#CYCLE OF VIOLENCE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE THE SNAKE EATS ITS OWN TAIL

[the-tropes-are-hungry]

Channeling all of this week’s bad energy into reading. I’m now 65% through Fonda Lee’s Jade War after starting it last night.

Not as good as Jade City. But I also went to her workshop on Middle Book Syndrome and I can see a LOT of the advice she gave at work in this book.

So if nothing else as a craft exercise this is great

[shadowgasps]

Losing my mind over the fact that Deli and Colin can never be on the same side in their argument about violence vs peace. First Deli fought and killed and destroyed in order to get his power, to be something. And Colin couldn't stand that, couldn't stand the wanton violence in pursuit of selfish gain so he left. But then after this life altering event, this narrow victory against a force that would have destroyed everything- they both changed. They both changed to be more like the other. And in that change they grew past one other, on opposite sides again. Deli who leaves the world he knows behind to live in solitude and peace. And Colin who dedicates the rest of his life to the violent destruction of a great evil who wronged him. To hate a part of your loved one and then become that hated thing. It's a circle and cycle a snake eating its own tail its two planets coming so close to each other's orbits before being flung out into space, away from eachother again.

[destinysbounty]

Who wants to overthink legos with me? No? Too bad, here goes

Okay so do you ever think about how the circle is (accidentally) a recurring motif in Ninjago? A running list of examples:

Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, which is commonly represented in a circular shape and represents infinity with endless return. Thats how they defeat the Great Devourer, actually, by getting it to bite its own tail

The original shape of Ninjago before the FSM pangea'd it

Spinjitzu is essentially the process of weaponizing circular motion. Airjitzu is similar, and even creates a sphere of air/light around the user

In the earlier seasons, Lloyd's main attack involved creating balls of energy

The light from portals - time vortex, Traveler's Tea, the Blind Man's Eye, the Realm Crystal - tend to resemble vortexes

Dragons often have to spin in order to traverse realms

All the circle imagery in the Temple of Light

Jay and Nya's yin-yang badges

Yang's whole "close the circle" shtick

The dust circle that swirled around the ninja at the end of Skybound when Jay said his final wish and all of time was undone

Zane's old house is circular/cylindrical, and the camera spiral-zoomed on him when his memories returned

The architecture on Chen's island

The Celestial Clock

Flower petals circling around Lloyd when he met the FSM

In that flashback when Mystake was telling the story of the Oni and the Dragon, with the FSM creating a circular yin-yang symbol to represent the combining of both light and dark

This is a bit of a stretch, but Zane's notably circular power core

Kryptarium is a panopticon style, which is circular in design. On that note, the s8 Lloyd v Garmadon fight happening at Kryptarium. Lloyd was familiar with the usual procedure of saving Garm, only for that typical cycle of saving and losing his father as Garmadon throws him through the wall and out of the prison

Lots of fights actually have the camera pan in circles around the fighters

That little hand paint collage they all made at the end of season 10

The spiraling bioluminescence surrounding the FSM's corpse

Actually, lets take it a step further. Cycles of violence. Sins of the father. History repeating itself. Harumi and Loyd's backstories causing, opposing, and reflecting one another, with her ending where Lloyd began and vice versa. The inheritance of elemental power, something endlessly recursive. Generational trauma.

Not to mention theres a heavy emphasis on either breaking cycles or perpetuating them. Lloyd saying "I wont let it do to me what it did to you." Harumi saying "i want you to feel the emptiness i feel." Morro saying "I make my own destiny." The Overlord possessing the Great Devourer so it would bite Garmadon. Lloyd wanting to be like his father but then being a hero instead. Nya quoting her mother in her final moments. Again i repeat. Generational trauma.

Theres just. This overwhelming sense of recursion and cycles throughout the entire series, and im mad bc im like 90% sure the writers didnt do that intentionally. Im not smart enough to put it into words but if i think about this for too long im gonna start biting things

[raayllum]

I know you like to analyze thematically in TDP a lot and you write top down the same way, so I’m curious, what are some of the themes/motifs in your upcoming novels? and do any of them coincide with TDP?

(GASP you get a gold star oh my god thank you!! and i will try to not make this too Long but i'm very excited!!)

Basic premise for ppl who have never heard of my novels before:

Latest generation of a reincarnated group of chosen ones have to grow up in a world of increasing violence and political instability that they're supposed to fix while also facing their own choices and demons. The main character, Ally, starts off as an 'unchosen one' — she lost her powers as a young child and has been trying to get them back, which kinda makes her resent her chosen one friends just as much as she loves them. The other two co-leads are her twin sister, a former child soldier with death powers she doesn't want, and her friend / one sided rival, a draconic-powered prodigy looking for redemption and to escape her past.

The funny thing is that when I was writing out my series (2014-2017 has all the pieces we currently have, though things have ofc been finessed since then) only ATLA existed as an inspiration point, which was, "How do you always know the Avatar is going to be a good person (and what if you didn't? What if they weren't)?" + "what if there was more than one running around?"

The rest was all from my head. There's a mystical magical heart broken into pieces. A continent divided in two with a long history of war. Characters anchored to the idea of Autonomy who then go through a loss of powers arc (hi Callum s2) and then brainwashing/possession arc (hi arc 2 Callum) that was probably by far the funniest coincidence. Circles and cycles and children and choices. The fact that these all just also found their way into TDP shows just how much it feels like the show was Made For Me in the best way creatively, and one of the reasons I think I've found TDP so personally rewarding to analyze—happy coincidences all around.

There's other coming-of-age themes of course that are shared between the two—grief, identity, friendship—but being prose I get to lean more into religious and political worldbuilding in much more detail.

I think my novel(s) are also more grey and angsty (especially later on) than TDP was at the start, too. A good chunk of my protagonists don't have any moral reservations about assassinations or killing/torturing people push come to shove while also still wanting and trying to be Good People, but that just makes the ethical dilemmas more interesting to explore. That said, everything is ultimately more Hopepunk, I just prefer to never pull punches on the way there

Motifs I like to use:

a tarot inspired in-universe version of chess for foreshadowing purposes

stage motif (who are you when you're performing for everyone around you / constantly fronting?)

birds / ravens

wolves

knives

eyes / the ouroboros (snake eating its own tail)

Themes: gods vs monsters (vs humanity), complex family and friend dynamics, living vs survival, grief and cycles, loss of sense of self, idolization and scapegoating as two sides of dehumanization, etc.

