#also I was very familiar with the Irish mythology in this so that was fun!

[libraryleopard]

Historical fantasy novella retelling of Arthurian mythology, specifically the Perceval stories

Reimagines Perceval as a woman who disguises herself as a man to become a knight

Inspired by Welsh and Irish mythology

Lyrical & mythological prose

Lesbian main character

Queer knights, disabled knights, and knights of color in Arthur’s court

[noctilionoidea]

looking into a less familiar mythology, specifically Irish folklore, is fun because I see a name a recognize and I think “why the fuck is Badb showing up in a love story” so I do a quick search and there’s another Bodb and he’s spelt with an O there so it’s different but then this story I’m reading spells Aengus as Oengus so like is it an alternative spelling? Also Bodb is only part of his name and it’s be weird to abbreviate it right? So I have to scan for pronouns and I find it it’s this guy not my favourite crow murder lady which is all fine and good because I had reason to suspect this Bodb was either of them. And I realise it’s be so much easier once I actually have a solid basis considering I can determine the Antiope and Antigone within a millisecond. Very motivating all things considered!

[honourablejester]

Celtic Pantheon/Campaigns (5e D&D)(Long Post)

Okay, so I’m just going to get this out there, because every time I glance at the Celtic Pantheon in the PHB I do giggle a bit. Mind you, it’s not anyone’s fault, but a couple of centuries of academics bundling stuff together under ‘Celtic’ has mightily confused just about everything, and it really shows here.

(Note: I have no academic qualifications regarding Celtic mythology/history/folklore whatsoever, I’m just Irish and grew up with a lot of the Irish myths and legends as a kid. This also means I know very little about the Welsh and other Celtic myths, just to say that in advance. This is all just what I’m familiar with from growing up and a little bit of research, and might have errors)

This post is also brought to you by my idly scanning lfg posts for Celtic campaigns and seeing a lot of historically inspired Celts-vs-Romans campaigns which is … doubly funny to me if they’re using the PHB pantheon list. This is because, as you’ll see in a minute, the majority of the PHB list uses the Irish gods and we … didn’t have those. Romans. We didn’t have them. So. Heh.

(We had Roman traders, especially around the Waterford area, it’s a relatively quick hop over from Wales/Cornwall, and we have evidence of Roman … tourists, probably? There are Roman offerings at various Irish prehistoric religious sites, in the Midlands especially. So we did have Romans, in the sense of we met them, but we didn’t have Romans, in the sense of invasion by the Roman Empire)

So. The thing about the PHB ‘pantheon’. It’s kind of borrowing gods from several different Celtic pantheons. ‘Celtic’ covers a lot of distinct regional cultures that are believed (I think for primarily linguistic and archaeological reasons) to be descended from an original proto-Celtic culture. For extra fun, there aren’t many primary historical sources for most of them, as in Celts writing about themselves and their faiths. Most of the texts we have are either medieval Christian (a lot of the Irish and Welsh) or Roman (a lot of the Gaulish, Iberian, Germanic, Brythonic), so there’s a lot of cross-cultural influence and interpretation muddling it up in there before you ever get to celtic-vs-celtic.

So they’re all Celtic, but they’re all very distinct in terms of stories, culture and the attributes of their gods. There are some gods that were broadly shared under similar names between various of the regional pantheons (Lugh and Brigantia are two examples), although they could be very different in portrayal between, say, the Irish and Gaulish stories. (Where the PHB uses one of these, I’m going with what name they’re using for guidance)

(The various attributes given to them by the PHB are a different muddle of influences again, with I think a lot of it being straight D&D invention, but that’s its own story)

So, to have a look at the D&D breakdown:

5e PHB Celtic Pantheon

Arawn  (Welsh)

Belenus  (Gaulish/Romano-British)

Brigantia  (Gaulish/Romano-British)

Diancecht  (Irish)

Dunatis (???)(Can’t find or remember this guy at all. Only thing I’ve got is that the Irish for ‘fort’ is ‘dún’, so maybe Irish?)

Goibhniu  (Irish)

Lugh  (Irish)

Manannan Mac Lir  (Irish)

Math Mathonwy  (Welsh)

Morrigan   (Irish)

Nuada  (Irish)

Oghma  (Irish)

Silvanus  (???)(Don’t know at all. I’m going to guess continental because I think ‘silva’ is the latin for ‘forest’, hence ‘Transylvania’ or ‘Beyond the Forest’, so the dude has a latin name)(… looking this up, he’s actually straight-up a Roman god, okay then)

The Daghdha  (Irish)(I usually see it spelled ‘Dagda’, mind)

This all shakes out as follows:

Irish: Daghdha, Diancecht, Goibhniu, Lugh, Manannan, Morrigan, Nuada, Oghma

Not Sure/Maybe Irish?: Dunatis

Welsh: Arawn, Math Mathonwy

Gaulish/Romano-British: Belenus, Brigantia

Straight Roman: Silvanus

So that’s more than half the list being figures from Irish mythology. And that … there’s nothing wrong with using them for an Asterix-and-Obelix Romans-vs-Celts sort of campaign. I mean, it’s your own private fantasy game, not a history lesson. Go nuts! It just … reads oddly to me. Heh. Historically speaking, very few people with Irish names calling on Irish gods would have had much cause to fight Romans. Not on any large scale, anyway.

Campaign Inspirations:

I’m going to just say, though. If you want a more historical and/or mythological feeling Celtic campaign. You have a couple of options. I’d say the easiest thing is to just look up the specific pantheons and cherry-pick your gods from there (there’s a handy Wikipedia list here)

If you want continental Romans vs Celts a-la Asterix and Obelix, use the Gaulish/Brythonic list.

If you want Romans vs Celts more along the lines of various modern interpretations of King Arthur, use the Gaulish/Brythonic and/or Pictish lists.

If you want Celtic more along the lines of full Arthurian, Excalibur, BBC Merlin, ‘dragons, druids, knights and romance’, a lot of actual Arthurian legend used Welsh myths as a base, so it’s a nice start, then throw some Brythonic on top (particularly if you want to do an 80s Robin Hood on it and throw in Cernunnos/Herne the Hunter in). If your setting is more of a fully mixed ‘Medieval England’ sort of setting, Robin Hood, King Arthur, etc, you can mix and match a whole bunch of folklore and mythology of various sources, Welsh, Roman, Norse, etc. (Alan Garner is a fantasy author who does this very well, if you want a high-fantasy example)

And if you want Celtic as in Irish myth to match the names …

If you’re going relatively low-fantasy for a more historical feel, use the Irish pantheon, and the sources you want to inspire the setting would be the Cattle Raid of Cooley and the Fenian Cycle/stories of Fionn Mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. The Five Kingdoms of Ireland (Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Meath, with the High King sitting at Tara in Meath) makes a pretty good setting.

If you’re going more high fantasy, like the Arthurian example, use the Irish pantheon, and you want the Book of Invasions and the Battle of Magh Tuireadh as inspiration. Setting elements you can have here are the Five Kingdoms of Ireland, the Four Cities that the Treasures of Ireland came from, Tir na nOg, and the Otherworld. (Note on the four cities and their treasures: they were each guarded by a legendary bard (poet/scholar/mage), so you could go classic archmage wizard or you could throw in some high level NPC bards for fun)

There’s some very cool magic items in Irish myth too, like the aforementioned four treasures, the magic pigskin (waterskin) Lugh had the sons of Tuireann quest for (heals all wounds, but charges of various healing spells per day would probably work), the sword Fragarach (I think other D&D editions had a version, but I’m particularly interested in its sword of truth aspect that forces anyone threatened by it to tell the truth), Cuchulainn’s Gae Bolg spear, aka Belly Spear (which is made from a bone of a sea monster and is nasty – it basically grows barbs/spines once it’s in someone’s body), and basically every item ever owned/gifted by Manannan Mac Lir, who is basically the Irish god of giving away cool magic items (as well as sea god, trickster god, elder god, and the god often in charge of starting quests). If you need a quest-starter god or a god to litter magic items around your world, Manannan Mac Lir is your dude.

If you want a fantasy author that I quite like who does great loosely-based-on-Irish-myth high fantasy, I would say Michael Scott, particularly (from my reading) the De Danaan tales and Tales of the Bard. I also grew up reading Cormac Mac Raois’ Giltspur trilogy, which is an awesome kid’s portal fantasy involving some Wicklow kids winding up in Tir na nOg and fighting the forces of the Morrigan, but that’s pretty much impossible to get outside Ireland, I think.

And I promise I’m not only saying this because I personally feel like a low-fantasy ‘historical’ campaign is about the least interesting thing you could do with any of the Celtic pantheons. Honest.

[la-li-lu-le-lol]

Im absolutely desperate for more of red collar job!! Is there anything you want to say about it? Did you originally have different plans? Do you have any details you had to cut that you're still attached to? Anything else?

Aw, anon! ;w; you're making me blush, here. Thank you. There will be more soon, I promise! Within 4ish weeks but still.

I do have some stuff I wanna say about it! It is under the cut.

There was a LOT of content that was written but left on the cutting-room floor. I was originally going to have not-Snake take the form of multiple people Hal knew - Huey, Julie, Emma, etc. I was originally going to have Hal *successfully* shoot not-snake in the first chapter and become shell-shocked by how nasty and realistic a point-blank rifle shot to the head is. In fact this was where Huey was going to first show up - after not-snake 'died' Hal was going to feel a hand on his arm from behind. the hand was gonna have a wedding ring, and moving sunlight patterns of water reflections on it, and he was going to hear huey's voice saying "I'm so proud of you." Then he wakes up. Bunch of ideas like that one! The dream sequences are always the hardest to write. I decided to delay that moment and then thought it through a little more wrt character, and it got ironed out into what it is now.

This story was originally going to be absent the paranormal/psych-horror B-plot entirely. I already had chapters 1-4 mostly written without them before I had a lightbulb moment and added them in. Listening to your self-indulgent thoughts is a good thing, actually.

What Not-Snake is, or even whether it/he exists or not is (generally...) meant to be ambiguous and up to reader interpretation. My word isn't law, but while penning out its/his mythology, I leaned a little on concepts like the unseelie fey and the irish fetch. Chapter 8 also has a lot of satanic symbolism with varying levels of subtlety lol but that was just for fun.

Many of the horror elements, like the concept of "somebody" familiar and beloved to you behaving in threatening and frightening ways that don't match with their image that you trust, are heavily inspired by the Higurashi visual novel. This scene in particular should look familiar. Skip to 1:53:49.

(Or, if you would rather not read and see the short version in the anime.)

As a final and more personal note, I have a lot of very strong feelings and investment about the fic's subject matter. I am writing this fic as somebody with a pretty severe aversion to medical procedures (Needles are a problem to say the least) and gore, but I also have a deep interest in those things at the same time, because feelings are complicated. I went to a high school with a medical magnet program where we took super specialized classes, basically like pre-pre-med. I loved that shit and did well, but in my Junior year, we did "internships" (we didnt do anything like actual medical interns are supposed to, we were just observers) at hospitals and clinics around town. I saw some pretty intense stuff without having been truly prepared for it. There were a couple incidents with me walking out or leaving the bus and hiding somewhere so I wouldn't have to show up. After a couple months, I requested to be taken out of the rotations program and I never finished that course. All of Hal's anxiety and disgust is very real and written from that experience. This fic has given me massive amounts of catharsis in writing somebody learning how to do something I never could.

Thank you for your curiosity. ❤️

[a-little-slice-of-fandom]

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Irish-ness of Dracula, if you wanna ramble about it!

(Okay I just want to apologise for how long this took to answer because I know it’s been sitting in my inbox for over a month but..depression and work happened and I just didn’t have the time or energy to complete it. I seriously do apologise for this but I hope you enjoy the post anyway!)

