#subjugated by the village too much and it's a struggle )

[highfantasy-soul]

NATLA - Episode 2: Warriors (3/4)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

An explanation of what I'm doing here and my history with ATLA.

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

<previous/next>

It's funny to me when people critique the show by saying that 'Katara never needed help with her waterbending, she just taught herself to be a master and it's a bad lesson - it's ok for characters to struggle and need help' when…animated Katara taught herself WAY  more waterbending than live-action Katara did. Live-action Katara could barely lift any water at all before she got advice from another bender about the mindset (spiritual mindset) one needs to bend, then she needed the waterbending scroll to do any forms. In the animated series, she was doing a whole bunch of waterbending moves without any formal training at all - no consulting with Aang about how he bends either. She was doing great even before episode 9 when she gets the waterbending scroll. So in the animated version, she's a great waterbender with 0 help from anyone else and in the live action, she gets help from Aang, the waterbending scroll, Jet, observing earthbenders, the healers at the Northern Water Tribe, and Pakku's moves during their fight. So it sure looks to me like live-action Katara was much more steadfast and devoted to learning waterbending no matter how hard it was for her than the animated version.

I don't find Suki's interest in Sokka to be 'ruining' her character at all nor is it 'anti-feminist' for her to see Sokka as the embodiment of the outside world she never got to experience. She's extremely sheltered and here's a warrior from another part of the world - a cute one - who's interested in connecting to her too. It makes perfect sense that two teens in that situation would be drawn to each other and create a quick little romance. To me, it's a much better connection than 'sexist boy was mean to me, I beat him up, then once he apologized, I got a crush on him and kissed him'. Suki's whole thing in the animated series was 'I'm a warrior AND I'm a girl' and I think the live-action really fleshed that out and updated it to give her a bunch more power and character depth than she had. The 'I'm a girl, too' sentiment isn't just 'I want romance as well as warrior stuff' it was that she was a PERSON, too. A person with hopes, fears, wants, desires, dreams of the future and the desire to connect to something outside of the village she's lived her whole life in. No, the live action didn't 'ruin' Suki by having her 'simp' over Sokka from minute one. Personally, I think she's a much stronger character than she was in the animated episode.

Love Suki trying to flirt and connect with Sokka by being extremely awkwardly confident and thinking that people like it when you show them you're better at something than they are. It was so painfully relatable to those of us with zero game and gave us the same 'Suki beats Sokka's ass' scene without it being because Sokka is a sexist that needs to be taken down a peg - she literally thinks she's just connecting with him over stuff they're both good at. Sokka, understandably, is freaked out over it and bails, but comes around to her and seeks out training like he does in the animated version. He knows he's not the best warrior - even though he wants to be - and he's willing to swallow his pride and try learning. Plus I love us seeding in the idea that even non-benders can be badasses. It think that's something Korra really dropped the ball on since the Equalists quite literally were correct that benders are treated better than non-benders in the Avatar world. Sokka and Suki have to fight against that structural inequality and prove their worth in a world where bending is seen as making you better - and used to subjugate everyone.

This episode alludes to Aang's journey with Jong Jong where he hurts Katara with his firebending - in this instance, it's Aang remembering how he accidentally hurt ppl with his airbending because he was just more powerful, so he had to spend more time learning to control himself so he didn't keep hurting others - and that they were afraid of him. I think it's possible that in season 2, we'll have a call-back to this with a Jong Jong episode where Aang will hurt Katara and it will have been set up that he sometimes can't control his power. I'm also completely good with Katara finding that passage about the past lives stuff for the Avatar since she just randomly knew that in the animated series. In episode 3, while they're in the Avatar shrine at the Southern Air Temple, Katara just…knows all that. At least in the live-action, she's reading about it in the shrine of an Avatar from a person who's studied the Avatar.

Love the inclusion of Zuko confiding in Iroh just how hard the hope is for him now that he's found the Avatar - it adds real depth to his character rather than the flat angry Zuko we see so much in the animated show. Live-action allows us to see the cracks in his mask of power and see the scared little kid beneath it. After all, this is a 16 year old who was banished from his home at 13 and pretty much told never to return and the only person he knew who came with him was his uncle. He's been so alone and without hope for a long time and it makes sense to show this child cracking and feeling pain at that hope that's just arrived.

Again, I cannot overstate how much I love Gyatzo being a tether for Aang. It's Gyatzo who pulls him from the Avatar state in the first episode and Gyatzo who centers Aang enough to meditate into a position where he can meet with Kyoshi. Kyoshi's "both sides will fight harder now that the Avatar has been found, hope does not come without a cost" is such a great theme to explore all through this (and future) seasons. Connecting a theme to both sides is always great to me. Also, getting a bunch more on what it means to be the Avatar is nice, especially for new watchers - introducing the idea that each Avatar is shaped for their time, they have many roles, and they have to give up their own wants to be the 'avatars' (heh) for balance was a great recap, too, of the trials Aang will face.

People keep talking about them 'toning down' Katara's anger, but y'all couldn't even handle Kyoshi's very understandable two seconds of frustration when talking about murdered people with Aang, so I don't trust you at all with Katara's "girl power" feminist tirades. Kyoshi was amazingly patient and gentle with Aang until he said he was afraid of hurting people with it - only then did she get stern with him as Kyoshi is not the pacifist type. I've seen complaints that they made her 'villainous' with her looming presence and 'demonic' voice and I'm going to need people to get serious real quick. Kyoshi was 7 feet tall - she DID loom, it's kind of a massive part of her character, and that reverb layered voice is how EVERYONE sounds when they go into the Avatar state! It's to represent all the past lives talking through you!! Seriously, when those 'complaints' are made in those posts claiming that the live-action actually hates women, it just tells me that YOU hate women and can't stand a strong female character. Kyoshi is supposed to be 'a lot'. She's supposed to be scary af. If you don't like women characters to be like that, then maybe you don't actually like diverse women characters, you only want the palatable ones.

I like how the fight on Kyoshi island doesn't just start the moment the fire nation arrives, the two leaders have a tense chat and there's the option for the firebenders to turn around and leave in peace - of course Zhao doesn't take this opportunity (also like that it's Zhao and Zuko on the island, fleshing out Zhao's rivalry with Zuko even sooner) Zuko having the strategy while Zhao just has the sheer resources to cover all bases. Mama warrior bodying a man before the real fight breaks out was incredible and love that we kept in Sokka deflecting the fireball from Suki with the fan, too! Honestly I think one of my favorite moments of the season - so well shot and dope af. Katara getting her one-on-one with Zuko fight was great - really shows how far she'll come by the finale - and shows Zuko's unwavering need to capture the Avatar. He gives Katara the chance to back down, but when she doesn't, he has no problem beating her down with the intent to seriously maim.

And Katara is fierce AF! That's how you show a character who's not all powerful, who's terrified, still courageously standing firm and facing down a bunch of seasoned warriors to protect their friend - and fight to save the world. Standing your ground even when you're terrified is such an undervalued expression of strength and ferocity it's pissing me off that people are writing this Katara off as 'bland' and with 'no flaws or character development'. Like, understand what that means, people. But in the end, of course she's beaten - she's not a seasoned warrior yet and she still has all her firebender trauma in her - she tries and fails (ie not a perfect character) and will be beaten if Aang (or Kyoshi) doesn't step in. Yeah, she's a strong character - but she does still need help and the show doesn't shy away from it (like some people are trying to claim that it does).

#natla #netflix atla #netflix avatar #avatar the last airbender #natla spoilers

[messier-47]

Madara and Tobirama correspond for months and Hashirama continues to sulk.

All the sulking. So much of it.

Mostly because Mito is of the mind to be explictedly clear of where he went wrong and telling him that she expects him to take the right steps of rectifying his mistakes without any hints or nagging from herself or anyone else (glaring at Madara cause while he does agree with her assessment he's kinda a pushover especially when Hashi turns on the waterworks)(except the fear of god was forced onto Madara early and god's wrath looks alot like a red-haired Uzumaki princess that knows more subjugation seals than one could list). Hashirama knows he's in the wrong but his hurt pride stings a little too much to properly write a letter addressed to Tobirama apologizing.

Anyway, as Hashirama is being uncool in his fungi closet let's see what Madara and Tobirama are cooking up;

Tobirama has more than enough experience building villages out of either nothing or literal ruins so when he walked into Konoha to see the utter disgrace of a village being built he'd honestly wanted to curl up in a little ball and hide. He clocked in very early on that Madara is struggling to keep his head above water and despite all of his own postulation that he wouldn't have a hand in building Konoha (said out of anger cause his anija just assumed that would happen but those were words he stood by) he couldn't help himself sending a letter to the Uchiha Clan Head and hoping that the bushy haired, perpetually exhausted looking man would read between the lines.

He then receives a letter.

And he genuinely cackles over Madara's reply.

It is the more sarcastic, caustic letter he'd ever read. Declarations of war doesn't have as much scathing zeal as Tobirama's latter does, it's contents attempting to burn Tobirama's entire existence through words alone. It's blood curdling. It's obscenely offensive.

Tobirama loves it.

Cause in between the lines are a thank you and 'hope to talk to you some more?' most expertly coded. It's honestly a letter offering the vague details of an existing problem in Konoha and Madara's inquiry of how to fix it.

Tobirama replies back with the driest review of observation, like the Wind Country's salt flats. It has a coded list of recommended resources to solve the problems Madara listed.

Their exchanges are all scathing, and hateful. If one should read their correspondence you'd think they were the most bitter of enemies. There were only so many ways to curse one's father before people start believing that one hated the other's conception to the degree of murdering the sire. Or that the other would pluck the other's eyes out and with (here would be a scribbled out word but there were eyes that could see what was underneath) to set things right which must be a reference to the Sharingan and how much the White Fox hated the Uchiha.

But each letter, growing more hateful and scathing in response, was met only with more and more enthusiasm and endearment.

#LordTobirama!AU #my content #politics #tobirama senju #madatobi #fanfic i only hope to write one day #@6miray6 #naruto

[odysseywritings]

Runoff - Establishing the Cast

Sasha looked at a black liquid in a test tube as she wrote notes in a faded notebook. She was unaware of what the others were doing as she focused on the toxicity of the substance floating in the lake. Her pudgy fingers ran through her curly red hair as she scratched off one hypothesis and wrote down another.

Arie read a surviving scrapbook written in a language he did not understand and tried to decode. He saw smiling families from before the war, never again feeling that joy, and he rubbed his head in grief. His long black hair was showing signs of receding despite his youth, and his dark eyes were bloodshot from ongoing nights like these.

Aubrey finished constructing a thick knife that she placed next to Arie, smiling at her handiwork. She wolfed down the rest of some meat, burped, and moved on to paint a picture of humans warring with each other with blood and the red sky popping out. Her pale blonde hair showed traces of graying, and her green eyes intently focused on realism in her art.

Arie spoke up to break the silence as he held the knife comfortably.

“You’re getting better at crafting, Aubrey. Have you thought about guns yet?”

“I think about ‘em in my sleep!” she beamed. “It’s trickier, but if Sasha gives me some pointers, or if you find some old-timey schematic, I’ll be right as rain.”

“We’re not magicians,” Sasha said absent-mindedly. “We would need the right tools and to make sure you don’t blow off your hand.”

“No problem,” Aubrey affirmed. “Arie and I scouted out earlier and he said there’s an old shop full of tools. The more weapons we get, the safer we’ll be.”

“What we really need is better food, water, and shelter. No one will go after us if we mind our own business.”

“Bull-shit if you think we won’t be easy pickin’ for those creeps! I got a good mind to shoot that tattooed fuck and strangle him with his own scorpion flag. You’re smart. You know what that gang does to people just by being in their path.”

“We need both,” Arie chimed. “But we’ll do better if we have numbers on our side. The villages are more fortified than out here in the boonies. If we can find a group that shares our language, we can talk to them and ask them for help.”

“And then we get... What’s that word you used before? Subjugated. No freedom, little payment if we’re not already slaves, and forced to herded around like sheep.”

“I enjoy living in comfort over something as nebulous as independence. You can’t do much research with bullets in you.”

“We’ll be living too comfortably for our own good! Arie, you read history books. There’s always a struggle going on. A large place swallowing up everyone.”

“That’s simplifying it a lot. There’s patterns but it’s not easy to predict. Like if relations between lands grow cold, if the environment changes drastically-”

Aubrey yelled and stood up. “I am not letting any stranger control us, got it? If we need a community, then we’re doing it on our terms! They can join or leave if they want. But we’re survivors! Our minds, our blood, our pain shaped us! Everyone else is dying all the time when there used to be a much better world to live in. I’d rather mold the world than be molded by it!”

Her face wrinkled like a wild cat and she breathed quickly. Arie and Sasha worried for her and did not look away until she sat back down with her painting. Her body calmed as she drew more little men getting stabbed and screaming. Sasha went back to her studies and Arie hesitated before flipping a page in the scrapbook.

Sasha’s eyes darted to the window briefly but she saw something out of place. What looked like a bird shadow passing by turned into a more obvious shape. A head was trying to look inside. Sasha tip-toed away and whispered to Arie and Aubrey. They guided her to a room with a trapdoor to hide in. She shivered in fear as Arie went to the door with his knife sheathed. Aubrey grabbed a shotgun and waited in a nearby room.

“We know there’s someone in there,” a sharp voice yelled out. “I can hear and see from out here. We just want to talk. Census survey.”

Arie rolled his eyes and motioned to Aubrey with hand signal with his pointer high, middle finger outward, and ring and pinky closed. She nodded. He opened the door to reveal 4 leather-clad men with tire irons walking through. A bald man with stubble and piercing blue eyes examined the place.

“Nice place, Mister...”

“Santana.”

“Mm-hmm. It’s just you, then?”

“Yes.”

One of the thugs looked at the art and preceded to take it while crumpling it up. Another saw the test tubes and stuck his finger in the black toxin before tasting it. Arie shuffled around to make sure his back was near a wall.

“Decent place for just one guy. Now... My boys have walked a long way and we need to rest a bit. Say a day or two. Appreciate the hospitality.”

“I didn’t say you could use my home as a billet.”

“I don’t know what that word means, but you misunderstand. We need this more than you. We kindly avoided smashing in this place and this is how you owe us? Tsk tsk. But we’ll find a way to negotiate.”

Arie coughed in a distinctly clear way and stood stoic. “This is my last word to you: Leave.”

“I should’ve figured you wouldn’t know what was good for you.”

Arie saw a man to his right pull out a pistol and Arie coughed the same way again. Aubrey took the signal and shot the man in the head. A man to Arie’s left tried to strike him in confusion but  Arie jumped to the right and slashed the assailant’s throat with Aubrey’s knife.

Aubrey gunned down the remaining goon down in his stupor. Out-manned 2 to 1, the man shook and got down on his knees begging for his life, offering both money or sex servants. They were indifferent. Arie cut the man’s sleeve to reveal a black scorpion tattoo on his muscled arm. Aubrey had hatred storming in her eyes, tempered only by Arie being in fine health.

“Well, Arie,” she said lowering her gun. “You’re the diplomatic one. What’s your Geneva Convention say about guys who piss themselves?”

“He can’t fight back. Let’s tie him up and see if he’s wanted. There might be reward money.”

“Hah! Smart thinking.” She then knelt and looked at the man dead in the eyes. Her voice was monotone and deep. “That man is the only thing stopping me from turning your skull into a soup bowl. I’d recommend treating him nicely.”

He blubbered and nodded excitedly.

