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sidigtal-anim · 3 years

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AMPHIBIA: SEASON 2B TRAILER BREAKDOWN

NEW AMPHIBIA EPISODES!! (Trailer spoilers and speculation! DUH!)

Y’all have NO CLUE how excited I am!! After that huge mid season finale drop, Amphibia fans all around have been waiting for the second half of the season! I did a Speculation post based on the episode titles, and another one based off of the episode loglines for the March drop!

Check them out, cause I will be referencing them as we go!! I’m first gonna do a scene by scene breakdown, then I’m gonna see if my predictions were right, or wrong. So many theories!!! I will also be mentioning the episode titles Matt released in the AmphibiaDirect, so if you don’t want to know, leave now!

If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, click here to see it all!!! Let’s begin shall we!

00:00–00:21: Completely old information and clips from Season 2A that we’ve all seen before with the music box and Sasha-Angst. One thing I did not expect was that this trailer would be so Sasha heavy. I expected her to kinda fade into the background and we’d focus a lot more on the temples, so this makes me have theories I may not have had before.

00:22–00:26: Marcy’s new bird (as teased in the Amphibia-Big City Greens promo). We have two shots with them, one where they are flying down with only a bunch of books that would last a lifetime, or a few minutes with Marcy. The second shot is them flying in the air with Anne and Marcy riding through the sky. I am trying my absolute hardest to not hope for gay then to be disappointed, but c’mon!!! Has no one seen How to Train Your Dragon?!!?!? But Hop Pop is being held in the second shot by the Bird’s talons so I think this is a little more Marcy and Wartwood kind of situation. Maybe somewhere around “Ivy on the Run” with Marcy and her bird being the B Plot.

00:27–00:31: The First Temple. We know from the colours and the shape from the book that it is the First Temple. It seems to have water flowing out of Frog statues’ mouths, and on the temple’s walls there are imagery of brains and a vague Newt Shape reading a book! Definitely talking about wit here! Even all the mushrooms are green, and we know how much Amphibia loves to use colour.

00:31–00:33: The Second Temple! We don’t actually see the Temple, just the archway leading to the Temple. Marcy seems to have the charged green gem on the music box, which is pointing them in the direction of the Temple, very Onyx Equinox-esque.

00:34–00:36: The entrance to the Third Temple. Lava pouring everywhere and pink statues of buff Amphibians? Definitely Sasha, no questions asked. I have no other thoughts about this shot other than the jagged rocks atop of the cave, seems like it could collapse in on itself and cause people to get hurt.

00:36–00:37: Ivy and Sprig jumping on treetops, I think this is from “Ivy on the Run” where Ivy is running from her mother’s strict rules, and Sprig is trying to talk her out of it. They’re so cute! It makes me wanna hold onto them and never let go.

00:38–00:39: Bessie jumping over a ravine with Sprig and Polly at the reins, which is from “Night Riders”, the first episode we’re seeing this Saturday!

00:39–00:40: A First Temple Puzzle where you have to solve a cube to enter the next stage. Seems like Marcy is in “her own little bubble” (heh. sorry i had to) and as she’s solving the cube, the room also moves on its own, with the Plantars being shifted to another side. Kinda like Wulfric’s gym in Pokemon X and Y. This sets interesting character work for Marcy, since she’s known to have issues with connections, but she’s so into knowledge and smartness that she may not realise the issues she’s causing to the people around her.

00:40–00:41: MADDIEEEEEE!!!! Definitely from “Maddie and Marcy”. I feel like they would get together and Marcy would be so into learning about Maddie and creepy magic that they will form a bond. This is how nerds make friends everyone, they find something the other is SUPER invested in and they learn about it. Either that or an extrovert claims them both, and they know each other via association.

00:42–00:43: Giant chicken bat for “Return to Wartwood”. Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. Seems like the Plantars set up a banquet for them, and they’re running away. So shenanigans!

00:44–00:45: Okay, so I initially thought Sasha’s next episode was gonna be in episode 16 (”Toad to Redemption/Barrel’s Warhammer”) and I initially thought that it would be Toad to Redemption, because y’know... Toads. But with Sasha’s pink powers shown in her using that giant warhammer, I think it’s going to be either one of the two, but Sasha is definitely showing up in 216. They don’t seem to be on a train, but the Earth is moving very fast for some reason.

00:45–00:46: The Newt Lady from the Bizarre Bazaar seems to be activating the tippity-top of the Second Temple, with Anne near her. The position of this is high above the clouds, and there is a blue glow coming from the writings/symbols on the ground. Perhaps this is the charging method for the gems on the box.

00:47–00:48: More First Temple stuff! Writing’s on the wall (man these visual puns just write themselves y’know!) and they are in the inside of the temple. Interestingly enough, the main floor is green like the rest of the temple, but the other side (puzzles) seems to have red and blue squares, perhaps representing the heart and strength (blue and pink) which is what the wit lacks.

00:49: The Newt Lady from the Bizarre Bazaar opens a Scroll with the Music box, the three gems (which seemingly came before the box) and three people in coats almost praying to it. This is definitely “After the Rain” with the story of the Music Box being revealed. Cause we still have no idea what “After the Rain” is gonna be about.

00:50: GENERAL YUNNAN!! Scourge of the Sand Wars! Defeater of Ragnar the Wretched! The youngest Newt to ever be named General in the GREAT NEWTOPIAN ARMY!! (Can you tell I stan her? because I stan her.)

Anyways, she seems to be in the first temple or King Andrias’ throne room. I’m mainly assuming this because the temple because the building is blue or because the spires from King Andrias’ throne room are in the way back there, but there are several Toads there defeated on the ground. Either these were people to protect Marcy at the Temple, or this is an episode where all of Grimes’ command are trying to take over Newtopia under Sasha and Grimes’ command. Quite the plausible amount for theories and plot just from a one-second Yunnan shot.

00:51: A chess board with Frog knights shooting lasers at Marcy. Another one of the First Temple’s tricks, or it could be King Andrias’ plot, since we saw him with Chess pieces of Anne and Marcy at the end of “Marcy at the Gates”, so this clip could either be “The First Temple” or “True Colors” and either or are exciting!!

00:52-00:53: A mole comes out of the ground as Mayor Toadstool walks around seemingly trying to please Newtopian guards and soldiers. “Toad to Redemption” now makes complete sense! I called that it would either be Anne and Marcy helping a battle-hardened Toad, or it would be a Sasha episode. I think its the first part, where Newtopian inspectors are coming to suprise visit Mayor Toadstool and inspect if he’s doing a good job taking care of Wartwood, to no one’s surprise find out he’s embezzling money from the town. The episode would be Marcy and Anne helping Toadstool to become better so he doesn’t lose his job as Mayor.

00:53–00:58: We have three shots here, one of each of the girls. Anne looks back in the rain, almost distraught. This is definitely “After the Rain” and I’m not ready for the angst. Marcy is visibly frustrated over chess pieces, this is either a challenge from the Temple or she’s found out about Andrias’ plan. As much as Option 2 is interesting, I think the first one is more realistic. Sasha in the Third Temple, activating her Colour Power and breaking the ground underneath her to a circle. I am constantly terrified by and for Sasha.

00:58–1:00: Polly and Sprig’s silhouettes running in the rain. Also “After the Rain” but still nothing much to say here.

1:00–1:01: Giant tentacles grab Sprig and the Plantars. I have no idea what this is, but it also appeared in the “Night Riders/Return to Wartwood” trailer/promo, so I’m assuming it’s from that episode.

01:02: Sasha is facing off against a giant golem! Probably the Third Temple’s trial.

01:03: Newt Lady from the Bizarre Bazaar reveals the secrets of the Music Box. Definitely an “After the Rain” episode. I did not expect Marcy to be there though, that’s interesting now.

01:04–01:06: Two shots from the Third Temple. First one being Anne having a moment of realisation, and the other with the Golem roaring in front of Anne and Sasha. This freaked me out because wtf??? Sasha and Anne together?? Are they solving it together too??? Interaction equals resolution/conflict/character drama.

01:07–01:12 & 01:17–01:22: So how are we integrating baby Marshanne into this??? As for which episode, I have no idea! But some interesting details in this is that Sasha seems to have been the last out of the three to have joined. Since Anne and Marcy are together crying, while baby Sasha is one on the slide standing up (hehe) for them. Between the first clip and the second, Sasha has a bruise on her forehead, so she may have gotten hurt trying to protect them. They introduce each other and that’s the end of the clip. I’m assuming this is finale material, because otherwise I have no idea where this is coming from or going to.

01:13–01:16: Anne pulls the Plantars in for a hug. Still not sure where this is for, but it is a thing.

01:23–01:28: Two shots of Sasha and Anne, which seemed to have been slowed down to around half speed. Shot one has Anne standing, almost distraught wearing what seems to be Newtopian armour, with Sasha’s foot in the foreground. The second shot is Anne holding her sword at the top of the Newtopian Walls to Sasha who is weaponless and has her hands up in surrender. Smoke is rising from the land below, and Anne looks visibly angry. I have no idea what is happening, but this definitely has to be finale material.

A title card shows Amphibia returning 6th March!! Hype.

01:34–01:45: Of course we need happy stuff to counter ANGST! So we have a bizarre sequence of Frobo making a garden and growing flowers in a matter of seconds. Hop Pop is enthralled by this and welcomes him to the family, and Polly looks at him knowingly. This is a very big development played very casually, since we know nothing about the robot besides his goofy self being able to do this. Frobo is the most cryptic thing this season besides the King’s basement, we also have no information on Frobo so this is a striking change. This will take place in “Friend or Frobo?” and I am stupid hyped!!! I don’t know anything about Frobo and I want to know more!! Also Wartwood is on fire. It’s just a normal Tuesday everybody.

That ends the trailer breakdown!! But I did have some more general theories and thoughts I’ll include here.

Something I did want to mention before we started was the music in the beginning of the non-speaking part of the trailer. To me, it sounded like an epic reprise of John Legend’s “All of Me”, and I’m thinking there’s one of two things happening: one is that the finale song that we’re all crying to is “All of Me” by John Legend, like how Reunion’s was “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers; or, I’m just theorising like a mad person. Who knows!

Also another general observation is the puzzles and how we’ve been prepped for them by “Family Shrub” where each one has puzzles and riddles each person who fits a specific role must solve. Each girl with each of the Temples, and they need each one to deal with their own Temple. Meaning Sasha being at the Third Temple means some form of resolution/character interaction.

As for Sasha, I don’t know if she’s gonna be redeemed necessarily, but I think she might go to the good side and Marcy goes to the bad side. I don’t wanna believe that cause I love Marcy to death, but Season 2 finales are always horrifying before Season 3 finales wrap up nicely. So I’m expecting even more drama than the Season 1 finale. I want all the girls to be happy, and it’s not happening this season for sure. So much excitement!!!

That concludes all my thoughts on the trailer for Season 2B! Let me know what you’re excited for, your thoughts and theories, and if you agree or disagree with what I’ve said here!! So excited!!!!

#disney's amphibia #disney amphibia #amphibia #hop pop #annarcy #sprig plantar #marcanne #sasha waybright #marcy wu #anne boonchuy #amphibia season 2 spoilers #anne amphibia #sashanne #marshanne #disney

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pernatius · 3 years

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Lost in Space Part 9: Ch 1

Summary: Syco and the unnamed Space Explorer question their choices.

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Lost in Space on ao3

At the center, behind the looming figure, a single ray of moonlight shines on the spilled dark, nearly blood-red paint that came out of its sideways bowl. It looks as if the paint is glowing, illuminating this poorly lit and now stuffy room with a red tint, giving the room a sinister vibe.

The figure before Syco has their right eye twitch. Pointy face gulps and bites their lip. One wide-eyed moment later and our captor bursts out laughing. The figures, the accomplices, circling us follow suit. To them, Syco is a comedian. To me, he’s a brick wall. Not a single funny bone in his body, yet they laugh as if he told the funniest joke ever. Saamuki blushes at this.

From nervousness to amusement to returning to square one, attentive with a tad bit of annoyance, Pointy Face’s transitions are awkward. Maybe it’s because they’re no longer self-assured. No longer does pride escape their lips. Discomfort, instead, drifts from their hand gestures as they speak. “I’ll also admit how downright brilliant you’ve been throughout this war. Though, you can’t run forever. At some point, you need to stop. We must catch our breaths before we dare to think of that next step. You already know this before taking that first step. However, we don't know everything. We can't plan for things we don't know. It's impossible. We trip on that crack we didn’t see, and we scrape our knee. It hurts. Badly.”

“We’ve known each other for years, Zeq, but merely knowing is different from friendship.” Pointy Face, or as Syco says is Zeq, raises an eyebrow. “Although, I wish I was wrong. I see I’m faced with more enemies rather than given allies.” That’s what’s been in those blue eyes of his. He’s regretful.

“And that surprises you? I can no longer trade. Supplies are low. My village is dying. Again, my people suffer,” Zeq lowers their voice with the drop of Syco’s ears, “This isn’t personal, Syco. It’s diplomatic. It’s about survival. The sooner this war ends, the sooner I can save my people.”

“How long until they get here?”

“Less than an hour.”

“Then, I have plenty of time to do this.” Out first comes a grunt, then out second comes Syco. The freed Tauvox has Zeq stumble backward and with their words. Those around us motion their hands in a way I’m familiar with. Transforming their fingers into blades, surprisingly sharp for leaves, they take a step forward. They’re halted from taking another when Syco encases Zeq’s neck with his thick fingers. Zeq’s hat falls. It rolls and goes in a little circular motion before stopping and pointing in my direction.

It’s here I notice how tall Zeq is, almost as tall as Syco, but somehow looks several feet smaller than the actual height difference between the two. Zeq is lanky and wilting, so Syco’s hand easily wraps around it and can easily snap it. He’s imposing to them, but not to me.

“You will let us all go, and in return, I’ll let your mayor go.”

“What are you doing? Let me go. Put me down. Don’t you see what I’m doing for you,” Zeq spoke up.

“All you’re doing is delaying my plans.”

“No, Syco. I’m saving you from what’s to come as well. You’ve gone farther than your predecessor, yes, but you will fail just like him. Your, my people’s, and trillions of other’s suffering can end here.”

That moment where our eyes met I thought he was going to do it. I thought he was going to end it all. To let Zeq go than to just squeeze Zeq’s throat until it ripped in half, cemented who Syco truly is. Time has truly lost its touch on him. It no longer means anything to him. He’ll take down those who are in his way. It also cemented their decision in attacking. A blade went through Syco’s chest. He elbowed them, causing the blade to slide out and the others now surrounding him to look at one another. Then, proceed. They slice into Syco’s skin, some of his furs break off from the cuts and scatter across their chests, and in turn, Syco stabs them with his horns. His horns go right through each of them, but all of them easily heal. I see veins stitch themselves back together and soon flesh as well. The same can’t be said about the lifeless, decapitated mayor.

I try breaking free from my troubles, but all it does is tighten the sap around me. I see why the others haven’t succeeded as Syco has. I’m starting to sweat. Saamuki would’ve landed herself to be boiled alive. As for Shiitakee, well, he’s Shiitakee.

The drooping mushroom says, “What I’d do to be lighting up a cigarette right now.”

Three simple strokes of his horn between their swings and the three of us are freed. Syco catches one of their blades between his hands and throws them into the others before turning to us and shouting, “What are you waiting for? Get to the ship!”

Walking across the bridge made me anxious. Running and trying to balance while the bridge sways left to right because of the fight happening behind me still gives me anxiety, but now it's nauseating. At least now it's too dark to spot the ground between the wood making up this rickety path, but it’s too dark to make out what’s what. The bushy branches above let some, not enough, moonlight in. My crown’s fire isn’t enough either. I’d thank Saamuki for glowing on this hectic night if I wasn’t busy running and trying not to trip.

Another obstacle stood in our way as Zeq’s aides don't know when to give up. They’re relentless. They don’t know when to fall. So, now we’re sandwiched between them and the scowled figure from earlier. I get out my blade, and Saamuki prepares to lunge, but it’s Shiittakee that challenges the figure who’s far larger than the three of us. Syco, if he wanted to, could crush Shiitakee just like he did with Zeq. This figure could crush Shiitakee and cause him to explode. I don’t want to see any more guts be sprayed out, so I take a step closer. I could hear Syco still deflecting, and his horns connecting with their blades as Shiitakee proves he’s more than just some whiny quitter. A yellowish gas sprays out of his cap, fuming all around us. The figure, Saamuki, and I cough. Its stench was sucked up by my nostrils and carried to my taste buds. I gag. It tasted like rotten eggs mixed with spoiled milk with a dash of a public toilet. When it finally escapes my senses, another bridge appears between us. The tree beneath us had magically, probably because of that rancid gas, had stretched one of its branches to the ground, puncturing through the ocean of darkness resting beneath our feet. What could’ve been our aggressor just watches as we escape to the makeshift bridge. We enter the darkness, and not a minute after, I hear Syco joining us. This bridge groans with his added weight as he continues to battle on with those several vengeful figures.

Saamuki sends a blast their way. I hear someone slip. They plummet, but I don’t hear them land. So, definitely not Syco. Another blast, but it takes a moment longer before another one of them falls into the blackness below. There’s no third attempt. She turns back around, and I catch an ominous glimpse of the ones left watching us and the now caught up Syco walk the rest of the way. They watch us emotionlessly with their blades remaining.

A wind glazed us once we set foot onto the ground. It's gentle, a feeling I haven’t felt in some time.

Something new happens. Saamuki moves her hands in a circular shape. Little bolts of lightning shot out between her fingers. She breathed out and threw her hands apart. A small, glowing blue orb now floats above us, lighting everything around us within what I guess is a twenty-foot radius. Something scampers away, and Syco moves away from my awe, taking the lead.

I walk by his side the rest of the way to the spaceship. I should feel equal to him now, but there’s still plenty of distance between us before that ever could happen. I feel like he noticed it too, or maybe I’m just thinking about it too much. It’s just strange that he asked me to join him in his meeting with General Knox, interrupting Saamuki and his second-in-command. Saamuki and I look at each other, as his second-in-command continues what he was saying before being cut off by his commander. The two of us know I can’t decline. General Knox has our friends wrapped around his thumb. The last I heard from Syco is that they were in Quadrant Forty. It’s been too long since then. Who knows which quadrant they’re in? After all, finding and having them regain control are the main reasons we’ve let ourselves be commanded by the sweaty Tauvox arguing with the non-sweaty Tauvox. Any information helps. Whatever is going to be said during the meeting definitely is.

I nod. He replies with, “Great. Follow me. The meeting is going to start soon.”

Again, I walk by his side. I steal a glance from Saamuki until she turns to look at the pondering Shiitakee. The second-in-command stalks off, cutting across the hallway and ending my glance at Saamuki.

This room is new. Row by row across the walls, lights turn on. The room is large but not grand. Compared to the other rooms in the ship, even to the rented room shared between Saamuki and me, it’s small. On either side of the room sat two paintings. One of a man I know, Syco’s predecessor, and the other of a Tauvox with white fur. A scar stretches from their right eyebrow to the left side of their jawline. They’re just a picture, but I can sense they’re as much of a brute as The Commander, the terrifying presence instead of that corpse down below.