So the first thing I need to clear up is this: the concept of a monster or a demon that feeds upon the life force of humans is not limited to one singular culture or folklore. In fact, this core concept is a wider cultural phenomenon and variations of it exist across both countries and continents. And no one country can take sole credit for the this core concept of vampires. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise either doesn’t know much about vampires or is intentionally being disingenuous. There can be cultural variations that are specific to certain folklores (and to just blatantly steal these would be cultural appropriation), but the main idea of vampires exists across a wide range of folklores and no singular person, group of people or culture can take credit for the creation of vampires.

However, arguably it was the work of Bram Stoker that aided in the solidification of the concept of Vampires that we know today. While there were other authors from a wide range of nationalities who wrote about Vampires before Stoker (including John William Polidori who wrote the Vampyre in 1819)...Dracula is the best known. (Now I personally believe that’s because Dracula is an absolutely banging novel, although I do concede that the prevalence of adaptations of Dracula from the 1920’s to today helps keep Dracula in the forefront of audiences minds.) In addition, it’s important to remember that Stoker was inspired by another Irish author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, who wrote the novel Carmilla. As far as I know, Le Fanu and Stoker actually worked together on a magazine!

Another thing I think that needs clarification is the common belief that Stoker heavily/religiously based Dracula on the historical figure Vlad the Impailer. This is heavily debated by scholars. While there’s an obvious, undeniable similarity between the names of these two...the similarities start to wain after this, with only small similarities between the two and there’s even literal contradictions between the history of Vlad the Impailer and Dracula’s history in the novel. In fact, there’s not much indication that Stoker based the character Dracula off Vlad the Impailer, or even that he had a working knowledge of Vlad the Impailer beyond the name. In all 124 pages of his notes, there’s nothing to indicate that Stoker’s inspiration for Dracula came from Vlad the Impailer.

(Plus Dracula in the novel wasn’t even originally called Dracula...he was called Count Wampyr in the original drafts of the novel and this was only changed, from what I can gather, in the last couple of drafts.)

In fact, I’d personally argue that that connection between Vlad the Impailer and Dracula is actually something that’s been retroactively added by other artists, for example the 1992 film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” heavily leaned into this idea that Dracula and Vald the Impailer were one in the same, and as time has progressed people assume that these elements were in the original novel when that’s simply untrue! Stoker didn’t write that! It’s a retroactive addition by other artists that’s just assumed by the masses to be canon. This phenomenon is actually super interesting and it’s absolutely not limited to Stoker’s novel Dracula/the modern day perception of Dracula (another example would be Mary Shelley’s version of Frankenstein versus the modern day perception Frankenstein). I’m not sure if there’s a word for what this is, but I like the term “cultural canon”, where something that’s been added in by other artists has become as good as canon within the minds of the masses and as such is ingrained within the cultural perception of something, despite it having no basis within the original piece or even directly contradicting what is in canon.

(Now I’ll absolutely concede that Stoker taking the name of a historical figure and possibly their likeness from another country and making them into a literal monster is something that should be discussed. I don’t know how Vlad the Impailer is viewed within Romania - whether he’s viewed positively or negatively or a mixture - but regardless he was a historical figure and Stoker did eventually use that name for his own creative purposes. Again, Stoker didn’t say that Dracula and Vlad the Impailer were the same person, that’s other artists doing, but there’s still issues with Stoker that needs to be discussed)

Now, I’ve seen people talk about how Stoker took a lot of inspiration from the Baltic folklore surrounding vampires for his novel, but I don’t really know this folklore very well and therefore I don’t feel like I’m qualified to discuss it. If anyone is more well versed in this topic wants to add to this post then they’re more than welcome to! I don’t deny that Stoker too inspiration from places other than Ireland (like the novel is set in Whitby) but I just feel like people over hype the relation between stokers Dracula and Vlad the Impailer.

Now, onto the Irish mythology side!

So the most obvious inspiration for Dracula comes from the story of Abhartach. here is a link to an actual, respectable retelling of the story of Abhartach which I’d highly recommend people read (it’s really not that long) but the key points go as follows:

There was this Irish chieftain called Abhartach, who was really cruel and the townsfolk didn’t really like him. So, the townsfolk and another cheiftain (known as Cathain) banded together to kill Abhartach. They did succeed in killing him (yay), however, Abhartach just sort of...rose from the dead and began another reign of terror (not yay). However, Abhartach needed to be sustained by blood and required a bowlful every day to sustain his energy. Cathain comes back and kills Abhartach once again, but Abhartach rises from the dead once more and now needs more blood. Abhartach is only banished when Cathain uses a word made from yew wood and wounds Abhartach with it. Abhartach is buried upside down with a grant stone over the grave to stop Abhartach rising once again.

Sound familiar? The similarities between Abhartach and Dracula are undeniable! Yes, there’s some differences between the two but the core story here is almost identical. I could totally reword that paragraph, omitting the names, and it would be indistinguishable from a short summary of Dracula! Even the way that the main characters find out about the wooden weapon that can kill the monster is similar, as both Jonathan and Cathain go to wiser and older members of their community to learn more.

(Also please mythology blogs don’t come for me I know my retelling was an incredible oversimplification but I’m writing on my iPad and my thumbs are starting to hurt. People have wrote full papers on the similarities between Dracula and Abhartach and there’s so many more people more qualified than me, I’m just an 18 year old trying to make a fun and interesting tumblr post. Again, if anyone wants add anything like extra sources or more information or even to point out my mistakes then I more than welcome the additions)

Another piece of folklore that’s also said to have inspired Dracula is the Dearg Due. Now there’s multiple different versions of the tale, but the version I have heard goes like this:

There’s a noble woman who wants to marry a penniless peasant boy, but her dad disapproves and wants her to marry another man who is much richer. The rich man and the noble woman were eventually married but the woman didn’t love the rich man. In retaliation, the rich man locked the woman in a windowless castle where she starved to death. The woman was buried by the locals who took pity on her, but because she was buried hungry she came back to life and drank the blood of her father and her husband as revenge. The version I heard says that the dearg due now basically wanders ireland drinking the blood of men who have hurt or wronged women (as one should) but there’s other endings to the story.

(Again is anyone has a reliable source they want to share then please feel free to add!)

So this is another Irish piece of folklore that clearly includes some elements that we now associate with vampires. Now people (including Wikipedia) claim that this story was specifically what Stoker based Dracula on, and while I definitely think that Stoker was aware of this story and took inspiration from it, I personally think that the Dearg Due inspired the concept of Dracula’s wives more than Dracula himself.

However the key point still stands: Stoker was likely aware of these legends and even the most staunchly anti-Irish person would have to concede that there’s similarities between all three stories. And very rarely are these similarities discussed in classes about Dracula...which I feel is a real disservice. I don’t think students should have to have an intense knowledge of Irish mythology (my knowledge is spotty at best) nor do I think it should be an exam question...but even a brief acknowledgment of “hey, Stoker was inspired by these stories and you can clearly see similarities between them” would be nice. Moreover, it further solidifies my original argument that Stoker was, at least to some extent, Irish and that his Irishness inherently influenced his work.

Also...the social context of what was going on in Ireland in this period can’t be ignored! Again, while Stoker did spend time in both England and Romania, he spent a lot of his life in Ireland and therefore would have known what was going on in his own country.

Dracula was published in 1897, which is exactly 50 years after the worst year of the Irish Famine/ The Great Hunger/An Gorta Mór. Now I don’t have time to do a whole history of the Great Hunger but the effects of the famine were greatly exacerbated by the horrific mismanagement of Ireland by the British government and the British system of ruling in Ireland. How many people died during the famine isn’t clear, but we do know that the population of Ireland at the time was 8 million and the population today is 6 million...200 years later and we still haven’t recovered. So while we all like to joke about the fact that Stoker wrote about an unfeeling member of the aristocracy literally feeding off others with no remorse and basically ruining their lives...are we really going to pretend that there isn’t social commentary there? Scholars specifically think that Stoker was commenting on the absentee landlords (basically British aristocrats who owned land in Ireland but didn’t live there and as such didn’t care about the well being of their tenants) who would often have tenants forced off the land when they couldn’t pay rent...despite the fact that their tenenants were already starving and had no money because their only source of food and income failed.

(I’m not being shady by the way, I also love to joke about the social implications of Dracula, but I feel like people forget that the jokes have actual points behind them)

There was also a cholera epidemic in Ireland in 1832 which is generally accepted to be one of Stoker’s biggest inspirations. You can read more about the epidemic here if you wish, but I’ll summarise what I feel are the key points. Not only was Stoker’s mother from county Sligo and lived through this cholera epidemic, but Stoker also asked her to write down her memories of the epidemic and used her accounts to aid in his research of the cholera epidemic. Now the fact that he was actively researching this should indicate that it would influence his work, especially considering the situation in county Sligo was incredibly morbid. There’s accounts of the 20 carpenters in Sligo town being unable to make enough coffins to keep up with the amount of people dying, resulting in hundreds of dead bodies just lying on the street. However, the most horrific account from this epidemic was the stories of terrified nurses placing cholera patients into mass graves while they were still alive. Stoker himself literally stated that Dracula was “inspired by the idea of someone being buried before they were fully dead”. So while at first there seems to be very little relation between the novel and a medical epidemic, it quickly becomes clear that Stoker’s fascination with this historical event influenced his writing.

My overall point is that Stoker’s irishness inherently influenced his writing. Writers don’t write in their own little bubble, divorced from the world around them, their views and work are shaped by their position in society and their upbringing (it’s why I dislike death of the author as a literary theory). So when people try to claim that Dracula is a piece of British literature...it indicates either a lack of understanding of the context in which Stoker was writing in or a wilful ignorance founded on colonialist ideas. His influences are so obvious to me as an Irish woman but they rarely get discussed, and even if they are it’s seen as overreaching! To call Dracula British literature and to ignore the inherent Irishness of the novel does a great disservice to Stoker!

Anyways I really hope you enjoyed this discussion my love! Once again I apologise for how long this took to write. Also I’m sorry if this comes off as argumentative or anything, that absolutely wasn’t my intention, I just have a particular style of writing long posts haha.

[phoenixfeatherquillwriting]

OC Name Meaning Edits (Part I)

I’ve always thought it would be fun to do these, and I noticed one of Quill’s ( @quilloftheclouds) edits going around, so I thought I would give it a try! All of these use free images and templates from Canva!

Bonus name info under the cut!

All these characrers are Constellan!

A Note on Middle Names: You may have noticed, not everyone listed has a middle name. Why? Middle names are actually a regional thing in Constella as a holdover from their colonial days. Depending on which foreign power ruled which portions of what is now the fully unified and independent Republic of Constella, different linguistic and naming conventions took hold., as well as various policies and laws around names themselves. Whether or not you have a middle name largely depends on your family’s origins and geographic history. In more traditionalist regions where colonial rule was not as centralized, middle names didn’t take hold as prominently.

A Note on Name Order: Names in Constella also have a lot to do with social class, reflected in the order and origins of names. At one time, being upper-class meant blending into the norms of foreign powers, and since it hasn’t yet been 100 years since independence, such practices still leave their mark. For the uppermost classes (or those who aspire to be upwardly mobile,) it’s common practice to have a Constellan name on paper, but to use an English, French, German, or Nordic name in professional settings. Some use these adopted names in their social circles as well, but some observe their Constellan names among friends. Another common arrangement, most popular among middle-class folks, is to use a Constellan name in the front/as a first name and a foreign name in the middle. For those who hail from traditionalist strongholds, are devoted practitioners of the Marnesh ethnoreligion, or come from more disadvantaged material circumstances, Constellan names are used both in the front and in the middle, if a second name is present at all. The history of names here is a somewhat frought topic, but most would say a Constellan name is a marker of pride and the strength of the people.

Onto the bonus name info now!

Lizrendell Desslin- She prefers to go by a short and simple “Liz,” which some mistake to be short for the Hebrew name “Elizabeth.” Not so! Her full Constellan name means “dark eyes.” Hers are purple in color, something that pops up more rarely in comparison to brown, grey, or even green eyes. There’s a folk saying, especially among the older generations, that violet eyes are a mark of keen intelligence.

