listen I know a lot of science YouTube is trying to be respectful or whatever since it’s recent however I would love to see a step by step cgi rendition of what happened to the Titan. I know what happened on a technical sense, but I like to physically see it.

SO i've been digging around in the benchmark files with xiv data explorer...

...and with my middling knowledge of how XIV's current texture types work, i've noticed some differences in how texture channels have worked and what data is stored where. i haven't figured out what EVERYTHING'S for yet and if you think you have an idea or any corrections, pls feel free to lmk. could help with figuring out 7.0 modding quicker! this is also decent info for figuring out what old mods can be repurposed for 7.0 graphics.

also content warning for unwrapped face textures under the cut, i know those can look kind of spooky if you arent used to 'em lol

starting off, i didn't source this info but chirp (known plugin dev) on twitter talked about finding about fifty six new bones in the facial armature specifically. this means things like sculpts will probably be unusable unless they are manually re-rigged with each one of those fifty six new bones, or else they wont animate properly.

the default UV maps for the face specifically have changed, too, and many of the uses of the old normal and multi channels have been changed or moved to a different texture. NOTE that these examples were found from au ra textures, male specifically, and the channels may or may not have different uses on non-scaled races!

old vs new multi map. i'm fairly certain every channel here has been repurposed: for example, blue used to be for lipstick, now it seems to be for something else. so where'd the lipstick area data go? well:

it's been moved to the alpha channel on the normal map (these are both the new one). additionally, it seems like the blue channel on the normal map has been changed to signify the difference between skin and non-skin or something of the like.

(old vs new) similarly, even though the body seems to use the same UV layout with a redefined normal map, the blue channel here also seems to indicate skin vs non-skin. but the blue channel used to be for transparency (iirc?), so where is that data stored now?

the transparency data seems to have been moved to the alpha channel of the diffuse now. this image is part of the new face diffuse.

like the face multi map, the body multi map seems to actually use the blue channel now (and looks SO much cleaner, wow!). old vs new.

so what do these changes mean for our current mods?

-due to changed UVs, existing makeups will not be usable with the new faces UNLESS someone goes through the effort of taking the old sculpt (vanilla or otherwise) and weight paints ALL the new face bones to them, or somehow adjusts the UV mapping on the new sculpt to match the old one. i don't work with sculpts so i'm not sure how feasible either of these are

-existing body tattoo mods that only affect the diffuse should theoretically still work fine, as the UVs have not been changed on the body. body scale mods that are just recolors should work fine as well, but matching face scale mods will have to be redone for the new UVs.

-however, if it's a scale mod like dragonborn that changes the placement of the scales and therefore the normal and multi maps, those will have to be adjusted to match with the 7.0 channel uses.

assuming there are no major changes to how this data is stored between now and the releases of dawntrail, you could theoretically begin working now on your own texture mods ready for whenever we get access to 7.0 modding tools. i was able to access these files (and many others) by using XIV data explorer, a program that lets you view and export (but not import!) data directly from specific XIV data indexes.

if you also want to rip textures, the index storing them, alongside skeletons and animations, is 04000.win32.index2. hit ctrl+shift+e to export individual files to a .tex format and then run them through penumbra to convert them into .dds for normals + multis or .png for diffuses for editing. i'm fairly certain that 95% of the pathings will be exactly the same as what penumbra and textools gives us now, so there shouldn't be much need to find entirely new paths.

again, if anyone sees any differences in other races for texture uses or figures out the uses for new channels, PLEASE let me know bc the sooner we get all this figured out the better! i have only been modding for a few years and don't know everything about how every texture works so i'm open to corrections.

I know it probably wasn't a thing when the reboot was being made/came out, but the Qliphoth from DMC5 feels like it's something that could/should exist in a Mundus controlled Human Realm. I'm not sure how exactly it could be a thing, tho, without it being blatantly obvious, cause like. Its a big fucking demon tree that turns people into Qliphoth pollen by impaling them on spikes and gathers human blood, sometimes by sending out demonic insects to do the gathering for it. Maybe it only exists in Limbo? I know Mundus harvesting human's energy was kinda vague in the reboot, so maybe the Qliphoth could be how? Or something similar, maybe based only in Limbo, maybe using the Qliphoth as a model?

Idk. Fun to think about.

The only snag is that the Qliphoth only takes like, A MONTH, at most, to produce its super awesome demon power up fruit, all for the relatively low price of a few cities worth of people. Given how much influence Mundus has in the reboot, that feels like it'd be an easy thing for him to do. Maybe it'd take longer than a month, but not much longer, especially if Mundus is there to harvest the fruit himself. Especially since, iirc, the humans don't even have to be ALIVE for their blood to "count" as food/fuel for the Qliphoth fruit. Mundus could just feed the Qliphoth human bodies straight from the morgue/funerals, or from people that donated their bodies to science, and it would still work just fine.

Given how easy it'd (probably) be for Mundus to harvest human blood, it feels like he should be more powerful than we see him be in the reboot? I mean, given that eating the Qliphoth fruit ONCE was enough to give preboot Mundus the power to rule over the Underworld.

Best excuse/explanation I can think of is that either reboot Eva and reboot Sparda destroyed whatever Qliphoth seeds Mundus (or whoever) had before Mundus had a chance to use them again. Or that whatever weird reality bending shit Mundus did to create Limbo, link himself/his power to the Hellgate, and keep the Hellgate open for as long as he did, did something to how well the Qliphoth could grow in the Human Realm, and Mundus just figured the trade off was worth it.

I do think the 5 concept of the like, demon power fruit, really could easily be adapted into the reboot if someone wanted!

If keeping the lore as we have it in 5, I do agree it'd be really easy for Mundus to create the Qliphoth tree and everything. And like you say, the easiest answer to why, if it existed in the reboot at all, it doesn't exist would be that it was somehow destroyed before it even starts. If one wants to keep the lore as close to 5 as possible.

I do like the idea of Eva and Sparda being part of destroying it as I like to headcanon that they've been on a long quest to destroy all the hellgates and unseat Mundus (my reasoning for this is how Vergil talks about the hellgates make it seem like there had been more and now there aren't and the fact reboot Yamato seems specifically made to destroy hellgates and the fact that it isn't featured on Sparda's crest despite being his sword, implying it's newer then Rebellion and just like....idk what else would Eva and Sparda have been doing for all those years before getting caught by Mundus?). If their ultimate goal is to get rid of Mundus, getting rid of the hellgates is essentially to weaken him and keep him in one place so, naturally, they'd want to get rid of anything else that'd possibly make him more powerful.

The other option would be adapting the lore to fit the reboot though I'm not quite sure how one would do that? Perhaps instead of the Qliphoth being something made, it's something found and no one quite knows where it and it's fruit are.

If i had been approached by kyubey when I was as old as Nagisa, I probably wouldve wished for my brother to be "cured" of autism, if I had been approached when I was Madoka or Sayakas age, I'd have wished to be beautiful. First wouldve been influenced by my parents praying for him to be normal and dragging us to church healing events and etc, 2nd influenced by me just being a girl and internalizing the idea that if I wasnt pretty, i was worthless. So. I cant judge any of them really

Like yeah maybe their wishes seem dumb when youre an adult and also a part of the audience and you get to know that kyubey twists wishes and that it always ends in tragedy. like if you were in the same situation would you really think of something better that Somehow woudlnt backfire on you and youd be the exception to the entire story ..

yeah, people don't take into account their ages or situations.

like with sayaka. she wishes to heal kyousuke's arm (or whatever his name is). people immediately jump on this and call sayaka an idiot for wishing for this, or imply the only reason she does this is because she has a crush on him.

this is ignoring:

he isn't "just some crush", he's a boy she's known since she was a very young child

he is a violin prodigy, his injury seemed to have permanently made him permanently unable to play (or, at least, not play nearly as easily)

this is distressing enough to him that he has a breakdown just hearing classical music, iirc

during this time, sayaka has witnessed her mentor figure, a girl close to her age, horrifically killed by an eldritch abomination who decapitated her in front of sayaka while she was powerless to help

sayaka, even before knowing about magical girls, is very protective and has a strong sense of justice

kyubey tells her most magical girls don't follow this ideal, and mami's death likely means a less "moral" magical girl will take over the city now

imo, sayaka likely would have contracted, even if kyousuke was 100% fine. after all, the only other magical girls sayaka knows are the "immoral" ones, and not mami-like. sayaka wants to protect people, always has, and wouldn't just stand idly by if she thought homura would try for the territory, or if kyoko had appeared before she contracted. she wants to be like mami and help people. that's why she contracted. even her wish, even if it had a selfish motivation, was to help someone (healing an injury that would have never healed normally, no matter what, and giving her childhood friend his dream back after he felt it was crushed).

and the reason she despairs isn't because "she's sad her crush likes someone else". she's just found out magical girls contracting = having your soul ripped from your body without your knowledge or consent. psp i think even shows magical girls can literally be zombies, in the sense that one of the routes shows sayaka walking after her body begins rotting from being separated from her soul gem for too long. she feels like she's not human, doesn't deserve to be happy, and is holding herself to an impossible standard — the perfect, idealized version of mami that only exists in her head. this isn't sayaka being "stupid", she's a fourteen year old girl. and people can't comprehend it, apparently.

This Crossover Bunny is Brought to You by Norse Mythology and The Thing (1982)

Due to Body Horror Squick, I have never been able to completely watch The Thing. However, I recently saw a post on Tumblr squeeing about what a bizarrely natural actor the wolf-dog playing the part of The Thing was during the shooting of the movie. That is, apparently, the wolf-dog appeared to be very aware that he was playing a part, and appeared to be acting instead of responding specifically to training cues. (Appearing to move in such a way that was "alien" and then acting like a "dog." Appearing to react in ways that seemed deliberately planned actions, as if he was aware that this was a performance, and so on.)

And I immediately thought about Norse Mythology because of its vast supply of wolves. After some more percolating, I remembered Vali, the son of Loki, who was turned into a wolf and set on his brother Narfi, killing him. (According to Snorri, as punishment for Loki's part in the death of Baldr. Which was followed by the entire "tie Loki in the guts of his dead son and have a snake drool poison on him until Ragnarok.")

It isn't mentioned IIRC if Vali is also killed. We do know he runs off. Assuming he is still a god or other immortal being, let's imagine that Vali survived into the present day. Let's further imagine that he somehow ends up as an animal actor, aided and abetted by people who are acting as his Support People/agents/"trainers."

I am imagining a fic that would be somewhat found family, with a side of hurt/comfort.

I think this could also be worked in as an original fic, where Vali is still an actor, only in various other monster/alien invasion movies, and that he worked as the alien in The Thing is only an implication.

I think the story would be a combination of "found family" and "hurt/comfort." With a side chaser of recovery from trauma and PTSD. I also think that you could easily make this more of an original fic with the movies Vali has worked in implied or alluded to.

The people acting as his "trainers" could be actually related to him in some sense (It's implied in the Lokasenna by Odin that Loki skived off and played housewife and had more kids somewhere IIRC. You could also have Vali having humanish-looking kids with a shapechanger or after a relationship with a being from another mythology.) Or you could have someone at some point rescuing him from a Bad Situation at any point in history and having Vali protect the descendants of that person. (Dogfighting, baiting, caught in a trap, and so on.)

