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nardos-primetime · 12 days

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Boy howdy okay *cracks knuckles* I'm gonna forewarn this with my takes on the turtles and Murder is not exactly the popular opinion so take it as you will.

First and foremost for any of the turtles to commit a PREMEDITATED murder (assuming we are talking strictly canon) the only one who would actually plan and go through with this is Leo. "What about Donnie?" No. He wouldn't. Leo on the other hand has shown the kind of rage he goes into not only when his family is in explicit danger but when he believes someone is specifically responsible for that. I don't think murder would be the first thing he jumps to, and it would take quite the scenario for it to wrap around to that (i.e. and enemy that keeps coming back and hurting them) but it's not off the table.

This makes him also number one to kill someone due to a fit of protective anger. So like, if you're gonna taunt a hamato while playing with their lives I wouldn't recommend doing so without knowing where Leo is.

And second is Raph, kind of a similar scenario, but I think Raph's would stem more from fear than direct anger. Frightened that if he doesn't do something, things will get worse, and in a fit of panicked rage well...

Third is Mikey, shocker. It would take a LOT to snap Mikey into a state where he's pissed off enough to actually kill someone but like, we DID see his reaction to his favorite pizza places getting torn down. I feel if at any point he concluded there was no longer a peaceful solution to a fight, he'd bring down the axe.

And my unpopular opinion is that Donnie is at the bottom of this list. MAINLY because he has so many other methods at his disposal to handle enemies. Knock them unconscious, leak all their nudes, dig up tons of blackmail, toss a bomb that makes them itch. Sure he also gets protective anger, but he almost never feels the need to resort to murder to solve a problem. And also, in some cases, he would just think death is a mercy. I truly don't think Donnie would kill someone with intent, but it could happen accidentally.

None of this counts kraang as people all these turtles will exploded these bitches on sight.

TW FOR MURDER, OBVIOUSLY LOL

I did tag for blood but idk

Some Doodles for fun, didn't really have ideas for the other two since I mainly wanted to respond to the concepts overall hehe.

Coming from an overall concept of Canon and it being premeditated and more of a separate kill, I agree that Leo is first in line for that shit. Though, I do feel like he'd have the most potential alongside Donnie to actually get away with it after the fact.

The difference with Donnie is exactly as you said. Donnie's petty. If he WERE to do something premeditated, he would absolutely go for other methods first, maybe even torture if we're hitting something similar to murder. Physical or Psychological. I feel like the difference with a more Canon approach of Donnie is that he would kill on accident. Whether it's going too far in a fight or his tech malfunctioning, I doubt he'd directly go into a fight with murder as the actual intent. Even if he did use other methods, I feel like the most likely case is him accidentally going too far. Especially since we know he has issues with that already.

Leo is one of the most directly dangerous. If he deemed it, you would be easy to get. We're talking about a fast runner with portals and two perfectly sharp swords. He's also good a good manipulator if he really wants to be. It's not hard to imagine him talking someone out of an area of protection if he can't be asked to use mystics that time.

Raph, I agree completely. It would be a mixture of anger and fear that pushes him to that point. He probably wouldn't tell the others. I can't see him planning something out prior and telling the others, I think he'd be afraid of judgment and maybe even fear from the others the most, even if he was doing it for their protection. I feel like overall, he leans the most between accidental and nonaccidental, I could definitely see both happening with him.

Mikey would totally be the most difficult to get to that point, and I agree that it would probably only be if he saw no other way out. But I also think Mikey would be the first to take this kind of position in a battle for some god forsaken reason. I feel like in the heat of the moment, his brothers would be too focused on protecting each other or getting out of there, I can totally see Mikey freezing realizing what has to be done before the others. Leo wouldn't kill anything mid battle on purpose, that's far too risky, Raph and Donnie as I've said prior are likely to have accidents in such a scenario, Mikey would be the only one I can see putting his foot down intentionally in a battle for some reason. Even if his view of the situation is incorrect. Which ironically means he would probably be the most likely one to get caught. (If he didn't crumble under guilt later.)

I feel like in terms of getting caught with the others, Raph would crumble under the guilt as well, likely being the second from Mikey to get caught. Third would be Donnie, as much as he might be able to clean up after himself at first, but without any support in his endeavors and the fact they almost all may be accidents, I think he'd get cocky.

Leo would potentially get lazy, too. Or maybe stop caring when under the context of the others already getting caught. Hell, Leo's extremely adrenaline junky coded imo. Maybe a few of his kills became less reasonable and more him shoving excuses in after getting too comfortable. But by the point the others are all taken in, assuming they can't get out, Leo would probably have one last hoorah in a feeble attempt to break them out. If he ends up doing it, he'd look like a monster but have his brothers back. If he doesn't... well with their luck, they'll at least get cells kind of near each other.

Of course, there are multiple ways to read into things. This is obviously leaning in on a more Canon approach. If we were involving a few more headcanons from me, Donnie would definitely go up to number 2 in danger on the list, lol /hj

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rise leo #rottmnt leo #rise donnie #rottmnt donnie #rise mikey #rottmnt mikey #rise raph #rottmnt raph #rottmnt headcanons #tw blood #cw blood #writings

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shunnedmorlock · 6 days

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Hi! What are your opinions on each of the greens ?

Have a good day/night!

Otto: I think he gets a bad rap, not in absolute terms but relatively to the people like Viserys and Daemon. If you hate Otto for pushing Alicent to marry Viserys, you should hate Viserys much, much more. Otto is "merely" complicit in what happened. There was no one Vissy could've said no to more effectively than Otto. It just goes to a double standard you see a lot with these farcical black-green debates where people change their opinions on whether it's ok to judge people by in-universe standards depending on what "team" they're a part of. He has a habit of telling unfortunate truths that get him in trouble, but most of the things he says are just, like, objectively true, but people don't want to hear it. Daemon is actually a danger to the realm and his brother, Rhaenyra does actually have to give the scions of great houses a hearing, Daemon did actually groom Rhaenyra to claim the throne, Alicent's children do pose an inherent threat to Rhaenyra by their mere existence.

From a Doylist perspective, like many other things, I think episode 9 really butchered Otto's character. All of a sudden the guy who has been working hand in hand with his daughter for the past few episodes didn't tell her about the plot to seat her son on the throne??? And now the guy who got fired by Aegon for being too slow and measured in his war planning is pushing to kill Rhaenyra immediately? And he wants to send the Kingsguard to do clandestine assassin work? And he's reluctant to ban child fighting pits for like no reason? I'm sorry, you don't have to be a feminist to not like that!

Alicent: I have talked about her at length. Nixonian Queen. I kneel. The war will make her worse, and I enjoy it. One of the characters I think on-balance the show improved.

Criston: Not a good guy by any means, but dismissing him as just a resentful incel is just boring. It's very clear he was, at best, conflicted about his tryst with Rhaenyra to begin with - he liked her, they had a lot of chemistry, but he does genuinely believe in his vows. The marriage thing is obviously silly and naive, but from his perspective it's him trying to do right by her (and also preserve himself and his soul), which puts him a step above many other Westerosi men who canonically often feel no obligations to the women they sleep with outside of marriage or the children created. There is a real difference in values between him and Rhaenyra that goes beyond him hating women, even if his values aren't strictly speaking good. I'm sorry, but the fact that a Westerosi man is as sexually repressed as an average Westerosi woman is genuinely a point in his favor! I sincerely hope he and Alicent make each other worse. Substantially improved by the show.

Aegon: This is going to be controversial, but baffling/over-the-top/ill-thought-out decisions like Dyana and the child fighting pits aside, I much prefer this version of Aegon to F&B. I don't care that he's kind of pathetic, that's fun, that's drama, that gives room for character development and growth into the king he ends up becoming. It's clear the writers do want Aegon to be kind of sympathetic, but it seems they didn't consider what stuff like Dyana would do to that, which to me indicates they meant the focus of that scene to be Alicent and her behavior, not Aegon. Which is stupid. One of the worse victims of inconsistent characterization, switching between vaguely sympathetic drunken frat bro to outright sex criminal every episode, or even in the same episode.

Helaena: I like what they've done with her. It's more interesting for her to be a doomed neurodivergent prophetess than just a little dumb, even though she hasn't done a ton so far. Similarly, in an RP I was a part of, Jaehaera was depicted as not simple, just autistic and it was much more interesting.

Aemond: BORING! Don't care about this guy, sorry. Maybe I'll like him more when he is pathetically down-bad for Alys Rivers, but right now he's just like budget Daemon to me, who I also find boring. He was more interesting as a bullied teen.

Larys: He's a tough guy to adapt because his motivations are kind of nonsensical behind a vague idea of getting back at Rhaenyra (?) for dishonoring his brother (??) by putting his children in line for the throne (???). The foot thing is kind of gross and I do wish they'd have given him an actual motivation but whatever. The actor's good and I do like him and Alicent on balance. Improved by the adaptation.

Tyland: We love our little bureaucrat don't we folks? Hope he gets more screen time later on.

Jasper Wylde: FUCK YOU SHOWRUNNERS WHY IS THE GUY WHO HAS HAD ONE LINE THIS ENTIRE SEASON PART OF THE COUP BUT NOT ALICENT FUCKING HIGHTOWER??????

#hotd #asoiaf #alicent hightower #otto hightower #aegon ii targaryen

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fondofcowboys · 9 months

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here's my very all over the place feelings on certain aspects of baldur's gate 3 as a romani immigrant. warnings for spoilers of course. mind you i have not finished the game yet!