Nerissa Vannarjee-Just “Rissa” to most, her full name has associations with Greek mythology (the birth of Aphrodite, the nymph children of Nereus), as well as Shakespeare. A character called Nerissa appears in The Merchant of Venice. The meaning is quite appropriate for a hydrokinetic, don’t you think?

Tavi Victoria Simorian-I thought up this name especially for the character...or so I thought! Pronounced similarly to “tabby,” it means “someone who protects” in Constellan. Years later, I came to find its actually a real-life name! It can be used as a diminutive of David, primarily for girls, or as a diminutive form of Octavia, which is an old Latin name meaning “eighth.” Victoria is also Latin and a feminized name, too; this time for Victor. It’s meaning is quite easy to parse, “someone who brings victory.” It seems a good combo for someone like Tavi, who guards her family members with upmost dedication, and fights fiercely and passionately to correct injustice.

Ash Monroe Gutierrez-Ash chose their own name when they transitioned, and it’s very important to them. Sometimes used as a short form of Ashton, it can refer to ash trees, but Ash themselves chose it for its associations with fire and volcanoes. For a pyrotechnic with a penchant for geoscience (and a sparky personality), you can’t get better than that! Monroe is well-known as a surname, but it’s sometimes used as a unisex first or middle name, a common theme for Irish and Scottish names alike. I like its spunky sound! Bonus: Gutierrez is a Spanish surname which means “son of Gutierre.”

Aris Athena Portokalos- Fondly called Ari on occasion, hers is another case of me making something up, only to realize later, “Wait, that’s a name?” In Constellan, it’s a feminine name which means “ambitious”: that’s Ari through and through! It’s also a unisex Greek name which means “harvest.” Athena seemed appropriate for someone who is known for their intellect (to the point of basing their self-worth around it, Ari stop that.) Bonus: triple hit! Portokalos is also a Greek name, belonging to the family of the protagonist Tula in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” It’s said to mean “orange,” perhaps as a reference to farmers who tended orange orchards. I had forgotten where I heard it originally, but went ahead and picked it up.

Bethki Pemmer-Usually just “Beth,” her name is meant to compliment her gentle, curious, and rather shy nature. In Constellan, it means “she who observes.”

Ione Lee Nazir-We’re back with yet more Greek mythology: stories say that Ione was one of fifty sea nymphs called Nereids. Hmm, sound familiar? Hint: look at her partner’s entry! With a lovely purple meaning fitting for a gardener, the association with violet stones (and flowers) means that Rissa calls her “Violet” from time to time. It can be pronounced in a variety of ways: I use EYE-own, but eye-OH-nee and ee-OH-nee are also used. Lee is a short, unassuming English name which means “meadow.” In Ione’s case, it’s a family name, used by her mother and grandmother in the middle place as well. Bonus: Nazir is an Arabic name which can be used as a first or last. As a variation of Nasir, it means “helper,” but it can also be used to mean “beautiful,” “pure,” or “warner” as in “one who is sent by Allah to warn mankind,” in which case it is used as an epithet for the Prophet Muhammad. Ione shares her father’s Islamic faith.

Katri Newsome- A case of double names, Katri is her legal Constellan name, which means “knowing.” It’s the name she prefers, and how Aris and the rest of the family refer to her. Her parents, however, tended to call her Kendra, an English name with the same meaning. While she didn’t always know what Aris was up to in the early years of her apprenticeship at the tail end of her “villain years,” Katri came to know her better than virtually anyone else, second only to Ash. Sound-alike cousin Katiri, is another Constellan name, this one meaning “little wren bird,” which is used as an occasional nickname.

[elejahfanfic]

The Vampire Files/3

Fanfiction

Part 3

AU crossover story with tvd characters

Elena  Gilbert and Nick Amaro

are FBI agents, investigating paranormal activity and all different strange cases involving demons, witchcraft, vampires.

There will be other tvd/to characters in it, as well as characters from other fandoms -

ft. Joel Goran from Saving Hope

warning: smutty, 18+

ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧˚

_gifs are not mine *

tags_ @miguelsbrat​

thanks so much for reading. I hope you like it. xoxo

✽-( ˘▽˘ ❁)/✽

Days after

Whitmore

Bonnie Bennett finished with her report, sending a copy over to the FBI. Elena's remark about the amulet and mentioning the name of the monster that was out there killing women, who were not random women, but fellow witches, rattled her. This was not just an Agent, Bonnie thought.

****

FBI Headquarters

Washington, DC

Was Elena just an Agent? Nick wondered. He now took his tablet and opened the Elena’s PhD-'Vampires and Folklore'. Such a simple title to a very extensive read.

He read, 'Throughout history, these beings have resided alongside man. Myths and folktales from all points of the globe speak of beings that feed on the living. From the Japanese Kasha to the Irish Dearg-Du and the Tlaciques of the Mexican Nahautl Indians and the Arabic Algul they exist.

... In closing, the interesting thing to note is that although the creatures of mythology largely contradict the popular view of vampires, they do exist. They exist at all corners of the world and in nearly every culture known to man. Although they exist as superstition and folklore, they persist in appearing in the dark shadows of humanity.’

Nick put the tablet down. This definitely gave him a further insight in his new partner. To Elena this world was very real. They were not catching ordinary criminals.

Although he didn' believe in demons, vampires, curses or any of the superstitions, he had to admit all was very intriguing. She clearly resented the fact that he was assigned to be her new partner. Their effort to bond over pie and coffee didn't go all too well, but it was a step forward in admitting they had a job to do and that was enough. He poured himself a glass of Bourbon.

Flashback

"I guess they assigned you there because she needed someone who is cool-headed," Camille said to him as they talked earlier on the phone,"maybe they are testing you-"

"Or- they are testing me, all right! And the cool-headed thing- you are too generous- I shot the deputy."

"And you were cleared. He happened to be in the line of fire. Shall I come over?" Camille reminded him.

"No. I have tones to read. Familiarize myself with the demon files she has given me as homework."

"Have fun." Camille said hanging up.

He had no desire to read anymore so he took his car keys and got out of the office.

*********

Elena waited for a man in the Rock Creek Cemetery

"Do you have it?" she said as he finally got to the .meeting point

"Here" Klaus passed her a little box.

"When is the Initiation ritual?"- Elena asked.

"March 23rd- full moon" the attorney said.

"Right" Elena said.

"You think this is connected to Jackson's murder?" Klaus said.

"Yes," Elena said putting the box in her bag,"and it had nothing to do with the investigation we were on. The witches wanted him dead. And they will cover it up."

"Why do you what you do then?"

"Why are you?" she posed a counter question.

"Maybe there is no real answer." Klaus said.

"Maybe to brings some order in all disorder?!" Elena said and without any goodbyes she walked away.

Klaus took his phone and dialed a number.

******* At Rebekah's house, that evening

Rebekah and Caroline sat down for supper.

"No answer" Caroline said trying to get hold of Elena again.

"Have some more wine," Rebekah offered,"She told me she will come"

And not long after, Elena rang the doorbell. And so the three friends sat down for meal, to chat and unwind. All of them had several crappy months behind them. And this little get-together was to give one another wind beneath the wings.

"Joel has accepted to work at Jeffersonian" Rebekah said looking at Elena. Namely, Joel was her ex-boyfriend.

"Good for him" Caroline said taking a sip of the cocktail, her eyes also swaying at Elena. Caroline noticed that yet again she was there physically, but mentally she was somewhere else.

"So, how is he really?" Caroline asked Elena.

"How is who really?" Elena looked at her friend somewhat absent-minded.

"Your new partner. Come on- spill!" Rebekah said impatient to hear what Elena had to say about Nick.

"Ok. He is different, that's for sure. He is very text-book. We have a job to do. Catch the twisted criminals!"- Elena said in a sarcastic under-tone.

"This doesn't sound like you're a match made in heaven" Caroline then said.

"We don't have to be. We just need to be focused on the one thing and apply team-work," Elena said,"ok- now what is this thing with you and Stefan?"

"Didn't you say you are never going back there?" Rebekah now looked at Caroline.

" I know I said - and it was just sex" Caroline said following a deep sigh.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" Rebekah didn't understand why she could not draw the line once and for all. "He is never going to give you more- he said so- he is in love with this -whoever she is"

"Don't I know that" Caroline said taking a sip of the drink again.

"Love- who wants it- so overrated anyway," Elena said thinking of Joel.

Rebekah now gave her a look that would kill. "You're not helping!"

"Come on- seriously. Look at us. When do we have time for love? And then if maybe we find the guy- it all just goes to blows" Elena suddenly stood up.

"Where are you going?" Rebekah said surprised she was acting like nothing mattered at all to her.

"I don't know. I just can't sit here and -everything inside of me feels like a ticking bomb- and I can't talk about it with you cos of the investigation." Elena said quite agitated.

"Is it that bad?" Caroline now stood up as well.

"It is that bad," Elena confirmed," I might get suspended or even worse- lose my job."

"It is only a job!" Rebekah then said,"and a wretched one. Dealing with such difficult cases all these years no wonder you are breaking."

"I am not breaking! I am good at what I do. I love this job. I- sorry guys- but I have to go-" Elena took her coat and went out.

Rebekah and Caroline stayed behind speechless for a moment.

"I have never seen her like this. She is always so -" Caroline said not knowing how to label Elena’s behaviour.

Rebekah finished her sentence, "Messy."

Messy, maybe was right, but much deeper, Elena felt like her other life was consuming her entirely. And she was on the brink of spilling it all out to them. I am not the person you think I am. I, Elena Gilbert am a demon hunter. My family. My mother was a demon hunter. My grandmother. My life....my life is not my own. Elena's head throbbed with a horrific sensation that she might fold.

And why was she on the breaking point right now and not before?

Flashback

A couple of months ago

In Alabama

Jackson came to the designated place Elena had gave him directions to. She hopped into the SUV and they took off for Washington.

"So, you found it?" Jackson asked.

"Yes." Elena unfolded the cloth and showed him the dagger.

"Are you sure this is the demon soul dagger we are looking for?!" the Agent asked.

"Positive," Elena answered,"you know that my dreams are not just peachy dreams of walking down the beach."

"What about the curse?"

"That is something I still need to figure out."

"The lawyers released the shaman." Jackson said.

"Well, with this, they will lock him up forever and throw away the key."

With the thoughts of that night, Elena drove to her apartment building. As she got into the garage, she got her phone out.                  

"Nick?" she said as he answered the call,"can you come down to "George's?- yeah- see you-"

She got out of her SUV and walked into the bar she would frequently hang out. Nick arrived some fifteen minutes later.

"Hey" he said as he sat down next to her on the bar.

"Hey-" Elena said back.

He played it cool, but he was amazed that she called him out so out of the blue, and it had nothing to do with a case.

The bartender asked him what he wanted- and he saw Elena drinking beer, so he ordered the same.

"So, after hours, beer?!" he joked a little.

"Hate the stuff, but sometimes, I need its bitter taste to make the sweet taste better." Elena said.

"Right" Nick uttered. More weirdness, he thought. Head she summoned him to share something or just to hang out? Whatever it was, he was ok with whatever. They can just drink beer and she could just be silent. Or they could play a game of billiards, which he suggested.

"Yeah, haven't played like in forever, but I have to warn you- I used to kick ass at the Academy" Elena said.

"Well, I did the same."

They ordered a couple of more beers.

Nick, as well as her were playing as if it was some kind of competition. And he won. Twice. Just barely, but still he won.

"I am really out of practice" Elena said putting the cue stick aside.

"You really hate to lose?!" Nick remarked.

"Well, yeah. But I am not a sore loser. Really, I am not." she walked over to the bar asking for another beer.

"Ok, so - are we going to talk about it now or tomorrow?" he said wanting to know why she had actually called him out.