///

Tagging for folks who said nice things about the first poem: @bloodlessheirbyjacques @pluttskutt @timisrecs

#writblr #wip: runoff #post apocalypse #post-apocalyptic #action #mywriting #njm #dunno if I'll continue #but this was fun

[nobody-cared-then-either]

Zach Reynolds

Dr. McLeod

April 27, 2011

Engl 3105

The Lacanian Power Struggle in “Sweat”

Rewrite

Reading Zora Neal Hurston’s “Sweat” through a Lacanian lens reveals an interplay between the symbolic and the imaginary orders in the relationship between Sykes and Delia. As a male imposing his authority over a female in patriarchal society, Sykes embodies the symbolic imposing authority over the imaginary order. In fact, the patriarchal culture that gives men the authority and the power to fulfill their desires with impunity so fully shapes Syke’s identity that he has become ruthless in his relationships. Clarke remarks on Sykes brutal nature to the other village men on the store front: “There’s plenty men dat takes a wife lak dey do a joint uh sugar-cane. . . . dey squeeze an’ grind, squeeze an’ grind tell . . . dey’s satisfied dat dey is wrung dry, [then] . . . dey throws ‘em away,” (Hurston 78). Because of Delia’s subjugation to Sykes, she serves as a working stand-in for the imaginary order that is itself subjugated to the symbolic order. Thus, the surface arrangement of power in Sykes’ and Delia’s relationship resembles the surface arrangement of power in the Lacanian orders. As the story progresses though, the reality of the power placement in these relationships proves to be subtler and more intricate than at surface it appears.

Because Delia is emblematic of the imaginary order, she displays many of the qualities that Lacan defines as present in the pre-verbal stage of infancy. For example, Delia’s identification with her house (an edifice built on her sweat and blood) mirrors the infant’s identification with its mother at this pre-verbal, or “imaginary” stage. After losing everything else to Sykes, the house becomes Delia’s “objet petit a,” and her assertion of ownership over the house parallels the infant’s illusion of unity with its mother: “[It was] too late now to hope for love . . . Too late for everything except her little home. She had built it for her old days, and planted one by one the trees and flowers there. It was lovely to her, lovely,” (76). Delia desires her house like the infant desires its mother – in fact, she cares much more about her house than she cares about Sykes. In addition, by retreating into her own private world of religion and work and stubbornly ignoring Sykes’ flaunting of authority over her, Delia regresses more fully into the imaginary order. Hurston describes her as “[building] a spiritual earthworks against her husband,” showing “triumphant indifference to all that he was or did” (76), and “[avoiding] the villagers and meeting places in her efforts to be blind and deaf” (79). Thus, as her first line of defense against Sykes’ abuses, Delia reverts to the pre-verbal stage of the imaginary order so that she does not have to confront him at the verbal level of the symbolic.

Drawing on a more classic Freudian approach to psychoanalysis, we can also interpret Delia’s struggle with Sykes for possession of the house as the traditional oedipal struggle between child, mother, and father. The assertions of ownership that Sykes and Delia each make over the house leads to one of the most poignant confrontation scenes in the story. Though Sykes threatens Delia with abuse, telling her, “Ah done promised Gawd and a couple of other men, Ah aint gointer have [the white folk’s clothes] in mah house,” Delia breaks habit with her meek character and, brandishing an iron skillet, proclaims to Sykes, “Mah sweat is done paid for this house and . . . You aint paid for nothin’ on this place, and Ah’m gointer stay right heah till Ah’m toted out foot foremost.” This oedipal struggle operates on the premise of Delia’s “desire for the mother” in Lacanian theory and reinforces the house’s role as “objet petit a,” or a stand in for the mother. Sykes plays out the role of “the father” in this conflict in an unusual way, however, for “the child,” Delia, actually subverts his claim to the object of desire, “the mother.” Yet, casting Sykes into the role of “the father” makes sense in Lacanian psychology for revealing the illusory authority it places in the symbolic order, which “the father” of Freudian psychology only stands in for.

The introduction of the real (Sykes’ death) at the story’s conclusion strongly demonstrates how the relationship between Delia and Sykes comes to resemble more intricately the subtleties of the relationship between the symbolic and imaginary orders in Lacanian psychology. Though it appears first that the symbolic order will triumph over the imaginary – that Sykes will kill Delia by freeing the rattlesnake in her house – by an ironic twist of fortune the snake actually strikes Sykes instead. The fact that Sykes receives his killing blow in the dark – symbolic of the unconscious – completes the analog of his relationship with Delia to the relationship between the Lacanian orders. Though the symbolic order has the “phallus,” and though it seems on the surface to have all the power, when that phallus (the snake) turns on Sykes, it reveals that the symbolic order does not control so much as it seems to. On the contrary, it turns out that the symbolic order holds very little power that cannot be usurped by the unconscious, which happens to be the level from which the imaginary order operates in the fully developed Lacanian model. There are other moments in the story that hint at this hidden dynamic to the relationship between the symbolic and imaginary order. The confrontation scene in which Delia’s humility transforms to outrage with the skillet in her hand serves as one example. This moment presents the opportunity to recognize that though the power appears to be in Sykes’ hands, the truth must be otherwise since he retreats from Delia as soon as she asserts herself. Hence, “a little awed” when confronted “by this new Delia, [Sykes] sidled out of the door and slammed the back gate after him,” (75).

Ultimately, though the snake serves as the utmost symbol of Sykes’ phallic power both as a man and as a representative of the symbolic order, it proves in the end to be more power than Sykes can handle. By attempting to dominate the snake, Sykes unconsciously tries to compensate for his repressed feelings of helplessness (lack of actual control over Delia, the house, or his status among the village men) in hopes of empowering himself and asserting his authority once and for all as a real and legitimate power. However, Hurston reveals in the last two scenes of her story that the snake symbolizes “the real,” a third register in Lacanian theory that takes precedence over the symbolic and the imaginary order as an ineffable truth that disregards the power struggle taking place between the two entirely. Thus, facing the real reduces Sykes to his true nature – that of an animal made captive by its own unconscious grievances – and he dies in gruesome display. The story ends with the real toppling the illusory power that the symbolic order holds over the imaginary order, and indeed, over even it’s own embodiment.

Works Cited

Hurston, Zora Neale. “Sweat.” The Complete Stories. New York: Harper Perennial,

1995. 73-85. Print

#zora neale hurston #sweat

[goblarsgist]

QUICK STORY:

Yesterday, Nky Iweka shared a post from a dude who wrote about his village uncle. According to the post, the Uncle, though tiny in size, would never concede to any defeat in a fight. On one occasion, this tiny Uncle continued a fight with an adversary for 3 months everywhere they met, until the other guy (exasperated) brought his family to beg this midget uncle oh! The story was hilarious and got me talking about another such character, whom I knew to be in Ondo town, who would resume a fight (even though he lost the previous day's fight) every morning at 6:00am and did so for 11 days, He would come knocking at the door everyday, until the subjugator, out of exasperation, abandoned his home. Reading these stories and many other stories on the page got me laughing and brought some more strange stories back to my memory. So, here is my quick story:

There is this particular event which I partially witnessed in my days in UNIFE. In those days, the university's sports facility was fairly well equipped and was a place for guys to hang out and work out in the evenings. It is quite unbelievable how much things have deteriorated in Nigerian Universities. University of Ife was quite a model school in the not too distant past. If you went to the indoor sports centre and gym in the evening in those days, you would see quite a lot of budding body builders working through their regimen and it was not uncommon to see girls come to hang out and get an eyeful. Of course, there were also athletes of all sorts doing their thing.

On this particular day, there had apparently been a spat between two guys caused by a girl - this was before I arrived. It seemed the bone of contention was not yet resolved and tempers were still flared. I noticed that one of the contenders was a chiseled bodybuilder whose physical attributes left no one in doubt what his hobby was. This guy was built like a Spanish bull! The other guy was shockingly very slim. He was athletic, but certainly not a bodybuilder. I would say he was probably a track and field athlete of sort - very slender and fit. Apparently, the earlier altercation had been quenched by fellow gym users who got in between them and put a stop to it. This, however, did not stop the insults and back talk that was still going on when I arrived. The bodybuilder was obviously getting the brunt of the verbal onslaught from the slender guy.

Things came to a head at some point, and there were not enough forces or will power to keep them apart anymore. The bodybuilder walked up to the mouthy slender guy and a fresh altercation started. Furious blows started swinging, many of which missed its intended target. The slender guy was surprisingly bold and lithe, managing to avoid a few head-crushing blows and delivering a few of his. The crowd quickly grew, with no one intending to get in between those wicked blows. The bodybuilder swiftly changed tactics, rushed the slender dude, picked him up like a rag doll and slammed him on the floor! Before the slender guy could recover, he was again lifted up and thrown across the floor like an unwanted furniture! How the slender dude survived it, I wouldn't know. Well-meaning people quickly stepped in to stop the fight.

The slender dude got up and tried to charge back into the fight! He kept on struggling to get back at the bodybuilder, as people held him back. Seeing he was not having much success in continuing the fight, he burst out crying. Something struck me about his emotional outburst. He was not crying from hurt or pain. He was crying out of frustration - you could see his eyes were bloodshot and the veins on his neck and frontal lobe were clearly visible. He wanted to fight and could not be contained. He kept on saying; "Stamina ni ija, ....stamina ni ija!....", meaning fighting is all about stamina, ...fighting is all about stamina! Despite every effort, slender dude refused to be placated and even pretended to walk away, only to run around the crowd to get to the bodybuilder!

The fight resumed. Clearly, at this point, guys had decided to let the chips fall where it may. The bodybuilder was taken by surprise, but he quickly recovered. He parried off a few blows and had the slender guy in head lock. For a while, it seemed like the bodybuilder did not know what to do with this hard-headed guy in his clutch. After a little more struggle, bodybuilder using his superior strength, picked up the slender guy and body-slammed him with much more brutality! I thought it was a knockout blow. This slender dude got up again and charged back in. The bodybuilder started throwing haymaker punches intended to take off a person's head. The slender guy avoided most of the punches and seemed to be enjoying the fight. He connected a few of his own. Bodybuilder changed tactics, rushed in and got slender guy in a chokehold, but the slender guy was slippery and lithe.

Everyone just sat back and watched. It was as if there was a consensus to allow things to work itself out. Something incredible started happening - it was as if the bodybuilder started getting tired and the slender guy started enjoying himself more and more. It was then that I remembered what he was saying while crying; "Stamina ni ija, ....stamina ni ija!!..." - that was his song. It was quite unbelievable! The bodybuilder was obviously far more powerful, but no one could have anticipated what was being witnessed. This slender guy was the human equivalent of an African Honey Badger! He simply did not know how to quit. After a while, the bodybuilder, who was not a particularly vocal guy, started vocalising and talking;

"Take this motherf**ker away from me or else I will kill him"

He repeated himself again;

"Take this bastard away from me otherwise, I will kill him"

No one moved a muscle. Sebi nah una wan fight? The slender guy managed to get out of the headlock and then attacked again with kicks and blows. He took up a classic boxing stance, dodging and throwing blows while he kept yelling out to the onlookers;

"E ma da si o! .....E ma da si o!", (Translation: "...don't interfere o!")

At this stage, you could tell the bodybuilder needed a break, whereas this slender guy seemed to be enjoying it more and more, despite the fact that he had received a fair amount of beating. His face was puffed up and his lips were swollen, but his spirit was as eager as when the fight began. The fight continued. Out of exhaustion, the bodybuilder picked up the slender dude and proceeded to throw him to the ground, this time ensuring that he held him to the ground with all his weight. The slender guy just kept punching and throwing at bodybuilder's face from his position on the ground like an MMA fighter. At this point, as if in sheer exasperation, the bodybuilder had the slender dude with his back on the floor (still fighting like hell) and grabbed his neck with his two hands as if to strangle him. I was alarmed! Finally, it seemed the bodybuilder could take no more punches to the face from this mad Honey Badger that was under him, he yelled out to us (onlookers) in a very frustrated tone;

"E stop ija yi nau! Ma kan ọrun bobo yi oh!"

(Translation: Stop this fight or I will break this guy's neck oh")

The plea and desperation in his voice needed no interpretation. He was not kidding! He had clearly had enough. Guys moved in to stop the fight immediately. Both fighters were bleeding on the face. The Slender guy, having taken a lot of pummelling starting crying again;

"E ma da si, ...E ma da si o! Stamina ni ija nau. Stamina ni ija....."

(Translation: Don't interfere, don't interfere! Fighting is all about stamina!)

He was bundled and carried away, sobbing, kicking and screaming.......

"Stamina ni ija, ...stamina ni ija........"

The guy became a legend in Awolowo male hostel!

~Mide Iluyomade 11:27am 08122023

#oloyegobii #goblarsgist

[sokkastyles]

One of the reasons "Zuko Alone" is such a good episode is because it is the first time we see Zuko on his own, without Iroh. Iroh is set up early on in the story as Zuko's morality pet - a character who is likeable who is paired with a villain to make said villain more sympathetic. Iroh helps keep Zuko on the right track and lets the audience know that there is more to Zuko than just villainy.

And yet, it isn't just Iroh that gives Zuko his redeeming qualities, and that's one reason Zuko had to be seperated from Iroh to show us who Zuko really is.

This episode digs deeply into Zuko's past, and his relationships with his family, including Iroh, and also shows us some of Iroh's dark past in the process. Just like in "The Storm," we learn more about Zuko's motivation and his inner struggle. But the way that the flashbacks are contrasted with what Zuko does in the present when we see him alone for the first time also reveals a great deal about who he is. There's a quote that goes "character is what you are in the dark." What Zuko chooses to do when he's on his own, away from both his mission to capture the Avatar and Iroh's guiding hand, is perhaps the most interesting thing about him in this episode. That he chooses to help the Earth Kingdom village for no other reason than that he saw that they were suffering and wanted to help them.

It also shows us a lot about how Zuko sees himself in contrast to what he sees as his role as prince of the Fire Nation. Iroh gets a lot of criticism in parts of the fandom for his role before the series began in perpetuating the Fire Nation's tyranny, but it's also clear that Iroh at the beginning of the series is in a sort of limbo state. He does not deny his responsibility for the part he played, but neither does he support the war. His only motivation is to help his nephew in the way he sees that he can, and that's accompanying Zuko on the mission Ozai sent him on. I've often said that Iroh's arc in the series involves becoming more active in his defiance of the war, as at the beginning of the series he is a broken man in a contradictory position who can only act in subtle ways. He can't actively tell Zuko to defy Ozai, but he can discretely guide him in the right direction.

Because of this, I'm not sure if Zuko would have acted the same if he had come upon the village while traveling with Iroh. Zuko knows that Iroh encourages him to be a good person and act with compassion and morality. He also knows that Iroh has some traitorous leanings. But Iroh's passive resistance is very different from Zuko's need to act, and what he does in the village by deciding to fight to protect the people of the village from soldiers abusing their power is probably not something he would have done had Iroh been with him. Iroh has too much guilt over his role in the subjugation of the Earth Kingdom people. Zuko, for all that he spends most of the first season trying to capture Aang, is still largely an innocent when it comes to the war. That is shown in the way that he offers Lee his own dagger for protection. The same dagger that we learn in this episode was given to him by Iroh as a war trophy taken from a defeated Earth Kingdom General. Zuko has no idea of the true meaning of the dagger. That's emphasized when Zuko asks Lee to read the inscription and Lee mistakenly reads "made in Earth Kingdom" instead of the inscription Zuko wanted him to read. It's a moment that is humorous but also reminds us darkly of how Zuko ended up with the dagger in the first place, and foreshadows the town's ultimate rejection of Zuko and Zuko having to confront the reality of what his people did during the war.