1. i really can't believe there aren't more people talking about the very blatant racism in astarion's questline. im quite sure it's because the game already touches on it, even giving you the choice to call astarion a racist, and also because everytime we roma talk about anything that makes us uncomfortable we're immediately shunned and "well actually!"'d.

the problem is that it feels Extra icky because the man who was the inspiration for the original dracula, Vlad the Impaler, kept romani slaves. this is the ONLY part of vampire history that, no matter how different the media, will always stay relevant for some reason.

castlevania has the seekers, a nomadic group of magic users who pass their history down orally. while they are *mostly* treated well, the first arc of the show literally shows them being hunted out of town for the simple act of existing.

vampire the masquerade... well.. that's an entire other can of racism worms.

curse of strahd has the "vistani", a nomadic group of people who are treated like third class citizens everywhere they go, and are of course, most known for being tarot readers and drunkards.

the vampire diaries have the "travellers", who get called "gypsies" explicitly as a derogatory word by other vampires.

i want you to take any vampire media you enjoy and ask yourself, "is there anti-roma racism in this?". i guarantee you, if you look for it, you're going to find it. for SOME reason, the only thing that stays consistent with all these different vampire IPs, is that romani people are hated and scrutinized at every moment of their lives.

i MORE than understand that astarion's racial insensitivity is part of him. it's part of what makes him malleable by the player. you can help him understand why he's wrong, or you can lead him down a worse path.

i still reserve the right to feel some sort of way about astarion sacrificing fantasy-romani children for power, willingly. don't get me wrong, he's my favourite character, right up there with halsin. which is why i obviously have so many feelings about this.

(yes, the Gur were written inspired by romani people, if you were not aware)

2. the anti-immigrant sentiment is such an inherent part of the story that i did not think was going to stick around for SO long. i dont really have much to say about this, i think i should've expected it. as a fan of dragon age (i know, tragic) i'm quite used to unnecessary fantasy racism everywhere i go, i just hoped it wouldn't be part of the main crucial story.

3. larian studios i am so so so thankful for the halsin romance. eternally. forever and ever. he's my pookie bear and i'm so grateful some extra time was made to create a romance for him.

can i ask you why the hell does halsin want to LEAVE. At The End. i've noticed how much he contradicts himself throughout his questline and i just... I don't know. i've seen some other people complaining about how non-chalantly he talks about being a sex slave and i understand too, but i think it's part of his character to not take the horrible things that happened to him seriously like he does with others. that, or someone at larian took an unknown substance that led them to make halsin Very inconsistent.

with the poly situation, some people are strictly polyamorous! some people are strictly non-monogamous and do not feel comfortable being in a monogamous relationship. i understand the frustration everyone, but that's how halsin is. i dont know if that was the writers' intention, but that's certainly what he comes across as to me; strictly non-monogamous.

what i DONT understand is why he says he only wants you, calls you "my heart", is so fondly and lovingly attached to you, and then he just.... Dips? Whatever. I'm ignoring that part forever. it's not canon to ME!

anyways. yeah. feel free to Engage in some Friendly conversation. emphasis on friendly, for the love of g-d

#ezio.txt #the bear speaketh #bg3 halsin #halsin the druid #halsin #astarion #astarion bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldur's gate iii #antiziganism #sorry for rambling but also i have a mouth. i must scream #if you try to well actually me about this i'm eldritch blasting you #fantasy racism #dragon age

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esther-dot · 10 months

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Idk how attractive jon is supposed to be but he has the stark look and sansa has a thing for the stark look, i mean look at waymar and loras, their descriptions match jon's exactly. Sansa's opinion at the end of the day>>>

I love Sansa’s Waymar and Loras crushes! So cute! I kinda think a good part of what attracts Sansa to any given guy is the romantic notions she can attach to them, not strictly their physical appearance? So while I certainly agree with the Jon and Waymar parallels and think martin intentionally wrote similarities between Jon and her crushes, I believe her romanticized view of knight was a factor as well. Personally, I wish Martin talked about Sansa’s body/ how beautiful she is a lot less, so this isn't a topic I enjoy discussing, but the convo kicked off because of a poll and here’s a screenshot of my totally unremarkable tags:

And here’s what an angry Jon fan posted because they didn’t like the tags on the poll:

They go on to criticize other tags by Sansa fans/Jonsas, but mine were based on specific lines from the books because the question wasn’t vibes but canonical beauty, and it so happens, these are lines I am very fond of because I love NedCat:

And was it really such a terrible thing, to want a pretty wife? She remembered her own childish disappointment, the first time she had laid eyes on Eddard Stark. She had pictured him as a younger version of his brother Brandon, but that was wrong. Ned was shorter and plainer of face, and so somber. He spoke courteously enough, but beneath the words she sensed a coolness that was all at odds with Brandon, whose mirths had been as wild as his rages. Even when he took her maidenhood, their love had more of duty to it than of passion. We made Robb that night, though; we made a king together. And after the war, at Winterfell, I had love enough for any woman, once I found the good sweet heart beneath Ned's solemn face. (ASOS, Catelyn V)

It’s a beautiful passage with a lovely sentiment, so I take exception to classifying this as petty fandom shit when there was nothing intentionally insulting behind what I said, I just think Cat's thoughts about a man she dearly loves were pertinent. Also, Jon’s Stark looks are a big R+L=J clue which is teased a lot in AGOT so it’s intentional and important:

The boy absorbed that all in silence. He had the Stark face if not the name: long, solemn, guarded, a face that gave nothing away. Whoever his mother had been, she had left little of herself in her son. "What are you reading about?" he asked. (AGOT, Tyrion II)

Martin described Jon’s face the same way he does Ned’s here, although the point was ha ha! he has the Stark look not because of his father but because of his mother, Lyanna.

Jon had their father's face, as she did. They were the only ones. Robb and Sansa and Bran and even little Rickon all took after the Tullys, with easy smiles and fire in their hair. (AGOT, Arya I)

Arya heard and whirled around, glaring. "I don't care what you say, I'm going out riding." Her long horsey face got the stubborn look that meant she was going to do something willful. (AGOT, Sansa I)

Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier if Arya had been a bastard, like their half brother Jon. She even looked like Jon, with the long face and brown hair of the Starks, and nothing of their lady mother in her face or her coloring. (AGOT, Sansa I)

"Lyanna might have carried a sword, if my lord father had allowed it. You remind me of her sometimes. You even look like her." (AGOT, Arya II)

Now, Ned goes on to say Lyanna is beautiful so a lot of fans really emphasize that and say it means Jon and Arya are/will be attractive, and maybe! It doesn't bother me for people to read it that way, but if you look at the other uses of long face in ASOIAF, or the Stark look, I think it indicates, it's not particularly attractive, and one might even say, it's unremarkable. I didn’t say ugly, its simply unexceptional imo. Obviously the horsey face/horse faced stuff is an insult so we don't have to take that to be a neutral assessment, but I don't think it actually means pretty either, not when you look at how it's used elsewhere.

Anyway, it doesn't matter if Jon is handsome or not because we all were supposed to have already learned that what matters is who he is, not his face. So, while I have no investment in how attractive/unattractive these characters are, I imagine that Jon being Jon is what will make Sansa fall for him, not how pretty he is. Something that might sound kinda like this:

I had love enough for any woman, once I found the good sweet heart beneath Ned's Jon's solemn face

#jonsa #nedcat #r+l=j #book jon #dot chat #discourse #< for filtering

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autumnwhistles · 7 months

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Middle Of Nowhere — Full Lyrics

As promised, here are the first lyrics to the first song in my Last Life Musical concept album (“Middle Of Nowhere”) a few hours before its release!

The song is split into two parts – the overture (which isn't strictly an overture since there's also singing, but still is a mainly instrumental section meant to introduce future themes), which isn't heavily plot relevant but does talk a little about what happened in the 'world' preceding this one (aka 3rd Life); and the main song, which introduces us to the Last Life world through the eyes of the chorus, who are Watchers narrating the events (as I'm basing it on Martyn's canon).

Normal text is for chorus, bold is for players, and italics are for lyrics happening at the same time as each other:

-Overture- Ludo ludete,* Ludo ludete, Ludo ludete! [Intrumental] Oh, gone, the kingdom fallen on the mountain Bare, the sands, their cacti alone Flowers razed and castles left abandoned Now we stage another show! So build up the frozen north! A south that shall fall to flames – Renew and repeat the game! [Instrumental] -Middle of Nowhere- There is an old, old tale to be told, Of green like the spruce, of crimson and gold. Of crystals and curses, lives swapped and sold, Stories we’ll now behold. There is an old, old song to be sung/Look to the frozen north! Of victors that lost and victims that won/Look to the south in flames! Bonds forged in fire lie shattered and dull/Look to the fallen fort! All cast aside for one/Come on and play the game There is a land, in the middle of nowhere. It was too long ago there, Since last stories arose. So the tale is told, of the middle of nowhere: Watch and witness the show there, As our appetite grows! There is an old, old world to be moulded, Flames to be doused and craters unfolded Forests to spread, dark shadows to sprawl-/ Look to the names! Herald the cue! Red leaves to mark the colours of the first to fall/Rise, rise anew! There is a call, and flocking, they come, Like moths to a flame or clouds to the sun! Ships to a whirlpool yet struggling still- Look to the trees! Look to the hills! Look to them, all the same/Look to the peaks, Helpless to play their game/Good for defence, style’s just pretence/Gather the sand, gather all the cane you can! And look there, could be a home, let's form a plan!/Ahhh Six, five, four, three, two, one! Look to their land, in the middle of nowhere!/There is an old, old right to be fought for: lives to be lived, and not lived for naught – Through the wants and the woe there/To laugh, be alive, defend our pride, Herald what must be done/To cause chaos, to protect, to attack! Best all in this land, in the middle of nowhere/Strike one! Strike two! You're done! You're through! Take your friends for your foes there/No time for mercy Till a champion has won/when the only thing that you can do is- Four for the traitor, four for the pawn, Six for the swindler selling the dawn; Five for the wolf and three for the mole, Two for the witness outstepping his role. Four, the enigma and expert alike, Three, the beholder, avoiding the strike; Two for the martyr, six for the moon, Two for the fierce-hearted cynic, untombed! [Instrumental] Three for the hero, four for the dame/There is an old tale, now soon to come, Six for the self-dubbed master of games/The stage has been set, the bell has been rung, let curtains soon rise, let lights dim as one! Two, for the king with no subjects to call/The audience trembles, anxious to know what joys and disasters they shall be shown in- Two, the canary, destined to fall.../-all, when the curtains fall... Caught in this land, in the middle of nowhere. Will it still end in woe there? Will it all come undone?/Did you hear that sound?** So many feelings so grand can arise from the middle of nowhere!/Did you hear that voice?** But – let our stars lead the show there, Heeding: our will be done!

(all lyrics and music by me)

*(hopefully) "play the game" in Latin (imperative for multiple people) **the player who sings this is Martyn – but listener Martyn is NOT canon, I am going by his lore. It's a setup to the fact that the voices speak to him (they're probably letting him hear some to mess with him), and also a way to move the musical to his perspective for the next song.