"I don't feel like talking. Can we just hang and drink beer?"

"Of course we can." Nick said.

"I need someone who will be there and not ask me questions," she now looked at her partner curling a sour smile on taking a silent breath," I ran away from my best friends tonight. People, who care. I don't know why at one moment- I just could not stay there with them.And they have always helped me go through anything. It's just that I want to spare them from dumping my pain on them. They already have enough of their own shit making their lives miserable."

"But- isn't that what friends are for? Tell them any shit?" Nick said.

"Yeah- you're right. And it's true. But, ahm- I just didn't want to suck them into my darkness." Elena tried to reason about her decision to abandon the party.

"But a partner can suck up anything?!"

Elena gave him another serious look, which confirmed what he had said.

"You are also in the darkness with me," she said to him,"sitting in the shadows"

Nick was quiet. The way she said it was like she reached down his soul reading it like a book.

"Don't mind me. Just get so morbid at times. Tomorrow, the sun will be up again and I will be ready for anything, partner," the brunette then said,"I’m gonna head home.”

"Me, too” Nick said getting up.

"See you tomorrow," Elena said,"thank you. And I want a rematch!"

"Anytime, partner," Nick said,"see you tomorrow."

Jumping into her car, she drove off to the University Hospital. She was too weary, and home was the last place she wanted to be.

“Hey, Sophie” Elena said as she walked in the special ICU where the coma patients were held.

“I so need you to wake up - things are not good,” Elena muttered to the witch inhaling deeply,“I need you. They killed Jackson. But to kill it, I need the angel blood. And even when I find it, I can’t do it without you. There is one good news. I have found the Salem witch.”

Elena now went to tell her friend and curator of the Smithsonian museum a little bit about her new partner, as well as her current state of mind. Some half an hour later, she made her way to the car, stumbling at her ex, the dashing doctor, Joel Goran at the elevator.

“Working late” he said.

“I - went to see Sophie.” Elena said.

“Ah” Joel uttered adjusting his backpack, keeping to his side of the elevator.

“I hear that you are going over to the Smithsonian? Had enough of being a rock star surgeon?”

“No - my hand is - I can’t do surgeries anymore. My hand still has tremors and - yeah. So, I’m going to join the Bones team.” Joel replied.

“Right - sorry about your hand” Elena said.

“I’m sorry about your - partner.” Joel said sympathetically.

“Thanks” Elena nodded a little.

And then there was the look. The one that spoke more than words. The one that blurred all the lines.

Half an hour later, in Joel’s apartment, the blurred lines became even more blurry.

Elena pushed him back on the bed and straddled his hips and sank down on his cock, taking him as deep as he would go.

His hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her down, with a hoarse groan.

She melted against him, taking him inch by inch until, at last, she had accepted all of him.

“You feel so good,” he whispered, looking up at her through heavy eyelids., 2so good.” His fingers traced paths up and down her spine, coaxing soft moans from her. Lifting her hips and grinding downward, gyrating to stimulate her nub. She used him for her pleasure, ignoring his needs. She just wanted to get off, and he didn’t seem to mind. She took him faster, rotating slightly with each downward stroke. His hips rose off the bed to meet her strokes. He bit his lip, his head tossed back.Watching his expression was almost better than the waves of pleasure coursing through her own body. He could feel her trembling, and the way she arched back, he knew she was nearly ready to crash. He now flicked over her nub with her thumb, making her orgasm spiral out with a shuddering cry. She fell down on him, breathing against his mouth, “I so needed this.”

She pulled away from him off him and rolled her onto her back in the center of the bed, taking a small breather.

Elena was not a selfish kind, and she now pulled him to her, streaming her hands down his abs, wrapping her hands around his cock. She sat up, ready to take him int his mouth, but Joel stopped her. “I want to feel you - I need to be inside you “

She had not objections. Kissing her, he pushed her soflty back onto the mattres, he climbed on top of her and slid inside her. Her eyes drifted closed. Her back arched, rubbing her belly against his. He grunted under his breath, latching his lips onto hers as he pushed in slowly. The brunette closed her eyes and concentrated on the perfect rhythm of his long and deep strokes.

His quiet gasps in her ear sent her lust spiraling out of control yet again. Her hands moved down his back, digging into his flesh as she bucked her hips against him. His strokes shifted, becoming faster and harder. She felt like heaven and he lost himself now completely. Wrapped up in her warmth, he quivered and shook against her.

His gasps grew shaky and punctuated. Moaning softly his name, she soon brought him over, and he shuddered violently, groaning hoarsely against her shoulder, holding tight, till his spasms stilled.

Pulling out, he collapsed beside her, eyes closed, breathing hard. “This was - so amazing. I missed this -”

“It was.” Elena said getting up from the bed.

“Where are you going? Come back.” Joel sat up.

“I can’t stay” Elena said and disappeared into the bathroom.

Joel crashed back on the bed, taking a deep breath.

_to be continued

[margridarnauds]

Favorite thing about your field or the research of your field? 😊

It is both an ongoing challenge and a delight that there is still so much to work with in this field. In almost any of the mainstream fields, you get a bit of a feeling that everything’s been done before. Here, there’s none of that. There’s a whole, brilliant world out there to discover, and we’re at the forefront of it. It’s an awesome, terrifying responsibility and an honor. Like, even the work I’m doing on the Fir Bolg. I don’t believe that it’s going to absolutely revolutionize mythological studies, BUT no one else has done it before. For another paper, I’m doing an edition of a text that has NEVER HAD AN EDITION BEFORE. What our postdoc said our first day was true “Anything you want, it’s yours. You have the pick of it.” 

Also....

Look, I know the stereotype of the Humanities as a field dominated purely by fluff, with no relevance to the real world. Something that my supervisor has discussed with me, the very first time we met actually, was that when he was in Belfast in the 80s, the Celtic material was kept behind a bulletproof door because it was “politically sensitive material.” There is a very BIG reason why there was a boom and, really, for the most part, an invention of the field in the early 20th century, correlating with a rise in nationalist sentiment and, eventually, the Easter Rising and the Civil War. I make fun of that material for the most part, but there is a reason it exists, and part of the reason why there was so much comparison to Ancient Greek myths, besides the fact that, obviously, it was what most of the educated elite would have been familiar with, was that there was this URGE to show that Ireland had a cultural tradition that could match the classical tradition.This is a field that has been won in blood. 

The material that we have, as scant as it can be, exists in spite of centuries of persecution and threats. (I know of at least one story that, during the Famine times, people used manuscripts as fuel for a fire. Not necessarily because they were ignorant or callous, but because they were living in a difficult, miserable time.) Many of the manuscripts, before they were in Irish universities (though not ALL, there are still a few important manuscripts in British custody) were in the hands of private British universities and collectors, there to be put on display along with all the other antiquities by men who didn’t know the true value of what they were dealing with. You will find very few Celtic Studies people, if any, who support the extinction of the language in favor of something “practical” and I suspect the reason is that, if the language goes extinct, then centuries of persecution have won, and all those years, all those sacrifices....they were for nothing. 

[allocerart]

I have made more aeons!!!!  aaaaaaah, it took so long for us to get to new ones in our little campaign, but i can finally post these lol. 

For the uninitiated, I’m running a DnD campaign in Final Fantasy X universe, and I’ve been making aeons for it, based on mythological creatures of course.

Azrael: Based on angels and seraphims obvs.  They’re fayth is a small child who is saddened whenever new summoners appear to them.  They long for the day when they’ll never see a new summoner, and they’ll get to sleep forever.  The aeon itself is basically all radiant damage and healing.  It’s presence is calming and warming, being gentle, even though it holds incredible destructive power as well.

Fin Varra: Does that bastard fairy look familiar?  I meeeaaann...yeah no I made an aeon with Seymour Guado as the Fayth.  Because I wanted to have fun with my writing.  This little shit is really fast, can turn invisible, and likes inflicting necrotic damage.  The name and design are based on the idea of the King of Faeries in Irish folklore who is also the king of the dead.  It seemed very fitting.  Fin Varra is a mischievous aeon, but reliable in a real fight.

[eirenare]

I’ve just read the new “The Rise of Kylo Ren” interview with Charles Soule (the writer) and Will Sliney (the artist) and thought I’d do a post about it because there’s some very interesting stuff

And also I may or may not be absolutely amused at some descriptions for the former leader of the Knights of Ren

[More under the “read more” because of spoilers of TROKR, and because of speculation/theorizing of TROS.]

“They call him Ren, but that wasn’t always his name.

“Born out of the flames,” as artist Will Sliney puts it, the leader of the Knights of Ren in the opening pages of the new comic Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren #1, arrives battle-scarred and wearing a fearsome, featureless mask — a blank expression save for a smattering of claw-like gouges. Concealed within is a charismatic leader, the exact type of person who would be able to seduce young Ben Solo away from the path of the Jedi.”

They’re going to talk about “The Rise of Kylo Ren”—they spent the first paragraphs mostly talking about Ren

And... *arching eyebrows at the first phrases* So... “They call him Ren, but that wasn’t always his name”, and “born out of the blames”, and “fearsome, featureless mask”... Yeah, this totally does nothing to stop me from thinking Ren’s gonna be future/alternative Ben

Alexa, play “Dark Horse” *looking sideways at Dark Rey and Ren*

“I wanted him to read like a charming Darth Vader,” says writer Charles Soule. “A Vader who is charismatic and who is appealing. That’s why [Ren’s] skin is burned and he sort of looks the way that he does. He’s embracing the seductiveness and the damage that the dark side does. Darth Vader, as impressive and imposing and terrifying as he is, is remote and cold and distant because he has the suit surrounding him. Whereas Ren isn’t hiding behind it. He’s someone you could have a beer with, in theory.”

Oh, so are we going parallel territory with the Darth Vader, like previously with Ben and Anakin? Interesting... *munches popcorn* Also lol at having a beer with him

“Designed purposefully for the new comic series, with issue #1 out now, Ren feeds the evolution of Kylo Ren. “The entire seductiveness of the dark side poured into one character engineered for Ben Solo is Ren,” Soule says. “He’s sort of a charming evil rascal that can be really fun to write and I really like where he goes in the series. But if Kylo Ren is going to take over the Knights of Ren, which we know that’s what happens, there should be some transition.”

I didn’t think I’d see Mr. Hottie McHotHot aka Ren defined like a “sort of a charming evil rascal”, but yeah, that’s kriffing funny and awesome and I can’t wait to see what happens in January

But now... now comes the super juicy bits...

“The creative team engineered some surprises for this charming dark sider, a foil in many ways to Darth Vader hiding beneath his protective covering. “You expect the dude hiding his face under a mask like that to be all messed up, particularly with his body looking the way it does,” Soule says. But in issue #2 we’ll see what he’s truly concealing, a reveal that speaks to Ben on a whole other level.”

Why does this sound familiar? ... Ah, yes, because it’s kind of the way they described Ben‘s unmasking in TFA, the whole “you expect a monster but you got this young tortured prince”. Sounds like that a lot. Also, the fact that what he’s hiding under the mask seems it will be a huge reveal to Ben and that they’ve “engineered some surprises for this charming dark sider”? Not to mention that, again, we have a comparison with Darth Vader

Yep, this definitely does nothing to keep me from going on with my Ren/Ben theory

“I think the key to writing Ben Solo is to write him as a lost teenager who is deeply in touch with emotions that teenagers often feel,” Soule says. “He feels like no one understands him, no one sees him the way he actually is, he’s utterly alone and there’s no one else out there in the universe. So when he sees Ren, he’s like, ‘Wait a minute — maybe there is somebody like me in the universe. Maybe there is a path for a guy like me. Look at the choices he’s made. I could make those choices, too, and I could be cool.’”

