#parallel paradise translation

[sisterdivinium]

Finding "the meaning" to a show that could have had up to five or seven seasons but was cancelled after the second is somewhat like trying to understand a novel composed of seventy chapters by having read only twenty — there is a whole wealth of information which we do not possess that could alter our reading of any given element or of the entire thing in itself.

Still, there are always patterns that weave a story into a cohesive unit and they can help us to better grope in darkness towards comprehension. One such pattern in Warrior Nun appears to be how the consequences to mistakes, "sins" or evil deeds committed by characters manifest.

Basic storytelling usually requires characters to act on something so that complications or resolutions may arise from their choices and move the plot forwards. In Warrior Nun, many of these actions are quite tragic in nature: Suzanne's arrogance and pride lead to the death of her Mother Superion; Vincent's allegiance to the higher power he believed Adriel to be inspired him to kill Shannon; Ava's flight from the Cat's Cradle ends up damning Lilith as she is mortally wounded and taken away by a tarask... All of these events have negative outcomes and heavy repercussions on all characters directly or indirectly involved. Something changes permanently because of them, be it in the world around them or within the characters themselves.

And yet, it would seem that all of these dark deeds not only move the story forwards but might also have overall positive results. We would have had no protagonist without Ava — and she would arguably never have received the halo to begin with had she not been murdered. What's more, on a personal scale, the horrifying crime she suffers is, in the end, the very thing that allows her a second chance in life, a new life.

An act of outside evil permits Ava to grow and develop, shows her a path she would not otherwise have found. Without her own season in some sort of hell, Lilith would not have been able to advance towards other ways of being and understanding beyond her very strict limitations. Vincent and Suzanne would not have embarked on their own journeys of enlightenment without having caused the pain they are responsible for.

Beatrice might have been paying for someone else's mistakes, but she, too, is given the chance to grow into herself through it. The afflictions that torment these characters advance the overall plot, but they also advance them, as individuals, as long as they are willing to learn and keep going despite the calamities large and small that they are faced with. Beatrice keeps going after parental rejection, Mary keeps going after losing Shannon, Jillian keeps going after losing her son (in part through her own actions, adding insult to injury)... Trouble and the adaptation that follows it, if one is open enough to learn from the experience, motivates the characters, propels them forward, teaches them.

The problem of evil has occupied the minds of many a thinker throughout the ages, given how the very existence of it, evil, might call into question that of God (a good, omniscient, omnipotent one, anyway). A common way of justifying suffering (and also God), then, is by claiming, as Saint Augustine, that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist".

Now, it would be rather ridiculous to say of Warrior Nun that it follows in Leibniz's footsteps, also because this philosopher, expanding on the augustinian concept, attempted to defend the goodness of a real God with his "best of all possible worlds" while all we have is... Well, whatever/whoever Reya is.

But there seems to be an inclination towards some sort of optimism as a worldview nonetheless.

Betrayals reveal truth and grant knowledge (Vincent's culminates with the coming of Adriel, which allows us to know of the threat of a "Holy War" and thus prepare for it; Kristian's gives Jillian much needed insight, William's lights up the fuse for the fight to be taken more seriously...), crimes committed willingly or not open the way for Ava (Suzanne's killing of her Mother Superion causes the loss of the halo, which is transferred to Shannon, whose death opens the gates for Ava to walk through after being herself murdered by sister Frances)... The magnitude of these positive outcomes is perhaps not "balanced" when compared to the evil that brings them about, but there is still something to take out of the catastrophe.

However tragic the tones of a given event, the show itself appears to shun the predetermination that makes tragedy as a genre; if everything is connected, here it at least appears to not necessarily drag everyone into their horrible dooms.

What's more is that this lurking "optimism" matches really well with our own protagonist's personality.

And it makes perfect sense that Ava would do the best she could with whatever she is given.

Life for her, in the conditions she experienced after the accident, would have been unbearable without some sort of positive outlook on life. However deadpan, the joking and the "obscene gestures" and whatever other forms of goofing around beside Diego are a way of turning a portion of the situation in her own favour. Proverbial eggs have, after all, already been broken right and left — might as well make an omelette of whatever remains.

Humour is just another way of looking at the bright side of something, or, at the every least, of mitigating the utter horror it might bring. If the show allows for moments of lightness, if it lets us laugh, if it takes us through a perilous voyage which still bears ripe, succulent fruit instead of the rot of pessimism and its necessary contempt for humanity, it is because Ava herself sees things in this way. It isn't gratuitous or naïve in this case, but a true survival strategy, especially as it is confronted with the morbidity of Catholicism.

Here is a religion that soothes its faithful with the promise of reward in the afterlife — how else does one charge into battle against the unknown, risking one's own death along with that of one's sisters, without the balm of believing that we shall all meet again eventually, "in this life or the next"? How else does one come to terms with the ugliness and the pain of this existence if not by looking forward to a paradise perfect enough to make all trials and tribulations here worth it?

True nihilism would have annihilated Ava. Her present perspective is what avoided the abyss.

And there is nothing Panglossian to her attitude or what the show might imply by giving us her view on things. This isn't about "the best of all possible worlds", but of making the best of whatever situation we're in, of taking what we have and doing something with it, something good, something of ourselves. It isn't God making good out of evil, but our choices.

Killing innocent people and feeling no remorse will never be the best someone can aspire to do. Sister Frances, cardinal William, Adriel all learn this the hard way.

Those who do their best find that, somehow, they can move on from whatever it was that paralysed them. Ava, most of all, knows what it is to be stuck, frozen in place; she can never be the character who refuses to grow, even through pain, lest she condemns her spirit to the same fate her body is all too familiarised with. Those around her wise enough to let themselves be touched by her, by the dynamic power she carries, walk forth with her and live.

It says very little about "God" that Warrior Nun should adopt its heroine's views and seem "optimistic" as it progresses — but it speaks volumes about the values it presents for pondering, of the inspiration its protagonists provide, and of the multiple reasons why this is a story unlike most others.

#warrior nun #ava silva #you know it's actually very funny to type this as someone who is very schopenhaurian with hints of nietzsche #but i AM doing the best i can too :) #again i will reiterate that i don't think this apparent optimism has anything to do with the classic theodicy #if anything i see it more as a cry in favour of antitheism -- this is YOUR life fuck god #life is shitty so carve out your own makeshift paradise out of the wreck you are given #and don't make things harder for anyone else in the process if you can avoid it #(but that might just be the luciferian in me speaking lol) #anywho this post is a translation of one i wrote not too long ago in cryptic english and a ton of tags #so if it seems familiar that's why #also i do find it rather telling that whenever i try to delve into how the show structures things i talk about ava #i don't set out to analyse her -- but in analysing the show i must analyse her as well if by the edges #which again points to how finely woven she is to the fabric of the entire thing #remember how i said ava is a representation of free will? #well this whole bringing good out of evil thing also touches upon it #saint augustine maintains that it is precisely free will that allows us to do it -- to choose good #of course he means it in a sense of being free to pursue god rather than evil but you see the parallel still works #(this is the post i mentioned in the last reblog. figured i'd go ahead and throw it in the wild since there are more brewing) #analysis and similar #exercises in observation

[cough-droplet]

AAAAAA finally we're done with the project we've been working on for the better part of a year at this point: A new sub of Kamen Rider Faiz!

This is probably the sub project I've felt proudest of my work on, and I really recommend checking it out whether or not you've watched the show before. I promise, even if you've seen the show before, this will help you Get It more lmao.

Anyway here are links to all of our Faiz releases so far:

Main series batch: Contains all 50 episodes, the summer movie Paradise Lost, and the Hyper Battle Video.

Kamen Rider Faiz: Paradise Regained: The recently-released 20th anniversary movie.

Kamen Rider No. 4: A 3-part miniseries crossover between Faiz, Drive, and Den-O. Serves as an end cap to Takumi's various crossover appearances in later years, and in my opinion is a very interesting sort of parallel story to Paradise Regained.

The Murder Case, Part 1: The first half of a comedic murder mystery TTFC special meant to tie in to Paradise Regained. The second half releases in May.

Justiφ’s cover by Murakami Kohei and Inoue Masahiro: This one we did for fun as a way of getting the full translation of the opening out there lmao.

Identiφ’s live at Chou Eiyuu Sai: The main theme to Paradise Regained, same deal.

Anyway. Open your eyes or whatever I love this show

#kamen rider faiz #kamen rider 555 #kamen rider #tokusatsu #fansubbing

[henrysglock]

Do You Have A Minute To Talk About Our Lord And Savior: Vecna?

Specifically, I'd like to talk about Jericho, Book of Revelation, Paradise Lost, and the concepts of God and Satan as "good" and "evil", and try to decode who is who.

Let's start with Jericho, and go from there. Like everything else in Stranger Things, though...we'll loop back to the beginning eventually.

Season 5: Jericho

We all know about the nuclear disaster aspect, I don't think I need to continue beating that particular dead horse. (There are plenty of topics to beat into the afterlife. I witnessed a public beating re: production errors just a few days ago.)

I want to talk biblical.

I want to talk about the Battle of Jericho.

The Battle of Jericho is an old testament tale from the Book of Joshua, and there are some basics of the battle you should know:

The Israelites, who have been wandering in the desert for 40 years, prepare to invade and take the City of Jericho from its king. Joshua sends ahead 2 spies in preparation.

These spies are housed and hidden by Rahab, a prostitute. The Israelites promise to spare her and her kin for this, so long as she marks her house with a red cord.

The River Jordan dries up, allowing Joshua and his people to cross. The King of Jericho orders the walls of the city to be closed (This is important to note: He closes the walls. This is not a Rifts parallel. God opens the walls.)

God commands that for 6 days the Israelites march about the walls of the City of Jericho, one time each day. Then, on the seventh day, they are to march around the city seven times.

On this seventh day, seven trumpets are to be blown by seven priests from behind the Ark of the Covenant.

The Israelites do as God commands, and the walls of Jericho fall under the sounding of the trumpets and the cheer of the Israelites.

The Israelites kill all of Jericho's citizens except Rahab and her kin, who are accepted into their community. All of this per God's command.

Wow, that's a lot of sevens, a lot of miracles, and a lot of death.

Here's the thing about Jericho: It lay in a rift valley, and the area is historically prone to both earthquakes and landslides, which have been noted to block the Jordan for days at a time. The fall of Jericho's walls...could very well have been the result seismic activity.

If we take the recounting at face value, God likely triggered an earthquake, which caused the walls to fall.

Sound familiar?

What's also interesting about the Battle of Jericho is that there is no mention of Satan, the Devil, anything of that sort. It's just God vs Jericho on behalf of the Israelites. It's Old Testament (OT), and it's projected to have happened in 1400-1500 BC, whereas the New Testament (NT) material is all AD. (Jesus's crucifixion happens in 33 AD, and Book of Revelation is set in 81-96 AD.)

We know the OT God is highkey obsessed with 2 main things: Truth and Oppression. This guy hates being lied to, having oaths broken, being betrayed/deceived/not obeyed, etc. He has very strict commandments for his followers, and he isn't keen on people going against them. He hates human oppressors and is avid about punishing them in massively brutal ways (see: the Israelites and the King/People of Jericho). OT God is a wrathful God, and from the point of view of some...an oppressor himself.

If the other thing didn't sound familiar...boy...doesn't that one sound familiar?

Not gonna tell you who it sounds similar to yet, though. We'll save that for later. No biases in my house.

Anyway, that's all well before Christ figures and Satan as a major definable force against God. In fact, there's almost no mention of Satan as a physical adversary in the OT. "Satan" in the OT literally translates to just...adversary/traitor. There's no mention of the devil as a single entity. We know there's a fallen angel, Lucifer, a serpent in the Garden of Eden, etc., but Satan as a single, definable, physical adversary who physically fights God? Not a thing yet.

This is very different from NT literature, where Satan/the Devil/the Antichrist/etc. appear as physical figures. This is especially apparent in Book of Revelation, in which Jesus and the heavenly forces literally fight the demonic forces with swords.

This is where it starts to get spicy.

Book of Revelation

I'm just going to give you all the Cliffs Notes, because John of Patmos was definitely tripping balls...and I don't want to subject you all to that:

John of Patmos has a vision of the apocalypse: It's Jesus's second coming and the decimation of the Earth. (This is debatable historically, but for the purposes of this section lets take it at face value.)

He writes of his visions to the 7 Churches of Asia: Ephesus: "He who overcomes is granted to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God" - They are praised for not harboring evil, exposing fake apostles, and being a symbol of perseverance and patience. Smyrna: "Those who are faithful until death will be given the crown of life. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second dead" - They are praised for being rich in faith in times of hardship, and is told not to fear imprisonment for holding fast against false prophets. Pergamum: "He who overcomes will be given the hidden manna to eat and a white stone with a secret name on it." - They are praised as a faithful martyr, but admonished for sexual immorality, holding false idols, and holding the doctrine of both Balaam and the Nicolaitans. Thyatria: "He who overcomes until the end will be given power over the nations in order to dash them to pieces with a rod of iron; he will also be given the morning star." - They are praised for works of love, service, faith, and patience, but admonished for allowing a prophetess to engage in sexual immorality and holding false idols. Sardis: "He who overcomes will be clothed in white garments, and his name will not be blotted out from the Book of Life; his name will also be confessed before the Father and his angels." - They are told to strengthen their works in order to achieve perfection before God. Philadelphia (yes, Philadelphia): "He who overcomes will be made a pillar in the temple of God having the name of God, the names of the City of God, "New Jerusalem", and the Son of God's new name" - They are praised for keeping God's name holy, and is reminded to hold fast to what they have. Laodicea: "He who overcomes will be granted the opportunity to sit with the Son of God on his throne" - They are admonished for being lukewarm in their faith, reminded to be zealous. They're told to buy "gold refined in fire", white garments, and to anoint their eyes in salve so they may see.

The throne of God appears, surrounded by 24 elders. All of this happens before the throne of God: - The 4 living beings appear: A lion, and ox, a man, and an eagle. They are akin to biblically accurate angels, each having 6 wings and a multitude of eyes. - A scroll with 7 seals is presented, and only the "Lion of the tribe of Judah, from the Root of David" can open it. - The "Lamb of God, with 7 eyes and 7 horns" accepts the scroll, and all present bow before it.

The seven seals are opened: First Seal: White horse, Conquering. Second Seal: Red horse, War. Third Seal: Black horse, Famine/Hunger. Fourth Seal: Pale horse, Death. Fifth Seal: The souls of the martyrs, dressed in white robes, are told to rest until the martyrdom of their brothers is complete. Sixth Seal: A great earthquake, wherein the the sun goes dark, the stars fall to earth, and the sky rolls back like a scroll. Mountains are moved, and the people of earth hide within them from the "wrath of the Lamb". 144,000 Hebrews are marked upon their foreheads with the seal of God and sealed within the caves. Seventh Seal: Introduces the 7 trumpets, one for each of 7 angels. An eighth angel devastates the Earth with heavenly fire just before the 7 trumpets begin.