Note: Yes, I do know that this part of the myth is slightly borked on the names.

My thoughts on 03 and CoS

When I started watching 03, I came in with really high expectations. And I loved it!! Especially the first half - I loved the melancholy tone, the way they fleshed out the FMA world. That being said I have Opinions™️ which also includes some criticisms, as usual. Hearing things about 03 out of context definitely colored my expectations and perception of it. This is partly about the writing of 03, but partly about my own experience watching it.

I’ve been meaning to write and post this for about a month, but only got around to it just now, lol. Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen it.

What I liked

- The way it took the stuff from the manga and made a completely different story was AMAZING. Far after the storyline diverged, seeing influences from the mangahood storyline and how they were taken in a completely different direction was super cool.

- The tone!! 03 felt much more personal, much more melancholic. We really get to see how traumatic events like the fight with Barry the Chopper effect Edward, and we see that he’s really just a child. A child in the military. I know “03 shows Ed as a child soldier” has been talked about a lot and that aspect of 03 really lived up to what I heard about.

- I loved the fillers!! The adaptations of the bonus comics were delightful to watch and really fleshed out the Mustang squad in a way that Brotherhood didn’t. Roy quoting the Art of War during the Fullmetal vs Flame episode was super cool, ties well with my Xingese Roy headcanons, and I’ll probably write a whole meta on that later.

- Even though I have some beef with the ending, which I’ll get to in a bit, it felt really special to me, personally, to see the characters hopeful and happy even after going through so much loss. I really like the message that sometimes, we do fail. Sometimes, what we’re chasing after is never meant to be ours. But we can learn to get up, and keep going. We can let go of that lost heaven.

What I didn’t

- I heard the line “My sympathy will not be spent on soldiers” out of context. I guess I expected it to be some badass line from Scar about why his anger towards the Amestrian state is valid and not something he needs to apologize for.

- Instead, that line was delivered by Scar right before committing an atrocity - sacrificing a huge number of soldiers for a philosopher’s stone, and placing a huge burden on a 14 year old boy by making Al’s body that stone without his permission. And Scar, after all he’s been through, didn’t get a happy ending. It wasn’t some badass thing, it was painted as tragic. I was really disappointed about where that line ended up and I’ll probably write a whole separate post about the lost potential of that line.

- Ed’s admitting that he has racial bias didn’t live up to my expectations. One of my biggest criticisms of mangahood has been the narrative’s stance towards race: “I think we should ignore race and treat each other as equals!” A common response I got was, “03 doesn’t do that! They actually have Ed admit that he has racial bias!”

- When that scene actually happened, I was thinking, “is that it? Is there more?” And yes, much of that disappointment likely came from me setting way-too-high expectations for the race themes of a shonen anime from 2003. It was such a short moment and didn’t feel as climactic or important as it should have been.

- Roy Mustang. Roy Mustang. The narrative expects us to sympathize with him, to like him, but I found it very hard. In mangahood, Roy’s goal to become Fuhrer and change the country for the better, to help the Ishvalans and make sure that a genocide like that never happens again, is a huge part of the show. In 03, it’s hinted at. Roy talks about becoming Fuhrer in the miniskirt episode, and it’s hinted that he has good intentions and wants to help the Ishvalans. But it’s not considered important.

- And then he completely throws that away.

- Reading things from 03 out of context, I somehow got the impression that Roy was going to quit the military after realizing that he doesn’t want to work within the system anymore. And I was thinking “omg that’s so cool! 03 actually has Roy renounce his ambitions and leave the military, because it’s the best way to help the Ishvalans!”

- Nope. That coup he stages? It’s not out of anger at how the Amestrian state treats its people. It’s not to avenge Ishval. It’s to avenge Maes Hughes, Roy’s friend.

- Having Roy stay in the military, but give up his rank, almost feels like a halfway point between two good ideas: Climbing the ranks to change the country, or leaving because he doesn't want to uphold a corrupt system. Maybe they could've made it work, but I wish they grappled with the implications of that more.

- adklsfaksldfhjks I’m very angry about this and this probably also needs its own post.

- Things in the second half of the show just didn’t feel as fleshed out. In Mangahood we got some time to grapple with the fact that Amestris was created by Father to be sacrificed, to grapple with the implications of that. In 03, that revelation came so close to the end that we just didn’t have time. I was left with so many QUESTIONS about the worldbuilding and parts of the plot, especially after CoS, and they didn’t get answered. I feel like a lot of my problems with 03 would be solved if they added a few episodes. It’d give them time to slow down to add more details, or even just give us an episode or three of Backstory.

all my QUESTIONS:

- Details on Dante and Hohenheim controlling humanity behind the scenes?? They just. tell us that they destroyed entire civilizations like Xerxes.

- Where do Gluttony, Greed, etc come from? If they were created simply to serve Dante, does that mean they were all created after Hohenheim left her?

- Why was Greed imprisoned? Why does he refer to the other homunculi as his sworn enemies?

- Lust is described as the “third Lust.” Who were the other Lusts? Is each sin a position in Dante’s squad, a role that can be filled after the one holding it dies?

- Envy is 300 years old. What the hell were they doing for all that time? Much of their character is based off of resentment of Hohenheim for leaving them and Dante, but that happened extremely recently.

- Hohenheim mentions that alchemy is fueled by people’s deaths in the parallel world?? And it’s NEVER mentioned again??

- How does the portal work? Ed landed in 1910s London, then 1920s Germany. But the times match up in CoS, with the 2 year gap and everything.

- I didn’t understand where the opening flashback about the uranium bomb comes from. It’s implied that it happened in the time gap between Ed joining the military and the Liore arc, but iirc the guy with the bomb came from the other world. How did he get there? How come Ed and Al spend a couple years knowing that a parallel world exists but it’s never brought up?

- How did Ed meet Alfons and get involved in the rocket stuff?

- From one of the guys in the Thule society: “but Hohenheim’s sons are from Shamballa.” HOW DOES HE KNOW THAT?

aklsfhsdj that was long. Stay tuned for some more metas about 03, because your girl has Opinions.

If/when they make a Joe/Nicky prequel movie, what are some of the Dos and Don’ts for them, with regards to historical accuracy. Like, what do you think they should include, and what do you think they should avoid?

Oof. This is a GREAT question, and also designed to give me a chance to ramble on in a deeply, deeply self-indulgent fashion. That is now what will proceed to happen. Consider yourself warned. So if they were miraculously to be like “well that qqueenofhades person on tumblr seems like she knows what she’s talking about, let’s hire her to consult on this production!”, here are some of the things I would tell them.

First off, a question I have in fact asked my students when teaching the crusades in class is whether you could actually show the sack of Jerusalem on screen. Like... if you’re making a film about the First Crusade, what kind of choices are you going to make? What narrative viewpoint are you going to uphold throughout the story? Are you actually going to show a slaughter of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants that some chroniclers described as causing enough blood to reach up to the knees of horses? (Whether it actually did this is beside the point; the point is that the sack went far beyond the accepted conventions of warfare and struck everybody involved in it as particularly horrific.) Because when you’re making a film about the crusades, you are also making it by nature for a modern audience that has particular understandings of Christian/Muslim conflict, religious warfare and/or tolerance, the War on Terror, the modern clash over ISIS, Trump’s Muslim ban, and so forth. The list goes on and on. So you’re never making a straight, unbiased historical adaptation, even if you’re going off the text of primary sources. You’re still constructing it and presenting it in a deliberate and curated fashion, and you can bet that whichever way you come down, your audience will pick up on that.

Let’s take the most recent example of a high-profile crusades film: Kingdom of Heaven from 2005. I’ve written a book chapter on how the narrative choices of KoH, aside from its extensive fictionalization of its subject matter to start with, make it crystal clear that it is a film made by a well-meaning Western liberal filmmaker (Ridley Scott) four years after 9/11 and two years after the invasion of Iraq, when the sympathy from 9/11 was wearing off and everyone saw America/Great Britain and the Bush/Blair coalition overreaching itself in yet another arrogant imperial adventure into the Middle East. Depending on how old you are, you may or may not remember the fact that Bush explicitly called the War on Terror a “crusade” at the start, and then was quickly forced to walk it back once it alarmed his European allies (yes, back then, as bad as America was, it still did have those) with its intellectual baggage. They KNEW exactly what images and tropes they were invoking. It is also partly why medieval crusade studies EXPLODED in popularity after 9/11. Everyone recognized that these two things had something to do with each other, or they made the connection somehow. So anyone watching KoH in 2005 wasn’t really watching a crusades film (it is set in the late 1180s and dramatizes the surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin) so much as a fictional film about the crusades made for an audience explicitly IN 2005. I have TONS to say on this subject (indeed, if you want a copy of my book chapter, DM me and I’ll be happy to send it.)

Ridley Scott basically sets it up as the Christian and Muslim secular leaders themselves aren’t evil, it’s all the religious fanatics (who are all made Templars, including Guy de Lusignan, going back to the “evil Templar” trope started by Sir Walter Scott and which we are all so very familiar with from Dan Brown and company). Orlando Bloom’s character shares a name (Balian de Ibelin) but very little else with the eponymous real-life crusader baron. One thing Scott did do very well was casting an actual and well-respected Syrian actor (Ghassan Massoud) to play Saladin and depicting him in essential fidelity to the historical figure’s reputed traits of justice, fairness, and mercy (there’s some article by a journalist who watched the film in Beirut with a Muslim audience and they LOVED the KoH Saladin). I do give him props for this, rather than making the Evil Muslim into the stock antagonist. However, Orlando Bloom’s Balian is redeemed from the religious extremist violence of the Templars (shorthand for all genuinely religious crusaders) by essentially being an atheistic/agnostic secular humanist who wants everyone to get along. As I said, this is a film about the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq made three years after 9/11 more than anything else, and you can really see that.

That said, enough about KoH, back to this presumable Joe/Nicky backstory. You would obviously run into the fact that it’s SUPER difficult to make a film about the crusades without offending SOMEBODY. The urge to paint in broad strokes and make it all about the evil Westerners invading is one route, but it would weaken the moral complexity of the story and would probably make it come off as pandering to guilty white liberal consciences. Are we gonna touch on the many decades of proto-crusading ventures in Iberia, Sicily, North Africa, and other places, and how the eleventh century, especially under Pope Gregory VII, made it even thinkable for a Christian to be a holy warrior in the first place? (It was NOT normal beforehand.) How are we going to avoid the “lololol all religion sucks and makes people do crazy things” axe to grind favoured by So Very Smart (tm) internet atheists? Yes, we have to demonstrate the ultimate horror of the crusade and the flawed premises it was based on, but we can’t do that by just showing the dirty, religiously zealot medieval people doing that because they don’t know any better and are being cynically manipulated in God’s Name. In other words (and the original TOG film did this very well) we can’t position ourselves to laugh at or mock the crusader characters or feel confident in looking down on them for being Dumb Zealots. They have to be relatable enough that we realize we could BE (and in fact already ARE) them, and THEN you slide into the horror and what compels them to do those kinds of things, and THAT’S when it hits. Because take a look at the news. This is happening around us right now.

