s-wohlbefinden

[delightfuldevin]

THEY LITERALLY SAY THIS AND SQUID INK ISN’T A LEGENDARY???? BLASPHEMY.

[bookshelfdreams]

Hi, if there is (going to be) an essay on lighthouse/kraken to mermaid evolution will you share it with us?

Wish you a wonderful evening!

& @roseinmyhand

awww don't enable me (jk I love to be enabled)

I know people like to interpret the Kraken/Lighthouse metaphor as a dichotomy between Ed and Stede - dark vs light, depth vs surface, the coast vs the open sea, the unknown vs the guide, and so on. We like it when characters contrast, and so, compliment and complete each other.

But I think the Kraken and the Lighthouse are codifications of the similarities Ed and Stede share. Emotionally, both struggle with the same thing: loneliness, denial of personhood, the feeling of not being understood and truly seen.

Lighthouses are heavily associated with isolation. The job of a lighthousekeeper is a lonely one; he is supposed to keep his post no matter what, to set aside his own needs and comforts to provide a service to the people who might - not even are, might! - be out there, looking for his light. There is a reason lighthouses are haunted places, associated with madness. Isolation will literally cause lasting psychological damage, and the one who locks himself in this tower to make sure the coasts are safe to sail risks his life, his health, his sanity in service to others.

This is what Stede sees himself as: Someone who is trapped by duty to perform a role that slowly kills him. And even though both the priest who introduces this metaphor into his life and Mary talk about them being lighthouses for each other, Stede says he alone was supposed to be one for my family. Even in this huge estate, with all the comfort money can buy and surrounded by his beautiful family, he feels cast out and disconnected. What he wants, his own happiness, is unimportant, only that he fill the role society has cast him in, no matter how painful he finds it.

And then there's Ed. Ed who, at first glance, seems to have everything anyone could want, too. His name alone strikes fear into the heart of anyone who hears it, he is successful beyond the wildest imagination. He has respect and reputation; by all metrics he truly made it. But he, too, is unable to really connect to anyone. He has no peers on his own ship and the one person who should be his confidant and right-hand man rejects him when he wants to share his thoughts and interests. Nobody really seems to care about Ed. People care about Blackbeard, care about him being a good pirate, and he is good at it! He doesn't feel crushed and suffocated in his life as Stede does in his. But we should not forget that this is not a life Ed chose for himself. He was pushed into it at a very young age, by a horrible act he felt he had no choice but commit.

Away from the cosmos of his own ship and crew, people do not even really see him as human. He is a fucking viking vampire clown, a bloodthirsty killer, spawn of the devil, his eyes are coal and his head is smoke. The whole time he knew Stede, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, was waiting for him to see what he really is (a monster, that's what people like Stede always end up thinking), and then when he seems to do just that? When Stede rejects him, after he has layed himself bare, after he just started to believe that here might be one who really gets him, like no one has before?

Ed just sees proven true everything he has always believed about himself. He isn't a person who can have fine things, sweet and gentle things, the world will never let him have them. It wants to dehumanize him? Fine, let them do that, he will become the thing under your bed, the creature that drags innocent sailors into the depths. He will never win acceptance, let alone love, but he can force people to fear him and by whatever god is listening, that's what he will do. He will retreat into the dark abyss, alone, because a legendary monster needs no company, and feels no heartache.

One might see how both these ways of conceptualizing the self through metaphor might be a little bit maladaptive.

So. Mermaids.

A lot of people (especially children and teenagers) who are marginalized and/or feel disconnected from their peers will develop a fondness for certain mythological creatures at some point in their lives. Witches, faeries, vampires, mermaids. Creatures that are almost human, but not quite. A thing that moves like you and speaks like you but isn't you - a thing that's strange and alien.

A creature walking among the humans undiscovered.

Mermaids especially have stories of that sort associated with them. A beautiful person with an ethereal singing voice, that will eat you if you dare get too close. A pretty maiden at the dance, the hem of her dress perpetually wet: If you go home with her, she will drag you to the bottom of the river. Someone who sheds their scales like a mantle, whose touch will always be cold, who may have a tail and fish skin only once a month, a year, a decade, and who will leave you if you ever dare to see the true form of them.

