#also the names in the references to the legends are completely made up and are not actually from any legend

[onceuponanaromantic]

modus operandi

(Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial's prompt: FFF218 How Do You Use It? This isn't related to anything I'm working on but enjoy!)

It wasn’t much, but it had been her mother’s.

Maybe that’s what made it hurt all the more.

            She lets her face press to the cold stone of the bridge, trying to ease the ache of her heavy heart. It shouldn’t matter that she had hand sewn every one of the beads onto the bodice, that she had embroidered every stitch into the skirt by candlelight, that she had never worn it until today. She had stayed up late, squinting by the weak glow of the candlelight, eyes burning and fingers bleeding from where she had pricked them trembling with exhaustion, trying to finish the alterations in time.

            All she had wanted was one night. One moment to remember what she had used to be, what her mother had wished for her.

            The gash in the skirt bleeds where the ink pot was thrown at her. Where she rubs her fingers on it, they still come away black, instead of the blood red it looks under the moonlight. She feels the last sob escape her, bubbling through her throat.

            She is no scholar to win her freedom by sneaking out to take the Civil Service exam as Shen Xiumin did. She has no skill for singing, unlike Huang Meilin, to run away to the stage and hide her face behind the face paint of the opera. She is no warrior to restore her family’s honour as Hua Chenyi did.

            All she had were her hands. All she had were her eyes. The eyes that picked up the beads left behind where noblewomen dropped them from their hems, the calloused hands with unpainted nails that stitched them into the dress.

            “Hush, child.” A voice emerges from behind her. “Why do you cry?”

            She turns, bowing to the fox emerging from the undergrowth, her seven tails swishing. “Lady Fox.”

            The fox’s fathomless eyes dart to the dress. “I see, the Prince will choose a bride tonight at the masquerade, won’t he? He will choose based on the dress.”

            She could not admit that all she had wanted was a single night. She was no great beauty, but she had her skill.

            “You have always been kind to the water spirits and the forest sprites. I will reward you now.”

            The dress lifts into the air as she gazes upon it. The jacket lifts, the skirt puffs outwards before narrowing. When it descends, it is as soft as the mulberry silk only palace nobles could afford, the expensive deep green dye covered with intricate silver and gold where her own once laid.

            And it looks nothing like her mother’s dress.

            “Put it on. It will return to its former state by the hour of the tiger, but you should have time for a dance.”

            But even as she takes it into her hands, she finds her head shaking. “Noble Lady Fox, I cannot accept your gift. For this was my mother’s and it would be a disservice to both of us to wear the dress as it is.” She swallows. “I am sorry, Noble Lady Fox, I am honoured but I still have my pride. I cannot accept this. I cannot wear it to the ball.”

            The fox gazes at her, her dark eyes inscrutable. “Is that your final answer?”

            She nods. “Then very well.”

            The dress disappears from her hands altogether and when she looks up from the ground, the fox is gone too.

            She swallows past the bitterness suddenly in her throat, for she knows better than to demand her dress back.

            Days pass, and the prince announces his bride. She watches as the noblewoman steps up beside him, her hand dainty and soft, her nails painted elegantly, her face powdered and her lips as small and red as cherries. She moves on with her life, until one day, a courtier comes knocking at her door.

            “Are you Xiu Yanli?” The courtier asks, her eyes squinting to read the characters. “Please come with me to the palace.”

            She goes, even though the courtier doesn’t explain, not even when her stepmother demands to know where she’s going, demands that the walnuts will not shell themselves nor the tea steep itself in its pot. She goes, even though she knows she will never be able to come back after this.

            All she had left that meant anything was the dress anyway, and that was taken from her too.

            She stiffens as they reach the palace, but relaxes as they go around to the back. Then, she stiffens again, as she is led through a corridor opulent with gold dragons on the windows and through staircases with deep walnut wood engravings in them. Only the emperor is allowed gold dragons.

            But she doesn’t say anything as she is led into a room. She sinks to her knees, bowing fully as the new empress-to-be stands before her.

            When she raises her eyes though, she cannot help but gasp.

            Her dress lies beautifully against her body, exactly as it looked that night, except the gash was now a silver and gold inlay that spiralled like a cobweb and the ink stain curved into beautiful delicate patterns like a painting of lotuses and bamboo on silk.

            “I am told you are the seamstress who made this?” The empress-to-be’s voice is soft and high.

            “I did the alterations, your Highness. It was originally my mother’s.”

            “How did you make it do that with the beading?”

            She explains but after, she forces herself to speak. “How did you get it?”

            The empress purses her lips, and all of a sudden, she’s reminded that the empress is younger than her. “I’m new to the palace too. Another lady ruined my original dress and I was crying, except a fox came in and offered it to me, if I would recognise the seamstress later.”

            She looks shyly at her. “Would you come and be a handmaiden for me? It’s just… I need a friend. You would stay here, of course, but you can return if you want. I’m not- I don’t mean to force you.”

            She bowed. She bowed deeply and gratefully, before straightening up and smiling.

            “Of course. But can I have my dress back? It isn’t much, but it was my mother’s.”

[darthstitch]

Professor Mysterious and Professor Wet Cat

This is my take on that Dreamling post making the rounds about Hob and Dream being uni professors and that Hob is surprisingly NOT the prof who overshares and Dream is the one who inadvertently does.

Buckle up, kids, let's have some fun with this. Also, gentle reminder: NOBODY TELL NEIL. SHHHH!

This time around, Hob's using his proper name, Robert Gadling, because it's been a while since he's trotted that one out and he kinda likes the seeming rightness that the once upon a time near-illiterate medieval peasant that he'd been was now teaching at a rather prestigious university. However, he's not prone to sharing much about his personal life to his students. He's still warm and friendly, but he's cautious about letting Certain Things slip.

Hilariously, the things that do slip end up making him everyone's favorite university cryptid. Sometimes Hob slips into Middle English when he's stressed or emotional. Sometimes he might use odd old-fashioned sounding oaths like "God's wounds," "Holy Jesu," and "Mother Mary's teats" (this last one sends everyone into spasms of laughter).

The literature department ADORES him because they can always drag Professor Gadling off to read Chaucer in its original form or even medieval French, his pronunciation perfect and dead on. Shakespeare is the only thing he'll flat out refuse to read because in any universe this Fuzzy Blue Alien's gonna write, his hatred of the Bard is the stuff of legend.

The students universally agree that Professor G is basically British Indiana Jones, because he's also known to have lethal expertise in medieval weapons. There's been more than a few fantasies inspired during the booked-solid outdoor demonstrations where he works in tandem with the other medieval history professors to show everyone how medieval weapons worked. Apparently, his favorite weapons are the longbow, the bastard sword and daggers.

Obviously, this all leads to Professor Gadling being the campus crush and his relationship status is a matter of hot speculation even if he's made it perfectly clear he was not about to violate his ethical standards or position as a teacher. It still doesn't stop the fevered fantasies of more than a few grad students, though. But that's all they're gonna get.

And then, there's the new literature teacher, Professor T. Murphy.

To everyone's disappointment, Professor Murphy is only going to be at the university for a limited series of lectures. Word of mouth spread fast, and his classes were now booked solid and he was going to be asked to return, once his apparently very busy schedule is cleared.

7. Of course, he's an instant campus crush, with the "Goth angel" looks, the Edward Cullen jokes are definitely flying and there's more than a few students melting after they heard him speak. "That Voice" is always referred to in capital letters and it's well deserved.

8. "Campus crush" turns to "Official Precious Blorbo" once the students all discover that behind the whole regal and imperious Goth Prince vibe that he gave off, was an adorkable darling wet cat who was just completely gone on "my beloved." If he's discussing a love sonnet or poem, there's definitely going to be a reference to "my beloved" or "my dearest" or "my love." It's never sickeningly cloying and the sweet tiny little smile that takes over his normally serious face is like sunshine. The kilig feels are real.

9. He's also forever worrying that he's not enough for "my dearest" as he's rather painfully aware "of my lack in human graces" - which everyone translates to "OMG HELP I HAVE THE SOCIAL SKILLS OF A SCRUNKLY WET CAT." He frets that he's somehow failing his beloved, who is infinitely sweet and thoughtful and caring and that Professor Murphy is the selfish one, really, who doesn't deserve the man.

10. The students, of course, immediately ADOPT him. Tesco ice cream runs are done, YouTube videos on cooking and invites to kitchens are extended so Professor Murphy could practice making something that is "not a catastrophic culinary disaster unfit for human consumption." There was a session on the language of flowers, which everyone had enjoyed. For a while, flowers with significant meanings were presented to sweethearts and lovers all over the uni. There's an unforgettable after-class meeting in which the craft-inclined students teach Professor Murphy how to knit and crochet and he was really rather proud of the scarf he had created.

11. Professor Murphy's raven had been rather entertained playing with the yarn scraps. The students learn that the raven's name is Matthew.

12. And then, dashing, mysterious Professor Gadling finally peeks into Professor Murphy's class.

"The things I do for you, myne owne hertis rote. Bloody Shaxberd."

"But you do read him so very well, my love." And there it was, that tiny, soft, sweet smile, now aimed in Professor Gadling's direction.

Professor Gadling sighs and puts a hand over his chest. There's a very familiar scarf draped over his neck. "God's wounds, dove, warn your poor, long-suffering husband before you do these things."

"What 'things,' dearest?"

Professor Gadling waves his arms helplessly. The scarf slips a little, offering a tantalizing view of a purplish mark on his throat. "That thing!" He looks appealingly at the students, who are now all stifling their delighted giggles. "Look at him! My heart can only take so much!"

And that was how everyone found out that Professors Gadling and Murphy were actually happily married.

Incidentally, the Shakespeare reading, in which both professors took part, was a true kilig apocalypse. Instant campus legend.

[exactlycleverpirate]

Wild Theories About Rafayel

Spoilers under the cut.

So, I've been contemplating how the various deceptions Rafayel has experienced occured and how that connects in his story over all. He or his story references being deceived at least 3 times: in Anecdote 3, in the Myth, and in Your Fragrance.

Anecdote 3:

"The young boy sits alone in the middle of the coral reef, softly humming “Siren's Ballad.” Waves lap the shores, staining it dark red. The color blends almost seamlessly with the bloody setting sun in the distance. Those who deceived him have long since sailed away on their massive ships, laughing all the while. “Siren's Ballad” isn't a song of revenge. It's an elegy sung for Lemuria.”

Myth:

Amund: “I believe in Your Quintessence. Her method of acquiring the heart wasn’t forgotten, was it? If that island sparked the beginning of our demise, then everything should end there. The Lemurians cannot be deceived again!”

MC: “The Lemurian tales I’ve read said the God of the Sea died long ago… I’m sorry, you must refer to it as a “slumber.” How can there still be a God of the Sea?” Rafayel: “Does Your Highness know why he perished? His heart was stolen by humans.”

Your Fragrance:

“It must be an allergic reaction. This isn’t perfume. How dare they use such underhanded methods to trap me…” “Who gave you the perfume?” “Are you trying to run away again?” “I’m not going anywhere. You’re gonna lock me up again… You’re with them, I just know it. Don’t think I’m unaware of what you’re about to do. (MC name), I won’t fall for it again. Not this time.”

They all seem to be connected to you somehow, but not enough so to make him hate you or lose trust in you, as he is still willing to be incredibly vulnerable with you (Ebb and Flow), give up his life for you (Myth chapter 8-9), deeply love you, and want to be with you for the rest of his life.

So my thoughts are that MC has been used as bait against Rafayel in at least 2 lives. There seem to be events that reoccur in their different reincarnations, such as Rafayel meeting MC when they are young/children and vowing to find MC again. He gives her the blue fish, the Emissary of the Ocean, in both current and Myth lives as well.

So going with this idea of reoccurring events, I think on their first life, which I believe was the Island of Songs life, there was likely a vow made as children. But then as adults, I think there were a group of humans (or perhaps just one in particular) who decided to use her as bait to trap the God of the Sea and plunder Lemuria's riches while he was weak. She is unaware of any of this. She is offered to him as a sacrifice (think Bride of Habaek (manhwa)), essentially becomes something like a temple maiden trapped on an island. What she doesn't know is that those who sent her there are using her as a honey trap.

And it works. She and Rafayel fall in love and bind themselves to each other. Now, I haven't decided yet whether I think the humans knew he would go so far as to give her his heart or whether they just got lucky there. But the end result is, Rafayel is trapped when he is weak, Lemuria is plundered, and I believe they then go into hiding in the deep, becoming the stuff of myth and legend.