Obviously, as I was doing in my First Crusade chapter in DVLA, a lot of this also has to spend time centering the Muslim point of view, the way they reacted to the crusade, the ways in which Yusuf as an Isma’ili Shia Muslim (Kaysani is the name of a branch of Isma’ili Shi’ites, he has a definite historical context and family lineage, and hence is almost surely, as I wrote him, a Fatimid from Egypt) is likewise not just A Stock Muslim. In this case, obviously: Get actual Muslims on the set to advise about the details. Don’t make stupid and/or obvious mistakes. Don’t necessarily make the Muslims less faithful or less virtuous than the Christians (even if this is supposed to praise them as being “less fanatic” than those bad religious Catholics). Don’t tokenize or trivialize their reaction to something as horrific as the sack of Jerusalem, and don’t just use dead brown bodies as graphic visual porn for cheap emotional points. Likewise, it goes without saying, and I don’t think they would anyway, but OH MY GOD DON’T MAKE THIS INTO GAME OF THRONES GRIMDARK!!!! OH MY GOD!!! THERE IS BEAUTY AND THERE IS LIGHT AND THERE IS POETRY AND THAT’S WHY IT HURTS SO MUCH WHEN IT’S DESTROYED! AND THE CHOICES THAT PEOPLE MAKE TO DESTROY THOSE THINGS HAVE TO BE TERRIFYINGLY PLAUSIBLE AND FAMILIAR, BECAUSE OH MY GOD!!

Next, re: Nicolo. Evidently he is a priest or a former priest or something of the sort in the graphic novel, which becomes a bit of a problem if we want him to actually FIGHT in the crusades for important and/or shallow and/or OTP purposes. (I don’t know if they address this somehow or Greg Rucka is not a medieval historian or whatever, but never mind.) It was a Major Thing that priests could not carry weapons, at least and especially bladed weapons. (In the Bayeux Tapestry, we have Odo, the bishop of Bayeux, fighting at the battle of Hastings with a truncheon because he’s a clergyman and can’t have a sword). They were super not supposed to shed blood, and a broadsword (such as the type that Nicky has and carries and is clearly very familiar with) is a knight’s weapon, not a clergyman’s. The thing about priests was that they were not supposed to get their hands dirty with physical warfare; they could (and often did) accompany crusade armies, bishops were secular overlords and important landholders, monks and hermits and other religious preachers were obviously part of a religious expedition, and yes, occasionally some priests would break the rules and fight in battle. But this was an exception FAR more than the rule. So if we’re going by accuracy, we have Nicky as a priest who doesn’t actively fight and doesn’t have a sword, we have him as a rule-breaking priest with a sword (which would have to be addressed, and the Templars, who were basically armed monks, weren’t founded until 1119 so he can’t be one of those yet if this is still 1099) or we just skip the priest part and have him as a crusader with a sword like any other soldier. If he was in fact a priest, he also wouldn’t be up to the same standard of sending into battle. Boys, especially younger sons of the nobility, often entered the church at relatively early ages (12 or 13), where it was treated as a career, and hence they stopped training in arms. So if Nicky is actually out there fighting and/or getting killed by Yusuf several times for Important Purposes, he’s... almost surely not a priest.

Iirc, they’ve already changed a few things from the graphic novel (I haven’t read it, but this is what I’ve heard) so they can also tweak things to make a new backstory or a hybrid-new backstory in film-verse. So once we’ve done all the above, we still have to decide how to handle the actual sack of Jerusalem and massacre of its inhabitants, the balance between violence comparable to the original TOG film and stopping short of being exploitative (which I think they would do well), and the aftermath of that and the founding of the new Latin Christian kingdom. It would have to, as again the original film does very well, avoid prioritizing the usual players and viewpoints in these events, and dig into presenting the experiences of the marginalized and way in which ordinary people are brought to the point of doing these things. It doesn’t (and frankly shouldn’t) preach at us that U.S. Invasions Of The Middle East Are Bad (especially since obviously none of the characters/people/places/events here are American at all). And as I said already but bears repeating: my god, don’t even THINK about making it GOT and marketing it as Gritty Dramatic Medieval History, You Know It’s Real Because They’re Dirty, Violent, and Bigoted!

Also, a couple tags I saw pop up were things like “Period-Typical Racism” and “Period-Typical Homophobia” and mmm okay obviously yes there are these elements, but what exactly is “period typical?” Does it mean “using these terms just because you figure everyone was less tolerant back then?” We know that I, with my endless pages of meta on medieval queer history, would definitely side-eye any attempts to paint these things as Worse Than Us, and the setting alone would convey a sense of the conflict without having to add on gratuitous microaggressions. I basically think the film needs to be made exactly like the original: centering the gay/queer perspectives of marginalized people and people of color, resisting the urge for crass jokes at the expense of the identity of its characters, and approaching it with an awareness of the deep complexity and personal meaning of these things to people in terms of the historical moment we’re in, while not making a film that ONLY prizes our response and our current crises. Because if we’re thinking about these historical genealogies, the least we can do (although we so often aren’t) is to be honest.

Thanks! I LOVED this question.

lily watches fma:b, eps. 58-61

I hate suspense, so I went ahead and read the plot summary for the next few episodes, so I could relax a bit. Unfortunately, there's a lot of plot decisions that elicit a major "WTF?" from me, so we'll see if they work better in context.

so they're using the Gates as transportation portals now?? This is new, isn't it?? or does it only work with people who have already opened gates?? I'm so confused!!

okay, so ling doesn't know how to use alchemy to heal people? but he can sense homunculi because chi? or is this just something everyone in Xing can do? I'M SO CONFUSED.

[he has a stone but neither he nor Greed know how to use it to heal others, I guess?? why not, though?]

Bucaneer calls Olivier a "queen," which is right on!

Greedling is the best thing about this adaptation, full stop

*sings* "It must be nice, must be nice, to have a homunculus on your side..."

that one random woman looks so much like Danta from FMA03 that I just had to shake myself to make sure I wasn't imagining it

Elicia HAS ECLIPSE GLASSES AND IT'S THE CUTEST THING

I don't understand why Hoheneheim counts as a sacrifice - yes, he was present for the opening in Xerxes, but he did not attempt human transmutation himself (even though the portal was centered around him without his knowledge) I feel like intent matters?? iirc, he wasn't consumed and broken down the way Ed and Al were???

He's also now fused with Father in a weird blob that reminds me of Topaz trapping humans in Steven Universe.

I don't know why Hawkeye hasn't managed to shoot the evil doctor in all this close-quarters fighting. And why isn't Roy using flames? We had a demo earlier with the zombies that he can work around his allies without burning them, so... ???

Mustang is ordered to perform human transmutation so the bad guys can have a fifth person to complete their circle (somehow, alchemy always works in fives?) He refuses, but then they say they'll shoot Hawkeye if he doesn't so he caves.

this "gotta get a complete set" seems really sloppy for Team Bad, because the eclipse is like, any minute now. Seems like they're cutting it really close. You think they could have found/persuaded/forced someone into doing it, given how long they've had to work at this. So I'm just like "???" about this.

(the doctor dude also lampshades this, lol)

also, I'm so confused why the doctor claims Roy can bring anyone he wants back - maybe this was FMA03 I'm thinking of, but it seems like you would need some sort of specific connection to a particularl person in order to bring them back that you couldn't just whip out at a moment's notice??

is there any other way to open the gateway besides human transmutation?? And why doesn't the doctor count, since they've made plenty of philosopher's stones (which involve human transmutation, and is why Hohenheim is a sacrifice in the first place)??

okay, hawkeye isn't dead yet, but he's supposed to transmute her anyway? How does that differ from healing? I'M SO CONFUSED.

anyway, pride shows up and eats the annoying doctor and also makes a transmutation circle with his shadows while Bradley pins Mustang to the floor. o...kay. andthen it just...happens?without roy's consent?

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DUDES

okay, andnow the eclipse is starting, irl they'd have a maximum of 8 minutes at totality to Do The Thing, but who the fuck knows what's happening here since all the characters are UNDERGROUND (how do they even KNOW)

fuck, they're basically raping mustang here since his consent does not matter because pride ate the doctor and the doctor has the knowledge (but that should make him and/or pride the sacrifice, not ROY).

like what the actual fuck

so the doctor gets transmuted, even though he was the one with the relevant knowledge?? I don't get it.

and mustang is automatically transported to be with the other sacrifices - why? how?? how does this even work? is that other circlethey wereusing still active? was it part of pride's set-up for this circle to be dual-purpose?HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

and apparently, it's just one floor below so all they have to do is break the floor??

Roy is blind... but does not physically lose his eyes, which makes NO SENSE, given that Al, Ed and Izumi lost actual physical pieces of themselves.THE FUCK.

ed's like, "this is super fucked up shit, and you don't get to moralize about human nature and hubris if you guys forced him to do this"

pride is basically acting like a kid who had all the time in the world for an assignment and then rushed to complete it at the last possible moment

scar fights bradley, yes FINALLY SOMEBODY KILL THAT DUDE

al's emaciated body is just so heartbreaking, and al's like "no! I can't suddenly move to this incredibly emaciated version of myself before the final battle!" which is actually really smart of him

of course, al's body waits until AFTER his soul leaves to monologue about how al might have just destroyed the entire world. GEE THANKS YOU ASSHOLE.

broussh shows up at the radio station and maria ross is like :????:

Father says the sacrifices are "all in his belly" and we cut to the chimeras on the outside looking at a massive blob - so Father is ALSO a gate???

(ngl: it would make TOTAL SENSE if Father was originally one of the creatures we see when the gate opens, who got pulled into our world by Hohenheim's master... especially since he used Hohenheim's blood? DID HIS MASTER PERFORM HUMAN TRANSMUTATION? WOULDN'T IT BE AWESOME IF WE ACTUALLY GOT SOME ANSWERS??)

(okay, this is my working headcanon now)

May's like "I'M GONNA TAKE 'EM" and I'm like "aww, heck yeah girl!"

it's really appropriate that Scar--Formerly Consumed by Anger--is fighting Wrath, who ordered the Amestrian equivalent of Order 66 on Ishval.

scar put a reconstruction circle on his other arm, how Symbolic

FATHER MAKES A GUN OUT OF HIS OWN BODY WITH EYES AND TEETH

no seriously, what the fuck did I just witness

Al apologizes to Hohenheim in case he hits him when he attacks father, bless that boy

Izumi makes A GIANT FUCKING CROSSBOW, did I mention I love her?

the personal gates of all of the sacrifices open - so they have giant eyes in their stomachs, wtf

father wants to open.. the planet's gate??

(this ties in with the alkahestry and chi, but... what?)

okay, the country-wide transmutation circle activates and everyone dies

Pinako (who knows Hohenheim is involved with this shit): Hohenheim, I'm gonna slug you. AND DAMN WELL YOU SHOULD MA'AM.

then the gates open and Father challenges God to a fistfight

... and God answers??

