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dwellordream · 3 years

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“...The domesticated horse is not native to the Americas. There is perhaps no more important fact when trying to understand how the horse-borne nomadic cultures of the Eurasian Steppe relate to those of the Great Plains. The first domesticated horses arrived in the Americans with European explorer/conquerors and the settler-colonists that followed them. Eventually enough of those horses escaped to create a self-reproducing wild (technically feral, since they were once domesticated) horse population, the mustangs, but they are not indigenous and mustangs were never really the primary source of new horses the way that wild horses on the Steppe were (before someone goes full nerd in the comments, yes I am aware that there were some early equines in the Americas at very early dates, but they were extinct before there was any chance for them to be domesticated).

Horses arrived in the Great Plains form the south via the Spanish and moving through Native American peoples west of the Rocky Mountains by both trade and eventually raiding in the early 1700s. Notably firearms also began moving into the region in the same period, but from the opposite direction, coming from British and French traders to the North and West (the Spanish had regulations against trading firearms to Native Americans, making them unavailable as a source). Both were thus initially expensive trade goods which could only be obtained from outside and then percolated unevenly through the territory; unlike firearms, which remained wholly external in their supply, horses were bred on the plains, but raiding and trade were still essential sources of supply for most peoples on the plains. We’ll get to this more when we talk about warfare (where we’ll get into the four different military systems created by this diffusion), but being in a position where one’s neighbors had either the horse or the gun and your tribe did not was an extreme military disadvantage and it’s clear that the ‘falling out’ period whereby these two military innovations distributed over the area was very disruptive.

But unlike guns, which seem to have had massive military impacts but only minimal subsistence impacts (a bow being just as good for hunting bison as a musket, generally), the arrival of the horse had massive subsistence impacts because it made hunting wildly more effective. But the key thing to remember here is: the horse was introduced to the Great Plains no earlier than 1700, horse availability expanded only slowly over the area, but by 1877 (with the end of the Black Hills War), true Native American independence on the Great Plains was functionally over. Consequently, unlike the Steppe, where we have a fairly ‘set’ system that had already been refined for centuries, all we see of the Plains Native American horse-based subsistence system is rapid change. There was no finally reached stable end state, as far as I can tell.

Though there is considerable variation and also severe limits to the evidence, it seems that prior to the arrival of the horse, most Native peoples around the Great Plains practiced two major subsistence systems: nomadic hunter-gathering on foot (distinct from what will follow in that it places much more emphasis on the gathering part) on the one hand and a mixed subsistence system of small-scale farming mixed seasonally with plains hunting seems to have been the main options pre-horse, based on the degree to which the local area permitted farming in this way (for more on those, note Isenberg, op. cit., 31-40). Secoy (op. cit.) notes that while there is some evidence that the Plains Apache may have shifted through both systems, being hunter-gatherers prior to the arrival of horses, by the time the evidence lets us see clearly (which is shortly post-horse) they are subsisting by shifting annually between sedentary agricultural racheirias (from the Spring to about August) and hunting bison on the plains during the fall.

...Bison hunting on foot required a lot of cooperation (so a group) and it seems clear that it was not enough to support a group on its own and had to be supplemented somehow, at least before the arrival of the horse. Some mix of either bison+gathering or bison+horticulture was required. Isenberg argues (op. cit.), that at this point the clear advantage was to what he terms the ‘villagers’ – that is the farmer-hunters who lived in villages, rather than the nomadic hunter-gathers. These horticulturists were more numerous and seem quite clearly to have had the better land and living conditions. Essentially the hunter-gatherers stuck on marginal land were mostly hunter-gatherers because they were stuck on marginal land, which created a reinforcing cycle of being stuck on marginal land (the group is weak due to small group size because the land is marginal and because the group is weak, it is only able to hold on to marginal lands). That system was stable without outside disruption. The horse changed everything.

A skilled Native American hunter on a horse, armed with a bow, could hunt bison wildly more effectively than on foot. They could be found more rapidly, followed at speed and shot in relative safety. It is striking that while pedestrian bison hunting was clearly a team effort, a hunter on a horse could potentially hunt effectively alone or in much smaller groups. In turn, that massively increased effectiveness in hunting allowed the Native Americans of the region, once they got enough horses, to go ‘full nomad’ and build a subsistence system focused entirely on hunting bison, supplemented by trading the hides and other products of the bison with the (increasingly sedentary and agrarian) peoples around the edges of the Plains. Many of the common visual markers of Plains Native Americans – the tipi, the travois, the short bow for use from horseback – had existed before among the hunter-gathering peoples, but now spread wore widely as tribes took to horse nomadism and hunting bison full time.

...We’ll come back to this later, but I also want to note here that this also radically changed the military balance between the nomads and the sedentary peoples. The greater effectiveness of bison hunting meant that the horse nomads could maintain larger group sizes (than as hunter-gatherers, although eventually they also came to outnumber their sedentary neighbors, though smallpox – which struck the latter harder than the former – had something to do with that too), while possession of the horse itself was a huge military advantage. Thus by 1830 or so, the Ute and Comanche pushed the Apache off of much of their northern territory, while the Shoshone, some of the earliest adopters of the horse, expanded rapidly north and east over the Northern Plains, driving all before them (Secoy, op. cit., 30-31, 33). Other tribes were compelled to buy, raise or steal horses and adopt the same lifestyle to compete effectively. It was a big deal, we’ll talk about specifics later.

Horse supply in this system could be tricky. Unlike in Mongolia, where there were large numbers of wild horses available for capture, it seems that most Native Americans on the Plains were reliant on trade or horse-raiding (that is, stealing horses from their neighbors) to maintain good horse stocks initially. In the southern plains (particularly areas under the Comanches and Kiowas), the warm year-round temperature and relatively infrequent snowfall allowed those tribes to eventually raise large herds of their own horses for use hunting and as a trade good. While Mongolian horses know to dig in the snow to get the grass underneath, western horses generally do not do this, meaning that they have to be stall-fed in the winter. Consequently in the northern plains, horses remained a valuable trade good and a frequently object of warfare. In both cases, horses were too valuable to be casually eating all of the time and instead Isenberg notes that guarding horses carefully against theft and raiding was one of the key and most time-demanding tasks of life for those tribes which had them.

So to be clear, the Great Plains Native Americans are not living off of their horses, they are using their horses to live off of the bison. The subsistence system isn’t horse based, but bison-based. ...In any event, the arrival of commercial bison hunting along with increasing markets for bison goods drove the entire system into a tailspin much faster than the Plains population would have alone. Bison numbers begin to collapse in the 1860s, wrecking the entire system about a century and a half after it had started. ...Consequently, the Native Americans of the plains make a bad match for the Dothraki in a lot of ways. They don’t maintain population density of the necessary scale. Isenberg (op. cit., 59) presents a chart of this, to assess the impact of the 1780s smallpox epidemics, noting that even before the epidemic, most of the Plains Native American groups numbered in the single-digit thousands, with just a couple over 10,000 individuals.

The largest, the Sioux at 20,000, far less than what we see on the Eurasian Steppe and also less than the 40,000 warriors – and presumably c. 120-150,000 individuals that implies – that Khal Drogo alone supposedly has. They haven’t had access to the horse for nearly as long or have access to the vast supply of them or live in a part of the world where there are simply large herds of wild horses available. They haven’t had long-term direct trade access to major settled cities and their market goods (which expresses itself particularly in relatively low access to metal products). It is also clear that the Dothraki Sea lacks large herds of animals for the Dothraki to hunt as the Native Americans could hunt bison; there are the rare large predators like the hrakkar, but that is it. Mostly importantly, the Plains Native American subsistence system was still sharply in flux and may not have been sustainable in the long term, whereas the Dothraki have been living as they do, apparently for many centuries.

Well, what about Steppe Nomads? The horse is native to the Eurasian Steppe – that is where it evolved and was first domesticated, though the earliest domesticated wild horses were much smaller and weaker (but more robust and self-sufficient) than modern horses. The horse was first domesticated here, on the Eurasian Steppe, by the nomadic peoples there around 3,700 BCE. It seems likely that the nomads of the steppe were riding these horses more or less form the get-go (based on bridle and bit wear patterns on horse bones), but the domesticated horse first shows up in the settled Near East as chariotry (rather than cavalry) around 2000 BCE; true cavalry won’t become prominent in the agrarian world until after the Late Bronze Age Collapse (c. 1200 BCE).

I wanted to start by stressing these dates just to note that the peoples of the Eurasian Steppe had a long time to adapt themselves to a nomadic lifestyle structured around horses and pastoralism, which, as we’ve seen, was not the case for the peoples of the Americas, whose development of a sustainable system of horse nomadism was violently disrupted.

That said, the steppe horse (perhaps more correctly, the steppe pony) is not quite the same as modern domesticated horses. The sorts of horses that occupy stables in Europe or America are the product of centuries of selective breeding for larger and stronger horses. Because those horses were stable fed (that is, fed grains and hay, in addition to grass), they could be bred much larger what a horse fed entirely on grass could support (with the irony that many of those breeds of horses, if released into the wild in their native steppe, would be unable to subsist themselves), because processed grains have much higher nutrition and calorie density than grass. So while most modern horses range between c. 145-180cm tall, the horses of the steppe were substantially smaller, 122-142cm. Again, just to be clear, this is essential because the big chargers and work-horses of the agrarian world cannot sustain themselves purely on grass and the Steppe nomad needs a horse which can feed itself (while we’re on horse-size, mustangs, the feral horses of the Americas, generally occupy the low-end of the horse range as well, typically 142-152cm in height – even when it is clear that their domesticated ancestors were breeds of much larger work horses).

Now just because this subsistence system is built around the horse doesn’t mean it is entirely made up by horses. Even once domesticated, horses aren’t very efficient animals to raise for food. They take too long to gestate (almost a year) and too long to come to maturity (technically a horse can breed at 18 months, but savvy breeders generally avoid breeding horses under three years – and the Mongols were savvy horse breeders). The next most important animal, by far is the sheep. Sheep are one of the oldest domesticated animals (c. 10,000 BC!) and sheep-herding was practiced on the steppe even before the domestication of the horse. Steppe nomads will herd other animals – goats, yaks, cattle – but the core of the subsistence system is focused on these two animals: horses and sheep. Sheep provide all sorts of useful advantages. Like horses, they survive entirely off of the only resource the steppe has in abundance: grass. Sheep gestate for just five months and reach sexual maturity in just six months, which means a small herd of sheep can turn into a large herd of sheep fairly fast (important if you are intending to eat some of them!). Sheep produce meat, wool and (in the case of females) milk, the latter of which can be preserved by being made into cheese or yogurt (but not qumis, as it will curdle, unlike mare’s milk). They also provide lots of dung, which is useful as a heating fuel in the treeless steppe. Essentially, sheep provide a complete survival package for the herder and conveniently, may be herded on foot with low manpower demands.

Now it is worth noting right now that Steppe Nomads have, in essence, two conjoined subsistence systems: there is one system for when they are with their herds and another for purely military movements. Not only the sheep, but also the carts (which are used to move the yurt – the Mongols would call it a ger – the portable structure they live in) can’t move nearly as fast as a Steppe warrior on horseback can. So for swift operational movements – raids, campaigns and so on – the warriors would range out from their camps (and I mean range – often we’re talking about hundreds of miles) to strike a target, leaving the non-warriors (which is to say, women, children and the elderly) back at the camp handling the sheep. For strategic movements, as I understand it, the camps and sheep herds might function as a sort of mobile logistics base that the warriors could operate from. We’ll talk about that in just a moment.

So what is the nomadic diet like? Surely it’s all raw horse-meat straight off of the bone, right? Obviously, no. The biggest part of the diet is dairy products. Mare’s and sheep’s milk could be drunk as milk; mare’s milk (but not sheep’s milk) could also be fermented into what the Mongolians call airag but is more commonly known as qumis after its Turkish name (note that while I am mostly using the Mongols as my source model for this, Turkic Steppe nomads are functioning in pretty much all of the same ways, often merely with different words for what are substantially the same things). But it could also be made into cheese and yogurt [update: Wayne Lee (@MilHist_Lee) notes that mare’s milk cannot be made into yogurt, so the yogurt here would be made from sheep’s milk – further stressing the importance of sheep!] which kept better, or even dried into a powdered form called qurut which could then be remixed with water and boiled to be drunk when it was needed (this being a dried form of yogurt, it would presumably be made from sheep’s milk, as mare’s milk wasn’t used for yogurt). The availability of fresh dairy products was seasonal in much of the steppe; winter snows would make the grass scarce and reduce the food intake of the animals, which in turn reduced their milk production. Thus the value of creating preserved, longer-lasting products.

Of course they did also eat meat, particularly in winter when the dairy products became scarce. Mutton (sheep meat) is by far largest contributor here, but if a horse or oxen or any other animal died or was too old or weak for use, it would be butchered (my understanding is that these days, there is a lot more cattle on Mongolia, but the sources strongly indicate that mutton was the standard Mongolian meat of the pre-modern period). Fresh meat was generally made into soup called shulen (often with millet that might be obtained by trade or raiding with sedentary peoples or even grown on some parts of the steppe) not eaten raw off of the bone. One of our sources, William of Rubruck, observed how a single sheep might feed 50-100 men in the form of mutton soup. Excess meat was dried or made into sausages. On the move, meat could be placed between the rider’s saddle and the horse’s back – the frequent compression of riding, combined with the salinity of the horse’s sweat would produce a dried, salted jerky that would keep for a very long time.

Now, to be clear, Steppe peoples absolutely would eat horse meat, make certain things out of horsehair, and tan horse hides. But horses were also valuable, militarily useful and slow to breed. For reasons we’ll get into a moment, each adult male, if he wanted to be of any use, needed several (at least five). Steppe nomads who found themselves without horses (and other herds, but the horses are crucial for defending the non-horse herds) was likely to get pushed into the marginal forest land to the north of the steppe. While the way of life for the ‘forest people’ had its benefits, it is hard not to notice that forest dwellers who, through military success, gained horses and herds struck out as steppe nomads, while steppe nomads who lost their horses became forest dwellers by last resort (Ratchnevsky, op. cit., 5-7). Evidently, being stuck as one of the ‘forest people’ was less than ideal. In short, horses were valuable, they were the necessary gateway into steppe live and also a scarce resource not to be squandered. All of which is to say, while the Mongols and other Steppe peoples ate horse, they weren’t raising horses for the slaughter, but mostly eating horses that were too old, or were superfluous stallions, or had become injured or lame. It is fairly clear that there were never quite enough good horses to go around.

The other major source of meat, especially when on campaign, but also when in camp, would be hunting. One might expect the mighty Mongols to only hunt the more fearsome game, but the most common animals to hunt were smaller ones like the marmot, although the Mongols would hunt essentially anything on the steppe, including deer, antelope, even bears and tigers. Mongol hunting practices are quite developed (especially the large group hunt known as the nerge, which we’ll talk about when we get to warfare). Hunting, especially hunting small game with a bow from horseback, was a skill a good steppe nomad learned very young; one source describes Mongol boys learning to ride on the backs of sheep and practicing their archery by shooting small game (May, op. cit. 42), which is both adorable and terrifying. Needless to say, a warrior who can drop on arrow at distance onto a marmot while riding at speed on a horse is going to be a quite lethal archer in battle.”

- Bret Devereaux, “That Dothraki Horde, Part II: Subsistence on the Hoof.”

#native american #the dothraki #history #bret devereaux #food #grrm critical #mongol

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longingandheartacheandlust · 4 years

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Roach is a Hereditary Title

Okay, so, I was thinking about Roach, as I do frequently.

Do any of y’all remember that scene in Lord of the Rings where Aragorn’s almost unconscious and his horse, Brego, lies down next to him to help him mount? Given that Geralt spends a lot of time getting himself severely injured while alone, it makes a lot of sense for Roach to be trained to do something along those lines, also. (That sorta thing is absolutely done IRL. I knew a lady, for instance, who was 5 feet tall but rode a draft horse who was more than 6 feet tall at the shoulder. She trained her horse to lower his head so she could hop on his neck and the horse would then lift his head back up so she’d slide down his neck to his back.)

And then I was thinking about what other training a Witcher’s horse would require.

(I have another huge point as well about Roach and Geralt and world-building that is what I’m actually working towards in this very long post. The hint is in the big text up there. Also, there are some fun gifs below you might wanna check out even if you don’t read the post.)

The most obvious is a ground tie, which we actually see used in the show. That’s where a horse is trained to act as though they’re tied to something when they’re not - for instance, you might take a lead rope, let it dangle it down to the ground, and train the horse that they should act as though the lead rope is tied to the ground. Cowboys use it to keep their horses still while they’re dealing with obstacles, working with cattle on foot, etcetera, when they’re out in the middle of a prairie with nothing to tie onto. This would keep Roach put if Geralt needs to do something and there’s nothing to tie to, but also is great to keep her out of danger - she can be trained that if she’s actually being attacked she should GTFO.

Here she is, in fact, doing just that: she had been ground tied, but when the kikimora got closer, she calmly backed up out of range. That calm backing, btw, is 100% a trained behavior. If she were getting out of there of her own accord she’d be spinning around and going both forwards and much faster.

(From this post by @highevre.)

Horses can be trained to track - their sense of smell is almost as good as a dog’s, and Mounted Search and Rescue using horses as trackers is a thing. Not necessarily needed given Geralt’s own enhanced senses, but it might come in handy sometimes.

She’d probably want to be trained in extreme terrain, and you’d be amazed what horses can do with that. Here’s a clip of part of the standard training for US Cavalry from around 1930:

(From here.)

A good trail horse can shift their own weight to keep an inexperienced, exhausted, or, in this case, injured rider in the saddle, so she’d definitely want to know that.

It’s unlikely, but she might even be trained in active combat. Horses have in the past been trained not only to carry their riders into battle, but even to fight themselves. Here’s a gif of one tactic:

That’s a pretty good way to get a drowner off your tail! (It can absolutely be done with a rider on, I just didn’t find any nice gifs for that.)

This one could come in pretty handy too:

Even if she’s not kicking forward with those front hooves - which is, actually, an established move, it’s called “mezair” - if I were a monster I’d be a lot less eager to attack with a twelve foot tall wall of muscle coming at me.

(Look up videos of “haute ecole” or “airs above the ground” and you’ll see a whole lot of breathtaking stuff that Roach could do.)

There are some random fun tricks that might be useful, like picking things up and handing them to her rider.

The absolute number one thing, though, is that she would have to be completely, 100% bombproof, and that’s where I get to my main point.

(Please note for the rest of this post, in case you’re unaware, the name “Roach” refers to several horses, as horses aren’t generally immortal. Geralt names all his horses Roach.)

I used to breed horses, and specifically the emerging breed Drum Horses. They were originally bred to (and are still used to) carry kettle drums in parades. Now, for that you need to be big, since the drums and gear can weigh more than 450lb. But, most importantly, you need to be completely, entirely unshakeable, to a degree that shouldn’t frankly be possible in a prey animal. You’ve got not only the insanity of a parade going on but also a huge loud noise right next to your head, the constant vibration from the drums, AND since the rider’s hands are busy playing the drums the horse is steered using only the feet.

So how the heck do you get a prey animal that’s specialized for millenia in Running the Fuck Away to do that? Well, centuries of selective breeding. Drums are derived from the Irish Cob, which was (and is) used by nomadic people in Europe to pull caravans. They have to be steady, able to deal with kids running around their feet while they work, since the caravans were mobile homes they're very noisy, and, long story short, Irish Cobs spent centuries being bred to be bombproof. The Drum Horses, then, were derived from that breed but with an even stronger focus on being 100% reliable and not-prey-like.

They’re also trained literally from birth; parade horses, police horses, and the like generally are. Within minutes of birth, you start handling them, rubbing them all over so they’re never startled by a touch. You put radios in their stalls playing rock music so they get used to sudden loud noises. You tie brightly colored streamers in their pastures to wave in the wind, pop open umbrellas, toss beach balls at them. Spray perfume and waft popcorn smell. Rub them all over with any equipment you might use, including tack but also things like weapons (mounted target shooting is a sport still done today). Have the equipment make whatever noise it’s gonna make. (Clanging, firing, whatever.)

The POINT being, that for Roach to be able to handle dealing with a new terrifying monster every week, she’d pretty much have to be specifically bred for it.

Well... where do you get horses bred to handle monsters, you ask? They might have had a small breeding operation at Kaer Morhen, but that doesn’t exactly help now.

My conclusion: Geralt must be breeding his own horses.

Roach is always a mare, after all. Maybe that’s not just sentimentality. Every so often, he finds a good, steady stallion - the very best on the Continent, of course, nothing else would do for his perfect girl. She’d be able to keep working most of the 11 months of pregnancy, and then for the last few he’d let her rest, either leaving her with someone he trusts until she’s due or staying with her and only doing day trips on foot.

And when the foal’s born, he starts doing all that training above from birth.

Half of those foals are going to be boys, of course. And he only uses mares as Roach. So what about the colts? Well, he sells them, once they’re old enough to leave their mother. And those horses, damn, they’re bred and trained so incredibly carefully, they must be the most valuable, sought-after cavalry mounts on the Continent. Kings and Queens bid for Roach’s sons to be their noble steeds. Geralt wouldn’t need to take jobs for years after selling one of Roach’s foals, if he didn’t want to.

Sometimes bad things happen, so he’d need to have a spare Roach or two always around just in case his girl retires earlier than planned. (She got a mild injury that keeps her from doing all that stuff above, she didn’t die, I promise!) So there are always a few Roaches around the country on a sort of lease, not allowed to be taken into combat but still being the amazing, perfect horses they are until their Witcher comes back to get them.

Final Conclusion:

All of the most famous horses on the Continent are Roach’s descendants. Royalty riding a horse that wasn’t from her is barely even worth being called royalty at all. And Geralt has raised his girl, and her mother, and her mother’s mother, and her mother’s mother’s mother, and on back, from birth, the first face they ever see and the first hand in their manes.

(Source: me! That’s one of my babies.)

#geralt is a horse girl #roach witcher #roach the horse #roach horse #mine

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theoriginalladya · 3 years

Note

Intimacy Prompts #20: a hand written note for rydenko.

from this list

on AO3 here

Thank you so much for this one! Sorry it took so long - I had an idea, but I got side tracked by other things! :) Enjoy, my friend! And thank you for asking about them!

Setting: Andromeda Galaxy

~~~

It all begins as a joke.

Once his status as Pathfinder is officially recognized, the Initiative administrators cannot act fast enough to guarantee they have Kaidan Alenko on their side. As the Nexus slowly opens, finally coming out of hibernation, the administrators agree they need to do something. So, they give him an apartment.

Scott has his father’s quarters back on the Hyperion, most of the others have their own quarters or stay on the Tempest, but all Kaidan has available to him is a cryo-pod, one that’s no longer useful now that he’s awake. He doesn’t ask for anything, doesn’t even drop a hint. Tann reminds him of others back in the Milky Way, even acts similarly, but he’s a crafty one, too. In a move that is supposed to look as if the Initiative cares about their Pathfinders, they assign their lone Pathfinder an apartment. Whether or not they actually do care about him and the role is beside the point.

Kaidan, who detests being used as a political pawn but recognizes he can do nothing about it, hates it on sight.

Okay, so maybe hate is too strong of a word. It isn’t the orchard back in the BC Interior, that’s for damned sure, and it’s a far cry from shared barracks during his Alliance years. He has a room on the Tempest, so it he has some choice about where he can stay. But this… this tiny cubicle that they are calling an apartment? Four walls, open spacing, barely any room to turn around without bumping into something? There is absolutely nothing homey about it. Home, is something he’s still searching for.

That lasts about three weeks, until the day Scott drops by when Kaidan isn’t there and instead of messaging him to meet up elsewhere, leaves a handwritten note slipped beneath his door. Kaidan almost misses it when he gets back after his meeting with Tann, Addison, and Kesh. Just a small slip of paper – where had Scott found actual paper? – written in black ink. A hint of white on an otherwise light-colored floor which is barely discernable. Something about it catches the corner of his eye, though.

K – Stopped by to see you. Catch you later. Scott

Kaidan reads it twice, just in case he’s having hallucinations thanks to the burgeoning migraine before setting it on the corner of his desk, thinking to send a reply via omni-tool. But the meetings with Tann and the others are taking their toll, and even with SAM’s assistance, the pain is such he forgets until the next morning, at which point he decides to just head on over to the Hyperion instead.

Of course, Scott isn’t there.

Scott – Was in the area and thought I’d save you a trip. Better luck next time, right? Catch you on the Tempest. K

The Tempest is scheduled out the next morning and, as typically happens aboard the ship with last minute things to do and distractions of all kinds, neither he nor Scott thinks to mention the messages to the other; almost an ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ sort of thing. End of story.

Except, it isn’t.

The weeks pass, more notes appear at the apartment and on the Tempest or Hyperion. Small ones. Silly ones. Eventually, Scott starts leaving small sketches of different people on them – quick things, some cute, some ridiculous, but always they leave Kaidan smiling.

A caricature of Tann speaking with Addison and Kesh mimicking him behind his back even as Tann’s head is blown up twice the size of the others.

A small cartoon of Suvi in the galley, laser focused as she points to different Heleus rocks and explains their different tastes to a very confused looking Drack while Lexi stands in the doorway scolding her.

A stick figure sketch of Kallo and the several of the Tempest at various stages of the ship’s development.

Kaidan cannot hide his amusement at a more realistic looking sketch of Cora and Liam as they lean against one another in the back seat of the Nomad, fast asleep. He remembers the incident clearly, from their last visit to Elaaden. Even as he stares at the sketch, he swears he can hear their soft snores echoing in his ears as he tacks it to the wall over his desk next to the others.

Not to be outdone, Kaidan starts leaving quotes in his messages to Scott; from books, movies, and other inspirational sources he’s come across. He’s been collecting them for years, long before he ever left for BAaT. Most are saved on his omni-tool, but he has two small, leatherbound journals filled with the most meaningful ones he’s come across. They are about the only thing he was able to bring with him from home when he joined the Initiative.

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. (1)

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. (2)

We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. (3)

Fear profits a man nothing.(4)

With each successive note between them, Kaidan learns a little bit more about Scott. But the whole situation changes drastically after their adventures on the archon’s ship. On the way back to the Nexus and after Lexi has cleared him, Kaidan does something he hasn’t done in centuries, if ever…

~~~~

The buzzer to his Nexus apartment sounds, but Kaidan doesn’t bother to answer it. It’s Scott, and the man has his own key. The buzzer, he supposes, is Scott’s polite way to warn him that he’s arrived. The fact that Scott uses does it now of all times tells Kaidan something more; Scott is pissed.

Well, I probably deserve it after what happened.

He’s tempted to not answer, to see if Scott leaves a note, but decides not to risk it. Opening the door, he steps to the side to allow the younger man in. Scott remains silent, though his body language screams in a way that Kaidan easily recognizes. Taut, tense, his lips tightened in a thin line, the way he won’t look directly at Kaidan… It’s one side of a conversation Kaidan’s been on many times, albeit hundreds of years before and in a different galaxy.

“Do you have any idea what you just did?” Scott demands, blue eyes sharp and snapping with anger. “Any idea what could have happened back on the archon’s ship if SAM hadn’t been able to resuscitate you? You-you could have died back there!”

Opting to let the younger man get it out in one fell swoop, Kaidan bides his time. Well, except for one point of clarification. “I did die.”

