durendal has a lot of spellings, including Charlemagne referring to the sword as, “Durendana,” intentionally flipping the gender of the blade. Make of that what you will. (Fun trivia: my muscle memory for how to spell the name is not academically correct, and much like all of you who have difficulty typing “Curtana” correctly, I can blame Bungie. Thanks guys.)

So, there's two important takeaways, first, going back to Mjolnir for a second, Norse myth is supposed to be funny. I don't have any academic citations to say, “wait, this might be a pun,” I just have my experience going through compilations of Norse myth, and, it would not be out of character for the material. This is something that gets lost from a lot of myth, and also from a lot of fantasy writing.

Case in point, Odin's spear was named, Gungnir, which translates to, “the rocking,” “shaking,” or “swaying.” It referred to the fear that the weapon instilled in its foes. This wasn't a supernatural power of the weapon itself, but rather an indication of how damn scary the spear was supposed to be. It's actual power was unerring accuracy. If thrown, it would always strike its mark.

A lot of these mythical weapons (at least, Gugnir, Mjolnir, and Excalibur) all had supernatural powers associated with them. Their names reflected those powers. Excalibur could cut through anything, which starts to make Caledfwlch a lot less awkwardly poetic, and far more on point. Now, it's quite possible the name came first and the myth built up from there (especially if it was a real item at some point in the distant past), but the name is an expression in of the myth. This is a lot more apparent with the Norse examples, as their names were references to the artifacts' powers.

So, when writing fantasy, it's okay to name your mythical artifacts something slightly witty, or even roll in a subtle pun, if the mythology of your setting supports that attitude. It's also a good idea to consider giving your mythic weapons distinctive supernatural reputations. It doesn't matter if those reputations are entirely real or the result of centuries of mythological embellishment, but there needs to actually be a myth around your mythic artifact. (And part of the reason Norse myth comes up so frequently is that the Aesir collected artifacts like an unusually homicidal D&D party. There are a lot of weird and wacky artifacts in Norse myth, and each one of them has an entire story about where it came from, and what it does.)

-Starke

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#Starke answers #how to fight write #writing advice #writing reference #writing tips #myth #norse mythology #mythic artifacts

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