MC, meanwhile, is seen as the betrayer by the Lemurians, though not necessarily Rafayel, not completely at least. They curse her and turn her into a Sea Witch (Fragrant Dream). But eventually Rafayel finds her and saves her at the cost of his own life.

Now fast-forward to current day Rafayel. He has once again made a vow with her when they were children. And I think he is deceived by the same person/people as before, be they gods, reincarnations or some other immortal. And I think now that they are behind Ever Corp, Onychinus and related organizations. (I also like the idea that Astra from Zayne's Myth is somehow a part of all this.) So, they use MC as a lure, to draw him away from Lemuria, since even as a child, he is their protector. They once again plunder Lemuria, this time nearly wiping it out.

Meanwhile, I think they know MC has a Sea God’s heart, and were experimenting on her to find a way to use it. Hence the Aether core and what not.

Sometime in the far future, they will use what they learn from it to remake Earth into Philos, with a fake core that keeps all humanity immortal, except those sacrificed to it. Eventually, MC's immortal heart is essentially connected to the core like a battery, to drain, die, recharge the core, then be reborn to do it again. Essentially making all human life on Philos leaches off of Rafayel's immortality, draining him as well and eventually condemning him to eternal slumber if he does not reclaim it from her.

What do you think? Wild and crazy? Has some merit? What are your own theories? Let me know in the comments or PM me!

[itsmarjudgelove]

Armor (Gusoku) with helmet signed by Bamen Tomotsugu (18th century).

Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616) winning the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and unifying all the local warlords under his rule, Japan returned, after a century of military conflicts, to peace and stability. This entailed, however, a significant decrease in the production of arms and armor, and by the end of the seventeenth century only higher ranking Samurai, e.g., Daimyō (feudal lords), were able to afford new, custom made suits of armor.

Accordingly, only few lineages of armorers survived. The Bamen School was one of them, tracing its origins to the turbulent late sixteenth century. Legend has it that some of their masters produced excellent shaffrons (Japanese: bamen) whereupon their employer, the Honda clan, allowed them to use the term as the name for their school. Tomotsugu, the maker of this armor, was active at the turn of the eighteenth century and the last great master of the Bamen School.

The helmet bowl is made from 84 ridged iron plates and signed on the inside: Echizen no Kuni Toyohara jū Bamen Tomotsugu Saku (Made by Bamen Tomotsugu, resident of Toyohara in Echizen province).

The cuirass consists of eight vertical plates connected with ornamental rivets, an interpretation referred to as byō-toji okegawa-dō. The armor is endowed with shakudō (gold-copper alloy) crests of three whirling commas which are associated with the Okabe family, the feudal lords of Kishiwada (present day Kishiwada City in Osaka Prefecture).

One of the key features of this armor is its extremely rare color scheme of the lacings of the kusazuri (skirt). Usually, the color of the lacing changes between rows, e.g., grading from bright at the belt to dark at the bottom, this pattern then repeated on each of the skirt’s segments. Here, however, the colors change between the seven segments, starting at the right waist in white, becoming gradually darker going around the torso, i.e. red, yellowish-green, and black. To create symmetry, the neck guard (tare or suga) duplicates the red lacing of the central skirt element, whereas the shoulder guards (sode) and neck guard (shikoro) of the helmet are completely laced in white and only pick up red color accents along their bottom rows.

Not only is the workmanship of this armor and its materials of the highest quality, the suit also represents a fine specimen of late tōsei-gusoku (modern armors) from a time before medieval armor styles were revived.

[glouris]

About some characters’ possible incarnations in previous samsaras

So Teyvat is trapped in a cycle, is constantly going through samsaras, and reincarnation really is all but confirmed now apparently. 

A lot of people jumped to point at Childe and Parsifal, then speculate which other historical figures could also be his previous incarnations.

Childe's case is really, really interesting, but I wanted to bring up another character that also seems to be pulled into this samsara vortex somehow - Itto. 

(This is gonna be long and have A LOT of reaches and speculations.)

Let’s look at Akuou (Touzannou) from Watatsumi Island. We don't have confirmation on which species he actually belonged to, but from what information we have on him, he would most likely be either a vishap hybrid, or an oni. He was described as “the wicked fangs and claws of the Great Serpent, the savage, demonic invader of Yashiori Island”. “‘Fangs and claws of the Serpent” makes it sound like he was a vishap, but I think him being called “demonic” is a more important characterisation here. The name ‘Akuou’ also may be a reference to the legends of Akuro'ou - “an ancient demonic warrior in the Japanese folklore who fought against the imperial court”, so again, demonic, an oni. And, well, oni also have claws and fangs, but I did have to mention that this guy could be a lizard person instead. 

If we assume that Touzannou was an oni, we can start to notice a lot of coincidences pile up. First, Touzannou’s personality seems to resemble Itto’s - he was reckless, boastful, presumptuous, but very kind. Not the brightest mind, as it’s said that “his strength was his only strength". He came up with his own fighting styles that are still passed down on Watatsumi. Itto’s fighting style is his own as well: 

(I love Itto so much man.)

Touzannou fought the Tengu Sasayuri and was called Akuou  - “Wicked King”; Kokomi’s Everlasting Moonglows story mentions it like that: 

Itto’s Redhorn tells a story about an “Otogi King”, who was boisterous and boastful too. And that’s where it gets weird, please walk with me. One of Itto’s passive talents is getting more wood, and if we look at how the trees are distributed on the map, the VAST majority of the Otogi trees are found on Yashiori Island.

As already mentioned, Yashiori was invaded by Orobashi and his people 2000 years ago, and ultimately became the resting place for Akuou (Touzannou) and shrine maiden Mouun, a very important figure I’ll talk about later. 99% of Itto’s story quest also happens to take place on Yashiori.

A cornplate detail, but Itto was also at Nazuchi Beach (Yashiori Island sub-area) in his dedicated album posted on genshin’s youtube channel. The ost playing on Nazuchi Beach is called Stranded Wish, which is quite an interesting name choice for a place that suffered so much tragedy and war. 

(This is also actually a Watatsumi ship, as mentioned by an npc we can talk to there)

Speaking of Watatsumi, Itto’s most obvious connection to it is through Gorou, as he is his dedicated support. The less obvious connection is his similarities with Akuou, and some things involving Kokomi. Sure, his quest is only accessible after you complete Kokomi’s, and their signature artifacts in the same domain, but her involvement seems to run a bit deeper than that. 

You see, the whole thing that started it all is Akuou being mentioned in Kokomi’s donut. At first I thought it’s actually the same guy from the Redhorn, because their description was so similar, basically just ‘evil king that fights a tengu’. But it was exactly this description that made me notice some interesting pattern of interconnected characters.

2000 years ago: Akuou the Evil King, Mouun the shrine maiden and Tengu Sasayuri. 

500 year ago: Tengu Reizenbou, Asase Hibiki and Ako Domeki.

Present day: Arataki Itto, Kokomi, and Kujou Sara. 

Take a look at depictions of Asase Hibiki (left) and Mouun (right) from the TCG cards:

Their haircuts seem to be identical, with the hair color being the only difference. Better yet, it's also similar to Kokomi's haircut. 

The oni from their respective time periods (or samsaras) are named Akuou, Ako and Arataki. Inconsequential, but interesting. 

Let’s take a look at Ako Domeki, and speculate a little (or a lot). Both Akuou and Itto had conflicts with a tengu, but Ako seemingly didn’t. But, since he’s 500 years back on the timeline, it puts him on the same time period as Tengu Reizenbou and the ‘otogi king’ from Itto’s redhorn. There is a slight chance that this ‘otogi king’ was actually Ako Domeki post Serai and Golden Apple, but there’s nothing really to prove or disprove this, apart from the fact that they both have similarities with Akuou and Itto.

Another thing that could possibly have something to do with Ako Domeki are those weird oni symbols scattered around Watatsumi. These symbols are connected to Rinzou's Treasure world quest - you look for pirate treasure, and find Rinzou’s letter where he talks about his life.

This “outlander king” inspired Rinzou to leave Watatsumi when he grew up. And, it’s interesting that he chose an oni mask as his insignia when he left Watatsumi. If this old man was the reason for him to go into the world to seek adventure at sea and become a pirate, it would make sense for his insignia to be inspired by this old man. Which would make him an oni. 

Could this be Ako Domeki, an oni pirate, that inspired another person to become a pirate? It’s far-fetched, but again, as we don’t have any confirmation for the end of Ako Domeki story, it could have really been him. 

Getting back to Akuou and Mouun. Mouun’s name has a very interesting possible origin: 

Kokomi’s ‘slumbering dragon’ constellation comes to mind here. 

Mouun was friends with a great 900 year old whale called Daikengyou.

They both were slain during the Yashiori Island invasion. But, the fact that this whale managed to live for so long almost definitely means that it was no ordinary whale - perhaps it was the same creature as the All Devouring Narwhal. 

Meanwhile Kokomi had a whale in her demo, which should definetly raise some red flags.

Akuou was taught different rituals by Mouun and her sister Ayame, including an art of whalesong. Interestingly enough, Itto is a very good singer apparently:  

So, in light of recent developments with whales in the main story, I don’t really think that this art of ‘whalesong’ was something connected to ordinary marine life, it’s too specific now. Given that Orobashi was actively opposing Heavenly Principles, I won’t put it past him and his followers to be involved with the likes of Surtalogi that keeps celestial whales as pets. 

Last thing, the books about Akuou and Mouun, as well as about other Watatsumi dealings (Debates on the "Viceroy of the East", A Preliminary Study of Sangonomiya Folk Belief, The Life of Mouun the Shrine Maiden, and more) are not in the book archive, but in the quest items. Must be important. 

So, let’s round things up. Akuou, Ako Domeki, Arataki Itto, all with similar sounding names, are boisterous, kind oni, that all have mentions of being called ‘kings’ (Itto’s ult is called ‘raging oni king state’), all have some ties to Yashiori Island (Ako Domeki is mentioned on a note on Nazuchi Beach, and if the Otogi King and him really were the same person, there’s Yashiori having the most otogi trees in Inazuma), all being exceptional fighters, all having ties to a notable tengu and a shrine maiden, that also have connections to characters taking on the same role from a different time periods. 

Ako Domeki is up in the air, but Akuou and Itto really do seem to be connected somehow.

[howtofightwrite]

Hi, I'm not the person that asked about naming weapons. But the question got me thinking: how did weapons like Excalibur and Mjölnir get their name? If they're named like "people" would, if I'm understanding it right, then do those names have a meaning? Were those names ever a human name or are they derived from something? Is it like naming someone Rose, which derives from flowers, I guess? And could someone choose any name or does it need to be a specific name...like...an extreme example: instead of wanting to name the sword Excalibur, what if they just named it Peter because whoever named it liked that name better? Hope this all makes sense! 😖

Both of those names have meanings. Most names given to weapons have some kind of meaning, and you've picked two names that have been kicking around for over a thousand years, so the, “modern,” pronunciations are a bit off.

Mjolnir is either named, “lightning,” or, “crush.” It's just not named in English. (It's also not completely clear which translation is correct, and I wouldn't rule out the distant possibility that the name Mjolnir is, in fact, a millennia old pun.)

Excalibur is a bit of a trip, and somewhat better documented. The, “ex,” part came from the French translating Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey had already mutilated the sword's name when he translated it into Latin as Caliburnus (which, you'll sometimes see a sword named Caliburn. It's Excalibur, and if they sound a little different, you can thank a twelfth century British cleric.) Except, the sword wasn't originally named Caliburn, it's original name was Caledfwlch (which the spellchecker is extremely unhappy with.) Caledfwlch is Welsh. Caled translates to, “hard,” while, fwlch translates to, “cleft.” (As in, to cut or cleave.) So, through extensive linguistic mutilation, Excalibur was originally named something to the effect of, “hard cut.” If you're wondering why Excalibur originally had a Welsh name, it's because Arthur was originally a Welsh legend. (There's a few other names drawn from the same source, and these all, at least in theory, refer to the same sword, including Kalesvolg, and Kaledvoulc'h. There's also a bunch of variations in the French spelling of Escalibor, which do pop up as different swords from time to time.) One odd exception is Caladbolg, from Irish myth, which also translates to, “hard cleft,” but might actually be a distinct legend.

So, over a thousand years ago, some guy, who probably, but might not have existed, named their sword Hard Cut, which sounded a lot better in their language than ours. Nine hundred years ago, a British cleric decided to translate it into Latin, and may have just made parts of it up as he was going. Then some French monks tried translating that name into French, but, being French monks from the 11thcentury, they maintained a somewhat flexible relation with consistent spelling, and somewhere out of that entire mess, one of those spellings made it back into English as, THE name for the sword.