The angelic trumpets are sounded: First Trumpet: Hail and fire and blood rain upon the Earth and burn up 1/3 of plant life. Second Trumpet: A "great, flaming mountain" falls from the sky and devastates 1/3 of the seas. Third Trumpet: Wormwood, a great star, falls from the heavens and poisons 1/3 of all freshwater sources. (Radiationgate!) Fourth Trumpet: 1/3 of the sun, moon, and stars are darkened, casting the world into total darkness for 1/3 of day and night. Fifth Trumpet: The First Woe. - A star falls from the sky, and is given the key to the bottomless abyss. - The abyss opens, and the smoke of the giant abyss blots out the sky. - Locusts, in the form of humans with lions' teeth, wings like hoofbeats, and iron breastplates come and kill any who are not marked with the seal of god on their forehead (the 144k Hebrews from the 12 tribes of Israel). *** Sixth Trumpet: The Second Woe. - The four angels bound in the Euphrates are released to prepare two million horsemen. These armies kill 1/3 of mankind. Seventh Trumpet: The Third Woe, in preparation for the 7 Bowls. - The temple of God, in heaven, opens. There is lightning, an earthquake, and hail.

*** ST4 leaves off at the asterisks

The 7 Spiritual Figures, leading up to the Third Woe:

A heavenly woman is pregnant with a male child.

A dragon pulls stars from the heavens and awaits the birth of the child so he can devour it: The Archangel Michael fights this dragon, as it is revealed to be the devil. The dragon is cast out of heaven, and becomes obsessed with waging war against all the woman's offspring.

A Beast with 7 heads, 10 horns, and the names of blasphemy on his heads emerges from the sea: The people of the world follow the Sea Beast in wonder, and the dragon empowers the beast for 42 months. The Sea Beast goes on to blaspheme God's name and wage war against the Saints. He is victorious.

The antichrist/false prophet appears from the Earth: He has 2 horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon. He instructs the people of the Earth to build a likeness of the Sea Beast, and all who participate are marked with the Sign of the Beast: 666.

The "One like the Son of Man", aka Jesus, goes and defeats the beast with the 144k Hebrews bearing the seal of God.

Heaven opens, and the 7 Bowls Revelation begins with the sounding of the Third Woe/7th trumpet.

The 7 Bowls Revelation:

First Bowl: "A foul and malignant sore" afflicts the followers of the Beast (Radiationgate Sweep!)

Second Bowl: The seas turn to blood, and everything in it dies.

Third Bowl: All fresh water turns to blood.

Fourth Bowl: The sun scorches the Earth.

Fifth Bowl: Total darkness and great pain floods the beast's kingdom.

Sixth Bowl: The Euphrates dries up, and the forces of good and evil prepare to face off.

Seventh Bowl: Another earthquake and hailstorm essentially flatten the surface of the Earth.

Aftermath Vision:

The Whore of Babylon and the Scarlet Beast are shown to John, revealing their identities and fates as such.

New Babylon is destroyed, and is mourned by its people.

Marriage Supper of the Lamb: Not a whole lot to say here, people praise God (...for decimating the Earth? Okay whatever floats your goat--I mean boat I'm not a satanist hahahaha what???)

The Judgment of the Beasts, the Dragon, and the Dead:

The Beast and the Antichrist: Both are imprisoned in the Lake of Fire.

The Dragon: He is imprisoned the Bottomless Pit for 1,000 years.

The Resurrected Martyrs: All of them live with God in peace for those 1,000 years.

After the 1,000 year time jump: - Gog and Magog: The dragon is freed, and goes on to deceive the corners of the Earth once more. He gathers them for a final battle against the City of God, and is defeated by heavenly forces, at which time he is cast into the Lake of Fire alongside the Beast and the Antichrist. - The Final Judgment: Death and Hades, along with the wicked who followed the Devil, are also cast into the Lake of Fire. This is known as the Second Death, and ensures that no more suffering or death may afflict God's chosen people.

New Heaven and New Earth:

After the fighting ends, the City of God meets the Earth and it's essentially a neat and tidy "eternal life, no more suffering, we're all in paradise with God" ending. The City of God is said to be a paradise for the pure and strong of faith, and God lives among them.

Phew. That was a whole fucking trip.

Most of it is a) allegorical and highly debated based on that fact, and b) highly disputed as to its accuracy as part of the Bible...because it was written by a second generation disciple 60 years after Jesus's death. On top of that, it just doesn't fit with the vibe of the New Testament. New Testament is very much about love and forgiveness, not wrath. Wrath is very Old Testament, which I'll come back to re: Brenner and Vecna...and Lucifer.

I'm not gonna delve into allegory tonight because while the Duffers are picking and choosing bits of the story, they seem to be taking it all very literally. That is to say, this isn't a perfect one-to-one, but what is there? Tells a story.

Let's review:

The 7 Letters: Max writes letters, a total of 10. However, we only focus on 7 of them: Steve, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, El, Will, and Billy. We don't know what they say inside, however it is interesting that Billy is the final letter, akin then to Laodicea (see: Laodicea's entry), which is essentially about lukewarm faith, white robes, and anointed eyes. Max lies to Vecna in her confession, wavers on whether or not she actually wants to die, and ends up in a white hospital gown with healing eyes.

The Living Creatures: - Lion: El in Brenner's lab has a lion doll - Ox: We've got a handful of cow references, the most prominent being 010 and Brenner's dog drawing. Funny how it all seems to tie back, huh. - Man: "He was nothing but an ordinary, mediocre man." re: Brenner and opening the Rifts. - Eagle: "Fly right, Bald Eagle!" re: closing the Gate.

The 4 Horsemen: - Chrissy: First, Conquest, our intro to Vecna Visions. - Fred: Second, War, our intro into the conflict between Hellfire and the Basketball Team. - Patrick: Third, Famine, presented alongside Hopper in Russia before the feast in The Dive (which is actually presented very similarly to The Last Supper). - Max: Fourth, Death, the fourth gate. 22 dead, and the death toll continues to rise.

The Fifth Seal: The martyrs are told to rest until the martyring of their brothers is complete. Max is in her white hospital gown, indefinitely in a coma.

The Sixth Seal: One of many great earthquakes in BoR, after which 144k Hebrews are sealed in the caves. We see one earthquake in the UD in The Dive, where Nancy, Steve, Robin, and Eddie are trapped in the UD.

The Trumpets: - First Trumpet: 1/3 of plant life is killed...I'm looking at the rot in ST2 and the dead flowers in ST4. - Third Trumpet: Wormwood, a great star, falls from the sky in and poisons all fresh water. The spores. Radiationgate. - Fifth Trumpet: The abyss opens, and the smoke from it blots out the sky. Fucked up "locusts" emerge and begin killing. The rifts open, and the smoke blots out the sky. Demo-creatures will spill out into Hawkins and begin killing.

This is where we leave off at the end of ST4. We have not met Satan yet. So far? It's all God.

God did all this, up until this point, as the beginning of a final reckoning for the sinners who populated the Earth. None of that was Satan.

Things do start to get complicated here...because we do technically have a false prophet of sorts. Jason. Jason inspires the people of Hawkins to go against the forces of good in the name of defeating the tragedy befalling Hawkins. He is killed by the Rifts. He is literally killed by a fiery pit. (More on this later, because it's more complex than it seems.)

What's spicy about all this is that...the forces of good are not the religious ones, the "pure" ones, the "normal" ones. They're the freaks. The "satanic cult". They're Hellfire.

So...What is going on in the house of commons?

If Vecna is meant to be Satan, the Antichrist, whatever...why is he so obsessed with truth, penance, and giving himself the artificial moral high ground? Why does he wait for a confession, explicit or implicit, to kill? Why does he torment his victims while claiming to be relieving their suffering?

Because he's punishing the sinners, and he's doing so under the guise of saving them/freeing them from their suffering. Punishing sinners is God's job, not Satan's. Satan punishing sinners is a misconception. Satan is being punished as much as anyone else.

Vecna has the ultimate goal of decimating the human world and remaking it into a "beautiful" place where he and those like him will never suffer or die. Vecna punishes people he deems to be bad until he receives an acceptable confession of guilt, and then he soothes himself about it by killing them and "relieving their suffering".

All things considered:

Vecna, 001, The One, is New Testament God...and plot twist: he's a wrathful dick who hides behind artificial morality...just like Old Testament God.

Okay...so what about Henry? Brenner?

In true Creel form...this is my first loop backward in time. I'm going straight back to the very beginning of Satan's story.

Let's talk Lucifer. God's most beautiful angel. Smart, powerful, capable...and cast out of heaven in disgrace.

His crimes? Daring to believe he and the other angels were equal to God, and later instructing Eve that she didn't have to obey God either, alerting her to the fact that God was hiding things from her. God didn't like that, and sent Lucifer to Hell as punishment.

I'm very very much seeing Brenner and Henry here. Brenner, a wrathful, controlling OT God. He shocks those who disobey (Henry), those who lie or whom Brenner would have you perceive as a liar (Henry and 002), those who oppress (002)...all while being an oppressor and liar himself.

Brenner also quite literally calls himself Papa. Abba. The Almighty Father...and he punishes Henry repeatedly and brutally for being a) uncontrollable and b) spreading information Brenner would rather keep hidden.

He takes away Henry's status as 001, gives him a fake name...and makes him watch as he oppress the other angel--I mean numbers through the same torment he once suffered with no way of stopping it. Henry himself calls it Hell. No one ever said Hell was literally and physically separate from Heaven. Hell is very much a state of mind, and experience. Victor is "still very much in Hell"...but he's in Pennhurst. Henry is in Hell in Brenner's lab. Hell is not a physical place, it is inescapable torment and suffering.

We also get many Lucifer shots of Henry during the Rainbow Room fight...but when his hair is in the Henry style. Not the swept-back Brenner style.

Example:

So Henry is Lucifer, then, right? He's definitely not God then, right?

Yeah. Exactly. He's the fallen angel, and he's also the serpent in OT God's garden of Eden, offering knowledge and awareness to the ignorant Eleve--I mean Eve. He inspires Eve--I mean Eleven to question Papa, who has trapped her in ignorance in the Garden of E--I mean Hawkins National Lab.

But...didn't we just say he's God? Well...no. Not exactly. I said that Vecna is God.

Are we ready for the mindfuck?

Henry and Edward, and the frankly unnecessary swapping in NINA.

As per Em's analysis of The First Shadow...it's highly highly likely that Edward Creel is Vecna, not Henry.

This absolutely tracks with multiple facets:

The cyclical nature of Brenner and one of the Creel boys re: behavior and appearance.

The inexplicable hairstyle change between whichever Creel is in the store closet and...whichever Creel is in the Rainbow Room.

The inconsistency between Vecna's retelling of his childhood...and the expressions of the Creel boy on screen.

Ok, so we've got Brenner as OT God the Father, clearly...but we have Vecna as NT God, 001, The One. That's two Gods in one timeline, and we can't explain how they all seemingly ended up in the same timeline...unless Martin Brenner, Edward Creel, and Vecna are the same person at different times in different circumstances. At least one of the Creel boys is shown to have time travel abilities. Martin Brenner, Edward (?) Creel, and Vecna behave very similarly. All this to say...they're very much seeming like the same guy. There is one God, and you shall not have any other Gods but me...and all that jazz.

Henry said he spent years with 001 in the Rainbow Room. Did anyone ever stop to consider that he may have meant that literally? Did we ever consider that we swap between Henry-hairstyle and Brenner-hairstyle throughout the Rainbow Room fight because El is being fucked with by Brenner/Edward/Vecna...and by extension so are we?

Some supporting evidence here: Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) is very much about swapping places and experiences.

To Summarize: Brenner/Edward are God and Henry is Lucifer. Hellfire club is the satanic cult fighting God....while being the protagonists who believe they're fighting a dark wizard because his actions are horrible.

A clue into this narrative fuckery is Will's painting. The Party is depicated fighting a red dragon, which reeks of the red dragon of Satan. This is likely the represent the fact that they all see Vecna as a demon/monster/Satan figure, despite his God-coding. They see him as Henry...when he is not Henry at all. Vecna is very much God-coded, but he's represented as Satan in Will's painting because everyone sees his deeds as evil...and they are horrible and unjust...and they're all pinned on Henry, our Lucifer.

If there is a physical dragon, it's not going to be biblical...because the biblical dragon does not exist here. There is no satanic dragon, we just discussed that. The dragon is going to be something else, and I'm going to touch on that later.

I want to bring in another source to speak to Henry's probable innocence: Paradise Lost.

Paradise Lost (documentary series) was an inspiration for ST4 and Eddie/The Hellfire Club, specifically in that Eddie was misjudged specifically based on his interests and the way he looks.

Paradise Lost, the docuseries, is about Damien Echols as part of the West Memphis Three, who were falsely accused of brutally murdering and sexually mutilating 3 local boys. The West Memphis Three were Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelly, and Jason Baldwin.

Paradise Lost was originally a poem about Lucifer and the fall of Man. Lucifer is presented as the tragic yet villainous protagonist. His motivations remain very much "evil". I recognize this.

However, the Duffers didn't reference the poem. They referenced the docuseries, in which our "satanic cult" was never proved guilty due to lack of evidence. Just recently, in December of 2021, evidence that was supposedly destroyed in a fire was discovered to have been kept and catalogued by the West Memphis PD (source). The lawyers of the West Memphis 3 now believe all of them may be exonerated when the DNA testing comes back.

We know Eddie is caught up in the timeline fuckery, given the age change between his physical age (19, likely) and his poster age (17), and he also has the whole satanic ritual thing, which wasn't the truth at all. He was trying to stop the murders. This ties into Victor's "demon", who we believe to be Henry based on how ST4 is presented to us on the surface...but based on the surface view, Henry would be Vecna and through him...God. That makes the demon label categorically incorrect. Victor also says he heard the voice of an angel, which drew him out of his trance. Lucifer was originally an angel. However, in the other retelling, Victor is freed by Edward (?) passing out. There is no mention of music.

The thing here is...we have no evidence which conclusively links Henry Creel to any of these murders. We don't have concrete evidence of anything, other than the fact that the murders happened and that a Creel was involved somehow. We don't see the killing of the children. There's no footage of Alice's death. We're not even given the Creel boy's name in the second retelling. We have no conclusive evidence that that's Henry. We do, however, see a blood-splattered 001 in the lab...and a blood-free Henry (?).

Just like the West Memphis Three, there's no evidence of guilt for Henry in any of the murders. However, we also don't see a concrete Henry again after the blood-free shot. It's highly possible that Edward (?)/Vecna killed him. We simply don't know what happened to him.

Lucifer may already be dead by God's hand. We just don't know.

I'd also like to point out a couple of details re: Paradise Lost and Stranger Things:

Jesse Misskelly: Miss Kelley, who was supposedly seeing all of Vecna's victims, and who wears a pendant of a clock on a key. She also shows up on the board beside the Library-Progress poster, the Drama Club/Monologues flyer, and the Tutors Needed poster. There's no evidence that she did anything wrong, and it's likely she doesn't know any more than anyone else, but it's suspicious that she's so connected to Vecna/The Creels in both plot and imagery. It makes you question the depth of her involvement.

Jason Baldwin: Jason Carver. The guy I said was a false prophet, but who I also indicated is more complicated than he seems. The thing about Jason is that he is not knowingly a false prophet. If he had all the facts, he'd likely be siding with Hellfire. He's trying to fight what he perceives as the evil in Hawkins...based on limited information. Even so, he's raising an army to fight the evil, and Vecna is aware of that because it's happening in Hawkins. Jason is an adversary. Adverary. Satan. He believes it's Hellfire who is responsible, that Hellfire is in cahoots with Vecna, who is perceived as Satan. However, Hellfire is anti Vecna. When Jason blasphemes Vecna via Hellfire...he's unknowingly blaspheming God. Thus, the fiery pit. There was no true false prophet, just some guy who went mad with grief and didn't have all the necessary information and wanted to fight the evil that killed his girlfriend.