“Only one other, besides us, has entered this room. You know of him quite well.” I follow the Tauvox to the center of the room. Resting there is a platform with etchings of alien writing. It’s similar to Sakhra’s quilt. Actually, I think it’s the same. It’s just upside down.

I don’t have to look where he’s looking at it. Looking at that painting as long as I did was enough. So, I instead look at him. His expression is the same one he showed back in Zeq’s village.

“Why did you ask me to join you?”

“Because I trust you.” Interrupting him is the platform before us blinking. “Stay out of his sight. Commander Knox does not know you’re here.”

I move away as far as I can as the symbols on the platform float up and spin around Syco. Appearing in front of him is a hologram of that monkey-like commander. Would he and his people be considered cousins to humans? Human’s next evolution? Do they still count as humans? Besides the fur and metal parts, they still look human. I wonder what the Virmuses went through to look like that in the near millennia they split up from humanity.

“Ah, Commander Knox you were able to make it today.”

“Quadrant Forty has been tedious, Commander Syco.”

“Oh?”

“This is not an admittance to the limitations of my intelligence.”

“I would hope not.”

“As of the last report, half an hour ago, we have taken control of half of the quadrant.”

“And what of the three?”

“Same as the last time. Nothing new. Although, they did help me in a tight squeeze this morning.” I imagine Syco to have raised an eyebrow because the other commander continued with, “Again, not me admitting my limitations.”

“Great. Casualties?”

A laugh. “None from my side, but hundreds from the enemy.”

A flinch. The very hand Syco used to kill Zeq flinched. It’s a subtle movement. Commander Knox doesn’t notice, but I do. From that seemingly small action, I now know why he asked me to be here.

#219 #lost in space #my wrting #writers on tumblr #writeblr

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charliejrogers · 4 years

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First Cow (2020)

It’s impossible for me to write about First Cow without thinking that this movie is some sort of sublime cross-over between Joaquin Phoenix’s worst nightmare and joyous fantasy. Running at odds with his oddly emotional anti-milk Oscars acceptance speech back in February 2020, First Cow is a love letter to the power of milk in the realm of baking. The sweet, sweet udder juice provides the very backbone of a community’s happiness and two men’s livelihoods. But, where Phoenix’s nightmare turns to fantasy, the universe gets justice. No milk theft shall ever go unpunished! Move over, Herman’s Hermits; it’s not just “No Milk Today,” it’s no milk ever!

My kidding aside, I was pleasantly surprised by First Cow, though truthfully I’m not sure exactly what I expected besides knowing it was a movie set in nineteenth-century America. Acknowledging my own biases and knowing ahead of time that the director was a woman, I was surprised by how decidedly male this film was. There are really only three female characters of note throughout the whole film, and none of them have prominent speaking roles… in fact the only one who does speak English merely serves as a translator for men.

I wonder in what way the director, Kelly Reichardt, sees herself as fulfilling that role in making this film. That is, in choosing to deliberately make a movie about the nineteenth-century fur trappers in the harsh, male-dominated world of Oregon Territories, Reichardt wanted to highlight an aspect of the dominant “alpha” male society that is most certainly experienced by males but is rarely commented on, largely because it is considered female. I’m talking, of course, about love. I doubt there are viewers of this film who would disagree with my assessment that the two male protagonists shared a love for one another, but I’m sure many would categorize that love as merely representative of “deep friendship” or “platonic” (in the layman’s sense) at the most. While I’m not going to sit here and necessarily argue that the two characters shared an erotic love and I do not think that is the intent, I really do believe characterizing their relationship as merely “two great friends” would be received by the pair as a great insult. The two share the type of relationship seen among men that is rarely seen in the media save for war movies where “brotherhood” is a dominant theme. Outside of war, it’s a relationship that is largely reminiscent of the beautiful love seen between Midnight Cowboy’s Joe Buck and “Ratso” Rizzo. It’s the sort of sacrificial love that dominates the thoughts of Christian scholars. Still, it can be easily misinterpreted as erotic love. What I think Reichardt does beautifully is develop the love between the two carefully so you see it organically develop such that by the time we get to the final scene, we are unsurprised by one of the two character’s sacrificial acts of love.

The key scene, as I mentioned, comes at the end, but it’s noteworthy to mention that the pair’s ultimate fate is made plainly clear in the first few minutes of the movie. The movie starts (almost paradoxically) with an epilogue of sorts. We’re in the modern day, and a woman is exploring the forests of Oregon when her dog stumbles upon some bones that (with a little more digging) reveals two skeletons lying next to one another, like two lovers lying in bed. The best reason I can think of as to why Reichardt includes this epilogue before the rest of the film is because as soon as we the audience realize that two males are the most dominant couple in the film, we more readily anticipate and are more open to seeing love develop before our eyes.

So accordingly, after this brief pre-movie epilogue, the film jumps backwards in time to the nineteenth-century where we meet Otis “Cookie” Figowitz (John Magaro), the cook for a trapping company who is runs a little out-of-step with the rest of his crew. It is embodied in a visual motif that is repeated often throughout the film. We will have a shot of either of the two main characters, Cookie or his eventual companion King Lu (Orion Lee), doing something quiet in the foreground while characters perform some other more exciting activity in the background which in any other movie would take center stage due to the inherent spectacle. But it’s clear that Cookie is a more sensitive soul, he enjoys his time in the woods collecting mushrooms, and he does not have any interest in violence whatsoever. But that does not mean he isn’t without courage.

Early in the film, he comes across King Lu, a Chinese immigrant who is on the run after killing someone to avenge the killing of one of his good friends. Notably, when they first meet, King Lu is completely alone, hungry, and naked. While it isn’t addressed specifically, it is implicit in King’s and Cookie’s first meeting (and during other character’s subsequent interactions with King later in the film) but racially hostile undertones almost threaten to undermine King’s and Cookie’s initial friendship. Yet, like the story of the Good Samaritan, Cookie puts away his initial feelings of racial bias, and goes out of his way to clothe King with a blanket before allowing him to speak any further. Cookie grants King with a great deal of dignity, and goes one step further, offering to smuggle him among the various bags and supplies on his travels, knowing full well that if the rest of his crew find out that Cookie was hiding a “Chinaman murderer,” that he’d be in deep shit.

Cookie and King separate after this initial meeting, but upon reuniting later in the film, they never separate from one another until the very end. In what is the most puzzling choice in the film to me is Cookie’s initial decision to join King for a drink at King’s home. The two reunite in a trapping fort bar after a fight breaks out and the two are the only customers not drawn outside to enjoy the spectacle (the outsider/outcast motif returns). However, just before the start of the fight, one of the primary instigators of that fight requests for Cookie to watch over his infant whom he had brought to the bar. Therefore, when King asks Cookie to join in at his home, he is also asking him to abandon this helpless infant. The image of the baby swaddled in a basket recalls the previous imagery of King swaddled in the bags and supplies within which Cookie was smuggling him. And ultimately Cookie does abandon the baby for King, and in joining King for a drink at his home, never actually leaves. The two begin living together. So I’m not sure of the significance of the baby. Is it that Cookie had the choice between two “new lives,” one a literal new life of someone else and the other, in King, a chance at a new life for himself? Or is it simply just to serve as foreshadowing that in following King, Cookie is opening himself up to a life of indulgence where the concerns of others are less important than his own happiness?

As for the latter question and the plotline that develops around it, it really serves as a bitter critique of American capitalism and the American dream. While we love to tout the “by the bootstraps” myth, this movie serves as a simple morality play about how no matter what, pursuing the American dream means ripping somebody off for your own benefit. In this instance, it means Cookie and King nightly sneaking onto the property of the leader of the trapping fort and stealing milk from the only cow in the area in order to essentially have a monopoly on baked goods and make a pretty penny. Now, we can sit and debate about the morality of “owning” a cow, and whether Cookie and King are even doing anything immoral since it is preposterous to own an animal! Or I’m sure there are those (Joaquin Phoenix) who think Cookie and King are just as immoral for taking ANY milk from a cow as the man who owns the cow in the first place. This is not the time to discuss animal rights. But it is notable what the cow, too, has had to suffer in order allow for Cookie and Lee’s successes. She was initially transported to the trapping fort along with a mate and her calf, but both died en route. She spends her time tied to a tree and by the film’s end locked up within a small cage.

In sum, the love that Cookie so beautifully shared with King at film’s beginning does not seem so equally shared by the pair in regards to their relationship with others. And in their pursuit to become successful capitalists in a system rigged against them, they ultimately hurt some of those around them, most notably titular cow with whom Cookie has almost romantic relationship with, which in some ways makes his treating her as little more than a literal cash cow so egregious, even if he cares deeply for her.

Hence the morality play. I don’t have to spell it out for you what might happen if two people repeatedly rob the same person in the same way again and again and again. But even if we as the audience agree that the cards are stacked against Cookie and King from the start in their attempt to become independent, to achieve the American dream, the film never pretends that they are acting as virtuous agents. In the end, though, they get their redemption even as they receive punishment. King is given a chance to abandon Cookie outright who in an attempt to flee their pursuers has become badly injured. King realizes he can just take his riches and run. But he doesn’t. He decides to lie next to his dearly beloved companion. While he could not have predicted what would be the fatal consequences of this decision, he knows that sticking with Cookie in his current state will only cause him trouble. But that’s where the beautiful sacrificial love that defines this pair comes in. Whereas many will view this film and remember it as a cautionary tale about the American dream, I will forever remember the realistic love of brothers shared between these two wayward men.

***(1/4) (Three and one fourth stars out of four)

#first cow #john magaro #orion lee #kelly reichardt #milk #joaquin phoenix milk #joaquin phoenix #herman's hermits #no milk today

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cstorm86 · 5 years

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The not so Wicked Witch

A/N: This is an original short story that came to me. I hope everyone likes it.

Tamsin sat against the large tree trunk and waited for the vision to stop. She had learned that this sacred tree helped her to focus her powers inward, allowing her to make sense of the visions much more clearly. Unfortunately, the vision granted her today was something she’d rather not know about. That being said, the only choice she had was to try to stop it. Her home, her kingdom, perhaps even her world was at stake.

She ran into the house and gathered a few important ingredients and a few potions she already had made, then as she left the house and let out a shrill, sharp whistle that only lasted a few seconds, then she waited. Soon her jet black mare, Obsidian, galloped up, and she slung herself onto her back. With a soft whinny and a responding “Click click,” the horse began galloping again, this time towards the center of the kingdom.

It was a long arduous journey, and they stopped as night fell, so that Obsidian didn’t become overly exhausted. Tamsin knew how much strength it would expend if they were on the run after the journey so she was better off making sure she was well rested now. She ate a simple supper of fresh mushrooms and fruit, and Obsidian stood in a small clearing eating and resting until the dawn. Luckily, the sun rose without event and they were soon on their way again.

That afternoon they reached the edge of the forest and the kingdom was in sight. Tamsin knew if she took the horse and strolled in they would never let her through, no it was better to go incognito so she wrapped her shawl over herself and made sure Obsidian would be somewhere safe, not that the fine mare would allow any other human to ride her, she was a mighty, and proud creature and it had taken years to earn her trust. Tamsin began the hike as quickly as possible hoping to stop the damned future from happening, but knowing time was running short.

She was stopped coming into the main city but she managed to use her power of persuasion and convince the guard she was here to shop at the market. She looked rather unassuming, and after she was in the city, no one bothered her except to try to sell her goods. She was almost tempted to stop with some delicious smelling food, and her stomach loudly protested her walking past all the stalls, but she knew she had to figure out how to get into the palace by nightfall, or the world itself may come to an end.

She scoped the place out carefully, pretending to be interested in the beautiful architecture, and amazing sculptures, but truly she was trying to find the best escape route after she completed her terrible deed. She truly hated the way the Gods played with her and sent her on these missions, but after the consequences of the one she chose to ignore, she would never make that mistake again. The devastation brought upon the kingdom that year was phenomenal. More death than she had ever seen even in her almost 200 years.

She had been so young then and had never imagined that it was anything less than a nightmare. Luckily her mentor found her after that and when she learned of her “gift”, though Tamsin tended to see it as a curse, she helped her learn how to utilize it to save lives. SInce then she has acted as a bringer of death for few and the savior to many although most never knew her of anything more than a “Wicked Witch”.

How could she begin to explain that somehow that person will bring about thousands of deaths and untold pain? How could she express that there was darkness in their hearts and they would do more harm than good? And lastly, how could she possibly convince people to see her as she was when she knew how much pain she caused others without any explanation at all? She knew there were no answers to these questions, just as the people who lost loved ones could get no answers as to why it was their loved one?

Answers didn’t really matter unfortunately; the only thing that mattered was the preservation of the majority. If somehow one death would save hundreds, or even thousands, then that one must be sacrificed. And tonight she had to make another sacrifice, and hope to escape with her own life.

~~~~

Princess Gwendolyn lounged upon a small loveseat with soft, lush cushions. She owned everything her father could think of. Unfortunately, in her mind, the man had very little imagination. Her days were generally very boring, she had basic lessons to learn to be a good queen and how to back her future husband, though to be honest she had much bigger plans than that. Her favorite pastime was waiting for her father to finish his war meetings with his generals, and sneak into his study so she could see what he was doing and truly to learn how to lead an army. She often hid in the cupboard and listened in when there were big meetings, especially when they were discussing the upcoming war with the Southern Kingdom Bazuul.

She knew her father was well taught in warfare, but still he had such little imagination. She considered leaving small little hints of ways to easily decimate their enemies, such as poisoned food, or even strategic methods he had clearly missed. She noticed he seemed to always attack from the front even though they had allies on the other side and could sneak part of their army over there to catch them off guard, but he had stated he had no interest in involving their allies until he felt it was necessary. “They are a poor nation, Gwen. They do not need to lose everything when this argument is unlikely to become a full-blown war. We are still trying to negotiate so that no one needs to die. Still, we must be prepared always. Which is why we meet regularly to discuss tactics and make plans for every eventuality.”

He was a fool, the war was imminent, Bazuul had no plans on negotiating despite what the old codger thought. She had considered writing a letter and using his seal to actually push things along a little, but she knew he would find out. She had to think this through, and tonight she planned on finding the best way to beat them before they began this war.

Dusk was almost upon them; her father would send all of his generals back with their new orders so he could retire and have a meal with her mother. SHe was always invited, but found their conversation so dull and boring she tended to eat her meals in her room. Besides at the table she would have to be on her best behavior and show off for her father, but in her room she could relax and have fun while eating her meal. Her mute companion, Jenna, was always willing to do whatever she bade. At least she was now. It took a great deal of harsh and imaginative punishments to convince her it was easier to just obey.

She sneaked down to the study and her father’s shadow was just disappearing down the hallway, headed towards the dining room. She glanced inside and, once she saw it was empty, sneaked in easily. After, perusing the table and figuring out all the changes from yesterday, she was able to see that her father was pulling the troops back! What a fool, by pulling back he was leaving them open to attack while retreating. She had to find a way to stop this, but with the generals already leaving with the orders, she might have to send word and use her father’s seal so it seemed like it came from his hand. Unfortunately, her father was likely to find out so she would need to find a different way to change the orders. Then it came to her. She could falsify an incoming message so that her father would make the appropriate changes.

She set to work writing the note, working hard to hide her characteristic penmanship. Then she heard a strange sound coming from the corner window. She stopped writing, fearing she had been caught and ducked beneath the table. As she looks around from her hiding place, she sees someone step out of the curtains, but the bottom of the outfit is a loose dark colored skirt, that swishes slightly, and then she is assaulted with a strange scent that she can’t place. It has a smoky yet earthy smell, and it burns her nose and she holds back a sneeze.

The person approached the table, and she shrank further beneath the table, until her back bumped against the leg causing the table to shake. A small whimper escaped her lips before she clamped her hand over her mouth to stop any further sound. Unfortunately, it was far too late. The person above the table stopped at the edge of the table and suddenly the princess could hear some sort of chanting.

Then her hand fell from her mouth as if being pulled by a string, and no matter how much she fought it she could do nothing to stop it. She tried to get back up and run away, but her body refused to obey her commands. She even tried to open her mouth to scream for help, damn it all, even if she got in trouble. She knew she was in danger! Alas even her voice failed her. She was trapped! She found out she did have control over one thing however, as the tears began streaming down her cheeks.

Then against her will her legs straightened slightly, and she felt her body shift and she began crawling out from under the table. The terror she felt made her want to vomit and scream at the same moment, but she had no control over either of those abilities. She stood up and faced the other person in the room, and was face to face with a lovely looking woman, with long dark brown hair, and deep mocha eyes.

~~~~

She stood outside the palace walls, and no one even noticed her. As she stared at the palace wall, she could sense the presence the Gods had guided her to. It was up on the third floor, near the sixth window from the southwest corner. She quietly began chanting and felt her body begin materializing in the room where the aura existed. When she arrived, it seemed that she was alone in the room, but she could feel an aura somewhere in the room.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and the aura pulsed beneath the table and a small whimper escaped the woman in response to her aura being attacked. Then she could hear the princes start trying to back away. She approached the table slowly and began to chant the freezing spell. Soon her power melded with the girl’s aura and she her powers quickly overshadowed it. She slowly flexed her control, the princess was covering her mouth with her hand; she dropped the hand. The princess was trying to fold in on herself as if in self protection; she straightened her legs and made her begin to crawl out from under the table. She faced the young princess head on. She hated this part, more than anything. But the devastation this princess would cause had to be prevented.

The Princess was beautiful with raven hair and a beautiful rose complexion, as she was expected to be. She had been groomed to be on the arm of a king, and to be a good face for the kingdom. But this ending would not be the case. She would cause so much death and destruction, Tamsin had no idea how, but she knew in her heart it was true. As the freezing spell kept Gwendolyn absolutely still, Tamsin began to utter a new chant. She had carefully created this spell to ensure that the death would be gentle, quick, and painless. The princess would slip into a trance and she would be found as if she had fallen asleep. Unfortunately, she would never awaken.

The chant fell from her lips with practiced ease, and she could feel her magic weave itself into the spell. The young Princess’s body stiffened, and she gently toppled over. Her body limp as the blood drained from her face. It only took a few seconds for her face to become pale and have a grayish hue to it. Tamsin feels her heart break slightly as the princess lay on the floor. She destroyed life again. This was her curse.

She approached the body and sliced a small lock of the Princess’s hair and placed it in her satchel. She always made sure to honor those she had to destroy. She never assumed the person she had to remove intended to do the harm they caused. It was not her place to judge their deeds or the outcomes. She just had to obey the Gods. She felt she was slowly losing her own soul. Was there another person cursed as she was who would have a vision of her, due to the devastation she had caused? It would be the end she deserved. She had killed more than she wanted to remember, but she did remember. She remembered each and every one of her victims. It wouldn’t be fair to kill someone and let them be forgotten.

She could hear footsteps outside the room and began chanting again. Before her body was completely gone, she saw the King enter the room, and they locked eyes for a brief second. He recognized her as most usually did. She was very well known, after all. She was the one and only, Wicked Witch.

#original story #short story #witch

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smallgayblanket · 5 years

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Fresh Muse List

In case you guys were curious about my characters I have a big old list:

Egos:

Anti (Usually the softer kind, has green emerald glowings eyes which turn staticy blue when hes vulnerable/being open/himself. He can be an asshole though and does in deed take out bad guys with his knife.)