#i am still working on it but i'm very nearly finished #so i feel confident it'll be out today #trafficblr #last life smp #3rd life smp #since this references it #watchers life series

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zeroducks-2 · 7 months

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Isn't it funny that Slade is usually intense, militaristic and harsh and yet he gets so vanilla when it comes to sex?? Fanon Slade is very dominant and often into bdsm in fics while in canon he's anything but. All those panels with Lillian Worth, Pat Trayce, Joey's fiance, Talia... he's more of a big lazy cat than a wild sex machine lol. And he's the one getting offered a quick fuck, never the other way around. :P

Hey friend :)

Slade and Adeline normally beat the fuck out of each other as foreplay. Addie used to put him into chokeholds to keep him still while both of them were naked, and then they'd fuck nasty. Joey and Grant would regularly hear them scream in rage and then scream during sex while hiding in their room as kids.

Later on, even after they broke up and yada yada, sometimes Slade and Addie would throw punches, yell and toss shit (famously Addie swung a toaster at him once) and then have sex. His bruises would heal by the time they were done, hers didn't and so you see these panels of Addie in the aftermath of sex with big black spots on her face (source is Deathstroke 2016 and Deathstroke Year One).

The point is that Slade is violent when it comes to sex compared to everyone else. We're talking about mainstream American comics so they do not show sex scenes and sure as fuck they don't show BDSM. I precise American because I'm European and in my favorite comicbooks growing up, the protagonists would have sex almost once every issue, and not just them; sex was a big part of the stories as it is a big part of the human experience for a lot of people, but this never happens with comics from the US as far as I can tell.

But I digress, my point is that *no one* in DC comics is shown to have anything but vaguely hinted, rigorously vanilla sex, and the fact that Slade acts a tiny bit more spicy than the average makes you think he's more likely to be into hardcore sexual practices than the average person.

Additionally, in Teen Titans 03 he uses a language with Robin which is reminiscent of what you would hear a dominant say in the bedroom. It's done on purpose to be creepy and it works, but of course if a kinkster is watching it their imagination runs wild.

That being said, I like to picture him as a big lazy cat also, and ultimately everyone can do whatever they prefer with the topic. There's people who headcanon him as strictly submissive since he married his sergeant. What I know for sure is that he has a stamina of a meta since he's enhanced, so if he puts his mind to it he can surely make a partner happy <3

#my asks #slade wilson #discussion of sex in media

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near-dareis-mai · 9 months

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Hi, so I was wondering if you've read twot books or spoilers and can tell me what happens with Siuan and Moiraine in the books? Like, I know they don't end up together and each of them has a man but they were friends so what happened to that? Did it end? How? I tried to look for the spoilers myself but I couldn't find anything specific about them and I know they're barely in the books but I'm really curious about how their relationship ends in canon or if at least they end up on good terms or what and I don't know who can I ask and you seem really nice so maybe you can help me? Or point me in the right direction to where I can find the answer?

Spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time book series

Anon, I’m very surprised you haven’t been able to find anything about these two because I’ve seen many posts about it, especially on tumblr, but I tried my best to summarize everything you asked for. It got a bit long, because we’re talking about a story that spans 15 books, but uh, enjoy. (You will not enjoy this.)

The short version is:

Moiraine and Siuan start their quest for the Dragon Reborn when they are 22/23 years old. They are Accepted (studying to be Aes Sedai) in the White Tower when they both hear the prophecy of the Dragon being Reborn. They become Aes Sedai very soon after this, and kickstart their quest to find the Dragon Reborn by Moiraine riding out of the Tower to physically search for him and Siuan staying in the Tower and learning to be a spymaster so she can do information gathering for the search. At this point in time, there’s no real doubt - unless you’re reading the text with blinders on - that Moiraine and Siuan love each other and are romantically/sexually involved with each other. These bitches gay. -

The main book series starts 20 years after the above happens. By this time, Moiraine has searched all over the Westlands for the Dragon Reborn, before finally finding viable candidates at Emond’s Field. By this time, Siuan is the Amyrlin Seat. At this point, there’s no real hint in the text that they’re still romantically involved. However, the text makes it very clear that they’re each other’s closest friend, they’re still very much devoted to their joint cause, and to each other through the difficulties arising from that cause. -

Strictly in the book series, it’s never really gone into detail what happens to the relationship in the ~20 years when Moiraine is (mostly) out of the Tower searching and Siuan is (mostly) in the Tower spymastering. I think you are led to infer that while they remained devoted to their cause and to how they are tied to each other by their cause, their actual romantic relationship supposedly either ended soon after Moiraine first left the Tower to search or gradually fizzled out. Also of interest here is that it seems to be a belief held in-world by the Aes Sedai and out-world by the author of the books, that these kind of "youthful" relationships between Accepted, while definitely being sexual and affectionate, shouldn't be considered "real relationships" and were merely stepping stones to a "real" relationship when they mature, usually with a man (issa yikes, chief). Even disregarding that, a truly satisfying explanation is never given of just what happened. -

By the end of the main series, Moiraine has been massively depowered due to a term of imprisonment in a magical other-realm where it’s explicitly stated that she went through severe mental torture. After her rescue from said realm, she gets comparatively sidelined by the narrative, and gets married to Thom, a man she has very little on-text interaction with before that. -

By the end of the main book series, Siuan is, uh, dead. But not before she is deposed from the Amyrlin Seat, stilled, then un-stilled but depowered, made an unpaid servant (hey there’s a word for that, isn’t there) to a lord on a technicality over an oath, gets spanked by said lord for misbehaving, falls in love with that lord in a very Stockholm-ish romantic progression, agrees to marry said lord, mentors Egwene as the new Amyrlin Seat, does a bunch of daes dae’mar-ing to ensure Egwene stays in power, and then dies at the last battle in a throwaway death.

The much longer TL;DR version is below the cut:

The Wheel of Time series consists of 14 books in the main series, with each chapter in the book written from varying third-person points of View. Moiraine and Siuan both have some chapters in their point of view through the series, but only four chapters in the entire main book series where they actually interact with each other, all of them in The Great Hunt (Book 2).

(However, Robert Jordan also wrote a Moiraine-centric prequel novel called New Spring, which takes place 20 years before the main book series, which is gloriously gay and gloriously Siuanraine, and I will get to it at the very end of this post, because it deserves its own section.)

Back to the main book series:

The two chapters in which Moiraine and Siuan first interact are Chapter 4 and 5 of The Great Hunt (Book 2). They are from Moiraine's PoV, and the essential gist of them is a) Moiraine is at Fal Dara following the events of The Eye of the World (Book 1) b) Siuan comes to Fal Dara for a state visit as the Amyrlin Seat c) Moiraine is summoned to see Siuan privately and all the other Aes Sedai who came along with Siuan thinks Moiraine is being chastised for her waywardness in the meeting, but in private they actually embrace warmly, and Siuan mentions that Moiraine is the only person with whom she can remember who she used to be when she was younger and not the Amyrlin seat. They also discuss that their conspiracy to find the Dragon together will have both of them stilled if the other Aes Sedai find out. Then they discuss Rand and various other matters of political importance, and then at the end of the second chapter they hug again before Moiraine leaves, and Moiraine thinks of Siuan as “my dearest friend”. Also, it’s mentioned that Moiraine and Siuan feel a tingle when each other channels, which is something only two female channelers very close to each other feel and even then it’s supposed to be temporary, whereas Moiraine and Siuan’s had lasted for over 20 years and counting.

So at this point, while it’s not explicitly stated that these two were gay for each other, at least when younger, just the way they were written already set a lot of gaydars pinging. To set further context, the two chapters described above (which are from the second book in the series) are the first substantial Moiraine PoV chapters we get in the entire series, and Siuan wasn’t even in the first book (though she was mentioned in passing, but only as the Amyrlin Seat, not as Siuan). We got a tiny peek into Moiraine’s PoV at the very end of the first book, but for most of the first book (The Eye of the World) she’s very much shrouded in mystery, a figure of awe and mystique, with even some hints alluding that she might actually be a Darkfriend that might secretly be working against everything she said she was working for. So the two chapters described above from The Great Hunt (Book 2) are the first time we actually get a look into who Moiraine is internally, what drives her, what her foibles and truest feelings are, the very intense feelings that lie behind her emotionless mask, and it’s very interesting to me that Robert Jordan thought that it was necessary for Siuan to be there for these chapters, that she was the person who could wrangle a show of true emotions and sentiment from Moiraine, who is so tied up in not showing any part of herself to the world that can be used against her.

The next (and final) two chapters where they interact are in Chapter 7 and 8 of The Great Hunt (Book 2). A lot happens in these two chapters, including Moiraine and Siuan’s find-the-Dragon-Reborn plot being found out by an Aes Sedai who used to teach them, but crucially to the Siuanraine dynamic is at one point the Aes Sedai deduces “Moiraine could not do this alone, and who better to help than her girlhood friend who used to sneak down with her to snitch sweetcakes.” Again the important things to note here that is already established by Book 2 that a) Moiraine and Siuan were the closest of friends when they were younger and studying at the Tower to be Aes Sedai and b) This closeness is intrinsically tied into why they have taken this quest together, their trust in each other throughout the years despite so many lengths of time apart when mistrust could have fostered between them, and how they can be truly equal with each other despite Siuan’s title as the most powerful woman in the world and despite Moiraine hailing from a powerful and wealthy noble house that once used to rule Cairhien.

After this, Moiraine and Siuan do not meet each other again in the main book series.

Moiraine’s story in the main book series after this: For the next 12 books in the main series, Moiraine PoVs are few and far in between (not enough) and mainly concerned with Rand and with the events of the main plot, until the Fires of Heaven (Book 5). Near the end of Fires of Heaven, Moiraine seems to “die” when tackling Lanfear (a Very Bad Girlboss) into a timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbly magic doorway. At this point, we are given to think Moiraine is dead dead, and we have to wait six books later until The Knife of Dreams (Book 11), where we learn that Moiraine is not dead but is imprisoned in another realm (the realm of the Aelfinn and the Ellfinn) and there’s still a chance (but not a surefire chance) of bringing her back alive). In Towers of Midnight (Book 13), the rescue actually happens, Moiraine comes back. Moiraine has 9 PoV chapters in the entire main series before her "death", and two very small PoV snippets in Book 14 after her rescue, which IMO is woefully small given her importance in the narrative.