Creatures that make ships crack up on the rocks.

And yet. That are social and never alone, are they? Beautiful and mysterious, feared, but it's a fear tinged with admiration, with envy. With their own societies, their homes that can't be reached by air-breathing folk. Mermaids are creatures both of the depths and the surface, who live as they please. Who are ungovernable.

This, I think would make for a beautiful resolution to both Ed's and Stede's character development. Reject the expectations that hurt you, embrace the weird and strange (the queer things) about yourself, but recognize there are people who will be your allies if you let them. Society thinks you are a monster (and I think it's significant that they both get called monstrous), let them think it. It doesn't mean they are right when they call you worthless. You will find your own gang of monsters to be weird and terrifying together.

[ladyofpomegranates]

5 times Our Flag Means Death Used Symbolism and Why You Should Care

Symbolism! Not just another boring thing your English teacher told you about!

By @ladyofpomegranates for the @ourflagmeansparty 

Day 7 prompt: Literary Devices 

Team Black- Symbolism

1) The Lighthouse 

The Lighthouse shows up everywhere! From the painting Mary gifts Stede as an anniversary present (which he keeps in his cabin), to the dreary looming specter of a literal lighthouse at the Bonnet wedding (most depressing wedding ever?),   to the genius plan devised by Blackbeard and Stede in episode 4 that turns a ship into a lighthouse!

The lighthouse represents many things over the course of the series:

The role as spiritual leader of a family 

A guiding light through the darkness

A warning of danger “if you get too close to a lighthouse, you’ll crack up on the rocks”

And if the Pattinson & DeFoe movie taught us anything- they require great trust in your partner to effectively maintain!

2) Ed’s red scrap of silk

Ed carries with him a scrap of red fabric (likely silk given its origin story) squirreled away in his pocket. We learn in episode 5 that it was given to him by his mother, who in turn got it from “The Carmody Estate” which we can infer is the estate of a wealthy family where she works. 

She tells young Edward that the estate is full of fine things like this, but that people “like them” aren't meant to have fine things. This experience of wealth inequality in childhood most definitely influenced his later career as a pirate, but even after he is the most feared pirate on the seven seas he still feels the desire to prove his worth and belonging to the world of nobility. 

When Stede sees Ed holding the scrap of fabric he’s held onto for so long, Stede encourages him to wear it openly! “oh it’s just a tatty old thing” Ed says about the fabric, and he’s not just talking about the physical object. No, he’s referring to his dreams, desires, and heart. “sometimes, the old things are the best. they just need a little care” Stede replies as he tenderly arranges it into a pocket square that Ed wears over his literal heart! This is peak romance folks! 

3) The Auxiliary Wardrobe

Speaking of fancying a fine fabric, let’s talk about the auxiliary wardrobe!

Stede Bonnet has known Ed for about 5 minutes before he sees an affection for fine things in him, and views it as something they have in common! He invites Ed into the physical representation of his dandy nature, a closet! but not just any closet (although regular closets are a time honored symbol for hidden queerness), Stede invites Ed into a walk in closet that can only be accessed by triggering a fake wall! We literally get to see two queer men in a closet admiring a collection of fine clothing, Stede even starts pulling things off the racks for Ed to try on! Truly the most fabulous display of bringing someone into your private world that I’ve seen on screen in ages! 

4) The Kraken

This one is a little heavier than the others, but it looms over Ed/Blackbeard for the whole show. The Kraken is introduced as a legendary monster that Edward witnessed kill his father. It’s the only thing that Blackbeard fears, we are told. We later learn that the Kraken is a manifestation of guilt and fear stemming from Edward’s youth when he strangled his own father (papa teach deserved it a little bit though). 

The Kraken represents the darker impulses of Edward Teach, it is the use of violence that he compartmentalizes. It’s no coincidence that when Ed embraces the darkness and violence at the end of season 1 as a coping mechanism, he dons makeup and says “I am the Kraken”. He is embracing the monster within that he fears. (One day I will write a whole essay about the queer monstrosity connections that can be made here too, lots of Black Sails and del toro will be referenced)

5) The Ring   

this one is a little sneakier- it’s never acknowledged by any of the characters in the show, but in every scene Izzy Hands is in, he is wearing a ring on his tie! Coincidence? I think not! this wardrobe choice could symbolize faithfulness, commitment, and monogamy as character traits. 