Scott growls in the back of his throat. An honest to goodness growl. Kaidan can’t help the small smirk that twists at his lips as a result. When Scott steps forward, invading his personal space, Kaidan does something he usually doesn’t do; he goads him. “What? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“Not helping the situation!”

Kaidan isn’t certain if he should be worried that SAM is, so far, remaining silent in his head. “I needed to get us out of there,” he argues instead. “How else was I going to –?”

“You? Why did it have to be you? Why is it always you?” Scott tosses his hands in the air and turns away, frustration building until his biotic corona flickers around him. Still grumbling to himself, he turns back, glaring at Kaidan. “What the hell am I going to do if I lose you like that?”

Kaidan sucks in a breath, recognizing the pain. Sure, things between them have improved since their arrival in Andromeda – no place to go but up, right? – but this…? This is a reinforcement of what he’s hoped for ever since accepting Alec Ryder’s offer.

Or am I reading too much into this?

On their private channel, SAM replies, “You are not, Kaidan.”

Scott still prowls around the room as Kaidan asks, “Can you come over here for a minute?”

“Why? So you can die on me a third time?”

Petulance is not a good look for Scott, and Kaidan has to bite back a laugh; as much as he wants to set it free, it would do more harm than good just now. “I want to show you something.”

Scott grumbles some more, even as Kaidan heads on over, but eventually he follows. When he arrives, Kaidan hands him the letter. “Read this.”

The blue-eyed glare returns, heavy with suspicion. “What is it?”

“Just read. Please.”

Scott waits another moment, two, then drops his gaze and starts reading. For several minutes, Kaidan waits patiently, watching. The letter isn’t long, but Scott is taking his time reading it, but Kaidan knows when Scott reaches the end because the younger man’s spine stiffens, his shoulders roll back, and his head snaps up as he darts a quick look up at Kaidan. “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.(5)”

When Scott says nothing else, Kaidan prods, “So, what do you think?”

Scott is quiet for a minute. It’s difficult to read his reaction because he keeps his back to Kaidan the entire time, slightly hunched in the shoulders, utterly quiet. “Do you mean it?” he asks, voice soft as if having trouble pushing it out.

“I always try to say what I mean, Scott.”

The younger man turns around, his face a surprisingly neutral mask. Considering how difficult that has been for him in the past, Kaidan is impressed. “So, you’re saying you consider yourself the luckiest man on Earth or, in this case I guess, the Nexus, because you survived?”

Ah, so that’s the problem. Reaching over, Kaidan settles a hand on Scott’s cheek. Scott leans into it, then apparently thinks better of it or at the very least realizes what he’s doing and pulls back. But that’s okay. Kaidan now has a far better sense of what he is working with. Running his thumb along the corner of Scott’s lips, he says quietly, “I am the luckiest man in Andromeda because you are here with me.”

Tension immediately flows out of Scott and he visibly sags a bit. “And you really mean that? Because look, I get that my Dad talked you into all of this without checking with me first, and –”

Kaidan slides his thumb over the top of Scott’s lips to silence him. “I really mean that. This has nothing to do with your dad, but everything to do with you….”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1) The Godfather, part II

(2) Winston Churchill

(3) Maya Angelou

(4) 13th Warrior

(5) The Pride of the Yankees

#intimacy prompts #ladya writes #rydenko #scott ryder #kaidan alenko #straight on til morning #mass effect #mass effect andromeda #mallaidhsomo

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ryanjdonovan · 3 years

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DONOVAN’S OSCAR PROGNOSTICATION 2021

We all knew it was coming: The Oscar nominees are now almost literally handpicked by Netflix and Amazon. We thought it would be a few years away, but it's just one more piece of fallout from the pandemic. It won't be long now before I'm making my predictions for the Flixies or the Amazies. (By the way, streamers: I just want to watch the friggin' credits, why is that such a problem??)

In case you haven't been paying attention (and I'm pretty sure you haven't), Nomadland is going to win the big Oscars. Haven't seen Nomadland? Or even heard of it? Or any of the Oscar-nominated films? Or didn't even know the Oscars were happening this year? You're not alone. With no theaters this past year, the non-bingeable, non-Netflix-welcome-screen movies were pretty much an afterthought. (But if you asked the streaming services, the nominees this year each accounted for a billion new subscribers and topped the worldwide digital box office for months.)

Well, I'm here to tell you the Oscars are in fact happening, albeit a few months late. Fear not: my 22nd annual Oscar predictions will provide everything you need to know before the big night. (You don't even need to watch the movies themselves -- reading this article will take you just as long.)

BEST PICTURE:

SHOULD WIN: Minari WILL WIN: Nomadland GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Pieces Of A Woman INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

If you're a fan of capitalism, this is not the year for you. Nominees like Nomadland, Mank, Judas And The Black Messiah, The Trial Of The Chicago 7, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Hillbilly Elegy, Minari, and The White Tiger are all (to varying degrees) indictments of a capitalist system, or at the very least are suspicious of those who benefit from it, and focus on those left behind. It's certainly fertile ground for angst and high drama, if not belly laughs. (Don't get me started on the ironies of all these movies being distributed by billion-dollar conglomerates. The filmmakers, producers, and actors can tell you that the checks cash just fine.) Like Austin Powers said, "Finally those capitalist pigs will pay for their crimes, eh comrades?"

There is no way for me to talk about Nomadland, which will win Best Picture, without sounding like an a-hole. It's a gorgeous work of art, and a fascinating character study, but I struggled to connect to the story. (You should know that for me as a movie watcher, story is more engaging than artfulness or character. But hey, why can't we have all three?) I wanted to like it, I really did. I'm content to drift along with Fern, the resilient main character played naturally by Frances McDormand, but she has no true objective or antagonist. She's a nomad on the road, either searching or hiding, either with the world or against the world, we're not quite sure which. I thought it might be driving (literally) toward a bigger revelation or resolution, but no. (Same with life, I guess.) It's meandering, reticent, languorous, and ethereal (I'm trying really hard to avoid using the word "boring" here). This is all quite intentional, by the way -- the film moves at the pace of its protagonist, and the effect is palpable. (And don't worry, it's not lost on me that I'm watching this movie about people barely scraping by, on a large ultra-high-def TV on my comfy couch in my warm home under an electric blanket, using a streaming service that the movie's characters probably couldn't access or afford.) Am I wrong about all this? Of course I'm wrong. Every critic out there is doing backflips over this film. And not surprisingly, the movie's mortality themes are playing well with the Academy, whose average age and closeness to death are extremely high. (Like the nomad Swankie, they're all anxious about that final kayak ride down the River Styx.) But beware the movie whose 'user/audience score' is significantly lower than its 'critic score' -- it means that regular people are not quite buying it. For me, the biggest problem with slice-of-life films is that I don't really want to go to movies to experience regular life -- I have life for that. Then again, I'm also a superficial, materialistic a-hole. But you knew that already. (Added intrigue: Hulu, Nomadland's distributor, might score a Best Picture win before Amazon, and gives Amazon a subtle middle-finger in the movie with its depiction of seasonal workers.)

Remember when feel-good movies were a thing? It didn’t mean that there were no conflicts or problems for the characters, it just meant that they were enjoyable to watch, and you came out feeling good about humans. Minari is the rare feel-good Oscar movie, and my personal pick for what should win Best Picture. It easily might have been a tough sit based on the premise: A Korean family moves to rural Arkansas to start a farm, and must overcome a drought, financial calamity, a complete lack of agriculture experience, a crumbling marriage, the son's potentially-deadly heart condition, and a grandmother that drinks all their Mountain Dew. In keeping with Oscar tradition, it could have been a constant assault of upsetting scenes. But instead, it's a warm, sunny, optimistic, funny movie. The family faces struggles and hardships, to be sure, but the story is treated with positivity, not negativity; with a sense of community, not isolation; with an attitude of resolve, not blame. And they get through their problems with mutual support, togetherness, tenderness, humanity, and of course, love. (Not to mention grandma planting some weeds that may or may not miraculously heal physical and emotional wounds.) All these things combine to make it a more engaging experience for me than Nomadland. Not only do I wish this movie would win the Oscar, I wish I could give it a hug.

A lot of pundits think The Trial Of The Chicago 7 has the best chance to upset Nomadland. But I'm not seeing that happen. It was an early favorite and has been getting tons of nominations in the awards run-up, but it hasn't actually been winning much, and seems to be losing steam. (The lack of a Best Director nod is virtually a killer.) I think Minari has a small chance to sneak away with a victory, as it's gotten almost as much universal praise as Nomadland, but hasn't had the same audience. Judas And The Black Messiah is an interesting case, in that it's a late entry that had little early awareness (it didn't plan to be eligible until next year's Oscars), but it scooped several unexpected nominations. Debuting a contender late and taking advantage of recency bias has been a successful strategy in the past, so don't be surprised by a surprise. (Had Shaka King scored the last Director slot over Thomas Vinterberg, I think Judas would be a fairly legitimate threat.)

If you had asked me in September, I would have predicted that Mank would be the wire-to-wire favorite to win Best Picture. Aside from being a prestige David Fincher film (more on him later), it's a smorgasbord of Classic Tales of Hollywood. And the centerpiece couldn't be bolder: It's an homage to, a making of, a dissection of, and political dissertation on Citizen Kane -- only the most deified film of all time. Simply recite the synopsis, describe the film's 1940s black-and-white aesthetic, and mention Gary Oldman's name as the star, and just watch the Oscars come pouring in, right? Well, not quite. It netted 10 nominations, more than any other film, but it's looking like it might not win any of them, certainly not Best Picture. I don't think the film quite knows what it wants to be; at least, I'm not sure what it wants to be. Centered on Herman Mankiewicz, the man credited with co-writing Citizen Kane with Orson Welles, it's a distorted, polemical, impressionistic portrait of a man I barely even knew existed. Though Welles is only briefly portrayed in the film, it demystifies him a bit, suggesting that he's maybe not as responsible for this work of genius as we thought. If the film was framed as "Who actually wrote Citizen Kane?", it would be a little easier to get into. But it feels somewhat academic and circuitous (in a way that Kane itself doesn't). And while the script is clever, it's clever to the point of being confusing. Of course, a film of this pedigree invites a lot of scrutiny, maybe more than any other awards contender (or any film that actually got released this past year, period). It has a lot to appreciate, and surely would benefit from a second viewing. I also can't help but root for the fact that it's been Fincher's passion project for almost a quarter-century. (Then again, tell that to any indie filmmaker who spends their whole life on a single passion project that ends up getting completely ignored, and they’ll tell you where to shove your Fincher pity.) Ultimately, it's an admirable work, but if you're looking for a Rosebud, it's not there.

Promising Young Woman continues to defy expectations. Not only did it rack up six Oscar nominations, it's likely to win one or two of them, and for a while, was gaining on Nomadland for Best Picture. Now that the chips are falling into place, we know it won't win in this category, but it remains one of the most talked-about films of the season. What I like most about the film is not necessarily the literal story (I should have seen the main twist coming a mile away), but the way writer/director Emerald Fennell elevates it in an interesting way. Instead of showing the whole story, she starts her film at the end of a typical revenge thriller (several years after the incident and the legal aftermath). In fact, the victim is not even in the movie, and the victim's best friend is already far along on her path of retribution. (It also challenges the definition of "victim".) The film is not voyeuristically exciting in any way; it's unsettling, but also oddly charming in unexpected ways. The key for me is how it serves as a metaphor for the secrets people keep from loved ones and the toll that it takes on them, and the penances we give ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to heal. It also made me realize that movies could use more Juice Newton. (Paris Hilton, not so much.)

Sound Of Metal and The Father were probably the last two films to make the cut in this category, and are the least likely to win. Their best chances are in other categories. (Pro Tip: If you put the word "sound" in the title of your movie, there's a very good chance you'll win Best Sound.)

I don’t recommend Pieces Of A Woman to anyone who's pregnant, or partners of pregnant women, or anyone planning to have babies anytime in the future, or any partners of anyone planning to have babies anytime in the future, or people hoping to be grandparents anytime in the future, or doctors. (And I'm certain midwives are not giving this a ringing endorsement.) The film starts with an infant death, and then gets worse from there. It's not just an unpleasant experience, it's a series of unrelenting unpleasant experiences: Depression, extra-marital affairs, guilt, a domineering mother, lying, manipulative spouses, abandonment, feelings of inadequacy, sexual dysfunction, litigation, sibling jealousy, public shame, borderline domestic abuse, bribery, courtroom drama, financial problems, baseless blame, and drug addiction. And if that's not upsetting enough, they also manage to throw the Holocaust in there. (This should be a movie sub-genre: "Parade of Horrible Events". This fraternity would include: Manchester By The Sea, Mudbound, Uncut Gems, 12 Years A Slave, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Family Stone, and of course, The Revenant.) And then there are the characters. It would be one thing if these were ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. But these are extraordinary a--holes making extraordinary circumstances much worse. It's literally laughable. If I didn't understand what the word 'melodramatic' meant before, I do now. I'm aware that this is based on the experiences of writing/directing spouses Kata Wéber and Kornél Mundruczó, and I don't mean to trivialize their pain or what they went through. Nobody should have to suffer that trauma. And I realize art is a healthy and oftentimes beautiful outlet for grief. But… did I mention the movie is unpleasant? There are certainly wonderful fragments and ideas in here; if the components added up to something moving, I would be much more receptive to it. If I were a snarky (okay, snarkier) reviewer, I might call it "Pieces Of A Better Movie".

Soul is a lovely and inspiring movie, but I'm at the point where I have to judge films by my experience while watching them with children. Try explaining this movie to a 6-year-old. Way too many existential/philosophical/theological questions. I guess it's good for parents who like to talk to their children, but if you're trying to keep your kid occupied and quiet (the reason screens were invented) so you can do something else, it's a bust. (It's no match for the hysterical self-explanatory antics of a certain motor-mouthed, overweight, black-and-white, martial-arts-fighting bear with a penchant for sitting on people's heads and, more importantly, keeping kids silently dumbstruck.) And: Did they have to make the entrance to the afterlife -- a giant bug zapper -- so terrifying? If that's how you get to heaven, what is the entrance to hell like??

BEST ACTOR:

SHOULD WIN: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) WILL WIN: Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Pete Davidson (The King Of Staten Island) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods)

This one hurts. I usually don't feel a connection to or an overabundance of sympathy for celebrities, but this one genuinely hurts. When Chadwick Boseman wins Best Actor (for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom), it will be a wonderful celebration, but also a painful reminder, not just of who he was, but of who he was yet to be. If ever there was a unanimous vote, this would be it. Before this movie, we had seen him play heroes and outsized personalities, but there had been nothing quite like his role as Levee, the gifted and demonized trumpet player in Ma Rainey's band. His brash, wounded performance is astonishing, revelatory. Since the film debuted after his passing, we can only watch it through the prism of his death. It's hard not to feel parallels: Levee is just starting to scratch the surface of his talent, giving us hints of his abilities with composition and brass before his breakdown; similarly, we have only gotten a taste of Boseman's range and depth. For both the character and the man, we're being deprived of the art he would have created. Boseman's passing makes the performance more resonant and unshakeable, but I think under different circumstances he would still be the front-runner in this race. The only difference would be, we'd assume this would be the first prize of many.

Anthony Hopkins picked an unusual time to go on a hot streak. He recently left a memorable impression on the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Odin, got an Emmy nomination for Westworld, and scored 2 Oscar nominations (after a 22-year drought) -- all after his 80th birthday. This year's nomination, for playing a man slipping into dementia in The Father, probably would have been a favorite to notch him his second Oscar in a different year. He seems like he should be a two-time winner, and we just don't know how many more chances he'll have. (I stand by my declaration that he should have won last year for The Two Popes, over Brad Pitt.) To those aforementioned aging Academy members who fear mortality and probably consider Hopkins a spry young man: Maybe you shouldn't watch this movie.

Riz Ahmed's performance in Sound Of Metal establishes the tone for the entire film, making the experience feel grounded and real. I appreciate how his outward, physical performance is very still, while his internal performance is frenetic, like there's a live wire in his head that he's trying to conceal from the world. His quietness leaves us with an uncertainty that feels like authentic; he's not going to tell us all the answers, because his character is figuring it out as he goes. Speaking of questions, I have a few about his band in the movie (before the hearing loss): Are they any good? What kind of living do they make? Is their cashflow net positive or negative? Are they considered successful (in whatever way you want to define that)? What is their ceiling, commercially and artistically? Are they one lucky break away from making it, or is it a lost cause? Most importantly, if Ahmed and fellow nominee LaKeith Stanfield (Judas And The Black Messiah) had a sad, doleful, wide-eyed staring contest, who would win?

Steven Yeun has been a recognizable face in film and TV (and a prolific voice actor) for a decade, but we haven't really seen him front and center until Minari. And after this bright, heartwarming turn, I think you can expect him to remain in the spotlight for the foreseeable future. His understated and remarkable performance carries this beautiful story of a family finding its path through a new way of life. Despite scant dialogue and minimal exposition, we seem to always know what his character is thinking -- that he's facing daunting odds but has a steel resolve. He and screen partner Yeri Han (who deserves as much credit as Yeun for this film) create one of the most tender crumbling marriages I've seen on screen in a long time. (Though a marriage counselor could have given his character some helpful "dos and don'ts" that might have saved him some headaches.)

What's more improbable, Mank's meandering, decades-long journey to the screen, or the fact that we're supposed to believe 63-year Gary Oldman as a man in his 30s and early 40s? Well, once his performance begins, it's so hammy that you forget all about the ridiculous age discrepancy. He's playing Herman Mankiewicz, whose bombastic writing and sozzled demeanor helped mold the script for Citizen Kane into the legend that it is. It's a bloviated, ostentatious, spectacular exhibition of affectation and panache that only Oldman could pull off. It's a lot of fun. (It must be exhausting to be his wife.) It’s as if Mank wrote the story of his own life... and gave himself the best part.

I'm naming Delroy Lindo for my snubbed choice, for his intense and crushing performance in Da 5 Bloods. I've been hoping he'd get an Oscar nomination for 20 years, and by all accounts, this was going to be his year. Even in the fall, after a slew of critics' awards, he was the odds-on favorite to win. So it was a disappointment that his name wasn't called when nominations were read. For now, he'll have to be content with being everyone's favorite never-nominated actor. (But here's to hoping The Harder They Fall is frickin' amazing, so he can end that drought next year.) There are plenty of honorable mentions this year: Adarsh Gourav (The White Tiger), Mads Mikkelsen (Another Round), and Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night In Miami) come to mind. (By the way: How often do Kingsley Ben-Adir and Sir Ben Kingsley get each other's take-out orders switched?) But my runner-up is John David Washington (my snubbed pick two years ago), who undoubtedly became an A-List movie star in the past year… but not for the reason you think. Yes, Tenet was a blockbuster and the cinematic story of the summer, but he had special effects and storyline trickery supporting him. Instead, Malcolm And Marie is what stands out to me -- he has nothing but his performance (as abrasive as it is), and he still commands the screen and our attention. When he gets hold of a juicy monologue, he starts cooking… but when he starts dancing on the countertop? Look out.

BEST ACTRESS:

SHOULD WIN: Andra Day (The United States Vs. Billie Holiday) WILL WIN: Andra Day (The United States Vs. Billie Holiday) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Anya Taylor-Joy (Emma.) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Jessie Buckley (I'm Thinking of Ending Things)

Coming down to the wire, we've got a race where three women have a chance to win, and the favorite depends on who you ask and when you ask. Carey Mulligan, Viola Davis, and Andra Day have each won precursor awards, and seem to leapfrog each other daily. Mulligan has been picked by most prognosticators, with Davis right behind. But I'm going to put my untarnished reputation on the line and predict a long-shot upset for Day. (And when that doesn't happen, I'm going to say that I actually thought Mulligan or Davis were more likely.)

Maybe I'm picking Andra Day because she's also my personal favorite, for her star-making debut in The United States Vs. Billie Holiday. The movie itself is serviceable but not stellar (some of the scenes and dialogue are absurdly expository), but Day is an absolute dynamo as the Lady Day. The film is a fairly rounded picture of her life, including her drug abuse, health issues, singing the controversial-at-the-time civil-rights song "Strange Fruit", and an investigation by the U.S. government (hence the title) -- all of which is intriguing for those of us not familiar with her personal story. (I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that, despite my curmudgeonly ways, I was not in fact alive in the 1940s.) Day has seemingly come out of nowhere, because there was no early hype about the film, and nobody even saw it until a few weeks ago (and even now, it hasn't been seen by nearly as many people as the other contenders). Known primarily as a singer before this (I'm a big fan), she literally transformed her voice (straining her vocal chords, taking up smoking) to capture Billie Holiday's unique vocals. The singing alone might be enough to get her a nomination, but it's the dramatic work that puts her ahead of the field. More than any other nominee, we really get the feeling that she's laying her soul bare onscreen. Even for a seasoned actress, the depth of this performance would be impressive. Her film doesn't have the popularity or momentum that Mulligan's or Davis's do, so she's heading into Oscar night as an underdog. But if voters judge the actresses strictly on performance, not on the movies themselves, she might just pull an upset. And, if you haven't heard Day sing outside this movie, do yourself a favor: Stop reading this article (you might want to do that anyway) and browse her catalogue -- she has the best voice of any contemporary singer, period. Forget Billie Eilish, why isn't Day singing the next James Bond song?

Carey Mulligan returns to the Oscar game for the first time in 11 years, for Promising Young Woman. (Is she bitter that her performance in An Education lost to Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side? Probably not as bitter as I am.) Promising Young Woman is getting a lot of attention and accolades, and much of it is due to Mulligan's strong turn as Cassandra, a woman on a revenge crusade that has taken over her life. It's a layered performance; we see a lot of Cassandra's facades, but we don't know if we ever see the real person. Her best friend's rape and subsequent suicide has left her stunted; by the time we meet Cassandra, she's literally and figuratively become someone else. As rough as it sounds, Mulligan is able to make it… well, 'fun' isn't the right word, but 'enjoyable'. We see Cassandra refusing to sit or be bullied; she has agency and kinetic energy in situations where many do not or cannot. Whether or not the film works rests largely on Mulligan's shoulders; it's a good thing she's such a talented actress, because not many could pull it off. The more people see the film, the more she's been picked to win the prize. Will she get enough support for a victory? (Ms. Bullock, you owe her a vote.)

Out of all the nominated performances this year, Viola Davis's is the most amusing. Playing the titular singer in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, it's clear she's having blast. When she's onscreen, Davis owns every single inch of it. She doesn't just drink a bottle of Coke, she guzzles the whole thing with gusto and verve, serving notice that this is going to be the most entertaining consumption of soda you've ever seen. And so it is with the rest of the performance. (Though the lip-synching is not particularly believable; but then again, that didn't hurt Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody.) It will be interesting to see what happens on Oscar night. She's been up and down in the predictions. She was down after losing the Golden Globe (it's taken us until now to realize the Globes are a waste of time??), but rebounded strongly with a Screen Actors Guild win. She is universally adored, but she's also won an Oscar already for Fences, so voters may not feel quite as compelled to give it to her overall.

And we haven't even talked about Frances McDormand in Nomadland yet. Early on, this category seemed like a sprint between McDormand and Davis. But when neither won the Golden Globe or Critics' Choice, it became anybody's race. As we near the end of the contest, McDormand has pretty clearly fallen toward the back. I don't think it's her performance; instead, she's been discounted due to her own victorious history. She's already got two Oscars (in 1997 for Fargo and 2018 for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri); a third one would require extraordinary circumstances. By comparison, it took Meryl Streep 29 years (and a lot of Ls) after her second to get her third. But if McDormand hadn't just won for Three Billboards three years ago, I think she'd be a lock here; Nomadland may even be a superior performance. She's probably the only actor alive that could pull this off; if she gave up acting, this is how I assume she would be living in real life. It's remarkable how she internalizes everything, yet informs the viewer how she's feeling and what she's thinking with very few words, just her physicality. This project seems particularly challenging. Her character doesn't have the answers; she's searching, but she doesn't even know what for. "I'm not homeless. I'm just house-less. Not the same thing, right?" It's as if she's posing the question to herself, and she really doesn't know. She gets lonelier as the journey goes on, a sort-of self-imposed isolation, and the viewer really feels it. (What does she ultimately find? Well, that's one of the frustrating ambiguities of the film. Don't get me started.) No matter what happens in this category, what McDormand will find is Oscar gold: She's a producer on Nomadland, so she's a strong bet to walk away with a Best Picture statuette.

Saying Vanessa Kirby is the best thing in Pieces Of A Woman is a bit of a backhanded compliment. My distaste for the film was made pretty clear in the Best Picture section, and anybody acting opposite Shia LaBeouf is going to look like Streep. But Kirby is legitimately great, and I think a welcome surprise to those who know her from the Mission: Impossible and Fast & Furious franchises. (And how many fans of The Crown thought Kirby would beat Claire Foy to an Oscar nomination? Don't lie.) Kirby makes the most of her role as an unpleasant person in an unpleasant situation enduring a barrage of unpleasant events surrounded by really unpleasant people. (An infant tragedy is the least of their problems.) But ultimately the film fails her, and unfortunately I don't really believe what any character is doing in this movie. Her nomination has been bolstered by a whopper of an opening scene: a 24-minute single-shot of a childbirth that ends horrifically. But I can't help but feel like the shot comes off as gimmicky; the immediacy of the scene was effective, but the filmmakers seemed to choose stylistic camera movement and choreography over intimacy and realness. The scene may be emotionally truthful, but hoo-eey, Kirby is dialed up. (My personal favorite ridiculous scene? When she's on the subway, wistfully watching children giggling pleasantly and behaving like angels. Ahhh, seems so blissful. Have you ever taken kids on public transportation? They would be fighting, screaming, climbing over the seats, kicking her, throwing goldfish everywhere, getting yelled at by the parents, bumping into passengers, licking the handrails, wiping snot on seats, and saying inappropriate things to strangers. That's parenthood.)

When the movie gods decided to create a remake that would be the exact opposite of what I would like, they conjured up Emma.. (That's "Emma.", with a period at the end of the title. Seriously. It's a "period" piece. Get it?) Anya Taylor-Joy is undoubtedly talented, but she's a letdown as the fabled matchmaker. She also believes that she can bleed on cue. With regard to her climactic scene: "I was in the moment enough that my nose really started bleeding." Wow. No words. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but her performance actually makes me miss Gwyneth.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

SHOULD WIN: LaKeith Stanfield (Judas And The Black Messiah) WILL WIN: Daniel Kaluuya (Judas And The Black Messiah) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Shia LaBeouf (Pieces Of A Woman) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Glynn Turman (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom)

Can you have a movie with two main characters but no leading actors? If you're wondering why the two stars (and title characters) of Judas And The Black Messiah -- LaKeith Stanfieldand Daniel Kaluuya -- are both competing in the Supporting Actor category, congratulations, you're a human on planet Earth. That's Oscar politics for you, and it's nothing new. They are both unquestionably leads; nevertheless, the shift to Supporting has worked out well for both of them. The assumption was that Stanfield would campaign in the Lead category and Kaluuya in Supporting so as not to cannibalize each other's votes, and to have Kaluuya (the stronger awards bet) compete in the less crowded category. (It's been clear for half a year that Chadwick Boseman would be winning Best Actor.) Stanfield was considered an unrealistic shot to crack the nominees anyway (he was probably 8th for Best Actor, behind Delroy Lindo (Da 5 Bloods) and Tahar Rahim (The Mauritanian)). So when the nominations were read, it was a pleasant shock that he had been slotted in the Supporting Actor category. (And wouldn't you rather have him here than Jared Leto?)