Along those lines, I also want to talk about Nancy's beast.

Nancy's beast should at least be representative of Satan, then, right? Not necessarily. The beast in Book of Revelation is highly symbolic, and is thought to be representative of the oppressive Roman Empire.

There's one player everyone seems to forget in Stranger Things: The US Military.

The military, who consume most of our national budget like a gaping maw, and who are currently coming after the person committing murders in Hawkins. The believe it's El, but the person they want is Vecna. It's exactly the same as Jason and Eddie. They're all unknowingly coming after God while chasing someone who isn't God. Like Hopper says in ST1...they're chasing the wrong kid.

All those with the sign of the beast will be condemned. Guns don't work on Demogorgons. The military, who bear symbols that designate them as such...signs of the beast if you will...will be decimated.

That isn't to say a beast won't appear. It very much may, but it's not actually linked to Henry/Lucifer. The beast is more likely representative of the US Military as an adversary of Vecna, just like the dragon in the painting is only representative of Vecna via narrative fuckery.

The dragon in the painting will not exist in relation to Vecna/God, hence it doesn't appear in Nancy's vision. The military does exist as an adversary to Vecna/God, hence the beast appears in Nancy's vision.

Adversary. Satan.

In true Creel fashion, it's time to loop back to the very beginning of this post.

Jericho. The working title of ST5. What did I say about the Battle of Jericho?

There was no Devil. Lucifer exists vaguely, somewhere offscreen. We don't know where he is. Satan, though, simply translates to adversary.

It was just God, an earthquake, and Jericho.

There is no "Evil Devil" in Stranger Things' rendition of the Book of Revelation. Henry may exist, but he also may have been dead before the plot even began. We don't know where he is. Our figures of Satan are just a collection of adversaries against Vecna.

It's just Vecna, an earthquake, and Hawkins.

Right?

Well. We've missed a couple figures here, haven't we?

Jesus, the Archangel Michael, and the Holy Spirit.

Will Byers (Guillermo Maldonado?) and Mike Wheeler...and the Shadow.

This is where we come back to the tone of the Book of Revelation in comparison to the tone of the New Testament.

The Book of Revelation is very out of place in comparison to Jesus' teachings of love, peace, and forgiveness. God goes ham in Book of Revelation, to the point of frankly unnecessary pain, harm, and cruelty. So why would Jesus, Mr. "Loves Saves All", get involved in that? Why would Archangel Michael, "healer of the sick and champion of goodness", get caught up in that?

Logically, they shouldn't. Unnecessary cruelty goes against everything they seem to advocate for.

Everything Vecna does goes against everything Will and Mike stand for. Byler won't have a villain arc. Byler will not join Vecna. Jesus is not going to join God, here...and neither will Archangel Michael.

Archangel Michael fights Satan's red dragon, which we discussed as nothing but a narrative distortion of Vecna and Henry when present in Will's painting.

However, the painting is not biblical. Will didn't literally paint Mike fighting the devil. It's DnD. That dragon is likely Tiamat, the evil mother of all dragons. She is very similar in personality to the Whore of Babylon, who rides upon Satan's red dragon, and who reeks of Virginia...and by extension Karen.

Mike is fighting the mommy issues dragon. He's fighting the physical manifestation of his neglectful relationship with his mother, and Will is going to be be his side to help him.

Classic Byler W.

Finally...The Shadow, our Holy Spirit.

I'd like to call attention to some wording surrounding the Holy Spirit and the Shadow especially in relation to Jesus.

Luke 4:1: Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.

Matthew 10:20: For it is not you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

John 16:5-7: Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you.

Acts 2:1-4: Suddenly a sound came from heaven. It was like a strong wind blowing...The flames separated and settled on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. 

In ST2, Will is possessed by the Shadow via Vecna. One might say he is full of the Shadow. When Will first sees the Shadow in one of his visions, there is a strong wind. He becomes more and more replaced by Vecna/the Shadow as time goes on. Vecna speaks through Will. Joyce asks "What happens when my boy is gone?"

In ST3, once Billy is all but gone, when Vecna can truly speak though him, he begins to send the Shadow to others. They were filled with the Shadow.

Then, in ST4, we see the Shadow in Russia. When asked about the freed/revived demodogs, the Russians say the Shadow "went into them". They were filled with the Shadow.

Are we convinced yet? Do we need more? How about this:

The Holy Spirit acts at God's command; it is an agent of divine action.

The Shadow acts at Vecna's command; it is an agent of his action.

All this, all these hundreds of words to say a few things:

In Stranger Things, Jericho = Book of Revelation.

There is no "Evil Devil" figure in Stranger Things. God is the bad guy.

Vecna is God, and so is Brenner.

Vecna is most likely Edward Creel.

Via the canonical time-travel powers of at least one Creel boy, Edward Creel and Martin Brenner are likely the same person.

Henry Creel is Lucifer.

Henry Creel is also innocent.

We don't know if Henry's alive or not, and if he is alive we don't know where he is.

Mike's dragon is most likely Tiamat, the DnD Mommy Issues Dragon.

The Duffers ship Jesus and Archangel Michael. Deadass.

A few interesting but ultimately unnecessary details below the cut:

In 1984, the same year ST2 is set in, Depeche Mode released Blasphemous Rumors. It's a song about the perceived cruelty of God. In it, a girl attempts suicide and fails. She finds new life in the church, only to be struck by a car and killed. The chorus goes: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humor // and when I die, I expect to find Him laughing."

U2 released Joshua Tree in 1987, the year ST5 is supposedly going to be set in and/or skip. It was immensely popular and jam-packed with biblical references. The Mormons (Suzie!) named the physical Joshua Tree is named after biblical Joshua...the same Joshua from the Battle of Jericho. Here's some more about The Joshua Tree:

Book of Revelation is a wartime piece. It's highly debated as to whether it's an actual vision, or if it's just John of Patmos, a second-generation disciple embittered by Jesus' failure to return as promised to save his people from the Romans, writing a fix-it fic where God brutally kills everyone except John's people. Is it a vision? Is it God? Or is it just the vengeance-porn work of a traumatized second-generation disciple who feels abandoned? No one actually knows. Is Vecna literally God? Or is he just a traumatized, abused boy who wants vengeance on the society that harmed and abandoned him? No one actually knows.

Kronos, in Greek mythology, is the god of time. He's the father of the Greek gods, all of whom he tried to consume. He is equated to Father Time in modern folklore. Edward (?) Creel has time travel abilities...god of time...Father Time...Papa...Brenner...consuming the Greek gods...consuming the numbers...just something to chew on.

Henry's costuming seems to be modeled after altar boy robes, both as a child and as an adult. We all know about the rape scandals with altar boys in the Catholic church. The Pope, God's official mouthpiece to the world, let it happen. Priests, also referred to as Father (cough Papa cough) were involved in raping boys...and the Pope covered it up. God, essentially, let it happen. Both our God figures being rapists, specifically of children/boys, may be a commentary on this scandal.

#i'm henry creel's defense lawyer via meta analysis #free my boy henry!! #this was a monster to research and write #henry creel #edward creel #edward/vecna/001 #martin brenner #stranger things analysis #stranger things jericho #stranger things and the bible #stranger things book of revelation #st5 predictions #tw rape #tw csa

[champion-of-the-jotnar]

Something, something about it being already established that the archons’s true names are their goetic titles (Barbatos for Venti, Morax for Zhongli, Beelzebul for Ei and Baal for Makoto, Buer for Kusanali/Nahida/Rukkhadevata since Nahida and Kusanali are the same titles for the same person and Nahida is Rukkhadevata reincarnated, Focalors for the Hydro Archon, etc etc)…

Something, something about how it’s already been established within the Genshin Community that those names are the names of demons from the Lesser Key of Solomon, more specifically the Ars Goetia…

Something, something about how it’s outlined in Before Sun and Moon that before the archons and current world order of Teyvat, there was a single Primordial God who colonized Teyvat by defeating the Seven Dragon Sovereigns after creating four shades of themselves…

Something, something about how the Unknown God (who claims to be the SUSTAINER of Heavenly Principles) is named “Asmoday” in Genshin Impact’s files, which immediately reminds me of the demon Asmodeus who also appears in the Ars Goetia…

Something, something about how Asmoday seems to manipulate space-like elements, which could mean she’s one of the Shining Shades, presumably of Space…

Something, something about how in the Amethyst Crown artifact description from the artifact set “Flower of Paradise Lost” it says that the Primordial One gave the message:

Something, something about how Celestia nuked all the ancient civilizations in Dragonspine, the Chasm and the Eternal Oasis and how since their ruins the same architecture style, they were probably once one large prospering civilization, with Sal Vindagnyr getting a huge nail dropped on them, referencing back to the ‘nail of retribution’ the Primordial One presumably threatened against their own children out of fear…

Something, something about how it was outlined in Before Sun and Moon that the Primordial One might be Phanes…

Something, something about how Kairos/Isatroth is already an established shade, and Isatroth is probably her goetic title with Kairos being an alias since Kairos is from greek mythology and so is the name “Phanes” (who was the god of creation and light in Greek mythos)...

Something, something about how Aether and Lumine’s names are a play on the words ‘luminiferous ether’ which is the medium by which light travels through space and is thereby associated with light and space…

Something, something about how Aether in Greek Mythos is the god and personification of, and I quote: “light and bright, blue ether of the heavens”...

______________________________________________________________

Something, something about how if you look in the Enkanomiya achievements, you see the following achievements: Kairos’ Constancy, Phosphorous’ Guidance, and Hesperus’ Boons…

Something, something about how if Kairos, the Shade of Time, is in those achievements, then Phosphorous and Hesperus are most likely shades of Phanes/The Primordial One as well…

Something, something about how Phosphorous means The Morning Star, which is the planet Venus in the morning, and how Hesperus translates to The Evening Star, which is the planet Venus in the evening.

Something, something about how Aether and Lumine have sun-themed and moon-themed clothes respectively (Aether being more warm-toned, Lumine being more cold-toned), which might parallel morning and evening star in addition to their white and gold and blue and brown pure color schemes paralleling that of angels...

Something, something about how they had fallen from heaven (Celestia) in the form of the brightest shooting stars…

Something, something about how Mona says this in her final ascension line dubbed ‘Conclusion’: “In the reflection of the water, I see the ascension of the morning star.”

Something, something about how the fallen angel Lucifer is also related to Venus just like Phosphorous and Hesperus are…

Something, something about how Lucifer was once a powerful and glorified angel and a figure of enlightenment and glory according to the Bogomil and Cather Text in the Gospel of the Secret Supper, just like how the Traveler twin we play as is portrayed in the game…

Something, something about how Lucifer fell from heaven to establish his own kingdom and became the prince of darkness, just like how the Abyss Twin becomes the prince/princess of the abyss…

Something, something about how Kairos/Istaroth is a parallel to the demon Astaroth… something, something about how Paimon is most obedient to Lucifer in the Ars Goetia and is his most loyal and devoted servant...

Something, something about how the Primordial One’s true goetic title, consequentially, could be Lucifer.

Something, something about how Aether and Lumine are related to the morning and evening star, and thus, the planet Venus, and could be related to Lucifer or the Primordial One.

Something, something about how perhaps… the twins ARE Shades… or perhaps…

They are the morning and evening stars. The brightest stars. Glorified, nigh-almighty figures of the heavens that have fallen from grace. Perhaps... they are Lucifer. Perhaps...

#aether genshin impact #lumine genshin impact #traveler twins genshin #traveler genshin impact #theory post #shitpost #for legal reasons I'm not a devil worshipper #this is just a theory #genshin impact #primordial one genshin impact #phanes genshin impact #kairos genshin impact #istaroth genshin impact #ars goetia #lesser key of solomon #unknown god genshin impact #y'all don't understand #im going insane rn #Paimon genshin impact

[imsorryimlate]

I think it’s very easy to make parallels between Adam’s reasoning and incels, but stepping away from it a bit, I think there’s an obvious difference: while incels believe that they have been rejected by “the female population” which they claim to have a right to, Adam feels himself rejected by mankind as a whole. So why is he too demanding a female companion, specifically?

I think it is interesting because so far, the companions he has sought out haven’t been women as such. When he was seeking companionship with the De Lacey family, he wasn’t focused on Agatha or Safie in particular, no, he was focused on the family as a whole, I would almost argue that his focus was somewhat slanted towards Felix and Mr De Lacey. Likewise, his next attempt at companionship was to kidnap a boy child, William.

So again, how did he go from that to the conclusion that he wants a female companion?

After killing William, Adam sees Caroline’s picture and expresses his attraction towards her. Previously he has described people as beautiful, but iirc this is the first time he speaks of attraction. So it could be that he realises that he specifically wants a companion with whom he can have a sexual relationship, which is disturbing, since he doesn’t plan on giving his companion a choice of being with him; he already assumes that she will be, no matter her feelings.

But also, perhaps he always wanted a female companion, but until now he sought out potential companions that already exist and therefore there’s a limit to what he can expect them to be. Given the opportunity to have a companion made “from scratch”, he chooses to request a female companion.

In a way, it makes sense considering his education from Paradise Lost. Now, I haven’t read it at all, but from what I understand it’s something of a retelling of the biblical creation myth, and that one I am intimately familiar with (having both studied it closely in an academic context and translated it myself). So, when God created (the biblical) Adam, Adam tried to find a companion among the other creatures but was unsuccessful, as he wanted someone who was like him. Then God created Eve, the female companion of the male creation (I’m holding back from discussing gender in the creation myth further, because there is so much to say, but this is not the time or place). Adam (the creature) reading that would quite naturally assume that the companion created for him should be female, to “complement” his maleness.

But that made me think: how did Adam come to understand himself as male? He “grew up” completely isolated, so where would he have gotten the information? Even if he watched the De Lacey family closely and intimately enough to see a physical variation between Agatha/Safie and Felix/Mr De Lacey/himself, would he understand what that means?

Which makes me wonder if he wants a female companion specifically because of a true desire for “the female”, or simply because it is what he understands to be the natural complement to himself as male. Incels want a female companion because they see women as a subspecies which they have an inherent right to, but for all of Adam’s incel tendencies, I would say it’s rash to assume he holds the same views and values, especially considering how limited his education and life experiences are.

