#‘the unknown’ being represented as a place between life and death or possibly a version of the afterlife

[gloamses]

the beast from over the garden wall as legitimate modern-day fae representation. or otgw fully as a take on fairy folklore. discuss

[platypuskenny]

Can I get more f that Kenny’s physiology with his alter egos? I’m rlly interested in that

(assuming this means psychology, as a follow up to this post)

i’ve put it off cuz i’ve been busy with other stuff but i‘m really glad i got this ask cuz i love kenny and I love thinking about them in the context of their two alter egos!

CW: discussion of child abuse and neglect, including inexplicit discussion of child sexuality. also a lot of discussion of The Whole Kenny Death Thing. also spoilers for the stick of truth if you haven’t played it!

kenny’s been treated a lot more seriously in recent seasons, with a shift in character to be a lot more mature as well, and it’s a development that makes a lot of sense in the context of “the characters have undergone A Lot and it’s really shaped their personalities because they’re at a stage when their brain is still very soft and malleable and susceptible to trauma.”

the addition of karen in “the poor kid” seems to have shaken up the depiction of the mccormicks a lot. in earlier seasons, kenny was more passive about his home situation, or at least went out of his way to ignore them, (like in “best friends forever” when he plays on his PSP and leaves the house while his parents fight). there are early scenes where he does have some responsibility to his family (i.e. trying to win a can of food for them in “starvin marvin”) but usually he’s just depicted as a kid trying to live through a tough situation. though his “willing to do anything for money even if it’s deeply upsetting, depraved, or outright deadly” character trait from “fat camp” kind of tracks with this understanding that he prioritizes financial security over his personal well-being. 

however, ever since karen was added to the show, kenny’s been depicted as a much more responsible and often even tragic figure. his parents are too caught up in their own shit to address their children’s emotional needs, and kevin sadly gets caught up in their violence as well in “the poor kid” (he’s also vaguely implied to be developmentally disabled in the few scenes he speaks up but that’s mostly speculation). because of this, kenny ends up being karen’s main caretaker - holding her close when she’s distressed at losing her parents, buying her a doll, etc. 

kenny’s situation is a textbook example of parentification. he ends up taking care of karen, at least emotionally, because his parents and brother are unable to do so. he also becomes the breadwinner in “the city part of town” as soon as he gets the chance. this is a really unhealthy scenario that a lot of children in poverty, especially older siblings, see themselves in. it can result in the child not knowing their true place in a family that takes them for granted, and thus not considering their own needs and/or feeling shame if they need help because they’re so used to putting everybody before them. i think this tracks with kenny being “the quiet one” and rarely asking for anything. 

that’s not even getting into the constant death and the fact he spent so much of his life not even understanding why he was doomed to constantly die in horrible painful ways, and for nobody else to remember that he even died to begin with. (kind of symbolic of the neglected child, huh?) 

this brings us to mysterion and princess kenny. in both the superhero game and the fantasy game, you’ll notice kenny is the one who tends to get the most involved, with the only exception being possibly cartman, who could be the topic of a whole other essay on identity issues. mysterion is the one superhero with a real power who exists outside of their superhero game (besides the kewn, whose superhero persona is entirely self-motivated anyway), and princess kenny gets so defensive of her identity that she betrays her friends in both the trilogy and the game. kenny also talks about lady mccormick in the third person in the first black friday episode, and i don’t know if any other characters speak about their personas in that way. so kenny intentionally places more distance between his personas and himself than the other kids do with their personas. 

therefore, i see mysterion and princess kenny as how kenny copes with his deeply repressed psychological issues. it’s a way to compartmentalize his feelings towards his constant suffering and the burden his family inadvertently placed on him by developing these two identities. one embraces his role as caretaker to the degree of becoming a superhero, and the other rejects it in favor of being entirely doted upon. (some people have read the prominence of roles as signs of a dissociative disorder, and i can see that with this context, but i don’t know if it’s really a perfect fit for any specific disorder, especially when there’s little information on kenny’s consciousness when it comes to these personas.)

mysterion is more obviously a tool for kenny to express his discontent with his town. in his first appearance, he states, “i could no longer sit by and watch as my city became a cesspool of crime,” which tracks with his earlier characterization as reluctantly accepting his family’s poverty despite constantly suffering. (plus i’m pretty sure several of kenny’s deaths were the result of crimes.) he refuses to be unmasked because he “would stop being a symbol,” and only does so in order to quell the unrest that his mystery has provoked. that "symbol" wording suggests that mysterion is an extreme version of kenny's self-sacrificing lifestyle to the point where he defines himself as a symbol of justice and hope, not a person. kenny himself is also pretty quiet and secretive, but more because nobody cares about him and he’s kind of afraid of getting killed any second. mysterion’s secret persona is something bold, powerful, and masculine. he is physically adept in a way we don’t see kenny behave, and much more reasonable and cautious about what’s best for him and humanity. (a good visual of this to contrast with kenny is the “mysterion re-rising” animation in the fractured but whole, where he consciously rejects the chance to go to the heaven full of naked women that kenny loves because he has to return to battle.)

mysterion is also a way for kenny to reclaim his "curse” and use it for good. as mysterion, he uses death (albeit reluctantly) to get out of tough situations and save his friends. in video games like fractured but whole and phone destroyer, mysterion’s ability to exist as a ghost and revive himself is a gameplay mechanic. this self-sacrificial personality trait has shown up in earlier seasons, and he kills himself for the good of the community/world/etc in “cartman’s mom is still a dirty slut,” the movie, and “jewbilee.” but he’s not nearly as interested in world issues unless he’s under pressure to care. (for example: he does join the workers’ strike in “bike parade,” but he’s not very passionate about it and doesn’t even care about the issue until his dad takes him to a union meeting.) kenny’s good with solving short-term issues while mysterion worries about the deeper, long-term problems with the town. 

this brings us to mysterion and the mccormicks. when we see mysterion’s interactions with karen, we see how mysterion represents kenny’s responsibilities towards her. mysterion is able to offer karen elaborate, heartfelt emotional support, and guarantee that he’ll always be there for her. he also beats up a girl who bullies her and threatens anybody else who thinks about hurting her - more on that aggressive instinct down below. while mysterion’s identity is known to his friends and the rest of the town, it’s not known to karen, who sees him as a guardian angel. presumably, this is so mysterion can remain a symbol of hope to her, just like he is to the town, and so karen feels like there’s people in the world who care about her besides her brother. however, this does backfire in the fractured but whole DLC where she laments how her brother doesn’t seem to spend time with her, which embarrasses mysterion as he promises to tell him to be there for her more often. this implies that kenny gets so wrapped up in being mysterion that he forgets that he has a duty to karen as kenny as well, further indicating that mysterion is a way to cope with the tragic responsibility of caring for a sibling not much younger than he is.

during the superhero trilogy, kenny also uses mysterion to question his parents about their cult meetings, something that shook him so badly when he learned about it that he broke character. mysterion also told his parents to be nicer to the kids, not beat each other up, pay their kids allowances, and not smoke. it seems that mysterion is able to approach kenny’s parents about serious issues while kenny himself mostly stays out of their business - possibly out of fear? (kenny’s more confrontational in later seasons, though - flipping off his dad in “bike parade,” for example.)

on a similar note, mysterion is way more openly angry and violent than kenny is, especially when it comes to the death curse, which he openly complains about in a way kenny himself never did. compare kenny complaining about stan ignoring his deaths in “cherokee hair tampons,” which only gets further ignored, and mysterion complaining about it in graphic detail in “coon vs coon and friends,” even killing himself in front of his friends, and understandably scaring the shit out of them. mysterion also gets really protective of karen, violently so, as seen with the girl he beats up in “the poor kid” and his distrust when the vampires befriend her in the “from dusk til casa bonita” DLC. such a mysterion is way more passionate and loud about justice and direct action while kenny is more resigned, and most of his good deeds are unknown to the public. if kenny has embraced this caretaker role, it makes sense that he vents his repressed anger through mysterion, especially if you take it in the context of dissociation - kenny can’t handle dwelling on his shitty life all the time, so mysterion holds that anger and finds a way to cope with it by trying to fix everything around them, including kenny’s home life. 

princess kenny is very opposite mysterion in many ways. most obviously, she’s a girl. kenny’s relationship with gender is something i think about a lot in light of PK. “tweek vs craig” depicted him as the only boy in home ec, and he was thrilled because it was the safe alternative to the deadly shop class. i think that, regardless of your headcanon for kenny’s gender (i personally see them as feminine nonbinary - i’m mostly using “he” pronouns in this essay strictly for recognition’s sake and because i’m mostly talking about the show’s depiction of kenny), he sees femininity as safe and comforting, but nevertheless very powerful. (remember that his mother, while not super feminine, is a very outspoken and aggressive woman who calls stuart out on his shit constantly.) and what’s a better combination of femininity and power than a magical girl? 

also one thing i want to note real quick is that karen still refers to kenny as her sister in the stick of truth despite not being super involved in their game which i personally choose to read as Trans Rights Subtext

this is how we get lady mccormick / princess kenny, who is largely a passive character during the black friday trilogy, sitting upon her throne and cutely commenting on the surroundings while stan translates for her. then when sony takes her in, she becomes the star of her own show, a magical japanese princess who doesn’t take shit from cartman or his army and gets whatever she wants because she’s a cute little girl and now she gets to be protected and doted upon! also she speaks japanese and is not muffled in the slightest despite wearing her parka....symbolism? and really interestingly is that when she supposedly dies, she brushes herself off and immediately revives, declaring that she’s okay. in kenny’s feminine fantasy, she doesn’t suffer when she dies, and revives without any mess at all. princess kenny is always gonna be okay!

PK is also very flirty and overly sexual. it’s no secret that kenny is very interested in and knowledgeable of sex. he also absolutely worships women’s bodies, as seen with his views of heaven and that whole plot of “major boobage.” i don’t even read this as lust, because he’s ten, but sheer fascination with sex. maybe it plays into that whole “growing up too fast” concept where he tries to indulge in the “fun” parts of adulthood to make up for the exhaustion of caregiving, but this has been a thing since before kenny was depicted as a real caregiver so IDK. 

anyway, i think PK is also a way for kenny to experiment with flirting and sex, particularly with other boys. she uses her coyness and, in the games, her bare chest to entice boys. her cuteness also attracts grown men in “titties and dragons” which goes largely unremarked upon, which is a bit uncomfortable but still works with the idea that she’s the most “lovable” form of kenny. she also apparently thinks the new kid is “cute.” iit’s really funny to me how kenny is depicted as interested in strictly girls while princess kenny only focuses on boys, which could support the idea that PK is a separate entity from kenny, or that kenny just needs to figure himself out. either way, i imagine kenny finds some thrill in getting men to pay attention to them when their male friends often treat her as superfluous, and even then it often involves objectifying herself (this also tracks with their behavior in “fat camp”). it’s kind of sad if you think about it.

in the climax of the stick of truth, princess kenny has her own in-depth backstory, where she was an orc/elf rejected by both the elves and humans. i think this reflects kenny’s feeling of being “othered” as non-human (since this game chronologically comes after the superhero trilogy) and just generally not feeling welcome among their friends unless they need her. there may also be some parallels between her friends denying her the right to be a princess and kenny’s friends refusing to believe in his immortality. when she rebels against her friends choosing the stick over friendship, it’s another way for kenny to cope with their mixed-to-negative feelings about their friends. so while PK is a figure to be doted on, she’s still probably more gutsy than the kenny we usually know. 

however, PK is not entirely selfish or apathetic about the world around her. in the opening of “a song of ass and fire,” her inner monologue explains her choice to deflect to the PS4 side as the side she believes “is best for all.” she also laments that everybody, including her parents, will be fighting on black friday. it seems that PK dreads the mere idea of war, which contradicts mysterion’s tendency to use violence as a means to protect others. PK still uses her adorableness to help her team, and only asks that they accept her, which really isn’t much. it’s just when she, you know, becomes a nazi zombie and puts the world in danger because she’s so pissed about not being accepted for who she is. 

in my original post, i used the freudian personality theory to explain these three personas, which i regret because i fucking hate freud and he’s heavily responsible for modern consumerism and planned obsolescence. but the basic concepts of the id, ego, and superego do kind of illustrate what i’m getting at with these guys. i assigned princess kenny as the id, because she’s more about self-gratification and getting what she thinks she deserves as well as a tendency towards sexual gratification, and mysterion as the superego (hehe get it super) because of his strong inclination towards morality. however, this isn’t that black-and-white, as princess kenny has some moral considerations and mysterion has violent impulses (the “aggressive instinct”) that are more easily attributed to the id. nevertheless, it seems that kenny is still the balance between these exaggerated personas, and when he expresses attitudes similar to theirs, they are far more downplayed due to the necessities of his situation as a caretaker and an underappreciated friend. kind of makes you wonder if/how the attitudes of mysterion and princess kenny will manifest in him when he’s older.

[scarletarosa]

Set

Egyptian god of chaos, mischief, storms, deserts, battle, danger, virility, and foreign lands  

Set (or Sutekh), though often called a “god of evil” was not always viewed that way and actually played quite a benevolent role despite his chaotic nature. He was one of the sons of Nuit and Geb and was thought to have several wives, including the goddesses Nephthys, Neith, Taweret, Anat, and Astarte (with the latter two being taken from Canaan). Set was usually depicted as a man with the head of an unidentified jackal-like animal with square ears. Although there are many theories of what the animal could possibly be, it is also likely that the animal is meant to be unknown, as Set’s domain includes aspects of the strange and terrifying.  

Associations: Some of Set’s associated animals include: the hippopotamus, crocodiles, scorpions, snapping turtles, wild pigs, and donkeys – all of which were considered dangerous. In his hands, he holds an ankh (symbol of life) and his scepter. He may also be portrayed as a man with red hair and wearing a red mantle. The colour red is significant due to it representing some of the many qualities of Set. In Ancient Egypt, red was the colour of life, strength, victory, hostility, and chaos. He was said to reside in the Great Bear constellation in the northern sky – an area which symbolized death and darkness. Despite his benevolence, he is a very complex god who can be terrifying, especially to those who anger him. He represents the chaotic sides of nature that brings change, including storms (as well as sandstorms), drought, battle, and the unknown. 

Epithets: Set was known to be a fierce protector, especially in battle where he was often invoked as a vanguard. Some of this god’s known epithets include: “Great of Strength”, “The Inebriated One”, “Lord of the Northern Sky”, “The Red Lord”, “He Before Whom the Sky Trembles”, “The Defender”, and “Lord of the Desert”.  

Set’s Roles: Among the roles of Set besides protecting his people in battle was an even greater role: the protection of Ra and all of humanity. As the Sun god Ra would sail his course across the sky on his golden ship, Set would accompany him and was the one to fight off Apep, the serpent of evil. Apep was shown as a spirit in the form of a giant red snake and was the embodiment of all corruption. According to myth, Apep would hypnotize Ra and all of his followers, except for Set, who was chaotic and powerful enough to combat him. In order to defend all of creation and ma’at (order), Set would vanquish Apep each day. Set was also known to be a friend of the dead, helping their souls to ascend the ladder to the heavens. He even held the role of preserving the oases in the desert, which were essential for life in Egypt. So not only would Set represent the chaotic forces of the desert, but he would also protect people and their oases from them; holding back the sandstorms and droughts from civilization. From this, we can see that Set was a powerful ally to all, including the gods.  

Myths: Despite Set being a protective god, political battles in Ancient Egypt caused him to eventually be portrayed differently. When a war broke out between Upper and Lower Egypt, the two patrons of the lands (Horus and Set) were depicted in a myth which represented the battle. This was the myth of Horus and Set both fighting for the throne. With Lower Egypt being the victor, Set was gradually cast away and held in contempt; many relics of his benevolence were eventually destroyed. Set also plays a role in the well-known myth of tricking and slaying his brother Osiris, in order to usurp his throne. However, Isis managed to resurrect Osiris and conceived a child with him, the god Horus. While in most versions of the myth, the story follows that Horus grows up to be a mighty warrior and defeats Set in battle, after which he banishes him to the desert. But in another version, the majority of the nine gods (the Ennead) decided that Horus was the rightful King due to being the son of Osiris. But Ra believed that Horus was too inexperienced to rule, and claimed that Set would make a more capable King. This trial went on for nearly one hundred years while the people of Egypt suffered under Set's chaotic reign.  

Isis was worried for the well-being of Egypt’s people, and so came up with a plan. She took on the guise of a young woman and sat down outside of Set's palace, where she wept terribly. Eventually Set passed by and stopped to ask her what was wrong. The disguised Isis told him of a cruel man, her husband’s own brother, who had murdered him and stolen away her family’s land and cattle, taken away her son’s inheritance, and that now the man sought to kill her son. Not knowing that the man described was himself, Set became deeply moved by the story and was furious. He swore to the young woman that he would seek out the cruel man who had done such things and would kill him, allowing her to regain her land. With this promise, Isis revealed herself to Set before the gods who were secretly listening, and so Set was cast away into the desert, allowing Horus to reign as King.  