But won't they split the vote, resulting in the very problem they were trying to avoid in the first place? As it turns out, no. Judging from other major awards, voters had made up their minds for Kaluuya long ago, so any votes to support this film will likely go to Kaluuya. It's not hard to see why: As Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, he's dynamic, steely, and charismatic. It's very different -- more confident, self-assured and domineering -- than we've seen him in other roles, like Get Out. (This movie is a like a mini-reunion of Get Out. Dang, now I want a sequel to Get Out.) But I'll be the dissenter, and cast my personal vote for Stanfield. I'm conflicted; they're a close 1-2. But for me, Stanfield's role (as an FBI informant infiltrating the Panthers) has more facets to play, and Stanfield's signature tenderness brings me into the character more. Plus, he also has the bigger challenge: he has to play the Judas (a role he initially didn't want). Like another character actually says to Stanfield in the movie: "This guy deserves an Academy Award."

Leslie Odom Jr.'s quest for an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) has hit a speed bump. Already armed with a G and a T, he was the presumptive favorite heading into the Golden Globes to collect more hardware, for playing singer Sam Cooke in One Night In Miami. But that was before anybody had seen Judas And The Black Messiah. As the lone acting nominee for Miami, he's got a lot of support from anyone looking to honor the film and its stellar cast. And as the singer, he gets to show off his lustrous Hamilton-honed pipes several times. In many ways, he's the most relatable character in Miami, the one that (despite Cooke's fame at the time) seems the most mortal. So though he'll lose Best Supporting Actor, fear not: He's the favorite to win Best Song, and keep the EGOT dream alive. (Unless… 12-time nominee Diane Warren finally gets the sympathy vote for her song for the little-seen The Life Ahead. Wait, you mean she didn't win for Mannequin's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"??)

Paul Raci is a fascinating nominee, for Sound of Metal. He was virtually unknown before this movie (best known as Eugene the Animal Control Guy on Parks And Recreation), but his background is intriguing. He's a Vietnam vet who started as a small theater actor in Chicago (he has a Jeff nomination!). With his upbringing as a hearing CODA (Child Of Deaf Adult), he's a frequent player in ASL theater and is the lead singer in an ASL metal band. (Am I the only one who was gotten CODA confused with ACOD (Adult Child Of Divorce)? Is there such a thing as ACODDA (Adult Child Of Deaf Divorced Adults)?) And in the understated role of Joe, who runs a facility for deaf people and serves as a guide for Riz Ahmed's character, he's fantastic. It literally seems like he's been preparing his whole life for the role, and it pays off. (Though upon further examination of his character… Joe seems like a benevolent, trustworthy guy with altruistic motivations, with a shelter focused on mental healing, addiction recovery, and self-sufficiency. But he also appears to foster an environment that isolates its members, severs contact with all loved ones, preys on those who are unstable to begin with, and convinces members that they will struggle if they leave the community. Ultimately Joe runs every aspect of members' lives, and in return expects unwavering devotion and complete submission to his methods. As soon as Ruben says one thing to challenge him, Joe accuses him of sounding like an addict, knowing it will trigger shame and self-doubt, in a clear effort to control his actions. Joe even slyly suggests that he personally knows how to reach heaven, "the kingdom of God". Is there a chance Joe is actually running a cult??)

They may have just picked a name out of a hat to see which member of The Trial Of The Chicago 7 ensemble would get an Oscar nomination (now these are all supporting actors), but however it happened, nomination day was a good day for Sacha Baron Cohen. (He also got a writing nod for Borat 2.) He is effective in the movie -- maybe the best of the bunch -- and it's a (slightly surprising) affirmation that he's a good actor in addition to being a talented performer. Is his performance actually worthy of an Oscar nomination? I'm fairly impressed (except for his I-love-you-too-man scene with the inert Eddie Redmayne, which plays cheap… but you can probably pin that one on Aaron Sorkin). But there are several other people I would have nominated over Cohen. For starters, my snubbed pick, Glynn Turman, is exceptional as a musician holding his own against Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. (It seems like just yesterday he was the colonel on A Different World, one of his 150+ acting credits.) Honorable mentions include 7-year-old Alan Kim (Minari), Clarke Peters (Da 5 Bloods), Charles Dance (Mank), and Arliss Howard (Mank).

Wow. Shia LaBeouf is not the only repellant part of Pieces Of A Woman, but he's probably the most repellant part. I'm sorry, but anything he does, or is involved in, instantly becomes less believable. At one point he seems to be trying to creepily make out with his wife… while she's actively pushing in labor. Then later, in a distressing "love" scene, he looks like someone who has never had consensual sex with a partner before; I know the film is going for emotional rawness, but it just looks like assault. Bottom line, I have no idea what he's doing in this movie. (And I guess I don't care what he's doing, as long as it's not another Indiana Jones movie.)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

SHOULD WIN: Yuh-jung Youn (Minari) WILL WIN: Yuh-jung Youn (Minari) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Nicole Kidman (The Prom) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Ellen Burstyn (Pieces Of A Woman)

Oh, sweet revenge. Don't you just love a rematch? It was just two short years ago when Olivia Colman, in a flabbergasting upset, tearfully apologized to presumptive victor Glenn Close in her acceptance speech. (…Or did she condescendingly mock her? We can't be sure about anything in that speech.) Now they are both nominated again -- Colman for The Father, Close for Hillbilly Elegy -- and the bad blood between them couldn't be boiling hotter. Since there are no nominee lunches or in-person media parades this year, I'm assuming they drunk-Zoom each other at all hours and call one another every cruel British and American curse word in the book. Colman even reportedly tweeted, "Glenn, this will be your Hillbilly Elegy: You never won a dang Oscar." Nasty stuff, but nothing unusual during campaign season. Colman is facing a tough challenge (besides playing a woman whose father is in the grips dementia). Voters will be hard-pressed to hand her a victory again so soon (and without any losses). Additionally, she didn't even get nominated for a BAFTA award -- the British Oscar-equivalent -- on her home turf (and they nominate six actors in each category). (But, she would be quick to point out, Close didn't either.) All the talk around The Father is about Anthony Hopkins. Colman is facing extremely long odds.

Which seems to perfectly set up Close to swoop in for the kill. Six months ago, on paper this seemed like a slam dunk. The word was that Hillbilly Elegy featured two of the losing-est actors (Close and Amy Adams) in transformative roles in a heart-wrenching adaptation of a successful book. It was going to exorcise the demons for both of them. Then the movie debuted. And the response was lukewarm. But then the response to the response was harsh. People hated the movie, hated the performances, and hated the participants for shilling shameless Oscar bait. (If you think there's a different kind of Oscar bait, I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention.) The film was weirdly derided as political, and faced a sort of anti-Trump backlash (which I don't understand, considering the movie takes place in the 1990s and early 2010s, when Trump was just known for being an inept USFL football owner and a silly reality-TV host). Entertainment Weekly actually used these words in a single sentence to describe the film: "ham-handed", "smug", "Appalachian poverty porn", and "moralizing soap opera". (I guess people felt about this film the way I felt about A Star Is Born.) And no, the movie is not great; it fades soon after the credits roll. But Close is compelling; at the very least, she's working her tail off. (If you think she's just hamming it up in drag, stay tuned for the end-credits images of the real Mamaw. It's uncanny.) I think the voters really want her to win (but I thought the same thing two years ago). The question is: Do they want her to win for this movie? The answer increasingly seems to be No. The general feeling (which I agree with) is that the role feels a little lacking, and below Close's other lauded performances. People realize that if she wins, it may get dismissed as being a flimsy career-achievement award, which would tarnish it.

So, which one will claim victory this time, leaving the other groveling at her feet, Colman or Close? Neither, it turns out. In a shocking turn of events, Yuh-jung Youn has emerged as a favorite over both of them. (Fortunately, she's blocked Colman and Close on Zoom.) Calling Youn the heart of Minari would be trite. She is, but she's much more than that. She's the conduit for connection: to the children, between the parents, and to the audience. Before her arrival, it feels like there's something missing. (The young son has a heart condition, is constantly chugging Mountain Dew, and is hiding his wet underpants. And the dad thinks he doesn't need a babysitter?) It's when Youn enters the film that the film excels, and we start to feel like part of the family. She also challenges our (and her grandson's) ideas of what a grandmother is (including possibly having magical healing superpowers). A lot of people are looking for a way to reward this film, and this category is its best chance. Heck, even if voters only hear Youn's one line of English dialogue ("Ding-dong broken!" -- referring to her grandson's wiener), that could be enough to win.

Maybe the most curious nomination is for Maria Bakalova, starring in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm as the notorious Kazakh's daughter. A lot of things in the past year would have been impossible to predict, but an unknown Bulgarian actress stealing the spotlight and getting an Oscar nomination for a surprise-release Borat sequel would have to be near the top. And she's actually the only one in this category who's managed to score a nomination from every major organization. She won't win, but her performance (and memes) may live on the longest.

I must be missing something in Mank. (Granted, I haven't watched it the requisite four times in order to truly appreciate it, according to the Fincherists.) But I just don't understand what the fuss is about with Amanda Seyfried. She certainly plays her part well (as Marion Davies, the illicit love interest of William Randolph Hearst and the platonic love interest of Herman Mankiewicz), but I don't see how she elevates it or brings anything extraordinary to it. Her character plays a pivotal role in Citizen Kane (Davies was the inspiration for Kane's second wife), and I presume she's supposed to play a pivotal role in Mank's literary epiphany, but I fail to understand why. (Or maybe I failed to understand her Brooklyn accent.) But more than that, her narrative thread seems distressingly incomplete. She appears to be set up for a meaty final scene, but then her character simply exits, leaving Mankiewicz (and me) baffled. I've been more impressed by her work in other movies, like First Reformed. Of course, perhaps the most significant implication of Seyfried's nomination: Two of the Plastics now have Oscar nominations. (Gretchen, stop trying to make an Oscar nomination happen. It's not going to happen!)

Just in case there was any confusion, 88-year-old Ellen Burstyn is here to let us know she can still bring the thunder. Pieces Of A Woman is a mess, and her character is dubious, but she gets one powerhouse speech to shine and (somewhat) anchor the movie -- a declaration of strength, resilience, and survival. And she delivers a two-handed, rim-hanging, backboard-shattering jam. Oh, right, there's the woman who scored an Oscar, plus four other nominations, in a 9-year span in the 1970s. And who's been an Emmy fixture the past 15 years. And who has four more movies already in the works. Just another not-so-gentle reminder that she's one of the great actors of her generation. (Honorable Mentions go to The United States Vs. Billie Holiday's Da'Vine Joy Randolph, who continues her scene-stealing ways after Office Christmas Party and Dolemite Is My Name; and Dominique Fishback, whose performance adds emotional heft to Judas And The Black Messiah.)

BEST DIRECTOR:

SHOULD WIN: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) WILL WIN: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Ryan Murphy (The Prom) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Christopher Nolan (Tenet)

The second-most-certain thing this year is Chloé Zhao winning Best Director for Nomadland. She's dominated the narrative and the awards circuit this year; nobody else is close. In fact, she might win four Oscars, which would be a record for one person with a single film. (In 1954, Walt Disney was a quadruple winner for four different movies… but do short films really count?) Odds are that she'll win three, but if she wins Best Editing early in the night, the record will be hers. Historically joined at the hip, Best Director and Best Picture have surprisingly been split between different movies several times in recent years. The voters will align them this year, but I'm going to malign them. (Disalign? Unalign? Who am I kidding, I will malign them too.) As tepid as I am on Nomadland for Picture, Zhao is my Director choice. She is clearly a masterful artist and impressionistic storyteller. But more than that, she's able to conjure a mood and state of mind with her pseudo-documentary hybrid style. She gets us to feel what the character is feeling and put us right in the environment -- and makes it seem effortless. The film's long, languid takes allow us to breathe the air, drink in the scene, and live in the moment, unhurried. Zhao augments the nomadic quality of the film in every shot. But (oh, you knew there was a 'but'), on the down side, I also find the style to be a bit tedious and overdrawn at times. Because of my lack of investment, the film often struggles to keep my attention, or more accurately, my curiosity. And despite the film being touted as a tale of community and interconnectedness, it mostly suggests to me (via the main character) feelings of pain, loneliness, coldness, and sadness. But ultimately, I think those things speak more to the story than the directing. This will doubtless be a crowning a achievement for Zhao, but I'm more excited to see what the future will bring, and what she can do for a story that I'm invested in.

I was really close to picking Lee Isaac Chung for my Should Win, for his rich, captivating film, Minari. (Really close. You, the fortunate, insulated reader, will never truly know how much I agonize over this. Some suffer for art, I suffer for unsolicited criticism.) Honestly, I was tempted to give Chung a clean sweep of Picture, Director, and Screenplay; but instead I've opted to spread them around (I can play Academy politics all by myself). So many of the qualities of Zhao's film are present in Chung's film as well; his toolbox is just as full and varied. His quiet, atmospheric shots are unburdened by haste yet always nudging the story ahead. Chung draws us in, as another member of the Yi family, our hopes rising and falling with each challenge and trifle (and sexed chick) they face. There's a real confidence in his style; he knows how to best engage the audience for the specific journey. For me though, what I appreciate most is the warmth of his filmmaking; while the story has tribulations, the film itself is compassionate, never harsh or aggressive. That stands in stark contrast to Nomadland; the palette is one of the main things that sets them apart. Chung also scored points by showcasing the best accessory on the virtual Golden Globes telecast: a ridiculously adorable child. (Was that his own kid, or a rental? Only his publicist knows for sure.) Careful, I might accidentally talk myself into flipping my pick to Chung.

This was supposed to be his year. Goddammit, this was supposed to be his year! That was the sentiment from cinephiles all over the internet this year. Throw a rock in any direction and you'll hit a podcaster (and possibly me) ranting about how David Fincher was robbed in 2011 when he lost Best Director for The Social Network to Tom Hooper and The King's Speech. (Was the Academy justified? Since then, Fincher landed a third Oscar nomination, fourth Golden Globe nomination, and two Emmy wins; Hooper directed Cats.) In early winter, the pieces seemed to be lining up for a Fincher victory with Mank: a big, mainstream, Hollywood-y underdog story; an ode to the most revered film of all time, Citizen Kane; a scenery-chewing performance from beloved thesp Gary Oldman; a film that was more accessible (read: less weird and violent) than most of his other fare; and a passion project that he had been developing for decades, written by his late father. The only question was not whether the film could win all the Oscars, but whether it could cure pediatric cancer or pilot a rocket to Jupiter. But that was 2020… and we all know how that year went. Maybe it's the fatigue caused by the prolonged award campaign season, maybe it's the lack of theaters that would have showcased his visual marvel, or maybe it's the fact that the film didn't quiiiiiiite live up to the hype, but one thing is clear: Fincher is out of the race. I'll say what a lot of the other film snobs won't: This is probably not the film we want Fincher to win for anyway. We want him to win for something sharper, weirder, more incisive, and more upsetting; in short, something more Fincher-ish. Mank is fantastic, to be sure; and in (mostly) pulling it off, Fincher demonstrates his mastery of historical and contemporary cinema. But the hiccups are puzzling. The film is structured like Citizen Kane itself, which makes it at times equally difficult to engage in; but while Kane's flashbacks feel natural, a handful of Mank's feel shoehorned. The dialogue is in the style -- but not the pace -- of hard-boiled 1940s films, which alone is a recipe for difficult viewing; further peppering every retort with unnatural irony makes for wit but not necessarily comprehension. The Kane-esque echo effect doesn't help; neither do subtitles. (I tried.) While it turns out that it's not supposed to be his Oscar year after all, I commend Fincher on an effort like this -- the singular vision, the vigor, the risk -- even when I don't necessarily love the movie or connect with it. We need his art, we need his beautiful mess. (But next time maybe throw in a grisly murder, perverted romance, or crippling heartbreak… and acquire a charming child for the awards telecast.)

Emerald Fennell impressively scored a nomination for her first feature film, Promising Young Woman, an inventive genre-mashup of a Rape Revenge movie -- a new spin on a 1970s grindhouse staple. Like a lot of people, I don't quite know what to make of the movie (I don't think I've ever actually seen a Rape Revenge movie… though I've seen plenty of Dognapping Revenge movies). It's a film that could go badly a thousand different ways, but Fennell makes choices that keep it fresh and thoroughly watchable. The primary word that comes to mind is 'subversive'. From the candy coloring to the pop music to the meet-cute to the campy suspense, she toys with convention at every turn (in some cases more effectively than others). Even the support casting -- the kooky, on-the-nose (or 180-flipped) cameos spice up the movie, but also tend to undermine it and give it a B-movie vibe. (Do we really need Jennifer Coolidge and Max Greenfield doing what they do best, but not as well as they usually do it? Probably not. Do they make me chuckle? Yes.) The result is an oddly entertaining movie on a subject that is anything but. The patina of playfulness is helpful; if it was an avalanche of distressing, horrifying scenes, it could be a tortuous watch. All in all, it might be the most enjoyable Rape Revenge movie you'll ever see.

Perhaps the biggest surprise nominee in any category is Thomas Vinterberg, for the Danish film Another Round. (The lion's share of the Oscar buzz had been for star Mads Mikkelsen; the film is also up for Best International film.) This movie is in the grand tradition of celebrating alcohol because excessive drinking is awesome. And the Academy has recognized Vinterberg because he has so astutely captured how booze is a tasty balm for every wound -- an ancient and failsafe key to enlightenment and inner peace. Wait, what's that? I'm sorry… I'm being told that this movie is actually a cautionary tale. Hmmm. I guess I should have watched it sober. In light of that, I suppose the film is an interesting examination of middle-aged ennui and the tendency to overlook that which is right in front of you. (Anyone that has gotten this far in the article knows exactly what ennui is, and should have overlooked what was right in front of them.) It's also an unintentionally apt allegory for pandemic life: When it started, we began drinking a bit at home, enjoying Zoom happy hours, and generally having a good time; pretty soon we were day-drinking out of sheer boredom, trying to teach our home-schooled kids long division while buzzed, and it got very sad and depressing; now we're all pretty much ready to jump off the pier. In general, I like the film (though I prefer my mid-life drinking crises more in the mold of Old School), but the story and arc are fairly telegraphed. You mean their problems can't be fixed by increased alcohol consumption? The more you drink, the harder it is to control? Drinking at work as a teacher around minors might go awry? Instead of booze, have they tried rest, exercise, healthy eating, or appreciating the good things in their lives? (Who I am kidding, those are a waste of time.) Ultimately, there are several directors I would have chosen over Vinterberg (Christopher Nolan for Tenet, George C. Wolfe for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Florian Zeller for The Father come to mind), but it's interesting to see the continuing trend of nominating non-American filmmakers in this category, as the Directors' branch of the Academy becomes increasingly international.

I want to talk about the ending of Another Round for a moment. If you didn't see the movie (and I'm betting you didn't), just skip this paragraph. Most of the reviews I've read online interpret the ending as a hopeful, happy one. I think that's crazy. The ending is a Trojan horse. It looks joyful, but just underneath lies tragedy: The trio resume drinking after they've seemingly hit rock bottom and lost their best friend to booze; they believe they're in control and having a good time when really they're spiraling into chaos; they think they've found a balance, when they're actually sliding endlessly further into alcoholism. They don't realize that they cannot enjoy life sober. I think one of the reasons why I like the movie so much is that it masks that ending as a "happy" one, much the way a drinker would see it when they don't realize there's a problem. The ending is denial. A lot of people have seen the final scene as uplifting and life-affirming (even Vinterberg seems to say this in interviews, which is puzzling), that the friends have come to terms with their drinking, and have found a way to drink in moderation and still invigorate their lives and celebrate the small things. I don't understand that take at all. I would buy it if they had found a way to celebrate life while sober. Instead, I think it's the surest sign that they are destroying their lives, because they don't even realize it's happening. It's the 'darkest timeline'. They ask themselves the wrong question, "What would Tommy do?", instead of "What would Tommy want us to do?", and we know exactly what Tommy would do because we see him drink himself to death. Martin has gotten a reconciliatory text from his wife, but just as he's about to go to her, he instead joins the party, quickly gets plastered, and literally goes off the deep end. What's truly heartbreaking is seeing that they've (gleefully and unknowingly) perpetuated the cycle, having encouraged the next generation to drink in order to cope and be "awakened to life". I think there are hints in the final song lyrics ("What a Life") and the movie's poster (the image of Mikkelsen recklessly chugging champagne in a blurry stupor is from the final scene). To me, the seemingly exuberant ending is a fallacy… and utterly tragic.

In a surprise move that everyone saw coming, I'm naming Christopher Nolan as my Snubbed choice, for his twisty, backwards-y spectacle, Tenet. Did I understand the movie? Of course. Oh, you didn't? Dummy.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

SHOULD WIN: Derek Cianfrance, Abraham Marder, Darius Marder (Sound Of Metal) WILL WIN: Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Aaron Abrams, Brendan Gall (The Lovebirds) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Sam Levinson (Malcolm And Marie)

Did his name have to be Ryan? No, that wasn't my biggest takeaway from the script for Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman. But it was a big one. As Carey Mulligan's chances fade a bit, Screenplay is the movie's strongest chance to strike gold, making a strong run in the precursory awards. The ending of the film has been pretty divisive, but I like that it's completely unexpected. Maybe it's contrived, but it's what makes the movie memorable for me, and separates it from other revenge thrillers. Or maybe it's inevitable, given the themes of the movie and the character pursuing her mission past the point of no return. Either way, did his name have to be Ryan? Unless Fennell's role (she's an actress, too) as Camilla Parker Bowles on The Crown accidentally embroils her in recent royal family controversies, she should be collecting this award on Oscar night.

Most of the praise for Sound Of Metal has been specifically for its sound design. But it starts with the script (written by director Darius Marder, along with Derek Cianfrance and Abraham Marder), which is the blueprint for the sound and experience of the movie. And it's my pick (by a hair) for best screenplay of the year. It has -- hey, whaddya know! -- an actual narrative, with a main character who has an objective and opposition. It's always impressive to me when a story has very little I can directly relate to, but it still manages to resonate, and strikes a tone that feels real. I also appreciate the skill in the writing -- it's minimalistic, yet thorough in the ways that matter. The film doesn't explain a lot or give us much exposition -- it doesn't lean on voice-over, window characters, or monologues. It's quiet. Which may seem obvious considering it's about a man losing his hearing, but even the man himself and the real world he lives in have a muted vibe (despite his mind being anything but calm). The film has also been lauded for its authentic portrayal of deaf people… but not for its authentic portrayal of audiologists. (I mean, how bad is Ruben's audiologist consultation, that he is in no way prepared for how things would sound after getting cochlear implants? I get more information from my dentist when getting a cavity filled.) Also: What does metal sound like? I still don't know.

Aaron Sorkin would seem like the obvious pick here, for The Trial Of The Chicago 7. It's the kind of sonorous, social-consciousness word-porn we've come to love and expect from him. But he's already got an Oscar (though most people assume he has three), and the fight-the-system theme isn't exactly unique to his script this year. Not surprisingly, the movie feels like a mash-up of The West Wing and A Few Good Men, complete with humorous exchanges of smug cleverness, heart-warming declarations of overly-simplified principle, and his own trademark Sorkin-esque version of facts. Sure, the story of the Chicago 7 is intriguing, but would I rather watch a movie about a Chicago 7-Eleven? It's tempting…

I've previously talked about the reasons I appreciated Minari so much (written by director Lee Isaac Chung). A lot of the sweetness of the film is present in the screenplay. He cleverly tells much of the story through the eyes of a 7-year-old boy, so it's told less fact-by-fact, and more through the filter of a child's memory. (Chung based the screenplay somewhat on his own experiences growing up.) Charming as it is, I can't help but view it through the filter of a parent's anxiety: 1) Is moving across the country to live in a small town where you don't know anyone, living in a trailer, and starting a farm with zero experience the best way to solve marital problems? 2) One of the main promotional photos for the movie is a of the little boy holding a stick. Am I crazy, or is that the same stick that the father was going to use to beat the boy when he disobeyed? Did the marketing person keep their job after that? 3) The friend's deadbeat dad leaves the kids alone overnight, presumably out carousing and drinking, then shows up at breakfast hammered, saying, "Tell your mom I was here all night." How many times can you get away with that? 4) When the boy cuts his foot, is it bad that I did not think of the wound or his safety, but about the blood getting on the carpet? 5) Why aren't these kids in school??

Perhaps the script (and movie) with the biggest head of steam coming into awards night is Judas And The Black Messiah, a late entry that has been picking up acolytes left and right. The film has been lauded for its approach to the story of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton -- by telling it as a gritty, 70s-style, cat-and-mouse thriller, from the perspective of the FBI informant sent to help stop him. Director Shaka King (who wrote the script with Will Berson, based on ideas from the Lucas Brothers) has said that structure, instead of a more traditional biopic style, helped get it made by a studio. Despite the inevitability of the ending, the dramatic conflict and ferocity of the performances make for a satisfyingly tense ride.

This is going to come back to bite me, but my snubbed pick is Malcolm And Marie (or, as it should have been called, Things You Shouldn't Say To Your Girlfriend At 2 AM When You're Drunk And She's In A Bad Mood). It's like a really long Bad Idea Jeans commercial. Now, I'm not necessarily recommending this movie. You should know that most critics and regular people hate it. It's two hours of a couple arguing. It's a rough ride. It's indulgent, overwrought, and well, chock-full of mental and emotional abuse. But (stay with me here), if you can get past all that, those elements have a purpose, and there is a point to the film. I think the key is that it's not intended to be literal. It's allegorical for how we talk to ourselves -- the internal conflict we have, when we wrestle with ideas that are hard to reconcile. It's also lyrical; there's an elegance in how the characters spew eloquent vitriol at each other and rhapsodize (okay, rant) about some opinions that seem dead-on and others that seem wildly inaccurate. In some ways, the words seem like the most important thing; but in other ways, I think the movie could work as a silent film. (Either way, it's inventive: It was the first major film to shoot completely during the pandemic, so it takes place in a single home, with 2 actors, in more-or-less real time.) Writer/director Sam Levinson poses interesting questions about storytelling and authorship: Sure, write what you know; but also, and maybe more interestingly, try to write (and learn) about what you don't know. (Case in point: I don’t really have any experience or expertise about the Oscars, yet here I am.) Levinson has gotten a lot of criticism for what appears to be his point of view. I think that's fair, but I also disagree. I believe it's a bit of a misdirection. I think he believes in both sides of the argument; he's been the irrational, emotional one, and the cool, calculating one. The characters are halves to a whole. There's also the frustration with how the couple end up. The film is ambiguous, but audiences seem to think they stay together. I think the girlfriend actually decides before the movie starts that she's leaving him, and this is their breakup. That's why she lets him say all the horrible things he does, because she knows he has to get it out -- it affirms what she already knows, and reinforces her decision. Did I sell you on the movie yet? No? Well, how about this: It's the best autobiographical movie that Burton and Taylor never made.

