I feel like everyone on Tumblr is pro Lestat and anti Louis and everyone on Twitter is pro Louis (and Claudia) and anti Lestat 🤕

And I know that’s not necessarily true but god it definitely feels this way.. can’t praise Lestat on Twitter without getting called a white supremacist, and I can’t go three minutes on Tumblr without seeing someone downplay Louis’s trauma… it’s sad for me!

Tucker and Dale and Aro vs. Evil

So, I wrote this meta explaining what the Volturi’s failure to stop Victoria looked like to the Cullens, tonight I write my theory on why this was allowed to happen. Well, the way this meta ended up I write a bunch of theories, and debunk them one by one until we arrive at the one true theory that I think makes sense.

Now, one thing is clear: Jane had orders not to stop Victoria’s army. We know that for sure. The question is who gave it.

Theory: Aro was behind it

Aro gave Jane the order to let Victoria’s army wreak havoc in Seattle for months because he wished the Cullens harm.

Before we get into any of the different scenarios trying to figure out what motive Aro would have, or why Aro would even do such a thing, I’ll remind readers that in New Moon, Edward broke the law in the middle of Volterra. Alice then brought a human who knew about vampires into the palace. Aro had every justification to punish them, yet he let them all go. This was an act of generosity. For this theory to be true, Aro would have to do a complete 180 in the two months that passed between St. Marcus’ Day and Jane’s deployment to Seattle.

Scenario 1: Aro wanted Alice (and Edward, according to Edward)

Relevant meta. TL;DR, Edward brings nothing to the table, Alice doesn’t bring a lot either. This scenario depends on Aro not realizing as much.

Now, he is very excited about Alice’s gift, and would love for her to join, that is true. However, he saw all her thoughts, all that she is, he knows her better than anybody in the world. He knows her limitations as well as she does. Would recruiting her be worth letting a newborn army reign in Seattle?

Let’s assume that Aro thinks Alice is worth all of this. Why would he let the newborns attack the Cullens, when there was a chance Alice would be killed? Edward too, for that matter, assuming Aro wanted him. A recruitment plan that breaks your own law and endangers the life of your recruit-to-be could only be explained by madness or else stupidity. And Aro is not stupid.

Assuming that Aro is mad, there’s the damning argument: Chelsea wasn’t part of the team. 

(And yes, I know for sure she wasn’t part of the team. There were five Volturi, and they’re described as follows: 

I knew it would be Jane in the front — the darkest cloak, almost black, and the smallest figure by more than two feet. (Eclipse, page 331)

Jane is 4′8″, Chelsea is 5′3″. Now, Felix is 6′7″, so Bella’s estimate is a tiny bit off, but Chelsea is a tiny woman a mere seven inches taller than Jane. Bella couldn’t have mistaken that for being two feet. So, Chelsea wasn’t present.)

When Aro wants to recruit someone, he sends Chelsea. He did not send Chelsea in Eclipse.

I hereby declare the theory that Aro didn’t interfere because he wanted to recruit Alice debunked.

Scenario 2: Aro wanted to destroy the Cullens

If Aro wanted the Cullens dead, they would be dead. He has an elite force of killing machines. There’s no need for newborn armies in Seattle.

The movie tries to explain the fact that Aro hasn’t moved against them with the fact that Alice would know. Well, the movie is dumb. What would it matter if she knew? The dead don’t speak. Alice could try alerting other vampires to the tragic impending fate of the Cullens, but this wouldn’t save her. More, the Cullens live among humans and presently have a human living among them. Aro could easily make a case if anybody had questions afterwards. He could also just make something up, as Edward is so fond of accusing him of doing.

There’s the PR issue, that Aro’s critics would get a lot of ammunition against him if he executed an innocent coven, but not stopping Victoria was a lot worse for his image. Victoria’s army made international news for weeks on end. It made the Volturi look weak.

Let’s assume, though, that Aro wants the Cullens destroyed, and thought letting a newborn army wreak havoc was a good way of accomplishing this. Bottom line is that he wants them dead.

If that’s the case, then they would have been killed by Jane after the newborn battle.

The world would have been told that the Cullens tragically perished against the newborns, and that it was the Volturi who stopped them. It would have been perfectly plausible, the Cullens are malnourished pacifists who live with humans. No one would bat an eyelid at a coven led by Carlisle Cullen succumbing to a newborn army. They would have, too, if it weren’t for the shapeshifters.

So, Jane’s orders don’t match up with this scenario.

And then there’s the matter of what Aro’s motive would even be.

We see in New Moon and again in Breaking Dawn that he cherishes his friendship with Carlisle. Now, Aro is capable of killing what he loves, but that’s when backed into a corner (he was going to lose Marcus, Carlisle had created an immortal child). Carlisle in Eclipse was minding his own business and not backing anybody into any corners.

This exchange in particular comes to mind:

“But how can your intent possibly matter, dear Carlisle, in the face of what you have done?” He frowned, and a shadow of sadness crossed his features—whether it was genuine or not, I could not tell. 

“I have not committed the crime you are here to punish me for.” 

“Then step aside and let us punish those responsible. Truly, Carlisle, nothing would please me more than to preserve your life today.” (Breaking Dawn, page 434)

This is a lot of things, but it’s not a man who wants Carlisle dead.

(That question of whether his sadness is genuine or not is a great example of unreliable narrating in these books. Aro has no reason to fake sadness, and if he did want to fake it he’d presumably do more than a subtle “shadow of sadness”. However, Bella has been told only terrible things about him and views him as a murderous tyrant, so her first instinct when he displays human emotion is that it can’t be real.)

Let’s assume, though, that something about the Cullens offends Aro so much that he’s willing to kill his best friend over it, and in a particularly roundabout way involving newborn armies at that.

Why would he be arguing in favor of them increasing their numbers in New Moon? Bella was clearly gifted, and yet he wouldn’t let the Cullens leave until he had reassurance that she would be one of them.

I guess his motive would be that the Cullens are a threat, but one wonders how when all these people do is eat deer and play house. They’re weird, but they abide by the law, I imagine far better than most vampires out there. More, they’re led by Carlisle, an infamous pacifist who's friends with Aro.

I don’t see the threat.

And, again, if Aro somehow did, the Cullens would be dead.

Scenario 3: Aro wanted Alice, and to destroy the Cullens

Including this one because I’ve seen variations of it floating around. Aro has so many evil plans, he executes them all at once and hope one will stick.

If he wanted this, he would send Chelsea along, execute the Cullens for harboring human Bella or in any of the ways outlined in scenario 2, and make Alice join him. End of story.

Conclusion: Aro had nothing to do with it

If Aro was behind the Eclipse clusterfuck, there would be no Breaking Dawn because the Cullens would be dead or trapped in Volterra.

However, his life is Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, so he looks really really shady.

And the meta is now thirteen hundred words, so we’re making it a two-parter.

What do you think Regis and Ciri's relationship would be like? I was always a little upset that Geralt said he wanted Ciri to meet Zoltan and Reinart but he didn't say that about Regis or anyone from the Hansa. Do you think he wanted Ciri to meet Regis? What do you think their relationship would be like? I didn't understand why Regis was so impressed by Citi in Stigga, if she was obviously scared and they had like 5 min to talk. I don't like that all the characters are thrilled with Ciri at first sight. I also afraid that Ciri won't overcome her dislike of vampires as a witcher, and she and Regis won't have become friends :( What your thoughts on it?

this is such a good series of questions!!

i think that geralt did want ciri to meet the hansa, and i suppose she did - she mentions that they buried the bodies of geralt’s comrades outside of stygga when they left - though in the case of regis, of course, there was nothing left to bury. but i imagine that, in these moments, geralt told ciri about each member, their memories “living on” through story, which, in the witcher, is a form of immortality after death. but i think he specifically mentions wanting ciri to meet reynart and zoltan specifically because he thought (incorrectly, in reynart’s case :( ) that they were still alive, as opposed to the hansa, who he all saw either die in front of him or their corpses later when they buried them.

specifically for regis, i think geralt would have wanted ciri to meet him as they did become close and also regis helped a lot in terms of being geralt’s confidant during the quest to save ciri. but i also think that geralt would be still concious of how bizarre his and regis’ friendship is, and would think about it before any introductions - then again, the witcher seems to have less of these “planned introductions” and rather more of “by the seat of your pants introductions,” like when dandelion first meets ciri, it was both somewhat expected as (iirc?) they knew they were going to meet up with the other party (geralt and dandelion, yennefer and ciri), but how they actually meet up is a different story, because nothing in the witcher can ever be a calm summer afternoon, of course. so i believe that “the best” circumstances would be something like a formal introduction of ciri to all of the hansa members, geralt would simply introduce them all at the same time, because they’re each equally important in relation to him and ciri. i don’t thnk it would make sense for geralt to introduce regis separately from the rest of the hansa, because it would just take his character out of context (unless, of course, they were in some situation where the rest of the hansa wasn’t around). (and besides the point, but i think the most awkward formal introduction would be between cahir and ciri, because, it wouldn’t be an introduction at all, rather a third meeting. and canonically, cahir had dreams of ciri, so it would be even weirder since he’s already seen her a bunch and she hasn’t seen him at all.)

i think, honestly, a formal introduction between regis and ciri would go well, i don’t think too much would occur, even if only because of having questions but feeling that it’s not the right place or time to ask them -- like in a class, when a teacher asks, “any questions?...” and the entire class holds their breath because everyone is confused but no one knows exactly what to say -- i think it would be like that, because regis and ciri are BOTH very very naturally curious! regis would want to ask, so this is the child of destiny, this is your daughter, etc, etc, and ciri would want to ask pretty much everything about him to understand who he is. but i think both would understand, through experience, that a first introduction isn’t the time to ask every single question you have about a person. so it would be kind, but maybe overly formal becase of that awkwardness.

 i of course have all these headcanons and such about regis becoming a parental and mentor figure to angouleme, so i’m inclined to compare their relationship to that with ciri, but i think that would be a mistake. because angouleme and ciri are similar in build and appearance, and some traits and experiences of course, but they’re still different in my opinion, and their difference is exponential when you consider the differences of how angouleme and regis met VS how ciri and regis met, and that angouleme had no one else in her life VS ciri already has parents she loves. so instead of being more parental and advice-giving, i think regis would be kind to ciri of course, but i don’t think they would ever spend a lot of time together because ciri already has parents to spend time with, so regis would be still a sort of avuncular figure, good for advice and to listen, but not the main source of support. which is fine, i think. i think that the thing that ciri would most rely upon regis for would be dealing with her actions from when she was a rat, i think both regis and ciri have come out of a period where they have been the source of a lot of violence, and ciri may struggle with this and need advice from someone who’s been through it already.

i feel like regis also wasn’t overly impressed with ciri when he met her, his reaction seems more like dandelion’s to me, where she just appears as some young girl, the young girl that she is. i think only the observant or the close to ciri will understand that she is powerful (geralt, yennefer, milva (observant), cahir (half and half, i think he only understands it later)). regis and dandelion are observant in that they are intelligent and academics, but they often miss the background, the “fabric of reality” as i’ve referred to it -- things like the horseprints in the snow, regis was very willing to explain away as being somthing mundane, not considering it could have been something else. i think this logicalness of his character and unintentional insensitivity to the “powers that be” would make him more stumped than astute with ciri, unable to really figure her out despire having experiences in common with her. another trait that ciri and regis both share is being mysterious and a little closed-off if one doesn’t pry, and since they have no real reason to pry, i don’t think they’d be as close as characters that are more opposite to one another in this respect.

