Guys I'm so incredibly sorry. My brain is currently full of gen 1 my little pony thoughts only suitable for the fictbio blog

I know you just wrote one but I would love another sickfic out of you! Maybe illness affecting the taste of the blood or something?

how abt a mild infection beck is deathly scared of.. (ive had that on my list and i think itll fit the bill but we'll see)

masterlist

tw gross infection, sickfic all the way through, conditioned whumpee, aftermath of punishment, emotional whump

Beck woke up to an immense amount of pain radiating from his neck. He groaned and tried to move in a way that would lessen it, only to find that turning his head at all was a monumental task. It hurt. The whole area felt... swollen... too warm.

Was it... was it infected?

He stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, horrified to see the damage Helle had left him with. His neck looked disgusting. His skin was flushed starting from his face all the way down to his collarbones, and the bites were... leaking. He stepped away from the mirror and covered his mouth, trying to keep the nausea at bay.

This was bad. This was bad. This was bad.

He texted Christie with shaking hands about an 'infected dog bite', then tried to ignore her dumb joke about him being a chewtoy for more than one species. Should he go to a doctor? He should at least look up how to treat it at home. Was this the way he'd die? Not even from a direct attack or Helle's sadistic whims, but an infected wound?

No, first and foremost, he needed to clean it all out. He used a generous amount of water and his special antibacterial soap, scrubbing down the entire area despite his body's protests. Then came the ointment and the bandages, and he very quickly realised that his neck and shoulders were a very awkward place to try to patch up. Nonetheless, he persisted.

Would Helle be mad at him for not taking better care of the bites? They could still drink from his wrist! Right..?

He looked into the mirror again, relieved to see most of the gross parts covered. He lifted a hand to feel his cheeks, not too happy to find they felt warmer than usual. He probably knew way too much about infections, but even if he hadn't, the average person could deduce that a creeping fever was a bad sign.

Every medical paper he could find agreed that vampire bites were distinctly different from that of an animal's. First of all, there was no chance of them being rabid. Second of all, it rarely ever resulted in death, at least in patients who attempted to treat it. Well, he was definitely trying.

Still, a doctor's visit was in order. Not right now... not when he was still so tired... but after a quick nap, maybe.

Unfortunately for him, his pillow was full of stains, blood and... whatever that was, he stuff that was coming out of the infected bites. He really, honestly tried not to be too grossed out. He tried not to cry at the thought of having slept in that. He failed.

He needed to change his bedsheets right now, even if moving around was a fucking agonising ordeal. He needed clean sheets. He wasn't going to lie back down in fuckig filth.

By the time he was done cleaning up, his neck felt entirely stiff. Even moving his arms was a challenge, given that all the motions started from the shoulder muscles, the ones that were now in an incredible amount of pain. But maybe sleep would make it better. Surely, if he let the ointment work its magic, he would wake up feeling better. So he crawled under the blankets, exhausted and shivering, and prayed he wouldn't wake up to being bitten.

The pain was so much worse the second time around. The articles all warned about the dangers of venom in an infected wound, but Helle didn't use venom, and apparently no one had studied raw vampire bites. This wasn't a case of 'the patient might be inclined to leave the infected area untreated due to an altered state of mind, in which they respond positively to the pain that comes with it'. This was a case of pure 'I can barely lift my body to get out of bed, I cannot walk or drive like this'.

He just had to ride it out. Vampires didn't kill via infections. They didn't. He wasn't going to die. He was just... going to be in some pain, is all. He just had to whimper and whine his way through it, through the fever and nausea, through the debilitating fatigue and thirst. It would go away. It was going to go away.

The next time he woke up, the pain was a little less intense. It was more of a dull ache rather than an all-consuming, burning fire under his skin, and he took the chance to go change the bandages. The wounds looked... better. They weren't... healed, or even healthy by any means, but... better.

Soap. Ointment. Bandages.

He downed a bottle of water on his way back to the bedroom, and put a full bottle on the nightstand. The plastic clinked against the pile of jewellery that he still had there, and he froze. He needed to put those away, immediately. Where was the box his mother had them in? Oh god, he had no idea.

He walked back out into the living room, looking on every surface and in every drawer until he finally found it, hidden away nicely so Helle wouldn't question it. He quickly rushed back to the bedroom and threw all the silver in there, hardly caring about the necklances and bracelets getting tangled for now. He would untangle them before giving the box back.

He collapsed onto the mattress again and took a deep, calming breath. He had to stay up tonight, to ensure Helle wouldn't try to bite into bandages this time. He was pretty sure they would be pissed about it. He had to stay up and explain the situation, apologise, then offer his wrist as an alternative. He had to be polite about it. Respectful. Good.

Maybe they would be forgiving, if he was good. Maybe they would absolve him of the sin of causing a mess and getting sick from it.

Or maybe they would reprimand him further. Kill him off because they had no use for a disgusting, dirty bloodbag like him.

It was a coin toss. Beck could only hope.

~

taglist: @whumpsday @the-scrapegoat @hidden-dreamland @dismemberment-on-a-tuesday-night @delicateprincepaper @whumppmuhw @florissimps @nicolepascaline @oliversrarebooks @the-cyrulik @pirefyrelight @there-will-always-be-blood @pigeonwhumps @echo-goes-mmm @whumpycries

I feel like some of y’all need to hear this so... Raine will be fine. Just close your eyes, take a deep breath real quick and count down from 10.

Feel a little better?

Not really? That’s okay, here’s an in depth analysis of why Raine will be fine in the final.

Let's start by addressing the elephant in the room: what happened to Hunter when Phillip was possessing him.

Now, there are some key differences between Hunter's possession and Raine’s possession that automatically lead to Raine being in a better situation.

To start, Raine and Hunter are two completely different species, meaning that possession would likely affect them differently. And even if this wasn’t a point, Raine is presently a puppet and based on what we saw wasn’t actively goopifying.

Which ties into the next point: even if Raine were to turn back organic, it took several hours of possession (probably between 8-12) for Hunter to get to the point his organs were shutting down.

Additionally, unlike with Hunter, the protagonists are going to be on the lookout for Phillip, plus since it seems like he's targeting Eda (and if I were to wager a guess, the rest of the Clawthornes) and with her change in physical appearance making her look a lot like Evelynn, he's unlikely to be able to hide what’s happening for long... meaning a rescue effort will happen much sooner with a potentially much stronger group of fighters than the end of TTT.

Furthermore, Raine is older and significantly more powerful than Hunter is in terms of magic. As a coven head, the chances Raine at least has training to resist this type of thing if not actively having protections in place.

Finally (for this section at least), unlike Hunter, Raine has Eda. More specifically, Raine has a decades-long relationship to fall back on in terms of “fighting power.” Like, Hunter was able to pull through and regain some amount of control via the power of friendship and he’d only been in the Hexsquad for like... a year max and that’s being very generous.

Now that we’re got the in-universe reasons why Raine will be fine, let’s talk about the story reasons.

Narratively, in addition to being Eda’s love interest, they also serve as a metaphor for Eda’s lost magic... or more specifically, the safety that having her magic afforded her.

What I mean by this is that prior to the end of Season 1, Eda was protected from Belos because she was considerably more powerful than most other witches... based on what we’ve seen it’s entirely possible that her claim about being the most powerful witch on the isles was true...

But during Season 2, whenever Eda’s been is genuine danger due to Belos/The Emperor's Coven, Raine was the one to step in and make sure that her and her kids were safe. (Specifically, during Eda’s Requiem, O Titan Where Art Thou, and King’s Tide).

There are one of two ways to takes things narratively during the final based on this. Either the trend continues and Raine once again puts themself between Eda and Belos to keep her safe, or the trend is turned on it’s head and this time it’s up to Eda to save Raine from Belos.

More than likely though it’ll be a joint effort between the two of them. This would be in order to narratively place them back on even footing, showing they can protect each other and in turn make each other stronger.

Furthermore, Raine hasn’t really had any genuine death signs. Unlike the fake-out with Eda at the end of Season 2, nothing that’s happened to Raine has indicated they’re going to die. Yeah, they aren’t in a great place right now, but their character hasn’t been given any closure.

Additionally, there’s not enough time left in the show for their death to have an impact. And The Owl House has handled discussions about death and grief way too well up til now to just kill Raine off when there wouldn’t even be time for the characters to grieve or react properly.

Finally, let’s talk meta reasons Raine will be fine.

We’ll start with the fact that Raeda is Dana’s OTP for The Owl House and the likelihood of her killing one of them off is slim to none. And I can tell you as a writer, you absolutely put your favorite characters/relationships through the wringer because it makes the end of story where they’re okay that much sweeter.

More importantly, Raine is Disney’s first even non-binary character. Having Raine die randomly in the final would make for some genuinely terrible publicity for a company that’s been in hit water recently for their handling of other LGBTQ+ related things, so killing off Raine would be a horrible move.

Plus this is a Disney show and we’ve already had one beloved character die and explored the themes of death and grief fairly extensively (at least, again, for a Disney show...)

All this is to say that Raine will be fine and you can breathe while we wait for the final.

How Pianoforall Review 2022 (Is This Course Good or Bad?) can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

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Lucien Vanserra + The Villain Theory & Why the Mating Bond Is Not Fake

I've been thinking about this for a while and I've decided I want to debunk this because of all the *insert character that is definitely not the villain becoming a secret villain*, Lucien is most definitely not it.

The theory, according to tiktok, is that Lucien is a secret schemer who has tricked everyone, including Elain, into believing they are mates for undefined, suspicious reasons likely related to Koschei. I find this unlikely considering his "father" is ALSO scheming with Koschei and Lucien likely has some awareness of this considering how often Eris is suddenly hanging around.

This is so long. Everything is under the cut.

However, lets pretend he doesn't. There is consistent, contextual proof that Lucien a) could not make up a mating bond even if he wanted to and b) everyone would know if he had.

Starting in ACOTAR, Tamlin tells Feyre the story of Lucien. On page 160, Tamlin says:

"Lucien said he didn't care she wasn't one of the High Fae, that he was certain the mating bond would snap soon and that he was going to marry her and leave his father's court to his scheming brothers."

Followed up on page 161, Tamlin adds:

"...his father has never apologized and his brothers are too frightened of me to risk harming him. But he has never forgotten what they did to her...even if he pretends he has."

That's ACOTAR. I know SJM likes to change things on a whim, but foundationally, this is Lucien's character and across all five books, it never changes. Lucien is still haunted by Jesminda and the mating bond he lost. He firmly believes, if we believe Tamlin to be a reliable narrator (and we should, as Lucien backs Tamlin's opinion up in his private thoughts. It is also worth noting that if Lucien has a villain origin story, it begins right here, the moment his father beheads Jesminda. To assume he's the villain, we ought to believe that he's been scheming non-stop for at least 200 years (since he's like, 300ish?) and to what end? To kill Beron? He'd have been scheming far longer than Elain was alive.

Moving right along to ACOMAF, on page 619, Amren says:

"And the bond," Amren breathed, Cassian's blood shining on her hands as she slowed its dribbling.

Mor said, "She asked the king to break the bond. He obliged."

I thought I might be dying- thought my chest might actually be cleaved in two.

"Thats impossible," Amren said. "That sort of bond cannot be broken."

"The kind said he could do it."

"The king is a fool," Amren barked. "That sort of bond cannot be broken."

"No, it can't," I said.

This is from Rhys' perspective. A mating bond can't be broken with magic- it's forever. Even rejected or in death (we'll get there), the mating bond is for life. Assuming Lucien's mate was Jesminda, even if it hadn't snapped in death, she would STILL be his mate and death would not have changed that. Neither would any magic Lucien, a spell-cleaver, might possess.

Let's also consider Elain, who has no reason to lie and every reason to call Lucien out regarding the bond. In ACOMAF, page 608, we see this:

"...Elain was staring over Nesta's shoulder. At Lucien-whose face she had finally taken in. Dark brown eyes met one of russet and one of metal. Nesta was still weeping, still raging, still inspecting Elain-

Lucien's hands slackened at his sides. His voice broke as he whispered to Elain, "You're my mate."

It's Elain who sees him first, who feels the mating bond mere seconds before Lucien. Why choose Elain, if you're going to pick a fake mate for your scheme? The argument is generally that she has the least amount of knowledge about Faeries and no interest in that education but how would Lucien know that? Feyre told Lucien nothing about her sisters (she told Ianthe instead), which means he would have had to guess. Given that Elain fights being put in the Cauldron, there's nothing contextually in that moment that suggests that Lucien somehow knew she was the easier sister to fool.

It's also worth noting that Lucien, up until that moment, still genuinely believes Jesminda was his mate. If he's the villain, having a fake mate makes no sense to the story or his plans.

Feyre has been inside Lucien's mind twice. Once in ACOMAF (pg. 95):

"Thoughts slammed into me, images and memories, a pattern of thinking and feeling that was old, and clever, and sad, so endlessly sad and guilt-ridden, hopeless-"

And again in ACOWAR when Lucien meets Elain for the first time. On page 249, we get the best description of what Lucien is feeling regarding the mating bond, all through Feyre's perspective:

"Too thin. She must not be eating at all. How can she even stand?

The thoughts flowed through his head, one after another. His heart was a raging, thunderous beat, and he didn't dare move from his position a mere five feet away. She hadn't yet turned toward him, but the ravages of her fasting were evident enough.

Touch her, smell her, taste her-

The instincts were running a river. he fisted his hands at his sides."

"But there she was. His mate. She was nothing like Jesminda."

"Elain had been...thrown at him."

"That circle of people who now claimed to be Feyre's new family...It was what, long ago, he'd once thought life at Tamlin's court would be. An ache like a blow to the chest went through him, but he crossed the rug."

"But he couldn't breathe as she faced him fully. She was the most beautiful female he'd ever seen. Betrayal, queasy and oily, slid through his veins. He'd said the same to Jesminda once. But even as shame washed through him, the words, the senses chanted, Mine. You are mine, and I am yours."

"She looked away- towards the windows. 'I can hear your heart,' she said quietly. He wasn't sure how to respond, so he said nothing and drained his tea even as it burned his mouth.

'When I sleep,' she murmured, 'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' She angled her head, as if the city view held some answer. 'Can you hear mine?'

He wasn't sure if she truly meant to address him, but he said, 'No, lady. I cannot.'"

These are Lucien's thoughts from Feyre's perspective. He has no idea she's in his head, so why is he thinking all those things? Why feel guilt that he finds her beautiful or that he'd once said all the same things to Jesminda that he thinks about Elain? Why care about her well-being? We know mates are driven to protect and Lucien's very first thoughts about Elain are ones of concern. She's not eating, she's too thin, how can she possibly stand? Not, hahaah my evil planned worked and I totally have an in with the Night Court (which, why would he need considering Tamlin is currently allied with Hybern and Lucien could have taken full advantage of that?).

Additionally, assuming Lucien is faking the mating bond for some poorly defined, evil plot, why keep such distance? Why not force himself on her? That's the claim, right? That he's forcing her to be with him which is amusing because in ACOFAS, Lucien has some thoughts on page 162"

"'How is she?'

'Better. She makes no mention of her abilities. If they remain.'

'Good. But is she still...' A muscle flickered in his jaw. 'Does she still mourn him?'"

First question he asks. "How is she?" Followed by if she's still in love with her ex-fiance. And I can hear the screaming now, "HE ASKED BECAUSE HE WANTS TO OWN HER" but like, on page 165 of ACOFAS, we get:

"I can't stand to be in the same room as her for more than two minutes."

Truly a stupid plan to fake a mating bond with a person that is causing you to be eaten alive with guilt and longing. We know the second he's around her, Lucien's is overwhelmed with the mating instincts and feels guilt over Jesminda, which is why he spends little time around Elain. He also tells Feyre, on that same page, he doesn't want his life to be financed by Rhysand. Feyre practically begs Lucien to move back to Velaris, to work for her full time, to let her set him up somewhere nicer and Lucien declines it all. If his plan hinged on getting closer to the IC, to using Rhys' resources, why tell her no? Why not take her up on it? Why not make him part of her life in a much more tangible way?

And finally, the dreaded scent of the mating bond. Feyre doesn't risk talking to Rhys when she's in Spring for fear of alerting everyone to the scent of the bond. Azriel, too, cannot stand the smell of it to the point he stands in the doorway during solstice rather than come in.

Ladies, Gentleman, and Non-binary pals of the jury, examine the evidence. For Lucien to be a villain, he has to KNOW that Feyre is a daemati before she does and both leave his thoughts unguarded while constantly assuming she MIGHT be picking through them. He also has to be able to control large amounts of people at the same time via the smell of the bond and Elain being able to feel it. When he tugs, she responds.

It would require everyone around them to be incredibly dumb. Feyre and Rhys basically share a mind and while they don't necessarily trust Lucien (unfairly imo), I firmly believe one of them would have picked up on a fake bond or Lucien's scheming.

Lucien wanted Jesminda, not Elain. If he decided to punish the world around him for the consistent pain he was enduring, he doesn't need Elain to achieve this. He's friends with Feyre. He has contacts all over Prythian. He didn't need to fake a mating bond, nor does it make any sense to do so. What they have is REAL.