As an honorable mention, it would have been a nice story had Mank been nominated here, as it was written by David Fincher's father, Jack Fincher, over two decades ago. The elder Fincher was a life-long newspaper man, who had an affinity for 1930s/1940s cinema, a strong knowledge of Herman Mankiewicz, and a fascination with a famously-dissenting Pauline Kael article that disparaged Orson Welles's contributions to the Citizen Kane screenplay. David Fincher had hoped to get his passion project off the ground in the 90s, but hasn't been able to until now. A nomination would have been a touching tribute to his father, who died in 2003. (Another interesting connection: John Mankiewicz, Herman Mankiewicz's grandson, was an executive producer on David Fincher's House Of Cards.) Despite my frustrations with the overall movie, the script is slick, and analyzes some intriguing inside-the-snowglobe aspects of Citizen Kane. It's a crackling, showy piece that jauntily goes out of its way to flaunt its writerliness. (For you keen-eyed writers out there, you'll notice I just made up the word 'writerliness'.) It doesn’t necessarily require you to believe that Citizen Kane is the greatest film ever made, but a healthy sense of awe doesn’t hurt. (It also helps to have a working knowledge of the film's lore, pre-WWII Hollywood, and 1930s -- or some would say, 2020s -- California politics.) The script simultaneously adores and gives a middle finger to Hollywood. Isn’t that what art is supposed to do? (That's not a rhetorical question. I'm actually asking if art is supposed to do that. Because I don't know.)

I've picked The Lovebirds as my Gloriously Omitted choice, not because it's a bad movie, but because it's a missed opportunity. It should have been amazing. The premise, the trailer, the choice of leads, and the chemistry are all fantastic, and set lofty expectations. But the movie itself is just… underwhelming. Maybe hopes were too high, but it's not as clever, tight, or funny as I wanted it to be. The problem isn't the actors -- Issa Rae truly holds the screen, and Kumail Nanjiani is naturally funny (though his character doesn't stray far from previous ones). I think it's the script (from Aaron Abrams and Brendan Gall), which feels rushed and half-baked, like a collection of sketch ideas. It's as if the screenplay left chunks blank, with a note saying, "The actors will figure out something funny on set." For these actors, I'd rather see a taut thriller story, and let them imbue it with humor and humanity. Or better yet, let Rae and Nanjiani write it themselves next time.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

SHOULD WIN: Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller (The Father) WILL WIN: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) GLORIOUSLY OMITTED: Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel, Anna Waterhouse (Rebecca) INGLORIOUSLY SNUBBED: Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom)

Adapted Screenplay is going to get swept up in the Nomadland tidal wave on Oscar night, but to me it's probably the film's weakest element. I've talked about my lack of connection to the story. I understand the opinion that it's resonant, but is it revelatory? I can certainly see how it would strike a stronger chord during the pandemic, when we are all isolated; it makes the main character's loneliness feel more real. We've all been living in Nomadland, and whether it's David Strathairn shattering our favorite plates, or our kids shattering our iPad, we're just about at wit's end. But Chloé Zhao's script also plays up the theme of community and interconnectedness, and I didn't really feel that. The main character seems to be closing herself off from connection (though the ending suggests a change that we never actually get to see). A red flag is a movie description that says, "It asks more questions than it answers." Ugh, that's tough. For me, narrative is king. I understand that the movie is literally about a drifter with no plan, and the structure of the film is supposed to make you feel unmoored, but a little plot direction would be nice. Then there's the emotional climax, when Bob the Nomad Guru comes to the rescue to explain the whole theme. He tells Frances McDormand (but really, us) that he gets through grief by helping other people: "For a long time, every day was, How can I be alive on this earth when he’s not? And I didn’t have an answer. But I realized I could honor him by serving people. It gives me a reason to go through the day. Some days that's all I've got." Hmmm, where I have I seen that exact sentiment expressed before? Oh yeah, an award-winning short film called Through The Trees. (Available now, for free on YouTube.)

Dementia Mystery Thriller… is that a movie genre? Well, it might be, after success of The Father (written by Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller, adapted from Zeller's Tony-winning play). "Exciting" is hardly the word I would use to describe the horrible crumbling of the mind that is dementia, but in this movie, it weirdly fits. The film has a way of presenting the disorder in a unique manner, that goes a long way in conveying the helplessness and frustration of the victim. With copycat movies inevitable, I can almost see Christopher Nolan's version now: Demento, where a mumbling Tom Hardy (unrecognizable under heavy old-man makeup) kills his caregiver twice because he can't remember if he already killed her… or her identical twin. The big twist comes when he discovers whether he killed them in the past, or in the future, or if he's remembering the memory of someone else who killed them. The scenes of the movie play in a different random order every time, and the only score is the constant deafening sound of the old man's heartbeat. Marion Cotillard plays the twins -- apparently the only females in the universe -- using whatever accent she feels like, because she has limited, unrealistic dialogue, and has no compelling story or agency, or any useful traits for an actress whatsoever. Hardy's son may or may not be a British crime lord or an undercover MI6 agent, played by Michael Caine (digitally de-aged to look the age that Hardy actually is). An emaciated Christian Bale, who manages to lose 3 inches of height for the role, makes a cameo as Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Revolutionary practical effects include a life-size recreation of Westminster Abbey inside a zero-gravity chamber, for one massively-complicated but forgettable 5-second shot. It will only cost $723 million, and will go straight to HBO Max. I will name it the best film of 2022.

I may be picking The Father, but I'm rooting for The White Tiger, written and directed by Ramin Bahrani. Set in India in the recent past, it's a striking, chilling tale of what men may be willing to do (or forced to do) to escape poverty. Bahrani constructs a fiery examination of themes that never get old: power vs. agency, freedom vs. choice, complicity vs. culpability. His script uses a lot of devices that shouldn't work: excessive, expository voice-over; explicitly-stated metaphors; speaking directly to the audience; and on-the-nose correlations to current times. But the story and acting are strong enough to make these feel integral. Given the themes and foreign setting, it has the misfortune (or great fortune) of being an easy comparison to Parasite, last year's Oscar grand prize winner. But I find The White Tiger far more accessible and scrutable than Parasite (maybe partly due to the devices I mentioned). A win here would be a welcome surprise. By the way, Bahrani's first Oscar nomination is an interesting footnote to Hollywood lore: In the 2014 Roger Ebert documentary Life Itself, we learn that Ebert was given a legendary token by Laura Dern -- a puzzle that had been passed on from several film icons, with the understanding that each would pass it on to someone truly deserving. Dern had gotten it from revered acting teacher Lee Strasberg, and it originated when Alfred Hitchcock gave it to Marilyn Monroe years before. And now Ebert was giving it to Bahrani. 60 years of movie history, from Hitchcock to Bahrani, and into the future. (Good thing it's not at my house, we would have lost several pieces by now.)

Four of the most famous and popular men in the country walk into a bar… so shouldn't the patrons be freaking out more? One Night In Miami plays out a very intriguing hypothetical scenario: When Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke all met one night in 1964, what did they talk about? The compelling script (by Kemp Powers, based on his own play) and naturalistic direction (by Regina King) make for a highly enjoyable think-piece and character study. It's a daunting task, to say the least: Not only are they representing extremely visible and important figures, but two of the actors (Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Eli Goree as Ali) are reprising roles already played by Oscar-nominated performers (Denzel Washington, Will Smith) who may be more famous than the actual figures themselves. I guess my hang-up (besides the horrendous Johnny Carson impersonation) is, what are the stakes? Historically, we know the stakes for these four people, in the larger context of their lives and the civil rights movement. But in the film itself, in that single night, for these specific characterizations, what are the stakes? What are they each looking for that evening? I think the movie doesn't fully address this, structurally. Ultimately, due to their fame, we know where the characters' lives go from here -- how it "ends". While that makes it interesting culturally, it feels like it puts a ceiling on the movie in a way, like it's holding something back. With these outsized characters, plot-wise, I wanted a little bit more.

Released in October with almost no warning, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm either single-handedly swung the presidential election, or had no absolutely no impact whatsoever, depending on who you ask. It's a rare feat for an original movie and its sequel to both score Oscar nominations for screenplay; I can't think of another time it's ever happened for a comedy. The fact that it's even under consideration -- given its improvisational nature and whopping nine (nine!) screenwriters (I'm not going to name them all, I'm trying to keep this article brief) -- is fairly astonishing. Even more baffling still, it's been placed in the Adapted category instead of Original. (Pesky Academy rules: Any sequel is automatically defined as an adaptation of the original.) The movie itself is unfortunately a shell of the unrelentingly funny original (Sacha Baron Cohen looks more like a middle-aged man doing a mediocre Borat impression at this point). When the big night arrives, the film will either single-handedly swing the Oscar vote, or have absolutely no impact whatsoever, depending on who you ask.

One of the biggest surprises on nomination day was the exclusion of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom from Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, assumed to be a lock in both categories. It was even thought to contend with Nomadland in this category (it would have gotten my vote, had they asked me). I think it was diminished by the perception of being a fairly straight recreation of August Wilson's play, which is a shame. The film version (written by Ruben Santiago-Hudson) makes wonderful use of the physical space, the confinement, the claustrophobia. And I'd say the movie feels more like an album than a play -- a collection of "songs" (monologues, exchanges, and actual songs), each with its own rhythm, beat, lyrics, and theme, but coming together as a cohesive piece. The composition is effective; it draws you in the way the best albums do, and challenges your brain to think one thing while your heart feels something else. (My only complaint is that I wanted more of Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman together! Their personalities are electric, and their personas overtake the room. Their conflict is brief (it mostly flows over to conflicts with other characters), and I really wanted to see them alone, head-to-head and unbridled. I realize their distance is purposeful, and important thematically, but damn, it could have been a showdown for the ages. Just another reason to wonder… What might have been?)

The remake of Rebecca was written by a few people, including Joe Shrapnel, whose name may have been a bad harbinger for what was to become of this script. Keep it simple: Please leave Hitchcock alone.

#oscars #oscarpredictions #oscarpredictions2021 #oscarprognostication2021 #donovansoscarprognostication2021 #oscars2021 #academyawards #academyaward

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cobra-diamond · 4 years

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How to Develop Avatar’s Season 4 - Part 3

1 The Pillars of Season 4

In order to move discussions about future Avatar past mere speculations about what the creators were thinking, or whether or not going beyond Aang’s journey makes thematic sense, you have to start coming up with answers for what a 4th season would have been about: through which characters’ eyes do we primarily view the story? What is the overarching conflict? Who, or what is the primary threat? What are the new goals for the original cast? What challenges will they face? What changes will they go through? And so on.

Fortunately, the three Fire Nation comics give us insight into what the creators had in mind for a 4th season. That being said, the comics are not Season 4. A Season 4 would not have had a Zuko that is so brain dead that he would forget his responsibilities and make a deal with Azula to give her the crown so he could live with his “real” (i.e. biological) family in some small town. A Season 4 would not have retconned Ursa so that she was exclusively a hapless victim of the royal family and not directly responsible for the killing of Fire Lord Azulon (this is not what the show implied, nor what the creators and prior official content stated about Ursa). A Season 4 would not have had an Azula whose multiple layers of inner turmoil vanish off-screen so she could become a “weightless, free” anarcho-guerilla inside her own country (see: Smoke and Shadow), among other problems.

Nevertheless, the comics contain the critical elements necessary for devising a comprehensive post-finale story. These story elements are fundamental; they originate from the internal logic of the show and the loose threads left behind. However, since the comics exist and will likely never be retconned or remade, we may never get the “true” Season 4 that is revealed by these fundamental story elements. In that sense, these story elements could be thought of as the “Remnants of Season 4”, but that isn’t a very positive way of looking at things. It suggests we fans can’t use our own imaginations to fill in the gaps and come up with better answers than what the market forces affecting Avatar allows. Fans should be encouraged to use their imaginations, so I call these story remnants “The Pillars of Season 4” because they provide the foundation for building a compelling, consistent continuation of Avatar past the ending in the finale.

1.1 Pillar #1: Resentment & Opposition to Zuko

In Zuko’s coronation speech at the end of the show, he said he would restore the honor of the Fire Nation, that the road ahead would be challenging, that one hundred years of war had left the world scarred and divided, but with the help of the Avatar, they could get it back on the right path and begin a new era of love and peace.

A new era of love and peace. Rebuilding. Healing. That is exactly what the world needs. The Water Tribe needs love and peace. The Earth Kingdom needs love and peace. Rebuilding the Air Nomads needs love and peace, but the Fire Nation… Does not. Remember that the Fire Nation was not militarily dominated at the end of the show, nor was Zuko part of a wider internal movement to overthrow the current leadership and undo the past one hundred years. We did observe a small community suffering due to the war (the fishing village on the river), but this is not shown to be widespread; we are shown far more clean Fire Nation cities with substantial industrial activity in the background. The Fire Nation was not decimated by a century of invasion, nor was it brutalized by an external (or internal) foe that requires rebuilding from. It doesn’t need to heal. It is not scarred. It is not divided (more than any other stable country, that is).

Zuko took power while the Fire Nation was at the height of its power and prestige and he believes it needs to be taken down several notches, that its honor questioned and its feats during the war impugned and undone. How many Fire Nationals are going to accept that view, especially from someone who was so recently deemed a failure and traitor by their previous Fire Lord? How much of the nobility, government and military is going to be skeptical of his intentions, or even downright furious at his ascendance? How many people in the Fire Nation are going to view him as a usurper, as a traitor, as an unworthy recipient of the crown? What kind of actions is Zuko going to take that will inflame these parts of the populace so much that they actively resist him? Notably, this is what happens in The Promise.

One could take the stance that Zuko becoming Fire Lord was enough to set things right, that the whole Fire Nation simply rolled over and became obedient, but an instantly reformed Fire Nation has no potential for conflict and drama and thus no potential for a story. It also conflicts with official descriptions of the present culture of the Fire Nation, which Zuko is very much not a representative of as established by the fact that he became disillusioned with it. Therefore, the cause of Season 4’s central conflict is this: Zuko’s idealism must collide with the reality that the Fire Nation is not ready for the demilitarization, disgrace and emphasis on morality that it deserves.

What are some of the potential points of conflict between Zuko and his country? They could be: dismantling the colonies, mishandling the relocation of the colonials to the homeland, using vast amounts of Fire Nation resources to rebuild the world, mishandling the rapid demilitarization, being viewed as a traitor serving the interests of the world versus the Fire Nation, being seen as trying to destroy valuable parts of Fire Nation culture, and so on.

At the same time, members of the old regime—the bureaucracy that manages the country—might flee their posts, leading to momentary disarray and less qualified replacements; they might drain the royal coffers and armories and hide it to undermine Zuko; they might clandestinely divert funds, sabotage his efforts, or even embed themselves in his new cabinet to sabotage him from within.

In short, things are not going right for Zuko. They can’t be if you want a compelling central conflict.

In the words of Uncle Iroh, fire is the element of power. The people of the Fire Nation have desire and will and the energy and drive to achieve what they want. From that statement alone, it can be ascertained how that type of culture can have an aggressive, ambitious, ruthless streak buried within that must be controlled less it boil over into disaster (Sozin’s desire for conquest could be argued to have stemmed from this culture). As a result, the Fire Nation should be full of people who view Zuko’s rise as an unjust coup by their nation’s enemies, his actions as the willful destruction of the Fire Nation’s legacy and his lack of heirs as an opportunity to make sure Zuko’s policies end with him, which is exactly what happens in The Promise: multiple, constant assignation attempts on Zuko as a result of his destruction of the colonies.

So the 1st pillar of Season 4 requires Zuko to face opposition from his country over his policies surrounding the end of the Hundred Year War and his goal to change Fire Nation culture. The next pillar concerns the royal family.

1.2 Pillar #2: The Anemic State of the Royal family

The royal family is both a hereditary monarchy and one in which the leaders must be seen as worthy of their role. Although it was never shown in the series, Bryke have stated that they believe Fire Lords are expected to “prove their worth” and can have their authority and hereditary line challenged through Agni Kais. This is partly why they have to be powerful firebenders and proficient fighters. At the same time, the Fire Sages also play some role in the legitimacy of the Fire Lord, though this role is not clear. Perhaps it is like the Shogun/Emperor relationship from ancient Japan, where the Shogun had the “blessing” of the Emperor, but it was really the Shogun who ran the country while the Emperor acted as a figurehead and cultural leader. At any rate, Zuko inherited the throne after defeating and/or incapacitating Azula and the Fire Sages in the capital crown him the new Fire Lord...

… But it’s only him. He has no other family ready to continue his legacy. Are he and Mai married? … No? Are they having kids any time soon? Not for several years at best. At the same time, his father is in prison and his bending has been removed, making him both ineligible for the crown and a threat to Zuko’s plans. Ozai is simply out of the question. Making matters worse, Zuko’s mother is gone, Iroh is a childless old man and his sister is both in a form of prison and, seemingly, mentally unfit to rule in addition to being a hostile member of the old regime. Maybe Iroh could be considered as shoring up the royal blood line, but he has no children and he might not last that long.

This “anemic” state of the royal family could allow the ambitious-types in the country to smell blood for a regime change. Those who hate Zuko could view this as an opportunity to off him and the rest of the royal family. Maybe they want a Fire Lord who will do what they want or be easily manipulated. Maybe they want a new royal family with a larger network of existing family. Maybe they want to get rid of the royal family altogether and replace it with something else, such as a return to the Fire Islands (think of the feudal domains of ancient Japan or the numerous kingdoms of ancient China).

But that’s what the ambitious, disgruntled members of the country think. For the rest of the country, the anemic, divided and dysfunctional state of the royal family sends three troubling messages: 1) that their country’s leadership is unstable and that it might be better to get a change over with now lest it be catastrophic later; 2) that the most powerful people in their country (the royal family) disagree with what’s best for the country when they are supposed to know what is best; and 3) that the current royal family might be permanently divided.

And Zuko sees this. In the beginning of The Search, he comments how his father being in prison, his sister in an institution and his mother being missing for years sends a bleak message about himself, his country and family. If the royal family is supposed to be exactly that, a family, as Zuko laments, then is the fact that he went to war with his own family (to do what was right) sending the message to his people that they should go to war amongst their own family (their fellow citizens) to do what they believe is right: either overthrow the Fire Lord, or stop him from being overthrown? That’s kindling for a civil war. Notably, that Earth Kingdom academic’s explanation about a nation being a large family is based on Confucian thought.

Second to this, Zuko also feels depressed that he doesn’t have a real family. Yes, he has the Gaang. Yes, he has Iroh. Yes, he has Mai, but the fact that he can’t sit down for dinner with a mother, father and sister like a normal family eats at his soul every night and day as portrayed in The Promise and The Search. It’s something he wants, something he craves and it is a constant, depressing reminder of how messed up his family is. Gaining friends through the Gang and wearing the crown hasn’t fixed that.

But we know Zuko can never have those things, at least not for a long time. His father is a menace, his sister is an enemy and lunatic, and Iroh is just one uncle who, while like a real father to him, is a reminder of how dysfunctional his family is. His mother is also gone… Or, does she have to be?

She might very well be alive. If Zuko finds her, he can have a mother again and not only that, he could use it as an example of the royal family being on the path to recovery. She isn’t his enemy. There’s no bad blood between them. If he could find her and bring her back, then he would feel less alone and the royal family wouldn’t be as empty. It would just be his mother, but at least it’s something, and this is exactly why Zuko decides to put his duties on hold and look for his mom in The Search.

The 2nd pillar of Season 4 must be this: the currently anemic, dysfunctional state of the royal family must have wider implications for the success of Zuko’s rule and the Fire Nation at large.

The fact that Ozai is in prison with his bending removed is not important because he is a villain who deserves it, but because he is the father of the Fire Lord and that’s how bad things are between him and his son. The fact that Azula is in an asylum is not important because she is a villain who deserves it, but because that’s how messed up the princess is. The fact that Ursa is missing is not important because Zuko misses her, but because the mother of the prince and princess is not supposed to be missing.

This bridges into the next pillar of the season: the search for Ursa must represent a step toward rebuilding the royal family.

1.3 Pillar #3: Finding Ursa is a Step Toward Repairing the Royal Family

When the show ended, the number one question captivating fans was, “What happened to Zuko’s mom?!?” The creators even teased us with it in Korra. Certainly it was a worthwhile question to answer and the creators thought so too, having stated in interviews that they storyboarded the reunion scene, but ultimately gave it the axe because they felt it needed more time to be properly told.

This was the right move. Having the reunion scene be a 30 second blurb at the very end serves no greater purpose than to give Zuko a happy moment. Such a shallow handling of the subject would also have had other unfortunate implications. First, it would have trivialized the freshly revealed issues that Zuko’s sister has with their mother, which were depicted as being of much greater psychological importance to her than to him, and secondly, most critically, it would have erased the enormous value that the search for Zuko’s mom has for continuing the show past the finale. This is a key point: the search for Zuko’s (and Azula’s) mom is the key to bridging the gap between the end of the show and the start of its continuation. This is because fans are already interested in the subject of Ursa and it was left unresolved; it was a blatant loose thread that was compelling enough to answer. Putting the search for Zuko’s mom at the start (or close to) of a 4th season would allow fans a way of immediately buying into a continuation of the series.

However, it is a waste of time if the search for Ursa is merely an adventure for the Gaang and Zuko. The events that occur and its outcome have to tie into the existing problems surrounding the royal family (see: Pillar #2) and must contain conflict, uncertainty and contribute to the overall story that Season 4 aims to tell. This means the search for Ursa cannot be simple and cannot merely be about finding Ursa. It must hit multiple turtle ducks with one loaf of bread. So how can this be done? How can the search for Ursa be both full of conflict and uncertainty, contribute to the overall story and convey the theme of rebuilding the royal family? By applying the 4th pillar: the Fire Siblings must work together to find their mom. This means the return of Azula.

1.4 Pillar #4: The Fire Siblings Work Together to Find Their Mom

There were two loose threads at the end of the show. The first was well recognized and obvious: what happened to Zuko’s mom? The second was less universally recognized, but equally perplexing: what is the ultimate fate of Azula?

In addition to being a top villain, Azula underwent the most rapid and unexpected change of any character in the franchise, creating questions about her motivations and personality where none had previously existed, but yielding very few answers in return. What should have been a triumphant battle between her and Zuko—obvious evil versus obvious good; a bully getting squashed by their victim—turned into a somber event backed by sad violins. So was the fade-to-black at the end of the Agni Kai the last we should ever see of her?

It turns out that Azula is critically important to the layout of a 4th season. There are three reasons for this. First, she is Ursa’s daughter. Since Ursa is Azula’s mom, Ursa is going to implicitly care about what her daughter thinks and feels, regardless of our (the viewer’s) feelings about her villainy. At the same time, Zuko is going to care about what his mother thinks and feels, which means we are going to care about what Ursa thinks and feels about Azula. If Zuko’s mother is expressing concern, regret, longing, etc. over issues relating to Azula, then Zuko is going to take his mother’s feelings to heart because that’s the kind of person he is; he isn’t going to dismiss his mother’s feelings out of hand because Azula makes him and others uncomfortable. Consider this: is it really Avatar’s place to talk about what it’s like to have family members in prison who were rightfully convicted? Because that is a dead-end topic full of heartache and distress with no hopeful message or inspiring resolution.

As a result, when Zuko decides to find his mother, the topic of Azula is going to arise immediately because he knows his mother is going to care about her. This makes the search for Ursa the most logical re-entry point for Azula. This is a key point: just as the search for Zuko’s mom is the bridge between the end of the show and its continuation, the search for Ursa is the bridge for bringing back Azula. We care about Zuko. We care about the Gaang. We also care about Ursa, but we don’t necessarily care about Azula. Tying her into the search for Zuko’s mom softens the shock of her return.

But why bring Azula back at all? Aren’t we done with her? Can’t she just be left as a “messy” part of life so the Gaang and Zuko can go on new adventures and meet new people?

Azula’s ultimate outcome is relevant both for the sake of Ursa and for the future of the royal family. Keep in mind that Zuko is both the supreme leader of his country and default leader of his family (which is in shambles). He is responsible for a great many things greater than himself and his feelings. It is his job to ponder questions like, “Should I execute Azula, or keep her alive?” Or, “If I keep her alive, what is ultimately done with her?” Or, “Would annihilating her ability to be a credible authority in the country (i.e. remove her bending) be a mistake further down the road?” And even, “Are those actions in line with the kind of person I am?” Zuko can’t shy away from these questions and neither can we.

Whether or not Azula can be part of a functional, peaceful royal family with Zuko is not what’s important. The fact that Azula is Ursa’s daughter is what’s important and unassailable. This, however, is minor compared to the next two reasons for Azula’s involvement in Season 4.

The second reason Azula is critical to a 4th season is because she is a young member of the royal family who can firebend. That fact alone makes her supremely relevant to the success of Zuko’s legacy. Will the country view her as a natural, more desirable alternative to Zuko? Will they disregard Zuko’s attempts to make her ineligible to rule? Will they view Azula as hope they can have her as a leader some day (and undo Zuko’s policies)?

Not only would the opposition have their eyes on Azula, but will Zuko hope that Azula can be integrated into his rule in a timely fashion, thereby strengthening both his position and the royal family’s?

You could take the viewpoint that nothing bad will happen in the decades it takes for Zuko to raise a family, but Zuko’s enemies might act much sooner (and they have to since the goal is to create a gripping story). From Zuko’s perspective of looking at the big picture, it might be regrettable in the long term if Azula’s potential to help stabilize the country and royal family is left unfulfilled.

The third reason is because Azula is a well-regarded, powerful and highly accomplished member of the old regime. Not only is she an alternative to Zuko by family, but also by her reputation and abilities; the forces in the country that oppose Zuko might want to use her to neutralize him; they might also hold her in greater esteem than Zuko and view her as the rightful Fire Lord.

We know it is not this simple, though. Azula is not operating from a clean slate. She suffered a psychotic episode so bad that even Zuko and Katara were able to take pity on her. Instead of putting her in prison and having Aang remove her bending, Zuko had her incarcerated in straight jackets and padded cells in relative comfort. She also just embarrassed herself in front of the whole capital and, by extension, the leadership of the country, by banishing all of her servants and guards for no good reason (seriously, where did the Dai Lee go??) Maybe the events that transpired in the finale shifted the public’s view of Azula from being a “terrifying yet inspirational” leader to being weak-willed and too unstable to be Fire Lord despite her accomplishments. Maybe she has lost the respect and confidence of the people who would have otherwise sought her leadership.

At any rate, whoever gets a hold of Azula has a powerful weapon at their disposal. If the opposition acquires Azula, they will be made substantially more powerful and legitimate. On the other hand, if Zuko can get Azula on his side, his position will be that much more strengthened; not only will there be someone to guard his legacy—if, if, IF he can get her on his side—but her allegiance might be what it takes to win over those who hate him; if Azula of all people can accept Zuko’s rule then doesn’t that mean the rest of the old regime can?

So Azula’s ultimate outcome is not a heartfelt reunion with her mother. It is not a moral redemption story. It is not resolving her myriad of emotional problems for her own sake. Azula’s ultimate outcome is to contribute to the leadership of the Fire Nation, because that is what members of the royal family are supposed to do and she is a member of the royal family. This requires her to play a key role in resolving the massive internal conflict facing the Fire Nation as a result of Zuko’s policies. By having Zuko and Azula work together to find their mother, it introduces the idea that it is possible for the Fire Siblings to work together, that the defeated members of the old regime can get over their differences with the new one, and acts as a mirror to the 1st pillar about Zuko facing resentment and opposition from his own people (who better to represent that than Azula?).