although regis did frighten ciri when they first met in stygga, i feel like they would totally get over that after a while. although dandelion aphoristically says in a little sacrifice that there’s never a second chance to make a good first impression, i think to how geralt and ciri got off on the wrong foot, as did yennefer and ciri -- and even though it was a more severe misunderstanding with yennefer, she ultimately became closer to yennefer than anyone else. so i don’t think that regis’s first impression to ciri would affect their friendship down the line that much, since ciri seems to have a knack for getting into poor first impressions with adults. but i do think it would influence how she sees him, because of course it would. everyone else met regis as he is normally, the pinnacle of kindness and thoughtfulness -- ciri saw him basically turn an entire room into hellish chaos and rip a guy’s throat out! it’s comical to us as the readers because we know regis and his very mild-mannered side, but to ciri, this would have been terrifying, of course demonstrated by her clenching her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter. i don’t think that there’s any reason that they couldn’t eventually get over this, but i think it would definitely influence how ciri sees regis overall -- i think that even geralt sometimes forgets about what regis is capable of, like in lady of the lake when he vehemently defends regis’s right to be present in a coversation, when regis can actually just overhear the entire conversation although he walked away. to sort of summarize the situation, if your friend, who is a normal guy to you, had epic powers that you saw a couple of times, but he never really used them around you that much, you might not think of him as some kind of force VS, when you met your friend for the first time he was demonstrating his epic powers in full force... you would be way more aware of his power. but, these friendships may not have been super different at heart, because there’s still the same people involved in them. this is what i think, that ciri would just be the one who’s most aware that regis is a vampire, because she’ll never forget the first meeting -- but that does not necessarily mean she would end up trusting or liking him less at all!

i feel with the context of ciri being a witcher, it’s interesting because by the time regis appears in the series, the term of “witcher” is beginning to be unraveled with its threads examined for the readers. regis is part of this, and cahir is as well -- though regis is a monster, geralt has no desire to kill him, and yet cahir is a man, and geralt has a desire to kill him. the term of “monster” is questioned to hell and back throughout the entire series, but especially in regards to i think to these characters: geralt, regis, cahir, ciri, vilgefortz, and bonhart. each is a “monster” in some respect, either being labelled as one or doing monstrous things, or both. in ciri’s case, it becomes way more about “good” and “evil” than it does for geralt, who is more concerned with the original exploration of “human” and “monster.” for ciri, she actually became evil, she was a monster. but through many things, she learned her lesson and becomes something much more vague than just “good” or “evil” in the end. this is a lot like regis, who transversed the dichotomy of “evil monster” and “good human” to become something that’s neither of each (well, regis strives to be a good human, but just because he strives for it does not mean he 100% is that). so i think that because they have that similiarity, they would be more understanding of one another. especially with time as ciri begins to understand herself and the concept of evil more (as she had difficulty with vysogota -- the paradox is that she herself became evil, but then of course has her famous “repay evil” speech -- by that logic, she would want to exterminate herself, her ethical logic being clouded by self-preservation... but i think by the end she comes to realize that her evil was wrong as well, that she is not innocent, and even though this is true, she can still work against evil).

tldr ciri and regis are very similar characters, they would be friends due to this mutual understanding, but he would not be the most important figure in her life. they would likely bond over their shared struggles with good & evil, and also likely bond over making fun of geralt (as everyone does in this series)

Forgive me for writing everything on this profile, but when I start, I don't know where I will end. It's more or less that the Phoenix powers work when Landon is in a good emotional state or when it is about good intentions, not showing that you know something more because you want to be useful. Maybe that's why he lost the Phoenix powers because he was subconsciously not in the right place emotionally, after all, Rafae is probably the first person who made him feel loved and who cared for and was protective of him. Well Hope it was a crush without believing that any of it would not pass and turned into reciprocal love. And even more so now that Malivore has taken over, he may not even want to be a Phoenix to protect others. I figured if I had to match Malivore's behavior with a character from this world, I would choose Mikael or Landon's adoptive fathers. I mean, they want a family, but only at their own imagination, if something does not suit them, they destroy it. You don't really know what will please Malivore if he doesn't understand what loving and family really mean. When the power of the Phoenix comes back, I hope that the tears of the Phoenix will have a meaning in conjunction with Hope if the creators follow the beaten path. Because I really don't want Hope to think that she is cursed and her love is a death sentence and not something beautiful that gives strength to both those involved. Or that you are born only to die or become possessed and destroyed, although the only "bad" thing you did in life was to be born in such and no other family. None of them deserved suffering, maybe they do stupid things sometimes, but they are teenagers who do not fully embrace the world, especially with a past where there is no adequate support. They do not understand that sometimes it is a lie and ignorance, it is a blessing for them because the adults lie to them. Though sometimes it is strange that Landon still believes in people and does not believe in himself. Hope, on the other hand, believes in herself, but not in people. Simply put, they both add faith in the world and themselves and that it will be fine. Only scriptwriters would be able to disregard anti's single sentences out of context to please them. Well, I guess that's how it is everywhere.

It’s okay! I get that, haha. Oh gotcha, that’s a very interesting theory! It could be possible or have something to do with it. That’s a good point, that’s true about Raf, and Landon was very emotionally affected by what was happening to Raf when he realized he lost his powers. So there’s a chance there may have been some kind of connection. And yes, he’s definitely in an even worse state now because of Malivore.

And I never thought of that before, but you’re right! Yeah, Mikael was all about strength over weakness. He despised Klaus, even before he knew he wasn’t his son, simply because he viewed him as weak. Similar to how Malivore did not want Clarke because Clarke was not the way he wanted him to be. They both rejected their children or only wanted them if they showed strength or power. I’m not sure about Landon’s foster parents, but they clearly did not want Landon or care about him with how they abused him. (I’m not even sure if it was multiple people who abused him or just one? They really need to tell us more about that.) True, Malivore doesn’t have an understanding of love or family, so having those things isn’t going to please him. It seems only power is going to please him, as of right now. And his desires have also been influenced by the fact that he was created with an insatiable need to consume, as well as the fact that Cleo inspired him to want a vessel, which both made him want revenge and to create his own powerful species. All of his actions stem from those things, right? So if he hadn’t been affected by all that, what would he truly want? What is he like without those things? Would he have still been evil? Idk.

Oh yes, same, I really want to see Landon have healing tears too, and for it to be revealed with Landon reacting to Hope somehow. And me too, it’s so important for Hope to know those things, and I really feel like she has realized those things this last season in a lot of ways. She’s no longer willing to believe that she and Landon are “doomed,” she believes they can fight against their fate. And she doesn’t want to activate her vampire side, and hasn’t willingly sacrificed herself to make that happen in order to kill Malivore. So I feel like she’s grown a lot and has started to see that she doesn’t have to give in to the idea that she’s cursed or meant to die and that her love isn’t a death sentence. And I hope they’ll go even further with that. And yes, they absolutely do not deserve suffering, especially when they’ve done nothing wrong, very true.

And that’s a really interesting point about the ways that Hope and Landon believe in others vs. themselves and how they’re flipped. Yeah, it makes sense for Hope, but it is strange for Landon to feel how he does about others after the way people have treated him throughout his life. It definitely shows that he has a very forgiving and optimistic outlook and tries to see the best in people. But I also feel like he was more similar to Hope at the start of the show, in that he had a harder time trusting people like she did. And he seemed to have more confidence in himself, he stood up for himself more. But then it’s like going to the school made him feel worse about himself. He went from surviving his whole life on his own and being able to rely on himself and being capable in that way to then being told that he’s weak and always needs to be saved (which contradicts his entire past and the fact that he had survived on his own) just because he doesn’t have the kind of supernatural abilities that everyone at the school deems as “useful.” So I feel like the way the people at the school treated him made him feel inadequate and that it had a very negative effect on him. So I think that’s probably why he doesn’t believe in himself? Though how he still believes in other people and is able to see the best in them, idk. But yes, exactly. I think Hope and Landon have been able to balance each other out more with Landon helping Hope to open up more to people and Hope helping Landon to know his value and that he’s not weak, but a survivor.

But yeah, I’ll never understand how the writers have sometimes ignored aspects of their own show and how they’ve written Handon (or just Landon) by throwing in a senseless line to please the antis. It’s happened too many times, and I hope it’ll stop in season 4.

1- Not much tbh, just what you've posted, and 2- To be honest I quite like your long answers. It can definitely wait though, you should get some sleep.

Is your warpriest link a constant thing? Does it ever fade into the background? I'm contemplating forming a second link, something happier than my copinglink, and I'm not sure how to tell when to tell when the line of a link vs a persona is crossed when not worn out of necessity.

And the original ask so I have it on hand. I did take a look at your original context, and if you're cool with it, I'll edit this post with a link for those who may find this is a useful answer and need that on hand. Otherwise, it'll stay a mystery.

But yes, it seems like my Sabe experiences would be a useful thing to talk about here. And in order to do that, I need to go over four things: who and what Sabe is, why he exists the way that he does, what that does for me, and lastly what I think he is in terms of terminology and why.

To start, here is his toyhou.se profile, if you want to read more about his actual story and thoughts and whatnot. But I doubt you'll have the necessary context for that, so let me go into it. RuneScape (RS) is one of the oldest MMORPGs in existence. WoW might be older but I doubt it. Basically it's a medieval magic fantasy that's very long running and you the player end up the World Guardian, aka the guy that stops the gods (who are very powerful folks who just don't die of natural causes and typically stand for some philosophy) from blowing the world up because Guthix, the dead god of balance, asked you to. Well, he voluntold you. And that makes you a major chess piece, Elder Gods get involved, it's a big mess.

But before all that happened, back in 2006 when I was introduced to the game and very shitty at it, well. I liked the lore insofar that I've always liked the lore, it was interesting and I liked thinking about it. I didn't have membership and I sucked at playing so I just read the wiki and the God Letters over and over and sometimes the Postbag from the Hedge. Alongside my two friends, we played at being children of the then-triad of main gods: Saradomin, Guthix, and Zamorak.

I liked Zamorak best, but I didn't think his ideas would be the best for society as a whole, so I ended up playing child of Guthix. Eventually we grew up and grew apart but every couple of years I'd go back to RuneScape, read the lore, settle on what choices I'd make if I could play, and think about being the player character. In 2010 I discovered a fic - dawn by khayr, it's on Ao3 and dA - about Iban, son of Zamorak, right around when I was reading Percy Jackson. Cue him showing up as a soulbond and an older brother figure and guiding me right up until the end of sixth grade. Iban got me through the ruthless bullying that would later set the stage for all my major suicidal-ideation and self-hatred for the entirety of high school: even then, I was more stable than I might've been otherwise, because he interfered.