Okay, so, who the kriff is cutting onions in the room? *Ben feels intensify*

Also there might or might not be a certain Disney song going on my head right now reading this lol

“The story also calls for the re-introduction of a younger, seemingly kinder Snoke, wearing a little cap, no less. When we meet him in the series, the future Supreme Leader of the First Order is essentially a gardener. “When we were in the design process, Snoke is someone that you know is going to defy expectations and it’s not going to be the Snoke that you know,” Sliney says. “And it’s important because we’re going to see a very, very different relationship that Snoke and Ben have. It establishes that this is not the Snoke that’s going to Force-choke Hux and slam him into the ground. He’s playing the long game…so it was important to portray Snoke differently.

And true to his festering nature, Snoke inhabits a place that on the surface seems serene and beautiful, but is rotten at its core, a script note that spurred Sliney to google “rotting fruit” for artistic inspiration.”

Snoke is a scary predator. Whatever he is, whatever it’s his relationship with Palpatine, that’s the thing—they’re both scary predators, and I can’t even begin to imagine all the shit fed to poor Ben’s head

Also, about that world... Another thought that came to me (besides Mortis stuff) is that maybe it could be the deserted/stormy place we see in the TROS trailers, like the planet finally rotten inside and outside, kind of as a reflection as to how appearences have fallen apart and all that’s left to show is the rotting

“Like Sheev Palpatine, the once humble senator of Naboo, “Snoke is someone who knows the playbook,” Soule says. “It’s a similar play in terms of, ‘I’m a nice guy who’s just trying to help you,’ which is kind of what Palpatine did. But Snoke’s path to power, Snoke’s seduction technique, Snoke’s message and teachings are, I think, pretty different from the way Palpatine did it…. His job is not so much to corrupt as it’s to represent an alternative to the legacy [Ben has] been presented.” In concert with Ren presenting an alternate path, Snoke’s suggestive philosophy is appealing to a young boy who feels lost. “Everyone’s telling you you’re X, but what if you’re Y? What feels correct to you? Are you Obi-Wan Kenobi or maybe you’re something else?” Soule says. “All you need to be is whoever you are and no one’s letting you do that…and maybe, shouldn’t you go someplace where you can be who you are?”

Now that’s a specially terrifying way of predating—you may be able to get away from all the people you love, detach from them so as to protect them and protect your heart, but you can’t run away from yourself and your thoughts and feelings, and that’s what Snoke targets with Ben

“To bring these characters alive on the page, Sliney pulled reference material from Celtic myths and poured over books featuring the art of Star Wars. “I don’t think I’ve ever studied as much as I have,” he says. “Everything Star Wars. I have all those art books, whether it’s the modern ones or the ones from the original movies or the prequels. I love the art…I think it’s important to pay respects to the amazing concept art that have made these movies along the way.”

Those artists, of course, famously took their inspiration from earlier works, so Sliney went back even further. “I’m going backwards as much as I can in terms of the feel of it,” he says. “It needed to feel epic and it needed to feel powerful. It’s bringing it back to that mythological kind of feeling. I have a big influence from a lot of old ancient Celtic stories that date back thousands and thousands of years. These stories of lone warriors who died on the hill…. Those ancient books, they carry that gravitas.”

That’s interesting. Maybe the big “dead” tree around the machinery comes from Celtic mythology? After taking a look at some info, I’d say this screams “tree of life” to me, which would pretty much fit like a glove with the Force and the balance because it represents harmony and all that. Also, if you want to know something funny, according to this webpage (Irish Around the World), “trees were a connection to the world of the spirits and the ancestors, living entities, and doorways into other worlds”, it says, among other things

And, to finish:

“Meanwhile, Soule pulled much of his writing inspiration from the Skywalker saga itself, save for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which was still in production at the time. Soule went back and studied the first time we see Kylo Ren on screen, wondering to himself about the implication that Ben Solo had met Lor San Tekka in their younger days. “There’s a lot of data hidden between the subtext and text,” Soule says. “It’s about doing the research on that level just to see what connections might be made, but it’s also the feel of it.”

After all, Ben Solo’s bloodline makes him Star Wars royalty. “This is a story about legacy,” he says. “It’s a story about family and expectations and the fact that Ben Solo is part of a vast network of galaxy-changing individuals from his mom and his dad, to his uncle, to his adopted uncle, Lando, to his namesake Ben Kenobi, to his grandfather, Darth Vader…Within one step of him are arguably some of the most important people in the galaxy. So his story is their story and you can’t tell Ben Solo’s story without knowing all the other ones backwards and forwards.”

Interesting, about the writing inspiration... I’m really curious to see how it’ll fit with TROS

Can’t wait to see TROS tomorrow, both because of the movie itself and to start thinking where TROKR may land because, hey... we’re still 3 issues away from the comic to end, 3 months

[fontasticcrablettes]

so because you've stated your fond of Celtic mythology what would be your top favorite creatures or stories?

Ohhh yes!  My main interest is Irish mythology, and the other Celtic nations I’m familiar with peripherally.  

I think my favourite stories are about the Tuatha de Danann.  When they arrived in Ireland, they burned their ships so that they would be unable to retreat.  The defeated the Fomorians and became rulers of Ireland.  They were wise, powerful, great craftsmen, and fierce warriors.  JRR Tolkien heavily based his elves on the Tuatha de Danann.  

They were eventually defeated by the Milesians (the Gaels).  At the end of the war, a truce was declared.  The rulers of the Tuatha de - three brothers who jointly held kingship - offered to split Ireland in half, and the Milesians got first choice on which half they wanted.  So the Milesians decided they wanted the top half, and the Tuatha de Danann were banished to the underground.  They moved their palatial courts under hills and became the faeries we know from folklore.  

This is why when I write about faeries I tend to make them a lot more human than modern pop culture seems to prefer.  It’s like, there’s there surface level depictions of faeries as little tinkerbell winged things.  And then, there’s “here’s what faeries really are!” portraying them as dangerous, alien beings who toy with humans for fun and should never be trusted.  But too often that depiction is presented as the one true “authentic” faerie.  It’s not wrong to depict faeries like this because Irish folklore is certainly full of stories depicting faeries like that, but that’s not the only “true” faerie.

The faeries are the descendants of the Tuatha de Danann.  The Tuatha de are believed to have been the gods of pre-Christian Irish people.  They were symbolized civilization - hardly the chaotic, immoral faeries of modern lore.  In the stories, the members of the Tuatha de Danann act very human.  These stories are very old, pre-dating the arrival of Christianity in the 6th century.  In contrast, the faerie stories of chaotic, immoral tricksters come from around the medieval/Early Modern period and onward.  So you can write about very-human acting faeries and still be accurate to folklore!  It’s just drawing on an older canon.  

As for creatures, I have a soft spot for the Dullahan.  That’s the headless horseman.  I think he’s neat because unlike most faeries who are repelled by iron, he has the special quirk of being repelled by gold.  

I also love the bean nighe, which is Scottish.  That’s the washerwoman at the ford, who weeps as she washes the bloodstained clothes of the those who are soon to die.  A take on the more Irish banshee (which is just an Anglicization of bean sidhe - “faerie woman”)

[cargopantsman]

Nine Long Nights

The fourth

Grímnismál: Man, Odin’s got a lot of names, and knows a lot of places. What’s your favorite name of Odin, and favorite locale he mentions (if you have one)? If you’re feeling extra creative- what name would you give him? (Old Norse not required.)

Grímnir

Okay, I know this looks lazy since this night is dedicated to Grímnismál, but this one has always stuck out to me. The first draw, as an English speaker, was its connotations. Forbidding or uninviting, lacking genuine levity; mirthless; black, depressing or worrying to consider, unrelentingly harsh; merciless or severe. These definitions did color my perceptions of Odinn, and in many ways, the lore hasn't proven me wrong. These also really helped me "identify" further with him beyond the things I mentioned in night one. My own mother worried for, as she put it, my "dark Irish moods."

But what would later catch my attention is the Old Norse meaning of Grímnir- "masked person, hooded one." While we are never fooled when the description of a hooded man appears in a saga, there was a tangent that my mind always went off on with this idea of a masked god. So, here it is.

Masks, as a symbol, have been fascinating to me. They are things we must wear in our day to day lives. The professional mask we wear to work, the mask we wear around family, the mask we wear around friends, the mask we wear around those we are intimate with. All these different personas we must put on and shed off depending on our immediate circumstances. At times these masks, these personas, can feel like cages. 

Masks can be freeing as well though. When one finds themselves in a foreign environment with no one familiar with them, with no immediate responsibilities pressing, they can try on a NEW mask! A mask that may well fly in the face of every other mask they use day-to-day. When no one knows who you are you are free to be anybody.

Physical masks even have a certain sublime impact. Many can feel ill-at-ease around people in masks, in not knowing, who really is under there? Though even if you look at someone's face, is it not still relevant to ask who really is under there? Never mind full masks even (a la Guy Fawkes types), but those kind of partial masks, masquerade masks, where, for the most part, you can always tell who it is under there, but they have a means of suggesting huge secrets with little concealment. They tease at mystery in a way that is more enticing than total obfuscation.

Masks give power to the wearer in that manner.

To such an extent that masks appear in ritual the world over. Masks of demons and gods in wrathful and beatific forms. The participants don these disguises in those sacred spaces and times in order to drive the point that "I am no longer myself, but am something else, something more, something closer to god."

That's the point of a religion, mythology, or rite after all. To, for a moment, shed the ego and open up to divinity. When you're just wearing your own skin, and the ego being a projection of the needs of a physical body, you can't do that very easily. But hide that skin, transform that skin. Become something else outwardly to become something else inwardly, if even only for a time.

This gets to the core of just why he has so many names. He is not limited by his masks, but instead manipulates them, uses them to his own ends, selfishly or for the good of Midgard and Asgard. Odinn, being a god, a divinity, is also disturbingly comfortingly human. He wanders around disguised, getting things done, slipping through barriers by changing his very form. No one will stop Odinn, even if he has to shit on you to gain a lead. He can switch masks with ease, being at one moment the pinnacle of masculinity, paragon of kings and knightly warriors and then in another moment he can perform “un-manly” magics while dancing with witches on some hidden island and then in another moment he is a lonely, poor traveler seeking a night's hospitality.

Even variations of a name have certain power. My mom always called me by my full first name, Daniel, a sort of familiar formality. It was the sound of my mother. My sisters, and by extension their friends, and then my cousins and then eventually my aunts called me by a nickname “DJ.” To the point that if I’m in a family gathering and they try to call me Daniel or Dan I don’t necessarily respond, because I’m listening for “DJ.” And all the friends I’ve made along the way have settled into “Dan.” 

If you’re a very, very, very close friend of distinct Irish decent (or for some reason just Mexican? [I think I just like the cadence]), you may call me “Danny.” Should one not fall into one of those two categories there will be blood.

For a time, well.. I still do, I had an entire community of friends that knew me by an entirely different name than the one I was born with and that my... “naturally acquired” friends and family knew me by. It was a lark in some ways, also a community that I was hesitant to have my “real identity” associated with at first. It wasn’t anything as serious as having a “dead name” and trying to rebuild a “real me.” It was just... having two different versions of me. Though I ended up hanging around in this community and the fake name stuck. It is a surreal thing, and in some ways exciting, to have two different worlds that know two different mes. (Those are stories for another time, if ever.) What was even more fun was when the two worlds started to overlap and select few people were in on it (and watching them try to keep which name was which in what situation was of course amusing).

Masks and gods and names have this wonderful way of playing with duality. They lie to uncover truths. They both point, reference, to things that are transcendent of our mundane experience. They let us explore even as they confine us.

Yes, Odinn is grim. He can be forbidding, gloomy, and dismal. He has a very large concern in this Ragnarok nonsense and certainly that weighs heavily. But even his own anxiety doesn't get in his way because he has a mask for that, a persona that rejects anxiety and worry. As a warrior his concern is for the moment, in winning the battle and the war. As a womanizer lover rampant sex fiend, his concern is pleasure, whether to escape his responsibilities for a time or to further his own goals. As a king to strengthen Valhalla and the einherjar. As a necromancer to eschew the manly notion that magic is women's stuff and to raise witches for more intel.