Jameson Jackson (Mute but does actually still have a voice- his vocals are in ruins and he's kinda dealing with poor eating making him dangerously skinny. He works as a bartender and has silver tipped brown hair that's a little bit longer than the others.)

Crank (Robot Ethan ego. He’s an utter mess- eyes sometimes fizzle out, joints stiff, has emotional issues. He also has a corrupted voice in his head that is real nasty when he pops up and sometimes takes over their shared frame.)

Blank (Fricking soft boy, his aura is hard to control and sometimes controls him. He has a rare heart issues which makes him prone to fainting and collpasing without much warning. Still, he tries.)

Jackieboyman (Super hero boy! Super buff, caring, kind, and tol. Lilac/Gold eyes. Little odd strip of red in his brown hair. The best voice. Works as a gas station worker to hide his identity (he looks great in the blue button up and glasses.) He.’s ftm trans. Sometimes I HC him as a phionex other times he has pretty golden whips of light.)

King of the Squirrels (Otherwise known as Simon. He’s a hybrid, Tail, ears. Omega. Very sweet, little skittsh and frzzled. Wears glasses and cozy sweaters- likes making nests and being out in nature. Loves PB but is actually allergic..doesn’t keep him from eating it though.)

Henrick Von Schneeplestien (Grumpy german doctor who lives off of coffee. He is willing to assist those in need and really needs to sleep.)

Chase Brody (He’s got his youtube channel and a bunch of positive vibes! He’s strugglign sometimes with depression but its not always so bad. Sometimes he had real bad migrains though, and he also suffers from chornic fatigue making his days shorter or hard to get teverything done.)

Wilford Warfstache (We know him, lover of bubbles and pink. Talks funny, loves candy. Chubby man.)

Yandere (Nonbinary somewaht MTF. They’re a real cutie, will punch dickheads without a sweat and really just want someone to be their senpai and let them fall for them head over heels without running away..)

Were-Eth (Ethan got bit by a werewolf and now deals with that. Basically an Ethan muse with a small twist. He’s absoultely adorable with the tail and ears and sharp teef.)

Mark (Abused and kidnapped by Author My Mark is a little bit softer then the guy he’s based on. He’s a little bit shorter and alot more anxious and unsure of himself thanks to Author breaking him down. He’s vcovered in lots of scars spescfially his wrist’s and does not like water much. )

Bing. (Tries his hardest to be good, bit glitchy but he’s chill. He tries to skate, and jokes wen nervous. He’s pretty sweet though.)

Edward Iplier (Absoulte adorable dork, He tries to help everyone and anyone no matter what- I’ve kinda fallen in love with the idea of him only having one arm but that’s only one of many ideas. He loves space, he’s chubby and also loves food. He’s got a prety neat aura ablity too.)

Robbie. (Soft grape zombie boy. He’s sweet and innocent as ever. He’s easily th e shyest of the bunch and doesn’t always talk to much. He loves getting affection though and is always eager to please.)

And meet my OCS! Some of them are old- and alot of them are new! There's a little description for each just to get your interest~

Quinton (A Hybrid of Demon and Angel otherwise called a Guardian.)

Ori ( Very pure angel boy AU of the angel half of Q - a little androgynous when it comes to clothing he/him sometimes they/them.)

Zeno (A DJ with a somewhat secret love for dancing too. Only has one arm.)

Lumi (Ghost boy- literally- he died and he’s kinda like Danny phantom in reverse- he can turn solid but eventually has to rest and turn back to being unable to interact with objects)

Eztli (Pretty grump guy who was cursed by a witch to be immortal- although it made his blood kinda..weird..)

Gallio (Strawberry Hipster guy- A photographer who also has hypoglycemia)

Aomi (A blackberry witch- hes not very great at spells yet but he tries!)

Lucas (A moonstone gem perma-fusion. Quite a nervous wreck.)

Eme. (A smart scientist. Human. Nothing special.)

Chris. (Camp leader! He’s based off David from camp camp but hes far more buff and hes not so over the top. He has his own green house and is part dryad.)

Alex (A very confused, overly optimist Alien who doesn’t know what they are. Come from the planet Eutychia)

Locus (Fish boi! Transparent fins, glowy patches, plays harp + loves music)

Lir(A Tiny Octopus/Human boy!!)

Reese (Passionfruit bab! Literally. He kinda contains passionfruit pulp but don’t cut him open!!! :< Or do if you want weird angst >_>)

Benji (Strawberry shortcake boi- Cursed tape /bandages. Demi half god. One eye. Uses notes to communicate but also sign. Really. Good sweets maker)

Small bois- These boys are pocket sized! though sometimes I do like to think about them being human sized ^^.

Kiyan. (A little assistant android. Created to assist! He works at a post office currently. Pronouns do not matter to him though its usually he/they/it.)

Tobias. (Made of hair gel. Eats soap. Someone stop him before he gets a tummy ache. He/him.)

Hinto (Guy made of foam slime- He was kinda based off Remy aka Sleep from the fanders.)

Glowstick bubs (They are tiny boys who glow like well- glowsticks but also lavalamps, very pretty to look at. and theyre nocturnal!)

Theo(A tiny ink creature. He makes a mess but hes adorable.)

JellyBubs! (A collection of tiny sentient jelly babies, The main one being strawberry aka Jeri. They dont mind what you calm them but usually they works best.)

Miel (A tiny little bee boy! He makes honey.)

Moyachi (Cactus boi!! Loves water and has clear/lime green tinted aloe/herbal helpful blood. Spikes up at defense from bad people)

Apocolyse Squad:

Long story shot: The planet Keres, Left uninhabitable after the invasion that ruined the air and killed almost the entire race. I have loads of stuff to talk about for this gang of 6:

Sameal o’Ceirin (Being of smoke- partly blind.)

Mallory Thomas (Part cat! Can talk to animals. Nonbinary/genderfluid.)

Hamrish Benat (Also goes by Hami/Hayden. He/him. 4 eyes, soft tongue. PTSD. Super soft boy. Loves soap cutting videos (and doing it himself) and bears/plushies - Has an arrange of cute face masks. Is a trained nurse and learning to be a pediatrician.)

Joshua who cares (An asshole lets leave it at that.)

Andy Peters (Strong, kind. Kind of like Tyler Scheid, He/him.

Adrian Géarán ( Real anxious. Gets bullied alot. bit of a weakling/cry baby to some. Has a pretty shit immune system struggles with food and sleep.. He has a Demon esc-Tail, fire abilities, likes to make little robots. He loves iron man. He/him.)

Liren Pichi (Deaf peaches n cream boi- Nickname Pichi. He wasn’t part of the squad- however he did end up landing on their planet- he had some rough encounters with the aliens ^^)

Neighbours AU:

These guys all live in the same little cul de sac

Lynx is from planet Ananke.

They all live on the new homeworld, Ermioni. (Its basically earth just a few more creatures live there and the government is less of a mess.)

Lesbabs:

Blake Aglaia (She/ her. A human with a gift of being able to put emotions into glass balls..)

Lynx ?? (She/her/they/xe/ xir An alien and human, the alien somewhat resides inside its host but they coexist. Sometimes goes feral) Alien half likes to go by Perse (Percy) They have cool looking saliva- viens that run down their arms that are pretty cool- sharper nails/claws? Tendrils. Large ol mouth. Lots of point ass teef.

Demon fam:

Hyacinth ( A six-armed demon. Grows flowers on his skin based on emotions. He’s a huge mother hen, will care for anyone. Enjoys cooking and gardening and children. He/Him)

Rhys (They/Them. A Demon with a great curiosity about humans) Feri (The sibling of Ryhs)

Anthos (Rhys and Hy’s summoned accidental toddler.. He has a cute tail and tinnny horns. He/him)

Roommates:

Douglas Connelly (He/Him A regular chubby human bean! Loves baking and music.)

Donovan Amores (He/Him/ Real fricking cool and smokin hot Bartender with a love for dogs. Dougs roommate. Has glowing fuckin orbs- donates his heart- is smooth as fuck, background heavily Spanish (moved when young.))

Haris Alaksim Real name (lost in translation (Huitzilopochtli God of sun and war) ) - A god whom Dono is very close with and donates his heart two one every 3 years during the day of the highest sun. He is a god / Mouros. Donovan refers to him as “Dios gentil” or “ Viejo colibrí sabio” (“El viejo colibrí sabio es un dios gentil” (The old wise hummingbird is a gentle god.)

Donovans Family

Rem (They/He/Him Looks after magical creatures- Cane is from Haris)

Oscar (He/Him. Not sure what trinket or power but He’s just a casual store worker w/ good arms. Surprisingly good with knives- perhaps has one from Haris?)

Nicole (She/her/they/them. Makes clothes..possibly got some ability to do with seasons..? Perhaps earrings or a bracelet from Haris)

Javi (Makes jam, cute boy, wears cloaks. Has a cute little jar necklace ^ a proper sized magic jar. Doesn’t mind whatever pronouns but usually prefers he/him/boy.)

Luca (FTM Trans bookkeeper- Talks to Haris most often and likes to ask questions..Has precious books…Possibly a special pen..)

Forest bois:

Cypress (The soul of the forest - Mentor of Rem. Doesn't mind what you call him but usually leans masculine.)

Unicorn boi (Yet to be fleshed out. Hes got very rare blood- lost his horn and lives with a giant inside of a bubble? He/him/it)

Fyn. (Mushroom boy. Protects a gate. Lost his twin in a fire caused by humans.. He/him)

Fie. (Bat boy. Love fruit. Is ironically scared of the dark- shy but cute. He/Him)

Moh. (Fairy/incubus hybrid. They/them)

Tucker. (Bunny hybrid- cool guy with bunny ears and a tail. Soft white patches on his chest. Got a bit of an attitude but is chill- is also friends with Ainsley. He/him but is usually mistaken for a girl because he by bunny standards is..)

Ainsley. (Fawn boy. Wears glasses. Much like a deer, skittish and nerdy and keeps to himself. Tries to keep Tucker out of trouble but usually ends up dragged along instead)

Experiments:

Izekiel Iris (A being of Paint! Stutter, anxious, hallucinates. Zones out alot. An amazing artist though. He/him though has feminine tendencies.)

Matty (An experiment, part human, part lizard, part dragon. Much smol and cute. Hes very quiet, selectively mute on occasion. Lots of scars and trauma, scars on his arms and constantly needs to wear bandages. Very easily tired. he/him.)

Nes. (Based of off Crankgameplays as face claim but he’s basically his own thing at this point. He’s been through alot of angst and trauma and some really nasty stuff ^^’ (He killed his parents, the ice cream truck driver tried to abduct him, he was experimented on in a very bad place, and now he's an utter wreck who will cling to anyone who gives him the time of day. He has murder tenancies but is full of guilt and hates whenever he hurts anyone. Lots of panics. Very hard to handle if you aren’t patient.)

#muse list #oc list #character #ocs #//dont steal my bubs <3 #//but do come ask about them!!!!!!

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cyberneticlagomorph · 5 years

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Wonderland & Underland

ok it’s been a long while since I've done one of these so forgive me if I’m a bit rusty. But that’s all unimportant.

Let’s get this started shall we?

EDIT: THIS POSTED ENDED UP 5 MILES LONG SOMEHOW I’M SO SORRY…

Some background:

Wonderland is a country on Fairyland, a planet in another solar system in another dimension accessible by most any manner of portal.

Fairyland is a pretty silly name for it, its original name is Alfheim and it has been home to the majority of fae kind for millennia

Fairyland/Alfheim was founded by the First Fae, the literal first faeries ever born.

The First Fae were descended from literal stars, void, stone and raw wild magic floating around out in space

They found Fairyland when it was just a barren planetoid with no star to orbit and terraformed it with magic, afterwards they stole some other planets to form a solar system, made their own star and boom called it home

Fairyland was eventually overrun by True Royals, the offspring of Elder Gods and Fae.

It was rough and sent a lot of First Fae into hiding, before they could be hunted down and murdered

Jack, Alice, and the Red Queen are all related. Alice is Jack’s grandmother on his mom’s side and the Red Queen is Jack’s great-grandmother on his father’s side (it’s complicated, time fuckery happened at one point)

if u have questions abt fairyland (or anything else for that matter) please ask, not a lot abt it will be covered in this post for time’s sake tbh?

ok so, the history of wonderland:

wonderland was “founded” (read: stolen from the First Fae) by an Elder God by the name of the Lifeblood

The lifeblood is the goddess of carnal desires (lust/love/sex), blood, (re)birth, hearts, fertility, and chaos

she founded wonderland but immediately gave it up to her 4 true royal children as a gift

Dusk (eldest, Queen of Spades), Clover (second eldest, prince of clubs), Shard (third oldest, prince of diamonds), and Diamour (Youngest, Queen of hearts)

All but the queen of spades previously held the title prince(ss)

Each had their particular peculiar “collection”

Hearts collected cores (the metaphysical “heart” of one’s soul where emotions are kept), dyed her clothing in the blood of her enemies, made a show of her brutality by beheading people in public

Clubs was almost gentle, loved pets of all kinds (even sapient ones) and had a vast menagerie, he fed those that displeased him to his creatures

Diamonds was a creature of greed and excess, everything he owned was gilded and golden, if it was expensive and strange he wanted it but quickly grew bored with his new playthings, he had the bodies of his enemies dipped in molten gold while they were still living and kept them as statues in his gardens

Spades... Spades was vitriol and death wrapped in calm smiles and offerings of tea. Cool and calculating, she studied combat, war, the arts, medicine and necromancy alongside her "womanly duties". She took a husband young and let him think he ran the show, she killed him a dozen times over until there was nothing left but screeching essence

wonderland was prosperous for awhile until Princess Diamour learned just how small a fourth was and decided that she wanted the whole country and killed her siblings one by one

Presumably she was under the control of the Wyrm Tyrant, an ancient Dracolich that wanted/still wants to take over the world and isn’t above commiting and number of atrocities to do it (it’s “dead” now, more accurately it’s a disembodied consciousness under heavy guard locked away in Hel but it still has reach and influence but that’s another post in itself)

After disposing of her siblings, Diamour crowned herself Queen and reshaped the country in her image and anyone who dared oppose her was beheaded in public as an example

Everyone else in the country was subject to Diamour’s Charm, an ability found in most True Royals to manipulate the emotions of their victims, after all it’s hard to commit regicide if you love your Queen so much you’d die for her

Overuse of Charm can cause withdrawal symptoms, or even brain damage

Wonderland was widely considered place of "madness" which could both be attributed to Queen Diamour overusing her Charm and the flagrant shows of decadence and sexuality that might have startled any human visitors

The Bloody Queen of Hearts was eventually usurped by a young Witch named Alice and a band of freedom fighters

The country was ravaged by war, and then ravaged by the Lifeblood who turned it into a wasteland after Diamour was presumed dead

Diamour was not dead, just locked away with other Royals in a complex prison-lock to protect the Looking Glass

The Looking Glass was a relic, an item made from the body parts of an elder god or true royal, that could peer through time and space and thus gave Diamour (and previously Dusk) a huge military advantage over her neighbors. As if having a monopoly on agriculture wasn't enough.

The present-ish:

Jack eventually opened the prison lock, killing the trapped royals and destroying the Looking Glass (there was a whole event about it awhile back that I need to go find and like… tag or something)

Diamour escaped and hid herself inside his body, gathering her strength and biding her time, eventually turning his heart into a soulstone crystal and enchanting it to be her phylactery

She later made herself a body using his blood (this was also a Big Thing that i actually DID tag, you can read it HERE)

After getting her ass handed to her by Jack several times she slunk away to some unknown region and really hasn’t been seen until recently

Since opening the prison-lock jack has been carefully rebuilding wonderland from the ground up and ruling it as Prince Regent

Diamour, now “affectionately” nicknamed Queenie, has built her own kingdom in the abandoned catacombs and buried First Fae castles far below wonderland

Ok now that i have you all up to speed, lemme get down to the real nitty-gritty

Wonderland NOW:

Obligatory Pinterest board so you can understand the aesthetic better

Now that it’s under jack’s control it’s a lot softer than it used to be

Surrounded by a giant living wall made of magical metal and thorns

Populated almost solely by test subjects jack saved from delta facility, some Andrids and a few other people that decided that they wanted to live there

More technologically advanced than it was in the past, earthly cars have been converted to run on liquid magic instead of gas, there are condensers that suck ambient magic out of the air and turn it into a more usable liquid form

The architecture is more or less the same it was when Diamour ruled, very one with nature, hard to spot from the air unless you know what you’re looking for.

Houses built into trees/mushrooms or underground as burrows

Lots and lots of plants, GIANT plants, thanks to the volcanic ash and old magic in the soil even the most mundane plants get MASSIVE if planted in wonderland

Oh yeah wonderland sits on top of a mostly dormant-ish volcano, there are hotsprings scattered all over the place and the beaches have black sand but it hasn’t erupted in millennia so it’s fine… probably

The crater left over from the last time the volcano erupted is now an inland sea of considerable size that provides seafood and salt to the rest of wonderland

Has the potential to be an agricultural powerhouse if jack can ever get the hang of food production on such a massive scale

There’s a railway but it’s in serious need of repair and renovation

Jack promotes the worship of the Lifeblood since she IS a fertility goddess and doesn’t really ask much besides a few (animal) sacrifices in her name

Wonderland’s main exports are: tea, flowers, tobacco products, hemp, mushrooms, sea food, sea salt, silk, wool, honey, milk, fruits, vegetables, and a few exclusive things like jubjub bird eggs, tulgey wood, tulgey seed oil, and raw magical energy

Underland:

Obligatory Pinterest board so you can understand the aesthetic better

Created by diamour after she realized that it’d be way too much trouble to fight jack for control of wonderland

Effectively “wonderland 2” as far as Diamour is concerned

Located below wonderland the abandoned catacombs, caverns, lava tubes and buried First Fae castles literally under the land

Diamour no longer uses her Charm to help her rule, and has stopped brutally murdering people that disagree with her (for now)

It is unknown if she has turned over a new leaf or if she's just biding her time

Surrounded by old mines and mineshafts that allow eerily complete access to much of the surface, allowing Diamour and her followers to bounce around wonderland totally unseen

Populated by any number of folks descended from the original wonderlandians, succubi/incubi, goblins,vampires, and just anyone who’s looking for a good time

A giant, near-constant bacchanal (her mom is the goddess of carnal desires after all)

A lot of their tech is goblin in nature, specifically earthborn goblins that know how to keep up with things. That is to say, kingdom-wide Wifi babes.

Architecture is a little showy, most structures are carved from the surrounding stone and accented with metals and gems of varying worth. Sure paint is cheaper but the gems and metal shine in whatever light is present and make a bigger statement

A lot of buildings are built into stalagmites or stalactites, the ones that aren't are cobbled together from loose stones, built into the mineshafts, or hang from the cave roof on chains to safe floor-space

Any plants down here are either some sort of fungus/moss/mold, or are magically modified to grow underground which is difficult and time consuming

It’s all very whimsical, lots of plants and fungi have biolume and are often used as living streetlights

In terms of weather, the cave system allows enough condensation for fog and occasionally rain but not much else. It’s cold, wet and dark.