Saradomin stands for strength through order. Procedures and law and diplomacy and war strategy. He was originally kind of a ripoff of the Christian god, but he's grown to be more of an order-over-peace character and is quite well-written. Guthix stands for strength through balance, and has been all over the board in terms of what he's done and will do. He's kind of a dick, actually, but his heart's in the right place.

Zamorak, as you've heard, is strength through chaos and personal strife. It's no "the strong over the weak" or "the strong take care of the weak", it's flat-out "everyone is strong, and just need the right circumstances to tap into it to be the best they can possibly be". Now, his philosophy is kind of more for warriors and scholars, but if you tilt your head, it applies to everyone. Chronically ill folks will find their chaos in fighting to get up every day and maintain a life. Folks in traumatizing, abusive situations find that chaos in their very survival. Scholars challenge themselves and their fellows and their predecessors trying to find the answers they so need. Nobody in lockstep, no such thing as "we've always done it this way."

A lot of human Zamorakians and Saradominist propaganda says that Zamorak is simply absolute evil: and to be fair, when most of that was written, he kinda was because he was based loosely on the Christian devil. Later writing says that they're typically mistaken on that. Zamorak isn't evil. The very first thing he did upon becoming a god was fulfill a promise and lead a slave rebeliion. (The Avernic uprising, if anyone's curious.) He stands for the downtrodden and says "You are never going to get your dignity by going through the motions and trying to peacefully show you're worth respect. Burn some shit down and prove that you won't stand for this bullshit."

Zamorak in a Saradominist's eyes is someone whose banner you wear when you want to be a crazy murderer. Zamorak in a Zamorakian's eyes is the singing voice who murmurs "Get up, this isn't enough to kill you, you can still do this," when transphobic laws get passed or you hear a slur thrown your way on the street.

And as someone who grew up queer and nonhuman, yeah, that resonates, and the older I get the more I think "Guthixian philosophy is best for a society at large, but Zamorakianism for individuals is good." Because Zamorakianism can't really apply on a theocratic level. It really doesn't. It turns into American bootstrap culture and no social services and all that shitty stuff.

The funny thing is that Zamorak himself has no issues helping out if he thinks you need it. (If he didn't, he wouldn't be cool with asking for help, or giving it when he's asked. Which he does do repeatedly so. The man has more kindness in him than people want to admit.) What I do find fascinating is what he thinks of the actions of some of his longtime subordinates, who clearly support him, but I don't think support his actual philosophy. Because if you ask me, he'd side with the downtrodden humans of Meiyerditch, not the vampire lords that treat them like cattle. He's proven that he likes humans, and doesn't see them as unworthy. I do wonder if Jagex will show us what he might do about that.

Either way. Ahem. Over the course of a decade and a half, I keep going back to RuneScape, refining my philosophy and side, thinking again what I would do playing the game proper. About... I want to say five years ago, Jagex opened up the Sixth Age and I finally noticed, and they rewrote every god's philosophy because they wanted every single one to be actually playable. Not just "hurr durr evil" but actually have a logical line of thought. They probably didn't have pop culture paganism in mind, but the gods of RS are incredibly well-suited to it.

Well, I found that out, and immediately went through every god's philosophy, and reasoned my way through it. What does a worshipper of this god look like? What sort of life would they lead? If i apply this to me, what does that look like from that perspective? Do I understand this? Is it comfortable to exist in?

And as it turns out, I understand Zamorak the most, followed a close second by Armadyl, which was quite surprising. Zaros remains incomprehensible and I don't trust like that. (That's another story.) So I thought about it more, and it stuck even when I wandered off to different fandoms and interests. But what happened was that I ended up internalizing it, unknowingly and without meaning to.

It meant that when, two years later, I ended up in a horrific and traumatizing situation, the anchor I hit that held me together was a mixture of being a Devil - I am a fucking God you will obey me and recognize my power - and Zamorak's core philosophy: this cannot kill me, this cannot stop me, this is pure fucking hell and I am going to laugh in the face of death because people are forged in hellfire and I will walk away knowing what I'm made of.

And I was right. Honestly, out of everyone who was there with me, I think I'm the only one that was that deeply entrenched and walked out without trauma. I do not believe I could have done that had I not internalized Zamorak's philosophy. (That isn't to say if the others had that philosophy they wouldn't be traumatized, because there were absolutely other factors I wouldn't know about and some that I do and didn't do them any favours; but I am saying that it saved my ass and without it, I might not have been okay.)

I walked out of that with zero regrets. Zero. Even now, I don't regret a thing. Because it doesn't matter what happened or how much I was lied to or if he deserved my kindness. I know what I perceived to be happening, and I know how I reacted, and when the pieces were down I was stronger than steel, gave kindness without considering the cost, and I walked away unscathed.

How many people can say they've looked death in the eye and laughed? More than there should be, not too many that knowing what I'm capable of when put into pure chaos isn't somehow impressive. Because it is. And Zamorak's words proved themselves, or rather, I proved him entirely correct.

And when I last went back to RuneScape, and thought about it with enough time to put it all into hindsight, well. Aw, shit, he was right. Then vaguely around that time I went back and read Dawn, which was unfinished, tracked down the author and demanded to know how it fucking ended. (She told me and we're still friends like three years later. xD) Then I went back and found my old OCs, and decided fuck it, I'm making my own World Guardian.

So first thing I did was log in and jump over to the Makeover Mage and make myself into a boy. Kept the plateskirt though, I wanted to have the RS equivalent of a limp wrist to prove I'm Very Queer. Then I went about remaking my character. I wanted to make a self-insert, I was old enough to know it wasn't cringey, it was just fun, but I didn't want to use my default avatar with the black hair over one eye and the Chaorruption. I wanted to make a new self-insert based in nothing I was already using.

So I made the most beautiful man I could! Long, dark brown hair, pretty semi-dark skin, looked Kharidian, and then I said fuck it and made him Zamorak's youngest son. Originally, he was adopted when he was young by Iban and Clivet, and suffered serious imposter syndrome when being WG meant he'd never get demigod powers. But as I grew more confident in myself, he ended up getting powers? And then eventually I rewrote his backstory, and then wrote about his mother, and her relationship with Zamorak, and then he had friends like Blaire and Icthlarin (who was also my furry awakening, rip me).

Then with the most recently questline I've been getting a bit more into RS magical theory, and I've been mulling it over lots, and Seanan McGuire's Middlegame definitely helped; and I figured out how I wanted him to handle being World Guardian: it didn't make sense for him to be openly Zamorak's son, the other gods would just target his family to manipulate him. So I had him play neutral openly and Zamorakian to his friends, effectively living a double life.

Then he just looked up one day and said "Oh, by the way, my father won't acknowledge me to keep me safe but I don't know that so we have a very unsteady relationship because I don't know if he loves me", and then Children of Mah came out, and he was all "Oh and I think I just got disowned (I didn't, Zamorak was protecting me, but I don't know that) so my relationship with Zamorak is Fucking Shitty" and he was stuck that way until I figured out how to save their relationship.

It culminated in Sabe not knowing how his Mahjarrat powers worked and guessing, and hating himself for being half-and-half, and missing everything about being a Mahjarrat, and literally you couldn't have gotten more obvious in order to tell me I was having Fucking Issues coming to terms with the fact I didn't have any understanding or knowledge of my own heritage, but whatever, eventually I noticed that.

And as I've been working to understand myself and my heritage, so too has Sabe been doing that with his Mahjarrat heritage. But for the longest time, no matter how I put him and Zamorak in the same room in a scene to try and get them to talk it out, it wasn't working. Something wasn't right. Sabe resented being World Guardian, hated having to betray his family, didn't know if he was wanted, and hated himself for having to kill Mah, the mother of his species.

Not that long ago, a few months actually, he informed me (which is my shorthand for 'I suddenly figured out this happened, and it genuinely feels like remembering that one fucking word you have on the tip of your tongue, I always knew and just forgot for a while') that no, he'd been ripped in two by a hope devourer, brought to his father's stronghold, and Zamorak split his magic between mortal and divine in order to get around his godproofing and heal him. Zamorak's intense worry for his youngest son was what caused Sabe to break down and tell him honestly what was going on and how he was feeling, which caused Zamorak to do the same, and they finally, finally made up.

A week later, I noticed the connection between Sabe's Mahjarrat issues and my Irish issues, and started to wonder if he was a linktype.

I mean... he's a self-insert. He makes the choices I would, the me in the here and now, that I think are best. He's not a person I was and still know myself to be, he's not someone I grow into, he's not living his life beside me like a shadow. He's me, choosing the things I do, because I say so. But he's also me in the things he reflects, the things he struggles with, and things I had zero fucking conscious input on.

Sabe is the person I am when a crisis hits and I have to deal with the chaos. Sabe is the person I am when I need to lead. Sabe is the person I am when I am desperate to be known and loved by those I consider family. Sabe is the person I am when I want to be sure in where I came from, where I will return to, and the things that I will always be. Sabe is a man of darkness who knows the light as an acquaintance and nothing more, who is cruel and careless and kind.

Sabe is a warpriest of Zamorakian philosophy, because it took me twenty fucking years to put into words how I see the world, and now that I know, I will argue them to death and use them to help others. Drakath may have wanted a messiah to share the hivemind with others. Sabe is a warpriest, spreading the word and calling home the broken and the damned. He is the Last Rider, not the last of the Ilujanka but the one who keeps riding towards the chaos and never falls, no matter what.

Some of who Sabe is I have conscious input on. A whole lot of him was unintentional and perfectly reflects me.

So when it comes to terminology... I don't know what he is. A self-insert, yes. A linktype, maybe. A kintype, also maybe. Sabe doesn't feel like my past linktypes, because Sabe isn't always catharsis and comfort. Until he made up with his dad, Sabe was brutal and hurt a lot and constantly yearning for his foundation and slowly going mad. It wasn't fun. I just refused to do anything but see the story through. I was going to get it right. I wanted to see it to the end. I wanted to be the Last Rider, even though I didn't phrase it that way.

But to answer your actual question, of what he feels like when I'm not actively being him out of necessity, desire, and active thought. If it fades into the background.

And like... it can? Sabe as he is, recognized for what and who he is, is kind of a new thing. Sabe as a concept is very old, but Sabe as what he is right now is new, and confusing, and honestly I'm still trying to figure out what to make of it.

Like, seriously. Sabe is Zamorak's son. Am I Zamorak's son? Is he keeping an eye on me as I am? Would he be proud of me? Would he offer his approval of my progress? Does that make me, in some way, the World Guardian?

I have not a clue, buddy. Not a goddamn clue.

So what it means is that I've been paying attention, really. I don't just become strong in times of crisis. I've been trying to do better. Be better. Learn, and listen, and rethink myself. Break out of lockstep, of doing things the way I've always done them. Try to always do better than I did, build habits I like, stop waiting for things to change and just do it. Become the chaos, instead of waiting for it to hit me.

It means I need to live up to what Guthix told Sabe to do. It means being gentler, being kinder, not burning bridges when I'm not sure. It means keeping an eye out for any sign Zamorak's listening, in case I am his son, in case I really have to decide what I'm gonna do about being the son of chaos incarnate.