I also wanted to have unique power sets (Moon is one of my favourites with leaning into shadow magic and being able to make things temporarily out of moonlight, or Life not just being all fuzzy plants and animals and showing more of the well, brutality of being alive).

People have said my main protag is basically if Claudia and Rayla were the same person and yeah that's a fair assessment, Unfortunately for her.

I feel like I blabbed enough here but if you want more info on writing things from a top-down approach / what it's like to build from theme first I'd love to talk about it more in relation to TDP (and also my books, mayhaps!)

[uroborosymphony]

The tales of the snake biting its own tail.

chapter o2. Ara, the shedding snake.

Uroborosymphony, meaning the symphony of the Ouroboros. The ouroboros is a snake biting its own tail. The Ouroboros is historically, spiritually, and metaphysically significant as a symbol of eternity and progressively repeating cycles. Even though the serpent devours itself, it simultaneously regenerates, making its self-consumption and self-regeneration eternal. Here, the snake has three heads, Ara is the second.

Ara is the vengeress with a hunger for violence. She is the fangs of the snake in Urobosymphony, the crave for blood behind the hypnotizing beauty of it. She is the escalating and spiraling into madness. Ara is the matryr who wears the cross and the weight of the horrors and crimes she committed with the purpose of building a better world. The ideals she sets inside her head are the root of her insanity - by fantasizing herself as a messiah who will take down the power, eat the rich, she locks herself in dark places inside her mind. First leading a gang to fight for her cause by the side of her life partner, Taiyang Tseng, she then becomes a terrorist with the only goal of killing to purge.

Deep down, Ara's delusion and obsession for a better seems to reflect her own story. Could the world she wants to cure be inside inner of outer? Ara is trying to escape the same tragic fate as her mother : a story of mental illness. Her mother warned her since her youngest age about the curse that are the Jung women, damned to end up locked up, insane, self destructed, unloved and alone due to their sick heads and minds. Ara becomes the snake biting its own tail as the story repeats itself and never ends : by wanting to break the curse, Ara plunges deeper into the inevitable decay of her sanity which leads to what her mother as predicted for her, self desctructed and locked up.

[bluebeetle]

one of my fave tropes are the heroes that are destined to become what they fight. what gives them their powers is also what will be their downfall--will be their inevitable end, and yet, they must go on fighting despite knowing the monsters they slay were once people like them, hoping for a better future. it’s an endless cycle of violence, the snake eating its own tail--until someone is finally able to break it, but at what cost? 

[fuckspn]

I posted 1,275 times in 2022

152 posts created (12%)

1,123 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@samdyke

@sunforgrace

@castiellesbian

@fuckspn I'M one of my own top reblogged blogs?? girl help the snake is eating its own tail

@4x01

I tagged 522 of my posts in 2022

#the fuckspn rewatch - 62 posts

#the greatest hits - 10 posts

#heritage post - 6 posts

#oh you know - 3 posts

#prev x2 - 3 posts

#sorry op - 3 posts

#i still think about this post sometimes - 2 posts

#shattered - 2 posts

#prev - 2 posts

#screaming and shaking and spitting phosphoric acid - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#but i’ve only seen up through tombstone so my choice of s8 and s11 is simply because they’re the later seasons i watched almost every ep of

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

okay but there really is something so malicious about how supernatural was allowed to acknowledge dean’s Intense Subtextually Gay Relationships With Men and how they’re Clearly Different From Sam’s Relationships With Those Same Men as long as it’s all directed at the other character. anyone and everyone was allowed to make cracks about cas and crowley being in love with dean for years on end but when dean admitted that his relationship with cas is different than sam’s--i lost cas and it damn near broke me--the line had to be cut. yeah these guys’ relationships with dean are different than their relationships with sam but it’s all because of them being the weird gay ones who insisted on falling in love with dean despite his valiant heterosexual effort to keep them at a platonic arm’s length. of course dean wasn’t allowed to reciprocate cas’ feelings or react to the confession or even be particularly nice to cas because if we acknowledge that dean is part of the reason deanandcas is so different from samandcas then we’re also acknowledging that the gay subtext isn’t just coming from cas but from dean too, which means we’re acknowledging the possibility that our all-american marlboro man action hero isn’t straight. and we can’t have that because it failed the market research

1,261 notes - Posted September 6, 2022

#4

EXTREMELY fun night for terminally online people

1,355 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

#3

claire novak is genuinely the best character supernatural ever came up with. she’s a bitch. she’s empathetic. she’s bratty. she’s selfless. she held a sword to a random teenager’s throat. she has abandonment issues and struggles to accept the love of her adopted family as a result. a gay angel is possessing the corpse of her biological father and using it to have sexual tension with her surrogate father figure. she has a saintlike capacity for love and forgiveness. she is determined to kill and cannot be stopped. she’s a dean mirror. she was a werewolf for a hot second. she’s holding dean’s dvd of caddyshack hostage. she actively refuses to go to college. she broke the unbreakable cycle of violence by forgiving the supernatural creature that destroyed her family instead of seeking revenge. AND she’s a lesbian

1,476 notes - Posted September 13, 2022

#2

how do you even come back from this. how do you survive doing something this embarrassing. i literally think i’d fake my own death and move to a 12-person town in the canadian wilderness

1,565 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

saw trap voice hello, jensen ackles. your spn prequel is at risk of cancellation due to low viewership. you know the only way to save the show is to renege on 12 years of homophobia and make destiel canon for the third time. if you refuse, the show will be cancelled and you’ll have to say goodbye to your best friend dean winchester forever. which will you choose, jensen: dean winchester alive but bisexual, or dean winchester straight but dead? misha collins will tweet about cas being a top every hour on the hour until you make your decision

3,728 notes - Posted November 28, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[phansterdam]

just finished mexican gothic and holy shit... it's the ourobouros it's the doubting your own reality it's the memories being stored in the walls it's your body being used against your will it's the generational trauma it's the destruction of the many to help the one it's the cycle of violence as circular as the family tree as circular as the snake eating its own tail

[jacomo-madici]

[TITLE]

ONE bodies conversating

How did Jack Ma arrive here?