Sure, many of our day-to-day human adventures don't amount to much compared to the travels and travails of a god, but there is a certain inspiration in trying to consider how the masks we would consider to be trappings could instead be tools.

I’ll admit that I really don’t know enough about Odinn’s associations with locales, so I’m skipping that bit.

I’ll admit that sometimes I call him Raven-Daddy.

[kbrown78]

Top 5 Wednesday

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/118368-top-5-wednesday 

Topic: Favorite Monsters/ Creatures

This was kind of a hard topic for me. There were very few books that I could think of that featured monsters or creatures that stood out to me in some way. So I expanded it beyond books I've read to general mythology and folklore and honestly there is a plethora of very cool creatures. In fact, I had a lot of fun doing research looking for more options, then had a hard time again picking just 5. I don't know why there's just the generic vampire, werewolf, and fae, and even then I would like to see more variation of those creatures than just being brooding, hot, and occasionally reminding you that they aren't human. Anyway, here are at least 5 creatures either from books or from myths that stood out to me in some way, and not all are monstrous.  

The Sidhe from The Call: These beings were on my T5W last week, and there's a reason for that. These beings are ancient, powerful, and malicious, and we only see glimpses of them. I like that there is a distinctly Irish identity to them rather than just being generic fae that's seen quite a bit in YA currently. They are both terrifying and tricky monsters and I would never want to encounter one of them.

2. Aandrisk from The Wayfarers series: This species of aliens is by no means monstrous or evil. Quite the opposite in fact, they come from a very loving and warm culture. They kind of resemble lizards, and family is very important to them. All of the alien species in Becky Chambers Wayfarers series are well done, like the Aeluns, but I just get the best sense of identity from Aandrisks. Also Sissix, one of the characters from The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, is an Aandrisk and she is awesome.

3. Pishacha from The Star Touched Queen: This is a flesh eating demon from Indian folklore that is said to haunt graves. First, shout out to all of Roshani Chokshi's books because they heavily feature creature from Indian mythology. Second I picked this one in particular because it's the only one that is an important side character in any of the stories. Kamala is a rotting horse that follows Maya through part of her story, and you can tell that she is old, dead, and a demon. At the same time she still clearly yearns for purpose and ends up becoming close friends with Maya. So there's a bit of a dual nature inside her that makes her a fun characters.

4. Kitsune: These are actually really interesting. They are depicted as foxes, and are usually tricksters but they have a loving and devoted side to them (that's another thing I would like to see more of, trickster creatures that aren't outright evil). They are intelligent and old, and as more time passes the more tails they gain, with nine tails being the most the can achieve. This is one I would love to see more of because everything about it is just fascinating, it originates from Japan so isn't a more familiar European creature, and I haven't seen it anywhere in fiction (just in a couple of TV shows).

5. Church Grim: Similar to the previous one, the Church Grim has some interesting folklore surrounding it but I've never heard of it before doing this T5W. It's purpose is to protect church's from those that would seek to do it harm, whether human or supernatural. It's origins are sad, having an animal be buried alive under the church it is supposed to protect, but lingers and still protects. That's a dynamic that you could do a lot with. It also comes in many forms, dog being a common one and also the only example I can recall being mentioned in fiction.

Honorable Mention- Shirime, a Japanese Yokai. If you don't know what that is, look it up. I can assure you that this creature will stand out in a rather disturbing way. Also I like anything with wings. 

[childoftimeandmagic]

Bless This Kingdom

So I am so late, but I did manage to squeak this in while frantically studying. I admit that while long it's a little convoluted. I based this Mythologies AU on the triple goddess the Morrigna more commonly known as the Morrigan of Irish legends and the story of Deidre and Naoise which is one of the greatest tragic love stories in Irish love stories. I hope you enjoy it though.Thank you @everythingisklaroline for running this event!

               When the world was young, following the first war between the gods. The great mother goddess Ernmas looked across the destruction of her land and then looked at her three most trusted hand-maidens. More her children than servants she gifted them with incredible powers. They each would control an important part of life.

The eldest woman was tall and beautiful with eyes the color of the tides and hair long and blonde. She was given the powers over kingdoms and the kings who sought to rule them. She was also gifted at strategy and war. It is said that her blessings could make a king and secure his victory in battle. Though the stories of her curse is said to be enough to completely break a king.

The middle woman was slender and equally beautiful with brown locks of hair, her eyes dark and questioning. She was always searching more information to hold onto, was granted powers over the profound knowledge and chaos that holds this world together she was known for sending sudden storms, draughts, and floods across the lands. Her powers protected and aided the people to prosper.

The youngest, a young mirror image of her middle sister, though were the middle sister was always searching, the youngest was content and her eyes conveyed the love she was brimming with. She was given the power over love, home, and the family. With her task done Ernmas bid the three women to go into the world and shape it into a kinder more loving place, as they left Ernmas feeling her wounds taking hold plunged herself into an eternal rest. Her children left behind to protect the world.

               The earth grew and with it man became crueler and hardened towards the idea of gods meddling in their affairs. Soon the world had turned from the gods altogether. They looked towards technology and the craft of making their own destiny. As this happened and the Earth grew old, legend says that these three goddesses decided to hide amongst the mortals, helping were they could. Hindering those who worked for the darkness of the cosmos. After a thousand years the whispers of these three great goddesses has fallen into myth and legend. Though some covens still offer prayers to them it is no longer clear if they are or were ever real people.

               Klaus stared at the book that his brother had handed him, before he threw it onto his desk. Glaring at his older brother he shrugged, “What am I supposed to do with this? Also since when do you believe in higher beings, we are the oldest beings alive, why should we worry about three long dead legends?”

“Well you have tried three times in as many millennia to create your kingdom but something always blocks you. What if it’s this sovereignty goddess?” Elijah said crossing his legs and looking at his brother. “What could it hurt it’s not as if she’ll answer you, but if you pledge your kingdom to her, she might protect it.”

“Why would anyone help ‘the evilest man’ in the world,” Klaus scoffed and rolled his eyes. He didn’t need a goddess to grant him his kingdom. What he needed were for his advisories to perish and leave him in peace. Sighing Elijah stood up and straightened his suit looking at his brother and shrugging. Without waiting to be dismissed Elijah sauntered out pulling his phone from his pocket and texting some minions about jobs to take care of.

Klaus alone with his thoughts looked back down at the text in the book and groaned throwing his head back. He had the powers of two of the strongest supernatural creatures in the world flowing through his veins, his position at the top of the supernatural world should not come down to the whims of some dusty woman from the beginning of time. Looking over the French quarter, he sighed as his gaze turned towards his still blank easel. He had been going through the most frustrating of artists block.

Walking away from the bay windows he laid down on his bed. While sleep wasn’t a necessity in his life, he found his dreams when not marred by the destruction and the evil he’d perpetrated on the world, he dreamed of the singularly most beautiful blonde woman. While he never got a chance to see her face, the shade of her hair and the curve of her body was now etched into his mind.

 Across the ocean and high in a tall mountain Caroline was going over possible battle plans for a civil war. While she had any names for many continents and ancient nations long dead she had found many ways to stay busy in the 12 millennia that she’d traipsed around the world. When her cell phone rang Caroline rolled her eyes. Katherine was never one to call for idle chit chat, and with their powers often she could just pop up anywhere in the world she wanted. Picking up her cell Caroline swiped the unlock button to answer her half-sisters phone.

“Yes Kat?” she stuck a pin into the best most advantageous spot for battle.

“Someone stole our book,” Kats voiced sounded frazzled and as someone who was now working for the global archives, she had a lot of books.

“That isn’t anywhere near specific enough for me to help you, if I see one of your books I’ll—” she never got to finish her statement.

“Listen to me, I said OUR book, you dunce, the one that explains our origins and the powers we hold,” Katherine had written it once while drunk and it was oddly truthful for a goddess who while known for being an information as well as a chaos goddess.

“Are you telling me that the book that you promised was destroyed forever wasn’t?” her tone suddenly no longer exasperated but furious.

“Care there was never ever going to be a moment that I destroyed a book,” Kat responded sounded oddly insulted.

“Kat, it has our summoning spell in it, at least tell me you didn’t give it to Elena for protection?!” While they both loved their youngest half-sister, Elena was notorious for losing things. She’d once lost an entire civilization in the Indian Ocean because she’d had gotten distracted somewhere else in the world.

“I mean no I didn’t do that, and of course it does, it’s a book about the three of us, each of our summoning spells and prayers for blessing are important, we are goddesses after all,” Kat replied as though anything less was preposterous. Rubbing her forehead, she took a few deep breaths. Caroline was the eldest and she knew that after all this time Katherine was never going to change so she just had to deal.

“Well where was it last? You have to have some idea, you have access to every major library and archive in the world,” hopefully it was in one of those places.

“I thought that it was in my private home in the bayou, but it’s not there. Though the mortal policewoman did mention a robbery,” Kat mused the sound of rustling paper coming through her receiver.

“Speaking of stolen things, have you given any thought to lifting that annoying curse placed on the hybrid?” Katherine asked pausing in whatever she was doing. Caroline groaned. It wasn’t that she was keeping it because she hated the creature, it was just a particularly hard curse to unravel and she had other things to do.

Every couple thousand years, he started building a kingdom and she was required by the curse invoked in her name, to destroy it. His foster father had gone to one of her last true vestiges in the north of Ireland for a curse that would keep Niklaus from ever ruling as the most powerful king the world had ever known.

Katherine and Elena, who each had a sense of prophecy had tried to warn Mikael from this goal, but his hatred of the hybrid had been too great. He’d tried to kill both of her sisters that night, and she’d been rather shocked at the way her siblings had fought to keep a curse from being set. She hadn’t been happy to give a mad man’s curse any power, but the laws of the universe bound her to obey the rules and since it was enacted correctly she had no choice.

“Kat, it’s not that simple,” she said groaning and summoned a glass of wine from her favorite winery.

“Yes, but since the caster is dead, you are technically allowed to lift the curse. Just give him your blessing to negate the curse,” Katherine said before she blinked into existence across Caroline’s wartable, a triumphant smile on her face. Caroline groaned before hanging up her phone and summoning a second glass.

“He’s not really a man that I want to give my blessing towards though,” she said groaning though granting a King her blessing would be nicer than pushing presidents this way or that. The world of rulers had grown boring and the threat of nuclear war had limited her chance of helping soldiers in battle or generals in strategy.

“True, but you haven’t blessed any ruler mortal or supernatural in two thousand years,” Kat said staring at her big sister. Caroline could hear the unsaid comment about her long dead sex life. Katherine sipped her wine before clearing her throat. “I found the book.”

“Did you put it somewhere safe?” sipping her wine she glowered at her sister and looked at her neglected battle plans. She had gotten a jump start on the way she was going to destroy his third try at building a kingdom.

“Um actually I didn’t pick it up, I figured that it would be an interesting turning point for the cosmos,” Katherine looked far to gleeful which was a terrifying look on the goddess of mischief.

“What did you do?” Caroline sat up straight the familiar tugging of a summoning coming over her.

“With the book or what did ‘Lena do three thousand years ago?” The book is in the hands of that very same Hybrid, as for the other thing, well that would ruin our fun. Have fun I bet they’re going to summon you any moment now,” Kat giggling as her sister’s form started to fade. Caroline cursed at her sister, as she felt her vision tunneling as she was forcefully pulled into a new plane of existence. She wished she’d been wearing something other than a thick sweater and jeans with combat boots.

 Klaus was glowering at his older brother as he and his family watched a powerful witch started to cast the spell written in the book. While the hybrid was convinced that this was an absolutely bollocks his siblings were correct in that either this goddess of sovereignty and war existed, or they had wasted a Friday night. Currently though as the spell was drawing to a close, he was leaning towards the waste of time. When the witch looked from the book to her spell she looked confused, it should have worked. Yet as the hands on the clock ticked on by, and no one appeared in the carefully laid circle the Original six around her started to get testy.

