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raayllum · 4 months

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Mirrored Paths Trilogy #2: In the Name of Love, I Would Do Anything For You —Callum & Viren

Part 2 of a mini meta trilogy dissecting Callum, Karim, and Viren's parallels, with a special emphasis on S5. For the general overview, and if you want to read Karim and Viren's parallels, you can read that analysis here. It is useful to read but not necessary in order to understand this one, as this meta is Part 2 and will discuss Callum and Viren.

Now, I've talked a lot about Viren and Callum. Like, a Lot a lot. Therefore, I'm not going to repeat too much of their Arc 1 buildup here, and focus more loosely on their S5 parallels in particular. However:

If you're interested in their pre-season 4 buildup, check out these metas: How Callum and Viren have parallel arcs in S2, Relics, Rage, and Magic: The Callum-Viren Foils Meta, the foils screencap compilation post I've been cultivating since Nov 2019 pre S3 (updated to include past that point)

If you're interested in post-S4 thoughts, check out these metas: The Interlocking of the Cycle’s Wheel with Viren, Claudia, Callum, and Rayla, How Viren and Callum stack up flaws wise, I sure do love foils that switch, How Callum's morality differs from Ezran and Rayla's (and always has)

If you're interested in post-S5 thoughts, check out these metas: What did Viren and what does Callum want?, How Callum and Viren sacrifice (written post-S4 but updated with S5 screencaps), Why ramp up the foiling?

Now I'm not gonna expect you to read all that because 1) I'm aware I have a problem, 2) it'd be time consuming as hell, and 3) I'm going to summarize the most important takeaways for you to understand the foundation this next section of meta is built on. (None of it is complicated, mind you, but just to make it clear where I'm coming from.) If you have read all those metas, or even made it this far on this one, thank you for enabling me reading and I hope you('ve) enjoy(ed).

Now for the key takeaways:

S5 went basically exactly where I've thought Callum would go since S1/S2 and Viren since S3 re: Viren giving up dark magic and having an atonement arc/breaking away from Aaravos, whereas Callum — in order to free and save someone he loves, specifically Rayla — chooses to chain himself further to Aaravos

Although still very different, Callum and Viren are worryingly, exceedingly similar in many ways, largely in their agreement that dark magic can be a useful last resort and in their devotion to their loved ones (aka "in the name of love" + the "I would do anything [for my family/loved ones]" parallel

Where Viren is willing to put certain things (the kingdom, his own quest for power, humanity) above his family (and wrongfully so), Callum is not. He says he would do anything, and means it (thank you post-s2 me, you were the realest bitch)

Rayla and Aaravos are foils, particularly in their dynamics with Callum and Viren respectively. They are both banished, exiled elves who were seen as being/are too sympathetic towards humans, they mentor high mages of Katolis, hunt each other's high mages, and S6 will put Rayla and Aaravos vying for Callum's destiny (control) to the test as his two paths (although choosing Rayla over Aaravos may not be mutually exclusive, but that's another post). Rayla killing Viren unintentionally put him on a path to stray from Aaravos, whereas Callum saving her / their relationship is what has consistently putting him on a path towards Aaravos

Now, S2 and S4 definitely have more parallels between them structurally for our two high mages. S2 is linked above, so I'll focus on S4: asking to die but being refused by Claudia and Rayla respectively; being reunited with someone they love after two years; Callum attempting to shut down his feelings in Rayla's absence / upon her return much the way Viren did in his time as high mage; the mirror and general framing, particularly in 4x01; sharing a (re-)birthday; their impatience in 4x02, which is also a parallel with Karim; the pawn intros; Rayla interrupting Callum's investigation of the mirror while Viren likewise attempts to diverge paths; picking up what they'd been refusing to all season in 4x09 within seconds of each other, and similar framing to boot, since dark magic led to Viren's destruction, and Rayla will possibly (unintentionally) lead to Callum's:

Let's get into it: S5

Now, S5 is less obvious in some ways. The one big framing parallel they get, beat for beat, is Callum going to investigate Aaravos in the library, placing his book on the same table, being interrupted by the librarian (which is honestly more of a running gag than something tangible), the script being magically washed away, etc.

Therefore, with all of the above out of the way, we have three main things to consider:

1) Their dark magic dreams from 2x06 and 5x03 respectively, in which they face mirrored reflections of each other

I wrote after S2 that I thought Callum refusing his dark counterpart in 2x08 was ultimately going to end up being more about actively being a dark mage than doing dark magic ever again, mostly because — while we didn't know if the show would ever put him in said position — I always figured Callum would do dark magic again in well, about the exact circumstances canon forced him into in 5x08. (And it was extremely satisfying, lemme tell you.) Viren giving up dark magic was more surprising, but they've always been switching foils, so the exchange makes perfect sense on that level.

I talked really briefly about some of the similarities between their dreams, but I wanted to touch on some here as well:

Their choices are both framed around objects of Aaravos. For Callum, it's a key he initially rejects. For Viren, it's the mirror, but instead of connecting to and looking to Aaravos to help him, he looks to and accepts himself.

Viren has to reach forward and connect with himself, whereas Callum pulls away from his mirror self

Viren's dreams are about dismantling his justifications (or the why) behind what he did, whereas Callum's skip over his justifications and instead focus on what he did. Both of these accordingly inform their identity

Viren is saved from literal drowning upon waking up, Callum is saved from a more metaphorical kind

Freedom is the cornerstone of both reflective scenes. Viren and Callum both leave their initial dreams being free (or freer than before). While this holds true for Viren until the current end of his arc (5x09), Callum in 5x08 is handed a sharp reminder that freedom is no guarantee, and how that may continue

The path metaphor that was running loosely throughout their arcs ("I am offering you a path forward [with dark magic] / Callum's tendency towards shortcuts / "I'm afraid, Rayla. What if I'm on a path of darkness?") is now being brought to the forefront here through Viren both being made actively aware of his choices per path ("Because I have followed a dark path") and him deciding to get off of it in 5x09.

2) Both being driven to desperation and resolve to try and save someone they love (Claudia, Rayla)

I figured that, per Viren getting an atonement arc at all, that what would make the most sense is S5 forcing Viren and Callum to confront their moral horizon lines about what they were, or were not willing to do, in order to save Claudia and Rayla pre-S5. For the S4 reasoning behind that, I'll recommend one of the metas linked above regarding those four and the Interlocking of the Cycle's Wheel. I was very pleased to see a decent chunk of it come to fruition. I figured Callum would be able to save Rayla at a steep cost, and Viren would be unable to successfully save Claudia (cause consequences have to catch up to you sooner rather than later, and they tend to catch Viren first and Callum second).

This is, of course, perhaps most exemplified by the show chipping away to the core of dark magic, which is what are you willing to do to save the people you love, even against their will, and that Callum has every good reason to be worried, accordingly, about a very exploitable part of himself.

Which we'll talk about more when we get to:

3) Viren revoking dark magic and Aaravos, whereas Callum does dark magic again and worries he's further tethered himself to Aaravos

In season 5 in a lot of ways, Viren comes to fully understand and accept Harrow's rebuttal to dark magic in 1x02, which was, "We may not pay now, but we will pay the blood price eventually! What do you think got us here? Dark magic!" The blood price went from Sarai's unintentional death, to Thunder's purposeful one, to Zym's false one, to Harrow's 'real' (?) one, and so and so forth.

Viren tried to ignore the sunk cost fallacy by believing it was already too late to turn everything around, and that doubling down to skirt consequences would continually work... until it didn't, and he had to accept the only person writing his fate was himself: "Every step forward is a choice," and thereby another chance to do the right thing, or make better choices, under the circumstances you have — to at least try.

This parallel, then, between Viren doing what he can to set himself free vs Callum chaining himself further to Aaravos is, in a lot of ways, both the most dreadful and happiest potential parallel and contrast between on a few different levels. Let me explain:

S6 as the Fall, S7 as the Rise

I talked about this pre-S5, citing it as a reason I believed Viren and Callum were ultimately switching rather than solely contrasting foils — re: Viren getting better in S5, and Callum getting worse in S5/S6 — simply due to the fact that given that S6 will be TDP's 11th hour, things might be going okay for the antagonist crowd, but the protagonist side of things, particularly Callum, will need to be hitting rock bottom.

Thus, it seemed pretty obvious from a structural standpoint, as well as Stars (and destiny by extension) having an association with Aaravos that S6 would involve Callum playing his part in Aaravos' plans, with S7 being the reclamation of his agency and therefore defeat of his narrative Rival for well, narrative control. S6 being Callum's fall, S7 being his rise — stronger than before, and freer and more magically in tune than ever.

Prior to S5, it was typically accepted (by myself included) that while purposefully very similar to one another in both framing and personality, that mirroring would eventually shed, and, come S7 Viren would ultimately provide a contrast to Callum, with Callum breaking away from Aaravos in ways Viren was never able to, and this would be the Big Defining Difference between them in terms of like, narrative cohesion and plot. (Emotionally, the biggest difference has always, arguably, been that Viren is more world focused — to his detriment in arc 1 in particular — than focused on his loved ones, whereas Callum is deeply and sometimes dangerously devoted to the people he loves.)

However, S5 makes that previous contrast prediction untrue, because Viren does break away from Aaravos (in fact, just an episode decidedly before Callum seems — metaphorically at least — to take a step towards him). Therefore rather than just being a contrast, Viren is meant to be a true mirror in equal measure, simply because by virtue of letting Viren break away from Aaravos' control, when Callum eventually does so, he will likewise — once again — be following in Viren's footsteps, just in a positive way rather than a 'negative' way like before. If Viren was meant to solely be a contrast — as has been theorized previously — than Callum staying under Aaravos' control would actually be the provided ending. Of course the show isn't doing that for Very Obvious Reasons, but I think it's worth noting that now, in order for Callum to have a happy ending at all, he has to follow in Viren's footsteps — all of them. Rather than being one of solely warning and foreboding, Viren's narrative has turned into one of hope for Callum, too.

V: I am free, and so are you.

But in order to talk about salvation, we have to first talk about destruction, namely:

Dark Magic and Death

Dark magic and death have long been associated with each other in series. Dark magic requires killing or consuming a magical creature — elf, dragon, or otherwise — to be used/harvested for power. It affects the souls of those being used as spell parts (Through the Moon) and you can use any part of the body within reason, even their ashes upon cremation (1x03, 2x09), or their final breath (against their wishes in 3x06). Hell, dark magic makes you smell like death (3x01), turns you into a more corpselike appearance, and season two novelization just furthers this association outright during the passages of Callum's dark magic visions/dream:

Callum turned the cube frantically to see which primal was glowing. How could any of the primals glow in this dark place? Something about this cube tied his stomach in knots. It wasn’t natural. A vision flickered in front of his face. Dozens of dead animals in a field. A dead butterfly. A dead deer. A dead unicorn. Cackling laughter. He chucked the cube away from him with all his might. The glowing rune was dark magic. It represented death.

Thereby in 2x08 itself, the rejection dark magic symbolized by the cube is pretty simple. Callum rejects being a dark mage as his primary magic use, he rejects the 'easier' road, he still believes he can possibly access primal magic, and in doing so, he rejects death. He won't become a dark mage, he won't seek out his death or others in order to have control/power, and he won't become a corpselike figure.

But a couple seasons later, we see S4 and S5 reverse and complicate that in 1) having him, literally, seek his own and Aaravos' deaths in order to feel in control/have power, and therefore 2) perfectly foreshadowing his eventual dark magic use/relapse, for lack of a better word. Just as the show leans farther away from "dark magic is easy" (and it is, in some ways, emotionally easier to deal with consequences when you can change them) and more into "dark magic will destroy you — your identity and your body — if you keep using it".

S5, likewise, also starts to break down the negative associations of dark magic being linked to death, and indeed the negative associations with death itself. For most characters in the series, death is solely a tragedy, but for Harrow and Viren of themselves, staring their own deaths in the face — and choosing to die — instead became a vehicle for repentance, change, and subsequent self-actualization.

Death, for Harrow, and more importantly for the sake of this meta, is not just doom and gloom, but a choice and therefore a culmination as well as a chance for transformation. Just as Viren's death in 3x09 allowed him to be re-born with clear eyes (a literal Re-Birthday, if you will), him choosing this next death shows the full scope of his character arc. Previously, he died because he was chasing all the things he didn't have with Aaravos' aid, and by 5x09, he's rejecting Aaravos' help and dying alone in the woods with nothing, yet it feels like a tragic sort of victory all the same.