But this role for Azula cannot be forced upon her. In any good story, characters must make choices and the reasons for those choices must be sufficiently developed. In order for Azula to take a side in the conflict, it must come as the result of believable inner-conflict and soul-searching on her part, or else it will just be a shallow rehashing of something she already is (a villain) or an unearned, half-baked means of getting her on the side of Zuko. Essentially, since Azula was already a villain and soundly defeated in the show, her new role has to be more complex and different from what we’ve already seen. For this to occur, Azula has to learn for herself the depth of animosity toward Zuko that is brewing in the Fire Nation and the consequences of it should it fester out of control.

But Azula has been in an asylum all this time. She’s been chi-blocked, restrained, manhandled on a daily basis and altogether detached from the outside world. She needs to get experience with what’s going on in the Fire Nation and learn it firsthand, not be told it (as smart as she is, she is not all-knowing). This yields the 5th pillar of the 4th season: Azula must live amongst her people.

1.5 Pillar #5: Azula Runs Away and Lives Amongst Her People

Azula is not brought back in Season 4 because she deserves a happy ending, or because she is misunderstood, or because she is cool or for anything close to that. She is brought back because she is necessary for resolving the season’s conflict and for conveying its themes. In order for this role to be believable (i.e. feel like it is earned by the character and not by the plot), it must be given adequate time to develop.

To contribute to the overarching conflict, Azula must first develop a detailed perspective on the burgeoning unrest in the Fire Nation. Similar to how Zuko’s exposure to Earth Kingdom peoples allowed him to develop sympathy for their plight (and respect for Iroh’s teachings), Azula must live amongst the people of the Fire Nation to understand what is happening among them and what is at stake. In this respect, if Zuko represents a leader who must feel compassion toward and act in the best interests of the world and Fire Nation, Azula must be a leader who feels compassion toward and act in the best interests of the Fire Nation. Her concern is not the world, but for the Fire Nation. Zuko’s concern is both. This is where their interests align.

The time Azula spends amongst her people is not for her to develop sympathy or tenderness or righteous protectiveness toward them as we would expect from Zuko. This is not to say that she wouldn’t feel compassion for her people, but there is a shrewdness and practicality to the insights she makes into her nation, like an undercover boss learning their company is not what they had thought, or like a princess learning that there are problems in her country that otherwise would deserve the attention of its princess. There is another key point highlighting Azula’s value in contributing to Zuko’s goal of redeeming the Fire Nation, and it is absolutely critical: Azula provides a key perspective on the current Fire Nation that we cannot get from the heroes.

The lesson at the end of Zuko’s coronation is that the Fire Nation has to be taken down several notches. It has to be impugned and reprimanded, defanged and reformed. We have not seen that Fire Nation, though. The most we saw was a factory spewing sludge into the river near a small fishing village and kids who were taught lies about the start of the war (and weren’t allowed to dance. The shock and horror). What we don’t know is what the current Fire Nation thinks and feels about Zuko and his plans to undo the past hundred years.

Remember how Azula is a member of the old regime and, in many ways, the Fire Nation that must be changed? She was also a true believer in that Fire Nation, just like the people who are trying to assassinate Zuko in The Promise. Not only this, but she is royalty, making her perspective on what it takes to lead the country more prescient than disgruntled nobles, generals, colonials and the like. It makes her perspective on what the Fire Nation is today more valuable than the rose-tinted view of what it used to be, or should be. It is the Fire Nation of today that must change, not the Fire Nation of old that must be arise from the grave; those people are dead and buried, it’s the people who are alive now who are of concern.

When we see the Fire Nation and its troubles through Azula’s eyes, we do so from the perspective of the Fire Nation that must have its honor restored, not the Fire Nation that must be rebuilt through Zuko’s idealism and unquestionable honor. Remember that the overarching purpose of Zuko’s journey is to restore the honor of the Fire Nation. Restore it. It has not happened yet. For Zuko to do that, he has to better understand the Fire Nation that benefited from the war, that found it acceptable that he be burned and banished by his father and that was willing to do horrible things that he could not do himself because that is the Fire Nation that he needs to change.

Do you think Zuko is going to have a “kill all who oppose me” attitude? Is he going to order troops to storm into libraries, break into academics’ homes and burn all documents and writings that say anything positive about the war in order to erase it from history like certain Chinese emperors did? Is he going to jail all who oppose him? Probably not, and that probably wouldn’t work either as, if the penalty for treason is death and the penalty for rebellion is death, then you rebel, and as we know, a single firebender is a one-person army. How many of them live across the Fire Nation and could do immeasurable damage if organized into even a modest army? The Capital has to get its food from somewhere…

But that Fire Nation hates Zuko’s guts and Zuko is constrained by being the Fire Lord. He can’t just put his duties on hold and live amongst his people for an extended length of time, nor does he have the inclination to sympathize with people who believe he deserved to have been burned and that the war was good and justified. But there is someone in the royal family who can sympathize with those people, who has the anonymity to live amongst them, learn the details of their grievances and plans and, potentially, command their respect, and that is Azula. Think that Iroh cares much about that part of his country? Or, that they even care about him? This doesn’t mean Iroh hates them, but he might feel casual disdain. We’ve seen evidence in the show that Iroh is both loved and despised. Not only this, but he’s been secretly working against the Fire Nation for years and did so very blatantly during the events of Sozin’s Comet. All of this now out in the open, along with the White Lotus Society’s “extranational” status as a group of foreign agents working to supplant the Fire Nation’s government. Remember that the people opposing Zuko do not view Iroh and the White Lotus as the heroes that we do. They likely hate the White Lotus’ guts too.

In order for Azula to be exposed to these intimate levels of Fire Nation society, she has to live amongst the people affected by Zuko’s policies, and the decision for her to do so has to come entirely from her. It can’t be a brokered deal between her and Zuko at the start of the season, nor can it be out of pure self-interest either. It also can’t be contrived; no one can break her out of the asylum, tell them their plans and she says, “I’m in!” She has to be in the right place at the right time and in the right frame of mind to end up on this path naturally. In order for all of this to occur, she must literally escape the influences of her old life (being a prisoner, threatened with having her bending removed, being second to Zuko, reminded daily of her failures, feeling humiliated, etc.) and go into hiding amongst her people. This allows us to see the “full” Azula through the eyes and experiences of the Fire Nation, not through the heroes and their bad blood with her.

So Azula is initially reintroduced through her connection to Ursa and the royal family. She is involved in some way with the search for her mother, but events transpire during the search that motivate her to run away and go into hiding. Whatever those events are, the motivating factors have to be tied to the themes and unresolved issues surrounding her downfall in the finale. Her psychotic episode, banishing people, her erratic behavior during the Agni Kai, incarceration in an insane asylum and her ultimate failure to prevent the old regime from falling are essential features of who she is moving forward and they cannot be resolved off-screen. There is no going back to the old Azula, just like there’s no going back to the old Zuko. The latter half of Season 3 changed her forever and must be addressed.

There is a concept in story crafting called “scene and sequel”. It’s odd terminology, but it works like this: “scenes” are where the action occurs. It is where the world in which the characters live, or the characters themselves, undergo major changes that drive the story forward. Whereas “sequels” are the low points between the scenes, the low valleys between the high mountains. They are where things are relatively static for the characters; the lulls between major changes where the characters need time to adjust. Scene and sequel affects the tempo of a story and the key to understanding it is this: by the end of a scene, a character must have undergone a substantial change from who or where they were at the beginning, whereas during a sequel, they remain unchanged from start to finish. Sure, they can move a teensy bit, but if, for example, whatever is making them sad at the start of a sequel is resolved, that resolution must occur during a scene. It can’t “just happen” during a low point; it can’t happen off screen.

Scene and sequel is important to understanding how to reintroduce Azula back into the show. Whereas Zuko, Aang, Katara and the rest of the heroes completed their arcs by the end, Azula had not. In fact, her misery was just starting. The time between the end of Season 3 and the start of Season 4 represents a sequel for Azula. Therefore, Azula’s unresolved problems leftover at the end of the finale cannot be explained away; they have to be continued.

The last time we saw Azula she was rolling around on the ground, in chains, screaming and crying as her world fell down around her. The next time we see her, she cannot be radically different from that. Yes, she can be lucid and calm and able to hold a conversation, but she has to be frazzled and on edge; she has to be bitter and depressed; humiliated and resentful; hopeless and scared. She has to be in denial about her culpability for her failures. She has to be desperate to absolve herself of blame even though the truth is gnawing at the back of her mind, because that’s where she left off. Essentially, the emotional “pallet” from the finale has to be carried forward.

However Azula is portrayed when she returns, one thing has to be very clear: she has not gotten over the events that transpired in the finale. Notably, this is what The Search did with her and it was done rather reasonably well.

As for the reasons why Azula runs away, or escapes, or disappears? Perhaps she does try to kill her mother in a hairbrained scheme born out of her desperation and mental unwellness, as portrayed in The Search, and so does not want to face the consequences for it. Maybe there is a letter putting Zuko’s paternity in doubt, but Azula screws up the opportunity to use it against him (she gets distracted by trying to kill her mom, for example) and runs away so she isn’t imprisoned by her brother. Maybe she tries to take revenge on Zuko but fails and so she doesn’t want to go to prison, go back to the asylum, or have her bending removed. Perhaps she has another psychotic episode and the shame of being returned to the asylum is too much for her to handle. Whatever the reason, she has to be motivated by the fear, anger, resentment and humiliation left over from the finale. Think of what she was feeling during that final scene in Sozin’s Comet. That is what she wants to escape from.

But where does Azula physically go? It has to be somewhere that is experiencing the variety of problems that the rapid end of the war and Zuko’s policies is creating, somewhere she can experience first hand the range of causes that is fomenting trouble in the Fire Nation. Maybe it is a city that benefited economically from the war industry and is now seeing its prosperity decline. Maybe it is an industrial town that has seen all orders dry up and they want their livelihoods back. Maybe it is a locale full of relocated colonials who are unhappy to have been removed from their homes and are struggling to make ends meet due to the strain they are placing on the Fire Nation economy. The options aren’t endless, but it should kill as birds with one stone as possible. For example, an isolated mountain village showing ”traditional” Fire Nation culture is not a suitable place for Azula (or the viewer) to go.

Wherever Azula goes, it has to open her eyes (and ours) to the situation in the Fire Nation, and this leads into the 6th pillar of the season: Azula must discover the major threat brewing in the Fire Nation.

1.6 Pillar #6: Azula Learns the Major Threat Brewing in the Fire Nation

Until this point in the hypothetical Season 4, the primary threat cannot be known. Yes, there have been assassination attempts on Zuko and yes, it has been revealed that there is widespread displeasure toward him, but none of it has been anything that the combined might of Zuko and the people who support him cannot put a lid on, and so far, a lid has been put on it.

The reason the primary threat is not known are: 1) it has been hidden by those who are behind it; 2) members of Zuko’s cabinet have been hiding it/misleading him; and 3) it has been hiding its true intentions behind a benign façade.

The reason Azula is able to discover the primary threat is because only someone who opposes Zuko and wishes him harm would be able to join forces with the people behind the primary threat. A peaceful, obedient, “normal” citizen of the Fire Nation is not going to seek out, or be interested in, ways of taking down the Fire Lord. But Azula would. So when she learns of the existence of this “threat” (a movement, plot, conspiracy, etc.), it appeals to her negative feelings and gives her hope that she can turn back time, that she can rise from the ashes of her shame and humiliation. Only someone with her background and belief in the old regime would be willing to cooperate with such a movement against her country’s imperial leadership. In other words, only a former villain. Zuko can’t do it. Aang can’t do it. Iroh can’t. None of the heroes can. They don’t even know it exists, neither do they have the personalities to associate with the kinds of people actively working to sabotage Zuko’s government. They would oppose immediately. Azula would want to get inside it.

But that isn’t the only reason why Azula is the character through which the primary threat is revealed. She must be the one to reveal it because when she learns the full extent of the primary threat’s goals, she realizes the massive, cataclysmic consequences it poses to the Fire Nation and royal family. Now pillars 1 and 2 are tied together.

A “normal” disgruntled citizen who hates Zuko would go along with the primary threat and trust its leaders, but Azula is not a normal citizen. She is the princess. She can see the big picture. The consequences of the primary threat have to make Azula’s “princess senses” tingle. It has to be something that reminds her of who she is and what her responsibilities are. It has to make her question what she truly wants and how far she is willing to go to get it, if she even still can.

And the heroes don’t know what Azula finds out. Zuko doesn’t know the cataclysmic problem building in his country, but now there is a member of the royal family who does and she holds critical information necessary to either stopping it, or using it to her advantage.

So Azula’s time living amongst her people is ultimately about teaching her (and the viewers) key facts about the Fire Nation’s culture and society that is leading it towards a massive internal conflict, a conflict bad enough that even the resentful, jilted Azula can’t feel comfortable about. Whatever the primary threat is, it is not something she can ignore and this leads to the 7th pillar of the season: Azula must take a side.

1.7 Pillar #7: Azula Takes a Side

The main thrust of Season 4 is beginning to take shape. Zuko’s ongoing journey is to redeem the Fire Nation. He is opposed in his journey by his own citizens who despise him and what he is trying to do. At the same time, the anemic, dysfunctional state of the royal family is harming his legitimacy and requires resolution. He and Azula manage to cooperate with each other in finding their mom, but that too falls apart and Azula disappears. While hiding amongst her people, Azula discovers the truth about what’s happening in the Fire Nation and what she learns is so serious that it spurs her to action. But what will she do with her knowledge? Will she try to use it to her advantage, perhaps by taking over the primary threat from the inside? Will she do nothing and let the Fire Nation burn out of spite and desire to make her enemies pay? Or, will her pride and sense of duty as princess prevail?

All of Azula’s experiences living amongst her people has been to prepare her for this decision (and for the viewer to believe it). Technically, she could make any choice (viewers’ expectations and internal consistency be damned), but keep in mind that Season 4 needs to show us new things. We have already seen Azula as a straight up villain. We’ve already seen Azula and Zuko fight to the death. We’ve already seen Azula defeated, badly. What we haven’t seen is Azula willing submit to Zuko’s will. What we haven’t seen is the fire siblings work together in a big, lasting way that isn’t born out of self-interest (Zuko wanting to earn his father’s love in The Crossroads of Destiny), or ulterior motive (whatever scheme Azula has during the search for their mother, which goes wrong and forces her to run away and become a fugitive). Just as we haven’t seen the Fire Nation that hates Zuko reconcile with him, we haven’t seen Azula reconcile with Zuko.

So there is really only one choice Azula can make. It is the choice that contributes to Zuko’s journey of redeeming the Fire Nation, of rebuilding the royal family and of solving the central conflict of Season 4. It is the 8th and final pillar of Season 4: Zuko and Azula must work together to save the Fire Nation.

1.8 Pillar #8: Zuko and Azula Work Together to Save the Fire Nation

This is the heart and soul of Season 4. It is what everything has been building to. This is why Zuko’s anxieties about the royal family are more than just heartache for him. It is why we have to spend time learning more about Azula. Season 4 is not about having extra adventures for the Gaang. It is not about the events that lead to Republic City and Korra. It is not about having more Iroh and his anecdotes. At its core, Season 4 is about this: it is the story about how the two warring sides of the royal family (represented by Zuko and Azula) become united again, symbolizing the change for good of the Fire Nation.

How exactly they work together depends on the nature of the threat. We know Azula can be fearless, or at least highly confident, and is quite intelligent. Perhaps she infiltrates the threat to act as a double agent, playing both sides until the very end (we know she has the ability to do this given her success at taking control of the Dai Lee). Maybe Zuko uses his reputation as a kindhearted idealist to feign ignorance of Azula’s involvement with the enemy in order to shield her from scrutiny by the heroes and give her credibility amongst his enemies (to maintain the ruse). It can’t be last minute save-the-day though, as Zuko needs enough time to build trust for Azula.

Whatever the details of the conflict and the manner in which it is resolved, the relationship between Zuko and Azula has to be believable and earned. There has to be times of conflict and mistrust between them. There have to be moments where the heroes have to be defended from Azula and where Zuko has to defend Azula from the heroes, but binding them through all of it and tempering the worst of their feelings is the fact that they are both royalty with duties greater than themselves.

By the end, the primary threat should be defeated and no others lay on the horizon. Zuko’s rule should be safe and the future of the royal family certain. No longer will Zuko lament his lack of family, or feel haunted by his past. He will have regained his mother and, for the first time in his life, have someone who he is proud to call his sister. For him, it will feel like turning a new page. The past will truly feel like the past and the future will be unlike anything he has ever experienced.

There will be no doubt that the Fire Nation can achieve the redemption it needs and that Zuko is the one to lead it, but not because he is a good, moral person. Not because he stood up to his father and defeated Azula in the finale. Not because he is a hero who earned a happy ending, but because he made the right decisions as Fire Lord, applied Iroh’s teachings to new situations, stood by what he believed was right even when other heroes doubted him and, finally, because he figured out how to turn a former enemy and member of the old regime into a friend, or at least into a lasting ally.

Azula’s journey will be over and, at last, so will Zuko’s.

2 Summary

To summarize, these are the pillars that must carry Season 4:

1) Zuko’s policies are met by significant resentment and opposition from his own people;

2) The anemic, dysfunctional state of the royal family has major implications for the stability and legacy of Zuko’s rule;

3) Zuko is inspired to find his mom in order to strengthen the royal family;

4) Zuko brings Azula with him to find their mother, both for the sake of his mother and to test the waters on a peaceful relationship with his sister;

5) Azula goes awry on the search, resulting in her escaping/disappearing;

6) While on her own living amongst her people, Azula discovers a massive internal threat brewing in the Fire Nation that she cannot ignore;

7) Azula decides that using this threat to get back at her enemies is not compatible with her values, so she joins forces with Zuko to stop it;

8) And finally, Zuko and Azula work together to stop the threat, thereby setting an example for the rest of the country and healing the rift between the two warring sides of the royal family.

3 Closing Remarks

This framework does not place a limit on the content of Season 4, but clarifies what it must be built from. You’ll notice it says very little about the roles of Aang, Katara, Iroh and so on. That’s because they do not undergo the levels of change that Azula and Zuko must go through. Their journeys were over at the end of the series, whereas Zuko’s and Azula’s were not. At the same time, it is Zuko and Azula who have to work together to resolve the conflict, or more specifically, Azula who has to learn to work with Zuko. That is a major change on her part. In order to sell this to the viewer, adequate time must be given to its development.

The Gaang needs to be involved, but what they do and the changes they undergo have to be in the context of the eight pillars and central conflict, or else their actions become extraneous filler and fluff. For example, Kataang is not furthered for the sake of fanservice, but because strengthening their relationship is the result of their teamwork in solving the story’s problems. At the same time, Iroh is not present because we like Iroh, but because he is a member of the royal family, has a checkered relationship with the war, split allegiances (White Lotus vs. Fire Nation) and apparently pessimistic view of his niece (i.e. Ursa’s daughter). Is Ursa going to appreciate, “She’s crazy and needs to go down?” Iroh must be tied to the troubles of the Fire Nation and its royal family.

This depiction of Season 4 appears heavy on Azula. In short, this is because she has the most to reveal about the Fire Nation and has the most change to undergo. Essentially, she has to go on a journey, and journeys require time. In that sense, Season 4 could be thought of as being 1/3rd Zuko & the Heroes, 1/3rd Azula on her own, and 1/3rd Zuko, Azula, & and the heroes.

A final word about how to handle Azula: you can’t be too nice to her. You have to sell her importance to the heroes and not assume people are going to care about her. In fact, that’s how any character should work, but in the case of a former villain, you have to work even harder at it. This makes Azula’s involvement in the season the most radical, but also the most intriguing.

If you’re familiar with the Fire Nation comics (The Promise, The Search, and Smoke & Shadow), you’ll notice the parallels and deviations this framework has with them. It is quite apparent that Bryke were thinking along these lines when they brainstormed the comics, but for whatever reasons, they failed to follow through.

The way to understand this framework—these “pillars” that support Season 4—is to look at them as universal to the franchise. They come from the internal logic, unresolved issues and established themes of the show. If, for instance, Bryke got abducted by aliens and Nickelodeon had to hire new showrunners to make a 4th season, the new showrunners would find this story inherent to the source material whether they were prior fans of Avatar or not.

We’ll probably never get this story, but as fans we are free to speculate and devise our own scenarios in order to keep the entertainment value of Avatar alive. If you agree with this framework, you now have a method for developing the details of how Avatar can be continued past Aang’s journey in a way that is compelling, full of heart, and builds upon what was left behind.

The craving you felt for more Avatar at the end of the show was not you being a ravenous fan who couldn’t accept that their plate was empty. It was recognizing the potential for a story that has not been fulfilled.

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kinkykawaiian · 4 years

Photo

She is based off of Biblical Lilith. She was inspired by other interpretations of Lilith//

Working on a detailed reference sheet.

Name: Lilith

Alias: Death Dealer, ,Mistress of Betrayal, The Red Queen

Occupation: Weapon's dealer, Black Hat’s Emissary, Leader of the Red Macabre Corporation, Also ringleader of an underground circus for villains where she torments her victims((those who betrayed her or some man that committed a crime against a woman))

Age: VERY VERY VERY OLD

Race: Succubus

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual but leans towards men more

Biography:

As far as the legend goes; she fled the garden of Eden when she refused to submit to Adam. God had sent three angels to retrieve her but they never found her. She was lost, naked and alone; searching for a place to call home and where she could be her own woman. That is when the devil manifested before her and offered her a place in the depths of hell. Promising her that she will be free to do as she pleases with no man ruling over her. And that is where she made her home and ruled over a legion. Years turned to centuries, centuries turned to millennias and millenias turned to eons that she wasted in that inferno.She evolved into the monster she is today and earned the title The deceiver of men, bows to no one and queen of the night.(The year 1860, Washington) She was summoned on earth by a mortal looking to get his rocks off with the infamous succubus and it backfired on him when she drained his life energy for sustenance; leaving nothing but a hollowed out corpse. Now, free to roam Earth, she disguised herself as a normal woman; killing several men in her wake. She was nomadic; never staying in one place and always traveling state to state; town to town and eventually she happened upon a small town in Mexico. She saw a discrete ad around the town for a masquerade for the insidious. She attended the ball expecting to find her new victim. She wore a crimson red and black Victorian dress; it's silk straps draping off her shoulder; along with black gloves and a crow mask, her hair tied back in a bun adorned with roses and black feathers. During the festivities; she met the infamous Black Hat. His face was concealed by a mask. He approached her and asked for a dance while complementing the color of her attire. The first thing she noticed was his top hat and assumed he had a high place in society; and since she has an affinity for men in power (because she wants to dominate that power) she accepted his offer. Hours passed as they spent the night dancing away; eventually the events came to an end. As they were leaving the building; Black Hat whistled to summon his steed and to Lilith's surprise it was an undead horse with it's head engulfed in teal flames. He took her by the hand and they road together through the woods in the dead of night.Upon arriving at a lake where they dismounted; he asked her who the girl behind the mask was. She removed her mask to reveal her face; her eyes shifting to their demonic form as she told him who she was and she asked the same from him and he revealed who he was(At this time he was El Charro Negro)). The two schmoozed for several hours; talking about their conquers, victims and who they walked over to get to where they are. She was also admitted that she was going to make a meal out of him; assuming that he was a mortal when they first met. He laughed in response and told her that he was about to do the same until he saw her eyes change. He was curious if she had any place to go. She told how she usually targets men and spends the night at their place before moving on to their next victim. He offered to bring her home and have her work for him in return, being impressed by the temptress of deception. She was smitten by the Eldritch demon and she took his offer. Once at his estate; she was given her own room and a set of rules to follow; to which she had a difficult time following because she'd be damned if she let a man rule over her. This caused them to butt heads but she still served him well with sacrifices and assassinating her targets effectively. Although she came close to almost dying once while trying to seduce and kill a monster hunter who was on Black Hat's trail. He had holy weapons that subdued her which he tortured her and sawed her wings off; her ear got torn and her horn chipped; he was about to slice her throat with a blessed blade but was interrupted by the leering shadow of a monstrous Black Hat who engulfed the room in darkness. Lilith had loss consciousness from the blood loss at this point and she came to back in her bed with her boss tending to her wounds. He looked annoyed and chewed her out for failing to do the job; of course this lead to an argument between the two but she receded back to laying on her side in pain; allowing Black Hat to continue bandaging her wounds. He gently stroked her hair before exiting the room calling her a"Beautiful imbecile" and told her "Not to let it happen again because the next time I just might let you die" Black Hat enjoyed her wild and wicked nature; trying to contain it would be foolish but he thrived on the conflict that came from him attempting. When he presented her a contract to finalize her employment; she question it's context. Black Hat was annoyed by this and promised her she would get anything she wished from the organization if she signed the doted line. Once she signed; he gave her anything she had asked for. She asked to start her own circus; so he gave her an underground circus to run where she would torture her victims for the insidious masses to see; along with two tigers trained to maim and eat those victims. She saved the money she earned(While also giving Black Hat his cut) she eventually branched off to start her own organized crime empire called The Red Macabre Corporation in the year of 1920. Black Hat was happy to see her flourish into a villain of her own but at the same time seething in anger because he secretly enjoyed her company(And her cooking; she would cook fresh stillborn babies for him). This made him grow even more bitter and even more strict with his future employees. Nonetheless, she went off; leaving the estate to run her own business. Now in present day; She still does business with Black Hat and they still have some kind of strong tension going on between them and it is unknown if it's hatred or sexual. But when no one else is looking; they will waltz privately in his office; reminiscing about the night they met all those years ago. They have a very antagonizing romance that comes off as contempt at first glance; so you'd have to read between the lines.

LIKES:

-Drinking in general

-The suffering of men who thought they were superior to women

-Musicals

-Old detective shows

-Singing and dancing

-She likes spicy things(perfume,foods,gum,sex)

-Guns; her favorite being her golden Berretta 92; a semi automatic pistol

-Tigers

-being the center of attention

-wine

-cherries

-cheese cake

-electro swing, jazz,heavy metal and waltz

-Dementia's illusive nature in small doses

-the rare sweet moments between her and Black Hat that happen in private

-roses

-living in the lap of luxury

-the color red

-Carnage

-Bathing in virgin blood

-the taste of human flesh

-When Black Hat sings "Vaillainous thing" to her ((

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwCdShFGjwI

))

-Belly dancing(mostly to Heavy metal),waltzing or tango.

DISLIKES:

-Other people's children

-Being referred to as the Night hag

-Being asked what her age is

-Being called a sinner

-Being annoyed

-anything cold

-Glitter

-Being disrespected

-Most men

-Outdated views

-pranks

-when Black Hat melts puppies

-Being told what to wear

FUN FACTS:

-Lilith can speak several different languages; including English,Spanish and pig Latin.

-She has been summoned to the surface world before in the past a few times; Once by Mary 1 of England(in the year 1552) and helped her rein the Kingdom with an iron fist. She also taught her to bathe in virgin blood to maintain her youth. But as all deals go; she collected her dept when "Bloody Mary" met her demise. She has her soul now trapped behind mirrors; only to be summoned to scare stupid children when they repeat her name three times in a dark bathroom.

