#be it with cultures it borrows from or the people it depicts.

[mariacallous]

Over the past decade, China has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in its international media network. The Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, and the China Daily web portal produce material in multiple languages and use multiple social-media accounts to amplify it. This huge investment produces plenty of positive coverage of China and benign depictions of the authoritarian world more broadly. Nevertheless, Beijing is also aware that news marked “made in China” doesn’t have anything like the influence that local people, using local media, would have if they were uttering the same messages.

That, in the regime’s thinking, is the ultimate form of propaganda: Get the natives to say it for you. Train them, persuade them, pay them—it doesn’t matter; whatever their motives, they’ll be more convincing. Chinese leaders call this tactic “borrowing boats to reach the sea.”

When a handful of employees at RT, the Russian state television network formerly known as Russia Today, allegedly offered to provide lucrative payments to the talking heads of Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based far-right influencer team, borrowing boats to reach the sea was exactly what they had in mind. According to a federal indictment released last week, RT employees spent nearly $10 million over the course of a year—money “laundered through a network of foreign shell entities,” including companies in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, and Hungary—with the aim of supporting Tenet Media’s work and shaping the messages in its videos.

The indictment makes clear that the influencers—propagandists, in fact—must have had a pretty good idea where the money was coming from. They were told that their benefactor was “Eduard Grigoriann,” a vaguely Euro-Armenian “investor.” They tried to Google him and found nothing; they asked for information and were shown a résumé that included a photograph of a man gazing through the window of a private jet. Sometimes, the messages from Grigoriann’s team were time-stamped in a way that indicated they were written in Moscow. Sometimes the alleged employees of Grigoriann’s alleged company misspelled Grigoriann’s name. Unsurprisingly, in their private conversations, the Tenet Media team occasionally referred to its mysterious backers as “the Russians.”

But the real question is not whether the talking heads of Tenet Media—the founders, Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan, who were the main interlocutors with the Russians, but also Tim Pool, Lauren Southern, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson—had guessed the true identity of their “investor.” Nor does it matter whether they knew who was really paying them to make videos that backed up absurd pro-Moscow narratives (that a terrorist attack at a Moscow shopping mall, loudly claimed by the Islamic State, was really carried out by Ukrainians, for example). More important is whether the audience knew, and I think we can safely say that it did not. And now that Tenet Media fans do know who funds their favorite influencers, it’s entirely possible that they won’t care.

This is because the messages formed part of a larger stream of authoritarian ideas that are now ubiquitous on the far right, and that make coherent sense as a package. They denounce U.S. institutions as broken, irreparable: If Donald Trump doesn’t win, it’s because the election is rigged. They imply American society is degenerate: White people are discriminated against in America. They suggest immigrants are part of a coordinated invasion, designed to destroy what remains of the culture: Illegal immigrants are eating household pets, a trope featured during this week’s presidential debate. For the Russians, the amplification of this narrative matters more than specific arguments about Ukraine. As the indictment delicately explains, many of the Russian-sponsored videos produced by Tenet Media were more relevant to American politics than to the Ukraine war: “While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, the subject matter and content of the videos are often consistent with the Government of Russia’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions.”

But these themes are also consistent with the Trump campaign’s interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions. People who have come to distrust the basic institutions of American democracy, who feel aggrieved and rejected, who believe that immigrants are invaders who have been deliberately sent to replace them—these are not people who will necessarily be bothered that their favorite YouTubers, according to prosecutors, were being sponsored by a violent, lawless foreign dictator who repeatedly threatens the U.S. and its allies with nuclear armageddon. On the contrary, many of them now despise their own country so much that they might be pleased to hear there are foreigners who, like the ex-president, want to burn it all down. If you truly hate modern America—its diversity, its immense energy, its raucous debate—then you won’t mind hearing it denounced by other people who hate it and wish it ill. On X earlier this year, Chen referred to the U.S. as a “tyranny,” for example, a phrase that could easily have been produced by one of the Russian propagandists who regularly decry the U.S. on the evening news.

These pundits and their audience are not manipulated by Russian, Chinese, and other autocrats who sometimes fill their social-media feeds. The relationship goes the other way around; Russian, Chinese, and other influence operations are designed to spread the views of Americans who actively and enthusiastically support the autocratic narrative. You may have laughed at Trump’s rant on Tuesday night: “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.” But that language is meant to reach an audience already primed to believe that Kamala Harris, as Trump himself said, is “destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn’t have a chance of success. Not only success. We’ll end up being Venezuela on steroids.”

Plenty of other people are trying to reach that audience too. Indeed, the Grigoriann scheme was not the only one revealed in the past few days. In a separate case that has received less attention, the FBI last week filed an affidavit in a Pennsylvania courthouse supporting the seizure of 32 internet domains. The document describes another team of Russian operatives who have engaged in typosquatting—setting up fake news websites whose URLs resemble real ones. The affidavit mentions, for example, washingtonpost.pm, washingtonpost.ltd, fox-news.in, fox-news.top, and forward.pw, but we know there are others. This same propaganda group, known to European investigators as Doppelganger, has also set up similar sites in multiple European languages. Typosquatters do not necessarily seek to drive people to the fake sites. Instead, the fake URLs they provide make posts on Facebook, X, and other social media appear credible. When someone is quickly scrolling, they might not check whether a sensational headline purporting to be from The Washington Post is in fact linked to washingtonpost.pm, the fake site, as opposed to washingtonpost.com, the real one.

But this deception, too, would not work without people who are prepared to believe it. Just as the Grigoriann scam assumed the existence of pundits and viewers who don’t really care who is paying for the videos that make them angry, typosquatting—like all information laundering—assumes the existence of a credulous audience that is already willing to accept outrageous headlines and not ask too many questions. Again, although Russian teams seek to cultivate, influence, and amplify this audience—especially in Pennsylvania, apparently, because in Moscow, they know which swing states matter too—the Russians didn’t create it. Rather, it was created by Trump and the pundits who support him, and merely amplified by foreigners who want our democracy to fail.

These influencers and audiences are cynical, even nihilistic. They have deep distrust in American institutions, especially those connected to elections. We talk a lot about how authoritarianism might arrive in America someday, but in this sense, it’s already here: The United States has a very large population of people who look for, absorb, and believe anti-American messages wherever they are found, whether on the real Fox News or the fake fox-news.in. Trump was speaking directly to them on Tuesday. What happens next is up to other Americans, the ones who don’t believe that their country is cratering into chaos and don’t want a leader who will burn it all down. In the meantime, there are plenty of boats available to borrow for Russians who want to reach the sea.

[fiovske]

ugh avatar 2 takes an unnecessary joy in sadistic cruelty 👎

[nkjemisin]

Hello NK Jemisin! I'm a huge fan of yours, and I wanted to thank you for writing all of the books you've written, and doing all that you do. You're really awesome and you are doing important work! :) I had a long question, if you have time to answer! What's your commentary on creating fantasy cultures, using real ones as inspiration? You've done this before in your stories, and I wanted to know if you had any guidance on doing it well. I'm writing my first novel right now (fantasy!) and am dealing with a surprising amount of guilt regarding using real cultures as a basis for my fake ones. On one hand, I want to create a really unique fantasy world, not the bog-standard European stuff. It's not only more interesting to me, but I also admittedly want to use my story to help introduce people to concepts that might be helpful in the real world, help readers understand what these real people go through and perhaps inspire change. On the OTHER hand, I don't know if it's 'my place' to do so (I'm Black btw, but I'm not just writing about Black-coded fantasy characters). And I'm worried about representing people in a harmful way, even if it's by accident. I'm even hung up about names! Should I use names from real languages related to the cultures I'm inspired by, or should I just make them up to emphasize that, while yes these people are clearly inspired by real cultures, they are ultimately *their own* thing. I'm really conflicted on this and am hoping you can offer some feedback and/or commentary. Sorry for the long ask. Either way, have a great day and I look forward to whatever work you do next!

If I can rephrase what you're saying here, it sounds like you're concerned about cultural appropriation -- specifically, which cultures you get to "borrow from" and "remix," how much remixing you can do before you've done damage, how to depict people from cultural backgrounds other than your own, etc.

If that's what you're asking, then there are whole schools of thought on how to "appropriate appropriately." A lot of thinking on this has evolved in the past few years, for good and for ill; Own Voices, for example. (The short version: the Own Voices hashtag movement started as a grassroots attempt to get marginalized voices telling the stories of their own cultures, because there's been a nasty trend of only white/Western/Anglophone/etc. authors publishing books about those cultures. The problem? Some publishers and readers started acting as if marginalized writers weren't allowed to do anything but stories in their own cultures -- a restriction, instead of an inclusion/correction. Worse, publishers, etc started using it as a marketing shorthand, in ways that were just... not good. They made it weird, basically.) But I'm still fond of the approach that's in Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. It's centered on ethnicity/race, but a lot of its approach can be extrapolated to culture. There's too much good stuff in this book to summarize it easily, but you should read it instead of a summary anyway -- it's short.

I don't see the point of guilt, when it comes to something like this. Guilt is what you feel when you've done something wrong, and admiring another culture enough to want to tell a story featuring it isn't wrong. However, there are things you need to do -- research, conversations, considerations of power dynamics -- to reduce the harm you might end up doing by telling that story as an outsider. And note that no matter what you do, though, you might still end up doing harm. (Even people writing about their own culture can end up doing that.) If you fuck up, apologize, figure out what went wrong, and try to do better next time. That's really all you can do.

And then write whatever the hell you want. There's a persistent pressure on Black writers to only cover certain subjects, certain settings; nah. We get to have range, too. You've just got to put in the work to do it well.

Good luck.

[gemsofgreece]

do you know the connection between poppies and ancient greece? all over athens and on acropolis there was alot of poppies- then they were depicted in objects at the national archeological museum aswell (crystal staff with poppy ontop). just curious!

Poppies had a lot of significance for the ancient peoples of the East Mediterranean and the Near East, such as the Sumerians, the Egyptians and the Greeks.

Poppies and poppy seeds had considerable presence in early Greek culture, namely the Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations. A lot of this significance survived to the Classical period and up to the Greco-Roman era. The poppy seeds were used in rituals, worship and medication for their psychoactive effects.