#i want to dissect adam’s gender so badly #i hope there’s some articles on it i can check out once we’re done #frankenstein weekly #meta #adjacent at least #my meta

[ruiconteur]

Any chance you could explain the five poem references in the chorus of 山外? 👀👀👀

(I love love love ur tls and the accompanying notes for context/elaboration, you put so much thought and effort into them and it shows!! Just read ur tl of Hen Bie and cried ;-;)

i'll take any chance to obsess over classical chinese poetry so i'd be delighted to :D ty for finally giving me the motivation to flesh out my explanations of them in my translation bc i've been too lazy to do it before this, but also you might regret having asked me this by the time you finish reading this post lol

also i'm rly rly glad you liked my tl of henbie! the last line still gives me ulcers every time i think about it, it was so difficult 😭

anyway so 山外 chorus!! it has eight lines split into two stanzas and the first three lines of each stanza is a poetic reference which is absolutely insane to me?? lyricist大大 真是太佩服您了

the first line of both stanzas is 山外青山楼外楼 / beyond the mountains are yet more verdant mountains—beyond the towers are yet more towers. i translated it a bit more literally to get the parallel structure, but a more figurative translation might be something like an unending expanse of verdant mountains—the buildings stretch on for so long one cannot tell where they begin or end.

this line comes from the 七绝 / seven-character quatrain 《题临安邸》 / on the subject of the inns and residences in lin'an by song dynasty poet 林升 lin sheng. (note: 邸 here refers to an inn, but i've also translated it as residence to emphasise lin sheng's criticism of the government officials who have come, in his view, to visit lin'an in this poem.)

the poem goes something like this (aka, have yet another very rough tl):

山外青山楼外楼， / beyond the mountains are yet more verdant mountains—beyond the towers are yet more towers; 西湖歌舞几时休？ / at what hour will the singing and dancing on the western lake come to an end? 暖风熏得游人醉， / the fragrance wafting through the warm breeze sweeps the sight-seers into a drunken stupor; 直把杭州作汴州。 / they have simply taken hangzhou to be once-glorious bianzhou.

context! this poem was written after the fall of the (northern) song to the jurchen invaders. as the capital of the song dynasty, bianzhou (known today as kaifeng) was captured and sacked by the jurchen, and the song rulers who managed to escape fled to southern china, whereupon they made hangzhou the capital of the southern song. the emperor gaozong, the only one of the imperial house who wasn't in bianzhou at the time, took the throne in lin'an, which he favoured for being a 人间天堂 (paradise on earth, basically). the officials then proceeded to engage wantonly in song and dance—that is, in a life of degenerate extravagance and debauchery, and it got to the point where hangzhou was labelled a 销金锅 (lit. "a pot of melting gold"), which is now used to describe a place in which huge amounts of money and gold are frittered away. it was this exact attitude that this poem is criticising lol.

(i'm putting the rest under a read more because i am apparently incapable of shutting up)

the second line is 不如黄鹂鸣翠柳 / it cannot compare to the singing of golden orioles in jade-green willows. this line is adapted from the first line of the third (and most famous) of 杜甫 du fu's 《绝句四首》 / four quatrains: 两个黄鹂鸣翠柳 / two golden orioles sing in jade-green willows.

some background info on du fu because the guy is just ridiculous: he's known as one of the three greatest tang dynasty poets, aka the triumvirate 李杜白 lidubai, which stands for 李白 li bai, 杜甫 du fu, and 白居易 bai juyi. depending on who you ask, either he or li bai is the greatest classical chinese poet of all time. he's known as either the 诗圣 / poet-sage, for the way he engages with morality in his poetry, and also the 诗史 / poet-historian, because of his extant poetry (and it's a truly insane amount, btw, i mean, close to 1500, which is wild for a guy who lived in the 8th century), many were intended as political commentary and therefore indirectly shed light on the effects felt by the common people. anyway, he's also extremely notable for his range and technical excellence, because given just how many poems he wrote, it's kind of understandable that he ended up writing in all the poetic forms available to him at the time. but also wow.

the most incredible part to me about him is that he specialised in 律诗 / regulated verse (about two-thirds of his extant poetry is in this form) which is. holy shit. this form is incredibly demanding, and it's absolutely astounding just how easy du fu makes it look. i won't get into it here because i've already rambled enough about him, but if you watched shl, part of his poem 《登高》 / climbing the heights, which is one of the best existing examples of 律诗 out there, was quoted in the lyrics for 天涯客, and i explain it in the footnotes of my translation.

anyway, onto the actual poem! the context is that it was written after the an-shi rebellion was quelled; coincidentally, it was this exact rebellion that greatly influenced du fu's writing. after learning that his good friend yan wu, the governor-general of chengdu, had returned to his post, du fu too returned to his home in chengdu in great spirits. upon seeing the fresh and vivid spring scenery, he was seized by the impulse to compose a poem about it. the reason it's just named 绝句 / quatrains is because he didn't think of a title before writing it and was too lazy to come up with one afterwards (mood).

the couplet that's quoted also uses parallelism, btw. specifically:

两、一 -> number 个、行 -> measure word 黄、白 -> adjective: colour 鹂、鹭 -> noun: type of bird 鸣、上 -> verb 翠、青 -> adjective: colour 柳、天 -> noun: nature

(yeah he writes like that. constantly. how, you ask? excellent question, i don't know either.)

anyway, the full poem, as roughly translated by me:

两个黄鹂鸣翠柳， / two golden orioles sing in jade-green willows; 一行白鹭上青天。 / a line of white herons rise into the blue skies. 窗含西岭千秋雪， / within the window—snow atop the western ridges, gathered over a thousand autumns; 门泊东吴万里船。 / outside the door—vessels in anchorage, come ten thousand miles from eastern wu.

and now, finally, the third line! this one isn't a line from a poem, but the title of one: 春江花月夜 by tang dynasty poet 张若虚 zhang ruoxu, which i've translated as flowers by the spring river on a moonlit night. i won't be translating the full poem because it's incredibly long and this post is long enough as is, but it's gorgeous. it was praised by the poet 闻一多 wen yiduo as being 诗中的诗，顶峰上的顶峰 / the poem of poems, the pinnacle of pinnacles, and is also considered to have 压全唐 / surpassed the entirety of the tang [in poetry], which is insane considering just how many incredible poems/poets came out of the tang dynasty, aka the literal golden age of chinese poetry (if you recall, 李杜白 lidubai were all tang dynasty poets).

this is a 宫体诗 / palace-style poem, and each character in the title is described in great detail: 春 / spring, for the gentle and exquisite spring; 江 / river, for the winding and flowing river; 花 / flowers, for the hazy but resplendent flowers; 月 / moon, for the glow of the distant moon reflected in water; and 夜 / night, for the tranquil and melancholic night.

other than the scenery, this poem also explores the enigmas of the universe and human existence—specifically, how although each of our lives are short and limited, the existence of humanity as a whole stretches on unendingly, much like the bright moon that rises over the river day after day. it then goes on to describe the yearning of a wife for her travelling husband (fun fact: he's travelling by boat on the river), and the last line in particular is very, well. it's very li lianhua-core, shall we say? 不知乘月几人归，落月摇情满江树。 / i know not how many will return with the moonlight; the falling moon sways with the sorrow of parting, spilling it over the riverside trees. yeah. :)

next up is a quote from tang dynasty poet 王勃 wang bo, who wrote one of my absolute favourite couplets of all time, it literally rewrote my brain chemistry omg: 海内存知己，天涯若比邻。 / as long as there remains someone who knows me within the four oceans, we will be as neighbours even at the edges of the earth. (i definitely shoved it in here bc it's relevant to this post since zeng shunxi quoted it in his farewell letter to fang duobing and absolutely not bc i just wanted to :D)

anyway the ACTUAL quote is 物换星移几度秋 / landscapes change and stars shift—how many autumns have passed? it comes from the poem 《滕王阁诗》 / prince teng's pavilion: a poem, which is considered a founding piece of tang literature. in days of yore, this pavilion was constructed by prince teng, son of the tang emperor gaozu, and was often used by him to host great feasts and guests, but now that he's now long gone, the only thing left is the empty expanse of river water that flows beneath the railings. basically, it laments the ephemeral prosperity and declines of human life, particularly when contrasted against the perpetuity of the universe.

and now, at long last, the final poetic reference! the line in question is 举杯销愁愁更愁 / raise a cup to drown your sorrows, but the sorrows only worsen, which, apart from referencing a classical poem, also links back to a very similar line from the opening theme 就在江湖之上 / at the pinnacle of the jianghu: 千杯不醉入愁肠 / a thousand cups of wine lead not to intoxication but despair.

as for the poem, this one comes from 李白 li bai, the man the legend the icon himself, poet-drunkard-swordsman-hermit-he of the multiple moon and wine poems (although that pretty much describes all of classical chinese poetry so, eh). i only know three (five?) chinese poems by heart in their entirety and one of them is by this guy (静夜思, bc every cn diaspora kid learns that growing up).

this particular poem, 《宣州谢朓楼饯别校书叔云》 / ascending xie tiao's pavilion in xuanzhou for a farewell repast with uncle yun of the imperial record-keepers, is a leavetaking poem (clearly), and opens with the lines 弃我去者，昨日之日不可留。乱我心者，今日之日多烦忧。 / yesterday, which has abandoned me, can no longer be pleaded with to stay. today, which upsets my heart, causes me much anxiety. then it takes a rapid one-eighty into describing the gorgeous scenery (长风万里送秋雁 / the great winds escort the wild geese through the autumn skies) and the noble aspirations being discussed while drinking their fill atop this tall pavilion. and then right after the couplet 俱怀逸兴壮思飞，欲上青天览明月 / all harbouring intrepid and grandiose thoughts, in our surging states of mind, we desire to leap into the blue skies and take the bright moon into our arms, the poem plummets once more into the abyss of misery at the realisation that these ideals/aspirations sharply conflict with reality. (remind you of someone?)

here's where the couplet this song quotes comes into play: 抽刀断水水更流，举杯消愁愁更愁。 / draw a blade to stem the flow of water, but the surge of water only gets fiercer; raise a cup to drown your sorrows, but the sorrows only worsen. it is at this moment that the poet decides, you know what, i'm going to retire to live in the jianghu. specifically, he says: 人生在世不称意，明朝散发弄扁舟。 / since life in this world is so incongruous with my desires, i may as well let my hair down and drift through the jianghu on a small boat. :) everything's about li lianhua here huh.

and there you have it! 2,222 words about all the poetic references (that i'm aware of) in 山外.

#mysterious lotus casebook #li lianhua #li xiangyi #fang duobing #di feisheng #tagging them bc i think this song is about liansanjiao #莲花楼 #lhl #rui rambles #goddamn this is basically a whole essay alr #if you read this whole thing know that i am giving you a massive hug rn. or whatever else you prefer if you don't like hugs. #i'd like to thank my handy dandy book of 唐诗三百首 / three hundred tang poems for single-handedly carrying me through this pseudo-essay #couldn't have done it without you bestie

[mask131]

For my last Helluva Boss celebration I made a whole series of posts about the Nine Circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno (see a few reblogs below). For my new Helluva Boss celebration, I wanted to take a look at various literary depictions of the seven deadly sins as personifications. This post was originally prepared to celebrate Mammon’s Magnificent Musical, but given the release of “Look My Way”, it will still work even though I post it quite late.

When it comes to looking at classic embodiments of the deadly sins, I want to begin with one of the “modern, non-Antique epics” that marked the history of literature, like the Orlando Furioso or Paradise Lost. I want to take a look today at Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, the great British epic of the 16th-17th centuries, a medieval-romance-like set of stories depicting the adventures of allegorical knights fighting allegorical monsters. The poem is filled with characters embodying various vices and virtues – the very heroes of the story are a set of knights acting as the champions of the various Christian virtues (the Redcross Knight is the champion of Holiness, as an avatar of saint Georges the patron of England ; Guyon, first of the Faerie Queen’s knights, is the champion of Temperance ; Britomart, the woman-knight, is the champion of Chastity, Artegal is the champion of Justice, etc, etc.) ; while the villains are very unsubtle in their nature (a female demon named Ate is assisted by Duessa – deceit – and spreads discord among friends ; a lonely man named Despair convinces the hero to kill himself, etc, etc.)

But today I want to focus on a specific episode of the epic’s first book. An episode usually known as the “House of Pride” and where the main hero (the Red-Cross Knight, the protagonist of the epic’s first book) encounters the embodiments of the seven deadly sins.

For a bit of context, the depiction of the seven deadly sins here is meant to parallel and counter-exemplify two other parts of the poem. On one side, the House of Pride is later opposed by the “House of Holiness” where the Redcross-Knight is helped, healed and cared for by a lady named Caelia, who has three daughters, Fidelia, Speranza and Charissa. This is all supposed to embody the Christian concept of the “three theological virtues”, the three virtues that come from God – Faith, Hope and Charity, born of “The Sky/The Heavens”. On the other side, the House of Pride and its queen are meant to mirror the titular Faerie Queene of the poem, Queen Gloriana – a very flattering fictional portrait of Elisabeth the First, but also the embodiment of “Glory” as her name says. Aka the positive, well-deserved and non-sinful twin of the viceful Pride – here embodied by the dreaded lady Lucifera.

Lady Lucifera is, it comes to no surprise, the owner and ruler of the House of Pride. The other deadly are all male, and act as both her counselors and her court wizards (being called alternatively “sage counselors” and “old wizards”). This all fits within the accepted idea that pride is not just the most dangerous and “important” of the seven deadly sins, it is also their root and their “superior”. In many metaphors, it is translated by pride being seen as the “king” or “mother” of the other deadly sins: in the Faerie Queene, she is their ruler, their queen. But, in an interesting twist, Spenser establishes a true relationship of co-dependency between the sins: the other six might be Pride’s servants… but they are still her advisors, counselors, and they are later literally seen pulling her chariot, clearly showing that while Pride leads them and gives them order, without the other sins, Pride would literally go nowhere.

But let us return to Lucifera before looking at her “old wizards”. Lucifera is obviously named after Lucifer, the figure of the fallen angel that became a devil, if not THE devil, for thinking of himself as better than humanity, and ultimately rebelling against God and trying to cast Him down. Lucifer is commonly seen as THE demon embodying pride – and Spenser also loves to throw various references to the mythological origins of Lucifer, as his name meaning “light-bearer” is due to how, in Greco-Roman mythology, Lucifer was the spirit of the Morning Star, announcing dawn. Here, Lucifera is constantly described as “bright” or as “shining”, and when she leaves her castle on her chariot, she is explicitly compared to “Aurora in her purple pall” coming out from the east of the world – aka, Eos, the Greek goddess of Dawn. Not only that, but the excessive “shine” and almost blinding light that is emitted by the lady of Pride is also put in parallel to the light of Phaeton. Remember Phaeton? The human who thought he could drive the chariot of Helios/Phoebus, the god of the sun? And who in the process almost destroyed the earth, and had to be killed by being thrown out of the sky with a fire-bolt? Another example of pride punished, and one explicitly meant to mirror Lucifer’s own fall from Heaven. But this woman is not a fallen angel, no: rather she is described as an actual goddess, “daughter of grisly Pluto and sad Proserpina, queen of Hell”. So, she is a deity, but part of the grim, sinister, chthonian gods of death, and she is a princess true, but a princess of the Underworld (aka Hell, since the two are treated as one and the same, and Pluto/Proserpina gained demonic connotations by this time). Already we have here a Pride that is explicitly rooted in death and the afterlife, in darkness, oblivion and rot – we are in the same logic as the “vanities” and the “memento mori”, the lesson that ultimately nothing is eternal, and vanity is a folly because all beautiful faces will end up as a skull.