But other than the questioning, what it feels like is just... what I was already dealing with, just a little more at arm's length and easier to deal with. Once I recognize that his issues are reflective of mine, if I solve his, I have a pretty good idea of how to solve mine. Some of it won't work exactly right - Zamorak will always forgive him for not being the son he expected he might have had, my own parents may not, yay I'm queer and pagan - but it's a good rule of thumb.

It's also just comforting to know that when in doubt, nothing can kill me, because I simply refuse to die. I am World Guardian, I am a demigod of chaos incarnate, all the hellfire in the world can do nothing but strengthen me. And if I present those to myself as unshakeable beliefs, because for Sabe they are, then I'll be okay. It probably couldn't stop most disasters or tragedies, but I got hit by a car, broke five bones, and walked away with a record recovery time, so I mean... I can't prove that I can't die by some accident or tragedy, but you also can't prove that I can. (Trying to do so usually falls under what we call 'murder', and I personally believe I can't be murdered. Only assassinated.)

But really, I think the worst that could possibly happen with a new linktype is that you learn what not to do. It's new, it's scary, it's chaotic, and from where I'm standing, that's the best way to learn.

The Order mentions that Kamilah mocked sacred femininity with her temptress wiles, and that she was the second most vile thing, only behind Gaius. How much do you think is true from those statements, and how much do you think is propaganda on their part? Do you think she was an open seductress? How dark do you think she was? I'm curious to know your opinion. I feel like so many people overlooked that write up and I'm the only one who noticed.

So the quick answer to this ask is this: Kamilah is a woman of power; she is attracted to it, she has it, and she holds onto it. I don’t think I would go so far as to say she seeks it but it definitely finds its way to her in some form or another.

I think the Order painted the entirety of vampires as a species as what the reality of Ferals are, but with more brain and less zombie. And that’s important to note. They are unquestionably a milquetoast commentary on religious fanaticism -- wow that sounded pretentious. Okay, but they are. Even if it isn’t addressed outright. And in terms of the Order the statement “history is written by the victors” is true.

You see a vampire. You are afraid, but also intrigued. You are attracted to them, seduced by them. The Order tells you this is all a part of the plan and suddenly everything good the vampire goes is thrown out the window. All good is boiled down to an ultimatum, all feelings are reduced to a ploy. It’s the best way to spread the most doubt possible on their intentions. It’s a good tactic objectively. And it’s proven to be effective in recruitment.

The Order recruits weak willed people. They build that will into something they can influence and what they want. But like... it’s not reading too much into it. It’s just putting a worldly lens on a fictional plot device. That kind of ideology very much happens in the real world so it’s only fair to draw the parallels.

So do I think Kamilah is a seductress? Yes; but that’s not all she is and she knows it. She plays the game, sees the pawns, and does what she needs to. She is versatile in her methods and seduction just happens to be one of them. Murder, slaughter, massacre are also all methods I’m sure she was capable of using. From our first meeting of her as a vampire and not just a person she is threatening. She knows this. She controls it and by proxy controls you. I just don’t believe you live 2,000 years and not acquire a heavy understanding of psychology, sociology, and how to manipulate people and individual persons.

In terms of what you’re feeling Anon, I think it’s important to note that BB was a fascinating story told through a romantic lens. By biggest example is all of the fucking group sex in BB3. None of it remotely logical by that point, and I think that’s a pretty general opinion? The romance story may have not been the focus but it was the driving factor behind a lot of things. Sure there are many of us who see that kind of potential for violence and think “yes step on me” (ahem... myself included...) but as a majority I’m sure it would have drawn people away from her as an LI.

It’s kinda like the DC comics vs the DC movies. The movies are grittier, right? Put in reality, they were made to be more raw and visceral. Kamilah’s potential is a lot like that. In the medium she was created for, she was clipped and tailored as needed. But if she were put in, we’ll say, a movie... I can see her being the kind to push her heel through someone’s heart without flinching.

legit just talk to me about Bloodbound / Nightbound

ok so let's talk twilight. girl meets vampire. girl falls in love with vampire. vampire falls in love with girl. girl and vampire start dating. evil vampire wants to eat girl. vampire kills evil vampire.

new moon. vampire leaves girl. girl gets depressed. girl rebounds with werewolf. werewolf wants to fuck girl. werewolf realizes he's the rebound. werewolf leaves girl. girl seemingly attempts suicide. vampire learns about this and attempts suicide. girl goes to tell him she's not dead. vampire king gives a warning.

eclipse. vampire and girl are back together. evil vampire girlfriend wants revenge. evil vampire girlfriend makes evil vampire army. vampires and werewolves kill evil vampire and army. vampire king gives another warning. vampire marries girl.

breaking dawn. vampire and girl get married. and fuck. girl gets pregnant. baby will kill girl. but abortion is ~evil~. girl dies and gets turned into vampire. werewolf wants to fuck the baby vampire. vampire king shows up to kill the baby. it was a big misunderstanding lol. happily ever after except for the people who died.

that's the gist of things for anyone who doesn't remember.

ok so there's two groups of people. team edward, people who are satisfied with the canon. team jacob, people who say "fuck that, girl should be with werewolf instead". and many people on team jacob proceed to say that team edward all condone pedophilia and stalking and other terrible things. fandom wars happened. and in the end, most people moved on.

...

but not me.

now, I wasn't an obsessed super fan. I thought the first book was boring as shit until the second half. it took me a month to read the first half and three days to read the second half. I read the entire second in literally one day. the entire third in like 3 days. and the entire fourth in like 5. I watched all the movies in theaters. but none of this was by choice. my mom and my several sisters basically made me, but it was okay I guess. personally my fandom progression started with final fantasy 12. it moved into eragon, death note, jak and daxter, avatar the last airbender, invader zim, tales of symphonia, a dash of harry potter, sly cooper, my little pony friendship is magic, dead space, red vs blue, twokinds, resident evil, etc. I'm not in the twilight fandom by choice, but I know all the lore and trivia so fuck it. I might as well be.

I'm team edward.

I know what you're thinking. "but he's 100 years old trying to fuck a teenager! he watched her sleep! he almost killed her drinking her blood! he made her suicidal and depressed! he was super jealous and possessive whenever jacob was around! he broke her bones when they had sex! he impregated her with a monster baby that killed her! HE IS TEH EVILEST EVAR!!1"

let's take this one piece at a time.

1- he didn't try to fuck her. she tried to fuck him. but he said not until she's a full grown adult capable of making her own decisions, and not until marriage ~because premarital sex is wrong~

2- yeah watching her sleep was a little creepy but we can attribute that to stephenie meyer thought it was romantic because she's a dumb white mormon cultist

3- he is a VAMPIRE, and not by choice. and it was either suck the poison out of bella or let her become a vampire. which he didn't want to happen because ~being a vampire sucks 🥁~ so yeah he saved her life. and he managed to not drain her dry and kill her even though her blood is so goddamn delicious because she's a fucking mary sue

4- he didn't make her suicidal and depressed by leaving the country so she didn't get in any life threatening situations like being around jasper who has the self control of a fat kid in a twinkie factory. bella just took the breakup really really badly, and if someone reacts badly to a breakup, it's on THEM, not the other person. saying any differently is, what's the word, toxic and clingy. her emotional instability for plot is just indicative of the author's inherent misogyny (which makes sense, as dumbass mormon cultists are rife with the stuff)

5- he was not jealous and possessive. JACOB was the one who was toxic, since "that cold one will TAKE MY BELLA AWAY FROM ME". jacob wanted bella for himself because he had a crush on her since they were kids, and it was a super unhealthy obsession. edward could read his thoughts and was pissed; consider his backstory in hearing potential rapists' thoughts and killing them. but edward couldn't kill jacob because he was bella's friend. nothing more, though, and jacob fumed in his nice guy fedora

6- again, edward is a VAMPIRE, and a horny bastard at that, because he is a gentleman and therefore probably was a virgin too. he even told bella countless times that it would happen but bella thought it was #WORTH to get some of that hot vampire dick. I guess she's into some super kinky shit. no wonder 50 shades of grey made sense as a twilight fanfiction. anyway, bella seems to have fully consented, otherwise she's the world's most unreliable narrator.

7- the monster baby plot arc was propaganda against female bodily autonomy because "teh babby haz a SOUL and abortion is MURDER even tho she'll LITERALLY DIE otherwise but hey backwoods redneck mormon values are more important than the lives of women, right? anyway, ironically enough, he respected her bodily autonomy by not fixing the mistake he didn't think could happen (uterus vampires can't get pregnant but dick vampires can get other people pregnant? NANI, THE FUCK???) because bella didn't consent to him killing the fetus that was literally breaking her bones from inside since ~abortion is wrooOOoong~

and now, counterpoint.

...and counter-counterpoint.

"edward groomed bella" edward's main focus when she was 16 was to not kill her and drink the delicious cherry fanta, and his main focus at 17 was to make sure she didn't die and that nobody else killed her and drank her delicious cherry fanta, and only when she was a full ass adult was he like "alright fine you wanna marry me sooooo bad here's ur fuckin diamond ring". yeah they made out but like, consider that a FUCKING MORMON WROTE THIS BOOK. one can't fault a character for the dumbassery of the author. that's why in this house we stan james potter. and besides, a few years ago whilst playing truth or dare I at 21 was dared to kiss a 17 year old and I did- granted I didn't know he was 17 at the time but that doesn't even matter because granted edward was a lot older than 21, but granted that doesn't even matter anyways because you know how many teenage girls would make out with oscar wilde, keanu reeves, chris evans, or danny devito jason momoa if they had the chance? I know I would have. it isn't necessarily sexual unless you want it to be. besides, the argument could be made that brain development stops when you become a vampire, considering their body stops developing too. technically edward had the brain and body of a 17 year old, he was just 17 for a long time. so any way you slice it, there are acceptable explanations justifying this in the magic fantasy land of what-ifs and JUST BAD WRITING.

we good?

now let's tackle jacob.

he demanded she "choose" him over edward. he was just as childish and petty as mike. oh, poor mike. he was just too dumb. SWM be like. anyway, he literally abandoned her, his friend, because she wouldn't fuck him, when she needed her best friend the most. because that's who jacob was to her. he was her best friend. she kinda ignored him because edward is smexy and it overpowered her tiny teenage girl brain, or at least that's the author's excuse (yay for internalized misogyny). when they were in the mountains and he was keeping her from dying of hypothermia edward literally had to ask him to stop thinking about fucking her. while she was unconscious. which is kinda rapey. and then to top it all off, he wanted to fuck her baby daughter. so jacob is literally every single thing people called edward. he is jealous, possessive, creepy, obsessed with bella, and a whole bunch of other stereotypes associated with brown skinned man wanting to fuck white skinned women.

...

...