And lastly, the bond can't be broken. Rejected, yes, broken no. Regardless if you think they'll keep it or not, they ARE mates and Lucien is NOT the villain who will be heroically slaughtered. They're awkward, they're uncomfortable, they have shit to work out but they ARE mates, and Lucien has proven over and over that all he wants is a home and goddamn peace and quiet.

A review of “Journey Into Mystery,” the penultimate Loki Season One episode on Disney+, coming up just as soon as I paper cut a giant cloud to death…

Journey Into Mystery was the title of the first Marvel comic to feature either Thor or Loki. It began as an anthology series featuring monsters and aliens, but Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Larry Lieber were so smitten with their adaptation of the characters of Norse myth that the Asgardians gradually took over the whole book, which was renamed after its hammer-wielding hero(*).

(*) The early Journey Into Mystery stories treated Thor’s alter ego, disabled Dr. Donald Blake, as the “real” character, while Thor was just someone Blake could magically transform into, while retaining his memories and personality. It wasn’t even clear whether Asgard itself was meant to exist at first, until Loki turned up on Earth in an early issue, caused trouble, and Blake/Thor somehow knew exactly how to get to Asgard to drop him off. Soon, the lines between Thor and Blake began to blur, and eventually Thor became the real guy, and Blake a fiction invented by Odin to humble his arrogant son. It’s a mark of just how instantly charismatic Loki was that the entire title quickly steered towards him and the other gods.

But once upon a time, anything was possible in Journey Into Mystery, which makes it an apt moniker for an absolutely wonderful episode of Loki where the same holds true. Our title characters are trapped in the Void, a place at the end of time where the TVA’s victims are banished to be devoured by a cloud monster named Alioth. And mostly they are surrounded by the wreckage of many dead timelines. Classic Loki insists that his group’s only goal is survival, and any kind of planning and scheming is doomed to kill the Loki who tries. But this ruined, hopeless world instead feels bursting with imagination and possibility.

There are the many Loki variants we see, with President Loki, among others, joining Classic, Kid, Boastful, and Alligator Loki. There are the metric ton of Easter Eggs just waiting to be screencapped by Marvel obsessives (I discuss a few of them down below), but which still suggest a much larger and weirder MCU even if you don’t immediately scream out “Is that… THROG?!?!?” at the appropriate moment. And all of that stuff is tons of fun, to be sure. But what makes this episode — and, increasingly, this series — feel so special is the way that it explores the untapped potential of Loki himself, in his many, many variations.

This is an episode that owes more than a small stylistic and thematic debt to Lost. It’s not just that Alioth looks and sounds so much like the Smoke Monster(*), that it makes a shared Wizard of Oz reference to “the man behind the curtain” (also the title of one of the very best Lost episodes), or even that the core group of Lokis are hiding in a bunker accessible via a hatch and a ladder that’s filled with recreational equipment (in this case, bowling alley lanes). It’s also that Loki, Sylvie, their counterparts, and Mobius have all been transported to a strange place that has disturbing echoes from their own lives, that operates according to strange new rules they have to learn while fleeing danger, and their presence there allows them to reflect on the many mistakes of their past and consider whether they want to, or can, transcend them.

(*) Yes, Alioth technically predates Smokey by a decade (see the notes below for more), but his look has been tweaked a bit here to seem more like smoke than a cloud, and the sounds he makes when he roars sound a lot like Smokey’s telltale taxi cab meter clicks. Given the other Lost hat tips in the episode, I have to believe Alioth was chosen specifically to evoke Smokey.

Classic Loki is aptly named. He wears the Sixties Jack Kirby costume, and he is a far more powerful magician than either Sylvie or our Loki have allowed themselves to be. He calls our Loki’s knives worthless compared to his sorcery, which feels like the show acknowledging that the movies depowered Loki a fair amount to make him seem cooler. But if Classic Loki can conjure up illusions bigger and more potent than his younger peers, he is a fundamentally weak and defeated man, convinced, like the others, that the only way to win the game into which he was born is not to play. “We cannot change,” he insists. “We’re broken. Every version of ourselves. Forever.” It is not only his sentiment — Kid Loki adds that any Loki who tries to improve inevitably winds up in the Void for their troubles — but it seems to have weighed on him longer and harder than most.

But Classic Loki takes inspiration from Loki and Sylvie to stand and fight rather than turn and run, magicking up a vision of their homeland to distract Alioth at a crucial moment in Sylvie’s plan, and getting eaten for his trouble. He was wrong: Lokis can change. (Though Kid Loki might once again argue that Classic Loki’s death is more evidence that the universe has no interest in any of them doing so.) And both Loki and Sylvie have been changing throughout their time together. Like most Lokis, they seem cursed to a life of loneliness. Sylvie learned as a child that a higher power believed she should not exist, and has spent a lifetime hiding out in places where any friends she might make will soon die in an apocalypse. Our Loki’s past isn’t quite so stark, but the knowledge that his birth father abandoned him, while his adoptive father never much liked him, have left permanent scars that govern a lot of his behavior. The defining element of Classic Loki’s backstory is that he spent a long time alone on a planet, and only got busted by the TVA when he attempted to reconnect with his brother and anyone else he once knew. This is a hard existence, for all of them. And while it does not forgive them their many sins(*), it helps contextualize them, and give them the knowledge to try to be better versions of themselves.

(*) Loki at one point even acknowledges that, for him, it’s probably only been a few days since he led an alien invasion of New York that left many dead, though due to TVA shenanigans, far more time may have passed.

For that matter, Mobius is not the stainless hero he once thought of himself as. While he and Sylvie are tooling around the Void in a pizza delivery car (because of course they are), he admits that he committed a lot of sins by believing that the ends justified the means, and was wrong. He doesn’t know who he is before the TVA stole and factory rebooted him, but he knows that he wants something better for himself and the universe, and takes the stolen TemPad to open up a portal to his own workplace in hopes of tearing down the TVA once and for all. Before he goes, though, he and Loki share a hug that feels a lot more poignant than it should, given that these characters have only spent parts of four episodes of TV together. It’s a testament to Hiddleston, Wilson, Waldron, and company (Tom Kauffman wrote this week’s script) that their friendship felt so alive and important in such a short amount of time.

The same can be said for Loki and Sylvie’s relationship, however we’re choosing to define it. Though they briefly cuddle together under a blanket that Loki conjures, they move no closer to romance than they were already. If anything, Mobius’ accusations of narcissism in last week’s episode seem to have made both of them pull back a bit from where they seemed to be heading back on Lamentis. But the connection between them is real, whatever exactly it is. And their ability to take down Alioth — to tap into the magic that Classic Loki always had, and to fulfill Loki’s belief that “I think we’re stronger than we realize” — by working together is inspiring and joyful. Without all this nuanced and engaging character work, Loki would still be an entertaining ride, but it’s the marriage of wild ideas with the human element that’s made it so great.

Of course, now comes the hard part. Endings have rarely been an MCU strength, give or take something like the climax of Endgame, and the finales of the two previous Disney+ shows were easily their weakest episodes. The strange, glorious, beautiful machine that Waldron and Herron have built doesn’t seem like it’s heading for another generic hero/villain slugfest, but then, neither did WandaVision before we got exactly that. This one feels different so far, though. The command of the story, the characters, and the tone are incredibly strong right now. There is a mystery to be solved about who is in the big castle beyond the Void (another Loki makes the most narrative and thematic sense to me, but we’ll see), and a lot to be resolved about what happens to the TVA and our heroes. And maybe there’s some heavy lifting that has to be done in service to the upcoming Dr. Strange or Ant-Man films.

It’s complicated, but on a show that has handled complexity well. Though even if the finale winds up keeping things simpler, that might work. As Loki notes while discussing his initial plan to take down Alioth, “Just because it’s not complicated doesn’t mean it’s bad.” Though as Kid Loki retorts, “It also doesn’t mean it’s good.”

Please be good, Loki finale. Everything up to this point deserves that.

Some other thoughts:

* Most of this week’s most interesting material happens in the Void. But the scenes back at the TVA clarify a few things. First, Ravonna is not the mastermind of all this, and she was very much suckered in by the Time-Keeper robots. But unlike Mobius or Hunter B-15, she’s so conditioned to the mission that even knowing it’s a lie hasn’t really swayed her from her mission. She has Miss Minutes (who herself is much craftier this week) looking into files about the creation of the TVA, but for the most part comes across as someone very happy with a status quo where she gets to be special and pass judgment on the rest of the multiverse.

* Alioth first appeared in 1993’s Avengers: The Terminatrix Objective, a miniseries (written by Mobius inspiration Mark Gruenwald, and with some extremely kewl Nineties art full of shoulder pads, studded collars, and the like) involving Ravonna, Kang, and the off-brand versions of Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (aka U.S. Agent, War Machine, and Thunderstrike, the latter of whom has yet to appear in the MCU). It’s a sequel to a Nineties crossover event called Citizen Kang. And no, I still don’t buy that Kang will be the one pulling the strings here, if only because it’s really bad storytelling for the big bad of the season to have never appeared or even been mentioned prior to the finale.

* Rather than try to identify every Easter egg visible in the Void’s terrain, I’ll instead highlight three of the most interesting. Right before the Lokis arrive at the hatch, we see a helicopter with Thanos’ name on it. This is a hat tip to an infamous — and often memed — out-of-continuity story where Thanos flies this chopper while trying to steal the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) from Hellcat. (A little kid gets his hands on it instead and, of course, uses the Cube to conjure up free ice cream.) James Gunn has been agitating for years for the Thanos Copter to be in the MCU. He finally got his wish.

* The other funny one: When the camera pans down the tunnel into Kid Loki’s headquarters, we see Mjolnir buried in the ground, and right below it is a jar containing a very annoyed frog in a Thor costume. This is either Thor himself — whom Loki cursed into amphibianhood in a memorable Walt Simonson storyline — or another character named Simon Walterston (note the backwards tribute to Walt) who later assumed the tiny mantle.

* Also, in one scene you can spot Yellowjacket’s helmet littering the landscape. This might support the theory that the TVA, the Void, etc., all exist in the Quantum Realm, since that’s where the MCU version of Yellowjacket probably went when his suit shorted out and he was crushed to subatomic size. Or it might be more trolling of the fanbase from the company that had WandaVision fans convinced that Mephisto, the X-Men, and/or Reed Richards would be appearing by the season finale.

* Honestly, I would have watched an entire episode that was just Loki, Mobius, and the others arguing about whether Alligator Loki was actually a Loki, or just a gator who ended up with the crown, presumably after eating a real Loki. The suggestion that the gator might be lying — and that this actually supports, rather than undermines, the case for him being a Loki — was just delightful. And hey, if Throg exists in the MCU now, why not Alligator Loki?

* Finally, the MCU films in general are not exactly known for their visual flair, though a few directors like Taika Waititi and Ryan Coogler have been able to craft distinctive images within the franchise’s usual template. Loki, though, is so often wonderful to look at, and particularly when our heroes are stuck in strange environments like Lamentis or the Void. Director Kate Herron and the VFX team work very well together to create dynamic and weird imagery like Sylvie running from Alioth, or the chaotic Loki battle in the bowling alley. Between this show and WandaVision, it appears the Disney+ corner of the MCU has a bit more room to expand its palette. (Falcon and the Winter Soldier, much less so.)

the many faces of tom riddle, part 1

-no hate (this is merely my humble opinion) but i strongly dislike tom hughes as tom riddle, and here’s why-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION.

Just personally, this fancast induces a lot of cognitive dissonance for me, but this is the first time I’ve been able to sit down and articulate properly why it always throws me for a loop.

Now, does he fit the visual/aesthetic archetype?

Yes. I understand completely why people like this fancast. We know that he is studious, intellectual, and (at the time people generally fancast him for) involved in the criminal underground, and he more-or-less fits the physical description.

And, to be clear, it’s not that I don’t think Tom Hughes could play Tom Riddle, it’s that I don’t think the character he plays in the fancasts is a close enough approximation of Tom Riddle.

For me, herein lies the issue.

Tom Riddle’s character is all about the emotions bubbling under the surface. He’s a disaster waiting to happen -- he’s angry, he’s lonely, he wants revenge, he feels empty and hopeless and desperate, he’s irrational...

Not sure what movie/show the Tom Hughes clips come from, but the character he plays isn’t that at all. the character he plays is very self-possessed, poised, self-aware. Reflective. Remorseful (there are clips of him crying when/after he shoots someone). Introspective. 

That, to me, is not Tom Riddle at all. 

Yes, he does deal with moral conflict, but it’s never at the forefront of his mind. It’s not something he’s constantly grappling with. He doesn’t really... brood in this Hamlet-esque way.

Tom doesn’t think. Sure, he plans, he ruminates, he rationalizes a posteriori. But he’s very unaware of himself (in fact, it’s one of his fatal flaws). It’s not that he doesn’t have emotions; just that his internal state is a mystery most of the time.

He doesn’t connect with his own emotions; he is completely estranged from them. Tom cannot tell you whether he is happy or sad (not just because of his pride). He keeps his emotions and moral compass (which are highly uncomfortable things), in a locked little box, swallows the key, and disregards them. And yet, this character connects so deeply with his emotions that even the audience can see exactly what he’s going through. 

(There’s an openness -- an ease of vulnerability -- that Tom Riddle doesn’t have)

The thing about Tom, is that he hates himself just as much as he hates everyone around him. Creating Horcruxes to save himself from death is not an act of self-love, or even narcissism to the extreme; instead, forcibly ripping your own soul seven times is the most literally and metaphorically self-destructive thing a person could possibly do.

"Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction —"

If we go all the way back to Book 1, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, you’ll remember that the eponymous material (first described in the Epic of Gilgamesh) is capable of producing the Elixir of Life, a magical substance that makes its drinker immortal, as long as you have a steady supply. Not only that, but according to the beliefs of historical alchemists (such as Nicholas Flamel), it was capable of curing any disease. In the alchemical tradition, it symbolized perfection, enlightenment, and heavenly bliss.

If all Tom Riddle was concerned about was prolonging his life, this is the obvious (and better) option.

Here’s the alchemical symbol of the Philosopher’s Stone. Looks kind of like the Deathly Hallows symbol, right? It represents the interplay of the (at the time, believed) four elements of matter -- a sort of periodic table, if you will.

The mature Philosopher’s Stone was believed to be a red stone (for making gold), and the immature one a white stone (for making silver). Rubeus Hagrid and Albus Dumbledore, anyone??

"So he's made himself impossible to kill by murdering other people?" said Harry. "Why couldn't he make a Sorcerer's Stone, or steal one, if he was so interested in immortality?"

And Dumbledore responds:

"But there are several reasons why, I think, a Sorcerer's Stone would appeal less than Horcruxes to Lord Voldemort.”

"While the Elixir of Life does indeed extend life, it must be drunk regularly, for all eternity, if the drinker is to maintain the immortality. Therefore, Voldemort would be entirely dependent on the Elixir, and if it ran out, or was contaminated, or if the Stone was stolen, he would die just like any other man. Voldemort likes to operate alone, remember. I believe that he would have found the thought of being dependent, even on the Elixir, intolerable...”

And while, yes, he did try to steal it rather than make it, I am sure that in the time it took Tom to make all of his Horcruxes, he could have learned enough alchemy to produce it for himself (or wheedled the information out of Nicholas Flamel). While Dumbledore hypothesizes that it’s because Tom hates feeling dependent, this must be irony, because he spends the first book as a literal parasite, the next three as a virtually helpless creature, and the remainder still reliant on his Horcruxes.

"Well, you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature."

But, like me, Dumbledore is making guesses at Tom Riddle’s internal state, and in this case, I think, he’s made an oversight. Horcruxes make him equally as dependent as the Philosopher’s Stone would have. It’s been established in canon that you cannot make yourself immortal without help; either you rely on the continued existence of your Horcruxes or your supply of the Elixir.

And while the Elixir represents the positive aspects of eternal life, like renewal, rebirth, and the cyclical nature of the universe (see above the ouroboros of Cleopatra the Alchemist, one of the four women who knew how to make the philosopher's stone), a Horcrux is antithetical to life. It represents disorder, and once the creator of Horcruxes dies, they are unable to move on from Limbo -- shut out of the cycle. Harry describes Tom’s mangled soul as looking like a flayed and mutilated baby -- permanently immature and stagnant.

This theme of destruction is furthered by the Golden Trio’s discussion on how to reverse the process:

Ron: "Isn't there any way of putting yourself back together?"

Hermione: "Yes, but it would be excruciatingly painful."

Harry: "Why? How do you do it?"

Hermione: "Remorse. You've got to really feel what you've done. There’s a footnote. Apparently the pain of it can destroy you. I can’t see Voldemort attempting it somehow, can you?"

With this in mind, we can surmise that Tom is either (a) impatient, which we know he is not (b) there was some deeper reason for favouring Horcruxes -- so, yes, I believe that either metaphorically or literally, this was self-harming behaviour.

He takes on the name of Lord Voldemort because he hates himself, Tom Marvolo Riddle. He hates the Muggle part of himself so much that he’s willing to tear apart his entire being. 

"Voldemort, is my past, present, and future, Harry Potter..."

If that isn’t renouncement of himself, I don’t know what is. He was clearly not born Voldemort.