-Lilith is an excellent cook(She mostly cooks human flesh with herbs and spices)

-Lilith covers her chipped horn with a band at all times

-Black Hat has indulged in her sinful nature a few times and it usually leaves them both bitten up,bruised and bleeding. And it is their dirty little secret to keep.

-Lilith pursued Black Hat out of her own free will

-If Black Hat were to ever disappear Lilith would take his spot and rule ruthlessly and mercilessly and do away with the mortals he hired and summon a legion to take their place.

-Lilith views Black Hat as an equal; despite him viewing her beneath him. However, he does view her as the closest thing to his equal.

-Lilith left his residence before he started to brand his employees and never allowed herself to be marked by him if it wasn't by his teeth or claws.

-Black Hat and Lilith have private meetings every so often where he complains about his employees or talks about his new devices he wants to sell or they drink and reminisce about their past

-Lilith will never say it out loud but she loves Black Hat; despite all their escapades together.

-When she was living with Black Hat he would request for her to sing him to sleep when he was restless (( She would usually sing "Belong to me"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkBEnIoRqWw

))

---------------------------------------------

Personality: She is charismatic, bold and is never afraid to refrain from sharing her thoughts. She is the embodiment of the sin lust so she is very lewd in nature. She is cruel to those outside of her inner circle and could care less about them. She is careful with who she deals with given her past experience with shady characters. She also comes across as bit of a narcissist and hogs the spotlight. She is manipulative and deceiving; leading her victims to fall into her trap. She is ruthless when dealing with victims. She also makes a lot of suggestive jokes.

Fighting Style: she is very flexible, quick and agile so she will use that to her advantage. She fights like an animal,using her horns to ram into her enemy, her clawed nails, fanged teeth and tail. Also may use her hooves to step on her enemies. Or she'll just simply unload led into you.

Powers: intense charisma and seductive power to match her good looks she uses to her advantage to manipulate unsuspecting victims,can disguise herself to look human, Manipulates dreams, Can see in the dark, Pyrotechnic, is able to make items manifest themselves in a snap of a finger, she can also walk up right walls and ceilings. She can teleport in a close proximity(She cannot teleport through dimensions however), sucking her victim's life dry to leave behind a hollowed corpse, Immortality. She also can use a spell to charm her victims(Only works with mortals) to get what she wants. Despite having these supernatural powers she is not as strong as Black Hat. She doesn't even come close to what he is capable of.

Quote: "Don't mistaken my respect for fear or you will loose it”-Lilith to BH

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Voice Claim: Cat Pierce ((

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv8QI0C4oCw

))

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Theme songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AAOx_6jfek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RViFRTgC2y4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9irdrSZ9Ys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afZR_1BY0CA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TFUUS_Yqew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9sENKMK8Tk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjOtKC_GZ9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdFaadxJl4g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4cKIxhcTT8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yP9olT_TdM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL60uWjiXrw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3FLpc-5yvM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eJbxI-jZbA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkdXdVxTdNA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCXsRoyFRQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaC0gPRJpM

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Her and Black Hat's playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bql8WO0GvqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkBEnIoRqWw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwCdShFGjwI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGti3Bzlxhw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGbe-lEDCc4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR5u9jb0PJE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4MZTU1-_bw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3ObHjm1fAE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ79Rpv3kNk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHOE50gGP30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teuGzBoN8hE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8xTZIOAPhs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOSxM0rNPM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeFLR9hKQ6Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISgaQcScFQE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fp4yRDEVyM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5rtxcogEsU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36714VSOchI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMx6FA8gmgU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRw-8tDiPQc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccY25Cb3im0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD-7zn3WCq8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x83P5LjpWpA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6feSJsCxIw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts--MxmAFkQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia--jqrELbE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WsZ2fUXbZg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzjUs5yR68o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow1QqW0jzTo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-s4uLaaMBc

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Roleplay Examples:

Lilith walked into the ballroom and was instantly awestruck. The room was nearly one thousand feet long by five hundred feet wide, with the ceiling stretching up another hundred feet above her head. It made her feel smaller than an ant. The walls were a shimmering white and gold. Dozens of glittering crystal chandeliers spiraled down from the ceiling. Candles lit on each pillar; which illuminated the ballroom’s occupants. A group of five women in front of her all had flowing, elegant ball gowns that were frilly but pale. She could hear their low chatter as they talked among themselves and laughed, seemingly completely at ease in this festive atmosphere. Lilith's crimson and black gown made her stick out like a swore thumb. She wondered through the masked crowed aimlessly as she discreetly scouted for her next victim.

Lilith grinned widely as the stranger in black accepted her offer. She rested her free hand on his shoulder before they began to glide through the ballroom floor together; the sounds of violins filled the air. They stood out in their dark attire as they waltzed through a sea of pale pastel gowns and suits. The demoness in disguise had hunger written in her eyes. One could easily mistaken that look for lust but she was actually fantasizing how she would devour this man when given the opportunity"You are an excellent dancer"She complemented her partner.

-----------------------------

This interpretation of Lilith and art belong to me

Villainous belongs to Alan Ituriel

#villainous oc #villainous bh #villainous black hat #villainous #my art #art #Myart #Oc #villainous rp

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 6 Easter Eggs & References

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS review contains spoilers.

Trying to catch all the references and Easter eggs in any given episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is a little like trying to count all the times Spock does anything with his eyebrows in The Original Series. It’s possible, but even when you think you’ve spotted everything, the second you blink, he raises his eyebrow again.

In the sixth episode of Lower Decks, there aren’t any references to Spock raising his eyebrow, but there are plenty of eyebrow-raising Easter eggs. Here’s everything we spotted, from holodeck characters to retro-23rd century designs, and one shout-out to the greatest helmsman in Starfleet history.

Ambient Warp Drive Noises Are the Best White Noise

For years, Trekkie superfans have pointed out that the soothing, ambient noise of the Enterprise-D is a sonic genre of white noise in it of itself. Several white noise simulators exist online to help you recreate this noise, while a few fans have tried to create devoted YouTube channels to the various different “ship sounds.” The person who designed all these sounds, and recorded them (often using heavily modulated freezer sound recordings) was Jim Wolvington. From TNG through Enterprise, nearly all ‘90s sound design was overseen or created by Wolvington. In this Lower Decks scene, the gang tries to create the sounds of the Enterprise-D and Voyager.

How the Lower Deck-ers would know what Voyager sounds like at warp is somewhat questionable, considering the ship was missing in the Delta Quadrant for most of their careers. Maybe they visited one of Barclay’s holographic reconstructions?

An Antares-type ship from TOS

The ancient Starfleet wreckage in this episode features a ship with the registry NCC-502. In the TOS episode “Charlie X,” the ship Antares was retroactively given the registry number NCC-501. This designation and starship design is also based on ships seen in The Animated Series episode “More Tribbles, More Troubles.”

Sonic showers

Lower Decks makes its second joke about the fact that most people on Starfleet ships probably use waterless “sonic showers.” The sonic showers were first glimpsed in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but we’ve almost never seen anyone use them. Because water can apparently be replicated, we’ll never really know why 24th Century starships still used the sonic kind. Either way, Dr. T’’ana has a point, using sound vibrations to get cheese out of fur sounds like a drag.

Boimler has something in common with Jean-Luc Picard

When Fletcher and Boimler joke about their Academy days, we learn that Nassicans tried to eat Boimler’s heart at one point. This references the TNG episode “Tapestry,” in which Nassicans stabbed Jean-Luc Picard through the heart, right after he’d graduated from Starfleet Academy.

TOS communicators

Tendi references the classic era of TOS when she says that among the old Starfleet wreckage, she hopes to find “ the original communicators, you know the clamshell design?” When Dax traveled back in time to the 23rd Century in “Trials and Tribble-ations,” she talked about an old tricorder having “classic, 23rd Century design.” Even in Star Trek, people are fans of the design aesthetic of TOS.

Wy can’t they just beam all the wreckage?

Because there’s so much space junk to clean-up, Tendi wonders why they can’t just beam-up the debris using the cargo transporter. In TNG, we saw the cargo transporter in episodes like “Datalore,” but we rarely saw it used in a salvage operation. Rutherford tells her “that stuff’s too massive” to be beamed by the cargo transporter, which could answer a very old fan question: Why can’t starships beam other starships to other locations? Apparently, size is an issue.

All your favorite holodeck parties

Before taking Tendi to the holodeck, Rutherford points out that the Holodeck is not just for fun, and then lists a bunch of ways people have used the Holodeck for fun. As he says, “The Holodeck is not just for hanging with..” and then Rutherford drops a litany of characters who have appeared in Trek, occasionally on the holodeck, but not always. Here’s the list of characters and which episode they appeared.

Sherlock Holmes: Data played Sherlock Holmes in the TNG holodeck episodes “Elementary My Dear Data,” and “Ship in a Bottle.” A holographic version of Sherlock Holmes was never seen in these episodes.

Robin Hood: This seems to reference the TNG episode “Q-Pid” in which Picard is put into the guise of Robin Hood by “Q.” This was a weird alternate dimension simulation, but it wasn’t on the holodeck.

Sigmund Freud: In the TNG episode “Phantasms,” Data took advice from a holographic version of Simgun Freud.

Cyrano De Bergerac: Cyrano De Bergerac does not appear as a holodeck character in Star Trek, however, holodeck addict Reginald Barclay was playing the role of Cyrano for one of Beverly Crusher’s theatrical productions in the episode “The Nth Degree.” In that episode, Barclay later merged his brain with the ship’s computer, which, of course, led to him becoming terrible. The larger plot of “Terminal Provocations,” at least for Fletcher, is pretty much the same.

Einstein and Stephen Hawking: Data played poker with holographic versions of Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Isaac Newton in the TNG episode “Descent Part 1.” Stephen Hawking played himself.

Leonardo da Vinci: On Voyager, Janeway frequently hung out in a holographic reconstruction of DaVinci’s workshop. The Voyager hologram of Leonardo da Vinci was played by John Rhys-Davies.

Socrates: The Greek philosopher Socrates was also mentioned in the episode “The Nth Degree,” mostly because Cyrano claims to have met him. But, in the Voyager episode “The Darkling,” the holographic doctor created a hologram version of Socrates who played Kal-toh (or Vulcan chess) against the Vulcan T’Pau. We most recently saw a Kal-toh game set in the season finale of Star Trek: Picard.

Delta Shift

It’s been previously established that the USS Cerritos seems to be on a four-shift duty rotation. This was an idea first introduced in “Chain of Command,” where Captain Jellico temporarily ordered the USS Enterprise on a four-shift rotation instead of three. Delta Shift is, presumably, the night shift.

Holodeck safeties

When Tendi and Rutherford enter the training program, the shipwide failures cause the holodeck safeties to be disabled. This concept goes back to the first season of TNG, in which the holodeck safeties were disabled in the episode “The Big Goodbye.” Arguably, even before that though, in the episode “11001001” an upgraded holodeck was used as a trap to lure Captain Picard and Commander Riker away from the bridge.

Load Bajorian Marketplace

Tendi and Rutherford are briefly in a holodeck recreation of a Bajoran marketplace on the planet Bajor. Though it’s not clear which province or city they’re in, it’s definitely not one of the bigger cities. Despite the fact that the space station Deep Space Nine was originally in orbit of Bajor, we didn’t get down to the planet all that much.

Evasive pattern Sulu alpha

When the Cerritos is in trouble, it’s time for some evasive maneuvers. Naturally, saying “Evasive pattern Sulu alpha,” references the flight controller (or helmsman) of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Hikaru Sulu.

Fletcher hooking his brain up to the computer

If it’s not obvious by now, the plot of “Terminal Provocations” is mostly lifted from “The Nth Degree,” insofar as Fletcher hooking his brain into a computer is similar to what Barcarly did in TNG. That said, aspects of the AI monster in this episode are vaguely reminiscent of other rogue AI hybrids, including Nomad from the TOS episode “The Changeling,” and naturally, V’Ger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Transfer to the Titan

Fletcher is sent to the USS Titan at the end of this episode. This means the person who “fired” him from his job is almost certainly Captain William T. Riker. In 2280, Riker has been the captain of the Titan for probably less than a year. We know Will and Deanna went to the Titan after Star Trek: Nemesis but we never actually saw what they did there. It’s also a good bet, that at this point in time, Riker is an expectant father.

Considering that Ron Docent’s secret password in the previous Lower Decks episode was “Riker,” it feels very possible that we could be getting a Number One cameo very soon. Or, at least, we can hope!

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Star Trek: Lower Decks airs new episodes on Thursdays on CBS All Access.

The post Star Trek: Lower Decks Episode 6 Easter Eggs & References appeared first on Den of Geek.

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thatboomerkid · 4 years

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The Halidom City of Rho

The Halidom City of Rho -- Urban Adventure Location for use with the GammaFinder Setting by Owen K.C. Stephens

It drifts along, some seven & a half miles above the scarred, broken wasteland stretched-out far beneath it, pushing effortlessly against the hellish winds of ash, glass, and the blood-thick dust of Empires.

Through storms of lightning and radiation, poison and caustic vapor, alien screams and unnatural flame ... it drifts.

It makes long, strange circuits over the shattered world below: loops & whorls across the wastes, following designs scarcely comprehensible to the tens of thousands who cling desperately to the titanic chains, ropes and improvised city-structures hanging from its impossible, ancient bulk.

Whatever insane gods constructed the massive, weightless behemoth upon which the Halidom City of Rho now grows & hangs, they are long-since dead.

And yet this triumph of esoteric engineering still edges along the bruise-colored skies beneath a half-shattered moon, sweeping lightly over still forests of soot-smeared rebar and through canyons of shattered asphalt & gore-spattered iron pipes. For those in need, stranded far out in the deep desert as it draws close, the leviathan of Rho is nothing less than a miracle: sunrise at midnight, a crack of bright lightning along the spine of the rainbow.

For those who clutch precariously at the long shackles which drape down from the eerie alien-wrought heavens, eking out a meager living among the clacking pillars of ozone & rust, it is a home: nothing less, and nothing more.

Brought to you absolutely free to play, to test & to share, as always, by the fine folks of my Patreon.

image from here

FUN FACTS ABOUT RHO

The gently-curved “Crown” at the absolute top of Rho hangs effortlessly in the sky at an altitude of about 12 kilometers (7.45 miles; 52,500 feet) straight up, drifting across the very bottom of the stratosphere. The very lowest levels of the city, conversely, are built to alternately hang a few feet into the air or drag gently along the ground, adjusted individually by the inhabitants of the Gasoline Docks to the specifics of the local terrain as needs arise.

The Crown itself is about 2 kilometers wide and generates a number of unnatural phenomena, the vast majority of which are indirectly beneficial to the maintenance of the city below. For example, every part of the great column beneath the Crown -- 151 cubic kilometers of swaying, densely-packed Urban city-sprawl -- has a breathable atmosphere and functions as a Low Gravity environment. In addition, the Crown seems to repel the worst excesses of wastelands weather by some unknown means: dozens of citizens die each year when Rho passes through truly lethal sections of the wastes, certainly ... but not hundreds or thousands.

The majority of Rho is anchored -- directly or indirectly -- to one of the massive crystalline “crown-chains” that descend from the superstructure above the city; constructed of an unknown, seemingly indestructible translucent material found nowhere else in the known world, these vast crown-chains provide more than simple constructional support: the chains generate soft lighting at night, produce electricity for those with the means to tap them, remain cold to the touch even in temperatures exceeding 140 Fahrenheit, and slowly absorb a variety of dangerous environmental effects -- including poisonous fumes and radiation -- into their milky, hypnotically-glowing depths.

The city generally moves at a speed of about 8 to 24 kilometers an hour (5-15 mph), making infrequent stops for unknown reasons; the longest recorded full stop lasted for just over 137 hours before the city abruptly began moving once again. The city follows something approximating a “route,” although attempts to predict where the city will move to more than a week out have only about a 20% chance of being correct. Some seemingly-arbitrary sites in the wasteland are visited seasonally (passing close-by three to four times a year), while other destinations are utterly unique: approached only once, then forever abandoned.

The city of Rho still passes within walking-distance of the twin corpse-pits where Alpha and Beta once stood, slowing to a crawl as it does so. In the wake of the Omega Invasion, Rho is perhaps the single largest and most prosperous city in the known world; Rho escaped the most direct attentions of Omega by pure good fortune, spending the majority of the invasion sailing across a near-impassable radioactive desert, all-but-inaccessible to the majority of Omega’s forces. Although casualties were still high, as the city more than once came under savage assault by aerial troops sent from distant Omega, Rho survived when far greater cities fell.

Exposure to the weird energies of the Crown and its chains is known to cause any number of particularly abnormal mutations; among the most extreme are those who -- born to human parents -- develop into haan at puberty. Haan who metamorphose in this way are believed to breed true and are viewed with a kind of quasi-religious terror by the more-human denizens of Rho; the majority of these creatures ascend to Crownside at the invitation of their predecessors, dwelling high above the city in what those below imagine to be an incomprehensible alien splendor. Foreign Haan -- those born outside of Rho -- are viewed with grave suspicion.

Rho has enormous sections -- some of them thousands of feet tall and hundreds of feet wide -- of abandoned, crumbling buildings damaged during the assault by Omega: foundries, laboratories, water-treatment facilities, power-plants, greenhouses, libraries, art galleries and stranger locales -- hanging amongst the otherwise densely-packed hovels, speakeasies, windmills, turbines, farms, tenements, gambling-dens and swaying rope-bridges. Superstitious locals avoid these corpse-buildings for a variety of reasons ... some of them purely practical, as bizarre alien predators birthed of Omega’s unnatural weaponry are, on occasion, successfully tracked-down and slain there.

History: No records purport to describe the construction of Rho; it seemingly was, is, and always shall be. As long as people have wandered the ashen-grey wastes in search of food and shelter, the Halidom City of Rho has drifted from horizon to horizon, endlessly spitting-forth shrieking raiders on motorbikes or loosing waves of white-robed flower-children tasked with spreading the gospel of their mysterious apocalypse-faith.

Rho has acted as a kaiju-scale mobile base to any number of cults, war-bands and forbidden esoteric societies over the centuries, and as many wars of conquest have been fought directly beneath the distant, ever-glowing glassy disk of the Crown -- staining the dimly-luminous chains of the city a dripping crimson -- as have been waged against the outside world by ravenous believers seeking to climb into heaven and confront God eye-to-eye.

In recent years, Rho has come under the control of a powerful, charismatic outsider: the mutant Atlas Hagane.

THE HAGANE TWINS

Fifteen years ago, Atlas & Althea Hagane were motorcycle-soldiers of the Kló Slátrunar, reaving across the Labyrinth-Trees Obsidian beneath the marrow-stained banner of Yotun Juss, Clanfather at the Seven Peaks of Xi.

Ten years ago, each of the twins was a blooded Flotaforingi of Clan Juss, commanding a full fleet in the name of their power-mad Yotun.

Five years ago, the smiling twins came to Rho with their Stríðsbandalag forming a vast war-procession behind them.

Today ... well, now Atlas rules the city -- presiding over the Council of Clockwrights with an iron fist -- while his sister operates in the shadows, working her strange flesh-sorcery wherever she pleases.

Atlas finds himself quite popular with the people after instituting reforms to curb corruption, relax taxes on several vices & abolish the slave-trade, and many low-born adore him for allowing certain neighborhoods in good standing beneath Clockside a token representation on the High Council. The people are less enthusiastic about Althea Hagane, admittedly ... although she is highly regarded in certain circles for her sponsorship in ordering the construction of several new hospitals in Rho.

That she uses these hospitals are her private feeding-grounds is a closely kept secret in Clockside.

Atlas is a technological genius with a mutant gift for manipulating large carbon polymers; this may be treated as a Super-Strength Tiered Mutation with a range of 30 feet (rather than touch) that only affects plastics. He is a lean & hungry man with sharp features, small round glasses, and a cold, brusque demeanor, known to smile only when he has outwitted an enemy.

Althea has some more-mysterious ability to manipulate biochemistry with a touch, although her gifts of healing & poison are little understood by anyone other than herself and her brother. Well-built, attractive and outgoing, Althea gladly plays the role of the blushing socialite for anyone stupid enough to fall for the act. In truth, she is far more dangerous than her “little brother”.

The two keep a close-knit gang of former motorcycle raiders -- blooded clansmen of Kló Slátrunar -- as their personal entourage, and rarely make appearances below Clockside without them.

Atlas dreams of finally unlocking the incomprehensible codes to pilot the Crown of Rho directly. Althea dreams of living forever, a goddess over the wastes, indulging her obscene appetites eternally.

Althea is far closer to achieving her dream than her brother is to realizing his own.

Economy: A city adrift, endlessly wandering, Rho is a massive trade-hub that gobbles-up & sheds cargo across the wastes. Exotic and high-tech goods are more common here than nearly anywhere else in the world, as the city makes brisk trade in oddities from every corner of the wasteland ... yet the Nomad City is ever-hungry for the most basic of goods, including potable water, medicine, building supplies, livestock, leather, weapons, steel, fuel and food.

Those who are willing to barter & bargain-hunt in the clanking, claustrophobic markets of Rho soon find that the towering Halidom City more than lives up to its reputation: priceless relics and unusual treasures available nowhere else in the world can -- on occasion -- be bought or sold for little more than a loaf of moldy bread or a warm half-sixer of sugary, caffeinated Blood-Fast Juice.

A clever trader can make a tidy fortune here.

Of course, there’s a reason why one of Rho’s primary exports is stripped-naked corpses, littering the parched desert earth behind it in waves.

Government: Three distinct tiers of government rule over three distinct tiers of citizenry dwelling on Rho, although -- in theory -- all citizens living beneath the glorious heights of Crownside are obedient to the Council of Clockwrights and to their master, High Clockwright Atlas Hagane.

The unquestioned masters of Rho are the haan, who dwell above the disk and the city ... and who may or may not possess some means of guiding the Crown, steering Rho and her people safely through the wasteland to new destinations. There’s no actual proof that the haan have the technology or the know-how to even attempt such a feat, but that doesn’t stop citizens -- desperate for something to believe in -- from offering-up sacrifices & sacraments to the haan whenever they make their infrequent journeys below the gleaming heavens.

The haan communicate rarely, if at all, stepping along the petal-shrouded walkways before them to take whatever they desire from the city or her citizens in exchange for their eerie glowing-glass coins with little ceremony. Haan within the city are subject to no laws but their own: if a haan violates a Code under the Clockwrights, that haan is exiled to Crownside and -- in theory -- never seen again.

No one has ever gotten a straight answer as to what, precisely, the haan are doing up there.

Of greater interest to visitors is the legal code of the Council of Clockwrights. This parliament is elected democratically from among the citizens of Clockside (in theory, the finest minds in the known world) and their decisions are (again, in theory) reached via negotiation and compromise, implemented according to majority rule ... but it should be noted that their dictums are not subject to the legal restraint of a constitution or even of precedent.

In other words, if the Council decides that it wants you -- you, personally -- dead, they can simply vote to have you executed. Or, more likely, to place a sizable bounty on your head and be done with it.

LAW & ORDER

It’s worth noting that Rho doesn't have a standing police-force. Doesn’t need one, either. Instead, it uses a system of bounties.

Basically anyone can become a bounty-hunter, but you do have to register first; the Council of Clockwrights levies a small fee to register, and they can revoke your license if you piss them off. Anyone can place a bounty on anyone, but frivolous or malicious bounties may be nullified by a simple yes/no vote from the Council of Clockwrights; if they catch you abusing the system, you pay the full price of the bounty to the city’s coffers and half the price to the wronged target of your bounty ... or to their next of kin, if the Council didn’t get around to nullifying a lethal bounty-contract before a hunter could collect.

Most bounties are not lethal.

Most simply require the target to be brought before a judge ... sometimes by violence, of course.

97% of criminals in Rho are not hauled all the way up to the Council of Clockwrights to stand trial. The Council is busy, and they don’t care about you. Instead, the accused are subject to the whims of a traveling bounty-judge, who rules in the stead of the Council. Again, pretty much anyone can become a bounty-judge, but you have to register first. This is significantly more expensive than becoming a bounty-hunter, and you have to prove citizenship in Rho going back at least three years.

Note that you do NOT need to prove anything approximating “competence in adjudicating legal disputes”.

Both parties in a suit must agree to the use of the same bounty-judge; for this reason, bounty-judges carefully cultivate their reputations as fair, wise and impartial -- or at the very least easy to bribe -- so that they can ensure plenty of business.

The ruling of a bounty-judge is final.

People who don’t like a bounty-judge -- or the particular ruling of a bounty-judge -- usually make their displeasure known by murdering the bounty-judge. Popular bounty-judges are, of course, significantly more difficult to murder than unpopular ones, so bounty-judges have a distinct incentive to rule in a way that matches the expectations of the mob.

It’s a surprisingly efficient self-regulating system, if you care significantly more about maintaining a semblance of public order among desperate survivors & career criminals than some abstract concept of “justice”.

Rho has no prisons; punishments are usually levied in the form of involuntary indentured servitude, monetary fines, or as particularly amusing, poetic & ironic penalties: a man who steals fish from a widow might first be beaten with fish, then placed in a stockade dressed as a fish, then forced to spend a year -- dressed as a fish -- working in a hatchery of the Creaking Farms, with a portion of his wage garnished to support the victim & her family.

Bounty-judges with a sense of humor are more popular, so judges often compete to establish a name for themselves as “quirky”.

Theoretically, the Council is guided by an impartial High Clockwright: the wisest and most honorable citizen of Clockside, a population selected from the rabble below for their genius. In practice, of course, the High Clockwright is invariably the most calculating & charismatic strongman of their generation, ruling over a cowed chamber of hereditary senators through threat of violence.

Far beneath the glorious heights of Crownside, of course, rival gangs and cults extend their own rule just as far as their knives will allow, creating their own courts & punishments as they see fit. By the time a dictum from the Council of Clockwrights has trickled-down to the scavengers, scrappers, tradesmen, pirates, grease-monkeys and gamblers of the Gasoline Docks, it’s usually viewed as a little more than pomp & puffery.

SLICING THROUGH CHAINS

In the chain-forest of Rho, any weapon that can (quickly) carve through metal is strictly forbidden. The punishment for carrying or brandishing any weapon that could detach a chunk of the city -- and everything beneath it! -- in the heat of a brawl is swift, merciless execution.

For that reason, laser & plasma-weapons are the most valuable form of contraband in Rho, and make a tempting commodity for those who dare to try their luck smuggling such tech into the Halidom City.

Places of Interest:

Crownside: Above the clouds, above the great & shining disk, it is said that the haan -- the high aristocracy of Rho -- live much as the very wealthiest ancients of the Unburned Times once did: walking wide, well-swept cobblestone boulevards which curl & weave through sparkling forests between massive mansions, tending to their palatial gardens among riverbeds & waterfalls, doted upon by legions of well-bred servants. In their copious free time, it is supposed, they must somehow guide or otherwise serve the disk. Of course, no one goes Crownside except the haan and those they select to accompany them; what’s they are up to up there, precisely, only they know.

Clockside: Just beneath the disk, among towering buildings lit only by the glow of the Crown directly above, the Council of Clockwrights and their extended families inhabit a dense spider-web of laboratories & libraries, observatories & orreries, colleges & cathedrals brought up from the aching earth below at inconceivable cost. The Halidom City of Rho imagines itself the most glorious of meritocracies (technically, a geniocracy), wherein any mechanical genius -- no matter the station of their birth -- capable of puzzling-out the mysterious engines of the ancients may earn themselves a name & rank among the clerks and courts that eternally bet-upon the city’s next move.