We also see a more complicated view of dark magic alongside ideas of self-actualization. Previously, dark magic was seen as something that would make you routinely lose yourself (Viren, Claudia) until you had by and large become the worst version of yourself. S5 complicates this a bit more by connecting Callum doing dark magic to his ability to access the Ocean arcanum, as he remembers/mimics the motion of crushing the slug before connection (and parallels Viren's 5x03 hand symbolism to boot):

Whereas Viren unmakes his choice to take on Aaravos' deal in 2x07, Callum unmakes his choice to refuse to do dark magic when it means saving his loved ones. As he states:

To love is simply to know this: the tides are true as the ocean is deep... You don't control anything. But you already knew that, didn't you? Because it's the secret of the Ocean itself. The arcanum. The Ocean arcanum is about accepting depths you can't see, parts of yourself you can't understand, and things you can't control.

Callum fears not having control, and therefore fears his part of himself, where he is now more aware than ever of just how far he'll go for his loved ones, and how exploitable that is, thanks to Finnegrin. And it's not as though dark magic has lost its death associations, merely that those death associations have likewise been transformed. This is particularly evident if you line up 5x08 as the end of Callum's S5 arc (which it is; while 5x09 is fun, it doesn't further any of the main trio's emotional arcs except Rayla, and even that is decently minor)

If dark magic is still linked to death, then both Viren and Callum choose to step towards their own deaths in the end of their respective arcs, just with different meanings and arc placements. If we take Viren's step further that real death vs dark magic death are two different things, then we still have Callum stepping towards his own dark magic death to prevent someone else's (the same way Rayla is spared) even if that means throwing potentially 3+ innocent people and Domina Profundis under the bus in 5x08. But more on that here.

For now, let me break it down more simply:

In 4x09, Callum and Viren both pick up the symbol of something they've been trying to ignore / pass off to others all season. Viren has avoided his staff and left it for Claudia to wield, much the same way Callum passed Rayla off to Ezran and Soren in the previous episodes. Viren refuses to leave the staff behind. Meanwhile, Callum picks up and finally starts fully acknowledging the loss and love he feels regarding Rayla, who he let go on without him. The staff is symbolic of Viren's relationship to Aaravos as well, and it's what ultimately dooms him. Rayla's sword, although quickly discarded so he can help the actual Moonshadow elf, is also a symbol to Callum in the scene that he loves/is still mourning his friend/partner.

In 5x08 and 5x09, Callum and Viren are both goaded by a vengeful elf seeking freedom into doing dark magic to create a secure future for each mage. The elf wants to use them as further vessels for their own freedom/revenge scheme. Viren refuses to do dark magic and instead chooses death, reaching self-actualization. He does this mostly motivated by his own regret and love for Claudia. He refuses to sacrifice Sir Sparklepuff to save his own life and breaks away from Aaravos. Callum demonstrates a willingness to sacrifice others in order to save Rayla, in addition to resorting to dark magic in order to save her. He refuses to sacrifice her to save/keep his own soul free from Aaravos' clutches, even if that means possibly walking steadily closer to his own death. Likewise, this allows him to reach a new stage of self-actualization, but at a steep emotional cost.

Where Viren's ending is tragic but victorious, Callum's season ending is victorious but tragic. But like I said earlier, Viren's story in S5 offers plenty of hope to Callum's future storyline, namely exploring how

Love Can Destroy and Save You

Now, anyone who's been following me for a while knows I love a good "this thing can save and destroy you" and that I have been really fucking excited for S4 taking that undercurrent in arc 1 and bringing it up to the forefront, with a big hitch to Rayllum as a sweet lovely, devastating bonus.

“Wow. So they look identical but they might kill you or they might save you,” Callum said. “Exactly. Just like me…” Rayla smiled.

—Book One: Moon novelization + Callum and Rayla being routinely determined to save each other, even if that means immense danger and harm to themselves (Callum's love for her made him leap off the mountain to save her, and his love for her allowed him to grow wings and save both of them).

This has always been a theme in the show and particularly within their dynamic — "Alright, enough almost killing me" in 1x05 with the lightning spell, only for Callum to save Rayla's life with the exact same spell by the episode's end — most prominently brought to the forefront in 4x07 with their whole "I need you to kill me" "I'm afraid I'll hurt people I care about" [cuts right to Rayla] conversation. If you're interested in more Rayllum thoughts on this, I would recommend my original meta on the subject (pre-S4) and my post-S4 followup.

We even see this theme of the same thing — in this case, Callum's love for Rayla and commitment to saving her — play out as a perfect microcosm in 5x08. As previously mentioned, Callum does dark magic again (a failure in his own mind) and unlocks the ocean arcanum (a victory) precisely because of what he was willing to do out of love, both of these things being good and bad. The dark magic use is bad because it makes him more vulnerable to Aaravos and reaffirms how he'll bend morals he otherwise wouldn't and is upset over it, and it's a good action because it lets him save Rayla. Unlocking the Ocean arcanum is a good thing, because it symbolizes a deeper understanding of himself — good ol' self-actualization — and more useful, magical prowess, but it's also a bad thing because he's upset by this realization of himself to the point of not even really being excited by it.

He would do anything for her, he's realized now that love doesn't necessarily always make him stronger, that this is exploitable, and it scares him. It really does.

Because Rayla saves him and destroys him. And in S5, fortunately, Viren's children do the same for him.

Even though saving Soren is what seemed to truly begin Viren's descent in earnest...

the harm his path has inflicted on Claudia is one of his motivations to finally stepping off of it.

Ezran himself acknowledges the way love interplays with the Cycle in the thematic turning point of the arc, and the series in many ways, back in 4x03 — that love is not in opposition to the Cycle, but indeed one of its many cogs, and the choice lies in how we choose to let that love manifest:

I had a speech planned for today. It was about peace and love and hope. But I think I left something out. [...] We all want peace and we all want love. But violence tests us. In a twisted way, it converts us to its cause. Because pain and loss feel so terrible inside, you want to hate. You want to hurt someone else. So what do we do? How can we stop this cycle? [...] We have to acknowledge the weight of the pain and loss, but open up our eyes and allow ourselves to hope and maybe forgive and love again. We have to give today’s children a chance to inherit a future filled with peace. To give them that, we have to hold pain and love in our hearts at the same time.

If Callum does destroy himself / risk the world for love in S6 (perhaps taking a risk he knows may lead to being possessed, or releasing Aaravos to spare Ezran or Rayla from an immediate death) then love, it seems, is also posed to be what accordingly breaks him out of the possession and brings him back to himself, the same way it allowed Viren to deviate from his previously chosen/enforced path. Reconciling dualities rather than enforcing strict binaries is one of the main things S4 was concerned with, after all ("Just have two cakes!").

All of this, for Callum, ties back into:

His dynamic with Rayla and all its variances (the light to his dark / pain and love / literally freeing himself while metaphorically chaining himself in order to save her / his love for her being his strentth and weakness / "Now you're back. That's kind of good, and it's kind of bad").

His connection to the Key ("I have a feeling that cube thing could help me" to "It's the Key of Aaravos, Callum. No good will come of it!")

Light and dark being both good and bad, and Aaravos heavily representing that trade off ("In darkness, gaze upon a fallen star [...] already tainted by darkness" + the cube flashing a bright glowing white before Aaravos picks him up as a pawn).

The fall (becoming Aaravos' prey / playing into Aaravos' hands) in s6 and a rise in S7 (breaking free by defeating Aaravos)

If dark magic is death, and Aaravos is likewise death / worse than death ("if he takes control of me again, you have to kill me")... death, like for Viren in 3x09, can be Transformation for Callum in 6x09. He just has to 'die' (metaphorically) — to fall, to fail, to succumb to his predecessor's negative footsteps — in order to rise, fly, and follow in his predecessor's positive footsteps while also carving out another new path for himself.

Because Love is salvation just as much as it is destruction, and the story will always hold true to those things.

Other Parallels

Although there aren't as many prominent framing parallels in S5 as there were in S4 — the mirror, on the battlements with Soren, sitting on the Storm Spire, picking up the staff and sword, etc etc — (beyond the hand clasps as symbolic chains my beloved), the most obvious one is from 5x01 in which Callum goes to the library to research Aaravos just like the high mage before him, down to the portrait over the table they place the tome on.

Then there is also framing that furthers the connections they share between Callum-Viren and Claudia-Rayla, diving after someone you're desperate to save (and often from drowning, to boot). Hand outstretched one pictured above, so here's another:

There are also the Aaravos-Magma Titan Callum-Viren parallels that others have pointed out, with Ezran standing in for Sarai:

Given that 4x01 begins and 5x09 ends the arc of Viren's 30 days, and by and large binds S4 and S5 together as 1 arc of sorts (with S6 and S7 being the final arc), it tickles me particularly pink that it opens, in many ways, and then literally closes accordingly with Callum and Viren staring at the moon:

Misc:

In between writing the first meta and the second one, I got loose 'confirmation' that I'm on the right path with my deductions (even if, of course, 'personal path' can mean many things, but I still think it's cool!) from Aaron Ehasz on twitter. Cool beans

I also think it's fun that Viren tries to save Claudia from a 'symbolic' death in the ocean ("Stop! That wave, it will swallow you up!") and Callum saves Rayla from a more literal one of being devoured by a sea leviathan.

Conclusion

First off, if you read All of That, thank you and I hope you enjoyed it. I've been itching to talk about these two and how S5 both built on the parallels they already had, pushed some to the forefront in overt ways ("I would do anything" and 5x08 on Callum's end was beyond validating in every way), in addition to setting up more to come, both good and bad.

I may return to S5 in this manner to touch more on other parallel relationships in the future, such as Viren-Rayla in S5, Callum-Claudia, and Claudia-Rayla, but for now the next proposed foil meta is looking at a dynamic I have not talked much about in Callum and Karim. This will conclude this little 'trilogy' of metas, and I hope you stick around for it, cause it's going to be very interesting.

Callum and Viren have always been my favourite foils relationship in the show, and I hope this meta did a good job of demonstrating why. Thank you for reading and I'll see you in the next one!

—Dragons out

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fangirleaconmigo · 2 years

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Valdo Marx is like 99% fanon, is he not?

Valdo Marx is 99.999% fanon.

We only know that he is a troubadour from Cidaris who considers Jaskier to be "a talentless wastrel who panders to the taste of the masses.” We also known that the moment Jaskier gets his hands on a bottle he thinks has a djinn in it, he wishes for Valdo to die of apoplexy.

That’s all we know! So he is a fandom OC, really. Even more so than Aiden because at least we know *something* about Aiden (how he died and what kind of man he was)

So it’s basically another fun creative writing assignment. Who would Jaskier hate that much?! And why?!

And I know some fans are like…well obviously. Jaskier is a petty bitch. But I think that’s an oversimplification! To me personally, it is still extremely noteworthy! For three reasons.

1) Dandelion (talking books now but I do think this all applies to TWN Jaskier just as well) does not have the focus or attention span required to hold a grudge. I don’t remember the exact quote (I don’t have my books on me) but Geralt comments on it specifically.

2) He is predisposed to liking people and thinking the best of them. Geralt (understandably) has a much gloomier outlook on trust, life, and love.

3) Dandelion may be a bitch (I mean. He IS a bitch) but he also has a soft gooey center. He’s just like most witcher characters in that he has layers. Crunchy outside and smooth inside. So while he has a sharp tongue, he does also have a soft heart.

When Geralt breaks (redacted)‘s leg (ankle? I don’t remember) Dandelion screams as though it were his own. On the dragon hunt he begs Geralt not to kill the dragon because it’s “pretty”. He asks Geralt to bring Ciri to Toussaint so he can hug her. He changes the lyrics to his song about the elves in order to protect them.

He’s a petty bitch with a soft gooey center.

I mean, the Valdo thing is obviously supposed to be funny. Dandelion provides so much of the comic relief. It is very likely that we were never meant to think about it this deeply. But overthinking is what we do for fun, gatdamnit! 😂

I admit I haven’t done anything creative with Valdo in my fics but I love when other people do.

I’ve seen fics that make the conflict:

Just theater. They actually secretly like each other. This usually involves hilarity.

A concept where Valdo has a crush on Jaskier, but Jaskier misinterprets it as competitiveness and they start one-upping each other until it spirals out of control.

Unrequited love, on either side.

A concept where Valdo is actually Klaus from the Umbrella Academy time traveling and bringing all the pop songs from the future with him. He enrages Jaskier by how easily he shits out hits (that one was my concept bc I was just sitting there amusing myself after TUA S2)

Valdo is Jaskier with a mustache

The conflict stems from a misunderstanding or a very complicated ‘both of these people are traumatized” breakup. Both are in Oxenfurt and dealing with their own shit/trauma and manage to hurt each other without meaning to.

Fics where the history of it is very very dark. I’ve seen fics where Valdo is abusive. I’ve also seen deaddove dark!Jaskier fics where he is the abusive one.

Usually there is a romance there at some point to explain the intensity of the hatred, but not always. They can also be true enemies (Valdo has murdered or otherwise harmed someone Jaskier loves), or they can be related to each other, and sometimes both or all of the above lol.