A few things to note about Moiraine’s story before her rescue/return from the other realm:

1. When Moiraine seems to “die” near the end of The Fires of Heaven (Book 5), she passes Lan’s bond to an Aes Sedai friend of hers, Myrelle, in a hail-mary gambit to save Lan’s life from the heavily depressive urge a Warder would get after their Aes Sedai dies. Myrelle does questionable things to keep Lan from giving in to this urge, and because of this as well as because of the passing of the bond itself, Moiraine and Lan’s relationship fractures in a way that is never repaired on page even after she is rescued, partly because the narrative in the last three books didn’t seem to think their relationship deserved the page time to even have a talk with each other that could be a step forward in that recovery.

2. Moiraine is aware of her fate before she tackles Lanfear through the magic doorway, because she’d seen (admittedly hazy) visions of multiple versions of the future due to plots reasons that’ll take too long to explain, and therefore knew that she had to tackle Lanfear in the doorway and be presumed dead, for future events to pass in a way that would lead to the Light’s victory.

3. Moiraine jumps into the magic doorway in Book 5, and it’s interesting that her decision to do this comes after Siuan’s deposal and reported “death” in Book 4. She really said death is not getting you out of this relationship mfer. (I’m kidding, bookcloaks.)

4. Moiraine thinks Siuan is likely dead when she jumps into the doorway, as Siuan is reported dead after being deposed from the Amyrlin seat. An interesting part here is Moiraine’s response when Egwene tells her of the news of Siuan’s deposal, stilling and presumed death:

“There is a saying in Cairhien, though I have heard it as far away as Tarabon and Saldaea. ‘Take what you want, and pay for it.’ Siuan and I took the path we wanted, and we knew we would have to pay for it eventually.” (The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 15)

The interesting part is Egwene is bemused by Moiraine’s seemingly callous reply to the demise of her oldest friend. To me, this ties back to a certain scene in New Spring where Lan thinks Moiraine is utterly callous and cold when she doesn’t openly react to the betrayal and death of an Aes Sedai she had once respected/cared for, but once he bonds her as her Warder and gets access to her emotions, he realizes that despite her emotionless facade she’s actually hurting very badly inside. (New Spring, Epilogue Chapter)

A few things to note about Moiraine’s story during and after her rescue/return from the other realm:

1. When Moiraine comes back after the rescue, she has one big moment where she reconciles the Dragon (Rand) and the now-Amyrlin (Egwene) during a major disagreement, and this reconciliation is crucial in bringing all the forces of the Light together into a unified Coalition to fight the dark. But aside from this, Moiraine is unfortunately... benched. It’s like the narrative post-rescue didn’t know what to do with her aside from “Yay, mom’s back!” She’s basically benched to being a cheerleader from the sidelines, which is... a choice.

2. Moiraine comes back from Sindhol (the magical timey-wimey realm of the Finn) significantly lower in power than she used to be. However she has a bracelet angreal that will allow her to channel a lot more, to an extent even greater than she used to be able to at her full power, but it’s still annoying that she had to be depowered like that for no real plot reason, especially when the plot immediately scrambles to point out the angreal as if to say “See! She’s not really depowered!” Just... narratively useless and annoying.

3. Moiraine never gets to reunite in the books with Siuan, the person she started this whole quest off with. Not a single conversation. It seems an odd narrative oversight to not have a bookend scene near the end of the series where the two people who started the quest together have a discussion about how everything panned out twenty years later.

4. Immediately upon rescue from Sindhol, Moiraine professes herself to be in love with Thom and marries him right away. This is regarded by many readers to be the most egregious pair-the-spares relationship out of the whole series. Before this, Thom and Moiraine shared one major scene alone, which consisted of them speaking in subtle daes dae’mar terms about their individual histories (The Shadow Rising, Chapter 17), as well as a couple of blink-and-you’ll miss it interactions here and there. Moiraine does know from a vision by Min that she’ll marry Thom, so there’s the added weight of Moiraine - a woman whose entire life is shaped by prophecy - marrying a man that prophecy said she’d marry. Overall, while the hints are there from early books of a Moiraine-Thom endgame, and the more astute readers definitely picked up on them while reading, narrative hints are not the same as relationship development. There isn’t really any scene of Thom and Moiraine actually enjoying each other’s company, other than an aside comment from Thom that she laughed at his gleeman jokes at one point, and the scene mentioned above of them daes dae’mar-ing around each other in The Shadow Rising, where Moiraine sounds “distinctly amused” when they were verbally sparring (which could be read as her being amused by how far out of his depth he is trying to play the Game of Houses against her, but YMMV.) Juxtaposed against this is Thom’s (justified) wariness against Aes Sedai and his various attempts to undermine Moiraine’s authority with the boys during the early books due to this wariness, which was what personally made me uninvested in their romance, because while his wariness may be justified, his actions don’t exactly bode for a lasting relationship with a woman who is Aes Sedai personified. (Also, when Moiraine marries him, Thom mentions his dislike for Aes Sedai, and Moiraine says that for him she’d throw away the bracelet angreal and give up the Power, which... why is a powerful woman throwing her power away for love always seen as romantic. Why is it almost always a woman who gets a romance arc like this. Why.)

5. Upon rescue from Sindhol, it’s very explicitly said that Moiraine suffered very severe mental torture while in Sindhol, but then the narrative refuses to give her the narrative space to talk about it. In the same scene, the male PoV character muses of her state post-imprisonment and post-mental-torture as “Humbled, cast down. That made her seem stronger to him for some reason.” (Towers of Midnight, Chapter 57) which just... plays into this tediously recurring idea in fiction of suffering being good/necessary and being depowered being a good/necessary thing, but it’s especially glaring here with the gender/power dynamics in play.

Siuan’s story in the main book series:

Siuan’s story arc is too extensive to go fully into so I’ll try to summarize key points:

1. The first couple of Siuan PoV’s we get are mainly ramp-up chapters showing her side of the search for the Dragon Reborn, and of awaiting news from Moiraine on how shepherding Rand is going. It’s noted that Siuan was born a fisherman’s daughter in Tear, and because they fear and revile all channelers in Tear, she was bundled off to Tar Valon on the very day it was discovered she could channel, and she has lingering bitterness from being forced to leave her home this way. It’s noted that she’s quite proud of where she comes from, and keeps her furnishings simple as Amyrlin.

“Oh, they do hate it, child. Hate it, and fear it. When they find a Tairen girl who can channel, they bundle her onto a ship for Tar Valon before the day is done, with hardly time to speak goodbyes to her family.” The Amyrlin’s murmur was bitter with memory. (The Dragon Reborn, Chapter 29)

(Also, she fucking hates horses, which is amusing because Tear is known for its horses. And also amusing because Moiraine loves horses.)

2. Siuan was made Amyrlin at 30 years old, the youngest Amyrlin ever until Egwene comes along in the main book series. At the point when the book series starts, Siuan has been Amyrlin for about 10 years. She has a Warder named Alric. While it's not stated in the books, Robert Jordan (the original author of the book series) stated in his notes that Siuan met and took Alric as Warder when she went traveling for a brief period of time outside the Tower after she was raised to Aes Sedai.

2. Siuan’s story takes a major turn in The Shadow Rising (Book 4), where she’s deposed as Amyrlin Seat in a coup by Elaida, stilled in a sham trial held by Elaida, and left for soon-to-be-dead along with her keeper Leane. Siuan and Leane are rescued by Min. Siuan’s Warder Alric is murdered during the coup trying to defend her. After hearing that all of the Blue Ajah, most of the Green Ajah, and substantial members from all other Ajahs except the Red had fled the Tower in protest of the illegal coup, Siuan resolves that instead of dying (owing to the severe depression that stilling comes with) she’ll find where they’ve fled to instead, which she eventually puzzles out is Salidar, a small village in a country called Altara.

3. Upon being stilled, Siuan’s appearance turns very youthful, making her look like she’s about 18 years old, despite her being ~42 years old. This means she’s unrecognizable. Here’s something she says about her new face:

Moiraine herself wouldn't recognize me with this face. (The Gathering Storm, Chapter 41)

(It says a lot to me that this is from Book 12, seven books after Moiraine has been presumed dead, at a point in time when Siuan and Moiraine’s romantic relationship is supposedly definitely over for decades now, and yet it’s still Moiraine whom Siuan defaults to as the person who she should count on to recognize even when she’s unrecognizable. It’s like even when the narrative doesn’t want to linger on their closeness, it can’t help but have them set each other up as the standard for intimacy/closeness.)

4. While escaping with Leane, Min and Logain, Siuan runs afoul of Lord Gareth Bryne, an Andoran nobleman and general. She ends up giving an oath of servitude to him to escape imprisonment and then running away to find Salidar, with the understanding that she’d complete the term of servitude after she was done with her Dragon Reborn cause. He ends up being infatuated with her (when he’s 60 years old and he thinks she’s 18 years old, mind you), and chasing her all the way to Salidar, where he makes Siuan his unpaid servant as the fulfillment of the oath. There begins a tedious arc where Siuan falls in Stockholm-love with this man, and ends up turning into a teenager personality-wise, literally running away if he so much as looks at her, or alternately throwing tantrums at him, which is a very weird narrative U-Turn compared to the 22-year old Siuan from New Spring - a prequel book set 20 years before the main series - who spoke rather maturely and realistically about relationships, and who Moiraine specifically said was very good at controlling her temper.

5. Siuan’s personality in general takes a very weird narrative U-Turn after Gareth Bryne hunts her down in Salidar. The woman we meet in The Great Hunt, who spoke with elegant pathos about Fal Dara being built for war in the midst of all that beauty, turns into a prudish and immature teenager whenever she comes into proximity with Bryne in the latter half of the books. It's as if the narrative is trying to change her into some imagined ideal of what a love interest for Bryne should be - virginal, prudish, inexperienced - except it's like fitting a square peg into a round hole because Siuan was already established as none of those things. It’s just... very weird, and very jarring because it’s like there’s two Siuans, the normal one who’s mentoring Egwene and taking care of business around Salidar and the teenager who comes out when Bryne is around or being discussed.