In a separate myth describing a battle between Horus and Set, the two gods are wrestling naked in a swamp, where Set eventually appears to have a “mighty erection”. This causes Horus to fall face forward into the waters, causing Set to begin having intercourse with him, which they both greatly seem to enjoy. In another attempt to seduce Horus, Set invites him over to his place to eat and sleep together. The two gods get drunk on wine late that night and caress one another, then have sex once again. Horus manages to catch Set’s seed in his hands, which he keeps until he is able to throw it into the Nile. Unaware of this, the drunken Set falls asleep. Horus lets Isis know of what had happened and she is furious, she then has Horus hide his own seed within the lettuce that Set grows so that he will consume it. Due to this, Horus gains the upper-hand over Set.  

Personality: Set is a very ancient god who can be called upon for things such as granting strength, courage, protection, vengeance, victory, and confidence. In my experiences with Set, he is very outgoing, flamboyant, generous, protective, and fun-loving. He loves high-energy environments, pranks, and sex (especially sex). Though in times of battle, Set is a very powerful warrior and wields a mace made of meteorites. He is not cruel like how his later myths portrayed him, for in truth, Set is a very strong and loyal ally. Especially when fighting against Apep, the god of evil. Set is also one of the close allies to Lucifer, and fights alongside him to defend others and end corruptions. Though other than battling, Set usually can be found seducing women or just enjoying himself in general. He has a wonderful sense of humour and is a great amount of fun to be around. As he is a ruler of discord, he is able to calm such matters in your life as well and help you to confront them. In my experiences, Set appears as a young man with red hair and green eyes. He also states that the animal he is depicted as in Egypt is indeed an otherworldly creature, as that suits him best.

Every god has a Shadow aspect, which portrays all of their darker natures. For Set, this aspect is named Sutekh, and it is his chaotic destructive side. While Set is normally friendly with others, he as Sutekh is more intimidating and unpredictable. When angered, Set becomes as Sutekh, and is capable of creating great turmoil and madness in the lives of those who offend him.

| Offerings | 

Stout beer, whiskey, frothing wine, champagne, sweet red wine, spicy foods, red meats, lettuce wraps, burgers, tacos, lobsters, crabs, shrimp, arrowheads, maces (his favourite weapons), knives and daggers, red rust, spinach, courgetti, cucumbers, coyote pelts, red carnelian, rubies, dried scorpions, star anise, black peppercorns, black silk, bird eggs, red thorns, sour cherries, red grapefruits, red grapes, dark chocolate, sweets, and brightly-coloured sex toys. He also tends to loves shiny and obnoxious sorts of things. 

[somethinginrocknroll]

He's not my favorite in a normal sense. His crazy fucking lifestyle and death are. He knew Elvis, The Rolling Stones, and many others too. Here's a mini bio on him:

Ingram Cecil Connor III better known professionally as Gram Parsons. He was a musician and frontman. Parsons worked with The Byrds in 1968, before quitting and joining his own band, The Flying Burrito Brothers from 1969 through 1970. 

Gram was born in Winter Haven, Florida on November 5th, 1945 to Ingram Cecil Connor Parsons II and Avis Snively Connor. Avis returned to her hometown to give birth to her son. She was the daughter of citrus fruit magnate John A. Snively, who held extensive properties in Winter Haven and in Waycross. Gram's father, Ingram Connor II was a famous World War II flying ace, decorated with the Air Medal, who was present at the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

In 1956 when he was only nine-years-old, Gram saw Elvis Presley in concert and fell in love with music. That’s where his love of music came in. Two years later his father who went by “Coon Dog” took his own life two days before Christmas, Gram was only 11/12. Both him and his sister Avis (Jr) were both shattered after their father’s death.

Avis Sr remarried to Robert Parsons and the children took his name and were adopted by him once he married their mother.

Gram Parsons did briefly attend the prestigious Bolles School in Jacksonville, Florida. That was before transferring to the public Winter Haven High School. Which he did after failing his junior year. Gram returned to Bolles which had converted from a military to a liberal arts curriculum amid the incipient Vietnam War. 

For a time, the family found a stability of sorts. They were torn apart in early 1965, when Robert had an extramarital affair and Avis' heavy drinking led to her death from cirrhosis on June 5, 1965, the day of Gram's graduation from Bolles.

Barely in his teens, he played in rock and roll cover bands such as the Pacers and the Legends, headlining in clubs owned by his stepfather in the Winter Haven/Polk County area. By the age of 16, he graduated to folk music, and in 1963 he teamed up with his first professional outfit, the Shilohs, in Greenville, South Carolina. 

Gram was heavily influenced by The Kingston Trio and The Journeymen. The band played hootenannies, coffee houses and high school auditoriums. Parsons was still enrolled in prep school, he only performed with the group in select engagements. Forays into New York City (where Parsons briefly lived with a female folk singer in a loft on Houston Street)included a performance at Florida's exhibition in the 1964 New York World's Fair and regular appearances at the Café Rafio on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1964.

 Although John Phillips who is an acquaintance of Shiloh George Wrigley arranged an exploratory meeting with Albert Grossman, the impresario balked at booking the group for a Christmas engagement at The Bitter End when he discovered that the Shilohs were still high school students. Following a recording session at the radio station of Bob Jones University, the group reached a creative impasse amid the emergence of folk rock and dissolved in the spring of 1965 around the time of Gram’s mother’s passing.

Shockingly despite being poor in school and having bad test grades, Gram went to Harvard University in 1966 with the help of a strong essay he wrote. He only did one semester and that’s where he became more serious about country music. He heard Merle Haggard for the first time.

In 1966, he and other musicians from the Boston folk scene formed a group called the “International Submarine Band”. After briefly residing in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, they relocated to Los Angeles the following year. Following several lineup changes, the band signed to Lee Hazlewood's LHI Records, where they spent late 1967 recording Safe at Home. The album contains one of Parsons' best-known songs, "Luxury Liner", and an early version of "Do You Know How It Feels", which he revised later in his career. Safe at Home would remain unreleased until mid-1968, by which time the International Submarine Band had broken up.

In that same year Gram got the attention of The Byrds’ guitarist Chris Hillman thanks to business manager Larry Spector as a possible replacement member since David Crosby and Micheal Clarke left in late 1967. Parsons had already met Hillman at a bank in 1967. Gram had his only child, Polly, with Nancy Ross the girlfriend of David Crosby.

Gram passed the audition in February 1968. He was at first a jazz pianist but was switched to rhyme guitar and vocals. Gram left the band when asked why Gram responded with,

"Being with The Byrds confused me a little. I couldn't find my place. I didn't have enough say-so. I really wasn't one of The Byrds. I was originally hired because they wanted a keyboard player. But I had experience being a frontman and that came out immediately. And [Roger McGuinn] being a very perceptive fellow saw that it would help the act, and he started sticking me out front."

He was also friends with The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. And they stayed close to each other until a fall out in the 70s. Before Parsons' departure from The Byrds, he had accompanied the two Rolling Stones to Stonehenge along with McGuinn and Hillman in the English county of Wiltshire.

 Immediately after leaving the band, Parsons stayed at Richards' house and the pair developed a close friendship over the next few years, with Parsons reintroducing the guitarist to country music. According to Stones' confidant and close friend of Parsons, Phil Kaufman, the two would sit around for hours playing obscure country records and trading off on various songs with their guitars.

Returning to Los Angeles in 1969, Parsons sought out Hillman, and the two formed The Flying Burrito Brothers with bassist Chris Ethridge and pedal steel player “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow. They did every genre of music possible from hard rock all the way to country and jazz gospel.  Around this time of The Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram started dabbling more and more into drugs.

Then Gram started a solo career in 1970 and toured with Emmylou Harris for a bit ; he may have been romantically involved with her as well. He then accompanied the Rolling Stones on their 1971 U.K. tour in the hope of being signed to the newly formed Rolling Stones Records.

Parsons and Keith Richards had mulled the possibility of recording a duo album. Moving into Villa Nellcôte with the guitarist during the sessions for Exile on Main Street that commenced thereafter, Parsons remained in a consistently incapacitated state and frequently quarreled with his girlfriend, aspiring actress Gretchen Burrell who later become his wife. 

Eventually, Parsons was asked to leave by Anita Pallenberg, Richards' longtime domestic partner. Decades later, Richards suggested in his memoir that Jagger may have been the impetus for Parsons' departure because Richards was spending so much time playing music with Parsons. Rumors have persisted that he appears somewhere on the legendary album, and while Richards concedes that it is very likely he is among the chorus of singers on "Sweet Virginia", this has never been substantiated. Parsons attempted to rekindle his relationship with the band on their 1972 American tour to no avail.

After leaving the Stones' camp, Parsons married Burrell in 1971 at his stepfather's New Orleans estate. Allegedly, the relationship was far from stable, with Burrell cutting a needy and jealous figure while Parsons quashed her burgeoning film career. Many of the singer's closest associates and friends claim that Parsons was preparing to commence divorce proceedings at the time of his death; the couple had already separated by this point.

In the summer of 1973, Parsons' Topanga Canyon home burned to the ground, the result of a stray cigarette. Nearly all of his possessions were destroyed with the exception of a guitar and a prized Jaguar automobile. The fire proved to be the last straw in the relationship between Burrell and Parsons, who moved into a spare room in Kaufman's house. While not recording, he frequently hung out and jammed with members of New Jersey–based country rockers Quacky Duck and His Barnyard Friends and the proto-punk Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, who were represented by former Byrds manager Eddie Tickner.

Before formally breaking up with Burrell, Parsons already had a woman waiting in the wings. While recording, he saw a photo of a beautiful woman at a friend's home and was instantly smitten. The woman turned out to be Margaret Fisher, a high school sweetheart of the singer from his Waycross, Georgia, days. Like Parsons, Fisher had drifted west and became established in the Bay Area rock scene. A meeting was arranged and the two instantly rekindled their relationship, with Fisher dividing her weeks between Los Angeles and San Francisco at Parsons' expense.

Gram loved to visit Joshua Tree National Park. He would visit it often. Gram would frequently do psychedelic drugs and try to spot UFOs there. He told Phil Kauffman that he wanted his ashes spread there in Joshua National Tree Park since he loved that place and practically lived there when not in LA. 

So he, Dale, Micheal, Phil, Gram's girlfriend Margaret, and Dale's unnamed girlfriend all went to stay at JNTP Inn. Where Gram got morphine from an unknown woman.

He injected himself and OD. Margaret shoved ice cubes up his ass and put him in a cold shower which worked. He was up and talking. Dale was left in charge to watch over Gram and then Gram stopped breathing. Dale tried CPR but failed. Margaret and Dale both watched Gram die. Finally they call a fucking ambulance and he's pronounced dead on arrival.

Now Gram’s stepfather is a POS okay. He wanted Gram buried in Louisiana so he could take Gram's little wealth and the family estate which didn't belong to the stepfather since he wasn't blood.

Phil and Micheal couldn't allow this. Gram wanted to be cremated and his ashes spread. So with a shit ton of booze to make an elephant drunk they take a loaned hearse, because you know everyone has a hearse on loan. They were dressed as cowboys. For as suits were “too itchy” to wear.  The duo take his body back from the airport where he's meant to fly back to Louisiana back to Joshua National Tree Park.

 So the duo crash in JNTP and they pour five gallons of gasoline on Gram and his coffin. Causing a fireball. But cremation and gasoline are different. So instead of having Gram's ashes they had a cooked charred Gram instead. Police were of course called. The duo was fined $750 each and made to do community service.Gram was sadly buried in Louisiana against his wishes but his stepfather didn't get anything.

Gram's wealth and estate were split between his wife, girlfriend, sister, and his daughter. And the family denied the whole illegal cremation happening and won't talk about it.

The end.

Omg that is a really good summary, very sad life tho and how he died but wow

[ammakou]

Here’s what I have for Ammy’s Dragon Ball AU! I wanted to implement some new lore, while not intruding too much on what’s currently known in canon, so I hope this won’t step on anyone’s toes! While what I have here is satisfying enough for me to post, this is still a WIP in a way, and susceptible to changes here and there.

There’s a TLDR section down at the bottom, if anyone prefers a summarized version of all these paragraphs.

An immeasurable time ago, before the 18 universes, there existed one universe.

In this universe, beyond the millions of thriving lifeforms, dwelled two cosmic forces considered primordial by all. Named “The Light” and “The Dark” respectively, it was believed the two kept the universe in order, being insentient gods. The Light was all of the stars and the lifeforms born from them, the source of the vital energy - being referred to as “ki” in time - that dwelled in everything. The Dark was the absence of light, of life, and of ki. In this balance, they were the symbolic roots in which the natural cycle of life and death branched off of.

Mortals who chose to devote their lives to studying the forces ascended due to spiritual enlightenment and evolved to become Priests of the Cosmos. They made it known to mortal kind that they were instilled with sacred knowledge via having visions: it was possible for one force to choose someone to become unified with it, and wield its power. They believed the forces would someday choose two mortals to become gods and co-jointly rule the universe, leading them all into paradise.

One day, a man who thirsted for power and wished to claim what he believed was rightfully his, sought out the forces. The Priests let him be, convinced that he would be rejected for his selfish values and tainted heart, but the man succeeded in his goal. The Dark chose him for reasons unknown, and he quickly established himself as the realm’s one of the realm’s “true” gods, utilizing vast and seemingly endless powers of destruction and decay - along with everything associated under those umbrellas. His name was “Tokoyami”.

Tokoyami used the force that was now eternally a part of his soul for malevolence, having went mad. He swiftly took over the universe, causing immense suffering to all and disrupting the balance of life and death, as more entities & planets were being destroyed than those being created. The only thing able to cancel out his power and “reverse” its effects was The Light’s reign of creation and growth, the Priests believed, but no one could say who it would choose. A woman stepped forward to the Priests, who was willing to do whatever it took to put an end to the chaos born from Tokoyami’s hands.

She was chosen. Her name was “Amaterasu”.

Amaterasu and Tokoyami soon met in a vicious battle of the likes which no one has ever seen before. The universe itself was shaken to its core. The impacts of their power colliding were so extreme, so unnatural as the two were supposed to work in harmony and not in opposition to one another, that it cracked the stability of time and space. As their battle went on, the cracks turned into fractures, that then completely shattered.

Reality was corrupted. The universe fell apart. Amaterasu and Tokoyami were both extremely damaged and fatigued from fighting. Tokoyami’s physical body crumbled away, and what was left of his mind fell into deep slumber, while Amaterasu clung to consciousness in order to spare the Priests from being flung into the void with all other life. Knowing she was on a timer, she decided on the spot to repair spacetime as best she could, and not only create a universe to replace the one lost, but more than one, so life had its greatest chance to thrive; no matter where it was.

18 universes, clusters of galaxies, in their individual zones. Outside the new multiverse, in the remnants of the original universe, the Priests were given their own world. Another world was created, where Amaterasu planted seeds that would become trees that would give birth to creation deities meant to help maintain the life in the universes. Lastly, she created one entity who would symbolically be her direct representative, having absolute authority over all.

Her time having ran out, Amaterasu could only instruct the Priests to harness a fraction of Tokoyami’s power that still lingered everywhere around them and learn the art of destruction to keep the balance between life and death in the universes. Or they could choose other lifeforms to do such for them, if they saw fit.

A sincere farewell was the last said by Amaterasu before she lost her physical body, and her mind also fell asleep – for a duration none knew nor could predict.

Millions of years have passed. The Priests have evolved to become the Angels. Some Angels are the teachers and attendants to Destroyers, who work with the Kai: the creation deities born from Amaterasu’s trees. One Angel, the father of the Angels who attend Destroyers, is the attendant to the entity Amaterasu left to overlook existence: the childish Zeno. Knowledge of the original universe, of Tokoyami, and of Amaterasu is unknown to all except these individuals…or at least, that was the case.

In the passage of it, it is natural for things to become lost to time. Perhaps, even the Angels have forgotten what used to be. Perhaps they have forgotten Amaterasu. Regardless, life is how it is now. Only 12 universes currently exist, 5 being erased by Zeno out of anger, and the deities and whatever underlings they may have developed their own systems for governing life.

However…a mysterious white-haired, crimson-tattooed woman wearing a tattered cloak has been seen on Earth recently. She possesses powers that, if witnessed by others, seem to be similar to the gods – the Kai in particular. Yet, she is not a Kai. She has no memories of her past life.

It remains to be seen, what this could possibly mean for the multiverse.

TLDR: In the original universe, before the 18 (currently 12) universes came into being, Amaterasu and Tokoyami were chosen by cosmic forces to become the first gods of creation and destruction respectively, and gained the ability to manipulate ki. Tokoyami went mad with his power and wreaked havoc throughout the universe. Amaterasu fought him, and their fighting caused reality to collapse into nothingness. Tokoyami fell into slumber due to extensive damage and fatigue from the battle, while Amaterasu managed to hang on for longer.

She saved a group of entities called the Priests of the Cosmos - that would eventually become the Angels - from reality’s fall and repaired spacetime before creating 18 new universes to take the place of the old one. She created the trees that would give birth to Kai that would take up her role of creation, and created Zeno to overlook reality as it was now, before asking the Priests to find some entities to take up the role of destruction with Tokoyami’s lingering power before falling into slumber herself. The Priests, Angels, did so by finding mortals to become Destroyers with they being their teachers and attendants.

Millions of years later, Amaterasu has awakened, but she has no memories of her previous life and lacks much of the power she originally had - not that she knows it. It is unknown if Tokoyami has also awakened.

EXTRA:

— In terms of her Celestial Brush techniques, Amaterasu still has the general abilities in this AU, but the “Celestial Brush” element is absent. They’re like a combination of ki techniques and magic (she can use regular ki attacks / energy blasts too). Her ability to shapeshift is still present, and she swaps in-between a human form and a wolf form the most.