[apparently God lives in the sun, and only comes out during an eclipse??? looks just like the usual gate-eye-tentacle creature, tho]

okay, so we get our answer as to why an eclipse: male + female, sun + moon, = perfect being = immortality.

apparently there's a rule that all megalomaniacal shounen villains end up looking the same, because Father looks just like Aizen''s final form from Bleach now, except with more eyes.

Father ate God and now he's young and hot and mostly naked again.

He negates alchemy and creates a miniature sun in his hand because he can.

I hope God gives him indigestion or something.

Oh, wait, Hohenheim had a plan after all... THOUGH APPARENTLY 50 MILLION PEOPLE HAD TO DIE FIRST, WAY TO GO THERE

turns out he's been letting bits of his philosopher stone around amestris on his travels so that father would eat them and they'd tear him apart from the inside

... and the circle for the alchemy is the moon's shadow on the earth.

[I don't know if the astronomy actually works out, but it's very nifty nonetheless]

anyway, everybody's soul returns to their bodies, and everyone wakes up. IDK how their bodies handle having been functionally brain dead, but we're just gonna say it all works out, okay?

ooh, and everyone REMEMBERS WHAT JUST HAPPENED so they’re all like “...the fuck??”

scar saves the world by activating the reverse transmutation circle over the center that all the Ishvalans set up during the time skip

instead of blood you just need circles drawn on paper for reconstruction? why did Team Evil go to so much trouble to murder people instead?

father spends this whole fight looking like a very ripped hohenheim in a bathrobe around his waist OMG

pride calls ed his brother and I think this was handled better in 03 with Envy, but w/e. anyway he's going to take over ed's body but kimblee steps in and stops him

(man, this fucker again!!!)

kimblee's like "lol, I just like being a contrary bitch"

pride is reduced to a little baby, which Ed calls "Selim" and puts on his red jacket... okay...

well that was a trip.

cannot fault the manga-ka for ambition and epic scale here, but also: WHAT DID I JUST WATCH.

Dear Yuletide Writer 2020

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods can contact me with any questions.

Fiddler on the Roof (2018 Folksbiene Production) | The Psychology of Time Travel - Kate Mascarenhas | Simoun | Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass - Sonya Taaffe

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships; unrequested trans versions of characters.

—

Fandom: Fiddler on the Roof (2018 Folksbiene Production)

Character(s): Any (The Fiddler, Hodl, Pertshik, Shprintze)

I would love to read about the Fiddler from the recent Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof, understanding him/her/them as a real person with a backstory, present and future rather than a symbol. They seem to be female (and their actor describes them as female) but wear men’s clothes and are on the men’s side at the wedding, and everyone seems cool with that? I’m 100% on board with any gender identity you decide you’d like to write them with. How did he/she/they come to be who they are, and what are their interpersonal relationships (platonic, familial, romantic, any gender) like? What might an encounter between them and the supernatural (dybbuks, demons, witches?) be or have been like? Have they always lived in Anatevka or do they wander from village to village? What happens to them after the play ends?

Or, Hodl and Pertshik! I maintain a headcanon (which you don't have to share) that Hodl reads a lot of anarchist books and pamphlets while she's in Siberia and comes around to Emma Goldman-esque views on marriage, and she and Pertshik stay together but never marry. I'd be so interested in something about their future! (Or f/f with genderswapped Pertshik??) But I'd also be happy with fic about either of them individually - Pertshik pre-play or Hodl (post-play) on her own without him on screen.

Or, Shprintze! (Or Bielke.) I love the expansion in this production of Pertshik's lessons to the younger girls, and I'd be super interested to read about one or both of them growing up in America, a very different life, having maybe absorbed some of those political beliefs as children. I also headcanon that - following the play's plot trajectory of increasingly unsuitable matches - she's got to be a lesbian, right? Bring on the Shprintze/OFC! yes, I know what happened in Sholem Aleichem's original stories

For that matter, feel free to do the supernatural plots with the non-fiddler characters too! Someone talking politics with a dybbuk? I'd also be really interested in digging into the language aspect, which I'd never really thought about before seeing this production - when do or don't they speak Yiddish, in their past or future?

Fandom-Specific DNW/Opt-In: I'm explicitly okaying antisemitism appearing in the story as part of the world the characters live in, although I do not want a character's personally facing antisemitism to be the focus of the plot. I don't really want to hear much about Khave/Fyedke.

—

Fandom: The Psychology of Time Travel - Kate Mascarenhas

Character(s): Any (none nominated)

This novel is so carefully worldbuilt, yet with such amazing potential for unusual character interactions, life stories, and relationships as shaped by time travel as well. I nominated this without characters because I would be delighted to receive fic that focused on worldbuilding, whether through the stories of OCs, or through any of the canon characters. I’m most interested in:

the Conclave and more broadly in social interactions and (romantic or friendly) relationships between multiple characters who are time travelers (rather than a time traveler and their non-time-traveling partner or family)

art that might be created with time travel (like Grace’s exhibitions or Angharad’s dance; what about novels or other fiction somehow created using time travel?)

the rules and customs of time travel (in-world documents? habits or observances that develop on a mass level beyond people’s individual compulsions or visits to significant dates within their own timeline? what fictional stories do time travelers write about time travel?)

more about the Conclave as a workplace, its social dynamics and logistics

interactive fiction?!

but really I’d love to read anything in this fandom. I'd be happy with fiction and/or in-world documents!

—

Fandom: Simoun

Character(s): Neviril

I've just completed a rewatch of this show, and it has reaffirmed for me that I love Neviril. She's a leader in both a military and a religious sense, respected by her squad and by the populace, but figuring out what that means to her is such a personal journey. I still love her scene in the hearing where she speaks aloud what no one has wanted to admit or talk about - that they're soldiers now, this is war, can they still call themselves priestessses? - but I was also struck on this rewatch by how Chor Tempest increasingly becomes a player in itself in the politicking (the bit in Episode 21 where the whole lot of them fly out against orders, because it's what they, with Neviril leading and giving voice to the group, think is what their role is about), and by the scenes of her blessing the people (when iirc she is needed elsewhere by the military governor for flight purposes) and Paraietta (after what Paraietta did to her).

I love the military aspects of this canon in general (and the associated tropes of loyalty and trust and bravery and positive/negative relationship to authority) and that definitely ties in to Neviril figuring out what her role is as the squad leader, but I'm also just here for that very process of figuring it out and defining it for herself.

So...what happens to her post-canon? What is the "new world" and her travel in it like? If she makes it back to the main world when war is brewing again, but her old cohort can't fly anymore, what does she see her role as being - a leader for peace, for war, something else? How do she and Aer interact with Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Floef, and/or Vyuraf?

Ship-wise, Aer/Neviril grew on me a lot! I appreciated Aer more as the determined bit-of-a-loose-cannon type than as the manic pixie this time, and noted Neviril's comments about how she was drawn to Aer's determination. But I'd also be up for a poly situation where she's involved with both Aer and Paraietta, who are friends, or, I guess, one where it's a three-way relationship, although I don't personally know what the Aer/Paraietta side would be like! (I do like how they work together in battle even when they're shown as having personal issues.)

I think this is the only fandom I could be interested in explict fic for this time around, as an option - the series is, on some level, about the contrast between the reality and physicality of their bodies and the general perception of what they do (which even in its non-spiritual military capacity is removed from a connection to their bodies via the Simoun aircraft), about becoming an adult, and of course about gender.

Fandom-Specific DNW: I'm not really interested in Kaim and Alty and would prefer for them not to appear or for their backstory to come up. I would also not like to see pre-timeskip Dominuura/Limone.

—

Fandom: Where the Sky is Silver and the Earth is Brass - Sonya Taaffe

Character(s): Any (Chaye Roznatovsky, Demon)

Anything expanding on this story would make me really happy. Chaye's years with the partisans, the comrades-in-arms she had and loved then and who else's memory she holds or makes into a weapon, her journey to America, going by the surname of "no one." The demon's mirror world, its loss of that world (what exactly happened on the other side?) and its need to be where Jews are, demon Judaism? Or the future of both of them now that they've found each other!

Fandom-Specific DNW/Opt-In: DNW Chaye/demon. The premise of the story being what it is, I'm explicitly okay with antisemitism being a prominent feature of the story if you write something that covers either or both characters' backstory, but would prefer post-war antisemitism not to be a focus.

Reposting an ask because Tumblr broke it and won’t let me edit.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I do think it declined, but not to the extent that it definitely should have ended after Aizen. That would have been a neat/clean ending, yeah, but the rest was salvageable imo. It was a matter of narrative choices. And I sympathize with Kubo for part of why they probably happened.

My thoughts on the later part of the Bleach manga always starts with thoughts on the IRL situation the author dealt with. That is always crucial to the product they put out and I do not want this to be a criticism of Kubo himself. So this will be in two parts. Also, it’s been awhile since I read the manga.

Author

The first thing to keep in mind is that Kubo continued (was pressured?) to keep writing despite multiple bouts of pneumonia or other illness with only short breaks. I remember the unexpected hiatuses of weeks or I think even a couple months at one point as chapters came out. It was like eight years ago, though. I’m having trouble finding undeleted sources about them. Example of one I found:

---

---

I write trash when I’m very sick. If I do write while sick, I do not share it until I can edit it while well. I got the impression at the time that Kubo was not afforded that opportunity. And I’ve only read parts of one of the after-manga novel Can’t Fear Your Own World, but it seems to me that he had a lot of the underpinnings to strengthen the story in his head and couldn’t get them out earlier. It’s what happens to me when sick, anyway. And also if I’m having general burnout.

A second problem is the pressure of deadlines. You know how fanfic authors often have irregular periods of time between posting because they have had interference from Real Life or they have writer’s block or they just aren’t happy with what they’ve written yet? That is a luxury of not being paid/contracted to write. Being able to tinker and tinker and tinker until you’re at least satisfied with what you’ve created is a luxury in serial writing. I’m currently sitting on a “complete” chapter of my fic in case I need to hop back and tweak it based on what the next chapter does because it’s an important point in the plot and I don’t want to break continuity. And I really am jumping back to change things. A couple years ago, I sat on like three complete chapters for similar reasons. Manga writers with deadlines do not have that luxury. If I had biweekly deadlines, I’d be posting continuity-breaking trash with terrible dialogue.  Hell, back in November I replaced every chapter of my big 400k word fic  with edited versions that strengthened character development and plot  underpinnings.    “Idk idk let’s throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks” is something both fic and manga writers do, but manga authors with tight deadlines don’t get to double back and pick stuff out.  

So. That said, here are my total amateur, in-no-way-an-authority, just-what-I-would-do-in-fanfiction  thoughts on the story:

Story

Ichigo in denial of struggling with powerlessness while trying to move on was good. Xcution was interesting, though it could have used more explanation that apparently came out in a novel after the end of the series. I think we should have heard more about Xcution’s motives in-story and how Ginjo became a substitute shinigami. Just... a more solid framework.

TYBW was a mess. It’s been awhile since I read it, though, so my memory of a lot of fights is blurry. IIRC, one of the problems was good guys explaining their damn powers to the enemy instead of having them do an internal monologue for the readers. Too many enemies were given ridiculous powers that required deus ex machina to defeat or had missed opportunities to be resolved otherwise with use of other characters.