However Spenser cleverly also prepares us, by this mythological references, to the presentation of what Lucifera’s behavior and crimes are. Because Lucifera is not one of those “vain fools” who think of themselves as beautiful when they are not – on the contrary. Lucifera is immensely beautiful, and even if it wasn’t for her beauty, she sits in an array of immense luxury, wearing the most refined and outstanding clothes and dazzling jewelries you can imagine. Lucifera is a truly admirable figure – quite literally since it is said that knights and lords from all four corners of the world come to her palace to admire her. The twist lies in HOW she behaves and acts. Because Lucifera does not care for her many guests, hosts and admirers, treating them with only scorn and disdain – breaking the basic law of hospitality and the rules of courtly behavior by her immense selfishness. Her many admirers and courtiers are said to constantly make themselves prettier, shinier, more noble and more appealing, attracting, charming, all in the hope of pleasing her – but she does not care at all for all their effort, and probably does not even notice them. When great knights and lords offer themselves to her, she does thank them… But in a disdainful way, and with very brief words, and only because they promised to spread words of her fame and glory and beauty. She is said to hate everything that is “low” (which is why, out of allegorical joke, she always sits on a high throne and makes sure she is above everyone else) – but given she thinks of everything outside of herself as “low”, she ends up hating everybody. She only looks at two things – either her hand-mirror (because her own reflection brings her “great delight and joy”), either the heavens. Again, due to a hatred of “anything low” and a desire to only have the highest, tallest and grandest things – but also because she rejects her own chthonian, underworld-roots. Indeed, while she is the daughter of Pluto and Proserpina (Hades and Persephone), she rather places herself on the same level (and sometimes above) as Jove (aka Zeus). Zeus/Jove, Eos/Aurora, and Phaeton: Lucifera dreams and fashions herself after the celestial beings of the sky and of light, when in truth she is a chthonian entity of death, earth and darkness.

Not only that, but she fashions herself a queen when she is not… Remember when I said that she was the daughter of Pluto and Proserpina, king and queen of Hell? It makes her a princess alright… An eternal princess, since her parents are immortal gods and thus will never pass any crown onto her. But Lucifera, devoured by ambition and arrogance, HAD to be a queen. So what did she do? She went onto earth and there obtained a crown… “with wrong and tyranny”. She literally stole and took by force a crown that was not hers, usurped a territory and made herself the sole and absolute ruler of it. Not only is she a false ruler with no actual right to sit on the throne, but she even went as far as to usurp a domain that had no relationship to her parents, lineage or world – daughter of the principles of death and the underworld, she decided to make herself a queen of the livings onto earth’s surface… Even worse, she is not a good queen, because according to Spenser, beyond being a “tyrant”, she does not rule with “laws” but with “policies”. And in the language of the time, “policies” are here to mean “cunning and crafty devices”. She is a tyrant who not only brutally seized a crown and usurped a thrown, but on top of that establishes her rule through cunning, trickery and unlawful behavior (it is not surprise that here, her counsel is explicitly described as being formed of “six wizards” – they are not men of the law, they are not men of politics or courtiers, they are not men of war or economy, they are wizards and sorcerers, forming a government of magic tricks and deceiving enchantments). As a visual touch to denote the evilness and danger inherent to her superb appearance: at her feet, lies a dragon, that forms a “hideous trayne” to her glorious, shining, sparkling and luxurious dress.

[There is also a “gentle husher” that works for queen Lucifera, and notably always prepare her passage before she goes anywhere, obviously called Vanity, but there isn’t much to say here since he is a one-line reference]

Just as important as Lucifera herself is the palace she lives within and rules from: the House of Pride, which is the architectural twin of Lucifera, and the inanimate embodiment of the sin of Pride (and of all sins and vices in general). The House of Pride is described as a great and grandly palace, all filled with luxuries, all shining and bright… It is covered in gold! Or rather… it is foiled in golds. The walls of the palace were covered in a thin layer of gold to hide the actual material in which the castle was made – a very rough and very poor material. Great and high walls that impress everyone by their size – but which are made of bricks without mortar, and are thus very easy to destroy. The palace is thought of as grandiose because it has many hallways and numerous towers and a LOT of rooms – but its foundations are actually very weak, since the castle was built… on a “sandy hill”. A hill of sand that is very unstable and regularly collapses – threatening the entire palace, which “shakes with every strong wind”. Finally, while everybody amasses themselves and awaits by the front of the palace, its backrooms and back-parts, those not seen from the path leading to the House, are noted to all be old ruins… but “painted cunningly” to hide their own decrepitude. You could say that Vanity, the “gentle husher”, is an extension of the House of Pride itself – since it all depicts the sin of vanity itself. A great care of appearances and an obsession with beauty forcing one to hide the truth, to fight foolishly and senselessly the effects of time or one’s true nature, all to create a deceptive idea of an ideal self that never truly existed. More generally, the House of Pride represents the very trap that is a sin, or a vice in general – it is the House of Evil if you want. It is grandiose, immense, beautiful, shining, with all sorts of riches and treasures… But it is built out of poor materials, it offers no real protection or comfort, its riches are only skin-deep (or wallpaper-deep), and it is overall an unstable structure that is already a half-ruin. The danger of the House is made even more explicit by the large road that leads to it – a large pathway that many people take to go to the House, but that very few people use to leave… And when Lucifera leaves her castle on her chariot, and goes down the road, the protagonist can suddenly see what paves the way and that he missed before – the things the wheels of Lucifera’s chariot gleefully crushes. The bones and skulls of all those that “went astray” and went by the House of Pride…

The dual of nature of the House and Lucifera (who represent the two sides of pride – Lucifera is scorn, disdain, ambition and arrogance, while the House is vanity and vainglory, Lucifera is the “superbia” pride while the House is the “vanagloria” pride) is even reflected in a sort of bizarre “competition” that is sets between the two. Indeed, when we see Lucifera sitting on her throne… The poet sarcastically describes how both the throne and the queen on it shine brightly, and they glitter and sparkle so much as if “the blaze of the glorious throne” and the blaze of the queen herself tried to “dim each other”. Pride will always be the most envious and jealous of itself…

After spending some times inside the House, we follow Lucifera as she leaves her castle and takes her coach by the road. The coach is just as luxurious and glittering and blazing as the House and the queen, since it is all of “gold and garlands”. And again, we have explicit mythological comparisons: Lucifera, with all those flowers around her, make her look like “Flora in her prime”… But she actually tries to imitate and surpass another goddess – Juno, aka Hera, queen of the gods and the heavens. The parallel is even reinforced by the presence of peacock feathers on the chariot. “Argus’ eyes”, on one side, the mythological emblems of Juno/Hera… But also the common symbol of vanity and pride, the peacock being considered THE bird of this sin.

And if it was not clear enough that this was an EVIL queen, the coachman of Lucifera, the one holding the whip… Is said to be none other than Satan himself. Aka THE actual Christian Devil, THE Great Fiend himself who gleefully leads queen Lucifera wherever she wants to go. And whips the six other sins to ride faster… Because, as I said before – Lucifera’s chariot is not pulled by horses… But by her six “sage counsellors/old wizards”, aka the other deadly sins. However, since this post is already getting quite long, I’ll keep them for another time.

#seven deadly sins #pride #the faerie queene #lucifera #deadly sins

[nyxrev]

Details

Just some stuff I noticed, from small to serious.

旦那 (dan'na)

K so I found it funny Black Sperm calls Saitama “dan'na” bc the term can mean different by its context, eg. an honorific for husband, patron, or master, etc. I believe it's translated to English as “Boss” which is most fit but when I first read it I automatically associated it with “master” of the more softer nuances and not the rougher casual “hey boss” sort of vibe, so I was surprised like, huh BS is unusually deferential to Saitama, esp. bc the rest of his speech pattern is fairly casual. But, makes sense bc he's seen enough to know. Also makes sense bc on one hand, rn he has to pretend to be a benign, goofy “monkey” …idk how ppl see a black teletubby n just believe it's monkey but s'ok, story logic… to get by heroes, hence the casual goofy monkey speech, but on the other, he absolutely does not want to cross Saitama, so he chooses to refer to him politely.

master (of a house, shop, etc.)​

husband​: can be used to refer to your own, or smb else's husband (add honorifics). Some other ways of address: 夫 otto, 主人 shujin,

sir; boss; master; governor​: used to address a male patron, customer, or person of high status

patron of a mistress, geisha, bar or nightclub hostess; sugar daddy ​(パトロン)

alms; almsgiver:​ Buddhism, usually written as 檀那 for Buddhist context

As you can see, a non-exhaustive list of what it can mean. With automatic association to house -hold and patronage nuances, my mental image got mildly confused for a moment. Like can you really see an obeisant, nice little BS who humbly serves Saitama with utmost formality??

I feel myself make an uneasy face I cannot quite describe.

Also it was good to see him ask about Manako, but I do want to know if she's alive and safe.

Homewrecker? No it's (unlicensed) Demolition. Opennenoorn Get Out

^after the scene when Forte got hit, Fubuki told Saitama to go with her and said:

あなたの住処を破壊した張本人に会わせてあげる

Basically the reason she gave for their excursion was, “I'll let you meet the person responsible for the destruction of your residence.”

Whom I thought was Psykos bc at the moment, we saw parallel scenes of Tsukuyomi guy at her cell and Tatsumaki had not arrived, but Saitama doesn't know Psykos yet, so when Fubuki made her speech, Saitama confused without so much as context to who all the ppl on scene are, then Tatsumaki arrives most destructively, he must have thought it could be absolutely no other than the “chibi” who threw Genos on a wall.

Which is why Saitama went “I see, the one who destroyed my home was…(Tatsumaki) ಠ ◡ ಠ##”

But I had to wonder who did Fubuki really mean to refer to with “the person who destroyed your place”? If Fubuki meant Psykos how would Saitama react?

Fortress Haven or Death Maze?

Hige Coffee: lit. Beard Coffee (lol)

Well it's good to see Max and Shadow on break, but an emergency call cuts it short, and amidst the commotion, one of them (I assume it's Max) laments the place is so big it's easy to get lost.

What can I say, it's almost like the new HQ, with its concentrated yet puzzled pyramid structure, complete with a moat of self-isolation, remotely omniscient surveillance, a manufactured façade of paradise with luxury security atop seven hells of hidden disasters eager to be released, and so on…almost like it's a direct visual representation of HA's operation hierarchy: centralized system of power and economic monopoly, yet rife with office politics, factions at tension, dysfunctional management, corrupt unstable foundation, and unsavoury secrets to hide.

Cohesively staffed, an impregnable fortress. Yet improperly managed, an exit-less death maze.

And I say it bc the place is not only complicated and spacious but also uniform. Its grand Jenga-Lego stack of cluster structures look so similar, if not literally the same, from every angle, if you rotated it on a turntable, I couldn't tell the sides from each other nor which faced NESW at first.

Of course, part of why they got lost is, it's newly built, heroes just moved to residency, obviously, it's not out of expectation for heroes, or anyone who's never step foot there for the matter, to be unfamiliar with exact floor plan details of such a vast, complex structure, its design sleek at best and dystopian at worst.

But I must wonder, for I feel like it will become a problem later, HQ's isolated vast complexity… If it doesn't fall apart from its core first, what with overpowered resident, destructive visitors, and let's not forget the basement full of a nasty little monstrosity of pets the corrupt executives keep for cash flow they don't use to pay heroes.

Air and Blue Fire: Cyborg Surgery?

On a scale of beneficial to suspicious, question.

Notice the text right next to Air? It's an SFX.

キュイーン kyui—n (onomatopoeia): like a whirr sound effect, low sounds of machinery at work, usually small technical ones which contract or spin. For example, camera lens… how ominous, don't you think?

While Forte is eager to get out of bed and make a quick work of the noisy monsters who disturb his already bad day, blow off convenient steam, it looks like Air can't even emote natural, human facial expressions, and it unsettles me so!

If you look long enough it almost looks like he is controlled like a puppet Σ(-᷅_-᷄⁉︎)

As for BlueFire, I can't tell if it's an empty sleeve or a prosthetic arm but hopefully he got an arm with extra spicy flamethrower fingers so he can be extra terribly efficient. He'd probably max his specs to roast evildoers out of spite. I sense one step to Genos. Same age, similar personality.

Bonus: List of Every Hero Present

aka. faces you see the last moments of your life, if you happen to be a mischievous monster at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Top panel: Golden Ball, Spring Mustachio, Red Muffler, Funeral Suspenders, D-pad, bottom L hat prolly Gun Gun, Shooter, Smile Man, Skunk-Boy Gasmask, top L corner Eyelashes, Mohawk Hacker, Brass Knuckles guy, Great Philosopher, Magic Trick Man, Darkness Blade, Bones, prolly Blue Fire's back (front of Bones), All Back Man? (didn't he quit?), Butterfly DX, Kusari-Gama, Mushroom, Horse-Bone, Twin Tails, can't tell who the mop of dark hair next to her is but prolly Blizzard member, Tank-Top Al-Dente, Tank-Top Rockabilly, another two Blizzards by the suit,

Bottom: Eyelashes, Brass Knuckle, Spiked Club Blizzard, L- Max, Genji, Stinger, Tank-Top Mask, Tank-Top Racer, Crescent Eyebroll, Green, Wild Horn, Skunk Boy Gasmask, Tank-Top Al-Dente, Tank-Top Rockabilly, a sliver of Darkness Blade, Heavy Kong.

Fubuki Group? More like Mafia?

Look at how they stand. Look at how they walk. Look at their formation. If each of them were as strong as Needle Star got, fought as well as the support team cooperated, if equally valued and given opportunity to contribute their expertise, they truly would be formidable, fearsome foes, and reliable allies Fubuki can trust to hold their own and not constantly worry about. Of course part of the problem is Fubuki's own insecurities but we know she has the potential to be a great leader if she put her focus on the right path and used her power to maximum beneficial strategy

Counted around 33 members without Fubuki or Saitama. Rowdy Suit Gang. Mountain Ape n Lily stand out and you can see them from far away.

Extra Bonus: Spot the Spy 6-6

Nah cuz I really need to talk about the cursed Tsukuyomi guys. I brewed some praises n some toasty roasty jokes. I need to cook some wacky, juicy conspiracy about them. Just a little gentle speculation.

#opm #one punch man #opm manga #hero association #thoughts #saitama #overgrown rover #black sperm #tatsumaki #fubuki #forte #air #cyborg #body modification #organization #suspicious #blizzard group #traitors #among us

[sercphs]

On the topic Fischl von Luftschloss Narfidort and The Abyss.

To start this off, let's make the first comparison of importance, one that will have impact through this entire breakdown.

Immernachtreich is the Abyss.

"Every good, bright and noble thing must eventually fall to inexorable entropic destruction, and the final destination of the universe is the realm-in-waiting of the Prinzessin, Immernachtreich." (Flowers for Princess Fischl: Phantasmagoria, Fischl Friendship Level 4)

Immernachtreich literally translates to "Ever Night Empire," and can be more fluidly translated as "Kingdom of the Eternal Night" - a place where all things will go when the universe itself comes to an end, a form of all-consuming darkness that can only be controlled by those who are chosen to do so - or are strong enough to impose their will upon it.

The Abyss is described as the darkest corner of the world, and is home of "the true sky" of Teyvat. It is described as actively damaging to that which cannot control its energies, though it is a powerful tool to those who can endure/manipulate it.

This theme of entropic erosion that the Abyss brings is similar to the ultimate purpose of Immernachtreich: When erosion and entropy eventually bring all things to succumb to them, the only place that properly stands as immune to this decay is the darkness at the end of the universe, a Kingdom of Eternal Night, under which the True Sky exists.