The Creaking-Farms: Just beneath the illuminated marvels of on-high are cubic miles-upon-miles of hatcheries, hydroponic gardens and hanging plantations thick with cash-crops. Rho is, after all, fed not just by what can be stripped from the wastes below but also by industrial-scale agricultural engineering carried-out with brutal space-saving efficiency. Tenements of farm-workers are crowded upon one another in endless hive-stacks, mingling in filth with the insects & fungus they tend. The wet life-web of the Farms absorbs airborne pollutants from the Reaches below, while providing fresh delicacies for those above.

The Rusted Reaches: Beneath the farms, the smoldering and lightning-wreathed factories of Rho bustle with workers, churning out goods for trade, use & sale by the ton. Several of the massive, half-broken 3D-printing facilities plucked from the wasteland & caught-up in the iron webs of the Rusted Reaches are capable of producing objects otherwise unknown to the world: these ancient buildings strain, spark & creak, vomiting-forth weird, tilted treasures often less valuable than the raw materials used in their creation ... and, on rare occasion, devices more valuable than any cache of earthly riches.

Lower Depths: The detritus of six miles of industry & experimentation above is collected here, where gutter-rats scrape by filtering-out whatever valuables can be collected from the rain of poison, madness and shattered, ill-understood tech cascading endlessly down from the heights. This is the last stop for waste: anything that can’t be used here goes unceremoniously off the edge of Rho to topple a few thousand feet into that unforgiving desert which trails endlessly behind the city.

The Gasoline Docks: Rho lives or dies by what can be scrounged by hand -- often at gunpoint -- from the cracked, dust-choked & sun-baked earth below. The very bottom of the city thus represents a thriving, boisterous melting-pot of cultures, as the Nomad City pulls-in whatever it deems potentially valuable & discards the rest. This is the face of Rho to outsiders, as the great majority of visitors to the Halidom City never make it more than a half-mile above the surface of the planet before returning to earth ... one way or another.

Adventures in Rho

An Undiscovered Route: When word comes down from Clockside that the city has adjusted course and will soon be heading over nearly-impassible territory toward a new, unexplored destination, the excitement is furious. News travels fast in the waste, and soon raiders from nearby settlements have made the pilgrimage to Rho, hoping to ride the well-stoked, unstoppable leviathan to a treasure-trove of long-shuttered vaults of elder technology ripe for the taking. The locals are not necessarily taking this influx of new “citizens” to the Gasoline Docks well.

Neutral Ground: When two or more powerful war-bands of the waste must negotiate, the city of Rho often plays host to such parlay. If the PCs need to arrange a meeting with a dangerous & well-armed enemy, Rho can serve as the perfect odd & flavorful backdrop for an audience: the Gasoline Docks are made up of dozens of curious neighborhoods and districts, and the PCs should get a chance to explore the scum & villainy to their heart’s content ,,, and maybe get embroiled in local politics.

Theft from the Ancients: An up-&-coming gang out of the Gasoline Docks has an ambitious scheme: when the Halidom City next comes within a day’s motorcycle-ride of a building-sized technological oasis which serves as a crossroads between several small settlements, the gang means to steal it. Yes, the building. Armed with hover-skiffs, ropes, trucks, anti-grav plates, axes, welding equipment and explosives, the gang intends to lift the whole damn structure out of the ground and deliver it to back to Rho. They’ll need plenty of extra hands on-deck for a heist like this, for those with a mercenary bend.

Hired Help: The current High Clockwright and his twin sister are looking for something in the deep desert. Something old. Something valuable. Something they don’t want anyone in Clockside to know about. They have a few hints as to where this mysterious object might be found, somewhere out there in the wastes, but they can’t afford to send any of their private Kló Slátrunar clansmen to go poking around the radioactive dunes. That’s where the PCs, as outsiders to Rho, come in.

The Pillar of God’s Hunger: What the city of Rho wants, the city of Rho takes. A tiny farming-community built around a potent Halidom listening-device of the ancients calls for aide: the Nomad City is on the horizon, drawing nearer by the hour. When it sweeps close enough, Rho will very simply devour every last bit of the village: claiming food, livestock, water, building-material, human lives, stray technology, even the rich soil of the fields. The city cannot be stopped. Can the PCs evacuate the village & its mysterious treasures in time?

#Starfinder #GammaFinder #campaign #GM Advice #essay #npc

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carnistcervine · 4 years

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CATLA AU

So CATLA is ATLA but instead of humans, they're all cats. CATLA.

Okay there's a little bit more to it than that. lol

-Here's a lowdown of the Gaang ~Aang- Sphynx kitten ~Katara and Sokka- Norwegian forest cat kittens ~Toph- Persian kitten ~Zuko- Oriental kitten

-Here's what each of the four nations are ~Water Tribes- Norwegian forest cats or some kind of arctic fishing cat ~Earth Kingdom- Varies wildly ~Fire Nation- Oriental and Siamese cats ~Air Nomads- Sphynx and cornish rex

-Yes, they're ordinary, four paws on the ground cats. They aren't bipedal or anthro.

-Though I do like to imagine them wearing clothes.

-It adds to the cuteness in my opinion. :D

-In this AU, the Avatar is an ancient being endowed by the wisdom of having lived thousands of lives. So it's less, individuals that are born and have separate and distinct personas, and a bit more hivemindy?? Not a literal hivemind, but basically the same person who lives and dies over and over again, learning and relearning, and trying different approaches, slowly changing as the ages go on.

-Aang is not the same cat he was when he was Wan(he’s grown and changed as we all do), but it's the same consciousness that has been passed down over the ages.

-As a consequence of this, the Avatar is a bit creepy and awkward. They don't mean to be, but mortals tend to find them very odd.

-Though the Avatar does try to act as normal as possible, as to not alarm of disturb those around them.

-At first it was fairly easy to pick the Avatar out of a group of children, as they were an old soul. But over the ages, they've gotten better at acting like an actual child.

-They still tend to be much more mature than their peers though.

-Yeah, the Avatar can have creepy, slightly voyeuristic, asocial tendencies, but they're a deeply empathetic being.

-They are rare to take a lover, because, well, being basically eternal/immortal they're lover will eventually die and they will continue to be.

-Being reborn is never easy for the Avatar, because their consciousness is an uninterrupted stream. They go from being killed/dying to suddenly being born and that's kind of traumatic.

-I imagine that a human version of this would absolutely abhor the fact that they are doomed to go through puberty again and again until the fucking world ends. :'D

-Anyway, the last thing Roku knows before being born again is the terrible heat and crushing pain of being buried by the pyroclastic flow. He suddenly goes from being in horrible pain and being unable to breath to being able to breath again, squirming and crying. He's realizes that he's been reborn when his mother licks his head, and starts to calm down.

-His new mother names him Aang.

-Still hurting from Sozin's betrayal, Aang tries to befriend as many cats and kittens as possible. He's eager to play with his peers, and does his best to hide his creepy spirit tendencies.

-For a while it works, Aang has many friends from all around the world, and a loving mentor in Gyatso.

-However, while Aang is still too young, the monks reveal to him that he's the Avatar.

-Or I suppose more accurately, they reveal that they know he's the Avatar.

-In this AU, the Avatar is born knowing they're the Avatar.

-But anyway, this catches Aang off guard, because he usually has more time than this to live as a normal kitten. He's deeply concerned, but tries to take it in stride.

-At least until his peers reject him.

-This tears open the wound of Sozin leaving him to die.

-The final straw is when the try to take Gyatso from him.

-Aang can't take it anymore and grievously harms several monks. It takes Gyatso to get him to calm down from his rampage.

-When Aang comes to his senses, he's horrified by what he's done and runs away.

-He and Appa get caught up in a storm and Aang freezes them both, sending them into stasis.

-Katara comes along and frees him, but being in stasis for a century has had a negative effect on his mind. He's lost his connection to his past lives. He no longer remembers he's the Avatar.

-Of course, with the loss of his memory, also comes with the loss of a lot of his social abilities.

-Katara finds poor Aang endearing, but Sokka finds him creepy.

-Aang just freakin sees Katara and starts crushing on her immediately. The first thing he sees are her eyes, and he gazes deeply into them. He sees her spirit, and falls in love with it.

-When Aang meets Zuko for the first time, he creeps Zuko out. He won't stop staring at him with those big, eerie eyes. But Aang can't help it, Zuko reminds Aang of someone, with those firey golden eyes...

-When Aang goes into the avatar state, he doesn't throw Zuko overboard, instead he traps him in ice and starts to walk up to him.

-Iroh, afraid his nephew is in danger, jumps in front of the Avatar, who simply stares at the two before calmly leaving with Sokka and Katara.

-When Aang exits the Avatar state he passes out and has a dream where his past lives whisper to him, trying to reach him.

-Aang is equally surprised by the revelation that he's the Avatar as Katara and Sokka. Though he's relieved to see that neither are showing any signs of abandoning him.

-As the Avatar, Aang has the ability to put restless spirits to rest. He does this at the Air Temples and other mass grave sights. Bring peace to pained souls, so they may have peace.

-Slowly, over the course of his journey to the north pole, Aang reconnects with his past lives and puts his mind back together into a single stream of consciousness again.

-When he visits the spirit Oasis is when he finally puts his spirit back together.

-Aang flips out when Zhao kills the moon spirit and goes on a rampage, chasing after him with the ocean spirit's blessing.

-Zhao manages to evade Aang who ends up getting caught up fighting Fire Nation soldiers.

-Zuko fights Zhao and Aang finds them. He completely ignores Zuko as he encapsulates Zhao in darkness and shatters his spirit.

-It's at about this time that the moon is returned to the sky and both the Avatar and the ocean spirit calm the hell down.

-Zuko is confused, he watched the Avatar attack Zhao, heard Zhao's blood curdling yowl and now Zhao is just lying there. He alive, and breathing, but his eyes are glazed over and he won't say anything.

-Zuko doesn't know what he just saw, but he has a sinking feeling that it was something horrifying.

-When they meet Toph, she initially wonders if Aang is really there or if she's imagining him.

-She low-key checks in with the others to make sure that Aang is actually there and not just an illusion.

-She still has times when she wonders if the other kittens are just fucking with her and Aang doesn't actually exist.

-When the sandbenders steal Appa, Aang is very upset. But he holds it in, he realizes that it's not Toph's fault, she tried her best.

-However when they encounter the sandbenders, Aang looses his shit and goes full Avatar beast mode.

-Katara is the only thing between the sandbenders and an early grave or more accurately, since he's that angry... having their spirits SHATTERED.

-Katara comforts Aang who breaks down crying into her fur.

-It takes Aang some time to get past his grief, but the Gaang help him through it. They all become closer as a result.

-When Azula kills Aang, and by extension the spirit of the world, the barrier between the human and spirit worlds destabilizes, and plagues are sent out upon the earth as it begins to die.

-Irreversible damage is prevented by Katara's quick action in reviving Aang with the spirit water.

-Aang's recovery is slow and difficult, and while he's down, spirits and plagues infest the world.

-Once Aang is recovered enough to go on adventures again, the Gaang end up working undercover to heal the damage done to the world by Aang's death.

-The Gaang see and understand firsthand just how devastating the effects of loosing the Avatar are and gain a new appreciation for Aang and his work.

-During the eclipse, when the Gaang encounter Azula, they're all pissed at her.

-Katara tries to tell Azula off about how she endangered the world, but she just rolls her eyes.

-She wastes their time until the eclipse ends, and Aang makes an executive decision in an attempt to avoid trouble with her in the future.

-He lunges at her, eyes glowing, and easily dodges her lightning.

-Azula feels real fear at this, she remembers the state Zhao was found in after a bad run in with the Avatar. She genuinely fears that Aang can and will do the same to her.

-She manages to generate a much more mild shock while Aang is in the process of breaking her spirit.

-Being subjected to the trauma of being shocked again is enough to drive Aang out of the avatar state, and the Gaang flee. Leaving Azula with a partly shattered spirit.

-She's still coherent, but her mind is fractured and she can feel it.

-The betrayal of her friends causes her to fall apart completely.

-Zuko is terrified about joining the Avatar, because he knows what angry spirits are capable of.

-Much to his surprise however, Aang is happy to see him come to the good side.

-It still takes him a while, however to get comfortable around Aang's presence. The look in Zhao's eyes after Aang attacked him, never leaves Zuko.

-Aang is tempted to kill Ozai, and he almost goes through with it. But instead he shatters Ozai's spirit and swallows his inner flame.

-Ozai is left a broken and confused cat. Thrown in prison to rot.

-After everything is over, and Zuko sees the state his sister is in, and the state his father is in, he has some very serious, very grave questions for the Avatar.

-Aang is patient and willing to answer, but he's not sure Zuko is ready to hear the truth of what he did to them.

(You bet your tucus that Zuko wants to help his sister after Aang tried to shatter her spirit and she subsequently went insane((which was pretty much bound to happen anyway bcuz Ozai is a shit dad)). But that's a story for another day...)

-Some more notes on this AU, Lu Ten is alive. He’s a Dai Li agent that goes by Lung now. And Jet’s a (repressed) firebender. :’D

-But the most important thing is that the Gaang are a bunch of adorable kittens who snuggle together in a pile when they sleep.

#ATLA #Avatar #ATLA AU #Avatar AU #CATLA

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bionicdragonguardian1 · 4 years

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Recluse Vampire Izuku

Inspired by @25coriandah‘s little bit of art (which isn’t even something that happens in this part, oops) where Izu finds Wolf Pup Kacchan and has no clue how Werewolves work, and every book is wrong.

Slightly moved the Timeline Forward c.1920s America, Izu still dresses in his Victorian Garb. Where they’re currently living NOT specified, but that’s what I had in mind while writing this.

If you wanna get State Specific, I was thinking Colorado

Izuku’s age is based on the Grigori legends (11-13th centuries) so I headcanon that he just really liked his early-Victorian Clothes.

Yes, I made the girl that turned him Toga and the girl he turned Uraraka

Also yes, I combined the standard Vampire fangs with Supernatural’s mouth full of retractable ones because I just love those but it still seems kinda dumb that they lose the regular fangs.

Part One:

Sorry that this is just planning out Izuku’s backstory, but I wanted to make sure I had at least a slight foundation for Izuku’s character before introducing Katsuki.

Izuku was the sole son of a noble and a merchant’s daughter when his father died his family refused to accept either of them into their family. So while he was the only man alive that held his mother’s strong merchant name, he was rejected by the ones that had true sway in the world they lived in.

His mother had married his father as young as she did- a mere fourteen- because her father was dying and they all knew that while Inko Midoriya knew the ins and outs of all the sales her father had been doing for years no one would take her seriously without a husband doing the negotiations for the business. As the fifth son of a noble family, Hisashi actually stood to gain something by marrying into the Midoriyas and forgoing his noble name.

It had been senseless violence that had turned that on its head a mere two years after they’d met, mere months after Inko had given birth to Izuku. A random killing that happened for no reason other than the fact that the man wanted to do it.

Now without her father, husband, and a baby on her hip, Inko had no chance of keeping the sales moving the way they had been. Izuku grew up learning all he could about his mother’s inheritance, that he could fight to take back once he was of age. But life was still difficult for them. Winters were harsh and Izuku had to convince men at least twice his age to take him seriously.

Rather difficult when he didn’t have much of shouting tone in his voice box, and he was rather unassuming looking. He just wished he was a hidden monster, able to show them that he could prove them wrong.

He wished that for many years.

He got his wish when he was sixteen. But not in the way he wanted.

A man Izuku had never done trade with before showed up at his mother’s business, asking for him specifically.

Something felt strange about but business hadn’t been going well recently with the groups choosing sides and fights breaking out in the streets. They needed this deal if the man was seriously going to give them half the money he was offering.

It all went to hell from there.

He should’ve realized why he felt like he recognized the man’s face far sooner than he did. When he finally figured it out, he was in too deep. This wretched man was a lord, one of the ones who was bringing the fights into the streets. Despite that, he hardly seemed to lose any of his pawns.

Izuku found out why that night. The teeth dug into his throat catching on his trachea, choking him with that, and when blood flowed into his lungs he felt like he was drowning.

When the teeth let go the last thing he expected was to wake back up.

But he did. His throat was sore, bone dry, and his stomach burned for food.

He had this habit of gnawing on his lower lip but was stunned when he felt a harsh prick in his lip and blood on his tongue.

He came face to face with the one who bit him again, a blonde woman who looked to be about his age, with gold eyes, and sharp canines.

For some reason he hissed at her, feeling his jaw flex in an unfamiliar way. She returned it and he watched stunned as her two sharpened canines, as well as the rest of her teeth were covered by a new row of pointed teeth sharper than even her unnaturally sharp teeth.

Izuku felt his stomach drop as he realized that would explain the strange feeling of his jaw flexing.

Whatever she was, she had turned him into.

She used his paused to pin him to the floor, like the rabid animal he was acting like.

Izuku could hear the clanging of chains from down the hall as clear as if they were in the cell with him. Though once they reached the cell he heard something else.

A strong, loud, fast, pumping and it made his newly acquired teeth ache.

The chains stopped rattling, the pumping remained and Izuku fought the blonde girl for an entirely new reason.

“Try not to kill her, but if you do that’s ok too.” those were the first words she said to him and Izuku didn’t understand what they meant. “Though she’s a bit of a pest, so I hope you do kill her.”

He would not kill. That was a fact and no matter what had happened to him, that would not change.

The blonde kept him pinned by the neck, watching as she let Izuku see what was the source of his new hunger pangs. A girl, brown hair and brown eyes, blush in her cheeks as she struggled against the chains that kept her from going any further than three feet from the eyelet in the floor.

He wanted to eat this girl. His stomach would’ve rolled if it wasn’t so hungry.

When the blonde woman let him up, he didn’t even think, he just moved. Moved so fast he heard her wrists snap at the pull of the chains, the crack of her skull against the stone. Only pausing when he heard the beating her chest slow to what he knew was a dangerous point.

He was killing her. That killed his hunger in an instant. With the hunger no longer clouding his mind, something else kicked in and all he knew was that he was using his teeth, that were currently latched onto the side of her neck, to inject her with something.

Finally, he could take his teeth out of her, looking back at the blonde with horror and confusion in his eyes.

She just smiled, then cheered at the fact that she was still alive. Izuku breathed a little easier at that, only then did she lead him out of the cell and back to the upstairs. Where he met with the man who wanted to pay him again.

The man explained what had happened to Izuku, what he was planning to do now, and that his mother had been told he was dead- since he could no longer act like he was human- and given the entire amount that Izuku had been told they would receive.

It was unsurprising to Izuku that his mother planned to leave. This city had taken away her husband, and to her knowledge, her son. This country had taken her mother and her grandparents. The only thing that eased his heart was that they had lost track of her considering she left so quickly afterward.

It made his refusal to kill and play soldiers easy. Especially considering it had the man more than willing to try and kill him, and when Izuku escaped, he was pursued through the night, but after that, they were willing to just let him die.

Had Izuku not been as inquisitive in the after-death as he was in his true life, he probably would’ve. Yet, he learned that he could survive on the blood of animals, for the most part, and only needed the blood of actual humans once a year.

It took about a decade before he met more like him.

Most of them were in small groups, maxing out at about a dozen.

The man that had planned to use Izuku had hundreds.

It took him until then to realize exactly how much about him had changed, physically. Other than the things he realized on his own.

His ears were pointed now, he did, in fact, have two sets of teeth. His canines were the only parts of his teeth that could possibly give him away without him either feeling threatened, going hungry for long periods of time, or when he was feeding. Sunlight could kill him, though what he had been told was in fact untrue.

It wasn’t direct sunlight that would kill him, he’d just get sunburned easily, it was sunlight through a blessed magnifier. Though magnifier sounded like a stretch since church windows were apparently strong enough to do him in.

His reflection no longer showed in mirrors due to the presence of a holy metal. While it wouldn’t kill him- like their mythical opposite- it did reflect that he no longer had a pure being to be reflected.

He would, in fact, never age again.

That made Izuku ready to go charging back into the monster’s den and kill him, he was constantly underestimated due to his age and now that would never stop.

He wouldn’t call himself nomadic, he had met several small groupings of vampires that were and he didn’t really fit in with them either, instead, he moved along on his own.

Eventually, he ended up in England. At first, the sheer number of vampires worried him. It had been nearly five hundred since he had seen a grouping this large, and he was only lucky that the group had destroyed itself from the inside out before anything too horrendous could happen.

Once he had realized that they were peaceful, and surprisingly scared of him when he said when and where he had been turned, he was less worried.

Though he stayed to keep a close eye on them.

It was also surprising that while they covered a vast portion of a country, these people were strongly connected.

He’d never tell them but it made him feel suffocated.

It came with the upside that he’d been able to see the brunette girl he’d turned all those years ago was still… he couldn’t say alive, perhaps Not Dead worked in this situation?

At least both of them were offended that the only reason they had been called together was the fact that they were turned around the same time in the same area.

Her presence made things feel less suffocating. For awhile. Not to mention she had a life outside of Izuku being this stranger that she just happened to know.

He stayed put for the longest time in his life, but when every single one of their kind in the country knew him by name and face he needed to leave. Now.

Despite the outcry of war.

He’d settled away from where he thought humans would settle but was surprised to find that there were Natives who lived in this area already.

While they were distrusting of him at first, they quickly realized that Izuku couldn’t care less about them if they left him alone.

Sometimes he wished he’d cared more, by the time it was too late. Yet, he stayed largely disconnected from other people, despite how much time continued to pass.

He’d become something of a myth- more than he already was- which he could accept, because it largely kept people away from him. Even if meant that he would have to go a bit further when he actually needed to drink human blood.

Which was why he was stunned to his core when he stumbled across a small blonde child, unconscious in the woods near his property. He may be a myth but he’d been alive for centuries so he had enough money to pay his taxes, unlike some people nowadays. He wondered if that was why the boy had been left in the woods. One too many mouths to feed.

The boy’s heart was loud, possibly too loud and too fast, given his size and apparent age, but Izuku felt something he hadn’t felt since he was truly alive, a pull to another person.

He barely realized he’d already moved by the time he had the blonde boy in his arms. That was when something caught his eye. The boy’s ears weren’t covered by his spiky blonde locks as Izuku had thought, rather they were upon his head, pointy, and covered in equally blonde fur. He also had a tail, from what Izuku could feel. Though it was tucked down his pant leg so Izuku had missed it on his preliminary scan of the boy.

Social recluse, yes. Moron, far from it, he had all new books and hundreds of old ones he’d had his acquaintances in other countries send him when he decided to make this his permanent home.

He still sent letters to most of them, across several countries, and the more studious ones were easy to agree to buy two of all books and send him one. So long as he returned the favor. He’d agreed when one of them had literally come to find him across a wartorn country because he hadn’t sent him a new book.

He just hoped that somewhere in his collection had at least some information to help him with the small boy.

@thepinkjinx, I hope this appeases you until I can finish my next bit.

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tanadrin · 5 years

Text

Notes on the Taurahe Language

by Loremaster Surazh Sher'an, of the Royal Society of Silvermoon

Published in the Journal of the Royal Society, in the 6853th Year of the Sun and 5th year of the Regency (619 K.C., 27 A.O.D.P.)

Since the Third War and the reestablishment of diplomatic and trade contacts with the peoples of the western continent of Kalimdor, several new frontiers in natural philosophy have been opened up to the scholars of our Society, in areas botanical, historical, thaumaturgic, and, not least of all, linguistic. Though the tongues of the Eastern Kingdoms have been well-covered in the scholarly literature, and even those of Draenor have had several monographs published on them since the Second War[1], the languages of Kalimdor remain woefully understudied. The most tentative work relating Thalassian to the Darnassian languages has been undertaken[2], but of the other Kalimdorean tongues, nothing substantial has been written.

In the interest of attempting to make my own modest contribution to the study of the Kalimdorean tongues, I would like to offer the following preliminary analysis of a language entirely unstudied by our loremasters at present and, I believe, spoken nowhere in Quel'Thalas, and in precious few places in the Eastern Kingdoms. I refer, of course, to Taurahe, the tongue of the Shu'halo, or, as they are known to outsiders, the Tauren. The Taurahe language is most interesting, being related neither to the tongues of Draenor nor of the Easter Kingdoms, and seeming to have no antecedent in any of the ancient mother-tongues of Azeroth, like Proto-Troll, Proto-Vrykul, or Ancient Kalimdorean. Furthermore, it is a language currently in flux, insofar as the way of life of the Shu'halo has changed enormously since the arrival of the Orcs in Kalimdor and the incorporation of the Tauren into the Horde. Although I cannot capture either the complexity or dynamism of this language in a brief article, I hope to pave the way to more extensive future analysis.

1. Taurahe in Context

The Shu'halo are a tauroid race of bipeds, native to eastern Kalimdor. First encountered in the dry coastal regions around Bladefist Bay, in what is now Durotar, an alliance was formed between Warchief Thrall and Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof of the Bloodhoof Tauren in 6833 YS, during the Third War. At that time, all Tauren clans[3] were nomadic; after the tumultuous events of the war and the defeat of Archimonde at Mount Hyjal, the Bloodhoof Tauren and a portion of the other clans settled at Thunder Bluff in Mulgore, with several satellite towns like Bloodhoof Village being founded nearby. Many seasonal Tauren campsites have been converted into permanent settlements, like the Crossroads and Camp Taurajo, facilitating trade with Durotar and supporting a larger population of Tauren.

Despite the adoption by some of a settled lifestyle, many Tauren remain nomadic or semi-nomadic, some for political reasons[4], others simply out of tradition[5]. Because of the hunting lifestyle of the Tauren, and the number of rites and rituals which center around hunting, the creation of permanent settlements and urban centers has not been widely welcomed in Tauren society. Much of the shift in Tauren culture is down to the charismatic leadership of Cairne Bloodhoof; though his authority nominally extends only over the Bloodhoof Tauren, he is highly regarded by the other Tauren clans, and holds considerable influence in Tauren society at large. It remains to be seen whether these new developments in Tauren society, and the importance of Thunder Bluff as a political and economic center, will outlast their chief architect.

As is to be expected, Taurahe vocabulary centers primarily around the historical Taurahe way of life: terminology of the natural world, of geography, travel, hunting, and hunting- and pathfinding-related technologies is quite extensive. The Tauren have traditionally been a shamanistic people, like the Orcs, and so have an extensive vocabulary of shamanistic and natural thaumaturgy. Lacking an understanding of the arcane, or of other planes, their vocabulary for arcane thaumaturgy is limited, and most of their vocabulary around these kinds of sorcery has been borrowed from Orcish and, more recently, Thalassian. Of some influence also has been the Night Elven tongue[6], since the Tauren have a long history of intermittent contact with that people. Almost all vocabulary related to metalworking, alchemy, wheeled conveyance, shipbuilding, and large-scale warfare is directly borrowed from Orcish, with a small subset of loanwords from the language of the Darkspear Trolls.