Take Giselle for example. Once she took control of Toshiro, that could have opened up a horrified rage for Momo, who grew up with him. Giselle’s power of spilling her blood on someone leading to body puppetry made cutting her with a sword a Very Bad Idea. But Momo’s zanpakuto had been shown as having fire powers that she could integrate with kido. She could have fought Giselle without spilling her blood or cut her with her shikai, sword wreathed in flame to instantly cauterize the wounds and avoid spilling blood. That might also prevent Giselle from reassembling herself. This could be after or during fighting Toshiro. The whole battle would invert the protective fury dynamic between Toshiro and Momo and be an opportunity to show Momo’s post-Aizen growth, especially if she was double-teaming with her new captain. Perhaps Shinji could keep zombie!Toshiro occupied with his disorienting shikai on top of sword fighting so Momo could use her fire on Giselle. It also could have drawn minor attention to the two shinigami who had grown up together somehow getting opposing powers-- fire and ice-- and having to fight each other. Something could have been made of that. It was a missed opportunity for character development and showing another female character be strong instead of implying it.

The Soul King and YWCH stuff was a confusing mess to me. Too much wasn’t explained. As I said, it has been awhile, but I remember being in a state of “LOL idk what is happening here” for most King’s Realm chapters. It probably didn’t help that I read it as it came out, with weeks in between chapters. I should re-read it. Or just watch the upcoming anime and hope for clarification.

I think it suffered from what I struggle with sometimes: thinking that because I have been thinking about and planning something intensely, I already wrote it. I just had to make two connected edits to my already-posted fic chapters this past week because I discovered I had left out a key line of dialogue when I went back to quote it and it wasn’t there. But once a chapter of manga is published, it’s hard to take it back. Maybe in the collected volume-- I know of at least one manga that redrew several objects that the artist broke continuity with-- but a lot of people only read it as it comes out.

In conclusion: The basis for a strong, compelling continuation post-Aizen was there, but suffered from external problems like illness and deadlines. IMO it just needs some tinkering to clean it up.

Because I can’t shut up about lizards right now,

Where the “Seiros fought against the Agarthians” came from?

I was re-reading VW’s script and Rhea goes, during her final infodump :

The progenitor god and her children shared knowledge and skills with the people of the land. Together, they built a prosperous civilization. But the humans turned their backs on the teachings of the progenitor god and engaged in senseless wars. Eventually people began to think of themselves as gods and challenged the progenitor god herself to battle. The land was scorched in the war that ensured and the majority of humans were annihilated. I believe that those who slither in the dark are the descendants of those who retreated beneath the ground during that time

Deconstructing it we’ve got :

Sothis and her lizards share “knowledge” with the Fodlan natives

Humans started a crapton of wars

Eventually, they turned against Sothis, challenging “the progenitor god herself to battle”

Scorched Fodan ensued, and a majority of humans died

Descendants of humans became mole people

(which raises the WTF is Raphael, he is one of the mole people who migrated on the surface, or every survivor went underground but after some generations some wanted to live on the surface?)

Thales’n’co engaged against Sothis personaly, thinking they could take her on. But he also has a grudge against all Nabateans, identifying them based on their pointy ears, green eyes and hair.

So I doubt Sothis was the only one who fought, maybe some of her children helped in the fight (Rhea and Seteth?) ; I doubt Flayn took any part in it, since the only great war she can remembers is the War of Heroes, iirc.

Ultimately, per Rhea’s words : 

It took the progenitor god an astonishing amount of time to revive the ravaged world. But eventually, the continent found peace again, and the progenitor god, having fulfilled her duty, fell into a long slumber in the Holy Tomb. The children who stayed behind built a settlement in Zanado to protect the Holy Tomb as they quietly lived out their lives

Rhea, a being who could live for more than 1000 years says that it took, in her eyes an “astonishing amount of time” to Sothis to revive the world, and then, the “continent found peace again” or whatever that means (Agarthians were playing wack-a-mole with Sothis and sometimes launching missiles from their underground city while she’d be busy reconstructing the world?).

After the world was back, and the agarthians stopped playing whack-a-mole, Sothis fell asleep.

But the children built Zanado after their mom went to sleep, which would somehow clash with Sothis’ own memories, saying she remembered Zanado - unless she woke up for short periods of time to see if everything was alright, before falling asleep again.

The game gives us clues about Rhea (and Seteth) not having been a part of the mole people suppression squad. In the Shambala Chapter, SS version, they’re both curious and don’t know what the Titanus are:

Thales: Now is the time. Remove the binding spell of Titanus. Let their metal bodies be drenched in blood! Seteth: What is that?! Rhea: Demonic Beasts… No, I think not. They appear to have no will of their own. Someone must be controlling them.

In the Shambala Chapter, VW edition, she reveals some interesting stuff about the missiles : 

Rhea: Once, a very long time ago, a massive ball of light fell upon this monastery. However, that light mysteriously changed course in mid-air and landed in Ailell instead. Leonie: Ailell, the Valley of Torment... So that's what the wreckage of those javelins of light looks like. Rhea: The Holy Tomb is not only the location of the progenitor god's eternal slumber, but also a sacred vessel for a power that repels evil. Supposedly, the progenitor god built the Holy Tomb herself to protect her children from the evil light.

(meaning that Ailell’s bombing happened after the birth of Garreg Mach?)

Rhea can only recall the Ailell incident, talking about those javelins of light. Also, she supposes Sothis built the Holy Tomb as a nuclear shelter, she doesn’t affirm it. Granted, this is pre-dubstep Rhea, so she isn’t on death’s door and she might be hiding/twisting some intel...

Meaning, if we believe her, that there have been many instances where the Agarthians launched their missiles, the first time, Sothis would have built/put a ward on the Holy Tomb to protect the Nabateans, the second time, it happened in Ailell. The first time, Rhea wasn’t here or might have been too young to understand and know the true reason why Sothis built the Holy Tomb.

Adding to the previous list :

3.5 : While humans were challenging Sothis, she built the Holy Tomb as a shelter against the new missiles humans developped

So - assuming Agartha used Titanus and Javelins of Light during their war against Sothis - it is suggested that Rhea and Seteth didn’t take part in this war, because both don’t know what Titanus are and Rhea, who only remembers Ailell, isn’t sure about the Holy Tomb’s function as an atomic shelter.

I may be wrong, but we have more clues supporting the “Rhea’n’Cichol = babies do not send them to war against arrogant humans” than the “Rhea was part of the Agarthian suppression squad with her bros”.

SPOILERS for the Witcher Books & Games I guess

But W3 Geralt is DEFINTELY not the Geralt we see in the show and there is a big disconnect between W3 Geralt and Show Geralt.

Spoilers under the cut

I guess the biggest part of this is at the end of the books? Geralt is dead. He dies. Straight up. He is stabbed and presumably Yennefer dies with him trying to save him. IIRC their bodies are never found and it’s all very tragic.

The games themselves are technically not canon either and Geralt continues to get fucked over. In W1 he is found and has no memories of who he is and Triss is just like...shitty to him for so many reasons, most of them being she just wants to bone him and is petty and awful. I don’t like game Triss (she’s not much better in W2 and W3 she’s fine but it’s like...okay). Granted, it’s because the game was written in the 90s by a small Polish studio so it’s like okay that’s not her fault. She doesn’t wear a lot of clothes either.

But Geralt is still just like...lost and has no fucking clue who even Ciri and Yennefer are. They aren’t mentioned in W1.

Witcher 2 isn’t that great either! He is jailed and accused of murdering a king! And then, he has to decide which part of a genocide he wants to help with. And he STILL doesn’t even really know what the fuck is going on because he STILL doesn’t have all his memories back and Triss is STILL fucking him. IT’S NOT GREAT. IT’S SOME SHIT.

W3 Geralt obviously has come a bit further and things are marginally less awful but now his adopted daughter’s bio-dad is being kind of a dick so that’s fun. Somehow he’s still an affable dude who is coparenting with his ex and he has friends and Triss isn’t The Worst anymore (they tried, they really tried).  But yes, Game Geralt is older and has been through SO much more than Show Geralt. Game Geralt has a lot of friends and allies and he’s got shit more figured out. So yeah, the canon we have is so weird and bizarre and it’s kind of hard to explain it all sometimes....

Think I’ve finally nailed down Mehra’s story in between getting exiled and ending up in the Dark Brotherhood.

Post-Morag Tong, she meets Quen and helps rebuild the Thieves Guild, going through the quests and everything.

She’s pretty highly ranked in the Thieves Guild except there’s a problem... she keeps killing people on jobs. This isn’t too much of a problem at first, but other thieves are like “The hell, Mehra?” She’s supposed to be a disciplined Morag Tong-raised woman, they don’t kill people they’re not supposed to. But she keeps doing it.

(Sometimes she swears she hears Velsa or Zeira or Quen telling her to kill someone, but it becomes quickly apparent to Mehra that that's... not actually happening. They wouldn't do that and then get mad at her for it. Not all three of them at once. Surely?)

Eventually she brings too much heat on the Thieves Guild and she’s asked to leave by Zeira. It's not a hostile kicking-out - it's a sad parting, and Mehra is understanding. She's secretly paranoid the whole thing was orchestrated, but she doesn't let herself resent them and just. Leaves.

Floats around for a while. She knows the DB is probably the only place left to go, but she doesn't want to. Still, she researches them. Stalks a few DB agents she runs into. Ends up tracking down and watching the Black Hand at some kind of Black Marsh ceremony where the Shadowscales are hatched. She's hiding in a basket, watching through the gaps.

When suddenly Nevusa (my headcanon Listener) opens the basket and, without looking down, drops a book on Mehra's head. The Night Mother, she says to the rest of the Black Hand, told her to do that, and then they leave.

it's the Litany of Blood.

Mehra ends up spending the next few months fulfilling it, because... why not? She doesn't have anything better to do. Meanwhile in the Kvatch Sanctuary they're boggled that an outsider has been chosen to do the Litany, and red spectral statues are appearing but the killer hasn't been recruited yet.

Eventually each pedestal is filled, but... still no killer. The Night Mother still hasn't told Nevusa where to find this killer. In reality, Mehra moves around too quickly to be reliably tracked down, so NM is still waiting for her to settle.

(Headcanon is that the Litany is only ever completed by future Listeners. So the whole Kvatch Sanctuary is especially apprehensive and excited because there's a future Listener out there, and nobody, not even Nevusa, knows who it is.)

Eventually Mehra hears about the DB presence in Kvatch, so goes there. She still doesn't want to join, but it's not like she has any other career options.

there's no Thieves Den there, so she relocates to Anvil.

By day she poses as a beggar, using the disguise to scope out houses. By night she cleans out houses and, occasionally, kills. Sometimes she just kills - she hovers on a roof, waits, then just drops on someone on an alley and stabs them in the back.

The DB eventually get wind that there's a serial killer in Anvil. The NM still hasn't said anything to Nevusa - Mehra isn't sleeping anywhere secure, but Nevusa wonders if it's their Litany killer and puts out feelers.