Demeter consumed poppy seeds to sleep and forget the abduction of Persephone. Apollo and Asclepius used them for medicinal purposes. Aphrodite was sometimes imagined with poppies, apparently for its seeds generating sensations of pleasure. Hypnos, Nyx and Morpheus, deities associated with sleep, night and dreams respectively, were also often imagined with poppies in their hands. The drug morphine, produced from the poppy seed, takes its name from Morpheus. The name opium, for the basic drug produced by the poppy's seeds, also comes from the Koine Greek name for it όπιον (ópion), and so does even Afyon Karahishar, the Turkish city in which one third of the global cultivation of poppy takes place. Extra fan fact: there was a double lexical borrowing and Greek opion through some modifications apparently towards ophion -> arabic afyun -> turkish afyon -> then returned back to post-Byzantine / old Modern Greek as αφιόνι (afióni). So, in Greek opium is both όπιο(ν) - ópio(n) and αφιόνι (afióni). Even though the old word όπιο is far more common, there is an interesting verb derived from αφιόνι, αφιονίζομαι (afionízome) which means "I go mad, delirious like I am under the influence of opium". Usually used when someone gets angry to the point of not making sense. You didn't ask for etymology and language lesson lol but my point was to show that evidently, even lingusitically, we see that poppies and the psychoactive, hypnotic and medicinal properties of its seeds were widely used in the Ancient Greek and then Greco-Roman world all the way until and beyond the interactions with the Arabs and the Turks, as the Greek words associated to the products of the poppy have travelled both west and east.

Carving of Demeter holding poppy seeds and wheat, Corinth, Greece photographed by Tiggrx on flickr.

Poppy field in Paros island. From DiscoverGreece.

PS 1: Since I made an etymology analysis for opium, the ancient Greek word for the poppy was μήκων (mekon) but the modern Greek one derives from the Latin papaver instead and is παπαρούνα (paparúna).

PS 2: The red poppy and the poppy that makes the drugs are not the same species but obviously all these exist in Greece so-

[room-surprise]

EXTERNAL FICTIONAL INFLUENCES IN DUNGEON MESHI

We know that Ryoko Kui spent considerable time at the beginning of working on Dungeon Meshi doing research and planning the series. Kui constantly references real world culture, history and mythology, but she also occasionally references other fictional works and fantasy genre staples, as well as real-world philosophy.

FICTIONAL INFLUENCES: FANTASY, RPGS AND VIDEO GAMES

There are three major fictional influences on Dungeon Meshi that Kui cites: the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, and the Wizardry video game series.

All of these works borrow heavily from the real world themselves (and both D&D and Wizardry borrow from Tolkien), so in many cases similarities between them and Dungeon Meshi are simply the result of Kui going back to the same ancient source material as her predecessors. Other times the ideas Kui is influenced by are things that have become so entrenched in pop culture they are ubiquitous in the fantasy genre, so though the idea may technically originate in Tolkien, D&D, or Wizardry, Kui may not be purposefully borrowing from them.

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) was an English writer and philologist, a scholar of linguistics. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien’s work has had such a huge impact on culture that most fantasy fiction created after him borrows either intentionally or unintentionally from his work. Kui stated in a Q&A in Korea that Lord of the Rings is one of her favorite fantasy stories.

Elements in Dungeon Meshi that originate in Tolkein are: Hobbits (halflings) and how they are depicted, the idea that elves and dwarves are two distinct races in conflict with each other as well as some of their identifying traits, and the fictional metal, mithril.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game originally created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson in 1974. The game was derived from miniature wargames, and was heavily influenced by the work of Tolkien and other Western fantasy authors such as Jack Vance. D&D was the beginning of modern role-playing games, and had a huge impact on video games and fantasy fiction in all media.

Because of this, obviously D&D came up a lot when Kui was researching the history of fantasy, so she read the rule books, replay novels, and studied some other games inspired by D&D.

The biggest single contributions D&D has made to pop culture is the concept of a dungeon as a place where characters in a story go to explore, fight enemies, find treasure, and gain power or glory, and that a group of people with different specialized skills will join each other as a “party” in order to traverse a dungeon.

The important thing to note here is that “dungeon” only exists in the title of Dungeon Meshi in Japanese, and using the word “dungeon” in the main text of the story is a change made in translation. In Japanese, the characters only refer to the dungeons as labyrinths, which is a word with a specific historic and mythological meaning, completely different from what fantasy fiction dungeons have come to mean.

So although Kui takes advantage of the word “dungeon,” and the unique connotations it’s grown due to D&D, it’s usage is completely external to the world and culture of Dungeon Meshi, it is a title for readers outside of the Dungeon Meshi world, not the characters within it.

Elements in Dungeon Meshi that originate in D&D are: the word and concept of “dungeon”, some monster concepts, such as different colored dragons having different magical/elemental abilities, and having eastern archetypes such as samurai, ninja and martial artists existing alongside western archetypes like knights and wizards. Kui mentions “dark elves”, which are something that D&D invented, however Kui states that they don’t exist in Dungeon Meshi, and that “dark elf” is just a slur non-elves use for elves they think are bad.

WIZARDRY

The computer role-playing game named Wizardry was released in 1981. Heavily influenced by Dungeons & Dragons, Wizardry in turn influenced many other games, and fantasy fiction in general. The series is particularly popular in Japan, to the point where many Wizardry games were made for the Japanese market exclusively, and many modern Japanese fantasy works can directly trace their roots to Wizardry.

Kui watched her father play the original Wizardry when she was a child, and she cites Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge specifically as a major source of inspiration for Dungeon Meshi.

Elements in Dungeon Meshi that originate in Wizardry are: kobolds being dog-men (I’ll provide a more detailed explanation in Chapter 8), the idea of returning to the dungeon to revive someone who had died on a previous journey, and the difficulty and danger of teleportation magic.

Although many of the concepts that inspired Kui are not unique to Wizardry, Wizardry is most likely where Kui first encountered them. For example, there is a plotline in Wizardry VI that has some elements in common with Dungeon Meshi: a lost/abandoned kingdom run by immortals driven insane by their immortality, including a wizard who is controlling the kingdom with the infinite knowledge he gained from the Cosmic Forge pen. The Cosmic Forge pen is also similar to the demon in Dungeon Meshi, since both can grant wishes, and they both have a secret price for using them.

However, I think the most interesting things Wizardry inspired in Dungeon Meshi are less concrete, for example the game mechanics involved in teleportation, or returning to the dungeon to revive a dead party member.

The first Wizardry game was infamous for its extreme difficulty. In the event of their entire party being killed, gameplay could not be resumed; however, players could create a new party, start the game over, and use their new party to recover the bodies and items of their previous one, and revive their old characters if they wished. Doing this was extremely tedious and difficult, but it was also a common part of gameplay, so it’s easy to imagine a young Kui watching her father do it at least once, and that it left a strong impression on her.

Another thing that would have left a strong impression is the way teleportation worked in the original Wizardry. The game lacked an automap feature, which forced players to manually draw a map for every level on graph paper while they played, this was so essential that the publishers included graph paper in the game box. In order to successfully teleport, the player had to enter both the level and target coordinates from their self-drawn map, and so it was easy to get killed by accidentally teleporting into a trap or into a wall.

This sort of careful observation and planning seems like something Kui is fascinated by, as she often shows this kind of attention to detail in Dungeon Meshi, and she repeatedly addresses the risk of teleportation magic, and the value of making maps and carefully documenting your surroundings and experiences in the dungeon.

(This is an excerpt from my essay on cultural and linguistic references in Dungeon Meshi)

[prisoner-000]

Let's talk Apples, Bauhaus, Ads & Kazui Mukuhara's MVs!

I've seen a lot of people talk about art history when it comes to both of Kazui's MVs, but usually, the analysis tends to focus on more surface-level aspects. I'm a bit of an art history nerd, so I thought - hey, why not, let's look into it some more when it comes to these two videos! Particularly I am focusing on 20th century art.

Everyone and their mom has already deciphered the appearance of Magritte's The Son of Man in half (Cat confirms the similarity by making a direct reference to the painting), but I'm gonna be quickly repeating it anyways without simply going off the Wikipedia summary.

The Son of Man is, like many of Magritte's works, about not giving the viewer all the details to understand the work. His photorealistic style contrasts with his phantastical subjects to create a dream-like atmosphere and to invite the viewer to step into this dream world of surrealism he's crafted. "half" borrows the surface theme of not being able to see everything about the man who is depicted, his face being obscured, almost as though he is wearing a mask.

But that's not all! The apple from this painting has been borrowed to be a symbol in Kazui's story as a whole.

The apple as a symbol of sin, desire and the downfall of man has been used in essentially all mediums of art since... the invention of abrahamic religions and the writing of the story of the garden of Eden? The Tanach/Old Testament (and, of course, the New Testament) and tales within it have inspired a lot of art symbolism (e.g. crosses, apples...) so it's not a surprise this pops up in modern anime music videos. Hell, the apple was even used as shorthand in Snow White. If you'd like to look more into apple symbolism and its origins, I'd suggest looking into this article. Especially interesting for us and theory-crafters, of course, is the 'desire' aspect of the apple symbolism.

So, "half" and "Cat" reference The Son of Man. But one connection to a painting isn't enough to warrant a theme of art history, is it? You're right! Let's talk about "Cat"'s visual style!

Many people have already pointed out Cat's print, advertisement-like style with its CMYK color scheme and torn paper at the edges. But it seems a lot of people in the fandom don't really know what this style in particular is called. The combination of these geometric shapes with print colors, slick design and the Helvetica font has its roots in Bauhaus design — it's based on the modern idea of the "Bauhaus" style.

Students of the Bauhaus school were mainly involved in designing furniture, architecture, and print design. Bauhaus' design philosophy was 'form follows function' — Walter Gropius' (the founder of Bauhaus) goal with his school was to streamline design as a whole and make mass production of designs possible. This led to a rather strict design process - students were encouraged to follow the school's motto and not add 'unnecessary' elements to their designs. This is why, more than 100 years later, designs developed in the Bauhaus school are still being used for print media and furniture.

Why is this important? What I want you to focus on in that aspect of "Cat"'s design is the inherent strictness that came with this philosophy of design. Bauhaus designs followed purpose rather than simply existing for art's sake (even originally being created with more political ideas, that being socialism, in mind).

In contrast to this, let's focus on what Bauhaus' groundwork design was used for in the late 20th century.

You might recognize the advertisement style presentation from more recent Pop Art works such as Roy Lichtenstein's big canvas works or, more famously, some of Andy Warhol's print works, which were also made by utilizing similar techniques in color and print. Particularly, you might have also drawn connections to Andy Warhol's Marylin Monroe prints.

Pop Art is (in)famously one of the most modern-culture-heavy art periods. Pop Art is all about consumerism and ads. And, in turn, consumerism and ads are about society, which is about upholding norms, which is Sometimes Also about gender and masculinity. So, we close this weird circle and we're all the way back to that suffocating masculinity theme.

The only thing in Cat that breaks away from the print ad influence is the ending section, where the background is a harsh red. That's on purpose. It's not really supposed to be part of the Pop Art world everyone that isn't Kazui seems to be living in.