However, it is also worth noting that the Abyss is also very capable of fundamentally changing people that it interacts with, and is capable of manipulating them to an extent. Though not directly paralleled, Immernachtreich in it's mirage manifestation during the Immernachtreich Apokalyse arc of Summertime Odyssey is subject of enticing and manipulating others to ensure that it is not without worldly connection.

When Amy refused to confront Immernachtreich and her own connection to it out of fear of what she would find, Immernachtreich created a stand-in to ensure that it remained in place: Immernacht Fischl (who will be referred to as Nacht going forward).

Nacht: You of all people should know about this. Why does it always rain in the Immernachtreich? Why isn't there any music in this so-called paradise? Fischl: ...Because of you! It's all because of you! Nacht: How pathetic! No, dearest Amy, you, not I, are the one responsible for all of this! Fischl: Ugh...! Nacht: You dreamed up a vast kingdom, but you can't bear its weight. Swayed by fear, you can't face the very world you've created. You may try to avoid it, but the fact is: You can't change yourself. Nacht: I came here in your stead precisely because you failed to show up. The Immernachtreich is now mine, and it is not your place to tell me what to do! Fischl: I... I... Nacht: Amy, you are but a weak fool who does not deserve this world. Begone.

While this is intended as Amy facing her fears, conflict, and doubt - it is notably comparable to a Kingdom of Eternal Night ensuring that it does not go without a leader, no matter the circumstances. This particular comparison and interaction are important due to the recent story of "Caribert."

For this section of comparison, we will look at the Parallels between Immernachtreich and Khaenri'ah.

Nacht came to be when Immernachtreich was without a leader, due to Amy's refusal and negligence - refusing to acknowledge the world she created and exists within. In Chapter III: Act VI "Caribet," at the very end of the story the Traveler is addressed by Chlothar for hypocritical of calling the abyss "sinister and dangerous," and that the fate of Khaenri'ah very reasonably ties to the Sibling's failure to uphold the beliefs of the people in their ability to guide the nation into a bright future atop the world with the Abyss under their control.

In the absence of the Sibling in the aftermath, the Abyss touched another's mind with a need to fill the vacant seat: Chlothar. An agent in the real world, one capable of guiding the Abyss forward in the physical world. This of course leads to the Abyss order, and the Sibling joining it - attempting to amend their past.

Though Nacht and Fischl are not a one-to-one comparison here, it is still reasonable to acknowledge the similarities. One fails to uphold their duties, and thusly another is brought into the scene to ensure that the duties are not left incomplete. Ultimately in both situations, the one who failed to uphold returns to their duties under a sense of responsibility and some degree of guilt.

Both claim the throne in the end.

The connection and comparisons between Immernachtreich, Fischl's story, and Khaenri'ah are not simply limited to that, however.

"When the lone pilgrimaging princess reached the kingdom of eternal twilight, the fate-resisting royals chose to deny everything in their desperation. "They refused to recognize Fischl's noble stature and mission as the princess of the Immernachtreich; denied their 13,000-year lineage as a branch of the royal family; and forsook their own nobility and restraints as humans... devolving into clumsy and vicious beasts. "In the palace of Twilight and amidst the teeth of the beasts, the princess shed her sacred blood on the ancient emblem. "At the moment of her peril, the dark wings of the night ripped the trapped, wounded princess from her despair and took her under its wings. "Following the scent of her noble blood, Ozvaldo Hrafnavins, the King of Ravens came to the princess and pledged his eternal loyalty." (Character Story 3 "Flowers for Princess Fischl [I]: End time Zersetzung," Fischl Friendship 4)

While the large majority of this text is as expected of the story, the bolded portion is particularly noteworthy.

"They refused to recognize Fischl's noble stature and mission as the princess of the Immernachtreich; denied their 13,000-year lineage as a branch of the royal family; and forsook their own nobility and restraints as humans... devolving into clumsy and vicious beasts."

It is not difficult to look at this and similarly draw comparison between Khaenri'ah and the aforementioned nobles - humanity that refused to worship the gods and were subsequently cursed in a manner that resulted in the Hilichurls: those who have lost their humanity at the hands of a curse and of regarded by many as "clumsy and vicious beasts."

This ultimately culminates in a different point that is the ultimate point of this essay: Fischl, and subsequently Amy, are directly connected to the Abyss.

While Fischl herself is left largely ambiguous in the larger picture, what is not left as ambiguous is her companion: Ozvaldo Hrafnavines.

Ozvaldo is introduced in which he saves Fischl's life when she "shed her sacred blood on the ancient emblem," and ultimately resulted in him pledging his eternal loyalty to Fischl. In the Preliminary Volume of "Flowers for Princess Fischl" that can be purchased from the Yae Publishing House, the very first point refers to Ozvaldo Hrafnavines.

Ozvaldo Hrafnavines is "the might lord of the Nachtraben," standing in line with his title presented during Fischl's 3rd character story as "King of Ravens." This same point discusses that Ozvaldo Hrafnavines is decidedly strong than Fischl:

[...] If Fischl's strength in battle might be considered a ten, and the Beasts of the World should have an average of fifteen, then Ozvaldo's strength may be considered thirteen. His great power was on display when he destroyed Dämmerung in Volume 1.

However, this point is then followed up with the following:

Aside from this, the title "Prince Nachtraben" is not a particularly high-flown one, considering that the night ravens have always been known for being conspirators and bearers of curses. Ozvaldo likely insisted on this title, for how could a mere "King of the Night" call himself thus before the Immernachtreich?

When brought into it's own as a point, Ozvaldo is directly subservient to Fischl because - even though she herself is not as strong as he is - she is the Sovereign of Immernachtreich: one capable of accessing and controlling that Kingdom of Eternal Night.

A creature of the Abyss may yet be powerful, but what is a creature of the Abyss before one who can control it's power?

And then, what does this have to do with Amy?

At a glance, and as I have repeatedly mentioned before, Amy appears to be an extremely powerful allogene - capable of elemental manipulation on a scale so powerful that she was able to manifest an entirely separate and sentient entity: Oz.

However, when we look at this situation more closely, the waters get a bit more muddied. Amy does not appear to have final say in her elemental manipulation, in spite of how much is at her disposal - and how effectively she can manipulate it. Amy is capable of completely transforming herself into pure electro energy to take on Oz's form.

She is able to call upon Oz to manifest himself out of nowhere - is able to manipulate swathes of elemental energy through her familiar in potentially incredibly destructive ways!

But therein lies the catch: All of her abilities are not her own. All of her abilities key off of Oz, and exclusively Oz. The abilities of Amy's extensive elemental affinity is reduced to just shy of nothing - capable of coalescing energy around an arrow at most - when Oz acts independently of her.

During Immernachtreich Apokalypse, Oz defects to serve under Nacht during the final chapter of the story - and though he ultimately says that this was because he believed in Fischl to overcome that which plagued her and burdened her - it brought the ultimate point into view.

Without Oz, Fischl's elemental manipulation is practically nothing, and he is able to act entirely independent of her - outright ignoring her will and command. During the sequence, it is shown that Fischl is incapable of any large-scale elemental manipulation without Oz serving as a focus for such manipulations.

This can be drawn as a mirror to Tartaglia in Act IV: Chapter 1 - the Harbinger is capable of extremely complicated and precise elemental manipulation, but due to what can most effectively be described as "interference" in the operation of his vision (likely as a consequence of his own Abyssal connection), his ability to manipulate Hydro energy fell to practically nothing.

It is thusly inferable that the Abyss is capable of interfering directly with an allogene's vision and its operation, and subsequently this plays into the final major note of this essay: Oz.

Oz could very realistically be a mirage of Ozvaldo that is woven through Amy's vision into what she perceives as a true companion. However, there is a certain degree of uncertain depth to Oz and his role in Amy's interactions, most namely that he is the most anomalous thing about Amy's entire persona.

As mentioned earlier, the Abyss and exposure to it are capable of manipulating people and altering their personalities - potentially even their memories or perception. This is ultimately is brought into light when we face the following text:

So, is Oz just an imaginary friend who only exists as a figment of Fischl's subconscious? Our story begins with the royal heirloom, Edelstein der Dunkelheit — that is to say, Fischl's Vision. When her wish was acknowledged, the raven Oz and her Vision both appeared before her eyes. That night, at dinner, Oz got on most well with Fischl's parents: "Ah, mein Kaiser und Kaiserin der Verurteilung, forgive mine overstep, but the beans in your house are too delicious." "Oh, then please, help yourself. This is the first time little ▉▉▉ has met a friend she can bring over for dinner since she turned fourteen. This is a special occasion." "W—What are you saying! I... One does not simply cavort with the plebeians!" —And that's what happened. For all intents and purposes, it seems that the Kaiser und Kaiserin der Verurteilung could both see Oz, and both believed Oz to be the Prinzessin's first friend. [...] (Vision Story, Fischl Friendship 6)

Amy returns from the Library she received her vision in, Oz manifesting at the same time. Despite being an incredible feat of ability from the will of someone who just received a vision -something that is established still requires training and practice - there is not even a shadow of hesitation or doubt relating to Oz's existence. He is treated immediately as just anyone else, in spite of the fact that just earlier in the same day Amy's family has effectively told her that it was time to grow up.

Additionally at this point in time, Amy's family seemingly entirely drops all discussion of Amy needing to change behaviors or actions, as if their minds had suddenly been changed for them.

This potential link of the Abyss through Amy is further supported by the fact that Amy's family are confirmed adventurers of decent skill, and that they were regularly away from home. Amy herself was raised in no small part by the stories she raised, but there is also a chance that her family came into contact with the Abyss in some capacity during their adventures.

And as we all know, children are impressionable and malleable, if given the right influences. For the young girl, a life-long companion and literal manifestation of everything she craves would certainly work well, no?

And to bring you to the final conclusion of this, I must implore you to look upon the following:

"[...]The Prinzessin will then set her own heart ablaze, and the universe shall be born anew in its immortal light.[...]" (Flowers for Princess Fischl: Phantasmagoria, Fischl Friendship Level 4)

"Let us meet again in the new universe and the pure sea of tranquility." (Enigmatic Page [XIII])

Additionally, within the "???" point of interest accessible through the Book of Esoteric Revelations, the world we enter into bears some notable similarities to Immernachtreich from a visual standpoint.

Within this unidentified location, it is notable that it bears much more direct resemblance to the Abyss as we have seen - a deep abyssal blue and purples, falling into a void. However, the sky shattering is a symbolism shared between this location and Immernachtreich.

The false sky shall crumble under the weight of revelations, and the Kingdom of Eternal Night shall bring salvation until all things.

tl;dr: Immernachtreich is analogous to the Abyss, Oz is analogous to the Whale, and the Abyss really likes to manipulate children.

#das selbst durch die linse .. ooc #.. musings #.. saved #Hi I have a LOT to think about from yesterday. #I will never be the same again and neither with Fischl. #Am I possibly on the worlds most potent copium? Yes. #But I have to make do. #If hoyo won't give Fischl screentime then I'll do it myself.

[dreaming-through-lines]

a probably coincidental symbolic reading of FIGS as symbols of tragedy in The Song of Achilles

So, before I write anything, I just want to get one thing clear: I'm not a Christian, I have a degree in History and one in Translation. What I mean is, don't take this as me trying to push any Christian message - the following analysis is literally just a curious thing I came across while translating and thought "oh, this is kinda cool"! I don't know if Madeline Miller intended to make this connection, hence the title. She's a very intelligent person, but would she include Medieval/Renaissance Christian symbolism in a book centered in Ancient Greece? It seems unlikely, but hey, I can't know for sure. Anyway, this could've been on purpose or it could've been a concidence!

-

Spoilers for The Song of Achilles (and consequently The Iliad, I guess?).

When I searched about the symbolism of figs in The Song of Achilles, a source showed up saying that they were " a symbol of the youthful love and ripeness of Achilles and Patroclus (…) These boyish indulgences are symbolic of the sexual love that develops between the young men ", which YES, absolutely! Figs were also attributes of Dionysus and Priapus, both associated with sexuality. Later in History, figs ended up becoming a symbol of lust in Christian tradition because of their connection with these two gods.

But here is the part where it gets interesting! Because of this association with lust, figs started to show up in certain paintings as the forbidden fruit, instead of the apple! We can see that, for example, in a portrayal of Adam and Eve by Raffaello Santi in the Vatican. Eve offers Adam a fig. As the story goes, Eve is tempted into eating the forbidden fruit and then gets Adam to do the same... they are cast out of the Garden of Eden together, "doomed" to not enter Paradise again. Christian doctrine especially emphasizes this moment as the fall of man and the original sin.

So, if we were to look at The Song of Achilles with this in mind, couldn't we read a message of tragic doom in figs?

In Chapter 4, Achilles throws a fig to Patroclus and Patroclus takes a bite out of it, something that kind of parallels Eve giving Adam the forbidden fruit. If figs can be seen as a symbol of their love for each other... doesn't that, in a way, mirror Eve dooming Adam by giving him the forbidden fruit? Achilles unknowingly dooms Patroclus by falling in love with him... especially since Achilles' prophecy was to die a hero, he was "doomed first", in the same way Eve was doomed first by being the first one to be tempted.

And also, this idea of the fall, this expulsion, curiously also kind of leads to Adam and Eve only having each other (at least until some point). Similarly, Achilles and Patroclus are a duo, a couple and they live for each other and rise and fall together, regardless of whoever or whatever comes.

That's all, I don't have a huge conclusion to this - just thought it was interesting and wanted to share.

#the song of achilles #tsoa #tsoa patroclus #tsoa achilles

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

Yall I Managed To Make Coffee Theory Work

I'm four months late but found something

(apologies in advance for the coherence, or lack there of, in this post. stressful week, brain is now ground meat patty)

DANTE'S PURGATORIO

After ascending every level of Purgatory, Dante ends up in the Garden of Eden (which stands between Purgatory and Paradise/Heaven). A lot of crazy stuff goes down there, and there are some hot girls, but none of that is relevant.

What is relevant are the two rivers that Dante finds there.

One of them, Lethe, is taken directly from Greco-Roman myth. In the myths, the river Lethe flows through the underworld, and cleanses the dead's memory of their lives before their passage into the underworld and/or reincarnation. It is unclear whether Dante keeps to the original myths here, or if the Lethe in Purgatorio only cleanses memories of sin.

(quote from Purgatorio re: Lethe's power to erase specifically memories of unhappiness and sin)

The second river is the Eunoe (translation: new mind/good memory???), which either:

-(if the Lethe wipes ALL memories) restores the dead's memory of their life on earth, but only memories of good & godly actions

-(if the Lethe only removes memories of sin) strengthens "good" memories.

(Full-ish description of both rivers)

Once the dead person/soul/(oh I give up, idk) drinks from first the Lethe, and then the Eunoe, THEN they are ready to go to Heaven.

if The Metatron put ANYthing in the coffee, its this. Water from these rivers. Both of them.

no it did not have anything, aside from the spiritual/religious symbolism that people have already pointed out, to do with the almonds.

and lastly,

could I interest you in some

~*~*~Agonizing Thematic Parallels~*~*~

...anyway uh yeah tldr I don't like the Coffee Theory, I don't believe it, but the angst potential was so good and also I will really just lore-deep-dive ANYTHING.

also thanks to Prof Graham, my Medieval Studies prof this year, for FINALLY pointing out to me that Eunoe and Mnemosyne (the river, not the Goddess) are NOT THE SAME THING.