Worship of the Lifeblood is alive and well, with orgies and sacrifices being held in her name on an almost daily basis

The first wonderland was thought mad for its shows of sexuality and decadence but underland makes that look like an absolute joke

There are feasts, orgies, literal fountains of booze, parades, drugs and other parties at varying levels of debauchery being held every day

Despite all of this, underland is very dependent on trade and tourism

Underland’s main exports are: alcohol, spider silk, elysium (a potent, highly addictive faeire drug, sometimes called “the saffron of narcotics”), precious metals and gems

#ooc #timeline stuff #HOW DID THIS GET SO LONG...

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punkrock-furiosa · 5 years

Note

for the gaming asks: 8, 20, 23, 47, 63, 71?

Aaaah I saw you in my new followers list, hello! :D

8. The game with the best atmosphere/scenery?

This is a really difficult one, but I think I’m going to go with Morrowind. I first saw it when I was little (maybe eight or nine?) and I was amazed, because it looked so fairy-tale-like, magical and mysterious. I still remember the image of pink-grey mists and the sun setting behind the silhouetted pair of giant mushrooms, while a wolf howls in the distance and soft harp music plays. (There are no wolves in Morrowind, so I’m not sure what that was about. It sounded great, though.) I was enamoured with that world pretty much immediately and I still am. It made me an Elder Scrolls fan.

20. Favorite publisher and/or developer?

Bethesda, ‘cause I grew up on their TES games and their worlds I could get lost in (and they weren’t yet selling canvas bags then :D )

Bioware, for similar reasons - they made KotOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age and I enjoyed all of them a lot

OBSIDIAN, which I actually discovered through their association with Bioware and Bethesda, and let me tell you nobody can create an insanely well-written yet improbably buggy game quite like Obsidian

I’ve grown really fond of Arkane too! I discovered them the year Dishonored 2 came out - everyone was excited and praising DH 1 so I decided to give it a try and I’m super glad I did.

Amanita Design, an indie studio that always seems to randomlyreappear on my radar with some beautiful adventure game (the picture below is a little white gnome and his dog on their home asteroid in Samorost 3)

23. Favorite genre of video game?

RPGs! But in a very broad sense of the word. If it has characters I can get attached to, some manner of a world and is for a single player, I’ll probably like it and think of it as an RPG. (Except for games that skew heavily towards strategy or roguelike. I get too impatient for the first, and too annoyed by uncertain results for the second.)

47. First person or Third person?

I prefer first person BUT with an optional third person mode, because 1) I’m vain and want to admire my character’s face and clothes 2) I need to know what my PC looks like to feel like I can properly associate with them.

63. What’s a game that has inspired you?

Edit: dear goodness this got really long somehow, sorry about that xD

I’m gonna single out two:

Knights of the Old Republic - It let me play a female character in freaking Star Wars. For my early teen self, that was big.

For one, the clothes look essentially the same on PC of either gender. No boobplates, no cleavages, nothing. (I suspect this was a matter of practicality during production, but that does’t diminish the effect it had.) For two, it allows you to be a world-wrecking revenge-seeking morally ambiguous and devastatingly charismatic millitary genius who can bring the whole universe to its knees if she wants to, and there was almost no gendered judgment attached to that narrative. Like. It blew my mind at that time that a woman could figure in such a story, especially without being presented as emotionally stunted, unhinged or power-hungry and needing to be punished.

My KotOR PC is my oldest and by far most detailed original character, because she honestly meant so much to me. (Which paradoxically means her OC page is almost permanently barren because there’s always too much I want to say about her so in the end I usually end up saying nothing.😅) I’m pretty sure this game was responsible for my love of fictional female leaders with questionable morality but an unrelenting dedication to their cause.

Planescape: Torment - This is one of those games where your party is formed out of traumatised and ostracised people with deep personal issues. I’m talking “I followed someone around as their helper for possibly centuries regardless of how awfully they treated me because I vaguely feel I may have wronged them in the past life,” kind of issues.You caused some of them. Your character has issues too.

But the thing is. You help these people heal - not completely, but enought so they can see a path forward. The “golden” ending for the whole game is basically your character deciding to stop running from whatever mistakes or hurt they caused in the world and accept the consequences of their actions - alongside whatever punishment that might entail. But there is a sense that not only is this necessary for any personal growth, but by accepting this, the good you caused in the world can stay too. The friends you made will remember you and stand by you if you wish them to. The world can be better because you were in it, even if you did things that were wrong.

The writing was amazing and the story hugely catharhic and motivational for me.

Also, on a much lighter side, I’ve never seen a game so lovingly describe what a really good pear tastes like. You don’t get any skill bonus or anything for buying it with your hard-earned in-game money, just a description of a really good pear. It’s awesome.

71. A game you can’t stop talking/thinking about at the moment?

Prey! It’s like Dishonored but you can actually creatively murder stuff without a semi-omniscient being scolding you about it! :D Honestly though, I got into it to tie me over before I can get a computer to run DH2, but I’ve quickly grown to love it as its own thing - which is impressive, since it’s also a horror and I don’t find being afraid very fun. Once the exam term is over, I intend to write a (hopefully helpful) guide for other easily scared people on how to deal with the terrifying bits without feeling too overwhelmed.

There are many cool things similar to Dishonored, but the whole story feels more character-focused, which really works for me. I’m really fond of most of the main cast (sometimes of them as people, sometimes for their writing) and many side characters I’ve never even properly met.* There are countless little found tape stories, the people around you feel alive - you get to know their day, their friends, their worries, moreso even than with the Heart. Plus since you collect info from various sources, you’ve got to piece everything together. Everyone has a different agenda, everyone is hiding something and so many things become clear only after the second or third playthough.

* (My faves are Morgan, Sarah Elazar, Alex and Rani Chaudhary.)

Also, especially the first third of the game has excellent pacing. Every time I felt like I might be getting a handle on the situation, the story or environment or gameplay threw something new at me to unbalance me. There are a myriad of tiny revelations, which works incredibly well because it didn’t matter much if I saw one coming, the next one would catch me unprepared (in a very good way).

Not the mention the amazing Arkane aesthetic. Never forget the amazing Akane aesthetic.

#horsyunicorn #asks #thank you very much for the ask! :D #it took long because I somehow couldn't stop talking #you gave really good questions :)

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serpenscapes · 7 years

Text

Reasons to love One Piece (and why you should consider giving it a chance):

- Ridiculously large and colourful cast of characters (currently at 866 named characters) each of whom have incredibly unique designs and stories

- There is a reason for everything – a character who is a gold-digger has a reason for it, a character with a pinwheel in his hat has a reason for it, a CHARACTER WHO LITERALLY DRESSES LIKE A BABY ALSO HAS A REASON.

- Oda (the mangaka) has included his own interpretations of many mythical creatures (giants, mermaids, dwarves, Amazons) in the series as well as inventing many of his own species and tribes, so the breadth of races and species in One Piece is boundless.

- Insanely well-done foreshadowing. Things that happen 200 chapters ago come back and slap you in the face, or you’ll rewatch it and go “OH MY GOD THAT’S WHAT HE MEANT?” Something that happens in the FIRST EPISODE you don’t realise the true meaning or power of until approximately four hundred episodes later, and then you rewatch episode one and your whole world implodes from sheer BRILLIANCE.

- The moral of the entire series is to follow your ambitions and pursue them no matter the cost, even if it means sailing a whole fucking ocean, and it’s beautifully portrayed and remarkably moving.

- THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT - a character who insists he will kill someone if they get in the way of his ambition is later willing to sacrifice himself and his own goals for that same person. A woman is certain that she is a burden to her friends and says they should leave her to die, but later when potentially under threat she says she doesn’t mind, as she knows her friends will protect her.

- Male-female relationships aren’t fraught with sexuality or romance as they often are in other series—they’re FRIENDS. JUST FRIENDS. There’s a lot of skinship and hugging and spending time together and it’s all perfectly acceptable, with none of the unnecessary *doki doki* or blushing.

- Oda invents a lot of unique technologies within the universe e.g. instead of regular telephones there are “transponder snails”, as well as cyborgs powered by cola, cards which can track the movement and location of a specific person, coatings that allow a ship to travel underwater and many other things.

- You will ENVY the amount of confidence and conviction the main characters have – not only in themselves, but in one another.

- Speaking of envy, the friendship and bonds between the main characters will make you cry your heart out. The genuine and unwavering loyalty they have to one another is unlike anything I have ever seen in any other series, EVER.

- No, really, there’s a scene where the main characters DECLARE WAR ON THE WORLD GOVERNMENT in order to get back one of their friends. THEY LITERALLY SET A FLAG ON FIRE AND DECLARE WAR ON THE WHOLE WORLD JUST TO GET THEIR FRIEND BACK.

- Multiple strong, well-developed female characters who suffer incredible hardships and have backstories that do not revolve around males or romantic relationships

- Passes the Bechdel test

- No unnecessary romance, and any romance that is present is used entirely for comic effect

- Emphasis is placed on bonds between family/friends/platonic love

- Due to the foreshadowing and the great number of iconic scenes as well as the hilarity of some parts, the series has great rewatchability value.

- DEVIL FRUITS – Magical fruits that give you special powers if you eat them at the cost of you not being able to swim. The powers vary from things as badass as being able to turn into fire or cause earthquakes to shit as dumb as turning into a giraffe or making clothes appear on people.

- Best-selling manga in history, 4th best-selling of any comic globally ever (behind only Superman, Batman and The Beano).

- The protagonist (Luffy) is straightforward and driven and doesn’t carry around the heavy emotional burdens and questioning narratives that so many other shounen protagonists do—he does whatever he wants and doesn’t care what others will think of him for it. Luffy is incredibly cheerful, happy-go-lucky and charismatic and this is noted by one of the other characters – he has the ability to make anyone around him into his ally. Despite coming off as an idiot (which he often is) he’s also incredibly intuitive and intelligent in combat and all of this together makes him by far one of the most uniquely appealing protagonists in any shounen manga. It is impossible to dislike him.

- Clever portrayal of characters—Oda intentionally uses very little kanji when writing Luffy’s dialogue in order to portray how simplistic he is. Similarly, he gives Luffy almost no thought-bubbles because Luffy just says everything he thinks.

- Luffy has the power of the gomu-gomu fruit which means his whole body is rubber and it works very well because: a) His power isn’t ridiculously strong b) He can get very creative with it which leads to a lot of very fun fight scenes and great chances to take advantage of perspective shots, as well as mess around with proportions and this overall adds a lot to the style of the series

- Every single character is a certified BADASS. Even the characters who you don’t want to like.

- Variety of well-written and incredibly unique antagonists, each with their own motivations, powers and backgrounds.

- When a reader asked Oda if there would be any romance for or between the crew members in One Piece he responded that ‘their only love is adventure’ and I find that completely adorable (and also thank God no romance.)

- It’s really quite difficult to HATE any of the characters. There are over 800 characters and I can only say I genuinely HATE two of them. Many characters are difficult to hate once you learn their backstories and motivations, or simply because as characters they’re so compelling and charismatic.

- Ever-expanding and HUGELY creative universe: there’s an island in the sky, an island in the prehistoric ages, an island made of candy, an island on the back of a giant elephant, an island on the ocean floor and many more. The scale is quite literally insane when you realise that Oda has invented an entire WORLD from scratch and is making the characters traverse the whole thing.

- Raises immensely important questions regarding morality, good and evil, politics and the governmental system, monarchy, revolution and rebellion, class, gender, race, corruption etc.

- The government and marines in One Piece present themselves as a force of justice, but then there are marines known for being corrupt, but then there also some marines who are good?!?!? MORAL DILEMMA?!?!

- The pirates in the world of One Piece are viewed by the government as scumbags, but then some pirates are good?!?! But then some pirates are complete assholes?!?!?! FURTHER MORAL DILEMMA?!?!?

- You want to hate a character for doing something but then are they just doing their job?!?! But is their job motivated by the right things?!?! But are they allowed to question this?!?! SO MANY MORAL DILEMMAS?!?!

- Seriously all the moral ambiguity adds so much to the depth of One Piece.

- Even Luffy specifically says he is not a hero, doesn’t want to be a hero, and while he admires heroes he himself is not a hero because he’s too selfish.

- CONSPIRACY THEORIES - The government have destroyed all knowledge of a century in history which is referred to as “The Void Century” and part of the intrigue of One Piece is to find out WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY DID THE GOVERNMENT WANT TO DESTROY ALL TRACES AND WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?!?!

- There are so many crossing over storylines which then come back later i.e. a character from early in the series is waiting for a group of people, approximately 300 episodes later we MEET WHO THEY ARE WAITING FOR.

- Cartoonish art style allows for HUGELY expressive characters, dynamic action scenes and a massive variety of (often insane) character designs.

- It’s hilarious – the guy who is (arguably) the most badass in the series has such a shit sense of direction he gets lost on a straight path. There’s a reindeer on the crew who gets referred to by another member as “emergency food supply.” Another crew member constantly assumes that the other members have died or been eaten. One guy constantly gets “I-can’t-go-on-this-island” disease. When Luffy meets a new species the first thing he asks is “Do you poop?”

- It will make you cry over: a whale, a ship, a hat, a dog, a bento. No, seriously.

- You will cry over a lot of other things too

- (If you watch the anime) it has the most breath-taking soundtrack and the seiyuu all do an incredible job of voicing their characters. All of the opening songs are also TRULY karaoke-worthy.

- (If you read the manga) Oda uses the chapter covers to tell side-stories about other minor characters or villains, as well as taking drawing requests from readers. The double-page colourspreads and the volume covers are also gorgeous. His Q&As at the end of each chapter are also hilarious because he is a sarcastic fuck.

- Oda confirmed in said Q&A that Luffy’s dick stretches. Later in the story there’s a scene where a group of women who’ve never seen a man before are pulling at Luffy’s dick (while he’s unconscious) thinking it’s a mushroom that’s grown on him and saying “why is this stretching.” I’m not kidding. I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING.

- Despite the individual “arcs” and their unique storylines there is a single overarching goal throughout the series—to find One Piece, a narrative that has lasted over 20 years and is still going strong. Said single narrative allows for an attachment to the series because you REALLY want to see the end goal when they finally reach it; a lot of other series lack this level of scope.

- Each of the main characters have their own ambitions and goals and are driven to achieve these throughout the series, often by a heart-wrenching and tear-inducing backstory (all of which are depicted extremely well.)

- The arcs vary so wildly in their storylines and settings that the intrigue and fun never stops; you’re guaranteed to find one you like – examples: there’s an arc where they have to stop a civil war, an arc based on overthrowing a fake God, a prison-break arc, multiple arcs where they aim to rescue a friend/family member, a huge war and an actual HALLOWEEN ARC WITH ZOMBIES AND SHADOW MONSTERS AND A HAUNTED HOUSE (so good.)

- There are SO MANY QUESTIONS AND SO MANY THINGS WE STILL NEED TO KNOW and the fact that Oda has run the series for 20 years and still managed to keep up such a high level of intrigue and creativity is genuinely amazing

- There’s an undead skeleton with an afro who wears a top-hat, plays the violin (+ other instruments) and has a cane-sword, was also temporarily a rock star and makes terrible skeleton-based puns/jokes. There’s also a tiny reindeer who can transform because he ate the human-human devil fruit. Also he’s a doctor and gets embarrassed and swears at people when they complement him. Both of these characters are amazing and have back stories that will make you cry your eyes out. And they’re just TWO of the characters.

- The series is my go-to when I need cheering up because the characters are so well-developed that they are easy to sympathise with/develop an attachment towards, the adventures they go on are a good mixture of fun, painful/well-constructed, the determination they have to achieve their goals is incredibly motivational and above all, the dedication the characters have to each other is heartbreakingly genuine.

- In conclusion: One Piece is completely stunning

#One Piece #pls love one piece pls I don't write a 2000 word document for just anything #OP #onepiece #ワンピース

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ahrorha · 4 years

Text

Flame of Winter

Chapter 25

The forests of the Arbor Wilds were vast, wild and humid. It had been days since they had entered the Wilds in pursuit of Corypheus and his red templars. They were following the trail of burned down camps and traces of ambushes left by Leliana's people in an effort to slow Corypheus down. Finally, after seeing nothing but trees, strange birds and vast fields of mushrooms, there were signs that they were nearing their goal, the Temple of Mythal.

Riding her hart Eirlana was in awe, these forests were old, very old. To her left and right were busted statues, fallen pillars and crumbled walls hidden between the trees and plants. They marked the overgrown and broken road they currently followed. As they saw more and more remnants of elven architecture, she began to realise how vast this complex must have been. She glanced at Solas, who rode next to her. It was strange to think that he probably had once walked these very same roads. It must be hard for him to return here and see everything fallen into ruins.

It had been three weeks since they had left Skyhold, and although it had been hard on her to travel, it had also been good for her. The travelling gave her time to breath, to shake away the nightmares that had occupied her mind. Though the grief and the loss she felt was still raw, it wasn't longer crushing her.

The journey gave her time to think about the things that had happened. She also tried to put the events of the past in the right context. She knew only fragments of the life the Elvhen people had lived in the time of Elvhenan. They were whispers and snippets of memory in the Fade and the things she had learned of Ghi'lan, her teacher. Since her encounter with Falon'Din, her perspective had changed. What once were faint echoes of the past were becoming a reality. The rulers of a world, where magic had been endless, were still alive. They had dominated Thedas as immortal beings and had ruled with absolute power until they vanished.

She knew that the legends and whispers blamed Fen'Harel for the disappearance of the Elvhen Gods and the fall of the Elvhen empire. The stories said that Fen'Harel had locked the Gods away, and retreated to the Fade after his deed was done.

She had always wondered what really had happened back then, but the memories in the Fade were faint and hard to find. Often they were chaotic and fragmented, twisted by fear, anger and desperation. It didn't help either that she had been a slave most of her life. Back then, when she travelled with her Mater, there had always been the pressure of finding something useful to him. She hadn't been able to explore the Fade freely; with her being forcefully thrown in and pulled out of the Fade. It was like she had only seen slivers of a complex story. Echoes of destruction, and memories of desperate elves. Elves that were angry and distraught because their magic was failing or fearful as they suddenly were ageing. She heard their calls of help to their Gods and cursing Fen'Harel for what he had done.

Although she had spent days on end in the Fade as a child, she hadn't grasped her abilities back then. The Fade was her playground, a place where she was safe, a place free of hunger and pain. Only after she had met Ghi'lan this changed, he taught her about magic and how to survive and manipulate the Fade. He also told her stories of Elvhenan, she learned about the Elvhen people and the Evanuris that ruled over them. She learned that life had been far from ideal for the Elvhen people. Although there were magical marvels, wealth and prosperity, there were also wars, slavery and oppression. She would spend hours listening to him as a child, he was patient with her and would answer her questions. But whenever she would ask him what had happened to the elves, his answers were vague and cryptic. Now, she was older, she wondered if he couldn't or just wouldn't give her the answer.

Since Solas had freed her, she hadn't thought about discovering the ancient past. Being free for the first time she had spent her time in the Fade more casual. Not longer taking lyrium, she had explored more of the local memories that were easier to find. Although she had never forgotten her questions about Elvhenan, there had never been a rush to find the answer. She had always thought she had the time and that she would find the truth someday in the future, when she wouldn't constantly be travelling or fighting against a corrupted magister.

And now she had the feeling she was running out of time. Legends were turning into reality, and the past that had become twisted and tangled was slowly unravelling before her eyes.

The existence of Solas, Falon'Din and a third Evanuris had her wondering; who and what else had survived. What were their plans? And why were they resurfacing now?