Zuko's desire to help the people of the village is pure, but he is confronted with guilt by association. He offers the dagger to Lee because of its personal meaning to him, to "Never give up without a fight." Whereas Iroh, knowing the true meaning of the dagger, might have not made such an offering, or offered it out of guilt. Zuko does react with ignorance when he fails to understand why announcing himself as the prince of the Fire Nation doesn't gain him any points in the eyes of the villagers, but his ignorance is one of a teenager who just wants to help others. Contrast this with Iroh, who, when his titles are brought up, often reminds others that he is retired and is clearly ashamed of his past. If Iroh had accompanied Zuko on this little subplot, he might have been too ashamed of his past actions to feel as if it was his place to act the same way Zuko does. Zuko might have also been prevented from acting in defense of the villagers with Iroh at his side because even though Iroh encourages him to be good, Iroh still knows him as the prince of the Fire Nation, and thus Zuko still has to play the part. I think this also informs Zuko's confusion in season two over what Iroh wants him to do and who Iroh wants him to be, and his frustration as a result. I think Iroh would have approved of Zuko's actions in the village, but Zuko does not know this. It's important for Zuko to confront these hard truths about himself and the war on his own, and by the end of this episode I think he does have a more adult understanding of things that he would not have had if he had not been seperated from Iroh.

#zuko #iroh #zuko alone #atla meta

[kagrena]

belief

was something you wanted to cling to, with all your fingers.

But you struggled to grasp it. As a child, you would often make yourself scarce in the marsh’s shadows when Mother shut all six locks behind her to wade into the wild, to give tribute to that which decays, that which revolts, that which rots. You watched her wither and dessicate and reduce herself from towering and taciturn and weighty with hard-earned wisdom to a hollow figure, snap-thin, forlorn and kneeling in the mud. You knew that if you confessed what secrets you’d witnessed spilt in the dark, there would be shrieking and there would sorrow, wrapped up in accusation after accusation.

“Why would you so readily discard this freedom that I’ve bled and I’ve bruised to offer you? Do you know how much this has cost?”

Mother had wanted to keep you, to lock you away from this terrible practice. You were, after all, to brew enough power to loom mountains over all who would seek to shackle you. Yet all Mother’s chastising and sharp reprimands only made you want to draw closer.

Perhaps you were sick in the head. It wouldn’t have been the first time you had questioned such a thing.

You often found yourself watching the few others who’d eclipse into your remote orbit, and the way they would willing subjugate themselves, with a certain fascination. The hagravens, for instance, who you’d leave the marsh before the first frosts for mixed blessings, who could have simply snapped your neck with the curl of a claw had you not kept your mouth shut, dedicated long, bloody rites to lost gods that would never answer. The Mabrigash sisters who still spoke to Mother (in terse, unpleasant exchanges) would tend to shrines to the four corners that would wreak famine and plague as trials and tributes. Even Demeetrus, the kind soul who smuggled parcels and letters and snatches of words through the marsh and liked to tickle your chin and call you ‘witchling’, would speak of the night only in hushed voices, for Mother told you his mistress was a spiteful one, who’d leave her followers in the cold.

Perhaps you could simply not fathom it. You’d wondered if the fault had lied with you.

When they – when the dragons, they killed Mother – you broke all your promises. You tore away at every chain and tie and noose with bloody hands and so you’d thrown yourself at it, you’d thrown yourself at it screaming, tried to wring your hands around it, sank to your grazed and bloody knees, thrown yourself into locked doors and messy rituals and wept spools of forbidden magic by the candle and still, the gods asked of you, the gods wanted more, they took and they took and they took, and you were still starving.

You still questioned, even then, even with a laurel of fire braided in your hair, in the faint moments where you had been a champion.

It haunted you. Even once you’d cut all your ties, cut all your hair, left with too many cares and Chim-el Adabal stuffed in your back pocket and the world nearing an end, you’d see glimpses of it still in the weaving of green hills and valleys in Cyrodiil’s heart. Between the greying stone and vineyards and the old woods and the temperate weather and the withering glares of townsfolk, you’d thought the gods-bothering eight-or-nine divines folk wouldn’t bleed for the gods in the same way. You had thought wrong, course. You’d sit on the chapel steps and watch the petitioners sink under stained windows. You’d watch proud, defiant people break themselves in front of altars. You’d watch people wring themselves wretched, and pray to stave off the legions of oblivion that would wipe through their villages in a blaze. When their stony gods did not answer, they’d go to the forbidden shrines in the wilds. You’d watch them kneel into the mud without solace. You’d watch them perish all the same.

“Why do they do this?” you would ask the priest. It would be maybe the fourth or fifth question, in a cold temple foyer, with ornamental blades at your back. You would ignore them. You would keep your eyes on him. “They still suffer. I don’t see the point.”

“It’s…” He would pull a hand through his hair like he was trying to straighten something complicated into a few terse words. “There’s really no short answer, Ysa, to that question.”

You’d scoff. And hold your arms tight.

“I don’t see why it has to be that complicated. People suffer, because of them. They’re no better than liege lords or petty kings.”

He’d almost appear to smile at that. Perhaps even grimace.

“Watch yourself, Ysa.” Ysa, again. “You never know whose ears might be open.”

And you would bit your lip, ignoring how that particular metaphor didn’t make any sense. What you’d wanted to tell him, hawk-ears blades be damned, was that all gods were tyrants. What you’d wanted to tell him, by the time he was just stone and flowers and washed away by the rains, was that all tyrants could be toppled from their pedestals, and shattered. What you’d wanted to tell him, drowning in the downpours of your grief again, wallowing, on your knees outside that damned dragon statue you wished you could topple with your bare hands, is that if you were fierce enough, if you were clever enough, if you knew were just one step ahead, you knew you could break them. And they’d be rubble.

You had wanted to tell him: some day, the Empire will fall. And all will be free.

But the rains came first. What was left unsaid, it stung on your tongue, and sat there, festering.

You clung onto that. You clung onto that, at least.

-----------

< Prev | Directory | Next >

#tesfest21 #oblivion #hero of kvatch #martin septim #ysamyne montrose #death tw #grief tw #The Song of Ysamyne Montrose #3rd era

[an-apocalypse-of-magpies]

Asterix and the Legacy of the Original Authors

So I finally saw Asterix and the Secret of the Magic Potion (2018). Significantly, this is the first Asterix story I’ve experienced since the retirement of Albert Uderzo, the original co-creator of the characters and creative lead follower the death of Rene Goscinny.

And it was brilliant.

The plot, simply summarised, is that Getafix (Panoramix in the original French), venerable and wise village druid, slips and falls out of a tree for the first time in his long career. He begins to worry that he’s getting too old for this (indeed, Getafix’s age has always been ambiguous, but he’s easily the oldest recurring character after the appropiately named Geriatrix/Agecanonix, who’s certainly over 80), and that he needs to find a successor, not least of which because only he knows the formula for his legendary magic potion that gives the Gauls the super strength needed to hold off the Roman invasion (the film makes a running joke that druids never write things down). While on the search, an old rival of Getafix’s, Sulfurix (dubbed Demonix in the Canadian English dub, in case it wasn’t clear that he’s evil) is desperately trying to steal the formula, seeking to liberate the Gaulish lands from the Romans and not merely one village. Along with Asterix, Obelix and tagalong kid Pectin(/e), the heroes must find a successor, but is there a Gaulish druid worthy of this most sacred knowledge?

The animation is excellent, as it was in the previous animated outing Asterix and the Mansions of the Gods (2014), really capturing the look and feel of the comic albums. I feel like too much cartoon media these days is afraid to really exploit squash-and-stretch for expressive and dynamic purposes, and with Asterix’s trademark slapstick being Roman soldiers clobbered so hard their torsos sail off into the air before their feet have entirely realised what happened, it was necessary for this. The film is bright and crisp, and the light effects suitably dramatic (and with many a magical zip and zap, it’s crucial to have good lighting).

The story has many of the familiar beats. Alexandre Astier is clearly playing it a little bit safe, but considering he’s writing his own Asterix story, it’s safer to stick with that than to try and push it too far and risk alienating the audience. A crisis emerges, Asterix and Obelix and miscellaneous tagalongs leave the village, shenanigans happen, Asterix and Obelix have a falling out and become separated temporarily, there’s an ominous moment when the magic potion runs out, Romans attack the village, everyone gets back in time to save the day, Romans get punched a bit, big feast under the stars. What I liked, though, is how this story tried to do something interesting with the side characters. While Getafix is a very important character for the story, he rarely gets involved in the actual plot, so it’s nice to see more of him and in particular his character flaws - namely his stubbornness and attempts to do everything himself, even to the detriment of those around him. Even being confined to a primitive wheelchair for a lot of the film due to an injured ankle doesn’t stop him from taking a part, and it’s nice to see more of him than merely ‘wise wizardly old man, keeps calm and lectures people’. Unhygenix the fishmonger (Ordralfabetix) gets an amusing background arc where he believes that he could be Getafix’s successor and tries dabbling with druidcraft in the background, with amusing results. For once, his role isn’t just ‘gets in a fight with Fulliautomatix the blacksmith (Cetautomatix)’, and we get to see that he’s an interesting combination of surprisingly intelligent and thick as two short rocks. Fulliautomatix himself gets to have some humorous musing at his alchemical antics, and at one point the requisite Unhygenix/Fulliautomatix fight is successfully quelled, with Fulliautomatix admitting that he has a short temper and that this was unnecessary aggression on his part. Vitalstatistix (Abraracourcix) leads the village men (apart from the perennially unpopular bard Cacofonix (Assurancetourix)) to accompany Getafix halfway through, leaving the womenfolk to defend the village with a backup supply of potion. Happily, this means we also get to see more of the village women - headed up by Impedimenta (Bonnemine), Mrs Geriatrix (Geriatrix’s unnamed but incredibly young wife) and Bacteria (Ielosubmarine) - than just ‘being someone’s wife’ - Impedimenta plays a vital role in corralling the women for war and appears to be keeper of the potion reserves, while the others get more speaking roles and are able to participate in fights. It’s not much, but in a world of Gaulish men, the women tend to fall by the wayside unless they get to be a sex symbol or someone’s harridan wife. Cacofonix himself gets to play at being a chief, where his cowardly nature makes for an amusing contrast Impedimenta’s more no-nonsense practicality. We also get to see some of the Gaulish children for once! They make fun of their elders and play around with stolen Roman warrior stuff. When the going gets tough, though, the first thing the village defence team do is make sure the kids get somewhere safe, and Cacofonix gets a slightly tender moment where he tries to assure them that he’s going to be okay ... with a long winded speech rather than just getting on with it.

The real star of the film (well, alongside Asterix, Obelix and Getafix) is Pectin. Pectin is a scrappy little girl from the village who’s into inventing and engineering, and her establishing scene is ignoring the other kids playfighting so that she can finishing what seems to bee some kind of automatic watering machine. She’s smart, creative, appropriately afraid of the dangers that crop up but wants to do right by Getafix, whose wisdom she deeply admires. It’s fairly clear even from the outset what her role will be. Eventually, in the darkest moments, Getafix teaches Pectin the secret recipe - including Getafix’s secret ingredient - in order to save the village. She assures Getafix later that she will try to forget the recipe, so that she won’t accidentally reveal it to the wrong sort, but just as the credits roll, Getafix muses what we’re all thinking - that this girl might be worthy to be his successor. Pectin’s important because of the series’ ... shaky history with feminism. The film sets out that only men can become druids, and women are even forbidden from the woods where they meet. When taking Getafix to the meet, Pectin has to wear a hood and hike her dress up to look more like a boy appropriately. To allow Pectin to become a druid would defy ... well, some lofty ideal that only men can become druids. Like so many old sexist tropes, the reason has become ‘... well, they just don’t’. So it’s good that this is addressing that, as well as forcing more female characters into the limelight. The most prominent female character in all of Asterix is Impedimenta, followed maybe by the heartthrob and Obelix’s crush Panacea. I’ve elaborated above the problems there. In Asterix classic, women are to be desired or to be overbearing wives to henpecked husbands. It’s likely that Goscinny and Uderzo meant no malice by this writing; they were two French men writing a humour comic, and played on the popular tropes accordingly. But they (or rather, Uderzo) did attempt to tackle feminism in this comic before. It was ... well, it was a bit clunky.

Asterix and the Secret Weapon (1991) was a rather dated and fearmonger-y take on feminism, having a feminist activist outsider called Bravura comes to the village, encourages the women to rise up against their husbands (the men, out of chivalry and hen-peckedness, do not resist), seizing control of the village. Asterix, being both a bachelor and bit of a firebrand at perceived injustice, confronts Bravura, whereupon she flirts with him to try and seduce him into marrying her, whereupon he (shock horror) strikes her out of reflex. But Gaulish men do not hit women! Asterix is banished to the nearby forest for his insolence, eventually joined by the other men, fed up with the overbearing women. When the Romans (knowing that Gaulish men will not attack a women) send a detachment of female soldiers to the village, the women have turned it into a primitive shopping centre, where the female soldiers can shop and get their hair and make up done and forget all about attacking the village. Yeah. Feminists are salacious witches who would enthrall men and subjugate them, women love nothing more than shopping and beauty, it’s ... it’s bad. Secrot of the Magic Potion at least attempts to fix this by questioning male dominance in a role without being so weird about it, and having the women be just as much proud, organised village defenders as the men, arguably more so, given they lacked the weapons or numbers they normally had with the men around. (I know that the most recent album, Asterix and the Chieftain’s Daughter (2019), kinda deals with this too, but I haven’t yet read that one)

Putting aside the feminist rant, the key theme of this film seems to be the passing of the torch, clinging to past glory, and stepping up to take responsibility. Getafix isn’t getting any younger, and as much as might hurt his pride, he needs to train someone to take his place. The other elder druids, it transpires, are foolish, complacent and irresponsible, getting too used to just messing around and partying. They’re getting senile too, shamefully admitting to keeping crib sheets to remember which apprentice druids are any good. Druids not writing things down seems to be a metaphor for old masters, well versed in their craft, who know it all so well that they don’t need notes ... and then struggle to teach others, so they keep doing it all themselves. Sulfurix is bitter that, despite his magic fire being useful, Getafix is held up as the better druid. Way back when, they were finallists in a druidcraft competition, and being able to conjure flame from nothing is certainly a useful talent that won out over Getafix’s useless but dramatic and very complex magic. Getafix is implied never to have held a grudge over this, especially given that he would eventually develop the magic potion that makes his people so formidable. Sulfurix, meanwhile, found his ‘useful’ parlour trick get weaker and less reliable over time, and he seems to have very few tricks under his belt by the present, so fixated was he on this one thing. His Villain Rant at Getafix at the end is pure projection - he’s become irrelevant, because his one thing became all he was known for. Finally, with Cacofonix being acting Chief, the women defending the village, and Cholerix (Teleferix) the apprentice druid and later Pectin striving to create the magic potion and fill Getafix’s footsteps, there is a theme of people, even wildly unprepared people, stepping up to take responsibility because it’s what needs to be done, be it for the sake of a legacy or simply because this operation won’t run itself. Such a theme rings loud in, I remind you, the first original Asterix story on film since the death or retirement of both of the original creators. They’re on their own now, with a great and beloved legacy to continue, and I think they’ve done a wonderful job. The film was not perfect by any means - the English dub lip-flaps weren’t that well aligned (my DVD didn’t have French language options), the story’s quite formulaic if you’re a fan of the series, and Sulfurix is ... not subtle as the villain - but if you like Asterix, you’ll like this. And if you don’t care for Asterix, it’s still enjoyable.