I don’t think I remember, I don’t think they remember either.

Who are they? Who am I?

There is Jack Ma and Krakow.

I can’t recognize one from another, I can’t tell who they are from the self.

They are the plenty, just as them, I am too.

Nothing changed since

TWO jack would like to play in the garden with the flower(s)

There is some context to this if you will. It happens that Jack forgets from time to time, not knowing if the situation was serious or not, time passed as he enjoyed himself in life -at least that’s what he likes to tell himself. It may have gotten serious at some point, as no one, if not Xi, not even the world, knew where he was about during a few months. It is he who must desecrate the gracious body, or use it in some respect, in order to finally acquire  the power to disappear, like the poet in Capricci who looks for the best position to die in[1]. Be happy, he is safe. So is the theory he tries to impress himself upon. Which came first – theory or illustration – is ambiguous.[2]

Nevertheless, not quite forgetting he was forgetting, his hypochondriac instinct was making him ever more conscious that these alarming Alzheimer-like deteriorations are [as] realizations of the nightmare moments […], when reality begins to sag like a drug hallucination and to undergo vertiginous transmutations, revealing the private worlds in which we are trapped beyond time[3].

Living through another meteorologically interesting day in Krakow basically. No more Ali Baba, he [forgot] the process of production in the process of circulation[4]. Only this place, where you can come and see, or be there and see. The façades were talking their own language, yet you could hear them beyond how Krakow lived. It comes to the ears, on the radio, the phone, the TV; an open source that flows through [KRAKOW RIVER] and the juicy subscription that came with it. It is thought that Jack Ma forgot what one must not forget, and, has as such become obsessed with the ones who refuse to participate. But what must one not forget?[5]

It happens to you and to others, but you don’t quite know who, in homes and places the dwelling is filled in this new emptiness. Such is the new normality, but once it fades away, who picks-up the petals? Can normality grow upon his current and former self? If the cycle breaks there may be something beyond; or just as much as the cycle is what was holding all this together, and a-part. Give me the world and let me forget the world[6].

The joyous, peaceful facade of the deritualized festival, stripped of any reference to a surrogate victim and its unifying powers, rests on the framework of a sacrificial crisis attended by reciprocal violence.[7] The formation of choreographic patterns accentuates the ritual aspects of movements of the crowd, […] the pure formal qualities of movement[8] -- the choreographed construction […] through shared symbols and practice.[9]

 Once you forget you forget, does it still have a meaning? The BROADCASTING just has the answer to this if you will. It tells you what you can remember if you attend to it, because what do you know, if you don’t know. Without being optimistic nor pessimistic, the edge of the sphere becomes accessible to the plenty. We do not exist, do not speak and do not work, with reason, science or hands, except in and by this deviation from equilibrium.[10] What shape makes are broken cycle. Ouroboros, the serpent devouring its tail, is a very common image of eternity in early occultism[11], but they raise the veil just enough to let us catch a glimpse of the Medusa head [beneath] it. Eventually, the eater has enough of eating; the snake wants to taste something else than its tail.[12] OUROBOROS This is the time of wear, statues of the gods worn away by the kisses of the faithful.[13] From the comfort of the garden, which will turn them in vegetables[14], the plants grow on the statues.

THREE this time the tale slaps the face

The choreography just started never ending. Do your life and wake up, or the other way around, squared by Krakow. Or the BROADCAST, the volume doesn’t matter, just open your senses to it. Watch it, hear it, feel it; with beauty lying in the eyes of the beholder, Jack Ma admires his money. Even if you don’t partake in it, the choreography now exists in theory and in Krakow city – as always. The paradox lies in the condition of you doing it and not knowing. Have you forgotten or have you never known, where the conscious begins, the choreography stops- for you, but then what goes on; it is innate, instinctive. Schrodinger’s dance if he forgot his cat’s in the box- alas we perform all of it, even the ones who refuse to participate, did you forget? And who are the inhabitants who refused to participate?

Jack was being obsessed, he thought he knew better; after all he did all of this. He, miracle of a unified, finished, harmonious, full, complete body by broadcasting the word, while nonetheless admitting, almost with the slip of a tongue, that our bodies, in pieces, have been suffering since the dawn of time.[15]

Living your own movie, not as vain character, but the main protagonist on the urban stage is; the city itself: Fighting the Flames introduces the block as actor.[16] From the façades of the palace; Jack, his face impressed on the city and the world, his court responding to him. All troubadours, to find themselves in the money of the business.

The bill to the broadcast is payed without knowing, the function of money as the means of payment implies a contradiction without a terminus medius[17], and admire how it reflects upon Krakow. In the court of Léthé, L’OUBLI dancing through and between the walls and singing you are never in, never out, no one can stop until there is nothing left.[18]

You, the flower, the fruit, the pollen.

You, the animal, the predator, the prey.

Just do not forget the dogs behind you, just put it in perspective, it is all about perspective. Even if Jack Ma’s hypochondria tells him about the alarming Alzheimer-like deteriorations, know that one won’t forget, so act as you always knew.

Your dog could not possibly forget, after all, what does he know.

FOUR sides of the circle

Jack Ma punctures the circle. The broadcasting, are like tentacles, entirely made from others, entangled by memories that are now proprietary.

Digital data you never knew you produced, never knew could be on the market; an economic model with retentive memory[19];

it is it that doesn’t forget.

Jack’s proposition to own the consciousness of the city was the following: the BROADCAST believes in intellectual property as creations of the mind, not as the ownership of oneself, but of one’s memories and of one’s consciousness. You are minted through the BROADCAST, go and see Jack, the active super conscious faculty is the faculty of forgetting[20],       you perform now the city

                                                                                   you are performed by the city

                                                                                   you are a snake on medusa’s head

                                                                                   you are the troubadour playing for the court

                        sing through the night

                        it has the face of Jack Ma

Life folds as you would, only you aren’t, if not the memory of yourself, only you forgot.

To preserve Krakow from an Alzheimer-like disease, a hypochondriac philanthropist had to act.

At the edge of the circle, you make the infinity of corners, choreographing the improvisation of the daily for the plenty.

