#the s2 poem was translated?

[raayllum]

been kicking around this theory with @kuno-chan but basically

Aaravos fell in love with the human founder of Elarion (probably female, possibly a mage) and was tormented inside that their livespans wouldn’t match. He used his knowledge of Deep Magic to be able to form dark magic (hence the precision of the recipes and ingredient collecting, how much we see dark magic be used for death-related spells, etc) in order to elongate her life. She was horrified and/or the spell didn’t go according to plan, and Aaravos kept an eye on Elarion the city after her death, even if the way humans / elves / dragons continually turned their backs on her / them turned him bitter. Also means that he uses human mages and they’re his favourites because she was, even if all his pawns could never compare to her, of course, in his eyes, with her goodness, grace, or intelligence

[recapitulation]

alright. tgcf s2 🧍‍♂️ i will watch

[mykingdomforapen]

spinning silk | writer's commentary

Hello! It has been a long journey but my Link Click fic, spinning silk, has come to a finish. It has been a joy to write and to share with you, and I really hope that you enjoyed the journey. I am so excited for you to read it now in its completion!

I thought it would be fun/interesting to include a writer's commentary about the story, as I've included elements that I'm excited about and would love to talk about the thoughts behind them, the history, foreshadowing, et cetera.

I will try to shy away from explaining too much in case we wanna preserve some level of the Author is Dead skskks . Happy to answer questions on a separate post or DMs though if there is interest! If you are interested in this commentary, please join me! If not, no worries and merrily we roll along.

Spoilers ahead!

The Epigraph

It's easy to miss the epigraph in this story, which is at the beginning of chapter 1 and is very brief. I don't know if anyone here is Chinese-literate, or if you popped it into a Translation app. If you have, you would have realised that the epigraph actually spoils the ending of the story!

A reminder of the epigraph:

君埋泉下泥销骨 我寄人间雪满头。 -Bai Juyi For his friend, Yuan Zhen

Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen were famous Chinese poets from the Tang Dynasty, and good friends. Bai Juyi would have written this after Yuan Zhen died. The poem's translation is thus:

Your bones are buried under the spring mud; I remain in the mortal world with my hair white as snow.

In the context of this poem, white as snow can indicate someone growing old as they sit at the grave of their friend, therefore their hair turning all white. It can, depending on the translation, indicate someone who sat through the winter until snow layered upon their head , by the time spring comes. Or, in the context of Link Click, Lu Guang's white white hair. Which interpretation should it be? 🙂

Also fun fact I accidentally miscredited the poem for the longest time to Li Bai, another famous Tang Dynasty poet. Oops!

Silk

Ah, this story is built on silk. I think it is fairly famous, the 'red thread of fate' from East Asian/Chinese culture, the concept that you are somehow tied to your soulmate by a long, connecting red thread. I wanted to use the concept of thread as fate, but expand it beyond just about soulmates and relationships. That was the motivation behind depending on silk imagery for Liu Xiao's plan, to play on a well-established concept in Chinese mythology and add my own twist to it. Especially since Liu Xiao was the one in S2 to make the comparison, of people having a thousand parallel fates/threads.

As I was musing on an idea for this fic, that was when I happened to visit an exhibit that included the life cycle of a silk worm. My mother then told me how when she was little, she used to raise silk worms as pets. That got me to muse on the process of making silk--how you have to boil the cocoon and then unravel it slowly until it is a single, long thread. You have to be so careful with it because if it breaks it's kind of pointless, and how magnificent it is that such a cocoon could be so uninterrupted, singular, continuous.

Which brings me to the climax with Lu Guang, when he is trapped in a literal and figurative cocoon of silk. So as Liu Xiao had said (or at least, I think he said it...I forget lol)--when you make silk by boiling the cocoons, you kill the silkworm inside. Silkworms leave the cocoons by chewing a hole through it, which essentially renders the silk unusable because it's all chewed and broken, but now the silkworm is a moth and flies free. The thread of silk, the cocoon, must be ripped and ruined, only then can a silkworm emerge with wings, transformed. Only then can it live.

(Fun fact: one of the first things I knew I wanted from this story was the scene of Cheng Xiaoshi using his threads of fate to sew up all the ripped seams of time. That was, in many ways, the impetus of this story's idea--the image of him so selflessly giving up his own future and life to the act of something as gentle as mending)

Wen Xi

I loved writing chapter 2, honestly. Not only because I get to write about a dive, which is the charm and heart of Link Click, and not only because I get to write about my culture and province (Cantonese represent!) but also because in my eyes, the Wen Xi dive functions similarly to how I interpret the earthquake arc functions for canon.

There was a moment where I almost had a scene where CXS actually interacted with Wen Xi in person. He would have run into her at one point, and of course he can't act like he knows her because she doesn't realize he was the one who did the job for him, but he would have had a moment with her. She was sitting on the curb, struggling with some of the mangosteens she bought. He remembers how she doesn't like getting her hands sticky and wet and how Song Liming used to open them for her when they were kids, so he would have asked her if she needed help and gave her that little bit of kindness. This was ultimately scarpered so that he and Qiao Ling could have that more plot-driven moment of worrying over Lu Guang.

Other Deleted Scenes/changed scenes

Not so much a scene as it is a theme that I wish I could have expounded on more but ultimately couldn't figure it out. Which is to say, I wish I could have played around with Liu Xiao more. Liu Xiao, Lu Guang, and Li Tianchen are the trio who are manipulating fate and the future. They are also three characters who are, in their own way and for their own reasons, trying to use the control of time to answer for a painful trauma that they cannot bear to face full-on. For Liu Xiao, that flashback scene of Liu Min would have played a bigger role in the story. I wish I could have completed this, but at the same time, in my head in order for him to confront it is to own up to it, and find healing from it. He did not want to do that in the playground of my imagination. So I left him be.

Actually, Liu Xiao was supposed to be a little more villainous in this story! He would have been a bit more purposeful about Cheng Xiaoshi, knowing that CXS' abilities are causing the 'knot' in the silk and then intending for CXS to die alone/far from Lu Guang so that Lu Guang would not repeat the cycle. Ultimately I preferred Liu Xiao to be a bit more morally gray. He struck me as someone who didn't have a personal grudge against CXS at the end of the day. All he wants is his own peace of mind.

There was also going to be a moment, although I ended up scrapping it early on, where the photograph of Cheng Xiaoshi and his mother would have played a bit more of a role in the story. There would have been a moment where, upon discovering what Lu Guang was doing with the silks and realizing how much damage it was causing not only to him but to the world, Cheng Xiaoshi would have felt like he was the cause of all of Lu Guang's misery and now also the misery of the concept of time and space, since Lu Guang was essentially destroying the world because of him. In a moment of being in a pretty terrible head space, Cheng Xiaoshi would have half considered diving back into that photo as his mom and straight up Terminator his childhood self to save everyone the trouble. Qiao Ling would have strongly talked him out of it. Ultimately I felt that was, well, a bit dark, and not really fitting to the rest of the story.

Speaking of the photograph's purpose, the opening scene used to be a wee bit different, where Cheng Xiaoshi would actually give Qiao Ling the photo of his mother and ask her to hide it from him. He would never explain why, but Qiao Ling would have a guess as to what the reason was. I changed it because I wanted the story to have a bookend. It begins with Qiao Ling holding Cheng Xiaoshi as he slept to keep him warm. As does it ends.

Culture(???)

I'll be honest, I'm borne of expats, so I'm not the one to break down the traditions and culture of the characters. At the same time, I definitely was raised in Chinese culture and spent formative periods of my life in China, so there are a lot of things I take for granted and not think to explain when in fact it is not actually a universal experience.

But anyway! This is a section to explain my caveat. I am Cantonese. Link Click very likely takes place in a northern city. China's food culture is EXTREMELY diverse, so the food that I have eaten in China, because I spend all my time in a specific province, is probably food that Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang, and Qiao Ling seldomly eat! But I couldn't help myself, so I wrote about my favorite foods. Because I write fic for ME.