Nobody ever looks at Mehra twice. She's got horrific burn scars and she pesters people for money - people avoid her, they don't stare, so nobody notices her Tong tattoos, let alone anyone who'd recognise them. Mehra thinks it's hilarious, because the second anyone spotted her tattoos they'd quickly realise she's the killer.

But nobody ever looks, so they don't. She sticks out because she's very distinct as both a Dunmer beggar and one so badly scarred, but still people ignore her.

The killer is eventually active enough that the Kvatch Sanctuary actively investigates. Nevusa is pretty sure it's the Litany killer because the method of killing is the same as the Litany victims - as Nevusa found out when she out out feelers. A single knife to the back, right in the artery beside the spine.

Kvatch Sanctuary gets excited again because their future Listener is in the area and fucking up people for the lulz.

But they can't. Fucking. Catch her. There's never any witnesses, or survivors. Nobody acting suspicious at night (by DB standards, anyway). Remains-Silent, Venom and Mirabelle are brought in to try and find suspects - nothing. Elam is stationed at the Thieves Den full time to keep an eye out for potential hit men or freelance assassins - nada.

It doesn't help that Mehra got shy when they showed up, and stopped killing for a while.

Elam does spot Mehra in the TD occasionally and points her out to Nevusa as one of the more suspicious denizens of the TD, but she doesn't like to talk to Elam and her entire face stays covered, so he doesn't yet connect her to the scarred beggar.

Eventually things get quiet enough that Terenus gives Astara permission to pull everyone out of Anvil, so she does. Clearly, the litany killer has moved on.

And the fucking killings start up again almost immediately.

Cue DB facedesking. This time they just keep Mirabelle and Elam down there.

Mirabelle is a servant listening for gossip, working at the barracks. She's to report any progress the guards make on finding the killer, and to inspect the bodies whenever she can.

Elam is to stay in the TD and just get work. In game, IIRC, not everyone uses the Black Sacrament to get the DB's attention and if I remember right Elam is the one they contact if they don't. So in my headcanon Elam spends a lot of time in Kvatch getting work the old fashioned way. Well, now he's charged with doing it in Anvil and he's not allowed to come home until the litany killer comes with him.

So Elam spends time bored out of his mind, missing home, hoping nobody is messing up the Sanctuary too much, and getting work.

The TD is, for once, grateful there's an agent of the DB hanging around because the litany killer keeps picking off *their* guys, because who else is hanging out in alleyways at 3AM?

There isn't much privacy in the TD but he still has to give out work, and the thieves and pirates and so on give Elam as much leg room as they can.

Eventually his Brothers and Sisters start complaining their targets are dead before they can get to them. Elam has Mirabelle look into it, but still lets clients think the DB did it.

Mirabelle reports back that their would-be targets are getting killed by a single knife to the back.

Nevusa's reaction upon hearing about this: "Oh, for fuck's sake."

Elam's is to break down into laughter so hard he can't breathe.

The litany killer is now actively fucking with them and stealing their kills.

and they still don't have a clue who it is

Good news: this means the litany killer comes by the Thieves Den often enough that they eavesdrop on Elam's business deals, or at least enough to know who's pissed at who and who's planning on getting the DB involved.

Elam still thinks this is the funniest thing ever, but when the fences of the TD are notified they are Not Amused and start more actively working with the DB. They want the litany killer dead. The DB decide not to disclose that they're recruiting them.

The fences and the denizens of the TD do some fund raising and ask everyone to pitch in for a DB contract. At this point they've started calling her "Litany", since the DB have spread her moniker.

Mehra contributes a huge amount because she thinks it's just as funny as Elam does. They have the exact same sense of humour.

Those who know Litany stole the DB's kills no longer bother going to Elam and just stand in the middle of the TD and yell, "Hey, Litany, kill X for me!"

which she does

Some with a sense of humour start egging Litany to steal the underwear of someone they hate and stick it on the spire of the nearby Chapel.

She does this too

Litany is suddenly as popular for their sense of humour as they're hated for killing people's buddies.

Elam is like "our future Listener is *awesome*"

Nevusa doesn't know whether to be amused or exasperated.

Astara is Not Amused.

Then a break comes - someone fresh off a ship hears about Litany, and mentions it's similar to some killings in Hew's Bane. They're practically kidnapped and taken to Elam.

They tell Elam that they're a footpad from Abah's Landing, visiting some relative or other, and that some high ranking Dunmer in the Thieves Guild got kicked out for killing too many people while on the job. Mentions that she's a former member of the Morag Tong.

which... seems to fit Litany's MO. Nevusa is aware that *somehow* the Litany of Blood ended up in Litany's hands from Black Marsh, and the killings were done so professionally even the DB can't track them down. For it to be Morag Tong sounds right.

Cue Nevusa going to Abah's Landing, personally, to visit Zeira.

Who - if reluctantly - confirms that... yup, there was a Dunmer here called Mehra Adrano, former Tong. Liked to backstab people she shouldn't. Lovely woman, just... too stabby for the guild. Very lost after her exile from the Tong. Talked openly about how she thought she was going to wind up in the Brotherhood until the Thieves Guild took her. Zeira's surprised she hasn't ended up in there yet.

"We're working on it," says Nevusa. "We're finding it difficult to track her down."

Zeira gives Nevusa a description and as much info as she can. Nevusa does some research, uncovers Mehra’s backstory as Dralsea Sadri.

Nevusa returns to Anvil, where Elam and Astara still haven't tracked her down, and gives them Mehra’s description.

Elam is like "fuck, she's that scarred redheaded Dunmer?! I give her a few coins every time I buy my lunch! I talked to her like five minutes ago!"

They grab the Shadowscales and go to confront her...

Mehra’s sitting on her pallet, notices the Dark Brotherhood's Listener, Executioner, and a bunch of Shadowscales approaching her, and is like "and it only took you lot eighteen fucking months to track me down. Oh, by the way, here's your book back, Nevusa."

And the rest is history.

Wiscon 42 panel Lighter Side of the MCU

Okay, the rest of my panel write-ups are not going to be quite so dramatic as the Killable Bodies one thank goodness. And I’ll be typing the rest up in chronological order - excepting the ones I was on since I don’t take heavy notes for those, so will add a bit about them at the end. 

The first panel I went to was Lighter Side of the MCU

Reminder that these panel notes are only my own recollections and the things I managed to write down - my notes are incomplete and likely faulty in places. Corrections and additions are always welcome. Especially please do correct me if I get names or pronouns wrong! 

Also I name panelists as that’s publicly available information but not audience members unless requested by that person to have their named added. 

Panel description:

In 2017, the Marvel Cinematic Universe gave us 3 movies that were lighter, funnier, and a bit different from their normal fare: Guardian of the Galaxy Vol 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Thor: Ragnarok. All three of these movies felt like a year-long palate cleanser after the darker path the MCU has been on. However, with movies like Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War coming next, are we back to serious business, or is there still room to play? 

Moderator was Christopher Davis. Panelists were Jess Adamas, V. Greyson, and Carrie Pruett. 

Chris talked about Thor: Ragnarok as having a shift from the other Thor movies, not just due to Taika Watiti’s influence but the writing and acting as well. 

Jess said people figured out that Hemsworth can do comedy and is not just ridiculously good looking, but also willing to make an ass of himself.

Jess and V. agreed that they almost can’t even remember Thor 2. Thor should be funny and silly - the comics are. There are still real feelings and relationships in there, but every scene looked like it should have been painted on the side of a van. 

Carrie said the movie found the right tone for including the Led Zeppelin song. The use of Bruce/Hulk in the movie also used more comedy than earnestness. She compared it to Deadpool as far as pointing out the ridiculous parts. 

She also talked about her desire for Darcy to interact with more MCU characters. 

V. talked about Kenneth Branagh’s Thor 1 and that she liked how serious it was. But she enjoyed the comedy of Ragnarok even more as a contrast. She brought up an article that talked about the Maori flavor of the comedy in the movie, the deprecating aspect and poking fun at the earlier movies (example: “the sun is going down”). 

Carrie liked the calling out of Loki as Odin as a reminder of how Thor 2 ended, but doing it in such a funny way.

Jess talked about Korg and the hilarity of how his revolution failed because he didn’t print enough pamphlets. She brought up the Grandmaster - Carrie asked who? - Jeff Goldblum - oh yea! (lol)

Chris discussed the heavy 80′s nostalgia and Jack Kirby aesthetic in the visuals and musical choices. For example, the Pure Imagination song while going through the tunnel.

Jess and V. joked about their husbands not getting why certain things were funny (IIRC this was because they weren’t as familiar with some of the references to earlier Marvel movies?).

Chris said that Goldblum was the perfect choice for that role. He asked the panelists what their favorite bit of his was.

V. said the meltstick part. Carrie added - accidental killing is hilarious. Jess brought up the part about Bruce looking for a button on the ship for a weapon and getting the song and lights - the discovery that it’s an orgy ship. Carrie added that Bruce’s whole life is a series of wondering how he got here. 

V. talked about the deleted scene of the Grandmaster engaging in tentacle porn. Chris said in Watiti’s director’s cut, he filks the Marvel logo at the start and it just goes from there.

Chris moved on to the Guardians movies - a part of Marvel that’s not well known outside of the deep fandom. This gave them more freedom in their choices. They mostly take place outside of the MCU world, but still did well.

Carrie compared Guardians to Deadpool 2 saying that there is such a thing as too many ironic music cues and Guardians had just enough while D2 went too far. 

Carrie also added that the Guardians/Thor part of Infinity War was the best part. The bit where Thor keeps calling Rocket a rabbit (I added from the audience that this somehow didn’t make Rocket mad) and Carrie agreed saying he really responded to Thor as an authority figure in ways that he usually doesn’t do with anyone.

Jess said that she has James Gunn issues and especially didn’t think Guardians 1 was that well written, but that G2 did a good job of balancing the serious with the funny. She was really resentful about crying at the end. She really bought the Peter/Yondu relationship. Jess tears up talking about the scene with Rocket at the funeral and how he noted that Yondu yelled a lot and was mean but that people still stuck with him. [I teared up a lil too, that part hit me hard]

Jess also added that the rainbow glitter aesthetic of the Guardians movies seems to be responding to the darker superhero greyscale we usually get.

Carrie said that they did good with the Ego stuff, as well. She knew that a twist was coming, but not what the twist was going to be. It called out toxic masculinity in a unique way. Kurt Russell was used well in the role. Peter has his own sexist issues, especially in G1 - which is not interrogated - but in G2 he’s clearly trying to be better than his dad. 

Jess said Russell was great in the role because the audience sees him as his oeuvre.

V. didn’t like G2 as much as G1. G1 had a lot of lampshading of Peter calling himself Starlord and the group the Guardians of the Galaxy. Also - so many Groot-based tears. She didn’t like the start of G2 with the team all fighting and being mean to one another. But G2 and Thor:R both used that rainbow glitter aesthetic well and showed that you can have serious issues going on even if it’s sparkly - things don’t have to be all grey with just some blue.

Chris brought up that lighter movies can still have some very serious issues and still be funny. The characters and relationships can grow and change, for example Thor finally acknowledging that Loki is going to keep tricking him. 