A tentacular ARTIFACTS diffused in the hearth of Krakow; it is the witness, mute, blind and deaf; palace, court and storage, it only here since Jack Ma arrived, but for Krakow, it has now been here ever since. ARTIFACTS now faces of Jack Ma and Krakow, not [conforming] with the separation of material things and conscious appearances, it views them entangled in the figure[21].

The ARTIFACTS exist at the edge of STARE MIASTO and the OTHER. In the [planty] stood, in façade and in depth, a dream city, gigantic, set with palaces from One Thousand and One Nights[22]. In between the selfes of Krakow, it was performing itself, far beyond the image of a Capriccio, where money didn’t forget itself.

The digital flow materializes itself at the banks of the Vistule, unfolding once again the tentacles towards the rest of the world.

[1] Deleuze__Cinema 2 The Time Image

[2] Koolhaas__SMLXL_ “Which came first- theory or illustration- is ambiguous”

[3] Sykes__Construction_

[4] Marx__Collected Works_ “He forgets the process of production in the process of circulation”

[5] Derrida__Signature_

[6] Handke__Crossing the Sierra de Gredos_ “Image, give me the world, and let me forget the world”

[7] Girard__Violence and the Sacred_”

[8] Ascott_Engineering Nature_

[9] Peters__Digital Keywords_

[10] Serres_The Birth of Physics_

[11] Bruno__On the Composition of Images Signs and Ideas_

[12] Marx_Collected Works

[13] Serres_TheBirth of Physics_

[14] Serres_Angels, a Modern Myth_ “It’s fair bet that they are suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, which means that they will have to be supported in their senility, or from Alzheimer’s sickness, which will turn them in human vegetables”

[15] Serres__The Five Senses

[16] Koolhaas__Delirious New York_

[17] Marx__Collected Works_

[18] Chaucer__The Canterburry Tales_

[19] Marx__Capilat Volume One_“But Mr White has a retentive memory”

[20] Deleuse__Nietzsche and Philosophy

[21] Spuybroek__Grace and Gravity_

[22] Serres_Biogea

[sharkologydesign]

Althea Ophidia Character Profile

“It’s true, we are monsters, cut off from the world. But because of that, we are alike; as no one else will ever be.“

Althea Ophidia is a Dark Disciple of the Spade Kingdom’s Dark Triad.

Character Information:

Status: Alive (for now) Species: Human Gender and Pronouns: Female, she/her Affinity: Ouroboros Magic Age: 35 Birthday: September 9 Constellation: Virgo Height: 168cm Blood Type: 0- Eyes: Green Hair: Auburn Significant Other: Zenon Zogratis

(more lore under the cut)

Appearance:

As a Dark Disciple, Althea wears the regular spade uniform, but with minor variations. Due to her status and closeness with Zenon, she has been given a matching dark blue coat with a white fur collar that bears the Spade Kingdom’s symbol. She wears black leggings, a black turtleneck, standard brown vest, and thigh-high boots. Her black belt has a grimoire pouch on her right side. She carries two daggers strapped to her left thigh beneath her boot, and a large claymore on her back.

Personality:

Althea is a cool-headed support mage who is able to stay calm during moments of extreme stress. She is devoted to Spade Kingdom and shows extreme loyalty to the Dark Triad. Althea has been shown to use emotional cruelty, purposefully manipulating others through the use of fear, and has demonstrated a preoccupation with violence. However, despite her aggression towards her enemies, she deeply values friendship and the people close to her. 

Biography:

(Manga and Anime Spoilers Ahead!) Althea was a healing mage working for Spade Kingdom’s royal family. Much like Ralph, her family had been serving the Grinberryalls for generations. Althea’s parents were neglectful of her, often choosing their work over raising her or paying attention to her development, aside from her magic abilities. One day, her parents disappeared mysteriously, leaving her as the senior healer at the castle. It was presumed to be a tragedy, however, Althea was the one who secretly disposed of them as revenge for the childhood trauma she endured. The Dark Triad are good friends with Althea. After discussing their plan for overthrowing the royal family with her, she agreed to help. Althea was the healing mage who assisted Lady Ciel with Yuno’s birth, and as such, used this to her advantage in the beginning of the attack. 

Zenon took interest in Althea’s magic and talent after the coup, and offered to make her a Dark Disciple. She agrees, and spends the next 15 years working together with the Dark Triad to work on the Tree of Qliphoth plan. Throughout that time, she develops her friendship with Zenon. After many years of mutual pining, they become involved in a relationship.

During the 6 month timeskip, Althea spends time in Clover Kingdom as a spy. Her goal is to gather information about the two arcane stage mages necessary for their plan; Yami Sukehiro and William Vangeance. She communicates with Zenon via communication lacrima to relay the details she’s learned, and is the person who tells him exactly when to attack the Golden Dawn base for the highest chance of success. She is able to reunite with Zenon there after the attack, and returns to Spade Kingdom with him after he retrieves Yami and the defeated Dante from the Black Bulls base.

Currently, Althea is working with Morris on magic enhancements. He utilised her healing magic for the incubation tube that allowed him to heal and amplify Dante’s abilities.

Battle Prowess:

Magic: Ouroboros Magic

Althea uses this magic attribute to both heal and steal mana from others. Her spells always manifest in the form of a snake. These snakes have to bite the enemy to heal or steal mana. She can control the size that they manifest at, depending on her focus and magic amount at the time. She is able to use mana skin, a defensive mana zone, and a dress equip spell that enhances her ability.

Equipment:

Sword: Claymore

During the 15 years between overthrowing the Spade Kingdom and the current events of the manga, Zenon taught Althea how to fight with a sword. Specifically, she found a knack for the heavy blows that came with using a Claymore. Althea is a support mage with no attack spells, and as such, her combat is heavily reliant on the use of this sword in combination with her snakes.

Close Combat: Daggers

Althea has two daggers concealed in her left boot that she keeps in the case of close combat. She doesn’t use them often, but isn’t afraid to play dirty if it’s to her advantage.

Trivia:

The Ouroboros is a symbol of a snake or serpent eating its own tail, literally translating to “tail-devourer” in Greek. It represents the eternal cycle of destruction and creation. Bones represent permanence after death, and a person’s most true and bare self. Althea having magic that represents the cycle of life serves as the foil to Zenon’s bone magic, representing mortality and decay; a duality of life and death. Concurrently, the image of a skull and snake is also known to collaborate this symbolism; together, they represent both the physical and spiritual decay of a person.