“You must have messed it up,” Rebekah sneered at the woman who looked perplexed. “This is what we get for using one of Kol’s witchlings.”

“I don’t understand it, this spell is highly detailed, far more than an author or hack would put into it,” the witch flipped back and forth in the pages of the book looking at the spell.

Sighing Klaus raised his hand and watched as his youngest brother grinned before ripping the woman’s head from her head. Rising from the chair in the corner he glared at his siblings, “I’m going to my art room, leave me in peace for the night.”

 While the spell had worked, the lack of an enticement within the circle meant that if she went towards the general location she could avoid being trapped in a stupid circle. Currently she was walking around a messy and disaster of an art room. The house that these beings lived in was massive and she’d landed in a bed room with sparse decorations. She’d hastily checked her appearance since she never knew which form would show up. Sighing that she looked exactly as she had when she had been enjoying the comforts of her own home.

She’d wondered quietly around the house-mansion, invisible to the people around her, she took in the people who were known as the most powerful beings on earth. Oh, how the world was funny in forgetting the ones who had given this world it’s majestic nature or created the myths that flowed through their stories. Caroline wasn’t petty, but she took great pleasure in causing a bit of mayhem around the building before slipping into a room at the end of a long hall. That was how she’d found herself in this disaster of an art room.

The pieces were beautiful and some were a bit abstract for her tastes, except the meaning of the pieces were not lost on her. A few pieces were hidden from view by drapes and she silently moved the white coverings to look at the back of a woman, her ear-tips, and the back of her facing the audience. Something was familiar about the woman to her. All the paintings were different styles of the same woman. Stepping back, she revealed herself to the empty room and continued to look around.

“My, aren’t you brave? Most would never break into my private studio,” his voice low and Caroline spun around as she pulled her sweaters hood from her head.

“Well you did summon me, I figured I’d explore before making myself known. Learn about the idiots who are fools enough to summon a goddess,” she said her mouth drying as she stared into the eyes of the world’s greatest predators. For a mass murderer only six thousand or so years younger than herself.

“You? You’re the sovereignty goddess?” he asked eyebrow raised disbelieving that this blonde woman who looked more like a goddess of spring, he had a moment of déjà vu as her gold locks billowed down to her waist. That hair was familiar somehow.

               Caroline made a show of looking herself over and touching her face as though confused. Then pulling out her phone she checked her lipstick before slipping it back into her back pocket. “Why yes, yes, I am,” she said rolling her eyes before walking closer to him though she kept a healthy distance from him. Not because he could kill her, but because bloodstains were impossible to get out of wool.

               “You can’t be though your-your, not,” he was trying to come up with a way of saying she was so non-threatening and kind looking. Not at all how he expected a goddess of war and kings to look. Though if he was honest he didn’t understand why it was a female in the first place. Caroline for her credit just looked bored and frustrated.

               “One of the three Morrígna? The goddess of war and kings, the protector of soldiers, the blesser of Kings and war? I can’t be that goddess? Well I am so if you didn’t want to speak with me I’ll be leaving,” she said arms crossed as she looked at the flummoxed hybrid before her.

               “No, I do, well my brothers and sisters believe that I should,” he said stiffly not used to being treated as an inconvenience not as a threat. It through him off his game. As he stared at her the notion that he’d seen her grew stronger.

               “Why? Your people have no version of myself, you Vikings.” she said raising an eyebrow at the hybrid, “why not call upon one of your own gods to bless your kingdom or the war you plan on waging here and around the world?” She stepped even closer her hand reaching out slowly as her fingertips traced along his jaw. “Why call on me a goddess long shoved to the side, how do you believe me to help you?”

               “You gave your blessings to some of the greatest kings in the history of the world, I want to take me place on that list. It would be nice to have a bonafide goddess bless my reign,” he said the energy flickering off her fingertips bathed him in a warm feeling of peace for a moment.

               “I can’t bless someone cursed though, it would only bring you back to neutral and since I would have then blessed you already, I could not lend you anymore,” she said raising an eyebrow at the man in front of him. There was a sense of righteousness in his eyes, as though the wars and terror he’d raged for three millennia was justified. That concerned her.

               “Cursed? But I broke it two thousand years ago, I’ve been a full-fledged hybrid since the 1500s,” he growled and pushed her hand away. Suddenly she found herself flush against his abs, and the cold wall behind her. As she raised her other eyebrow at his actions she noticed a recognition in his eyes. “You! You’ve been haunting my dreams, why haunt me if you could just show yourself?! Why curse me to never see your face.”

               Caroline for her credit was completely thrown by this notion that, he knew her. That not only did he know her, but he’d been dreaming about her. Anger and confusion exploded from her essence sending the hybrid tumbling head over heels into the opposite walls. Flinging her hand up she trapped him against the wall with little effort. Standing in his art room she glared at him as she whipped her phone from her purse. After a moment of furious typing she was engaged in a three-way phone call with her siblings.

               “YOU INTERFERING LITTLE FUCKING SHITS,” except she didn’t yell. The force and the way the building shook around them made Klaus’ eyes widen, he wasn’t expecting such soft-spoken words to carry such heavy weight to them. She was powerful and from the way she was holding him to the wall without so much as a second glance impressed him even more. Suddenly though two twins appeared in his art room. Great two more strange women in his home. Elijah was going to have a fucking field day.

               “Caroline calm down, you had to see him in person at some point and we both know that you recognize the soul buried under the hybrid, the soul that calls to yours across the cosmos,” Elena said stepping closer to her older sister eyes wide and her hands out to show she meant no harm though

               “Seriously Care you need to lighten up,” Kat said flicking her hair over her shoulder and checking her nails, a sudden gust of wind blew through the room from seemingly no source and pushed the pressure on his chest away from him. Klaus felt his feet hit the floor.

               “Girls you are going to explain to me and Niklaus just how you fucking tied our souls to each other,” she said her tone barely above a whisper, and her normally clear blue eyes were suddenly a nonreflective black. Her hands clenched as she glared the other three people in the room. “Why should I not blow you both to fucking kingdom come and scatter the pieces over running water?”

“Because he’s Naoise you daft bint, the bloke which was promised to you back when the world was new and you still masquerading as the young daughter of King Feidhlim in the early days of Ulster before our mother perished,” Elena said softly looking at her older sister and shook her head. “I see the greatest love stories that have happened, will happen and are currently happening. Katherine sees the all that is and all that was, that is the reason we’ve fought his foster father three thousand years ago at your last true vestige of power.”                Klaus was confused, because as the blonde had told him earlier he was descended from Vikings, he had no interest in the stories or myths of Ireland. “Who was Naoise? What does he have to do with me?” he asked walking closer to the three women who all broke their conversation to stare at him.

“Naoise I would recognize,” Caroline argued as she glared at her sisters though the demon of War with whom she shared her control and powers of battle with faded back under her skin. “Soulmates cannot survive on this plane without interac--” she broke off looking at her sisters, “you mean to tell me my curse prevented us from connecting sooner?”

When Elena and Katherine nodded the scream that was released from Caroline broke every window and brought all in the quarter and New Orleans to their knees the anguish and the pain unleashed in that scream spanned 13 millennia that Caroline had carried around with her. Staring at the reincarnation of her beloved, her soul breaking into shattered pieces, she disappeared. Elena and Katherine waited a few moments before standing up and turning to the shell-shocked hybrid who was touching at the blood dripping from his ears. “What the bloody fuck is going on?”

“Calm your temperamental pants Klaus, those dreams you were having were from us. We couldn’t completely circumvent the curse placed on you by your foster father, but we could do a little,” they said in unison and then giggled. “Caroline’s scream was her soul breaking and when her soul broke all curses cast in her name were canceled,” Katherine said her eyes swirling into a metallic bronze swirling and changing. Shooting a look of concern to her little sister Elena nodded stepping forward she shoved Klaus backwards.

As he stumbled back the surroundings of his art room vanished and the study of a warrior appeared around him complete with a war table. There in the middle of the room was the blonde goddess her shoulders shaking and her eyes glowing black. If Niklaus was honest he had never seen anything more beautiful and full of power. The darkness mixed with the bright light of an inner strength he’d never seen in anyone else was disconcerting. “Excuse me love, are you going to go all Phoenix on my ass?”

Suddenly the weight of a million warriors he couldn’t see were on him and his wolf didn’t like the threat though suddenly his wolf was anxiously clawing at his skin to move closer to the war goddess who was now very threatening. “What the fuck does a self-reincarnating bird have to do with this situation?” her voice leeching coldness into the air around him

Klaus moved slowly around the wartable, steering clear of the weapons on the wall which were humming with energy. As he stepped in front of the goddess he held out his hand. “Caroline if we are soulmates then you need to talk to me, what does that mean for me,” he asked reaching out to take her hand within his own.

“It means that every time I intervened in your desire to build a kingdom, I intervened in our meeting and the happiness we could have been experienced.” Her eyes were slowly bleeding back to blue though the energy in the room still hummed loudly.

“What if the curse allowed me to become so frustrated I demanded you come to my home, what if this is when we were supposed to meet?” he asked wiping a stray tear from her face. “What if now we have till the end of the world to experience the happiness that the world has to offer us?”

“Naoise and I were cursed. I was cursed because I didn’t belong in a human body, my meddling in the life of a baby girl caused a fracture of my people and the loss of my soulmate,” she sniffled and then taking a deep breath, she pulled him into a deep kiss. Lights exploded behind Klaus’ eyes his mind filling with the memories of another life, a blonde woman the mirror image of Caroline, and the tragedy that followed their lives.

When Klaus came to he was laying in a strange bed in a strange room. Then the entirety of the last days’ events came flooding through his mind. Holding his head, he groaned.

“Just breathe I heard that the first few mornings after remembering a life can be painful.” Caroline’s voice came from the corner in a large window box seat overlooking the sea below her home. Klaus turned and offered her a small smile.

“Luv, why are you all the way over there? I can hardly relearn everything about you from across the room,” his eyes were soft and his tone clear.

“We’re different people than we were in that life, you were a noble knight as Naoise. Now you’re the almighty Hybrid. I don’t know this version of you,” she said looking up from the cuppa in her hands.

“Well love, I want to know everything about you. Your hopes, your dreams, what you love in your tea and how you take your coffee, what makes you tick and I want to share all those things with you and more,” he said walking over to him and pulling her from the box seat, setting her cuppa on the table nearby. Leaning down he placed a soft kiss to her lips and when she leaned into him he deepened the embrace walking them backwards towards the bed.

They could forge a kingdom another day, today they were blessed.

[violinsandmasquerades-blog]

Cat Eyes - Update

So, I finally got a chance to talk with Cat Eyes about her glasses. She was out near the cafeteria selling them, like she was the first week, so I just kinda came up to her table. She seemed a bit surprised that somebody approached her, I’m guessing students tend to give her a wide berth. Anyways, I gave her an eraser shaped like a burger in exchange for some information-- I’m having a lot of fun with all these practice deals! According to her, she would have “given me advice free of charge,” but I think its a good plan to get as much experience as I can. 

Back on subject, though. She told me that if we were going to do it with deals, she’d give me answers to two questions in return for the eraser, in precise language (so no obfuscation or cryptic-ness) and going into depth. Here’s what I learned:

Question One: I know that “Them”, “The Fair Folk”, and “The Gentry” all refer to the same beings. I also know that They are not human. What are They?

Answer: If you’re familiar with folklore at all, you’ll probably recognize Them from all kids of lore, particularly Irish and Celtic. When we say “Fair Folk”, we generally mean (she leaned in and spoke very softly, as if afraid that something might overhear us) “faeries”. I didn’t mean to startle you, it’s just that the Gentry prefer not to be called that. 