— Amaterasu’s ki is infinite (similar to 17 and 18), thus she is unable to become fatigued - though that won’t stop her from occasionally nodding off from boredom. 

— Due to her “death”, Amaterasu can’t achieve the grand scale of creation she could do in the past, but it is possible for she to regain it someday.

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: After 13 Years, Indie RPG Masterpiece Ruina is Finally Available in English

All screenshots of Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins taken by author

  This article was made possible through the invaluable contributions of translators Dink and bool, and further aided by context generously provided by writer, translator, and RPG Maker scene dweller Kastel (@kastelwrites). Sections from their answers were excerpted for this piece and edited for clarity and content.

  Last year, at the start of the pandemic, a lapsed member of the RPG Maker community known as Dink stumbled across a screenshot while trawling Japanese free game websites: a black obelisk standing in the midst of ruins. “This is going to make me sound like I've been huffing paint, but this image spoke to something quite visceral for me — like I'd been waiting to find this game. Something about the sepia tones, the light and shadows, the elegance of its very archetype. I knew I had to play it.” Dink had stumbled across Ruina: Haitou no Monogatari (Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins), one of the most acclaimed free RPGs ever made in Japan. Released in the antiquated RPG Maker 2000 engine in 2008 by developer Shoukichi Karekusa, it retains a strong cult following and has even been translated into Chinese. Yet unlike its RPG Maker siblings Yume Nikki and Ib, Ruina is practically unknown in English-speaking countries. Dink decided to change that.  “Once I realized that it had yet to be translated into English,” he said, “it was like I’d become possessed.”

  Ruina is unique. A role-playing game that takes direct influence from tabletop games and gamebooks, it boldly defies conventions established by classic console role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Rather than controlling the main character across a top-down map, the player slowly uncovers a hand-illustrated map of nodes. Survival in the dungeon requires the use of ropes, pickaxes, and oil for your lantern, resources that are all expendable. Your party members are valuable not only for their combat skills but for their out-of-combat abilities: thieving, sneaking, even swimming. Most of all, Ruina allows for choice and consequence, a phenomenon far more common in western RPGs than Japanese RPGs. Say you stumble across treasure in a dungeon, but are ambushed by thieves who want the treasure for themselves. Do you give the treasure to the thieves? Stand your ground? Or attack the thieves before they can do the same to you? Since your ability to save in the dungeon is heavily rationed, you may find yourself having to choose between restarting a save or living with the messy outcomes of your choices.

    There’s something to Ruina that grounds it in the Japanese RPG tradition, rather than a straightforward riff on Wizardry or Might & Magic. Those earlier games gave you several choices as to building your party, but little in the way of story or character. Ruina is a far more curated experience. On starting the game, you’re offered four “backgrounds” that align you with certain other characters, just one year before Dragon Age: Origins would pull a similar trick. Rather than being given the full freedom to explore a sprawling world, your options are limited to navigating a single, contained dungeon. The characters available to be recruited into your party have defined personalities and quirks — some are already good friends of yours, others are insufferable, and still others have significant flaws that speak to the kind of person they are versus their gameplay function. These are NPCs out of the Baldur’s Gate school, given the illusion of life, rather than the team of personalized murderers you’d recruit in an Etrian Odyssey game.

  Very little else in the Japanese games scene is like Ruina. You could draw comparisons with games like Unlimited Saga and Scarlet Grace, representing the legacy of controversial SQUARE ENIX auteur Akitoshi Kawazu. You could similarly connect Ruina with Yasumi Matsuda’s experimental Crimson Shroud, which takes influence from tabletop to the point that it has the player rolling dice in-game. But Ruina is more accessible and polished than a Kawazu game, and far more fleshed out than Crimson Shroud. Even Etrian Odyssey, with its comparatively barebones story and characters, doesn’t quite compare. Ruina stands alone in the Japanese free games community, a legendary title that people respect but don’t fully understand how to replicate.

    A few days ago I reached out to Kastel, an academic, writer, and translator who is very familiar with Japan’s RPG Maker scene, about where Ruina fit in Japan’s wider field of indie games. “I know many people in the furige (free game) scene who love the game to death,” they said. “But they also found it to be a hard sell due to its unique, almost western take on the scene. The fact that the game is even this popular speaks to something.” Despite its crunchy mechanics and niche inspirations, the game is popular enough to have spawned light novels, an honor not unique to it (other RPG Maker games have accomplished the same) but certainly significant. Kastel drew a comparison between Ruina and Darkest Dungeon, another weird and uncompromising game that draws from both Japanese and western RPGs. “Ruina is sorta different from everything, but you also see dungeon crawlers get inspired by it,” they said. “Not all games take direct inspiration, but you can’t help but see a little bit of Ruina here and there.”

  So why did it take so long for anybody to translate Ruina? Dink isn’t the only person to try his hand at translating it into English; just last fall, another forum dweller placed an ad recruiting a translation team to tackle the game. The unfortunate reality is that translating text within the RPG Maker engine into English requires intensive and repetitive labor. “There’ve been tools developed by vgperson [a prominent translator of RPG Maker games] for RPG Maker 2000 and some other machine translation tools for newer games, but they all remain difficult to use for translators,” Kastel says. “The way games are scripted uses events inside the map and developers rarely name them. So not only do you need to edit it via the appropriate RPG Maker engine, but you also need to go through each event contextless unless the creator actually notes things down.” So, the enterprising Ruina translator doesn’t just need to translate all the text in the game into English. It isn’t even a question of whether or not to manually edit the game’s many pictures and custom menus into English by hand. It’s the sheer difficulty of navigating between thousands of (often poorly labeled) events and variables in the RPG Maker engine, ensuring not to introduce any new bugs or errors in the process, while also finding the time to do all of the above.

    Dink was assisted by a friend of his named bool, who played through the game alongside the translation process and gave invaluable advice and fixes. “Uncovering the mystery in the game's story sort of ran parallel with the translation of the game itself,” bool says. “As the story progressed, the characters would decipher and learn more about the lore of the eponymous ruins within the game, and as the translation progressed, the same held true for us. It really captivated me to be a part of this process, and I started to look forward to each new area that I could explore and each new morsel of the story I could understand.”

  Without bool’s efforts, it might have taken far longer to put together something workable. As it was, it took four exhausting months. “I worked long hours — 12+ hours a day, 6, sometimes 7 days a week on top of my day job — and very rarely used my free time on anything else,” Dink says. “I did manually input the text in RPG Maker 2000, which has raised some eyebrows because there are some very nice tools available for game translation that would have saved me a lot of time. However, a huge advantage of working directly in the editor is being able to see the game more or less as it appears to players. A Notepad file streamlines the basic translation process, but it also heavily obscures context, whereas the editor allows you to see what switches and variables are being used, what music is being played, and sometimes even helpful creator comments, all in the same relative order you'd experience it from within the game.” Dink had one more secret weapon up his sleeve: the experience of working with the RPG Maker engine as an adolescent. RPG Maker has a reputation of being a tool designed to churn out Dragon Quest clones with ease; but nobody knows the intense difficulty of forcing the engine to do something, anything, like a former RPG Maker developer does. 

    The English version of Ruina, as it currently exists, is a workable but inevitably compromised version of the game. Running the game requires installing the Japanese RTP pack of visual and audio resources for RPG Maker to function, along with the use of the EasyRPG player to provide English-language player name entry. There’s the matter of the custom menus, as well. Several of the menus have been replaced with functional English equivalents, but by Dink's own admission they could use an expert's attention to better compare to the original. Other pictures, such as place name displays, have yet to be replaced by English-language equivalents at all. And the strict character limits of RPG Maker 2000 led to some creative truncating when translating from Japanese to English, especially with item and skill descriptions.

  But the existence of an English-language Ruina, one that renders the whole game playable from beginning to end with a readable script, is a miracle. Speaking for myself, I started the long process of learning Japanese two years ago in part so that I could one day play this game, never expecting there might one day be an alternative. Others in the Japanese RPG Maker scene, knowing the brutal difficulty of translating a game made in the earlier engines, were shocked that a game of Ruina’s complexity and length was successfully translated at all.  Speaking for themselves, Dink and bool insist that their own story doesn’t matter much. What matters is the quality of the original game and the hard work developer Shoukichi Karekusa put into its creation. Anything else is an addendum, another version of the game that — while it cannot ever be the original — might at least make something resembling that original experience accessible to others.

    Frankly speaking, I think there’s something to that. The “true” version of Ruina will always exist in its original form, released for free by Karekusa in 2008. It stands as the defining work of a creator who sought to create a unique experience combining the appeal of console and tabletop roleplaying games, with no concessions to market sensibilities. A creator who not only released their baby on the internet for free, but insisted that a game like Ruina must always and ever be free. An austere monolith, it stands side by side with Yume Nikki, Ib, and even Cave Story as one of the great works to come out of Japan’s independent scene. Now any English speaker can pick up and play this new version of Ruina, and learn what that monolith is and where it leads to.

  You can download the English translation of Ruina here. For those who want to learn more about the Japanese RPG Maker scene, I recommend checking out Kastel’s page here.

  Are you a Ruina fan? Let us know in the comments! 

    Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he is not working through exercises in Wanikani, he sporadically contributes with a loose group of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at:@wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[exceptionally-unobservant]

Since you literally asked for it: Why the pomegranate works for Midnight Sun - an essay

Pomegranates have such a rich significance, both symbolically and mythologically, and much of that significance dovetails with the themes of Twilight, and by extension, Midnight Sun.  Pomegranates have been used as symbols of death, immortality, temptation, sexuality, beauty.  Both Twilight and Midnight Sun portray the dilemma of being tempted by the forbidden, and pomegranates have been used to tell that exact story.

The Apple

Let’s start at the beginning with the iconic Twilight cover: two hands, holding up a red apple, as if in offering.  This image is a direct reference to the Genesis story, where Eve is tempted to eat the forbidden fruit--often portrayed as an apple--from the tree of knowledge, and in doing so commits original sin and is cast out of the Garden of Eden.  The apple is a symbol of sin, temptation, and knowledge.  The epigraph in Twilight underscores these ideas: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” (Genesis 2:17).  Stephenie Meyer confirms this connection on her website and in The Official Illustrated Guide: “The apple on the cover of Twilight represents the knowledge of good and evil,” (p. 539).

The Guide states, “The question inherent in the apple is ‘Do you want to know?’  It asks if you are going to bite in and discover the frightening possibilities around you or refuse and stay safe in the comfortable world you know,” (p. 539).  If Eve is Bella, then the apple is her discovery that Edward is a vampire, and her acquisition of the knowledge of his world.  Rather than being cast out of the Garden of Eden, a fissure is created between Bella and the human world; over the course of the series, she steps away from the human world she has known and steps into the world of the supernatural.  Bella gains “knowledge of good and evil” through her discovery of vampires, and her world becomes darker and more threatening because of it.  

So what does this have to do with pomegranates?  

In some interpretations of the Genesis story, the forbidden fruit is a pomegranate.  It’s a slightly different version of the same story, just as Midnight Sun is a slightly different version of Twilight.  Midnight Sun explores the same themes as Twilight--death, sin, temptation, etc.--just through a different lens.  The cover uses a different symbol to convey the same ideas.  

Aside from potentially being the forbidden fruit in Genesis, pomegranates are also mentioned in the Bible as a special product of Israel (Deuteronomy 8:8), and in Song of Solomon (4:3, 7:12) to illustrate beauty and love.

Hades and Persephone

Much of early Judeo-Christian mythology and symbolism has roots in that of Ancient Greece, and the pomegranate is no exception.  In one myth, the pomegranate is believed to have come from the blood of Adonis (Bella compares Edward to Adonis throughout the series).  Most prominently, the myth of Persephone is known for featuring a pomegranate.  In this myth explaining the origin of seasons, Persephone, the daughter of goddess of the harvest Demeter, is abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld, where she becomes queen.  While her mother grieves, leaving the earth barren, Hades tricks Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds.  Because she ate food from the underworld, Persephone is obligated to spend part of each year in the underworld.

Whereas Bella may be likened to Eve in that she chose to bite the apple to acquire knowledge of good and evil, Edward may be likened to Hades in that he coerced Persephone to eat the pomegranate in order to stay with him.  Edward sees himself as a Hades-like figure: a creature of darkness, doomed to belong to the world of the dead, and he hates himself for it.  Edward sees Bella as this good, pure being--not dissimilar to Persephone--whom his nature could taint by association with him.  This moral dilemma is illustrated in the Midnight Sun partial draft, with striking similarities to Hades’ role in the Persephone myth: “What could possibly happen to result in Bella becoming a prisoner to this immortal half-life? Now—devastated by longing for the girl—I could understand how I might...ask him to take away her life and her soul so that I could keep her forever.” (p. 110).  He is constantly plagued by this inner conflict between wanting to keep her as she is, and wanting to keep her for himself.  Where Hades choses to take Persephone for himself, Edward refuses to accept that this is an option, tempted as he might be to carry it out.  The key difference in this decision is that Edward hates what he is and fights against it, whereas Hades does not.

Some modern interpretations of the Persephone myth grant Persephone more agency.  In some interpretations, Persephone may have chosen to stay with Hades; in others, Persephone leaving Demeter for the underworld is representative of daughters leaving their families, particularly their mothers, as they become adults and get married.  This parallels Bella leaving her mother at the beginning of Twilight, as well as later leaving her mother for good in Breaking Dawn as she enters into adulthood and marriage.  The setting of these events also parallels the myth: Bella leaves warm, sunny Arizona (spring) for cold, rainy Washington (winter, or the underworld); the culminating event of Bella’s decision to enter the world of the supernatural with Edward--her wedding--takes place in August, at the end of summer.

As part of leaving the human world for the supernatural one, Bella’s transformation into a vampire gives her much more power than she’s had before, which is represented on the cover of Breaking Dawn with a queen chess piece.  This mirrors Persephone’s ascension to the queen of the underworld.  In this position as queen, Persephone can stand beside Hades as his equal, just as vampire Bella can stand beside Edward as his equal.

“Okay, but that pomegranate?”

Much of the criticism of the Midnight Sun cover involves a lack of aesthetic appeal.  In other words, “it’s ugly.”  While the other Twilight Saga covers--particularly Twilight--are very pretty and polished, Midnight Sun somewhat deviates from that: it is vivid, raw, bold.  It vaguely resembles a human heart, and is much more on the nose regarding blood imagery than any of the other covers.  Similar to how the drooping petal on the New Moon cover represents Bella’s drop of blood at her birthday party (The Guide, p. 539), the drop of pomegranate juice near the bottom of the cover may also represent Bella’s blood, but in a more visceral way.  Midnight Sun is not supposed to be pretty because that is not how Edward perceives himself, and the cover reflects that.  

The apple works for Twilight--Bella’s story--because it’s a good representation of how Bella perceives herself: plain, ordinary, commonplace.  But it also represents how Edward perceives Bella: pure, untainted, good.  The apple on the Twilight cover, while just an ordinary apple, is a pretty apple: round, red, proportionate, whole, no discoloration, etc.  It’s essentially a photoshopped grocery store ad apple.  

The pomegranate on the cover of Midnight Sun is the flipside of that.  It is asymmetrical, disproportionate, cut in half, with some discoloration (but also keep in mind that pomegranates in general are just messy).  This is a reflection of how Edward sees himself: strange, morbid, not quite right, damaged.  But it is also a reflection of how Bella sees Edward: unusual, other, not of this world, but also fascinating.  When Bella first sees the Cullens, she describes Edward as “lanky,” “chalky pale,” with “bruise-like shadows” under his eyes; she finds him attractive not because he looks typical or conventional, but because he’s “inhumanly beautiful” (Twilight, p. 18-19).  Likewise, pomegranates are somewhat exotic (in North America at least), certainly less ordinary than apples.  The pomegranate may not be pretty, but it’s interesting.

The pomegranate on the cover of Midnight Sun alludes to two of the most well-known Western myths involving couples seeking something that is forbidden and entering into a new and frightening world as a consequence.  This is essentially the story of Twilight and Midnight Sun: a couple who both want something they aren’t supposed to want, and in defiance of potential danger, take it anyway.  For Bella, this means wanting someone who is dangerous, but overcoming that to gain knowledge of an unknown world.  For Edward, this means wanting someone for selfish reasons, whose life he will forever alter, but letting her into his world anyway to find she is equal to standing beside him.  The myths that this story draws from present that enticing, ripe temptation and explore what happens when one takes a bite of that fruit.

[viohra]

Zin Śeva Serinov

[z̪in̪ ˈɕe.və ˈs̪e.rɪ.n̪ov]

Also known as “Zin”, “The Fist Zin”, “The Seveth Zin”, “The Last Serinov”, “Serinov”, and a host of other variations of his name with military ranks, Śeva was born in 1893 ADK (after the death of Koiđu) out of wedlock into the Serinov family, one of the richest and most influential clans in Elensia. His mother was the youngest member of the family’s main branch and his father was the son of a poor Kentic baker and lived near the Serinov estate. His maternal grandfather had both the baker and son killed for the disgrace. Śeva was then named Śeva (which means nothing but sounds like Ševa meaning potato) and sent to a home where all the bastards and other ill-begottens of the family were sent and was trained to become an officer in the military, as was custom of Serinov bastards: to bring glory or die, either way is good for the family.