That also goes for the daily living aspect as well. For all I know, Cantonese doctor visits, city walking, food delivery, groceries, etc. are the same as Northerners. For all I know, it could be wildly different! I have no idea. I do reckon though that our trio live in a quieter, smaller city than what I'm used to. I mean, look at their neighborhood.

Not regarding shanghuo, though. Shanghuo is everywhere in China.

Anyway, a quick rundown of things:

black sesame porridge: A very Cantonese sweet porridge. Technically considered dessert, but also lauded to be full of nutrition. Technically considered 'soup' but I write fic for me.

Also, black sesame soymilk. Soymilk is great.

Sun Wukong- LG compares himself, or wished to compare himself, to Sun Wukong escorting Tang Sanzang to the west. This is in reference to our beloved Monkey King in The Journey to the West! He is an iconic literary figure dating back to idk I think the 1400s or something and his story is quite long and mythical but long story short his mission was to escort a monk westward, towards South Asia, to collect some important scripts. He had to protect Tan Sanzang from all sorts of demons and devils along the way.

Pixiu- Lu Guang makes a passing comment in his point of view about putting a Pixiu at his doorstep and hoping it pays off Cheng Xiaoshi's debt. Pixiu is a little guy (arguably dragon, probably not) that likes to gobble up gold. If you put a little Pixiu statue in your area, the idea is that he will bring wealth to you. He's got a whole story about him where he ate up all the gold of the heavenly palace and the Jade Empress was so mad she sewed up his butthole so he would have eternal constipation, or something like that. Don't correct me if that's wrong because that's how the story was told to me and I delight in it LOL. I love him. He's my favorite idiot.

Clay pot rice -Also a very Cantonese dish. Frankly, the rest of China is missing out if it is only contained in the Canton province. Rice that is cooked with meats in a clay pot which makes the rice v ery aromatic and deliciously crispy around the sides. Qiao Ling was NOT going to take that out for takeout, that girl was 100% just gonna treat herself in a restaurant and CXS was gonna have to deal with scraps and leftovers.

Zhinü- I'm realizing that Lu Guang makes a lot of references in his internal monologue LOL. This is in reference to the Weaver Girl and Cowherd folktale, one of China's Four Great Folktales (which include Lady Meng Jiang, Legend of White Snake which is my personal favorite, and the Butterfly Lovers). It's a very classic Chinese story about a celestial weaver girl, Zhinü, who is the daughter of I think the Jade Emperor who is like the heavenly king of gods, and her lover the mortal cowherd. Long story short, her father was unhappy that she fell in love with a mortal and so separated her from her husband and children with the Milky Way. One day a year, the birds take pity on the lovers and form a bridge across the galaxy so that they can reunite. Between her and Lu Guang's weaving--or rather, spinning silk--I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a reference.

yangmei wine - Liu Xiao is drinking some Yangmei wine. Yangmei is a type of fruit in China and I am pretty sure I actually made him drink a different wine than what I'm imagining. What I intended for him to drink is a wine that is made of a particular fruit that isn't strictly speaking edible, or at least not eaten for enjoyment. It's usually always only used for making wine, and you let the little plums (so t ospeak) soak in the alcohol until it is a bright red. Very sweet. Very strong.

Sanmao- At one point Lu Guang compares Cheng Xiaoshi to Sanmao because Cheng Xiaoshi had a small sliver of hope for his parents snatched right from underneath his nose. Sanmao is an iconic Chinese character from a long-running comic that began in the 1930s. He is a poor orphan boy during the era before and during WWII, who is just trying to survive extreme poverty. He is often mistreated by passerbys and is very lonely, often looking longingly at other kids who have food to eat and have parents. Every time someone treats him with kindness and he has just a little bit of hope that he can have a family or some good fortune, some awful circumstance happens, usually tied to tense socioeconomic injustice or war.

One of the less traumatic panels of the comic lol:

Jiuzhaigou- Cheng Xiaoshi mentions wishing that he could go there one day, and then at the end Qiao Ling and Lu Guang say that they will go together. Jiuzhaigou is in the Sichuan province, it is a nature realm that is very beautiful. There are natural deposits that make the lakes ultramarine blue and crystal clear. It's so beautiful! A photographer's dream.

Tangyuan- sweet and sticky rice dumplings that can be filled with sweet filling such as peanuts, black sesame paste, sweet egg, or more! They are often eaten during holidays, both during Winter Solstice and the 15th day after Lunar New Year. Indeed they are symbolizing family togetherness, although less because of stickiness and more because of a pun in their name. But maybe stickiness has something to do with it? Winter Solstice foods in different regions of China are also somewhat sticky, even if they don't typically eat tangyuan. I just know what I'm told lol.

Doraemon-A popular Japanese manga/anime from the 50s or 60s that is immensely beloved by the Chinese to this day. He is a robotic cat from the future with a fourth dimensional pocket full of futuristic gadgets that he uses to help Nobita, a fourth grader in the 50s, with his every day problems. He's wonderful. Also, he has a time machine which is tucked in Nobita's homework desk. Fitting....

Yixiu- Another popular Japanese anime, I believe from the 80s, that was also quite popular in China. It's about Ikkyu-san, a little monk/prince whose profound wisdom solved all sorts of grown-up's shenanigans.

Jiejie- A reader had asked the significance of Cheng Xiaoshi calling Qiao Ling this in the penultimate so I figured I'd bring it up here as well. 'Jie' is an indicator of older sister, or a bit of a respectful but also affectionate term for a young woman. Just like how Lu Guang calls Qiao Ling 'Qiao Ling jie' in the show. When he does it, it's friendly but also not actually meaning that he sees her as a sister sister because it's attached to her whole name. Cheng Xiaoshi in this story, not necessarily canon, refers to her as Ling jie every now and then. To me, this is him hearkening to childhood terms, as that is what his parents would refer to her as when he was growing up.

Take this with a grain of salt because I am a diaspora and not originally from the culture. Qiao Ling referring to Cheng Xiaoshi as 'didi' (little brother) in the show, and in the end Cheng Xiaoshi calling Qiao Ling 'jiejie' (big sister) in this fic are not rare, so to speak, or inappropriate, but you don't typically refer to someone who isn't related to you as your 'didi' or 'jiejie' unless they are blood related to you. You can call your sibling this, or your cousins this, but uuuuusually not someone who is like a sibling to you--singularly, yes, like Ling jie, but not typically Jiejie. Them calling each other this means that they truly see each other as their sibling. Also, those terms are a little bit childlike, so to speak. There are more 'grown-up' ways to refer to your little brother or big sister. In Cheng Xiaoshi's case, someone his age will probably refer to a sister as 'a jie' or 'jia jie'--at least, in Cantonese this is the case. 'Jiejie' is a little kid's way of calling their sibling. Like, up until I was about 7 years old I would have referred to my sister this way. To call someone 'jiejie' now, particularly to their face, I feel is a very vulnerable address. It's like if you as an adult who usually calls their mother 'Mom', in a time of deep distress or sadness and in need of comfort, revert to calling her 'mama' or 'mommy'. Like, you're both probably in tears to get to this point. At least, that is my experience with addresses, and therefore Cheng Xiaoshi's lol. Any fellow sinos out there can correct me but that was my intention for that part of the story. Cheng Xiaoshi is vulnerable, and he is seeking comfort from his big sister.

Mama's nursery rhyme- The story of the little rabbits and their Mama Rabbit is a very well known children's story in China. The story wasrecounted as close to memory as I can, so the only other thing I can say about it is that this is how the song goes.

Well, that's all I can think of right now! If there are any questions or you're curious about something, feel free to send me a message! Otherwise, I hope I didn't resuscitate the author too much.

[theonevoice]

Warning: Ineffable tragedy ahead

I was fidgeting with the possible implication of this post by @aduckwithears and this post by @newfangledfancy because there was something in this sword discussion that hooked my little fanart brain. But as I was mentally sketching ideas I'm afraid I managed to grasp the mental image that was vaguely floating in the back of my mind since the beginning of this sword detail speculation.