I looked at her disbelievingly. “Faeries?”

“Come on. That has to ring a bell. And I’m not talking about Tinkerbell or happy little people with pixie wings, either. I’m talking real, mythologically accurate Fair Folk. The kind that people leave offering out for, in case they take a liking to your child and try to steal it away. The kind that will make people dance until their feet are bleeding.” She blinked. “Next question.”

At this point, I was just more confused than I was in the beginning. Yes, what she said made logical sense- it fits in with all the warnings and precautions people have been sending all of us, especially the stuff about iron, but faeries? 

Question two didn’t do much to help.

Question two: How do I get my eye back?

Answer: You don’t. You’ve already experienced how cruel They can be- if you try to make another deal, there’s no telling what will happen. You could lose your memories, your other eye, even your autonomy. Think about it this way- you know wha happened with Paintedface, and she’s one of the kinder ones. Yes, you could potentially get it back by dealing with Them. But if you’re smart, you’ll just let sleeping dogs lie.

I gave her the eraser when it became clear she wasn’t going to say any more. She took it, and didn’t thank me (another point in favor of faeries. But there has to be another, more logical explanation. I mean, ghosts? I’ll believe that. Cryptids? Sure. But faeries? Those are just children’s stories.), and I didn’t thank her either. I also asked her if her glasses had any prescription, but she said they were just for fashion and for Sight--I assume she meant the kind of sight Paintedface gave me, not normal sight, so I didn’t press any further. Plus, I ran out of cool erasers.

Look, when I was a kid, I was obsessed with the Fae. I used to make-believe with my friend that we had the Sight, and we would have these ridiculously long and involved LARPing sessions on the playground of our school. I read every book there was to read, I stayed up all night writing stories. Hell, I used to leave out little bowls filled with sugar and berries for the fae. But...that was all just a little kid’s imagination. I know that faeries aren’t real! Even seeing myself type out those words is bizarre, because that should be so obvious! I won’t lie and say that I’ve grown out of my obsession with faeries and changelings, because I love folklore and a good adventure, but I KNOW they aren’t real!!!

So why am I finding myself wondering if they might be real after all?

-Egg

[cerastes]

Everybody* Loves Baldur

We are going to take a DETOUR from Arthurian mythos and Robin “Psychopath In The” Hood stories to explore the bizarre and extravagant lands of Old Norse mythos. Now, I know I say this about lots of different mythos, but, boy oh boy, Norse mythos, wild stuff, you’ll see. Today, we’ll talk about the supposed owner of a gate a lot of people who like classic Western RPGs are familiar with: Baldur.

Now, before even getting into Old Norse mythos, you need to understand something: No one is fully sure what Old Norse mythos is. A lot of scholars are not sure what the hell some characters are supposed to even be, but at least, unlike Irish mythos, we have mostly accurate ways to pronounce their names, so at least we can refer to them by name properly while we wonder what the fuck is going on instead of being stuck at “Dfk... Dufil... Dukfil... THAT DUDE went and asked Medb something”. But the thing is, Norse mythos is mostly preserved in its general gist, since a lot of the writings dealing with the itty gritty details are often damaged so there’s lotsa personal conjecture. 

BUT TODAY YOU MUSTN’T WORRY ABOUT ANY OF THAT BECAUSE BALDUR’S STORY IS ONE OF THEM WELL PRESERVED ONES, HAHA, PSYCHE, I BET I HAD YER KNICKERS IN A TWISTER. Aaalright, so, Baldur, Baldur’s the god of Light, or maybe Love, possibly Peace, no one is sure because he is never explicitly mentioned as being a “god of this thing”, but it’s mostly assumed he is the God of Light because of something I’ll mention later, and the thing with Baldur is that EVERYONE loves him. Baldur’s super hot and super nice, and he knows it, but he isn’t stuck up about it, he’s honestly the ideal person, Norse people back then would often beg for Baldur’s blessings on their newborn babies so they would be hot and cool like him. Practically everyone likes Baldur. Hell, it gets to such a point that, in another story not entirely relevant to today’s, the giantess Skadi, who is the first recorded person in history and lore to have a raging foot fetish, saw these GORGEOUS toes and immediately assumed “THOSE GOTTA BE BALDUR’S, ONLY BALDUR CAN HAVE FEET THIS GOD DAMN BEAUTIFUL, I AM GONNA SUCK THOSE TOES” and asked for marriage immediately, except, the feet weren’t Baldur’s, they were Njord’s (another god), and Skadi was like “aw fuck” and they got married because Njord happened to be a macrophile and liked his women big, but as with all marriages shotgunned into place by fetishes and a lack of contact, they ended up divorcing. BUT THAT is another story (and a good one, Skadi’s a fun lady). The point is, Baldur is so widely god damn loved that shit like this apparently happened a couple of times. You know you are a Pussy Destroyer when someone gets Schrodinger’s Married because it could possibly be you.

So Baldur was basically living the life, being nice, hot, and beloved, when one day, he starts having bad dreams. In these dreams, Baldur dies. Now, this is the part where you say “uh ok”, and this is the part where I explain “DREAMS WERE ALWAYS PROPHETIC IN NORSE MYTHOS” and now you say “oh”. So yeah, Baldur was going to die. Which made zero sense, because he is a god, and thus, biologically immortal (as in, [Shirou voice] only dies if he’s killed, won’t die of old age), so if he was going to die, it meant that someone was plotting to kill him. So Baldur goes to his daddy, Odin, and he’s crying and holding onto his blanket so Odin gets worried, as any father does, and asks “SON, DID YOU GET A BOO BOO, WHAT IS WRONG”, and Baldur explains he’s been dreaming he’s gonna die, and Frigg (his mother, Odin’s wife, the goddess also known as Frea, not to be confused with Freya) is also really sad because she’s also been dreaming that Baldur’s gonna kick the bucket, and in Norse mythos, when TWO whole people have the same dream, that’s basically something that WILL happen. Also, it makes no sense, because everybody loves Baldur, so who the fuck would want him dead? You know what else makes no sense? That Odin seems to forget his piece of shit son Loki exists. WAU.

So, shit, alright, fuck, we gotta deal with this, pronto, and Powermom is here to help. Frigg gets on her soccer mom van and drives at full speed across the Norse world and makes everything promise that they will not harm nor kill Baldur, ever. Notice I said everyTHING and not everyONE. That’s right, fellas, Frigging Frigg talked to absolutely everything in the world and made them promise to not kill Baldur, which was actually pretty easy, because everyone was like “yeah sure man we love Baldur, why would we harm him in the first place, we just want his autograph and his babies”, because if you are hot and nice, the world is yours. So now the whole world promised to not harm Baldur under any circumstance. The whole world, except the mistletoe, because the mistletoe was too young to make promises, so Frigg didn’t make it swear anything aND YOU NO DOUBT KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING. It’s like when I tell you “So SIegfried is invulnerable EXCEPT for a leaf shaped spot on his back” or “Achilles is impervious to all damage EXCEPT in his tendon”, old literature was kinda UNCOUTH AND HEAVY on the foreshadowing, as reading mythology will often tell you.

So Baldur is now literally impervious to all forms of damage, because the world promised not to harm him. So what do you do when you are undamageable? Why, you get shit thrown at you for kicks and giggles! The god damn gods, with Baldur also into it, straight developed this hobby of having B-Boy stand in the middle of the hall while everyone threw spears and arrows and axes and rockets and chairs at him just for a laugh and watch as they all missed or failed to injury him in the slightest because, hey, promises are promises. This is the part where I tell you that Humans Have Always Been Humans, even gods, because if we have the opportunity to do something incredibly stupid like lugging javelins at a dude just to see what happens if we know it won’t hurt him, you damn right know we will. So they gods are getting shitfaced and rowdy with this whole Put The Spear On Baldur game they made up, when Loki, using his Robbie Rotten powers to disguise into an old lady, approaches Fregg, who was having a laugh watching at literally everyone throw sharp shit at her invincible son.

“HEY FREGG, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS”

“Oh, you know, the world promised not to harm Baldur, see, so now we are just throwing shit at him, it’s ok”

“Everything promised not to harm him?”

“Well, yeah, everything except the mistletoe, because it’s too young to make promises, but it’ll be alright”

“YES INDEED VERY VERY ALRIGHT”

So Loki fucks off and goes to find a mistletoe, naturally. And this one isn’t for kissing, no sir, because Loki somehow sharpens the mistletoe and makes it into a mistlefoe, and fashions a god damn spear out of the mistlefoe because Fuck You He’s Loki And He Can Do That. Now, we all know a good trickster doesn’t get his own hands dirty, so he’s going around with his mistlefoe spear, looking for someone to Do The Deed, when he finds Hod (also known as Hodur), the blind twin brother of Baldur, crying in a corner. 

“Sup B, why you crying”

“Well, everyone is having fun throwing miscellaneous war paraphernalia at my bro and they won’t let me in ‘cause I’m blind as a bat and they are afraid I might hit someone else”

“How Unreasonable Of Them To Not Let The Blind Dude Throw Killthings! I have just the thing for you! I will lend you my spear, so go have a swing at B-Boy”

“SU-WEET”

So Hod, armed with the Mistlefoe Spear, takes a running start and throws that sucker with a smile on his face, rolls a natural 20, and deals the Criticalest of fucking Hits on Baldur, landing the spear SQUARE on his heart. Why were they even AFRAID of this dude missing, the guy was clearly a marksman. Except, this was the mistletoe, so it pierced Baldur’s gorgeous, well oiled pectorals easily, stabbed his heart, and killed him dead. Oops.

Odin was like “??????” and was SO PISSED that he went, had mega sex with the giantess Rindr, gave birth to Vali as soon as they were done, and Vali grew into adulthood after a single day and then killed Hod. Do you ever get SO ANGRY that you go have sex with a giantess just to spawn a kid that immediately becomes a warrior JUST to kill a dude that pissed you off? Odin, you could’ve just HIT HIM yourself, what the fuck.

Well, anyways, so everyone was pretty sad because Cool Guy Had Bad Day and died. Messengers everywhere we doling out the news, women wept, men cried, it was a bad day. It was such a bad day that Hel, ruler of, uh, Hell, was like “aw shucks that kinda sucks?”, and as much as she liked the guy, Hel had a job to do as the rule of the underworld, but she decided to make an exception this one time, but only if the world earned it. Hel grabbed her megaphone and yelled “ALRIGHT KIDS, so I know you are all very sad Baldur’s dead and you want him back, so I am going to make a ONE TIME EXCEPTION, I will let him out of the underworld and revive, only, and ONLY, if everyone in the world cries and weeps for him”.

And everyone was like pffff no biggie, we love that dude, let’s CRY, so they did. Hel’s doing the checklist, like some sort of twisted Santa Klaus, checking who’s crying, and the list is almost full, but then she burrows her brow and drops the list. “Well, I guess Baldur is not coming back to life, that one girl didn’t cry” and everyone was like “WHAT WHO”

So Hel points at the giantess Thokk, whose name literally means “thanks”, ironically enough, and says “she ain’t crying, deal’s off” and she closes the Underworld, presumably to fangirl out to Baldur who lived there now. So everyone’s naturally like “THOKK WHAT THE FUCK” but then Freddy from Scooby Doo is like “Wait, there’s something fishy about this” and removes her face and, What Do You Know, It Was Loki In Disguise. He went and ruined EVERYTHING for EVERYONE again. And I don’t simply mean “he made sure someone everyone loved died and stayed dead”, I mean “Loki got Baldur killed and kickstarted the Ragnarok” because Baldur’s death robbed the world of light, hence why he’s assumed to be the God of Light.

So uh

Good job buddy.

Also, Loki literally had nothing to gain from this. Ragnarok’s also a really bad deal for him. He just... Did it. Because.

So the real message of the Story of Baldur is that one very dedicated asshole can and will ruin things for everyone and everything if left to his own devices.