The longer she thought about them, the more uneasy she felt about what the future would bring.

One thing she knew for sure, Solas was here for a reason. It hadn't been a coincidence he wanted to reach the conclave. Back then, he had been in a hurry.

Had he known Corypheus would be there?

Was he somehow involved?

Had he known about the foci?

What she did know was that the explosion at the conclave hadn't been part of his plan. At least that was what she hoped.

Looking at Solas, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling. What if she was wrong?

Solas noticed her staring at him. “Are you alright?”

“...Yes.”

“We should reach the base camp soon, and hopefully, you can rest there.”

Eirlana knew he was worried about her, and she felt guilty that she had those doubts about him. How could she think he would willingly kill all those people at the conclave? Shaking those dark thoughts away, she smiled at him. “I feel fine, don't worry.”

Solas reached out and caressed her arm. To his relief, she was recovering well even with them being on the road. Slowly she was returning to her former self, and although she wasn't as open towards him as before, she was beginning to talk more to him and the others. Still, he could feel a distance between them that hadn't been there before.

He could sense the sadness and guilt she was feeling in her grief; the fear left by her trauma. But, to his relief, they weren't overpowering her any longer. What he couldn't place was the periods of confusion and doubt she experienced, and he wondered what was causing them.

His hart snorted and reared its head as he rode to close to Varric riding in front of him. Backing off, he turned his eyes back on the road. He spotted Ryan riding a short distance in front of him, and he automatically narrowed his eyes.

It was ironic that Ryan had chosen him and Eirlana to accompany him with his growing distrust about their stability as mages. But on the other hand, he also distrusted Dorian, and Vivienne had probably some important political task to fulfil. Of course, Ryan's suspicions about them were utterly absurd, and a glaring proof how incompetent and wrong the humans views about magic was with their Chantry's and templar's.

He glared at the templar armor Ryan so proudly wore. The longer he worked with the man, the more he began to despise him and his decisions. His detest grew even deeper when he thought back at how Ryan had ordered Eirlana to come with them, totally ignoring the fact that she was still recovering. Solas knew the only reason Ryan wanted her here was because of her abilities. It was sickening to think that he may demand from her to use her skills for his own gain. Skills for which she was abused for in the past. Not to mention that Ryan would most likely trample all over the Temple of Mythal, that harboured secrets that shouldn't fall into human hands. Solas sighed in frustration as they drew closer to their goal. He felt reluctant to return here, too many of his memories were connected to these holy grounds. He had often visited Mythal here, but it was also the place where she was betrayed and murdered. A sense of bitterness, anger and sorrow filled him when he thought back at how he and some of Mythal's confidants had found her destroyed body and her Temple plundered. Now he was returning here again, to the place where he had failed to protect his dearest and closest friend.

“You should stay behind.” Solas said while checking his equipment.

They had reached the Inquisitions main camp and were readying themselves for combat. In the distance, the sounds of battle could already be heard, where Cullen's troops had engaged the Venatori and red templars.

Eirlana fidgeted with her gloves. “I want to go. I am alright.”

He could see she was anxious. “No, you are not.” he brushed her cheek. “You are not yourself since Imshael captured you, and I don't expect you to be. You suffered a great loss and need rest and time to recover, not another battle.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears away that threatened to escape. Stepping forward, she leaned against him, and he took her softly into his arms. She knew she was worrying him and hurting him by being so distant. But the more she was accepting the fact that he was Fen'Harel, the more she feared to tell him that she knew.

“I am sorry.” she mumbled against his chest.

“Vhenan, don't be.” he pressed a kiss on her head. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I know.” she exhaled and looked up at him. “But you know where we are.”

His expression grew more serious. “I do.”

“Do you really want them to trample over of what is left from...” She hesitated for a fraction. “from what Mythal was to the People.”

Solas moved slightly backwards but kept his arms around her, he found her choice of words strange.

“You know how Ryan is, Solas.” she continued looking at him. “And I don't want him to foolishly stumble upon something he doesn't understand. If Corypheus is of any example, we need to keep powerful artefacts from falling into the wrong hands.”

He averted his eyes, knowing it was his fault that Corypheus had his orb. Taking a long breath, he sighed. “Alright, but stay close to me. You are not yet well enough to fight.”

“I promise.” she smiled slightly.

She didn't know what they would find at the Temple, but she knew it had a connection with Solas' past. She had noticed that he was unusually quiet about the upcoming mission. It was so unlike him, to refrain from giving his opinion. She had also noticed he was avoiding Ryan and Morrigan, and their speculations about Mythal, her Temple and the eluvian.

Determined to find out more, she grabbed her staff and walked towards Iron Bull, Cassandra and Morrigan. They all were waiting for Ryan to finish talking with, now Emperor, Gaspard. She heard Gaspard boasting that the battle was a worthy hunt, as if it was a joke that the soldiers risked their lives to carve them a path to Corypheus. It sickened her to hear them laughing. Didn't they care for the loss of life and the destruction they brought to this place? She wondered what they would do if elves still had lived here. Would they also hunt them like a horrid sport? Would they trample and crush on that what remained?

One thing was certain something powerful had survived until this age. There was magic tingling in the air, and it had steadily grown stronger as they came nearer the Temple. It was reacting to their presence, and judging by Morrigan's demeanour, she wasn't the only one who was aware of it.

“Let's go!” Ryan commanded and marched towards the sounds of battle.

The forest was old and dense. The floor was covered with thick patches of fallen leaves, mouldy wood and mushrooms. Their feet sunk into the soft ground as they hurried along the twisted path, passing through huge hollowed out trees. Flocks of colourful birds flew up as they passed through the thick green underbrush. Along the way, they ran into small skirmishes between the Inquisitions forces and red templars. Soon they reached a river with remnants of elven architecture, but Eirlana had no time to study them, because a group of red templars was awaiting them.

Eirlana tried to keep herself out of the combat as she promised, but as a behemoth came lumbering from behind the ruins, she felt herself automatically casting an ice spell to freeze the creature. She was startled when the spell manifested itself almost instantly, freezing the creature solid.

What was happening to her?

Ever since she had awoken, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had somehow changed. She couldn't pinpoint what it was, but she felt somehow different. At first, she had thought it was because of her wounds, but she was now almost completely healed. What remained was that her body felt foreign to her.

She didn't know exactly what Falon'Din had done to her or why he had helped her at all. She doubted it was out of kindness or the goodness of his heart. Whatever the reason, he had cured her and changed her in the process.

Even if she ignored the feeling of her body, she knew her magic had most definitely changed. She always had a strong affinity with the Fade, but not like this. Her dreams had become more vivid, with the Fade responding quicker and more fluently than ever before. Even when awake, it felt like she was closely connected with the realm beyond the Veil. This connection fuelled her magic like nothing she had experienced before. It was like she had tapped into a new well of energy, and she didn't know its origin nor its limitations.

Now with her casting for the first time in combat again, the difference was even more apparent. Her magic manifested easier and with more power than before. It was almost like when she had cast her first spells outside of the Fade, when she didn't know how to control her power. She needed to be careful.

The battle was swift and merciless, and soon the lifeless bodies of their enemies lay on the ground. To their surprise they found Grey Wardens among them, probably the last that remained from the mages Corypheus had enslaved at Adamant.

Why had Corypheus brought them out here, Eirlana wondered as they moved on.

“Over there, another red templar encampment.” Ryan proclaimed. “Mages take care of the archers on the wall. Iron Bull and Cassandra you are with me.”

He rushed forward, bashing his shield against a red templar knight, almost running him over. Iron Bull and Cassandra sprinted past him, engaging the red templar shadows before they would disappear into the shadows.

Staying behind Solas and Morrigan, Eirlana cringed when Ryan labelled them as mages. Why wasn't he using their names? Quickly she threw her barriers around everyone so Solas and Morrigan could focus on their offensive spells.

The battle was progressing straight forward when suddenly Solas turned around and pulled Eirlana roughly behind him. Stumbling, she looked over her shoulder where out of nowhere an elf materialised with his daggers drawn. Solas moved his staff quick and efficient, blocking the attack. The strange elf swiftly spun around trying to land a hit with his blades, but Solas moved fluently along, easily keeping himself and her out of harm's way. She had never seen him move like that before, he moved like he knew how the elf would attack.

More elves appeared, attacking the others. “Katara Bas! They fight like a hurricane!” Iron Bull grunted, and Ryan exclaimed “Maker, take you!” as everyone changed targets.

Summoning magical energy Solas blasted the elf backwards.

”Leave us. We are not your enemy.” he called out, but the elf didn't even flinch and jumped to the left to strike again.

Not having any other choice Solas summoned a stone fist to punch the elf backwards. This was the first time he had to fight against one of the People with only a simple staff as his weapon. He wished he could pick up a blade himself and deal with the attacker more swiftly, but that would betray too much of his past. Where in Thedas would a simple apostate have learned to wield a blade like a warlord?

As sudden as the elves had appeared, they disappeared again into the shadows.

“Everyone alright?” Ryan asked wiping sweat from his brow.

“It seems the Temple of Mythal is not abandoned after all.” Morrigan remarked. “It is likely that these creatures are the reason few return from the Arbor Wilds.”

Ryan shouldered his shield. “Who were they? They seem... odd.”

“Indeed. Two things are possible.” Morrigan explained. “One, this is a group of Dalish separated from their brethren. Cultists. Fanatic in their desire to keep humans away. Two, these are elves descended from the ancients, having resided here since before the fall of Arlathan. The second appears unlikely, but if true, the implications are astounding.”

“Whatever is the case we can't let them stop us from getting to Corypheus.” Ryan grunted and walked further down the path.

Looking at one of the fallen elves Eirlana hesitated for a moment. The elf's features were sharp, and his skin tone wasn't like any she had ever seen, pale almost greenish in colour. Like the elf hadn't seen sunlight in ages. His vallaslin was greenish golden and more intricate then the markings the Dalish wore. They were clad in elegant armor, forged from an unknown metal that shimmered golden in the sunlight.

No, Eirlana thought, these are no descendants. There was only one place she had seen such vallaslin and such armor before, and that was in the Fade. These were ancient elves, awakened from uthenera by their presence.

They rushed forward, past remnants of bridges and outer buildings that were decorated with broken murals and overgrown statues. It was strange Eirlana thought, for being a place of worship of Mythal there were a lot of statues representing the other Evanuris. Whatever this place once was, it was connected to all of them.

After more encounters with red templars, they finally reached the Temple. Eirlana faltered when she saw the four giant Fen'Harel statues, that stood at the Temple's entrance. They had a place of honour, guarding the gates of Mythal's sanctuary. Although she had seen statues of Fen'Harel at other temples before, it had been nothing like this. She wondered what his connection with Mythal was. Frustrated that she didn't know more, she hoped, once they had dealt with Corypheus, she would get the opportunity to dream here and explore the Fade.

Hurrying along a long archway, they heard fighting up ahead. Ryan signalled for them to slow down, and they carefully sneaked onto a platform that was littered by red templar and Venatori corpses. To their left and right, the outer walls of the Temple fanned out encircling a big lake. A good distance from its shore, the water suddenly plummeted into the depths, creating a giant circular waterfall. In its centre, the Temple of Mythal arose.

Below them, the ground was covered with more corpses of Venatori and elves.

A group of elves, guarding the bridge leading to the Temple, was facing Corypheus. A woman stood at Corypheus' side with his remaining troops, a couple of Grey Wardens were among them.

“Na melana sur, Banallen!” the leader of the elves called out.

“The wretch mocks you, Master.” the woman sneered.

Corypheus paced forward. “These are but remnants. They will not keep us from the Well of Sorrows.”

As he stepped forward, two statues of Mythal standing next to the bridge began to glow with magical energy. Corypheus hesitated for a moment but resumed his path. “Be honoured! Witness death at the hands of a new god!”

Powerful magic shot out from the statues, engulfing Corypheus. To the horror of the elves, he kept moving and grabbed the leader by his throat. It appeared the magic wasn't affecting Corypheus at all. Then his flesh began to melt and drip to the ground. It was consuming him and disintegrating his body. The magical energy kept building power until it suddenly exploded, throwing back a part of Corypheus' troops as well as the elven guardians, killing them. The light of the explosion blinded Ryan and the others. As the smoke cleared, they saw the woman and the remaining troops crossing the bridge and disappearing into the Temple.

On their guard, they all moved towards the bridge, carefully stepping through the carnage the explosion had left behind.

“Did Corypheus just die?” Ryan asked in disbelief, looking around, searching for any trace left of him.

Eirlana felt uneasy, something wasn't right. Corypheus followers weren't acting like their leader had just died. Suddenly she felt a foul energy gathering behind her. Whirling around, she gasped as one of the corpses of the Grey Wardens started to move. It grunted and spasmed, blackened blood spew from its mouth like a geyser. They all stepped back when the body began to twist and turn black. All of a sudden new arms shot out from the blackened mass, and Corypheus' body slowly rose.

“It cannot be!” Morrigan exclaimed in disbelief.

“Across the bridge. Now!” Ryan yelled, and they all ran.

Glancing behind her Eirlana saw the blackened figure of Corypheus rose and watching them. A familiar roar sounded above them. Corypheus' dragon plunged out of the sky, firing its corrupting fire breath. They all ran as fast as they could through the open doors of the Temple and quickly pushed them shut, hoping it would give them some protection against the beast. They made it just in time, and the doors magically sealed themselves, locking out Corypheus and his dragon. For the time being, they were safe.

After the constant battle, the courtyard of the Temple lay strangely peaceful before them. The area was totally overgrown and adorned with several statues of Mythal. Looking around Eirlana also spotted a couple of wolven statues, Fen'Harel was even represented here. What had been their relationship, she wondered again.

There were no signs of the Venatori, apart from a few corpses, nor of the guardians of the Temple. Ryan ran across the square, up the stairs, towards the next doors leading deeper into the Temple, but they were magically sealed shut. Frustrated, he kicked against them.

Abruptly he turned towards Morrigan. “You said Corypheus wanted an eluvian, but he talked about the 'Well of Sorrows.' What is it?”

Morrigan scratched her head. “I am uncertain of what he was speaking.”

“Of course you are.” Ryan snapped. “Are they the same? Is eluvian another name for it?”

“No, it seems an eluvian is not the prize Corypheus seeks.” Morrigan snapped back. “But whatever this Well is, Corypheus is after it, and thus you must keep it from his grasp.”

“What I want to know is how Corypheus came back to life.” Ryan yelled. “We saw him die.”

“It looks like his life force was passed on to the Grey Warden.” Morrigan calmed herself. “Perhaps he possesses the same ability as an Archdemon. Maybe the Grey Wardens knew this, and that's why they locked him away.”

“Then, Corypheus cannot die.” Solas murmured in thought. “Destroy his body, and he will assume another.”

During their discussion, Eirlana sat down on the stairs, her legs were shaking and hurting from the running they had done. Noticing her discomfort, Solas squatted down and tried to soothe her with pulses of healing magic.

“We need to find a way to stop Corypheus once we're done here.” Ryan huffed, looking around for a way forward. “This Mythal, what do you know about her Morrigan?”

“The accounts of Mythal are very old and varied, I don't know if she truly existed. It could be she was once a powerful elf or another being of immense power, if she was ever a single entity. The accounts of her are more stories than facts. I question her supposed divinity, however. One need not to be a god to have value.”

“What are those stories of her?”

“In most stories, Mythal rights wrongs while exercising motherly kindness. 'Let fly your voice to Mythal, deliverer of justice, protector of sun and earth alike.' Other paint her as dark, vengeful. 'Pray to Mythal, and she would smite your enemies, leaving them in agony.'”

“More Dalish tales, I assume.” Solas turned towards Morrigan, Eirlana could tell he was annoyed. “For all your 'knowledge,' Lady Morrigan, you cannot resist giving legend the weight of history. The wise do not mistake one for the other.”

“Pray tell, what does our elven 'expert' know about this?” Morrigan snarled.

“The oldest accounts say Mythal was both of these, and neither. She was the Mother, protective and fierce. That is all I will say. This is not a place to stir up old stories.”

“Whatever the truth,” Morrigan turned her attention back to Ryan. “all accounts of Mythal end the same: exiled to the Beyond with her brethren.”

“What do you mean, exiled?”

“Tricked by the Dread Wolf, as all the elven gods were said to be, trapped in a land beyond the Fade. Many Dalish believe this is why the elves fell from grace, and their gods did not save them. Or perhaps they were simply rulers slain by Tevinter. Who can say?”

Eirlana carefully observed Solas and how his eyes reflected a deep sorrow. Whatever had happened to Mythal, it had touched him deeply.

“Let's find a way through these doors,” Ryan said.

“That altar may hold more information.” Morrigan suggested, pointing towards a couple of stones, standing upright in the centre of an elevated part of the courtyard.

They all approached the altar. Ryan, who stepped on the elevation first jumped immediately back as the tile he stepped on, began to glow.

“It appears the temple's magics are still strong.” Morrigan moved next to him.

Getting more irritated, Ryan pointed towards the engraved stones. “That script is that elven? Does it say anything about this Well of Sorrows?”

“Atish'all Vir Abelasan.” Solas read out loud. “It means 'enter the path of the Well of Sorrows.'”

Morrigan huffed, clearly annoyed that Solas was taking the credit for translating the elven script. “There is something about knowledge. Respectful or pure. Shiven, shivennen. It is all I can translate. That it mentions, the Well is a good omen.”

“Vague translations of knowledge and sorrow. This doesn't help us at all.” Ryan grumbled.

“It is likely supplicants to Mythal would have paid some form of respect and obeisance first before they were granted permission to enter the temple.”

During their discussion, Eirlana looked around. She could feel the Veil was thin here, and the air was humming with the same magic she felt earlier. Looking next to the altar, she saw a shimmer. Something was moving along the tiles, but it was very faint like a wisp of smoke. Puzzled at to what it was, she concentrated on it.

Suddenly she connected with a spirit living here in this part of the Fade. In shock, she staggered slightly, never before she had been able to connect with a spirit in this manner without being asleep or in a trance. The spirit seemed excited by her presence and began to share the past. As she watched the image became clearer. She could see shadows of thousand and thousands of elves that had walked this path before them. They were honouring Mythal, appeasing her, praying for her favour, her wrath and forgiveness.

It was both fascinating and terrifying. How was this possible without her entering the Fade? The images were flickering as she tried to keep connected with the spirit, but it was difficult. As before, her control over her magic, her flow of mana fluctuated and as sudden as the images had appeared, they vanished again.

Blinking her eyes, she spoke up. “It's a dance.”

Everyone's attention turned towards her.

“A dance?” Morrigan huffed mockingly, raising her eyebrows sceptically.

“Will that open the door?” Ryan asked.

“Maybe. It was a ritual performed here by the Elvhen. I will try it.” Carefully she stepped on the first tile that began to glow again.

“A ritual to appease elven gods? Long-dead or no, I don't like it.” Cassandra protested.

“We have no other choice.” Ryan grumbled. “The Maker will forgive us.”

Solas watched Eirlana as she moved over the tiles, her body swaying to the rhythm of an unheard tune.

How often had he attended the ritual? How often had he stood at Mythal's side, watching the faithful, judging them as to who was worthy of being heard? It chilled him to the bone, to see her perform the same steps. With each step she took, he felt like she was taking a step back in time, a step closer to the truth.