I personally believe the progression from half's theater, Magritte-based symbolism to Cat's loud and modern Bauhaus/Pop Art style to be purposeful. Half gives you the story of a sad man trapped in a tragedy, Cat gives you the story of a liar who tries to embrace the societal standards that are suffocating him. While Magritte's work leads you into a world of dreams, Pop Art makes you face reality in the most obnoxious and colorful way possible.

And, really, isn't that just what Kazui is all about? Dreaming? Closing his eyes to escape the print ad reality he lives in? Waking up to see something he has never faced before, dark red, color splotches that don't fit into this ideal CMYK world, splattered on the sidewalk below?

[smol-and-scared]

G/t Analysis: Gods Among Mice

Before I begin, I want to say two things:

This post is not meant to disparage anyone or question their value as people, all of this is exploration of linguistics, its cultural implications and potential narratives that could arise from them.

It is not a statement of fact or a claim I’m making.

Also… Let’s put aside the “Step on me Goddess” bullshit that has unfortunately plagued much of the g/t community’s DMs (It deserves to be called out, but not what this is about)

I will be using ‘God’ as a gender-neutral term here.

The God-like power of Size💪

Throughout history, Gods have often been depicted as being physically massive. This makes sense, as physical power is the most easily understood form of power. Likewise, a creature's size is one of the most universally recognized sign of one's physical power. So it's a good way to instantly depict the strength of a God. And these depictions have had a weird memetic side effect: The idea that 'massive size' makes a creature 'God-like'.

This does have a bit of psychological merit. If mountain-sized Giants actually existed, (without our arch-nemesis: 🔥the fucking square-cube law🔥) their full size and strength would be so hard for humans to understand that their power is basically arbitrary. At which point it becomes indistinguishable from Godhood. Also, our primitive lizard-brains evolved to fear much larger creatures. And fearing your gods is a major part of many religions.

Because of this there are dozens upon dozens of G/t fics, comics, etc; where the larger party is compared to or (metaphorically) referred to as, a God. In the case of actual giants and characters growing larger, this makes complete sense and is usually well-suited to the narrative.

But in my eternal quest for more angst™ I’ve recently started to question it’s use in Human/tiny stories. It feels kinda… lazy? I mean, not in the context of the story, many fantastic fics do it. But it just feels like it was copied over from the giant fics and never fully questioned or explored.

Okay, but what if: 🤏 smol.

Now obviously, all of this depends on the exact size difference, scenario and world-building of the story. But I still think it applies to a huge amount of fics who play up the Human/tiny size difference as ‘God-like’.

I personally think If a tiny views their resident human as a God-like figure (with all of the fear and awe that entails) …then they are optimistically delusional.

Because Gods are, in most cultures, special.

I have yet to see a fic where the Tiny is struck by the simple and harrowing realization that the humans they view as unstoppable, God-like entities are... in fact, painfully average.

It’s one thing to live in terror of the massive entity that could kill you in an instant. It’s an entirely further step to realize that there are dozens, if not hundreds of them between you and the nearest human-free environment.

And what if the Tiny realizes that their human isn’t even average? Imagine their horror when they realize that the person who is so big and powerful that they can barely even grasp it… is some 4’ 3” (~130cm) little stick? And the average human could snap ‘their human’ in half like a stale fuckin’ Cheeto.

Objectively, the Tiny knew this. They knew that the human they live with was small and weak compared to the others. But they never had an opportunity to actually understand it. And nothing gets that message across like seeing the 'God' of their tiny little world casually picked up and playfully carried on someone’s shoulder.

And It still gets worse...

Depending on the setting, the Tiny may not know or feel connected to any kind of civilization (A borrower colony, a scavenger camp, etc). This is especially true if Tinies are rare and/or oppressed.

And if that Tiny were to realize how average their 'God-like' human was? It would break them in the most pitiful way.

Because that ‘God’ isn’t a god. They’re average. They have a job. They have hobbies and friends. Things that this Tiny could never even dream of having. And that’s normal. That’s expected. They get to live, instead of just survive. Because they’re a person and that’s what people do.

And if their ‘God’ is just a person-

“Then…what does that make me?”

In conclusion:

I believe a character referring to someone as a God/Goddess implies that the speaker is a ‘person’ and they are looking at something greater. It’s ‘Normal’ looking up at ‘Godhood'.

But given the right story, plus a healthy amount of fear and awe. I think many Tinies would start to understand how small they are. And that they’ve been looking up at ‘Normal’ the whole time.

[aihoshiino]

different anon! but i 100% upvote other anon's comment of you being the professor of hoshino-aiology 😎👍 your posts about her give me a newfound appreciation for her and imo you should be the one writing 15 year lie frfr 🤧👏✨️

and if you haven't written anything abt it, could you share your thoughts abt the spica ai chapter? i liked ai and saitou in it but i was shocked at how intense the b-komachi bullying was :0 poor ai 😢

THANK YOU ANON…….. god can you imagine what this manga would be like if i had been given that kind of creative control. you're going to read my 15 volume hoshino ai backstory flashback and you're going to love every single chapter of it!!!

When it comes to Spica, I have pretty mixed feelings on that first chapter. For transparency's sake, I broadly dislike the novel overall and I think it takes away from the relationships it depicts more than it adds. Like I mentioned in a previous ask, my issue with Spica (and its depiction of OnK's world and characters) is its tendency to flatten and simplify many of the interesting interpersonal wrinkles that characterize these central dynamics in the main story. This is much more evident in the GRSR chapters (as outlined in that post) but you can absolutely see it in Ai's chapter as well.

POST-WRITING CLAIRE EDIT: So while this post initially started as me broadly skimming some of the issues I had with chapter 1, it has ballooned into a much, MUCH longer essay about what it is about Spica that I disliked and why, broadly, I think it fails to work both as a standalone piece and as an addition to OnK as a canon. I'm pretty negative about the book in this post and very critical of the writing so if you really liked Spica and it would bum you out to see me take it apart, feel free to skip this post.

On the surface, Ai and Saitou's dynamic is pretty true to the main story and I will admit that I do enjoy their rapport in this chapter and just that we got a chapter focusing on this relationship full stop. Ai and Saitou's relationship is one I've always been particularly soft for and getting a whole chapter that was basically just exploring its early days was really nice. But it's also a very rose tinted view of that relationship in a way I think does it a bit of a disservice. I discussed this in my OnK anime rewatch but Spica's take on Saitou (and thus on his relationship with Ai) frames him as a wholly positive and supportive figure whose desires for money and success in the entertainment industry are explicitly, textually said to be secondary and unimportant to his uncomplicated kind desire to support them as they succeed. There's almost this sense of "wow, isn't it so noble and cool that saitou is kindly allowing these tweenage girls to work themselves ragged making money for his company!!!" that's a bit icky to read.

This is in line with the bizarre ways Spica portrays idol culture, in particular the 'oshi'/fan dynamic. This is another thing I've discussed before, so I'll borrow my previous words on the topic:

The Japanese text of [chapter 137] takes this dehumanization a step further: Rather than the wasei-eigo term アイドル (aidoru), when calling [Ai] an idol, Gotanda uses the word 偶像 (guzou) - an idol by its original definition. It goes beyond just reducing her to an animal - it’s objectification in the very literal sense. Ai is an idol, a ceremonial object of worship, an inanimate vessel for the dirty desires of the people around her. [...] Spica [...] depicts the moment that Ai starts down this road, committing herself to being an idol who will love and support everyone, even people who hate and scorn her. This is framed by the novel as being something of a breakthrough for her and being liberating for it but I came out of it feeling deeply unsettled in a way I don’t think the novel wanted me to be. [...] Spica depicts the moment that Ai goes from アイドル to 偶像 without seeming to realise that’s what it’s doing and thus does so in a way that is not just uncritical but wholly celebratory. In a lot of ways, this makes sense - Spica, broadly speaking, is about the “oshi” part of Oshi no Ko: the emotional fulfillment of not just receiving support but in the act of giving support yourself, in cheering someone on and seeing them succeed. Spica depicts these sorts of relationships in a straightforwardly and uncritically positive light, even in cases of parasocial relationships between fans and celebrities.

There was a lot on that topic that I left out just because that chapter review was already getting so fucking long and unhinged but Spica's entirely uncritical and celebratory view of idol culture in general always leaves me feeling deeply uncomfortable every time I engage with the text. There's a degree to which this can be excused, because Spica takes place in the POV of characters who have drunk the industry kool-aid and thus would not necessarily interpret some of this stuff with the same critical lens as a reader. A charitable interpretation of the material is that, like Viewpoint B and 45510, the story is choosing to refrain from commenting on these troubling elements for the purposes of allowing the reader to have their own take on it.

This would be nice… except it's just not how Spica handles emotional beats at all!

When talking about Spica in the past I have jokingly referred to it as being written like 'the emotional equivalent of the Superdictionary' and by that I mean that it has absolutely no restraint or subtlety when it wants you to Feel Something. When Spica has an emotional beat, it hammers it in until any organically resulting resonance with the material has been reduced to a fine paste. When it has Thoughts and Opinions about a topic, it will explain them to the reader in excruciating detail so there is no risk of the reader taking away anything that wasn't intended by the author.

My point is that there is every indication that Spica's straightforwardly celebratory portrayal of idol culture and the way fans respond to idols is something intended to be taken at face value with no further interrogation. Spica is, by and large, entirely uninterested in acknowledging the ugly underbelly of exploitation, dehumanization and misogyny that drives idol culture and idol fandom.

I think the best way to illustrate this is to look at the scene near the end of the chapter where Ai finally sits and reads her fan letters. The first two are genuinely warm and sweet but the third always jumps out at me in a way I don't think was intended by the author;

“Hello, Ai-chan. I'm a devoted listener to your streams. B-Komachi's songs and talk shows have honestly become my sanctuary. I'm currently stuck working to the bone at a terrible company. They hardly pay me anything, and every day I just want to die. But what keeps me going is knowing I have your streams to look forward to every week. I’m not even kidding. Ai-chan, you're my reason to live!"

The story does not for a second pause to linger on this letter but I want you to stop and really take it in. While we know nothing about this letter's author outside of what's written here, but given that they have a job they can be presumed to be an adult. In addition, the final line of the letter in Japanese is 『アイちゃんは俺の生きる希望！』, using the masculine first person pronoun 俺 (ore), implicitly gendering the writer as a man.

An adult man writes to Ai to traumadump on her uninvited about his suicidal ideation and telling her in no uncertain terms that she is the sole, singular reason he is alive. Ai is a twelve year old girl.