Also, turns out, some variation of, “hard,” is a very popular choice for naming your sword, as Durendal, the sword of Roland (an officer under Charlemagne, who would later take on mythic status in French epics), also derives from, “hard scythe.” (Again, “hard cut,” is probably a better idiomatic analogue, though there is some debate on the back half of the name, and, “hard strike,” may be more accurate. There's some interesting academic speculation on this one, if you want to dig into these names on your own time.) Also, much like Excalibur, Durendal has a lot of spellings, including Charlemagne referring to the sword as, “Durendana,” intentionally flipping the gender of the blade. Make of that what you will. (Fun trivia: my muscle memory for how to spell the name is not academically correct, and much like all of you who have difficulty typing “Curtana” correctly, I can blame Bungie. Thanks guys.)

So, there's two important takeaways, first, going back to Mjolnir for a second, Norse myth is supposed to be funny. I don't have any academic citations to say, “wait, this might be a pun,” I just have my experience going through compilations of Norse myth, and, it would not be out of character for the material. This is something that gets lost from a lot of myth, and also from a lot of fantasy writing.

Case in point, Odin's spear was named, Gungnir, which translates to, “the rocking,” “shaking,” or “swaying.” It referred to the fear that the weapon instilled in its foes. This wasn't a supernatural power of the weapon itself, but rather an indication of how damn scary the spear was supposed to be. It's actual power was unerring accuracy. If thrown, it would always strike its mark.

A lot of these mythical weapons (at least, Gugnir, Mjolnir, and Excalibur) all had supernatural powers associated with them. Their names reflected those powers. Excalibur could cut through anything, which starts to make Caledfwlch a lot less awkwardly poetic, and far more on point. Now, it's quite possible the name came first and the myth built up from there (especially if it was a real item at some point in the distant past), but the name is an expression in of the myth. This is a lot more apparent with the Norse examples, as their names were references to the artifacts' powers.

So, when writing fantasy, it's okay to name your mythical artifacts something slightly witty, or even roll in a subtle pun, if the mythology of your setting supports that attitude. It's also a good idea to consider giving your mythic weapons distinctive supernatural reputations. It doesn't matter if those reputations are entirely real or the result of centuries of mythological embellishment, but there needs to actually be a myth around your mythic artifact. (And part of the reason Norse myth comes up so frequently is that the Aesir collected artifacts like an unusually homicidal D&D party. There are a lot of weird and wacky artifacts in Norse myth, and each one of them has an entire story about where it came from, and what it does.)

-Starke

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[wanderingmausoleum]

My latest Shadow of the Erdtree theory:

Could Messmer the Impaler have been partially inspired by Cú Chulainn and his spear, the Gáe Bulg, from Irish mythology?

This will be a long post with a lot of heavy speculation so buckle up!

According to the Táin Bó Cúailnge via Wikipedia (which I apologize for using as a source; I don't know much about this topic and other results seemed untrustworthy or were behind paywalls), the spear Gáe Bulg was made from a sea monster's bone, and it "entered a man's body with a single wound, like a javelin, then opened into thirty barbs. Only by cutting away the flesh could it be taken from that man's body."

Which brings me to this iconic moment in the trailer:

Although the thing impaling this person doesn't look like Messmer's spear, it looks like it may have impaled them similarly to how the Gáe Bulg is described: spear-style, with extra barbs erupting out of it afterwards. I'm not sure how the living corpse in the trailer would have kept their head and body somewhat intact unless the barbs extended from the central spike after the impaling happened. Although it doesn't look like this was done with Messmer's spear, this gruesome injury's similarity to what the Gáe Bulg was said to do makes me think it's worth mentioning.

In some versions of the legend, the Gáe Bulg had seven heads with seven barbs each. Thus it may be worth noting that Messmer's spear has 6-7 metal barbs (depending on the angle and whether you count the spear point as one) formed by its fire design:

And, right after the trailer's scene of the impaled corpse, Messmer is shown to have an attack where he stabs the floor with his spear and a bunch of identical spears erupt from the ground around it, which is another slight similarity to the Gáe Bulg's multiplicity.

Now onto the even more speculative part of this theory...

Messmer and Shadows

We know Empyreans in Elden Ring are given guard dog-like Shadows to be their guardians: Ranni has Blaidd, and Marika has Maliketh. However, Malenia and Miquella are both Empyreans, and we are given no information about their Shadow(s), a significant absence in the lore and a topic which has been given much discussion in Elden Ring spaces I've participated in.

There has also been extensive theorizing about Messmer's place in the lore, with his red hair and M initial leading many to believe he may be another of Marika and Radagon's children, alongside Malenia and Miquella.

While learning about the Gáe Bulg spear, I learned its owner, the mythical warrior hero Cú Chulainn, "gained his better-known name as a child, after killing Culann's fierce guard dog in self defence and offering to take its place until a replacement could be reared," after which he obtained his well-known spear (Wikipedia).

With this and my prior speculation about Messmer's spear and lineage in mind, this makes me wonder: did Messmer kill Malenia and Miquella's Shadow(s), and possibly become their replacement himself (whether he later defected from that position or not)?

It may be notable to mention again here that the DLC's title is "Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree" and Messmer features prominently on its cover. Considering Shadow characters are an important part of Elden Ring's lore, with Blaidd being crucial to the game's most popular ending and Maliketh being necessary to defeat to complete the game, I wouldn't put it past the Elden Ring team to give the word a double meaning here: shadows meaning literal darkness as shown in the trailer, and Shadow meaning an Empyrean's guardian.

On the other hand, of course, Messmer with all his various heretical symbolism (fire, snakes, etc.) seems to exist in opposition to the Erdtree, so if the DLC title is referring to him, him being called the Shadow of the Erdtree doesn't make much sense lore-wise.

In conclusion:

There are no conclusions yet, really! Everything I'm theorizing here is based on a lot of speculation and vague connections. There are contradictions in the Gáe Bulg's lore itself, too (such as how it "had to be made ready for use on a stream and cast from the fork of the toes" [Wikipedia], something Messmer is definitely not doing in the trailer—although, since Fromsoft decided to give so many of their character models toe articulation and Messmer's toes are out, this could be a very funny way to make use of that). On the other hand, since Fromsoft very rarely takes inspiration 1:1 from existing mythology, I still think it's possible Messmer was influenced by it even if it doesn't fit his known lore with 100% accuracy.

I welcome thoughts/theories expanding on or contradicting this, especially from anyone who knows more about Irish mythology than me! I do not know too much about Cú Chulainn's story or this mythos in general, so I'm sure there's a lot of notable information I missed.

[john-laurens]

As a follow-up to this meme, here is the story of a supposed pact between two brothers, Francis and Cleland Kinloch, to ensure they would not be accidentally buried alive.

This story comes from the collection "Biographical and genealogical research on Francis J. Kinloch" from the South Carolina Historical Society archives. To my knowledge, the "J." used in his name here is simply to refer to the fact that he was Francis Kinloch, Jr. and does not imply a middle name.

This story is titled "Anecdote Legend: A Death in the Kinloch Family," which I think really captures the potentially hyperbolic game of telephone that gives us this account. The story was recounted by Kinloch Bull, Jr. - I am unsure what his relation may be to the Kinloch family. This story was relayed to Kinloch Bull, Jr. by his father, who attended the General Thomas Sumter Memorial Academy for boys in the early 1900s. This Academy had previously been Acton, the home of Cleland Kinloch. The father of Kinloch Bull, Jr. was told this story by a Colonel Dargan. And so the story goes -

Cleland Kinloch and his brother Francis were, like many people in the 18th and 19th centuries, afraid of being accidentally buried alive. Accordingly, the brothers made a pact - when one of them died (or appeared dead), the other would stab him through the heart to ensure he was truly dead before his burial. Cleland later dropped dead in the upstairs hall at Acton. Francis, holding up his end of the agreement, proceeded to stab Cleland through the heart. This produced a great amount of blood that stained the floor. Some believe that the amount of blood produced indicates that Cleland was actually still alive when Francis stabbed him. The blood left an approximately 2 feet by 3 feet stain that would remain when the house later became the General Thomas Sumter Memorial Academy for boys.

A few things to note here:

This very much sounds like the sort of story that would be exaggerated or completely made up to scare young boys. Some of the details are also a bit questionable. Did they not have a doctor assess Cleland for evidence of life before Francis did the deed? Why did they not move the body off the floor before stabbing him? Also, the amount of blood that will leave a dead body after being stabbed or cut depends upon how the long the body was been dead. If Cleland had very recently died, the blood may not have significantly clotted yet, and a stab wound could have caused blood to spill out.

The story gets the year of death wrong for Cleland - it states that he died in 1826. According to "Kinloch of South Carolina" by H.D. Bull (same last name as our storyteller - perhaps a relation?), Cleland died in 1823 while Francis died in 1826. It is true that Cleland died at Acton and that Francis outlived him.

While I made fun of Kinloch in the meme for not taking a less graphic route such as cremation, cremation was not commonplace at the time. Henry Laurens was actually among the first to be cremated in the United States when he died in 1792. For the time period, a stab or shot through the heart is honestly a pretty effective and expedient way to ensure someone is dead.

[zorubark]

I think what many Pokemon Legends game ideas get wrong, i think at least, is using a legendary for the name of the game, like "Legends kyurem" or "Legends Zygarde". Many times people use the third legendary of the main three for the title, but Giratina wasn't the one to get a Legends game, in fact it would have made more sense to have a Legends Giratina as a parallel to platinum, since it released with the Sinnoh remakes.

The one who got the spotlight was another important, but not heavily featured pokemon, Arceus, a mythical pokemon. So I think there's a higher chance for the next Legends game to feature a mythical with predominance. In Legends Arceus there was also many mythicals that we could catch without needing special events, making them more acessible, so maybe the Legends series will in general make mythicals more acessible?

I was thinking of a Kalos Legends game and I think Pokemon Legends Hoopa would be the best choice, it can teleport you back in time with it's rings, without the need for Arceus intervention. In ORAS because of Hoopa's rings we can catch legendaries from other regions and their themes aren't updated because they're supposed to be from the older games' timelines, this happens in USUM too, so I believe Hoopa is too interesting to not use.

Diancie and Volcanion should also appear, Volcanion has so little lore, the most interesting thing it has is the fact that in the southern part of the Kalos region, Volcanion is revered, people believe that a steam explosion caused by Volcanion created the plain where they live. This probably references the region of Occitania, the mountainous region that covers most of southern France and whose regional flag Volcanion takes its design from, which is really cool.

Diancie could also be integrated in the plot, maybe instead of her needing to make a new Diamond Heart for the Diamond Domain, the very first Diamond Heart could be made, or Diancie can be born, either works. Diancie is said to have been born from a Carbink that had undergone a mysterious mutation, the mutation could be related to the main story somehow.

In fact, I thought about a villain that wants to make everyone immortal, thinking it will create a Utopia, their plan will fail but create consequences in the region. Since Xerneas/Yveltal wake up every thousand years, I imagined the story would take place one thousand years before the events of X and Y, and the region would be medieval themed.

For Unova, it has no mythical with reality bending abilities and I sadly can't imagine anything except a Legends Kyurem, how is Victini, Meloetta or Keldeo going to hold an entire game like Arceus did? Genesect wasn't even created until recent events in the Pokemon world.

Because each mythical of Unova has a piece of history, it's hard to choose just one, they complete each other in a way

Some people speculutate on Johto remakes because of the many hints towards johto relevancy, and I think the Mythical main pokemon theory fits for Johto! Legends Celebi could work

I hope someone sees this theory and uses it for imagining new pokemon stuff or coming up with a Unova Legends game since I couldn't. I think a medieval, victorian, or early to middle 20th century Unova game would be really good, specially because if it were to be medieval, it could make kinda what Arceus made with Team Galactic and make Team Plasma into real knights, the Unova region has lots of medieval stuff and I think it's even better than Kalos for a medieval game

[aether-bun]

Hi there I was wondering if you could write some headcanons of the S/V Trio+carmin and kieran (and maybe the BB league if not then just the first two) meeting a gn or male reader who is poke-human hybrid(half incineroar) who was part of an experiment and was saved by their adopted mother

HEADCANON TIME

Anomaly (noun):

"Something different, abnormal, peculiar, or not easily classified; something anomalous."