Snakes also play a significant role within the Tree of Qliphoth’s mythology and lore. The Ouroboros Triad is one of the labels that has been given to the Tree of Knowledge, Tree of Life, and Tree of Death trio. The snake ties them all together in much of the imagery that is present through history.

[unfortunatelysirius]

╰☆☆ ℕ𝕆𝕋 𝕐𝕆𝕌ℝ 𝔾𝕀ℝ𝕃𝔽ℝ𝕀𝔼ℕ𝔻 ☆☆╮ [Sirius Black – Marauders Era] [Part 14]

Previous Installments: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13

╰❂╮ prompt ╰❂╮ ☾ ¡Original! ☾ With the perpetrator on their tail, and Sirius’s prejudices no longer something that can be ignored, relationships shatter and a safe way out is near unimaginable. ╰❂╮ author’s note ╰❂╮ Sorry this is so, so late. I hope the installment is to your satisfaction. AND IM SORRY IT’S SO SHORT BUT PLS, FEEDBACK WOULD BE APPRECIATED AND I’LL BE MORE PROMPT ON UPDATES. Will be updating Chocolate Frogs and Love Notes soon. Tell me if you want added to any of my tag-lists! ╰❂╮ warnings ╰❂╮ Angst, Swearing, Violence ╰❂╮ word count ╰❂╮ 2043 ╰❂╮ tag-list ╰❂╮ @kapolisradomthoughts @rageofcaliban @saucyleftovers @bunnymother93 @siriuslyr5 @apareciumimagines  @random-quartz @ruefulposts @seabasstiantrash @starlightspidey @pinkettepoet @peppermintspecks @jiongyongguk​ @bethanystan​ @raindancer2004​ @where-are-my-gummy-bears​ @cutebutnotinorcent​

           IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT, and a disturbing sort of cold Y/N thought she might never experience in her lifetime, shivers up and down her spine within the dark, suffocating corridor. The stars were like silver dewdrops splattered across the navy sky, visible through each old window’s silhouette littered around the castle; with every passing step, Y/N caught another glimpse of Nature’s finest canvas. She was curled into Sirius’s side, squished between his subtly muscled body and James’s near-identical shape, both Remus and Peter trailing the three of them by seconds. It was reminiscent of times that seemed so far away.

         Y/N thought it was all too good to be true. Everything, from her and Sirius falling back into same-old, same-old routine like they’d never left the honeymoon phase to James looking quite sullen compared to his usual upbeat, enthusiastic self. She wondered if it was all a twist on reality to make her think things were fine when really, Sirius wasn’t anywhere near, James still hated her, and the Marauders were leading her somewhere to hex and discard their latest “conquest.”  It made all the more sense the longer she thought about it, but thoughts of the way Sirius felt—flesh, bone, whole—made her realize she was daft, and just a little bit mad.

         He was so obviously here, a living, breathing wonder, and she was trying to make it a mirage. She wanted it that way.

         Or maybe she’d just went long enough with things going wrong that miracles seemed far too good to be true.

         “I have to meet with Regulus,” murmured Y/N into the quiet air, after the silence became a tad bit too smothering. She was also alert of her own negligence, from her delirious daze to her angry soul’s demands for an apology, as Sirius’s arm looped around her became a bone-crushing reality. Not so much a reality she craved anymore, but one that needed multiple bandages slapped across it; the Muggle way of rekindling old flames and licked wounds. Y/N was beginning to grow agitated and nervous, as this reality crushed down on her. As her newly-put-together world fell apart in the wake of unanswered questions. “He—wants to help. He thinks I was Obliviated.”

         Sirius glanced down at her, looking unsure, his own face not betraying the inner turmoil running their world ragged. The two of them didn’t know how to approach their current problem, the one that kept them from falling together as happy memories asked them to; Y/N was afraid of what lay in wait, Sirius’s admittance that he thought so lowly of her that for even a millisecond he thought she might have been a slag, and Sirius dreaded the moment he had to let his betrayal out into the open. Neither of them were willing to ruin their reconciliation by simple, trivial ire, the kind that winded up someone alone and heartbroken, the kind that could get anyone and everyone hurt.

         Even the most painful of thoughts were best kept internalized, if it meant staying locked tight in a dream.

         Even now, the two of them were so different. Differences Y/N once overlooked in favor of what made them compatible.  

“Regulus doesn’t care about anyone except for himself,” Sirius snapped at Y/N, the three Marauders looking nervous in anticipation for the argument to come. “He’s a Slytherin. The bloody git is tricking you.”

         “How the fuck would you know?” Y/N was never one for confrontation. This was all new territory. She was tired, and depressed, and dying of questions; she loved Sirius, she did, but he was still the prejudiced, arrogant prat he was before they started dating. He’d always hate Slytherins because he grew up in a world full of snakes that rejected him for being who he was, and maybe that was a drawn line for why they weren’t meant to last. He was the charismatic, hateful railroad tycoon, and she was his subdued wife that tiptoed around his temper. Stupid, foolish—she was letting herself use another goddamned Muggle analogy—Americanized, no less. Maybe Y/N was running low on a lucid mind as much as she was excuses.

         He knows nothing about Regulus, she thought anyway, looking into those silver grey eyes she’d always loved. Sirius didn’t. He refused to talk to his brother; maybe Regulus was growing into himself and losing that part of him that preened and prawned from pleasing his parents. If he was scared, if he was determined to find the truth because he wanted to sabotage dark plans, he never once betrayed it. But deep down, there was nothing else rational to explain his motivations, and Y/N knew he was a scared little boy afraid the monsters would someday catch up to him—

And they’d eat him alive like all wolves just so happen to do.

“Regulus is your brother,” continued Y/N. “He doesn’t want to be part of whatever it is your parents do. I can see it in his eyes.”

“You didn’t grow up with him. You didn’t see him do nothing when his brother was lying on the ground, with their father standing above him,” seethed Sirius. “Don’t act like you know him; you sure as hell don’t.”