Spica frames this as an entirely good, wholesome and affirming moment for her. It's one of many similar moments where Spica's celebration of idol culture clashes so strongly with the main story's that trying to make them tonally cohere is almost impossible. In fact, mild tangent, but I was working with the Spica TL team on chapter 1 right around the time chapter 137 dropped, and reading the ending of this chapter back to back with 137's tearing down of Ai's exploitation at the hands of the idol industry was some real injury-worse-than-whiplash inducing shit.

To be clear, I don't need Oshi no Ko to have a huge UM ACKSHULLY THIS IS WHY THIS IS BAD!!!! digression every time characters have positive interactions with the concept of idols. It is fundamentally dishonest and lacking in nuance to portray idolhood as something entirely and unrelentingly negative or to act like idols hate every single second they spend as idols. Sarina and Gorou's POV chapters do a very good job of highlighting what I talked about earlier - Spica's ruminations on the 'oshi' part of Oshi no Ko and how a relationship of support can be emotionally fulfilling both for the person being supported and the person unreservedly providing it. But that's purely from a fan perspective and I think it would be really interesting to Spica to take the opportunity afforded to it by being in Ai's POV to properly interrogate what Ai enjoys about being an idol.

But the way it chooses to do so just feels atonal both with Ai's arc and relationship to idolhood as portrayed in the main story and ways the manga has talked about 'oshi' culture in chapters published before and after Spica's release. It clashes with Oshi no Ko in ways I find difficult to satisfyingly reconcile.

This sense of clashing with and contradicting Oshi no Ko is an issue Spica has more broadly, in big and small ways. Some of this is just small, incidental details but other issues are larger and added all together, it results in a sense that Spica was not written by a person fully keyed into Oshi no Ko's world and characters. Like, just off the top of my head, here's some things that stuck out to me just from chapter 1:

Ai notes that she was separated from her mother a long time prior to the story's timeframe but given the ages give for her in 131 and here in Spica, it cannot be more than three years max since she was removed from Ayumi's care.

B-Komachi's formation and Ai's joining the group are both said to have happened 'three months ago' as of chapter 1's timeframe and thus to have happened more or less at the same time. This contradicts the Akasaka written material that consistently frames Ai as being one of the senior members, yes, but as having joined the group after Nino, Takamine and Watanabe.

The portrayal of Ai's bullying by the other B-Komachi members in no way matches Nino's account of it in 45510. This isn't even in a way you can put to Nino being an unreliable narrator. The details are so different that the only way to reconcile them is to assume these are two separate instances of bullying and that Nino just. Didn't mention the first time it happened for no reason.

On the subject of the bullies, the two girls targeting Ai are implied by their physical descriptions to be Takamine and Mei. While we don't really know anything about Mei yet, the vicious and unapologetic hostility Takamine displays clashes with her 'tough love' roughness that we are shown in the main story. In addition, this contradicts 45510's very explicit statement that Ai's bully was IMMEDIATELY fired from B-Komachi, no questions asked, the instant Saitou knew who she was. There is no indication in Spica that Ai's bullies so much as get a slap on the wrist for their behaviour.

Spica attributes B-Komachi's current success almost entirely to Ai and portrays her as working very hard on set and communicating with every other member of staff almost excessively to the point of annoyance. Not only does this contradict the early manga's portrayal of Ai as being antisocial and uncommunicative on set prior to her being sent to Lala Lie, it also contradicts chapters that were released following Spica that explicitly credit Nino as the key figure for B-Komachi's initial boom of success and states that Ai joined the group after Nino had cemented their popularity.

There are absolutely ways that you can handwave these contradictions and sew up the internal logic but to me, the nature of these contradictions matter to me less than the fact that they exist in the first place. This implies, especially given that some of these are in material written by Akasaka after Spica was published that he and Tanaka were, to some degree, not on the same page about the book's material.

There's some other things scattered about that aren't necessarily direct textual contradictions but nevertheless feel really out of step with OnK's takes on these characters. And like… I have tried to be relatively measured and good faith in my critiques so far but there is a part of chapter one that makes me so just bees buzzing around in my brain flames on the side of my face blood boiling in my veins insane that you must allow me to just uncharitably tear into it.

[Ai:] “Ah, now I get it. Are you buying a gift for your girlfriend, President? You like them young, after all…“ Finally, it clicked. The president, being considerably older than his girlfriend, needed the insights of a girl closer to her age in order to pick out the perfect gift. If that was the case, that explained why Ai had been roped into this. [Ai:] “Well, not that I should be getting into your business or anything, but…President, be careful when you mess with underage girls, okay? Nowadays, you’ll seriously end up in jail.”

I'M SORRY. WHAT THE FUCK AM I READING RIGHT NOW. SHE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This moment actually makes me so angry that it is difficult for me to clearly and calmly articulate what I find objectionable about it. I understand that it sounds very dramatic, but this is the first in a very consistent line of Spica bringing up the idea of adult men engaging in romance and/or sex with underage girls with this blithe, jokey and dismissive tone that entirely undermines everything Oshi no Ko itself says about CSA. The fact that it starts off this trend by putting these words in the mouth of Ai, WHO IS HERSELF A FUCKING CSA VICTIM, and treats the entire exchange as a throwaway joke honestly makes me feel a little bit sick.

This is part of a much broader and more troubling trend in Spica of Hajime Tanaka simply not being able to write young women in a naturalistic and human way. It's difficult for me to express exactly what it is that feels so off other than to say that it's Covered In The Fucking Ooze in a way typical of Men Who Can't Write Women. Ai's bullies in chapter 1 are so cartoonishly and stereotypically catty and mean that they barely feel human and they are written with all the distinct individuality as Thing 1 and Thing 2. The more complicated, two-sided conflict between two flawed people as seen in Ai and Nino's relationship is totally absent here. It's just the most vapid, stereotypical depiction of Teenage Girl Bullying you can imagine.

On top of that, there is a consistency with which Tanaka puts the topic of sex into the mouths and minds of these young women that fees… icky and offputting to me in a way I find difficult to articulate. In general, the voices of these young girls feel off and inauthentic in a way the main series never struggles with. For all I've criticized Oshi no Ko for in the past, something I think Akasaka is consistently and surprisingly good at is writing female characters who feel just as distinctly well realized and fleshed out as his male characters and that he does so in a way that does not rely on completely degendering them - their experiences as women are important to and inform that their characterization but does not entirely rule it. Despite overwhelmingly centering girls as the heart of its narrative, Spica barely feels capable of writing them as people.

All this together gives Spica this really strong sense - to me - of not really fitting in with the spirit of Oshi no Ko as a story. It's not just that the narrative voice is different but that there is an underlying flavour to Spica's takes on this world and its characters that clashes with the original. The cast as a whole just feels off, not blatantly OOC in a way you can directly point to but just enough to feel uncanny and give me a THEY WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT!!!!! moment for almost every single person with a speaking line. It feels, as I put it on the Oshi no Brainrot server, like a thing that exists not because there was a part of the OnK narrative that worked best as a light novel but because somebody, somewhere thought a Oshi no Ko light novel would make some money and decided to have one churned out.

oh my god anon I'm so sorry lmfao you did not ask for this GIGANTIC ODYSSEY OF A POST!! This was just one of those asks that tapped into a topic I had already been having extensive conversations with myself about in my brain (I have a very boring job with a lot of time spent alone lol) and the more I typed, the more of those thoughts spilled out. I think a big part of why I am so compelled (derogatory) by Spica's missteps and mishandling of its material is that there is so much potential here and so many points where the material really comes close to just being flat out good.

A moment in chapter 1 that I think about a lot is Ai thinking about why she hasn't been reading any of her fan letters - because the last letter she got was her mom's lawyer telling her that Ayumi had gone missing after her release from custody, thus confirming for Ai that she had been abandoned to the system by her. Because of her association between those emotions and the act of reading a letter, she simply can't bring herself to open any of her fan letters because of the lingering anxiety.

Not only is this an entirely human and believable traumabrained anxiety kid fear for her to have but it's totally in line with Ai's flaw of avoidance and unwillingness to engage with or confront things that make her anxious or uncomfortable. It's also paid off wonderfully and in spades when she does finally confront that fear and is rewarded for it by an avalanche of love and support from her fans. It's one of the few moments in Ai's chapter where I think Spica really does well in conveying what a person like Ai gets out of being the 'oshi' in the oshi/fan relationship.

But this otherwise great moment is ruined by like… all that shit I said up there lmao. Spica is just laced through with this issue where moments that come so, so close to working and being really good are just marred by other issues in the text around it or trip themselves up in other ways. It's frustrating both because it comes so close to doing fresh and interesting things with the characters and because… I didn't want to dislike Spica! I was so, SO excited for it to come out and so willing to give it the BOTD even as summaries leaked and I was put off by the plot beats. But the more time I give to it in my brain and the more I try to engage with it in good faith, the more I come away frustrated and feeling like my time has been wasted.

[the-owl-house-takes]

If the demons in TOH were replaced by a human ethnicity, their treatment by the show would be considered incredibly racist.

They're not human, of course. They're not real. But they can still reflect the creator's biases, especially since, on paper, they're as much "people" as witches, and aren't supposed to just be enemies or monsters (not that that isn't also often used to slide racism into fantasy stories, by depicting the "others" as a compact, unthinking evil).

Yet, even though demons fill crowd scenes and even give the world its name (DEMON realm not Witch realm), they're never important to the plot. The one demon in the main cast is framed as annoying comic relief, and at the end revealed to be some sort of... Parasite? Such a great and not at all dehumanizing detail to ascribe to a character! The other "important" demon character (Vee) can conveniently shift into human form at will, so she can "pass" as humanoid without issue. King, whose identity is important to the plot, is explicitly revealed to NOT be a demon.

Any other demon who speaks more than one line is just a secondary comedic villain or sidekick (NOT a main villain ofc, because that's an important role that should go to a humanoid).

TOH is considered by fans super diverse™ and inclusive™, but as many have noticed almost the whole crew is white. The way they treat the POC characters feels like an afterthought, with them being overshadowed by white characters all the time, and never getting a chance to show their culture (especially the supposedly Black-Dominican Luz and Camila).

It's like the (white) crew decided, "Let's make this show and let's 'add diversity' to it!", without them actually putting in the effort to have diversity behind the scenes. Just a POC coat of paint, so they can pat themselves in the back for how diverse and progressive they (supposedly) are.

And here we go back to the start. They might have added a few POC characters, but their white bias still shows through the cracks. They just created a new "acceptable" cathegory of fake people that it's ok to dehumanize, as a way to put POCs in the "in group" (but not "too much" as to overshadow the white characters obviously). But it still borrows the same racist tropes that were used to otherize and dehumanize people in media for decades. They don't just disappear because you wrote "demon" over the labels.