"The legend of the hybrids is a story that has lived in Paldea longer than most. In an age long past, there was once a fearsome group of monstrous creatures; monsters that bore the forms of Incineroar, that spoke the dialect of humankind. They terrorised villages and destroyed homes, and were hunted down to what was thought to be their extinction. Some say they can still hear the horrifying screams of these abominations in caves and cliff edges to this day, but none who explore these rumours have ever come back..."

Characters (in order): Nemona, Arven, Kieran

The reader is referred to with he/him pronouns, but is otherwise kept ambiguous in terms of everything but the fact that he is VERY tall. This is purely platonic!!

[author's note at the end!]

NEMONA is the first to meet you.

I think she would meet you in the beach area we find Korai/Miraidon

It was by complete accident, she was walking around and exploring when she suddenly heard what sounded like human voices echoing from off the ledge, so she investigated, worried that someone was hurt.

What she didn't expect was to see a group of people, with arms that faded into red paws, legs that did the same, tails that swished around, a fiery belt around their waists and two red and black ears coming out of short, thick red hair!

You locked eyes, and both of you were very nervous immediately. She had so many questions! But by the time she could get her brain back together to formulate any sort of a sentence, you and your pride took off into the caves.

She doesn't see you again for a few months - she almost thinks she dreamt the whole day up - until she's exploring those exact caves in search of some houndour to catch.

She's overencumbered, of course, because suddenly their houndoom appears and they're all surrounding her and her pokemon, and she knows she's definitely screwed up

Suddenly, there's a loud, earth-shaking roar, as you emerge with your pack at the cave's only other exit. The pack of hounds flinch at your intimidating forms and flee, and you make sure they stay gone before cautiously helping this human off of the ground.

She's stunned. The rambler can't form a thought. You tower over her, and your form fills her head with so many questions that she's afraid her head will explode, but again, you're gone before she can even get them out.

So, she starts staying around the cave when she knows it's safe. She finally has the courage and the power to stop her brain from frying when she sees you, so she wants to get to know you. You see her, of course, from afar, but you don't go near her. The humans can't know.

Until she finds you anyway, and she tries to introduce herself.

You're cautious. This woman is half your height, you could literally crush her, but she's holding out her hand to you and telling you her name, as if that idea isn't looming above her like a vice. It is. She's very scared.

"....[Y/N]." You caution, shaking her hand as she beams. "So you can talk!?" She asks, making you cringe from her volume. "Yes?" You say.

From there, you grow to be unlikely friends. She swears she won't tell anyone who you are! She swears she won't let anyone know she's seen you - it'll be your little secret!

Yeah. Guess how long that lasted. Now take that guess and halve it. It took three days for her to crack and spill to Arven. Penny overheard by pure accident, too, and Nemona made them swear to not tell anyone.

"Didn't you also swear that?!" Arven had demanded. Nemona immediately changed the subject.

Finding two more humans in your den was irritating, but Nemona made you feel like you couldn't stay mad at her. This, in turn, made you even more frustrated.

Nemona likes to feel your fur and insists you're so soft that she feels like she can go to sleep on you. You deny her that leisure as soon as you can.

She likes learning about how you and your pack live, coexisting with other pokemon. You tell her it's an oddly isolating life; stuck between pokemon and human with no way of ever fitting into either category. It's why you live in this cave. It's safer here.

"Isn't it...lonely?"

"...yes. it is. but it's necessary for our survival as a pack."

Nemona feels very sorry for you, but makes up for it by always sneaking off to hang with you as much as she can.

You find you like the insight these new humans have, so you don't mind their stay.

ARVEN is very intimidated when he meets you.

For a researcher, you would've thought Nemona's story about Pokehumans would be completely blasphemous to him.

You would be wrong.

He believed her instantly, without so much as a photo of proof. It was Penny who managed to get him to realise how off that sounded.

The three of them took to researching anything about these supposed hybrids that they could. Arven was the one to find the old folkstory. It scared him.

"Nemona, you can't go back there. Look at this! These things are obviously just trying to kill you!"

Nemona is VERY quick to jump to your defense. "Arven! He saved me from those houndour and houndoom I was trying to fight! He saw that I could've been hurt and he stepped in and saved me!"

Penny remarked the unusual behaviour.

Arven wasn't buying your charity act.

"Until I see proof that these things exist, let alone are docile, I'm not believing a word." He crossed his arms.

"Great, come meet them then!"

"What?!"

And thus, Nemona and Arven set off while Penny did more research into the beings.

When your new human friend arrives to your spot in the cave, you see she's dragging along with her a blond haired man. This sets you on edge, and unfortunately, you and your pack immediately rising to defend your home gives off a bad first impression.

Arven tries to pull Nemona away, to escape, to fight back, to hide, to do anything but stand there and try to reason with them Nemona please for the love of Arceus let's GO

Nemona apologises to you for accidentally spilling your secret and it takes quite a while for you to tell your pack to stand down. You come to face them, and Arven stares at you with unhidden horror. You huff. He flinches with a whimper.

"[Y/N], this is Arven. Arven, this is [Y/N]. He leads the pack." Nemona's voice is steady but it's easy to see she's nervous. You can basically smell the fear on them.

It takes an even longer while for Arven to calm down enough to look at you properly. Multiple visits, where you aren't alone together, and then he eventually realises you don't pose a threat unless he does, which, to be fair, in your eyes he never did.

(you're pretty sure you could blink and he'd disintegrate. you don't say this, for fear that the idea will have the same effect.)

Eventually, you warm up to him and his Mabostiff companion, and he warms up to you enough to be alone with you and the pack.

He sews up some of your clothes, noticing the wear and tear of them. Like most of your interactions, it takes a while for you to let him, but once you do, he acknowledges the trust you have in him and is very careful.

Before long, he becomes your medic too. He teaches you about these wonderful things called sandwiches that you have in these events deemed picnics, and in turn he notes your behaviours and temperaments.

It's a mutually beneficial relationship. You trust him and he trusts you. He becomes your second "friend".

[For this next segment, I am going to say that the preface is that Carmine and Kieran are looking into urban legends around Paldea and they come across the one about your pack. This next section is assuming Nemona, Arven and Penny either never found you, or found you later. Consider this the other path in the road if you will! :)]

KIERAN meets you in the plateaued mountains of Paldea, on a mission to prove you're real.

In hindsight, the circumstances could've been better.

He'd been injured on the mountains by a rogue Zigzagoon, and he was currently trying to call for help.

No, as in, he was yelling 'Help'. He's a kid without a phone, man.

You hear his cries and, against your better judgement, you command the pack to hide and look for the voice yourself.

Lo and behold, you find a small boy, no older than a kit, and he's bleeding around his leg. A Dipplin and a Grigar are looking on in concern for their trainer, and, though weakened, they jump to defend when they see you approach.

Alerted by the sounds of his pokemon amping to attack, he looks and he sees you, the terrifying hybrid creature he'd read about in tales of old.

In those tales, this was the part where he became a fatality.

He was paralysed with fear, the pain of his leg long forgotten as he stared up at you.

Death never came. Instead, you kneeled and spoke to the offensive Pokemon. Just like the stories, you spoke perfectly human. Your voice was gravelly and rough, but completely comprehensible.

"He needs assistance."

The Pokemon spoke back to you. You seemed to dislike their answer.

"I do not wish to hurt him. If you want that wound to get worse, then I'll leave. But if you want that kit to keep that leg of his, I can help."

Kieran's Pokemon looked back at his trembling form, before resigning to a nod. You turned your gaze to focus on the boy, who seemed to be on the verge of a heart attack.

"I can help you, young one."

He shook his head.

"Your leg. It is bleeding."

Hating the way his words failed him, he slowly nodded.

"If you do not let me help you, that will hurt more and it will get worse. You cannot get to a Pokemon Centre from here by yourself. Allow me to help you."

Grigar and Dipplin had returned to his side and offered their concerned support once again. Soothed very slightly by his Pokemon, Kieran swallowed the lump in his throat and slowly, he nodded.

You were careful with the kit. You took him first to your pack and used some natural resources to bandage the wound and stop the bleeding. You crafted a stilt to keep his leg from moving with some wooden crutches, and then you left him near the edge of the woods, near a centre, where his Pokemon could then aid him in getting him the rest of the way.

In that time, he'd asked you some questions.

"How long have you been out here?"

"Centuries."

"And...you don't ever get seen?"

"We do. Most of your kind is violent first without thinking. That lack of trust almost made me not help you. But to go as low as those who cross that line would be to prove them right."

"So...you helped me to prove them wrong?"

"No, young one. I helped you because it's the right thing to do, and you are only small."

He was tended to quickly when he was seen by his own kind. Questions were thrown at him without even so much as the minute it took to sit him down. "Who bandaged this? Where did you learn to make these crutches? How did you get back down here without encountering any more trouble?"

He looked back at where he could faintly see your outline. You were watching him to make sure he was safe.

"...I just did." He said, refusing to elaborate.

With a nod, you disappeared into the woods, and the boy never saw you again. He didn't need to. He had all the proof he needed, and it'd stay with him for the rest of his life.

He could feel you watching him sometimes, when he was exploring the plateau with his sister. But he never really saw more than a flickering trail of embers or a rogue tail swishing as you undoubtedly left for your pack.

Your protection made him smile.

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Okay so first and foremost, where are Penny and Carmine??

To be completely honest, I didn't know how to write either of them in this situation! I felt that Penny would be much like a diluted version of Arven, and that Carmine would be almost identical to Nemona, and maybe it's just my brain but I couldn't figure how to articulate that. So my sincerest apologies for that.

Otherwise, I hope that this was a nice little read! I liked the idea of trying to figure out how to hybrid an incineroar with a human, and I found a lot more trouble in it than I initially thought I would!

Thank you so much for this request, it was a real mind boggler to be honest, but incredibly fun nonetheless.

Send me your requests in my inbox! Otherwise, ciao for now ♡

[lumiidragon]

So now that I've seen the last season of the Nine Realms, I can finally give my own personal review on it, and the last seeing as how this was the last season and TNR is officially over.

So needless to say SPOILERS BELOW! PLEASE STOP READING HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE LATEST SEASON AND DON'T WANT SPOILERS!!!

So let me start out on a, sadly poor note with this: this season was super disappointing... The big finale, the end-all, the conclusion to The Nine Realms was...flat. Boring. Pointless. Like, this was actually probably one of the more poorer seasons...

So let's start with The World Serpent (Yeah, I can't spell the other name, so I'll just refer to it as 'The Serpent' for ease. This dragon was honestly a really cool design, but not as a "predator of all dragons and the destroyer of The Hidden World". First off, a top-tier predatory animal that is meant to destroy all dragons and the dragon ecosystem...doesn't make sense. Why would an animal like that exist??? If The Hidden World is supposed to be this perfect dragon paradise, then why is there a dragon that literally goes against this notion. Also, this dragon was literally seen poorly trying to catch a terrible terror in a flock of three that was just casually flying around its face like a cat trying to catch a fly and not doing very good at it. This is the dragon that can supposedly take down any dragon such as a Red Death? A bewilderbeast? Any titan-class dragon? No, I don't think so. The poisonous gas attack it has is powerful, but this dragon just doesn't scream "Destroyer of The Hidden World" to me. Not that a dragon that is destined to destroy the world all the dragons that are damned there forever makes sense anyways, but still. On top of that, this dragon spent most of its time "defeating the Riders" by hitting them with the same amount of power any other dragon enemy has and then just taking off. That was pretty much it. It hit once or twice then ran away. The series literally only made this thing to be "unbeatable" because they made the Riders' dragons have 2 HP per battle and have the bad guy dip afterward, thus drawing this out through the entirety of the season. This dragon wasn't powerful, it was long-winded. Finally, the final battle was so.......boring? The group brought in an "Army Of Dragons" to defeat this thing, which would have been cool if it weren't for the fact that they basically just brought one or two dragons a piece. That's not an army and if a handful of common dragons with two special bosses (the Faultripper and the Sky Torcher) is all that it took to beat this thing, then this dragon was never the ultimate dragon destroyer the legends made it out to be. I could really go more into how The Serpant and the battles with it were pointless, boring, and just anti-climatic, but this section has gotten long enough, so I'll leave it at this.

Next up, Tom and Jun. Their romance drama was so pointless and added literally nothing to the story. This is the last season and it's only 6 episodes long. They don't need teen romance side-drama this late into the series, they need to concentrate on what was supposed to be the issue at hand. That, and Jun breaking it off with Tom over him doing the same thing he's always done since Season 1 really shows their compatibility as a romantic duo. But yeah, their whole romance here was just completely pointless and added nothing to the series. Also, Alex and Eugene was also completely unnecessary with what they were trying to build.