Śeva was sent to the Elensian war college at 16 and graduated 8 years later with the equivalent to a doctorate in military strategy and sent to the navy with the rank of commander.

At this time in history, Viishy technology was around the same level as the 1950s on Earth and the Elensian Empire and the Naru Federation (a large Shumer country on Taiva) were quickly sliding toward war with each other and a few other powerful nations. The greatest issue, however, was the vast ocean between the continents made aircraft unable to strike without refuelling and ships were too slow to conduct tactical strikes. Magic was being severely hindered by each nation’s antimagic fields. The only answer was to capture the northern continent of Sevkra which had never previously been settled (the Sevkra Ser were largely unknown at this time) due to it's inhospitable environment and the fact that attempting to settle it was considered an act of war to the other nations. The reasoning was that Sevkra was in a perfect strategic position to launch attacks across the entire northern hemisphere.

So as a young commander in charge of a corvette, Śeva was apart of a fleet tasked with protecting cargo vessels. In winter 1920 ADK, the Naru Federation invaded Rjånbjä, then simply called “Urjon”. Urjon was an ally of Elensia, causing Elensia to go to war with the NF. Śeva’s fleet was the closest to NF shores, so they were dispatched to assault the NF industry city Kashem. Śeva’s fleet was poorly manned, poorly equipped, and even worse poorly commanded and was absolutely devastated, but able to deal a blow to the NF’s most valuable navy yard. Upon returning home, Śeva was made admiral for his actions (and name) at the age of 34. As admiral he was charged in securing Sevkra as Elensian territory.

The moment his fleet breached the No Man’s Land parallel, the already unstable political situation of the world exploded in a full world war with four complete independent sides. After many battles Śeva was made Grand Admiral of the Northern Fleet (GANF) and secured Sevkra and sank the last of the NF’s Northern Fleet in the same week. The war then shifted to a war of most of the world versus Elensia which ended after one year, close to a billion deaths, and much of Taiva destroyed as Elensia signed an armistice with the country of Vasta from south Taiva, a world superpower at the time.

It's also important to note that Śeva was very adept at magic, to the point that it was not possible to classify his abilities, making him the 17th Unclassified Viishy to ever live. Koiđu was the first, and in a way, the 17th as well because Śeva was the reincarnation of Koiđu. Śeva inherited the same reality manipulation magic as his old soul too, but he simply didn't have the thousands of years of experience as his predecessor. He could, however, hear and see his predecessor who — for the lack of a better term — haunted him. Koiđu was angry for not being able to completely die and now “living” as a shadow to a war-hungry child pissed him off even more, so at times he would torture Śeva for kicks, making Śeva manic, depressed, sleep-deprived, and addicted to pain medication which at first was used to treat headaches.

Once Śeva came home he was made Marshal of Sevkra, marshal being a social position in Viishy society that is both civilian and military — it's a position you're either made as or elected to and gives to immense political power and extrajudicial privileges that varry country to country, they are basically a caste of untouchable social elite that does as they will without consequence. The English translation “marshal” comes from the misunderstanding that it was a military rank and not social caste that simply outranked military ranks. In Elensia there's a tradition that when you become a marshal, you are allowed one action without repercussions that doesn't affect the royal family. So Śeva chose to have the entire Serinov family publically executed including all branches up to 3 generations. This was a suggestion by Koiđu who never expected Śeva to do it, so Koiđu was surprised by this as well. The last two of the family to die were his mother and grandfather, who he had burned while making them perceive time as such that for them, they burned for millions of years. It was then he became feared as The Last Serinov.

Upon exploring Sevkra, Śeva discovered the Sevkra Ser living in elaborate caves beneath the snow and ice. He was surprised to find they spoke a language similar the Ser in Taiva, had similar cultures, and called themselves Ser. Koiđu then told him he placed a community of Ser on the continent to see what would happen years prior to his death, and it seems they did well to survive. Śeva then started working with them to establish the underground capital megacity of Voden and Kavo, both located in Ser population centres as a gesture of good faith. After a few decades, the Emperor told him to either kill the Ser or sent them to Taiva. Śeva was infuriated because unlike his family which lived off the backs of the poor and were a key aspect of Elensian corruption, the Ser were a peaceful innocent people. So instead he teleported to the emperor’s palace and killed him with the very sword the emperor gave him upon becoming marshal. Śeva declared independence of Sevkra from Elensia and went back to Voden to prepare for war.

At the time most of Sevkra was military and their families, most of whom supported Śeva and already saw him as a better leader than the emperor, so the assassination and declaration of independence was celebrated by the majority of the new nation. The war between Sevkra and Elensia lasted 5 days with Elensia losing hundreds of thousands and Sevkra suffering only from 323 deaths and 108 injured due to Śeva fighting with all his powers and saving much of his force from experiencing the battle.

After the war, Śeva established a system of government where there was a democratically elected president, a prime minister, and a parliament, a democratically elected judicial system, a mostly democratically elected marshaldom, and a oligarchy of 7 marshal-chosen members with equal political power that can for any reason make absolute political changes and who rule of the marshaldom body. These 7 are all Grand Marshals with six of them assuming the name of the Titan they “politically represent” and the seventh member being the Grand Admiral or Supreme General who is leading the military at the time (this person is temporarily made Grand Marshal). Śeva made 431 people marshals and they elected him among the 7 oligarchs of the nation. This is where he adopted the name “Zin”, just as his predecessor Koiđu had.

Much of the next 1000 years or so he spent in relative peace. Koiđu eventually “fell asleep” and would only be awake for brief moments every hundred years and Śeva moulded Sevkra into a nation so powerful, no nation ever attempted to attack it. Sevkra technology became extremely advanced and after the advent of space travel, they became known as creators of the most powerful and advanced starships. Śeva wanted to explore the cosmos as Koiđu had, so he stepped down from being Zin and gathered a team and set out to explore. He found many planets terraformed by Koiđu which he settled in the name of Sevkra and also established bases on moons and asteroids. He then set out alone and found a moon above a gas giant that was large enough for the plans he had. Inside this moon he created the largest ship to exist (or ever exist). Upon returning home 1500 years later, he was elected again as Zin, this time the seventh Zin.

He wrote a book titled “On Magic” under the pen name “Varik”, but it wasn't well received— critics called it “completely and utterly incomprehensible” and “most painful to read than be murdered by the hardcopy version” and it fell into obscurity until it found its way into a certain person’s hands. The book also contained a code on where to find his ship.

After another 500 years Śeva felt done with life and tried to succeed where Koiđu had failed, leaving a note that read “Y’know what? I rate it 3,5/6 stars at best.” He succeeded a little better than Koiđu.

3,5 became the name of a political party that voiced policies that Śeva would've supported.

[litsavantbookclub]

Regretting You Book Review

Hello fellow readers!

A few weeks ago I finished Lit Savant’s March book club pick, Regretting You by Colleen Hoover. I knew when I started this book that this was a romance story. But it is so much more than that. I have decided to try something new and will use three cards from my rider-waite smith tarot card deck for this review. If you have never read this story I suggest you stop reading right now. Spoiler Warning!

It’s a story about a mother and daughter, family, loss, grief, and the journey of moving away from the past and into the future. It’s about trying to pick up the pieces. Hoover’s novel is like a tarot spread: The tower, the hermit, and the fool. Destruction, loneliness, and new beginnings. All these stages are prevalent in the book.

The first character readers are introduced to is Morgan. She is just graduated high school and is having a night out with her younger sister, Jenny, boyfriend Chris, and her friend sister’s boyfriend, Jonah. It’s clear from the beginning that there is chemistry between Jonah and Morgan. They relate to each other on a deeper level than they do with their significant others. For instance: “sometimes when we’re alone, he looks at me in a way that makes me feel empty when he looks away. It’s a feeling I’ve never gotten when Chris looks at me” (11). Jonah makes Morgan feel like no one ever has including her boyfriend. It’s a feeling that is powerful and Morgan realizes she misses it when it’s gone. However, at the same time Morgan knows that ideally those are feelings that Chris should be inspiring. 

Morgan, willfully blind or not, will not act on this revelation because she will not go behind her sister’s back. Morgan states the following about her upbringing: ...I’ve always felt a sense of responsibility for her since I’m older and our mother doesn’t regulate our activities in any way” (3). Morgan is like another mother to her sister. This is a position she naturally assumed because their actual mother wasn’t around. Morgan is wants Jenny to have someone to be the voice of reason even though they aren’t supervised. 

But Morgan doesn’t just feel that way about Jenny but Chris as well. During the party, Chris gets drunk and Morgan reeling from the news that she’s pregnant is not feeling festive at all. Jonah finds her and they talk. Then Morgan mentions the following: “It’s like my chest has been on a constant search for it’s missing piece, and Jonah is holding it in his fist” (11).  Feeling such intensity scares Morgan and she decides she needs space from Jonah. 

Chris comes back and eventually apologizes and shares the reason he loves Morgan: ...you do things you don’t want to do to make life better for the people around you.” (12). Chris says that the fact doesn’t make Morgan boring but a hero” (12). Hoover’s addition of this is foreshadowing at its finest. Morgan is a hero albeit a traditional idealized version. She does sacrifice and does so wholeheartedly for most of her marriage to Chris. She fills in all the cracks in their home and lives.

Clara during present-day adds to Chris’s comment years later when she says that the first word she thinks of when thinking about her mother is predicable: “predicable is not something I wanted to hear. Because it’s everything I know I am and everything I feared I would grow up to be” (51). Morgan isn’t happy with the way things are. She makes mention of this many times in the second chapter. It’s her birthday and she feels isolated and rudderless. In her eyes, everyone has something going for them except her. During those two instances Hoover points out something that many mothers can all relate to. While we may not be the most exciting roles in the world we are reliable because of this predictability. We sacrifice because that is what mothers do but many times it is something that is taken for granted. Every time we give to others we put our wants and even needs on the back-burner for the good of everyone else. It is noble but draining.

When Morgan found out she was pregnant all those years ago  she decided that everything she did from that moment forward was to focus on her baby and Chris. For example: “...I became someone else. I guess that happens when you become a mother though. Your focus is no longer on yourself” (48).  But now that Clara is months away from graduating high school one of Morgan’s longest stages is at the end. And since Chris has died, she finally has to focus on herself. 

The Tower card is apparent as soon as the car accident takes place in the story. This accident turns Morgan, Clara, and Jonah’s lives upside down. The Tower card is all about upheaval. The card is pictured as a tower’s roof being struck by lighting, flames engulfing the structure, people falling down to the depths below. In a metaphorical sense all of these characters are in free fall, everything that they’ve known family, loyalty, and stability is gone. Both Chris and Jenny’s deaths and their adultery break any illusions Morgan had about Chris as a husband and all the years she dedicated herself to their marriage and her “predictable” role. After the accident Morgan says: “since the moment of the wreck, everything in my life has felt edged in sharp corners, and I’ve been tiptoeing around this world in the dark for the past month, trying not to injure myself” (139). The quotation sets the mood and tone of story Morgan is fragile and vulnerable. She is emotionally bruised and battered unable to pick up the pieces. The tower’s effect can have someone completely stripped and bared psychologically. Yet, The tower is also a card that signals a transition coming. This transition is painful and can be harrowing but it is necessary. 

The Hermit is all about thinking and solitude. It’s about finding answers within yourself. However, it isn’t that straight forward. This requires time and it can be isolating. As with every card in the Major Arcana there are two sides. For a good chunk of the story it’s a rough and lonely experience. These are things that every character is experiencing by the second part of the book. Clara is trying to reconcile losing her beloved father and trying to cope with each passing day while also not seeing eye to eye with her mother, Morgan. Morgan is no stranger to feeling alone and being stuck in her head but the loss of Chris helps her eventually see that stopped caring about herself. Jonah having come back to his hometown is left reeling when he discovers that Elijah is not his biological son. This moment of solitude and thinking takes him down a dark path and he almost ends up leaving town without Elijah. Clara in her own suffering helps him see that even though things aren’t ideal he needs to be there for his son. Even though Clara isn’t aware of everything this helps Jonah put things in perspective. This card is about finding answers inside yourself. Being open to the all the possibilities and not being willfully blind.It’s about having the answers but needing to open up yourself to the act of seeing them and finally making the decisions you need. 

The card is pictured as a graying man with a staff and lantern looking down thoughtfully alone. This speaks to the idea that sometimes we need to be alone with our thoughts. The man has the light with him he just needs to realize it. 

Morgan is guilty of being willfully blind. She, just like Jonah, is observant and has been aware of her unhappiness for a while but has gone with the flow for most of her life. This is apparent ever since chapter one. She knows that Jonah makes her feel much more than Chris ever did. But she shuts it out. Until she can’t anymore. Morgan says the following: “I know if I obsess over the past, that obsession will only serve to anchor me in a place I am more than ready to move on from” (336). And at this point all Morgan can do is try to move on and let the past go. Same for Clara and Jonah. 

The last card in the spread is The Fool. The fool upright represents a free spirit and beginnings. This card depicts a carefree man walking towards a cliff, sun in his face, flower, in his hand, dog yapping at his legs, heading off on a journey unfazed by what lays ahead. This easily describes all three characters by the book’s end. Clara has learned the whole truth and has accepted that her father isn’t without blame but was a good father to her. She is heading off to prom with Miller. She and Morgan are no longer feuding and understand each other better. Morgan has made her peace with Chris’s unfaithfulness and has embraced her unrequited love for Jonah. They are both giving their love a try. Jonah loves Elijah and will not abandon him again. He decides to stay and moves on with his life with Morgan and Clara as his new family. All characters are embracing the unknown and unfazed by the risk this may bring. This is the fool in full effect. The act of starting a journey. The fool is innocent and just wants to experience the good in the world. They want to gain experience and are not afraid of what lies ahead. It’s a wonderful outlook that we all must have had in at least once in our lives. 

Overall, it was an emotional read. Our book club agreed that it wasn’t about what we initially believed. This book has layers. We understood the decisions Morgan made even though we didn’t completely agree with them. 

What did you think about the book?

Did you the usage of tarot cards in this review?

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments below.

My rating: 3.75 

Keywords: Emotional, grief, romantic

[astraltwelve]

The Zodiac Signs as Greek Monsters

Aries: The Sirens

A distant cousin of the mermaid (in folkloric terms anyway), the sirens were beautiful, alluring women who dwelled near rocky cliffs and sang to passing sailors. According to legends, the hapless seamen would become enchanted by the sirens’ song, following the mellifluous melody to their deaths as their boats crashed upon the rocky shore. It is an ancient morality tale about the evils of women, but not all sirens were so comely.

Other accounts depict sirens as half-bird, half-woman creatures who would lure travelers to their doom with harps instead of their voices. In Greek myth, Odysseus escaped the sirens by having his sailors plug their ears with beeswax, though in modern times doctors recommend soft foam earplugs for sailors who may encounter these dangerous monsters.

Taurus: Polyphemus

The most famous of the cyclops was Polyphemus. Greek hero  Odysseus and his crew were trapped by the cyclops Polyphemus, who kept them in his cave for later consumption. Odysseus cunningly plied Polyphemus with wine, and when the monster fell asleep, blinded him by driving a large stake through his only eye.

As the story goes, Odysseus later escaped captivity from the now-blinded Giant’s cave by tying himself to the underside of one of the Cyclops’ sheep, which was let out by the giant for pasture. Or, that’s what Odysseus told  people who found him cavorting with a sheep.

Gemini: Hydra

Hydra is an ancient Greek mythical beast that was mentioned in the tale of the twelve labors of Hercules (also called Heracles). The hydra has many heads (possibly 7, 8 or 9), the number of head varies from different versions of the legend, however, more accounts agree on nine. It was said that the middle one was immortal and it has very poisonous venom and breath.

If the heads are cut off, the heads would grow back. One head cut-off would result to two heads growing back in its place.

The Hydra was believed to have lived in the Lernean marsh which is located near Argolis, the region around Argos, Greece. Others say that the Hydra lived in Cave in the Swamp of Lerna.

The serpent-woman Echidna and the hundred headed Typhon are the Hydra’s parents. His siblings include the Nemean lion, Cerberus, Chimera and Ladon.

The Hydra guards the entrance to the Underworld and from the murky swamps of the Lake of Lerna the monstrous serpent would rise and terrorize the city. The Hydra was finally killed by Hercules during his second labor.

The Hydra was said to have the body of a dragon/snake with many heads (possibly 7, 8 or 9), two arms & legs with knife-like claws, sharp spines/spikes & a long serpent tail.

Cancer: Charybdis

Charybdis was interpreted as either a sea monster or as a large whirlpool in the Greek mythology. In the former, she was portrayed as the daughter of the sea god Poseidon and goddess of Earth, Gaia. In this interpretation, she had a mouth for a face and had to swollen huge amounts of water each day. When Charybdis belch the water back, it lead to the formation of large whirlpools.

Charybdis was featured in the story of Odysseus, who had to cross a narrow channel in the Strait of Messina. On one side of the channel lies Charybdis while the other side lays a hydra monster by the name of Scylla. To cross the channel successfully, Odysseus had to balance the ship’s navigation well. This give arise to the modern saying of “‘between Scylla and Charybdis’”, which means that choosing between 2 dangers.