#good omens #gomens #gos2 #fic inspo #fic prompt #coffee theory #good omens coffee theory #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #metatron #fuck the metatron #loredumping #lore drop #meta #longpost #litblr #dante #good omens theory #good omens meta #shitpost #< this IS a shitpost to be clear #divine comedy #(Dante's & Gaiman's)

[muzzleroars]

You know, it would actually be extremely fitting for Gabe to have a unicorn tail as it is possible that the unicorn was inspired by the re'em which could have possibly been the Auroch, an extinct cattle ancestor or other bull-like cattle like an ox, by way of confusing Mesopotamian art which would depict it in side profile so it looked like it had one huge horn instead of two (Such as on Ishtar's Gate), which, considering your fallen Gabe has a pair of massive horns…

Also some translations of the bible during the Middle Ages subsituted references of the Re'em for Unicorn as they had very similar representations as a creature of strength and being untameable.

Also it's ironic that the Unicorn could only be tamed by the gentle hand of pure virgin, while fallen Gabe could only be 'tamed' by getting absolutely ultraviolenced by a robot. So there are some parallels

anon im in love with all of this.....because honestly when i tried the tail, i settled on unicorn for a few reasons - i wanted it different from a typical demon tail and, like you mentioned, the unicorn is related to virginity and gabriel is often depicted alongside the virgin mary due to his role as the messenger in the annunciation. it had the added bonus of being white to match the fur mantle i give him, but that was it!! BUT everything you point out here gives me too many good reasons to actually pass on it now. the bull-like qualities are an important motif in his design and his horns actually resemble the auroch's a lot, considering their shared black tips and how prominent they become in his final form. most interestingly though is the unicorn's replacement of the ox, that it came to be so prominent in christianity as a biblical corruption in some ways - feels fitting for a fallen angel. big bonus that in this context the unicorn/auroch is depicted as wild and intensely powerful, with god himself often likened to it. in this state gabriel's strength is now entirely unbound and as he wills it....which offers interesting implications if we apply the idea presented in paradise lost (which my fallen gabe has already taken cues from) that god can at will allow an angel to act with more or less strength depending on his wishes. SO. got me thinking maybe gabriel doesn't quite know his own strength at first as he rarely had full access to it.

#the tail 100% stays thanks to this anon #and this has got me thinking for sure!!!! #the duality of gabriel feeling weakened by pain and punishment #but hitting like an absolute truck at all times now lol #cake answers #fallen gabriel #rise and fall au

[nicklloydnow]

“It’s not hard to imagine how badly Vitale’s question must have wounded Shklovsky in his dotage. This was, after all, the same Shklovsky who had waged an artistic revolution—one that paralleled but did not always coincide with the Bolsheviks’—with no less at stake than the liberation of human consciousness; the same Shklovsky who had seen at least two brothers and most of his friends (an illustrious literary crew including Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Mandelstam and Yevgeny Zamyatin) disappeared, executed, or driven to suicide or exile by the Soviet establishment; the same Shklovsky who had twice been injured in battle fighting for a revolution that had already begun to hunt and humiliate him; who endured cold and hunger and exile and squirmed through years of silence under the censor’s heavy thumb; the same Shklovsky who spent most of his intellectual life championing the emancipatory power of the novel and fighting to blast it—and all of literature and even, yikes, reality—out of subservience to a host of dumb and arbitrary masters.

The establishment, him! Shklovsky had from the start fought for a notion of art directly opposed to socialist realist pieties, one that hinged on the need to push beyond established models, to make things strange so that we might see the world afresh in its cruelty and splendor. He had been at odds not just with the bureaucratic state that congealed in the wake of the revolution, but with stasis itself, with the crust that the world of things deposits on our senses, with routine’s unending murder of the real. Innovation must occur in art, Shklovsky had written as recently as 1970, “because humanity fights for the expansion of its right to life, for the right to search and attain new kinds of happiness.” But age had mellowed the insurrectionist. Shklovsky called Vitale a few hours later to apologize: “My God, I made you cry, forgive this crabby old man.”

(…)

What emerges from these works is a group portrait of Shklovsky’s Formalism—even the name dries the mouth—that bears little resemblance to any school of literary criticism that has arisen in the West in the last century or, well, ever. It was born not in the academy but out of the literary avant-garde and alongside the Russian Revolution. Ironically, given the Formalists’ insistence on literature’s divorce from worldly events, it arose without even a hair’s distance from the tumult that rocked Europe for most of the early twentieth century. When the revolution erupted in February 1917—“it was like Easter,” Shklovsky would recall, “a joyous, naïve, disorderly carnival paradise”—he was already an insurrectionist, though of a different sort from Lenin or Trotsky. Years later, when Vitale asked him what the revolution had meant to him, Shklovsky would answer, “the dictatorship of art. The freedom of art.”

At the beginning of the 1910s, Shklovsky had befriended the young Futurist poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Vladimir Mayakovsky and, while still a student, had become the Futurists’ theoretical champion. The world was sick and palsied—who can now deny it?—so thoroughly smothered in vestigial tradition and used-up forms that it couldn’t even be properly perceived. “Do something undreamed-of,” demanded Khlebnikov, “strictly new, you horses pulling the hearse of the world!” Out of the radical poetics of the Futurists, Shklovsky and a few comrades founded Opoyaz (an acronym for “Society for the Study of Poetic Language”), the nucleus of the critical movement that would later be called Russian Formalism, in the kitchen of an abandoned St. Petersburg apartment.

(…)

These and other sundry obstacles, all of them oriented toward rupturing the smooth flow of narrative, are tools in the service of what Shklovsky called ostranenie, which is variously translated as “estrangement,” “defamiliarization” or simply “making strange.” In Theory of Prose, Shklovsky would distinguish between “recognition” and “seeing.” Ordinary perception falls into the former category: we don’t see objects so much as recognize them according to pre-existing patterns of thought. The world arrives “prepackaged” and passes us by without a graze. “And so, held accountable for nothing, life fades into nothingness. Automatization eats away at things, at clothes, at furniture, at our wives, and at our fear of war.”

The point for Shklovsky was to find a way to shake ourselves out of this collective stupor so that we might see the world in all its startling brightness and, presumably, act on what we see. (An unacknowledged politics hides behind Shklovsky’s poetics, a quasi-anarchist insistence on permanent revolt, but that is an argument for another essay.) For this, “man has been given the tool of art,” which—and this is where ostranenie comes in—employs various tactics to defamiliarize the world, to allow us to see it as if for the first time. If it is anything, art is oppositional and insurrectionary, and literature an authorial conspiracy to overthrow anachronistic modes of thought. “Art,” Shklovsky wrote in A Sentimental Journey, “is fundamentally ironic and destructive. It revitalizes the world.”

This position leads him to some surprising places: first, to a notion of literary change based on rupture rather than influence and inheritance. Art changes not out of fashion or habit, but because it must. New forms are created when the old ones become as sclerotic as the ones they replaced. (No wonder Shklovsky made the Bolsheviks edgy.) Second, the practice of literary criticism involves a quest for ostranenie that parallels the artist’s. (In 1972, the Marxist literary theorist Frederic Jameson would somewhat snidely call Shklovsky’s critical works, of which he had not read many, “little more than an endless set of variations” on the idea of ostranenie.) If the critic is to see the object of his study sufficiently to analyze its workings, he must “extricate” it “from the cluster of associations in which it is bound.” So while language may be subject to all the usual social and economic forces, literature, if it is to be seen at all, must be looked at on its lonesome.

From there, Shklovsky leaps a few wide boulevards and, post-extrication, tosses out all the scraps from which the work emerged: “No more of the real world impinges upon a work of art than the reality of India impinges upon the game of chess,” he wrote in Theory of Prose with characteristic modernist élan. This means that any erstwhile “content” we might imagine clinging to the work (whatever a book is ostensibly “about”) is no more than a function of “form,” of whatever combination of stylistic devices the author has brought to bear. Plot is mere structural play.

If this sounds counterintuitive, it was—and remains—an intensely fruitful insight. Shklovsky’s audacity gave him the freedom to take apart Cervantes and Sterne, Gogol and Tolstoy, with a brilliance that still dazzles ninety years later. And it allowed works of literature to become visible, not as natural objects like fingernails or trees, but as complex creatures of artifice, as purposeful forms of play. This notion did not go down smoothly. As the ’20s dragged on and Soviet aesthetic attitudes became more rigid, art had only two options: it could be an organic growth of proletarian consciousness, or counterrevolutionary poison. Shklovsky’s Formalism made him, in the words of an unnamed KGB interrogator quoted by Vitale, “an enemy of the real world and [of] socialist realism in literature.”

(…)

But literature, the young Shklovsky insists, is its own planet, bound by the rules that it creates. “Art,” he wrote in Zoo, “if it can be compared to a window at all, is only a sketched window.” Its point is not to accurately reflect this same old cruddy, shrink-wrapped world, but to steal us new sets of eyes, to forge new and unimagined senses. This is art’s one virtue, its promise and delight. And the novel, call it dead or alive, is not a thing among things of a certain weight and size, obliged to obey established formulae. It is a weird box of almost bottomless openness, a compact revolution in a cloth and cardboard binding. Or, if you prefer, in pixels.

(…)

But Shklovsky lived long enough (outliving many of his persecutors) to do some rethinking. By the time Vitale knocked at his door in 1978, he had published Bowstring, in which he displayed an earnest effort to sort through the contradictions of his youth. “Back then I used to say that art had no content, that it was devoid of emotion,” he marvels, “while at the same time I wrote books that bled.” Through analyses of Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Rabelais, Updike (yes, him) and, as always, Sterne, Cervantes and Tolstoy, he lays out a heretical, softer and less formal Formalism. Ostranenie, Shklovsky writes, “can be established only by including the notion of ‘the world’ in its meaning. This term simultaneously assumes the existence of a so-called content.” He holds tight, though, to the importance of contradiction, anachronism, disharmony, which provide the needed tension from which art derives its powers. “If one can say that imagination is better than reality, art is even better,” he explained to Vitale, “because it’s the dream of every structure’s collapse and at the same time the dream of the construction of new structures.”

(…)

None of it adds up. But that’s OK, that’s the whole point, that’s what we’re doing here, even if it hurts. Especially when it hurts. Shklovsky reassures us:

Unity, reader, is in the person who is looking at his changing country and building new forms of art so they can convey life… Browse through our works, look for a point of view, and if you can find it, then there is your unity.

I was unable to find it.”

“September I5, 1988

Dear Ken,

Do you know anybody who can translate Russian to English? (I am thinking of your faculty friend who sent you - and me - the info on Viktor Schklovsky.) What I need to know is how he would translate the two famous opposed literary devices of Schklovsky. The words: obnazhenie and ostranenie. I suspect they mean defamiliarization and overfamiliarization, but don't know. How about a hand? Ain't no Russians here. I greatly prize "Pragmaticism is an Existentialism?"

All best,

Walker [s]

P.S.: The reason these Russian words are important to me is that they fit in well with my notion of the evolution/devolution of symbols, so that a thing/event can come to be cancelled by a symbol/word, hardened through over-familiarity into what Gabriel Marcel called a “simulacrum” - same event/thing can be recovered in times of disaster or great poetry - simulacrum broken, being revealed as being, etc. Thanks, WP”

#shklovsky #victor shklovsky #literary criticism #russian formalism #bolshevism #soviet literature #russian literature #mayakovsky #obnazhenie #ostranenie #percy #walker percy #ketner #kenneth laine ketner #marcel #gabriel marcel #simulacrum #being

[wo-der-horizont-beginnt]

Nannerl Mozart in Mozart! das Musical 1999 vs 2015

or

how the 2015 removes Nannerl's existance as her own person and representation as a historical figure, reducing her to a character without a role in the overall narrative and why I hate it

all translations mine

The first present day scene in 1999 is Der Rote Rock, presenting Nannerl as as impatient and stifled by their life in Salzburg as Wolfgang is, and parallels Nannerl with Wolfgang through the use of a mirror frame they mirror each other in. It's a playful scene, but it establishes what becomes a recurrent theme: Nannerl referring to them on relatively equal terms (prince/princess multiple songs)) and as equals (einander nah und gleich/ close and equal (Der prinz ist fort).) Wolfgang agrees that when their father says he can travel Europe again he will bring Nannerl.

2015 instead introduces a different song 'Die Wunder sind Vorüber' which establishes Wolfgang gambling (as does Rote Rock - it's how he gets the coat) but at the expense of the beginning of Nannerl's character arc, and the establishment of her relationship with her father, in 1999 she appears to resent him, or at least his decision not to allow her to perform any more. 

In 1999 'Ah das Fraulein Mozart!' there are an additional 2 verse for nannerl:

Ganz gewiss

Überall, wo wir war'n

Brüssel, London, Rom, Paris

Drängten sich um uns in Schar'n

Alle, die man zu uns ließ

Aus der Heimat fortzufahr'n

Hieß, wir fahr'n in's Paradies

Jede Reise war ein Aufbruch

In das Königreich unsrer Träume

Wo ich Prinzessin war

Und er ein Zauberprinz

.

Of course

Everywhere, where we were

Brussels, London, Rome, Paris

People crowded around us

Everyone allowed to join us

Last time we left our hometown

It was to travel to paradise

Every trip was a departure

In the kingdom of our dreams

Where I was a princess

And he an enchanted prince

it is the 2nd presentation of Nannerl and wolfgang as prince/princess which becomes a recurrent and meaningful theme in 1999 (it is also recurrent, though less so, in 2015, but in my opinion removes what makes it significant and more than merely a slightly trite lyric) and its presents Nannerl's paradise as travelling with her brother to perform as equals, and is then used again later in Ah das Fraulein mozart! where Nannerl describes the belief someone will hire mozart leading to them living in the kingdom of their dreams:

Und wir leben froh und glücklich

In dem Königreich unsrer Träume

Wo ich Prinzessin bin

Und er ein Zauberprinz

.

and we'll live joyful and lucky

in the kingdom of our dreams

where i am a princess

and he an enchanted prince

 this does occur in 2015 but without the two verses of Nannerl describing her joy at her and Wolfgang's childhood travel and performing, it no longer holds the weight it did in 1999 for Nannerl's storyline, Nannerl's faith in Wolfgang restoring their 'kingdom' seems unfounded without Rote Rock and without the first half of Ah das fraulein Mozart!, and nannerl's reasons for idolising the kingdom (which is a reference to the imaginary ‘Kingdom of Black’ the two made up as children, but i believe also represents Nannerl's desire for the equality she felt with her brother as a child).

The changes to Gold von den Sternen as relating to Nannerl are to do with the direction and not the libretto changes and cuts. Throughout 2015 Nannerl hovers in the background, she already seems to know the song is not for her and is mostly unengaged with the baroness staring instead at her father. If the previous 1999 scenes had been retained the direction could seem like a deliberate choice to show Nannerl is shut out from the musical world she loved now she's an adult ( she stopped being encouraged/permitted/enabled to perform by Leopold in 1769, when she was 18, and from then her musical world appears to be teaching in salzburg (from 1772) which enhanced Leopold's reputation) but because 2015 doesn't have these scenes, it only further emphasises her as a flat character who holds little purpose in the narrative. in 1999 is deferential to the Baroness (who is mozart's patron but through the magic box takes on a slightly magical role in encouraging Wolfgang's music) in Gold von den Sternen 1999 the baroness draws not only Wolfgang but also nannerl towards her, they both highly engaged in what she's saying and she wraps an arm around each of them, holding Nannerl longer than she does Wolfgang, and caressing her arm, she turns her head to sing to Nannerl almost as often as Wolfgang. It's subjective but I think this could suggest the Baroness still see's nannerl as having musical value; when wolfgang runs to their father to beg him to let him leave, the baroness sends Nannerl after him.