Then we have the villains. So Buzzsaw's goons and Linda are the most pointless characters in the villain side of things. The bumbling side kicks to a villain can be charming, but when every villain's group are just kids in adult bodies that still need to be babysat or else they can't do anything right, then it gets annoying and kind of pointless. Linda was probably the worst of them. As for Buzzsaw, his redemption was too much a play off of Dagur and, in my opinion very unnecessary. It felt like they only redeemed him because they didn't need him anymore, but didn't have the time to properly deal with him. As for Sledkin, she was actually a decent villain for what the series was giving, but ultimately fell into the weak trope of "I'm so desperately obsessed over my final goal that I am just throwing self preservation out the window so I can be pointlessly reckless despite being a very intelligent individual" and ended up getting killed over it (which I'm surprised TNR actually had a human death in this).

So let's finally move to my final complaints with this season:

-Thunder being "alpha" is bullshit. There is no way the night lights (yes, even the Elder Night Light) are the "Kings of Dragons" when most dragons didn't give them two glances. So there is no way Thunder is an alpha. I'm sorry, but no. Also, with the Elder Night Light passing, it's nice to see how literally no one cared since Thunder can glow like a radioactive lightbulb now, I guess. They grieved Sledkin more than this dragon. Thunder hardly even cared. Along with the night light thing, Thunder's family is not only useless in the series, but seeing as how we never get a real reason as to why night lights are breeding with each other, I am not convinced that this family line isn't just a messed up family wreath than a family tree at this point. Nothing was explained, so the fans only have the fact that there were only 3 night lights from Toothless (Toothless who was basically never mentioned in this series) and the Light Fury (who wasn't mentioned at all) and no others exist, but we see night lights having kids with each other....I....ew.

-The Raker episode was literally just not necessary and could have been left out altogether and nothing change. This is the last season, we don't need pointless spoilers.

-Olivia was being built as a true character earlier in the series, shame she was basically forgotten about. Same for the other parents.

-The Gods Realm was boring and really uninteresting to look at. Like...it might as well have been any chamber in any cave around the world, not the "Lungs of the Hidden World", which the dragonite still makes no sense and there's no way they would have run out of oxygen in that massive chamber that quickly with the stone removed. None of that made sense.

-There's no way Tom would have ever learned how to communicate with dragons with Valka's staff. I don't know where they got this "Hypnotizing" thing from, but Valka lived alone with dragons for 20 years. She communicated and learned their language that she developed replications of in her own way. Tom cannot learn that in a short montage because Valka's power with dragons came from her connection and understanding from more time of experience with dragons alone than Tom has even been alive for. The staff was a tool, not the power itself. That, and Hiccup would never use his mother's staff. That's A. not his approach to dragons anyway, and B. his mother's. Valka most likely would have had her burial with that staff. Oh, and it's nice to see yet another thing just be casually destroyed and not cared about.

-And I think the last thing I've got for this massive post is the ending. Yes, the dragons leave. What a surprise. This time, the dragons choose to leave and more or less say "Sorry kids, you guys...eh, kinda suck.". The Riders were basically pleading with their dragons (mostly Tom) that there had to be another way and the dragons wouldn't even let them touch them anymore. They acted like they had their fun and it's gone stale so it's time to leave. Great...bond??? Of course, it was over "HOOMANS BAD." so why bother to fix the world when you can just hide in a dead-looking cave system forever? Right? Not only that, but the group itself also split up, expect for Tom and Jun of course, because how else can the series end off with the romance that they pointlessly shoved in.

So yeah, this season was......not good. I really had my hopes out for the series ending much more interestingly, but in the end, with the dragons shoving themselves away again, nothing came from this series other than Tom gets a girlfriend and the group learns the true power of video calls. So in all, I give TNR a personal 5-6/10.

[northernwindsglory]

hello! im morning glory but you can just call me glory, and im a fucking walking wake now, apprantly

i used to live in ecruteak, johto but following an. incident. i now live with my brother in porto marinada, paldea. i made this account with the hopes of making friends since i am now in a completely different region to literally all my old ones, and im no where near rich, smart, or weird enough to attend naranja-uva and make friends there.

i enjoy the myths and legends of johto (and other regions but johto’s interests me the most), music, and fantasy novels.

i do not have any battling pokemon currently but i have a service armarouge/gardevoir hybrid named valkyrie. additionally, my family used to raise stantler back home and we had a smeargle so i have an understanding of pokemon care, especially in regards to certain normal types. i have no interest in obtaining any more new pokemon for myself in this new region.

i hope i can make friends on this website

OOC SECTION:

//hiii. morning glory is gonna be one of those slow eeby blogs. ans when i say slow i mean im gonna be taking my sweet time lol. shes going to slowly become a walking wake because. lol. lmao. she might also become… not a she/her. also i will be playing her as a normal person for a little bit first!! i want to REALLY build up to things and establish a bit about her character and make some friends first lol.

//pelipper mail and musharna mail are on. pelipper malice and musharna malice are off (for now) magic anons are off (for now). pelipper unmail is off. ic anon hate is on (for now). many of these are subject to change depending on how i feel.

//please dont immediately go oh ur an eeby deeby even before i start her transformations and stuff. like instantly knowing shes gonna become a walking wake or tjat shes gonna wnd up being a trans person is like. god moddy and kinda shitty lol.

//while i normally put dnis here im too lazy to do it this time and i know it doesnr always work. if i dont like ur vibes ill probably just block.

//for reference purposes, heres glory at the beginning of the blog and glory for a while mid transformation. She is now a full walking wake for the most part.

//and a picture of valkyrie

[20dollarlolita]

An absurdly and unnecessarily over-the-top and thorough breakdown of using my embroidery machine for a cosplay piece.

Part 1) The piece:

Many iterations of Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda series has this tapestry front piece. I've looked for a technical name for this piece as well as extant examples of it from our history, and my research is indicating that it's just a fantasy piece and doesn't have a name.

So we're calling it an apron. IDK. "Heraldic apron," sounds fancy enough.

One of the things that's been a bitch through all cosplay of all time is custom textiles. Since the early days of cosplay, we've been looking for ways to handle this at home. Back when I got into cosplay and took it really seriously, Worbla hadn't been invented, there was no Friendly Plastic, Wonderflex had to be purchased in 15-yard lots, the Glowforge and home 3D printing was just a fantasy, and Cricut machines ran off cartridges and couldn't design from your computer. Also, when I was cosplaying seriously, I was a college student with no job and a $100/month allowance for food (which I spent on cosplay, mostly). We didn't do fancy shit. You know what we did?

We had fuckin' hand-traced and hand-cut stencils. Mother fuckin' freezer. Paper. Stencils. Now, this version of Zelda that 2009 Me is cosplaying up there does have a much simpler heraldic apron than Ocarina of Time Zelda does. However, since I've gotten access to embroidery machines, I've had this great need to remake this sort of concept with adult me's current budget and skill set.

Now, there's a few issues from the start about making this. The notable one is that the in-game textures for the apron do not completely line up with the official artwork. When you start looking at the 3DS remakes, they re-textured the apron, giving us yet a third canonical way that this thing might be laid out.

Obviously, the easiest thing to do is to get several references, and then to slap them next to each other and compare. I've got GIMP pulled up here, and have several versions here. I adjusted color levels until the pattern in the garment was as clear as I could make it. There's horizontal guide lines going across to divide the apron into sections. We'll call those sections thusly, top to bottom: Triforce, Eyeball, Bird, 8 Rectangles, and V.

***

This is going to be long and boring. I have my reasons for writing a long and boring post, but sadly, I'm not able to share them without becoming un-boring, thus defeating the purpose of this work.

***

I forgot to label them, so that reference image is, from left to right: N64 screenshot, 3DS screenshot, N64 character model, small inset at the bottom is 3DS, official artwork that was released alongside the N64 game, a heraldic tabard, some official rendering of the Hylian crest, and another 3DS screenshot.

Some are pretty self-explanatory, and some are more open to interpretation. Notably, let's take a look at the Bird section. The official artwork and the 3DS remake both distinctly have the Hylian Family Crest there. The N64 version has a very distinctly different bird thing.

So, I had to decide, which one do I put on my apron? I had to consider several things, but one of them was the process of how game textures from the N64 era were made. Textures for this game were very small image files, smaller than your 2009 cosplay.com forum avatar. The reference art would be made and then other people would be in charge of turning that art into a usable texture file, so there was artistic license involved in adapting that. This game was released before the Hylian crest had been used in multiple places across several games. Therefore, we can justify making the assumption that the texture artists didn't have an understanding of how important it was to keep this part the exact shape it was, and turned "stylized bird" into "stylized bird" in a way that would read clearly on screen at 45x100 pixels. We can assume this to be the case, because, when Grezzo did the 3DS remake, their texture artist used the Hylian crest instead of the OoT bird thing.

***

Sorry for all the embroidery stuff in the past few days. I've attracted the attention of a couple people online and embroidery seems to bore them, so we're doing that for a little bit until I stop being interesting.

,***

Cosplay has a spectrum of screen-accuracy to full-nonsense. In some things, you can do screen accuracy very well. Screen-Accurate Princess Leia from EpIV is pretty easy to make look good. Sometimes, you can do full nonsense pretty well, too. Princess Leia, but in if Star Wars was steampunk, also pretty easy to make look good.

Some things aren't as easy to make look good when you're doing screen-accurate. Sephiroth's hair in most of the Final Fantasy games stands up off his head by like 30% the height of his face. If you math that out, you have a wig with 5" antennas swooping up in the front. When you put that on a head, it looks silly. Do you want your Sephiroth to look silly? No? Then you need to do something about that hair.

My cosplay rule that I try to stick with is this: If you need to make a decision between what is "accurate" and what looks good, you pick what looks good. As long as the character reads as the character when you're done, it's better to look good than to be accurate.

And this is why, instead of just tracing any of these aprons in my embroidery software, I broke out a pen and drew the whole thing out.

Actually, I drew half of it out. The left half to be specific. I know that I'm going to mess with this later on my computer, and I know that I want the thing to be symmetrical, so let's save everyone (mostly me) some trouble and just do half of it.

Why was it important to me to draw it full size? Remember, that texture we're referencing is less than 100 pixel wide. The final piece is going to be full size, so there's a lot of things that just don't scale up easily. We're basically going from a texture the size of my thumb nail to something that has to be more high-def than 8K. This basically meant that I needed to redraw it from scratch to get that resolution. Lots of little details are going to have to be added, and I'm much better at adding them with a pen than I am just guessing while I'm digitizing the file to embroider.

So, I took it, pulled it into GIMP, and made some adjusting. I mirrored it so that I have both a left and a right side to work with. I changed the contrast so that I could see the lines better. I didn't like the Hylian crest that I drew so I just plopped the official SVG onto it and dragged it around until it fit.

And then, and this is kind of important, I cropped the image so that it's the exact proportions that I want the final thing to be. My whole design is in this file, and there's no outside image. This is important, because I'm going to use this as a template to trace in MySewnet, and the easiest way to get the background to behave properly is to pre-set it to the exact size you need in another program. Good thing this software isn't stupid absurdly expensive, or else the fact that you needed to do that would be really annoying.

The digitizing process:

Okay, so the first thing that I do is to make a custom hoop the size of the finished project. There's no way that I can actually stitch this out this big, because a 25" long hoop doesn't exist anywhere, but it's way easier to design all of it and then split it up than it is to design in pieces and then fit them together. I open the hoop in the digitizing software and load my template as the background.

Digitizing from a technical viewpoint is really simple: you click points all around the area you want to make a shape, and then you hit "make this thing", and then it renders the thing. You can then give that thing a different kind of fill or line. Easy.

So instead, I'm going to go into the art part. Because yes, I've already drawn this whole template, but I haven't figured out how to fill each of those shapes. This isn't like a coloring book where I can just fill a shape with color. Embroidery means that I have to pick how exactly I fill all those areas.

First up, I have the legendary Golden Triumph Forks. The Magical Eating Utensils. I wasn't super sold on how this was rendered in the official art. We can vaguely see how, in the game art, it looks a little more like a red outline with corner flourishes, rather than what we got in the artwork. I probably should have looked up some historical flourishes from time periods in world history where technology matched the apparent technology of the world of the Legend of Zelda, but I just kind of picked a random frilly shape.

The Triforce is one of the most important symbols in Zelda, so I knew that I wanted it to be a bright shape. This meant that I wanted to fill the shape with stitches in such a way that none of the purple backing is showing through. In embroidery terms, this usually means either a full pattern fill, or an applique. I picked applique, because this is an easy shape to applique. I knew from the start that I was going to use metallic tissue lamé. Lamé's great for a lot of things, but it's weak and shows creases. To avoid that, I wanted to put in a fill stitch to support the fabric and prevent damage, as well as hiding any big creases. I picked a big and open motif fill that will still show a lot of the applique fabric.