It was Gaetano Previati's painting inspired by the episode of Paolo and Francesca in the Canto V of the Divine comedy.

Paolo e Francesca, Gaetano Previati, ca 1887.

If you don't know the episode, it tells the story (an actual historical episode that, at the time, caused such an outcry that some historians compare it to the public reaction that followed Lady Diana's death in the 90s) of a married woman who secretly falls in love with his husband's brother, who secretly loves her back, and for a while they manage to bury their passion, mainly by denying it and not acknowledging it even with themselves. They suppress their feelings so violently that they become dangerously unaware of them, and one day, while they were alone together "without any suspicion" (of their possible fall, so sure they were to have canceled their mutual attraction - but of course it's telling that they chose to spent time together, away from anyone else), they start reading a book about, of all things, the legend of King Arthur, and when they come to the part of Lancelot kissing Guinevere, they are suddenly overwhelmed by their feelings and kiss (here it's were I remind you of the two little figures, one black and one white, kissing in the theater during the title sequence of s2: passion ignited by fiction, be it a novel by Jane Austen or a Richard Curtis movie). And right away they are surprised by her husband, who kills them both with a single stroke of his sword.

This is how Dante tells the story (Francesca is speaking here, and the most relevant part of Dante's retelling is that she and Paolo are depicted as "one character split in two" - I don't need to explain how this is linked to our ineffable husbands) [tentative english translation below]:

"Amor, ch'al cor gentil ratto s'apprende, prese costui de la bella persona che mi fu tolta; e 'l modo ancor m'offende.

Amor, ch’a nullo amato amar perdona, mi prese del costui piacer sì forte, che, come vedi, ancor non m’abbandona.

Amor condusse noi ad una morte. Caina attende chi a vita ci spense. [...]

Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto di Lancialotto come amor lo strinse; soli eravamo e sanza alcun sospetto.

Per più fïate li occhi ci sospinse quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso; ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse.

Quando leggemmo il disïato riso esser basciato da cotanto amante, questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,

la bocca mi basciò tutto tremante. Galeotto fu ’l libro e chi lo scrisse: quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante."

Love, that quickly seizes the gentle heart, enthralled him with the beautiful person (1) that was taken from me, and the way (2) still insults me.

Love, that forgives no beloved from loving back, enthralled me with his pleasure (3) so strongly, that, as you see, it still doesn't leave me;

Love brought us to one death; ⁠Caïna (4) awaits him who quenched us from life. [...]

We were reading one day, as a pastime, about Lancelot, and how love seized him; we were alone and without any suspicion (5).

Many times that reading made us raise our eyes, and turned us pale, but only one point was able to overcome us.

Whene we read of the desired smile being kissed by such a lover, this one, who never from me shall be divided,

kissed my mouth all trembling. ⁠Galeotto (6) was the book and he who wrote it. ⁠That day we did not read it any farther.

[sorry if it sounds clunky, I tried to translate the words in a way that conveys also the most widly accepted interpretation of certain passages, but it's still an allegorical poem from the XIII century... here's some notes to clarify a couple of points:

(1) "beautiful person": to be intended as both body and soul.

(2) "and the way": meaning the way in which they were murdered.

(3) "his pleasure": meaning the pleasure of being loved by him.

(4) "⁠Caïna": one of the 4 regions that form the deepest circle of hell, where traitors are punished (the Caina is the place where traitors of their own family are held, named after Cain).

(5) "without any suspicion": meaning they were so sure to be able to control their feelings that they did not "suspect" themselves of giving in to their passion.

(6) "Galeotto": the Italian name of Galehaut, a knight of the Table Round who is responsible for arranging the secret meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere.]

[ursae-minoris-world]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @starlightvld- thank you!!! ☺️

1. How many works do you have on A03? 42! (neat!)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 140,503!

3. What fandoms do you write for? Mostly vld. I have a Good Omens fic and always want to write more and a few fandom that I'm tempted to write for, but I'm still very much in vld.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? - Breaking point (vld, sheith) ; A little mouse told me (vld, sheith); Flowers and Blood (vld, sheith); A cure to loneliness (Good Omens, ineffable husbands)

This gets long so I'm adding the rest under a read more!!

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes! I do! Sometimes I can take a little long but I really enjoy talking with my readers!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Just a call... (vld, gen) I think! It's an open ending, but it ends up on a frustrating note (which was the point).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Oh man, they almost always have a happy or at least hopeful ending. Let's go with A little mouse told me (vld, sheith).

Oh, hey, fun anecdote! Someone commented on Stay with me (vld, sheith) to tell me it was the 200,000th work in the "happy ending" tag! They had just witnessed the tag going up to that number with my fic!

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far, thankfully. (Happened once on fanart though, but it was just one dumb comment by an anti).

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I haven't so far, I'm not really interested in writing it (never say never, though!).

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Well, I did 2 fairly recently for a crackship event! It was loads of fun. The craziest might be A Mysterious French Chef, which started as a Hunk&Remy idea, but ended up involving Hunk, Allura and the space mice for vld, and Linguini, Colette, and Remy for Ratatouille, and everyone interacting pretty significantly. I really loved mashing the 2 universes, and for something that started as a "crack" idea, it ended up working surprisingly well!!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of. I've had some original (anonymous) poems that I cowrote with a friend plagiarized down to using our actual pseudonym, but that wasn't in fandom or even online!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I don't think so.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Five times Shiro broke the rules, and one time Keith did with VirdisDrachen (vld, Shiro&Keith). It's based on a roleplay. Other than that, while it's mostly an artist+writer big bang collaboration, I think Square_Orange and I did discuss the plot a fair amount for Let It Snow! (vld, sheith).

I also have 2 fics that are remixes of other people's work, done for the sheith remix event : When you lived! (the “Enormous, within your small hands” remix) inspired by a fic by @annaofaza, and High Score! (the “I want us forever” remix) inspired by a fic by Tragedy_Machine.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? To no-one's surprise: sheith.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I am fairly good at finishing my wips, even if I do have some stuff that has been waiting for a while. I still have my notes about Keith grieving Shiro between s2 and s3 and how the team tried to support him and each other but how things became tense, that I wrote just after s3 aired! I still hope to get to it one day!

There's also the collab with VirdisDrachen tbh because we dropped the rp after a while and I wouldn't finish this alone. So I'm afraid this one will stay as is.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I'm good with dialogues and characterization? Themes like friendship, found family are my jam, too. Of course it's subjective.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I am learning, but action and fight scenes are *hard*. (But I also love them? haha). On the exact opposite side, stories with very low stakes are sometimes hard to write, when it's just 100% fluff and no conflict, unless it's like, a short scene... It's easier with some emotional or romantic build up (ex mutual pining > getting together) but otherwise I really have to *think* to plot the fic. I'm so used to stories centered around conflict (in the literary sense, including inner conflict, not necessarily an actual fight).

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I agree with @starlightvld that if it's a language that I'm not personally fluent in, I'd look for a native speaker who might want to help or avoid it. Except maybe for conlangs, like Sindarin or Klingon. Although if I ever write in a fandom with something like that, I would f*cking love to get insight from one of these people who actually studied them and are fluent. In a more general way, I'd be cautious that it actually brings something to the story, that it makes sense to use the language that way, and to do it in a way that doesn't confuse readers too much (unless I am purposefully writing for those who know the language, I guess). I will say that I do love different languages to be aknowledged, like for vld fics that actually dig into the paladins having different languages, and the Galra and Altean also, and so on (ex fics where they have universal translators and then there are issues when they break or they can't rely on them for whatever reason).

19. First fandom you wrote for? Voltron! My first fic was a Hunk-centric gen fic, While some count sheep, and I'm still really fond of it!

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Oh, that's hard, I like them all for different reasons. I do enjoy Carry me away for the sheith saving each other vibes. A little mouse told me (sheith written from the space mice pov) was such a fun exploration! Honestly, the most kudosed ones in question 4 are all fics I am proud of. To chose a lesser known one, I also love A special day , a vld gen Hunk-centric fic!