But who is Izzy Hands committed to? Could it be an off screen partner settled in a seaside town somewhere? Could it be a lost love from his tragic backstory? (it would explain his commitment to the all black aesthetic- mayhaps he is the Carribean’s own Queen Victoria in perpetual mourning dress) Could it be a commitment to the life of piracy? or maybe it hints at the deep bond shared by him and his captain. 

Maybe Stede Bonnet is a homewrecker! One is sure- Con O’Neill himself has acknowledged that it is something

[thetygre]

30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #23: Favorite Bad Movie Monster

Alright, so most of these movies aren’t really all that bad; they’re just kind of ‘meh’. But they would have been a lot worse without these cool and/or goofy monsters.

1.       Jabberwocky (Alice in Wonderland 2010)

I am prepared to disclose that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was not horrible, but 60% of that opinion stems from the Jabberwocky. (The remaining 40%is 30% the other monster designs and 10% lesbian subtext.) The Jabberwocky has always been my favorite part of the Alice mythos (surprise surprise), and not to sound petty, but I have dropped Alice movies just for not including the brilling beast. Burton’s Jabberwocky might not be my favorite, but it has a lot going for it. The way they treat it is basically as Wonderland’s Tarrasque; a living WMD, a legendary kaiju, the ur-monster in a world teeming with dangerous and crazy creatures. The way it wakes up is even a direct nod to Chernabog from Fantasia; they are literally equating this thing to the Devil.

Second off; Christopher Lee.

Finally, when the Jabberwocky meets Alice to fight, he says this thing about meeting his ‘old foe’, ‘the vorpal one’, in battle again. It is made explicitly clear that he is talking about the vorpal blade, not Alice. And that just… I don’t want to say that that changes the entire movie, but yeah, it kind of does. The implications here are that the vorpal blade and the Jabberwocky have fought each other countless time before in the past. The history of Wonderland is just the history of a dragon and a magic sword fighting. Is the vorpal blade sentient? How many times have these two fought? This kind of transforms everything about the setting the movie has established for the last hour and a half. It’s just so filled with so much potential to me.

2.       Torgo (Manos: The Hands of Fate)

Y’know, when you’re in a dark place, you have to find your own light. A source of motivation, something you can cling to to pull you through to the other side. Maybe that’s a dream, a goal at the end of the tunnel, or maybe it’s a hero, someone you can look up to. I’m not saying that Torgo is a hero, but he inspires me. There are weeks at work where I just don’t want to get out of bed in the morning. I come home at night to an empty room and fall asleep alone. It gets hard, is what I’m saying. But you know who never stopped trying, even though he hated his job and was lonely too?

Torgo. That’s who.

Everyday Torgo gets up, throws on his blazer and hat, and he goes out there and busses a haunted motel for a boss he hates. But he does it, every day. And if Torgo can do it, you can too. So you’ve got to get out there and be the best damn lackey you can. You’ve got put in the work to make it to tomorrow. And when the good times roll in and come shining down on you, you take a minute to remember the man who helped you get here. Take a minute to remember Torgo, looking down on you from Cloud No. 9, shedding a tear.

3.       Radu (Seventh Son)

The Last Apprentice series is actually a pretty cool (and grim) series of dark fantasy/horror young adult novels, kind of like junior’s first Solomon Kane. The Seventh Son movie based on the series has piss-all to do with it, and its only redeeming features are some cool monster designs and Jeff Bridges. Of those cool monster designs, the stand-out for me is Radua aka Muslim Dragon Kratos. He’s one of our villain witches chief thugs, and is unnecessarily cool for a side-character. He’s got this whole Nosferatu Zodd code of honor thing, and wields these two chain blades and probably could have been the villain in his own movie.