...

oh dear god.

wow I can't believe that the white woman who took an existing native american tribe and rewrote their culture to fit her vampire love story for white girls to have a sexy ~exotic~ savage feral werewolf boy in the love triangle turned out to be a racist all along.

so ideally, jacob would be the ideal partner for bella. lore-wise as well. bella and jacob grow old together in their plain regular normal human lives (and hopefully bella's face doesn't get clawed off like sam and leah BIG OOF FOR THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE), edward and tanya get married like they were supposed to do all along and gallivant off and do vampire things, all that jazz. edward isn't creepy and weird, bella isn't a magic mary sue with a magic fucking jean grey mind shield, jacob isnt an asshole.

but after reading the books and the evidence provided, I cannot in good conscience be team jacob over team edward.

thank you for your time.

fuck stephenie meyer.

and fuck all the dudebros who dog on girls for liking twilight anyways, as if dudebros don't watch and consume shitty media all the time.

Dusk Til Dawn

AU - Vampire & Werewolf High School

Name - Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul (ชิตพล ลี้ชัยพรกุล) / Ten

Open/Closed - Closed

Closed To - @taetaeloli

Location - Suncheon High School, Seoul, South Korea

Time - 7:30 a.m.

~

A dark haired male fiddled absentmindedly with the silver ring that sat innocently on his middle finger, his eyes trained on the piece of metal. On the ring there was crest; the foreign teenager’s family crest to be exact. It displayed to others, who he belonged to, which happened to be the Leechaiyapornkul family. Said family was a well known vampire family in Bangkok, Thailand.

Yes, vampires. It wasn’t the stereotypical kind of vampires either. They weren’t grotesque. They are capable of consuming food, especially garlic. They definitely do not sleep in coffins nor live in dark, damp places like dungeons or basements or whatever comes to a human’s mind. Vampires are also still alive. Their heart still beats in their chest, pumps blood throughout their body. They are beautiful and elegant in appearance and some are also beautiful in personality since there are plenty of horrid ones in the species. Vampires do possess the stereotypical capabilities: enhanced strength, speed and senses. They even have the stereotypical glowing crimson colored eyes. Vampires can never avoid the effects of vervain, which can weaken a vampire to the point where the vampire’s healing capabilities are slowed. Coming in physical contact with vervain can even burn the vampire. While he along with vampires can’t protect themselves against vervain, they are capable of protecting themselves from sunlight. They can go out in the sunlight albeit with the help of a sunlight ring, which was created by witches to prevent vampires from suffering damage from the harsh sun. The ring that was on the teenager’s finger was exactly that. It was a ring spelled by a witch to protect it’s bearer from being burnt to a crisp under the harsh rays of the sun. The young vampire’s ring was spelled by a popular and powerful witch from Thailand by the request of his now deceased parents.

The vampire’s gaze drifted away from his family ring before peering out of the car window, curiously. He’s never been here before. Well- he’s never been to this country in his life. He has always lived in Thailand in the city of Bangkok. He never really expected that he would find himself in South Korea by himself. He always expected that he would be in a different country with his mother, father and little sister, but nope. He was by himself in a foreign country. Ten would usually be nervous or feeling completely uneasy and on edge, but he was still in contact with two of his childhood friends. Both of them had moved to South Korea a couple of years ago because of family reasons. It was rather lonely not having anyone to spend time with, but settled on focusing his energy on his studies, which landed him here in South Korea. Ten was accepted into Suncheon High School due to his grades, which he had his previous school send them to schools in Seoul. He received multiple acceptance letters, but the declined all but one since he remembered two of his friends attended school there. That’s the main reason why Ten chose this high school. There’s also the fact that the school allows vampires, werewolves and surprisingly humans into the school. This would be the first time he’s been to a school that allows all three species. Usually there are only vampires allowed or only werewolves or only humans allowed with the occasional vampires and werewolves only schools. That’s what he and his friends attended, the co-species schools since his two friends were two different species. One of them was a werewolf while the other was a vampire just like him.

Ten began tapping his foot against the floor of the car as his nerves began to get a hop of him. Ahhhh~ He wanted to hurry up and get at the school. He wanted to see his friends again. He missed hanging out with Lisa and BamBam, going shopping, heading to a karaoke room, getting food, roaming around in the park or doing whatever. The vampire visibly perked up when his driver told him that they would be arriving at their destination meaning the school. A bright and adorable smile appeared on his face while the vampire moved in the back seat to get a better look at his school. It was a pretty huge school and it made the teenager’s eyes sparkle from how it looks. It looked better and a lot more impressive than his old school in his opinion.

Once the car stopped, Ten eagerly got out of the car with his backpack in hand while telling his driver his thanks before closing the door behind him. He slipped his backpack on with a smile on his face before turning around, waving goodbye to his driver. He stopped waving when he lost sight of the car before shifting his attention back to the school building.The vampire fiddled with the ring on his finger for a moment or two before moving towards the building and past the school gates with a slight bounce in his step. He couldn’t help but be excited, but he kept his cool and refrained from showing how eager he was. Ten found himself tugging on the black sleeve of the uniform jacket he wore when he neared the school and his nerves were getting to him.

The vampire pushed the door open and walked into the building already feeling lost. He silently looked around, his eyes scanning anything that  would help point him to the office so he could get his name tag and class schedule. Ten was mentally translating the korean words he saw into his own language. When he spotted a sign that pointed him in the right direction, he obediently followed where it was telling him to go and it didn’t take long for him to arrive at the faculty office. He went straight to the receptionist that sat behind the desk before going through the whole mess of getting his class schedule and name tag and that mess in general. (Poor writer of this mess is getting so tired of it so fast). The vampire had zoned out while he was pinning his name tag to his jacket before entirely zoning the adult even further when he realized that she was still talking. The only time he snapped out of it was when he heard her ask him if he understood what she was talking about. Ten immediately and sweetly smiled at her while obviously saying that he did understand before she ushered him away so he could find his first class.

Ten didn’t mind. He wanted to hurry up and get to his first class and meet up with his old friends and explore the school in general. That’s more or less why he tuned the woman out. He didn’t want time to drag on longer than it should. He wanted to speed things up and if that meant ignoring the woman then sure, why not. The vampire gazed at the piece of paper in his hand, blankly staring at the first time slot as he slowly processed where the hell he was suppose to go. Sure he could have asked someone for help, but he didn’t really want to bother anyone especially when everyone looked busy and he wanted to find his classroom by himself anyway.

Ten attempted to figure out where he was going and he thought he had it when he found himself in front of a classroom door. He glanced down at the paper then at the nameplate by the door. It had the same last name and first initial of the teacher who was suppose to be his teacher…so that means that this is the right classroom. Ten didn’t even notice the room number. He just kind of ignored it; his eyes skimmed right over it and shrugged it off as unimportant. Wrong move on his end in all honesty. If he did bother to look then he’d realize that this was the wrong classroom. Since he didn’t bother looking well… he just walked right on in.

First thing he noticed was that everyone in the room so far was a werewolf. Second thing he noticed was that the second he walked in there were immediately looking at him as if he kicked their pet or something. It was unnerving, but this was his classroom so the vampire went further into the classroom. He didn’t know where he wanted to sit. His eyes scanned the room before spotting an empty seat beside a wolf that wasn’t paying him any attention. So he made up his mind to side to sit by that wolf. Ten went straight to the wolf. The closer he got the more aware he was about the wolf’s appearance. Obviously the wolf chose to not wear the uniform jacket and he was barely wearing the uniform like how it should be. His hair was bleached and dyed to rather shocking and surprising shade of white. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it made the wolf look hella good in his opinion. It complimented the wolf’s skin tone and his overall aura.

Ten gently grasped the back of the chair before pulling it back so he would have enough room to be able to sit down in the chair. The vampire shrugged off his backpack, setting it on the ground before sitting down in the pulled out chair. The vampire wasn’t entirely oblivious. He could sense the tension in the room and it made the vampire anxious and jittery. So to distract himself from all the eyes focused on him, Ten set his attention to the werewolf that has yet to show any signs of hostility towards him. ”Good morning. My name is Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul. I just transferred here from Thailand so my name might be a bit of a mouthful so call me Ten. What’s your name?” The vampire chirped with a sweet and adorable smile on his face, easily ignoring the others in the room. He wanted to befriend this wolf mostly because he has yet to get a negative response from him just by walking into the room. It’s weird. At his old school - schools - no one get glared at for walking into a classroom. Although mostly everyone in the classroom so far is a wolf. Maybe they’re mad since he intruded in their “territory” maybe? Ah… He didn’t know and he wouldn’t catch onto the reason why they’re so fucking salty until someone tells him that there was a whole werewolf vs vampire shit happening in the school. Of course Ten wouldn’t understand the purpose of the whole thing and call it out on being a load of stupid bullshit in a very loud voice and in a less colorful way straight in that person’s face. He didn’t get it. He didn’t see the point so he would just call all of those people idiots. Sure he had that kind of stuff at his old school, but it was just competitive fun unless they legit hated someone then that’s an entirely different story.

moby vs. your muse, probably. 👀

friendly reminder and fyi to anybody who might want to argue their muse is stronger than moby, on account of ‘oh! my muse has superhuman strength and senses and fast reflexes!’ and etc...

so does moby. 

she is, as i’m developing her, a deity in the making, edging closer and closer to that level tier. she will continue to evolve, pushing the limits of her abilities further and further as she ages and grows into adulthood, as well as she continues to practice and explore what she is capable of at present time.

but she is powerful, even without them. she is the best parts of both of her parents and was raised in a household where all her mother and father knew for most of their lives was to fight. fight, fight, fight, whether it was to terrorize for fun, to kill on command, to protect what they had, or to survive so they could live another day. one of her three uncles is also ex-military where he’s from, and another one studied for years at one of her planet’s most renowned dojos-- the same dojo whose students taught her mother, too. all of these people have had a big impact on her upbringing, making sure she would be able to thrive in her environment once she stepped out of their corner of the world and into a greater civilization. and she did.

moby knows martial arts. she also knows anatomy like nobody’s business, knows pressure points and where it’ll hurt the most and what will kill you the fastest. coming from a planet where werewolves, vampires, and other supernatural creatures are common, she is also privvy to most of these species’ most generic weaknesses (since specific disadvantages do vary across breed and can be a mountain of information impossible to access).

she is also strong. moby has a toned musculature. she has a toned back and a toned stomach, thick strong thighs and she has noticeably toned arms with a light bulk built for strength. even casting that aside, she’s a creature crafted from the strengths of a hellish demon that was once a metahuman and a centuries old shapeshifter bred from a long, pure line of its own kind. she has supernatural, superhuman strength meaning dense muscle fibers and dense bone with plenty of resilience and durability to her. she can rip the roof off a car like its a cardboard panel and hoist the front of a van from the ground with her bare hands. she can crush a human skull in her palms or with a couple easy blows and rip a limb straight out of its socket. her teeth can cut and grind bone and her claws can shear flesh like its paper.

admittedly, moby is not super fast-- she cannot get from point a to point b in some invisible sprint unseen by the normal eye and she can’t dodge a bullet point blank. but, she can miss arrows, she can catch them at a reasonable distance, and has been trained to anticipate an opponent’s moves in close combat, as well as how to deflect them and defend herself, all while carrying plenty of power to end things easily if she finds herself face to face with something human.

this is NOT considering moby can increase her bone density or the density and size of her musculature if she needs to, assuming she’s fed well enough that day to last her long enough to win a battle. this is not considering moby can grow several times her size, can become one of thousands of creatures or a myriad of many. and this is not considering that soon, she will also be capable of shifting into a swarm with a floating conscientiousness like a hive mind, and via a very similar method, be able to break down and even multiply (to a limit) into a particle-like mass that can be very, very dangerous.