(The scene after this is also similar libretto wise and while I think the directing choices create a very different portrayal of Nannerl, I also think it's too subjective and actor focused to go here.)

1999 has two Der Prinz ist forts, a full song and a slightly shorter reprise, both entirely sung by Nannerl. 2015 has one, which is shared between Nannerl and Leopold. The verse lyrics are significantly different (and '99 has far more time to expand on themes introduced earlier in the show than 2015) and while the chorus is largely similar, 1999 has a progression of slightly changing lyrics that 2015 does not. Both start with a repetition of the prince/princess theme but 1999 then circles back to Nannerl's focus on their childhood equality (and 2015 never does because for them it was never a focus in the first place) contrasted with the now, where she no longer has the hope he will restore their 'kingdom'

Unzertrennlich,zwei kleine wunder, 

viel bestaunt. einander nah und gleich. 

Es gab niemals Streit.

Jetzt wein’ ich oft, du bist so weit.

.

inseparable, two small wonders,

much admired. close and equal.

there were never quarrels.

Now i cry often, you are so far.

..

Ich will mich nicht beklagen,

doch meine wunde-zeit ist aus,

bald werd ich man und kinder haben,

und spiel’ Klavier nur noch zu haus.

.

i don't want to complain,

but my miracle-time is over,

soon i will have a husband and child,

and only play piano at home.

..

dein vater hat dich aufgegeben,

er sagt das du verloren bist,

wenn er seuft, steh ich daneben,

und denke heimlich das mein leben,

im Grunde schon, vorüber ist

.

Your father has given up on you

He  say you are lost

When he sighs, i stay near him

And think secretly that my life

Is already over

In the second verse she is still grieving the loss of the talented child she was with wolfgang whilst he can continue, which contrasts with the scene prior where Wolfgang can flirt with Constanze and continuewith his career and she cannot even be of marriageable age and perform, and becomes a key contrast to der Prinz ist fort reprise, and in the third she decides that not only is are miracles/wonders over but her life also.

The 1999 reprise (which is not on the album or in the song book, so these lyrics are my best attempt at transcribing them from less than ideal audio) is preceded by Wolfgang singing the Ah das Fraulein mozart melody(Nannerl's hopeful tune), in which he has money he borrowed from her that he intends to return to Nannerl so she can marry her ‘poor man’, he claims the money will buy her happiness, and she will live in the kingdom of her dreams, suggesting he believes she has a new dream, and has abandoned the idea she puts forward the first time the melody he is singing appears, even if the audience is doubtful given she has only recently essentially said there are no longer miracles, and there is no implication that a husband and child are a substitute for that. At no point in Der prinz ist Fort or reprise does she express any of the joy seen when she talks of her and Wolfgang as prince and princess only sorrow he is gone. Wolfgang is somewhere between aggressively encourage/forced to stay with his friends and gamble the money (lyrically before he even loses the money he has already betrayed Nannerl by using the zauber prinz imagery without claiming her princess), and where Nannerl viewed Wolfgang's gambling positively when they were young (it gives him the money to gain the red coat that she says will bring them luck and encourage their father to let them perform again) it now takes away the chance to marry the 'only one for her' (reprise- it is still not a cheering future, coming off the back of her words in der Prinz ist fort but its a future where she is not reliant on her father). Both 1999 and 2015 use the imagery of a thornbush preventing Nannerl from seeing and understanding Wolfgang, but 1999 also, with its additional prinz ist fort time, describes it actively separating them, creating a world where the mirror scene in Rote Rock can no longer occur, and perhaps Wolfgang no longer wants it too, he is a zauber prinz but nannerl is not a princess, so he essentially rejects her consistent motif of their equality.

the 2015 Der Prinz ist fort is already working with significantly less previous material, Nannerl starts with the prince/princess theme like in 99 and the uses lyrics with similar meaning to the second verse of 99, bypassing the first verse, which is Nannerl's most explicit statement of love for her brother and their equality. The next verse already moves to 99 reprise content, and while both express their need for money and to get away from Leopold, 99 Nannerl shows faith in Wolfgang contrast by the scene occuring the other side of the stage where he loses the money, 2015 questions if he will return the money (this isn't necessarily bad, just flat;2015 Nannerl loses her faith in Wolfgang which is such an important part of her character in 99 seemingly off stage) 

99

vater sagt was er für mich spater,

hast du gespendet ohne sinn,

jedoch ich weiss du bist mich retten

und mich befreit von meine ketten

du willst ja dass, ich glücklich bin

.

father says what he saved for me,

you gave away without reason,

but i know you will save me

and free me from my chains

you want me to be happy

Vs

15

Das Geld, das Vater für mich sparte

Sagt er, hat er an dich vertan

Kannst du es mir jetzt wieder geben?

Daran hängt jetzt mein ganzes Leben

Weil ich hier kaum noch atmen kann

.

The money father saved for me

He says he has wasted on you.

Can you give it back to me now?

My whole life now depends on it

because I can't breathe here

the 1999 reprise further states that she will tear herself from the thorns that separate them and become free like him (ich reiß mich von den dornen los, und frei zu sein wie du/ i tear myself from the thorns and will be free like you), though it doesn't happen because she never gets the money from wolfgang, it's a commitment to moving away from the castle and kingdom she can't achieve and trying to start another life, that Nannerl in 2015 unsurprisingly doesn't get; so many of her wanting and wishing statements have already been removed, her moving on from her father and brother no longer matters.

before the last chorus of reprise 1999 there is a continuation of Wolfgang's gambling, Nannerl finds there has been no word from him (so she has not received the money), and states she will never laugh again, a thorn bush has separated them, but she is always secretly waiting for him. Nannerl in 1999 feels tragically left behind from the beginning when he leaves with their mother, after saying he'd take her, and she never properly moves on because she's so hindered by her gender and controlling father but i think also by the same issue as Wolfgang has, so much of Warum kannst du mich nicht leben, applies just as well to Nannerl as it does to Wolfgang

Das Kind, das ich gewesen bin

Steckt noch immer in mir drin

Und es fragt wie ich:

Warum kannst du mich nicht lieben

Wie ich bin?...

Niemals werd' ich wieder so geborgen

Sein wie in Kindertagen

Solang ich leb', werde ich die Erinnerung daran

Wie einen Schatz in mir tragen

.

The child I used to be

Is always still inside me 

And it asks like me:

Why can't you love me

the way I am?...

i will never be so secure

as i was in childhood

as long as i live, i' ll carry the memory

like a treasure

All of this feels as applicable to Nannerl, and her constant childhood prince, princess, castle, kingdom references, the life she 'should' have as a woman of the time period will never be enough after the praise she received as a child for the talent she had.

While what remains of Nannerl in 2015 is similar to 1999, so much has been removed that none of her lines have the established context they did. the thorn bush on the castle becomes a sleeping beauty reference as it's simplified (it's used in at least 4 different phrases in 1999) and there is no longer the idea that nannerl and wolfgang need to see each other and mirror each other, the way its established in Rote Rock (and sure maybe when they staged it they just thought it would be neat, but i think it means something)and then completely broken in der Prinz ist Fort because he is in a world that she doesn't understand (ein hoher dornenbusch steht zwischen dir und mir, ich kann dich nicht verstehen, und nicht mehr sehen). And ultimately he never 'saves' her.

In both papa ist tots Nannerl ends with i will never forgive you, the two scenes are some of the most identical of the two shows, however it has more meaning in 1999 because the audience had time to become attached to Nannerl; everything about Nannerl’s scenes feels thrown together as filler because her storyline is so pared back, and this also reduces the poignancy of the last scene; Nannerl ends the show (other than the whole cast schatten) but it feels meaningless to me in 2015 because at no point does it seem we’re supposed to care about her musicality and childhood so what does it matter that she hold the box  and looks sad at the end of the show, if you don’t already care about her, and you should care about Nannerl; she’s this very tragic interesting foil to Wolfgang in 1999 and its such a shame 2015 didn’t feel it was an element to keep.

Other notes

I deliberately didn't talk about the prolog, Nannerl is only 4 1⁄2 years older than Mozart, it makes no sense for her to be an adult and not performing when he is so young; unless he is 14+ in that scene she should not be referred as previously good in the way Leopold references. The scene makes very little sense to me in any version.

 Rote Rock was first removed in Hamburg and hen restored elsewhere and then removed again for the 2015 2nd revival, it’s interesting because i find it such a key scene but it was first removed only a few years after the show premiered

I didn't want to focus on the actors in this , however i will say casting younger actors as nannerl to me is more sensible, Wolfgang is young and has a consistently irresponsible teenage vibe, if the actress playing nannerl is 35 as Barbara obermeier was, i think it can be easy to lose how close in age wolfgang and nannerl were; the original actress, caroline vasicek was 25 and looked younger, as was the 2015 understudy alba alaoui, and though age is not so important in theatre, i think the 2015 pro shot fails to capture how young Nannerl is.

I also didn't talk about the 2006 first revival because it's so abridged, however it does such a good job even with its shortened length of  keeping nannerl and wolfgang’s relationship central

I haven't watched enough other productions aside from the three vienna ones to know exactly when all these changes occurred if it wasn't in a vienna, though with some it was in hamburg and not Vienna 2015

#mozart das musical #nannerl mozart #meta #european musicals

[revoevokukil]

why does Avalach have that nickname?

I assume you mean Avallac'h as the nickname, as Crevan (Fox) is his real name (translating into 'Fox' in unicorn & Irish; befitting, by the way, as Tuatha Dé Danann of the Irish side of Celtic myth are one of the core inspirations for elves in The Witcher).

Why Avallac'h, then?

The name is a Latinized derivative of Afallach, with the root of the word being afal "an apple." Afallach, a Brythonic god originating in Celtic myth, is best known for his associations with Ynys Afallach ‘The Island of Apples’ or the Isle of Avalon - a mythical island between life & death.

Giraldus identifies the Isle of Avalon with Glastonbury, in De Instructione Principium (1193 -9): ‘what is now called Glastonia was anciently called Insula Avallonia, for it is like an island, wholly surrounded by marshes, whence it is called in British Inis Avallon, that is the apple-bearing island.’ William of Mamlesbury, in The Antiquities of Glastonbury (1216), follows this tradition. Glastonbury ‘is also well known as by the name of Insula Avalloniae’. He says it may be ‘named after a certain Avalloc who is said to have lived there with his daughters on account of it being a solitary place.

A father to Modron - a mother goddess - Afallach or Avalloc is held to be the ruler of the "island of apple trees"; an otherworldly haven to which King Arthur (& Geralt) are taken at the end of their perils. It’s the mythic Celtic Elysium.

Meanwhile, Sapkowski himself deems Avallac'h the Welsh god of evil spirits:

"The son of the lunar Nudd is Gwyn. Against his name (Gwyn means White), son of Nudd is the dark god of battle and death, ruler of Tylwyth Teg, Welsh evil spirits. Gwyn (called Melwas in Cornwall and Avallach in Somerset) was the Hunter, the Hunter of the Dead Souls."

Not only are Gwyn (ruler of a fairy otherworld) & Avallach the same deity, but the similarity is apparent at first sight (Avallac'h's introduction is given under Devil's Mountain, Mount Gorgon, where he patronises an array of evil, little creatures who heed his bidding & cease their "fun and games", not smashing in Geralt's face). Aen Elle - in the eyes of humanity - are most definitely something akin to "evil spirits." And Tylwyth Teg corresponds to "the fairy folk" who are described as fair-haired and coveting human children, whom they kidnap. It's poetry, really.

Furthermore, on apples. The fruit is commonly held as a symbol of fertility & sexuality, and it is especially representative of women’s Mysteries. Maiden, Mother, Crone - blossoms, fruit, black seeds. The symbol of Otherworldly paradise is related to the Feminine in Celtic (and other) cultures - for like the cauldron - it bears a strong association with wisdom and the womb. Consider further apple “the forbidden fruit” in Eden, or the apples of Elysium. Apples are often considered food of the gods, as well as granting impossible power or knowledge.

If we consider that the Witcher Saga does not shy away from admitting to the fundamental reality of its universe being fictitious, then why might Avallac'h in-universe go by the moniker?

Some thoughts:

Witcher gets meta-fictional. If Time is a circle & story-reality part of an “eternal recurrence”, who knows in how many realities & for how many times the story of elves - including Crevan’s personal one - has led to a similar point through different means (i.e. some special individuals take up many identities that they possess in different stories being told simultaneously & in parallel to The Witcher’s specific one - perhaps Aen Saevherne have access to knowledge of such realities via visions of past, present, and the future; all of which at the end of the day are but “versions” of a story the author picks.)

Perhaps Avallac’h found his way to the island of apple trees in search of Lara, even from beyond death?

He seems to enjoy bamboozling people & putting on some of that “larger than life” dust to his persona that somehow, inexplicably, also gives away a lot about his identity & story without Crevan necessarily having to share any knowledge about it to the peasants in person.

#the witcher #wiedźmin #avallac'h #elves #aen elle #andrzej sapkowski #the witcher lore #celtic myth #avalon #the witcher meta #apples #isle of apple trees #asks

[yuki8563]

2023-04-10 Paradise AU MAWARU-PENGUINDRUM x Night on the Galactic Railroad. x StarrPark

>> 故事 (只有中文) Story is only Chinese version But you can try using Twitter's translate button

遊樂園發生了死傷慘重的毒氣外洩事件，逝者靈魂喚醒了惡魔，她與少女進行交易，讓爆炸的事件和相關人士成為「不存在」。 葛蕾特的肉體存於現世，精神留在了永遠不會日落的夢幻樂園。 關於廢棄遊樂園的都市傳說：帶著收音機進入，發覺磁場變化的時候要趕快離開，不然會進入到永遠無法離開的樂園。

The parallel world formed by the price exchange between the train and the devil finally ends up as a story thread in our game world line. A poison gas leak occurs in Starr Park, and the spirits of the victims awaken demons. She exchanged a price with the gift shop employee to make the incident and the people involved disappear from the world. People who live in towns only have memories of the amusement park's decline. Colette's body lives in reality, but her spirit remains in the amusement park at dusk, which never turns night.

Urban legend about amusement parks: Enter with a radio and leave as soon as you notice changes in the magnetic field, otherwise you will enter a paradise that you can never leave.

2023-04-11

⚖️上的其中一邊固定被放置的是燃燒的心臟（心宿二）另一端就是下一個向惡魔提出要求的人所要付出的代價。

醫院的那個是平時的📖（沒有靈魂） 狀況好的話會變成最右邊的那個📖（反應遲鈍版本），會自己去公園散步。

進到遊樂園後會是中間的版本（活力100%） 左下角則是在次元的裂縫上或是被呼喚時會出現的惡魔

#brawlstars #brawlstarsart #yuki8563art #brawlstarscolette #brawlstarsedgar #BrawlstarsAU #paradiseAU