Eyeball:

So this is, specifically, the Sheikah Eye. It's an important symbol in the series. The Sheikah stick this eye on pretty much everything. However, it's not a fancy, gaudy, ostentatious symbol.

I grabbed a motif line at random from the list of motif lines, and happened to like it. It's a very heavy stem stitch that goes over each stitch 4-6 times, making a big, raised area. To make sure the eye was visible, I filled in the iris, teardrop, and eyelashes. I picked an opaque spiral fill, because it's a circle and these general shapes are circles. A while back, I bought some metallic white "iris" thread, and thought that a subtly-iridescent white would fit nicely.

Those little eyelashes at the bottom that aren't there in the art? Well, there's there in the game render juuuuust a little bit, and also they fall into "if it looks better that way, it's the correct way" mentality.

The Hylian Crest.

Fuck this thing.

All you need to know about this is two things: 1) I just traced the SVG that I found on the Zelda wiki, and 2) I didn't plan on stitching it out with black outlining. That black outline is just there to confuse my software into doing what I want.

Since this is as important as the triforce, I knew I wanted to do it in silver lamé. That means all of this is an applique. Quick tip: if you're going to be breaking a design into smaller segments, don't do any applique so big that it has to be spread over two segments.

Ask me how I know.

I originally had this filled with the same chain stitch that I used on the Triforce, but it made things look very samey and very mushy. I later switched it to a triangle-shaped spaced fill. I selected the triangle as the correct shape by clicking every shape one at a time and seeing what they looked like. Since this was going to be a running stitch on a shiny applique background, the fine details don't really matter. You actually can't see them normally, which is why I had to change the color here.

The outline there is the same stem motif that I used in the Sheikah eye. I found that it's wide enough to cover an applique edge without having to look like a satin stitch.

Squares, Triangles, and the Face Thing.

I have no idea what that face thing is supposed to be and apparently neither did anyone else on the internet. Since it just kind of looked like a scribble, I just rendered it as a scribble. I used a satin column so that it could have line weight similar to a drawing with a paint brush, and the shiny satin line would look like wet ink. Also known as phoning it in.

The triangles are filled with a contour fill that just traces the edges of the shape. I left some space between the lines so that the purple background can show through. This gives is sort of an optical illusion of movement. The outside of this was originally that same stem motif line from before, but after I stitched it out, I realized ti was too heavy. The final version had the same motif, but smaller, and with fewer repeats of the stitch.

I'm so damn proud of those fucking gold boxes. Okay, so, let's look at the design. Why are there gold boxes? What do they do? What do they mean? Do they represent the eight dungenons in the original game? Nope, because there were nine dungeons in the original game. Are they the eight sages? No, because there's seven sages. Is it what happens when you average the number of dungeons and sages out? I don't know. Anyway, they looked stupid just being little gold boxes, so I gave them blunted corners. I did another contour fill because I wanted them to lie flat on the finished apron and not draw any attention to themselves. As for the little tail, folks, I discovered a technique and I'm FULLY READY to abuse the heck out of it. So, I traced the lines with a satin column, ready to try to mess with the spacing to see if it'd lie flat with enough work. I hit "convert to tapered motif" by complete accident, and it was kind of cool. So, then, I went through the various motif options, found some cool looking scrolls, hit "fit to line" and slapped those in there. And I think that the little tails being written in some weird language I can't understand is SO COOL. I love how this part looks and I will not be taking other opinions on it at this time.

The V.

I didn't like how either of them looked in the original, so I just kind of winged it. I was getting bored at this point so I took a pattern fill that was supposed to be linked chains, and then I twisted it around until I was the least bored I could be with it. Again, I went with the smaller stem stitching on the outside.

Those little tails on the circles there are also filled with the scroll as tapered motif thing. If you go for this, don't forget to run the "delete short stitches" filter or else there'll be like 1100 unnecessary tiny stitches in your motifs. Ask me how I know.

Now, we learn by making mistakes, and the best way to make mistakes is to just jump in and wing it. On the left, we have the first version of this that I tried. On the right, we have the second version, which is the one I'm going to use. I've made a couple of adjustments to the file since that final version, so if I make it again, that'll be just a hair better.

So, for starters: backing fabric. I liked the movement and texture on this subtle dot tonal better than a solid purple, so i used that for both my test and my final project. The main drawback with using a printed tonal instead of a dyed solid is that the back of the printed fabric is still white. On some things, specifically the area around the satin stitching on the ink face thing, you can see subtle white haloing where the stitching's displaced the background. I don't like it. No one else seemed to notice or care.

I knew that I'd be doing this in my endless repositionable hoop, but I hadn't taken into account that I'd be doing it in the endless hoop sideways. The endless hoop expects you to go from top to bottom, and my design goes left to right. This means that I have to fight the fabric around the clamp of the hoop. The endless hoop also doesn't hold things as tightly as a regular hoop does. Because of the way the fabric is moved through the hoop, a fusible or sticky stabilizer has to be applied to the fabric before, instead of being hooped with the fabric. All of this meant that I just didn't get the support that I needed on the first go around. You can see this in the way that the fabric has bunched up around the 8 boxes. For the first round, I used some fusible no-show mesh stabilizer. It wasn't wide enough, so I had to cut it in chunks and apply it sideways. For the second round, I used two layers of Power Mesh (same stuff but different brand) as well as a layer of light+tacky paperless sticky tear-away. I really hate that light+tacky stuff so ti's exciting to finally use it up.

My first trial was mostly to see if I could make the endless hoop work like I wanted it to. In this trial, I learned a lot of things. I kept the computer nearby to make changes as I noticed them. When I was done, I looked at what I'd made. I didn't like all the proportions in all of the design, so I dragged some stuff around in the file. This was when I realized that the heavy stem stitch motif everywhere was looking clunky, and reduced or removed it from several places. I changed the fill of the Hylian crest to the triangular fill. shout out to anyone from That One Anonymous Message Board who made it this far in this post to try to prove how deranged I am. You've got a lot of time on your hands, don't you? I completely changed all of the instructions to tell the computer how to do the applique on the Hylian crest (which I STILL got wrong), and added some aligment stitches to help with the applique process. This was when I changed the color of the outline in the software. Ideally, you should now be able to lay the applique down as one fabric, let the machine sew the whole thing, and then trim it. This is important, because that applique spreads out over two hoopings, so it's kind of a mess. The secret to making this work is for hooping #2 (eye and top half of crest) to stitch out the eye BEFORE the applique, so that the whole fabric can be placed over the completed eye. We learn.

Once it was all combined and digitized, it's important to render all the digitized elements as stitches, and then do a bit of cleaning up.

Notably, I really needed to take those tapered motifs and run the stitch optimizer program. The stitch optimizer's job is to remove stitches that are too short to stitch out nicely. When looking at the 3d views in the software, I can't tell which of the samples is the before and which is the after. If I zoom up really close in illustration mode, I can see it, but remember that this is like a 1" wide strip of stitching. The basic rule is that any time the software wants to remove 3300 stitches and you can't see the difference in the stitch-out, you REALLY WANTED to remove those 3300 stitches. That's not 3100 stitches from all over the design, BTW. That's just 3100 stitches from that one section.

I go over my test swatch, section by section, and make sure there's nothing that I forgot to put into the software. I also just delete every jump cut and then make the software add them all back in. The program that adds cuts automatically tends to be more judicious wit them than the digitizing program is when you make the design, so it's a way to make a design stitch out a lot smoother with just two clicks.

So, once all of that is done, we can just run the design splitter program. The design splitter says it has "intelligent splitting" settings, which is an absolute joke, but I use inteligent setting anyway. It's not necessarily any better at picking where to split than a straight line is, but our eyes are trained to see straight lines. The allegedly-intelligent splitting does at least split at random points, making it harder for your eyes to pick out what's a splice and what's a continuous line.

So, in addition to "intelligently" splitting the design apart, the program adds two color blocks to each split piece. One is before the stitches, and it's four stitches long. This just does one stitch at each corner of the design area.

The second block it adds is at the end. This block stitches a corner marker at each corner in the design. In this picture, the before line is green and the after line is red. I offset them by a little bit so that you can see what's going on, but they do happen directly on top of each other.

This is important, because you're trying to lay your design out so that every section of the split design lies perfectly next to the other ones. When you re-hoop your fabric, you can step through the first four stitches. If you've placed your fabric correctly, then those stitches should perfectly touch the markers that were sewn in the previous blocks. If they don't line up, you can just re-hoop over and over and over and over until it lines up.

In theory, you can line up an entire design just using these markers and the alignment stitches. You can just keep rehooping forever until it lines up. It's great. On the other hand, if your embroidery machine has literally ANY KIND of design placement setting onboard, that can help a whole lot. The astute observer will note that, on that picture way up at the top, that machine isn't my Topaz 50. That's because the T50 has some nice basic design positioning that will let you place within a certain range, but it won't let you tilt the design if you hooped it crooked. I did the first attempt at this on my Topaz, and it was fine, but there was a lot of re-hooping. So I might have taken this to work, to do this on the machine that's a step up from mine. (While I was there, I used a sit-down Bernina longarm to "hand"-baste the stabilizer on. That's not the intended use of the machine, but if you set stitch regulation to like 1 stitch per inch, and then you just pull the fabric straight through from the side, you get perfectly straight basting lines. If you're not feeling like dedicating an entire room in your house to having a free-motion machine just to baste straight lines, most mid-tier sewing machines have a fake hand-basting setting in them somewhere). Anyway, if you don't already have a bunch of hoops from HV, you can get that kind of positioning setup on Brother and Baby Lock for much less than the cost of the machine I was working on. If doing big multi-hoop projects like this is a priority for you, ask your salespeople about machines that make this really easy.

You now also have the great trade-off: the smaller the hoop, the tighter the design will hoop, and the less stabilizer you'll need. However, the bigger the hoop, the more you can shift the design around in the machine without hitting the edge. The tighter the hoop grabs, the less stabilizer you need, but the harder it is to shift the fabric that's already being held in the hoop to get it where you need it to go.

I handled this by just fucking throwing a shit ton of fucking stabilizer at it like there was no tomorrow. There's three layers on this bad boy.

You might be saying "Why didn't you just use a heavier cut-away?" and you'd be right, except for two things. 1) if I use two lighter layers, then I can trim the stabilizer away in layers, avoiding the stabilizer showing through and 2) my store didn't have any wide fusible cut-away in stock so

Anyway, here it is, time to make it into the actual apron. I'm very excited for this project. I'll probably break out the repositionable hoop again to do a border on the outside of the completed project, but I don't know for sure exactly what that'll look like.

[blackcrowing]

Book Review of 'A Guide to Ogam Divination' by Marissa Hegarty

I was thrilled when I bought this book. I was so excited to crack it open and read it, I was excited to write this post and support an independent author who is out here putting in the work and turning out well researched information for budding and experienced pagans alike. It makes me incredibly sad to not be able to do that…

I found the first part of the book, here named "Theory" overly long, convoluted and mostly outside the professed scope of the book (that scope being named as divination). This criticism comes from someone who is enamored by linguistic history and therefore should have found this section as fascinating as any other. However, for example, while I appreciate the author's apparent desire to assure the reader that ogam existed prior to the overwhelming establishment of Christianity in Ireland and therefore was almost certainly a product of a pagan thinking mind as opposed to a Christian one, this point was ultimately very simple to get to and did not require as much time and effort as the author put into it (about 35 pages, taking into account the section on ogam stones which set up the section for this point, likely 10 or so would have done just fine).

I also found myself really struggling to connect with the authors take in many aspects of this section. Few points make sense to me, perhaps in part or in whole do to the author's seemingly random use of citations. Such as one point when the ages of Auraicept na nÉces and In Lebor Ogaim might be cited (though even then it is sometimes difficult to decipher exactly WHAT point is actually being cited), while elsewhere a reference is made to what is apparently a manuscript containing the earliest complete use of Ogam, yet there is no citation for this (it is, presumably, sourced later in the text but with no mention of given either at the first introduction nor at the later account). Additionally, (while it is no fault of the author's) some aspects I could not independently verify at all because the articles/books referenced are unavailable and... apparently... not referenced anywhere else...