Leo: Medusa

Medusa, in Greek mythology, most famous of the three monstrous Gorgon sisters. She was once a beautiful woman, but she offended Athena, who changed her hair into snakes and made her face so hideous that all who looked at her were turned to stone. When Medusa was with child by Poseidon, Perseus killed her and presented her head to Athena. Chrysaor and Pegasus sprang from her blood when she died. Medusa’s head retained its petrifying power even after her death. Because of this power, her image frequently appeared on Greek armor.

Virgo: Lamia

Like many women in Greek mythology, Lamia is dealt a bad hand in life just by virtue of being born beautiful—and by somehow not managing to stay out of Zeus’s sight. And we all know what Zeus does to beautiful women…and who it is that gets blamed afterward.

The story goes that Lamia was once the queen of Libya, who became a beloved mistress of the god Zeus (by choice or by force, we’re never told). Naturally, Zeus’s wife Hera found out about the affair—she had a knack for that sort of thing—and instead of punishing her husband, she took out her anger on Lamia. This isn’t unusual for Hera, though the concept of blaming the woman for the man’s infidelity is a theme that runs throughout much of history and ancient myth.

To punish Lamia, Hera transformed into a monster and murdered Lamia’s children while Lamia watched, helpless to stop the goddess’s fury. There are several different accounts that explain what happened here, depending on the source:

1.   As if killing her children wasn’t enough, Hera then took away Lamia’s ability to blink or close her eyes, so that she would be forever haunted by the sight of her dead children.

2.    Hera didn’t actually kill the children—she only stole them—causing Lamia to go insane with grief and tear out her own eyes.

3.   Rather than kill the children herself, Hera forced Lamia to kill and devour her own children.

And whether it happens out of the madness found in grief for her children’s’ death, as a part of Hera’s punishment, or as a gift from Zeus in order to exact revenge on the world for what has been done to her, Lamia is transformed into a serpentine monster that hunts and devours other people’s children.

Libra: Scylla

In Greek Mythology, Scylla was a monster that devoured Men who passed near her & Charybdis

According to Ovid, Scylla was once a beautiful nymph. The fisherman-turned-sea-god, Glaucus fell madly in love with her, but she fled from him onto the land where he could not follow. Despair filled his heart. He went to the sorceress Circe to ask for a love potion to melt Scylla’s heart. As he told his tale of love about Scylla to Circe, she herself fell in love with him. She wooed him with her sweetest words and looks, but the sea-god would have none of her. Circe was furious, but with Scylla and not with Glaucus. She prepared a vial of very powerful poison and poured it in the pool where Scylla bathed. As soon as the nymph entered the water, she was transformed into a frightful monster with a body of a Water Serpent & six heads with faces of frighting women with sharp teeth. She stood inside a large cave, destroying everything that came into her reach, a peril to all sailors who passed near her. Whenever a ship passed, each of her heads would seize one of the crew

Scorpio: The Erinyes

The Erinyes were known to be entities of vengeance. They were born out of the blood of Uranus when Cronus castrated him. It is unknown how many Erinyes were there although their physical attributes were unmistakeable. They had serpents around their waist and had blood dripping from their eyes.

In the Greek mythology, they appeared to Orestes and try to hunt him when he killed his sisters on the orders of Apollo, the god of sun. Eventually, Orestes managed to escape to Athena template where he was given a trial, attended by both the Erinyes and Apollo. Orestes was later found to be not guilty and was released from pursuit by the Erinyes.

Sagittarius: The Sphinx

Sphinx has the head of a woman, the body of a lion and the wings of a bird and might be the sister to Chimera and Cerberus.  In the Greek mythology, there was one sphinx who guarded the road to the city of Thebe.  To all travelers who used this road, the Sphinx would ask the following riddle “Which creature walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?” Anyone who can’t answer this riddle correctly was devoured.  The riddle was eventually solved by Oedipus who gave the correct answer: “man”.  It was said that the Sphinx either jumped off a cliff or devoured herself when the riddle was solved.

Capricorn: Cerebus

Cerberus is the famous three headed hell dog that guarded the entrance of the underworld. Appearing in both Greek and Roman mythology, Cerberus has also been depicted numerous times in various game titles. According to the Greek legend, Cerberus was was given birth by Echidna, a hybrid half-woman and half-serpent, and Typhone. Cerberus was featured in the stories of Hercules as the last labor in which the hero must captured the monster alive with no tools.

There are currently some disagreement over the representation of the three heads. Some said that they represent past, present and future while others have argued that they represent birth, youth and old age.

Aquarius: Harpies

The Harpies were the spirits of sudden, sharp gusts of wind. They were known as the hounds of Zeus and were dispatched by the god to snatch away people and things from the earth. Sudden, mysterious disappearances were often attributed to the Harpies. The Harpies were once sent by Zeus to plague King Phineus of Thrake as punishment for revealing the secrets of the gods. Whenever a plate of food was set before him, the Harpies would swoop down and snatch it away, befouling any scraps left behind. When the Argonauts came to visit, the winged Boreades gave chase, and pursued the Harpies to the Strophades Islands, where the goddess Iris commanded them to turn back and leave the storm-spirits unharmed. The Harpies were depicted as winged women, sometimes with ugly faces, or with the lower bodies of birds.

Pisces: Graeae

Graeae are the three sisters who shared one eye and one mouth. They were birth by Phorcys and Ceto and were in fact sisters to the Gordons . The names of the three Graeae sisters are Deino Enyo and Pemphredo. Although mot stories portrayed the Graeae sisters as old hags, some poets actually described them as beautiful creatures.

The Graeae sisters appeared in many pop culture including the second book of Percy, as well as in the 2010 movie, Clash of the Titans. In the Greek legend, it was the Graeae sisters who directed Perseus on how to kill the Medusa, although the hero did steal the eye from them before they are willing to do so.

[bondsfated-m-blog]

Really  LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY. RULES.  repost, don’t reblog !! TAGGED.  no one in particular. TAGGING.  anyone and everyone.

BASICS.

FULL  NAME : arvio ramal NICKNAME :  vio AGE :  unknown, presumed 18+ BIRTHDAY :  unknown, chose april 1st ETHNIC  GROUP : unknown, presumed vacuoan NATIONALITY :   vacuoan LANGUAGE / S : fluent in the common tongue and proficient in a dialect of vacuoan. SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :  pansexual ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION : panromantic RELATIONSHIP  STATUS :   it’s complicated with both his patron and his mentor. SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS :   middle HOMETOWN / AREA :   city of vacuo CURRENT  HOME :   the second floor of a city shop. PROFESSION : student / hunter

PHYSICAL.

HAIR : black, with natural rust / copper highlights. regardless of length, it’s unruly and defies the best of efforts of whomever attempts to tame it. EYES :  hazel. NOSE : upturned. FACE : diamond.   LIPS :  he has them. COMPLEXION : dark tan. BLEMISHES : none. SCARS : none. TATTOOS :  none. HEIGHT : 6′1″ WEIGHT : hovers around 180 lbs. BUILD : rectangular body shape. body type is the ectomorph. he has lean muscle. NOTABLE FEATURES : maned wolf ears with coppery black fur and white tufts. disproportionately long legs. wolf’s tail, with copper fur that turns white at the end. ALLERGIES : none. USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :  prior to the academy, his hair skimmed his mid-back. shortly after settling into team azur, it was chopped to a more practical intermediate length. in whatever style, his hair is thick and naturally spikes. good luck to whomever is attempting to brush it. for a reference, see this post and the image on the right. USUAL  FACE  LOOK : keenly interested yet easily distracted. usually cheerful. USUAL CLOTHING : a sleeveless, white, v-neck shirt ( intricate blue embroidery borders the sleeves and neck ). dark belt. dark pants with blue and gold designs down the seams, tucked into dark boots that reach just above the knee. several thin gold necklaces trail at differing lengths -- a deep blue jewel hangs from one. a gold armband on his right arm, in the form of a coiled snake with tiny versions of the same blue jewel set as its eyes. occasionally, a wide scarf is tucked across a shoulder and under his belt.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR / S : the unknown surrounding the past. losing the parts of himself he currently has. a shadow, lurking at the corners of his vision. its scent of ash, decay, and disease. ASPIRATION / S :  to learn as much as possible from shade academy. to remember the years and people he’s forgotten. to travel with his mentor, as equals. POSITIVE  TRAITS :  curious. inventive. enthusiastic. devoted to his mentor, his sister, and his studies. NEGATIVE  TRAITS :  childish. defensive. short-tempered. stubborn. prideful, yet with an overall confidence that’s tanked. naive. MBTI : enfp-t. ZODIAC :   aries. TEMPEREMENT :  the sanguine. SOUL  TYPE / S :   the spiritualist. ANIMALS : baboon. VICE  HABIT / S : can apologize, profusely to the degree of annoyance. prone to sleeping in. dodges details about himself.

FAITH : spirit worship. GHOSTS ? :   yes. AFTERLIFE ? :   yes. REINCARNATION ? :  yes. ALIENS ? :  why not. POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT :  n/a ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE : he and his mentor hover firmly at middle class, primarily due to the rarity of their shop’s wares and the price they command. SOCIOPOLITICAL  POSITION : equality is a concept he supports. he has a general wariness for elected officials / nobles -- with the notable exception of his patron. EDUCATION  LEVEL :   meets the overall minimum standards of education. reads at a high level.

FAMILY.

FATHER :    unknown MOTHER :   unknown SIBLINGS :   unknown EXTENDED ��FAMILY :   none. however, he considers his mentor to be the most important person in his life. NAME  MEANING / S :  arvio means wanderer. ramal means sand and is one of the surnames available to those who don’t have one from birth. HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? : the aztec deity xolotl.

FAVORITES.

BOOK :  he will devour whatever reading material is available. topics he gravitates towards most often include the arcane, history, and oddball factoids. MOVIE : he’ll sit for anything, but he particularly likes oddball documentaries and anything related to food and travel. 5  SONGS : one of his favorite things to do is wander the markets and listen to the musicians gathered for the day. the odder the instrument, the more he’s attracted to it.

DEITY :  he honors a variety of deities, primarily nature spirits and those represented on his cards. HOLIDAY :  he’s torn between the large festivals held in the spring and fall. MONTH :   any during springtime. SEASON :   spring. PLACE :   he doesn’t remember traveling outside of the city. however, his patron’s gardens and his mentor’s home in the desert are the two places he seeks for comfort. WEATHER :   clear, with a slight breeze. SOUND :  his mentor at work. SCENT / S :  incense. spices at the market. pumpkin bread, freshly made. lapsang souchong. any tagine. roasting meat. TASTE / S :   savory and spicy. a hint of sweetness. FEEL / S : the arcana in his hands, accompanied with their small jolt of power that leaves his fingers tingling. his mentor’s hair. water. ANIMAL / S :   any canine. a particular ball python.   NUMBER :   one. COLORS :  blue, silver, red.

EXTRA.

TALENTS :   his connection with the arcana. his semblance ( summoning cards that store objects and spells ). sleight of hand. hiding a ball python under his shirt. BAD  AT :  taking advice from those who aren’t his mentor and sister. being patient. TURN  ONS : his mentor. his patron. confidence. easy-going. TURN  OFFS : focusing on his faunus traits rather than him as a person. dismissing his mentor and their arcane skills. superiority, at the expense of putting him down.     HOBBIES :   caring for his mentor’s ball python. wandering the markets. providing tarot readings. clubbing.   TROPES :  attention deficit...ooh shiny! back from the dead. beware the silly ones. beware the nice ones. good is not soft. in touch with his feminine side. meaningful name. kindhearted simpleton. parental abandonment. sad clown. skilled but naive. AESTHETIC  TAGS :  n/a QUOTES : (1) “ if ignorance is bliss, then knowing will be the death of me. ” (2) “ but something drags me with fear teeth / i don’t know what i want. ” (3) “ apocalypse boy you won’t destroy all that you touch. you are more than your darkness and more than the death you carry in your hands. ” (4) the lyrics of run boy run, by woodkid

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC / S : keaton, from fire emblem fates, is the closest reference. ALT  FC / S :  none, but searching. OLDER  FC / S : none, but searching.   YOUNGER  FC / S :   N/A VOICE  CLAIM / S : none, but searching. GENDERBENT  FC / S :  N/A

[theuncannytruthteller]

Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929) was an American blues and gospel singer, songwriter, and musician. He was one of the most popular blues singers of the 1920s and has been called the "Father of the Texas Blues".

Jefferson's performances were distinctive because of his high-pitched voice and the originality of his guitar playing. His recordings sold well, but he was not a strong influence on younger blues singers of his generation, who could not imitate him as easily as they could other commercially successful artists. Later blues and rock and roll musicians, however, did attempt to imitate both his songs and his musical style.

Jefferson was born blind (or possibly partially blind), near Coutchman, Texas. He was the youngest of seven (or possibly eight) children born to Alex and Clarissa Jefferson, who were African-American sharecroppers. Disputes regarding the date of his birth derive from contradictory census records and draft registration records. By 1900, the family was farming southeast of Streetman, Texas. Jefferson's birth date was recorded as September 1893 in the 1900 census. The 1910 census, taken in May, before his birthday, confirms his year of birth as 1893 and indicated that the family was farming northwest of Wortham, near his birthplace.

In his 1917 draft registration, Jefferson gave his birth date as October 26, 1894, stating that he lived in Dallas, Texas, and had been blind since birth. In the 1920 census, he is recorded as having returned to Freestone County and was living with his half-brother, Kit Banks, on a farm between Wortham and Streetman.

Jefferson began playing the guitar in his early teens and soon after he began performing at picnics and parties. He became a street musician, playing in East Texas towns in front of barbershops and on street corners. According to his cousin Alec Jefferson, quoted in the notes for Blind Lemon Jefferson, Classic Sides:

They were rough. Men were hustling women and selling bootleg and Lemon was singing for them all night... he'd start singing about eight and go on until four in the morning... mostly it would be just him sitting there and playing and singing all night.

In the early 1910s, Jefferson began traveling frequently to Dallas, where he met and played with the blues musician Lead Belly. Jefferson was one of the earliest and most prominent figures in the blues movement developing in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas. It is likely that he moved to Deep Ellum on a more permanent basis by 1917, where he met Aaron Thibeaux Walker, also known as T-Bone Walker. Jefferson taught Walker the basics of playing blues guitar in exchange for Walker's occasional services as a guide. By the early 1920s, Jefferson was earning enough money for his musical performances to support a wife and, possibly, a child. However, firm evidence of his marriage and children has not been found.

Prior to Jefferson, few artists had recorded solo voice and blues guitar, the first of which were the vocalist Sara Martin and the guitarist Sylvester Weaver, who recorded "Longing for Daddy Blues", probably on October 24, 1923. The first self-accompanied solo performer of a self-composed blues song was Lee Morse, whose "Mail Man Blues" was recorded on October 7, 1924. Jefferson's music is uninhibited and represented the classic sounds of everyday life, from a honky-tonk to a country picnic, to street corner blues, to work in the burgeoning oil fields (a reflection of his interest in mechanical objects and processes).

Jefferson did what few had ever done before him – he became a successful solo guitarist and male vocalist in the commercial recording world. Unlike many artists who were "discovered" and recorded in their normal venues, Jefferson was taken to Chicago, Illinois, in December 1925 or January 1926 to record his first tracks. Uncharacteristically, his first two recordings from this session were gospel songs ("I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart" and "All I Want Is That Pure Religion"), released under the name Deacon L. J. Bates. A second recording session was held in March 1926. His first releases under his own name, "Booster Blues" and "Dry Southern Blues", were hits. Their popularity led to the release of the other two songs from that session, "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues", which became a runaway success, with sales in six figures. He recorded about 100 tracks between 1926 and 1929; 43 records were issued, all but one for Paramount Records. Paramount's studio techniques and quality were poor, and the recordings were released with poor sound quality. In May 1926, Paramount re-recorded Jefferson performing his hits "Got the Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues" in the superior facilities at Marsh Laboratories, and subsequent releases used those versions. Both versions appear on compilation albums.

Largely because of the popularity of artists such as Jefferson and his contemporaries Blind Blake and Ma Rainey, Paramount became the leading recording company for the blues in the 1920s. Jefferson's earnings reputedly enabled him to buy a car and employ chauffeurs (this information has been disputed); he was given a Ford car "worth over $700" by Mayo Williams, Paramount's connection with the black community. This was a common compensation for recording rights in that market. Jefferson is known to have done an unusual amount of traveling for the time in the American South, which is reflected in the difficulty of placing his music in a single regional category.

Jefferson's "old-fashioned" sound and confident musicianship made it easy to market him. His skillful guitar playing and impressive vocal range opened the door for a new generation of male solo blues performers, such as Furry Lewis, Charlie Patton, and Barbecue Bob. He stuck to no musical conventions, varying his riffs and rhythm and singing complex and expressive lyrics in a manner exceptional at the time for a "simple country blues singer." According to the North Carolina musician Walter Davis, Jefferson played on the streets in Johnson City, Tennessee, during the early 1920s, at which time Davis and the entertainer Clarence Greene learned the art of blues guitar.