6. In Lord of Chaos (Book 6), Nynaeve heals Siuan of the stilling, even though stilling was previously thought to be un-healable. However, Siuan is restored to much lower strength in the Power than she used to be and given that the Aes Sedai work on a strength-based power structure, she’s very low in the totem pole even after being healed from stilling. Also, she’s still Lord Gareth Bryne’s unpaid servant. Also, the narrative makes sure to mention that she had to beg on her knees to be accepted back into the Blue Ajah.

7. Siuan never has a reunion with Moiraine in the books. But Siuan does think this in Book 12:

She didn’t regret her life. Yet, at this moment, passing army tents—holes and broken ruts in the path shaking the cart, making it rattle like dried fishbones in a kettle—she envied Moiraine. How often had Siuan bothered to look out of her window toward the beautiful green landscape, before it all had started going sickly? She and Moiraine had fought so hard to save this world, but they had left themselves without anything to enjoy in it. (The Gathering Storm, Chapter 12)

(Crucial to mention that at this point here, Siuan thinks Moiraine is dead. That is to say, she thinks Moiraine is not in this world. The world in which there is nothing left for Siuan to enjoy. The poison for Kuzco. Kuzco’s poison.)

(Also crucial to mention, it’s after this moment of stock-tacking that Siuan makes the decision to actually pursue an “entanglement” aka a relationship. Again, very amusing how even as the narrative actively avoids having Moiraine and Siuan meet again, it cannot help but hold them up as the standard for each other that needs to be stepped over to move on to something else.)

8. By the end of Book 12, Siuan has accepted to marry Gareth Bryne, and made him her Warder (in a situation where he basically corners her into it in a high-stakes moment where Siuan can't really refuse.)

9. In Book 14, the final book in the series, during the Last Battle, Siuan says how proud she is of Egwene as her legacy, and then dies in a farcically throwaway death by saving Mat from a burning building. If that seems abrupt to you, it is even more abrupt in the narrative.

So, that’s how Moiraine and Siuan’s stories end in canon. Moiraine depowered, married to a man who can’t help but speak of his distaste for Aes Sedai even as he’s marrying one, and estranged from her Warder who she was closest to aside from Siuan for 20 years. Siuan depowered, dethroned, Stockholm-ed into love with a man who spanked her like a child for misbehaving, and then dead in a throwaway scene.

New Spring (NEW MF-ING SPRING)

Robert Jordan wrote a Moiraine-centric (and Lan-centric) prequel novel called New Spring, which is chronologically situated roughly 20 years before the main book series, when Moiraine and Siuan are roughly 22-ish years old and Lan is roughly 26-ish years old. New Spring has 22 chapter chunks from Moiraine’s PoV, 8 chunks from Lan’s PoV, and 1 small chunk of Siuan PoV. New Spring covers Moiraine and Siuan hearing Gitara’s prophecy, being raised to Aes Sedai, starting their search for the Dragon together, Moiraine escaping the Tower to search for the Dragon on the road when the Aes Sedai show plans of putting her on Cairhien’s throne, and meeting Lan on the way, who is returning home from fighting the Aiel War, Moiraine and Lan having misadventures together, and the book culminates with Moiraine and Siuan deciding that Moiraine will continue the search on the road while Siuan will use her newfound position in the Tower as the mentee of the Blue Ajah spymaster to facilitate Moiraine’s search from the Tower. In the final scene of the book, Moiraine seeks out Lan again, reveals to him the truth about her search and the prophecy of the Dragon being Reborn, and asks Lan to become her Warder, which he accepts.

New Spring has its flaws and there are some (non-Siuanraine-related) moments that make my skin crawl, but if you are a fan of the Siuanraine ship or Lan/Moiraine brotp from the show, this is the book you want to read. The main book series has flashes of both these dynamics here and there, but New Spring is where you really delve into just how strong Moiraine’s feelings for Siuan used to be when they were younger, and also into how she meets Lan and decides to make him her Warder.

New Spring is... a jewel, the book of my heart. It’s a delight to see all three of these characters when they were young. It’s interesting to read about Moiraine’s social fauxpas/mishaps and her temper and how she chastises herself for the mishaps even when others don’t even notice, and how you can already see how this tendency is going to develop into the Moiraine we see twenty years later in the book series, who is so closed off that she seems stone-hearted to others, when it fact she’s feeling things very deeply. It’s a delight to see Lan grousing about Tairens and various other soldiers not showing the proper courtesy needed, not following proper form. It’s a delight to see Siuan coming up with various zany ballsy plots ranging from secretly keeping a notebook of potential Dragon Reborn candidate names right under the Aes Sedai’s nose to buying a bunch of mice from a stableboy right after she’s passed her Aes Sedai test, to put into Elaida’s bed, under the reasoning that it wouldn’t be dignified to do this after she’s officially raised Aes Sedai so this is her last chance.

But most of all, New Spring is... super gay. Maybe it’s not explict explicit about it, but it’s impossible to read New Spring and not come out realizing just how terribly in love Moiraine and Siuan used to be, twenty years ago. The entire book is like a Siuanraine fanfic. If you read no other book in the series, if you’re a Siuanraine fan, anon, please read this book.

(In a book-only sense, it’s also utterly heartbreaking to read New Spring, because you get the sense that this is what Moiraine and Siuan truly gave up: the closeness they had to each other. That, even though they didn’t want to, in the twenty years to come they’d both turn to other people for affection, and get closer to other people, and that this change would creep up on them so slowly over twenty years that it’d have happened before they even noticed that it had happened, or had space to mourn it.)

In New Spring, you learn that Moiraine and Siuan arrived at the Tower on the same day, and that they’re within a year of age, with Siuan being slightly younger. They were entered into the Novice enrolment book on the same day. They graduated from Novice to Accepted on the same day, in three years time, which was the fastest anyone had done it (a record shared by Elaida who came a few years before them) until Nynaeve/Egwene/Elayne all break it twenty years later. They were also raised from Accepted to full Aes Sedai on the same day, in three years time, which was again a record matched only by Elaida and broken by Nynaeve/Egwene/Elayne twenty years later. Siuan and Moiraine remained in lockstep in their strength in the Power as well, and were in their prime two of the most powerful Aes Sedai in the White Tower, matched by very few others until the events of the main book series.

I can quote so many passages from New Spring to show how gay it is, but I’ll restrain myself to four:

She had never been as close to anyone as she was to Siuan. Or loved anyone as much. - New Spring, Chapter 6, Moiraine PoV

The sight of Moiraine always made her smile. Cetalia had been wrong in one particular. She was not a pretty little porcelain doll; she was a beautiful little porcelain doll. - New Spring, Chapter 12, Siuan PoV

Siuan could have kissed her. In fact, she did. - New Spring, Chapter 12, Siuan PoV

“Novice and Accepted, she was sent to my study more often than any three other girls. Except for her pillow-friend Siuan. Of course, pillow-friends frequently get into tangles together, but with those two, one was never sent to me without the other. The last time the very night after passing for the shawl.” Moiraine kept her face smooth, kept her hands from knotting into fists, but she could do nothing about burning cheeks (...) And spreading out all these intimacies! (...) How close she and Siuan had been was no one’s business but theirs. - New Spring, Chapter 17, Moiraine PoV

(The last one especially is important because they’re specifically mentioned as being pillow-friends and pillow-friends was confirmed both in text and out-of-text-by-the-author as being a term used for a sexual relationship, so at that point this goes from simply “Is anyone else getting a gay vibe...” to “This is 100% canon.”)

Anyways, a lot obviously happened in the 20 years between New Spring and the main book series, but I thought it’d be nice to end on a high note.

I hope that answered your question, anon!

#wot book spoilers #wot books spoilers #wot spoilers #wheel of time book spoilers #moiraine damodred #siuan sanche #moiraine x siuan #siuanraine #the wheel of time

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shegeekery · 2 months

Text

Doctor Strange head-canon

My head-canon/theory regarding Doctor Strange's search through 14,000,605 futures is that there were many futures in which the Avengers were able to defeat Thanos, and they were able to stop the Snap before it happened in all but the one he chose. Unfortunately, all of the other futures resulted in the End of Everything, so he naturally went with the one that didn't. He wouldn't have been able to see why this was the case because he couldn't see beyond his own timeline.

Why was the solution he went with the only one that allowed the timeline to continue? Two reasons:

Under the pre-Loki TVA, any other choice would have resulted in the timeline being pruned. In Loki episode 1.1, Renslayer mentioned that the Avengers time-traveling back to get the stones was what was "supposed to happen" under the Sacred Timeline.

(Possibly) After Loki recreated the multiverse, that future was the only one that resulted in 2012 Loki escaping and winding up in the TVA, so it had to happen in one timeline. Admittedly, since the concept of "before and after" is murky when we're talking about the TVA and the multiverse, this may not be strictly true — the fact that it happened under the old TVA regime might have been enough.

It would be totally in character for Strange to keep this additional information to himself in order to avoid an argument and to avoid alarming and distracting the other Avengers from the immediate crisis.

If I'm right about this, then if and when God Loki shows up again and interacts with the Avengers, Strange could well be the first one to trust him, after quickly putting two-and-two together.

...I also envision a fun little bit where an angry Thor, convinced that it's a cruel trick, throws his hammer at Loki, only for Loki to catch it and lightly toss it back to him. "You're going to need this, Brother."

#doctor strange #mcu #infinity war #loki #mcu theory

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carlyraejepsans · 2 years

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since sans is of another world, is papyrus from another world too? are they from different worlds but just so happened to end up in the same one, or does papyrus belong to the world of undertale while sans doesn't?

things we know about sans in deltarune:

he has a younger brother, presumably kris' age or not much older considering he's very protective of him and acts like leaving them to hang out alone "in his house" would be irresponsible

that or he's just weird about his adult brother for no discernible reason. which I sincerely hope isn't the case because come on

ironically, while the skelebros house sprite in undertale is named sans' house, the one in deltarune is named "paphouse".

the game value that checks whether you've already talked to sans about his brother in ch1 when you see him again in ch2 is called "paptalk". it's not his full name, but i believe it's safe to assume that sans' as of yet unnamed brother in deltarune is still papyrus.

naming yourself or the vessel after papyrus in the goner maker sequence will get the prompt "an interesting coincidence" and the steam page (i think?) for deltarune says he's "busy" so it's highly lilely he'll play a role in the story.

still, like you said, part of the evidence that sans comes from deltarune is that he dies in a way that's different from every other character in undertale. papyrus included.

something else weird about his death: he's the only character who has color (red blood) in his sprite in the battle screen, which is strictly black and white. this is very obscure and likely means nothing, but there's a weird comment in the undertale crosstitch book about how you can color the battle sprites if you want to diversify things but they "won't be canon". what an interesting thing to say, why would they feel the need to specify that...

thing is, papyrus' death remains much more similar to ye average undertale monster death. so... what's up with that?

papyrus and sans showed up to snowdin one day out of the blue, though it's not explicitly stated, they most definitely got there together.