While of course, this does NOT excuse ANY of his actions, I find it vastly implausible that the likes of Malfoy, Mulciber, Carrow, etc... would have been welcoming in any way, shape or form to an assumed ‘Mudblood’ in scruffy secondhand robes from a London orphanage, and as such, indoctrinated him into his fanatic belief in blood-purity via antagonizing him. 

(Imagine Hermione, but poor and without parents, in the 1930s/40s. She would not have been treated well in Slytherin, either.)

Children are more vicious than you think. And while Tom probably gave as good as he got at Wool’s Orphanage (and was possibly an active aggressor himself), Hogwarts wouldn’t have been a level playing-field. (I’ll talk a bit about this and the significance of the Gaunt Ring in Part 2).

In other terms, I think Tom was bullied for having dubious origins. That’s often the swiftest way to radicalize someone, and would have left Tom with a crippling sense of self-hatred that I don’t think he would have even picked up from the orphanage.

(And it’s possibly this early experience with relational aggression that results in his constant need to be on the offensive/defensive, distrust of others, and fear of vulnerability. To me, this is an archetypal response of someone who was a past victim of bullying.)

Why else would an extremely powerful half-blood subscribe so strongly to those beliefs? (Rather than discriminating via amount of raw power or something -- because what Tom is immensely proud of when Dumbledore meets him is his ability, not his parentage). But I digress.

Now, Tom Riddle is never, ever quietly menacing like this. The mask is either completely on or completely off. We never see this character angry. Tom Riddle, when the mask slips off, is fury incarnate. Anger is the one emotion he doesn’t find weak; the one emotion he’s completely and utterly honest with.

Besides, that brings me to my next point. Tom’s not quite so austere. In fact, he’s quite witty, and often quite pleased with himself.

Just look at the difference in their body language. Tom has much more fluidity (he’s circling Harry, the head-tilt, the eyebrows move and he smiles a bit) than the other character, who has so much tension. Yes, they’re both menacing, but in completely different ways. Tom is comfortable with his actions, no matter how shitty they are. This other guy doesn’t like doing what he’s doing, but he’s going to do it, anyway.

Contrasted with the above, Tom’s unawareness of himself is such that we end up with a character who has a bizarre mix of extreme self-hatred and high self-esteem -- he always believes he is in the right -- in this case, doing Salazar Slytherin’s noble work -- while going to extreme, self-destructive lengths, such as tearing himself in half at the mere age of sixteen.

So, sorry... I kind of get the appeal, but... I don’t like the fancast. 

(More unpopular opinions coming at 5:30 PM EDT tomorrow!)

Hey there, I have a friend I've been getting into DL but I don't really know how to explain the links so I was woundering what would be the best way to explain each of the links (and sequels if possible please) - Friday (Please and Thank you!)

(cracks knuckles)

ALRIGHT PEOPLE HERE WE GO, LONG POST AHEAD

THE CHAIN LINKS

Gen: The Link from Skyward Sword. Short for Genesis, which he will never ever let anyone call him by ever because he doesn't actually like it. He's generally level-headed and appreciates common sense, and gets a bit miffed when things decide to divert from said common sense. He's the group medic, not necessarily by any skill on his part, but more because the group needed a medic and he couldn't believe there wasn't one yet, so the only logical decision was to do it himself. He gets very particular about the group taking the proper amount of healing items as a result. He functions as one-third of the Leader Trio and is the effective 'super-ego', if you will

Speck: The Link from Minish Cap. He's quiet, by far the most quiet, and will really only speak up if he's a) confident in what he has to say, and b) confident that it will add something worthwhile to the discussion. He has the ability to shrink via his magic hat (Ezlo) and a magical conduit shaped like a Jar that he carries around with him. Due to the bit where he's usually in the background, the fact that he has a surprisingly violent streak catches just about all his enemies off guard - for example, his favorite method of attack is shrinking down and using his size to stab his sword directly into his opponent's eardrum. Ironically, outside of a fight, he's one of the Links most likely to apologize to a flower for stepping on it

The Four: The Link(s) from Four Swords. They're the split-in-four version of the Link who drew the Sword, but due to a hive mind effect, everything they do is in unison. They're pretty quiet most of the time, due to most people finding said unison relatively unsettling, but since the Chain couldn't care less about that they're more willing to speak up every now and then. They specialize in group attacks and such, but they're terrible at being individual. The nature of their hive mind means that it's both incredibly uncomfortable and incredibly difficult to break their unison, and so most of the time they won't even bother trying. They have a little snarky side that comes out when they're stressed, and they hang out with Speck most often due to having similar introverted dispositions

Ocarina: The Link from Ocarina of Time, and one-half of the Hero(es) of Time with Mask due to time being broken and the continuum being shot. He's the younger half, even though he's in his sixteen-year-old body, and since he has the mind of a nine-year-old it makes a very odd combination. He has occasional confidence issues and a few self-worth/doubt beliefs as the result of hanging out with his older self and worrying about how he's going to successfully grow into someone so competent. He can usually be found next to his older self, or at the very least in the general vicinity of his older self, and he has a profound distaste for the necessity for secrets. Most specifically, his future, because it's literally standing right next to him and he'd really like to know if he beats Ganondorf, thanks

Mask: The Link from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, and one-half of the Hero(es) of Time with Ocarina. He's the older half despite being in the body of a twelve-year-old, and since he's technically got the mind of an eighteen-year-old at the very least it looks very strange from the outside. He's snarky, sarcastic, and takes great joy in messing with other people, most specifically his younger self by refusing to give away future hints and claiming ~Spoilers~ every time it comes up. He carries his transformation masks and uses then whenever the situation calls for it. He can usually be found next to his younger self because he's secretly worried about shattering his own personal timeline, and he puts a lot of effort into making sure Ocarina survives whatever mess they've gotten into this time. He also puts an equal amount of effort into making sure Ocarina doesn't notice this

Dusk: The Link from Twilight Princess. He functions as one-third of the Leader Trio and is the quote-unquote 'ego' - or, in othher words, he's usually the mediating force. If it's pointed out to him though, he will steadfastly deny that he's in any suited for a leadership position - which is in blatant contradiction to the fact that he's probably the most effective member of the Leader Trio. He carries the Curse Stone from Zant around his neck in a pouch and usles it to transform whenever the situation calls for it. He's also the regular soul-host for Midna, Shadow, or both, depending on the day. He's by far the most level-headed Link, taking almost everything in stride, and it takes a lot to make him lose his cool. The one surefire way to do it is to threaten someone he cares about, at which point he will waste no time completely destroying whoever was stupid enough to make said threat

RGBV: Red, Green, Blue, and Vio are the Link(s) from Four Swords Adventures, and like the Four they're the result of one Link being split into four bodies. Unlike the Four, they've retained their individuality and have four very different personalities as a result. Green is the established leader of their quad-cell, and is the most level-headed one. He's not the most patient one, but he is the one who's not afraid to do what needs to be done. Red is the most emotional one, easily excitable and absolutely willing to give hugs to anyone who asks (and a few who don't). Blue is the most aggressive one, although he mostly directs it towards his enemies. He does have a on-again-off-again rivalry of sorts with Vio, but it's never gotten beyond particularly invested sibling bickering. Vio meanwhile is the book-smarts one, or at least the one with the most strategic intelligence. He's also the best ranged fighter they have

Lore: The Link from A Link to the Past, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, and Link's Awakening. He functions as one-third of the Leader Trio, finishing off the dynamic as the 'id'. He's by far the most unique personality, being a hyperactive chaos entity who delights in confusing people and making them question reality. He's also a polyglot, knows at least ten languages, and is constantly hunting for new ones to learn. He's easily the most experienced Link and as a result has Seen Some Stuff, but instead of being traumatized by the weirdness he decided to go in the other direction and embrace it instead. He's an absolutely terrible shot in spite of his numerous adventures, but the sheer amount of stuff he has tends to make up for it. He hasn't met a situation yet that he doesn't have an item for and he's not about to start now - although this is mostly due to his conviction that bombs are the answer to every situation

Realm: The Link from the original Legend of Zelda. He is constantly, hopelessly, chronically lost, and has absolutely no concept of where he is in relation to where everything else is. He also has a somewhat tenuous relationship with the concept of physical space, which tends to result in him getting lost in places he really should not have been able to get lost in (for example, a volcano). Regrettably this also extends to his items, which he frequently loses. In spite of this, he's one of the most cheerful and optimistic Links in the group. It takes a lot to get him into a bad mood, and given what he already goes through while maintaining a good mood, the entire Chain has yet to see him in a bad one. A side effect of getting lost so much is that his stamina is absolutely ridiculous, which makes him very good at drawing out a fight - in fact, that's more or less his specialty

Sketch: The Link from A Link Between Worlds. He has the ability to turn his body into paint and move along the walls like a living hieroglyph. Unfortunately, due to being made of watercolors when he does this, he also has a severe phobia of water as a result of the fact that he might actually die a horrifically painful death if his paint runs too much. Outside of that, he's relatively level-headed and very crafty, in the literal sense that he likes to make things. He used to be a blacksmith's apprentice before this whole Hero business got started (his specialty is metalwork). He likes things to make sense and gets a bit snarky when the universe decides to spite him by making no sense at all. He's one of the best Links at stealth, because for some reason very few people will notice the artwork on the wall and as long as he has a surface to fuse with, he can get just about anywhere

Wind: The Link from Wind Waker. He carries said Wind Waker as part of his inventory, and it lets him control the weather. He's a certified Weather Master in everything but the official certification, because he hasn't had the chance to go back and take the test yet, but the ability to throw literal tornadoes at his enemies makes him arguably one of the most dangerous Links in the group. He does prefer to hang back in a fight and hit from a distance as opposed to getting up close and personal, but that's very typical for a mage. He has an overabundance of patience, stored up from sailing for days back on his home ocean, and he'll take just about anything in stride - unless you're threatening his family, then all bets are off. He's one of the quieter Links, being more content to wait and see the results of something rather than actively participating, but this in no way means that he's not paying attention. He knows what he's capable of, is fully willing and ready to do it if necessary, and makes no excuses to the contrary

Steam: The Link from Spirit Tracks. He has the ability to see hidden things, which extends beyond his own disembodied Princess Zelda and into things like mask spirits or just plain invisible opponents. He also has a summons in the form of the Spirit Train, which he takes great pleasure in slamming into whichever villain has annoyed him. He's got a dry sort of sarcasm and he's definitely not afraid to say what he thinks. As a result of spending most of his adventure on a Train, he's easily the least physically fit of the Links and therefore tends to hang back in a fight, relying more on his summons for heavy hits or his sight ability to provide support. His previous career choice was a locomotive engineer, and as a result he and Sketch get along very well. They have regularly scheduled brainstorm sessions about what sort of gadget they should try and make this time, usually with Steam providing the math and schematics and Sketch providing the real-world experience to make it real

Shadow: The Link from a variety of games, since whenever a Shadow or Dark Link appears, that was him. He's bitingly sarcastic, could not possibly care less about the opinions of other people, and takes great joy in finding the best way to insult someone as possible. Being formed from the darker emotions of other Links, he's understandably in a poor-to-terrible mood almost all the time, although he can usually be convinced to take it out on other people. A side effect of being made of dark magic is that he can't be out in the sunlight too long - it'll start to burn him in the same way a match burns paper. As a perk though, he can manipulate his body into any shape he wants, mostly ignoring physics as he does. This makes him easily one of the most powerful Links in the group, since he doesn't take battle damage the way a physically-bodied person would and is all but immune to being stabbed. He makes for an excellent aggro target, partly because he can take anything the opponent could give, but also because he'll give it all back and then some

Oni: The Link from before Skyward Sword. Also known as the Fierce Deity. Saying that he's overpowered is a bit of an understatement, as he can take out the likes of Majora in three hits or less, but he's very unlikely to actually use his power like that. As a result of being put into a mask, he has no actual autonomy unless someone is wearing him, at which point he takes control of the body of the wearer to manifest in the real world. This lasts with no repercussions until his mask is removed, at which point Oni returns to his bindings. He has not deigned to explain how he ended up in a mask or who managed to put him there, but the loose implication points to the aftermath of the Demon War as the cause. Further information is pending. He's stoic and composed, and has yet to be truly riled up by anything that's happened. He also refuses, as a rule, to get involved with the rest of the Chain's adventures unless his presence is truly required. As the First Link Ever, and the one from whom the entire rest of the lineage has descended, Oni feels somewhat responsible for guiding the rest of the Links through their journeys - but guiding and coddling are two different things and as far as Oni is concerned, his legacies need to be able to fight their own battles

THE SEQUEL LINKS

Rune: The Link from Breath of the Wild. He has the Champion Abilities, as well as his own Quicktime specialty, and is of course concerningly amnesiac. He's quiet to the point of almost being forgettable, which is a side effect of a) spending nearly all his time in the wilderness alone with nobody to talk to, and b) having to constantly be on the alert for Guardians because nothing alerts a Guardian like a loud hylian. His inventory is nearly bottomless, and he therefore immediately becomes the group pack mule. He's also hands-down the best chef (something which makes Gen only slightly jealous)

Lux: The Link from Hyrule Warriors. He is the quietest Link, but not because of his personality - it's because he can't talk. The most vocalization he's ever going to manage is incoherent yells of effort, because anything beyond that is locked behind a psychosomatic speech block. He has not deigned to share why he has a psychosomatic speech block and at the moment it's highly doubtful he ever will. He's second only to Shadow in his sarcasm and general displeasure with the world, and the rest of the group is lucky that hylian sign only has loosely defined curse words, otherwise he'd be going off

RSE: Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald are the Link(s) from Triforce Heroes. Emerald is the leader of the trio, more or less, while Ruby handles anything that might need a good smacking and Sapphire embodies the emotional core. They have a strange dynamic where they bicker with each other to hide the fact that they care, which is a direct result of them still settling into their own dynamics. They have their Totem formation, of course, and share an incredibly specific set of opinions about fashion. The fact that they also have their entire wardrobe on hand is complete coincidence, yep

Lyric: The Link from Cadence of Hyrule. He can hear the Universe Music better than any other Link (with the possible exception of Wind) and he will do whatever he can to follow its lead. He's constantly moving to the beat in almost everything he does, and it makes him unexpectedly deadly in a fight. It turns out that following the Universe Music gives very good buffs and Lyric is a master at following the music. Ironically enough for all his sense of rhythm, he cannot sing to save his life and is in fact instrumentally challenged, which annoys him to no end

THE OC LINKS

Codex: The Link from the Evil Overlord List, a story I write that somehow developed its own protagonist. He's snarky, sarcastic, runs on caffeine and spite, and will probably take over the world someday if he ever gets around to it. He's currently just a college student writing his thesis paper (The List), but once he graduates the world had better brace itself

Wraith: The Link that was made as a result of a random conversation one day, in which someone asked me what would happen if Demise won permanently. Five minutes with my angst-stunted brain later, I had a cheerful sunshine child who had the ability to see spirits and was getting mentored by all eighteen dead Heroes as the backup plan to deal with Demise. He's way too pure for the world and probably shouldn't be as big an optimist as he is for someone surrounded by dead people

“Magic Dagger Curse Is My Middle Name” & Human Evil in Wheel of Time

Part 2 of a series of essays on the theme “Tuon is Mat’s Replacement Shadar Logoth Dagger”. (Part 1 was “Stealing Is The Way to Mat Cauthon’s Heart”.)

This discusses the many parallels Tuon has to Mat’s dagger on a symbolic level, covering both her and her role as leader of Seanchan. But mostly, I talk an extraordinary amount about how the Shaido, Whitecloaks, and Seanchan reflect the archetypal in-universe human evil of Shadar Logoth.

Magic Dagger Curse Is My Middle Name

Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag (now Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag) has a lot of names, and I'd found puns or references in most of them. There's the "Lady Luck" pun of "Empress Fortuona". There's the very appropriate "Kore" (Persephone's and Tuon's pre-kidnapping moniker, meaning "Maiden") for a girl who gets kidnapped and dragged through both the human underworld (a circus, and a dive bar that's literally called a hell) and the death-related underworld (a literal ghost town full of ghosts, and the hell of guerilla warfare). There's "Devi", a reference to divinity, which replaces "Kore". Paendrag is of course an Arthurian legend reference.

But the one name I never quite understood was her only other permanent name- "Athaem". The 13th Depository Blog suggests it was meant to evoke both "athame" - a knife or dagger used in magic rituals - and "anathema" - a curse, especially one that exiles someone. Go on, let that sink in. Tuon's middle name is "Magic Dagger Curse". Tuon "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. Fortuona "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH THAT TUON'S ACTUAL MIDDLE NAME HAS ACTUALLY BEEN "MAGIC DAGGER CURSE" THIS ENTIRE TIME.

Basically that's all I actually need to say here to prove that Tuon is the symbolic return of Mat's sexy cursed magic dagger that isolates the bearer via paranoia and suspicion, but let's throw in some of the other parallels just for fun and so you have time to recover from the psychic damage I just dealt you. There's some fun ones just around rubies specifically and the color red.