Like. The range. I’ve seen Valdo as the perfect ‘hatesex’ candidate for short PWPs and longer Enemies to Lovers multichapters. I’ve seen Valdo as a convenient stand in character when you need a rival, to multichapter works of in depth character creation for him. Or he’s just there to provide Geralt with the motivation to confess his feelings.

So feel free to rb with your favorite Valdo fics, folks. There’s a lot of creativity out there. Not to brag on the fandom writers (but I’m going to brag on the fandom writers) they are a bunch of badasses.

#the witcher #jaskier #valdo marx #canon or fanon #witcher character meta

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cursedfortune · 2 months

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violentemperor the fact that she is touch starved is really the strangest thing about her.

I'm going to actually address this as more of a headcanon post for a few reasons. It's an old but very active still headcanon, and still valid to this day. I don't expect anyone to remember every detail about my muse, fuck knows I forget a lot myself xD But also since I have new moots/followers, I thought it may be helpful. I'm quoting friendo above for the sake of having a clear basis to answer, btw, not out of negativity.

You know how you behave with strangers vs people close to you differs, yeah? Maybe for some people not a lot, maybe for others it is. It's like that. It's still you, just a different flavor of you depending on who it is.

Witches in my lore communicate less verbally and more through touch and energy. They can share a look and it will contain a conversation, because they share energy with one another that carries with it the impression of how they are feeling/what they are thinking to whatever extent they wish to share.

Mortem's natural tongue is touch and speaking without words. She had to adapt to the other races and learn the value of speaking with her tongue since they value it so. Yes, in her canon, fae and elves - as well as specific mage-types can communicate with her in her natural "tongue" but very early on in her canon she is sentenced to exile for being convicted of treason.

By default with people, since I keep all interactions separate unless plotted otherwise, Mortem interacting with anyone will have her in that solitude of exile. Does she go out into cities and other places? Yes. Why? Because her work as a witch requires her to. She was exiled from a neighboring country she called home. Her homeland hasn't exiled her, but she is shunned from being involved in their affairs. You can't really stop a witch unless you put them down, and Mortem is temporarily immortal and can't be. So her homeland tolerates her so long as she just stays away from the politics and keeps to her forest mostly. Which she does. She only leaves her forest when she has to for her work as a witch (aka fulfilling her purpose that is directly related to mortals).

So when it comes to touch and all that, Mortem is deprived of her natural form of communication. She is essentially mute because no one speaks to her and she is shunned, outside of those who don't realize they are speaking to traitor usually. Other witches exist, but because Mortem has witch hunters solely dedicated to killing her she doesn't usually venture near her own people because she doesn't want to risk troubling them with her burdens either.

To circle back to the initial point:

When it comes to her engagement with mortals - yes. Sometimes she has a fling. She doesn't get close to others emotionally, however. In the RPC, it's a little different because it's not strictly me being 100% in her canon. She has three ships at this time that are all long term and mostly slow build ones. She doesn't get close to people because people don't live much more than what feels like a blink of the eye to her. By close I mean, she will value someone and enjoy them but she won't let them know her and make herself vulnerable, by the way. Her relationships, when they randomly pop up (or at the start of rp interactions) will always be friendly and one-sided because Mortem will fully enjoy someone and accept them sharing themselves with her - but she is very... sleight of hand when it comes to how much she shares in return.

How she engages with people casually and by default is very honest, but she omits a large portion of herself because 1) witches just be like that and 2) because of her longevity and isolation.

Being touched by someone who cares about you is different from being touched by someone who is casually friendly with you. And for a witch, those differences are loud and clear. She is a war veteran that was promptly exiled and isolated, she has been hunted by witch hunters the majority of her life and all her tolerance for torture and pain comes from them. Her life is mainly made up of physical hurt and emotional distance. Which is why I've said when her smiles falls, it's her true expression showing. Because Mortem is relatively neutral down to the emotional base. She doesn't lie about how she feels, she'll tell you she's pissed off or upset with a smile on her face because she doesn't feel close to someone. But when she relies on someone, like one of her ships for instance, she'll let that smile that wards off others fall and touch/want to be touched in the ways that she needs it. The way her people communicate to some degree. Those are the individuals that get to see how things really make her feel without the vaguely threatening smile she usually always wears.

Touch may never be what it was once back when she was younger and among her people, but it can be close when she has bonded with someone closely.

You can say she has a pretty face and sex appeal and therefore wants for nothing, that she has a personality that can easily make friends. And you'd be right. Because that's the point. She made herself that way because it was necessary, and what she didn't is just natural to her/her kind. But just because she has it doesn't mean it's utilized and it certainly doesn't mean she lets others touch her often or gets close to others to have their touch matter (<The big point here). Physical touch is important to Mortem and her people. Her isolation has made it so that she is both hesitant to engage in it (because mortal customs differ) and wanting it very much (because it's natural to her kind). She is touch-starved but she keeps it to herself unless someone she feels like she can be vulnerable with comes along. Aka, like the three ships I currently have with her.

Mortem is old, war torn and has been isolation for a very long time by default when it comes to any of her interactions. That's how I write her. In every ship she has, I don't hesitate to write about it either. This blog has documented it well. I'm not expecting everyone to keep up with that, that would be insane. I just hope this helps clarify her usual persona vs when she allows herself to be vulnerable for anyone new or anyone wanting a reminder or something. ^^

If you made it this far I can only give you raw onions and finger guns. But at least the onions are peeled.

#headcanons #got me thinking between work here lmfao thank you xD

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sirensea14 · 10 months

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HAHAHAHAHA MY AUUUUUUUUU

WHO'S YOUR ROMEO?

(dont mind the blurry letters above them, theyre descriptions of what they wear so i can visualize them--)

My Royalty au is originally called Julieta au (bcoz this is inspired of "Juliet" song by lipxlip which is the op song heroine run the show) and i switched it to 'medieval au' but doesn't suit it since Bendy's clothes doesn't match the era (and i have no plan on changing it cuz im too lazy WHAHAHAHA), so i changed it to Royalty Au, plus it involved kingdoms, knights, monsters, demons, angels, kings, queens, princes and princesses, magic etc. It was supposed to be a love triangle of us...

But then i added more characters

Here they are. And yes--MUGMAN HAS HAIR (ignore the arrows)

So here are their descriptions:

Cuphead the Ace - prince, prodigy knight of Calix Animi, foster father: king of Dish, King Kettle (or elder kettle behind the doors). He and mugs were found by Kettle when their house was raided by goblins, evil fae and elves bcoz of their potential magic powers. Kettle was a knight and king at the same time, he rescued them. Their parents are dead (not sure if it will be cannikin and demitasse from inky mystery) and so is the Queen, thats why Kettle vowed to protect people from monsters and is very serious abt it. He is the heir to the throne, his smaller twin brother is Mugman. Like King Kettle, he is also brutal towards monsters, he is 24 yrs old. He is infatuated to a woman who is queen of the oceans

Mugman the Beast Tamer - (beast tamer title is inspired by Cannikin) younger twin brother of The Ace, very close to king kettle, he has heart of gold, he has a girlfriend who lives by the sea, 24 yrs old

The Legendary Chalice - or Ms. Chalice is the general (or any rank called, she's a higher up) of the Calix Animi Knights. She was referred to as "Legendary" due to her skills and experience being so vast. She is 26 yrs old

Siren of the Sea - and that's me! (lol, cringe, ok lets do this in 3rd person pov) she is the isolated queen of the sea who rules every bit of seas and oceans. Seas sounds cooler that ocean right? And smaller too, so every kings and queens have underestimated her power. And also her looks, she prefers minimal jewelries and accessories, another reason for people to belittle her. Tho dont mess with her as she can get a little brutal when she gets angry. She likes the pacific ocean and atlantic ocean a lot. Specifically the Mariana trench, its full of monsters and leviathans down there. She had a stoned heart and always looked tired but she met 2 men who eventually softened her, tho she is torn between the Knight and the Demon, 25 yrs old physically, she was sitting on the throne lately, no one knew what her real age is

Cala Maria the Mergon (mermaid+ gorgon lol) - she is isolated as she is known to have gorgon blood. She was saved by a brave knight named Mugman so she gave him a metal ring with a chain holding a fish hook, she's happy seeing mugman wearing it. They had mutual feelings for each other. She knows Siren and is slightly afraid of her, tho she tries her best to befriend her. 26 yrs old

Alice Angel - sent from above, the princess of the Heavens and a healer. People always says that even tho she has horns. She has bright white wings which made her look more angelic aside from her beauty and kindness. She is vibrant yet calm and isnt shaken by Siren's cold attitude, instead, she always talks to her. Over time, siren seemed to respond to her. And thats when they began being friends. 25 yrs old, She is currently inlove with a wolf. And despite all her feminine traits, she won't hesitate to defend those in need when attacked, or help her friends who are troubled. She's a feisty Angel after all.

Boris the Wolf - a handyman who can do everything ; hunter, chef, play the clarinet, scavenger, messanger--anything u can think is something he can do. He is also a quick learner, thats why. He is close friends to a certain Demon and a lover to an Angel, 28 yrs old, he is calm and wise

(okay lemme explain this real quick--I ship Alice angel and boris, not based on Twisted alice and buddy boris, but rather on Tom Boris and Allison Angel. Theyre married in batim/batdr right? And theyre portrayed as Boris and Alice clones so i dont see why not--)

Bendy the Devil Darlin' or Bendy the Ink Demon - known as the Prince of Hell and next to the Throne, he has a playful yet dangerous attitude towards people, which made them fear him. They always obeyed his orders, and when something goes wrong well u might not like it. The only person who seemed to defy him was the Queen of the Seas, she perked his interest and somehow evolved into something demons cannot feel, love. He is 26 physically, but 257 chronologically, his race--Demons--has an ongoing cold war with the dishes

Holly the Sorceress - a character from inky mystery (i added her bcoz i love her so much), she is known as an archeologist, who continues to learn and discover the unknown. She loves playing with runes and runs a shop that sells potions, food and weapons that will help knights and adventurers alike. She's basically like a merchant famously known to play with dangerous runes. Enthusiastic, ambitious and curious, she is 23 yrs old (i aged her up a bit) and has a pearl necklace given to her by a mermaid friend, Cala Maria, when she helped her walk on land. She has her interest on Siren, a mysterious siren who acts cold. She visited her once to buy something, but she was busy playing with runes so she didn't get much hold of it, also she blabbers about how amazing runes and magic are despite her being a human. Whenever night strikes, she rides a broom and flies. She turns to a witch named 'Mayhem'. People say they were the same but some were defending Holly. Holly don't know about this either, so life continues. Little did she know that Mayhem is her Alter ego, she also has a magic cog from a mysterious machinery she has obtained during one of her digs (note: she only digs sites ALONE so this is her own discovery), tho it is very small.

(the Cog from inky mystery is inspired by the Gear in Batim/batdr, however in this au the ink machine does not exist--or might have been but crumbled to dust, anyways it does not serve something in the au)

Now the setting or place of it all? I dunno aesthetics but i like to imagine it as... Just ur usual generic medieval castle stuff, kingdoms. Also there are many kingdoms here, mainly:

Angels : hovering the sky

Demons: below(hell)

Dish : on land, apparently their land is huge and vast, but is surrounded by water

Sea monsters/leviathans: under the sea and oceans of course, full of corals

Normal humans (but they have access to magic) witch, wizards, animal toons etc : land, but separated from the Dish kingdom

For me, its hard to create kingdoms, but maybe i can get a sketch outta my head? That is if im in the mood

Some people of their races move or migrate to other kingdoms, for example, Holly moved to the Dish Kingdom.

I imagine this au to take place mainly on Dish Kingdom but i dunnoooo maybe it will be changed? Not sure

These are my thoughts abt it so far...

I may make some heavy art abt this (i mean, the FINISHED art and not a sketch one) tho im not sureeee since its hard to draw when ur using only a phone, and im drawing digitally using my thumb, but well i guess im gonna adjust myself, thank u for reading all this nonsense and make it up to the end. Ta-ta!

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aestherians · 2 years

Text

I'm Ben, But Call Me Poppy

Preface: I would like for this essay to not just be an exploration of my own fictionkinity (though that is its main purpose) but also an introduction to the fictionkind experience in general, and to the experience of parallel lives. Of course, I am just one person and none of my experiences can be universal, but I nonetheless hope they can shed some light on fictionkinity and lead to further understanding and tolerance of these identities. And I hope it will lead to parallel lives becoming a more widely known and understood phenomenon. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Word count: 4479

Estimated reading time: 20-25 minutes

On the 6th of December 2019 I had a weird dream. I was standing on the edge of a cliff. The wind played with my hair, long grass tickled my ankles, and high above, seabirds called out to each other. As I looked to the sky, a being made of blinding white light appeared before me. She was beautiful and graceful and older than time itself. She gently took my hand and pointed towards the horizon. My eyes followed her finger and the sky itself tore apart to reveal an inky black nothingness. But as I looked, little specks of something began to appear. Dots and lines, swirls and stars, and colors I'd never seen before. I understood then that this primordial being was showing me the beginning of this universe. And as I stared in awe, she turned to look down at me, and she told me... that I was Ben 1O fictionkind.