In any case, it's telling how the "daring" and "diverse" show that screams from the rooftops that "weirdos have to stick together" will actively push aside any character that doesn't conform to the (humanoid) norm outside of the most inoffensive and watered down features.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I know some people will think this ask is racist because it's comparing POC to demons (I'm a POC myself btw). But. "Demon" is just the word the show uses to otherize the group of people that doesn't fall in line with the accepted "norm" of human likeness.

It has nothing to do with intellect or morality, demons in this context could be called angels or smurfs or elves or whatevs, let's remember they're supposedly "equal" to the witches. It doesn't change the fact that they're just used as a way to add a weird 'n' spooky vibe to the setting but are never, EVER meant to be actual characters, outside of the one that can hide her nature at will.

-

[theredpharaoah]

I need show-watchers to understand that the Strong boys’ parentage was far more ambiguous in their actual lives/unimportant. First of all, legitimacy isn’t private or public opinion, it’s legal. Children born before a marriage are illegitimate. But children born to someone within a marriage are automatically considered to be legitimate, and legally the child of the father. That is, unless the father or father’s father states otherwise. Legally, Rhae’s kids have always been proudly and publicly claimed by House Velaryon as their legitimate children. And so really the discussion ends there. Regardless of who their biological father is, their father in law and history is Laenor. The boys never even knew the Strongs.

Secondly, their parentage was probably far more ambiguous when they were alive. Both Laenor and Rhaenyra had Valyrian features, but they both had parents and grandparents who didn’t. Laenor’s mother, Rhaenys, had black hair like her own mother, Jocelyn(a half-Velaryon btw). We don’t know what Corlys’ mother looked like. Rhaenyra’s maternal grandfather is an Arryn, and both her maternal grandmother and great-grandmother lacked Valyrian features. Valyrian features are understood to be recessive in universe; no one was gonna assume her children were bastards any more than they were going to assume the same of Alyssa Targaryen or Alysanne Targaryen.

But of course, everyone knew Laenor was gay. And this is where the show fucked up: Laenor was not this masc4masc warrior as he’s depicted in the show. While usually what Grand Maester Mellos said would be correct for the period, as homosexuality was more of a behavior as opposed to an identity, queer gender identity still did exist and was common. Laenor was not just someone who had a sexual preference for men, he was gender queer in come capacity - he would’ve had no problem identifying as gay today. He was one of the gworlz. And that doesn’t mean he’s like high fem, but he ascribes to fem culture in a way someone who just likes to sleep with men wouldn’t. He wasn’t functionally bisexual. Because of this, most people would’ve known that Laenor wouldn’t have been able to fulfill his duties - Corlys, Laena, Rhaenys, and Rhaenyra definitely did. And so they wouldn’t have blamed Rhaenyra for having children with Harwin - as it is her duty to produce heirs. The only fear that would’ve arose from this is whether or not her children would be able to be Targaryens; be able to ride dragons. Once it was shown that they could, nobody cared. Even the Greens didn’t really care. Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron only called them the Strong boys to piss them off, they didn’t actually care about their parentage cuz it didn’t matter. Their mother was Rhaenyra and that was all that mattered. They didn’t care until Christon told them that the boys would try and kill them to secure their claim to the throne. And if anyone REALLY had an issue with Velaryon blood not being in the boys, Laena and Rhaenyra dealt with that by betrothing the former’s daughters to the latter’s sons when all parties involved were toddlers. Which is another reason why Vaemond and the other Velaryons being mad had nothing to do with “having a Velaryon” ruling Driftmark. Rhaena and Luke would’ve most likely ruled together. And even if they hadn’t, their child would be just as Velaryon as it would’ve been if Luke had been Laenor’s bio son and married some other woman. They just wanted power for themselves.

Sidebar: considering Valyria borrows heavily from Rome, I’m inclined to believe adoption would’ve been a thing. Adopting a distant relative when you lack your own heirs was extremely common in Rome(Many of the Caesars did this). If Valyria was like this, then I find it hard to believe any of the Valyrian houses would’ve actually saw Luke not being Laenor’s as a big deal. Especially when House Velaryon and Targaryen are as intermixed as they are. Because Luke was Rhaenys’ 3rd cousins going purely off of Rhaenyra. So Jocelyn(half Velaryon) was his 4th cousin and Alyssa(born into House Velaryon) was his 5th cousin. But Alyssa was also his great-great grandmother, as she was the mother of Alysanne and Jaehaerys. I really think the only reason those Velaryon cousins and Vaemond brought it up is because they were power-hungry. The Conquerors were half Velaryon and The Conciliators™️ were half Velaryon. The only kings who weren’t half Velaryon were Aenys, Maegor, and Viserys. And they still all had Velaryon grandmothers. Tbh, Idek why they even bothered being two separate houses at this point. And that’s another reason the Sowing was dumb. There were still a bunch of Velaryons around after Vaemond and Co got killed, they could’ve been put on dragons instead of randoms. Corlys had High Tide built and the Driftwood Throne moved because Driftmark was too crowded. There were too many Velaryons and not enough power to go around - not enough to satisfy their desires at least. Corlys could’ve claimed a dragon. His ass was clearly mobile enough to still do shit so he could’ve claimed Vermithor. You know, since they were just ignoring Rhaena.

[scarlet--wiccan]

would it be cool if marvel gave wanda & pietro (and all other romani characters) romani names?

Yeah, I do think it would be neat if Marvel could revise or update certain parts of Wanda & Pietro's background to be more authentic-- and the same obviously goes for any other Romani characters. I don't personally feel like their names are an egregious issue, like "X'ian" was. I'm more interested in getting concrete information about their vitsas, or more realistic depictions of their living situation, clothing, and stuff like that, which is often bogged down by visual stereotyping.

I don't personally have a solid grasp on how naming practices work in traditional families. That's not my upbringing. My understanding is that in most communities, there are certain names that are more traditional or popular, but most of those names are either borrowed or translated from local European languages. People may also have Romani-languages nicknames and/or given names that are customarily used within the community, and not typically shared with non-Roma.

I could be misunderstanding this, do not take it as fact. I wrote about it more and shared other resources in this post.

At the end of the day, any name is a Romani name if it belongs to a Romani person. It's worth noting that the name Maximoff was borrowed from a real Romani historical figure, and some of the other names in their family, like Django or Jardani, are identifiable ethnic/cultural names as well. I think the issue with 'Wanda' and 'Pietro' is that they don't make any geographical sense, especially post-retcon-- they seem out of place for any Balkan family, Roma or not.

[borom1r]

(In the ask box because tumblr on phone dislikes me and will not show the lil note thing to reply on actual posts for Some Reason) I fuckin loved the Gondor/Rohan cultural influence thoughts if you do dish up more of the Thoughts I am so here for it

WOOFWOOFWOOF you’re enabling me. you’re enabling me!!!!! anyways screenshots from our DC dms bc I’m a lazy gremlin who cannot be bothered to re-type:

So this is like. this gets into a lot of half-formed thoughts abt other aspects of potential Rohirric culture and the overlap with iron-age Norse culture there which ties into the Gondorian overlap with fucking. Christians. WHICH IS ITS OWN CAN OF WORMS. but jts a can of worms were about to open

sorry if this is poorly formatted and rambly I’m sick and I don’t have the time off from work so there’s THAT and this feeds directly into my autistic special interests AND I’m a heathen so it also ties into my own religion :3

but when I was adding to the costuming document I made an offhand note about the fact Éowyn’s fashion most likely aligns more with Gondorian noble fashion than actual Rohirric fashion — bc the signifiers of nobility in iron-age Norse fashion came less from the type of garment but from the layers, dyes, and accessories. Éowyn, however, is dressed in a way which explicitly stands apart from the few common Rohirric women we see. so like.

Gondor as a homogenizing force.

I’m not going to use “colonizing” because Gondor never explicitly COLONIZED Rohan, but it very much has always positioned itself as Rohan’s better, and this holds true to Aragorn’s fucking coronation.

extrapolating from Norse culture, it seems Rohan was sort of the platonic ideal of the Germanic/Anglo-Saxon/Norse “viking.” Very Wagner’s Ring Cycle type of depiction, which gets into this weird romanticization while also depicting the gods especially as petty and self-centered, and denigrating the women. Turning from that, this fictionalized “ideal,” to what we know of the actual culture at that time— we get into a lot of grey areas. Was Rohan a raiding culture? quite possibly, at their start; I think it’s a fair assumption to make, that Rohan had a history of raiding. Which seems to have stopped once they settled in the land gifted to them by Gondor.

now, is raiding… good? oh gods no. absolutely not. but while there was a lot of violence typical of raids, not every expedition ended in raids— or was spent *only* on raiding. Vikings would stop and make camps, would trade, even settle in areas long enough that we have archaeological evidence of Danish jewelry made out of Frankish materials. Much of “viking” culture is built off borrowing; we have mjolnir pendants as modern heathens because these people saw Christian crosses, went “oh, that’s cool, we should have something to signify our faith!” and started forging mjolnirs. They were often produced by the same smiths! Sold in the same areas!

So, so much of this culture was decentralized. There was no set religious doctrine, histories and myths were told orally— hence why Skalds were so important (and likely why Théoden was so willing to take Gríma back despite. Everything). My hearth cult is different from your hearth cult is different from the hearth cults the next village over. Stories change with the times, names are lost and added, our culture shifts with the land and her people. The iron-age Norse peoples had very positive relations with Arab traders, to the point that we have an extremely detailed description of the funeral of (what was very likely) a nobleman documented by Ibn Fadlan; they had silks and glassware because of these trade relationships.

so you’ve got a culture built on adapting and borrowing, on *growing,* which has now 1) settled in one area and does not seem to send forces beyond their borders anymore, despite having a specialized category of “riders” not unlike the specialized category of “vikings” and 2) has a positive but distant relationship with its more powerful and decidedly centralized neighbor (not unlike norsemen with the English/French). aaaaaaaaand then there’s Thengel.

now like I said in DMs the blame very much does NOT rest on Thengel. like yea he kickstarted the process but I think this was very much inevitable. Gondor has written histories, better resources, like not even getting into the blood bullshit they just have a much more stable culture. Even if Christianity hadn’t done. what Christianity does. 😑 Norse peoples were worshipping Jesus alongside Þórr. it was simply a matter of time.

and like I stated above, the idea of Rohirrim as lesser and inherently violent is so pervasive even Faramir who is held up as the paragon of grace and nobility in the books does not BEGIN to question it. you don’t leave an environment where everyone thinks you’re lesser than them BY NATURE thinking “wow that was great, nothing about that needed to change!!” — I don’t blame Thengel in the slightest for going “yeah okay nobody in my line is EVER going to look stupid in front of another Gondorian.”