The Shadar Logoth dagger has a large dark ruby on it, the size of Mat's thumbnail. Mat estimates it would buy a dozen farms back home, and when Mat first meets Tuon, he notices she's 'wearing a fortune in rubies'. Also, before she becomes Empress, Tuon's signature color is red; she's got red fingernails, red and a very dark green are the imperial colors as seen on the Deathwatch guards, she buys a lot of red silk in Jurador, and presumably the roses in the Raven and Roses imperial sign are red, as she treasures Mat's present of red silk rosebuds. (Interestingly, she starts going more blue once she becomes Empress- I'm thinking specifically of the blue nails and dress she has when she declares maritime Ebou Dar her capital.)

Tuon also has other physical similarities to edged weapons in general, and the dagger specifically. Like the dagger, she looks ornamental but could absolutely kill you. Mat describes her hands as "bladed like an ax" when she strikes a footpad in the throat to save him. She's also sharp, in the sense of being very intelligent and canny. Also, she could learn to channel, and in being a sul'dam is a conduit for magic, so she fits that aspect of the dagger as well. And, last but not least, like the dagger, Tuon is a fascinating and deadly artifact of a powerful civilization that embraces a uniquely human form of evil.

Shadar Logoth as Ultimate Human Evil

In the books, Shadar Logoth is our loadstone for what is described as a specifically human kind of evil, separate from the absolute, somewhat abstracted "evil for evil's sake" that is the province of the Dark One. The Dark One's ideology as practiced by humans ends up being nihilism, or rather, self-interested nihilism. (Ishamael isn't a pure nihilist, he's ok with getting worldly power while there's still a world.) In contrast, Shadar Logoth's downfall is a kind of corruption; evil things done in the name of, and for the sake of, good things. There are other cultures that do that, of course, but Shadar Logoth is the purest example of 'the ends justify the means', since their 'end' was fighting the Dark One.

"The victory of the Light is all. That was the battlecry Mordeth gave them, and the men of Aridhol shouted it while their deeds abandoned the Light. [...] No enemy had come to Aridhol but Aridhol. Suspicion and hate had given birth to something that fed on that which created it, something locked in the bedrock on which the city stood." -Moiraine, The Eye of the World

The goal of opposing the Dark One (an abstract idea of evil) at any cost led them to turn on and destroy not just their allies but ultimately each other.

Mat's Shadar Logoth dagger is a part of Shadar Logoth that has most of the powers of the whole. When carried by an individual, it can brainwash, induce (semi-justified) paranoia, kill via corruption, and infect others. These are all powers associated with Aridhol/Shadar Logoth. About the only thing the dagger can't do that we see other elements of Shadar Logoth do is shapechange or snatch bodies (#JustMordethThings) and move semi-instinctually on its own (like Mashadar). Shadar Logoth is established as Peak Human Evil, an evil so archetypal it has undergone a sort of dark apotheosis and become both a physical and metaphysical force.

Because it is so archetypal, we should expect to see aspects of it reflected in other Randland cultures that are antagonistic to our heroes, but which are not explicitly pledged to the Dark One.  We should also expect to see the same part to whole dynamic in those cultures' leaders. Rand is a great example of this part-to-whole dynamic; as the Dragon Reborn who is 'one with the land', he struggles against increasing paranoia and self-hatred, which leads him to act as his own antagonist for much of the series, even as he explicitly fights against the Dark One. It's the Shadar Logoth struggle writ large. Therefore, the leader of a corrupted, Shadar Logoth-esque culture will be a powerful and faithful representative of the traits of that culture; you could say they are the purest expression of that culture.

This is a tenet of Robert Jordan's worldbuilding and narrative, and applies to more than just the antagonist leaders; protagonist leaders also stand in practically and symbolically for their culture or group. Over the course of the series, nations and groups end up led by the 'best' people for the job, where 'best' is some combination of 'most representative', 'most competent', and/or 'best adhering to their culture's ethical tenets' (which often happen to be our protagonists). This has the possibly unintended/unconscious effect of justifying autocracy, monarchy, etc in-world because it's all adhering to aristocracy, 'rule by the best', where 'best' is rather culturally relative. It's also an artifact in-universe of the world moving to a wartime footing; anyone who isn't the best person for the job gets tossed out of the way in the name of prepping for Tarmon Gai'don, by some combination of The Will of The Pattern as well as actual effort on the part of our heroes.

On a more meta level, Robert Jordan's choice to use third person limited points of view means we get a lot of POV characters who are very embedded in their cultures and serve as an immersive cultural crash course for the reader. They tend to be either main or secondary characters who are movers and shakers in the plot (justifying the time we spend in their heads) or there to provide an outsider reaction to main or secondary characters (again, justifying the time we spend in their heads.) Robert Jordan's writing is concerned with the use, abuse, and fluctuations of power, but it's worth noting that he doesn't give us POVs of characters who are structurally and permanently without power.

POV characters often have moments of powerlessness, either in the beginning of their narratives or at the end, but if you happen to be a WoT character who never had power and never will, RJ isn't interested in showing us the inside of your head. For example, we don't ever get a POV from an ordinary da'covale who spends the entire series out of control of their own destiny, even though that could be a very powerful outsider perspective. Instead, we get POVs from sojhin, who are movers and shakers in their own right. (These are great POVs--Karede's POV in chapter 36 of KOD is maybe my favorite of the entire series, it's a work of art--but again, there's a bias here in who we observe observing.) In a series where people bemoan or celebrate being constrained by fate and consciously question if they have free will, we somehow don't hear from those who have never had worldly power; we only hear from those who do, or once did.

(I find this disappointing, and it's one of the reasons I find it difficult to recommend the Wheel of Time books- which are obviously deeply personally significant to me, and which I find fun, interesting, and more often than not, well-written- without caveats. The series is so obviously about power and choice and the ways they influence each other, and uses third person limited POV so skillfully, that it is surprising and disturbing to me that we are not exposed directly to the point of view of those who have been permanently and structurally deprived of power. We miss an opportunity to engage with the core themes on that level, and also uncover an authorial bias that hasn't aged very well and which makes me look at some of RJ's other choices with a more jaundiced eye. I believe WoT would have been stronger and richer thematically if it had grappled directly with the realities and perspectives of those who remained powerless throughout the events of the series. And whether it was an unconscious or deliberate choice to leave out those perspectives, not having them there lessens my trust and acceptance of Robert Jordan's takes on power and choice. But I digress!)

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Shaido

So, there are other antagonist cultures that we spend a lot of time with but which are not explicitly allied with the Dark One (though we are always shown their leaders being subject to the Dark One's influence, through their advisors and high-ranking coworkers, who are Darkfriend characters that have positions of structural power and influence.) Overall, the Shadar Logoth archetype means we are looking for structural corruption, fear, hatred, and the cultural belief that the ends justify the means. In-universe, that's what human evil looks like, and we expect to find it in our secondary antagonists.

So let's take a look at the Shaido, who are attempting to recapture a glorious (fictional) past by imposing a corrupted version of their original values on others; the Whitecloaks, who spread authoritative dehumanization and bigotry in the name of order and righteousness; and the Seanchan, who have the dubious distinction of doing *both*, which is why they win the door prize for Most Problematic Antagonist Who Isn't Literally Allied With The Dark One.

The Shaido are an example of a corrupted culture that imposes its corruption on others, especially others that do not meaningfully consent to be assimilated. Their corruption starts with suspicion and fear and leads to brainwashing; they choose to believe a lie because it is more palatable than the truth, and because they fear becoming powerless and losing their cultural identity. They and the Aiel that joined them cannot accept Rand's truth bomb about the origins of the Aiel as pacifists. It's an idea so counter to modern Aiel self-image and culture that the secret was carefully hidden and used as a test of character for Aiel leaders.

In the test, the knowledge that they had betrayed their original ideals to survive was presented in the original emotional and logistical contexts, which may have helped the Aiel who went through the test survive learning about it; it's easier to empathize and overcome fear and disgust if you know why people made the decisions they did. To survive, and to self-govern, the honor-bound Aiel leadership has learned to forgive themselves for their corruption, while not losing the lessons they learned from it, and empathize with people almost entirely unlike themselves. (How effective are they at that? Your mileage may vary.)

Normally, only those who could accept the information could reach the highest leadership roles. Sevanna, whom the Shaido exodus coalesces under after the death of Couladin, is the only Wise One who didn't go through that testing process (she got in on a technicality), which makes her uniquely qualified to lead the group that can't accept this information. Like that group, she lacks humility or the ability to accept unpleasant truths; however, she's self-confident, politically skilled, culturally competent, and has a clear vision for her people, which are the other qualities that the Aiel select for in their leaders. (I cannot believe that today I woke up and said nice things about Sevanna!)

She's presented as somewhat 'corrupted' by wetlander ways, greedy for wealth and power, but I think it's more that she's off the leash of strict Aiel morality; she goes on a reign of terror, taking more than she needs of any resource, and capturing non-Aiel and keeping them as permanent gai'shain. This is clearly slavery in a more modern sense. The Aiel proper have a sort of ancient-style slavery, based on taking prisoners of war, that is time-bound, highly regulated, and that everybody more or less consents to by living in that society. (I say more-or-less; not sure your average civilian Aiel precisely consents the way a warrior might consent, but then again, everyone in Aiel society is a little bit of a warrior.) Sevanna's unconsenting, permanent, non-Aiel gai'shain are a clear violation of all of these tenets, and resemble the bodysnatching and invasive nature of the Shadar Logoth evil. Fear turns into hatred of both kinds of uncorrupted Aiel (the originals, and the modern) and of those groups of people who are not like them. In the end, the Shaido dissolve, their corruption having weakened them so that they fall prey to outside forces.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Children of the Light/Whitecloaks

The Whitecloaks are an obvious heir to Shadar Logoth, as they persecute channelers and anyone they consider a Darkfriend in the name of order, righteousness, and the Light. Whitecloaks represent the paranoia, assassination, and brainwashing powers of Shadar Logoth, and insofar as they have assimilated Amadicia and make forays across borders, they also cover invasion, though to perhaps a smaller degree than the Shaido (or the Seanchan). The Whitecloaks are also good intentions, corrupted; yes, Darkfriends are bad, yes, the Light is good, no, not everyone you don't like or who has power you want is a Darkfriend! They turn neighbor against neighbor, harrass, torture, and murder the innocent as well as the guilty, and generally do all the bad behavior you would expect of a military quasi-religious order that considers itself above the law. Also, Mordeth/Fain literally got his grubby hands all over the Whitecloaks early in the story and made them even worse.

Galad is a really good example of the 'best man for the job' ending up in it; Galad's extremely uncompromising morality is most likeable and practical when he's fulfilling a 'reformer' role in a group that really needs it, and when he's not in that role, his entire deal can feel excessive and alienating. (Although I will note that if you think about how his mom abandoned him to pursue what she was told was her duty, and his dad was a real asshole, you can kind of see why Galad has such a strict moral code and won't let something like family or feelings get in the way of carrying out his duty... anyway just having feelings about Galad, don't mind me.) When leading the Whitecloaks he recalls them to their original ideals and purpose, which is literally fighting the Shadow on an actual battlefield, and makes them hew to ethical standards from the original Lothair Mantelear text and his own personal extremely high standards.

He purifies the Children of the Light, insofar as they can be purified, purging the corrupt people and practices. This allows the Whitecloaks to ally with the Light, rather than sitting out the Last Battle or killing important Light-allied groups. But the Whitecloak channelerphobia is not going to be eradicated so easily, and that's mostly what Galad’s family was objecting to about him joining the Whitecloaks in the first place. And even Galad starts to succumb to it by the end of the series, although to be fair the White Tower had definitely done a number on his family by that point. Post-Last-Battle, Galad is really going to have to grapple with 'what is the practical purpose of a bunch of armed busybodies who think they're better than everyone else and who have a very deep-seated hatred and fear of channelers?' One hopes he'll convert them to a peaceable monastic order doing community service. If anyone can do it, it's probably Galad, but I think it's not going to be easy and it's also not clear to me if Galad is going to have the same opinion about the necessity that I do.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Seanchan

So, now we come to the Seanchan, who are a rich, complex, fascinating culture that combines the best and worst thematic elements of both the Shaido and the Whitecloaks. Twice the fun, twice the flavor! Like the Shaido, they are the corruption of an honor-based culture that now assimilates other people and cultures without their consent. The Seanchan have a strongly-held honor system that uses public and private shame as a deterrent to unethical behavior, similar to ji'e'toh, but like the Shaido, they apply it to conquered peoples under duress; even if the Seanchan themselves are ok living this way, there's no real consent happening when they conquer.

Like the Shaido, the Seanchan claim to be the true heirs of an ancient legacy, the children of the child of Artur Hawkwing, but have spent enough time in Seanchan to absorb all sorts of concepts Artur Hawkwing never had (slavery, taming weird beasties, exploiting Aes Sedai rather than just avoiding or fighting them). Their culture is also built on convenient fictions; the knowledge that sul'dam can learn to channel, and that some can be held by the a'dam, is likely to produce a truth bomb down the line, one way or another. And the Seanchan are an imperial power, which means they automatically follow the natural growth and rules of empire; always be expanding, always be consuming, always be exploiting. They're Mashadar, baby!

Let's zoom in on the slavery, since that's one prong of what makes the Seanchan evil. It's a kind of bodysnatching and brainwashing, and there are some really interesting parallels here to the Shaido and Aiel. The Seanchan have three forms of institutional slavery; so'jhin, da'covale, and damane. So'jhin, hereditary upper servants of the upper class, have the most power and are analogous but not precisely equivalent to normal Aiel gai'shain. Like standard gai'shain, they are considered property that can be traded, have some level of autonomy and ability to direct their lives, certain rights and privileges, and in theory can be manumitted.

Unlike gai'shain, they actually can have more political power than free people. Also unlike gai'shain, they are not guaranteed manumission after a set time, and while I think the gai'shain consent issue is a little muddy (Aiel can't help being born Aiel and thus subject to Aiel raids) so'jhin are born into slavery and have therefore absolutely not consented to it. So'jhin appear to be based at least partially on Byzantine examples of high-ranking slaves, and slavery in other very complex and bureaucratic cultures where those in power needed highly competent administrators, but didn't want the administrators supplanting them.

Da'covale are equivalent to Shaido gai'shain; often (but not always) captured from other cultures, absent the rights and privileges of regular gai'shain or so'jihn, and bound to involuntary servitude for life, although they can in theory be manumitted. (Shaido gai'shain have the option of trying to escape, I guess.) They have very little autonomy and power to direct their lives. It may be possible for da'covale to become so'jihn, so again there is a kind of internal mobility/potential access to power that doesn't have an exact equivalent with the Aiel models, but that's offset by the lack of consent; da'covale can also be born into slavery. One can be made da'covale as punishment for defiance or anything else the Seanchan see as a crime, or born into it. It seems historically equivalent to ancient, prisoner-of-war-type slavery, mixed with the carcereal state; you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you fucked up, and that's the justification for making you a slave.

Damane have some points in common with both regular Aiel and Shaido versions of dat'sang; they are all slavery in the form of the carcereal state/slavery as an outcome of the justice system. Dat'sang are 'despised ones', usually those accused of being Darkfriends or who have committed heinous crimes. It's a punishment that is apparently permanent and unrecallable, and they are sentenced to the most shaming labor in the worst conditions. They are cast-out from the community and forced to serve it in the most degrading way. Marath'damane, channelers with the spark who are not leashed, are treated like dat'sang are, in that they are cast out of their communities and shamed for their 'crimes'. Once they are leashed, though, they become integral parts of Seanchan society and are told to take pride in the service they can provide, which is very unlike the dat'sang cultural experience. Damane are enslaved and exploited for their talents, ostensibly to keep the general population safe from their magic powers and their potential political power, but also because they're an incredibly powerful military and infrastructure resource.

The first damane was created out of a combination of fear, greed, and hatred. One Seanchan-local Aes Sedai captured a rival and brought her to Luthair Paendrag, who she knew would be receptive to constraining the power of channelers. What she didn't count on was that solution being institutionalized, and that she'd eventually fall prey to it herself; a classic Shadar Logoth "do a shitty thing unto others and eventually you'll just be doing a shitty thing to yourself" move. Both the existing Seanchan population and Luthair's group had already othered, hated, and feared channelers, the Seanchan possibly for logical contextual reasons (seems like the Seanchan Aes Sedai were all independent Americans who didn't want to be governed by a universal code of ethics or subject to institutional oversight, which is not conducive to living in a society), and Luthair because of Ishamael’s original corruption of Artur Hawkwing.

In the end, the combined Luthair group/original Seanchan institutionalized their channeler bigotry, saying that the ends (preventing channelers from exploiting non-channelers) justified the means (exploiting channelers). Damane are never, ever freed and now the Seanchan think of channeling independently as inherently a corruption and a crime; something that makes the involuntary channeler evil and unhuman. They also break channelers, brainwashing them into thinking that this is for their own good (and not just for the good of the state).

(Another meta aside: Because involuntarily channeling is a genetic trait that the channeler has no control over, leashing damane feels to a modern reader, especially US ones, I think, very much like the race-based slavery of our recent past. Especially the idea that the enslaved person is enslaved as a punishment for a crime; this is something that would hit a US reader pretty hard, given that the US's booming prison population is the only legal slave labor force in the US and is also disproportionately made up of people of color. I am pretty sure that explicit parallels between racist slavery and the practice of leashing damane would be supported by Robert Jordan, especially since he literally put the Seanchan on post-apocalyptic North and South America. They have other influences, including Imperial Japan and Imperial China, and the Byzantine Empire, but in this way, and also because of the Texas accents, they are very, very American.)