I don't think I've ever been as confused as I was that morning. It felt like I was still dreaming as I went through my routine, like at any moment I might wake up again. All the while, my reflection puzzled me. It was the same face I've seen every day for two decades, and yet today it just felt... wrong. I was supposed to have a human face. This wasn't the species dysphoria I'd gotten so used to. And I knew exactly which human face I was expecting to see in the mirror - it just seemed too ridiculous for me to accept.

My cameo shifts have rarely, if ever, lasted more than a few hours, and at this point they'd never been of specific characters. Sure, I had my weird relationship with Emily Jones from the now-forgotten Le//go Elv//es franchise, where I feel like I once was her but now aren't. But I never expected to see her face in the mirror. I never felt confused when I woke up in Copenhagen instead of Elven//dale. Feeling this way about Benjamin Kirby T//ennyson, of all characters, when I hadn't even watched the whole show, was weird and, for some reason, embarrassing. And it just refused to go away. In total the shift lasted around 5 days. I went to classes feeling like this guy. Grocery shopping. Hung out with my dorm buddies. I went to a Christmas market with my mom, all the while distracted because I couldn't shake the feeling that, somehow, in some way, I was a fictional character from a 2005 Cartoon Network cash cow.

It didn't come completely out of the blue. Three things were happening here that probably led to this: 1) I was binging Ben 1O with my dormmate. We hadn't finished the show yet, but we'd worked our way through almost 200 episodes, so we were in deep. 2) I'd just broken it off with a girlfriend of one year. She was extremely supportive of my alterhumanity – even read a 100 page study by Devin Proctor to understand the community – so our break-up had nothing to do with that. We just realized we needed different things from a relationship. But still, it was a huge stress factor and, despite my friends' love and support, I was struggling to cope. And 3) it was finals season. The less said about that, the better. I guess what happened is that my brain latched onto one of the few simple joys I had in my life and somehow began creating an identity around that to... cope...? I guess...?

Listen, I don't know how it happened and I can only make guesses as to why. Regardless of what caused it, the effect was undeniable. After the 5 day long shift subsided, I still had a nugget of "Ben" somewhere within me that I couldn't (and, in hindsight, didn't want to) get rid of. I was ready to make a kinfirmation announcement right then and there. But, as is customary, I held off for a couple of weeks. I think my plan was to wait 3 months, but by the end of January, I made my announcement in the most gutless way possible: With a text post that read "It's okay to have 'cringy' kintypes," in the tags of which I explained that I'd kinfirmed my Ben 1O fictotype. I was still dealing with a lot of internalized shame about, not just being fictionkind, but having such a childish source material.

And yet... there was something exhilarating about it. Though my initial Ben-related feelings appeared on their own, and I felt annoyed and conflicted about them, I clearly remember reinforcing them. The socially aware side of my brain resisted – having an identity like this would be weird, it would be frowned upon, it would make it even more difficult for me to communicate who and what I am than it already is – while the self-aware side of my brain was very much in favor of forming the identity – for some reason it just felt good to experience all these fictionkin traits. More accurately, it felt right. For reasons I can't explain, I didn't want it to end. I wanted more.

------

The envisage shifts (where you appear a certain way in your mind/inner world, and where you perhaps expect to look that way in the mirror) weren't the only 'kin trait that was apparent from the start. They were just the most striking and the easiest to get others to understand. No, the most pervasive trait had to be the "parallel life flashes." I'm not sure what else to call them. They felt different from daydreams, somehow. More spontaneous and out of my control. And a lot more tangible. They've since become one of the hallmarks of my fictionkinity. They present themselves as flashbacks: For a less than a second, it'll feel like I'm "back" to living my life as Ben, then before I can fully grasp what happened it's over. Like an out-of-body experience (or, rather, an into-my-mindscape experience, since I believe all of this originates in my own psyche). I always get the sense that these flashes are somehow current, as opposed to being past or future. Perhaps because of their dream-like qualities, I often "just know" many details of what's going on in these flashes, just like I knew the alien in my awakening dream was older than time, despite her not telling me. Dreams (nightly or daily) are just like that. I just know that my life as Ben is happening parallel to my life as Poppy.

When talking to others (especially non-kin who can't be bothered to sit through 100 pages of Devin Proctor) I do tend to describe it as a daydream scenario, despite how different it feels from regular daydreams. The flashes tend to have dream-like qualities. And it's easier to say "in my go-to daydream scenario I'm a space traveler, which is a big part of my personality" than "I feel like I'm literally living a parallel life as Ben 1O and this affects my very sense of self." I suppose a big part of it is also the embarrassment I mentioned earlier - notice I vaguely called myself a space traveler instead of mentioning my fictotype by name. Ease of communication is part of it, but, undeniably, so is the masking of my true self to give a more appealing first impression. It's blatant self-suppression.

But – perhaps like Ben T//ennyson himself – wearing masks is what I do. It's what I've done since I was 1O. I craft identities for different scenarios and just flip the switch (or hit the watch) when necessary. I've learned how to contain the autism creature within, to appear normal when necessary, and I've learned how to to blend in with the background. Self-suppression has been vital to me, even if it's frustrating to have to do.

What I'm getting at is that, though this awakening was unexpected, it wasn't out of character for me. And in hindsight there really are a lot of things in my life that, combined, seem to have led to this.

Before I go into further detail, I feel like a disclaimer is in order: My upbringing wasn't abusive, but that doesn't mean it was perfect. I was raised by a single mother who gave most of her attention to my older brother due to various difficulties he had. I don't know if I blame her for the issues I have. It doesn't feel right to place blame on other struggling people, but I can't blame everything on circumstance either. I don't think anyone comes out of childhood unscathed. Generations of trauma have been built up and, even if our parents treat us better than they were treated, they're still marked by their own childhoods, which will reflect in their parenting. My upbringing was a million times better than my own mom's and she worked hard to accomplish that. That said... I can draw a very clear parallel between my childhood experiences and my current identity: I had to be the "good child" to make up for my brother's issues, I had to carry part of my mom's stress, and I couldn't let out my own frustrations, lest my mom become even more stressed. In my parallel life I'm dealing with the same problems, but magnified to a scale where they're actually taken seriously. Instead of carrying the weight of a parent, I carry the weight of the world. I become less of a person and more of a symbol for others to look towards, whether for support, reassurance, or something else. In that sense, it doesn't seem unlikely that my fictionkinity is some kind of subconscious coping mechanism. Though I have to add, I only became aware fully aware of how this passive emotional neglect had affected me – how this is the reason I can't ask for help and constantly take on bigger burdens than I should – several months after my awakening, and even then only after some really intense self-analysis.

I've been trying to come up with more reasons I happened to awaken as Ben 1O, of all characters, but it all feels so... fabricated. I was obsessed with ufology as a kid and this character is involved with aliens. But I was obsessed with ancient Egypt and with horses too, why didn't I awaken as Tutankhamun or Black Beauty? I religiously watched Ben 1O every time I visited my grandparents, who had cable tv, but I watched Da//nny Pha//ntom with the same intensity. I don't think there really is a perfect recipe for what causes a fictionkind identity. All these attempts at rationalizing it are probably a distraction – [which I've spoken about at length before]. But it's hard to really internalize the idea that 'kinity is about what you are, when you've been "gifted" with a human brain that relentlessly asks why, why, why. It's hard to look at the cold hard facts when your mind keeps wandering to theories and hypotheses.

And in all this, you forget to even examine what cold hard facts you know.

What are the cold hard facts?

Facts...

My name is [redacted]. I go by Poppy online. At this point it might as well be my name. And recently I've felt an urge to call myself Ben. When I close my eyes and try to picture myself, the image is ever changing. Sometimes I see a bipedal bison. Sometimes a gnoll. Often a mix of the two. And sometimes I see a young man with brown hair, green eyes, and a watch-like device stuck to his arm. Then I open my eyes, look in the mirror, and see something entirely different. Lighter hair, eyes more hazel than green, and something that decidedly doesn't look like a man. Or a bison or gnoll, for that matter.

I have daydream scenarios I keep returning to – stories I want to tell, the garden I wish I had, scientific advancements I dream of achieving, fanfics I'll never write. And then I have these scenarios that share many qualia with daydreams, but are altogether different. In these scenarios, I am a different person. I am living a different life, surrounded by different people, making different choices, subjected to different trials. I have two of these lives: One in which I'm a gnoll named Ɐwhrayɐ and one in which I'm a man named Ben. I did not set out to create these lives. I can't purposefully change what's happening in them – even with my belief that it all has a psychological cause, something is preventing me from changing anything. And yet, I almost always know what my alternate selves are doing, right in this moment. I can't affect their actions, I can just be aware of them. And despite this apparent wall, separating my present self from them, in some way I feel - or perhaps rather I know - that I am them. It's like... I can't affect what my past self did or said either, but I still am raer. I am still roughly the same person I was yesterday, even if today I might have made different choices. My parallel/alternate selves work in a similar way, but separated by physicality instead of time.

I'm not consciously aware of every waking moment of my parallel selves. When I say I "know" what they're doing, it's less that their thoughts and actions are beamed into my brain 24/7, and more that I can at any moment sit down, breathe, let my mind go blank, and view their world through their eyes. Like I'm possessing their bodies (though, again, my present self is not in control – my alternate selves are). Even if I don't intend to, I often end up "possessing" them during quiet moments – when I'm about to fall asleep, when I'm in transit, when I'm cleaning, and so on. What happens during quiet moments is rarely a "full body possession," though. More often, I'll just experience the thoughts or feelings of my parallel selves (alongside my present-self thoughts or feelings) and have to parse it out. I can be vacuuming the floor, having a normal one, and then suddenly I'll be intimately aware the Ben!Me is bored or that Ɐwhrayɐ!Me is in danger. I then have to extrapolate as much information as possible from this quick flash (like a flashback, but current, not past... a flashsideways? flashadjacent? flashalong? Let's go with that). If the "flashalong" was accompanied by an image, which they often are, it's not too difficult to figure out what my alternate self is doing. If it's just an emotion and nothing else, I can try to piece it together with the other flashalongs I've had recently - if yesterday my parallel self got lost and today I sense despair, it's not too difficult to put two and two together and know that they haven't found their way out yet.

But Ben is different from Ɐwhrayɐ in one major way: He has source material. Though I've been aware of my life as Ben – my Ben fictotype – for much shorter than my life as Ɐwhrayɐ, I know a lot more about my Ben life. I have more noemata, more frequent flashalongs, and my memories of Ben's childhood are much clearer than my memories of Ɐwhrayɐ's childhood. This is undoubtedly because I can just watch an episode of any Ben 1O series and immediately become aware of new things in that life. Whereas Ɐwhrayɐ is more like an original character – rair origins are in tabletop RPGs, but I can't just open up a book and know rair life history. Which is not to say I can know Ben's entire history from just watching the show either. For starters, the show is a mess of time travel and retcons and alternate universes. Secondly: I'm not the Ben depicted on the show.

The Ben 1O cartoons (with the exception of the 2016 reboot) all follow one character who has been dubbed Ben Prime by the fandom. If we view time as a tree with different timelines branching off, Prime is the tree's trunk. We're shown other branches of the tree – No Watch Ben, Bad Ben, Ben 23, Benzarro, and so on – who are all Ben, no matter how differently their lives turned out compared to Prime's. What happens when I watch the show is either nothing (most common; I simply get no indication whether the episode I'm watching is part of my canon), divergence (uncommon; I don't necessarily know how the events happened but I know for sure they didn't happen like they're depicted), or recognition (rare; realizing that things happened pretty much like they're depicted). The most apparent difference between my own timeline and the Prime timeline is that I found the Omnitrix when I was 13 and that I didn't get a break in-between the events of the original series and Alien F//orce. My first 1O aliens were also different from those of Prime and included at least one alien that hasn't appeared on the show (yet). There are many more differences, but most of them are subtle: I still have a relationship with Kai, but it's aromantic. I'm still friends with Rook, but we argue a lot. Azmuth is still the creator of the watch, but I have a sort of coworker relationship with him, more than a mentor/student relationship. And speaking of the watch, the Omnitrix is completely fused to me. My mind has affected its AI and its AI has affected my mind. We function more like a median system than two separate entities. We aren't ourselves without each other. I suppose my true fictotype is the fusion of Ben and the Omnitrix, rather than just Ben T//ennyson. [Here's something I wrote about it not too long ago.] As far as I'm aware, this also isn't a part of the Prime canon.