Moving on to the second section “practice”… there was very little information offered in this section that was new to a reader who already has read “Ogam: weaving word wisdom” by ERL and “Irealnd’s Trees: Myths, Legends and Folklore” by Niall MacCoitir…

Whats worst, in my personal opinion is that I never felt like the author ever took a stance on… well anything… each time I settled in to what the author was saying about any point at all I suddenly found them either arguing directly against that point in the very next paragraph and dismissing it wholly or after expressing a conflicting idea throwing up their hands and going "either might be true". While this is often done by writers on topics which can not have definitive answers there is a way to do it without giving your audience whiplash or living them feeling like the author themselves may not know what they're talking about and this author… unfortunately did not employ any of those methods.

I can not express enough how much I wanted to like this book and how much I wanted to support this budding author… but I found the whole experience ultimately unenjoyably and lacking any individual thought or additions…

[mrs-gauche]

Hi! Any thoughts on the 'hidden track' at the end of the Bonus DLC Tracks for the new Dragon Age Vinyl set? "D'Read Koda" can be interpreted so many ways but 'dread bear'? Coda, the musical notation? (Do you suppose there's any connection to the bear and maiden graffiti art we see several places in Inquisition [or any connection between that mural and the one from The Missing {moon atop the bear and halla horns on the maiden?}])

Hi! Thanks for the ask! :D And yeah, I've been super curious about this as well! (And also the pre-sale for the vinyl now starting at the same day that the final volume of The Missing is coming out, May 10th 👀 but ALSO everything about the cover, like the GOLDEN CITY (omg???), the enormous DRAGON (Mythal???), the vines/tree branches (like Mythal's vallaslin/visions of her conquering in Trespasser??), the ECLIPSE in the background (according to Dalish mythology Mythal "created" the moon/"An Eclipse as Fen'Harel stirred"??), the summit/mountain beneath it (!!) and that single hooded person (with a staff resembling the headpiece of one of the two figures in the 2020 teaser mural/symbols in the new cinematic)?? The potential LORE revelations on this thing are absolutely bonkers, but I digress! 😂)

Anyway! I actually thought something similar when I first saw that mysterious hidden track name, that it has to be some kind of anagram or wordplay, given how much BioWare LOVES to do those and also with the musical term "coda" being spelled with a "k" for some reason, but what stood out to me especially was the random apostrophe that's in there, since the devs are also known for their (internal) "disputes" about the extensive use of apostrophes in DA for the elven language and names. lol

So to me the odd spelling plus the random apostrophe points more to it being an anagram for a specific elven term, but I have yet to decipher what it could be. 🤔

My second thought was if this "hidden track" could actually just be the final part in the "extended version" of the Lost Elf theme (starting at about 10:13), but then I looked up the game's files and noticed that this specific tune actually plays (though only once) when you first get to the Darvaarad and the full piece is about 2:40 minutes long (the hidden track being only 1:08), leading me to think this is probably what's titled "Qunari Atmosphere" on the tracklist. And after going through all the Trespasser music files I could find, there was nothing hinting at something like "D'Read Koda" either. :/

But you're right, "Koda" is also a term in the Dakota language meaning "friend/ally" or "little bear", but I'm completely at a loss as to what that could refer to. For all we know, it could be a reference to frigging Storvacker. 😂

As for your second question though, since you brought up "The Bear and the Maiden" painting/mural in connection to the mural in volume 3 of The Missing, there are actually a few other interesting aspects to this that I've been thinking about, but before I start rambling get to that point, let me just put the rest under a cut so people don't get spammed with an exhaustingly long text post. lol

First off, for reference, this is the painting we're talking about, featured in various places throughout DAI!

People have made quite a few speculations about this imagery over the years. For one, given that it is not exclusively found in elven ruins and filed under "Fereldan art" in the game's files, some people assume it could depict an old legend of the Alamarri. Others have suggested that it's actually just a little easter egg in reference to the "The Bear and the Fair Maiden" song in ASOIAF. lol

But by far the most popular take on this, is that this is depicting the elven gods Dirthamen and Ghilan'nain. Based on Ghilan'nain's sacred animal being the halla and the lady with her all white appearance and her antlers kinda resembling one as well. And Dirthamen's sacred animal being a bear (among others, I think). Which would pose the question though, why these two are portrayed in such a way, when there's nothing in the lore that could give us an explanation?

To me, it almost looks like the maiden is trying to calm the bear down/keep him in check, who has gone out of control and is now turning into a wild beast (that can apparently also breath fire? lol). With what we know of Ghilan'nain now, it's definitely possible that her horrifying experiments and creation of all kinds of freaky creatures might have inspired such imagery.

So, while I can see how you could draw a parallel to the mural in volume 3 with the way they're positioned/embrace each other, I don't know what else to derive from this, other than that it would point to the bottom "red one" being Ghilan'nain and the "green one" being Andruil and not the other way around, or that Andruil was maybe able to shapeshift into a bear? lol But if we're going with my assumption that the bear is losing control over itself, maybe it could refer to the stories of Andruil succumbing to madness from hunting the Forgotten Ones in the Void. As opposed to the mural in the comic, where they seem to be rather peacefully in love (to me at least).

But while we're at it, let us go back to Ghilan'nain and Dirthamen's potential connection real quick (because I've been thinking about it 😶)! What's interesting to me, is that these two have actually been mentioned together in the lore, too, looking at this ancient elven writing for example that is only revealed to you when using Veilfire at the Temple of Mythal:

"His crime is high treason. He took on a form reserved for the gods and their chosen, and dared to fly in the shape of the divine.The sinner belongs to Dirthamen; he claims he took wings at the urging of Ghilan'nain, and begs protection from Mythal. She does not show him favor, and will let Elgar'nan judge him."

"For one moment there is an image of a shifting, shadowy mass with blazing eyes, whose form may be one or many. Then it fades."

So there we have the two being involved in what appears to be a judgement on someone serving under Dirthamen, because of Ghilan'nain's actions. While we don't know how much of this actually happened, it definitely makes you wonder about their intentions here. Why would Ghil do this? And why specifically to someone serving under Dirthamen? What was the outcome? And what does this tell us about their relationship? (And now that I think about it, what if this sinner was actually the bear in the mural? lol)

As for the sinner himself. Now, I don't know about you, but when I reread this codex again after several playthroughs, particularly the “shifting, shadowy mass with blazing eyes” at the end, I thought “Wait. That kinda reminds me of something......”

Look, I know it doesn't appear that way when looking at my blog for like five minutes, but I certainly don't think that every single codex entry on elven myths should be automatically assumed to be about Solas. 😂 That being said, I can't help but feel like there's a connection to be made when looking at this other ancient inscription, that can be found in the final chamber of the Solasan Temple:

Faintly carved into the stone is a figure bound in chains. Two other figures have turned their gaze from the central image.

The script below the image is ancient, though Solas is able to provide a partial translation:

Pride in our accomplishments and in our hearts. That same pride became (a word meaning corrupted or altered) within him, he sought to claim (indecipherable), cast from favor and so he was bound.

Hidden from mortal eyes, death lies within.

To me, this text always seemed to perfectly match up with the ancient writing in Mythal's temple. A person being judged for claiming (godhood?)/daring to fly in the shape of the divine (a dragon?), put in chains and "bound" as punishment (by Elgar'nan?). And again, there are two figures involved. If the events of these writings do connect, was this "sinner" the one belonging to Dirthamen, taking wings by the urging of Ghilan'nain and them now silently accepting Elgar'nan's judgement, making those two the "figures turning their gaze"?

The thing is, if I'm presented with an ancient elven text about someone's PRIDE being corrupted in a place called SOLASAN temple, how in the world am I NOT supposed to draw an immediate connection to Solas here? 😂 I'm not saying that the sinner in this story had to be him per se, but if the age-old theory about Solas having been a spirit of Wisdom once who somehow turned into Pride is true, then there's still the question of how or why exactly this corruption occurred? And, if anything, the story of this sinner would provide at least one possibility for what happened to someone who had been corrupted in ancient times.

"Cast from favor and so he was bound."

If Cole's cryptic comments in Trespasser are actually about Solas (and Mythal?), then it's safe to say that Solas was himself bound ("He left a scar when he burned her off his face"), which does make SO much sense, considering that he values free will above everything, his furious reaction to the Well of Sorrows is SO telling, oh and also, he lead a motherflippin Slave Rebellion. 😂

But if we're looking for further potential connections between Dirthamen, Ghilan'nain and Solas... Well, Dirthamen is not only called the Keeper of Secrets, but is also always associated with sharing wisdom, knowledge and giving counsel to those in need. His symbols also include two ravens. Wolf and raven being known for pretty cool 80s synthwave music having a special bond in many real life myths and legends.

And Ghilan'nain is the only elven god we know of who was a "huntress of the People" before she ascended to become the youngest of the elven pantheon (possibly because of her relationship with Andruil or her ability to "create" things). As far as we know, Solas was also one of the People before he "became" Fen'Harel. So they were very much alike in that sense.

There's also the tale in which Fen'Harel gets captured by Andruil, because he had angered her by “hunting the halla without her blessing”. Some people have taken this to mean that Solas made a move on Ghilan'nain or that they had something going, so naturally, given that Andruil and Ghilan'nain are believed to have also been lovers, she was not very amused about that. lol (Which would make the rest of the story even funnier, where Andruil declared to “punish” him by making him “serve in her bed for a year and a day to pay her back”. lmao)

Which brings us finally back to the mural in The Missing volume 3, that could depict Andruil and Ghilan'nain embracing each other, perhaps even romantically (btw, if you want to know why I think so, check out my post on volume 3. :D).

I kinda joked about it at first, but if we assume that this mural was actually made by Solas as well, then you do have to wonder why he would even choose to paint such an intimate moment between Ghilan'nain and Andruil, people he arguably despises? Though it'll be interesting to learn what their relationship was like before his rebellion and Mythal's murder. I mean, who knows, maybe the before-mentioned tale actually happened and all three of them made out afterwards (willingly or not). 😂 (I mean, we're still talking about immortal beings here, so what else are they gonna do all day? lol) Or maybe Solas was just the Evanuris' personal portrait/mural painter at one point. lol

Anyway, to conclude, all of this is partially why I assumed for the longest time, that the two figures seen in the 2020 teaser mural could be Ghilan'nain and Dirthamen (also the fact that Dirthamen's vallaslin matched up perfectly with the silhouette of the right figure and obviously everything about Ghilan'nain and her horrifying experiments in Tevinter Nights).

...but with everything we've learned since then, I'm now actually leaning more towards it being Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan (if you want to know why, I highly recommend watching this fantastic analysis!).

The only thing that still kinda irks me with this, is the fact that the only elven god that's known for wielding a spear like this is actually Andruil.

However, it is super suspicious to me how the "goddess" seen in this concept art seems to break out of what looks like huge ocean waves and how this "grey sludge stuff" from Ghil's ancient "pools" in Tevinter Nights was described to have "smelled like the ocean" AND the mention of (capital P) Pride in elven myths having "stopped Ghilan'nain's hand when she was about to destroy her creatures of the deep sea". 👀👀 (Also, is it just me or does the figure in the 2020 mural look like she's having algae hanging down her headpiece? Not to mention the tentacles. lol) So there's that.

Also, and I know this is the silliest reason, but I don't know if BioWare would expect new or casual players to keep up with all these long "complicated" elven names, since "Ghilan'nain" and "Elgar'nan" do sound kinda similar and people might get them mixed up. lmao So having Elgar'nan and Andruil might be a bit more distinguishable, just for the sake of making it a little easier for new players lol (I mean, they have changed names before to avoid this problem, like when the Tevinter city "Qarinus" was turned into "Ventus" because it sounded too similar to "Qunari", I think? 😂).

I don't know if any of this actually answered your question, I feel like I got carried away by like a mile. 😂 I don't know how I got from "D'Read Koda" on the vinyl to tentacles, but here we are. 😂 Those are my thoughts on.... a lot of stuff. lol

[bethanythebogwitch]

Let’s turn up the heat because I’m going over the real-life inspirations for all the fire-type starter Pokémon. Here are the links for when I covered the inspirations for all grass starters, all fish, and all non-fish aquatic Pokémon.

Gen I gives us quite possibly the most iconic starter line: the Charmander line. Interviews with the design team have revealed that Charizard was the first of the line to be designed and the other two were designed by working backwards from it. Both Charmander’s English and Japanese name (Hitokage) reference the mythical salamander of European folklore. Salamanders have been associated with fire in multiple cultural folklores throughout Europe, often to the point where their depictions have nothing to do with the actual amphibians. Interestingly, the oldest accounts that associate salamanders with fire comes from Pliny the Elder, who repeated an account their bodies were so cold they could extinguish fires. Somewhere along the line of legends being passed down, salamanders got flipped from repelling fire to living in it, possibly as a result of getting conflated with other mythical reptilians like dragons or basilisks. In the renaissance, the alchemist Paracelsus described salamanders as fire elementals, along with a group of other elemental beings (gnomes for earth, sylphs of air, and undines of water).