#asterix #asterix and the secret of the magic potion #not often a film makes me want to immediately write a review

[365days365movies]

March, 6, 2021: Wolfwalkers (2020) (Part One)

I love Cartoon Saloon so goddamn much.

Before I’d seen a single Ghibli film, I was a big fan of the Irish film studio because of their first film, The Secret of Kells. They’d also done a few TV series in the years prior (I’ve heard of Skunk Fu!, and have no interest in seeing it), and still make a few to this day, but the first time I’d heard of them was with Kells, a delightful movie that borrowed from both Irish history and folklore in their telling of the making of a famous illustrated version of the Bible, and a young boy’s friendship with a mysterious forest spirit.

And yeah, that movie is great, but I didn’t have much to go off of then. And then, 5 years later, they released their second film. And that one fucking BROKE me.

Song of the Sea is the second in what would become director Tomm Moore’s trilogy of movies based on Irish folklore, and was a bit more contemporary as compared to Kells. That one’s about a boy and his mute sister, whom he blames for the death of his mother. However, his mother is not dead, but is a selkie, a mythical Irish mermaid that becomes a seal when donning a magical coat. And it turns out that his sister is one as well!

And you think, “aww, look at the seals, they’re drawn so cute” FUCK ME IT’S BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTBREAKING. It takes a lot from Irish mythology, from giants to owl-women, and it’s a fantastic fuckin’ movie. And then, three years later...Tomm Moore’s directing partner stepped up.

See, while Moore was developing Song of the Sea, his partner from Kells, Nora Twomey, stepped in with her own solo project: The Breadwinner. We leave Ireland this time for a book adaptation based in Afghanistan in the 1990s, where a young girl is forced to pretend to be a boy in order to provide for her family (which was apparently a common practice). A LOT happens in this one, and it’s goddamn fantastic as well! It lost to Coco for Best Animated Feature at the Oscars, and...yeah, that’s fair. It’s hard to beat Coco.

But wow, a 2-D animated feature-based company! WHICH IS FANTASTIC! Seriously, in a landscape with fewer and fewer 2-D films in theaters, I’m overjoyed to see these guys hanging in there with some fantastic films! And just when I’d neared desperation for a new Cartoon Saloon feature...here comes Moore.

Ohhhhhh, let’s fucking GO! The last entry of the Irish Folklore Trilogy, today’s entry is Wolfwalkers, a film that was exclusively released to Apple TV, which I got SPECIFICALLY for this movie. It’s $5, I can afford it.

But I am absolutely pumped for this one. It’s based off of the legend of the Werewolves of Ossory, a kingdom in medieval Ireland in which there was a legendary tribe of people with the ability to turn into wolves to hunt in the forest. It’s also based upon the Irish wolf, a population of grey wolves (Canis lupus) on the island that were sadly extirpated  in 1976. People, man. People.

But OK, let’s get this baby STARTED! Been wanting to watch this one since I heard about it, and I’m excited! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

Kilkenny, Ireland, in the Year of Our Lord 1650! A group of loggers are working in the gorgeous and atmospheric Irish forest, when they’re accosted by a pack of...honestly very cool looking and well-designed wolves. One of them is caught by the pack and scratched up, then they all retreat.

A large mysterious woman with big red hair and her young daughter stop the wolves from hurting the man further, and also heal up his scratches. He thanks them, and they flee with the wolf pack as the angry townsfolk chase after them.

Wolves are the enemy of the townsfolk, and those townsfolk include the newly-arrived Bill Goodfellowe (Sean Bean) and his daughter, Robyn (Honor Kneafsey), who’ve just moved from England. Bill is a hunter, and his daughter is eager to help him in his endeavors, armed with a crossbow and her falcon, Merlyn.

Bill is on the way to hunt wolves, as assigned by the Lord Protector of England. Robyn badly wants to join him, but it’s dangerous out there, and the Lord Protector forbids children beyond the walls of Kilkenny. Robyn wants out, though, as she’s an English outsider in the Irish village, and this is at a point where their relationship was at an all-time low.

Robyn, clever girl that she is, finds a way to use a group of bullies to distract the men guarding the gates, and sneaks out to the forest with Merlin. As she follows her father (currently unbeknownst to him), she hears a cry warning of a wolf. Robyn runs off to investigate.

A group of shepherds are being accosted by a pack of wolves. Robyn tries to shoot one of them, but the panicking sheep knock into her, and she fires her arrow at...Merlyn. Fuck! I already liked him! The commotion grows...until a distinctly human howl is heard from the forest, stopping the wolves in their tracks. Robyn looks over at the downed Merlyn.

The little girl takes Merlyn away, and retreats back into the woods. The wolves block Robyn’s path, and as they’re about to attack her, Bill arrives, and shoots one of them with his crossbow. The human howl is heard again, and the wolves retreat, one of them injured. Bill chides Robyn for going into the woods, and she tries to go back to get Merlyn. But Bill promised her mother that she’d keep her safe...which means that she’s almost certainly dead. Well, damn. 

They leave the woods, only to be berated by the logger from the beginning, Seán Óg (Tommy Tiernan). He tells Bill off, as the increased logging under the Lord Protectorate has angered the wolves and the people who live with them, whom he refers to as “Wolfwalkers”. But Bill insists that the Lord Protectorate wants the woods cleared, and the wolves exterminated. Seán badmouths the Lord, and of course, who would show up but...

The Lord Protectorate is...oh dear FUCK, it’s Oliver Cromwell (Simon McBurney). Cromwell was a NOTORIOUS asshole for a lot of reasons, and he plays a big role in Ireland’s subjugation by England in the 1650s. I’m in no way educated enough to comment in detail on that, but like I said earlier: it’s a rough time in Irish history, and Oliver Cromwell, cruel, paranoid, but technically historically important douchebag that he was, was right at the center of it all. 

Fun fact, Cromwell actually overthrew the Monarchy shortly after this, during the English Civil War, and became the ruler of the Commonwealth of England. After his 1658 death, his son took over, until he was overthrown by the return of the Monarchy, via King Charles II about 3 years later. And he was SO FUCKING PISSED at the whole affair, that they had Cromwell’s corpse dug up from Westminster Abbey (where kings and queens and Charles Darwin are buried), beheaded, and stuck on a pike on Westminster Hall! Damn.

Anyway, this Oliver Cromwell is just about to overthrow the Monarchy, and he wants Ireland under his heel. He’s commanded the woods to be cut down in order for farms to be established, and Goodfellowe is assigned to exterminate the wolves completely so that that will happen. Upon seeing Robyn, he commands the guards to take her to the scullery, where she’ll probably be trained as a scullery maid. Yay, child labor!

Seán, having just seen the girl with the wolves, tells Robyn who she is. He tells her that the Wolfwalkers can talk to wolves, and will also heal the injured with wild magic. To go back into the woods, she unlocks the cage that Seán Óg was thrown in for insulting Cromwell. His sheep are also in there, and the release of  Seán and the sheep causes enough of a distraction for Robyn to flee into the woods.

Once there, she quickly finds Merlyn, who has indeed been healed by wild magic . Once there, a red wolf approaches her. Robyn readies her crossbow, but Merlyn prevents her from firing, and she gets caught in a snare as a result. During a struggle, the two clash, and the wolf bites Robyn.

She falls out of the snare, but also sees a new kind of vision, seeing the wolf as the girl from earlier in a beautifully animated type of vision. Her arm swirls with golden magic as well, emanating from the bite. Merlyn follows the wolf as they run away, and Robyn’s pursuit of the two leads her into a beautiful hidden grove, with a massive waterfall. Behind it is a cave, covered in drawings of humans and wolves. And that’s not all that’s in the cave.

At the center of the cave is the girl and her mother, sleeping and now surrounded by the wolves. The red wolf becomes yellow energy, and the energy goes into the little girl, who wakes up. Robyn is immediately found out, and the young girl approaches with the wolves at her back.

This is Mebh (pronounced “Maeve”) Óg MacTíre (Eva Whittaker), and I’ve IMMEDIATELY taken a liking to her, from her voice to her character design to her personality. Robyn doesn’t feel the same way, as the two clash. Mebh bit Robyn, but she was actually trying to get her out of the snare. The man are getting to close to the woods, which Mebh isn’t happy about, but Robyn says it’s “their” woods. Here we go.

Mebh uses her wild magic to fix the wound, before it’s too late. I get the feeling that it’s too late. Robyn tries to find out more, including who her mother is, but Mebh chases her off with her wolf pack in tow. And before I get to mention it, I just want to say that this is my favorite design for cartoon wolves. Real talk, I love this good bois. In the process of the chase, though, she’s again caught in a snare, which Mebh frees her from.

But as the two banter again, Mebh senses a “townie” like Robyn in the woods. It’s Bill, and Robyn goes to prevent the wolves from hurting her father. After a close call, Mebh points Robin back in the direction of the town, and blindfolds her to prevent truly discovering the location of the cave...this time. She guides Robyn back, but runs off when she smells food.

Robyn and Merlyn make their way back, and we overhear two shepherds from earlier talking about how one could turn into a wolf if bitten by a Wolfwalker. So, yeah, werewolf rules. Makes sense, given this story’s basis. The two shepherds also have Robyn’s crossbow and fresh bread. Mebh and Robyn work together to steal the food and crossbow, and run away together. Fast friends!

The two young girls bond, and share their struggles. Robyn wishes to go back to their simpler life in England, and wants to spend more time with her father, potentially in the woods. She warns Mebh that the forest is about to be cut down, endangering her and her pack. Mebh notes that her mother went to look for a new place for the pack to live, but hasn’t come back since. Robyn promises to tell her father about the Wolfwalkers and the struggles of the wolves. The two new friends part ways, promising to meet each other in the woods.

When she comes back home, Robyn prepares to tell her father her plan to get the wolves to leave without killing any of them. The preparation is entertaining, as she does a pretend back-and-forth with herself and her dad. Once he gets home, the reality is less great. When he finds out that Robyn never even went to the scullery, he doesn’t listen to her plan at all. He sends her to bed, and the plan is dead before it’s even proposed. Still, Robin promises Merlyn that they’ll find a way to help the wolves.

But that may be...harder than you’d think. As she sleeps, the golden magic comes back, and Robyn sees a wolf in her dreams. Pretty sure of where this is going. She wakes up with a start, and Bill hears this. He gets her up and takes her to the scullery, where she’s put to work.

Y’know, I’ve heard the term “scullery maid”, I’ve never once thought of what the term means. Apparently, it’s a kitchen or backroom in a house for housework, but where the hell is this? Is it, like, the town hall scullery? Not really clear, and it’s made more confusing when Robyn finds her way into a red-carpeted room with animal heads on the walls.

While there, her bite-mark glows, and a whisper of “giiiiiiiiirl” comes from a covered cage towards the front of the room. She approaches the cage, but is interrupted from checking it out by the head scullery maid. The Lord Protectorate has forbidden anyone from entering that room, and Imma call it now: that’s Mebh’s mom. I mean, yeah, no duh, but still. Calling it now.

That night, while asleep, the Wolfwalker’s magic officially takes hold, and Robyn wakes up as a wolf in her bedroom, while her human body sleeps. Her father hears the commotion in Robyn’s loft, and is about to literally kill her wolf-self, but she jumps out of a window and flees the city for the woods.

She quickly finds Mebh, who’s also panicking, as she thought she cured the bite. However, that panic subsides pretty quickly, as Mebh has never met another Wolfwalker before, and is excited to show Robyn how to be a wolf. And through Robyn’s eyes, we get a lovely view of the world through a wolf’s senses, backed by Aurora’s “Running with the Wolves”. And it’s...it’s lovely.

Its also QUITE a good half-way point, so let’s put that right here! See you in Part 2!

#wolfwalkers #cartoon saloon #tomm moore #ross stewart #honor kneafsey #eva whittaker #Sean Bean #simon mcburney #tommy tiernan #jon kenny #john morton #maria doyle kennedy #fantasy march #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #mygifs #my gifs #nyssalance

[pastthevaulteddoors]

MDZS/The Untamed AU thoughts!

Awhile ago, I headcannoned an AU but I can’t find the post. I wanted to babble on it while I’m waking up.

A/B/O AU where if you decide to cultivate a golden core, you’ll present as one of A/B/O, therefore when you present it’s biological, but magic based so you can choose to present, but you can’t choose what it is.

Long post. Mentions of the R word.

Normal people don’t present and are just normal.

WWX was an alpha. As was Lan Wangji so while they might angry-flirt, they’re never going to be mates. But then the Wens win at Nightless City during the Sunshot Campaign and Wei Wuxian is publicly executed.

13 years later, WWX is reincarnated into the omega body of Mo Xuanyu.

The world is quite different from when he died.

The Wens have the run of the place. Wen Ruohan has been crowned King while all other cultivation sects are now considered supervisory offices. More or less labor camps that are tightly overseen by Wens.

Before WWX can come to grips with this new world and what he’s supposed to do, he’s swept out of Mo Manor by yet-presented and beta cultivators lead by a young man named Wen Sizhui. His troupe are all Lans with threadbare grey-not-white robes and forehead ribbons that look like they were ripped off of white clothing, or the ribbons are so frayed they look tattered and second hand.

While Wen Sizhui appears kind, with a sweet face and gentle tones, he’s ruthless. They take out the Mo family curse that’s closer to a death sentence than a saving, then they drag all omegas out of the manor for The Games.

They were there to pick up the omegas originally, and just happened to save/kill the Mo family while they’re there. Confused, WWX goes along with it, barely registering that he is in fact an omega now.

WWX is taken on a carriage that looks like it could be closed up like a jail cell. He’s squished in with a handful of others that look crossed between terrified and depressed, resigned to a horrible fate.

Along the way they are met with another group. These are Jins with another handful of villagers. This one is headed by a Jin Ling. There’s an offhanded conversation, where it seems that Wen Sizhui and Jin Ling know each other, maybe even friends.

Turns out, the Jins sided with the Wens and are thriving under the heavy hand of Wen, while the other sects are dwindling in homes that closely resemble labor camps.

The Lans had rebelled again, so The Games are going to be held on the mountains of Gusu. They head up to Cloud Recesses which was never properly rebuilt. There’s huts, not homes. Attempts were made to make this suppressed sect back into its tranquil past, but it’s clearly lacking.

Throughout a semi-imprisonment while people are gathered to Gusu, WWX learns that the Lans have been the biggest rebellion to subjugation even over a decade after losing. He sees LXC a few times. He looks as beautiful and regal as ever, but his clothing is old, his ribbon is cut short, and the once brightness in his eyes for hope has darkened to a façade. He has yet to see LWJ.

Lotus Pier is gone. Wen Xu was killed by LWJ, and Wen Ruohan has adopted Wen Sizhui as his heir when Wen Chao had proven unable to perform after he ‘lost his mind’ during the Sunshot campaign.

When Wen Ruohan arrives WWX is shocked to see that he’s flanked by Meng Yao (top advisor) and Jiang Cheng (his body guard). Turns out, Meng Yao was a pivotal point in getting the Jins to turn on the other sects that won the Wens the war. Jiang Cheng was said to be a loyal dog to the Wens when he had no where else to go. Others say that JC was blackmailed into the position when his sister was threatened.

Jin Guangshan cowers before Wen Ruohan, but he smiles and has his head held high. He knows he’s in a position of power but only at the behest of the Wens. Then a crowd gathers and a ceremony is being presented for The Games.

WWX and other omegas are ushered to a side stage like cattle. Across from a crowd he sees alphas on a similar platform. On the main stage Wen Ruohan has a handful of minor and major sect leaders.