Tagging... @sodomhipped, @tomatocages, @an-aphorism @museaway @jacqulinetan @levyscripts @annaofaza and whoever wants to do this!

(also no pressure at all if you are tagged!)

[cookinguptales]

So... Dante's Inferno. I promised my second post would be a deep dive into the parallels and allusions being made to Dante in s2 of Malevolent. In other words, I'm going to finally make my case for you.

I think it's a pretty good one! But I guess whether you agree with me is up to you.

I'll preface this by saying that the last time I read the Inferno cover-to-cover was about fifteen years ago. I did some skimming to reacquaint myself while relistening to this season, but I didn't do a deep dive. So let's just call this an inexhaustive list, okay? I'm sure there are more examples than I'm going to throw out in this post, but I figured that I'm writing a tumblr meta not a dissertation, so it would be okay if I didn't have every single potential allusion.

I'll also say that any quotes I make are from the Mandelbaum translation just because it's by far the easiest to understand. I'm not going to be doing citations or anything (again, not a dissertation) but if you want to know any of my sources, just drop me a line and I'll be happy to drop the canto.

(cw: discussions of suicide, violence, and general Christianity)

As I said before, I believe that the Dreamlands, as Arthur Lester experienced them, were a manifestation of Dante's Dis that The King in Yellow used specifically to give Arthur a path towards penitence and salvation, hoping that he would eventually allow himself some sort of "divine forgiveness."

In other words, the KIY forced Arthur to face the punishments of the last four circles of Dante's Inferno in the hopes that it would cause Arthur to let go of his guilt, and therefore his attachment, to Faroe. And then, of course, he could make his move.

(In plainer English, sometimes a person who is dreaming wishes that they were dreaming, not knowing that they already are. Like that, Dante wanted to be forgiven for his actions not realizing that he already was. Dreamlands, penitence, guilt, etc. It's a whole thing.)

I'm going to try to stay on track in this post because there's a lot to cover. I'm going to talk about some of these concepts and themes a lot more in-depth later, but for now I just wanna lay out some very surface-level observations.

Dis is a gated section of Dante's Hell that includes circles 6-9 -- in other words, the circles dedicated to punishing the heretics, the violent, the fraudulent, and the traitors.

We should probably technically start with 6 and make our way down, but the ordering gets a little fuzzy as we go, so I'm going to structure this a little differently.

This is my meta so frankly I'm going to do what I like here. I'm just going to talk about these in the order I find them most compelling.

The first part of s2 that really made me sit up and take notice was the living forest that Arthur and John pass through near the beginning of the Dreamlands. Dante's forest of souls in the seventh circle is one of the most famous and lingering images of the entire poem, so it immediately caught my attention.

I'm going to be dedicating an entire post just to this forest, so I won't go into too much detail here, but there is a forest in the seventh circle where the trees are black and gnarled, like the ones in the Dreamlands, and like the ones in the Dreamlands, they were watered with blood.

These are the bodies of souls who committed suicide, and Dante is told that when the end times come and Hell is emptied out, when all of the other souls are reunited with their bodies, these souls, in punishment for taking their physical bodies for granted, will be forced to carry their own corpses hanging from their branches.

These trees can speak and bleed, and -- I mean, there's a lot to say about themes of suicide and self-sacrifice in s2. There's even more to say about this concept of protecting your physical body, not giving it up, and not allowing yourself to be separated from it. And then what does it mean when John and Arthur sacrifice a piece of themselves to this living wood in the end...?

Those are questions for a later post. But the parallels between the Dreamlands forest and that in the Inferno seem clear -- and that's before the winged monsters come. Yes, that happens in the Inferno, too, and they're Harpies.

(*looks into the camera like Kermit the Frog*)

There is also depiction of dismemberment in this section of Inferno, which is another pretty crucial similarity to Malevolent.

Ugh, I did get bogged down in some details. Let's be brief with the rest of 7.

Other key punishments found in the seventh circle of Hell and also the Dreamlands: a sea of red sand in a desert that is so hot that it constantly burns you, a vast ravine, an incredibly painful storm, and various red bodies of water surrounded by black rocks. Different water does different things, but none of it's really good. It's probably good that John and Arthur didn't go in the red or purple lakes.

(Perhaps more of a stretch, when Dante and Virgil are taken to the next circle of Hell, it's via a huge serpentine creature that can sting people. It's not exactly the same as the snake in the boat... but well. It is a serpent and a boat is a method of conveyance.)

Circle 8 -- fraud. Circle 8 is comprised of these things called "malebolge", and I've seen a lot of different translations of that word. The male- part is easy -- it's the same one that we see in "malevolent". Evil. The -bolge part I've seen translated as pouches, ditches, trenches, and... well, pits.

There is this really, really, really long part of the poem where they go around to all the pits to see all the different kinds of punishment for fraud. I'm not going to be exhaustive here, nor do I think that all of it lines up quite as 1:1 as it did in circle 7. Some of these things I'm about to point out I think are stretches but others I think are pretty clear.

The two main parallels to circle 8 that I see in Malevolent are the giant pit that they fall into (where they encounter the creature that's being fed) and the smaller prison pits that they're later trapped in by the KIY.

Let's talk about the cave system first. When Dante and Virgil first enter Dis (and in other parts going forward) they struggle with a lot of uneven, gravelly terrain that Dante occasionally falls on. (Created by earthquakes that happened because of Jesus, but that's not important.) That does seem to correspond to the gravelly ground that gave way beneath Arthur and John to send them into the vast blackness that has quite a bit in common with a few of the malebolge. One malebolge is an endless black void that Dante eventually realizes is filled with black pitch. (See: the endless darkness of the pit.) Another is filled with stench and refuse, like the rotting remnants of the creature's dinners. Another involves heads being wrenched from their place and turned around in their sockets, reminiscent of Arthur's dislocated arm.

Other malebolge seem to align with later experiences, like when they are in the ritual halls and in the prison pits themselves. There are two malebolge that seem to speak to Arthur's concern that John will either be separated from him or take over his body: one pit contains dragon-like snakes that bite the punished sinners, then slowly transform into the sinner as the sinner becomes the snake; the other pit involves people being quite literally cleaved in two.

(From the part where the dragons become one with the sinners, then take their bodies. Sounds familiar!)

A third malebolge contains sinners who are being tortured with incessant thirst, like Lorick the cana.

So I do think that the actual contents of these evil pits come up fairly often throughout Arthur's travails, but I think the much bigger issue, and the one that maps more clearly onto Arthur's time in the Dreamlands, is the concept of pits designed to punish prisoners in the first place. The description of the malebolge (circular pits surrounded by a huge wall that encircles all of them) is similar to that of the prison pits (many circular pits that are encircled by a huge wall) and, like the sinners bound to their malebolge, John and Arthur are being tortured in their prison pit as well.

Even more interesting, I think, is a particular sinner that can be found later in the 9th circle. (Forgive me for jumping ahead a bit, but you'll see in a moment why I'm doing it.) There's a man named Ugolino that Dante encounters in the lake of ice who is frozen to another man -- and Ugolino is eating that man's head. Why? Because in life, that man held Ugolino and his children prisoner and purposefully starved them.

Now -- this next part is argued over by both translators and scholars (one of the translators I consulted for this had a whole diatribe about this in the middle of his translation, lmao) but what I'm about to say does seem to be an accepted interpretation of the text. I even checked Sparknotes and it's the only interpretation they give, so I assume that regardless of what Dante intended, this is a common modern understanding of the scene.

Ugolino, after his children had died (arguably due to his own actions), was forced to consume their flesh.

(Some scholars say he just starved to death, but again, even Sparknotes is a big proponent of the cannibalism theory. lmao)

So... we have a story about a prisoner being denied food specifically to demoralize him and force him to feed on the flesh of his fellow prisoners. That sounds familiar. :')

(And "Faust", of course, is an allusion to another literary figure who dealt with the devil...)

