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quanticlub · 5 years

Text

Long Lore Rant

... Needs to be reformatted into something pretty rip

Background:

Aight so as per the great and infallible wikipedia, Taoist cosmology states that everything started with wújí and then created yǒu jí. The former means limitless and comes from the words "nothingness" and "reaching the end" ... so nothingness at the end aka no boundaries

the latter was the limited. it's only briefly mentioned as its conception brought on a polarity to the universe - yin and yang

taiji itself is the boundary embodied by you-ji with respect to the infinite wuji and represents the Absolute

The split into yin and yang has a the connotations listed above in the pic ((except... for tikki and plagg the feminine vs masculine seem to be switched cuz from the description, tikki is more closely associated with yang)). Yang is represented by one long dash –– while yin is two small broken ones - - . Now, in the middle column where there are category names for what yin and yang represent the wu xing category (elements, second from the bottom) has earth listed as neither. It also doesn't include air, which the wu xing doesnt include in general but is included by almost every other major culture when classifying the elements.

Kwami Origins: Null

In the beginning there was a great big nothingness and then came a tiny blip of umm... everythingness? making the Absolute. This gave the nothingness and everythingness a consciousness. (wow lots of -ness words here). The nothingness part of the absolute became Null. The everythingness got no name cuz it quickly split off into the rest of creation.

Null's concept art is a three-eyed little creature with two kwami tendrils. I propose Null as the glowing white kwami they originally made but with all black eyes and The Other One as the all black kwami but with glowing white eyes. The prior emptiness/nothingness was energy while the delineation/everythingnes was matter(?). when they created the Absolute, parts of themselves mixed i na typical yin-yang fashion, thus the eyes being like those of the others. This gave them power over the nature of the other sorta???? hard to explain

For Null, he had power over mass, time, and space - matter is anything that has mass and takes up space at a given moment. The Other One (imma call them Higgs bc of the Higgs boson particle but it wouldnt be the real name) had power over tendencies of energy*. So. energy can be used up to build something (creative force - in human metabolism it's an anabolic reaction), released to tear something apart (destructive force - in human metabolism it's a catabolic reaction). bBt it can also be stored/dissipate with no specific purpose, instead being available for all sorts of possible things later (chaotic force?)

idea is that Higgs, upon consciousness, sacrificed themselves to give rise to existence. The Big Bang. they justs sorta fucked off to become a bunch of cool rocks/stardust floating in space and initiated the course of time (which could theoretically be split into different timelines? idk time travel is weird and this is superfluous to my current ramble)

the three aspects of Null that Higgs had gained powers from became concepts that would gain sentience of their own. The yin and yang markings are, technically, three lines. not two. cuz yin is split ( –– vs - - ).

* = this bit's a little less science-y except for keeping with the triad thing bc neutron, electron, and proton

Three, Not Two: Tikki, Plagg, & ...Hexx?

I imagine Null took up the developing concepts and nurtured them sorta. like they were incubating under Null's protection. Tikki emerged out of Null's sphere first; she had the most power from Higgs though all three were pretty closely matched. she was the creative force.

Plagg came out of Null's sphere last. He was the destructive force. Sorta. It was actually coser to... decay? Plagg is really more of a kwami of decay than destruction. He doesnt just obliterate things, he accelerates their decomposition. when his powers act on metal, for instance, it rusts. thats not destruction it's just the wear-and-tear expected to happen over time. Destruction as a concept opposite to that of Creation and Order involves more entropy and plagg really isnt as chaotic as would be expected. While he represents destruction in the sense that the thing is ceasing to function as a unit, the chaos would fall more under hexx.

The third force, the one that embodied possibility, was too erratic. they got out of Null's care first but remained in the sphere for a while longer. they didn't get out til after Tikki. I'm thinking maybe emerged from Null's domain just a few seconds before Plagg (time is still wonky at this point). while Tikki is yang ( –– ), Plagg and #3, henceforth referred to as Hexx, are both yin ( - - ). Plagg is slightly weaker cuz he was "overcooked" and Hexx was "undercooked". Tikki came out just right like a yummy batch of cookies ;)

While Plagg is the biggest cuz he stayed with Null for so long, Hexx is the smallest. Even more so than Tikki but only by a little. I was thinking of him looking like a mix of Tikki and Plagg. More cat-like but with red accents and maybe blue eyes instead of green.