WWX is THRILLED that his sister is in the omegas with him so he tries to communicate with her who he is. Like everyone in the group, she looks frightened but resigned to what is going to happen. She doesn’t give WWX much room to talk, as they must be quiet while a presentation happens. Jiang Yanli does hold WWX close, as if comforting the other omega. He notices that there are others clinging together, and this is not uncommon.

WWX also sees LWJ across to the other stage at where the alphas are lined up. This group is different. The alphas are stoic in general, but there is a good number of Wen alphas in front of them, clearly rowdy and excited.

WWX notices that Nie Mingjue is not there, and Nie Huaisang is a cowering beta on stage. Sadly, NMJ was killed a few years ago protecting LXC in The Games. It’s rumored that it was closer to a murder than self defense, an orchestrated attack. Jin Zixuan looks disappointed and is instructed by his father to stand with the Wen alphas.

A gruesome display happens. A Lan omega has been induced into a heat and is on display as they writhe, out of control, on stage. LXC finally breaks ranks and covers the omega before a rowdy Wen can get too close. He covers them with his coat and they’re both beaten.

“At least he’s not raped this year,” someone says in the omega’s stage, a whispered, scared thing. WWX is surprised but as it turns out, LXC is an omega. He always said he was beta, but being an omega as a sect leader is near impossible when it comes to respect among peers.

The Games, as it turns out, is like Hunger Games. Higher ranking omegas and alphas are forced into heats and ruts then let loose in a designated area for sport. Wens hunt the omegas. The alphas that are not Wens are let loose for the sake of humiliation.

The forced heats will usually last three days, in which there is no shelter on the mountainside, but magical barriers to keep them in one area. Birds with eye-talisman fly overhead so that those not in the arena can watch the chaos from a screen-like object.

After the ‘ceremony,’ the alphas and omegas are ushered into a tight space and a magic hormone scent is pumped into the area. They are being forced into head/ruts.

First into the arena, the omegas are released. They’re separated so they cannot hide together. The first alphas WWX encounters is JC and Jin Zixuan. He’s afraid of JC immediately when he’s rushed upon, thinking that he’s about to be raped by his former brother-turned Wen, when JC rushes past him to knock out a Wen that was coming up behind him.

Jin Zixuan looks on at WWX in disgust. Apparently, Mo Xuanyu had no shame and would try to mate with his blood relatives. But WWX’s fears of JC being let loose on him begins to fade when JC notes that he doesn’t like WWX’s scent and they surround him as they walk to find other non-Wens. They’re playing guard.

WWX is confused. Aren’t they Wen allies now? But as it turns out, in The Games, people form pacts. JZX obviously would only want to mate with his wife, and JC says he has a pact with another omega so he can’t spend his energy on WWX’s nasty smell.

The scents they give off is magic based with their golden core. Despite giving up his core, then dying, the scents of MXY is mixed with that of his own brand of magic. JC notices something is.. off on the scent. Familiar. Like the past and like his own but different. He can’t put his finger on it so he puts Mo Xuangyu into a familiar category in his brain/hormones which is a no-mate zone.

They find Jiang Yanli. She’s apparently the alpha of omegas and is known for taking omegas under his wing. She has a trail of them behind her and they all look relieved when JC and JZX come into view. They know they’re here to protect them... until their own hormones overwhelm them and they have to mate.

The next day they run across a group of roaming Wens that induced themselves to give them vigor and a stronger sex drive. JC and JZX have to play a careful political game to outwit and beat off the Wens without compromising their positions in the Wen hierarchy.

So JC isn’t a Wen loyalist after all. He was, indeed, blackmailed, and it appears that JZX had spoken out against the Wens and that is why he’s forced into The Games along with his wife. Despite protecting each other, it isn’t unheard of omegas getting raped despite being mated in these games. They are built to humiliate and tear down heroic sprites, but if one becomes pregnant with a Wen, then they are forced into a sort of Wen concubine’s life, forced to live under the Wen that is the parent of the child.

They eventually come by a small pact of Lans. WWX learns that the Lans have long since kept to themselves after they were overthrown and have little trust with other clans. However, WWX does note that LWJ and JC have a sort of alliance, possibly even friendship going for them. Or as friendly as the two of them can get. JC is low key always helping where he can, and WWX suspects that JC led Wen Xu into LWJ’s sword.

Among the Lans are a few others with masks on. WWX quickly recognizes the scent of Wen Sizhui. He holds respect for Lan Wangji because he saved his small village of Wens, including Wen Ning and Wen Qing.

Seems LWJ is all over the place making allies!

The few pacts run together for a bit until a few get too rowdy to help out. A few mated couples have to part way, unable to keep hormones in check.

During The Games, there is little shame among them. They cannot control themselves, so announcing to the group that one has to part because they’re going to lose control, and need to have a good dicking with their mate, is not frowned on. If one has to turn away in the corner of a cave to take care of things, it’s respectfully ignored and understood.

WWX has struggled quite a bit. This body is in his prime and he is not used to the responses of an omega.

When the pacts begin to shrink due to the need to part ways to mate, they start to converge. Eventually, the Lans run with JC’s group when JZX and Jiang Yanli had to leave.

Finally, JC admits that he cannot stay in control, and Lan Xichan leaves with him... that is when JC’s familiar scent leaves and WWX is overcome with LWJ’s dominate hormones.

That’s also when LWJ is not simmered from his brother’s scent and is overwhelmed with WWX. Not MXY, but he knows, he cannot mistake the scent of the former alpha he used to love.

It has been rumored that LWJ hasn’t touched anyone when forced into these games. He’s one of the few that still have fire in their eyes, a desire to fight back. In WWX’s opinion of seeing him again, he’s still just as beautiful as ever, even with his ripped robes and messy hair, he stole WWX’s attention even from far away.

Now, closer, stuck in this pact with LWJ the sole alpha among a handful of omegas and undercover Wen helpers... WWX lets out a whine and LWJ responds!! It takes everyone by surprise when LWJ doesn’t even try to move them away from the group as the others did when he grabs WWX and start rutting up against his thigh.

They’re used to this in The Games, honestly. It’s the sorry and sad nature of the event, but to see someone like LWJ break shakes them.

Wen Sizhui can’t get LWJ’s attention enough to even ask him to leave, that they’ll take care of the omegas when LWJ pushes WWX down on the ground and starts rucking up his robes. So the omegas and undercover Wens run before LWJ penetrates WWX. And as for WWX, the dam broke the moment LWJ touched him. He was gone, all wet and wants nothing more than to get LWJ inside of him and mate him until he can’t see straight.

Which he does. Brilliantly.

Having held back for so long, and never taken anyone, even in a forced rut, LWJ has very little control or downtime. He mumbles, between sessions, how he is sorry that he “cannot care of Wen Ying as he should” and WWX understands. And gets that, well, LWJ knows who he is.

After The Games end WWX begins to incite rebellion among the people. Mo Xuanyu was never respected for his obvious incestuous desires for his kin and his general lack of sanity (or so they say). But he suddenly gains new respect among the repressed with the rebellion leader LWJ by his side.

However, Meng Yao (sorry, he is the evil bad guy in this one) is smart, and uses his skills of persuasion and sweet face to always be at the right place at the right time when the rebellion tries to rise up. However, soon, the entirety of Gusu Lan is overturned and the Wen office is burned.

NHS gets on board and make a personal vendetta against Meng Yao for the plotted death of his brother. Soon, smaller sects join in once they see the tides turning.

Then on a surprise move, Jin Guangshan is poisoned. No one is 100% sure who did it, but some suspect his son. Jiang Yanli will never tell the public how her father-in-law tried yet again to get her into bed, and how her fingers slipped over his drink with something hidden in a ring.

This incites inner fighting, then a pushback on the Wens.

A few months of fighting passes by and changes happen as tensions rise and people are pushed together as they fight. Mainly, having to maintain heats around alphas.

WWX didn’t realize the amount of work that omegas went into to keep their scents at bay, so he didn’t realize at first just why LWJ would not let him have a night to himself. Or why LWJ would be possessive around other alphas. Then he goes into heat again, naturally, and LWJ steals him away for an amazing few days of doting and mating and come back to a lost battle for the rebels.

Lan Xichen has to teach WWX these things. Here, WWX learns about JC being a secret romantic to LXC and they have mated no just out of necessity. LXC blushes and says that JC marked him years ago and they had to find a spell in the black market to cover it up. Apparently, Wen Sizhui discovered this and handed the spell to JC and since has shown himself as an allie as well.

WWX slowly falls in love with LWJ, who turns out to be an incredibly doting mate and even asks to be marked before the final battle. LWJ never stopped loving him, even in death.

The final battle, NHS calls a secret truce talk with Meng Yao where NHS says he’ll betray the rebels as long as he’s left alone and safe with his art and fans. Then he stabs Meng Yao in the back. Literally, NHS asks for another bowl of wine, and when Meng Yao turns to get it he stabs the little f’er in the back.

The Wens are falling apart when JC pulls his loyalists/secret rebels/Jiang clan survivors to turn the tide. It’s Wen Suzhui that kills Wen Ruohan with a bloody show of power; even holds up his head as proof before everyone that he’s dead, then orders Wen Chao dragged out and beheaded as well.

Wen Suzhui is viciously cold when he has to be. Therefore, the young man becomes sect leader and surrenders the Wens to the rebels. Unlike before, when the Wens are all rounded up in the end they have a leader that doesn’t resist but demands boundaries to be set, all the while with the sweetest of faces and the deception of youth.

Wen Ruohan loyalists are cut down, and what little remains of the Wens are banished to a village where Wen Ning and Wen Qing are. So, not many Wens left. (Doesn’t stop Wen Suzhui from courting the Jin heir from afar with sweet letters, gently returned with flowers with Jin Ling’s scent)

At the celebratory banquet for their win, WWX announces his pregnancy and LWJ publicly cries happy tears. And then...?

Happily ever after? Probably.

#xicheng #wangxian #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #wei wuxian #lan wangji #a/b/o au

[goron-king-darunia]

Annon-Guy: How different would the original Symphonia's story go if Emil/Ratatosk, Marta and Richter were part of the group back than, helping them against the Desians and Mithos?

Honestly, this is a really hard thing to answer. They existed during the Symphonia timeline, they just didn't participate in the main story. So we honestly have every reason to believe not much if anything would have changed except with the possibility of Ratatosk since, well, no one knew where to look for him at that time and I don't imagine Aster speed running that discovery since the only reason they started looking was because the climate was weird when the planet came back together all jumbled. If they had somehow stumbled upon Ratatosk their own way, either we would have gotten a redemption speedrun because Lloyd and Colette have plot armor and would have been able to keep him under control or we would have gotten some, like, devastating calamity way earlier because someone "important" would have died. Or they would have had to invent another underappreciated redshirt like Aster to take the bullet. I think if we saw DotNW's cast in Symphonia, we likely would have gotten mostly side-character reference and not much else because I think trying to involve them would not only have made the DotNW we got impossible (i.e. Marta couldn't have a reason to hate Colette if she was there with Colette when the tree went rampant. She would know how and why it happened. Emil would have to be the Real Emil Castagnier and it would remove some of the suspense and mystery from DotNW because if the changed appearance didn't give it away the unjustified hatred for Lloyd would because in non-game material I think we got to see the real Emil's journal and he made one last entry when the Blood Purge began and he seemed really confused that Lloyd, a guy he knew as a hero, would be terrorizing town. If DotNW had followed Real Emil, I think he would have been more confused and sad than angry after the blood purge. It would be more "Why would Lloyd attack Palmacosta and kill my parents? That doesn't make sense for such a hero. What made him change, and why did he attack MY parents?" Since Ratatosk/Emil didn't know Lloyd the way the Real Emil did, he had no framework for what a hero Lloyd was before. He has no attachment to the heroic image of Lloyd. That's part of why DotNW's Emil is so easily able to just hate Lloyd. He's not conflicted. He only knows Lloyd as "The person who killed my parents but everyone treats as a hero." and not "Lloyd, the former hero, who for some reason went out of his way to kill my parents." Richter I can't see as having a role in Symphonia 1 given how the half-elves are still either running human ranches and making everyone terrified or subjugated and exploited basement scientists under the thumb of Sybak Research Academy. If Richter had any role at all, it would probably be something akin to Kate's role. Helping the party but ultimately being a side character of little note. Which honestly would rob from his presence in DotNW or at least not add to it. Most people's favorite character from Symphonia isn't Kate or Chocolat or even Marble, even though they all have roles to play. Most people barely remember Virginia Sage is alive because she's so easy to miss and forget about. So anyone who did remember Richter, would probably be like "This guy is the villain now? Why? Why does this dude get the spotlight, he didn't do anything in the last game." Aster would probably end up being the same way. I doubt Aster would leave Richter all alone to go galavanting around Sylvarant with the heroes. And if he did, honestly he'd probably just end up being another Colette since they have similar sunny personalities and I doubt Symphonia would be able to do much with him since he doesn't have any special battle skills that would look cool and doesn't fill a role that Sheena, Zelos, or Regal aren't already fulfilling. Marta could theoretically fit but like I said it would get in the way of her character motivation in DotNW. But I'm not sure what she has that's unique that she could contribute since Raine is already a healer and the Vanguard isn't a thing yet, so a lot of her insight that was helpful in DotNW doesn't exist

yet. As a whole, I think putting the DotNW cast in Symphonia wouldn't work all that well because, well, it's not their story. Similar to how the Symphonia cast doesn't add much to the DotNW story because, again, it's mostly not their story. Now that doesn't mean it wouldn't have been AWESOME to see them interract. Richter as a broody young man getting carted around with his best bud Aster because he and Aster somehow have some special knowlege of, like, the history of Kharlan or something? That could be fun, but that requires a whole new thing added to the main story. Marta getting to join up because she knows a lot about the ancient history of the Sylvarant Dynasty? That could be neat. Emil being brought into the fold because as a native of a fishing village he's just, like, ridiculously good at fishing? That would be awesome. But these are all things that wouldn't necessarily be integral to the main game. Lloyd is the hero. He's just always right by virtue of optimism and plot armor. He has to be there. His dad is a smith and his other dad is an angel, so both those connections also help. Colette is necessary because she's Lloyd's motivation. She's sympathetic and gives the player someone to want to save. Her luck and power as the chosen and an angel and a pure maiden are all benefits to the party. Raine is a healer, is smart, and has extensive knowledge of ruins and can work most of the tech in the game. Her memory of the otherworldly gate is useful and contextualizes a gameplay element for the player. Genis is a best friend support type, a magic user, a half-elf, and sympathetic to Marble and later to Mithos. He not only affirms Lloyd's belief that everyone is worth saving and keeps Lloyd grounded and motivated but he's also useful for understanding the motivations of the bad guys. Sheena is a summoner, and the summon spirits are very important to the story and saving the world, but she also represents the anxieties of Tethe'alla, worried about the end of their prosperity. Zelos has power he never asked for, a testament to the broken system of Chosens and their purpose. He has connections as a political and spiritual leader as he has connections to the King and to the Pope. Regal has monetary connections, knows what it means to sacrifice, is unbelievably strong, but honestly, he's probably the least special person in the group. Presea knows her way around charms, sneaks the party into places they have to get to even before she regains her senses, and is basically living proof of why Mithos's misguided attempt to create a race of lifeless beings is stupid. Kratos has connections to basically everything, even if he's a betrayer, and is ultimately the reason Lloyd is even able to pact with Origin which is one of the final keys in the game. I feel like you could work fishing master Emil, historian Richter, scientist Aster, and distant heir to a dead dynasty Marta in to Symphonia, but a lot of Symphonia was written around the specific characters it needed for the story. So not only do I think it robs them of their rightful places as centerpieces of their own stories in DotNW, but it's also just trying to cram too much extra into Symphonia. Aster, Richter, and Colette being friends would be great though. (And Rilena too, honestly.) I think their personalities would play off Richter nicely and just... 3 blonds all dragging a grumpy redhead around and he'll never admit he likes it even though he absolutely does is, like, very wholesome. Marta, Colette, and Presea just being animal nerd geeks would be great too. Emil I'm not sure on because DotNW Emil isn't real Emil and IDK enough about what real Emil likes to know who he'd be friends with. But Ratatosk getting a defaut support system and getting to actually confront Mithos? Holy hell. That would be a game, man. But I don't think it could happen since the only reason Aster went looking for Ratatosk was because of the messed up climate and I'm not sure if Ratatosk could even be awake with the planet separated. But boy howdy that would be interesting. So while I

don't think there is any one answer and while I don't think it's entirely possible to put the DotNW cast we know and love into Symphonia without changing a lot, it IS fun to think about. But I honestly think it would not only make the first game too crowded and messy but would take away some of how special it was to meet Richter, Emil, Ratatosk, Marta and the rest of the DotNW cast in DotNW. Besides, it sucked enough to see Genis have to struggle with fighting against a fellow half-elf. Imagine teen angst Richter having to do it too.