The Seanchan are also similar to the Whitecloaks; they're both military groups who hate and fear channelers, and they are particularly susceptible to paranoia and assassination/extrajudicial murder. The Shadow didn't have any trouble infliltrating either the Whitecloak command structure (especially the Questioners) or the Seanchan Blood; there's a certain background level of 'the ends justify the means' going on in Seanchan and Whitecloak power centers that makes them fertile ground for recruitment. The Whitecloaks and the Seanchan both have a kind of secret police; Questioners and Seekers (they even have similar names!) who operate under certain strictures with respect to their upper management, but who can basically do whatever the hell they want to ordinary people. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that secret police are PEAK Shadar Logoth; they were always judging everyone else, generating paranoia and mistrust.

The Blood and Imperial family are also a really great example of Shadar Logoth values creating a (somewhat) functioning society full of extremely fucked-up people; the more power you have, the more delicately you have to step and the harder you have to watch your own back. The higher up you go, the less trust you are able to have in others, until you reach the point where people are sending assassins after an imperial baby, and the imperial baby grows up thinking that's completely normal and fair and it's their fault if they are ever not good enough to dodge it. (Hi, sorry, please excuse me and my many, many feelings about Tuon.) That kind of thing makes you very, very sharp, assuming you survive; it also makes you very inured to violence and most comfortable when you've got a high baseline paranoia going at all times. It puts you in danger and it gives you the means to survive danger; it's very Shadar Logoth dagger, which attracts Darkfriends but also gives you the ability to sense the Darkfriends right back, and incidentally stab the hell out of them.

A Part With the Power of the Whole: Tuon and the Seanchan

So, we have all the sins of Shadar Logoth united in the Seanchan; they're invaders, they brainwash and bodysnatch, they're paranoid, they assassinate and murder, they've institutionalized hate and fear, they're structurally corrupt in that power in their society is based on lies and exploitation, and they think that when it comes to dealing with their mortal enemies (channelers), the ends justify the means. And their leader, Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag, Empress of Seanchan, is indeed many of these things wrapped up in one efficient and deadly package.

She's a sul'dam and she enjoys her work breaking and training damane; she's had siblings assassinated and we've seen her kill onscreen; she's deeply suspicious, always second-guessing and skeptical (except about received values and information from her culture); she embodies and enforces Seanchan culture and power. She is all Seanchan in one person, and she'd tell you that proudly. She tries to assimilate *herself* into the state, because she thinks that's what she's supposed to do, to best serve her people. She wants to be the part that is an exact mirror of the whole, and she wants the whole to be perfect, so she wants herself to be perfect, too.

Do you see the shades of Galad, here? Like Galad, she has a strict and impractically idealistic moral code that makes her somewhat unpopular wherever she goes; she's too unpredictable, merciful, and flexible for her counterparts in the Blood (she's always surprising them with her unconventional choices) and too perfectly Seanchan for her allies (who are all horrified by the damane thing, or the da'covale thing, or the assassination thing, etc etc.) The things people grudgingly praise her for are sincerity, competence, compassion within the bounds of her ethical structure, and (sometimes) a willingness to consider new information or accept oversight, the last of which is only impressive because of how enormous her ego is and how thoroughly she's been indoctrinated to believe she's inherently correct and all-powerful.

She is the best of Seanchan, within the context of Seanchan: she survived, took, and kept power, making her the most competent imperial daughter; she's very ethical within Seanchan strictures, not striking first unless threatened, working to acknowledge and correct personal faults, keeping her word, showing concern and mercy for those she believes are suffering, being thoughtful and careful of consequences when she exercises power; she is most representative of all of Seanchan's flaws and virtues, as a sul'dam, Empress, and Lightside ally. (That said: is Tuon the most ethical Seanchan within a broader cultural context? Hell no, that's Egeanin, who goes through a long and painful process of realizing and rejecting the corrupt and nasty parts of Seanchan culture, after it rejects her.)

To conclude: just like Mat's Shadar Logoth dagger, Tuon is a fascinating and dangerous tool of a powerful, antagonistic civilization that embraces a uniquely human form of evil. Her middle name is literally "Magic Knife Curse", Seanchan is the most Shadar Logoth-y of non-Shadow-aligned antagonist cultures, and she also follows the very Robert Jordan pattern of leaders fractally reflecting the culture or group they lead.

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

sup hollow knight fandom, i’m back with the picante takes again after having Noticed A Thing.

as with my previous essays i’ll put this guy up on dreamwidth later for accessibility purposes, since my layout text may be too small for high-res pc users. i will attach that in a reblog at a later point.

CONTENT WARNINGS FOR TONIGHT’S PROGRAM: This essay discusses canon-typical body horror and bodily boundary violations, with some side mentions of colonialism.

all game screencaps are mine. the screencap of the wiki is from the “developer notes” (style guide) section of the “cut content” page.

ALSO: if youre from a christian cultural upbringing (whether currently practicing, agnostic/secular, or atheist now), understand that some of what i’m discussing here may challenge you. if thinking thru the implications of this particular part of hollow knight worldbuilding/lore is distressing for you, PLEASE only approach this essay when youre in a safe mindset & open to listening, and ask the help of a therapist or anti-racism teacher/mentor to help you process your thoughts & feelings. just like keep in mind that youre listening to an ethnoreligiously marginalized person and please be respectful here or wherever else youre discussing this dang essay, ty

HOWMST BELL THE CAT? - A treatise on one aspect of how the Pale King sealed the Radiance

We understand more or less how the Pale King’s plan was supposed to work. Stuff Radiance into a no-thoughts-head-empty and silent Pure Vessel to trap, isolate, and silence her, both putting an end to the Infection and killing her for good. Stick that vessel in the Black Egg, which harnesses Void BS to both keep the vessel alive indefinitely and to cover Hallownest (and its neighbors) in a time-defying stasis so that the Pale King could successfully hoard his favorite shiny FOREVER, threatened by nothing. Then put a seal on the Black Egg to prevent anyone from getting inside and harming said vessel while it’s strung up and helpless. And THEN, put protective seals on the anchors (the Dreamers) to the Black Egg seal to protect them from any external harm: The stasis means the Dreamers won't die of old age or starvation.

All in all, a pretty foolproof plan!

...except that the Dreamers are still vulnerable to having their minds breached with the moths’ magic... and the Pale King failed to take into account that his Pure Vessel was a person actually and the amount of toxic stress his training/upbringing put on them made them REALLY POORLY SUITED FOR THEIR JOB... and also that killing 99% of his million children and turning the Abyss into a landfill for baby corpses would take enough of an emotional toll on his wife and #1 enabler the White Lady that she would walk out on him, ensuring he’d only ever have one shot at this whole deal...

Basically it’s the sort of plan that an emotionally constipated, low-empathy sort of guy who pours all his points into INT and has a big fat zero for WIS might think is foolproof. It has big holes in it that the Pale King did not consider to be big holes until he got owned by the various consequences of his actions and fell down said big holes, making the shocked pikachu face all the while. Rip in die, my guy.

Anyway, there’s a lot of incidental information scattered about the game that gives us more insight into the stages of TPK’s plan. Looking at Monomon’s notes in the Archive suggests that she was probably involved in designing the Black Egg; the hidden room in the Weavers’ den points to their being the ones to blueprint the Dreamer seal; the White Palace’s hidden rooms reveal both TPK’s morbid fascination with the Void and his mea culpa wrt his motives and the Path of Pain is certainly suggestive of a lot of things. The White Lady tells us straight out that she walked out on the Pale King because she wanted no part in a second vessel batch, but how TPK didn’t handle that is only revealed via map design and some incidental dialogue from the Old Stag.

This stuff presents us with, if not a full picture, then at least a decent connect-the-dots of certain aspects of crater politics and Pale Court drama at the time, and how exactly TPK’s plan came together.

But there is still one glaring question that these cookie crumbs do not provide us an answer to:

Who shall bell the cat?

How did TPK et al manage to stuff Radiance into Hollow in the first place?

This is the subject of a lot of memes and jokes within the fandom because it's so absurd. Radiance fuckin hates that dude! She’s probably gonna be pretty wary of him considering how he stole her people in the first place! And considering the anti-colonialism slant of the writing - beyond the general sympathetic view Team Cherry gives of each indigenous bug society, Seer makes it very clear that Radiance has very good reason to take violent action against Hallownest - the answer is probably not something like “she’s just that stupid” or “she rolled a crit fail”.

Well... I have an idea of how TPK managed to get Radiance in there. It raises about as many questions as it answers, mind, but it may be someplace to start.

[desc: the hollow knight's entry in the hunter’s journal. top text/ghost’s comment reads: “Fully grown Vessel, carrying the plague’s heart within its body.” bottom text/hunter’s comment says: “The old King of Hallownest... he must have been desperate to save his crumbling little world. The sacrifices he imposed on others... all for nothing.”]

Here we have Hollow’s bestiary entry. Most of what we’re concerned with here is the top text, which says the seal has literally trapped Radiance inside their body. (First of all, ew, TPK.)

We already knew Radiance is literally actually inside Hollow, though: The Infection is leaking out of their body, and to get to fight Radiance, Ghost has to go traipsing into their sibling’s mind. So what’s significant about that here?

[desc: screencap of the outside of the black egg temple, post-infected crossroads. there are large infection blobs in the foreground and background, connected to each other by veins that come from inside the temple.]

The infection blobs are weird and get weirder if you kill enough Lightseeds for the Hunter to tell you their origin story, i.e. that the literal actual sun has been having a very long bad day and cried a lot, and some of the liquid coalesced into living flesh, and some of that living flesh took on a mind of its own to become Lightseeds. (Hollow Knight is a WILD place.)

Lightseeds are Radiance’s accidental children and share a lot of her traits: They are harmless creatures that try to avoid conflict if possible but if pushed will get creative and find ways to fight regardless of their physical limitations. (For the Lightseeds this involves hiding inside Broken Vessel’s corpse and puppeting it around to try to stab you.) They even have her same distinctive yell. And according to the Hunter, they’re born from the infection blobs. These enemies only ever appear in the Ancient Basin, which both Radiance and the Void have ransacked, and in the Infected Crossroads.

The infection blobs are connected to and sort of a weird extension of Radiance because the Infection itself is sort of a weird extension of Radiance. In the game’s internal style guide Team Cherry explains that the Infection started as an accident, not her original intention but what happened when Hallownest tried to block her out.

[desc: screencap from the wiki of style notes attached to seer that describe a sketch of radiance’s finalized backstory. text reads: “The moth tribe were (perhaps) descended from Radiance. However, the King convinced them somehow to seal Radiance away. I guess so he could rule Hallownest with his singular vision, as a god/monarch with no other gods. The moths sealed Radiance away by forgetting about her. Hallownest was born and flourished. However, the memory of Radiance lingered (eg [sic] the statue at hallownest’s crown) and soon she began to reappear in dreams and starting [sic] exerting influence. The King and the bugs of Hallownest resisted this memory/power and it started to manifest as the Infection. Thus the first attempt to seal Radiance failed, and the King had to try another method - the Vessel.” emphasis mine.]

Some fans have posited the blobs as deposits of pupa juice, but given Team Cherry's description of the Infection’s origins I don’t know how likely that is. Since the Void also sticks its squamous tentacles into things via veiny looking things and the Nightmare’s Heart has similar veiny nonsense in the Nightmare Realm, I wonder if it isn’t just a Meddly God Shit thing in general.

Whatever the case, the blobs are very much connected to/a part of Radiance.

And when you’re hanging around them, you will notice two things: They pulse like they’re part of a circulatory system, and you can hear Radiance's heartbeat emanating from them.

[desc: screencap of the game’s title screen with the infected menu theme in use: a glowing orange ball at the center of a lot of black tendony webbing.]

Let’s also think of the Infected menu theme, which you unlock after getting either of the endings where Ghost takes over from Hollow and absorbs Radiance out of them. Ghost is infected and then sealed inside the Black Egg in Hollow's place. It’s suggested by the animation’s staging that Radiance briefly struggles to get out of Ghost after absorbed but is ultimately stuck in them, at which point the seal is reestablished.

If you haven’t used the Infected menu theme yourself, the... interesting thing about it is that it moves organically. The light ball expands and contracts - y’know, sort of like a living organ - and so does the black webby stuff around it.

Also, Radiance’s heartbeat is included in the theme's ambiance.

[desc: hollow’s bestiary entry again]

To cut to the chase, this part of Hollow’s bestiary entry that says “the plague’s heart”? I don’t think that’s just Ghost/Team Cherry being poetic. I think there’s a good chance it’s LITERAL.

I think TPK is the sort of person who could cram a native woman’s literal living beating heart inside his own child’s body so they can use it as... say, a focus to absorb and trap her mind/spirit inside their body, too. Mr. No Cost Too Great is capable of a lot in the name of keeping other people’s claws off his Big Shiny kingdom. This is kind of his whole brand.

But also, like, yuck.

This fits the worldbuilding too; generally speaking Hollow Knight is Body Horror City. Also there’s the case of Grimm: While he and Radiance are loose counterparts at best with WILDLY disparate outlooks and ethoses, his existence serves as precedent that a Higher Being’s heart specifically can be separate from the rest of them.

As I said before, though, this DOES raise as many questions as it answers. If this is another piece in the puzzle of how TPK belled the cat, we’re now left wondering how he got Radiance’s heart to use as Hollow's focus to begin with.

We know he has access to the Dream Realm because that’s ultimately where he hid when Hollow’s seal failed, but who did he send to do the stealing and how did they get away with it? (TPK certainly wouldn’t have gone; his own life’s the one cost too great for him to willingly pay.) Was Radiance’s heart separate from her like the Nightmare’s Heart, or was it a part of her body? (I think the latter is more likely just from her personality; Grimm’s hidden heart makes sense because of how he keeps even his own servants at arm’s length emotionally, whereas Radiance is all heart all the time. I think this makes more sense with their equal opposites schtick too. But this would make for a WAY riskier mission.)

I can imagine all kinds of possibilities. None of them are definitive, but the thing they have in common is that they are all Awful... and how on-brand that is for Hollow Knight as a whole is, maybe, the most persuasive argument for It’s Literally Actually Her Real Physical Heart there could be.

Hawke as Companion

Template by @little-lightning-lavellan

Is your OC a Companion in the Dragon Age series? What would it be like for a player to select them to join their party for quests (or romance them, perhaps? 👀)

I did originally plan on doing this for my Inquisitor but, as always, I've got Hawke brainrot instead, and I figured writing some companion interactions would be so much more interesting with her as a companion than my Lavellan. This got .... very long.

You have selected RIAN to join your party!

Race: HUMAN

Gender: FEMALE

Class: MAGE

Specialization: BLOOD MAGE

BACKGROUND

Marian Elaine Hawke, known also as “Rian”, “Chuckles”, “Champion of Kirkwall” and “Hawke, NO” was born in 9:06 Dragon to Malcolm and Leandra Hawke. Despite having to keep her father's magic a secret, she was never led to believe that magic was anything but a gift. Therefore, she spent much of her younger years experimenting to see if she could produce magic, eventually managing at age 9 to light the fireplace with a tiny fireball.

Growing up, she was attached to Malcolm at the hip - the two of them shared not only their magic but their senses of humor and general chaotic energy.

After the Hawke family fled Lothering during the Blight, Hawke joined Athenril’s smugglers to pay off her entry into Kirkwall. As soon as she met Varric at the start of Act 1, they became inseparable best friends - Hawke often cites Varric as her soulmate and the platonic love of her life. During the Deep Roads expedition, Carver became infected with the Blight, and with the help of Anders, Hawke was able to lead him to the Grey Wardens so he could join their ranks.

Over the years, she developed close relationships with most of her companions except for Aveline and Sebastian. Her friendship with Merrill eventually developed into a committed romance, and Hawke started to practice blood magic after recognising that Merrill could do so without being "evil". The two of them eventually also developed feelings for Isabela, and as such she joined their romance as well.

By Act 3, Hawke had become a staunch supporter of mage rights, a dedicated member of the Underground, and wholeheartedly supported Anders’ choice to destroy Kirkwall’s Chantry.

Following the destruction of the Chantry, Hawke and her friends fled Kirkwall, splitting up despite Hawke desperately wanting them to remain together. Isabela and Merrill chose to remain with Hawke, and the three of them traveled across the Free Marches, occasionally running into Anders and assisting him in rescuing mages from rebelling Circles. Eventually, Isabela managed to acquire a new crew, and her partners were more than happy to sail with her as she established herself once again as the Queen of the Eastern Seas.

INQUISITION

Depending on the player’s choices in Here Lies The Abyss, Hawke can be convinced to stay and help the Inquisition further instead of accompanying the remaining Wardens to Weisshaupt, becoming a full companion. She will move to sit with Varric by the fire in the main hall. Hawke will also be present in Varric’s companion cutscene where he invites the Inquisitor to play Wicked Grace.