Jefferson was reputedly unhappy with his royalties (although Williams said that Jefferson had a bank account containing as much as $1500). In 1927, when Williams moved to Okeh Records, he took Jefferson with him, and Okeh quickly recorded and released Jefferson's "Matchbox Blues", backed with "Black Snake Moan". It was his only Okeh recording, probably because of contractual obligations with Paramount. Jefferson's two songs released on Okeh have considerably better sound quality than his Paramount records at the time. When he returned to Paramount a few months later, "Matchbox Blues" had already become such a hit that Paramount re-recorded and released two new versions, with the producer Arthur Laibly. In 1927, Jefferson recorded another of his classic songs, the haunting "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" (again using the pseudonym Deacon L. J. Bates), and two other uncharacteristically spiritual songs, "He Arose from the Dead" and "Where Shall I Be". "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" was so successful that it was re-recorded and re-released in 1928.

Jefferson died in Chicago at 10:00 a.m. on December 19, 1929, of what his death certificate said was "probably acute myocarditis". For many years, rumors circulated that a jealous lover had poisoned his coffee, but a more likely explanation is that he died of a heart attack after becoming disoriented during a snowstorm. Some have said that he died of a heart attack after being attacked by a dog in the middle of the night. In his 1983 book Tolbert's Texas, Frank X. Tolbert claims that he was killed while being robbed of a large royalty payment by a guide escorting him to Chicago Union Station to catch a train home to Texas. Paramount Records paid for the return of his body to Texas by train, accompanied by the pianist William Ezell.

Jefferson was buried at Wortham Negro Cemetery (later Wortham Black Cemetery). His grave was unmarked until 1967, when a Texas historical marker was erected in the general area of his plot, however the precise location of the grave is unknown. By 1996, the cemetery and marker were in poor condition, and a new granite headstone was erected in 1997. The inscription reads: "Lord, it's one kind favour I'll ask of you, see that my grave is kept clean." In 2007 the cemetery's name was changed to Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery, and his gravesite is kept clean by a cemetery committee in Wortham.

[specialyinterested]

Spooky’s House of Jumpscares/Jumpscare Mansion Info Dump

(Some of my favourite facts about Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion)

It’s most likely Spooky from Spooky’s Jumpscare mansion Died on October 31st 1964.

In the HD Renovation if the player enters the code 1235 into one of the arcade machines you will see Spooky’s backstory. In this she can be seen Trick or Treating with her dad. Her red costume at first could be mistaken for a Devil costume.

However in the Karamari hospital DLC if you go into the basement you can a note from Spooky’s father part of which reads “I was confounded no one understood your costume but I guess people don’t read Poe anymore, even with the new Price film.” Given this information it’s most likely Spooky was dressed as the Red Death from The Masque of the Red Death a Edgar Allen Poe story that was made into a movie staring Vincent Price and released on the 24th of June 1964.

Another note implies that it was Spooky’s father who brought her back as a ghost. In the note he writes “A second device is needed to bind the spirit to the earth after it has been brought back. I know this sounds macabre but I will turn it off and let you return to heaven after your mother and I get to see you again.” why he didn’t turn off the machine/turning off the machine didn’t work is unknown.

In Spooky’s own notes she refers to the internet as the Spider Portal, and mentions  “a cluster of webs centred around short horror experiences as well as some sort of Italian cooking” most likely referring to Creepy Pastas which could be further proof to her dying before the internet was really a thing. (She also refers to LP people which most likely means Lets Players).

(It is also theorised that the child in the notes could be the Demon Child found in Karamari Hospital and that the backstory found on the arcade machine was fake. Though the lines about liking to scare people and binding the spirit leads me to believe this is not the case)

(Facts about the specimens bellow the read more)

Specimens

Specimen 1) The pumpkin is named Sam in reference to the movie Trick R Treat. There was originally going to be a werewolf cut out. After a while the face on the green slime becomes corrupted. This face represents SCP-106. One of the cut outs resembles Jeff the Killer who is also referenced in Spooky’s research notes in endless mode. Specimen 2) First appears in Room 60 and is triggered by the player reading the note in said room. Their death screen reads  "I know what you have done, and what you have yet to do. But it's alright, because I'm inside you now. We are one but I am many...".  Their chase theme music is titled UNKNOWN HUG They were inspired by the Lub Glub monsters from Adventure Time. They also may be a reference to SCP-106 (who also apears from puddles [Specimen 1 only does this in thr HD renovation]) and the creatures from the 1030 cartoon Swing You Sinners.

Specimen 3)  First appears in the GL Lab rooms (that start at Room 120) and is triggered by reading a GL assistant note in which they mention hearing a clicking sound. Their chase theme music is titled WRITHING SNEEZES. They were inspired by the game Resident Evil. They are refereed to as Subject 5. Subjects 1-4 can be seen floating in the walls of the GL Labs rooms. 

Specimen 4) First appears in Room 166 once the player has reached the end of the room. Her death screen reads  "Hush now my child, you're safe now." She has four chase themes; BREAKFAST WAS TOO EARLY BREAKFAST WAS TOO LATE BREAKFAST WAS TOO WATER DAMAGED RINGU_AMB She is a homage to Japanese RPGs (especially Corpse Party).The second version of her could also be a nod to the Fatal Frame games. Her being the fourth specimen was probably deliberate as 4 is seen as a bad number in Japan The room number may be a reference to SCP-166 She is the only specimen with two different chases

Specimen 5) First appears in room 210 Their death screen reads “Tiny, Shining holes in the sky. Delicate, perfect emptiness. Black, growing absences of life.Cold, swarming death. And we shall become them." Their chase theme music is called LUSTING STRAWBERRY They are thought to be a reference to the Silent Hill Series It is theorised it may be the “Mother” mentioned in the notes leading up to its first appearance They are referred to in the game data as bab

Specimen 6)  First appears in Room 310  Nicknamed Ben and The Merchant by fans He will attack if the player doesn’t look at him, but also if the player looks too long “To become a puppet is to rid oneself of the pain and harshness of choice. Now nothing you do is your fault, now you belong to something... You belong to me..." Their chase theme music is titled The Merchant His inspiration was most likely the Happy Mask Salesman from LOZ Ocarina of Time/Majoras Mask  and Ben from the Ben Drowned Creepypasta He may also be a reference to SCP-173 or the Weeping Angels from Dr Who Specimen 7)  First appears in room 411 They are slow but an instant kill They are only effective against people with past trauma or mental illness. This means the player character could be mentally ill/traumatised (though it’s possible their trauma is their encounters with previous specimens) Their chase theme music is titled STRANGE WIGGLES It’s appearance resembles Giygas from Earthbound and it’s behaviour is similar to the mind flesh wall in Penumbra: Black Plague Specimen 8)  Nicknamed Deer Lord First appears in room 558 Their death screen reads “ "And I saw, from eyes that were not mine. And I felt, with a fear I could not reason. They watch us, they invade us. And keep us happy, committing treason. To a King we didn't deserve. To a Son who waits weeping. That I knew, from knowledge gained while sleeping." Their chase music is called Your Consenting Mind. While chasing the player they will say four different phrases: “Join us” “Why do you run, child?” “Your submission is inevitable” “Your flesh will sustain my children” Their inspiration was The Best from Over the Garden Wall They are also similar to Herne the Hunter from English folklore, the Wendigo from Native American lore, a Kyrkogrim from Scandinavian folklore, Remor from Fran Bow and SCP-1417-A

Specimen 9)  Can appear anywhere from Room 52 onward Can be triggered by staying in one place for too long or walking down one of the endless coridoors They also act as a final boss to the game Their Cat_Dos entry appears to be corrupted They can kill the player in any of the Safe rooms It’s theorised their inspiration could be Red from the NES Godzilla Creepypasta Their Cat_Dos entry says they were terminated, evidently this is not the case.

Specimen 10)  First appears in Room 617  Was the reason the GL Labs were abandoned The original Specimen 10 is described as being Docile Whether Cat_Dos shows the original or current Specimen 10 is random chance Their death screen reads "Now you have nothing to fear. Now you have nothing to think. Follow your selfish desires. Follow your natural instinct. After all you're just an animal. It's much easier than trying to think." behind this text something written in binary flashes on and off screen. When translated this reads "You are more than just an animal. Use the soul you've been given. And be responsible for your actions." Their chase music is called  GETTING THERE They seem to be inspired by Necromorphs from Dead Space as they are both parasitic in nature They also seem to be inspired by the creature from the movie The Thing or SCP-610

Specimen 11) Nicknamed Food Demon First encountered in Room 710 after the player has picked up the key in the freezer Once the player character has run out of health Specimen 11 teleports them to a looping hallway made of meat before finally killing them Their death screen reads "With every bite with bone and skin. The temple groaned and shook again. His dwelling place did I neglect. To the end with bad effect." just like specimen 10 a second message in binary can be seen. This translates to read  "Believe in God, but question the teachings of men." Their chase music is called We Have the Beef If you reverse the sound heard while they chase the player you can hear the phrases “Come here”, “Stop running away”, “I see you” and “I’ll catch you” Specimen 11 and the Fast Food restaurant rooms resemble a Little Big Planet Akuma Kira made The meat hallway could be a reference to SCP-106′s pocket dimension

Specimen 12) First encountered in room 810 Specimen 12 is actually the Mansion not the Old Man as people might think. The old man is simply the mansion’s Host They are the only specimen with a hide mechanic In endless mode they have to modes Docile and Actvie While active the theme Here Comes Trouble plays. While Docile the theme Gummy Worms With Gummy Bear Heads plays. Was mansion was based off the game Clock Tower and the chase music is similar to the chase theme Don’t Cry Jennifer The old mans appearance was based off the Adult Swim cartoon Too Many Cooks The Old Man was voiced by Vernon Shaw from Hot Pepper Gaming on Youtube According to notes found in endless mode show he was a vlogger who would explore abandoned locations

Specimen 13)  First appears in room 910 She will only move if the player is in the water Once the player gets back in the water she starts chasing again. However she is always a little further away than the last splash to allow the player time to move away She will not pause between her attacks Her chase theme is called Something In The Water She is similar to Kaernk from Amnesia The Dark Decent 

[chanoyu-to-wa]

Nampō Roku, Book 2 (2):  (1586) Tenth Month, First Day, Go-atomi [御跡見].

2) The same day¹.

    Things were left [exactly] as they were [when Hideyoshi departed]².

◦ [Guests³:] Bizen-saishō [備前宰相]⁴, Sōmu [宗無]⁵, Sōkei [宗惠]⁶.

◦ The room was the same⁷.

﹆ Toko:  the flower arrangement [by Toyotomi Hideyoshi] was left as it was⁸.

◦ On the shelf, the remainder of the tea, [in] the Shiri-bukura, on its tray⁹.

﹆ When [the guests] entered the room, everything remained as it had been¹⁰; the kama was lifted up so that [the new guests] could have a look at the remains of the charcoal [that had been arranged by Hideyoshi]¹¹.

◦ And again, a little more [charcoal] was added, and the kama returned [to the ro]¹².

▵ Kashi ・ senbei [センヘイ], kobu aburite [コフ　アブリテ]¹³.

Go [後]¹⁴.

Kurete [暮テ]¹⁵.

◦ Toko:  after [Hideyoshi's] flower [arrangement] was taken away¹⁶, a tōdai [燈臺]¹⁷ [was hung up in its place].

﹆ The Shiri-bukura was lowered [to the mat]¹⁸.

◦ Mizusashi:  the same as before¹⁹.

◦ On the shelf:  the habōki²⁰.

◦ Chawan:  as before²¹.

    Everything else was the same [as earlier in the day]²².

_________________________

¹Onaji hi [同日].

    This means “the same day.”

    It was the first day of the Tenth Lunar Month of Tenshō 14 [天正十四年] (1586).

²Go-ato ni sono-mama [御跡ニ其儘].

    Go-ato [御跡]:  go [御] is an honorific (it indicates that someone important did something*); ato [跡] literally means footprints.  In other words, everything was left exactly as it was when Hideyoshi left the room†.

    Sono-mama [其儘] means "as it is;" "as one finds it;" "as (things) stand." __________ *In this case, it was what remained (in the room) after Hideyoshi took his leave.

†In this kind of construction, ato refers to the (intact) setting (just recently) vacated by an important personage -- i.e., Hideyoshi.

³In this kaiki, the names of the guests are simply listed without being introduced by the word “guests.”

⁴Bizen-saishō [備前宰相].

    This refers to the daimyō and nobleman Ukita Hideie [宇喜多秀家; 1572 ~ 1655], who, in addition to being the lord of Bizen [備前] and Mimasaka [美作] provinces*, served as an Imperial Chamberlain (jijū [侍従]), Imperial Councillor (sangi [参議]), lieutenant-general of the Left Imperial Guards (sa-konoe ken-chūjō [左近��権中将]), and provisional Vice-councilor of State (gon-chūnagon [権中納言]), ultimately attaining the second grade of the Third Rank (ju-sanmi [従三位]†.

    Hideie also was a member of Hideyoshi’s Council of Five Elders (go-tairō [五大老]), which was created to act as the regent for Toyotomi Hideyori after his father’s death, and opposed Tokugawa Ieyasu at the battle of Sekigahara, for which he was exiled to Hachijō-jima [八丈島], an island in the Philippine Sea far distant from the Japanese archipelago.

    The sobriquet Bizen-saishō [備前宰相], which means something like “Chancellor of Bizen,” was Ukita Hideie’s nickname, due to his huge influence over the affairs of this province. ___________ *Both provinces form part of modern-day Okayama Prefecture.  The village of Imbe [伊部], which is in Bizen, is the original home of Bizen-yaki.

†Though at the time of this chakai, Hideie was of course not such a high noble.  His father, Ukita Naoie [宇喜多直家; 1529 ~ 1581], the hereditary lord of Bizen, had died several years before, and Hideie was elevated to a prominent position several months later at the very young age of 10, by the Oriental way of counting.  (At the time of this chakai, Hideie was just 15 years of age according to the same way of counting ones age where the person is assigned the age of “one” at birth.)

    Hideie was subsequently adopted by Toyotomi Hideyoshi after he married Hideyoshi’s adopted daughter Gōhime [豪姫; 1574 ~ 1634 -- whose birth-father was the great lord Maeda Toshiie], and it may have been for some such reason that Hideyoshi invited him to attend this atomi (and possibly was the reason why Hideyoshi deigned to arrange the charcoal before serving usucha to his two attendants and Rikyū -- to impress the young man with the importance of mastering chanoyu as his soon-to-be-adoptive-father had done).

    It might be doubted whether Hideie was actually known as Bizen-saishō at the time when this chakai took place (since he would have only just celebrated his gempuku [元服], or ceremony of attaining manhood, earlier in the year).  The use of this sobriquet, then, might represent a later emendation (perhaps intended to clarify the identity of the guest, and so associate him with the person thus named in the Rikyū Hyakkai Ki).

⁵Sōmu [宗無].

    This refers to Okayama Hisanaga [山岡 久永; 1534 ~ 1603*], who is also known as Sumiyoshi-ya Sōmu [住吉屋宗無]†.  He was a wealthy townsman from Sakai, and also a highly respected chajin‡, and served as one of Hideyoshi’s Eight Masters of Tea (sadō hachi-nin-shū [茶頭八人衆]).

    Sōmu’s presence as the ji-kyaku was very likely intentional (perhaps at Hideyoshi’s direction)**, so that he could assist Hideie (who, at his young age, probably did not know much about chanoyu††). ___________ *Certain accounts suggest that Sōmu may have died in 1595, at the time when Sakai was razed on Hideyoshi’s orders (as a punishment for the city-state’s opposition to his invasion of the continent).

†He is identified in this way in the other versions of the Hyakkai Ki.

‡Sōmu is said to have first studied chanoyu under Jōō, and then later with Rikyū (though, given his high standing with both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, this latter assertion might be a revisionist opinion popularized by the Sen family during the Edo period).

   He studied Zen under Shunoku Sōen oshō [春屋宗園和尚; ? ~ 1611], from whom he received the name Sōmu [宗無] -- which he used as his professional name later in life.

**In the Hyakkai Ki, Sōmu frequently appears in a role that might be interpreted as being Rikyū's assistant, in situations where the shōkyaku either was inexperienced, or his rank indicated that he needed to be treated with especial deference (in such a case, Sōmu would convey the chawan to him, for example, and then return it to the host after the shokayku had finished drinking).

††Since only usucha would have been served at this atomi, this may have been Hideie's first experience of chanoyu.  Thus the atomi is being staged as a sort of miniature chakai.

⁶Sōkei [宗惠].

    This refers to Mizuochi Sōkei [水落宗惠; dates of birth and death unknown], who was another respected machi-shū chajin from Sakai*.  He is also said to have been the father of Rikyū's son-in-law, Sen no Jōji [千 紹二]†. __________ *Some suggest that he was also one of Rikyū's disciples (though it is more likely that he was a member of the group that formed around Rikyū in the years after Jōō’s death -- given Sōkei’s contemporary reputation as a chajin).

†Sōkei's son is usually known as Sen no Jōji because Rikyū adopted him into the Sen family upon his marriage to Rikyū's daughter (Rikyū having only one biological son -- which, for a merchant, was akin to putting all of ones eggs in one basket).

⁷Onaji zashiki [同座敷].

    Literally, the same sitting-room.

    This refers to the 2-mat room which Rikyū used during the chakai for Hideyoshi (that had just concluded).

⁸Toko ・ go-hana sono-mama [床 ・ 御花其マヽ].