Taurahe is not a unified language; each sub-clan has its own dialect, resembling most other dialects within their clan, as clans have historically tended to migrate together and to maintain close ties in marriage and trade. Any clear geographical distribution of the dialects has been substantially confused by many centuries of migration, and the spreading of various features and loanwords between migratory clans and sub-clans. Even so, not all forms of Taurahe are mutually intelligible; furthermore, the prestige form of the language has often varied according to the internal politics of the Tauren clans, with the emergence of a preeminent leader or tribe altering the lingusitic center of gravity of the Tauren people. Since the establishment of Thunder Bluff, the Bloodhoof dialect spoken there has been treated as the de facto standard, both among Tauren and within the rest of the Horde; therefore, it is the Thunder Bluff dialect that shall be treated here.

2. Writing System

Taurahe has not traditionally been a written language. Tauren society has historically been based extensively on oral traditions, which supply everything from legal and ritual formulae to history and mythology, which, based on the study of different versions among different clans, have remained remarkably constant over centuries or even millennia[7]. Although the Tauren have had contact with literary societies such as the Night Elves for many centuries, they have generally eschewed writing for most culturally significant applications, ascribing far greater prestige to orally transmitted traditions. Most Tauren elders have committed the equivalent of dozens of volumes of history and poetry to memory; some, such as Hamuul Runetotem, are said to be able to recite what would fill a hundred books in any Orcish library.

Nonetheless, Tauren have some knowledge and respect for runic sorcery, and have applied it to the totems they wield in battle and use for ritual purposes. These "runes" seem ultimately to be of Night Elven origin, despite no extant tradition of their use in Night Elven society. Potentially, they date from before the Sundering, given their similarity to arcane runes used in Quel'thalas and the contemporary aversion to arcane magic among the Kaldorei.

Almost all written forms of Taurahe found now in Kalimdor are, however, recorded using the Orcish writing system. Orcish uses a combination of phonetic and logographic symbols, having descended from an earlier logographic stage[8] some two centuries before the opening of the Dark Portal. Foreign languages, when recorded in Orcish, typically use only the most common logographs, relying instead on extensive use of the phonetic symbols normally reserved for inflection and particles. The syllabic nature of phonetic Orcish, however, renders it a poor fit for Taurahe, which has a completely different phonetic inventory. Therefore, in this article I have preferred to rely on the superior Thalassian alphabet to transcribe the sounds of Taurahe, which are in fact quite simple for the Elven tongue to pronounce.

3. Phonology

Taurahe forms generally CV syllables, making it at least phonetically one of the less vulgar languages of the Horde. It rarely admits consonant clusters, only occasionally permitting certain syllable-final glides and certain syllable-initial affricates. The fifteen consonants as transcribed into Thalassian are as follows:

p b t k m n s sh h ch (a velar or glottal fricative) l r w y (a palatal semivowel) ts (affricate)

Taurahe has five vowels, which may be either short or long; in most dialects, although not Bloodhoof, the long consonants are in fact diphthongs, and even when speaking Bloodhoof, Tauren tend to preserve those diphthongs if present in their native dialect. The five primary vowels are /a e i o u/; the long vowels are most usually realized as /a: ei i: o: au/. Less common are /au/ and /ai/ or /ie/ for /a:/ and /i:/. Grimtotem Tauren has a completely different system of long vowels, /ae ei ie oa ue/.

4. Noun Classification

The declension of the Taurahe noun is only for four cases--the nominative, the objective, the locative, and the relative--but is greatly dependent on the classification of the noun, based on what appears to be both an animacy and social-role hierarchy. The former is not unlike the animacy classification of some Zandali languages, while the latter bears a (passing) resemblance to the "gender" categories in human languages, but both should probably be treated on their own terms, as the Tauren system is both distinct and more regular than either. Roughly speaking, Taurahe noun classification is between inanimate or abstract, sessile or natural, dynamic-animate, fully sapient, and elemental or divine nouns on the one hand; and provider/loremaster, hunter/leader or shaman/spiritwalker on the other. The social role classification is somewhat more difficult to understand as a regular process among the less animate nouns, and is also not fixed: one noun may migrate between all three categories according to circumstance and usage, without the reclassified noun necessarily being considered a new lexeme. Inflecting a noun according to another animacy category is, however, a standard part of new noun formation.

There are at least six or seven distinct declensions of Taurahe nouns; my Tauren interlocutors have not been able to agree on the precise number, and it may be that comparison to the Thalassian system of declensions is in fact entirely inapplicable here.

5. Verb Nuclei

The Taurahe verb is formed from affixes attached to a single root, a "nucleus" which may be built up with both prefixes and suffixes and even, in some cases, infixes. Roots generally encompass a single semantic concept, which affixes may extend and alter in ways which would, in most other languages, necessitate the derivation of a new word. For example, "kuto," "fight" with the telic, transitive affixes forms the verb "karutoha," "to win [against sb.]", while with the impersonal affix forms "ukuto," "to fall into disarray." The impersonal form can be further modified by the personal, passive affix, "uma'ukuto," "to be routed in battle," which despite the presence of the impersonal affix alters the valency of the verb. All told, Taurahe has perhaps one-tenth the verbal roots of a language like Orcish or Common Human (to say nothing of the refined Thalassian tongue), but dozens, and possibly hundreds, of verbal affixes. Few of these affixes are truly exclusive of one another, and a deeper syntatic analysis is required to determine how, exactly, the valency, tense, and aspect of the final verb are determined.

6. Taurahe Words and Phrases

The following phrases are taken from interviews with my Tauren interlocutors. I traveled to Thunder Bluff and Bloodhoof Village for a period of eighteen weeks and interviewed approximately a dozen Tauren of four different clans. This is but a small sample of the corpus I used for my analysis, and with the aid of an colleague who has been transcribing Taurahe lore from Orcish to Thalassian script, I hope to soon begin work on a more complete grammar of the Taurahe tongue.

Vocabulary

-she/-sha: Affix denoting natural phenomena, celestial bodies, and the divine, cf. "An'she," the creator-sun. shu: Clan, tribe, political grouping. Cf. "Shu'halo," the Tauren people. halo: 1st person plural pronoun. We, ourselves. apaa: watch, guard ro: path, road apa'ro: the Waywatcher, Malorne -ah: augmentative affix por: lore, wisdom, custom, law por'aa: ancient wisdom, longstanding (and therefore inviolable) custom alo: within, inside ne[e]: to be (cf. "ishnee," "let be," or "ichnee," "to remain, to always be") pawne: spirit, soul owa: to dash, to bolt, to run tanekaa: blue; cf. Taunka "taunka," "winter," and the Taurahe idiom "bluest [i.e., coldest] of winters" manii: to shake laata: to shake; with the causative infix cf. "Laakotamanii," "the Earthshaker." isha: grave, serious, deep awaak: doom, ill fate, misfortune eeche: white ala: to walk mo: dream ala'mo: druid, i.e., one who walks in dreams haurakemani: the Earthmother shu'halo: a Tauren, the Tauren ahee: language; to speak

Phrases:

Pawne chi owako lehe "[May the] spirits guide you"

Ya shu'kushaa "For the Horde"

Namak'ehe shu "Victory or death"

Chi shu'ma'hewa "I've been expecting you."

Lehe shu'po'halo wota'ano kuu "May my ancestors watch over me"

Rek'ala'mo ya kusho'ake ne "Cat druid is for fight"

Notes:

[1] See especially Magister Thoradiel's "On the Orcish Tongues" and its follow-up, "The Draenei Dialects." Loremaster Harran of Dalaran's groundbreaking work, "The Eredar-Draenei Family" dissects the relationship of the demon-languages of the Twisting Nether to the Draenei tongue, but N.B. that possession of this volume is forbidden in Dalaran, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, and Stormwind owing to its extensive analysis of demonic incantations; the nearest available copy is to be found in the Black Library of the Royal Apothecary Society, in the Undercity.

[2] Magister Gal'an's "Some Darnassian-Thalassian Cognates", Notes of the Royal Society, 6851 Y.S., issue no. 3.

[3] Taurahe "shu," variously translated as "clan," after Orcish usage, or "tribe." A "shu" is any extended kinship group, and the term is sometimes applied to large political groupings of any kind, e.g., "Shu'kaldo," the Night Elves, or "Shu'ekate," the people of the east, i.e., the Alliance.

[4] Most notably the Grimtotem who, while having diplomatic relations with Thunder Bluff, are not technically part of the Horde.

[5] E.g., most of the Wildmane Tauren.

[6] Now called Darnassian after its principal dialect, but functionally the same as Proto-Kalimdorean.

[7] The consistency of Tauren oral traditions is bolstered by analysis of their (admittedly scant) attestations in Night Elf histories. Several important entries are found in "The Annals of Kalimdor," vols. XLIV to LXX, currently held in the Sentinel Archives. The author acknowledges that the currently strained diplomatic relationship between Quel'Thalas and Darnassus may make consultation of these codices difficult.

[8] "Old Orcish Pictographs," Proudmoore, Jaina. Journal of the Linguistic Society of Dalaran, vol. 53, no. 2.

#conlanging #world of warcraft #wow #tauren #sadly nothing in the corpus supports a tone system :/#hey blizz hire me to be your language person #you can pay me in WoW classic gametime #but nobody put any thought into your current system and it makes no sense

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deathghost8 · 4 years

Text

Studying Watts to replay his message

So it turns out all that I'm doing here is trying to get the message out, the message that was already crafted by the greatest word technologist to ever live. The polarity message. The nature message. The money and class and wealth message. The message about being a civilized social unit of people, not individual nomadic clans at war with one another. My Narration stream idea was only abstract at first, but now I have done several streams and studied some of the messages about declining the social status game in order to fully embrace our inseparability from nature. The message about Society, Nature/Mankind unity, Trust/Love, Money/economy and class / the social game as pertains to Zen as the full exit from that version of the game of life is what I need to replay to my friends and followers, and to a society whose authority I refuse, in search of educational sovereignty. I have clarified the opening module to be directly focused on my GRIPE with a society that demands we subscribe to the king-grandfather obsession of social structure with Authority coercion built in to the minimum transaction. Here I am gathering transcripting so that the totality of that message in his words can be brought together in a single post that I can share with my friends who I am not able to go directly to and live share the hours of content that this comprises, with my own commentary and interaction with them. The talk titles as they exist in my youtube playlists is as follows 1- The spectrum of love https://www.alanwatts.org/1-5-7-spectrum-of-love/ - Trust (Life is willingness to die) https://www.organism.earth/library/document/trust Interlude / tangent - Zen tales and legends -- zen poetry / interlude with some musical aspects, helps establish the ground for the conclusion items. filler info. 2- Words and emptiness talk - if you don't use words, you don't have any problems. the big problem here is that we are bewitched by words, there is actually only one Thing. one ultimate suchness, which is nature. The reality that is nature. all religious/philosophical problems are problems created by words. 3- the talk that goes into man's inseparability from nature and the defuse of aggression as the way of conveying manliness. "And the great symbols of our culture are the rocket and the bulldozer. The rocket--you know, compensation for the sexually inadequate male. So we're going to conquer space. You know we're in space already, way out. If anybody cared to be sensitive and let outside space come to you, you can, if your eyes are clear enough. Aided by telescopes, aided by radio astronomy, aided by all the kinds of sensitive instruments we can devise. We're as far out in space as we're ever going to get. But, y'know, sensitivity isn't the pitch. Especially in the WASP culture of the United States. We define manliness in terms of aggression, you see, because we're a little bit frightened as to whether or not we're really men. And so we put on this great show of being a tough guy. It's completely unnecessary. If you have what it takes, you don't need to put on that show. And you don't need to beat nature into submission. Why be hostile to nature? Because after all, you ARE a symptom of nature. You, as a human being, you grow out of this physical universe in exactly the same way an apple grows off an apple tree. So let's say the tree which grows apples is a tree which apples, using 'apple' as a verb. And a world in which human beings arrive is a world that peoples. And so the existence of people is symptomatic of the kind of universe we live in. Just as spots on somebody's skin is symptomatic of chicken pox. Just as hair on a head is symptomatic of what's going on in the organism. But we have been brought up by reason of our two great myths--the ceramic and the automatic--not to feel that we belong in the world. So our popular speech reflects it. You say 'I came into this world.' You didn't. You came out of it. You say 'Face facts.' We talk about 'encounters' with reality, as if it was a head-on meeting of completely alien agencies. And the average person has the sensation that he is a someone that exists inside a bag of skin. The center of consciousness that looks out at this thing, and what the hell's it going to do to me? You see? 'I recognize you, you kind of look like me, and I've seen myself in a mirror, and you look like you might be people.' So maybe you're intelligent and maybe you can love, too. Perhaps you're all right, some of you are, anyway. You've got the right color of skin, or you have the right religion, or whatever it is, you're OK. But there are all those people over in Asia, and Africa, and they may not really be people. When you want to destroy someone, you always define them as 'unpeople.' Not really human. Monkeys, maybe. Idiots, maybe. Machines, maybe, but not people. So we have this hostility to the external world because of the superstition, the myth, the absolutely unfounded theory that you, yourself, exist only inside your skin." ~Alan Watts. 4- the hypocrisy around money - the invention of system "economic utopia" is not wishful thinking - the system to distribute money for work done by machinery on the humans behalf is THE ONLY REAL ALTERNATIVE to self-destruction -- Finally I said, "The trouble with you gentlemen is you still think money is real.” And they looked at me and sort of said, "Oh ha ha ha, someone who doesn't think money is real. Cause everybody knows money is money and it's very important." But it just isn't real at all because it has the same relationship to real wealth, that is to say to actual goods and services, that words have to meaning - that words have to the physical world. And as words are not the physical world, money is not wealth. It only is an accounting of available energy - economic energy. Now what happens then when you introduce technology into production? You produce enormous quantities of goods by technological methods but at the same time you put people out of work. You can say, "Oh but it always creates more jobs. There will always be more jobs." Yes, but lots of them will be futile jobs. They will be jobs making every kind of frippery and unnecessary contraption, and one will also at the same time have to beguile the public into feeling that they need and want these completely unnecessary things that aren't even beautiful. And therefore an enormous amount of nonsense employment and busy work, bureaucratic and otherwise, has to be created in order to keep people working, because we believe as good Protestants that the devil finds work for idle hands to do. But the basic principle of the whole thing has been completely overlooked, that the purpose of the machine is to make drudgery unnecessary. And if we don't allow it to achieve its purpose we live in a constant state of self-frustration. So then if a given manufacturer automates his plant and dismisses his labor force and they have to operate on a very much diminished income, (say some sort of dole), the manufacturer suddenly finds that the public does not have the wherewithal to buy his products. And therefore he has invested in this expensive automative machinery to no purpose. And therefore obviously the public has to be provided with the means of purchasing what the machines produce. People say, "That's not fair. Where's the money going to come from? Who's gonna pay for it?" The answer is the machine. The machine pays for it, because the machine works for the manufacturer and for the community. This is not saying you see that a... this is not the statist or communist idea that you expropriate the manufacture and say you can't own and run this factory anymore, it is owned by the government. It is only saying that the government or the people have to be responsible for issuing to themselves sufficient credit to circulate the goods they are producing and have to balance the measuring standard of money with the gross national product. That means that taxation is obsolete - completely obsolete. It ought to go the other way. Theobald points out that every individual should be assured of a minimum income. Now you see that absolutely horrifies most people. “Say all these wastrels, these people who are out of a job because they're really lazy see... ah giving them money?” Yeah, because otherwise the machines can't work. They come to a blockage. This was the situation of the Great Depression when here we were still, in a material sense, a very rich country, with plenty of fields and farms and mines and factories...everything going. But suddenly because of a psychological hang-up, because of a mysterious mumbo-jumbo about the economy, about the banking, we were all miserable and poor - starving in the midst of plenty. Just because of a psychological hang-up. And that hang-up is that money is real, and that people ought to suffer in order to get it. But the whole point of the machine is to relieve you of that suffering. It is ingenuity. You see we are psychologically back in the 17th century and technically in the 20th. And here comes the problem. So what we have to find out how to do is to change the psychological attitude to money and to wealth and further more to pleasure and further more to the nature of work. And this is a formidable problem. It requires the best brains in public relations, in propaganda, in all that kind of thing, in all the media: television, radio, newspapers, everything...to try to get across a message to the vast general public about what money is. You see the difficulty is this. When the public suspects that the money that is being issued, the dollar bills being issued by the government are only paper, and stand only for paper, they start putting up prices so you get an inflationary situation where the more paper money there is, the higher and higher and higher the prices go… which is a very stupid psychological maneuver. And people have to be persuaded. The least effective way of persuading people is passing laws, but they have to be persuaded somehow not to put up the prices, but to play fair with each other and keep some sort of standard correspondence between how much is produced and how much credit is issued. - 5- escaping societies brainwashing the function of a Zen teacher is to put his students in all kinds of situations we're in the normal course of social relations they would get stuck by asking nonsensical questions by making absurd remarks by or always of unhinging things and above all keeping them stirred up with impossible demands: to hear the sound of one hand to without moving stop a ship sailing out on the water or to stop the sound of a train whistle in the distance magic- to touch the ceiling without getting up to amongst chair -to take the four divisions of Tokyo out of your sleeve -to take Mount Fuji out of the Kobach's all these impossible questions are asked and in the ordinary way of interpreting these questions we think well now be how could we do that? see that's the very difficult question that's been asked and you have to think what would I do to do that because we are caught up in a certain way of discourse which the language game that we play and the social game the production gains and the survival games that we play are good games but we take them so seriously that we think that that is the only important thing and this is to unstick us from that notion and realize that it would be just as good a game to drop dead now as to go on living is a lightning flash bad because it lives for a second as compared with the Sun that goes on for billions of years you can't make that sort of comparison because the world is like mingoes also with the world rebels of son and vice versa so long-lived creatures and shortness creatures go together that's the meaning of that saying flowering branches grow naturally some short some long so this n is a scene in in a zen community where the spontaneous behavior is encouraged within certain limits and as the student becomes more and more used to it those limits are expanded until eventually he can be trusted to go out on the street and behave like a true Zen character and get by perfectly well you know what occasionally happens on the street when two people are walking down the sidewalk straight at each other and they both decide to move to the right together and then to the left together and they somehow get stuck and they can't pass each other then teachers will pull just exactly that sort of stunt when going down a path and meet one of their students to see if they can get him in a tangle and can you escape from it and you will find in everyday life that there is a very clear distinction between people who always seem to be self possessed and people who are desiring and nervous and don't quite know how to react in any given situation always getting embarrassed because they have their life to strongly programmed you said I mean this is a common marriage argument you said you would do such and such a thing at such and such a time and now you've changed your plans not that they really the change of plans really caused any inconvenience just the feeling that when you say you will do something at a certain time you ought to do it at that time come hell or high water well that's being very unadaptable that's being a stone kind of sticky thing if it after all doesn't matter when we do it and as if somebody is offended because the time instant chase that's simply because they are attached to punctuality as a fetish and this is one of the great problems this is causes many automobile accidents men rushing home to be on time for dinner when they stayed late either working or they had to stop for a drink of some bar or when the girl feels that she has to if she has a fussy husband and she feels she has to have the dinner ready at exactly a certain moment she ruins the cooking he'd rather have a faithful wife and a bad cook how about not riding on your toes so you see we spend an awful lot of energy trying to make our lives fit images of what life is or should be which they could never possibly sit so then practice is in getting rid of these images but it's it's so explosive socially to do that and it's so various people they get vertigo they get dizzy they don't know which end is up and this happens you know if you've ever been in one of those blab blab sessions where they call them tea groups I think it's all something like that where the people gather together without any clear idea of what this gathering is about they know it's somehow self-exploration but just how do you begin on that and so somebody starts to push his idea and then somebody else says well why you tried to push your idea on us and then they all get into an argument about the argument and the most amazing confusion come about that sometimes they all see what idiots they're being and then they learn to live together in a they open and spontaneous way there was a very interesting dinner party once where the Zen master was present and there was a geisha girl who served so beautifully and had such style that he suspected she must have some Zen training and after a while he when she paused the silly sake cup he bowed to her and said I'd like to give you a present and she said I would be most honored and he took the iron chopsticks that are used for the hibachi with charcoal brazier moving the charcoal around he picked up a piece of red hot charcoal and gave it slip well she instantly she had very long sleeves on her kimono she weld the sleeves round her hands and took the hot charcoal withdrew to the kitchen dump it and changed her kimono because it was thought through then she came back into the room and after a suitable interval she stopped before the Zen master and bowed to him and said I would like to give you sir present I would be very much honored of course he was wearing a kimono or something like this and so she picked up a piece of coal I've offered it to him he immediately produced a cigarette and said thank you that's just what I need it now you know in the same way that we have this in our culture certain people who are communal who know how to make jokes and gags in a completely unprepared situation face them with anything and they somehow come through so that is exactly the same thing in a special domain as then only it will be master of them does this in every life situation but the important thing is to be able to do this this is the secret you must remember you can't make a mistake now that's a very difficult thing to do because from childhood up we have had to conform to a certain social game and if you'll go to conform to this game you can make mistakes or not make mistakes so this thing is gone into it all the time you must do the right thing there's certain conduct appropriate here a certain context appropriate there and that sticks in us and gives us a double self all our lives long because we never grow up! - --- you realize that the whole of life plays a game - which is a childhood game - **There are three kinds of people top people middle people of bottom people and there can't be any middle people and let's to the bottom people and top people accompany any top people unless to the middle and bottom people and so it goes and everybody's trying to be in a top set well if they're going to be there has got to be someone on the bottom set and the people who do the right thing and people do the wrong thing you hear in Sausalito we have this very very plainly there are the right people nice people who live up on the hill then there are the nasty people who live down here on the waterfront and they grow beards and they wear blue jeans and they smoke marijuana and whether the other people on the top of Hill Drive Cadillacs and have wall-to-wall carpeting and nicely mowed lawn and their particular kind of poison is alcohol now the people who live on the top of the hill know that they're nice people but they wouldn't know they were nice people unless they had some nasty people to compare themselves with every in-group requires an output whereas the nasty people think they are the real far-out people whereas those people those Hillbillies the squares and they wouldn't be able to feel far out unless there were squares see these things simply go together but when that is not seen we play the game of getting on top of things all the time and so we're in a constant state of competition as to if it's not I'm stronger than you it's I'm wiser than you I'm more loving than you I'm more tolerant than you I'm more sophisticated than you it doesn't matter what it is that this constant competition is going on in terms of that competition we can of course lose place and in that sense make mistakes but what a Zen student is is a person who is not involved in the status game that's the real meaning of a monk he is not keeping up with the Joneses and to be a master he must get to the point where he's not trying to be a master the whole idea of your your being better than anybody else simply doesn't make any sense at all it is totally meaningless because you see everybody manifesting the Marvel of the universe in the same way as the Stars do and the water and the wind and the animals and you see them all as being in their right places and not being able really to make mistakes although they may think they're making mistakes or not making mistakes and playing all these competitive games but that's their game now I only say if that game begins to boil and it begins to trouble you and give you alphas and all kinds of things then you raise the problem of getting out of it and therefore you start to become interested in things like then that is simply a symptom of your growing in a certain direction where you are tired of playing a certain kind of game you are as naturally flowing in another direction as if a tree were putting out a new branch so because you say oh well we people are interested in higher things you see that depends still on the differentiation of rank between the superior and the inferior people but when you begin to see through that and grow out of that you don't think anymore of this superior and inferior classification you don't think we are spiritual people who attend to higher things as distinct from these morons are only interested in beer and television this is simply our particular form of life like there are crabs and there are spiders and there are sharks and there are sparrows and so on the trouble with the human being is like the trouble with certain animals like the dinosaur who evolved to the point where he was so big did he have to have two brains a higher self in the head and a lower self in the rump and the difficulty was to get these two brains coordinated but we have exactly the same trouble and we are suffering from a kind of jitters that comes from being two brained now you see I'm not saying that that jitters is bad it's a potential step in evolution and an opportunity of growth but remember in the process of growth the oak is not better than the Acorn because what does it do it produces acorns or you could say just I like I sometimes enough to say that a chicken is one eggs way of becoming others so an oak is an acorn way of becoming other acorns where is the point of superiority the first verse of that time I just quoted the flowering branches grow naturally some short some long the first verse is in the landscape of spring there is nothing superior and nothing inferior the flowering branches are naturally some short some long so that's the point of view of being an outcast in the sense of being outside the taking seriously of being involved in the social game and therefore being threatened by making mistakes of doing the wrong thing that is to say of carrying into adult life one's childhood conditioning where somebody is constantly yammering at you to play the game so therefore the preachers and the teachers take the same attitude towards their adult congregation the parents take two children and lecture them and tell them what they should do and judges in courts feel also entitled to give people lectures because they say those criminal types haven't grown up but neither have the judges it takes two to make a quarrel so one can begin to think in a new way in the polarity thinking instead of being stuck with the competitive thinking of the good guys and the bad guys the cops of the robbers the capitalists and the Communists the all these things which are simply childishness now of course you recognize that if I at the moment I say that it's like talking in English in order to show that the English language has limitations and I am talking in a language that seems competitive to show that the competitive game has limitations if I was saying to all you cats here look I have something to tell you that if you get this you will be at a better position than you were before you heard it but I cannot speak to this group or the society or this language speaking culture without using the language the gestures the customs etc that you have the Zen masters try to get around this by doing things suddenly that people just don't get well what is this therefore that is the reason why this is a real reason why then cannot be explained you have to make as it were they jump from the valuation game of better people and worse people in-groups and out-groups and you can only make it by seeing that they all are mutually interdependent so if we take this situation let's say I would be talking to you and saying look I have some very special thing that you've got to take notice of therefore I am the in-group and I'm the teacher and you are the out-group I know perfectly well that I cannot be the teacher unless you come in and so that my estate is in my position is totally dependent on you it isn't something you see therefore I have first and then you get these things arise mutually so if you wouldn't come I wouldn't talk I wouldn't know what the same hahaha because I borrowed your language so that that is the insight that things go together then when you see that and aren't in competition then you don't make a mistake because you don't do this when I first learned the piano and played these wretched scales the teacher beside me had a pencil in my hand and she hit my fingers every time I made a lot wrong note consequent was I never learned to read music because I hesitated too long to play the note on time because I was always business if his pencil gonna land see that gets built into your psyche and so people are always although they're adults and nobody is clubbing them around and screaming at them any longer they hear the echoes of that screaming mama all that bum been aiding Papa in the back of their heads all their life long and so they adopt the same attitudes to their own children and the fast continues because there is no I mean I don't say that you shouldn't lay down the law to children if you want them to play the social game but you if you lay down the law to your children you must make provision later in life for them to be liberated to go through a process of curing them from the bad effects of Education but you can't do that unless you two grow up you see as we grow up as I including myself so that is the fig now therefore in the Zen scene you would think that the master as we know even as we read about him is an extremely authoritarian figure that's the way he deliberately comes on at the beginning he puts up a terrific show of being an awful dragon and this screams out all sorts of people who don't have somehow the nerve to get into the work but once you are in a very strange change takes place the master becomes the brother he becomes the affectionate helper of all those students and they love him as they would a brother rather than respect him as they would have father and therefore the students and masters they make jokes about each other they have a very curious kind of social relationship which has all the outward trappings of the authoritarian but everybody knows on the insides of that to joke liberated people have to be very cool otherwise in a society which doesn't believe in equality and cannot possibly practice it they would be considered extremely subversive therefore great their masters were purple and gold and carries scepters and fitted Thrones and all this carried on to cool it the outside world knows are there all right this has been their order they're perfectly fine

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