Upon first being recruited to the Inquisition, Hawke’s specialisation is not available - when automatically leveled, she will put points primarily into the Inferno and Storm trees. Her unique specialisation, Blood Mage, only becomes available if the Inquisitor has allied with the mages at Redcliffe. At that point, Hawke will initiate a conversation with the Inquisitor about their opinions on blood magic, and if the Inquisitor states that they have no problem with it, her specialisation will open. Otherwise, she will refuse to admit her use of blood magic to the Inquisitor.

At this point, Hawke will also speak more openly about her support of Anders. She will eventually admit that they are still in contact, though she won't tell the Inquisitor anything that could give them an idea of Anders’ whereabouts.

Her specialisation is not open to the Inquisitor, however Hawke can offer to teach a mage Inquisitor "a neat trick", which will give the player the choice to replace their current Focus ability with Hawke's.

BLOOD MAGE

Upon unlocking Hawke's specialisation, she will gain a large increase to her Constitution but her mana bar will become considerably shorter, and conventional healing effects will only operate at 25% efficiency. If she is out of mana, she will automatically revert to using her health pool to power her spells instead.

Her spell tree is very similar to the Dragon Age 2 Blood Mage tree, however it does not include the Blood Slave ability - it is instead replaced with Blood Bomb, which is a variant of Walking Bomb. Instead of applying a damage over time curse to a target, Hawke channels a spell that corrupts the targets' blood from the inside until the target dies - at which point they explode, doing damage to nearby enemies. This spell continually consumes Hawke's mana and health while it is being channeled.

Her Focus ability is Major Sacrifice, a variant of the Knight-Enchanter's Resurgence. Instead of healing the party to full health and providing an ongoing healing aura, Major Sacrifice will instead heal the party to full health but take 25% of Hawke's current health, and will provide an aura of ongoing damage to nearby enemies, converting their health into health for the party.

VARRIC'S PERSONAL QUEST IN VALAMMAR

If the Inquisitor brings Hawke to Valammar, she will be suspiciously quiet throughout the quest - though she will pipe up to complain about the Darkspawn. Following the reveal that Bianca shared the location of the thaig, Hawke will be furious and will argue with her.

Upon returning to Skyhold and speaking to Varric, the cutscene will begin in the middle of a conversation between him and Hawke.

HAWKE: You deserve better, you know. VARRIC: Yeah, you've said that before. HAWKE: It bears repeating. As many times as it takes to get it through your thick head. You deserve so much better. VARRIC: *sigh* Thanks, Chuckles.

APPROVAL AND ROMANCE

Hawke is not romanceable, though she welcomes playful flirting from a female Inquisitor. She will eventually initiate a conversation where she makes sure the Inquisitor isn't expecting the flirting to go anywhere further, as she is already in a relationship.

RIAN APPROVES OF: Supporting mage freedom, open-mindedness with magic and spirits, sarcasm, humor, stealing from nobility, pranking nobility, loyalty to your friends, being nice to Varric, terrible puns.

RIAN DISAPPROVES OF: Chantry rhetoric, the Circles, Templars, Tranquility, authority, betraying your friends, ignorance, pomposity, being mean to Varric.

Hawke will not leave the Inquisition, even if her approval is at Hostile. When questioned about this, she will say:

HAWKE: Did you miss the part where Corypheus is my responsibility? I’m going to fix my fuck-up, Inquisitor. If I have to put up with you while I do it, then, well … I’ve always said the Maker has a sick sense of humor.

TRESPASSER

Following Corypheus' defeat, Hawke leaves the Inquisition to rejoin Merrill and Isabela.

Once Trespasser is started, Hawke can be found accompanying Varric and Bran to the Winter Palace.

During exploration of the Eluvians, if both Hawke and Varric are in the party, they will briefly discuss how excited Merrill would be by all this, and Hawke will say "You'd better be writing all this down, Varric."

She will approve of redeeming Solas, though she won't disapprove if the Inquisitor decides they would rather kill him.

High Approval

If Varric has chosen to give the Inquisitor an estate in Kirkwall, Hawke will pipe up during the conversation saying she's excited to be neighbors, offering to give the Inquisitor the key to her wine cellar - though she will complain that Varric has never given her control of the harbor, to which Bran will mutter "thank the Maker".

Regardless of the Inquisition's fate, Hawke will return to her lovers, occasionally keeping in touch with the Inquisitor via letters.

Low Approval

If the Inquisitor has low approval with Hawke, they will be informed that she left as soon as the Inquisitor stepped back out of the Eluvian following the final confrontation with Solas. The epilogue slides will state that her whereabouts are, once again, unknown.

COMBAT COMMENTS

Killing an enemy

And stay down!

One more for me. We’re keeping score, right?

Have at you!

How’s my hair looking? (COMBAT ENDS)

I wonder what’s in their pockets. (COMBAT ENDS)

Oh, ew. I’m not cleaning that up. (COMBAT ENDS)

Low Health

This is going badly!

Little help, maybe?

Why are none of you healers?

This hurts! This really hurts!

Low Health (Companions)

INQUISITOR: You good over there, boss?

VARRIC: Varric, that blood better not be yours!

COLE: Help the kid!

CASSANDRA: They’re swarming the Seeker!

BLACKWALL: Hang on, Beardy!

IRON BULL: Bull’s in trouble!

Fallen Companions

INQUISITOR: Shit! Trevelyan/Lavellan/Adaar/Cadash is down!

VARRIC: Don’t you dare leave me now, Varric!

COLE: Cole! No!

CASSANDRA: Seeker is down! How did they manage that?

SOLAS: Come on, Solas!

DORIAN: Help Dorian!

SERA: Awful quiet, isn’t it? Oh shit, Sera!

LOCATION COMMENTS

(first time seeing a High Dragon) *laughing* "Oh, this will be fun!" IF VARRIC IS IN THE PARTY: "Hawke, the last time you fought one of these you nearly died." "Yeah, but I didn't die. That's the important thing."

(approaching a campsite) "Well ... I've slept in worse places."

(when collecting a Shard) "Let me guess. We have to collect a stupid amount of these for a really stupid reason, and they're all going to be in really stupid, hard to reach places. *sighs* I love adventuring."

HINTERLANDS

"Have we been here before? Feels like we've been here before."

(upon unlocking the cabin in Redcliffe with the Tranquil skulls) "That's ... fucking Maker. Tranquil have always made me uncomfortable but ... they were still people. They were still... shit, I need a second."

FALLOW MIRE

"Eugh, that smell! Worse than my dog when he's eaten cheese, and that's saying something."

(upon killing Widris) "Something, something, crazy mages ... "

"Oh, walking corpses. That's nice."

STORM COAST

(upon seeing the dragon vs giant fight) *laughing* "Oh, that's brilliant!"

"Not to sound like Varric, but why are there so many bloody hills around here? My legs hurt."

EXALTED PLAINS

"Maker, I hate Orlais."

(finding Valorin's corpse) *sighs* "Might sound a little hypocritical coming from me, but ... blood magic is not for the careless."

(seeing the ruined bridge, if Varric is in the party) "Hey Varric - " "Don't you dare, Hawke." "C'mon, please?" "You are not tossing me!" "Spoilsport."

EMERALD GRAVES

"I've always thought it was beautiful how the Dalish bury their dead under a tree sprout. Like ... I don't know, maybe death doesn't have to be the end."

HISSING WASTES

"There's sand in ... places. So many places."

"Have I said I hate sand? Because I hate sand."

EMPRISE DU LION

(seeing Red Lyrium) "Maybe don't touch that. It'll do all kinds of weird shit to you."

"I'm fucking freezing. When can we go home?"

(seeing Red Lyrium giants) "What the fuck?"

(Elfsblood River rift - near the lady with titsicles) *giggles*

SHRINE OF DUMAT

"I'm getting the weirdest sense of deja vu." IF VARRIC IS IN THE PARTY: "You're not the only one."

DEEP ROADS (THE DESCENT)

"Why do I always end up back in the Deep Roads? Am I cursed?"

COMPANION COMMENTS

VARRIC: "I was worried about what would happen if I brought her here, but ... it's nice to have Hawke around again."

CASSANDRA: "I have to admit, I do admire the Champion. A woman who built herself up from nothing to defeat the Arishok ... there's a certain romance to Varric's stories about her."

SOLAS: "I've been informed that Varric also calls Hawke "Chuckles". I ... don't see how we are similar."

DORIAN: "Hawke? Oh, I like her. She's not as daft as she acts."

BLACKWALL: "The other night, I found her getting teary-eyed in the tavern over how much she misses her dog. Don't quite know what to make of that, really."

VIVIENNE: "She is a powerful mage, I'll give her that, but she's also a naive fool. No wonder Kirkwall fell to pieces around her."

IRON BULL: "She's fun. Got a lot going on in that head she doesn't talk about, though."

COLE: "Fleeing, fighting, falling. Failed father, failed mother, failed Beth and Carver too. Fire and freedom, and she knows it's right but it still feels wrong. Old wounds that never healed, sometimes she can still taste the blood in her mouth. You chose to save her. She wishes you chose differently."

SERA: "Thought she'd be scary, but she makes me laugh. Hasn't let owning a mansion get to her head, either, and have you seen those arms? She's strong."

CULLEN: "I'd ... rather not talk about her, if you don't mind. We've a less than friendly history."

JOSEPHINE: "Lady Hawke is charming, certainly, but I cannot imagine her being popular amongst her neighbours in Hightown. She throws the very concept of decorum bodily out of the window."

LELIANA: "I knew her when she lived in Lothering. She didn't seem to like the Chantry much, but she was always sweet, and her jokes made me laugh. It's a little odd to see the woman she's grown into."

TRIVIA

Malcolm also made sure he trained Hawke in using a sword. She's not very good at it, preferring instead to use her staff as a melee weapon if an enemy gets too close.

She has a mean right hook.

Her and Varric have matching tattoos on their left buttcheeks.

Despite being Ferelden and adoring her own mabari, Hawke has a preference for cats.

She's awful at singing. She sings a lot anyway.

Angela’s “Baby Shower” - a The Rookie Fanfic

At 35 weeks pregnant Angela was over it. She was sick of always having to run to the bathroom.  She was done with the fogginess in her brain interfering with her work. She was over the sore back and hips and feet that came from carrying an extra 30 pounds in her abdomen and she was tired of being so tired after being unable to find a comfortable sleeping position. But mostly she just no longer wanted to feel so different. She hated being too exhausted to go out with her friends after shift and even if she was feeling up for it she always had to get water while everyone else got their cocktail of choice. She was frustrated at being unable to bend down easily when investigating crime scenes and having to rely on others to find all the evidence. She also disliked the attention she got because of her pregnancy. Everybody always seemed to be looking at her belly, asking her when she was due, how she was doing and cooing about the joys of parenthood. She was excited about the baby and couldn’t wait to meet her little bundle of joy but she also craved normalcy, to just feel like herself and be a part of the group instead of sticking out like a sore thumb. So when Wesley pitched the idea of a baby shower to celebrate her and their little one, yet to be born, she vetoed that idea fast and hard. When she shared her reasoning her Fiancé nodded.

“I understand where your coming from but you actually gave me a really good idea for a baby shower that I’m sure you’ll love. Do you trust me?” he asked.

She had nodded and agreed to let him throw her a baby shower with the caveat that she could pull the plug at anytime.

Which brought them to the day of the baby shower, a Saturday, two weeks later.  

Wesley had kept the entire thing a surprise so Angela was thoroughly confused as she watched him unpack a number of crates and garbage bags from the truck and bring them into the downtown park where she sat.

“What is all this?” She asked. 

“You’ll see,” he replied giving her a wink. “Once everyone gets here.”

20 minutes later everyone was there. Lucy, Jackson, Tim, Nolan, and Harper. Grey wanted to come but had to work.

“Welcome everyone,” Wes announced, “today we will be competing to see who is the most badass pregnant person.” At this point everyone including Angela was looking at Wesley like he had grown a second head but he pushed on. “There will be three challenges: an escape room, laser tag and a contraction simulator and you will be divided into two teams. Angela as our guest of honour you get to pick your two teammates.”

“Nyla and Lucy,” Angela said immediately. She still didn’t really understand what they were doing but she had the feeling girl power was the way to victory.

Lucy and Harper excitedly moved over to Angela, giving each other high fives.

“Guess that means we’re a team,” Nolan said draping his arms around Jackson and Tim’s shoulders.

“Great,” Tim replied rolling his eyes. Angela wasn’t sure if he was mad because she didn’t choose him or because he wasn’t on the same team as Lucy either way she was looking forward to kicking his butt.

“OK now the last thing to do before we start the competition is to pregnify everyone,” Wesley stated.

“I feel like I should make some sort of joke about how babies are made but I think I’ll wait to see where you’re going with this,” Nolan offered.

“First everyone put one of these on,” Wesley said as he reached into a garbage bag and brought out a handful of wrap baby carriers which he handed out. Once everybody had theirs on he opened the lids of several storage containers.

“Now everyone, come grab a balloon and put them in your carrier.”

“Wow these are heavier than I expected. What’s in them?” Jackson asked as he lifted a balloon out of the tub.

“They’re full of water and some sand,” Wesley answered, “and they each way exactly 30 lbs, the average amount of weight gained in pregnancy. I weighed them myself.”

“Is that why you asked me where the scale was the other night?” Angela asked

Wesley confirmed before moving on. “Next everyone grab a hoodie to put over your bundle of joy,” he said opening another garbage bag.

“It’s at least 80 degrees we don’t need hoodies,” Tim complained.

“It’s to replicate the heat generated by a growing baby,” Wesley replied, “plus I had a lot of fun with them.”

Tim rolled his eyes but obediently put on the last hoodie.

All the hoodies were bright neon colours (Lucy pink, Harper purple, Jackson green, Nolan yellow and Tim blue) and had pregnancy announcements written on the front in thick black letters: ‘Baby on Board’, ‘Coming summer 2021’, ‘Eating for two’, etc. 

“There’s one for you too if you want it Ange, but you don’t have to wear it,” Wesley said. “Now the last thing, well things,” he added bringing out a bottle of Benadryl and stack of medicine cups, “since I can’t give you brain fog I’m just going to make you drowsy. Everybody take a medicine cup and wash it down with one of these,” he said opening a cooler lid to reveal a stack of 1L water bottles, “the whole thing.”

“I’m going to have to pee so bad,” Lucy joked as she started to drink her water.

“That’s the idea,” Wesley replied.

They spent the next 20 minutes finishing their waters, waiting for the Benadryl to kick in and admiring their new ‘bellies’.

Angela laughed as Jackson yelled “belly bump,” while running then jumping towards Lucy who met him in the air before the force knocked them both off their feet. She laughed even harder watching them try and fail to get up on their own until Wesley came to help them. She happily accepted a belly bum from Jackson once he had taken them down a notch (or several) as did everyone else but Nolan who was excessively protecting his fake fetus, shielding his stomach with his arms and body whenever anybody approached. Angela watched her friends, thoroughly entertained by their antics. She was especially enjoying the effect a visibly pregnant Lucy was having on Tim.  He was constantly stealing glances at her and when she smoothed her hoodie over her stomach and asked him how she looked his cheeks flushed and Angela was pretty sure she heard him stutter. This was confirmed by Nyla who had come up beside her and after a quick poke at Tim started reminiscing about her own pregnancy with Lila, which got the two woman talking and comparing notes. She was vaguely aware of Lucy who had taken her phone out and was now taking pictures and videos of everybody but didn’t fully turn her attention back to the others until Wesley said it was time for the first challenge: the escape room.

They walked to the escape room place which was only about a block away with minimal whining and a lot of perplexed looks from passers by. Once they got there they split into their teams and went to their respective rooms. The girls’ room was sorcerer’s lair themed and overall they got through it pretty smoothly. They had a few bumps in the road: by 20 minutes in they were all crossing their legs trying to hold their pee, Lucy fell asleep once while sitting at a table trying to decode a message and Nyla debated trying to use one of the magic wands in their room to pop her balloon. “Now I remember why I only had one. This was not easy,” she said as she slid down the wall to sit on the floor. But overall they worked together really well and had a lot of fun just talking about anything and everything as they solved all the puzzles and escaped the room. 

 When the girls were done, after a quick trip to the bathroom, they joined Wesley in the control booth to watch the guys via video and they seemed to be having a much harder time.  Jackson was trying to decode the message Lucy had but was becoming visibly more and more frustrated as he rubbed his temples and verbally demanded and pleaded with his brain to work. Nolan was trying to bend down to open a trap door (Angela had opened theirs with a broom handle) but couldn’t quite reach it without nearly falling over. After many failed attempts he eventually used the chair as a support bar to lower himself to the ground then push himself back up once the door was open. Meanwhile Tim kept swearing under his breath as he accidentally knocked various things off shelves and tables with his fake belly when he forgot how far out it reached. Luckily one of the things he knocked off opened when it hit the floor to reveal a key they needed to escape the room, which Nolan was able to retrieve with his new chair technique. Shortly after, Jackson succeeded in decoding his clue and from there they proceeded to finish the room pretty quickly and easily.

After another bathroom break they headed to the food trucks for a quick lunch where they mostly sat in content silence as everyone happily shovelled food into their mouths. This silence was only punctuated by the occasional comment that was either gloating or trash talk or by Tim barking “What are you looking at?” at people eyeing the group.