I think that regardless of how well the specific punishments of the pits fit Arthur's journey (I'd say... so-so, depending on the punishment), the concept of punishment pits in general is strongly associated with the Dreamlands, and what happened to Arthur in those pits is uh. Let's just say that Dante did it first.

Now... before I go onto the ninth circle, one of the clearest, most obvious, and in some ways most fascinating allusions to Dante, I'll quickly backtrack to the sixth circle of Hell, heresy.

Heresy is a complicated thing in a universe that contains both Christianity and a lot of other gods, and I think it's certainly dealt with in s2, but maybe in not quite the same ways...

The description of the sixth circle of Hell is pretty quick and pretty sparse. Essentially, it's a vast plain of open tombs that are surrounded by fire. They're made of stone and the people inside them are supposed to be dead, but they are unable to rest, instead being roasted alive inside of their tombs.

I puzzled over this one for a while, and I think it's still entirely possible that it was meant to be skipped altogether in Malevolent. But. There is a part at the very beginning of s2 that never quite seemed to tie into the rest of the narrative, and I wonder if, in a way, it was meant to be one of these stone tombs.

A stone building, like the stone tombs indicated by Dante. Roofs of red iron, like the stone heated to "glowing heat" that Dante likened to hot iron...

A large hole in the ground. Perhaps a stack of firewood...

Inhabitants thought to be "departed" but clearly still very much still here...

I don't know. Could be an allusion to the fiery tombs of the living dead. Hard to say.

It's hard to know where he was going with this portion, honestly. I get the impression that something might have been headed off by an audience decision here, so idk where it would have gone if it had found its logical conclusion. The souls in the sixth circle can see the future (but not the present), so it could have been something pretty cool.

Ah, well. Hard to know.

I'll get back to more solid ground. The ninth circle.

The ninth circle of Hell, home of traitors (including Satan himself), is one of the most well-known parts of the poem. At the bottom of Hell is, quite infamously, a frozen lake of ice.

I mentioned poor Ugolino before, but there are other prisoners of the ice who are also very interesting.

One in particular, Branca d’Oria, seems thematically important. This was kind of a weird addition to Dante's Hell. See, Branca d’Oria was a real-live person who was still alive when this was written. How is a living person in Hell? Well, Dante asked him that in the poem, too.

According to The Inferno, Branca d’Oria's crime (the murder of his father-in-law) was so terrible that his soul was taken down to Hell while he was still alive, and his soul was replaced with a devil who took control of his body.

(If you think that a simple murder doesn't seem worse than all the other stuff in Hell, I guess... this is kind of Dante being a true crime girlie...?)

Regardless of Dante's writing choices, I think you can see why this one caught my eye. Once Arthur and John get to the lake of ice, their imminent confrontation with the KIY has them both wondering if just that will happen to Arthur. Will a devil (John) take control of his body and cast his soul out?

There are a lot of passages of Dante that are concerned with the attachment of the soul to the body, so I'll probably do an entire post on that. Lot of stuff about whether souls can be severed from their mortal form, whether they can be replaced by other spirits, etc.

Kayne specifically brings up this question (as does the KIY) in the lake of ice, which brings me to the other really fascinating part of the ninth circle.

Caina.

(Yes, named for that Cain.)

Caina is the portion of the lake of ice that is reserved specifically for people who have killed family members. It's part of the realm of traitors, not murderers, and is considered particularly heinous. Dante finds two brothers who are being punished by being quite literally frozen together.

(Again, two souls, one body, one whole, there's a vibe here.)

I talked a little bit about Kayne before... I don't think he's bound to this part of the Inferno, or even an organic part of it, but I do think that he's consciously playing along with it. After all, he chose to meet Arthur and John in the frozen lake. He chose to call himself Kayne. It's not his real name. That seems pretty clear. But it's what he chose to call himself.

He lured Arthur in with the music box symbolizing his dead daughter. He dirtied it with blood. He purposefully leaned into Arthur's guilt about "murdering" his daughter. And he called himself Kayne.

Feels pointed to me.

And I do think Kayne very certainly belongs in the ring reserved for traitors. lmao. I cannot imagine that he's not fucking the two of them over somehow.

Side note, I'd also say that the description of amphitheater-like rooms feels like an allusion to the Inferno right there. Its circles are shaped like an amphitheater with the lake of ice right in the center!

And just to be clear, it points both up and down. When they get to Satan and fly past him, the same shape is going out the other way. (Through the earth's core.)

The final really big allusion to Dante is not an allusion to the Inferno at all, but to Purgatorio/Paradiso. I am speaking, of course, of the garden.

A garden that his followers can't enter... A garden where things are presumably safe... A garden where Arthur finally comes to true understanding...

I mean. It's Eden, right? Of course it's Eden.

And Arthur, in his own way, is partaking of the fruit.

Eden is actually where Purgatorio ends and Paradiso begins, in Dante's travels. There's... a lot to be said here, about "Earthly Paradise", as it's called in Dante, and how it's a symbol of regaining innocence, its connections with Beatrice, etc. But I'll leave that for another post.

The reason why it's important here, though, is that it symbolizes an escape from Hell. It's what Dante found after going through all the punishments of Hell, after meeting Satan, after regaining his metaphorical innocence. It's what the KIY was dangling in front of Arthur as escape, both from the Dreamlands and his own guilt.

The fact that it was used to manipulate, to hurt, to fake Arthur out, is actually such an interesting twist on the source material. I kind of love it.

(I'll also just say real quick that I believe that the selenine (while existing as a cure-all in other Lovecraft literature) is actually a parallel to the waters of Lethe, which can also be found in Dante's Earthly Paradise. This is water that makes you forget your past and all past sins so you can become purified and continue on to heaven! Or get your ass snatched by the King in Yellow! I'll talk about this more later!)

And then... y'know, there's Daniel.

I have a lot to say about Daniel in the future, but for now... I think this is what it all kind of boils down to.

Like yes... on a surface level, there are a lot of Dantean punishments in this book. Yes, Arthur starts rambling about the Minotaur, who guards the seventh circle of Hell. Yes, there are tons of little asides and allusions to the cosmology of this universe.

But I think this here is the key. This whole dream is about judgment from a god that Arthur no longer believes in and absolution that will never come.

Arthur is, quite frankly, out of options. He's been clinging to this guilt and shame for a very long time now, and he sees no real possibility for forgiveness from God or anyone. Only punishment.

So... the KIY gives him God's punishment. But do the tortures of the Inferno really make Arthur come to terms with his own guilt? Not in the way the KIY wants, obviously, but... I mean, I do think there is some growth there. I just don't think it came from the torture.

Arthur wanted to be tortured. He thinks he deserves to be tortured. To be punished. That comes up... many times throughout the podcast. But it isn't punishment that helps him come to terms with his own actions, that help him come to live quietly with his guilt.

It's love.

And Dante's Inferno, at its heart, is about love. According to Dante, the deepest depths of Hell are frozen because ice is the lack of warmth, and a lack of warmth is the lack of love.

Because here's what Dante's Commedia is about, from beginning to end. Dante is having a crisis of faith and his lost love, his dear deceased Beatrice, orchestrates this journey (and eventually becomes his guide) from her place in heaven and saves his soul on earth -- through her love.

I'll talk about this more later, I swear I will, but for now... The KIY gave Arthur the Hell he thought he deserved because he wanted Arthur to find grace through penitence. The King wanted Arthur to give up his past so he could steal his future.

But what Arthur actually gleaned from this awful experience is perhaps closer to what Dante actually intended his message to be. That closing yourself off from others, that hurting others, that betraying others, these are all the worst sins. In the end, it's a violation of human connection that will damn you.

And the only real way to salvation is through love.

I feel like in some ways this is the largest allusion of all, opaque as it is. This is what the entire poem is about. Not just gawking at punishments but finding growth through love.