But this essay isn't supposed to just be about my canon. I'll have plenty of other opportunities to explore that. These pages are devoted to just exploring what it means to me to be fictionkind.

I've already mentioned envisage shifts and "possession" shifts (not a name I'm fond of, but there's so little terminology to describe parallel life experiences, let's just go with that for now). I also frequently experience phantom shifts, where it feels like I'm still wearing the Omnitrix. Those are easy to handle, though. I just put on a bracelet or cuff so there's a physical correspondence to the phantom sensation and go about my day. I also get the occasional chest/bottom phantom sensations, but I can't tell if those are Ben-related since I already experienced them prior to my awakening (and it's a very important part of my beliefs and worldview that all my Ben-feelings only began to appear after my awakening). I also get dream shifts, but since my dreams are pure nonsense, all they tend to involve is me being in Ben's body while going through wacky dream scenarios. If I'm making these shifts sound mundane, it's because they are. At least in comparison the envisage shifts and... by far the strangest and most disorienting shifts I've experienced: The mental shifts. In a mild mental shift I'll just take on a few mannerisms of the character, which can include anything from a chiller/more confident mood, to an inclination to play fighting games instead of my usual RPGs, to an urge to help others more than I'd usually do. Make the shift a bit stronger and I might want to go by Ben's name instead of my own or dress in clothes more similar to his. Turn it up even more, though, and we enter the weird territory. Something more akin to a berserker shift than a mental shift, using therian terminology. I've only experienced this once and it can't have lasted more than 5 seconds, but for those seconds I was fully convinced that I was Ben and I couldn't understand why I was in this foreign body and place. I've taken to calling it an "eclipse shift," since "berserker shift" implies a rabid or feral state of mind, which is not something you can really apply to a human(ish) fictotype, and the shift essentially involves my fictotype's state of mind eclipsing my regular state of mind. Here are some of the discussions we had in the community surrounding it: [link] [link] [link].

My fictionkinity is mainly marked by the aforementioned shifts and "flashalongs," but another trait (perhaps something that exists as a result of those two?) is dysphoria and euphoria. Typically when people think of dys-/euphoria, they think of it as something bodily. And I can't argue that that's not a thing for me too. I'm bigender and genderfluid, which in my case means that I have one static baseline gender identity (female hyena) and one fluid gender, which is most often bison bull, but can be anything – including Just Some Guy, which is basically Ben's gender identity. And when I feel like Just Some Guy, I, of course, experience dysphoria about my very feminine appearance. But that's a thankfully rare thing.

No, most of my Ben-related dysphoria is caused by the restrictions of my present body and mind. Did you know the nearly all versions of Ben T//ennyson have eidetic memory? Or that they have an inherent ability to understand astrophysics? Or that they're adept at half a dozen different fighting styles? I've got none of that. Sure, I could practice memory improvement techniques. I could learn the basics of astrophysics. I could take up martial arts. But every time I've tried, my own frustrations about being a beginner have prevented me from practicing. It's not that I'm a perfectionist and think I should be instantly good at every new skill. I've sucked (or still suck) at a lot of stuff that I do every day – singing, plant care, video games, you name it – but it's not an issue. As the saying goes, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something. But with the talents Ben has... it feels less like learning a new skill and more like having to relearn something I used to be great at. With those subjects, it's like I loose my ability to understand or rationalize why I still suck, so instead of pushing on, I drop it all in frustration. I had just enough patience to understand the surface cause of gravitational time dilation, but once the lectures turned to the theory of relativity, I lost it. I've begrudgingly concluded that my present brain isn't built for that stuff. Until I develop a natural understanding of quantum mechanics, like I'm supposed to have, I'll just stick to my not-Ben-related studies in entomology.

Another thing I struggle with is the limitations of my present body. I feel like it's literally weighing me down. In my Ben life, my body is a construct of the Omnitrix that can be modified, dismantled, and recreated at any time. My consciousness isn't connected to my body; everything that's "me" is stored within the Omnitrix. My body is just a temporary vessel we – the watch and I – have created to interact with the world. It is possible to "upload" my consciousness to the body and for the Omnitrix to completely detach itself, but it's only been done a handful of times and only in life or death situations. And from what I can pericall it's deeply uncomfortably. Only with the Omnitrix gone do I notice how heavy the human body is. Without the watch I feel slow and sluggish and weak. And, in my present life, being able to pericall how I'm supposed to feel – lighter, quicker, stronger – and being unable to do anything about it because nothing can get rid of the heaviness of this body... it's exhausting. It's maddening. And it's not just the heaviness, its staticness is driving me crazy too. I'm meant to be a shapeshifter, and not just in my Ben life, but in my Ɐwhrayɐ life too. Whether due to the Omnitrix happening to attach itself to me, or because I was born with druid powers, I'm a shapeshifter in 2/3 of my lives. And to primarily exist in the life where I'm not a shapeshifter is torture.

But I have to live here. In the present world. I can't spend my life wishing I existed somewhere else. I have to be present; I have to make this life as good as it can be. Anything else would be wasteful. I can't fully get rid of the uncomfortableness of belonging to another world, but I can make this world more comfortable. Make it more like the world I belong in.

Part of me is grateful to have awakened as a character who is, in many ways, just incredibly mundane. The hero archetype is an exaggerated version of a trait I believe everyone is born with: A basic desire to help. Though his circumstances are extraordinary, Ben's motivations could not be more ordinary. So while there is some kind of disconnect between my present life and my Ben life, like our bodies and abilities and relationships, the melding of our minds has been quite harmonic. I feel like this awakening has helped me actualize some desires I already had by turning them into outright urges, and by dialing them up to 100. So, for example, instead of just giving money to the unhoused, I strike up a conversation with them now because it's what he/I/we're supposed to do. Helping my dormmate dry her dishes before she's even asked me to. Always asking others what I can do to help. And it doesn't just extend to people. I find myself, more often than I used to, helping a snail across the road or giving a neglected plant a second chance at life. Taking that extra step is slowly becoming second nature in a lot of my daily interactions. And I find that I do good more for goodness sake, where, in the past, I might've been prone to humble-bragging. (And it pains me to talk about my "good deeds" right now because it actually makes me really embarrassed to get attention for something I feel is the bare minimum of human decency). My awakening wasn't a total life changer. But it did reinforce my desire to be a helper and a caretaker.. a supporting character, I guess you could say. And it instilled in me an idealistic and unwavering belief that people are overall good, despite everything. That pain and suffering are accidents and that kindness is intentional.

I'm Ben. I carry that with me for the foreseeable future – possibly until I die. But I'm also Ɐwhrayɐ. And, most importantly, I'm Poppy. I'm multifaceted, like every other person on Earth. One of my facets just happens to be a fictional character.

#i have to get this essay out now or i'm gonna explode #i might edit it more in the future but for the time being it's Done #otherkin #otherkind #fictionkin #fictionkind #alterhuman #ben rambles

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galadhir · 1 year

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Thought I would make a list of all the things that bug me about RoP, because I need to vent to someone.

As you can see, I'm an elf fan, so my rant is focused on what I thought they got wrong about the elves. No doubt fans of Numenor have a similar list for what they got wrong there, but I don't know enough about Numenor to make a similar list for them.

Male elves with short hair. Why is this really annoying? Because Tolkien went to the trouble of saying that their long hair is a sign of vigor and beauty for them. Finrod, Fingon, Fingolfin are all high Noldorin lords, and even their names revolve about how beautiful their hair is. In other words having long hair is very important in elvish culture. Why sacrifice that for no good reason?

Why do Celebrimbor and Gil-Galad look so much older than Galadriel, when in fact Celebrimbor is about the same age as her (?) and Gil-Galad is her nephew? And specifically, when canonically, elves do not show signs of age until they are absolutely ancient. Is this like 'oh no, how will they look properly authoritative if we don't make them middle aged?!' What about 'elves are immortal and beautiful' is so hard to understand? And why exactly are we not allowed to have beautiful elf lords but it's so vitally important to have beautiful elf ladies? (We know why, but I'm still rolling my eyes.)

How the f*#k does Gil-Galad have the authority to force Galadriel to go back to Valinor, when she is an Exile and her inability and the other Noldor's inability to go home is a huge, HUGE, important plot point throughout the Silm and LotR both. Way to completely miss one of the overarching tragedies of the entire Noldor people.

What is this nonsense about the elves all being about to die or forced to go back to Valinor without mithril? See above about how their Exile and their Oath is still making that completely impossible. Also, mithril is a precious metal that is more beautiful than silver and harder than steel - that's enough for it to be politically important and something that people covet. Way to turn it into yet another magical item and somehow absolve the elves and the dwarves both of the responsibility of their greed.

I mean there is a lot of stripping of the Silmarillion elves magnificent jerkishness. It's a different book from LotR and the Silmarillion elves are proud, ruthless, dangerous, sometimes murderous, but you would not know it from this series, where they all behave just like LotR elves.

There's no acknowledgement that there are different kingdoms and kinds of elves who are in strained diplomatic relations with each other. Where is there any awareness of the kind of politics that is going on in the Second Age?

Where is any awareness of what the beef between the elves and dwarves is actually about? Is it really better to present it as some kind of irrational prejudice, rather than the result of elves having hunted dwarves for sport in the past, and dwarves having sacked Doriath and killed King Thingol fairly recently? I know that introducing that would complicate the whole "elves and dwarves are all good people!" thing, but complication is what you get when you choose to tackle the Silmarillion, which is essentially Tolkien's Game of Thrones.

Argh! How is it that Celebrimbor, who is a master smith, doesn't know how ores work? For goodness sake, people, make some attempt to depict forging accurately in a story where smithcraft is also a huge plot point.

Galadriel was in effing Lorien when the three rings were made.

Forever sore that we did not get the story of Celebrimbor usurping the rule of Eregion from Celeborn and Galadriel that we should have got, which lead to Galadriel and Celebrian fleeing Eregion through Khazad-Dum to go and prepare a refuge in Lorenindorinan. While Celeborn stayed in Eregion and was on hand to fight Sauron when he revealed himself and came against Eregion with an army and the body of Celebrimbor impaled on a pole as his standard. Instead we get this wishy-washy crap where the entire army of Numenor decides to go and rescue a small village in (what will become) Mordor, despite the fact that nobody on the spot has even asked for aid.

Am I less annoyed now that I've got this all out? No, not really.

Here is a series of blogs by an actual historian talking about the many things that annoyed him

#tolkien #anti rings of power

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shivunin · 10 months

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What do each of your ocs find most attractive in potential partners? (Asking for totally not self invested reasons no not at all) What about potential friends?

Oooh *rubs hands together* buckle up cus this ran long! And thanks for asking c:

Arianwen:

Movement and texture. I think it took her a very long time to identify when she is feeling attracted to someone in general, but Wen likes to watch the way people move. It's not about grace, per se, but skill. So---someone who is skilled at what they're doing physically, whether it's dueling with daggers, swinging a staff, or wringing out the laundry efficiently (yes, really), she is into that. Physically, she's (frankly) a little face-blind, so she doesn't really have particular features or body types that she's into. Also, she's a very tactile person, so anyone with exceptionally soft hair or skin, callused hands, hairy arms, and so on---she'd be into that, too.

As for friendships, I think she values people have a unique and specific view of the world. It's part of why Alistair and Morrigan wind up being her closest friends of all of their little group. Wen respects conviction, even if those convictions are contradictory. I think she's probably best balanced by someone with a plan, but tbh she abhors standing around and talking things through. Someone who can think on their feet and act quickly is ideal, and preferably someone who doesn't try to take care of her too overtly.

(Also, people who are nice to animals. The quickest way to her heart is to compliment Princess, her giant spider/pride and joy. She can't be friends with anyone who is mean about her animals)

Maria:

A sense of humor tops the list for both. If she can't laugh with someone, they won't fit as a friend or a lover; that isn't negotiable. Physically, she finds strong or distinctive features the most intriguing regardless of gender. She also has a thing for hands and forearms (people who have veins visible on either are like. that's her kryptonite. the meme of the girl side-eyeing a guy's pecs, but it's just someone's hand resting on their thigh and the tracery of veins is visible beneath their skin). Ah, and people who are taller than her, but that's...a low bar to clear.

I also think---and I know this doesn't necessarily reflect well on her---that Maria is drawn to people who need her, even if it's just a little. She has a deep-seated need to help people, she likes to feel like she is useful and necessary, and all of her closest friends need help in some way. It's not that she wants them to be indebted to her. She'd be horrified by the thought. Friendship, for her, is being able to act on someone's behalf and trust that if she is in the same situation that they'd do something about her pain in return (if that makes sense).