That’s the gist of it with a quick reminder note that time still affects kwamis differently like they mentioned in Sandboy or whatever. so they might be around ten billion years old be the time earth shows up but theyve been very immature. like little kids. and unlike kids that go to school to learn how things work, they were given immense amounts of power and 0 instruction so they have to figure out what they can do, what their identity is, and what purpose they want to have in existence

Tikki has a very do-good attitude and wants to help (even if shes proven sometimes she doesnt give the best advice) and be a Good Kwami. But Plagg isn't a bad kwami. The opposite of love isn't hate after all; it's apathy. Plagg just doesnt really care and will follow Tikki around bc he enjoys her company and his primary concern is himself. Oblivio was a good example of this cuz he's like "no fuck you whats in it for me" but still gets affected by tikki's words and comes back to do as she says eventually.

Hexx would be the "bad apple" though kwamis dont really have moralities cuz those were human constructs and are incredibly subjective. He wouldnt be hatred in the analogy with love, but rather fire-y emotions that are still more negative. quick anger and stuff. usually happy go-lucky. temperamental goes with the nature of being THE force of chaos. while he doesnt wanna help necessarily, he still wants to DO. he's the one that instigates mischief and wants to fuck around for the fun of it.

Making the Miraculous

So from the dinosaur ordeal we know the kwamis DID have effects on earth, but they couldnt consistently intervene - at least not in a controlled fashion. and they couldnt really communicate with humans cuz different field of existence. but their presence became known even if the humans didnt know what they were exactly

the set from the miracle box was made my a mage in china for the purpose of conquests. Hexx’s mischief and meddling probably gave the humans access to the magic/knowledge/whatever they’d need for making the Miraculous. The pitch to get these baby gods to agree was that tikki would have greater control of her powers and could communicate and help! tikki was down. It seemed like a Good Thing and she wanted to do good. Plagg was meh but might as well cuz tikki insisted. hexx wasn't convinced. they werent warned theyd be confined to the miraculous and essentially trapped. plaggs agreement was more out of ignorance of this fact. he figured he could make tikki happy but still fuck off to do what he wanted. never imagined that he'd be subject to another's will.

tikki was happy regardless bc very young (developmentally) and naive and honestly believing that the human knew best and it's what was best for both the kwamis and humanity. she had so much power her jewel had to be split into two - thus, earrings. all other kwamis inhabit a singular miraculous.

when hexx was being trapped it was against his will, unlike plagg and the others. he fought it. he still got trapped but the miraculous wasnt like the others. the nature was different... it was corrupted. Cue: cursed miraculous(es) ((still not sure of the plural)). If he has to suffer then by Null so do the humans who did this. Thus the name Hexx. Opened the option for kwamis to try to fight it or go for it. Werewolves perhaps stem from a group of cursed canid kwamis? The Miracle Box is basically the kwamis who were aight with the idea but other cursed kwamis exist.

The nature of a miraculous depends on the "recipe" used to make the jewels and the kwami's receptiveness to being basically enslaved. The Miracle Box miraculous were all made by the same mage mentioned earlier so they had the same recipe so to speak. All the kwamis in the miracle box fall under yin or yang. Including the elements. So the Zodiac and Wu Xing kwamis are all in either tikki or plagg's domains. Except for one. I propose trixx as the exception, even if they dont fit the traits of earth. i was thinking for the other supporting kwami to hexx there could be one that also refused to join the mage... the kwami representing air (wu xing is basically the only philosophy without air as an element in some shape or form). Possible name: Jinxx, a crow. The fox/crow/cat are all typical tricksters in myths.