He wanted to intervene and stop her, stop her from entangling herself deeper into the web he had created, a web he himself was captured in. It was his own fault, his own weakness that allowed her to come this close, he had allowed her to become part of him.

Standing here where Mythal had fallen, he felt closer than ever to the path he had chosen, the Din'Anshiral. He knew only death would await him at the end. It felt like with each step she took, she was following him on that path, and she didn't deserve that fate. She deserved to be free. Free from the secrets he carried, free from his bloody duty.

The optimism and hope he felt not so long ago had vanished. It had been a dream, a fleeting moment of happiness he would be forever grateful for. But the dream had shattered before it began. He lowered his eyes and clenched his jaw, he needed to harden himself and face his inescapable faith. A faith he had to face alone.

Determined Solas watched Eirlana stepping on the last tile, finishing the ritual. With a whooshing sound, the ancient magical seals activated, unlocking the doors behind them.

With a heavy heart, he followed the others, knowing that this day wouldn't end well. For he knew one thing, if the Sentinels were still guarding this place, the Well of Sorrows was still intact, and with it the Will of Mythal.

They entered the inner hall, it was also overgrown with trees and plants. Arches to the left and right let to other chambers of the Temple. Up a set of stairs stood the woman with a group of Venatori. They were just in time to witness the group of mages blast a hole into the floor, creating an opening to the lower parts of the Temple.

“Don't let them pass!” The woman yelled before jumping down the hole. Out of all directions, Venatori emerged from behind the columns and trees. They were surrounded.

“There is no end to these bastards.” Iron Bull growled and smashed his warhammer into the first warrior that came rushing towards them. Ryan and Cassandra bashed their shields, drawing attention to themselves. Solas automatically stepped in front of Eirlana, so he could shield her better from the combat.

Although they had faced the Venatori often, the overgrown vegetation in the hall made the battle treacherous. The trees provided excellent cover for the archers and mages, and the gnarled roots and broken up tiles made the ground uneven. Ryan cursed loudly several times when he almost lost his footing.

Cutting down the last mage, Ryan yelled. “Let's go! If we hurry, we might catch them.” and ran up the stairs towards the hole that still smoked from the explosion.

“Hold! A moment.” Morrigan hurried and blocked his path. “While they rush ahead, this leads to our true destination.” she pointed towards a closed door, flanked by four Mythal statues, at the other end of the hall. “We should walk the petitioner's path, as before.”

“You forget that army fighting for us out there?” Iron Bull growled disapproving. “The longer we play around, the more Inquisition soldiers die. There's a hole – Jump in.”

“I agree. Performing even more heathen rituals. I'm against it.” Cassandra proclaimed.

“We are on ancient grounds.” Solas countered. “It deserves our respect.”

“Yes, we should respect this Temple. I should be able to figure out the rituals quickly.” Eirlana agreed with him.

“Also we may not be able to find the Well of Sorrows unprepared.” Morrigan continued.

“Why not?” Ryan crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.

“I read more in the first chamber than I revealed. It said a great boon is given to those who use the Well of Sorrows... but at a terrible price.”

“What did it say exactly?” Ryan looked displeased at her.

“Like most elven writing, it was insufferably vague. The term I deciphered was 'Halam'shivanas' – 'the sweet sacrifice of duty.' It implies the loss of something personal for duty's sake. Yet for those who served at this temple, a worthwhile trade. I am willing to pay the cost to preserve the Well.”

“Why didn't you say something earlier?”

“I hoped to find more information first.”

“And gain what?” he interrupted her.

“More relevant information about the Well, there may be a way to preserve it. The rituals may point to the way.”

“We already have lost too much time with this nonsense.” Ryan stepped passed her and jumped down.

They swiftly moved through the cellars of the Temple, the few Venatori that tried to stop them hardly slowed them down. That was until their path was blocked by a collapsed passage. It had just been brought down, the rubble was still on fire, and the dust hadn't even settled yet. Ryan cursed loudly. There was no way for them to clear the path quickly and continue their pursuit.

“Guess we go back up again.” Iron Bull remarked, pointing to some stairs leading back to the upper levels.

The stairs led them into a grand vestibule, illuminated by lanterns and fire bowls. The light shimmered off the flaky golden paint covering the walls. Golden decorative fencing glittered at the tops of the arches that surrounded the chamber, that was decorated with several mosaics and murals.

“What was this room used for...?” Morrigan wondered aloud.

Cautiously they entered. As they reached the centre, elves emerged from the shadows surrounding them with their bows drawn.

“Venavis.” a hooded elf stepped onto a raised balcony in front of them. He wore the same sculpted armour as the other ancient elves and Eirlana only noticed now how silently it moved. He had the same pale complexion, as well as an intricate golden-green vallaslin of Mythal.

The hooded elf crossed his arms and looked down upon them. “You... are unlike the other invaders. You stumble down our paths at the side of one of our own. You bear the mark of magic which is … familiar. How has this come to pass? What is your connection to those who first disturbed our slumber?”

Eirlana's heart skipped a beat when he mentioned Solas, but no one else of her companions reacted to his remark. Did the elf know Solas? She frowned when he described the mark as familiar. How could he recognize it? Corypheus had claimed he had forged the mark using the foci he possessed. It had transferred to Ryan after he touched the orb at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. But if this ancient elf recognized it, it meant the mark had always been part of the orb. She glanced at Solas. If Solas' goal to reach the conclave had been the foci, had he also been after the mark? She knew he had control over it and that it interacted with the Veil like it was a key. So what had Solas planned to do with it?

Ryan stepped forward, glaring at the elf. “I won't be interrogated at sword point. Declare yourself!”

The elf narrowed his eyes. “I am called Abelas. We are Sentinels, tasked with standing against those who trespass on sacred ground. We wake only to fight, to preserve this place. Our numbers diminish with each invasion. I know what you seek. Like all who have come before, you wish to drink from the vir'abelasan.”

“ 'The Place of the Way of Sorrows', he speaks of the Well!” Morrigan whispered to Ryan.

“It is not for you. It is not for any of you.” Abelas announced.

Eirlana sighed, for all the knowledge and expertise Morrigan claimed to have about elves and their history, she had forgotten that elven hearing was far better than that of humans. Abelas clearly had heard her and confirmed his suspicion why they were intruding. She watched the ancient elf that stared sternly at them. Abelas... Sorrow. She wondered what did he mourn to have been given that name. Did he mourn the demise of the Elvhen people? Or did his name have another origin?

“I am Inquisitor Trevelyan, Chosen of Andraste!” Ryan said. “I command you to let us through! I don't know what weird elven cult this is, but I need to reach this Well. Stand aside!”

Abelas studied him for a moment. “Your title means nothing to us. Our duty is clear. The vir'abelasan shall not be usurped... even if I must destroy it. Masal Din'an!” He turned and ran deeper into the Temple.

“No!” Morrigan exclaimed. With the blink of an eye, she turned into a crow and flew after Abelas.

“Morrigan!” Ryan yelled, but it is too late, she was already gone.

A hail of arrows was released as the remaining Sentinels attacked them. Immediately, Ryan, Cassandra and Iron Bull went into the offence, protected by Solas' barriers.

Shocked by how quick the situation escalated Eirlana wasn't as fast. Every part of her being rebelled against this course of action. Soon though she had no other choice but to defend herself. Where she could, she quelled her magic, hoping that some of the Sentinels would fall unconscious and survive this day.

Tears welled up in her eyes when the battle was over. Why hadn't Ryan talked to them normally? These elves had done nothing, they were only protecting their home.

Solas turned to Ryan, he too was upset. “This was unnecessary. A pointless waste of life.”

Ryan crossed his arms. “I didn't make them attack, Solas. They're the ones clinging to their pointless duty.”

“Pointless, is it?” Solas sneered. “This is their land, not yours.”

“We need to stop Corypheus.” Ryan snapped.

“Does that justify murder?” Eirlana asked, her voice raised and heavy with emotion. “They are only protecting their home. We could have explained it to them.”

“Enough! You both followed me here!”

Solas sighed quietly. “Yes, so we did.” but Eirlana didn't think Ryan heard him, as he continued to yell at them.

“I am the leader! And we have a mission to fulfil. You both know what's at stake. We need to stop Corypheus. I have no time for your or their feelings. Now shut up and follow me!”

Iron Bull grunted. “Apparently humans aren't the only stubborn fools on this continent.”

Searching the vestibule, they discovered an open door. Along twisted passages and stairs, they went deeper into the Temple. In their hurry, they didn't take the time to look around. Eirlana could only glance at the faded splendour they encountered everywhere. There were more statues of Mythal, grand mosaics and faded murals. Arches were decorated with golden filigree and decorative fences. Wherever she looked, there was a golden surface. Se had never seen so much gold in her life, and she could only imagine how in the past this Temple must have basked in a permanent glow.

She gasped when they passed the first massive golden statues of Fen'Harel, but as they found even more of them deeper in the Temple, she wondered just how important his connection was to Mythal. He must have had a crucial task to be represented this often. How could it be that such a connection had been forgotten through the ages? Nothing in elven history or legends she knew off ever mentioned their bond. She promised herself that when this was over, she would look for more information in the Fade. Now she knew what to look for it would be easier to find it.

They came into another chamber and encountered a group of Venatori and Sentinels engaged in battle. Both Ryan and Cassandra rushed immediately into the fight, followed closely by Iron Bull. Reluctantly Eirlana joined them, knowing this was now their only way to stop Corypheus. But it felt wrong to fight the Sentinels, and she tried just to knock them out whenever she got an opportunity.

“This place is like a maze.” Ryan complained when the next door revealed another corridor leading into a different direction. “Keep your guard up. We face two opponents now, and these Sentinels will know every turn of this place.”

“I wonder whose fault that is.” Solas murmured.

Ryan glared at him but didn't say anything further.

Continuing their path, Eirlana pondered how things would have gone differently if they had completed the ritual and paid their respect to this place. If only Ryan had been civil with Abelas. She glanced at Solas, who had a frown on his face; it was comforting to know she wasn't the only one who was angry at the situation.

Another group of Venatori and Sentinels attacked them. Solas twisted around when an assassin struck from the shadows. Though he kept himself and Eirlana safe, he had a hard time concentrating on the battle. His mind kept wandering to a different time. He knew these halls by heart, and with each turn they took, he was confronted by memories of his past.

He remembered how he often talked with Mythal. How they could spend hours in heated discussions. How they smirked together at his mischief, or he would simply vent his frustrations. With melancholy, he glanced at a pile of offerings that lay at the foot of one of his statues, remembering the fierce argument they had about them. Back then, he had demanded the practice to be stopped. He had argued that he wasn't a god and that it wasn't right that he and the others were worshipped as such.

He wondered if things would have gone differently if he hadn't started to rise up against the other Evanuris. Would Mythal still be alive? Or had his uprising only accelerated the inevitable? He knew that the Evanuris lust for absolute power and domination had been insatiable, and were destabilizing the world. But had his actions forced them to move against Mythal. Or would they have killed her regardlessly?

And now he himself had returned as an invader.

Coming here, Solas had expected to be confronted by the memories of his past. He even had considered the possibility that they would encounter some of the People. Elvhen like himself that had survived the ages in uthenera. What he hadn't expected was to meet Abelas. He had held his breath when he recognised him, and for a moment, he had been afraid that Abelas would call him out. Although in hindsight, it wasn't surprising that Abelas all but ignored him. He had always been one of the most loyal and the most stubborn of Mythal's servants. He didn't live for anything else but his duty, even when there were other paths to follow, other places to go. Places where he and his followers would be welcomed, places where others were gathering and preparing. But Ryan's hostility had forced Abelas' hand, and he would do anything to protect the vir'abelasan.

“There the Well of Sorrows!” Ryan pointed as they stepped out onto a balcony overseeing a garden.

Relieved they finally found it, Cassandra exhaled. “Andraste guide us.”

“So Mythal endures.” Solas murmured.

The inner sanctum of the Temple must once have been a beautiful, well-kept garden. It was still beautiful, but now it was wild and overgrown, nature clearly had taken over. Trees and other plants grew everywhere and had destroyed parts of the walls and paths. Piles of rubble lay here and there, and everything was covered in layers of algae and moss. A waterway flowed through the garden, plunging down into a deep fissure at the garden's centre, beyond it a mass of rocks arose. On its top, they could see a body of water reflecting the sunlight.

In the garden below them, a group of Venatori was brutally cutting down the last of the Sentinels.

Quickly they ran down the stairs. Anger and sorrow filled Eirlana as she witnessed one of the Venatori warriors standing on one of the Elvhen, drowning him cruelly in the water. She was too late to stop it.

How could they do this? How could any of this happen? The Inquisition was supposed to fight Corypheus, to save and protect the world and its people from him. So why weren't they saving these Elvhen? Why were they fighting against them?

She hadn't always agreed with Ryan's decisions, but the Inquisition's direction had always been to stop Corypheus and the damage he had caused. Now she was revolted that Ryan's actions were forcing her to fight against these Elvhen. And what was maybe even more horrifying was that most of the people she considered her friends were agreeing with him.

“Stand aside, Inquisitor!” the woman leading the Venatori addressed Ryan.

“And you are?”

“I'm called Calpernia. But when I partake of the Well, names will be meaningless. Leave. This is not your time.”

The Venatori around her slowly spread out, ready to attack them at any moment.

“Take one step toward that Well, and I'll finish you.” Ryan threatened her.

“You serve your people – you have one last chance to save them.” she stared at the Well longingly. “The Well of Sorrows overflows with knowledge, power abandoned by those elves worshipped as gods. To walk the Fade without the Anchor – that is what the Well of Sorrows will give Corypheus.”

Ryan smirked. “So I will take that power before him, as I did with the templars and the Grey Wardens.”

“Simple fool.” she shook her head. “I knew you would take the Well for yourself. To ransack its wisdom and try to defeat Corypheus. This will be the end, Inquisitor. You should never have come here.” Two rage demons appeared beside her. “Venatori kill them!”

Bleeding severely from a sword wound, Calpernia staggered, holding her stomach. The dead bodies of her men lay around her, and her demons had turned into ash. Angry, she glared at Ryan, who strode menacingly towards her, his sword ready for the killing blow. Gritting her teeth, she teleported away.

“If I fall, it will not be by your hand.” she spat and jumped down the fissure to her death.

With the battle over Eirlana checked everybody for any injuries. There were some cuts and bruises, but Cassandra seemed to be the worst. She was slightly bent over, struggling to take a proper breath. Earlier she had taken a blow from a maul to her chest, and Eirlana suspected she had several broken ribs.

“Hold still.” she stepped towards her and let her magic flow, repairing the damage.

In the meanwhile, Ryan and Iron Bull tried to figure out how to cross the chasm and reach the Well.

Suddenly Abelas appeared, magic erupted from him, and a stony path arose out of thin air, leading over the chasm and up to the Well of Sorrows. Leaping from rock to rock he ran up the path, with great agility and speed. Morrigan, still a crow, chased him in close pursuit.

“Quickly after him!” Ryan ran after them. He was closely followed by Iron Bull and Cassandra, who had pushed Eirlana out of the way.

Before Abelas could reach the Well Morrigan overtook him and re-materialised. His path blocked Abelas turned, only to see Ryan behind him.

“You heard his parting words, Inquisitor.” Morrigan started “The elf seeks to destroy the Well of Sorrows.”

Seeing that he was outnumbered, Abelas stepped back, so he could face both Ryan and Morrigan. “So the sanctum is despoiled at last.”

“You would have destroyed the Well yourself, given the chance.” Morrigan spoke sharply.

“To keep it from your grasping fingers!” Abelas glared at them. “Better it to be lost than bestowed upon the undeserving!”

“Fool!” Morrigan snapped. “You'd let your people's legacy rot in the shadows!”

“This Well is clearly powerful.” Ryan joined in. “If it will help to stop Corypheus, we will take it!”

“I care nothing for your petty conflicts, shemlen.” Abelas sneered.

“You will care, once Corypheus arrives.” Ryan threatened. “We can't afford to waste this power.”

Abelas shook his head. “Do you even know what you demand?” He gazed at the Well. “As each servant of Mythal reached the end of their years, they would pass their knowledge on... through this. All that we were. All that we knew. It would be lost forever.”

Eirlana's heart sank listening to him, he sounded so sad, so filled with sorrow. It was the embodiment of the name he carried.

“There are other places, friend.” Solas spoke up. “Other duties. Your people yet linger.”

Abelas looked at Solas. “Elvhen such as you?” there was a severity in his voice Eirlana couldn't place.

“Yes. Such as I.” Solas answered calmly.

Abelas shook his head and turned back towards the Well. “Our duty is all that remains. Those who drank from the vir'abelasan paid a great price, bound to the service of Mythal for eternity.”

“The era of the elves is long gone.” Ryan stepped forward. “Whatever this cult is, it needs to end. Only the Maker is the one true god. Whatever this Mythal was, you shouldn't serve her.”

“Who she is... to you... it shall make no difference.” With a hand gesture, Abelas blasted them back with a powerful surge of magic.

Struggling to her feet, Eirlana watched as he gathered more magical energy. The waters of the Well of Sorrows began to churn and glow. He was going to destroy it.

All of a sudden Morrigan stood behind him, a knife in her hand.

“No!” Eirlana exclaimed, but it was too late. Morrigan stabbed Abelas in the back.

Crumbling to the ground, he sighed, “Mythal sulevin.” and then everything was quiet.

“Good work, Morrigan.” Ryan said, stepping over Abelas' body. Together they approached the Well. They were joined by Cassandra and Iron Bull, who looked more suspiciously at the still waters. Behind their backs, Eirlana quickly knelled beside Abelas. She glanced briefly at the others before she pressed her hands on Abelas' body.

When Solas saw the soft glow of her healing magic, he knew she was attempting to save his life. Although he had often disagreed and argued with the man in the past, he didn't deserve this fate. Determined to buy her some time, he set his eyes on Ryan. He was itching to pick a fight with him. An easy task after today's events.

“He was a stubborn fool.” Morrigan complained aloud.

Quickly Solas stepped in front of her and Ryan. “He was defending all that was left of what once was. He had every right to stop us.”

“And let him happily bury us in the process?” she snapped back at him.

'Good.' Solas thought. All eyes were on him. “We came here to stop Corypheus from gaining the Well. Destroying it would have achieved that goal.”

“This could help us destroy Corypheus!” Ryan joined in.

Solas suppressed a smirk, it was too easy to bait this man. “We don't know that! Knowledge has many different forms, and we know too little of this Well. Do you even know how to use it? Because we just killed the last one who could have told us.”

“He was going to destroy it! I had to save the Well.” Morrigan's eyes burned with anger.

“You more likely want the Well for your own ends.”

“What would you know of my 'ends', elf?”

“You are a glutton, drooling at the sight of a feast. You cannot be trusted.”

Eirlana worked fast, she could still feel a faint and uneven pulse. Concentrating on the stab wound, she let her magic do the work, repairing what she could. It wasn't perfect, she couldn't see nor clean the injury, but at least he would live.

Abelas took a sharp breath, his eyes opened briefly and stared at her. Before he could say something, Eirlana put a sleep spell on him. “Ir abelas.” she whispered.

With luck, those who had survived this day would find him. She hoped that he would find one of the places Solas had suggested, and live a life that wasn't filled by sorrow.