It's about learning that shame can't fix you, y'know? Love and support are an awful lot more effective if you truly wish to change.

And that, my friends, is Dante's Divine Comedy. :')

[imma-lil-teapot]

Song Poem Challenge! Put your entire song collection on shuffle, then write down the first line from each of the first ten songs that pop up to create a poem. You must then dedicate the poem to the blorbo or OTP that it most reminds you of! Then tag or send asks to three others people that you think might enjoy the challenge!

Ooh, fun!!! Let's give it a whirl~ 😁

Have quite a lot of Japanese songs (actually more than English 'cause Anime 😅) so Imma add the translations from what I can find online. Just note that sources may vary~ 😅 1. I Just Wanna Hold You Tight [MAR END 1] - Miho Komatsu

Nante HIDOI yume na no

What a horrible dream

2. Ai wa Kusuri [The Apothecary Diaries END 2] - wacci

Tuzurareta moji kara ukabu hyoujou

The expression floating from the written characters

3. Style [Soul Eater END 2] - Kana Nishino

Hajimaru yo kimi to boku wo

Let's begin you and me

4. Can-do Dreamer [Tokyo Mew Mew New S2 END] - Smewthie

Don’t stop! nayandenaide jibun no Style de susumeba ii

Don't stop! Don't worry about it, go ahead with your own style

5. Floria [Natsume Yuujinchou Roku OP 6] - Tomohisa Sako

Jibun ni wa nai mono bakari

All the things I do not have 6. Yajirushi ni Natte! 2013 (Be an Arrow! 2013) [Pokemon Black and White/Best Wishes N OP] - Rica Matsumoto

Tsuppashiru yajirushi hitotsu!

One dashing arrow! 7. Cheer Song [Bakuten Shoot Beyblade END 1] - System B

Haru wa te o furi hohoende

Spring has appeared smiling 8. Ao no Sumika [Jujutsu Kaisen S2 OP] (English Cover) - NateWantsToBattle

The blues of the sky divide the watercolor scene in two 9. Ashes [Deadpool 2] - Celine Dion

What's left to say? 10. No control - One Direction

Stained coffee cup

To absolutely no one's surprise, the majority ended up being Anime-related! 😆 And Y U do dis again, formatting?! Why can we never get along? 😭

Ahem, so, putting it all together~

What a horrible dream The expression flowing from the written characters Let's begin, you and me Don't stop! Don't worry about it, go ahead with your own style All the things I do not have One dashing arrow! Spring has appeared smiling The blues of the sky divide the watercolor scene in two What's left to say? Stained coffee cup

I like how some of these actually correlated into pairs following a theme of sorts. 😁 As for the chosen blorbo or OTP... I wracked my brain and eventually chose... Kiyoka Kudo x Miyo Saimori from My Happy Marriage, for vibes and aesthetic.

Look at them! Look at the babies!!! 💙❤️

Thanks a bunch, lovely nonnie! That was a blast! 😁👏 No pressure Asks will be sent to: @ruiniel @hellovivirose and @darkened-storm

[saintarmand]

8, 17, 21 & 22 for the iwtv ask thingy! 🤍

8. Who's your favorite actor?

jacob anderson. come on now. they're all great but he is ethereal. second place assad zaman

17. Have you read or watched anything because it was referenced in the show?

oh just a few things

love's coming of age by edward carpenter

chéri by colette

nausea by jean-paul sartre (louis was reading this in ep6 when lestat and claudia are playing chess while talking about nicki. you can't see the full cover but i went detective mode and figured it out)

madame bovary by gustave flaubert

a moveable feast by ernest hemingway (s2 first look "esurient hearts beating as one, the rumbling beast of the moveable feast")

iolanta (tchaikovsky opera)

don pasquale (donizetti opera)

pelléas et mélisande (debussy opera)

a doll's house (henrik ibsen play)

a streetcar named desire (tennessee williams play) + the movie with marlon brando

i didnt read the full text but i did hunt down and read parts of "de masticatione mortuorum, the chewing dead" that claudia mentions, full title "dissertatio historico-philosophica de masticatione mortuorum" by philip rohr (1679) (view the original manuscript here + english translation here)

i havent finished all of emily dickinson's poems yet but im getting there! (some of these i had read before ofc but im reading them all in order now)

ive also previously watched nosferatu (and rewatched it for iwtv) and the trimph of the will (NOT rewatching 💀 that was for a film history class) and ive read dante's inferno which louis mentions ("if i was to join dante's wood of the self-murdered...") and i highly recommend it!!! absolute fav

there's also stuff that wasn't directly referenced in the show but the fandom has drawn parallels to, that i've read and watched for that reason.

anne carson's an oresteia (to better understand all the agamemnon iphigenia clytemnestra electra comparisons people make)

giovanni's room by james baldwin

rebecca (1940 film)

theres def more movies but i cant remember lol

and theres some nonfiction books i've yet to finish bc im slow at nonfiction

the vampire: a casebook by alan dundes (cited by writers as s2 inspo! about irl vampire folklore)

black new orleans 1860-1880 by john w. blassingame for historical context

the theatre of fear and horror by mel gordon, on the grand guignol aka the inspiration for theatre des vampires (i did finish this one except for the summaries of all the plays, i decided to skip that there's so many. very engaging read and gives a lot of insight into the some of the bts stuff we've seen about the theatre)

louis's favorite movies from the tale of the the body thief!

la belle et la bête (1946)

the company of wolves (1984)

the dead (1987)

i may be forgetting some stuff. there's also so much more on my list that i mean to get to. a prayer for owen meany by john irving, of "memory is a monster" quote fame is locked and loaded for example

if anyone's interested to hear my thoughts on any of these feel free to ask i would love to talk about it!!!

all this and i've still only read the first 6 of the actual vampire chronicles. and im still procrastinating starting merrick

21. What was your favorite monologue of season one?

HMM the obvious one is louis's confession. ive watched the whole sequence from the funeral to the end of the episode a truly unhealthy number of times. also claudia's coffin monologue

22. Who's your favorite character? Why?

LOUIS. probably because i relate to him so much. instant connection. tricked into loving myself. also like hes literally louis how could i not love him do i need to even explain this

when i started reading the books i didnt care for book louis that much lol but i did become an armand stan. possibly bc i also relate to him im selfish like that i guess. also just his whole backstory and the way it informs everything he does is so fascinating to me. ppl say hes incomprehensible and hes literally not. everything he does makes sense when you consider his life experiences

iwtv ask game

[notasapleasure]

tagged by @ireallyamabear and echoing the sentiment: are you sure you want to know me? Well here goes :)

rules: answer and tag 9 people you want to catch up with/get to know better

favorite color: I'm a sucker for BRG

last song: Das Kapital - Blindsker

currently reading: I read a chapter of Moby Dick! Liked it. Read a couple of poems from a compilation of contemporary women poets from Georgia, mainly got annoyed because That's Not How I'd Translate That. Reading some other poems for work, and a novel which I'm *really* enjoying, and a tome on medieval Irish law has just landed in my intray, which...doesn't sound thrilling, but who knows. But my ability to sit down and just enjoy a book for fun still hasn't returned from the war.

currently watching: two episodes left of s3 of The Expanse to finish, we got delayed thinking we'd carry on watching with my mum when she comes to visit but never got round to it so finally caved and started just watching for ourselves. Now Ed's away for three weeks, so that'll be on hiatus again. I'll be catching up with Doctor Who, finally working up the emotional strength for S2 of In The Flesh and maybe, if Netflix stops being such a whiny bitch about me renewing my subscription, I *will* renew my subscription because I'm curious about Scavengers Reign. And I *really* need to catch up with IWTV.

currently craving: prev's answer was €100000 which I can't really say I'm not craving but, otherwise, the feeling of being deeply mired in progress on part 2 of the saga au rather than being stuck chipping my way through the opening chapters. Oh god, also some actual summer weather. Please. I know this is Ulster, but constant rain, north winds, and highs of 13C in June, really? *sob*

coffee or tea: coffee. black. no sugar.

no pressure tags for nine of you plus anyone else who wants to say I tagged them: @distressednoise, @erinaceina, @boatcats, @stripedroseandsketchpads, @notabuddhist, @kheldara , @batri-jopa , @sailorsally , @jimtheviking

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

uh oh, I goofed- there are actually 10 new teaser pages for Clementine Book Two

Yeeeeeeah, so remember how I said there were only four new teasers from Tillie’s insta? I was deceived, and it’s all Skybound’s fault >:[ I place all blame on them. Couldn’t be my fault. :/

@arielsprospera informed me that Skybound posted the pages on twitter, and since I avoid twitter like my entire existence depends on it, I never would’ve known had someone not informed me, so thank you! 