to top it off, she is also extremely hard to kill with only a few surefire ways to either finish her off for good or incapacitate her long enough to make her far less threatening. and, yes: for those of you who have ever looked at a shapeshifting character -not a werewolf or werecat, but a true shapeshifting species that can change form and size- and wondered... “wowie, couldn’t they just... idk, turn into like, a fly or some tiny animal, crawl inside someone and blow them up from the inside by turning big again??” YES, moby can do that. and yes, she would and has done it before. roleplay etiquette is the only thing stopping her because i don’t want to be a dick but is it totally within her character? yep.

basically, is moby over powered? i guess you could say so. is that a problem? it shouldn’t be. i’ve been developing her every day with a lot of things being taken into consideration, debating this and that, and not only that, but a lot of other muses are overpowered. it’s the way they were built and few ever make that a problem if it’s a canon character. just because this is an oc shouldn’t be any different, because i’ve noticed a trend time and time again that although tumblr asks and begs for stronger women, muscled women, women that can kick ass and conquer civilizations or bring a man to his knees, almost nobody can look at let’s say my muse (and some other female muses, i’ve noticed), and just freaking say without argument, “yeah, your muse can kick mine’s ass.” it’s always gotta be some pissing contest. well, after being told over and over even BEFORE i made moby (with my other muses, especially her mom) that my muse is the weaker one? that they’ve gotta submit to some other muse for this and this reason?? (and believe it or not, sometimes it’s an ooc reason!) i’m saying nope. not this time. only a few blogs i’m following have a muse that can defeat moby WITHOUT utilizing one of the surefire ways to kill her (this is NOT me saying there aren’t at least a dozen others that can’t go toe to toe with her though bc there are PLENTY). 

but, yeah. if you’ve actually read all this and have an issue with it, or want to fight me on anything i’ve said then, honestly? i don’t want to hear it. feel free to unfollow me. especially if you have a bad issue with the possibility my muse is stronger than yours. i’m just really tired of this having to be a thing so i’m coming right out and saying it all. also: if you aren’t sure and wanna know if your muse is one of the ones i said could defeat moby on a typical day, then let me know as long as you aren’t gonna be mean about what the answer may or may not be. i otherwise don’t mind talking about it.

How sports is Seven Worlds, One Planet: Episode 7?

Christophe COURTEAU/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

David Attenborough’s new show is epic ... and sports.

We continue our extremely important mission to conduct a scene-by-scene review of the BBC’s new nature documentary, Seven Worlds, One Planet, in order to see how sports it is. We determined that Episode 1, which focused on Antarctica, was reasonably sports. Asia was very sports, as was South America. Australia was more drinking than sports, and both Europe and North America were extremely sports. Now it’s time to wrap things up with ...

Episode 7 Africa

Scene 1: Nutcracking

I don’t think we appreciate how important the invention of writing is. Not only does it allow you to transmit facts (as far as I know, bookkeeping was, more or less, its original use) writing also allows the transmission of culture across time and space. Without that, animals are left passing along knowledge through direct demonstration, generation by generation. The requirement for direct contact, as you might imagine, drastically slows down the spread of knowledge.

In the Congo, a chimpanzee mother is teaching her daughter how to crack a nut. This is a relatively delicate operation. It requires finding a suitable anvil, with a nook to prevent the nut rolling around. The hammer must be the correct hardness and weight. The mother chimp makes it look easy.

Not the Nutcracker you’re used to seeing during the festive season. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/oRTMwYz91B

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

But this is the ease of experience. It can take up to a decade to master the skills required to reliably crack nuts, and the five-year-old has an idea of the basic mechanics and nothing more. Trial and error is the solution, and there’s plenty of error. She tries a pebble, a boulder and a stick, to no avail. Eventually she settles on the right answer: going back to mother and having her do it.

The little chimp is too young to be a millennial but these are some highly millennial vibes.

Aesthetics 6/10

Chimpanzees are pretty cool and there’s something beautiful about watching a child learning a new skill. Even if I was worried about the poor little chimp crushing her fingers the whole time.

Difficulty 6/10

I have gone through literally hundreds of hours of wilderness survival training, and would still definitely injure myself at least twice if you gave me a rock and told me to crack nuts with it. I’m pretty confident I could eventually eat it though.

Competitiveness 0/10

No contest.

Overall 12/30

Tools are sometimes used in sports, but do not, in and of themselves, constitute sports.

Scene 2: Cuckoo Catfish

Sometimes nature documentaries show me things that totally blow my mind. This is one of those times. Lake Tanganyika’s ecosystem is dominated by cichlids, which are some of fishkind’s best parents. That may seem like a low bar, but they’re actually not bad at it. Some of the more hardcore cichlids are mouth-breeders — after laying their eggs they take them into their mouths and let them develop in a safe place. Even after the eggs hatch, the young cichlids use their mothers’ mouths as a refuge.

Nature being nature, this creates an opportunity for some dastardliness. The cuckoo catfish, like its avian namesake, is a brood parasite. And while cuckoos parasitise nests, their catfish friends manage to get their hosts to raise the catfish’s fry inside their mouths. As the cichlids spawn, the catfish eat a few of the eggs and spawn themselves. Their eggs are ingested by the mother cichlid.

A few days later ...

Peek-a-boo! I see you! #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #Wasntexpectingit pic.twitter.com/WOkBJgnugv

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

Yep, that’s a baby catfish. And guess what it’s going to do to its adopted brothers and sisters?

Aesthetics 2/10

I’m really quite disturbed by those baby catfish coming out of that poor mother fish’s mouth.

Difficulty 8/10

A cuckoo waiting for birds to leave their nest so that they can sneak in and lay eggs is one thing. Pulling the same trick on a fish which uses its mouth as a nest is quite another.

Competitiveness 3/10

There’s not really much of a fight here. Once the catfish arrive the little cichlids are screwed.

Overall 13/30

Cuckoldry is also not sports.

Scene 3: Cheetah Brigade

In Kenya, a cheetah family hunts as a pack. Five-strong, they can bring down prey many times larger than would be possible for a lone cheetah, but with five mouths to feed they must also hunt much more often. Using scrub as cover, the gang tries to ambush a herd of topi.

Cheetah are the fastest land animals alive, but they’re not fast enough to overcome a head start of more than a few dozen feet. That means that, once out in the open, detection could ruin the hunt. That’s what happens here: the topi scatter, the cheetahs switch targets to a nearby herd of zebra, and one promptly gets bulldozed by an angry mare.

Botched hunts aren’t just individual, momentary failures. They set the entire savannah on high alert. If the grazers know predators are on the hunt, they’re much harder to ambush. The cheetahs you can see aren’t the ones that will get you.

Incredibly, the cheetah gang uses this to their advantage. Antelope possess merely an indifferent grasp of arithmetic, so they’re well not prepared to assess just how many cheetahs they need to be keeping an eye on. So the topi end up keeping a close watch on four of the cheetahs harmlessly parading in front of them.

In formation #SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/qtRyRS7Ndg

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

The fifth? Well, that one is behind them and about to ... yeah. The topi run away from the ambush, but they’ve let the lead cheetah get too close. The four other cheetahs join the fray, and the gang can have a nice meal. Pretty clever.

Aesthetics 9/10

That running form is really something else. Cheetah hunts are special sequences.

Difficulty 10/10

The topi hunt is difficult enough — they’re fast and beefy critters — but the use of a decoy group to catch their attention while the trap is set really elevates the whole hunt. That takes a lot of careful thinking. Good work by the cheetahs here.

Competitiveness 9/10

It takes a gang of five cheetahs plotting carefully to bring down one topi, which makes this pretty well matched.

Overall 28/30

Obviously sports.

Scene 4: Vampire Birds

Big animals (and small animals, although theirs are mostly less obvious) come with parasites. Lots of parasites. This creates a niche for parasite-feeders, which is taken up on the African savannah by the oxpecker. These little birds are more than happy to keep any big animal as free as possible from ticks, lice, and whatever else they can find.

Keeping it chill, ignoring the little dude on my face.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/c9mq8NlQmi

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

Oxpeckers will go pretty much wherever food is.

Not what we meant when we said leftovers were yum. #SevenWorldsOnePlanet #didntgetthememo pic.twitter.com/OK6UxPIie5

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

But while you might think that having oxpeckers around to clean you up sounds quite pleasant, there turns out to be a dark side to these otherwise benign little assholes. When they eat ticks, they also get a snack of the host animals blood — and they’re more than happy to cut out the middleman, if they can.

If an oxpecker finds an open wound, they’ll peck away at it, drinking blood and preventing the wound from healing. Hippos, territorial, aggressive and armed with dental sabres, are quite good at giving each other open wounds, and oxpeckers therefore are big fans of hippos.

The hippos try to dislodge their vampiric guests by splashing water on them, which fails to deter them. They also try a hippo special: the poop helicopter. No, I’m not embedding that gif. Don’t be gross.

Aesthetics 1/10

Every creature in this scene is pretty ugly, and then we get the hippo poop storm. Why!?

Difficulty 10/10

Being a hippo-annoyer sounds like just about the most dangerous job in the world.

Competitiveness 10/10

An oxpecker against a hippo is like David vs. Goliath except also Goliath throws his poop at people.

Overall 21/30

Disgusting sports, but sports.

Scene 5: Desert Hyena

In the Namib, an abandoned mining town still has one reclusive inhabitant. A brown hyena ghosts through the broken-down buildings, using them as shade against the desert sun. And she’s not quite alone. Her twin cubs await her in their lair, four months old and hungry. The mother hyena needs to bring back some meat.

While a dead town might provide good shelter, it’s not much of a hunting ground. The Namib itself isn’t much of a hunting ground either. It is something like the oldest desert in the world, bedecked by endless dunes of sand, blasted by the tropical sun and wind. How can there be enough food to support predators of any kind?

The answer lies with the Benguela Current, off Africa’s western coast. The Benguela brings up cold, Antarctic waters, which are nutrient rich and capable of supporting a vast quantity of marine life. Some of that marine life comes to the shore.

The shore is exactly where the mother hyena is heading. Fur seals congregate here, and she’s able to pick off a baby seal and flee back towards the dunes. She’s not the only one who wants possession of her kill however; and she has to face down a jackal pack to return her prize to her family.

Aesthetics 10/10

Everything about this scene is wonderfully dystopian. Brown hyenas are also surprisingly pretty animals, with long shaggy hair which looks extremely snuggly.

Difficulty 8/10

Killing a baby seal is obviously rather trivial, but making the trek back and forth from the desert lair in scorching heat is not.

Competitiveness 10/10

The jackal pack’s late intervention really makes this scene. Five jackals against one hyena trying to bring food back to her cubs makes this very interesting indeed.

Overall 28/30

It’s official: killing baby seals is sports. If you’re a brown hyena and live in the desert. Otherwise it’s just being an asshole.

Scene 6: Termite Quest

The Kalahari, adjoining the Namib, is slightly less hostile ground. Here there is some food, if you know where to look. A lot of it is underground, in the burrows where termites make their homes. Getting in there requires some specialist tools. Some of those tools belong to the pangolin.