#Letters from Annon Guy #Long post #Tales of Symphonia #DotNW #opinions

[angelicthor]

happily ever after

pairing: alpha!bucky barnes x omega!reader.  

summary: final to the red riding hood series. you and bucky try to expand your family

warnings/genre: + 18 only, abo, breeding kink

masterlist | red riding hood | big bad wolf | happily ever after |

I threw myself to the wolf, only to learn of the tenderness in his howl and the loyalty in his blood

You clawed at the sheets beneath you as Bucky mercilessly thrust into your slick pussy, both of you covered in a sheen of sweat, bodies completely desperate for each other in the frenzy of your heat and Bucky’s rut. The low rumbles of his growls intermingled with your high-pitched cries and the repetitive slamming of the headboard against the wall. Throwing your head back after a particularly hard thrust, you sighed in bliss as you felt Bucky’s knot catch with every roll of his hips into yours, Bucky burying his face into your heaving chest and laving your breasts with attention, suckling on your sensitive nipples until your arched into his mouth.

“Alpha,” You whined, practically begging Bucky; for more, to cum, you weren’t sure. You couldn’t decipher the thoughts racing through your mind fast enough to figure it out.

“Don’t worry Omega, I’m right here. You’re Alpha’s gonna take good care of you,” You mewled at Bucky’s words as he lapped at bond mark on your neck, “Want to cum babygirl? Want your Alpha’s knot in that tight omega cunt? I know you do baby, gonna fuck you full of my pups, watch you grow round with ���em.”

You whimpered at the idea, cunt clenching around Bucky’s cock in arousal as Bucky groaned at the feeling, eyes squeezed shut before opening to reveal his normally steel-blue eyes near black with lust, looking positively feral as he thrust even harder into you, your body moving up the bed with every single sink of his cock into your core.

“Fuck, Omega likes that, huh? Want my pups babygirl? Fuck, I know you do. Come on Omega, cum for me.” Bucky’s words mixed his fingers quickly circling over your throbbing clit were too much for you to handle, your body exploding with euphoria as you thrashed beneath him, toes curling as every muscle tremored with ecstasy.

“That’s a good girl, such a good fucking omega. That pretty little pussy milking me so good, gonna knot you so fucking good babygirl, fuck, gonna fill you with my seed - Omega,” Bucky grunted before he erupted inside you, knot locking him in place as his cum painted your walls, an animalistic growl tearing from his throat as he did.

You were both panting messes as you came down from your highs, limbs shaking as Bucky struggled to hold himself over you, slowly adjusting until he was lying on his back, you pressed against his side, leg thrown over his as to not jostle the knot that was so intimately connected to you. Pressing a kiss to your sweaty forehead, Bucky wrapped his arms around you, pulling you even closer to him as you rested your head on his chest, listening to the rhythmic beating of his heart, remembering what he had just told you and wondering if he really meant it or if it was just heat-of-the-moment ramblings.

“Y/N, doll, I can hear you thinking,” Bucky’s hoarse voice cut through your thoughts, a teasing lilt to his tone as his fingers danced with yours on his chest.

Peering up at him, you saw that all previous traces of lust had gone and the usual look of love once again light up his features, shinning bright in his eyes as he stared down at you.

“Did you mean what you said?” You questioned meekly, hopeful that his answer was yes, wanting nothing more than to start a family with your Alpha.

Bucky’s brows furrowed before realisation washed over him, hand moving to cradle your face as he drew you in for a affectionate kiss. Breaking away, Bucky rested his forehead against yours, “Of course I did. And I’m not gonna stop fucking you until you start growing round with our pups.”

Bucky nipped at your lip before falling back against the plush pillows beneath him, settling you down on his chest as you buried your face there, trying to hide the growing smile on your lips at his declaration.

That night you fell asleep to the comforting sound of Bucky’s heart beneath your ear, a cool breeze drifting through the open bedroom window, the distant howls of the wolves in the forest as you dreamt of yours and Bucky’s pups; of their tiny hands wrapping around Bucky’s much larger ones, of them falling asleep against your breast in your arms, of how protective your Alpha would be of his omega and your pups, completely unknowing of the life that was beginning to grow inside you.

True to his word, Bucky had fucked you every moment he could until you had started to experience symptoms of pregnancy and after one eventful trip to the village doctor confirmed what you two already suspected, you both began to prepare for the oncoming arrival of your pups.

After hearing the news of your pregnancy, Bucky had become the most protective Alpha you had ever seen, not wanting you or the pups to be hurt by anything or anyone. You were certain that if he could, he would subjugate you to bedrest until the pups arrived but as it was, he shadowed you wherever you went, an arm wrapped protectively around your waist, hand splayed across your growing stomach and heavens help an any alpha that dared to even look in your direction, a low rumbling growl emitting from deep within Bucky’s chest, nostrils flaring as his eyes became positively feral. You truly feared that one day an Alpha would push him too far and Bucky would end up doing something undoable.

Another side-effect of your pregnancy; Bucky was suddenly insatiable. Apparently, the sight of your swelling belling, knowing that your children were growing in there, caused Bucky no end of arousal. You and Bucky had a very active sex life before your pregnancy that wasn’t restricted to ruts and heats but now it was as if you couldn’t be in the same room anymore without Bucky’s cock pressing against the fabric of his jeans, him burying his face in your neck and littering the skin there with kisses as he groaned in desperation to have you.

His favourite thing, however, was eating you out, claiming that not only had your scent now changed but also your taste and he was addicted to it. Which is how you wound up here, on your back, hands fisting the sheets as Bucky devoured you like a man possessed, tongue lapping at everything you had, not letting a single drop of your slick go to waste. Bucky groaned into your cunt as your taste flooded his senses, the vibrations of his enjoyment causing your hips to buck, grinding against his lips as you tried to chase your approaching end.

Peering over your baby bump, you locked eyes with Bucky’s blazing gaze that was already staring up at you, watching your face contort with the satisfaction he was providing you and grinning into your glistening pussy as he doubled his efforts, pushing you closer and closer to your release, desperate to feel you cum on his tongue.

The feeling of his teeth gently grazing over your throbbing clit as a deep growl tore from his throat is what finally pushed you over the edge and into oblivion, hips bucking against his mouth to try and prolong your orgasm as Bucky happily drank everything you had to give, your body shuddering under the assault of his sinful lips.

You lay panting on the bed as you came down from your high, Bucky pressing kisses onto the soft skin of your round belly, talking to the pups inside and you couldn’t stop the grin from growing on your lips as you listened.

“Hey kiddos, sorry if that got a lil crazy in there for a second, I just can’t get enough of your ma, she tastes divine- ow!” Bucky was cut off with a shout of pain as you tugged on his hair, shooting him a glare that told him to steer away from his current conversation with your unborn children.

“Right, right – inappropriate, sorry. I really can’t wait to meet you, neither can your momma, but we know it’s not time yet.” His hands gently stroked over your stomach, feeling them move beneath his touch and fighting back tears at the feeling, “I love you so much and I promise to always try and be the best Alpha and Daddy you could ever want me to be. Just do me a favour though, try not to hurt your momma too much when you finally do come, ok?”

You could feel the tears welling in your eyes at Bucky’s words, watching as he lovingly caressed where your unborn children were growing in you, a look of absolute wonder sketched across his features. Placing one last kiss on your bump, Bucky moved up the bed to pull you into his arms, nestling into his chest and purring in content as your hand rested on top of Bucky’s on your swollen stomach.

Pulling the blankets over your form, Bucky made sure you were comfortable and warm, as attentive as always as he pressed a kiss to the crown of your head, fingers twirling through your hair as he talked about preparations for the pups; things that still needed to be bought, the nursery that still needed to be organised, possible names. You listened with a smile as Bucky spoke in growing enthusiasm about all his plans for your pups, knowing that there wasn’t a single place you’d rather be in that moment than in your alpha’s arms, feeling your pups gently kick as you dozed to sleep in your nest.

It was a few more months until you were finally able to hold your pups, Bucky staying by your side throughout the whole labour, your back pressed against his chest as he murmured words of reassurance in your ear, Doctor Banner helping you deliver the twins as your gripped at the skin of Bucky’s thighs with an iron-clad hold, nails digging into the skin as your screams filled the room.

You felt Bucky’s breath hitch behind you when the tiny cries of your twins met your ears, your body practically collapsing in exhaustion at finally having delivered both pups. Bruce cleaned them both up, placing one in your arms and the other in Bucky’s and you could feel your bottom lip quiver as you attempted to keep the tears at bay.

“Doll,” Bucky’s voice was no louder than a whisper, raw with emotion and you could see your alpha struggling to keep it together as he gazed down at his daughter in his arms soundly sleeping, “They’re perfect, I’m so proud of you.”

You and Bucky had decided to call your daughter Rebecca Winnifred Barnes and your son Steve Timothy Barnes and as expected, Bucky had been nothing but a doting father. Whatever you or the twins needed, Bucky was there in no time, soothing their cries, feeding them, changing them, drawing the cutest giggles from them that made your heart fit to burst. Nothing made you fall deeper in love with your alpha than seeing him care for the twins, watching the beaming smile on his face as he pulled funny faces at Becca listening to her screams melt into high-pitched laughter or when he would sing Stevie to sleep after a restless night for the teething pup.

Bucky’s caring nature hadn’t only also grown with the arrival of the twins but his protectiveness of his family had sky-rocketed, not that you expected anything less from your Alpha of course. But you did have to stifle your chuckles as you watched Bucky shooting glares at Steve as he held his godson in his arms, Bucky never too far away from either pup in case he deemed they needed him, not fully entrusting anyone else with his children’s wellbeing, other than you of course.

But your favourite time watching Bucky with the twins had to be when he didn’t know you were there. The bed creaked as Bucky slowly climbed out from underneath the covers, trying hard not to wake you but, as usual, it was already too late, the sound of the soft cries from across the hall having already roused you from sleep, still you kept your eyes closed as Bucky snuck out of the room to the nursery.

The faint glow from the nightlight illuminated the hallway as you peered your eyes open and crept across to hide in the doorway out of Bucky’s sight as you watched him bring a crying Becca to his chest, kissing the soft tufts of hair on her head as he rocked her gently in his arms, the tiny girl looking comically small in his large arms. You watched with a smile as Bucky bounced the baby in his arms, softly cooing at her in an attempt to get her back to sleep before her screams woke her brother.

“Come on Becca, shush babygirl, you don’t wanna wake momma and Stevie up, huh?”

Knowing that she was probably hungry and wouldn’t stop screaming until she had been fed, you walked into the room, alerting Bucky to your presence who looked near ashamed that he couldn’t stop Becca’s cries before she woke you, not knowing you had been watching him the whole time.

You only smiled softly at your Alpha as you plucked your screaming pup from his arms, settling you both on the rocking chair in the corner and latching her onto your breast, watching her contently, letting out a soft sigh as she drank from you. Peering up, you locked eyes with Bucky who was watching you with the most serene expression you had ever seen on him, his gaze soft and filled with love for you and the family you had given him and you knew exactly how he felt, the same warmth spreading through you every time you saw him with the twins.

Placing a sated Becca back in her crib next to Stevie, you and Bucky made your way back to bed, cuddling together as the feeling of serenity flooded your systems, putting you on a high like nothing you had ever experienced before.  The feeling of Bucky’s fingers trailing up and down your spine caused you to relax further into him, your eyelids growing heavy as sleep drew you in once more.

“Hey doll?” Bucky whispered, lips moving against your temple with every word.

You could only hum in response to him, “I love you Y/N.”

Smiling, you pressed a kiss to the exposed skin of his chest, “I love you too Bucky.”

“Thank you – for everything you’ve given me. I never thought I’d get a happily ever after until you came along Omega. You completely changed my life and I have no idea what I’d do without you.”

Not knowing how to respond, unable to find words adequate enough to express how you felt, you instead reached up and pulled Bucky in for a tender kiss, pouring every ounce of love you had for your alpha into the exchange and when you pulled away, watching as his eyes remained closed and a dopey smile grew on his lips, you knew that he had understood every word that remained unsaid.

Snuggling back into Bucky’s embrace, you were on the cusp of deep sleep when you heard his quiet voice once more, “Hey doll?”

“Yes Buck?”

“I want another one.”

#bucky barnes x reader #alpha!bucky #bucky x reader #bucky smut #bucky x you #angelicthorwrites

[genjiro-xiv]

Prompt #2: Bargain

“Frumentarius.” The word rang out like the echo of a gunshot, deafening as it were -- yet nothing he was unaccustomed to. It had been fifteen long years since he had formally completed his state-mandated tutelage under the finest Garlemald had to offer, working himself into pieces night after night, simply to wrap his mind around the virtues of Imperial philosophy, and more importantly, the dynamic of master and slave; a principle oftentimes applied to the far-off provinces that fell beneath Garlean hegemony, and his homeland was no exception to this rule. Yet the conquered had a propensity towards unruliness, history had proven that much, and he knew the educational investment placed into him was a debt that would be called back in full. An astute mind had earned him his place outside of Doma; his affinity for the academic disciplines secured him a career in the foreign intelligence of the Empire where his talent might’ve been put to good use serving Imperial interest within his homeland of Othard.

“Frumentarius!” It came again; that echo, unwelcome as it was, harsh enough to shatter glass. And with it the nostalgia of yesteryear, a time past where he had been subject to grueling training, the contemptuous bark of hateful instructors deriding and demeaning. Hammering the martial discipline expected of any leal subject of the Empire into their very bones, he was but a single face amongst several dozen, all bound for the same fate as he. Ten long years since he had set foot on frigid Ilsabard since he had said his farewells to Garlemald, that had become his home away from home. His departure for Othard had come alongside two other Frumentarii, graduates of the very same class, and native Domans all. The shadow of the Empire, as supernal and far-reaching as it was, was not a creature maintained by majesty alone. It required caretakers, those who would tend to its needs, pruning away the sick branches to ensure that the disease wouldn’t spread beyond its furthest boughs.