So for real this time, let’s look over the new pages and discuss.

Okie dokie, I think it’s safe to say they got away from the two dudes who grabbed Olivia. It was a close one, but they’re three young girls so it’s easy to underestimate them and that’s always a good advantage. 

I love that Olivia has a wound on her face and Ricca just sticks her fingers in it like, “Scars are cool.” Girl don’t do that, you’re hands are dirty, that’s how infections happen!

Speaking of-- for me the big thing with this page is Clementine saying, “My other leg hurts more, though. Something’s up with it...” 

....Clementine. What do you mean something’s up with it? Something as in you’re not caring for it properly and now it’s swelling with infection??

You’ll change the world, Clementine? “It won’t be like this forever”?

Interesting, that’s the kind of attitude I’d expect to see from S1 and S2 Clementine. ANF Clementine is where she lost a lot of that hope that the world would get better and believed things would get better, which made sense given all the shit that happened to her to lead up to that. 

She was a little more hopeful in TFS, like when Tenn tells the group he doesn’t believe the walkers will be around forever, but at this point she’s mostly accepted that this is just how the world works now and you have to do what you can to survive. 

So, what’s changed? 

Oh, and hands... Clementine and Ricca’s hands are touching. Much romance. 

Not much to say about this page other than it looks nice. I like it. Tillie does establishing shots well. 

Again, Clementine... I have a hard time feeling too bad about your leg. I get that y’all want to keep moving to get... wherever it is you’re going, but you’re not going to get far if your leg kills you. 

The group’s a mess, really. It’s not great when Olivia is the most stable, given Ricca’s vision is deteriorating and Clementine’s leg is in terrible condition from lack of proper care.

Also, I see two strangers and horse in the corner. They could just be random people they want to avoid, or maybe those two dudes had a bigger group that’s in the area and it’s best to avoid them. 

.......uhhhh

”Don’t, I’ll n-never get him back on.”  ..........what do you mean? Clementine, you took it off on page 19, you’ve taken your prosthetic off plenty of times? Unless her leg is so swollen now that it no long fits, which is not a great sign. 

And she has a fever. Because of course she does. 

Also, blegh... I still cannot get over the fact that she named her leg Kenny. This is a great example of “bad fan service,” I actually hate it so much. 

I’m just going to paste what I wrote before about this section:

Clementine’s got a fever and they’re covered in mud, shit, and blood...not great things to have on an infected leg, y’all.

Also, “We’ll eat fish.” .....insert AJ’s “I like fish!” line here.

Oh wait, you can’t, because AJ’s not here. Because he’s back at Ericson. Because Clementine left. I bet her leg wouldn’t be covered in mud if she had just stayed... just sayin’.

Not a great sign that she’s practically passed out and can’t form words. 

I looked up the song Ricca’s singing here since you never know, might have some good ol’ symbolism and pertain thematically to the story, why else put a song in, y’know? And: “a Jewish hymn recited on Friday night before the Sabbath (Shabbat) meal. The poem is based on the legend of the sages in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat.”

And yeah, from what these translations tell me, there are angels.

Oh boy, Clementine’s not doing so good. She won’t wake up, Ricca’s crying, and Olivia’s...still not doing much tbh. 

Oh boy, a boat... I wonder if that boat will take them to an island community, hmm? 

I actually really like this page, but mostly for everything except the characters. The sky is lovely and I like the texture of the sand. The characters don’t look too bad, even here they look better than they might’ve in Book One, but still. 

Also I wonder if we’re going to get another dream sequence? I mean, is it really a Clementine story without a Lee dream shoved in? And if Clementine’s passed out, this is the perfect opportunity. 

Unless Tillie decides to give her a different dream involving AJ, or Kenny... actually I’ll be surprised if AJ gets another appearance or a mention in the rest of the trilogy. He’s not important, y’know... blegh. 

There we have it. 

Clementine, Ricca, and Olivia got away from the two dudes who grabbed them, Clementine’s leg is probably infected and she’s sick with fever, and they’re going to get help from a boat in the distance who will likely bring them to the island community. 

Once again: Do y’all have thoughts? Are you excited for Clementine Book Two? I doubt you are since most aren’t, but you never know.

Personally, I’m excited to be disappointed, but hopeful to be proven wrong. Either way, I win.

[ferociouslycreativemystery]

Tack för taggen Lellis @aracloptia :P

Last song: Wolke 4 by Philipp Dittberner & Marv is currently on repeat. Very ineffable husbands coded (since I bothered to look up a translation of the lyrics lol) and also mellow and monotonous enough to disappear into the background while doing other stuff. It's comforting.

Last movie: I... honestly don't remember when I watched a movie last? No wait, I finally got round to looking up Barbie last week. It was good.

Currently watching: bbc ghosts is basically on repeat as well, as is good omens s2.

Currently reading: my brain is fried from course work so currently nothing else 🙃 (waiting with bated breath for my copy of Ghosts: the Button House Archives to arrive in 2 weeks though)

Currently working on: so many things. A ghosts video edit as a sort of series send-off, a couple of fics (one ghosts one, one ghosts-good omens crossover, neither of them likely to be published any time soon), and a damned poem I'm trying to build around the one good line I came up with (but the anxiety I'm trying to express is getting in the way of actually writing it, which is very frustrating). Also a couple more ghosts gifsets.

Currently craving: for this week to be over and to crawl under the covers and not emerge for at least 3 full months, or possibly until the sun returns. Maybe some Thai food

Last thing I searched for writing purposes: excluding word definitions, translations and synonyms, Bren light machine gun (and nobody gasped!)

Too fried to think. Tagging (zero pressure!) @sevenmilliongoldfish @sp-aace and @juuret but feel free to tag along anyone who sees this :)

[gendermeh]

As of Silt Veres s2 finale, my mood is “none of them should have a good end (except maybe Carpenter) (affectionate)”. Like. I love them all dearly. HOWEVER. They are Doing Things. (More spoiler-heavy elaboration below the cut)

Like. Paige and Hayward have come up with (uncovered? Shaped?) this hugely destructive new god which eats other gods’ sacrifices. That’s gonna fuck up the ecosystem. Paige is going wild (which, like, good for her but also sooooo many more people r gonna die) and Hayward is following her. On the other hand, Faulkner did fucking that. …Both in the sense of what he did to Carpenter after what he did to Mason, and also in the sense of, that just feels like where his character is headed? To me personally I mean.