Elowen:

Elowen is attracted to competence over and above everything else. Anyone who knows what they are doing is her type. Beyond that, she is generally aesthetically attracted to masc people and fighters, but she's been with people who don't firmly fit into either category. Weak spot for pretty eyes.

For friendship, she needs someone who will actually listen to her. She struggles with not feeling heard/not feeling like what she says matters, so someone who will try to understand her is really important. Also---and this is going to sound basic---someone who is kind. I think she would have trouble being vulnerable with someone who isn't overtly kind (which is why she is friends with Josie and not Leliana, for example, even though she respects Leliana greatly). She also finds it easiest to relate to other Dalish elves, because she dedicated so much of her life to being the ideal Second, but that's not a necessity especially once she settles into the Inquisition.

Emmaera:

Emma doesn't really feel attracted to people until she knows them pretty well, but she is generally into people who can keep up with her mind. Someone who is really passionate about something and dedicated to studying/understanding it would catch her eye. Also people who are well-travelled (she has a huuuuge crush on Lace for this very reason). I wouldn't say she has a "type" beyond that because most people just don't register as romantic/sexual partners to her.

Honestly, in a friendship it's going to be mostly the same things. I can't think of anything that differs greatly here, except that she is the kind of person who doesn't like parties at all but does like sitting in a crowd of her friends, quietly and companionably sipping a cider.

Salshira:

Salshira doesn't have a type because she's in love with the world. She finds an extremely broad category of physical traits attractive, and that category shifts depending on where she is and what mood she's in. She finds it more difficult to see someone as a potential sexual partner once she knows them well, with very few exceptions, and she almost never dates or sleeps with other Dalish elves. Other than that, she is marginally more attracted to women than men and more attracted to tall/muscular women in general, and she has a bit of a thing for Qunari women (it's the horns) but...again, it's pretty situational for her. Sex is very recreational for her and romance is an entirely different (complicated, painful) story.

As far as friends go, she likes people who can tell a good story, people who will laugh with her, and people who won't push her too hard for personal information. She doesn't trust easily; she's the poster child of "deflect and joke and nobody will notice you haven't said a word about how you are." She's here for a good time, not a long time (or so she says, at least; the way she hangs onto the friends she does have proves that this is a lie). Salshira could get along with just about everyone, so long as they aren't trying to help her or pry into her feelings.

#thanks again lilou <3 #i was thinking about this all through that second flight yesterday just had to find the right words #arianwen tabris #maria hawke #elowen lavellan #emmaera lavellan #salshira lavellan #ask response #oc ask response #listen if salshira and maria ever met it would be the wildest party ever #and then salshira would book because maria cannot leave well enough alone #i also think actually that arianwen would be into elowen. she's my most graceful lavellan #and she climbs for fun so she's got great arms #i have thought extensively about which of them would be into each other actually. not that we need to get into that now #(as friends and/or romantic partners tbc)

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tolkien-feels · 1 year

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your inbox is too full, you say? *fills it further*

Glorfindel, Haleth, Elrond and Beleg for the character ask, please! (or as few thereof as you like)

I feel like you just dumped a cart of characters on me and I'm very amused. Apologies for the length!

Glorfindel

Sexuality Headcanon: Grayromantic and for sexuality he's like... a 5.5.

Gender Headcanon: Transmasc, actually, and he very specifically did not want his body to be any different the second time around

A ship I have with said character: Surprisingly, none? I roll with any ship but there's none I'm particularly into

A BROTP I have with said character: Ecthelion because I'm basic. Turgon and Elrond (these are linked), Aragorn, Gandalf, Bilbo, essentially anyone who spends more than a week living somewhere he's living,,,,,,,, I just find him sociable but also interesting no matter who you pair him up with

A NOTP I have with said character: None that I can think of

A random headcanon: His voice is unusually ethereal even for an elf and people tend to rate that as his most attractive quality (which he agrees.) Not an exceptionally good singer though

General Opinion over said character: I honestly don't give him as much attention as I should! I love him, I just don't often remember to rotate him

Haleth

Sexuality Headcanon: Heteroromantic but ace, but she doesn't know that can be a thing and assumes she's aroace

Gender Headcanon: Whatever gender Eowyn has got going on

A ship I have with said character: None? None that I can think of, at least

A BROTP I have with said character: Besides her family (listen, guys, I like family relationships) and clan, none. I enjoy her relationship with Caranthir but only when it's very definitely not a friendship. There's respect and convenience but they aren't friends

A NOTP I have with said character: Caranthir, I guess, but I don't actively hate it, it just does nothing for me even when the concept is interesting

A random headcanon: Very, very few people in the history of Arda are better with a spear than she is

General Opinion over said character: I'm sure I would love her much more if we got more canon info about her. I don't know why, but whenever I try to headcanon her, I hit a wall. (This happens to other characters we have little canon about too. Sometimes my brain just won't let me like minor characters and I hate that.)

Elrond

Sexuality Headcanon: Queer, and that's as descriptive as he's making it. Runs parallel to his experience as a peredhel

Gender Headcanon: See above

A ship I have with said character: Celebrian! I like canon ships!

A BROTP I have with said character: Oh literally too many to list, but I'll highlight GILRAEN GILRAEN GILRAEN. I am always feral about his relationship with Gilraen and nobody seems to care about it and it makes me sad. I'll also highlight Celeborn for the same reason

A NOTP I have with said character: Pretty much any ship other than Celebrian

A random headcanon: He's not tall at all and looks even smaller because he's very naturally delicate-looking. You see, he's got Luthien's body type, and Luthien's body type is "Tiny, girlish fairy-looking princess." (Like Luthien, he uses it to his advantage.)

General Opinion over said character: Everybody Is Wrong About Him But Me vibes. I have thoughts about many common fanon tropes ant they tend to run counter to what's popular. Anyway: I've known Elrond since I was 10 and would cry if I could meet him for real

Beleg

Sexuality Headcanon: Um... Pan? In that he knows he's attracted to any gender. But he hasn't really ever been strongly attracted to anyone

Gender Headcanon: Cismale, by his account. But he's still doing Cuivienen gender and that doesn't quite match with Doriath's current view of gender. Comes across as gnc but not to elves of his generation. He occasionally finds that confusing.

A ship I have with said character: Let me pick a fight with the entire fandom: Beleg/Morwen. Talk to me about Beleg and Morwen!! This could be such a great ship!

A BROTP I have with said character: Turin is the obvious one so I won't even mention it. Mablung is also very obvious. I like the idea of him being very close to Thingol, though in a way similar to how Hurin is close to Fingon. It's not friendship, but it is a very strong bond

A NOTP I have with said character: ...Turin. I don't hate it, but I find their relationship infinitely more interesting if Turin looks at Beleg and sees Hurin, and Morwen, and Sador, and Lalaith all rolled into one, and Beleg willingly takes on all these roles. You have to come up with something exceptionally interesting for me to entertain them as a romantic ship instead.

A random headcanon: Can imitate the singing of just about every bird with uncanny accuracy and that's a party trick even for elves. (Melian is quite fond of this skill, incidentally)

General Opinion over said character: I love him but not if he's playing Responsible Person to Turin's Chaotic Person. No, no, no. Beleg is a hot mess of an elf! Very tragic, but just Legolas levels of "?????? why are you the way you are"

#ask game

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moontheoretist · 1 year

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Anders: Maybe you should join the Qun, Fenris.

Fenris: We could go together. I'd be happy to sew your mouth shut.

Don’t you think that this specific banter is also kind of OOC on Fenris’ side? I mean, I know what he was getting at, he was alluding to the fact that Anders talks too much and never shuts up, but I am not sure that he actually thought through what he was insinuating?

It is also weird that this banter just ends like this, with no comeback, nothing from Anders. That is highly unusual behavior for him. Not to mention that this banter is weirdly short, as if someone forgot to write the rest. I know it was supposed to be a punchline, but it just doesn’t feel as if it was written with the characters’ motivations, beliefs and behaviors in mind. For example, how Fenris can say such a thing when he knows that mages are slaves in the Qun?

Qamek is a poison used by the Tamassrans on those who refuse to be converted into the ideology of the Qun, including all captured mages, who are deemed hopeless by default. It effectively lobotomizes victims, wiping out their memories and rendering them into mindless slaves which Qunari call Viddath-bas. Its administration is unpleasant; it leaves its victims screaming. Small doses can be recovered from, but massive ones cause irreversible damage.

In banter in 9:37 Dragon between Fenris and Isabela, he mentions that Isabela was very lucky that Hawke didn't turn her over the Qunari because she'd be converted to the Qun. When she asks if she could refuse, Fenris mentions that there is always qamek, which would turn her into a mindless laborer.

Doesn’t the treatment of mages in the Qun remind him of Danarius treating him as a weapon? And also show how much more twisted that idea can become with collars, chains, qamek and mouth sewing involved? Doesn’t it feel weird that he would allude to such treatment in regard to Anders? Yes, he dislikes him and disagrees with him, but I just can’t believe that he would say such a thing if he fully thought through what he was actually insinuating with this. How cruel that is.

It is ofc possible that Fenris took Anders’ comments as an insult and reacted in anger, as maybe he sees Qun as a whole as another form of slavery even for himself, simply because he would be forced into a role in society and not be allowed to change it unless the Tamassran approved of such change, and therefore he considered Anders’ comment not only insensitive but actively malicious? As if Anders was insinuating that Fenris would feel better in a system in which he would never be free? Or maybe he assumed that the Qun would turn him into a mindless slave with qamek and that’s why he reacted like this? I don’t know. We can’t say for sure, because we don’t have access to the inner workings of the characters’ minds. We don’t know what they thought, and with what kind of intention their lines were said, other than the obvious: Anders though Qun may be better for the elves, and Fenris had enough of Anders endless chatter and wanted to shut him up. I don’t actually believe that Anders was insinuating what I alluded to above. I genuinely think he thought it to be a good suggestion and was violently shut down by Fenris with something so brutal and dehumanizing that he “took the hint and never responded”. Still, I feel like this banter could be used better if Fenris was forced to confront what he insinuated. Like for example:

Anders: Maybe you should join the Qun, Fenris.

Fenris: We could go together. I'd be happy to sew your mouth shut.

Anders: Great! Will you collar and chain me too? That’s something you would definitely want to see, yes? Mage as your slave?

Fenris: I didn’t mean it like this.

Anders: How wonderfully selective of you.

I imagined that if Hawke was a mage and was allowed to somehow participate in the banter, Fenris would apologize for what he said.

Hawke: Is it how you want to see us? Enslaved even more than we actually are now? Living weapons that can’t disobey an order?

Fenris: I didn’t mean it like this. I apologize. It was cruel.

Anders: How wonderfully selective of you.

(I don’t like using this type of emotional manipulation tactic as it could come off as abusive or toxic, but tbh I can imagine romanced Hawke to be hurt by Fenris in banter like this, and they have a right to act hurt too and there is nothing toxic in showing your emotions).

In this case, the last comment would have double meaning then. Because it would be at the same time about Fenris only using parts of the Qun he needed to make cruel comments, without realizing the bigger implications, and also him specifically only apologizing if it was Hawke, but not doing the same for Anders, obviously. In Anders case, he doesn’t even say he was cruel, because Fenris has “feeling bad for what he said” specifically reserved for interactions with Hawke. But he would still recognize that he just wished something that happened to him on someone else. Hell, he wished something worse than what happened to him, because he was conscious all the time and could turn away, but it was very hard due to how slaves are raised and taught to never disobey, while Gamek literally makes you a mindless slave that can’t even notice or learn that they are treated unfairly. Maybe he would recognize it as cruel if Fenris had a separate relationship bar for Anders, but he doesn’t. Like he doesn’t have it with Merrill and other companions. If he did, he'd also get approvals and disapprovals for the others (wouldn’t it be interesting if we could build our companions relationships like this? Then it’d only depend on which quest we take them on to create a certain type of dynamic between them), and his behavior would change accordingly. But because he doesn’t and their relationships are forever stuck in some version of status quo, even though the game hints that Fenris invites Anders whom he hates to his house for Diamondback, a game that Hawke doesn’t actively take part in, says that the relationships change even when the game doesn’t show it at all in the banter.

I don’t even want to consider that Fenris said it seriously. It’s too horrifying otherwise. That’s why I am assuming he only wanted to convey that Anders speaks too much and should shut up before Fenris will do it for him, and didn’t think the implication through. This would be my in story explanation for this. When it comes to meta though... it is a case of inconsistent writing for the sake of keeping the divide between two characters for no apparent reason other than blatant hypocrisy. I admit it could be a useful tool, but sadly it is not.