Next they headed to laser tag. Which Wesley had booked privately, so they had the whole place to themselves. The rules were simple every time you shot a member of the opposing team your team earned a point. First team to 30 won. Everybody seemed to have a good time. Angela laughed at her friends as they tried to sneak up on or out run each other, both techniques that were being significantly impacted by their fake pregnancies. Nolan at one point declared that the more aggressively you waddled the faster you could go and spent the rest of the game darting around like a mad penguin. He was ultimately successful in getting 6 points for his team using this technique which was significantly more than the 1 point he got before implementing it. Jackson on the other hand found a good hiding place in a high traffic area and would shoot the opposing team anytime they came by. Although initially this strategy was very successful and he quickly racked up 10 points, once the ladies realized their vests always lit up red when they passed that area they made a plan and were able to all find and corner him in his hiding spot. By the time he got away they had got 10 points themselves. Tim tried to use a lot of the same techniques he used at work or at paintball but unfortunately for him, although  they were efficient Lucy knew all of them and was able to use that knowledge to her advantage. The girls took a different approach and worked more as a team. They used some techniques from work and also had fun designing and implementing crazy plans, including one of them acting as bait to lure the guys in and the other two blind-siding them. When all was said and done the guys won 30-29. The girls attributed this to Tim and Nolan’s height advantage. They were able to see over all the obstacles but it could also be that the girls were having a little to much fun making elaborate plans that weren’t necessarily the most practical (the gun tricks looked cool but significantly decreased their shooting accuracy). Nonetheless, Angela had the greatest total points with 16. 

Following laser tag everybody was really happy but also extremely exhausted and they outright refused to walk the ten minutes back to the park despite the fact that because they were downtown it would take twice as long to drive their in traffic. While everybody went pee again Wesley walked back and brought the van. 

“I call middle row,” Harper yelled as Wesley pulled into the parking lot. 

“Me too,” West added. 

Angela took the passenger seat which left Nolan, Lucy and Tim to squeeze into the back row. Because Lucy was the smallest she was forced to take the middle seat but it didn’t seem to matter to her as she fell asleep almost immediately and spent the 20 minute ride leaning against Tim, head on his shoulder. They woke her up once they were back at the park but only after they had taken a couple pictures. 

Once they all got out of the van Wesley told them they could take off their hoodies and fake bellies. Tim and  Nyla quickly took off their stuff and helped Wesley set up for the labour simulation. Meanwhile the three newly minted P2’s goofed around. Nolan pretended to be giving birth taking quick breaths and squeezing Lucy’s hand as he pushed his balloon out the bottom of the carrier where Jackson caught it. Then working together the three of them lifted the balloon above their heads and belted out ‘The Circle of Life.’ Following the end of their song they too quickly shed their layers then went to join the rest of the group gathered in front of a folding beach chair that had been set up. 

“Alright everyone welcome to the final and tie-breaking event,” Wesley announced.

“Tied?” Angela questioned. “We beat the guys by at least half an hour in the escape room and they only beat us by one point at laser tag. We are winning.” 

“That’s not how this works babe. But don’t worry because you will be sitting this one out because you have to go through real labor in a couple weeks, I will be taking your spot and I will make sure your team wins.”

“You better,” Angela replied teasingly.

“Alright this is the labour simulator,” Wesley explained holding up a small device, “We stick these electrodes to your stomach and this machine will deliver electricity which will result in fake contracts that range in intensity from 1-10,” he pointed to a dial on the machine. “According to the instruction book 1 is like mild period cramps, 4 is Braxton-Hicks contractions, 8 is full blown labour and 10 is just full blown torture. Whichever team can tolerate the highest combined score wins. Oh and tolerate means experience that setting for at least ten seconds without ripping the leads off your body. Any questions?” When everybody shook their heads he continued. “Who wants to go first?”

“I will,“ Jackson offered making his way to the chair. Wesley stuck the electrodes to his abdomen then he was ready to go. 

He jumped initially on the first setting since he had no idea what to expect but after that he was pretty calm just clenching his jaw as the pain was increased. That is until he got to 6.

“Can I hold somebody’s hand?” he asked, “That’s a thing, right?”

Both Lucy and Nolan immediately stood up.

“How about two hands,” Nolan suggested seeing this.

“Even better,” Jackson replied intertwining his left hand with Nolan’s and his right with Lucy’s. 

This was enough to get him through 7 and 8 as he channeled all his pain into his friends, crushing their hands, but one second into 9 and he immediately pulled the leads off.

“Great job Jackson,” Wesley said as everyone patted him on the back, “Who’s next.”

Lucy went next and didn’t so much as flinch until 5 at which point she decided she was going to try meditation. This helped her through 6 and 7 at which point she too wanted hands to squish. Although both Jackson and Nolan offered, Lucy’ teammates decided it was their job. Between crushing her friends hands and focusing on her breathing she got through 8 rather easily. She clearly struggled more with 9. Jackson, Nolan and Wes were counting down. “Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven,” Angela felt Lucy’s grip loosen in her own. She was going to pull off the leads that is until Tim spoke up, “Come on Chen. You’ve got this. You’re strong,” he said and Lucy’s grip tightened back around Angela’s. “Three, Two, One, Done.” Everybody cheered as Lucy released her team mates hands and opened her eyes. “Sorry team but that’s enough for me I’m not trying 10,” she said as she removed the electrodes from her stomach.

“You did great,” Angela said and patted Lucy’s shoulder.

Tim went next. Rather than closing his eyes he fixed his glare on the machine in Wesley’s hand as if he could intimidate it in to giving up.  He also refused to hold anyone’s hand and instead gripped the armrests of the chair. By the time he got to 8 he was gripping so hard he broke the arm of the chair but still some how managed to maintain a near neutral expression throughout the entire experience. At this point Lucy insisted on holding the hand that had broken the chair. When he pointed out that he was worried he would hurt her she stubbornly grabbed his hand in both of hers, “I’m strong, remember.” With Lucy’s help Tim too made it through 9 and like his former rookie decided to end it there.

Harper went next. Although she was clearly in pain she was able to do 10 by focusing on her breathing, holding her friends hands and thinking about Lila. 

“How did you do that?” Jackson asked awe in his voice.

“When I was in labour with Lila I had contractions that were at least the intensity of 8 that lasted a minute each for like eight hours. One ten second one is a piece of cake.”

“You didn’t have an epidural?” Nolan asked

Harper shook her head, “I was being stubborn. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.”

“You’re very impressive, but I have nothing to prove to anyone. I’m getting an epidural,” Angela offered. 

“You do what’s right for you,” Nyla replied patting her friend on the back, “ You’re going to do great.”

Nolan went next. He was practically jumping out of the chair by the time it got to 6 and at 7 he was writhing around so much he actually managed to tip the chair over. The fact that he ended up in a tangled mess on the ground was probably the only reason he made it through 7 without ripping the electrodes off. He did his best on 8 but despite having everyone around him either holding his hand or holding him down he only made it five seconds.

“OK the guys got 7+8+9 that’s 24. We already have 19 so all you have to do is get through 6 babe,” Angela said to Wesley.

It should have been easy. The pain wasn’t that bad, but it was in his abdomen and it was just a little too similar to the pain he experienced when he was stabbed. He was starting to get flashbacks but he wanted to do this for his fiancé, the love of his life and mother to his unborn child. He was going to do this for Angela even when she told him it was OK, that she understood, that he didn’t need to push through this trauma for her but he wanted to. So despite the fact that his whole body was pale, we was dripping with sweat, dizzy and short of breath with tears streaming down his face he pushed through his ten seconds at 6 with steely determination. At this point Angela pulled off the electrodes for him then pulled him into a hug. All her friends wrapped themselves around the couple and they stayed like that until Wesley was feeling better. 

“I didn’t get any prizes so bragging rights will have to be enough,” Wesley admitted.

“The day was prize enough,” Lucy offered, “I had a blast, we should do stuff like this more often.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to rub it in?” Jackson asked.

“Not a chance,” she replied.

“How about because we won we get to meet the baby first?” Nyla suggested.

“That’s fair,” Angela agreed, “but what do I get?”

“Presents,” Nyla said handing Angela her baby shower present. 

After Angela opened her presents which mostly consisted of clothes and books and toys for the new baby everybody headed home to get some rest.

“Thank-you,” Angela said giving Wes a quick kiss, “For today. I really needed it.”

And she meant it. She had been feeling alone, helpless, and inadequate. But today reminded her about all the people who love her, about the strength that comes with working together. It reminded her that it’s ok to be imperfect, stressed, struggling but also to be goofy, to let loose and have fun. After today she finally felt like her self again and that woman was going to be a great mother.  

Shantae Headcanons - Magic and Magical Species

Been a while since I've done headcanons, huh? This time, I'll be covering magic and how it works, as well as various magical species! This is one of the longest headcanon posts I've made, so I'll keep it under a read more.

Magic in General

So! Magic has a variety of subcategories depending on what you're trying to do and what it'll accomplish, but as a whole, it has two main forms - light magic, which is typically just called magic, and dark magic. Both kinds of magic can fit into the subcategories, as believe it or not, the difference isn't a good/evil dichotomy - it's how you work with magic and cast it. To explain the difference, however, a bit of context is required.

Magic is spread out everywhere in the world, and over time, various species have evolved to produce their own magic and work with the magic of the world around them to create a variety of effects. Basically, think the Owl House. Every species has some form of latent magic - even humans - but the less magically inclined you are, the less you'll be able to access it. For example, humans, the least magically inclined species, have some magic, but can't really access it. At most, it'll manifest as some minor biological oddities, such as enhanced strength, or, perhaps, controllable hair.

As a side note - the less magically inclined you are, the more resistant you are to magic as a whole. Humans are actually completely unaware of several magical illnesses and plagues because they're totally immune to them - the only things that work against humans are the big guns, such as the stone curse in Pirate's Curse.

Anyway, the difference between light and dark magic is how one works with the latent magic around them in conjunction with their own to get the results they want. Now, to clarify on how they differentiate...

Light magic is what happens when you coerce magic into working with you - convince it to do what you want to do. Generally the safer option, but working with magic as a partner or friend rather than something to be bossed around doesn't come naturally to some people. As such, prewritten spells like Fireball and Storm Puffs are popular for those who can't quite get those results.

Dark magic is what happens when you force magic into working with you - you assert your will over it and demand that it do what you want. In some ways, this form of magic can be easier to cast than light magic. If you have the right amount of will, you can easily cast dark magic, even if you're not that magically inclined. However, while dark magic isn't inherently evil, it is hard to use properly, because that force of will and dominance can be a bit...addicting. And corruptive. When you use force to solve all your problems, it can start to take a toll on your good intentions unless you really know what you're doing.

So! Onto magic species!

Genies and Half-Genies

Genies are by far the most magically inclined species out there, and for good reason - they're literally made of the stuff. Even their physical bodies are just magic constructs. As such, convincing magic to do what they want is usually as simple as just asking.

Due to their constitution, genies don't really have any particular preferences of what kind of magic they practice like other species do. Instead, it tends to be more that individuals pick what kind of magic they prefer to practice, and then focus their entire lives into perfecting that magic, with their children generally ending up picking the same magic as a result.

While being made of magic is cool and all, it's not as cracked up as it seems. For instance, Genies cannot use dark magic. Like, literally can't. It's not a moral code or anything, it's just that they have absolutely no filter for dark magic's corruptive properties. Remember the thing about how being less magically inclined gives you more resistance to magic? That also applies to dark magic's side-effects, and as the most magically inclined species out there, Genies have none. Just a touch of dark magic can be enough for a Genie to go bad. This is how the Tinkerbrain/Dynamo was able to turn Shantae into Nega-Shantae and corrupt the Genie realm so easily - their own biology worked against them. Speaking of that...

Half-Genies are. Weird. Aside from the pointed ears, biologically they're no different from humans. What makes them so unique is their magic half - which is quite literal because they actually have a magical copy of themselves fused with their biological body, and that's what the use for magic. It's a rather unique form of storing and casting magic, one that no other species has. As seen in the series itself, however, this comes with the downside that a Half-Genie's magic can have their magic completely separated from them if you have the right artifacts, something that no other species has to worry about because their means of producing and storing magic is purely biological. Though, as seen in Seven Sirens, sometimes this can be a good thing, as a Half-Genie can use this to temporarily give their magic to someone else.

Sirens

The everyman may wonder, "what's the difference between Mermaids and Sirens?" The answer: pure magical power. The main thing differentiating Sirens from their more well-known counterparts is that Sirens have far more magical potential, giving them more biological diversity as well as increasing their intelligence, letting them make the marvelous structures we see in Seven Sirens. In fact, it was a group of Sirens who made the plans for the steam engine Mimic found and Risky stole in the first Shantae game.

Of course, while Sirens can technically use whatever magic they want, they tend to gravitate towards Summoning Magic. What is Summoning Magic? Honestly, it depends on the Siren you ask. Some prefer summoning magical constructs, some prefer summoning the creatures nearby for aid, and some just straight-up pull others to them via teleport. This room for experimentation gives Summoning Magic a potency that other magics struggle to face.

Sirens have their own language consisting of various clicks and fish noises. This is actually what Lobster Siren speaks! For those wondering, while she could hypothetically learn how to speak Surface, she never has because she's always been too shy of surface-dwellers to actually talk to them. She can understand it perfectly fine, but can't really speak it. Thankfully, those in tune with magic can pick up on what the clicks and fish noises mean! Sort of. How much they actually understand depends on what kind of magic they practice and how much magical potential they have.

Zombies

Zombies are notable for being the only species to actively run on dark magic. There are some magical constructs that run on dark magic - like the Tinkerbats - but they're the only species that runs on it. As a result, they're the foremost experts on dark magic and using it properly, because not knowing how to properly manage it could lead to them becoming feral, or worse, losing their second chance at life.

There are two types of zombies: artificial and natural. Artificial means they were made as a product of some kind of spell, and this is generally the most common kind of zombie. These kind of zombies also tend to be self-aware more often than not. Natural zombies are something that's only popped up recently in the world - while ambient magic generally defaults to light magic, it's been found that over time, repeated conflict and strife in a certain area can gradually cause the ambient magic to turn dark, which can lead to corpses rising from their graves all on their own. These zombies are generally the wild kind, though some natural zombies who woke up self-aware have happened in the past.

The idea of zombies needing coffee to stay self-aware isn't necessarily true. It's moreso that zombies need to keep their bodies active to avoid the degradative effects of dark magic. See, without any will to direct it, dark magic tends to default to exerting the force that drives it over everything around it, leading to it either slowly or quickly destroying said things around it. In order to combat this, zombies make sure their body is active as much as possible to keep the dark magic from going to that default state. The easiest way to do this is coffee or other caffeinated drinks, but there are other methods as well - exercise, adrenaline, anything that keeps your body up and alert is acceptable.

Yes, zombies can reproduce, even with other species. It's honestly not as weird as you'd think it'd be. Zombies or zombie hybrids produced as a result of this fall under the category of natural zombie.

Warp Squids

Warp Squids are notorious for being ridiculously difficult to kill - the only real way to actually do them in is sickness or old age, and that has to do with their unique form of teleportation magic.

Whenever Warp Squids teleport, they leave a magical imprint of their body behind wherever they were before. Whenever they "die," their soul immediately heads over to their last magical imprint, which they use to regenerate their body. As a result, death isn't really permanent for them. At all. The only things that can get them consistently are magical sicknesses, as some can mess with their teleportation magic, and old age, which ignores magical imprints.

As a result of this, Warp Squids have a...really nonchalant attitude towards death. Even zombies treat death more seriously. It's what allows for the business of squidsmithing - the Warp Squids volunteer to have their bodies made into artifacts to help heroes, and in return, squidsmiths give their local Warp Squids a cut of the pay they get.

Pixies

Ever wonder what Holly Lingerbean's deal was after Seven Sirens? After all, Harmony clarified that they were the first generation of Half-Genies, so where does that leave Holly? The simple answer? She lied. Sort of. She was in fact a hybrid between a human and a magical species, but it wasn't Genies...it was Pixies!

Pixies are a nearly extinct magical race, well known for having specialized in two types of magic. The first is illusion magic - Holly wasn't lying about her father being a stage magician. Pixies used their illusions to trick and misguide others, giving them a reputation as pranksters and con artists. The second - albeit far more rare - is preservation magic.

Preservation magic was first approached by Pixies as a sort of opposite to illusion magic. After all, one makes things look different, the other makes sure it looks the same, that sounds pretty much like opposites, right? But it's a lot more complicated than that. Magic tends towards change. Asking it to keep something the same is hard, even for a Genie - give it even the slightest of wiggle room, and chances are your spell will go horribly wrong. To give an example, Holly Lingerbean ended up the way she is because she attempted to cast preservation magic on herself. So the fact that even a few Pixies managed to master it was enough to garner attention, and ultimately led to the near extinction of their race.

Their structures are still around, but without someone to reapply the preservation magic, they're slowly crumbling apart. What few Pixies there are left are survivors, using preservation magic to stay alive far past what should have been - and even then, it's failing. Much like the Half-Genies, without some kind of miracle, their generation will likely be the last.