I could also really go into, like, my thoughts on Carpenter and Faulkner and Siblings (and maybe how that relates to some stuff brought up in the post-s1 QnA, abt Carpenter and Faulkner and religion) but that is, hypothetically, Another Post

Also this is written at some ungodly hour of the morning and was preceded by a light(?) deep dive(?) that uncovered the fact that Mad Sweeney Americangods IS apparently (maybe? According to Wikipedia) Suibhne/Sweeney from the Irish poem Buile Suibhne of which a notable translation is Sweeney Astray and according to Wikipedia has/had an opera adaptation and I learned about the poem some years ago from a murder mystery trilogy written by a musician <3

Anyway listen to this

[butchjess]

I'm still thinking about Medieval Novice Jess too, and so I HAVE to share that there's this section of the Carmina Burana (a collection of decidedly NOT religious Medieval poems, famously set to music by Carl Orff in the 20th century) that always ALWAYS makes me think of teenage Jess, and was apparently written by a wandering scholar. It's sadder than the AU we were having fun imagining (and I generally prefer imagining him happier than he really was, haha), but... it's SO him (particularly pre-Rory). It's the song called "(A)estuans interius" ("Burning Inwardly") and the words (in Latin with an English translation) are here if you want to read it! In another translation I'd read before, the last two lines were "Dead in spirit, I look out for my skin," which... This version translates it as "the flesh," which may be more accurate, but MAN, the other reading sounded especially like Jess to me!

ohhh my god… there is something so beautiful to me about medieval scholars and this poem is. so teenage jess pre-s2 yes everything about it his melancholy with the world and the universe the way he copes with this sense of having no path really in the world he has no PLAN he just drifts through it and he’s happy that way with not caring about anybody and nobody caring about him. because it’s easier to pretend you don’t care than to care and miss what you never had… he’ll live where he lives and work when he needs money and he’ll do whatever wherever. that line in particular that you mentioned… YEAH. he is dead in spirit so he’ll look out for his skin ohhh god. he’ll take care of his own hide his own skin because nobody else will!

the common and repeated theme of jess as something you can’t tie down as if he is a wild animal of some sort. when luke tells him in his INTRODUCTORY episode that “i’m not letting you fall of the face of the earth, you won’t drift, i won’t let it happen!” and jess doesnt even fall back on his snarky remarks to put distance back between them he just stares at him speechless and gets up and LEAVES. the bit also about humor and pleasure and jokes and how jess uses sarcasm like a spiked shield he does it deliberately and with intention of trying to be as untamable as possible. oh man… wandering scholar jess writing about his woes you will forever be famous to me

[share-the-skye]

9 People You Would Like To Know Better

I was tagged by @xyrnys awhile ago! Thank you! 🫶

Three Ships: 1)SoRiKai (Kingdom Hearts) obviously lol 2)Lura/McKay (OC’s that my fiancée and I made together when we first become friends! We stopped writing stuff down for them awhile ago because just talking through scenarios is faster but they are a big part of what drew us together.) 3)MariChat (Miraculous Ladybug) I’ve been introducing a friend to the show so it’s been on my mind a lot lately. This is my favorite side of the love square! There is no escape from this hell (affectionate).

First Ship: Toss up between Kataang (atla) and RobStar (Teen Titans Cartoon Network) I was big into both of these shows at around the same time so I don’t remember which came first. I wrote Atla fanfic on the Nickelodeon forums waaaaay back in the day (and got several chapters banned for being too graphic when I gave Aang an injury pretty much identical to how he’s hurt in the season 2 finale…) so Kataang I guess has a little more weight? But I honestly was way more emotionally invested in RobStar. Shoutout also to Terra/Beast Boy, I suppose. I wrote an edgy pre-teen poem about them 😂😂😂

Last Song Listened To: Had the Suzume soundtrack on shuffle while making stuff, and I don’t have the track names memorized yet. But it was one of the instrumental score, not the few with lyrics.

Last Movie Watched: Suzume and by god was it good! I wish it had been in theaters longer so I could have gone twice.

Currently Reading: The Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos. It’s the fourth book in The Mirror Visitor quartet. Annnnnnnd I’m gonna have to restart it again, because I keep setting it down for too long and forgetting what’s happening and it is not a book you can do that with. Beautifully written and translated, though. I love this series.

Currently Watching: Technically Shadow and Bone s2 and whatever fucking season of Grey’s Anatomy is new. But I don’t really care about either of them. I just binged all of Li Speak’s content on YouTube and that was delightful.

Currently Consuming: Still slowly but surely making my way through Neo:TWEWY. Also Girl Scout Cookies 😂

Currently Craving: time for all my creative pursuits. I have too many hobbies and not enough time management skills

This was fun! If anyone else wants to participate please feel free but zero pressure. Gonna tag @transpanda-1 @thesmolcryptid @storm-driver @alphascorpiixx @vanibear @caitas-cooing @miraculorum @sirathurheit @elizabeth-dicewielder

[hopscorched]

Zero, san and nana for the odd introduction ask game!

- selfship-shenanigans

hiii, thank you so much for the ask :D

○ Zero ○ • What's the story behind the tag and/or emojis you use for your f/o

so the long-winded tags i use for my ships are all poetry quotes, and abijah’s tag comes from one of translations of Baudelaire’s poem Sed Non Satiata (or Unslakeable Lust in English), which is a club that has everything: orientalism, allusions to all kinds of vintage vices and little less than 20 mythological references. i felt it was a good fit :)

● San ● • What are your favorite AUs to explore with this f/o

i might just go with canon divergence because i hadn’t got bored of thinking about the canon timeline and imagining scenarios around it yet... i’ve never had a f/o from an unfinished/ongoing media and my head is filled with s2 speculations and the ways to put my s/i in it to help my beloved out somehow 😔🪽but once i start thinking about AUs, i suspect i’ll be a menace.. well, also i’ve imagined a ‘modern’ so to speak AU to take a break from our unhealthy and oppressive canon dynamic, — and in that AU our power dynamic is turned around slightly (in ‘reverse fanfic tropes’ voice: accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss! what happens next will warm your hearts!) but i still have to sit down and gather my thoughts on it :)

● Nana ● • How does the s/i for this ship both differ from and look like you

oh lord how i wish i could be dressing up in historical fashion daily.. ok, well, visually, there is a couple of differences: 1) fictional!seraphine has that botched decapitation scar on their neck, which doesn’t get explained or brought up at any point, but their behaviour and overall vibe can have an ‘let me tear your head off real quick’ effect on people so it’s perfectly understandable that they have it; 2) their gender presentation is Definitely skews more on femme side because they don’t have any say in it; 3) my irl voice is on the softer and higher side, and i sound way way younger than i am, but my s/i voiceclaim would probably be szinetár dóra (this performance might be a good sample, and also. i never would miss a chance to push my old euromusical agenda), — and the way their voice sounds like depends on the language they use as well, they tend to speak with higher and, as they might feel, more palatable tone (inventing customer service voice in 17th century, ahead of their time!) switching to their very limited japanese, or unintentionally copy abijah’s lilt and intonations using sparse gaeilge phrases he taught them; their voice has more grit and depth to it when they have a chance to switch to their mother tongue.. <- oops that was quite a Rant 😅🪽

[willowmaidsworld]

Good Omens - an interesting music fact

@sendarya

I watched your video about records and music in Good Omens s2 (whilst sewing a bowtie for my last minute Aziraphale Halloween costume) and I would like to share some more music related facts I noticed in s2.

When Aziraphale drives to Edinburgh, the Bentley plays the Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saens. It's one of my most favourite classical music composition and I was glad to hear it in GO, but it surprised, even shocked me! It has quite a dark undertone and when I thought about it, it really weirded me out. Aziraphale seems to enjoy the music (it honestly is a pretty good vibe) and it just seems out of place or strange or unexpected (in a bad sense). Let me explain.

The name literally translates as "dance of death", and the whole piece is usually viewed as a memento mori, a warning to remember death. The composer was inspired by a french poem in which death resurrects (Isn't this scene in the Resurrectionist episode? It is, right?) a few skeletons and they dance crazily for one night and return to their graves at dawn. (I always considered Danse macabre to be the old version of Spooky scary skeletons :))

This is a link to an english translation of the poem: https://oxfordsong.org/song/danse-macabre

There is a link to wikipedia page about memento mori: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori

And my thoughts on this?

I've always  viewed Danse macabre as something menacing looming over like a shadow, yet it is lunatic and full of ill-joy. And Aziraphale, someone who you wouldn't expect to listen to "dark stuff", really emerges in the music. You can see him nodding and humming, I think. It was, as we say in my mother language, a fist to the eye. It seemed really disonant, given the meassage!

I thought you might find this interesting! And I adore your work!

Willowmaid

(I tried to reach you through messages, that didn't seem to work, so excuse my spam...)