Licking the plate ‍♂️#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/0008zwp4kd

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

With an acute sense of smell to detect their prey and strong, claw-tipped front legs to dig them out, pangolins are specialist insectivores. (The protective scales probably don’t help them as much with their food, but they’re also pretty neat so I am listing them as well.) When a pangolin cracks upon a termite nest, that gives other critters, like small birds, a chance to get in on the action too.

But a pangolin can’t go properly underground, so they can only really scratch the surface of termiteville. Getting to the good bits requires an even more specialised termite-hunter. Say hello to the aardvark.

The aardvark is the world’s largest burrowing animal.#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/ySB7DNgxaK

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

Aardvarks are big, hungry and more than capable of digging to depths of ten feet or so, enough to root out even the most well-protected termite colony. They need to be, as well — an aardvark needs to eat tens of thousands of termites a day. Climate change, however, is impacting the Kalihari’s aardvarks. Droughts have reduced termite numbers, and that has placed their predators on the verge of starvation.

Aesthetics 10/10

Pangolins are objectively some of the coolest creatures on the planet and I enjoy watching them very much.

Difficulty 8/10

You try digging ten feet down with your bare hands and get back to me.

Competitiveness 2/10

It’s not shown here but soldier termites are capable of giving some pretty impressive bites, even if they’re outgunned by the pangolin and aardvark.

Overall 20/30

Probably sports.

Scene 7: Elephants

An adult bull elephant needs to eat something like 200 lbs of food per day. That would be difficult enough in times of plenty, but during droughts, when there’s little food to be had, they have to get inventive.

There is still food about, in the dried-out forests of Zimbabwe, but it’s hard to get to. Trees are producing seed pods, but they do so up on their highest branches, well out of reach of even the elephants. Packed with protein, these pods are good eating. But how to get them?

Some elephants have learned a good trick — albeit one that requires incredible strength and balance:

“He weighs over 5 tonnes. This is a truly monumental effort.”#SevenWorldsOnePlanet pic.twitter.com/6xBohrr3KO

— BBC Earth (@BBCEarth) December 8, 2019

That is some impressive stretching.

Aesthetics 8/10

Elephants are cute, but the parched forest doesn’t really do them justice compared to more verdant shots.

Difficulty 10/10

That’s a five-tonne elephant rearing back onto its hind legs. What? How?

Competitiveness 0/10

It’s not shown here but soldier termites are capable of giving some pretty impressive bites, even if they’re outgunned by the pangolin and aardvark.

Overall 18/30

Difficult enough to be a de facto sport.

Scene 8: Well This Is Depressing

To close out the series (this is our last scene!), BBC takes us on a tour of what’s going wrong with the planet. Climate change is already impacting every continent on earth. Habitat destruction is causing animal numbers to plummet. Poaching has all but wiped out some of Africa’s most majestic creatures. We are, in many ways, killing the rest of the world.

This is not merely an aesthetic question or one of being morally good versus morally not. Ultimately this is a world we all rely on, and we are contributing to its sickness. As the climate crisis deepens — climate change has been settled science since before I was born, incidentally — we will not only impact the animals showcased in this series but also deepen crises that materially affect our own communities.

Cities are starting to get close to running out of water and crop failures look increasingly likely. Sea level rise, caused by melting ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica, will render coastal communities increasingly vulnerable to flooding. We’re already in the shit and nowhere near the worst of it.

It is our collective responsibility to mitigate this crisis as best we can. We must dismantle the structures which have allowed this to happen without consequences. We must accept that personal choice alone can’t save us in the face of rapacious behaviour from corporations. We must force our governments to confront the problem head on.

And we must also hold those responsible to account. For generations, fossil fuel companies have suppressed scientific knowledge about the damage they have been engineering and spreading misinformation instead, all in the name of profit. This is a crime against the rest of humanity, and the decision-makers involved then (and involved now) must be prosecuted and made to repay society.

The crisis is here and we cannot avert it. But there is hope nonetheless. We can lessen the damage it will do by mobilising to de-carbonise the economy, to move away from waste and greed and destruction in the name of “growth”. Mitigation now will save our children and our children’s children from the real brunt of the storm. We live in depressing times, but we ought never to forget that something can be done about them.

A better world is possible, and it is up to us to build it. Will it be hard? Obviously. Is it the only way? Yes.

Goblets of Blood and Power

‘Authority, Energy, and Power,’ that sounds like some sort of omniscient labyrinthine bureaucratic department in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.

I've been thinking a lot about the concepts of authority, energy, and power in magic lately. I think it is important, at least for my own practice, to define these terms and to map them onto the greater magical reality.

The hyperlocal space weather has really messed me up lately. I haven't been right since the last new moon actually. Last night was a partial lunar eclipse and on the 21st of August I am in the path of at least an 80 to 90% total solar eclipse. All of these solar / lunar conclusions have destroyed my rhythm, or at least, have garbled the communication channels I thought I had open with sublunar spirit entities like saints, sigils, and demons.

I've done some asking around my cohort and close friends, but I seem to be an outlier here. I'm told that the full moon in Aquarius is a good thing, that Jupiter is in the house and that is positive, but all I see are shadows. I've read about all the magical plans, charging accoutrements under the eclipsed sun, special timing and rituals to coincide with the event, but it all seems to map back to experimentation.

There is nothing in the hygromanteia about eclipse work, nor in the Book of Oberon or the Book of St. Cyprian. I am of the strong opinion that these are anomalies that haven't been worked in any consistent manner and don't have precedent in the grimoires. There IS some precedent in the ouvre and magical reality of HP Lovecraft, which I will touch on later in this post.

Authority, Energy, and Power; what are they to the magician?

Authority is how a magician carries herself and is primarily concerned with how effective communication between the magician and the spirit world is. The more authority, the more open and clear the channels of communication are.

Energy is the fabric of magic, but it is uncontrolled. It is the washing over of the earth by radiant sunlight. We can shield ourselves from it or bake our flesh in its rays, but the we have no control over it. Energy is there and some can feel it but none can control it. It is the physical interaction of the magic and real, a force untouched by man and governed by things like the movement of the planets, the passing through and shattering of barriers between the real and the spirit world. If someone claims to be an energy worker, I challenge that moniker and that practice, frankly. There is no working with the radioactive, not without a lot of gear anyway, and certainly not wearing nothing but body paint dancing around a bonfire... but I digress too much.

Power, now power is what I am concerned with. Power is the concept I am most questioning. I've spoke about that all over body buzz I get that let's me know that the magic is 'working'. I previously thought that was a sign of communication, a sign that my authority with the spirit world was growing. I no longer think that is the case. I think what I'm feeling there is power. Power is a combination of authority and energy, both of these things are a component of power, but power is the addition of the human the channeling and alchemical transmutation of magical energy as it is put to work by the will of the magician.

Power isn't a new concept in magic, and it is almost always accompanied with the idea of maintaining balance, a balance in the universe. The idea that there is a limited amount of power that can be put to use by magicians is swiftly falling apart for me. Power, in this magical context, is (it has to be) the size of the universe itself. I deeply believe that the idea of one magician, even a dozen powerful covens or every Thelemite on the planet together, the idea that we can somehow deplete or unbalance something as large as the available magical power in the universe is the height of ego.

The HiLowBrow podcast, in episode 13 of their Illicit Objects series, encapsulate the traditional ideas of magical power very well.

Humans are powerful, but we are powerful in our robustness, in our resistance, we are powerful conduits of unlimited cosmic power.

Balance, in this context, also strengthens the false idea that there is an inherent good vs evil morality in the universe. One of the most popular and well understood themes in Lovecraft is the amorality of his Old and Other and Elder Gods. Sure, his protagonists, like the Detective Malone that we will look at below, view the world of the magical other through this binary lens, but that isn't what Lovecraft is saying. He's trying to tell us that we are, or we can be, insignificant in the eyes of these entities. They aren't here on earth to destroy or bedevil us. They are here for their own reasons and we are, largely, in the way.

The below tweet perfectly sums up these ideas in a very relatable format, human / cat interaction. Anyone who has every loved (or hated) a cat will be able to understand the true nature of Spirit / Human relationships.

Once you conceptualize Power using these much more realistic heuristics, the entire nature of magic begins to change.

The best example of this trinity of concepts in the Tarot is the King of Swords.

The King of Swords in the Etteilla deck possess the keyword 'Homme de Robe' or Man of Dress. The surface translation of this is that the card signifies a well-dressed man, perhaps. Looking at the etymology of the word 'dress' however, takes us a bit deeper. Dress is related to the Latin term 'directre', to direct, to keep straight. The Early 14c meaning is the same and in the late 14th c, it means to align a column of troops. A Man of Dress can thus be interpreted as a strategist, an office, one that enforces the rules and bends the rules  to his benefit. He is intellectual, articulate, logical, rational, and akin to a judge. He has ambition but is also surrounded by controversy. This card says that the power of the universe is subject to man's rule. Man, ultimately, has the ability to direct, enforce, and change the rules of power at his discretion. Man is, or has the capability to be, the judge that governs how magical power is used.

We see this archetype in Lovecraf'ts tale, 'The Horror at Red Hook', specifically in the protagonist, Detective Thomas F. Malone the (retired) New York Police Detective. This story begin by informing the audience of Malone's Batophobia, or his fear of being around or in sight of tall buildings - in Malone's case, tall brick buildings. His fear is linked to images of collapse, fire, and calamity, a visualization that takes us back to the Tower, which lies on the same path of our memory forest as the King of Swords.

Lovecraft speaks of Malone as having

"The logician's quick eye for the outwardly unconvincing"

But also a

"Sense of latent mystery in existence... always [being] present"

He takes us to very specific places in New York, this neighborhood of Red Hook that he frames in with Clinton Street, Court Street, and Borough Hall. The Tower comes up again with Lovecraft's familiar trope of the horror of a babel of tongues and an order hidden beneath chaos.

Malone is a student of the occult as well as a detective, but only a student insomuch as his need to understand the paranormal as his enemy. Lovecraft references Murray's 'Witch-Cult in Western Europe, which according to ST Joshi's catalog of Lovecraft's personal library, was not a tome that he owned at the time of his death (this is not uncommon and begs the question of where Lovecraft's knowledge of most occult books come from, but that is another post).

This story is an example of what many modern critiques might take as Lovecraft's inherent racism. I will begin to assert here, and further my point in later posts, that Lovecraft used corporeal xenophobia in the same vein as his cosmic xenophobia - as a trope to instigate horror in the reader and not as a sociopolitical commentary.

But back to our King of Swords. Lovecraft further offers us a physicality for our archetype through the mention of the Reformed Church in Flatbush with the 'Netherlandish cemetery' and the home of the antagonist (a kind of anti-antagonist) on Martense Street. The story goes on to include a judge, or the fooling of a judge (following or bending the rules as needed) and reveals the true antagonist of the family, Lilith. He even offers an invocation for her, the first I've certainly seen, that brings me to my brief assertion in the beginning, that Lovecraft's ouvre is actually a type of grimoire itself.