but at the same time as Westron and Sindarin are brought into the noble households, there doesn’t seem to be any similar push to preserve Rohirric oral traditions. Hell, considering the state of things by the war of the ring and the need for Riders, there’s a non-zero chance Gríma may have been the last “Skald” in Meduseld— which quite honestly explains even Éomer’s hesitance to explicitly harm him.

not to mention ultimately royal culture will bleed out into common culture— and eventually royal/noble culture will be all that survives. we have more place names for Þórr and Týr because they were worshipped more widely by the common folk, but more surviving NARRATIVES of Óðinn because he was worshipped by nobility and their closest warriors. If the noble culture of Rohan has shifted to more closely imitate Gondor, then it’s only a matter of time before all that’s left of actual Rohirric culture is place names and folk beliefs

like, I’m saying this as a heathen who’s doing his best to reconstruct a faith based off of archaeological evidence of my ancestors and one (1) surviving text that could be considered religious. EVERYTHING ELSE that is widely available is CHRISTIAN RETELLINGS. whose accuracy is EXTREMELY DEBATABLE. I don’t even necessarily prescribe to what many people consider one of the KEY myths!!!! and while there was a lot of violence involved in the spread of Christianity, quite clearly it does not need to start or end that way. specifically while the Norse peoples, it started very benignly as an interest in the symbols and holy figures— and turned into “all heathens are stupid dirty bloodthirsty monsters, their faith is cruel and backwards and only we Christians have any moral standing”

(Gondorians becoming more and more like those violent middlemen………)

it’s this very pervasive perspective that even when not backed with outright violence on Gondor’s point, clearly leads to the idea that to receive any sort of respect as Men, the Rohirrim must divest of anything that denotes they ARE Rohirric and live instead by Gondor’s standards— the only way to receive salvation is to follow Christ, et cetera et cetera et cetera. I got proselytized to with a bunch of friends in a fucking Mexican restaurant this shit still happens. she compared Christ to gravity and my faith as ridiculous and idiotic (as idiotic as denying that gravity exists).

and that’s part of why I like. don’t find the Gondorian perspective very compelling? like Boromir specifically is interesting because he explicitly defends Rohan and seems to carry a lot of like. both this openness to other cultures for the most part and this sort of trauma around a very similar pressure to Be A Proper Gondorian Heir, depending on how you want to read him— like this intense need to prove himself and his people as worthy to Aragorn, particularly in the films, is veeeeeeeerryyyyyy interesting to consider. meanwhile Denethor is Denethor and book!Faramir has his whole “taming” thing which I cannot even remotely stand. film!Faramir was thankfully spared the weird bullshit prejudices

it does also kind of inherently get into the question of how much of that attitude is specific to Minas Tirith; Gondor’s fucking massive, what pockets of cultures are surviving in coastal towns and out in the more distant regions? because there will always be bleeding, like I said, but this sort of Christian-adjacent attitude that is absolutely held by Gondorian nobility could very well be just that… a NOBLE attitude. the folk of western Anórien probably had WAY more in common with the neighboring Rohirrim on the Eastfold than ANYONE in Minas Tirith.

anyways, was this coherent? barely. do I care? no. I have a head cold. sources? a lot of the same creators as I cited for that gender in Rohan post that I’ll track down and link if the gods decide to bless me with a functional search bar on this site for ONCE, and Children of Ash and Elm. I also mentioned Wagner. I can’t in good faith recommend reading Wagner.

noble Gondorians sit down and shut up about Rohan challenge

(Gríma ramblings under the cut)

[golvio]

I’ve been digesting the video essay Orientalism & the Gerudo over the past couple of days. The first half of the video is a basic, consolidated summary of arguments I’ve seen people make about SWANA representation and Black representation regarding the Gerudo that also includes more academic sources to try to explain to newcomers or people unfamiliar with the term “Orientalism” where these points came from. I’m hoping this opens up some discussions across the wider fandom.

My only criticism is that, sometimes, the points can meander a bit between each other without clear boundaries between which talking point is which, leading to occasional moments of “Huh? How did we get here?” or “Wait, what about that other point you just made?” However, I think that’s a symptom of there being just so much to talk about regarding the broader umbrella topic that this video is trying to cover that it’s hard to know when/how to fit stuff in. You could make a whole essay about only how Arab men are depicted as aggressively misogynistic threats menacing Arab women to justify modern imperialist invasions of the Middle East by Western powers and how that ties in to the way Nintendo refuses to show Ganon having a more humanized, complex relationship with his own people. Even after a whole hour it feels like we’ve only just scratched the surface.

However, I also don’t think this “meandering” is necessarily negative because it sometimes ended up leading to great points that I hadn’t considered before. For example, I was initially confused about why the essay started focusing on Rauru and the plot of TotK after the halfway point, but it ended up not just being a useful example of how Japan reproduces Western tropes from pop cultural influences for fans who weren’t quite convinced about the essay’s arguments in the first half because they assumed Japan was in a cultural vacuum where racism doesn’t exist, but also gave me a totally new perspective about Rauru’s character beyond my initial Shintoist reading of his role as a divine ancestor that legitimized the royal family’s rule.

Rauru and Mineru’s designs and backstory borrow visual and literary tropes from depictions of indigenous peoples in American media to legitimize him as “indigenous to Hyrule” and therefore an important founding figure in its revised origin myth, but these tropes reproduced without awareness of their original cultural context also serve to “unperson” him as a character within the story. He’s sequestered into a distant past where he can’t really interact with characters in the present, not even truly “owning” the kingdom he founded, which instead passes to the Hylians, who coopted his legacy of unification for their own ends but completely forgot about him. He and his sister are treated more like “resources” for Link/the player to take advantage of to achieve their goals than characters in their own right. And, emotionally, the Zonai siblings are so distanced from the main cast and each other by being treated more like concepts of “nativeness” than people in their own right that their own descendant feels like a stranger visiting an exotic land instead of long-lost family reconnecting with her roots.

Like…it’s a really clever way to introduce two equally complex points that people should keep in mind when examining the Gerudo. First, that you can’t really treat Japan’s depictions as the exact same as Western depictions, because while Japan isn’t “the West,” it has its own complicated history with racism and imperialism born out of the “pan-Asian” nationalism of the early 20th century. At the same time, Japan doesn’t exist in a hermetically sealed cultural vacuum totally isolated from Western influences that makes Japanese creators incapable of learning about cultural nuances regarding racism, despite what fashy weebs personally invested in the myth of Japan being a magical exotic fairyland where “woke” doesn’t exist want you to believe.

I hope this video essay inspires other people to look into this topic further and maybe contribute their own works to the discussion.

[mindutme]

Tlette Tlursday #11

Let’s talk about maps!

Tlette has two and a half words for maps, to refer to two very different kinds. The first kind is a tlalkequ /tɬaɬ.ˈkɛ.qu/, or tlalké /tɬaɬ.ˈke/ for short. The longer word is used in formal Tlette, and the shorter one in informal speech. Their plurals are tlalkeqúy /tɬaɬ.kɛ.ˈquj/ and tlalkéy /tɬaɬ.ˈkej/ respectively. This kind of map is relatively small-scale, used for navigation. The category includes street maps of towns and cities and maps of roads between nearby towns and cities, but not much larger-scale than that. The word comes from the verb kequ /ˈkɛ.qu/, meaning “to guide” or “to lead.” It’s derived as an inanimate agentive noun, like tlahllán, so it literally means “thing that guides.”

Tlalkéy are often very inacurrate in terms of scale and proportion. They’re not attempts to accurately depict the world as it is; instead, they’re navigational tools. They show how roads meet and what landmarks they are, which are the important things one needs when traveling, but will often distort distances and angles as a matter of convenience for the mapmaker and map-reader. In a way they’re a lot like subway maps!

From left to right: tlalkequ, tlalké, tlalkeqúy, tlalkéy, kequ.

To talk about the other kind of map, first I need to talk about the world where Tlette is spoken. I’ve talked a bit about it in some previous posts, but here’s a brief overview: it’s a fantasy world that is completely fixed in space, neither orbiting a sun nor rotating on an axis. It has no moon, so the only celestial objects are the stars, which don’t move in the sky—unless you travel. For every star in the sky, there’s a place on the surface of the world where that star is directly overhead, and for many cultures each star is thought of as a deity that protects that part of the world.

This is true of the Tlette people and their neighbors who speak Mindutme. The associations between places and stars are so strong that the Tlette word for the Mindutme speakers is Kottúllate, derived from name of the brightest star above where those people live. Many other exonyms in Tlette are derived from the names of stars rather than names from the respective languages. Tlette fiction even sometimes describes travelers journeying to far-off lands, referring to made-up places and peoples with names of stars that Tlette speakers are familiar with.

So the other kind of map that Tlette speakers use is called a kıssì /kɨs.ˈsɨ/, plural kısswí /kɨs.ˈswi/. The word comes from a borrowing from Old Mindutme, *kus suu, literally “star paper.” It’s basically a star map with additions, showing (usually with two different colors of ink) major stars and major cities, plus some combination of coastlines, rivers, roads, borders, and such.

kıssì, kısswí

Because kıssì maps are drawn so that the stars on the paper match the stars as they are seen in the sky, the geographical features on them are actually mirrored! If you were to travel using such a map, you would orient it with your destination at the bottom. That way, the stars above you are near the center of the map, and those nearer to the horizon ahead of you are at the bottom, and stars to your left are on the left side of the paper as well. You could also think of holding the map above your head to match up with the stars, in which case the bottom of the map actually is farther ahead. But Tlette speakers are used to mirrored maps, so they don’t usually do that.

The map at the top of the post is a kıssì. It’s more of a sketch, really, and not necessarily final—I’m not sure how much I want to even define the map of this world at all. Don’t look too closely or you’ll see I don’t really know much about how rivers work!

The map is labeled Tan Qelút /ˌtã.qɛ.ˈlut/, “The Known World,” though it’s a fairly small portion of the world. In black are the stars and national borders, drawn very abstractly. Some other maps may show borders in more detail, but they are often defined broadly as paths between major stars, and narrowly by geographical features that line up with those paths for a stretch. The large polygon is Lwé Tlette, and the smaller one to its left is Lwé Kottúllate, where Mindutme is spoken; the large star within that region is Kottú. A few other important stars are also labeled, and in purple are coastlines and rivers.