(image: an artistic depiction of a fiery salamander. Art by Michael Maier)

In addition to salamanders, Charmander and Charmeleon are given the upright poses and dragging tails of outdated reconstructions of theropod dinosaurs. Charizard is a classic depiction of a western dragon: a winged reptile that breathes fire. Western dragons are based heavily on lizards, with some of the earliest depictions being a dead ringer for monitor lizards. Charizard is said to love fighting, which is reminiscent of how western dragons have been depicted as dangerous, destructive, and even demonic monsters. It is only relatively recently that western dragons have been depicted as anything but evil. Charizard doesn’t have the dragon type (unless it mega evolves to X form), but that’s more because back in gen I, dragon was intended to be the special type exclusive to the late-game powerhouses that are the Dratini line. Charizards mega evolutions and gigantamax form don’t really add much to the origin, they’re just exaggerations of Charizard.

(image: art of a western dragon by Friedrich Justin Bertuch)

Cyndaquil is based on an echidna, an Australian monotreme (egg-laying mammal) that has a long snout and quills like a porcupine.

(image: a long-beaked echidna. I don't know why, but its snout makes me very uncomfortable)

Despite being an echidna, its species name is the Fire Mouse Pokémon. This is actually a hint to an additional inspiration for its origin. The Japanese word that got translated to “Fire Mouse” is “Hinezumi”. This is the Japanese name for a monster originating in Chinese legend called the “huǒshǔ”. It’s a flaming mouse that lives in volcanoes. The flaming mammal and volcano association continues through the line. Also, when I googled “hinezumi” the first thing that popped up was the Monster Girl Encyclopedia. If you know, you know (don’t google it). Quilava and Typhlosion completely drop the echidna inspiration, which is a bit disappointing to me. That’s why I made regional variants of them for my Australia/New Zealand fakemon region where they stay as echidnas. While being based on badgers, they retain the quills that are found in many animals, most famously porcupines and hedgehogs. Hisuian Typhlosion is based on Kamuy-huci, the Ainu goddess of the hearth. The Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido, the island that inspired Sinnoh and Hisui. There are multiple Ainu references in Hisui’s design, plot, and regional variants. In the Ainu religion, the hearth was the connection between Earth and the world of spirits and was therefore never allowed to go out. It could also be used to communicate with the kamuy (gods and spirits) and was the passage through which the souls of the dead would leave the world and eventually return for reincarnation. This is why Hisuian Typhlosion is part ghost-type. The fire around H Typhlosion’s neck looks like magatama beads, which are used in the spiritual practices of multiple belief systems. These flames can release 108 ghost lights. 108 is an important number in Buddhism and is the number of beads in a Japamala, another type of beaded necklace used for spiritual practices in (among other religions) certain types of Buddhism.

(image: a japamala with wood beads)

The Torchic line is, I suspect, the place where the trend of basing fire starters on Chinese zodiac animals started. Typhlosion really doesn’t fit the zodiac, though some people say it’s supposed to be the mouse. The line is based on chickens. More specifically, they are based on the basan, a legendary fire-breathing chicken.

(image: art of a basan by Takehara Shunsen)

Torchic is a chick, a hatchling chicken. It being bright orange comes from a tradition of dying chicks bright colors to be sold at festivals. Male Torchics have a tiny black spot on their rear ends that females don’t. This is probably based on vent sexing, a technique for determining the sex of chocks, a notoriously difficult task. It is done by examining the cloaca, looking for a bump that usually only males have. Combusken and Blaziken are based on cockfighting, a form of animal abuse where people force chickens to fight and bet on the winners. The official art for Blaziken’s normal and mega evolved forms have it in poses used in the martial art of Muay Thai. Blaziken is usually depicted as fighting primarily with kicks and Muay Thai emphasizes kicking. Blaziken being an humanoid with a bird head may also reference the bird-headed Egyptian gods Horus and Ra, or off of the karura, a diving being that looks like a human with a bird’s head in Japanese mythology.

(image: a statue of a karura)

The Chimchar line are based on the monkey from the zodiac. Chimchar’s species name is the Chimp Pokémon, and it does bare some resemblance to a young chimpanzee. When Chimchar’s flame goes out, you can see prominent red marking on its butt. Several monkey species have marking on their hindquarters, but the most famous by far is the baboon. Chimchar’s lack of a tail identifies it as an ape, but its evolved from gain tails, making them monkeys. A lot of people think that apes are separate from monkeys, but really apes are a subset of old-world monkeys. Apes are monkeys, you are an ape, therefore you are a monkey and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Monferno and Infernape both have prominent facial markings heavily reminiscent of those of mandrills.

(image: a male mandrill's face)

Monferno having blue facial marking and orange fur also makes it look like a golden snub-nosed monkey.

(Image: a golden snub-nosed monkey's face)

These are native to China and the line does have some heavy Chinese influence. The martial art that Monferno and Infernape use is most likely Monkey Kung Fu or Hóu Quán, which was inspired by the movements of monkeys. Infernape is based on the character of Son Goku, the Japanese name for the character Sun Wukong from the Chinese epic novel Journey to the West. Sun Wukong is the king of all monkeys, a martial artist, and has several magic powers.

(image: Japanse art of Son Goku/Sun Wukong. Art by Shunman Kubo)

Sun Wukong may be based on the older Hindu god Hanuman, a monkey-like god associated with strength and heroism who was also a member of the varana, a species of monkey people.

(image: a sculpture of Hanuman)

The Tepig line are based on the boar of the zodiac. Ken Sugimori said that the Unova starters were based on different cultures to reflect Unova being a very diverse place. The Tepig line were given Chinese design elements whole the Snivy line were “western” and the Oshawott line were Japanese. Tepig having a dark marking on its head and rear but being light everywhere else comes from the markings of the British Saddleback pig breed.

(image: a British saddleback pig)

The fire and pig combination references how pigs are bad at regulating their body head and need to use external sources like mud to cool off. Pignite takes on more boar traits with its exposed tusks. The markings on its body look like it is dressed in a wrestling singlet, which fits as both Pignite and Emboar are based on wrestlers. The yellow markings on Pignite and Emboar resemble patters found in ancient Chinese cauldrons called dings.

(image: a ding)

Ken Sugimori also stated Emboar was inspired by the character Zhang Fei in the Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In the story, Zhang Fei is betrayed and decapitated by his own men. This could be the purpose of the fire scarf Emboar has, to separate its head from its body. Pignte and Emboar also draw from another Chinese story, the afore-mentioned Journey to the West, specifically the character of Zhu Baije. Zhu Baije is a pig man who joins the titular journey. He is also jealous of Sun Wukong, which kind of fits with how Emboar is a much worse Pokémon than Infernape.

(image: an artists depiction of Zhu Baije. Unknown artist)

The Fennekin like take the place of the fox in the zodiac. Design-wise, their large ears mark them as being based on fennec foxes. They are also based off of the kitsune, magical foxes in Japanese mythology. Among the many powers attributed to kitsune were the ability to breathe fire and perform magic. Kitsune could also take on the form of human women, which is referenced in Fennekin’s evolutions becoming humanoid and having feminine designs.

(image: art of a Kitsune scaring two people by Utagawa Kuniyoshi)

Human could also learn magic form foxes, becoming  fox witches or kitsune-mochi/kitsune-tsukai. Braixen and Delphox take quite a bit of their design from these fox witches, they also draw from the classic wester witch, using magic wands and Braixen having a tail that looks like the head of a flying broomstick. The association of witches with fire might be a reference to witch burnings. Delphox is also based on a prophet or seer, with its ability to see the future. Delphox’s English name directly references the ancient Greek oracle at Delphi. The final forms of the Kalos starters are based on the fantasy character archetypes of the fighter, the mage, and the thief. Delphox is very much the mage.

Litten is a black cat with tabby cat features. Tabby cats are defined by the stripes on their faces and legs. The orange and black stripes also identify it as the tiger from the zodiac. Its eyes plus forehead stripes are a dead ringer for the alchemical symbol for brimstone, another name for sulfur. Sulfur is a highly flammable element, fitting the fire type. This is one of several references to alchemy found in gen VII.

(image: the alchemical symbol for brimstone. two horizontal lines crossed by a vertical line that leads down into an infinity symbol)

Torracat doesn’t change much from Litten, just adding more stripes and a fireball that looks like a bell on a cat’s collar. It does change when it evolves to Incineroar, and not for the better. Incineroar is my least favorite final stage starter and easily in my top 10 most hated Pokémon. I could go on for a while about how much I hate it, but this isn’t the post for that. It’s still a tiger, but now it has been combined with a professional wrestler. You can tell they really wanted to do another fire/fighting type but knew there would be backlash. The belt of fire is based on a championship belt and its dark type comes from being a heel. In wrestling language, a heel is a villainous character, someone the audience is supposed to boo (a face is a heroic character). This fits with Incineroar being describes as a violent and egotistical Pokémon. However, Incineroar does have a soft side. This fits with how wrestlers are performers playing characters. A performer playing a heel character may cheat, lie, steal, and generally be an asshole while in character, but when not in character they probably won’t be nearly as unpleasant a person.

Scorbunny is the rabbit of the zodiac. More specifically, it is a white rabbit and like with real rabbits, its feet are considered good luck charms. The yellow patch on its face comes from a Japanese character design trope where a bandage over the nose is supposed to indicate that the character is tough and rambunctious. Maylene from the Sinnoh games shares this design element. Its fire typing could come from the Jataka tales, a collection of Buddhist stories from India. In tale 316, a rabbit is placed in a fire as a burnt offering, but it is unharmed by the flame. Another connection could come from the fact that rabbits have unusually high body temperatures for mammals. If Scorbunny is cheerful child, Raboot is a moody teenager. It’s fur and the stripe on its head look like a tracksuit and headband, giving it a connection to athletics. This continues with Cinderace, who is now an association football (or soccer to Americans) player. Football is a huge deal in England, the basis for Galar. Its fur looks like athlete’s attire and it uses a flaming berry like a football. This is another one where you can tell they wanted to make another fire/fighting type.

The Fuecoco line ditched the zodiac theme to become a crocodile. Its upright posture makes it look like a chibified theropod dinosaur and its silhouette looks like a chili pepper. The white face of both Fuecoco and Crocalor resembles a calavera, skull imagery used in the Mexican Day of the Dead. This is a Mexican holiday which is a celebration of dead loved ones that is typically very spirited and cheerful as opposed to glum and mournful. Folklore says the ghost will return to the world of the living on the Day of the Dead. While Paldea is based on Spain and Portugal, several of the new Pokémon have designs based on elements from central and south America, possibly because of both countries’ history of colonialism in those areas. Crocalor adds several references to mariachi players. The flaming nest and egg on its head is a sombrero while the markings on its abdomen look like a traje cordobés, a type of vest often used in mariachi.

(image: a mariachi band wearing wests and sombreros)

The hat combined with the calavera face makes it look like La Calavera Catrina, a skeleton wearing a wide-brimmed hat that is used as a common symbol in the Day of the Dead.

(image: art of La Calavera Catriana by José Guadalupe Posado)

It could also be a bouquet of Tagetes erects, the Mexican marigold, a flow also used for the Day of the Dead. Skeledirge continues the mariachi and Day of the Dead theme by becoming an undead singing crocodile. Real crocodiles will vocalize during mating and nesting season. There are several stories of ghostly or monstrous crocodiles in Spanish folklore, such as the Cocollona and the Drac de Na Coca, the latter of which is displayed as a taxidermied specimen in a museum in the city of Palma de Mallorca. There is also the Coco or Cuca, a boogieman-like that originated in Spain and Portugal and spread to the Americas that is often depicted as a monstrous crocodile. All three of the Paldea starters are based on entertainers and Skeledirge is based on a singer. Given its typing and English name, it probably single funeral dirges. The fiery bird on its nose could come from the gharial, another type of crocodilian. Male gharials have large bumps on the tips of their snouts in the same spot the bird sits.

(image: a male gharial)

Another, possibly more likely source is the Egyptian plover, a bird that will land on top of Nile crocodiles and eat parasites off of their skin. Skeledirge could also be based off of alebrijes, very colorful statues of mythical creatures in Mexican folk art. This is making me think about how cool a Mexico-based region could be.