Y/N felt like crying, as she wrenched herself away from Sirius’s warm, comforting embrace. “Don’t act like you know me,” she spat. Sirius’s jaw fell downwards, a flicker of hurt flitting across his face. “Go mope in your dorm. I’m getting down to the bottom of this, with or without you.”

Sirius was silent. Y/N continued to watch him, imploring him to say something, wishing he wouldn’t just let her leave. If she left, she could get hurt, and Sirius wouldn’t be her knight in shining armor. They went so long in turmoil that Y/N wanted there to be some sort of compromise; if they could argue and fight for so long, the two a mess with their friends on the fence on how to fix them, then they sure as hell could be soft and melted together, too. Maybe they were different, maybe Sirius couldn’t let his old ways go, but truth be told—Y/N always wanted to show him a new perspective.

She’d tried doing that before things went wrong.

“Really, Sirius?” she said now, staring brokenly at him. “We could finally figure this out, and you’re backing down? Really?”

“Whoever’s done this is dangerous,” Sirius told her. His voice had lost all its shake, all its fury, rendered a new sort of mellow Y/N had hardly ever seen from him. He looked like he itched to hold her and reassure he was just an asshat, but his asshat ways betrayed none of his true love for her, or his need to protect her. None, nada, zilch: right? He was a teenage boy, a prat, but he didn’t mean anything out of his pathetically unfiltered mouth. “I want you safe, Y/N. We should leave this to the professors.”        

Those words were foreign out of his mouth. Y/N took a heavy breath and she said, “Sirius, do you even hear yourself? Merlin, what’s happened to you?”

“What’s happened to me? Me?” Sirius’s laugh was humorless. “You’re bloody mad.”

“Sirius, Y/N, this isn’t the best time,” said Remus, looking between the two with apprehension.

“This is the best time, Remus,” Y/N said, refusing to look at any of them. She knew Peter was fidgeting; she knew James was gap-mouthed like a pufferfish; she knew Remus was trying to hide his trepidation. She knew Sirius was silently seething. All of them, they weren’t clearly thinking. They didn’t have their nerves together. Y/N was terrified that solving the bottom of the mystery would never come if they fell apart before they came together. But Y/N could no longer go on if her experience with the love of her life was only going to be heartache and pain, two things she had felt since coming to this God-awful school.

You’re not any better than him, thought Y/N, her brain suddenly going to Ashton. He was dead, and she’d never get to see him again; she’d never get to tell him she was sorry, that she never meant to use him, that he was someone she came to love in her desperation to feel. He taught her about love. He taught her that it was okay to be without for a little while because wholes always regain their lost pieces. Maybe he threw her into an abyss after he broke her heart that left her sad and lost of all hope, but now, with her head on her shoulders again, she could safely say he taught her a lot—yet she gained nothing.

Y/N was happy with Sirius, but he did not teach her anything. He was a fun partner in crime, but when it truly came down to life lessons, he wasn’t a teacher; he was along for the ride, a mere passenger in a bus packed to the brim with faces from the crowd.

Standing in the hallway, letting these thoughts wash over her, Y/N could not do this anymore. She needed to find Regulus and reach the climax of this game. Someone was toying with her and her feelings, and if she didn’t put a stop to it, if she didn’t find a way to draw the villain out and stifle the madness, there was no way for her to get peace—and she’d stay stuck in an endless cycle of being a living ghost.

“I can’t anymore, Sirius,” whispered Y/N. “I can’t.”

She turned around and ran.

The Marauders watched after her, one looking horrified, two looking shocked, and the one this mattered to most—he looked heartbroken.

And none of them even bothered to go after her, as the guilt sunk in and they realized—

Was the love-potion maker truly the villain? Or was it them?

-

Y/N had stopped running after reaching the fourth corridor. She eventually stopped walking altogether. Her pace slowed until it was nonexistent, her harsh, shaking breaths fell into soundless sniffs, her erratic thoughts slowly but surely came to a close. All she could think about now was Regulus, who was waiting at the library for her presence. And that half-blurry, half-familiar memory of a white-haired girl in the very same forest Y/N was in herself

Y/N knew it mattered. She knew she’d been Obliviated, and she was foolish not to go to Headmaster Dumbledore for help in retrieving her memories… but she was a foolish girl, and foolish girls wanted to figure out mysteries by themselves.

“I’m a bloody fool,” mumbled Y/N to herself, clutching her head like that would heal all trace of confusion, as well as her sadness. It wouldn’t, but it felt like it did—so Y/N continued to grope at her temples and scalp. The corridor echoed with spooky creaks and even spookier whistles. Y/N felt regret seep into her bones, as she realized she was still a bit of ways away from the library—and she was totally, utterly, completely alone.

Y/N heard someone laugh.

“You are a bloody fool,” they said.

Out from the end of the corridor emerged a girl, whose entire face and hair were obscured by shadows—but the pretty little patch on her robes had a snake on them. Y/N knew it was a Slytherin. But all she saw was the patch, as her body and face were near invisible—and even then, the patch’s emblazoning was blurry to her. She felt her head grow light, her eyes squinting to see within the darkness. She was so caught in looking at the patch to even pay any regard to the words the stranger spoke or the wand as it lifted, pointing right at Y/N’s chest.

“Who are—”

The girl flicked her wrist. “Stupefy,” she said.

Suddenly Y/N was knocked off her feet by a powerful spell, the backlash sending her head cracking against the corridor wall, rendering her immobile and near-unconscious.

She felt her body crumble, but only half of the way—a steady stream of numbness shooting through her like lightning.

         The stranger walked up, a laugh emptying from her mouth.

“Got you!” the girl sang happily.

That was when things went black.

[redknight3996]

Summertime Serpents

Summertime in the suburbs, simple and hot, the sun blazing overhead. Lay on back, rest well, the heat is here and nothing can be done. Best to sleep while there’s nothing to do.

Snakes lack eyelids. Classification-wise, snakes are reptiles belonging to the suborder serpentes, the clade ophidia, and the order squamata, and are so widespread that they can be found on every single continent.

(Except for Antarctica.)

A carmine recliner makes for a good bed, a fantastic place for a weary worker to rest their head. The deep black couch can be nice though, especially to sleep, and the green couch downstairs stays cool in the heat.