[variousqueerthings]

finished my second watch of the terror, and it really is very good

crozier, obviously, and this time around i was far more able to pay attention to the ways the white british men were textually defined as something invasive that was messing up the entire ecosystem around them. makes me see tuunbaq as a purifier/the suggestion that outside of this purification tuunbaq is more benevolent, leaving a seal for silna (but still dangerous/something to be feared and treated with very specific rituals)

i also liked that dr goodsir to the very end was conscious of the place they were as something wondrous. most often these kinds of stories set up places outside of traditionally white western habitats as an inherently hostile and barren Other, but between these two points and the depictions of inuit life (disrupted by the incursion and then back to normal once it has ended), the show does attempt to point out that actually this place would be pretty chill (so to speak) if not for the violence brought to it

ultimately all a pretty good way to tell that story, with a similar ethos to ravenous, where cannibalism is also a symbol of colonialist violence, which... yeah. into it as theme

i do think there is another story told entirely from the perspectives of the inuit people there that i cannot help but want to see far more -- undeniably a bleak one too, considering reading about many of them ultimately dying from diseases brought by the seamen, but clearly there were survivors as the story was passed down, so perhaps one that shows first contact with colonialism with the knowledge that despite it all, people have been and are surviving through it

it'd have less of the "mysticality" trap to it too, not unintentionally creating an "other" in the characters via that. im still not sure how i feel about tuunbaq even though the metaphor is pretty clear and does work as such -- it's just to me the horror is already so prevalent without that element and it didn't quite work for me in the sense of confirming that there is an otherness/mysticality to indigenous cultures and places that so-called "civilisation" hasn't touched. personal opinion, im sure a lot of people liked it, and maybe im being a bit harsh

i confess it's not been enough times watching to remember all the leads' faces, but really in the end im mostly all about those two guys who are definitely into each other lending/borrowing books. names? i forgooot again. i'll probably watch it again eventually, i do not have the energy all the big fans of this show do though, so likely i will never remember what most of them are called 😂

(oh jared harris perfect bby boy in all that he appears in)

[animemocha]

Anime's Greatest Chad: The Epic of Gilgamesh (Fate)

Gilgamesh is known as mankind's first hero.

But his story isn’t limited to just the Fate series. In fact, it’s shaped our modern lives more than you could ever imagine. 

If you’re here for a historically accurate depiction of the man who tried to conquer death, don’t leave. I’ve worked really hard to make this as accurate as possible.

And if you’re here for the story of the real anime Gigachad, and how he goes from an arrogant dictator to a benevolent king.

Then grab a drink and some snacks, because this, is the tale of the Hero of Heroes.

Roots of the King

Before we jump into the Epic of Gilgamesh, it’s worth taking a second to understand the roots of this iconic character and his influence on human culture and literature.

Mesopotamia was a region in 3100 BC, now covered by Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. It had its fair share of events, from the reigns of Sumerians and Akkadians to being eventually conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC.

But nestled within this timeline is a certain story that’s so profound, so raw, it's been echoing for millennia.

Now I know what you’re thinking.

"I'm here for anime, not a history lesson."

But the thing is, all evidence points to Gilgamesh actually existing 5000 years ago. And his legend is recorded in mankind’s oldest poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh.

The epic is thought to have been orally transmitted for generations before it was finally written down on clay tablets in the cuneiform script, which was one of the earliest systems of writing.

To put into context how old that is, it makes him almost 3000 years older than Jesus. 

But I wouldn’t take EVERYTHING that follows as being literal. Just know that some of the stuff is actually reported to have happened.

The Hero of Heroes

Gilgamesh is known as the King of all Heroes because every single myth that followed, every story, every legend from every culture and every religion in every country, it all borrows inspiration from mankind’s first hero.

The strongest examples of this are in the Biblical tale of Noah and the Greek myth of Hercules. And his story greatly influences modern literature too, like The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones.

The story of the Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered on 12 clay tablets found among the ruins of the ancient library of Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

These tablets, inscribed with cuneiform script, are dated to around the 7th century BC but are believed to preserve much older stories that were likely first told orally and later written down.

These ancient tablets provide the most comprehensive version of the epic, but parts of the tale also appear on other scattered fragments found at different ancient sites across the Middle East.

There are actually two versions of Gilgamesh in the Fate series and they’re technically different people.

Well, they’re not, but they kind of are. 

Archer Gilgamesh

We’re in the year 2800 B.C., the Age of the Gods, where divine beings and humans walked the Earth together.

Some Gods were just, while others treated their subjects as slaves.

One day, a greater god called Sefar invaded the Earth, killing many of the Gods.

She was eventually defeated, but the damage was already done, and the rule the gods had over the humans had severely weakened.

In order to preserve their rule, the gods needed a keystone, a Wedge of Heaven that connected the rising humans to the fading gods.

That keystone was Gilgamesh.

Born from the Goddess Ninsun and the Human King Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh was two-thirds God, and one-third human, and ruled over humanity with the mission to observe and adjudicate.

The Fortress City

The city Gilgamesh ruled over was called Uruk, situated in present-day Iraq.

Yet, Uruk was far from ordinary.

It stood as a testament to human achievement, its towering walls not just architectural marvels but also echoes of the ambitions of its people.

Conceived under the watchful eye of Gilgamesh, these walls became more than mere defensive structures; they symbolised humanity's victory over nature. This audacious statement reflected Gilgamesh's own beliefs: that he stood above nature itself.

As evidence of its profound legacy, archaeologists pinpoint Uruk as one of humanity's earliest urban epicentres, with roots as deep as 4000 BCE. Its intricate temples, ziggurats, and canal systems all serve as relics of its storied past.

The Tyrannical King

This transcendence over nature, and the very walls that proclaimed it, became the lens through which Gilgamesh viewed himself.

To him, the limitations of divinity and humanity were but mere lines in the sand.

He believed that while no human could rival the gods, the gods themselves could never experience the complexities of human existence.

And since Gilgamesh was both human and God, he perceived himself not just above his subjects, but even the deities that breathed life into him.

His self-awareness was, in many ways, his crowning achievement.

Gilgamesh grew to become a cruel, arrogant, and oppressive tyrant who subjugated his people to forced labour and sexual abuse.

And just to be clear, I’m downplaying that a lot because even I don’t want to talk about some of the disgusting things he is historically reported to have done.

And it makes me wonder how he ever became a Heroic Spirit in the first place.

The Man Made of Clay

Naturally, the gods didn’t want this, but they couldn’t exactly do anything about it because, well, Gilgamesh just wouldn’t submit to them.

So instead, the King of God’s Anu, and the Goddess of Creation Aruru, created a monster out of clay called Enkidu, to punish the arrogant king.

But there was a problem.

You see, Enkidu didn’t have a soul, and so couldn’t make rational decisions.

So the gods sent a divine harlot to sleep with him. (And I’m not even joking.) 

After this, Enkidu takes human form, and his final appearance is very similar to the girl he slept with. And that’s why he has such a feminine form.

(It’s definitely not because having more hot girls leads to more sales)

Noble Phantasm's

Before we dive into what happened between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, let’s talk about Gilgamesh’s powers, or more specifically, Archer Gilgamesh’s powers.

In Fate, heroic spirits have Noble Phantasms, which are special weapons or abilities that embody the legend of that hero. For example, King Arthur’s Noble Phantasm, or rather, Artoria’s Noble Phantasm (Again, because more hot girls = more sales), is Excalibur, the sword of promised victory.

Gilgamesh has a lot of Noble Phantasms, and I mean, A LOT. It would take me a decade to cover them all, but I’ll talk about a few.

Sha Naqba Imuru:

The first is his ability Sha Naqba Imuru, or Clairvoyance, which lets him see into the future and see the truth of anything he looks at.

So in a fight, he knows exactly who his opponent is, what their abilities are, and how best to defeat them. Or if he’s playing chess, then he knows the correct move every time.

This ability is pretty OP but the thing is, Gilgamesh barely uses it.

Why?

Because he’s an arrogant prick.

He believes himself to be so powerful, that he doesn’t even need it most of the time.

And uhm… he’s kinda right...

Especially when you learn about his next Noble Phantasm.

The Gate of Babylon:

During his time as ruler of Uruk, Gilgamesh amassed every single weapon on Earth and stored them all in his treasury.

And I genuinely mean, every single weapon.

And the Gate of Babylon allows him to choose whichever weapon he wants, whenever he wants, wherever he wants. 

But that’s not how Gilgamesh uses it...

Every single weapon is fired out at a speed of Mach 10, and he has so many, that he could go his entire life firing them away without having to use a single one twice.

What makes this ability even more OP, is that these weapons aren’t just ordinary weapons. Every single one of them is a Noble Phantasm in itself. Artoria’s Excalibur, Lancer’s Gae Bolg, Hercules’ Nine Lives, Gilgamesh has all of these weapons in his treasury.

But how is that possible if these heroes came AFTER Gilgamesh?

Well. That’s because they’re prototypes. 

I mentioned earlier that almost every legend told today is in some way inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh. And in the same way, every weapon used today has a design that is somehow based on those in his treasury.

He owns every weapon that existed and owns every weapon that is yet to exist.

And don’t get me wrong.

While they’re technically prototypes, it is said that if you compare the original weapon to Gilgamesh’s prototype, the original will look like a fake, that’s how well-made the prototype is.

Not only that, but in a fight, the prototype will beat the original every time.

Now that doesn’t mean that if Gilgamesh were to use Excalibur and fight Artoria in a 1 on 1 swordfight that he would win.

He’d probably lose.

And that’s because he’s a jack of all trades but master of none.

Gilgamesh is a brilliant swordsman. But these other heroic spirits have spent their entire lives mastering a single weapon, and thus can use them to their full potential, which Gilgamesh cannot.

That being said. Gilgamesh DOES have one weapon that only he can use, one so powerful that it defies reality itself. Buuuuut I’ll talk about that later.

The Great Battle

Enkidu eventually confronts Gilgamesh outside of the Temple of Uruk, stating that he needed to be punished for disobeying the gods.

But Gilgamesh isn’t one to let anyone talk down on him.

So he engages Enkidu in a battle that lasts days on end.

And this was pretty new to Gil. It was the first time he ever came across someone equal in strength to him, which forced him to use his Gate of Babylon.

Gilgamesh was furious that someone had caused him to waste his weapons, he was humiliated.

But eventually, he stopped caring, and he even started to enjoy himself after finally finding someone worthy to be in his presence.

This battle lasted so long and was so fearsome that Gil exhausted every single weapon in his treasury, but by this point, Enkidu was severely weakened and Gilgamesh had won.

But instead of finishing him off, Gilgamesh extended a hand to him.

He saw Enkidu as an equal, and Enkidu ended up becoming Gil’s first friend, his only friend.

Friendship

One day, Gilgamesh set his sights upon defeating the Beast of the God’s, Humbaba.

But the thing is, the God’s hadn’t told him to do this, and he wasn’t doing it for the sake of his people either, because, well… he didn’t care about them.