V. talked about how Spiderman: Homecoming’s humor is more of the #relatable type. Peter is “just like us” and we identify with him. 

Carrie said she has a complicated relationship with Spiderman. She saw the Toby Maguire movies before she got into comics and didn’t realize that Spiderman was supposed to be funny. Andrew Garfield did okay but still didn’t really feel like Peter. Tom Holland does Spiderman/Peter better. But the movie changed around some of the characters from the comics. Also - why is it appropriate for Tony to have this relationship with a high school student? On the other hand, Tony’s use as a side character is funny and done well.

Jess added that Tony makes terrible decisions but doesn’t realize it until someone else points it out to him - like, maybe don’t take a minor out of the country for combat-related reasons?

Jess went on to say that all Marvel movies have some humor, and it often is that relatable kind, but it also comes from the fondness for the characters and their relationships to one another. It’s not just references (V. - like The Big Bang Theory).

Jess talked about how Thor:R addresses colonialism and anti-colonialism while being funny. Spiderman:Homecoming culminates in a homecoming dance. Jess always wanted a Marvel high school movie. Also Michael Keaton did well in the role for similar reasons as Russell in G2. Both actors bring their career history with them into the role. 

V. talked about the humor of Spiderman in the pratfalls. Heroes already have such exaggerated physical movements, so this leads well to physical humor. Holland is a good physical actor in both senses.

Carrie lamented the lack of funny women in the MCU. (I spoke from the audience again pointing out MJ) 

Jess said that Gamora did not get a lot of comedy - a lot of her character is wrapped up in drama with Nebula. Mantis is a character we laugh at and she is not comfortable with that. Valkyrie gets to be funny. Cate Blanchett as Hela was very campy but in a straight-faced way. She does tell jokes, but they’re terrifying.

Carrie discussed the issues with Mantis a bit more. The jokes were mostly about her fitting the submissive Asian trope. Black Panther has women who got to actively do stuff and be funny! There should be more little sisters in superhero movies. Lupita  Nyong’o was used better as a funny character in BP than she was in more serious roles. Jess added that Okoyo was used in humorous ways too.

Carrie said BP was not just about found family, as many of these movies are, but is actually a family movie. 

Chris said that Hela got some of the best lines in Thor. Examples: “Whoever I am?” and the bit about the executioner to execute plans ... but also people. 

He added that BP did have a lot of humor. It also had a similar plot as Thor, but with a very different tone and narrative. 

Carrie said BP makes you care about Wakanda. Asgard feels more distant. While watching Infinity War, her concern was for Wakanda - why are they bringing the fight there?!

Thor:R builds on the other movies for it’s worldbuilding, whereas BP is introducing us to this world for essentially the first time. There is a sense of wrestling with what is the right thing to do. An audience member added - it’s a less mythical world. 

Jess talked about BP having lots of joy - you get the sense that the cast and crew just loved being there and making it what it was.

V. talked about Thor 1 having more of a fish out of water type humor. The humor in BP comes from investment in the character relationships.

An audience member brought up the M’Baku vegetarian joke. Someone (another audience member maybe?) brought up how the Grandmaster was queer-coded and a villain and funny but it was not offensive. 

Jess said that was just Goldblum being Goldblum. It also works because Watiti is queer, so he’s aware of the tropes and it’s not a mean-spirited laughing - we’re not laughing at the queer-codedness of the character. Contrast this to Mantis, where we are supposed to be laughing at the racial and sexist stereotypes.

Chris brought up that Mantis literally personifies emotional labor. 

An audience member said that the Grandmaster reminded them of Tim Curry’s characters - he’s using himself in the role, so we’re not laughing at someone’s depictions of an other.

V. said in Thor:R the gags are at everyone’s expense - it’s equal opportunity joking. We’re not just laughing at say, the one campy character in the entire movie. 

Carrie talked about not liking Drax as much in G2 because he was so mean to Mantis - we were expected to laugh at this one character. 

An audience member talked about Drax’s actor being hilarious. The MCU and DC are mostly white and male, so they appreciate when this is not the case. The Drax/Mantis issue would have been better if they’d addressed his crush on her. It felt like a third of movie was cut out because they skip right over his meanness to acceptance. Mantis is the first Asian character in the MCU.

Carrie said there is a representation problem. A friend of hers who is Asian said her kid told her she looks like Mantis, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with that. There were no other characters for the child to compare her to.

Jess said this was especially bad because outside of the Mantis thing, Drax is the best of them as far as emotional expression. 

Chris said - as a white dude named Chris, I’m getting lots of representation and I’m getting tired of it. (lol)

Valkyrie came up and someone said their headcanon was that she lived and took the half of the Asgardians who live off to safety. I shouted out from the audience that this was confirmed as canon. V. said her theory is that she took the sex space ship!

An audience member brought up how some people found Asgard as a flying disc in space as being more relatable than a non-colonized African country. This is partially because you have to set up the seriousness first and then introduce humor. Thor could be funnier right away because it was the third movie. 

V. said that both Thor and BP had interesting things to say about colonization and Chris laid it out as: Killmonger wants to start conquering and Hela wants to go back to doing it.

V. talked about BP as having to engage white Marvel fans, black audiences who aren’t as familiar with the comics, and of course the Venn Diagram of black fans of the MCU. Discussed the use of both Wakanda and Oakland scenes to accomplish this.

An audience member asked about the evolution of Hulk as a comedic character.

Chris said Ruffalo was able to pull off the humor well on Thor. The physical comedy of when he tried to pull the Hulk out and then splat! The movie used both Bruce and the Hulk for comedic effect. 

Carrie related back to the comment about starting off with the serious backstory and then adding in the humor - Bruce himself has learned to take himself less seriously over time.

Jess said that he does get to be funny here and there in the other movies, but it’s more of humor as coping mechanism. In Thor:R he gets to do more slapstick stuff. 

And that’s all I got! Overall this was a fun, funny panel which also hit on some serious themes in these lighter movies. 

You can let this ask sit for as long as you want if you don't feel like telling fish dick story now but I'd love to hear it sometime

you’re hearing it now because it’s like… my fav Egyptian mythology story to tell because it is just so Dramatique. And what I’m about to retell to you here isn’t even the fucking half of it.

I’m gonna simplify it a little and cut it short but its basically all the stuff leading up to what is known as the “Contendings of Horus & Seth” (or Heru and Set. The Heru involved in this story is Heru-sa-Aset, the one I worship, and his father Wesir(Osiris) whom I also worship alongside Heru. Set is the uncle of Heru-sa-Aset and brother of Osiris). I’ll use their Greek-ified names so that it makes more sense bc that’s what most ppl know Them by. Story below the cut: 

So, it all started in a time when the Egyptian gods lived among men; the Age of the Gods, so to speak. All sorts of wild stuff was happening in this era (like Ra getting too old to be Pharaoh of the gods and retreating to the Great Sunboat in the Sky, and then getting mad about people not worshiping him and sending his daughter out to punish them for being bad, but she almost ends up killing everyone in Egypt and Ra’s like “oh FUCK, my constituents! gotta get my lioness daughter drunk and turn her into a sleepy cow goddess so she’ll stop murdering!” that’s another story for another day, tho). 

So, there are these two deities, Geb & Nut (the Earth god and Sky goddess, respectively), who are the grandchildren of Ra, and their union brings five powerful deities into Being: Osiris, Set, Horus (the Elder), Isis, and Nephthys. Osiris marries Isis, Set marries Nephthys, and Horus the Elder is believed to have married Hathor, iirc. 

Since Ra was no longer spending his time in Egypt, his great-grandson Osiris was chosen to be Pharaoh because he was the oldest & so was obviously the most qualified for the job. Well, Osiris’s little brother Set was a bit of the jealous type, and this was the first nail in the proverbial coffin (pun intended and you’ll understand why later). Later on, and I’m not 100% exactly sure why/how this happened, but Osiris’s OTHER sister (Nephthys, the one married to Set) somehow managed to disguise herself and seduced Osiris and so basically Set finds out that his sister-wife slept with his cooler older brother and, as you can imagine, Set wasn’t very happy about that. So he takes this betrayal as an opportunity to do be Nefarious and Scheme-y, as chaos gods do (Set isn’t evil though, so get that out of ur head. However, about to do some really impulsive shit here in a moment).

So, if I remember correctly, it is the day that Osiris is to be crowned Pharaoh before his divine court and they’re all having a little party, like everyone in the history of ever tends to do after big events. All of a sudden, Set strolls in with some of his lackeys, and proposes a party game! Fun, right? Well, it isn’t, because the events that follow the party game are gonna suck some Big Toes for everyone later on in a part of the story that I will not be getting to in this ask.

So, Set’s buddies haul in this big, elaborate, golden sarcophagus.

“I’ve got a game for you guys!” Set shouts at the crowd of eager gods, “I want you all to try and cram yourselves one at a time into this Death Box and whoever fits perfectly gets a zesty surprise!”

Imagine Set’s face curling into the Grinch Grin as he watches the gods get in line single-file to lay in a big, gold coffin. Imagine his grin getting wider and more bloodthirsty when Osiris sits himself inside of it. 

WHAM!

The sarcophagus closes on top Osiris, locking him in from the outside. I’m pretty sure everyone was a little fucking confused at first about the “zesty surprise” Set had mentioned before, but they soon found out because Set & his henchmen hauled ass to the Nile, thew the sarcophagus into the water, and watched as Osiris went floating down the river in a glorified shoebox to wherever-the-fuck. Pleased with his Party Game, Set crowns himself rightful Pharaoh, conveniently forgetting that Osiris has an extremely faithful and powerful wife (Isis) that will stop at NOTHING.

Isis sets off on her own mission and she retrieves Osiris from his vacation in Phoenicia, but Set is already expecting that and when they come back he LITERALLY MURDERS OSIRIS and cuts his body into FOURTEEN DISTINCT CHOICE CUTS OF GODMEAT. Then the throws said fourteen pieces of Osiris into the river. Set really likes throwing things into the Nile, if you haven’t caught on to that.

Isis just goes, “fuck, not again. time to find my husband.” luckily, all of Osiris’s body parts decided to stay inside the Nile along different areas of the bank, and each temple to Osiris is built where it is believed his body parts where retrieved by Isis. 

Isis finally gathers up all of Osiris’s pieces, and gets Anubis(who, in some cases is the product of Osiris’s one-night-stand with Nephthys, while others state he is Set’s son) to help put him back together again thru embalming his body like a mummy (this is where i think the tradition of mummifying the dead came from). Osiris’s body is almost fully completed when Isis realizes that Osiris is missing something…. something crucial:

HIS DICK

and so once again, Isis goes out into Egypt and searches for her man’s ween. turns out a certain species of fish mistook it for a snack and swallowed it whole, so imagine isis punching a fish in the gut and it hacks up a dick (in other variations of this myth isis skips finding the penis and just makes one herself out of gold and imbues it with some sort of magic). btw, this certain species of fish was like…. pretty much forbidden to be consumed in AE because of this exact legend. either way, she ends up getting Osiris’s penis back and gets pregnant with their son: Heru-sa-Aset, the first Egyptian deity I decided to reach out to. Osiris is reborn (this is why he is a god of rebirth. When he was alive he was a war/agricultural deity) but he’s become something different: he’s not really alive, but he’s not really dead either. Either way, the other gods decide that he cannot be King of Egypt in this state, so they work it out and make Osiris the Lord of the Dead, and from then on out he resides in the Duat (the Egyptian afterlife) as ruler of the deceased Egyptians he was supposed to rule in the Land of the Living (Egypt). This is why Pharaohs were believed to be an aspect of Horus when they were alive and then as Osiris after they died. He’s also the one that oversees the Judgement of ppl when they die. 