The way the kwamis’ powers can be manipulated varies and the cursed kwamis offer the least control to their wielders - and the greatest side effects. I imagine jinxx just fucks off to follow hexx's miraculous, wherever it may be. Hexx is closer to the original curse on pv chat noir... the curse is possibly activated and summoned by the use of tikki or plagg's powers outside their miraculous? And dormant after death of wielder or kiss from LB or something. So that would mean Plagg activated him in style queen and then helping him get a better location/target with the smaller cataclysm in i think catalyst (when he's like "ive been practicing!).

Together, plagg and tikki have that OP wish granting ability but they cant truly summon Null to the this dimension without Hexx, who adamantly refuses. it's not like Hexx's miraculous can be stolen cuz it's cursed onto the subject. As a summary of combined powers... Tikki + Plagg = wish granting? ... Hexx + Tikki = good luck ... Hexx + Plagg = bad luck ... cuz Hexx is about possibility and consequences. So creation-related effects tend to manifest as what humans deem to be good while destruction-related ones are seen as bad.

Hexx Making an Appearance

For the current Mari/Adri plot I thought of Hexx cursing Felix or sth and bringing him onto the hero scene. Comes with the benefit of jealous CN. Maybe a scene where cat-ish Felix tells Chat Noir that he’s not interested in LB, only Mari and they have some sorta agreement to respect that (would work best in the half brother’s thing if Adri found out). All hell would break loose if/when LBs identity came out.

Also I like the idea of Hexx having been locked in Pandora's jar with other angry ~cursed~ miraculous and the others immediately fucked off and scattered their miraculous but Hexx remained. possibility and consequence does not mean bad things. it's the uncertainty of the future that allows for hope, which is what pandora found. the greek tales also have varying connotations on whether finding hope was a blessing or a curse depending on how you looked at it

#ref: ml lore revamp #ref: ml kwami revamp

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davidmann95 · 7 years

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What is the 'Two-Face problem' regarding his stories? What can be done about it?

That he’s locked into a setup that forces him to tell one of, appropriately, two stories. This has been covered in better detail before by others, but in short: the only stories to really tell about him are his origin, because it’s so full of dramatic potential, or an attempt to cure him, because he’s Batman’s noble former ally in the war on crime laid low by a demon within, so any story of those two clashing that isn’t about Batman trying to save him is going to seem trivial. Even the recent My Own Worst Enemy, which went as far afield of traditional stories for either of them as having him on shotgun to Batman wrecking his way across the American South with a chainsaw while being pursued by KGBeast - and I definitely liked the idea it introduced of Two-Face intentionally bringing out the worst in others, something I’d like to see be a sticking element for his character - it’s still ultimately a story about whether he can be cured, and whether one side of him can overpower the other. And the answer to both is of course “no”, because then you can’t use Two-Face anymore.

Here’s a dirty little secret about Batman’s villains, at least from my perspective. Yes, he unquestionably has the best rogues gallery in comics, but they’re not THAT much better than most other major characters’ rank-and-file. Not that they’re bad by any means, but they’re absolutely artificially inflated by circumstane. By Batman’s nature as a weird solver of elaborate puzzles who’s easily put in physical danger, it’s easier for them to provide a serious and distinctive threat to him even in a ‘serious’ context than it is for a guy with a flamethrower or boomerangs to reasonably challenge a nerdy cop who can outpace light. And since Batman’s more concretely and popularly defined psychologically and symbolically than probably any other superhero, it’s tremendously easier for creators to at least nominally parallel him in some meaningful fashion than it is for Superman’s guys - if most writers can’t think of anything to show Kal-El as other than Nice and Good, they’ll have a hard time coming up with a contrast for him other than Mean and Bad. It’s a triumph largely by contrast that lets even simple Bad Guy V Good Guy stories by average talent coast by on atmosphere and basic observations. Hence why the likes of Penguin struggle after all these years, since his ability to parallel Batman isn’t nearly so immediately obvious and simple (it’s absolutely possible, but it’d require more thought and effort than most are willing to put in), while even the usually pretty flat Scarecrow can easily carry a comic because hey, he relies on fear too, there’s probably something in that.