I hope my additions were not a low blows. I just don’t like not holding characters accountable for how they behave, and I would make the same changes to any banter in which Anders was cruelly insensitive towards Fenris. I would probably not change Anders remark about “rabid dog”, but only because I know he was racist even in DAO:A to elves. The only thing I would change, or more like add, is that I would make him apologize and use that as a way for him to reflect on his racism. And with Merrill I would probably use some other companion, like Isabella, to stick in other companions’ faces how cruel they are. Though, it would be also interesting to make Merrill for a split second be cold to those who insult her and show them that she is not just a walking ray of sunshine, while whopping their asses with words.

#anders #fenris #bioware critical #merrill the boss #merrill #qun #banter rewrite

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n7punk · 1 year

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All Fics Extra #6: Races

This is going to be a weird mix of reboot canon, original canon, fanon, and personal headcannon. I used to cover this partially in my AU Constants fic extra, but I wanted to make things clearer.

This is specific to my fics and not fact/correct, just worldbuilding I’ve done based on what the show provides us and general fanon. That said, some of these terms (or similar ones) are widely used across the fandom.

Note: I will use race and species somewhat interchangeably in this post. Race is a social construct that I think would form differently in a world with multiple sentient species, and also I feel weird using species a lot because it's such a scientific-feeling term to me.

Intro

Though we can get more information from show materials/Crew-ra, inside the show itself, species aren’t often named. Angella is immortal, Adora is a First One, there are humans, and everyone else on Etheria is indistinct. It isn’t even clear if First Ones and immortals are actually separate races from humans. It can be inferred that First Ones are in some way distinct as the Sword of Protection only responded to a First One, and thus likely relied on something similar to a DNA marker to identify them, but this is conjecture and it could have used some kind of magical signature.

ND stated (I don’t remember where for sure, but my instinct is to say the BLM livestream) that a history for Etheria that the crew came up with was that Etheria was a melting pot planet of various immigrant races. This can be seen in the show when Mara (via hologram in S3:EP3) says that “we [the First Ones] were the first ones to settle Etheria - to really study this planet’s magic.” Thus, the great diversity of sentient life on Etheria is likely due to many alien species arriving as explorers and settling there before the planet was put in Despondos by Mara. This means that a term like “Etherian” would be closer to a nationality than anything else.

There are species from other iterations of the franchise that have canonical names which can be extended to the reboot. Please check out this amazing chart that clarenecessities/birdindale put together to reference those. While the names here are researched and have canon sources, that’s not research most of the SPOP fandom has done, especially early on, so there are common fanon names for several species that developed. Many of us built on each others’ ideas to flesh out the world in writing. It’s easy to not mention a character’s race in a visual medium when you can see that they are a satyr, but in writing we usually need names.

Species/Races

Humans: (EX: Bow, most of the princesses, etc). Humans seem to be found in large congregations in Bright Moon, Plumeria, and the Kingdom of Snows. There are many characters that are “questionably” human as well, such as Glimmer (one of her parents is “immortal”, and thus she could be human or demi-mortal). I consider the princesses (and Adora/Mara) to be human in most AUs.

First Ones: (EX: Adora, Mara, etc). As discussed above, this could be distinct from the humans of the show, an ancestor race humans descended from, or merely the nationality for the humans that come from the First Ones’ homeworld. This homeworld is Eternia, and thus the term Eternian might be used instead of First One depending on the story.

Elves: (EX: Shadow Weaver, Entrapta’s busgirl, etc). Elves are seen mostly in the background. I state Hordak’s race as dark elf for fics where he isn’t a clone, though he looks the same. Dark elves are different from other elves due to having skintones in either monochromatic or blue/purple colors, which range in saturation from white to dark blue/black. They also generally have varying degrees photosensitivity, which is why Shadow Weaver wears a veil or mask to protect herself from burns even in modern AUs.

Hybrids: (EX: Catra, Scorpia, Rogelio, etc). Hybrid is a term that I believe originated with the fandom/fic writers. It describes the races in the show that don’t fall neatly into human or some other common fantasy species. These are the alien species that show both human and animal characteristics. Hybrids are commonly found in the Crimson Waste and the Fright Zone.

Magicats: (EX: Catra). Magicats are a named species from previous iterations of the franchise. In the original they resembled furry, anthro cats that walked both on hind legs and all fours, but in the reboot they are mostly-human in appearance but with the addition of fur, fangs, cat ears, and cat tails. They have various coat patterns/colors and some cat characteristics in personality and traits (examples from Catra in canon include: grooming her arm with her tongue, her tail reacting to her emotions, hissing, growling, purring, etc). In the BLM charity stream, ND stated their headcannon is that magicats were an explorer race who came to visit Etheria, but that the magicats seen on Horde Prime’s screens are intended to be from the magicat homeworld. They are found in very limited numbers on Etheria (in fact, only two are seen on Etheria throughout the entire show that I could find - Catra and an unnamed background character in S5EP7 - with an additional two from the homeworld seen on the screens). There are other feline background characters that are visually distinct from Catra, however. These characters have cat-like head shapes and more closely resemble the magicats from the 80s original. Whether they are intended to be magicats as well (or related to them) is unclear. Note: Catra was human in the original 80s show.

Scorpioni: (EX: Scorpia). Another highly-rare species as of the time of canon, though this is explained by the Horde’s base having been built on top of their conquered kingdom.

Lizardfolk: (EX: Rogelio, Tung Lashor, etc). I believe this is a term that originated with the fandom to describe the lizard hybrids in particular (I've also seen variants of it, such as lizardkin). Some lizardfolk seem incapable of human speech (Rogelio), or perhaps just don’t speak it as a first language, while others use the human tongue (Tung Lashor).

Finfolk: (EX: Octavia, Salineas background characters, etc). This is a term used to describe supernatural/magical creatures related to the sea IRL, and is an umbrella term I use to refer to any ocean-related hybrids such as Octavia or the many sea-based people of Salineas. I think they are canonically called Merfolk, but I leave that term to describe more strictly mermaid-based/sea-bound characters. Therefore Merfolk might be used to describe Mermista (I mean, she can literally turn into a mermaid) but it wouldn’t be used for Octavia since she primarily lives above ground and far from water.

Other Species/Terms

Krytian: (EX: Melog). We don't really have a name for Melog's race, so I just call them krytians, or perhaps more generically shapeshifters, but they are very distinct from say, whatever shapeshifting race DT is, so krytian works best.

Fae: We see what appear to be fairies, elves, satyrs, mermaids, etc in the background or in recurring cast characters. I don’t use this a lot, but it’s included here because some of the races we see could fall under it as an umbrella.

Orc: Apparently Huntara's race has a name (from Clare's chart), but I've always just called them orcs in my fics since it fits with their general look.

Satyrs: (EX: background characters, such as in Thaymor). Satyrs are definitely present in the world of Etheria, though I don’t know if any actually speak in the show. They are, of course, human-goat hybrids.

Moth hybrids: This is what I believe the leader of Elberon is supposed to be.

Bull hybrids: Seen in the Crimson Waste. See Clare’s chart for possible names. I believe taurus-based terms are used by furries for this kind of character? But that's coming from like, one tweet, I don't know shit about furries, so take that with a grain of salt.

Fairies: Again, this is what I think Flutterina is supposed to be (or maybe she’s some kind of butterfly hybrid, but clearly her race exists out in the world or the Alliance would have been more suspicious of her).

Canidae (Lycans/Vulpes): A term I’ve used before but decided not to really again because it caused confusion in the two fics where I did. These are the canid-based hybrids seen in the Crimson Waste (Lycans: dogs/wolves. Vulpes: foxes). Based off terms I think furries use once again, but I only asked one person.

Squamagica: (EX: Double Trouble). This term probably hasn't appeared (yet?) and I think is the main reason I drafted this fic extra a year ago and forgot about it, but I like what I came up with, so I'll leave it in. As said above, there are multiple shapeshifting races, so referring to DT’s race as simply that (even if it is what's used in canon) and nothing else isn't a perfect solution, especially for AUs where magic doesn't exist. In those AUs, they don't have full-on shapeshifting powers (some ability to manipulate their forms, maybe, but not total reformation), so I’ve settled on the name squamagica for them, based off squamate (the largest order of reptiles, which DT’s design seems inspired by) and the precedent from magicats. I think it sounds like something that could be from the franchise, but I just pulled it out of my ass and worry it would cause confusion once again, which is the main reason I haven't actually used it yet.

#fic extra #ficmeta #all fics #drafted SEPTEMBER 28 2021 #yeah ive been sitting on this a long time #i actually had to copy it to a new post so i could turn off reblogs XD #the DT thing is the main reason i havent posted this #but also that i stopped naming/differentiating the races so much #so it felt kind of unnecessary to post anymore?#but a comment on an old fic reminded me the OLD stuff is still out there #so hopefully this helps clear it up and i do still stand by most of it #not all because clare's chart gave us more canon-based stuff for some things #but i'll keep using a lot of this and just supplement when needed

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kradogsrats · 1 year

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My personal favorite is that Callum can just casually summon mage wings whenever...until Rayla shows back up and then he just kinda stops? Like, he just never flies again? Why? Does he feel embarrassed potentially showing her up by effortlessly travelling from Point A to B because that used to be her thing?

I mean, I'll leave the interpersonal dynamics of that to the rayllum folks since "why are these two kids so goddamn awkward around each other" is their catnip, but:

I'm trying to think of when flying would have been useful for Callum in s4 and generally coming up with places where someone needs to go from low to high (scouting above the treetops in the Drakewood, booping the out-of-reach resonating crystals, getting up to Rex Igneous's bathtub to yell at him). The times we've actually seen him use mage wings, he's been going high to low (Storm Spire) and roughly even-level (high mage's office to king's chambers balcony, and he does that by doing a swoop down to build the momentum). Both times, he has also believed it to be a life-or-death situation. WAIT no that's a lie, I forgot about the "I'm late to the party" incident. But that is another high to low flight!

Even Ibis, when he's using them, is either going from the Storm Spire pinnacle (where literally anywhere you want to get to will be downwards), or, as in his fight with Claudia, he has a running takeoff in which he also specifically gains height so he can swoop.

If I were super invested in explaining away underuse of mage wings (which I'm not, I'm just contrary), I would say that taking off from a low surface is exhausting and hovering is basically impossible. They did at least design the spell effect with a wingspan that isn't laughably small, but human(/elven) body density is still going to be much higher than a birds, and most people wouldn't have the upper body muscles to sustain much in the way of flapping.

Actual winged Skywing elves clearly have some... whole other thing going on. I don't feel like going back and combing over all the Nyx scenes to figure out what it is. Though part of it may be related to the whole upper body flapping muscles thing: unless you're doing a lot of lifting, most muscle strength in human bodies is concentrated in the lower torso core and legs... which is where Skywing elf wings attach.

Basically, it's not as useful of a spell as it initially might appear, particularly since it also puts your hands out of commission so you can't do more Sky magic to create winds to carry you. Callum might regularly fly down from the high mage's office to wherever he wants to go, but I'm betting he's gotta walk back up all those stairs like anyone else. So I think it's actually overused by the fandom, rather than underused in canon.

#primal magic #sorry y'all i know mage wings callum picking up rayla and flying her places is cute but i don't think it's a thing #ibis is fucking ripped though

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raayllum · 1 year

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TDP and Water Symbolism

With Book 5 all but being confirmed as Ocean, it made me want to take a look back at what water represents in the series in general. Most prominently, of course, for Rayla for obvious reasons, but also where and how water symbolism pops up for some other characters, such as Ezran and Callum, scattered throughout the show.

Water often symbolizes healing and rebirth, rivers with pathways, destiny and drowning (particularly for women, such as Ophelia from Hamlet and the Lady of Shalott) and the Ocean unpredictability, power, chaos, and the depths. The Ocean is also often the site of obsession (Ahab and Moby Dick) as well as desire (siren myths) and the struggle to find your way home (Odysseus). There are some tenets of all of this throughout TDP, but we’ll work our way through as well as discuss the limited specifics of what we know of the Ocean primal from Tales of Xadia and additional information from Callum’s Spellbook.

Water as Reflection

Lujanne: This is the Moon Nexus. It reflects the moon perfectly. When the moon is full, its light completely fills the lake.

This is the one that’s most overtly related to Aaravos, perhaps, as well as in line with Ocean and Moon’s direct connection in show. Water/ice reflects, mirrors reflect, and tether the two together. The characters who are most heavily associated with reflection in this manner are Viren and Callum, of course, with Rayla as well, although Claudia, Soren (with his sword), and Ezran (with his father’s sword and eventual crown) have their moments as well.

Moreover, all of this moments of reflection for Rayla are moments where she feels like she’s failing, or has failed. “I guess I was just afraid of being afraid” / “But you didn’t run. They have it all wrong” “Does it matter?” / “I’m not good enough and I never will be.” While many other characters are tied to reflection as noted above, Rayla (and Ethari and Callum with her) are the only characters we see be reflected by water in this way.