The others were still arguing when she carefully stepped away from Abelas. Listening to the discussion, she moved silently farther to the right, closer to the Well. She noticed it was emitting a strange magical aura.

“Enough!” Ryan cut Solas off. “I, for one, am glad Morrigan stopped him from destroying it.”

Morrigan smirked, clearly pleased he was on her side. With the argument silenced, she pointed across the Well to the big mirror that stood there. “You'll also notice the intact eluvian.” she sighed. “I was correct on that count, at least.”

There were more eluvians around the Well, but they were all shattered.

“Can Corypheus still use it to reach the Fade?”

“You recall I said each eluvian required a key? The Well is the key. When we take its power, we will take possession of Mythal's last eluvian. It will be no more use to Corypheus than glass.”

For a moment she gazed at the Well. “I did not expect the Well to feel so... hungry.”

Morrigan was right Eirlana thought, it felt hungry. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the magic resting within the water. The magic was old and powerful, and it had a hunger, a hunger for knowledge, but there was more. Other emotions were bound to this magic, there was a strong sense of devotion, servitude, submission and obedience. The longer she fixated her mind on the magic, the stronger the sense of servitude became.

“A powerful compulsion lies upon the Well.” she said.

“What?” Ryan asked. He and the others looked at her.

“It doesn't just contain the knowledge from the priests of Mythal. It is their combined will.”

“And how would you know such a thing?” Morrigan crossed her arms, looking once again sceptical at her.

“Abelas told us. Listen to it... Can't you feel it? It's a geas.”

“That... would match the legends,” Morrigan thought out loud. “but it does not tell us what the geas entails. If it means to be bound to the will of a dead god? It seems an empty warning.” she shook her head. “I do not fear it.” She turned to Ryan. “Inquisitor I am willing to pay the price the Well demands and take the risk. I am also the best suited to use its knowledge in your service. Let me drink, Inquisitor.”

Ryan grabbed his chin as he thought. “Any thoughts?” he asked Cassandra.

“If it is truly between you and her... then let her take the risk. Maker, help us all.”

He nodded, and Morrigan stepped into the water. At first, she was a little apprehensive, but soon she waded to the centre of the Well with confidence.

The water reacted to her presence, glowing softly; wisps of smoke and sparks of magic escaped from the surface and swirled around her. Reaching the centre, Morrigan knelt down with a smile on her lips, emerging herself in the water. In a flash, the water exploded with a powerful magical discharge and disappeared. Morrigan lay unconscious on her back in the, now, dry Well.

“Morrigan. Are you all right?” Ryan hastened to her side.

She opened her eyes and stumbled to her feet, looking confused. “Ellasin selah! Vissan... vissanalla...” She shook her head to clear it. “I... I am intact. There is much to sift through... but now we can.”

She fell silent when suddenly dark blue-grey smoke arose around them from the bottom of the Well charged with blue sparks of magic. Whispering voices filled the air. They all looked around what was happening.

“Boss, over there!” Bull pointed in the distance.

Where they had entered the garden, a figure was coming through the doors, it was Corypheus. He spotted them and cried out in rage. They watched as he took to the air, flying towards them.

“The eluvian!” Morrigan yelled and activated it.

“Through the mirror!” Ryan told them, and they all ran.

Behind their backs, a column of water arose, but they had no time to watch what was happening as they jumped through the eluvian.

Emerging from the other side Morrigan, Cassandra and Iron Bull stumbled and fell to the ground. Solas managed to stay on his feet and quickly turned, catching Eirlana in his arms.

Stunned Eirlana looked around, they were back at Skyhold. Half expecting Corypheus following them, she twisted around, but Ryan was the last one to emerge from the eluvian.

With them all safe, Morrigan deactivated the mirror, and for a moment, they all looked at each other speechless.

Ryan was the first to break the silence. “Well, I need to send some birds to let them know we are back at Skyhold. We need to get our soldiers back here. Morrigan, try to find anything useful that can help us against Corypheus.” he walked into the garden, surprising several Sisters with his return.

“Of course Inquisitor.” Morrigan inclined her head.

#flame of winter #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age solas #Solas #solas romance #solas x oc #eirlana #fanfic

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limejuicer1862 · 4 years

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Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Karl Knights

is a freelance journalist who has appeared on The Victoria Derbyshire Show, BBC Breakfast, ITV News, CNN International and various radio shows. His prose and poetry has appeared in The Guardian, The Dark Horse, The North and Under The Radar. He was highly commended in the Suffolk Young Poets Competition three times. He is twenty-three and lives in Suffolk.

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry/essay writing?

I imagine I’m quite unusual in that I can pin point exactly where and when poetry began for me. Poetry properly entered my life in March, 2011. I was fourteen, in Year 10. My school took a group of students to a local arts centre, and a poet called Dean Parkin (whose books I would highly recommend reading) did a workshop with us. I had written the odd thing here and there before, as a child, but it wasn’t a consistent habit. But this was the first time I’d written poetry. I wrote awful stuff, but I enjoyed it enormously. I was the only student to keep writing through the lunch break!

As for essays, they’re more recent. I had done short 800 word pieces of journalism, for the Guardian. But longer essays usually emerge when I’m trying to work something out. My most recent essay, in The Dark Horse, came about as I was trying to work out, what does it mean to write disabled poetry? Do disabled poets act differently to their able-bodied peers? Are different pressures acting upon them? How should a disabled poet conduct themselves, think about their work? And until those questions were answered, I felt I couldn’t move forward in my own poetry. So that particular essay emerged from confused, frantic notes I’d made about the disabled poets I’d come across and what kind of conditions they’d written in.

2. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets and essay writers traditional and contemporary?

I was, and am, a great information hoarder, but I was more aware of the older poets. There’s a running joke that I like my poets dead, which has a bit of truth to it, though that’s something I’m trying to fix! So certainly early-on contemporary poetry was something of a gap in my mind. All the voices I pilfered from and adored were dead poets (though still 20th century). For me, I wouldn’t say they’re a dominating presence so much as a liberating one. C.K. Williams said that some poets, like Dickinson or Whitman, are self-starting engines, who started writing something new without models. I’m not a self-starting engine at all. I thrive when I have some kind of model. Every now and again a ‘new’ poem will force it’s way through, but by and large when I have something tangible to begin from, I write more forcefully. In terms of the influence of essay writers, I’m less sure. I used to, and still do, read very widely, and essays were always a part of my literary diet. But I’m unsure what influenced me, as my essay writing is still in its infancy. In a few years I might have more to say on what’s gone into my essays. I know that generally I favour essays and literary criticism that is unabashedly personal, stuff that steers away from academic language. I really loved Eavan Boland’s criticism for those reasons.

3. What is your daily writing routine?

I often feel like a bit of an imposter, because I don’t really have a daily writing routine. But I’m always thinking about writing, or better yet I’m reading. I think the time away from the laptop can be as essential to the process and as instructive as when you’re in the chair bashing out the words. Jane Kenyon said poetry should grow in the dark like a mushroom, and I think she was right. I’ve noticed that I can write prose on demand, and if I wanted to I could write it, day in and day out, whereas for whatever reason, poetry is more mercurial for me and emerges in great bursts, where I’ll write dozens and dozens of poems in a very short space of time, followed by a barren period. I’m mostly happy to ride the process.

4. You’ve spoken of how your essays are motivated, what causes you to write poetry?

I’m not entirely sure. Usually there’s some kind of image or line or sheer sound that won’t leave me alone, and will keep me awake until I write it down. Poetry is the most economical of the arts, and often entire universes are contained in a tiny slab of words, and I love that. Poetry is often brief but you never feel shortchanged by it’s brevity. Because it is smaller but no less strong that its artistic siblings, poetry can reach places other art forms cannot. For example in my own life, I’ve had periods where my concentration has been non-existent, so novels, plays, even short stories were out of the question. But poetry remained. Poetry is wily and can reach places and people that other literary forms cannot hope to. Writing poetry is a thrill that has never waned.

5. How do the writers you read when you were young influence your work today?

I’m not sure…it seems a question better judged by people seeing my work from the outside, rather than coming from me. I often talk with poets about who their first voice was, the first poet they found for themselves. For me it was Allen Ginsberg, and ‘The Bricklayer’s Lunch Hour’ remains a favourite poem. I was an absolute Ginsberg fanatic for several years. But I don’t think you can find a trace of Ginsberg in my work. I find myself referencing Heaney a great deal, he seems to have entered my blood without me noticing. An anthology that was important to me starting out was a book called The Poetry of Survival, edited by Daniel Weissbort. The book is made up of the voices that emerged in the post-war period in Eastern Europe, who wrote very concrete, tangible poetry. It had the authority of witnessing. It seems the thing I take most from poets is their attitude, Ginsberg said he made the private world public, and I think he’s right on the money. He wasn’t afraid to make fun of himself either, but somehow he did so without sacrificing his pathos. A more recent example would be Vassar Miller. I couldn’t write what I’m writing now without the disabled poet’s from the past having come before. Miller was punk before punk, writing metrical verse about disability, faith, femininity and sexuality in the fifties and beyond! It was a bold, in your face attitude, and I hope I’ve taken that, but who knows?

6. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Too many authors to name! If I had to pick just one, I’d say Jillian Weise. Her first book, 2007’s The Amputee’s Guide to Sex is the reason I started writing about disability at all (alongside reading the anthology, Beauty is a Verb). Weise’s new book, Cyborg Detective, is absolutely extraordinary. With each book her power as a poet has grown, the voice grows larger and larger and it’s utterly enthralling to watch. Her alter-ego, Tipsy Tullivan (which you can see on Youtube) is a brilliant satire of the casual ableism of the literary world.

7. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I’d say, do the work. All too often I come across people who are in love with the idea of being a writer, rather than loving the actual act of writing. The kind of person who is afraid to read because it might ruin their style. Whether unpublished or published, simply by typing or putting pen to paper, you are a writer. The other thing I’d say is read, read absolutely everything you can get your hands on. If you’re a poet don’t just read poetry. If you’re a novelist don’t read novels alone. Read about etymology and the politics of water use, read poetry and history, read comics and children’s books. Read outside of your comfort zone, always. Be unafraid to borrow from other art forms too. For example, Mount Eerie’s album, A Crow Looked at Me was important to my writing life. It’s an album about the singer-songwriter’s wife’s death, and it’s completely raw but painfully beautiful as well. The album taught me that being direct is nothing to be ashamed of, there’s enormous power and urgency in bluntness. Mainly, keep your artistic antenna open to all things. Rejection is constant as a writer, whether you’re just starting out or you’re a Nobel Prize winner, so prepare for many, many rejections (maybe do what Hemingway did and pin your rejections above your writing desk). Do the work, find the right words. Keep reading. Repeat ad infinitum.

8. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

At the moment my main task is putting together a poetry manuscript. David Foster Wallace described assembling a manuscript as ‘like wrestling sheets of balsa wood in high wind’ and that’s about right. It’s a chaotic but invigorating process, and one I’m glad to sink my teeth into. In my spare time I am organising what poems to read for a few events in 2020, which like putting together the manuscript, forces you to see your poems with new eyes. I’ve got a few essays that are being written at the moment that will hopefully see the light of day in the New Year, but you can never be sure. We shall see!

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Karl Knights Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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susannessmartin-blog · 5 years

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fmplc-blog · 6 years

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Drug Taboo

One of the main reasons I wanted my project to help raise awareness and reduce taboo around psychedelics is because of the medicinal values these drugs hold. Little research into psychedelics has been conducted, compared to other medicine and even less into their benefits in treating illness.

To combat the taboo I decided to look at some of the origins of the negative public perception of psychedelics.

Its clear to see that drugs and the people that use them are generally viewed negatively in the public eye. Most popular media about drugs focuses on the negative side of its usage. This is a valid representation of drug use however the amount of negativity in drug based cinema does not reflect the good experiences some people have with drugs. Skins is a popular drama about a group of teenage friends that all use soft and hard drugs recreationally.

(Skins, 2007)

Their drug use is irresponsible and dangerous and it results in many of them dying or becoming injured. Unfortunately this is a common occurrence especially among younger people.

Skins also shows the effect reckless drug use has on families and friends of the users. These elements make these negative aspects seem more real and is effective in making the viewer remember the pain drug usage can cause.

Whereas Skins paints drug abuse accurately many other films and shows don’t. In the film Shrooms a group of friends go to the woods to pick and take magic mushrooms. As soon as one of the friends eats a one, fresh liberty cap she experiences acute episodes of psychosis. She then has wild hallucinations and sees her friends as monsters and mistakenly kills them all. Although entheogens can cause psychosis and vivid hallucinations, it's near impossible with the dose she consumed. A recommended dosage to achieve desirable effects are between 20-30 caps. (DrugWise, 2016)

As this is a work of fiction the information they provide doesn't have to be accurate however with hallucinogens still being viewed as taboo many people are willing to believe cinemas portrayal of drugs as accurate.

Many are puzzled at the current state of drug legislation. Seemingly harmless drugs such as Cannabis remains illegal, despite having little to no direct deaths associated with it. (Robinson, 2017) Professor Douglas Husak explains “If the rational for [drug prohibition] is to prevent persons from killing themselves, … the state has made the wrong recreational drugs illegal” (Duke, 1993) . Duke notes that tobacco “is a major culprit in human sickness, misery and death, easily dwarfing all other drugs combined”. (Duke, 1993) yet remains legal.

A possible explanation for seemingly illogical drug prohibition and one of the things often cited as the origins of the public's negative image and confusion around drugs is America's famous war on drugs. The term “war on drugs” is used to explain the great lengths America has gone through to rid their country of drugs they deem illegal. The term can be traced back to Richard Nixon’s 1971 press conference where he addresses the problem of drug abuse and declares a nationwide war on drugs.

youtube

(Nixon Foundation, 2016)

In the conference he declares a new initiative that will deal with drug abuse. He states he will create a new organisation, with the help of John Ehrlichman, proposes a budget of $155 million to addresses drug related crime, drug abuse, addiction and also claims the initiative will help families affected by drug abuse.

Although seemingly innocent and with good intent Nixons war on drugs was a front for something much darker. John Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide, confessed Nixons parties true intentions in an interview with Harper magazine. He explains that "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people… You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalising both heavily, we could disrupt those communities… We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did"(LoBianco, 2016)

Essentially Ehrlichman is admitting that the war on drugs was a ploy to aid Nixons campaign that created an association between illicit substances and minority groups that would oppose his policies. While many people at the time had theorized that this was the true intentions of the war on drugs campain, this interview confirms this. Another issue with the war on drugs is the way it’s worded. Labeling Nixons plans as a ‘war’ on drugs creates the notion that drugs and those associated with them are “external to the real nation: an army that had invaded the national body rather than a condition that was the product of it.” (Elkins, 2010)

Despite Nixons war on drugs many states kept marijuana legal for medicinal and recreational use. The Shafer Commission was appointed by Nixon to determine the correct legal status of marijuana “recommended that marijuana be decriminalised and thus removed from Schedule 1. Nixon vehemently rejected the Commission’s report.” (Martin, 2016)

Other subsequent efforts to legalise drugs were also abandoned due to the drug hysteria the war on drugs had created. The war on drugs continued to negatively affect minority groups however further policies and campaigns such as the ‘Just Say No’ and ‘D.A.R.E’ started spawned banned things such as syringe access programs, contributing to the issue of HIV/AIDs infection among drug users. Leading into the 80s “the proportion of Americans polled who saw drug abuse as the nation's "number one problem" was just 2-6 percent. The figure grew through the remainder of the 1980s until, in September 1989, it reached a remarkable 64 percent – one of the most intense fixations by the American public on any issue in polling history. Within less than a year, however, the figure plummeted to less than 10 percent, as the media lost interest.” (Drug Policy Alliance, 2018) However the drug related incarceration figures, especially among minority groups, continued to grow further displaying the negative ripple effect the initial war on drugs has had (Drug Policy Alliance, 2018)

From talking to my peers I began to see the lingering effects the war on drugs has had on the way we think about drugs. Two of my housemates had no knowledge of psychedelics advantages in medicine and were hesitant to the idea. When asked what single thing or research they had seen to prove this they explained that, that was just what they assumed. When talking to others about the true intentions of Nixon's war on drugs the unanimous response was one of shock and disgust. During my project I will attempt to educate viewers on the origins of drug taboo in an attempt to make them question their views on psychedelics and their users.

In a psychedelic science talk Feilding describes the main problems with a negative public view on psychedelics. She talks about how the block in research drug policy has formed has made it “so that millions of people have been deprived of psychedelic assisted therapy which could have improved, or healed, their conditions”. (The Beckley Foundation, 2017) It is this point that makes myself so passionate to see modern drug policies questioned. As I will discuss in later posts, psychedelics have research confirming their benefits among a plethora of conditions. One of which being cluster headaches, which is known for being incredibly painful and debilitating.

youtube

(NewsHub, 2017)

I believe normal people should not be made to feel like criminals for self medicating using drugs governments deem illicit based on outdated and biased research. Feilding also tells us how for a long time after the war on drugs, psychedelic research found itself in a catch 22. “Policy-reform was impossible without scientific evidence to support it; and scientific research was impossible without policy-reform” (The Beckley Foundation, 2017) She also cites that the US has since “made great strides… in reforming cannabis policy”. (The Beckley Foundation, 2017) With drug policy reform becoming more common and recent years acting as a sort of turning point for the public's relationship with drugs; I believe my project could be effective in aiding this shift.

Sources

The Beckley Foundation. (2017). From Taboo To Treatment: The Coming of Age Of Psychedelic Medicine. [online] Available at: http://beckleyfoundation.org/from-taboo-to-treatment-the-coming-of-age-of-psychedelic-medicine/ [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

Drug Policy Alliance. (2018). A Brief History of the Drug War. [online] Available at: http://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

DrugWise. (2016). Magic mushrooms. [online] Available at: https://www.drugwise.org.uk/magic-mushrooms/ [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

Duke, S. (1993). America's longest war. 1st ed. New York: Putnam's Sons, pp.22-29.

Elkins, J. (2010). The Model of War. Political Theory, [online] 38(2), pp.214-242. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0090591709355389?journalCode=ptxa [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

LoBianco, T. (2016). Report: Nixon's war on drugs targeted black people. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html [Accessed 18 Nov. 2018].

Martin, S. (2016). http://time.com. [online] Time. Available at: http://time.com/4298038/marijuana-history-in-america/ [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

Nixon Foundation (2016). President Nixon Declares Drug Abuse "Public Enemy Number One". [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8TGLLQlD9M [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

NewsHub (2017). The filmmaker using magic mushrooms to treat his incredibly painful cluster headaches. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8LU1bzTdls [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

Robinson, M. (2017). This is how much weed it would take to kill you. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/how-much-marijuana-take-to-kill-you-fatal-weed-a8043856.html [Accessed 30 Nov. 2018].

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dknuth · 6 years

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Exodus Tour Part 1 - Armenia

Well it’s over a week since we got home and I’m just now getting this done. I found that with the nature of this trip, I should probably write a composite of sections of the trip, rather than a daily posting, and that I should give it a little time to develop some perspective before I write it. But once I start down the delay track, it’s hard to get back to writing. So here we are with a lot of perspective, but finally getting to it.