Then the story then starts delving into the Contendings and you get a whole different tale about Set and Horus fighting each other for the Throne of Egypt, as they’re being judged by a council of gods known as the Ennead (which consist of Geb and Nut, Set’s parents and Horus’s grandparents.) That, in and of itself, is another fantastic and ABSOLUTELY BONKERS thrill ride that will make you think about severed testicles, extreme boat racing, and…….. you might not be able to look at an ordinary bowl of salad the same way ever again if you read the Contendings.

tagged by: @monkeysatemylastrolo (here is her post) who is writing the lovely Supernatural/Avengers crossover fanfic Trading places on AO3 under the username Vegetableswillhavetheirrevenge. I think I found your AO3 profile and therefore your fic through your tumblr, then promplty forgot about it cause you have a very different username :D rules: you must answer these 85 statements and tag 20 people tagging: This is so difficult... @tigerlilynoh @semirahrose @denugis @l-e-i-n-t-h @posingasme I’d tag @eruthiawenluin but she’s already answered here, @rirren @fioreitaliano @mixgoldenphoenix @forlorn-kumquat @waterbird13 but only if they want to. Any anyone else who wants to. :)

Sorry, but I’m incapable of giving short answers, apparently.

the last 1. drink: water. pretty much always. 2. phone call: my father, day before yesterday, about some potential tenants. 3. text message: ...also to my father, apparently. It was over a week ago, letting him and my mom know know when I was getting back. 4. song you listened to: not sure... it was in a fanvid, probably? I’ve rewatched sone SPN fanvids recently. Oh, no, it was that Anaconda/Phantom of the Opera mashup on here, wasn’t it? Yikes. 5. time you cried: I cry pretty rarely, and that’s usually because of a piece of fiction... it was either Atonement (movie with James McAvoy), or else a movie I don’t even know the title of, it just involved a grandmother almost dying, and I happened to be in the room at that part, and a relative of ours died recently - and I did not cry then, this stupid movie just triggered it somehow. 6. dated someone twice: how do you even count dates if you’re aroace but you slowly drift into a relatioship with your best (only) friend on a “I want to try this” basis? But I suppose the answer is: now, since I have a boyfriend at the moment. 7. kissed someone and regretted it: 2012 iirc, first time I tried kissing and hated it. But it was also good to know I don’t like it, so it’s not a big regret. Recenty it turned out I can like kissing, though. 8. been cheated on: never. 9. lost someone special: Mum’s cousin died a couple of months ago. 10. been depressed: it’s not to diagnosable levels, but I’m depressed and anxious a lot when I’m stressed, so this January-April had some difficult parts when I was writing my thesis. But 2013 autumn (I think?) was the only time I went to a therapist for it, cause wanting to die instead of dealing with stuff is not a nice thought to have that often. 11. gotten drunk and thrown up: never. I drink so rarely and so little when I do that I don’t think it will ever happen.

3 favorite colors 12. green 13. blue 14. yellow if mixed with the first two. Otherwise silver?

in the last year have you 15. made new friends: yes (but not close friends) 16. fallen out of love: so far I seem to be 100% aromantic... 17. laughed until you cried: Laughed a lot, yes, but I don’t remember if I ever cried from laughing. 18. found out someone was talking about you: what does this even mean? in secret? no. 19. met someone who changed you: do people who teach you stuff count? 20. found out who your friends are: ...no? 21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: what facebook list? I only kissed one person, and we are friends on fb, yes...

general 22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: All of them. I only have people on there who are to do with my real life, not my internet life. “knowing” them might be an exaggeration, though. 23. do you have any pets: my family has one cat atm. 24. do you want to change your name: Nope. 25. what did you do for your last birthday: parents, siblings & their SOs, cake. 26. what time did you wake up: Midday... 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: sat in my parents’s car, coming back from a day trip to the Cserhát mountains. 28. name something you can’t wait for: I’m good right now... I’d rather this summer dragged on forever, since I just got my degree and start work in September (as much as I love my future job). There’s movies I’m looking forward to, but I can wait. 29. when was the last time you saw your mum: a second ago. 31. what are you listening to right now: birdsong; my parents talking at times. 32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: I don’t think so. Maybe. Does the Hungarian equivalent of the name count? 33. something that is getting on your nerves: politics and news. More personally (tmi?): the roots of my body hair getting inflamed all the time. 34. most visited website: gmail, technically, from where I go to FFNet or AO3 for fanfic updates. Recently, tumblr is creeping back up. 35. hair colour: brown. 36. long or short hair: short (pixie!). I got it cut almost exactly 2 years ago, I wore it long before then. 37. do you have a crush on someone: No, still aro. 38. what do you like about yourself: I have a high IQ. It has its drawbacks (mainly my conscience screaming “why are you not doing MORE if you have the ability”), but I don’t know what I’d do without it. 39. piercings: no. 40. blood type: I don’t know. 41. nickname: Wings on the internet, rather not say in person. My given name is from the Bible so it’s pretty common in a lot of countries, but the nickname for it that I use only exists in my country (Hungary). 42. relationship status: like I said: ‘dating’ my best friend who knows I’m aro and (mostly?) ace, on the basis “let’s give it a try since we enjoy each other’s company”. It’s going well, so far, but he’s been in Germany for the past few months on a scholarship. 43. zodiac: Taurus (ascendant: Libra) 44. pronouns: she/her 45. favourite tv show: I have a lot of stuff I love a lot, it changes over time which one I’m focused on. I don’t have the objectivity to choose from them. Supernatural and Stargate: SG-1 deserve mentioning because I haven’t only read a ton of fanfic for them, I have also written a bit. 46. tattoos: nope. 47. right or left handed: right. 48. surgery: None. My broken arm only needed a cast. 49. piercing: I’d like to leave monkeysatemylastrolo’s answer here: “Why is ‘piercing’ any different from the ‘piercings’ of question 39? Is there some special magical power people gain depending on the number of piercings they have?” 50. sport: Tai chi (Taijiquan). It’s great. It’s martial arts and meditation but it’s slow moving and graceful and I could start it when I was out of breath just going up the stairs. Never looked back. I would like swimming, if *something* wouldn’t always get in the way. 51. vacation: I’m spending my summer with my parents in my childhood home. It counts as vacation because there’s clean air and lakes and I won’t be living here from September, when I start working in Budapest. 52. pair of trainers: yes? What about them? I have two pairs of cheap flat-soled ones for tai chi, and a pair of not-really-trainers for street wear (white, black, and light green, respecitvely). 53. eating: I just had some ice cream cake left over from my dad’s birthday. 54. drinking: water. again. 55. i’m about to: dunno. Read fanfic, probably, or answer some emails if there are any potential tenants. 56. waiting for: my graduation ceremony in two weeks? 57. want: realistically? To enjoy and earn enough money with the job I’m starting in September. Unrealistically? Superpowers, preferably ones involving flight, preferably wings + the assorted powers I made up. 58. get married: Probably not. I might enter a long-term relationship in order to raise children, if I come to want any, and then it might be worth it for legal&economic reasons, but... 59. career: Translator (Hungarian, English, some German). Just starting out. 60. hugs or kisses: Hugs. Not from everyone, though. 61. lips or eyes: is this a “what do I notice on people as attractive” question? In person: nothing. I do notice the eyes of some actors I’m a fan of, and the lips of one cause they’re always improbably red. 62. shorter or taller: I’m of average height for a woman, I think. 63. older or younger: Than whom? I’m 27. 64. nice arms or nice stomach: again: is this a “what do I notice on people as attractive” question? Again, nothing. 65. hook up or relationship: Mostly neither, but I have to say relatinship since I have something like that at the moment, and I never had a hook up. 66. troublemaker or hesitant: I’m mostly hesitant, except about stuff like climbing a tree on a hike or stuff like that.

have you ever 67. kissed a stranger: No. I’m definitely not attracted to strangers. 68. drank hard liquor: yes, to try the tase, or to settle my stomach, but always just a minimal amount. 69. lost glasses/contact lenses: Nope. Never had contacts. I did sit on my glasses on a holiday once, and they warped pretty badly, so I was without them for a little over a week... 70. turned someone down: Yes. All three people that ever asked me out, all of them after one or two dates (I felt like I had to try), all before I heard or thought about aromanticism and asexuality. The second involved a lot of tears, but then I was friends with him for a long time after that. 71. sex on the first date: Nope. 72. broken someone’s heart: I don’t think so. It might be on the horizon, though, if the boy I’m dating comes to love me and comes to hate the fact that I don’t feel that strongly... 73. had your heart broken: Romantically: nope, still 100% aromantic. It breaks my heart what we’re doing to the planet (and ourselves), though. Seriously, I have cried about that more than once. 74. been arrested: No, not even close. 75. cried when someone died: I think I only cried at the funeral, not when I got the news. 76. fallen for a friend: Never been in love!

do you believe in 77. yourself: Repeat after me: “I believe in myself.” 78. miracles: I believe in some stuff that sceptics would say is unscientific nonsense, partly cause I’ve experienced some of it, partly cause I’m hoping it’s true, but I wouldn’t classify them as miracles. 79. love at first sight: for some people, I guess it’s possible, I mean, there are enough stories about it. 80. santa claus: we don’t even have him in Hungary in the same form as americans&co do :) A dude based on Saint Nicholas comes on his day, the 6th of December and brings chocolate, tangerines and peanuts, but I know it’s my parents :) Christmas gifts are brought by the baby Jesus’s angels (again, also known as my parents). 81. kiss on the first date: Is that something to believe in? If you want it, do it, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. 82. angels: Ehh... no? Souls or similar, yes, some kind of afterlife, yes, because I don't think the human mind is just flesh, but anything as specific as angels? I have no way of knowing, and I don’t want to dismiss other religions by saying I believe in something that’s specific to only a few of them, so...

other 83. current best friend’s name: I only have the one close friend, who I’m “dating”, and I’m not telling you his name. (I’m bad at relationships. Not just romantic ones, but friendly ones as well. I have people I’m friendly with, but maintaining a relationship outside fixed programs like school, work, tai chi training, choir practice, etc. - how does one even do that?! I’m too lazy and too selfishly satisfied with my own company to spend my energy on that, apparently.) 84. eye color: green, but brownish (is that hazel?) 85. favorite movie: see question 45 about favorite TV show, except I never actually managed to write fanfic for any of them. How do I choose?!?! Star Wars, I guess? Return of the Jedi, if I have to choose one from them. The Matrix, if you want something a bit less fandom-y.