    Go-hana [御花]:  the use of the honorific (go [御]) means that Rikyū is referring specifically to the chabana created by Hideyoshi (which Rikyū moved from the floor of the toko to the hook attached to its rear wall).  Hideyoshi's chabana (white chrysanthemums in an Arima-kago [有馬籠] -- this basket is shown below) was left as it was.

    The Shigaraki hanaire and usu-ita would have been removed from the toko after Hideyoshi left.

⁹Tana ni go-cha no nokori, Shiri-bukura ・ bon ni [棚ニ御茶ノ殘、尻フクラ・盆ニ].

    Go-cha no nokori [御茶の殘り]:  the use of the honorific (go [御]) indicates that this was the matcha remaining from what had been used to serve Hideyoshi.

    As was mentioned before, the Shiri-bukura [尻膨] was Rikyū’s most prized chaire; and it was from contemplating this bon-chaire that his unique ideas about how to perform the bon-date temae arose*.

    Because reused tea could only be served as usucha, Rikyū is also suggesting that koicha was not served to Hideie and the others (as was sometimes done in other atomi no chakai). ___________ *This was perhaps the greatest difference between Rikyū’s chanoyu and that of Jōō (who created the bon-date temae).  Oddly (considering the over-blown lip service that they accord to Rikyū), none of the modern schools perform bon-date in his way:  all of them prefer to do this temae the way Jōō did it (even though most of the modern schools prefer to use the smaller “Rikyū-sized” chaire-bon, rather than the larger trays -- now almost always used as higashi-bon -- that were employed by Jōō and his disciples).

¹⁰Za-iri sono mama [座入其マヽ].

    This means that when the guests entered the room for the (abbreviated) sho-za of this atomi no chakai, the ro was left exactly as it had been when Hideyoshi departed.  This was important, since the idea was to allow the guests to inspect the charcoal laid* by Hideyoshi. __________ *Actually, Hideyoshi had simply repaired the fire that had been laid by Rikyū.  Nevertheless, the condition of the different pieces of charcoal would make this obvious to someone who understood chanoyu; while simply impressing the importance of mastering chanoyu to the young man who was nominally the shōkyaku at this atomi.  (This atomi seems to be attended by mock formality, which in turn suggests that this may have been Hideie's first experience of chanoyu.)

¹¹Kama agete go-sumi no nagori ikken [釜アケテ御炭ノ名殘一覧].

    Ageru [上げる] means to raise something up; lift something up; bring something up.  The kama was lifted out of the ro (and presumably stood on a kamashiki that was placed on the left side of the utensil mat*).  This allowed the guests to have an unobstructed view of the interior of the ro.

    Go-sumi [御炭]:  once again, the use of the honorific indicates that this refers to the charocoal arranged (or repaired) by Hideyoshi.

    Nagori [名殘] means, remains, remnants, vestiges.  Since the time of Jōō it had been said that the host's skill could be ascertained by the remains of his arrangement of the charcoal (since the vestiges of the fire showed not only the arrangement, but the manner in which the fire had taken hold, and burned down -- things that were just as important as the beauty of the arrangement itself).

    Ikken [一覧] means to glance at something; to have a look at something. ___________ *I have seen a commentary that suggested that the kama was left suspended on a chain several shaku above the mouth of the ro, so that the guests could look at the fire underneath.

    However, given the size and weight of Jōō‘s ito-me kama [絲目釜] (shown above), this would have been ill-advised (since it would look very dangerous to the guests, even if the chain and ceiling were actually strong enough to support it).

    This interpretation was probably the result of the result of the commentator (who was not a practitioner of chanoyu) misunderstanding the word kakuru [掛くる] -- see the next footnote.

¹²Mata sukoshi oki-soe, kama kakuru [又少置添、釜カクル].

    Oki-soeru [置き添える] means to place something beside (something else); add one thing to another.  The new pieces of charcoal were placed next to the burning pieces, so that they would catch fire slowly (and so keep the kama boiling until the "gathering" was ended).

    Kama kakuru [釜掛くる] literally means to hang or suspend the kama (over the ro).  This expression originated in the old days, when the kama was suspended over the ro on a chain*.  And it remained the way to express the idea of returning the kama to the ro even after the kama came to be placed on top of the gotoku.    

    This sentence is a good example of the way that Rikyū expressed himself.  It is much closer to Korean syntax than Japanese (I was asked to point this kind of thing out by certain followers of this blog). ___________ *The expression is also used with regard to placing the kama on a furo.  This may be an example of post hoc terminology; or the fact that the original furo was a kake-awase furo on which a kiri-kake kama was suspended -- here used because the kama rests on the ring-like mouth of the furo, with part of it hanging below the point of contact.

¹³Kashi ・ senbei, kobu aburite [菓子 ・ センヘイ、コフ　アブリテ].

    Senbei [煎餅] are rice crackers.  They would have been procured from a specialty shop.

    Kobu aburite [昆布 炙りて] means konbu (kelp) that has been toasted over a charcoal fire (rather than boiled in broth and tied into a bite-sized knot, which is the other way that it could be served as a kashi).

    The kashi would have been served in a shallow vessel of some sort -- perhaps on a large dish, resting on an unpainted oshiki [折敷].

    This kind of chakai, where only kashi are offered to the guests, is sometimes referred to as a kashi-kai [菓子會].

    After eating their kashi, the guests would have gone out for a brief naka-dachi, while Rikyū readied the room for the service of tea.

¹⁴Go [後].

    This indicates that what follows occurred during the go-za [後座], the second half of the chakai when tea is served.

¹⁵Kurete [暮テ].

    Kureru [暮れる] means to become dark.  The day is drawing to a close, and it is now dark enough outside that artificial illumination is needed within the room.

¹⁶Toko ・ go-hana tori-irete [床・御花取入テ].

    Tori-irete [取り入れて] means to bring something in -- in this case, into the katte.

    That is, the flowers arranged by Hideyoshi were removed from the tokonoma.

¹⁷Tōdai [燈臺].

    This is a kake-tōdai.  It is an L-shaped stand (sometimes made of wood and metal, and sometimes made from a piece of bamboo -- the two most common styles are shown in an Edo period sketch, below) that can be hung on the wall (in this case, from the hook attached to the back wall of the toko), which in turn supports a saucer of oil containing several burning wicks made of the pith of the lamp-rush plant (Juncus effusus var. decipens), called igusa [藺草] in Japanese.

    Hanging the kake-tōdai in the toko (in place of the flower arrangement) is a practice called tō-ka [燈華] -- which is usually translated as “flower of the lamp” (though apparently without a clear understanding of what is intended, on the part of the translator).

    This word is a pun (the homophonous tō-ka [燈火] is the “lamp-flame,” the source of the light); but hanging the tōdai in the toko, as a substitute for the chabana, was one of Jōō's most closely guarded secrets (and this is the reason why chabana were not displayed at night -- because the flame takes the place of the flowers).

¹⁸Shiri-bukura oroshite [尻フクラヲロシテ].

    Orosu [下ろす]* means to lower something (in this case, from the shelf to the mat).

    According to Rikyū's densho, precious utensils should not be placed on the shelf when it is dark (since the presence of candles on the floor will throw the things on the shelf into shadow, making it easier for the host to inadvertently knock them over when he goes to lower them to the mat).

    Furthermore, the Shiri-bukura chaire now contains used tea (that will be served as usucha).  Thus it is not appropriate for the tea container to be displayed on the shelf at the beginning of the service of tea.

    The Shiri-bukura chaire, on its red Chinese tray, was placed on the mat, in front of the mizusashi. ___________ *Oroshite [下ろして] is, of course, past tense.

    The Shiri-bukura chaire, on its tray, was lowered to the mat during the naka-dachi.  It was already resting on the mat, in front of the mizusashi, when the guests entered the room for the go-za.

¹⁹Mizusashi ・ migi-dō [水指・右同].

    As before, this was the aka-Raku yahazu-kuchi mizusashi [赤樂矢筈口水指] that had been made for Rikyū by Chōjirō.

²⁰Tana ni habōki [棚ニ羽箒].

    This would have been the same go-sun-hane, made from the feathers of the shima-fukurō [島梟].

    In Rikyū's temae, the habōki was used to dust the utensil mat at the end of the service of tea, as well as after the sumi-temae*.

    Furthermore, it is a rule that, if there is a tana preset in the room, it should never be empty when the guests enter the room, or when they leave.

    At the end of the temae, the hishaku and futaoki would be placed on the tana; and after dusting the utensil mat, the go-sun-hane would be removed from the room. __________ *Neither of these things are usually done in the modern school’s temae.

    When the utensil mat is a maru-jō [丸疊] -- a full-length tatami -- the habōki is used to dust only the upper end of the utensil mat (which is equivalent in size to a daime).

    After sliding out of the katte-guchi, the host turns around and leans back into the room, and cleans the lower 1-shaku 5-sun of the mat with a za-baki [座掃], a large feather broom (usually made from the pinions of a large bird, such as an eagle, such as shown above) that is used for cleaning the room in general.

²¹Chawan ・ migi-dō [茶碗・右同].

    This was the Wari-kōdai [割り高臺] chawan, a very old Korean bowl that had been brought to Japan by one of the refugees escaping the Ming military invasion of Korea in the mid-fifteenth century.

²²Sono-hoka nanimo mina onaji [其外何モ皆同].

    Everything else was the same (as during the earlier chakai).

    This means that all of the other utensils* that have not been mentioned above were the same.

    But it also means that things were done in the same way as earlier* -- in other words, the chawan (with chakin, chasen, and chashaku arranged in it) was placed inside a (new) mentsū [面桶]†, and so everything not already displayed in the room was brought out at one time. ___________ *In other words, the kōgō would have been his ruri-suzume [瑠璃雀].

    And Rikyū would have used an ori-tame [折撓] that he had made himself, as his chashaku.

    While the futaoki would have been a take-wa [竹〇], as was almost always the case at Rikyū’s wabi chakai.

    As earlier in the day, the hishaku would probably have been resting on the futaoki, on the left side of the mizusashi, with its handle parallel to the left heri of the mat.

†The only exception to which was that only usucha would be served during this atomi no chakai.  Both because tea that had already been used to serve koicha at an earlier chakai could never be used to serve koicha at a subsequent gathering.

    But also because, if this were Hideie’s first experience of chanoyu, he would probably not like koicha -- which is an acquired taste:  the host must always consider the shōkyaku when deciding what he is going to do.

‡The mentsū [面桶] (above) should only be used one time, since absolute purity is its special feature.  This is the reason why the chawan could be placed inside of the mentsū and so carried into the room -- something that would be unthinkable were the host using any other kind of koboshi (which could be used again and again).

[huberleo]

Ordinary individual in a strange world Strange individual in an ordinary world.

An Individual that escapes to intentionally become an alien. They enter a new world and together with the space they build a new kingdom.

Visitors must adapt for they are complete aliens, even if they were kinsmen in a previous life. The host does not feel comfortable with all these aliens and makes them adapt by force. Unless the intruder secures himself by flight, they seldom fail at last to kill or to take him prisoner[1] and make him subject to this new world.

Lenny enters the House. He sees himself as a being of greater glory and importance than his previous life as god’s representative on earth. His greatness cannot be measured for he sees himself as a supernatural being. Ludwig likes rationality, Ludwig likes to explain things, Ludwig likes a good encyclopaedia that defines the world and its inhabitants and divides them into categories. Ludwig likes the absolute truth, Ludwig does not want to acknowledge the fact that there might be another absolute truth that his. But Ludwig cannot explain Lenny. Lenny is an intruder. Lenny sees himself as a conqueror of worlds and Ludwig is his target. Ludwig is Vienna and Lenny is Suleiman the magnificent. Lenny likes the name. Lenny is self- indulgent and he is willing to ignore the fact that history already provided a likely outcome for his quest. Lenny sees himself as beyond the realm of man, he is an alien and therefore the rules of history repeating itself do not apply to him.

Like an invisibility cloak, disguises can help the alien hide its strange form and help them blend in with the crowds. The disguise can be a costume or a character. It does not have to be obvious, but it could affect the alien and infuse it with the essence of these crowds. The alien is not an absolute state of being, it is an ever evolving process of adapting to your surroundings. The same goes for the surroundings, for they have to adapt to welcome the alien intruder into their space.

Lenny enters Ludwig clad in the armour of his extreme perception of himself and his idea of a perfect world. Do they fight to the death? [2]  He wants to conquer Ludwig and make him his subject, a being that exists for nothing but to serve its master in his glory. That master being Lenny. Of course. Ludwig prepares for a war.

Siege – you hesitate before entering a new world, as an intruder, and becoming an alien. The anticipation of the moment may be more than you bargained for. Or it might be less.

Ludwig knows what to do step by step to repel attackers, for when the battle begins: here we are plunged into a world entirely mechanical. [3]  Ludwig has a wall. Ludwig is a fortress. Ludwig is not part of his surroundings. Ludwig is self-sufficient. Ludwig does not have to rely on support. Ludwig has one way in and when Lenny makes use of it he will strike back. Ludwig is armed neutrality, but you shall not escape. [4]  Away, run, haste, speed! [5]

The threshold – a gate. A door. A void. A place between worlds. Between the two, there is threshold and fiber, symbiosis of or passage between heterogeneities. [6] It is the momentary realization of leaving and entering at the same time. In a fraction of a certain time that cannot be measured you are both at once, past and future simultaneously without an present. Then you step into another world as another self and leave the alien in its pure form on the threshold only to assume its form again once you step back into the past.

Lenny stands on the threshold, he has breached the wall and the house is his. He will take hold of it, fly his flag and overwrite its mind and being. But there is only one way in and this position has been chosen by Ludwig. These assurances produced a degree of calm. [7]  Yet both fear the moment of truth when they have to confront each other not only in mind but in body. Lenny takes a step. The door was meant only for him. [8]  

The Garden surrounding the house in front of him feels strangely calm, almost surreal. Definitely not what Lenny expected, in his mind the battle to come had amassed to epic proportion but there were no raging hordes here was just a house. Ludwig studied the strange form in front of him. Ludwig had not expected this. This was not how invading armies presented themselves, just standing in the garden and staring. The unfamiliarity of their situation made both of them uncomfortable, very much so. And slowly the need for some sense of control overcame Lenny while Ludwig felt the need to asses and inspect this “thing” standing in his garden.

The chambers a string of thresholds that help the alien to adapt step by step. For the alien will feel the need to make themselves at home. Each room will have to adapt to the aliens needs. Each room will make the alien feel more familiar. Each room makes the alien a bit more a part of the house. Each room will require less change for the alien is slowly getting used to the space. Once the tour of the house is completed the alien feels at home in the garden. Or the garden feels fine with the intruder for both make subconscious adaptions.

Lenny enters the house, he tells himself it is because to conquer he must subdue his enemy but there is also some curiosity as to what he will find inside. Lenny stands on a threshold once again, determined to make this house a home, by any means necessary —a Modification of general features. [9]  Lenny comes from a world where everything revolved around him, he needs everything to be about him. Ludwig is intrigued by Lenny. But when Lenny goes about the house, his manoeuvre was accompanied by another change. [10] His demeanour evolved from invasive force to reluctant explorer. Still he needs to make changes to feel some sense of familiarity, of home. But with each room Lenny goes through the needed changes are becoming less, becoming smaller until Lenny steps into the garden and there is not a single aspect of his surrounding that feels alien to him, no need for change. Ludwig watches Lenny rummage trough his rooms, rearrange his features. With every new room Lenny enters his presence becomes more familiar to Ludwig. Ludwig develops the need to accommodate Lenny, not as a guest but as an integral part of himself.

Change is evident. [11] But not in the individual. There is no winner because there was no battle.

How great a resemblance of a holy and virtuous soul is a calm, serene day. [12] Lenny has become Ludwig. Ludwig has become Lenny. The one cannot be without the other for they have achieved symbiosis. Their need for the familiarization of the unknown has merged them into a single being. Together they have become god of their own universe. Lenny stands in the garden. Ludwig sees Lenny standing in the garden. Both have become new versions of themselves. Same but different. And for this reason, whatever was uncertain among the ancients has now attained the most assured calm, and no source of indecision has been left. [13]

Hortus conclusus – enclosed space, a walled world, a wall around your own paradise/ hell/ purgatory – eternal state. Every time the being that occupies this safe space ventures into another, it is as if it travelled to another realm of reality. As soon as it enters the new space it becomes alien from the old one. Therefore the hortus conclusus has to adapt to accommodate the changed needs of its resident every time they come back to what they perceive as home.

Lenny opens his eyes and sees a single door in the wall. What lies beyond that door is the alien of Lenny’s former self. Waiting for his former occupant to step over the threshold and resume his old life, but Lenny is no longer familiar with that, what used to be. He has become completely alien to the world outside of the garden walls, his garden walls. Still, he takes the step. Thus a door has been opened to invent ‘design worlds’. [14] These worlds were once Lenny’s. Not anymore.