Now that alone would have been a neat detail, but then he can turn into what I honestly consider one of the more interesting dragons in recent cinema. I talked before about how one archetype of dragons was of being these unholy, scavenger type wilderness monsters, and that’s kind of the vibe I get from Radu’s dragon form. It’s all lanky and feral looking. It has too many limbs, and it walks around like it doesn’t know how. It’s another unnecessarily cool design for such a generic movie, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

4.       Krakensaurus (Jack the Giant Slayer)

I don’t want to be mean and discount Jack the Giant Slayer as ‘discount Ray Harryhausen’, but thems is the breaks, as the saying goes. The movie is kind of charming in how earnestly it plays to being a 1960s fantasy movie, with princesses in pink dresses and warlocks with goatees and a rhyming leprechaun. The movies stop-motion monsters don’t really live up to industry standards, though. But I can’t sit here and lie and say that I don’t have a special fondness for the sea monster at the end. The movie’s penultimate scene sees our heroes trying to escape the warlock’s castle, so the villain summons a two-headed giant (or ettin, if you know your monsters) which looks suspiciously like one of Ray Harryhausen’s cyclopes. Trapped in a sea cave, the rhyming leprechaun trapped in a bottle (roll with it) summons a sea monster to deal with the problem.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life, like watching two weird looking monsters fight to the death. Our sea monster is a blue-green mixture of kraken and allosaurus, and I’m pretty sure its toy had more detailing than the actual moving model. When this guy showed up on the screen, six year old me was hype enough to punch through a wall. I spent the next week drawing pictures of him so I wouldn’t forget him. This movie has 100% more sea monsters and singing leprechauns than The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, and that almost makes up for its deficit skeleton warriors.

5.       Queen of the Lair (She Creature 2001)

Stan Winston was on the helm for this little lady’s monster design, and it shows. A mermaid queen, it’s hard to tell if her monster form is her real shape or just something she can morph into. Even her basic mermaid form is pretty interesting; the split tails remind me of sirens or tritons. Her monster shape, though, is pure Stan Winston gold. There’s more than a little bit of the xenomorph queen in there, between the crest and the fangs. Someone threw it into a blender with a sea serpent and a viper fish and what comes out is the most badass mermaid to ever slink across cinema. She rips people’s heads off, her tail is covered with bone spikes, and she can sing a siren song to summon up her mermaid swarm. Oh, and psychic impregnation powers. That part’s kind of important.

6.       She Creature (She Creature 1956)

Aforementioned sea monster queen was part of a series of horror films based on old b-movies, so this is the original She Creature. Even today, this is one of my favorite designs from the 1950s. Paul Blaisdell might just be the king of B-movie monster suits, and belongs up there with Ray Harryhausen in the great monster hall of fame. The she creature looks like the sum product of an orc, a lobster, and a scorpionfish. It’s a shame you only see her in monochrome, because her color scheme is a startling mix of green and pink. What I find most fascinating is the concept that this is supposed to represent some parallel evolutionary stage of humanity. This is supposed to be a different version of Homo sapiens that never left the sea. Stan Winston’s mermaid queen is great, but I would still love to see an updated and more articulate version of this design.

7.       Vampire Spawn (Van Helsing)

This raises so many questions. So the crux of Van Helsing is that Dracula needs Frankenstein’s monster to power a force-field that will allow his swarms of vampire spawn to survive past infancy. I bet you thought vampires reproduced by biting people, right? Well, apparently they also have egg-sacs. Just, massive, Aliens style egg-sacs full of bat/human fetus monsters hungry for blood. It’s so stupid that I love it. These things are horrible and adorable; they remind me of chupacabras. I want one as a familiar, or at least statted up for a tabletop roleplaying game. Just really try to avoid thinking about the whole egg-sacs thing and all the implications that brings to vampire mythology.

8.       Emperor Tyrannus (Attack of the Super Monsters)

I don’t… I don’t think I have the strength to really get into Attack of the Super Monsters. When I watched it, liquor was involved. Describing it reads like a parody of Japanese media that involves anime, men in monster suits, and giant robots meant to sell collectible toys. But it’s real, and the realest shit ever is Emperor Tyrannus. Emperor Tyrannus is literally a giant tyrannosaurus rex who is the evil mastermind of an underground civilization of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs talk, because shut up, and Emperor Tyrannus in particular talks with a villain voice that I just can’t really convey through text. I think the closest I can get is saying that he sounds like someone doing an imitation of Brian Blessed while having a stroke. Emperor Tyrannus shoots laser beams from his eyes that mind control the other dinosaurs into being evil, and watches them fight a hermaphroditic cyborg superhero in a drill/airplane. Look, you need to see this for yourself. I’m not doing this justice. Get your friends, find the DVD, and strap in for a wild ride.