"where do skeletons come from" is a question posed more than one time, if jokingly, such as by the baby bunny in deltarune

the snowdin residents had never seen them around before. which can also mean absolutely nothing, because they didn't even recognize us as humans lmao

undertale papyrus appears to have never seen the sun before

there's always the "forgettable" check description in the genocide run that haunts my every waking hour.

which is a theme that recurs both in deltarune (the song "don't forget") and in undertale through sans' workshop and the hidden drawing with "don't forget" scribbled on it.

sans has an attack called "gaster blaster". in one of undertale's patches, a bit of dialogue was added when checking the box of attacks in his room if you abort your geno run with his fight about how with his special attack "you surely would've been BLASTED to..." with blasted highlighted in yellow. yeah. safe to assume he has those too.

his paper with Toby's original concept art/details about him had a bit about him having a [REDACTED] named [REDACTED], right under another line that read "has a brother named comic sans". if we take this mysterious presumed relative to be gaster, then his connection to him becomes even stronger

papyrus has a negative reaction to the CORE specifically (he gets inexplicably sad when we call him and he can see it in the distance) but also hotland in general.

Gaster created the CORE and "fell into his own creation". from the way it's phrased, it's highly likely it WAS in fact the CORE, even if it's just vague enough i have my doubts

i really have no idea! I'm heavily inclined to think that the papyrus we meet in undertale is NOT from deltarune/the papyrus we'll meet there, while sans is the same person. this opens some pretty complicated questions to answer, especially from lack of evidence as we're still in chapter 2 out of 7 and we haven't met papyrus yet.

what happens to deltarune papyrus by the end of the game?

if papyrus is from undertale, what happened to UNDERTALE'S sans when deltarune's version got isekaid

exactly how long ago did all of this go down?

sans likely worked with gaster at some point after arriving in undertale, where they found out about the anomaly "our analysis" (which is mostly flowey's work after being resuscitated ie: not in deltarune. the "our" also couldn't have been alphys instead because she gives no indication of being aware of the SAVE powers, the anomaly or time manipulation—though she DID study alternate universes! and she knows sans! interesting coincidence). if so, how is gaster involved with the fate of deltarune NOW, when sans is still there? sure, he was shattered through TIME and space, but wouldn't that constitute a paradox? of course, unless we take "another Him" literally and this isn't the same gaster as the one from undertale

if we go "papyrus is gaster" instead, why does he respond to "papyrus" in deltarune too, why isn't he just gaster (and why does the name "gaster" still crash the game)?

all in all, i DON'T think we have enough material to work with, especially with papyrus. sans had his arc, his lore you could find and piece together with a satisfying conclusion ingame (think of the narrative payback that's finally reaching the workshop behind their house) while papyrus', while still being as much if not even More befuddling, was... all over the place. unexplained. incomplete. you can't piece back much of anything about his past. which is why i have SUPER high expectations for him in deltarune. he's clearly being built up for SomeThing,and i think it's going to be a lore arc just like sans had in undertale, all to himself, while his brother is off having his hotgirl customer service summer with the local goats and... presumably getting sucked into another universe. whoops!

here's a link to the crosstitch page comment, courtesy of @undertale-encyclopedia (you're a godsend to theorists everywhere, thank you so much)

if you're interested in the otherworld/deltarune sans theory, then i cannot recommend @megaderping 's two videos enough, which showcase both its proof AND the contradictions and issues it brings up (HERE'S the original, and HERE's an addendum after some discussion on the previous video). she gathers and mentions pretty much EVERYTHING that made me believe in it in the first place, AND the bits that make me doubt my interpretation of it, though surprisingly i DON'T think they touch on the blood business, which is curious because it's such a big controversy even now. i also owe them and their discord friends credit for the "papvalues" discoveries in deltarune's code, as my hacking and cracking skills are non-existent.

#WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM. AAAA #answered asks #undertale #sans #papyrus #deltarune #otherworld theory #entry log #w.d. gaster #Psst. since you're here. go check out dorked's comic inverted fate. and her latest video on alphys. she's amazing

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shadow0haven · 4 months

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I'm gonna do some rambling below about the Malev Christmas thing a little bit because people have been saying people have taken it too seriously and I want to explore/explain why I think people are upset and why I agree/my thoughts.

So HG released a christmas episode for malev and its a silly and campy episode of jokes and a "they get snowed in on christmas" episode like from a sitcom.

Honestly, that would have been nice from the get go. It's an interesting and trope I enjoy so I was ready to listen, until I heard negativity.

People are claiming that people hate the special specifically because HG makes fun of shippers. It's not *just* those two specific lines about shippers that I see people being upset about. It's quite a lot more.

For the longest time, Harlan has been poking fun at shippers in a lot of lines, in livestreams, in jokes and specials he puts out on patreon. A lot of the patreon people aren't mad or upset specifically because he does it, but because it's done so often. We KNOW Jarthur is never going to be Canon. We don't need a reminder constantly in the specials that they aren't canon and never will be, because it's a horror podcast and it's been explicitly stated all over John and Arthur are platonic in canon and always will be as far as we know. Having it constantly joked about when we know it won't happen is tiring.

A joke is made about the mail delivery person hating Arthur and loving John. On server and in conversation, etc, it's come up that HG finds it weird people like John, or Yellow, or other characters, more than Arthur. He also does "playful teasing" about people who enjoy certain characters or make certain theories, while also being annoyed people don't like Arthur more. A lot of us DO like Arthur, but not certain aspects of the character or how the character handled certain situations. That doesn't mean we hate the character. Part of this I think stems from HG having said that Arthur is "basically him", saying that Arthur is a self insert. That's fine and dandy, but it does make a lot of us uncomfortable for a lot of situations when we try to separate the character from a real person when the person playing the character insists "the character is me". This isn't a slight against HG, but I find it frustrating and that it ruined a bit of the "this is a narrative based around fictional characters etc" when the creator insists the main character is his self insert and essentially just him. Self inserts are cool! I also have my own! But there has to be a degree of separation that people aren't getting and it makes a lot of us uncomfortable.

A joke by the mail carrier also about "people going online and arguing for a living" or something along those lines. A lot of people that enjoy the show also critique it, make theories, and always talk about ways things could be handled better or how things could have turned out. Yes, there are people who are strictly only negative because they dislike HG for a myriad of reasons, and this joke felt like it was aimed specifically at these people that have issue with him, his interactions with fans, and the way he's handled things in the past that was just... unneeded.

On a less serious note, there were things that were just not my style in which I myself specifically don't vibe with the special. It was very campy and cracky, which is what it was obviously going for. For ME, I just wasn't into the "staged sitcom script because of Kayne" deal. And that's okay! Just because it wasn't my mileage, doesn't mean it was bad for other people. Like how I don't read certain kinds of fanfiction because they just aren't for me, this special just wasn't for me because of the tone of it.

I know there are probably more things, or things I'm forgetting, I know there was more teasing about "Arthur having PTSD but he can get over it in seconds" joke that made me a little meh, some of the jokes were funny and gave me a good chuckle, but I think this is the main reason people are having issue with the special.

To clarify, I'm talking about JUST the Christmas special and not the show itself. Just this specific episode. If I wanted to talk about why I and other people have issues with the show, or if people were interested in what I think, I'd make another post.

This is NOT a hate post, but simply talking about why I myself take issue with several aspects of the special, as well as why others (and the reasons I've heard from others) have mentioned about it.

Your mileage may vary, etc etc. I still enjoy the show and the characters very much, but sometimes this kind of stuff makes it difficult.

#malevolent neg #masked #ama.text #ama.rambles #if you want to discuss this post #send me an ask or message or reply to this post please i rather not have it rebloggable

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youphoriaot7 · 6 months

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Wait, um...crack theory that's starting to feel less and less crack by the second? (Or maybe I'm just convincing myself.)

What if this ["this" being the note, the corpse, the message in blood] was all done by Cellbit's minime?

This actually plays into something I was thinking about the other day, which is that the Federation knows exactly what they're doing. And...you know, I hesitate to say this. Because while it may have been an incredibly confusing day, it still felt like a win, and I don't want to take that away.

But the more and more I think about it, the more sense it makes for the Federation to have...at least planned for the A0 project to get stolen, if not pointed the islanders towards it.

I was backwatching Cellbit's October 15th vod and I finally got to the conversation between him and the guard—who I still really think is Antoine, and that does play into this, but I think it works without too so *shrug*—but I just...

The guard asked him what he knew about Project A0, so Cellbit responded, "I know that you're striving to achieve perfection—you've been analyzing everything on the island, you've been taking information, you've been giving tasks to make people busy and analyze their behavior...and creat[ing] something using a bunch of water and energy." (The guard's response was "it's a bit vague, but yes—you're on the right path.")

From Baghera, we know The Federation was doing DNA testing. Which is yet another way of analyzing people (and, in this case, hybrids and(?) animals). So, clearly, they've been planning for this for a while. Plus, they've been giving the islanders these tasks to, as Cellbit pointed out, evaluate and analyze their behavior.

But why would they be analyzing the behavior of the islanders? Is it strictly because the island is an ExperimentTM and they're the only humans the Feds have access to? (Implying that the workers aren't, in fact, humans, but that's a whole other kettle of fish.) Or is it something else?

Do we really know what this player data truly is, or how it manifests lore-wise? Because we know about those three (four?) books Fit found at that outpost, but who's to say that's all of it? It certainly wasn't everyone on the island—just some of the new players. Is it possible that data could manifests as memories; somewhat similar to what Fit and/or Pierre have done? (I know Pierre's has robotic connotations to it, but you can see what I'm getting at.)