While the western zodiac is typically portrayed as having only twelve signs, ranging from Aries to Pisces, there is an ‘unofficial’ thirteenth sign known as Ophiuchus, the snake-bearer, who either grapples or carries Serpens, the snake constellation. Carrying sounds nicer, more friendly. The constellation is also often associated with Asclepius, a Greek god of medicine with a serpent-entwined staff.

Snakes also come sixth in the Chinese zodiac, right after dragons, and before horses.

Summer is circuitous, circular, orderly. One can frequently fall into routine.

Snakes are cold-blooded, and require outside sources of heat to function properly. In Egyptian mythology, a large snake deity, called Apophis or Apep, swallows the sun, steals it heat, only to be slain by Ra, the sun god, in the form of a cat.

They do this every day. Living and dying and living again, over and over. Theft and punishment, victory and violence. Recurring retribution.

Summertime jobs, a good time to work, but when there’s nothing,

there’s nothing at all.

Selling lemonade is good, until the rain comes. Summer rains are unpredictable.

Horned and winged serpents are common to the twin Americas’ old legends, and the Aztecs held Quetzalcoatl, the great feathered serpent, as a grand god so great, they forgot to mention his origin.

It’s good to be active when able. Beaches are terrible though, far too hot, far too salty, far too coarse. Sand gets everywhere, clinging. Hills are better, more fun to walk. Dogs like to walk along with you, and it’s nice to see the birds. Creeks are less pleasant though, too cold, best to stick to bridges.

Of monstrous snakes, there are many. The many-headed Hydra, with one immortal head and many that grew back as they are sliced off. Echidna, mother of monsters, had a serpentine lower half, as does Lamia the child-eater and the many Naga of India. Níðhöggr eats at the world tree’s roots, and Jörmungandr encircles the world.

Sometimes it’s nice to walk. Sometimes it’s nice to sleep. Sometimes it’s nice to work. It’s good to be active. It’s good to rest. Summertime is a time to try to decrease stress. It’s a break, a good clean break. Things will happen eventually, so the lack of activity should be enjoyed while it can be. A shame about the heat.

Snakes have a great deal of symbols surrounding them. Light, dark, healing, hurting. They can be oppositional, they can be helpful, they can tempt. They are creatures of many types, and many associations. Venomous snakes exist, poisonous snakes don’t. Aside from a small breed of garter snakes in Oregon.

Ouroboros is a grand serpent and symbol, a snake that eternally eats its own tail, forming a perfect cycle. Infinite, eternal. Alchemists love it. Creation and destruction, life and death. 

An eternal archetype.

[zyrael]

Uroboros, The Feed, and Coming of Age

The uroboros is the old symbol of a snake eating its own tail, the image of an eternal cycle of self-destruction and rebirth. It is depicted as a circle and is claimed to embody the early stages of development of the civilizations in which it is found. In the 20th century, the uroboros was appraised by depth psychology as an image that is useful in understanding the earliest stages in the development not only of culture, but also of the individual.

It was thus discovered as the symbol both of the primitive and the infant, prehistory and pre-consciousness, and sleep, the world of dreams. In this stage, culture has yet to emerge from nature, and there isn't much of a consciousness to speak of. In other words, one hasn't yet come of age.

Erich Neumann, a student of Carl Jung, called "uroboric incest" the strong and terrible impulse, beyond infancy and childhood, to regress into this state. From the newly-discovered difficulty of living in the world, we long during this borderline stage to re-enter, so to speak, our mother's womb, the uroboros: a place where everything is given without condition (except that we stay), as we float in the world of dreams, away from consciousness's reach. It is an incest that takes a pleasureless, loveless form, where the desire simply is to be taken away and dissolved back into a place of bliss, and a sense of absolute safety, a state of nondifferentiation. Is there a more complete uroboric symbol in our day than the feed? That is, the literally endless influx of information and stimuli that we thumb and flick through everyday on the glass screens of our phones, scrolling towards an end that we are never meant to reach. As we half-consciously and compulsively consume language, image and sound, we consume also ourselves. We regress into our most primal drives: our hunger and greed, our lust, our anger and violence. We pull down on our screens to refresh, a rotating icon appears (perhaps an animated uroboros, eerily), and the promise of more is fulfilled. We experience sensations that only moving our limbs and actually living in the world could otherwise bring, with all its righteousness and risk. Not without lifting a finger, of course, but in fact not with a lot more.

This disproportionate ease with which we are enabled, in our culture, to feel so alive is both an emblem and a symptom of an age in which living, we are often told, is easier than it has ever been anywhere. We believe this, and it is in most ways true: there are more things to make and buy than we could ever need or want. Life is easy if only we worked hard enough; the market has got it all figured out. Yet it has also become far easier for us to lose our grip. In our days we would find tiny pockets when we could take a glimpse at a life that is bigger than just want and toil. We are asked questions that demand bigger things from us than we're used to giving. In these moments we find ourselves inadequate for the task, too tired, too small, and far too distant from our possibilities that we are drawn towards resignation and defeat. And so we learn to fall back into the ease that lets us feel alive again: alive, as in having been salvaged from the tremendous threat of misery and death; alive, with a flood of sensations that can so fully make us forget. Back here, in this great cloud, everything is easy again, demanding no more energy and strength than we are known or expected to possess. Response makes for responsibility, our reactions for action, and our choices, for judgment. We are asked, far too often, "how much do you make?" and "what are you getting?," the questions of our day.

Uroboros, the Jungians say, is formative and the experience of uroboric incest positive and creative, being the first challenge that taxes and so builds the strength of the conscious self. The individual fully appreciates this struggle only over the course of its development, when consciousness begins to stabilize and becomes more reliable, and better able to remain fully awake and to think and act and make for itself. A point inevitably comes when the individual, nourished enough in the uroboros, bursts out of its infancy, emerging in adulthood with its own intellect and energy, and in better control of its nature and its own drives. But for this consciousness to emerge takes tremendous courage and energy—resources that in our culture remain scarce and forgotten.

It isn't easy growing up in a culture that hasn't. Because wait, we are told, there's more—

We've got it all. You can be anything you want. You can live the life of your dreams.

[uroborosymphony]

The Red Line.

may, friday 6th. 6:45pm. Kabukicho, Tokyo.