However, there are even more ways water is woven into Rayla’s arc, so let’s talk about it

Water as Fear, Bravery, and Shame

Rayla’s first test as an assassin takes place in the rain, but she is unable to go through with it. This is a ‘failure’ that haunts her even into season four, perhaps best summed up in how she mirrors Runaan in these conversations from 1x01 and 1x08 respectively.

Rayla: The human looked up at me and I saw the fear in his eyes. Runaan: Of course he was afraid! But you had a job to do!

Ezran: Yeah, but then you saw he was scared, and you knew he was a person, just like you. Rayla: That shouldn’t have mattered. I had a job to do.

Rayla’s relationship to fear reaffirms the idea that recognizing personhood - her own or anyone else’s - is also a signifier of weakness (laid out more directly, perhaps, in the S1 novelization), and is incredibly Moonshadow of her: “Moonshadow elves aren’t supposed to show fear, ever.” Which is why Rayla is typically confronted with the water-shame duality when she is trying to either ignore someone else’s personhood, or is having her own erased, best seen with her crossing the river in 1x02 on her way to try and be a proper assassin.

Which is why 1x05 is when the shift between what she’s supposed to be - an assassin - and who she truly is - a hero starts to transform water as only a weakness to a showcasing of bravery.

C: That was brave, Rayla. R: No, I already told you, I’m afraid of water. C: I know. That’s why doing what you did was so heroic. R: Oh... Thanks.

And why the assassin pool bearing the literal symbol of shame - the symbol of her just surviving when it was dictated that she shouldn’t have - is what justifies literally erasing her, and turning her into a Ghost. Which, we’ll return to the pond more later, don’t you worry.

If you’d like more thoughts on Rayla with water in this specific trifecta (+ bonus Callum feels), I’d recommend checking out this old but very worthwhile meta I wrote on the subject a couple months after S3 came out and back before I had a water motif tag (like a fool). Through the Moon adds some layers to this, with Rayla being driven into the portal out of fear, primarily, that Viren is still out there, as well as out of love for her family and Callum. But again more on TTM as well later, because I want to talk about the real kicker, I think, which is

The River As A Symbol of Destiny

This is something that ATLA actually used beforehand (mostly purely as a metaphor) that was then brought more directly to TDP as both a metaphorical and now literal/motif thing.

Destiny? What would a boy know of destiny? If a fish lives its whole life in a river, does it know the river’s destiny? No! Only that it flows on and on, out of his control. He may follow where it flows, but he cannot see the end. He cannot imagine the ocean.

—Avatar: The Last Airbender, 1x15, the Deserter

V: Life is like a river. R: Oh great. That’s exactly what I was afraid of. V: You can’t see too far ahead. I can’t see at all, as I might’ve mentioned before. You don’t know where the river of life will bend and turn. You don’t know where it will go at all. R: How is that supposed to helpful? V: Don’t try to control where the river goes. There’s one thing you can know and control: yourself. Look at yourself. Who are you, Rayla? What do you stand for? Once you know that, then wherever the river takes you, you’ll be right where you were always meant to be.

We see Rayla seemingly answer this question for herself by using something Callum told her as a basis for a new worldview: breaking the cycle. “Saving that dragon doesn’t just feel like the right thing to do, it feels like the right thing for me to do. It’s where I’m meant to be.” However, this is precisely the choice we see her walk back in 4x05.

So the River is tied to Destiny as a concept and having choice and self actualization for what you can control. This is tied, then, to Callum helping to give her a path forward for the choices she wants to make, tethering this to their relationship in general and the importance of giving each other agency.

But this specific connection to the River of Destiny, per se, is imo solidified in Bloodmoon Huntress with these panels.

There’s a few in-universe reasons for this panel/callback, of course. The first is show that Rayla wasn’t always afraid of water and that nearly drowning in BH is what likely created that fear. It’s the first instance in the graphic novel of Rayla’s heroism and loyalty, her desire to protect/save other people before Suroh, a Skywing boy in big trouble, comes barrelling into her life - even if it’s just a tiny Adoraburr who is basically her best friend in an increasingly peerless childhood.

And, of course, at the time of BH’s release, we all assumed this was largely a reference and setup to Rayla’s choice to leave at the end of Through the Moon in order to, in her eyes, ultimately protect him (even at great cost to herself and their happiness together). This is because, of course, Callum is famously her best friend with a big speech in 3x01 all about it: “He’s my friend... My best friend.”

This has taken on an even deeper meaning thanks to season four, though, following Aaravos taking control of Callum, his worry over a path of darkness, and Rayla’s associations with light. Because, of course, there is every implication that Aaravos’ prison is 1) under the water in the Sea of the Castout and 2) that Callum already tends to get swept up in things unintentionally / without thinking.

All of this to say, of course, that Aaravos and his prison are the river that Callum has already been swept up by, symbolized by all of the above as well as the Ocean rune on the Key of Aaravos being displayed at particularly opportune times.

So Rayla, here, is not just speaking of her future desire to protect him in Through the Moon, but not even necessarily to keep from playing into Aaravos’ hands (which is what killing him would do) but to guide him and keep him safe, no matter what it takes. Which reflects the framing of the shots when she arrives: “Then take another path, dummy!” The River of Destiny is fast, but she won’t let him get swept away.

Even if choosing Rayla (and subsequently breaking out of the brainwashing) may not be enough to fully stop Aaravos’ plan (as he still has to get out, after all — this is one river that’s inevitable).

Drowning

Of course, alongside destiny and shame, etc. there is also the dark side to water, re: drowning. We see this most prominently featured for each of the trio, with Ezran almost dying in 1x06, Callum’s dark magic dreams in 2x08, as well as Rayla nearly drowning in both BH and TTM, anchoring her childhood and much of her subsequent present day trauma tied together with a neat little bow, ready to unravel at a moment’s notice.

The fact that Callum’s use of dark magic also ties itself to drowning, directly, when it could’ve been anything (something choking him, perhaps, to hammer home / foreshadow Aaravos’ future grip over him) is also interesting to me, precisely because it ties the two so together. And that, thus far, we haven’t seen this drowning motif extended to anyone outside of the main trio, either.

The fact that both in and outside of the dream scape, Callum smashing the primal stone is what causes him to at first metaphorically, and then literally begin drowning, is particularly apt, symbolism wise. Down to Berto, a winged creature, lifting Villads from the wreckage only for Callum to realize that he is the wing once he has a guiding presence in Sarai. This is a lovely parallel between the boys as well, with Sarai guiding Ezran under the ice in the book one novelization, and makes me think about love as a guiding force through the storm; Sarai for her sons, Rayla on either side of the storm for Callum, and Callum for her in TTM, and how this may be repeated in Book 5, whether it’s Rayla’s parents saving her somehow, Callum, both, or something else entirely.

(It should also be noted that Callum and Rayla mutually save each other in TTM as well. Callum goes in after her when she’s in danger, but loses the phoenix feather to guide them back on the way down. He manages to help Rayla grab it, and then she goes back for him, and they swim out together, toward the light.)

The Ocean Arcanum

(Almost) last but not least I want to talk about the associations given canonically to the Ocean arcanum in the series’ extended material from both the Primal Source quiz, Callum’s Sketchbook, and Tales of Xadia.

Like all rivers flow to the sea, you know everything and everyone is connected. A peaceful soul, you value friendship, love, and family above all else in life. Empathetic and outgoing, you make friends easily, and people are drawn to your personality. In life, you’re willing to go with the flow, and you can adapt to pretty much anything and keep a cool head. You wear your heart on your sleeve, and with love so easily given, betrayal and lies strike you deeply — you are icy and unforgiving only to those who dare strike at your big heart.

Flexibility, Transformation, Flow, Awareness, Navigation, Surface Level V.S. Depth

This is reflected in the magic that Ocean mages wield: dynamic, forceful, reaching everywhere and anywhere, within and without. It can also become surprisingly powerful in rain, giving this primal a powerful synergy with the Sky primal. Ocean magic also includes ice magic, giving mages another powerful offensive and defensive tool.

All of these were released years apart (the primal quiz shortly after S1 in 2018, Callum’s Spellbook after S3 in 2020, and Tales of Xadia in 2021) but they all have similar common threads. There is an emphasis on connection, ice magic, flexibility (change), as well as tantalizing teases regarding the Sky arcanum. And of course as previously touched upon, the Moon famously affects real life tides.

But like, how do we know that this stuff is going to be consistently carried into the show, and it’s not just padding for supplementary material? Well, that’s because It Already Has.

Navigation and Transformation

Are perhaps the most direct ones we’ll see in S5, building upon prior associations with water the show has displayed, particularly in S2. The Ocean is tied to Callum’s journey of discovering sky magic, as he learns the winds from Villads on the ship of the Ruthless, and then later is directed into his own consciousness by a similar manner. He’s learning how to navigate and Villads’ advice to Callum mirrors the exact advice he gives to Rayla about the river, too.

Don’t try to control where the river winds go. There’s one thing you can know and control, yourself your sail.

This is jointly reflected by a con skit performed in 2019 to hype up S3 by Callum and Rayla’s VAs. While again this would be easy to write off, I hesitate to for three reasons: 1) we know thanks to TDP’s production schedule they were already working on S4 at this time, 2) the skit is called Written in the Stars and although silly, some of what is discussed matches up thematically and helped me call the Rayllum “light and darkness” motif months in advance, and 3) there are things from the S4 star chart referenced in the skit, such as Garlaf and his bandolier of skulls, the mama / baby banther, etc and most notably, the South Star, which Callum says:

What about that? Brightest star in the sky. A single point of light. We call it the South Star. Humans used it to navigate, you know, to find their way in the endless darkness of the night.

So it seems pretty clear that Season Five, with Callum and Rayla now getting to navigate their relationship, in addition to water’s ties to Rayla’s emotional state (the surface vs depths reflecting both her and Aaravos’ possible pasts, his watery prison, etc) all being compounded together. Either Aaravos or Rayla (or maybe both of them) will be his South Star in S5. And, in addition to Callum’s Spellbook, this is the only real time navigation is brought up in series, so I’m gonna take it.

Now that that’s ‘settled’, let’s look at Ocean / water as Transformation. This is of course seen in how Callum goes into the water in his dreams in 2x08, but then resurfaces with help from his mother and is reborn in a sense, literally filled with new breath, as he comes to understand the Sky arcanum. We also see this idea of Transformation being tied to the Ocean and Moon arcanums an equal amount in something like Phoe-Phoe, and as well as in TTM in general.

The Moon Arcanum is all about change.

Phoe-Phoe is reborn on the water. The water transforms Rayla’s fear to bravery. Rayla’s talk with Villads helps give her direction as much as he gives it to Callum, each unlocking how they are going to break the cycle; for Rayla, it’s being a protector and defender (even if still at cost to herself, but that’s a meta for another day). For Callum, he becomes a sky primal mage.

Which is to say, if you’ve been keeping track, Sky and Moon are uniquely tethered in series to the Ocean in ways none of the other primals currently seem to be. Sky and Ocean share overlap in spells and associations (drowning, navigation, breath, travel). Ocean and Moon likewise share overlap in association (transformation, reflections, depths, etc). So it would be exceedingly fitting if S5 is when Rayla and Callum end up fully reconciling, given that Ocean seems to, magically, be where Sky and Moon meet halfway. The water and experiences at the Nexus is what broke them apart, so of course water will also be what brings them together.

Water as the Cycle

More generally, due to its varied associations, Water is tied to Life ad Death throughout the series. In some ways, it is probably associated with the Cycle directly as much as Moon is, both tied to inherently cyclical things that may change, but always come back to themselves. TTM makes this connection overt

But it is there in other places as well. An assassin’s flower, placed in a circular pond of water, floats so long as they live and breathe. Rayla leaves and returns, consistently, like the tide, leaving over and over again, but also returning whenever she can (or whenever Callum chases after her to bring her back from the brink).

In a lot of ways, Callum and Rayla both do this to each other, leaving and then returning, always circling back to one another or moving in patterns.

Every time they walk away (die) they also return (live). This element of perpetual ebb and and flow and rebirth is also seen in other characters like Sol Regem, and even indeed the longstanding associations of boats and the underworld in Greek and Egyptian myth in particular, ferrying people to the afterlife (Greek myth a cited inspiration for the series, with the Egyptian mythos more sneakily woven in).

Seen perhaps most prominently in Callum reckoning with his stepfather’s death and reading Harrow’s letter in the belly of Villads’ boat.

Conclusion

Book 5: Ocean is gonna Slap, and I cannot wait, thank you goodnight.

#tdp #the dragon prince #tdp rayla #rayllum #tdp callum #water motif #tdp meta #analysis series #analysis #multi #the cycle #parallels #might honestly be some of the most fun i've had working on a meta #bc they surprisingly/unsurprisingly worked their way in #personal fave #every separation is a link #devil and the lovers

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