Harvey has been able to coast in largely the same way most of the time. Harvey’s good, Two-Face is bad, and he reflects the most obvious, banal aspect of Batman possible, that he has a dark side represented visually. And truth be told, I think that vein has well and truly been bled dry. Even aside from whether or not it’s a good idea for a villain in the first place - sensitivity towards mentally ill people has never been Batman stories’ strongest suit, and the modern Harvey Dent is the most stereotypical example possible in that regard, an abused child who grows up to be a gruesome freak with a dangerous, violent alternate personality that emerged or even developed in a single moment of highest drama - there’s not that much to it. You get Harvey and Two-Face arguing and never winning, he feels bad but sometimes doesn’t, Batman feels bad, everyone feels bad, we get to ponder about the darkness hidden inside the human heart and that, sit down for this one, Batman kind of has two faces too, you guys. Like I said, it’s banal, the most facile of observations on Batman as a character that ultimately tracks back to the idea of him as ultimately mad himself and driven above all by vengeance and violence, an interpretation pretty much every Batman story worth its salt moved on from over a decade ago.

It is absolutely fixable though, largely because there is of course a second Two-Face out there, the original, and he’s always worked better. People just tend to forget about him because the aesthetic leans more easily towards the guy I talked about above. And it’s a GREAT aesthetic, from the face to the suits to any bisected hideouts or getaway cars he might bring into play. But that’s all that stuff is, same as Riddler’s question marks or Joker’s playing cards; all that, even his face, is an expression of his pathology, not the core of it.

That’s the coin.

The coin’s turned into a pretty insignificant part of his character over the years, a simple compromise between the two identities over who gets to drive that’s often forgotten, but really think about that thing if you take away the identity divide. Harvey Dent is a man so at odds with the world around him and alienated from any recognizable principles, so unable to make decisions or make a distinction between the value of good or evil under his own power, that he’s surrendered his very decision-making capabilities to this thing. The coin decides his soul, the coin decides who lives or dies, the coin is horrifying on a level the split-personality take can’t even begin to compete with. A million arguments between the DA and the Mob Boss could never so brutally and simply capture the sheer brokenness of Harvey Dent’s soul as him showing the part of him that can understand or care about consequence is just gone, and that he’s replaced it in the most chaotic, meaningless way possible.

I tend to think Batman’s villains work better when they oppose his philosophy or aspects of his overall narrative rather than his psychology, especially since the bedrock observations about his psychology in play there are like I said generally pretty simple. Riddler’s not interesting because He’s Obsessed Too!, but because he threatens to tear down the idea of Batman as unstoppable and always one step ahead of crime. Maybe Joker also Had A Bad Day, but he’s endured because at his best he threatens the basic logistical and moral assumptions Batman’s world is built on. My terrible (but surprisingly popular, thanks guys!) take on Mr. Freeze is rooted in the idea that he’d be more workable long-term as someone who finds security and power in becoming something bigger than an ordinary man after a tremendous loss, rather than him ‘just’ also being sad about losing his family. And while I don’t really care that much about Which Face Is The Real One, the idea of Two-Face as a man who in spite of devoting his life to fighting chaos and forcing the world to make sense just like our hero ultimately completely succumbs to that chaos on the most fundamental philosophical level imaginable, whether in defiance of the justice he once served or as a theoretically purer version of it (which the coin can stand for either way), really does it for me.

He can still have the face and accompanying visuals and gimmicks as Gotham-level realizations of said philosophy and representations of the defilement of the good man he once was. Rather than locking him into a rigidly defined paradigm of which side is stronger (though you can still do that too, directly over good and evil!), he becomes inherently unpredictable and therefore infinitely more dangerous and dynamic. He becomes a threat to Batman’s entire approach to life rather than a walking problem to be fixed, putting them on a much more even footing for a back-and-forth rivalry and letting more standard confrontations between them be as charged with drama as whether or not Harvey can overcome the worst in himself, opening up far more possibilities for him as a supervillain. The alternative may have gotten more play as of late, but exhibit A for my preference: it’s the take The Dark Knight went with, the objectively most critically acclaimed story that guy has ever been in. I Believe Harvey Dent and Two Face Hate Each Other has had its day and run its course. Harvey Dent Believes In Chaos.

#Two Face #Batman #The Dark Knight #Mental Health #Opinion

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