The Decurio’s lips had parted to speak again, though there would be no need for it. Genjiro rose to his feet, abandoning his knelt position however reluctantly to stow away the banded chain of wooden beads into his sleeve. Hues of a soft amber leveling squarely upon the soldier as he whipped around to face him. “It’s time.” The youth spat out; despite his rank, he could’ve been no older than twenty-two, yet it was often talent that carried one through the ladder of Garlean hierarchy, and this couldn’t have been truer of the Imperial Prince’s own XIIth legion where strength and callousness were lauded above all else. Genjiro offered no acknowledgment, weaving past the officer to make his way out the door and into the blistering heat of the Othardian summer. Imperial reprisal had been swift in extinguishing the fires of Doman liberty. Zenos yae Galvus brought his sword to the neck of the rebel cause in the form of the XIIth, stamping out the local resistance with impunity. And what had become of her people in the wake of subjugation was a pitiful thing to behold; broken spirits and shattered wills were all that remained, save for the few who still reared their ugly heads in defiance of the Empire. And it was those insurrectionists that gave purpose to his station in Doma.

Namai had been cowed into an artificial lull of quiet, her citizens gathered around to spectate the ongoings. Where sympathy might’ve presented itself in the past, there was only weariness; an unwillingness to so much as lift a finger out of fear for their own livelihoods. Three faces had been lined up in the center of the village; all familiar, all frantic and all belonging to members of the Liberation Front. It was his enterprise to know who was who, what they believed and whether or not they would act on that belief. He had even spent time himself amongst the rank-and-file of the Front and they were none the wiser to the fact that the enemy had abused their hospitality to make himself at home in their very camp. Though he hadn’t enough time to garner trust that might’ve opened the doors of the House of the Fierce to him, bloodshed would be enough to appease his masters for a time. At the Frumentarius’ approach, the ruliness of the prisoners quickly escalated, a scene of tumult overtaking the crowd as they spat every manner of venom at their countryman. Traitor, snake, rat, and perhaps gravest of them all, coward and craven. And yet their cries of perfidy-born-tantrum fell upon the deaf ears of a man who could care less for the opinions of savages; who were once his people, no longer so, they now held a place little above the beasts of the field. They were beneath him.

With a gesture as simple as a wave of the hand, their fates were sealed. And with that, defiance became pleading for some; cries of mercy, bargaining for their lives, where others upheld the front of apathy, stony-faced and taciturn in the face of their oncoming demise. Urged to their feet by the hateful, grasping hands of Imperial rank-and-file, their destination was the nearby wall of a home. Eir Metius simply looked on with contempt; a coward he was not, not in his mind, but what credence was there in the sniveling of frightened animals teetering on the cusp of death? He hadn’t need concern himself, and if anything, he took joy in seeing the tables turn so quickly, those who spat accusations of cowardice themselves groveling now that the heel of their Imperial hegemon’s had found the back of their necks. The Decurio took to the Doman’s side, seeking affirmation in the form of a harrumph. All the response he could muster was a nod, looking on in glee as the order was given.

The soldiers took their positions, and what followed was the thunderous fanfare of Garlean firearms snuffing out the pleading cries of rebels and traitors; all in perfect unison, the echo of death carried through the valley on a gust of wind. Women struggled to contain their sorrow, children staring on in confusion, and all Eir Metius could muster for the fallen was a smug grin, all too satisfied with himself. “Frumentarius.” There it was again, that word, uttered by the same lips as before with their all-too-characteristic militant inflexibility. Stirred from his silent exultation, they took their leave in short order, their leavings of blood splatter and corpses a parting gift to the people of Namai. A gift they would surely know again, but for now, they were left in peace, if it could even be called that. Fear, more like, come to sow the seeds of hopelessness, and that it did. Such a pitiful contrast to joy, he thought, but such was the price of betrayal, a price he himself would come to know in due time.

@sea-wolf-coast-to-coast

#ffxivwrite2019 #ffxiv #ff14 #ffxiv rp #short story

[luckylocit]

Dear somebody,

Paris, 2019.10.06

When are you reading this? Who are you?

I’m a lonely person in the most beautiful city of the world. The history of Paris spans centuries, though it only became this big and urban in the 20th century. Paris is a collection of villages that were frankensteined into an haussmanian marvel of paved streets and dainty, low rooftops. It’s like the baby reached its prime. Hopefully it might last a bit more—but we know that greater civilizations crumbled to dust millenia past, and I sincerely doubt our current world will be perennial (even without the mention of climate change etc.)

My history feels comparatively short and uneventful. I was born from a French man and an immigrant woman, who made the mistake of making a baby and marrying (in that order, but it was a mistake regardless of order). Their marriage was short-lived, and only recently did I gain a fuller picture of what their life together was like. I do not have memories before my 3rd or 4th year on earth, when I spent 10 months in my mother’s home country. I remember my 5th birthday, during which I cried because I lost a game of musical chairs against 2 other kids; it was in London, I remember the (literal) icing on the cake, and the star-shaped Polly Pocket pendant I was gifted. I noted fairly quickly that I cried during every one of my birthdays, and not of joy. I haven’t entirely lost hope of having one good birthday, but I’m drawing on 30 now and people don’t celebrate your birthday at this age unless you feed them.

Paris has seen almost all my years, and despite that I know it very little. Needless to say there’s probably too much to this city to get to know in a lifetime, but I’m not even there. It’s like we brushed past each other, catching only a glimpse of the color of our apparel, a whiff of our scents—and are too soon forgotten.

I might never have the time or inclination to deepen our bond. External circumstances may bring it to its knees before my own time is up. But just the other day a friend acquiesced in understanding when I said I had reduced my world, out of necessity, for survival. Curiosity and wanderlust bring their own share of desperation, as the endless possibilities and the boundless realm of the unseen taunt the spirit, and drill into the soul the sort of void that no air or light can reach. Most of all, the sensation of not belonging is suffocating. I’ve been given beauty beyond compare, too many options for a single human being, the finest foods within arm’s reach—yet always felt a stranger to it all. And worse, I grew up not knowing where to place myself. Do I belong here? or somewhere else? Do I need to search this place? another place? within me? In what way do I matter?

It is reasonable to say that we don’t matter, but also reasonable to advocate the idea that life has meaning; otherwise nobody would function, right? The mind needs its myths, right? The myth of Reason being the cure-all for human evils is completely bogus however, and I would argue it’s dangerous. It’s another half-baked idea that entirely dismisses the hugest part of human psyche: our emotions, and our irrationality. This myth is dangerous because it tells us we have control: over our choices, our surroundings, that we only need education to see farther and better and clearer. It’s shaped our politics and the way we chide each other. It’s burdened every human under this law with the responsibility of all-encompassing knowledge. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse” is a delicious example of it, though in French it better reads “No one is supposed to be ignorant of the law” (which does introduce its casually distinct bit of nuance, if I may pedantically say so, but would only develop upon explicit request). We’re expected to know, we’re expected to understand and follow. And so we’ve prescribed our entire lives under the diktat of Reason, refused to acknowledge stupidity and ignorance as the norm, painfully struggling against the human condition... and for what?

I don’t know when you are nor where, but from where I stand I’m still one of the lucky ones. Reason was used to the profit of this side mostly, rationally creating unreasonable expectations and desires to be met by rationally-engineered unreasonable pseudo-solutions, all for the sake of our irrational drive to a more comfortable life—because our brains are wired like this and we are entirely subject to our biology. (yes I would argue that morality is only relevant once considered in the framework of subjugation to biological impulses.) And this has begun to lay ruin to our planet; and we’re not stopping; because reasons; because we’re shortsighted and biologically wired like that. I won’t be the first to experience the downfall, it’s actually already begun in less clement parts of the planet. But it will come, and hence I wonder: why try to find a place in here? Why make or build anything?

I’ll close this letter with this interrogation in suspension. Here is the world, here I am. I still enjoy the taste of fresh meat and greens, photos of fine jewellery, and the old ironwork inlaid in buildings and streets. These halcyon days will end, and hopefully I get to enjoy them—though beyond the dusk there might be something for me as well. For us.

#letters

[foolgobi65]

aagata

this is a horrible mishmash of a bunch of ideas and also just want to recognize that theres no real reason for this to be a genderswap except that this had originally started as a genderswap a year ago and i was too lazy to rewrite a few parts to locate them within womens quarters instead of the general city. i hope you can find at least some parts to like! thank you @avani008 for being an amazing mod !!! 

When Rukmaratha is sixteen he is sent to Mathura to witness the bow festival of Kamsa, the General of Jarasandha and a man Rukmaratha’s eldest brother attempts to imitate in the relative privacy of his chambers. It is the thickness and curl of the mustache, Rukmaratha muses absently, that Kamsa has been able to perfect over all others during the last 20 years of unchallenged supremacy.

“Have you heard,” someone whispers behind Rukmaratha and despite his years of royal etiquette training he leans back to listen. “She survived.”

“The elephant? I heard it was mad!”

“It was. We all thought the brother would be the one to control it, but I heard she simply stepped from behind him and fought the beast in the street like any other man.”

“You say that as if there is a man alive who has managed to defeat Kuvalayapida.” Rukmaratha flushes, only realizing that he has spoken when the men turn away from each other to face the interloper. Still, the idea that Kamsa’s wild elephant has been tamed is such that Rukmaratha cannot bring himself to apologize.

“You’re right,” one of the men, seemingly an affluent trader, laughs. “And perhaps that is why the girl Krishnaa succeeded. She ran in and out of Kuvalayapida legs until he grew weary, and then she allowed herself to be captured by his trunk.”

Rukmaratha thinks of the many men Kuvalayapida has strangled but the trader only smiles, changing his stance from that of a local gossip to a bard retelling a tale of yore. “Just as the beast would have strangled her, she began to speak, even as she was held at such a height that a drop would have killed her instantly.” Rukmaratha’s eyes widen at the thought. “No one could hear the words,” the trader continues, “but it seemed that Kuvalayapida loosened his grip until Krishnaa could balance on his trunk, and then climb to sit atop the elephant as if he hadn’t been attempting to kill her just moments before!”

“Oh,” Rukmaratha sighs, and wonders at the way his heart races just hearing about a tale of such valor. What it would be to see such a feat in person. “I have never heard her name,” he says after a moment of thought. “Is the lady a princess from afar?”

Both men laugh, the first so hard that tears begin to stream from his eyes. “Hardly,” the second man chokes out when he sees his companion is in no position to speak. “She is the daughter of the local cowherd chieftain Nanda. They came to see the festival.”

***

Years before Rukmaratha is born, when even his eldest brother Rukmi is barely six-months, Jarasandha invades. Bhishmaka is the Bhoja’s eldest cadet, the Crown Prince of the kingdom and he rides valiantly in his nation’s defense but fails. His father the King is forced to step down, and Bhishmaka is elevated in his place, humiliating defeat a constant reminder of the consequences of rebellion.

Rukmi, Bhishmaka’s only child at the time, is demanded as a sign of mutual goodwill. He will be raised well, Jarasandha insists, and trained amongst the best Magadha has to offer. It will be a far better life than one found in Kundinapura and in time, Jarasandha assures the frantic Queen, Rukmi will be returned to his homeland a seasoned warrior and an appropriate executor of Jarasandha’s will.

In return, Bhishmaka will have the lion’s share of the royal obligations -- Jarasandha has no use for the minutias of rule and cares little beyond what Vidharbha can provide in soldiers and taxes. But Bhishmaka, haunted by his loss, has little stomach for the throne; it is his younger sons who, between themselves, manage the daily tasks of royal command.

As a child Rukmaratha is often sickly, so he grows neither strong nor skilled and as the youngest is able to take advantage of the fact that there was always an elder brother more suited to the Emperor’s needs. He is allowed then, despite the Imperial dictate that demands the separation of royal son from homeland, to remain with his parents in Vidharba. Rukmaratha finds this suits him entirely, and manages to cultivate a wide variety of intellectual interests that Jarasandha deems amusing as opposed to a threat.

At just sixteen Rukmaratha is known to be a scholar, a musician, a dancer. He is charming, Imperial spies say, and witty. He is kind to those who know him, shows great compassion to the subjects of his father, and if some say that he exerts an undue influence on the minds of his nation’s common-folk, he is believed far too innocent to take advantage.

Rumaratha is all of these things, but in his heart, he is also a traitor.

***

In the city of Mathura, inside and out of the palaces that Rukmaratha’s fellow royals are kept the people speak of nothing else. “Kamsa is dead,” they say, even while the man takes breath, “Her Child has Come.”

Rukmaratha walks the streets wearing cotton cloth and silver around his neck in an attempt to understand the way the city has come alive almost a generation after its initial subjugation. In every shop and street corner there is a whisper, a story, a hope that Rukmaratha did not know had been fostered. A dying ember that somehow had kept warm the Yadava heart during the years since Kamsa had walked into the Gathering of Chiefs as Ugrasena’s son and walked out their King.

“Well you see,” the Royal flower vendor, a man whose family has sold all his garlands to the Palace for generations had said, voice low, “there was the prophecy--”

This much, even Rukmaratha knows. The marriage that would consolidate the two most powerful clans of the Mathura Yadavas, the voice that proclaimed the Yadava general Kamsa’s death at the hands of his beloved sister’s eighth child. Vasudev’s bargain for the life of his wife in exchange for any children they might have in the future. In Vidharbha, Vasudev is considered quite the fool for risking the hell reserved for those who have no sons to perform their final rites, especially when for all his efforts he wound up with a wife gone mad.

“It is not madness,” the vendor snaps. “It is divinity.”

Rukmaratha raises an eyebrow. What few reports exist of the lady Devaki report that she has spent the years since the loss of her eighth child in relative silence, singing cradle songs to babies long dead.

The vendor sighs. “If it is madness, then sure it is of a type divine, borne of Her sacrifice for us Yadavas struggling under the weight of His rule.” They speak of Kamsa in this way, 30 years after the creation of his throne, afraid of summoning his presence by uttering his name. Devaki, too, is only ever referred to as Our Lady. Vasudev, a man whose plight is so popular outside, almost seems to have been forgotten.

“In the beginning,” the vendor whispers, picking up the thread of his story once more, “She refused. Our Lady was unconscious while the skies spoke, and when she woke she decided that she would never know Vasudev as a husband in order to keep herself from the grief of giving life to children already dead.”

Rukmaratha swallows. “What changed?”

The vendor clenches his jaw. “He became King. Six hundred of our sons were killed when the Emperor tried to take Hastinapura, and the Vrishni villages revolted. Thirty were burned entirely before they agreed to His terms.” His eyes widen, gaining the type of sheen only born of true fervor and devotion. “They say that She could hear the wails of the Yadava women from the palace where He kept them imprisoned, and that their grief at losing one son was such that She decided that She could sacrifice seven of her own.”

It is a compelling tale, but for the one part that Rukmaratha believes must be missing. The prophecy spoke of Kamsa’s death at the hands of Devaki’s eighth, but as far as what Rukmaratha has heard, the eighth child is dead. Her head was bashed against the rock of Devaki and Vasudev’s prison cell, and it is believed that it was this final loss that finally drove Devaki insane.

“Seven?”

The vendor smiles. “The first six, we all watched fall under their uncle’s sword, murdered in the center of the city for all of us to see. The seventh miscarried, but so late that it might have been called a birth had the child lived. But the eighth.” His voice lowers even further, a murmur almost lost amongst the noise of the market. “Usually the children were born in the palace, even in the years after Our Lady and her husband were moved to the dungeon. When Our Lady felt the first of the birth pangs she would be taken to a room, and the news announced throughout the city. Just when the infant left her body it would be taken by a midwife, cleaned of the birth blood and presented to Him, to be executed in the city center in front of us all.”

Rukmaratha winces at the brutality of it all. “Is this not what happened with the eighth?” He would have assumed Kamsa to be even more strict when faced with the actual child of his prophesied death.

“It should have,” the vendor whispers, “but it didn’t! There was a storm around the time the lady Devaki was due to give birth, one of such power and floods that had never been seen in Mathura before. No one could move from their homes a full fortnight afterwards, and when we did, the child was gone.”