9.       Witch Tree (The Last Witch Hunter)

The Last Witch Hunter is another guilty pleasure move where Vin Diesel brings what I’m pretty sure is one of his D&D characters to a movie and somehow ropes Michael Cain and Elijah Wood into it with him. Our villains are, in a surprising twist, witches that cook up some fairly grotesque magic. One of the creatures meant to act as the witches’ guardians is a magical sentinel, and it just goes so hard and so dark for what amounts to a stick golem. It’s the fine details that make this construct stand out. The extra limbs let it move faster and have extra attacks, the jawbones around the front form a crude mouth, and the branch rib-cage makes it look like something that used to be alive instead of something that was just magically summoned. There’s so much work poured into this one monster, and it’s definitely a treat to see it at the end of the movie. Rethink your golems, kids; treat yourself better.

10.   Giant Leeches (Attack of the Giant Leeches)

I used to be pretty intensely leech-phobic when I was younger (and by younger, I mean a couple of years ago), but even then I knew the giant leeches were lame. Incredibly lame. Like, honestly kind of pathetic. I kind of like them out of a bizarre sense of pity. Giant leeches should scare me, but these guys are just goofy. A leech isn’t a hard design; it’s a tube with a sucker on each end. But I am almost convinced that the person who designed these monsters had never actually seen a leech, or possibly even a worm. But the movie still treats them with all the dignity and awe of the Creature of the Black Lagoon. There are prolonged sequences of these guys swimming underwater, floating around like hungry garbage bags. These things are not, nor were they ever, leeches; they are some kind of aquatic octopus or confused anemone. That’s why they need our love, our protection; because they’re too stupid to survive by themselves.

[krystals-posts]

Aloha Star Walkers, Sailors, Adventurers! - Check your Emails! Full Body of info (more than below is in your inbox) YOU can finally be more in tune with expressing the REAL YOU!!!
 Time to tap that Astro and get into what's going on above our heads in the Skies.  Discovering truths as we dive into darkness. Solar Eclipse and New Moon Sagittarius.  The Moon (Emotions-Instincts.-Unconscious) is literally blocking the Sun (Our Ego-Self Expression- The Role We Play).   What has been hiding in the depths? The Kraken (legendary sea monster) ??? I love that thing!  Sagittarius is the truth seeker. This eclipse is the high water mark of the waves of eclipses we've had since June 2020.  …. More in the email. Sign up email it’s FREE. Astrology Readings are available at a price. It’s worth it to know more ASTROLOGY READINGS FOR DECEMBER CALENDAR ARE STILL AVAILABLE  Destiny may be… It’s written in the stars, but it’s still just dust. Not concrete. (Stardust) You are a vessel of your own two feet The stars above are a blue print. On the day you were born - a map of different pathways of energies you can work with, around, and through. Your destiny is up to you! Remember BREATHE and HYDRATE (water) Always ~ Be a YOUniquorn🦄. Mermake today your #OM 🕉 💜 Thank you Xoxo 😘, 🦄 KMacK 🧜🏼‍♀️ 🏴‍☠️ 🗓 Schedule - Yoga, Astro, Tarot or Alchemy Sesh. The shell 🐚 phone is busy… Please - email 📧 mermay! Mermaidkrystal@gmail.com Feel free to DM as well. #mermaid #krystal #ninja #pirate #warrior #mystic #priestess #astrologer #astrology #alchemist #crystal #yoga #teacher #energy #gypsy #witch #cavewoman #chickasaw #blonde #hawaiian #celtic #scottish #moon #sun #moonchild #wild #sagittarius #solareclipse #newmoon https://www.instagram.com/p/CXCnZGSJVoP/?utm_medium=tumblr

[delightfuldevin]

Day eleventy billion of waiting for Squid Ink to be promoted to legendary status