Chasing chimeras, chasing ghosts. The shadows of my past are whispering to my ear, lulling me to sleep. And i dream of fires, I dream of wars, I dream of glory and salvation. For the persecutors to be banished to the limbos, as, us, soldiers and martyres embrace ascencion.   The words, the thoughts - I have desperately tried to scream them yet my prayers have found no listeners. My reality is an infernal loop i am falling into, constantly, repetitively. The snake that eats its own tail. My curse. Searching and searching, running and running, only to go back to square one. And the blood of my own scales dripping out of my fangs as i chew my own flesh out of insanity. I have been telling my story, over and over, until my mind has lost iteself. Ten years later, the closed ears to my tales have remained sealed. The people, they look at me, patronize me like i suffer from delirious dementia, refusing to believe that, i, Lana, was once Cho Ilana, the rightful heiress, destined to a bright future. A mythomaniac, a maniac, that’s the pretty box they like to push me into.

I’m breaking the cycle.

It has been over a month now, that i’m aware the Yakuzas are tied to the tragedy of me and my family. They have been opening new clubs in Seoul and sending henchmen around, intimidation, dissuasion, to win back the underground scene in the city. A mess that is a gold mine to me, an opportunity, a window. One of the victims of these waves of violence managed to get a clue, a single one, a golden one out of one of the henchmen’s pockets : a visit card.

The half destroyed, dry alcohol tainted piece of paper is now stuck between my fingers as i’m toying with it, the sharpness of my black painted nails scratching against it. The visit card lead me to a place called The Red Line, here in Tokyo, Kabukicho. My fingertips are then bringing my cigarette to my lips as I am taking a long drag on it. Inhaling. Exhaling. My entire muscles relaxing from the nicotine kick and relief. My eyes aren’t leaving the building in front of me. I’m standing in front of it, The Red Line, it’s across the street, the cars are running in between me and the closed doors of this hidden empire. The agitation of the streets, the colors of the sky turning to the night are diluting in this atmosphere of frozen contemplation. I can smell the corruption, the decadence, a place that lives off all the sins the human soul can feast on. The booze, the dirty money, the deals, the girls : the usual. It is not my first rodeo in the area, i know what a poisoned eden looks like, and i, as a snake, knows how to hide in the holy trees of it.

“You gonna work here?” Asks a voice near me. “Never seen you before. Boss says a new girl is coming.” A woman, around my age, lighting her own cigarette, resting her lower back against the wall the same way i did. My eyes scan her, every single piece of exposed flesh she has in this tiny dress and these vulgar high heels.

“Do I look like an escort to you?” I answer to the woman, dry and cold. She let out a choked laughter. The type that’s a little playful, a little offended. 

“You look expensive in that lady suit of yours. Like the Boss favorite, the one he’s fucking and gets all the good tables on day one.” She answers with that same sass she doesn’t let go off, yet laced with a certain envy.

I laugh, actually. I was not expecting that answer. I can tell she’s a foreigner by the attitude, the behaviour, the way she shapes her sentences, but not entirely, a hafu  ハーフ . She almost has an accent. She knows I have one too. Despite how perfectly literate my japanese is, my korean tone is heavy on the end of my lines, I do know that. 

“I’m a singer. I heard they are looking for someone to fill the stage on fridays.” I answer, the smoke of my cigarette escaping from my nostrils as i keep my lips pinched after my words. 

“A singer huh?” The other woman asks in a rhetorical way. “Fancy.”

There is silence then. A comfortable one. As my mind is dancing through mirages of the past and future.  A name. A lead. A clan. Is what i am looking from in this place. Whoever owns the Red Line is connected to the mayhem the japanese henchmen are causing in Seoul, and I hope, connected to any single deal that has been conducted between the two countries. The woman by my side must be finding reassurance in my presence, I’m a foreigner girl, staring at the doors of a closed place, just like her. She is one of the escorts i can tell, she dresses like someone who once wanted to be more but ended up here : in designer but tacky. Many souls get lost in big city hoping to find something they never get their hands on. Success. Reputation. Money. Love. Marriage. The capitalistic version of happiness.  She has bruises. The type that she managed to hide with make-up. But instead of masking it with the same foundation color by just spreading it all over her skin, it’s applied in a smart, cautious way. A sutble blend of different tones to hide the black and reds under any single angle you could possibly look at her at. Around her neck, around her wrists, on her temple under her dark hair. Anyone else wouldn’t have noticed, but i did. I know what an abused woman looks like, speaks like, especially one who’s so skilled at hidding the damage, it shows it’s not a first. Who did this to her? Perhaps the men she takes care of at the Red Line, perhaps one that treats her like he owns her a little too hard. 

“Who runs the place.” I question, the depth of my voice breaking the soothe of the silence. My fingers are reaching for my trench coat pocket as i pull out some cash i hand to her. She looks at me, with that look, the ‘Cunt’, ‘What a bitch’, ‘Who do you think you are’, eyes. She thinks of me as condescendant, superior. I know. Her hand reaches for the money anyways and she shoves it down her bra.  I’m asking the question to a woman who has nothing to lose. She is at the bottom of the social scale, just like I once was at my lowest.

“The Mishima clan.” She speaks, finishing her sentence with a shrug, taking another hit on the cigarette, chasing the smoke out of her unpainted lips. “Pfft. I would have told you that without the money. It’s no secret. They own all the places here like.” She answers with that tone of hers.

“I know. But we are going to work together. I just want you to know what I can do. Money? I can have as much as I need. Answers? I get them. Freedom? It’s just a matter of time.” 

Her eyes remain on me, pensive. The amount of girls working out of despair or against their will in an area like this one have nothing to lose, everything to gain. I am an outsider for now, she is an insider. If i can represent the slightest piece of support, she can help me out, as long as i’m not a threat nor a walking ticking bomb that could make things worse for her - I am both, for now. I crush the butt of the cigarette against the concrete of the wall. 

The Mishima-clan. The name echoes inside my head as the wind is getting colder and the sky, darker, the motion of my heels down the tarmac carrying me through the streets once again, my hands down my pocket. The Mishimas, owner of the Red Line, perhaps a main character in this enigma i’m trying to solve. I will apply as a singer to the this club. Like that, I will make my way back on the japanese scene.