Cellbit brought up a good point earlier at the A0 event: what are these things made of? Because, like, meta-wise, they're a custom mob that can be easily reskinned, just like a player model. No big deal. But canon-wise? What the hell can take the shape of various people without prior programming/precursory knowledge?

Additionally: the way Antoine and Cucuthree talked at the end of his stream earlier today makes me think about the fact that these minimes are clearly called a "failed Federation experiment" by multiple people in multiple places—the one that comes to mind is the Twitter post for the event. The Duck even mentioned in the second cutscene: "Luckily, they're harmless, so you have nothing to worry about!" Luckily implies that at one time...they weren't so harmless.

Plus, Cellbit hasn't exactly been...the nicest to his minime, which was also a warning given out by the Duck—and he gave it a knife. Didn't Bagi say it looked like a stab wound?

Before I stretch this way too far, the point is: There's too much in that note that no one except for Cellbit knows. Which means there are only a couple of options here. Either:

1) It's Cell, somehow. [Whether a sleepwalking/off-camera situation or what.] Not really too keen on this option. Makes my stomach all tense and churny. (/lh)

2) The Federation has records of his memories, somehow. [There have been plenty of opportunities for them to get these—for example, we still don't know what happened to Cellbit when he got kidnapped. And we know that they were experimenting with Project A0 around this time, likely having done something with Felps.]

2.5) The Federation has records of his memories, and has put it together with their other knowledge and technology to create these...clones. [Remember how people were speculating they might have to fight armies of themselves? Maybe that wasn't so far off. And, well. You're telling me a clone of Cellbit wouldn't try to fight psychologically?]

Anyway, I put way too much time into this, so um. Yeah. I, uh...I really hope I'm wrong.

#qsmp #qsmp theory #qsmp cellbit #the federation are evil #qsmp cucurucho #ev;a0 #ev;murder mystery

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cloudbells · 2 months

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some of your posts actually got me thinking about these questions! i'm very curious how people feel about this sort of stuff, since my own fandom opinions are relatively mild and it got me wondering how other people's experiences compare...

so how about #'s 2 (for stony), #9 and #27 (other than frostshield??😉)

Thank you for the ask (and for creating the game)! Lol, I'm glad me and my inability to keep an opinion to myself was a part of the inspo <3 And sorry for the long wait!!!

2) What's your biggest stony pet peeve?

BIGGEST? Oh man, I'm not sure...Teenification of Tony Stark. He's written so...infantile and emotionally weak (I love vulnerability, but my word choice of him being written as weak is my gripe) in many Stony fics. It genuinely gets on my last nerve. He's damn near 40 in AV1. And he only gets older. And sure, maybe there's some arrested development there, but he isn't a damn child. He knows this. And actually conducts himself well enough in canon (in a way that matches his issues) but it's the fanon portrayal I don't like.

WAIT...I think I have something that's popular for the ship itself. Not very fan of the lengths that misunderstandings go for Steve and Tony...Like, I understand they aren't great at communication, but sometimes it gets to the point where I'm like, "It's passed dense and shot straight into pure asshole territory". I know a lot of people write like this because of CACW, but hot take, I don't think CW was so much of a communication or misunderstandings problem. I'll elaborate on this in a separate post, maybe. But the way misunderstandings are drawn out with seemingly no reason gets on my nerves, but it really depends. I can love misunderstandings, but it can't be something that's contrived for drama's sake.

Oh! Another one is in AUs where Steve was still Captain America, and Tony is still Iron Man, and Howard was still lovesick after Steve died and Tony knew all about Steve as a child....and then the AU has Steve undercover or something and Tony doesn't recognize Steve's face. LOL. This sounds specific, but this exact set up has happened enough to where it bothers me. Like, it's kind of funny though, how annoyed I get over it lmao.

9) What's something that bugs you in fanfiction that you encounter often but isn't necessarily a dealbreaker for you as a reader?

I have a lot of not-dealbreakers. Primarily because if I were to strictly stick to my vision of every possible portrayal, I'd have like 3 fics to read. I'm picky in theory, not so much in practice because I'm also extremely greedy. I'll give one each for Stucky and Stony.

Stucky: That Steve crashed the Valkyrie because he was so sad about Bucky dying. I talk a little about how much I generally dislike this trope here. I think it's a huge disservice to this character, I will never take it seriously, and I will never write it. But, it's not a dealbreaker as long as it's not repeatedly more than....let's say 3 times in a fic. Looking back, I already gave this answer, so an additional one - Bucky being community dick and then getting upset that Steve doesn't realize that Bucky wants him and the tone of the fic also supporting that Bucky has a right to be mad lol. It's a weirdly common narrative point in a lot of fics and I just don't care for it. It's actually one of the reasons I tend to stay away from pre-CATFA fics. This trope also happens in Stony too, now that I'm thinking about it. What's up with that?

Stony: I (unsurprisingly) have a few to choose from, but I'll say - when it's written like Steve was horrifically out of line or the aggressor in AV1. It's super common (from throwaway lines to paragraphs about how Steve was an asshole) and there is a fine line that this has to walk for me not to dip. Usually, it's a couple of line about it, which I can ignore.

27) What's something that you think [insert fandom/pairing] doesn't have nearly enough of that you're starving for?

I have an embarrassing amount of rare pairs that I ship and I've been itching for a chance to let them out (/ = romantic or sexual, & = platonic).

Steve & Wanda. Oh my goodness, I am absolutely starving for more fics that show their growing bond from AOU to CACW. I would eat it up. Even in AUs, honestly. I said in another ask that I dislike kidfics, but guess what I'm outlining right now involving kid!Wanda...I just think there is something to explore there with Steve's care towards Wanda in canon. I feel like he understands her, to an extent, and anything he doesn't understand, he tries to sympathize with. He reaches out to her and that's so, so important to me. Because I adore Wanda. So much.

Rumlow/Steve. I want to clarify, not so much as a romance pairing (though I have read a couple like that), but more so as a one-sided creepfest on Rumlow's end. Something about him feeling an erotized violence/hatred towards Steve is so delicious to me. In my mind, it's not even love/hate - it's obsession. Maybe even coupled with a childhood admiration morphing into a disturbed/twisted fixation on Steve. I think this Rumlow likes to see Steve hurt. I also think he hates to be kept away from him. He's not deluded enough to think that Steve loves him back, he in fact, probably loves how much Steve hates him after the Hydra reveal. Yum.

Carol & Steve. Nothing much to say here, but I'm sure it's not too surprising. Captain Marvel is my 2nd most-watched MCU movie after CATFA. And I think their stories and journeys and experiences are so, so amazingly similar that I cannot resist the temptation of wanting them to be in every scene together. The squeal I let out when she first met Steve probably broke a few records.

Can I get a little more obscure? I have Steve-ships with characters who aren't in the MCU. Here's a speedrun, no elaboration:

Din Djarin (The Mandalorian)/Steve Rogers

Kushina (Naruto) & Steve Rogers

Sesshomaru (Inuyasha) /Steve Rogers

Ginko (Mushishi) & Steve Rogers

Epsilon (Pluto) & Steve Rogers

Kurenai/Steve/Asuma (Naruto).

Izaya Orihara (Durarara) & Steve....or Izaya/Steve...Izaya would hate him so much haha.

#INTERROGATE ME #me my mine

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krikeymate · 10 months

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So I've had this idea for a while and wanted to share it with you, but I'm kind of a noob when it comes to tumblr lol. Feel free to ignore this if it's bad or if I sent this to the wrong place 😅

I've had this headcanon since I've started obsessing over the Scream franchise that the Carpenter household was a Spanish-speaking one. I mean, Melissa speaks Spanish and Jenna's Mexican/Puerto Rican I think, so this could be canon if they decided to expand more on Christina and Dad Carpenter (now DC if I ever return to your asks lol I'm kind of embarrassed).

Growing up, the Carpenter sisters were taught Spanish by both DC and their mom. They didn't want them to grow up not knowing Spanish, what they both speak, so they strictly spoken Spanish while Sam and Tara would learn English at school.

While Sam succeeded quickly in learning English, Tara was stumped because "why the frick does the letter J make that sound in English? What the heck are elongated vowels? Why does Sam laugh whenever I pronounce certain things?"

All in all, Tara had a rough time.

Sam tried to help wherever she could, but they would end up play fighting and forgetting about Tara's homework.

When DC left, Tara was left all alone to work on her English. Sam stayed out later and later, and Tara thinks she's avoiding her. Christina barely gives her the time of day anymore, only going off in her mother tongue when Tara finally annoys her too much.

All alone in this journey, Tara suffers through her learning. It didn't help that she became the butt of the joke for a long time in school for muttering to herself before shouting out the answers in class.

She just feels left out. Even more when Sam ups and leaves, and Christina finally falls into a bottle.

Post 5 & 6 headcanons to tag onto this one lol:

Tara used to call Sam her guerrera fuerte (strong warrior), but now she sticks with either Sam or Sammy. Sam still has a lot of nicknames for Tara in Spanish, but the ones she regularly uses are chiquita (little one), corazón (heart), and cielo (sky, or it means they're your "whole world")

When she's exhausted, Sam will slip and speak in Spanish

Tara, being the pent-up and angry bean she is, yells in Spanish whenever she's frustrated. She doesn't notice sometimes after she's forgotten what she's angry about, but Sam is always willing to communicate with her excited sister

(Some of Sam's eagerness to talk to Tara is to prove they're the better sibling pair. Mindy and Chad have an advantage to the bet by being twins, but they're no match for Sam and Tara. Tara has no idea this bet is going on. Kirby is the referee.)

Sometimes Tara crawls into Sam's bed and tucks herself into her side. Sam, even if she was dead asleep, will always turn and wrap her sister in a tight hug. She sings Tara to sleep using a Spanish lullaby DC used to sing whenever Tara had a nightmare or became fussy

Sam and Tara talk smack about Gale to her face in Spanish. Gale learns Spanish to spite them

(They refused to admit they panicked when Gale all of a sudden knew Spanish and ran away laughing. Gale wants to adopt those two kids.)