“Gone?”

The vendor nods. “There was a child when He walked into their prison cell, and that baby was killed like the others but when it died the skies laughed and said that it was too late. The true Deliverer was alive.”

Suddenly, he throws his head back and laughs, the sound even louder for how quiet he has been so far. “That is the child that has returned. We don’t know where they are, but somewhere in Mathura the Deliverer has arrived.”

***

As a child, Rukmaratha knows more of his grandfather than of his noble father Bhishmaka. Rukmaratha’s mother is too busy with the grief of losing so many of her sons to the Imperial core, and loathe to build a connection to another boy that will only be made a stranger in a few short years. His father is more given to brooding in his throne room than to noticing the general existence of his youngest, most sickly son. By the time that the Queen realizes her child’s delicate disposition will keep him away, that she can be free to shower Rukmaratha with all the love and care she had previously withheld, the damage has been done -- it is to the deposed king that Rukmaratha calls, for advice, for kisses, for a listening ear as Rukmaratha spins stories of what things will be like when Jarasandha is dead.

Rukmaratha’s grandfather, still smarting from his forced abdication, is perhaps not the most diligent agents of Jarasandha’s empire when it comes to quelling dissent. Rukmaratha’s lessons, entirely the purview of his grandfather, are of a type not usually granted to sixth sons -- he is taught how to rule only so that he may one day teach his own son, and preserve the ways of the Bhojas when his elder brothers cannot. It is under his grandfather’s watchful eye that Rukmaratha is taught the ways of the Bhoja kings, how Bhojas wage wars of peace, how Bhojas only collect revenue when their dependents prosper. There are not many things available to those who wish to work against the will of the Empire, but Rukmaratha is allowed to walk the lands that his grandfather cannot and in private he manages to relate stories from faithful subjects, all only too glad to keep up a correspondence through Rukmaratha to comfort their old King now under house arrest.

The Vidharbans are hungry, and grieving the loss of their sons to the same army that has stolen Rukmaratha’s brothers. They are forced to give too much of what they produce to maintain the Imperial forces, not only Jarasandha’s army but the host of Imperial officers that quell rebellion when local royalty is unwilling. People are afraid to have children, lest they force them to grow up under the iron fist of Magadha that will eventually grow so tight that they will die, gasping for air.

“Grandfather,” Rukmaratha asks one day, skin burning from a fever that had swept through the Vidharban capital and left only funeral pyres in its wake. They had all been so careful, but there has never been an illness caught by a citizen of Kundinapura that did not eventually leave its mark on the youngest prince. Rukmaratha’s grandfather is bent with age but still sits beside him, dipping silk cloths into cold water and laying them across Rukmaratha’s burning forehead.

“Grandfather,” Rukmaratha breathes again, “will things always be this way?”

Will I die even as Jarasandha lives? Will we all?

Rukmaratha is so warm that he can barely feel the fingers his grandfather brushes against his cheeks. Later, the doctors will tell him that his survival was an act of the Almighty, that there must have been a reason for him to live when so many others had succumbed.

Later, Rukmaratha will believe that he lived, in order to realize the truth of his grandfather’s next words.

“No,” the King says, shoulders straightening as he moves Rukmaratha’s head until their eyes can meet for Rukmaratha to know the truth of what he says. “One day things will be better. And we will all be alive to see it.”

****

The second story Rukmaratha stumbles across almost by chance, the stray bits of a tall tale carried by the driver of a bullock cart that passes in front of Rukmaratha as he crosses the street in search of news about the Deliverer.

“It’s true,” the cowherd shouts to his friend sitting in the back. “She has Arrived!”

Rukmaratha, hearing the reverence and joy that only comes when the Yadavas speak of their savior, follows the cart as it wends its way out of the Mathura city center and towards the camps of villagers who have come to witness the celebrations and sell their specialized wares.

“Excuse me,” he asks, throwing away a lifetime’s worth of royal courtesy and etiquette. “Who is She?” The cowherds, taken aback only for a moment, look between themselves before inviting Rukmaratha into their camp.

15 years ago, Devaki delivered her eighth child, a baby that outside Mathura was known to be dead. Kamsa, they all agree, executed a child for the eighth time -- but for this, the all important agent of his death, he was not prepared to leave anything to chance. Every Yadava born the year of Devaki’s pregnancy was sentenced to death, soldiers dispatched to every village and city street to check for children and deliver them to a massive funeral pyre set up in the stadium that now hosts the Lord’s Bow.

In Gokul, the villagers whisper, a child was born, the fruit of almost a decade of prayer by parents slowly entering middle age. The birth is long, and Yashodha, wife of the kindly Vrishni village head Nanda is almost lost -- the village women take turns nursing her daughter during the long weeks of Yashodha’s recovering, and by the time Kamsa’s soldiers makes their way to Gokul the baby girl is child of them all.

The villagers give up their own children, all infants under the age of one, but they balk at turning over the child Krishnaa, skin as dark as the rain clouds that covered the sun the entire time her mother labored. The other women might have other children, or already have enough that they can believe that their grief will someday pass. Yashodha, who has just celebrated 40 years, whose braid contains streaks of grey amongst the black, will not. Yashodha, who has only ever lived in hope of a child, who has kissed every one of Gokul’s children and sent them home with far too much butter and curd, will not survive the loss of her girl.

For a month, the gopis pass Krishnaa from house to house, hiding her in their kitchens, in their cupboards, even in their skirts as the soldiers roam in search of babies for Kamsa’s grand pyre. The soldiers leave, and Yashodha is finally strong enough to host a festival in honor of the Great God in thanks for His blessing. There is talk first, as to whether her joy might be considered entirely appropriate amidst everyone else’s grief, but in the end Yashodha sits with every woman of Gokul marvelling at the beauty of their collective baby. Never, they say, has a child ever been loved like Krishnaa.  

It is for this reason, that the arrival of Putana takes them by such surprise. Finally the cowherds believed themselves to be safe, and Krishnaa is kept proudly in the swinger set in Nanda’s courtyard, finally able to be admired by all in the light of day. When she is hungry she is picked up by the nearest woman with milk in her breast, passed to another to be bounced, and still another to be rocked back to sleep before being laid in her cradle. It is almost too easy for Putana, poison smeared across her nipples, to take Krishnaa to her breast and hold her there until she dies.

Putana, that is -- Krishnaa suckles all of the milk out of Putana’s breast, and her life as well. It is only when Putana collapses that the villagers realize that something was amiss.

The story passes from Vrishni village to Vrishni village like wildfire, a glimmer of hope in the countryside for people who have never concerned themselves with the story of the Deliverer, never concerned by the goings on of the city unless they were being robbed of their infant children.

Demon after demon finds its way to Gokul, and demon after demon finds itself dead at the feet of the newly christened Gopi of Gokul. Not even the eventual move to Vrindavan, an experiment to see if it was the land or the child that was cursed, is enough to change the name by which Krishnaa is known by in the grazing lands of Braj. Vrindavan, close to Andhaka led Barsana, only encourages the legend to spread beyond the ears of Vrishnis, and where their clan counterparts in the city have formed an alliance through shared grief at the state of their scions, Andhaka and Vrishni cowherds find themselves united in the face of a miracle.

The Gopi of Gokul lives, again and again, where every other Yadava child has died. Kamsa, every villager says, has grown obsessed with this girl he cannot kill, refuses to acknowledge his failure and instead sends demon after demon, destroying Braj in pursuit of this final life that has managed to survive his orders. Krishnaa is taken, beaten, drowned, burned and still they find her smiling, standing proud amongst the corpse of the fool instructed to deliver her corpse. This, Rukmaratha realizes, is the tamer of Kuvalayapida who succeeded where all others have failed.

Poisoned water has become clear, the villagers say, and the Govardhan mountain rose in defiance of the God Indra at her touch. The Yadavas of Mathura dismiss the cowherds as simple, villagers prone to spinning tales for their own amusement. Besides, if there were to be a person capable of such miracles, surely it would be the Deliverer, whose arrival was heralded by the Gods themselves.

The idea of a village cowherdess, defeating demons even soldiers would quail at facing. Absurd!

***

Rukmaratha enters Kamsa’s stadium on the last day of the Bow Sacrifice, his head spinning with everything that has transpired. Mathura, it seems, has become the site of miracles -- Kuvalayapida is tamed one day, a hunchback woman made straight the next. The day before, Kamsa’s sacrificial bow, the weapon of the Great God was broken in two.

With no bow to offer back to the Lord, Kamsa has called for an afternoon of wrestling. The stadium buzzes with barely contained excitement. Those of Mathura clasp hands, waiting with bated breath for the appearance of their Savior after 30 years in the darkness. Rukmaratha can see the cowherds of Braj laughing, talking easily of the last days’ miracles after years of their own.

There is an idea slowly dawning on Rukmaratha, a story so incredible that it is frightening to even contemplate. There was a prophecy, and a storm during which two impossible children are born. Vasudev, erstwhile chief of the Vrishnis, delivers his own child inside prison walls, a baby believed to be the salvation of Mathura.

The people of Mathura believe that their savior escaped. If Vasudev could, somehow, have found his way out of the dungeon, where would he have gone?

In the countryside, safe in a Vrishni village grows a girl who defies the will of Kamsa, performing miracles as easily as breathing for the entertainment and satisfaction of her peers. Her father Nanda is proudly known to have been the particular friend of his clan chief Vasudev, playmates for the summer that Vasudev spent amongst the cowherds that he would one day come to lead.

Is it possible, Rukmaratha wonders, for the two legends to be one and the same? For the Deliverer, child of the two most powerful Yadava bloodlines, to have been raised the daughter of a cowherd, dancing and playing the flute for her flock when she is not eliminating Kamsa’s demons?

The crowd roar, and Rukmaratha puts aside his thoughts to find Chanur, Mathura’s finest wrestler screaming a challenge to the person who has captured the Yadava imagination.

“I know you are here,” he calls out. “If you truly think that you can kill my King, why don’t you come and try me first? Fight me like a man if you dare.”

There is a moment, before the world changes, when Rukmaratha wonders if it is possible for prophecies to come true. If there really is a Deliverer, Devaki’s miraculous eighth child spirited away only to return all these years later and rescue the Yadavas from the yoke of their tyrant. If there really can be a girl who lifts mountains, who has waged a silent war against demon and god alike and won.

He watches the cowherds of Braj, notices the resignation on the man he identifies as Nanda’s face as they all part. What Rukmaratha had struggled to even contemplate instantly becomes clear. The Deliverer walks away from the family that had, for sixteen years provided shelter, and takes her first step into the arena of her destiny.

The crowd, which had grown silent during the wait, erupts. All of them, however they know her, united in this moment by their belief in the miracles she alone can create on their behalf.

Ten thousand infants exactly Krishnaa’s age are dead, ten thousand more lost to the ravages of the Maghadhan lust for empire expansion. Rukmaratha wonders faintly at how a nation’s hope can rest on the slender shoulders of this girl busy unraveling her turban. Now that he can see her outside of the legends passed on the street he realizes that she can’t be more than a year younger or older than he, and when he looks her body is slender in a way that the giant at her side is not. Rukmaratha is sixteen, and later he will tell his wife that there was a time when he removed his crown and thought to run down ten flights of steps in a haphazard plan to save the Savior of Mathura from the grip of the wrestler Chanur.

The fact that Chanur is dead by the time Rukmaratha jostles his way past even one flight of kings is irrelevant -- it is the thought, his wife insists, that counts. But now Rukmaratha cannot see her face, so he contents himself with observing the way that Krishnaa’s hair has come undone from its knot, strands blending into the dark skin of her shoulders, her neck, eventually falling so low as the small of her back as she walks from Chanur’s body towards Kamsa’s throne. The red of Chanur’s final flailing breaths has stained the yellow cloth around her waist, tied above her knees in the manner of male laborers.

The arena has grown silent once more. One soldier charges, but Krishnaa only dodges, reaching out her arm to grab for the collar of his armor and throwing him into the dust before proceeding as if she had never been interrupted. Rukmaratha wonders if she is afraid.

“Uncle,” she calls out calmly mere steps away from the throne, as if Kamsa has not murdered six of her siblings, imprisoned the parents of her birth, and terrorized the countryside in search of the child that would end his life. Rukmaratha swallows. “I am here.”

A duel, Rukmaratha knows, is conducted between two equals. It is a battle of strength and skill, which brings honor to both sides regardless of the eventual victor. Kamsa, the triumphant General of Jarasandha’s forces, cannot possibly challenge an unarmed girl child raised to graze cows, prophecy or not.

Kamsa raises his sword.

“You think you can kill me?” Kamsa shouts as he runs, sword aloft. “You think you can kill me?”

Krishnaa throws back her head and laughs, and for Rukmaratha it is as if all time has stopped -- every moment before and after bleeding until it all comprises of nothing more than sound of Krishnaa’s laugh in the King’s arena. Rukmaratha, who has wondered if he would live crushed under the boot of Jarasandha’s regime his whole life, begins to Believe.

Her body ripples with mirth, shoulders bent back to expose the delicate lines of her neck even as her uncle swings to chop off her head. Krishnaa takes a single step to the left and straightens, all evidence of amusement lost in the rigidity of her limbs.

She shifts just slightly and then turns to face Kamsa whose strength always outweighed his speed. Rukmaratha, and the people of Mathura, can finally see her face.

“Uncle,” Krishnaa says again, her voice somehow filling the arena even though her tone is that of one who is trading gossip with a friend. Her eyes, though -- Rukmaratha knows that he will live 100 lifetimes and never forget the way he saw destiny in her eyes. Krishnaa is no girl when she grabs for the sword hanging uselessly by Kamsa’s side. She kicks Kamsa and when she sets her foot on top of his chest Rukmaratha feels the world shake. Krishnaa crouches, sword in hand and uses Kamsa’s hair to lift his head off the dirt of the arena.

This Krishnaa, the Gopi of Gokul, is no girl -- she is a force of nature.

“You can’t kill me!” Kamsa shouts, again and again, Jarasandha’s General flailing uselessly under Krishnaa’s grip. There is a moment when Krishnaa pauses, her grip loosening on the sword and Rukmaratha wonders if she could be so foolish as to let her uncle go. There are of course men of honor who would see their defeat as an equivalent to their death, but Rukmaratha has not lived his entire life in the Emperor’s shadow to believe that there are such things as honorable men in today’s day and age.

“Uncle,” she says one last time and raises the sword. She gazes at Kamsa in the way an elephant must gaze at an ant, if it even sees something so much smaller and inconsequential than itself. “I already have.”

The sword flashes and Kamsa’s head lands in the dust.

Devaki’s eighth child, the Deliverer heralded by the heavens and raised a cowherd rises from the body of her uncle clutching his conch in her left hand, palm slick with his blood. When she blows, she closes her eyes; the sound of a new era passes through the arena, the city, the nation, until it must reach the very corners of the Earth. Her right foot still rests atop Kamsa’s chest.

“Vaasudeva,” the arena murmurs, and Rukmaratha wonders at how he can feel the wheel of fate turn at this moment, not only for the world but for himself. He wonders for a moment at the idea of Devaki’s Daughter being known as her father’s child after all these years, but then the arena says it again and he realizes. Vaasudeva, not only her father’s daughter, but another name of God -- the ultimate divinity made manifest in the flesh. Rukmaratha looks around him and realizes that he, alone, is not on his knees. “Vaasudeva,” the crowd says louder, in one voice that drips reverence from every syllable, “you have come.”

Rukmaratha is only glad that he lived to see it himself.

#mythology ccw