Once you leave your creation there is need to revert back to what you were before. And if you want to go back to your creation you will do so as an intruder. Your own universe has become strange to you and the process of making it yours has to begin again. Now the same thing can’t be both known and unknown. [15] A perpetual state of rebirth on the threshold. They eagerly seek the agent of this metamorphosis, and hasten to his door. [16]

Lenny stands in front of a wall, he is ready to make whatever lies beyond his. Ludwig sees a possible intruder standing in front of his wall. How, indeed, was it possible for it always to fight and struggle against new enemies? [17] Ludwig prepares for invasion. Thus the struggle goes on. [18]

Here we go again. [19]

 [1] More_Utopia [2] Seneca_Complete Works [3] Serres_History of Scientific Thought [4] Ovid_Metamorphoses [5] Cervantes_Don Quixote [6] Deleuze Guattari_A Thousand Plateaus [7] Wollstonecraft_Complete Works [8] Zizek_Less Than Nothing [9] Kerr_The Gentlemans House [10] Summerson_Architecture in Britain 1530 1830 [11] Leatherbarrow Eisenschmidt_Twentieth Century Architecture [12] Harrison Wood Gaiger_Art in Theory 1648 1815 [13] Justinian_The Codex [14] Schumacher_The Autopoiesis of Architecture Vol 1 [15] Aquinas_Selected Philosophical Writings [16] Harrison Wood Gaiger_Art in Theory 1648 1815 [17] Michelet_The History of France Vol 1 [18] Sloterdijk_Critique of Cynical Reason [19] Asimov_Complete Robot Anthology

[shakingthestars]

An interpretation about Kylo and Rey’s “shocking fate” in TLJ

Within the previous weeks, the Japanese marketing has teased a “shocking fate” expecting Kylo and Rey who will “resonate with each other”

In a recent Japanese inteview, Rian Johnson also made some revelation on Kylo and Rey’s fate in TLJ, emphasizing that it would be “emotional”

https://www.excite.co.jp/News/world_ent/20171110/Dramanavi_036872.html

Rian Johnson:  “The things that happen to these two people are emotional, and it’s really important for the viewer to empathize”

In September 2016, Johnson had also confirmed that although The Last Jedi wouldn’t make any epic revelation like “I am your father”, there would be some shocking moments in particular that would make the  audience gasp for breath

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4iK9Xot7hw

As I interpret it, both Kylo and Rey will indeed experience emotional things individually but the various  information undertone that they will experience emotional things together that will make them resonate with each other. So if we gather these information, we have a shocking and emotional fate expecting these two characters that will culminate in some shocking scenes with the goal to make the audience emphasize with him.That shocking things won’t involve a out of nowhere revelation like “I am your father”  but emotional things that would come naturally and make the audience gasp for breath

What could it be?

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Rian revealed that in The Last Jedi y , romance was not the centerpiece.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/05/whats-in-star-wars-the-last-jedi-and-whats-not

It doesn’t mean that there would be no romantic vibe but it IMO rules out the possibility of romantic Reylo happening in TLJ like Anidaladid in Episode 2 HanLeia in Episode 5.

So what would be the centerpiece of the Reylo dynamic?

I. The importance of E.T. the Extraterrestrial in the Reylo dynamic

Let’s keep in mind that the president of Lucas Film, Kathleen Kennedy, became worldwide famous by producing Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extraterrestrial in 1982. From his side, J.J.Abrams got inspiration of this movie for his previous movies:

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

And indeed, TFA is full of callbacks to E.T. the Extraterrestrial in which a lonely boy whose family split because of marital issues meets a lonely extraterrestrial left behind by his family. Sounds familiar? Except that in all visual clues, Kylo Ren is the one who parallels E.T. whereas Rey parallels Elliott:

TFA introductory shot:

Kylo Ren’s introduction:

(Scary) encounter scene:

Bonding scene:

Mirroring each other:

Resonating with each other :

Bonus:

II) “Finn will be fine” deleted scene: a foreshadowing?

 Now, let’s have a look at TFA deleted scene “Finn will be fine” that is supposed to take place between Leia and Rey hugging scene and R2-D2′s awakening scene. First let me point out how these two mother’s embraces look incredibly similar:

A lot of people reacted surprised that Leia hugged Rey instead of Chewie and thus concluded that Rey was a Skywalker . I don’t think that there was any mistake there from J.J.Abrams contrary to what he said to justify his choice. Leia’s embrace is described by the TFA novelization as a mother’s embrace. Interestingly, John Willims used the music “Torn apart” precisely at the moment where Leia and Ben connect through the Force just after Han’s death. Make what you want from this but my conclusion is that Leia feels her son through the Force bond that he and Rey share. Friendly reminder that Kylo was heavily wounded by both Chewie’s bowcaster and Rey’s strikes and thus most probably fighting for his life 

Now, let’s come to the analysis of the “Finn will be fine” scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCeQ4o88oSM

At a first glance, there is nothing particular about this scene. It is only Rey worrying for Finn and getting the good news about his physical  state from Dr. Kalonia. As we all know, Finn got really bad injured during the snow fight. By analyzing this deleted scene, I first noticed that some things seemed somehow «out of place». If you have a look on the transition of the first shot to the second shot (0:13), it really LOOKS LIKE Rey is staring at Finn while he is treated for his injuries. So you really get the impression that Rey is in front of him and is observing what’s going on there. She seems very concerned and really deep in thought…And then Dr. Kalonia shows up to deliver the diagnosis to Rey.

BUT notice that she comes not from the FRONT but from BEHIND Rey. It seems logical to me that Dr. Kalonia has just checked on Finn by herself before she came to Rey to deliver the good new. So why does she come from behind and not from the front if Rey is supposed to observe what’s happening?    So what does it tell us? It tells us that Rey is certainly not staring at Finn being treated for his injuries. And indeed, she actually stands in the main room  next to a pillar.:

Since Dr. Kalonia comes from behind her on her right, Finn is most probably in a separate room somewhere behind her. Providing that Rey is not staring at Finn at that moment (0:14), WHY does she looks so deep in thought (she stares in front of her as if she is completely in another world!), anxious and somehow scared at a very specific moment?   Notice how her eyes suddenly widen, she somehow gasps and her face expression is anxious (0:15). She obviously react to something bad that she is witnessing right now.  If something bad was happening to Finn at this moment, shouldn’t Dr. Kalonia be with him at this moment rather than coming to Rey to deliver the good news?

I think I find out why while focusing on the sounds recorded during the scene. Right after the second shot begins, a FIRST SOUND - that is not easy to notice – (0:14) can be heard. This is the sound of an electrocardiogram and nothing more is to be heard at that point. Then Rey’s face breaks in anguish: she looks somehow scared and it seems that she feels that something is going really wrong (0:15) Then Dr. Kalonia interrupts her thoughts to bring her the good news about Finn. And at that precise moment,  the same electrocardiogramm sound  can be heard  for the SECOND time (0:16) while Rey is listening to Dr. Kalonia.

Even if Rey is distracted by Dr. Kalonia, she still looks very deep in thought and doesn’t seem to react to the good new immediately as if her thoughts were somewhere else. And then you hear the sound of the electrocardiogram for the THIRD time followed by a SOFT HEARTBEAT SOUND (0:18). And suddenly, Rey looks somehow puzzled and relieved at the same time (0:21): she not only seems to react to the good news about Finn but also to the heartbeat sound itself!!! And then the sound of the electrocardiogram is to be heard for a FOURTH time followed by a more distinctive hearbeat sound (0:22)!!!

Don’t want to draw definitive conclusions but…

So if my analysis of the scene is right, it suggests that Kylo came close to death by the end of TFA and that Rey felt it through the bond, explaining why her face expression went from this...

...to this!

...and finally this!

Meanwhile, Leia probably felt it too...

III.Possible implication in TLJ

Given the importance of E.T. the Extraterrestrial in TFA, it would be surprising if the movie didn’t influence Rian Johnson while strengthening the Reylo dynamic. What the “Finn will be fine” scene suggests is that the Force Bond between Kylo and Rey is already strong enough to make one of them impacted  by distance as something happens to the other:

Even if we have no context to this shot, we know that Rey is gasping for air for unexplained reason. We may assume that Rey reacts to something happening to Kylo just as Elliott reacts once to  E.T.’s fear:

In E.T. the Exterrestrial,Elliott also gets impacted by E.T.’s behavior: when E.T. gets drunk, he also gets drunk.

There is something more important As the connection grows, their lives become interdependent.  If one is dying, the other is dying:

Elliott: We’re sick!I think we’re dying...

In other words, if Kylo’s life would be endangered, we may assume that Rey’s life would be also endangered.

And here comes my point.  Although the movie wasn’t clear enough about it, the novelization makes it pretty clear that Kylo is the archetype of the Disney Prince(ss) targeted/cursed from birth by the manipulative villain. I would even suggest that Snoke is actually a Dark version of E.T., representing all what a Dark E.T. could have been for Elliott: a manipulative, possessive, exclusive friend.  And indeed, Ben embodies this lonely boy shaken by marital issues within his families that found in Snoke an understanding but toxic friend:

So we may assume that there are actually two E.T. and two Elliott in that story. And it was confirmed by Andy Serkis that Snoke has a huge agendalimited by his own physical state. Plus, the the novelization makes it pretty clear that Snoke sees himself as a sculptor fashioning Ben to create a masterpiece for an some unknown purpose to fulfill his huge agenda.

And if you want my opinion about this, Snoke won’t let Ben leave that easily. Ben may turn his back on him, trying to break the abusive relationship, making it clear that he won’t let himself us anymore, we may assume that Snoke will no matter what achieve his agenda by using him and ultimately crush him. IMO, Han’s line may be a terrible foreshadowing of Ben’s fate by the end of TLJ:

Han to Ben: Snoke is using you for your power. When he gets what he wants, he’ll crush you

Admiral Ackbar: How is it possible to power a weapon of that size (=Snoke)?

Finn: It uses the power of the Sun (=Ben). As the weapon is charged, the Sun is drained until it disappears

In Christian faith, the death of the Sun is associated to the Death of the Son aka Jesus Christ. In Hebrew, Ben means Son:

The Jack of Heart is the card of “Christian spirit of sacrificial love”

So  I think it is possible that Ben will be used by Snoke against his own will to allow him to  achieve his huge agenda and will ultimately get crushed by him as Han had foreshadowed:

Recently, Rian liked this tweet, leading many people to assume that we will get indeed shirtless Kylo during the movie

No doubt that we could get shirtless Kylo in some romantic scene, but since Rian gave any precisions  that could very well happen in these kind of circumstances too, right ?

Medical droid: Medically she is completely healthy. For reasons we can’t explain…We’re are losing her… Obi-Wan: She is dying? Medical droid: We don’t know why…

Given the many parallels with ROTS in the TLJ trailer and the many parallels between Reylo and Anidala in general, I don’t think that it is impossible that we get some callback to these scenes. And here comes my final point: I think that the emotional things happening to  Kylo and Rey Rian is referring to  may happen as they’re dying together until Kylo sacrifices for Rey like E.T. sacrifices for Elliott:

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

Would that kind of scene be shocking for the audience? Yes!

Would emotional things happen to both characters? Yes!

Would both both characters resonate with each other ? Yes!

Would the audience emphasize with the emotional things happening to both characters? Yes!

Would that kind of scene woud scream romantic Reylo? From a certain point of view probably but not equivalent to Anidala and HanLeia’s love pledge

Would we get shirtless Kylo? Yes!

Reminder how both Episode III and Episode V whom TLJ seems to parallel the most both ended:

IV. Why Ben’s sacrifice/death/fall by the end of  TLJ would makes sense in the context of the ST

A) Why Luke won’t turn to the DS despite the hints:

Mark Hamill made it pretty clear in his most recent interview that Luke was rather in some kind of depression than in dark side mode. Rian Johnson said he wanted each character to face his greatest challenge: I think that Luke ‘s greatest challenge will be to become once again the optimistic hero he used to be and accept to take part of the fight against the DS again. Plus, Hamil insists Luke is meant to be a supportive character because the ST is not about Luke’s story. Having Luke turning to the DS would surely move the centerpiece of the story from the Rey/Kylo dynamic to the Rey/Luke dynamic. Besides, who would  bring back Luke to the LS with a redemption arc that would be way too reminiscent of Vader? Logically Leia since she is his closest relative as his twin sister but the sibling dynamic ain’t centerpiece of the  story. Kylo would be the second option since they’re family but their uncle/nephew dynamic ain’t the centerpiece of the story. Rey as the heroine should logically play this role but honestly: why Rey would go after a 60 years old man who is neither her belonging behind (father) nor her belonging ahead (husband)? And Luke’s fall would indeed be shocking for the GA since he is a beloved character  but we already know that LF wouldn’t  to make him die unreedeemed. And making him die as shocking outcome in TLJ would bring anything to the story after spending a whole to search for him and spending a whole movie to convince him to  join the fight again.

B) Why Rey won’t turn to the DS despite the hints

As much as Rey will struggle with her raw power, I don’t think that her character journey consists in mirroring Anakin’s fall to the DS. I heavily doubt that she would accept to join Snoke to the DS after she gets tortured by him. And the bruise she has on her forehead on Crait makes it pretty clear that the torture scene with Snoke (in which she obviously has no bruise) happens after she confronted him on Supremacy. In other words, Rey would have no reason to leave the Resistance to join Snoke if she escape Supremacy safe and sound after he tortured her. Besides, if we consider that Rey ain’t a Skywalker, her fall to the DS would indeed have a big  emotional impact on the GA but her fate would be no surprise. She is the heroine: we already know that she will come back whatever her fate is in TLJ. What’s more, her fall would be an emotional shock for Ben & Finn but I doubt that Luke and Leia would feel really concerned.

C) Why the sacrifice of the Son in TLJ - after the sacrifice of the father in TFA -  is necessary

1) Because TLJ needs to raise the biggest emotional stake/conflict possible for Episode 9

TFA introduced us to two central stakes:

- An explicit one:

“Luke Skywalker has vanished”

- An implicit one:

“If you see our son, bring him home”

Which one would be solved by the end of TLJ? Which one would be unsolved?

We know that the Reylo dynamic is the central relationship in the ST.  Luke falling to the DS would move he central dynamic from Rey/Kylo to Rey/Luke.  Rey falling to the DS would indeed represent an emotional shock for Kylo himself but not for the Skywalker family. Kylo going down whatever his state is would raise the following major stake

Rey: You must be dead...because I don’t know how to feel..I can’t feel anything anymore... (Elliott to E.T.)

The heroine,  a young woman wanting desperately belonging, would not only get the confirmation during the movie that her belonging behind (her parents) are never coming back but would also lose her belonging ahead (soulmate). She may not fall in love with Ben in TLJ or make a love pledge to him but his loss would surely create a big emotional shock especially if she got accustumed by their Force bond.

Leia: I’ve lost my only son...forever

A mother would lose her only child, a theme that wasn’t really explored yet in SW. In Episode 2, Anakin lost his mother; In Episode 8, will Leia lose her son? Leia all by herself reprthe tragedies of the Skywalker family, beginning her life losing her mother, maybe ending her life losing her only son...

Luke: ...

An uncle would feel responsible for the tragedy and would have to sustain his sister:

And beyond the family mourning...

The Skywalker family would lose her only child and thus would end...In other words, Ben’s “death” or (whatever his state is )  would represent a major stake for the heoine, for the Skywalker family and for the franchise.

2) Because Disney/ needs the GA - especially the Kylo haters - to understand that Ben - beyond any reproductive imperative -  was the Prince(ss) victim of the manipulative villain all along

After TFA:

GA/Antis: “Kylo Ren is an emo, ugly, weak villain. He is an abuser, a traitor, a murderer who support a Nazi organization.   He must pay for his crimes and die unreedeemed by the end of the ST! I am never gonna forgive him for killing his father. No way he is the bearer of the great Skywalker legacy! “

After TLJ:

Hardcore Antis: Guys! Guys! It’s party time! I heard that Kylo Ren is...

GA: WTF! I thought that Luke or Rey would turn to the DS!

Antis: Holly shit! So Kylo Ren was actually the only Skywalker child. So this is the end of the Skywalker...

Reylos: My ship...

In other words, Kylo’s “death” would represent a big shock for everybody. It would surprise the GA that seems to expect a shocking revelation and/or Luke or Rey turning to the DS. It would beat the Kylo hater at their own game by giving them precisely what they want in the most unexpected way. And it would be a big shock for Reylos too, who mostly expect Kylo and Rey to make out and flee together by the end of the movie. And it would indeed make the audience sympathize with a generally unbeloved character  and makes the outcome of Episode 9 more unpredictable

3) Because the “death” of a Prince(ss) is something common in Disney fairytales

V) Why Prince(ss) Ben Solo (Skywalker) shall ultimately survive

A) Ben is paralleling the Son/Sun

B) Ben is associated with to Phoenixes reborn from their ashes

3) Ben is our SW E.T.:

4) Ben is our Disney Prince(ss)

And Disney Prince(ss) alway find a way to cheat death...with some help!

VI) Episode 9: Save Prince(ss) Ben Solo

From TFA novelization:

Maz to Rey: Dear child! I see your eyes! You aready know the truth. Whomever you’re waiting for on Jakku, they’re never coming back. But there is someone who  still could...with your help

From Sleeping Beauty

Merryweather: “ Sweet princess, if through this wicked witch’s trick, a spindle should your finger prick… a ray of hope there still may be in this, the gift I give to thee.

Leia in ANH:

This is our most desperate hour! Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi! You’re my only hope!

From TFA novelization:

Remembering, Rey reached into her pack and removed his lightsaber. Taking several steps forward, she held it out to him. An offer. A plea. The galaxy’s only hope

Good fairy Obi-Wan sent Rey (his grand-daughter?) to the Skywalker and the rest is history...

Reminder that Elliott’s role in E.T. the Extraterrestrial consists in helping E.T. to go home, back to his family.