Gilgamesh simply saw Humbaba as something that needed to be removed from the Earth in order to see out his mission.

Gilgamesh had always disobeyed the God’s so that he could be far removed from them, and he wanted his people to hate him so that he could be far removed from them, because that was the only way he could be truly neutral, because that was the mission for which he was born.

In this sense, you could argue that the reason that Gilgamesh was such an abhorrent dictator, was because he didn’t want to get close to his subjects, so that he could remain impartial.

(I don’t know how much truth there is to that and it could simply be a result of the story being altered as it was passed from generation to generation.)

Either way, seeing Gilgamesh’s resolve, Enkidu pledges his loyalty to him, and the two go on numerous adventures together, which ends with Gilgamesh becoming the wealthiest and most powerful king on Earth.

He amassed so much power that even the gods had no choice but to acknowledge it. One Goddess in particular, Ishtar, the Goddess of Fertility, asked Gilgamesh to marry her.

The King's Loss

Marrying a Goddess was actually one of Gilgamesh’s duties as it would see the continued reign of the gods over the humans, but Gilgamesh said no.

Enraged, Ishtar went to her father Anu, and asked him to unleash the Divine Beast Gugalanna on Uruk.

This divine beast devastated the lands for 7 years before Gilgamesh and Enkidu were finally able to defeat it. But this came at a price.

Ishtar asked the gods to sentence Gilgamesh and Enkidu to their deaths. While the Gods agreed, they couldn’t do anything to Gil, but they could to Enkidu, because he was their direct creation. 

Enkidu’s clay body weakened and weakened until it would eventually return to the very Earth from which it had come.

Gilgamesh stayed by his friend's side until the very end.

While this event is not shown directly shown in the anime, it is mentioned in the original Sumerian poem from three thousand years ago, translated as follows:

“It saddens me. It saddens me, Gil. Who would understand you after I die? Who else would march by your side? My friend… when I think you will live on all alone henceforth, I can’t help but shed tears. But don’t be saddened. For I am but another of your treasures.” - Enkidu

It’s honestly a rather heartbreaking end to their friendship.

One would have thought that the arrogant and prideful King of Heroes would have had a rather stoic response. But history says otherwise:

"You do have worth. You alone have this worth. I hereby declare: In all this world, only one shall be my friend. Thus---not for all eternity shall his worth ever change." - Gilgamesh

And with this, Enkidu returned to the Earth, leaving nothing behind but Gilgamesh's thunderous cry.

And for those of you who have watched Fate Zero, you’ll know that Gilgamesh kept this promise, even thousands and thousands of years later.

The Herb

After Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh realised something.

As he was one-third human, he too would one day die.

If this were to happen, he would not be able to fulfil his dream of watching over humanity until the end of time, and it also meant he would not be able to carry out his purpose as the Wedge of Heaven.

And thus, for the first time in his existence, the king of heroes felt fear.

And this brings us to the core of the ancient Sumerian poem.

Gilgamesh, wanting to beat death, set out on a journey to find the only treasure that he didn’t have in his vault—the Herb of Immortality.

What does this herb do?

Well, it’s in the name so figure it out for yourselves.

Gilgamesh wandered the Earth for several decades in search of this herb, and eventually, stumbles upon a wise sage in the underworld that guides him in the right direction.

Sure enough, Gil finds the herb and is absolutely euphoric, because he has just beaten death, and all that’s left for him to do, is return to Uruk, and see over his people until the end of time.

Before beginning his journey back home, Gil decides to wash off in a nearby spring, where he first places the herb on the ground. However, as fate would have it, a serpent stumbles upon the bathing Gilgamesh, and after seeing the herb, it eats it.

And a little fun fact. It’s thought that the Sumerians and many of the cultures that followed, believed that snakes have the ability to shed their skin because this serpent ate the herb of immortality, giving snakes the ability to be reborn.

Much like the biblical tale of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, this story serves as a stark reminder of life's impermanence and the inevitable reality of death.

By losing the herb, Gilgamesh confronts the bitter truth: immortality remains beyond human grasp.

After realising what happened, you’d think Gilgamesh would be upset, or that he would be outraged, but, he wasn’t.

He realised that death was unavoidable and that by dying, he wasn’t abandoning his duty, he was completing it, because it was the most human thing he could do.

He realised that you didn’t die because you were human, but you were human because you died. 

And with his Sha Naqba Imuru, Gilgamesh was able to see into the future, and what he saw was exactly what he loved about the humans in the first place.

He saw the continued growth of the human race, the way their knowledge developed, and the way they used their resources to reach for the stars and beyond.

With this new outlook, Gilgamesh returned to Uruk as a changed man.

Caster Gilgamesh

While Archer Gilgamesh was an arrogant tyrant that did disgusting things, Caster Gilgamesh was kind, generous, and benevolent.

He loved his people so much that he actually gave away all the swords in his treasury. 

You see, these two versions of Gilgamesh are still the same person. It’s just that Archer Gilgamesh is the version of Gilgamesh we see before Enkidu’s death, and Caster Gilgamesh is the one we see after the death of his friend.

And yes, technically, Caster Gilgamesh is weaker than Archer Gilgamesh, and the biggest reason for that is the fact that he gave away so many of his weapons, weakening his Gate of Babylon.

But Caster Gilgamesh also had a noble phantasm that Archer Gilgamesh didn’t, Melammu Dingir, or King’s Signal Cannon. 

If you’ve ever seen the movie Three Hundred, it’s a lot like that. But except for arrows, he’s firing every weapon he has at his disposal.

As I mentioned, Caster Gilgamesh was much more generous than Archer Gilgamesh, and he gave away his treasures for them to be used in cannons, should the city of Uruk need protection.

As such, this Noble Phantasm is classed as an Anti-Army ability, firing every weapon mankind had in one go.

But if you think that’s powerful, there’s one more noble phantasm I haven’t yet mentioned. But this one didn’t belong to Caster Gilgamesh, it belonged to Archer Gilgamesh. 

The Sword of Rupture

Imagine a weapon so mighty that it not only holds power beyond comprehension but also taps into the very essence of our universe's creation. 

Enter Ea, the sword of rupture.

But is it even correct to call it a sword?

Ea is the pinnacle of Noble Phantasms and is the strongest weapon in Gilgamesh’s treasury and it is unique to only him.

You might think it kind of looks like a sword, but it actually isn’t. It was designed before the concept of a “sword” even existed and so, it’s in its own class.

To even summon Ea, Gilgamesh first has to unlock the depths of his treasury with a key that only he possesses, and after that, we see the mere act of obtaining Ea disrupts reality itself.

Designed intricately, each section of Ea represents the Heaven’s, the Earth, and the Underworld, with the sections rotating in opposite directions, echoing the universe’s vast expanse.

Gilgamesh claims that the sword "knows the truth" of the world where it once existed, and by using its power, it is able to bestow its knowledge upon others.

The weapon holds memories of a time even before the planet existed, a time when life, as we understand it, couldn't have survived. The memory of our universe's raw, primordial form, a chaotic blend of scorching heat and biting cold, of molten lava and dense gas, long before life as we know it began.

This primordial memory is embedded deep within our very DNA, a distant echo from eons past, now faded from our tales and consciousness.

Yet, to those who gaze upon the sword, this deep-seated, almost forgotten knowledge comes rushing back.

To Gilgamesh, Ea is more than just a weapon.

It’s an entity.

He treats it like a person. He talks to it, respects it, and unleashes its might only against those he deems truly worthy.

This isn't just any weapon; it's a creation from even before our planet's dawn, crafted by an unknown God and was once used to split the Heavens and Earth.

It is classed as an anti-universe noble phantasm with power unlike any other and its ability is called “Enuma Elish”, and to use the ability, Gilgamesh first recites an incantation, which is as follows:

“I will tell you of the beginning. Heaven and Earth split, nothingness congratulated creation, my Sword of Rupture cleaved the world!"

"Mortar of the stars, heaven's hell is the eve of creation's celebration. Now you shall die and be silent..."

This is actually another Babylonian tale from thousands of years ago titled “The Story of Creation”, buuuuuuuut I'll cover that another time.

I know that I’ve been describing Ea as a “weapon”, but it isn’t that at all. In fact, that barely scratches the surface of its true nature.

It's not an exaggeration when I say that Enuma Elish has the power to tear the universe apart. Yet, even such an unparalleled force had its moment of surprise.

(There is one recorded instance of it being stopped, something which shocked even Gilgamesh, but that’s a story for another time...) 

Gilgamesh is only seen using this ability on two occasions, once against Rider and another against Tiamat, a primordial deity that almost destroyed the world and was so powerful, that even Gilgamesh couldn’t defeat her. Or rather, Caster Gilgamesh couldn’t. Because like I said before, Archer Gilgamesh is on an entirely different level.

Reunion

We see Gilgamesh use Ea’s full strength against Enkidu, not in their first battle, but rather, when they met again thousands of years later in Fate Strange/Fake.

Here, the world itself is sucked into the void created by the sword, and it begins tearing apart. But Enkidu has his own version of Enuma Elish and thus was able to hold the World together.

The battle is described as follows by those that observed it:

"I felt as if the World was born seven times, and destroyed seven times." - The Sacred Prostitute.

This meeting here is honestly, beautiful. And I know that’s a weird way to describe what is essentially a war to the death between mages, but that’s all I can say about it.

We know how much Gilgamesh values Ea. He is disgusted by the thought of someone unworthy even laying their eyes on it. And it’s so rare that we ever see him even using it.

But when he realises that his opponent is his first and only friend, he pulls out Ea with zero hesitation. [Say it with slight laughter]

In fact, this is the happiest we ever see Gilgamesh. He spends the entire battle laughing his heart out, and we see Enkidu, with a hand to his ears, admiring the sound of his friend's laughter as if it were a song. 

It’s a tragedy that Gilgamesh will never be able to see Enkidu again. But that’s life. As sad as it is to admit, we all have people we care about that will be gone from our lives forever.

It’s no wonder that Gilgamesh’s greatest treasure wasn’t any of his riches, any of his weapons, the holy grail, or even Ea.

It was his friendship with Enkidu.

And with that, I’ve covered a fraction of The Epic of Gilgamesh. It took a lot of work and there’s a lot I couldn’t talk cover. I’ll probably make another post dedicated to Ea and another on Enkidu, but I’ll warn you, be prepared to cry.

psst... if you liked this essay, check out the full video essay on my youtube channel!

And I don't normally add this, but if I can be a teenie bit selfish on this one occasion:

Please check out the video (if you'd so graciously lend me a few minutes of your time) because it's by far the hardest I've ever worked on a video and I wholly believe the end result is really good. You can always leave a dislike and tell me how to improve if you don't like it lol

- love ya