No.6 & Akane/Minamoto Families: A JSHK Theory

This theory was developed and written by @416kl / @shirairo and @etchabecks. This post was written shortly after the release of Chapter 73. Future chapters may reveal more information which could change the theory behind this post. 

Theory, Part 1: No. 6 is actually Shuten Doji, one of the three great evil youkai of Japan. 

Theory, Part 2: The Akane family, many generations ago, made a deal with the Minamoto family to use the captured youkai as a bodyguard for their sacrificial maidens. 

Theory, Part 3: At some point in the distant past, the Akane family made a deal with a deity to provide protection to them in exchange for a sacrifice. This protection is provided by the Minamotos. Therefore, the source of the Minamoto exorcist powers is derived from the sacrifice. This power is passed genetically but also exists in the exorcist weapons. 

Theory Part 1 

In Chapter 3, Hanako  explains the following to Nene regarding Kou’s family line: “During the era where the night was darker, at the time, we supernaturals possessed powers much more powerful and were known as ‘youkai.’ Among them were Japan’s three great evil youkai, who were feared and surpassed even god. One of them, Mt. Ooe’s evil Shuten Douji, was defeated by - the honorable exorcist, Minamoto no Yorimitsu. The ancestor of that boy over there.” 

This legend is the same in real-life Japanese mythology. There are other details about Shuten Doji, including the below (source): 

The translation of the name means “little drunkard.” 

There was a young boy who was abnormally strong and intelligent. He became an outcast and called a demon child, causing him to be anti-social and bitter. 

He became an apprentice priest but it didn’t suit him. One night, during a festival, he put on a mask and played pranks on the other priests while drunk. He tried to take off his mask at the end but found that he could not: it was fused to his face. 

Ashamed, he ran to the mountains outside of Kyoto. 

He learned magic, became an oni, and had followers who participated in his clan. 

A group of heroes led by Minamoto no Yorimitsu eventually kill him. 

Many of these mythological details parallel with our No. 6 very closely. 

Although No. 6 is usually very reserved and quiet, he was complicit in administering the potion/elixir to Aoi which makes her obedient. Nene takes the same substance before the attempted sacrifice, a few chapters later. This might be a modern spin on the concept of alcohol. 

Sumire says that No. 6 is “strangely serious” and “very shy” in Chapter 66. He is also shown to be somewhat unfeeling in Chapter 67 as Nene sees Sumire’s memories of how he never provided her with any comfort before her death.

No. 6 wore a mask of animal bones when he arrived on the Near Shore to find a sacrifice during the Study Camp. 

No. 6 has a Kansai accent. This is the region where the city of Kyoto is located. 

No. 6 appears to be capable of magic, at least in terms of bringing dead things back to life, and has followers (the minions). 

Sumire mentions in Chapter 66 that No. 6 is “an immortal demon,” which supports the idea that he is ancient and has been in existence for a long time. 

It seems that No. 6 is controlled by the Minamoto clan. 

Let’s expand on that last point. How do we know that No. 6 is controlled by the Minamotos? According to Teru in Chapter 70, “in order to keep the sacrificial maiden from escaping, the one tasked with keeping watch over her was No. 6.” The modern-day No. 6 wears the same beads around his neck that Teru wears on his wrist, and that are also seen in Chapter 9 (The Young Exorcist, Pt. 1). When Teru tries to exorcise Hanako, he restrains Kou with the same beads which are described by Kou as “for binding supernaturals.” Additionally, Teru seems to be oddly familiar with the area around No. 6’s boundary as he comes to find Aoi and Akane at the end of Chapter 69 and into Chapter 70, which may indicate that he has been there before to check on No. 6. 

For all these reasons, it seems that No. 6 is a captured and restrained version of the youkai Shuten Doji, under the control of the Minamoto family for generations. 

Theory Part 2 

From here, we can say that the Minamoto family made a deal with the Akane family: the Akanes would raise the maiden and the Minamotos would “protect” her via their control of No. 6.  In Chapter 67, right after Nene has been drugged by the villagers on the way to the sacrifice, a villager says, “Very well. Now, relay this message to the head of the Minamotos. If everything progresses without incident, we shall arrive there by evening, as scheduled.” This is further evidence that the two families were working together to facilitate the sacrifices even back during Sumire’s time. 

In Chapter 70, Teru explains that “The area this school was built on used to be a small village, you see. They had human sacrifi...did sacrificial rituals. In exchange for raising the girl who would be the sacrifice, they had a significant position on this land. The Akane family.” If the Akane family received a “significant position” on the land in exchange for raising the sacrifice, what did the Minamotos get out of the deal? Their exorcist powers. 

Theory Part 3

Sumire explains the sacrifice in the beginning of Chapter 68: “Long, long before I was born, this village has had an open pit leading to the far shore. Starving monsters would often surge forth from the pit and greedily devour people. Left with no other choice, the villagers decided to throw young girls into the pit as living bait. By doing this, they were able to live for several years without fearing the monsters.” It seems that the sacrifices did not just feed the monsters, but guaranteed them a certain additional protection. When Nene is rejected by the gate during her attempted sacrifice, the villagers say, “It doesn’t matter if it’s that girl! Catch her and throw her!! That’s right! It’d be better than doing nothing! We might receive a small bit of protection!” 

Throwing a maiden into the pit does not just feed the monsters. It could be interpreted as a way of communicating with the “god” of this series who in turn grants additional exorcist powers to the Minamotos for use in protecting the village. In this way, the Minamotos derive some (if not all) of their powers from the continued sacrifice of Akane girls. With that said, it is clear that exorcist blood -- specifically, the Minamoto family lineage -- is special. There is a particular importance on their family and the power they have. This power is also not dispersed evenly among all family members, as we have seen in the differences between Teru, Kou, and what has been mentioned about Tiara, which further supports the idea that some of the power is passed genetically. Powers also exist in the exorcist tools which are independent of the person who wields the tools. 

Despite these other continuing sources of power, we think that the sacrifice still impacts the amount of strength given to the Minamoto family because it provides a motivation for their actions. Why would the Minamotos lend No. 6 to the Akane’s? Why would they devote so much time, energy, and resources to protecting a city and school from supernaturals for free? We believe that the most compelling explanation is that the Minamotos source their power from the sacrifice which in turn requires them to facilitate the endless cycle of sacrifice. 

Additionally: in Chapter 73, as Teru describes how he accessed the Far Shore through one of the “cracks” that he pries open with his powers, the image on page 14 seems to show him with an open cut on his hand, dripping his own blood into the crack. This might provide additional support for the idea that certain powers seen in JSHK can be given or accessed only with a blood sacrifice. 

TES V OC Thingie

[Got tagged by @jessaryss​ ! ]

Pause your game! Wherever your OC is in their game currently, tell me about their story so far.

✧✧✧ General

Current Level: 56

Name: Jeer-Tei Perdes

Name Meaning: Literally got it from a name generator lol. But lore wise it was a name gifted to them in honor of an Argonian who served beside Tei’s mother during the Great War

Pronouns: They/Them

Age: Early 30s where they are story wise???

Race(s): Argonian

Place of Origin: Hammerfell

Pick A Theme Song For Them: oof that's tough... From a Crowded Wound or maybe even Firstwake? If you really played around w personal interpretation/the lyrics that is haha

✧✧✧ Locations

Where Did You Begin Their Game?: Argonian Assemblage, Windhelm (Alternative Start)

Where Are They Currently In Your Game?: Whiterun

What Are They Doing There?: Just finished attending a party held in their honor (Post Blood of Kings)

Homes?: Breezehome, Proudspire, Lakeview & Autmnwatch

# of Locations Discovered?: 274

Dungeons Cleared: 104

Misc. Quests Completed: 87

Favorite Areas and/or Locations: Falkreath / Lakewview Manor. Both areas are where Tei heads off to in order to collect their thoughts/feel some sense of calm.

✧✧✧ Main Quest

Are They Dragonborn / Do They Know It At This Point?: Yes & yes

How Do They Feel About Being Dragonborn: It's...complicated, being thrust into the role of savior by gods of the Cult, which in turn are followed by the folk who see you lesser than them. Tei already has a dislike towards the Divines, this doesn't really help lol

Main Quests Completed: 21

Where Are They In The Main Story Line: Alduin's dead, currently trying to ignore the Civil War as long as they can before the Empire forces its hand into forcing them to join their ranks

Dragon Souls Absorbed: In total overall? 147. The amount currently stored in Tei? 45

Words of Power Learned: 64

Shouts Mastered: 21

Favorite Shout: Firebreath / Dragonrend

✧✧✧ Combat

Most Used Weapon(s): Daedric war axe OR Dragonbone battle axe. Tei technically has both on them at all times during adventuring, alongside a shield, so which they used depends on the situation/which they grab fastest.

Combat Style: Two/One-handed tank. Main tactic is to rush in, cause as much damage/chaos as possible to shake up the opponent, & clean up what the ranged attackers of the party (usually Rumarin, Inigo and/or Lucien) weren't able to deal with.

Armor Type / Level In It: HEAVY ARMOR BABYYYYY (Level 100 + 35 extra points via enchantments)

# of Training Sessions: 99 in-game, lore wise its a lot of self-teaching/keeping their skills learned from Hammerfell sharp. Some of these are magic but lore-wise this doesn't happen cus Tei is not a magic user, save for shouts. I just did those in-game for exp OR so I can help Lucien raise his magic skills :'D

Who Taught Them?: In-game?? Fuuuck so many npcs. Lore-wise? They learned this from their schooling in Hammerfell, going off the canon-lore that it's p much expected for everyone to have a grasp on combat & weaponry! Though they did learn a few things from Kaidan & Anum-La.

Favorite Enemy Type: Dragons! Despite the fact Tei does not have the best magic resistance, it's one hell of a challenge they love to meet.

Least Favorite Enemy Type: Automatons, because of a bad experience with them as a child. Also Undead, because they were raised not to disturb them & it just feels so wrong having to fight them/go into tombs.

People Killed: 945

Animals Killed: 749 (Hunterborn makes hunting fun lol)

Undead Killed: 766

Automatons Killed: 105

Daedra Killed: 136

✧✧✧ Magic

Favorite School(s): None, actually. Destruction is okay though....they guess

Most Used Spell(s): Firebreath or Dragon Aspect. Tei doesn't consider shouts spells though. It's totally different guys shut up they ain't no smelly mage gods

Spells Learned: 9 in-game, mainly due to the spells you're kinda forced to learn for some quests/the ones you automatically know

Items Enchanted: 19 (Tei technically doesn't enchant, and wont next playthrough for sure I wont give in this time >:[ )

College of Winterhold Quests Completed: 8

Where Are They At In The Questline?: Main quest is done bcus i dont like seeing unfinished quests in my journal lmao. Tei's involvement is completely different from canon though in my take. Moreso was hired as a guard for the expedition & was, unwillingly, dragged into the rest of the mess. Is not offered the Archmage position, that went straight to Tolfdir.

Opinions on Magical Guilds (Arcane University, Winterhold, Psijics, Synod, Radiant Dark, etc.): As they get older, they tolerate the guild & magic users more n more, BUT, Tei grew up in an environment that frowns upon the practice of magic, & it shows. They mainly mistrust necromancers/illusionists & still hold onto that belief that reliance on magic, especially for combat, is a weakness.

Bold words for someone with shit magic resistance.

✧✧✧ Crime

Current Gold: 10,640

How Did They Acquire Their Gold?: Odd jobs, selling a lot of the items they made/harvested from smithing & hunting (jewelers are their go-to hirers bcus Tei is great at getting things like ivory), Dwemer ruin diving (they refuse to loot the tombs), also yknow....being part of the Dark Brotherhood helps

Largest Bounty On Their Head: 11,240

For...?: Unfortunately they did not stand down when they were being falsely accused of murder in Markarth. First time Tei called down dragons (Sahrotaar, specifically, Tei managed to get command of Miraak's dragons post-Dragonborn) to absolutely smite some fools.

Current Bounty: None! They're good at not getting caught/threatening and/or bribing guards. :)

Locks Picked: 15 i think?

Jail Time: 1, Cidhna Mine

Jail Escapes: 1, teamed up w the Forsworn lol

Murders: 28

Assaults: 307....In their defense people keep getting in their way during dragon attacks

Items Stolen: 37, most of them from the nobles of Windhelm

Thieves Guild Quests Completed: N/A (wont be doing this storyline unless i cant find a mod that'll let me get the shouts locked behind it)

Dark Brotherhood Quests Completed: 20

Where Are They At In Those Questlines?: DB is completed main arc wise!

✧✧✧ Relationships

Relationship Status: Married to two lovely fellas

Current Companions: atm? none

Housecarls: Lydia & Rayya

Friends (outside of party): Zora Fair-Child, Inigo, Lucien, Anum-La, Morndas, Aela the Huntress, Nazir, Babette, Scouts-Many-Marshes, Isobel, Madesi

Children: Khash, Chases-Starlight, Ram-Ku. (going of where Tei is now - Otero & Mei come around later on in Tei's story!)

Romantic Interest(s): Kaidan & Rumarin.

Sexual Orientation:

GAY

✧✧✧ Religion

Pantheon: Yokudan, with a hint of Hircine worship in there

Patron Deity(ies): From the Yokudan pantheon: Tei mainly views HoonDing as their main patron, but also prays to/pays respect to Satakal.

They are also Hircine's champion.

Daedric Quests Completed: 3 (Hircine, Vile, Dagon - the last Tei didn't really help, moreso pissed off)

Aedric Quests Completed: 1 if you count the whole Alduin thing I guess?

How Devout Are They?: Tei is rather devout, esp to their Yokudan patrons, praying or making offerings daily. They aren't the type to really push it in your face though, but have no issues answering questions one might have.

How Do They Feel About Talos Worship?: Deep down they acknowledge & admit trying to ban worship is terrible, but....Tei also lets their bias/experience with Windhelm, the Stormcloaks & especially Ulfric kinda cloud over this. If the Nords want their old ways so damn much, why fight for a divine from the Imperial Cult? Why not go back to the actual old ways? No, this isn't about worship, not to the men leading this so-called rebellion, they just needed something other than their racist bullshit to fool the common man into throwing their lives away for the nobles sitting comfortable in their thrones.

Also during their whole thing of getting into their role of dragonborn, they get a bonus 'fuck this dude actually' towards Talos, Ysmir, whatever the fuck he calls himself. (tldr; it sucks but good luck hearing Tei say that fully)

✧✧✧ Politics

Gray-Mane or Battle-Born?: Neither, ask them again they will punch you for the love of Ruptga they get asked that every time they enter Whiterun.

Stormcloaks or Imperials?: Also neither, Tei hates em both n think they can all choke. Unfortunately they were forced to join the latter due to, yknow, calling dragons & causing massive damage in Imperial territories during isolated fits of rage and the group being more aggressive in wanting something in return for "letting it slide"....oops

Opinion on the Thalmor?: Oh absolutely despises them, they loudly complained having to work with them during the CW & would go out their way to disrupt their plans/piss them off. Sneaking was an option they did not take during the Embassy quest, if it helps paint the picture.

Opinion Of Ulfric Stormcloak?: Tei doens't say they hate people often...but they sure as hell hate Ulfric. Again, their experience in Windhelm added to this heavily, how both the Dunmer & Argonians were treated like shit, with no help whatsoever from the Jarl or guards when the local Nords targeted them. It's still up in the air if I keep this for Tei's story, but I have it where they knew Chases-Starlight's parents, who were killed. When Tei went up & demanded justice/an investigation, only to be brushed off because it "wasn't a priority," it completely destroyed what little empathy or hope they had left for Windhelm as a whole.

Opinion of The Empire?: Cowards too weak to continue fighting back against the Thalmor, in their opinion, & holds these views they grew up with even when being strong-armed into aiding them. If anything they're at least attempting to use their influence to hint towards a rebellion against the Thalmor, but the Empire could also full-on dissolve & they could give less of a shit.

Civil War Quests Completed: 0

✧✧✧ Personal

How Are They Doing? Need Some Juice? A Nap? A Hug?: The whole event of Blood of Kings has fucked with their head, to say the least. It's the starting point of Tei's eventual spiral. So uh...yeah they're not sure how they're doing everything they knew about reality was kinda challenged & they don't rlly have anyone to talk to about it so its cool, its fine, its all good.

A nap is probably needed, not sure about a hug theough they're super flinchy rn

Days Past In Game: 196

Hours of Sleep: 846

Food Items Consumed: 1833

How Many Playthroughs Have You Done With This Character: Tei actually is an older character from the 360 days so uh...maybe 5 at most? This playthrough & their S:EC one coming up when the mod releases being the main ones focusing on their story

Overall How's Your Level Of Fun: Alright I would say! I just been stepping away from Skyrim more often lately to avoid burning out from it

Must Have Mods To Play This Character (for story or other reasons): Ordinator, Wintersun Faiths, Immersive Armors, Sarcastic Player Dialogue, 3DNPC, Inigo, Lucien Flavius, Kaidan 2, Khash the Argonian, Alternative Start, Leviathan Animations, Beast Race Body Paints, Beast HHBB, Apocalypse Magic, Deadly Dragons, Growl: Werewolf Overhaul, Pronouns, uhhh....idk what else without actually listing my current modlist lmao

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And that's it for Tei! Anyone who wants to do this go on ahead!