Most of this trip was with a group tour. This is unusual for us, but we were uncertain of our ability to do it on our own what with two local languages, Armenian and Georgian, each with its own unique alphabet. I had heard good comments about Exodus, a British company, so thought we would give them a try. We are also learning to cope with our changed abilities and needing to rethink how we travel and what we do when traveling, so a completely different approach might help us think this through.

The group consisted of 14 people: 1 from New Zealand, 1 from Ireland, 10 Brits, and us 2 Americans. We seemed to be the most adventurous of the group in terms of food. Food is an important part of travel for us, so where we can we want to go out in the evenings and try local foods. I was slightly shocked to see a number of the Brits heading to local groceries for bread, cheese, fruit, etc. for evening meals.

We had a couple of great meals after the two days with the group in Yerevan. Right across from the hotel was Tapastan, an Armenian tapas and wine restaurant, perfect for a light meal after a day on the bus. Traditional style tapas with Armenian ingredients.

The second night we went to the center of town to a restaurant specializing in Khinkali, a type of dumpling. We were at a table on the sidewalk, where we could watch the people out for the evening, the waiter kindly suggested six dumplings, two boiled and four fried to be the right amount, and in meat, cheese and mushroom flavors. It was a great choice and we enjoyed the people watching.

(That very solid looking khinkali on the table is their wine carafe.)

A group of local men sat at the next table and I saw the “salad” that they were brought. It looked great! It turns out that it’s common to take herbs, greens, cheese, etc. and roll them up in the lavash. They saw me taking a picture and handed us bits of the herbs to eat.

After dinner we walked through the park where there are lots of open air restaurants and bars, full of people with lots more walking along. It was a very lively scene and en enjoyable evening. In fact we realized that it was the most enjoyable part of the first two days of the tour. (Actually maybe of the whole trip.) Already this is a bad sign for us and tours, when the best part of the day is away from the tour.

Now back to the tour. We had three different guides in the 12 days with the group. It was supposed to be two, one for Armenia and one for Georgia, but the main Armenia guide, Rafik, wasn’t available for the first two days, so we had a substitute, Rafi, for those days.

Rafi didn’t start well, having us gather at 9 AM for a 9:15 meeting where he had nothing to say except that we are heading out at 10! So we start the toured by cooling our heels for an hour. Bad sign, but then he was a temp, so maybe to be forgiven.

The first stop was the Mantanedaran, the Armenian manuscript library and museum. Having invented their own language in the 5th Century is a big deal for Armenians, and they are quite proud of their manuscripts, which seem to be almost entirely religious. The written language was important to help preserve the language and unite the people when they were so frequently conquered, and often divided across multiple countries.

The other big place in Yerevan is the Armenian Genocide monument and museum on a hill above town. The 20th century found the western portion of historical Armenia and a large percentage of the population in Eastern Turkey. As the Ottoman Empire was diminished in the late 19th and early 20th century it went from a very tolerant and multiethnic empire to a country that became intolerant of anyone not an ethnic Turk and Muslim. The Armenian population was neither of those. The other half of the Armenian territory and population was held by Russia at this point. And Russia was was also Orthodox Christian, so I suspect the Turks questioned the loyalty of the Armenians. The result was increasing persecution and finally widespread murder of Armenians in Turkey.

The Armenians understandably dwell on the genocide to a large degree and the fact that Turkey denies it happened certainly makes it hard to do otherwise. But Rafik made the argument that it focuses the population on the past, rather than looking forward, and I had to agree.

Then we headed out of town to see some churches. While in Armenia we saw a LOT of churches. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as the official religion in 305 AD. So the churches are important to the history of the country, especially as it was conquered by the Romans, Persians, Byzantines, Turks, Mongols, Tamerlane, Russians, and the Soviet Union and others. So Armenian governments came and went, but the religion, and the language, persevered. Even though churches were often damaged or even destroyed in the wars and earthquakes, many have been rebuilt.

Unfortunately the style of churches in Armenia is very limited: a cross-shaped interior with a central dome on a drum above the body of the church, and the exterior either cross-shaped or rectangular. The universal material is basalt, a dark grey to black stone. The interiors are typically unadorned. They did frescoes for a while, but at some point the church decided that frescoes were causing God to allow them to be conquered, and they were removed. (It didn’t help. Maybe the fact that their neighbors were large empires and they were a small country had more to do with it.) So they have small, heavy, dark, unadorned churches on a pretty consistent plan. We had the differences between the various buildings explained to us, but frankly to the outsider it wasn’t enough to justify visiting several churches a day for a week.

I mentioned that the churches were small. This reflects their use. They are Armenian Orthodox, similar to but separate from the other Orthodox religions. The churches are used for ceremonies such as weddings, funerals, etc. And prayer, but not long services like ours with sermons, so you don’t need much if any seating.

As the first two days progressed our impatience with Rafi increased. He had problems with English pronunciation and grammar, but what drove us crazy was his disjointed, incoherent presentations. He would change topics frequently, often in the middle of a sentence, and would cover the same things again and again as he did so. By the second day I would read the Wikipedia descriptions of our destinations in advance and then walk away as he started talking and gradually more and more of the group did the same.

The third day Rafik joined us as our guide, which was a huge improvement. He’s a linguistics professor with an excellent command of English, an ability to put together a coherent explanation, a depth of knowledge on Armenia and a willingness to discuss current Armenian society and share his opinions. But the itinerary was still more churches every day.

The other important religious items are the “cross stones.” They are like a large carved tombstone, and are often used as such, but also to commemorate events or persons. As the name implies the most prominent element is a large cross in the center. But there are elements above and below the cross that are also close to standard: a circular element below symbolizing the world and a space above symbolizing heaven. There is usually a panel on a surface curved out from the rest at the top that would have the inscription of the person, etc. These cross stones are inside churches, outside churches, imbedded in church walls, and in graveyards. We got a lot of explanations of the differences between stones and the meaning of the various elements. Again, it was more detail that I really cared about or will remember.

Since churches were not necessarily used for weekly services and many of them were parts of monasteries, they were often in remote places: on peaks, on top of cliffs, islands and such. This was good for defense, and doubtless removed distractions from the monks daily lives. But it means that getting to them required more time in the bus. But the best views were from or around some of these monasteries. Those of us who were more interested in scenery than more churches would often wander off to take scenery photos rather than listen to the church lecture.

But with the focus being on the historical sites (churches) little attention was paid to the overall scenery. So we rarely stopped for a view.

#Armenia

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jotawakening-blog · 7 years

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3 Septober, 5A 169: Down, Down to Goblin-Town...

To start with, a few words about the arrangement of Dorgesh-Kaan. The city is built in tiers around a large, ovaloid central cavern that serves as a marketplace. As size goes, it is impressive: its population must be double that of Lumbridge, and perhaps the equal to that of Falador. Though there are no natural light sources, the place is wired up with coils of copper connecting orbs that are induced by some magic to emit a steady glow. (These are dimmed at a time of day that roughly corresponds to night on the surface.) As for the inhabitants, they are almost without exception friendly and rather more cultured than the average commoner of Lumbridge, and while their first encounter with a real live human tends to be jarring, curiosity usually wins out over any anxieties HAM or simple fear of the unknown might have given them.

After a breakfast of giant frog legs (a dish oddly similar to the gnome specialty, albeit missing the spices) I make up my mind to have a walk around the market square and talk with some of the locals. The first ones I run into are two councillors, Ur-Taal and Ur-Zek, who are deep in conversation about Ur-Tag’s ambitions not only to keep the gates of the city open to humans, but also to seek closer relations with the dwarves. Ur-Taal seems to think it’s a rather good idea, yet Ur-Zek has reservations about such radical openness: humans will be difficult enough to deal with, he argues, and adding dwarves to the mix won’t help. Also, dwarves built and delivered the machine that almost drowned the city so very recently! So never mind that they’re not technically surface dwellers, he says, there’s a dangerous precedent being set. I don’t butt in, but it’s clear to me that Ur-Tag will have a fight on his hands to ram through more radical changes to the cave goblin way of life before the shockwaves from the current ones die down.

Just off the market square, dug into the cave wall, is the small, cozy abode of a Dorgeshuun named Oldak, who seems to be a dedicated inventor. So much so, in fact, that two figures I know quite well are there visiting him when I come in! The first is, of course, Zanik, who’s back from another trip to Lumbridge. This time, she brought back some runestones, which it turns out the cave goblins are unfamiliar with. Oldak, having studied them for a bit, has discerned their basic properties and is wondering aloud how rune essence came into existence: what great force could have imbued the essence with its power? That’s a question neither I nor the other visitor has the answer to, sadly. The other visitor is a human, one of the first handful to come through the gates of the city, a human I know well: Ariane! She greets me, and tells me she was in the area when she heard the Council of Dorgesh-Kaan was opening the gates and that she came at once upon hearing the news. We share a few remarks, just between the two of us, about my efforts to complete the Tower of Life and the ethical implications of using its powers to create new life, at which point she leaves for the market, leaving me and Zanik to our chat with Oldak.

Oldak turns out to be a kindly fellow, though rather too keen to lapse into technical detail using terms that are completely unfamiliar to me as a human. He tells me of his initial experiments with the runes Zanik had brought him, and what I gather is that he’s had most luck with the law runes. He did something what most human mages would have thought crazy, mere waste of runes or invitation to magical disaster, and ground the runes into powder. When he threw the dust on the ground, he found he would teleport to random places in the city! With some more experimentation, he was able to perfect the process and eliminate the element of randomness, and now he’s willing to make teleportation orbs for adventurers who provide him with two law runes and some molten glass. Sadly, I’ve got no glass stored up, but I thank Oldak and make a note to come back when I have some.

The next building over, on the level of the market, is the bank, which by the terms of the accord signed yesterday has joined the Bank of Gielinor network. They’re still ironing a few kinks out, but it’s amazing that I can withdraw and deposit stuff in the cave goblin capital as easily as I can in Lumbridge! And however strange it is to think, without my intervention it might not have been possible at all!

In the main square, I speak with some of the locals. Most of the regular folk are either ambivalently curious or appreciative of my deeds, but among the martial types I sense an undercurrent of resentment. Some of the rank-and-file members of the guard seem to blame the opening of the city gates, though the influx of humans has barely even begun, to an increase in crime in the city. Meanwhile, their leader, the captain of the guard, notes warily that the Council has been pressuring him to break a longstanding Dorgeshuun taboo and transform the city police force into a standing army, in response to the threat from the surface. Oh dear— I hope the Dorgeshuun can preserve what makes them great in these turbulent times, but I get the unpleasant feeling there may be more upheavals ahead.

Around the centre of the main square, I run into another council member, Ur-Vass. He seems to be of the pro-openness faction, or at least has nothing to say to me but thanks for my efforts alongside Zanik. Maybe he’s just being polite, though. Anyway, he rushes off and I head to the market, which seems to be the most bustling part of this happening city. Despite all the mining that the Dorgeshuun have set up outside the city gates, the main item on sale here appears to be food: my first encounter with cave goblin cuisine! It is, as one would expect, very reliant on the ingredients that are abundant in the Lumbridge caves, but quite diverse for all that! For instance, there are frog legs, bat kebabs, frog burgers between slices of mushroom, cave slime soup, frogspawn gumbo and wall beast fingers on sale, all in the first few stalls I visit! I buy a sampling of each, for a fine dinner later on.

Besides these foods, the market also offers some local handicrafts, including frog-leather armour not too unlike the kind I had made for me a while back, and lamps. By talking with the lamp merchant, I learn a bit about the lighting system that keeps Dorgesh-Kaan illuminated. The principles on which it operates escape me, but magic is involved, and the lighting orbs are made of glass with a copper filament inside. The technology is not perfectly reliable, though, and occasionally the orbs burn out and need to be replaced. I’m told there’s a wire-making machine somewhere in the city that’s used to make the filament.

Most interesting, though, are the goblins who throng me, asking me to sell them surface foods. I don’t have much on me right now, but I bring out a cabbage and one of my gnome battas and show it to the goblin gourmets. Before I can make a sale, though, the manager of the marketplace refuses to let me trade unless I gain Council authorisation! This, fortunately, turns out to be a mere formality, and Ur-Vass, who happens to be passing by, quickly sets things right. Unfortunately, the prices the goblins offer aren’t very good, but I sell the goods at a discount anyway. It’s only fair, if I get to sample their food, that they should get to sample mine.

After I finish trading, I leave the market, and on my way out run into Zanik again. She’s just come back from the mines, where a really, really big frog was causing trouble until she chased it off. An adventurer’s work never ends, even when one is a cave goblin! Well, she goes off on her business and I continue on, past a delegation of human merchants come to satisfy the goblins’ craving for surface food. They’re an equal mix of Misthalians and Kharidians, and they’re all quite protective of their turf and not very friendly, so after studying them for a short while, I move on.

There are a few side passages into small residential areas, which are mostly empty at this time of day, the residents being mainly out in the common areas and taking care of their business. In one of the dwellings, though, I run into a member of the Council, a female goblin by the name of Ur-Meg. She confesses to me that she is worried about the decision the Council just took. While she’s happy to have us humans visiting the city, she cannot help but worry that the new openness will bring other, unwanted visitors. In a whisper, she tells me who these are: the G-O-D-S… It’s a legitimate worry, as I learned from Zanik not long ago, but fortunately, I have good news for Ur-Meg: the God Wars have been over for over two millennia now, and the gods no longer interfere in mortals’ affairs, at least not overtly. That seems to set Ur-Meg at ease, and she tells me she hopes I’m right about that.

I leave and continue down a side hallway, which terminates at a modestly sized shop that’s filled from floor to ceiling with bones of all shapes and sizes! It’s the sort of place you’d never find on the surface, but that would make a certain elderly guy I know squeal for joy if he knew it existed. The place is owned by a goblin named Barlak, and he’s got a business proposition for me. Specifically, he’s clean out of exceptionally large bones, the kind that make great structural supports, and he’s willing to pay me a decent sum of money if I bring him some, as well as teach me some goblin construction techniques to sweeten the deal even more. In addition, he’s looking for large shells, which can be crafted into useful stuff, and will pay extra for them, as well as give crafting advice, if they’re of sufficient quality. I don’t have any really nice shells or bones to trade right now, but I’ll definitely keep this place in mind!

Since I’ve seen most of what there is to see at ground level, I double back through the market and plaza and head up the grand staircase at the far end of the cavern onto the upper tier. Just at the head of the stairs, I find the large, stately building of the Dorgeshuun Council, and head inside. Nothing is going on inside at the moment, but the opulence of the decor and the large meeting table leave no doubt about its purpose. The only person there at present is the Council scribe, who is using the downtime in his duties to work on what he claims will be the definitive history of Dorgesh-Kaan. In connection with that, he asks me a few questions against the HAM cult, and takes my answers down stoically, even as I’m telling him how the organisation considers him and his countrymen monsters.

In return, he tells me a bit about his work in service of the Council (a body, it turns out, of seven members) and relates to me his research on the city’s history. At first, he relays the information I’d already found out, about how the Dorgeshuun were one of the goblin tribes caught up in the God Wars. He gives me a bit more detail on how the tribe came to live underground, though: apparently, a Dorgeshuun general named Bloodfist was handed orders from the Big High War God that would have meant the destruction of the tribe. Refusing to comply, he marched his army to a fissure in the ground and stood at its mouth, shouting defiance against the gods. The Big High War God, angered, smote the ground around him, killing the general, but also closing the fissure. His lieutenant, Strongaxe, led the tribe into the caves until they found this cavern and founded a settlement in it.

In the early years of the settlement, the scribe continues, the Dorgeshuun were ruled by generals, much like on the surface. A new general would succeed the old when he defeated the old in single combat. The generals were advised by a council of elders, but as generations passed and it became clear that the Dorgeshuun were no longer an army, many of the tribe came to believe that the Council, not the generals, should have supreme authority. The people voted to become a republic, but General Bonehelm refused to give up his hard-won power, and a civil war began. The sides were about evenly matched: while the republicans commanded the support of most of the population, the military had all the best warriors and weapons, including magical equipment brought down from the surface. In the initial fighting, Bonehelm was driven out of the city itself, but established a base nearby. Once his forces had regrouped, the general launched a bloody attack on the city using troops mounted on giant frogs, but was once again repulsed. The war would have continued, except that General Bonehelm, in mining out his base, had compromised the structural integrity of the cavern he’d made it in, and the roof collapsed on his withdrawing army, killing the great majority of them. The Council, secure in its power, took over the governance of the city, and there has been peace among the Dorgeshuun ever since. Hm— there must be something special about the Dorgeshuun, for them not to have had a major war in all this time since then!

I ask the scribe about recent history. He recounts the events I was caught up wth, starting with the accidental tunnelling into Lumbridge Castle in the 29th Century since the goblin city’s founding. His account is mostly accurate, though with a few odd details: he confuses humans with ogres and calls Duke Horacio ‘General’. Still, he fills me in on a few details I didn’t know from the cave goblin perspective: that the decision to open the gates stirred a lot of controversy among the people while it was deliberated, and that it came down to a very narrow 4 - 3 split on the Council. But, in the end, what’s done is done, and history, for better or worse, marches on.

I thank the scribe for his most insightful account and continue my tour by having a walk around the upper tier, which turns out to be a quiet residential area, where the more well-heeled cave goblins seem to live. The only place there that’s significantly busy is a goblin nursery, where the children of the Dorgeshuun are raised collectively. I say hello to the kids; they’re pleasant enough, but pretty shy about strangers, especially a stranger from the surface. I play with them a bit, then move on, back toward the Council hall. There, to my surprise, I run into Zanik again, right by what turns out to be her house! She invites me in, and we talk for a while about what Juna told her, that she is destined to lead all goblins into a new age. ‘All goblins’, Zanik says. ‘Not just the Dorgeshuun.’ She’s puzzled about what it all means, but when she spoke to Juna about it, she just told her that when the time is right, everything will become clear to her. Which, of course, is no help to her right now. I confess myself uncertain as well of the meaning behind Juna’s words, but tell her that should anything happen, I will be on hand to lend her and the Dorgeshuun all the support I can. Zanik thanks me and excuses herself, then takes one of Oldak’s teleportation orbs and vanishes off somewhere, no doubt on her next adventure.

There’s one part of the city I haven’t yet explored, and that’s the industrial area to the south of the marketplace. Though I’m getting tired, I head down there at least to have an initial stroll around. Unlike the other parts of the city, this one is noisy and sooty, even with the excellent ventilation facilities the Dorgeshuun have put in over the centuries. Prominent against one of the walls is the contraption used to spin metal bars into wire. It’s spinning fast and looks quite dangerous: one misstep and it’s likely to rip your fingers clean off. Beside it is the city’s forge, staffed by a goblin whose sole authority it is to keep all the metal items in the city in good repair, and the responsibility of his position is telling on him. I reassure him that it looks to me like everything is working quite properly, then leave the forge and continue my tour of the area. Heading over to the other side of the district, I find a sand-pit that ought to give me everything I need to make molten glass, the essential raw material for Oldak’s teleport orbs! Nearby, finally, are the communal kitchens (it’s probably a ventilation thing, not only a manifestation of the collectivist bent to cave goblin culture), where the food sold on the market is prepared. The smells coming from there make me quite hungry, and I’ve covered basically all of the city today, so I backtrack to the market area for another meal and return to my quarters as the lights are being dimmed to rest for the night.

#runescape #journal #roleplay #dorgeshuun #city

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