Tara is a HEAVY Spanglish user because she's lazy, and she still never really bothered to properly learn English. That's why whenever she's talking to someone in English, she'll trail of and eventually go silent. She forgot the word she wanted to say in English...

Sam finds it hilarious and teases Tara whenever that happens, which is often

Sam and Tara are forced to listen to Chad and Mindy absolutely butcher their first language while trying to learn it. They stop trying

Sorry if this was too long haha, I got excited while writing this!!

I really really really love this!!!! More of an exploration of their roots both in and out of canon is something I would love to see. I've thought about trying to add some Spanish language into my work previously, but I decided against it because I know I would only butcher it, as it's not a language or culture I'm familiar with.

I hope you do return to my inbox, you've clearly got some awesome ideas to share!! I LOVE ALL OF THIS.

Their first language being Spanish and only learning English through school is such a really cool idea. Especially if you combine it with my idea that Tara ends up starting school a year later than she should, it could help explain why she struggles even more in that initial period. It would probably be quite hard for Sam to relate to Tara's struggles as well, because she'll end up having 6 or so years of learning English over her sister, and by then she's fluent and has forgotten how hard it is in the beginning. And if Tara's got learning difficulties? Oof. God knows I was never capable of learning a second language - not everybody can! Sam sees Tara getting frustrated when she speaks to her in English, and always quickly gives in, switching back to Spanish and distracting her instead.

I have no comments on the rest because it's all so so so perfect. A thousand kisses for you.

#/mp #ask box #Scream #Sam Carpenter #Tara Carpenter

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molagboop · 1 month

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Life on ZDR, Volume IV: Death and Spirituality

Welcome back to another episode of "What's In My Head(canon)?". Today, I'm talking about dead people and the Chozo who take care of them.

Inheritance isn't the only significance the Ancestors possess, oh no. They play a greater role in the tribe's spiritual beliefs.

Dead people. Who takes care of them?

Corpses. They need to be disposed of! If you're a Mawkin and you've got a body you need handled, chances are, you'll call for the Order of the Cairn.

A coroner from the Order of the Cairn carrying a tell-tale gourd lamp.

These shrouded carrion-seekers are an offshoot of the priesthood dedicated to caring for the deceased. Some parents tell their children that the souls of bad Chozo fuel the light of their lanterns, but it's really just butterfly oil.

Quiet types are usually drawn to the job. They dress dramatically, but they're mostly harmless. Mostly. They wield cudgels, which they occasionally use to swat away hungry scavengers while collecting corpses in remote locations.

Defiling corpses and graves is strictly taboo. In this vein, consuming the flesh of the honored dead without their express consent is an unspeakable crime: only two individuals have ever been punished for it in the tribe's history. One of the offenders was the lich-lord* Shasskal, who believed that he could take on the power of deceased Warlords through ritual consumption of their flesh. Records of this period are poorly managed, but a surviving manuscript holds that Shasskal "compounded these foul blasphemies and bid [the Honored Dead] to his command". His manuscripts were gathered and sealed away with his remains.

Traditional "necromancers" already don't play the rules, but Warrior-Magicians? That's just downright unfair. Necromancers should be scrawny and clever, not skull-crushingly jacked!

*This moniker is derived from a portmanteau of the phrases "zissva malaga kaskri haibar" and "Ninu man cumane oskoro ve elar": roughly "Accursed devourer [of] consecrated flesh" and "[he] who commands [that which] sees no rest" respectively. It's an easy English alternative, in the very least.

And who should keep these records but the Eyes of the Shroud, who are dutifully charged with watching over the Accursed: Mawkin who died in disgrace. If a Mawkin dishonors their tribe, standard procedure is to execute them, cremate the body, then use three quarters of the ashes to fire a ceramic vessel to hold the last of the corpse dust (however, there have been cases where individuals were scorned in this way posthumously). This practice is very much a holdover from the old days, but it is taken very seriously.

Who you are and what you accomplished in life not only affects how you're remembered, but how your remains are interred.

The Ancestors and the Priesthood

Priests are very decorated individuals. The Mawkin value their ancestors, so the individuals who tend to their needs must be honored accordingly.

The Mawkin believe their ancestors persist after death. Not necessarily in an "oo spooky ghost" kind of way, but they're still around. Not that they can't stick around in a spooky ghost kind of way, because they absolutely can; Samus learned this the hard way on Tallon IV. Sometimes, they guide their descendants in minor ways: maybe a leaf in the wind that a grandson may notice, one he happens to be moving the same direction as and leads him towards a benign experience that sets off a chain of events and changes the course of his life for the better. Other times, they send portents of events yet to come and subtly suggest how to circumvent them, no big deal. Sometimes, the message is as simple as "hey, you left the lights on"... though they usually don't pipe up for things that trivial.

The latter of these two brands of message is usually delivered to the priesthood, who spend much of their time inhaling substances that are believed to make them more susceptible to the whims of the departed. They train their entire lives to interpret messages sent by the dead, most of which they "hear" in passing, rather than simply being approached by a dead person for the sole purpose of sending a message (though it can happen). The Ancestors almost never speak directly to people; they suggest what they want through gesture and signs sent in dreams.

No one can agree whether the priests are actually "walking the spiritual plane" or not, but Bird Magic exists (which the Mawkin actively weaponize; their greatest leaders wield huge arm-mounted Bird Magic-powered guns for crying out loud), so the Mawkin don't really question it. It's been done forever, and much of what the priests say is helpful... or at least they haven't yet been egregiously wrong. There have been theses written on what might be happening during this "communion", stacks and stacks of papers documenting the effects of holy compounds on the brain during inhalation, and miles of theories posited by thousands of scholars throughout the course of history. But all conclusions are riddled with conjecture.

Most of what these priests are smoking is burned as incense, usually in a little decorative bowl or lidded pot. The older priests have diffusers which they rig to absolutely saturate the air during rituals. If you're eight years-old, and you're going through the spiritual portion of your first maturity rites, you're bound to sit in a room with an old guy wearing more layers than you've ever seen on a person in your life, breathing in the densest, most cloying air ever to pass through your lungs. Like, "how much of this is even oxygen at this point" thick.

The Mawkin have identified numerous chemical compounds that their priests find useful, and know of ways to synthesize them in a pinch. There are three compounds associated with communication beyond the physical realm:

Mathor Root

This hardy little root opens a priest's mind to the will of the Ancestors. Most days, a priest might burn some mathor and go about their day, perhaps go for a stroll and see whatever signs are sent their way. Vapors from burning mathor are pretty spicy, and the dry, smoky consistency can be difficult for the unacquainted to get past. The root contains hallucinogenic compounds that make colors seem brighter, heighten one's attentiveness to subtle noises, and bolster wakefulness, among other side effects.

A priest who is administering a youth's maturity rites will inhale a bunch of this stuff before the rite actually happens because the substance burned while the kid is in the room induces a state similar to REM sleep, and the waking compounds in mathor dampen the soporific qualities of the dreaming vapor. The priest wants to experience the plane-shattering effects of both substances so they can monitor the fledgling's journey without inserting themself into the narrative.

If the priest needs to intervene, they can, but they're not disrupting the kid by remaining awake. The priest gets to walk around the room feeling subtle vibrations in the air, tasting the colors, and narrating the scene to no one in particular.

That last part is especially useful because the spirits don't usually talk, and when they do, it's especially inaudible to those who aren't "attuned to the spirits", (read: they don't smoke enough of this stuff to know how to perceive the words), so if someone on the other side of the veil has a particularly pertinent message for the kid, the priest's voice in the waking world can help deliver these words to their not-quite-asleep little ears.

Ralis Oil

Speaking of which: ralis oil. The whole fungus can be used here, but the cap of this mushroom contains the highest concentration of the good stuff, especially in younger stalks. When you burn ralis, you'll begin to feel drowsy and descend into a state comparable to lucid dreaming. The hallucinogens will make everything wonkier than your standard dream, and you may encounter the silent spirits of long-dead relatives, but otherwise, it's just as surreal as an ordinary dream.

During a ralis trip, one can be rather easily awakened, as they're not experiencing deep sleep. It is of utmost importance that one under the influence of ralis vapor is not awakened in the middle of their dream unless by a trained priest. Either they ride it out for the duration of their unconsciousness, or you get someone who knows what they're doing to slowly ease them into the waking world. People have died from interruptions; it's not a pretty death.

Ralis is most often diffused during rituals such as the aforementioned rites of maturity, but priests will inhale the fumes if they feel there's something that's trying to be conveyed to them, but can't be effectively communicated through other means. The worst offenders in this regard are the spirits of Warlords long past.

That's right: ralis is most often used to listen to complaints from the Mawkin's dead leaders. But the Greatest of the Mawkin's Ancestors won't just speak to anybody. Sure, they appear in Joe Schmoe's non-drug-induced dreams every now and then, but when they really need to talk, they want to see the high priests or their apprentices: the old hens and rooks who are going blind, losing sensation in their limbs, and are having difficulties ambulating unassisted (All problems that seem to disappear when they fill the room with smoke. These compounds are stiff).

These dream-meetings are immensely sacred events and occur in utter isolation. Not a peep from the outside world is to reach the dreamer's ears, not a single light is to be left on, save for whatever flame is still burning near the source of the fumes or however many candles are required by the circumstance.

Usually, if the Warlord is to hear a message from his predecessors, it's delivered by whichever priest facilitated communication between the Old Ones and the tribe. They'll arrange to see Raven Beak and arrive in full regalia to tell him every last detail of their communication with the old Warlords: what did they see, what did they hear, who was there, were any words spoken, what could they deduce from the encounter, any symbolism, etc.

But if it's not a priest they want, it's the High Lord himself. When the Lord Commander is called to commune with the Ancestors, they are locked in a vault with its own isolated ventilation system behind an 8-inch thick metal door. The accommodations are luxurious, and nobody is allowed in or out until the sacred words have been received. Raven Beak could count the amount of times he's had to lock himself in a dark room with nothing but his thoughts, his smallclothes, and a diffuser for company on four hands. Most of the time, the Ancestors delivered important information. Other times, they're... less than helpful. But that's a tale for another time.

#headcanons #Mawkin #circa 2022 #chozo #if the warrior-magician in the second image looks like they're missing an arm that's because they are #straight up just lost one #leave it to me to take two years to post a headcanon #date of conception: March 24 2022

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