Here is the invocation, the order is garbled so I've aligned it here with a more conventional format, beginning with an appeal to angelic / demonic entities before invoking the famous vampire:

Hel, Heloym, Sother, Emmanuel, Saboath, Agla, Tetragrammaton, Aymros, Otheos, Ischyros, Athanatos, Jehova, Va, Adonai, Sadat, Homousion, Messias, Eschereheye!

O Friend and Companion of the Night, Thou Who Rejoicest in the Baying of Dogs and Spilt Blood, Who Wanderest in the Midst of Shades Among the Tombs, Who Longest for Blood and Bringest Terror to Mortals, Gorgo! Mormo! Thousand-Faced Moon, Look Favorably On [My Offerings]!

Malone, our King of Swords, is set through the entire tale on the destruction or interruption of what he views as corrupt or evil, but in the end this moral assertion proves false. It is clear that the morality is only in Malone's heart and not in the spirits, demons, and the undead that he encounters. The Horror of Red Hook is truly a commentary on the horrors of human-trafficking, bondage, and kidnapping - in how humans bind and restrict themselves.

In the end, we see again the breaking through of a barrier between the real and the unreal when Malone, the master strategist having tracked down and pieced together tiny bits of data from a diversity of sources find himself confronted with a dark and ominous locked door in a fetid basement on Martense Street. He smashes the barrier with raw power and is rewarded with the knowledge and evil that he sought, he is rewarded with visions soaked in goblets of blood and the luminescent power of the antagonists.

I will leave off on this theme for now, but it is one that I must return to, because the concept of an amoral spirit world and man as a conduit of magic, and magic being an unlimited power in the universe, is proving to - much like Malone's investigation - be a horror that will likely consume me.

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... The Strain (S04E02) The Blood Tax Airdate: July 23, 2017 @fxnetworks Ratings: 0.913 Million :: 0.30 18-49 Demo Share Score: 2.25/10 @thestrain-fx TVTime/FB/Twitter/Tumblr/Path/Pinterest: @SpotlightSaga **********SPOILERS BELOW********** Messy. Messy. Messy. The whole entire first half of the episode for Dutch (Ruta Gedmintas) and Setrakian (David Bradley) is a flashback, which is extremely confusing considering that the other narrative playing out involving Gus (Miguel Gomez) and his random cousin, Raul (Michael Reventar), who we've never met, not even once, is happening in the current timeline. Luckily, for Gus, Raul works at a high clearance blood farming lab at 'The Partnership' and I'm literally losing interest as I'm writing this sentence. It's crazy to think we were all so excited about the possibilities of 'The Strain' when it first premiered. It really felt boundless, a new twist on an old genre. Even more insane is that I truly believe that people actually want to like the show. About 1.5 Million Viewers tuned in to the S4 premiere, which is huge for a show that's been on cable since 2014, as very few series see actual gains in overall viewer numbers... Albeit, the gain was only 6%, but it's a rare & notable gain nonetheless. After the first episode of S4 premiered, many of us were left wondering what had become of the fate of these characters covered in this 2nd episode, the same ones that are completely absent from any scene in the premiere, besides Setrakian in a strange dream sequence. Suddenly, I wish I had never wondered or even asked. 'Time Jump' tropes can already throw a lot at you, but filling in the blanks can make it even worse. It's almost better for the writers to set the stage and insinuate bits and pieces of the lost path here & there, otherwise it becomes extremely convoluted... Let the audience think for themselves, don't dog walk them through everything, because then we're left scratching our heads, feeling confused and even a bit dumbfounded, when really it should be cut & dry. When things are supposed to be simple, but you position them in a chaotic & restricted way, it feels like you're reading a children's book that you keep having to turn back to the previous page again & again, asking yourself, 'Wait a minute... Now what just happened?!' Frankly, it's insulting. FX Networks is better than this and even this show, during its lowest of low points, have been better than this clusterfuck of an episode. The good news is that every episode of 'The Strain' moves fast as lightning... Before you can even lift up your hand to scratch your head, its over and the credits are rolling. Unfortunately for us we still have a bit more ground to cover. Dutch has been separated from Setrakian and is being farmed for breeding due to her rare and Strigoi friendly B-Positive Blood Type. One of her captive roommates is happy that she's at least safe in her bizarre, bloodletting, breeding ground, Dutch brushes off that ridiculous notion. Imagine Carol from 'The Walking Dead' being locked up with someone for some random reason and then having one of her fellow prisoners telling her, 'Well at least we're safe and breeding out new Walkers vs fighting for our lives and living in fear out there in the wild.' Dutch doesn't give 'Roommate #4' quite the look of pure disdain that Carol would return that sentiment with, but nonetheless 'Roommate #4' gets the picture and rolls out. She's weak, Dutch isn't, we get it. Thank you writers, crystal clear. If you guessed that everything was going to go wrong with Gus' plan to use his cousin for his and his ruthless crew's personal gain and then put him in danger by keeping him around his homicidal group of friends, cookies for you. The flow of the episode is such a mess at this point that I found myself flipping through IMDB to see who Directed this nonsense. Ah, J. Miles Dale. Ok, now it makes sense. Usually on a bad day 'The Strain' is still a solid '5' out of '10', but this episode is more like the bottom of a muddy, moss covered rock behind a venomous snake pit deep in the banks of the Appalachian Mountains. If you aren't familiar with Dale's Directorial Debacles, let me catch you up; Robocop: The Series (1994), F/X: The Series (97/98 - yet another needless tv adaptation), Earth: The Final Conflict (2000 - so a late series episode), Andromeda (2002-03, no we weren't aware the show even ran that long), The Skulls III (2004 - The first film was quite enough), Doc (2001-2004 w/Billy Ray Cyrus, yeah we have no idea either), Sue Thomas F.B.Eye (2002-2004 - WTF?!), Shadowhunters (2016 - Did I just hear you snort?), and every previous episode of 'The Strain' that you hated... No seriously, we looked back as we keep all of our ratings on file and the highest rating we'd given to any episodes with his name on the Director's Chair was a 4/10. Dale is not a Director, he's a producer with money and power. He's severely untalented and he's worked on some of the worst tv shows in the history of television, but he's thrown money at some decent ones... See the difference? I had to watch the episode twice, because I was so disinterested the first time, I was unable to piece together a coherent review. It was more cohesive than this episode, but it needed work. I'm a perfectionist... And I really don't like going negative, but if I have to, it's going to be in an entertaining key. Hopefully this article is far more interesting than the episode itself. Luckily we won't see Dale return to 'The Strain' until the 10th episode... But if the gravity of that reality hasn't sunk in yet, I'll give you a moment to think about it... No, go ahead, take your time. You already got it, didn't you? See, I knew it, you and me, we're on the same level. We love the #horror genre... We've loved parts of 'The Strain' and have enjoyed its lighting fast pace... We all love to hate Zach (Max Charles) and are most likely all completionists. We are going to ride S4 all the way out, we were hoping for a huge turnaround for the big series finale, but more than likely Dale has thrown a lot of money down to help sustain this project, so he's going to be directing the FINAL EPISODE. Why, God, Why? God gave us Cancer. God gave us AIDS. And God gave us J. Miles Dale. Suddenly I'm rooting for The Strigoi... And whoever they hired to write this drivel... Liz Phang, girl, what the fuck? If anyone asks, you blame it on Dale, you at least have a few good episodes of USA Network's 'Colony' under your belt. Quick 'flash review' on where we are here, mmhkay? Zach sets off a giant nuclear bomb, directly causing some sort of hazy like fog that's thick enough to allow The Strigoi to run free in the daylight, blocking the sun's harmful UV Rays... Winston Churchill did some sort of version of this in real life, wonder why people don't hate him like they hate Zach?! Everyone is fine though, forget what we know about Hiroshima and all those mutations, that stuff is happily skipped over because that might create a few more hours in the workroom for the writers (can't have that). Dutch takes lead in the B-Positive Breeding Ground, possibly showing her cards before she should play them to the 'Head of B+ Blood Type Breeding Operations', Sanjay Desai (Cas Anvar). He's still alive, who knows why, most likely to participate in ridiculous subplots like this one. Don't worry, I'm still not giving up, it's most likely due to the diligent person inside of me that can't get this far into a show and simply just stop. The most disheartening take on this whole episode, which congratulations 'The Strain', you've ensured we leave a little section for 'Worst Of' for our end of 2017 Awards (consider it a small Spotlight Saga/TV Time Community Version of the Razzies), is that the Dutch character is completely wasted. Once upon a time she was a bad ass, making sketchy decisions and given redemption arcs. Then it was made clear they had no idea what the hell to do with her next... Dutch's Fall From Grace: Unnecessary love triangle? CHECK! ✔️ Female who needs strong but damaged male character to save her? CHECK! ✔️ Almost escaping but puts another, weaker human being, Sherry -or as we referred to her earlier, Roommate #4-, (Jess Salgueiro) before her and it backfires? CHECK! ✔️ Getting her only way out doomed to a terrible fate for allowing the other useless, weak character to take her place instead? CHECK! ✔️ Its 2017. I don't know how it runs in your city, but in Miami we don't help you if we don't know you. So add 6-foot tongues in a blood sucking ancient race of #vampires that come from tiny worms that look like extremely fast moving maggots, a bustling, b-positive, baby-making, muncher snack maker, nursery prison... And then have the most intelligent & capable woman in the entire building stick the one psychologically frail woman of the group , who's already directly told her that she feels safer on the inside, into her only chance to escape... Only she doesn't even want to escape... So really this is just a way for the writers to take yet another shortcut to fuck everything up? Oh hell no! Keep with the East Coast, NYC to Miami attitude, Dutch. Walk over a bitch, before a bitch walks over you. This is a horror series, not a 'everything works out in the end' type of series. It's almost over, people. Picture me saying this next sentence with every word annunciated as if I'm asking a really difficult question very slowly in a genuine state of confusion, possibly in a massive K-Hole, or 'Stoned' for all you chemical amateurs... "I'm sure things will get better and be totally worth it by the 10th and final episode????" Inspiring confidence yet? Damn, I was sure that would work! At least we have Eph, who seems to be finding a purpose in the midst of his gloomy, dystopian, post wife and child, existential crisis. The resistance group, led by possible unnecessary romantic interest Alex Green (Angel Parker), that he stayed behind with and helped in return for supplies, conveniently has to get out of their hiding spots due to a Strigoi draining a member's blood and therefore absorbing all of his memories. Suddenly Eph can help, suddenly he wants to. It's cheesy, but Corey Stoll is very aware of that and even deliver's Eph's sudden 'back into action' style-line like a Schwarzenegger one liner from an old 80s action film with all the heart of 'one of the good ones' like Mark L Lester's 1985 'Commando'. In all fairness, barring directors like Dale from touching this show, 'The Strain' still has a chance to deliver us a semi-satisfactory ending. It's time to ham that shit up tho... Break out the Gouda Cheese, the blood red corn syrup, those creepy ass, aforementioned 6-foot muncher tongues and give Eph a whole lot more ridiculous one-liners, bomb detonators, large amounts of explosives, guns & firepower and we could still be walking out of this thing with a smile on our face yet.