#this is a cursed ass post

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

Okay buckle up I'm taking a break from weird anglo-saxon sewing to ramble about Old English terminology for a bit

@tansyuduri this is the term I had mentioned I wanted to tell you about re: nature spirits acting as intermediaries between realms

Lets talk about the word "Mearcstapa".

Its used once in Beowulf, in line 103, to describe the creature Grendel.

Grendel is, in brief, some kind of ambiguous creature and/or cursed human, descended from Cain, cursed by that descent to wander and "hold" (as in, treat as a stronghold) the wilderness forever. He has very little physical description except that he is very large and swordproof, and may have claws? Anyway, he isn't what I want to talk abt right now. For Once.

I'm going to take a stab at translating the OE text myself, VERY roughly, and provide some context for where the word appears.

"This grim ghost was called Grendel, famous mearc-stapa, he who holds the marshes, fen-as-fortress; the lands of monsters un-blessed he guarded for a while, since the Shaper* had him written in the race of Cain- whose torment was the Lord's vengeance, for he slew Abel."

(Beowulf lines 102-108, translation My Weird Gay Ass)

*a common OE term for God, meaning something between "shaper/maker" and "poet/singer"

(that is MESSY towards the end but I've never tried to translate Beowulf myself ok)

anyway it goes on about Cain for a bit after that, the usual stuff you can find in the bible, but what is a "Mearc-stapa"?

well, "-stapa" is really easy, its one of the words in Old English that changed relatively little into the modern day.

"-stapa" is "stepper". one who steps across, walks upon and generally treads over something.

ok cool. what's a "mearc"

WELL THIS IS WHERE THINGS GET REALLY REALLY WEIRD AND HARD TO TRANSLATE.

"Mearc" as a word and as a concept has not survived intact in modern English, at least not on its own. Its latest surviving incarnations are in the extremely-early-middle-english "March" or "Mark", so lets start there. I'm just gonna hit Wiki for this one:

In medieval Europe, a march or mark was, in broad terms, any kind of borderland,[1] as opposed to a state's "heartland". More specifically, a march was a border between realms or a neutral buffer zone under joint control of two states in which different laws might apply. In both of these senses, marches served a political purpose, such as providing warning of military incursions or regulating cross-border trade.

Marches gave rise to titles such as marquess (masculine) or marchioness (feminine) in England; marqués (masculine) and marquesa (feminine) in Spanish-speaking countries and the Catalan and Galician regions; marquês (masculine) and marquesa (feminine) in Portuguese-speaking countries; markesa (both masculine and feminine) in Basque; marquis (masculine) or marquise (feminine) in France and Scotland, margrave (German: Markgraf, lit. 'march count'; masculine) or margravine (German: Markgräfin, lit. 'march countess', feminine) in Germany, and corresponding titles in other European states.

Etymology[edit]

The word "march" derives ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root *mereg-, meaning "edge, boundary". The root *mereg- produced Latin margo ("margin"), Old Irish mruig ("borderland"), Welsh bro ("region, border, valley") and Persian and Armenian marz ("borderland"). The Proto-Germanic *marko gave rise to the Old English word mearc and Frankish marka, as well as Old Norse mǫrk meaning "borderland, forest",[2] and derived from merki "boundary, sign",[2] denoting a borderland between two centres of power.

In Old English "mark" meant "boundary" or "sign of a boundary", and the meaning only later evolved to encompass "sign" in general, "impression" and "trace".

The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia took its name from West Saxon mearc "marches", which in this instance referred explicitly to the territory's position on the Anglo-Saxon frontier with the Romano-British to the west.

...cool. that was a lot. anyway, that's what a "Mearc" is, in the most basic sense (Beowulf being in the West-Saxon dialect mentioned above, specifically having been recorded mainly in the Late-West-Saxon written dialect known academically as Winchester Standard for reasons to do with some bishop whose name I'm not going to bother trying to spell)

however, in the context its used in Beowulf, "Mearcstapa", or "Mark-walker", becomes a REALLY weird term. See, Grendel isnt wandering around the boundaries between two towns, or kingdoms, or countries. He's just kind of out in the woods, some of which happen to border one singular, somewhat sizeable town that Grendel then regularly attacks. So what is he walking the border between?

Well, academics love to talk abt that lmao. Some people say it refers to land- or politically-based borders much LARGER than a country, and that it denotes Grendel as a foreigner, from another land or part of the world entirely. Some people see "Mark" as conjuring an image of a swampy, be-fogged "no mans' land" where settling and agriculture would be impossible. A wasteland, for human habitation at least, and thus an "in-between-place" in relation to the boundaries of human civilization- somewhere you travel through or around in between human-settled areas, where no laws of God or man apply. Its "The Dark Forest", the "Past The Threshold" in the Hero's Journey.

However, there's another widely discussed thematic meaning here, and it relies on a bit of context. Beowulf was recorded by monks in a time when Christianity was still relatively new to Northern Europe, the last remnants of various pagan religions only having been definitively wiped out a few centuries prior (FUCK YOU CHARLEMAGNE), and that's the time of RECORDING- Beowulf, as a story, had almost definitely been composed and passed down orally within those same preceding few centuries, likely in the 800s a.d. but possibly as far back as the 600s a.d. . So, what this means is that Beowulf is a record (imperfect as it is, being written down later and by monks) of a culture mid-transition between paganism and Christianity, and this isn't clearer anywhere than in another passage rambling on about Cain:

(in which I attempt to sloppily translate Beowulf again)

(picking up where we left off) "...no joy did he get from that feud, but was driven far away, ill-fated for his evil, far away from mankind. From thence all monstrous births awoke, jotun and elves and orcs*, those same giants who fought with God over long seasons; this was the recompense given"

(Beowulf, lines 109-144, trans. Me and 24/7 my spn brianrot)

*lit: "evil spirits" but the word is "Orcneas", Tolkein stole it and so will I.

(again, is this right? eh. mostly. the end got rough again)

so okay, lots of the usual Cain stuff, and some mentions of giants that some scholars have interpreted as relating to the Nephelim (more context there but its not relevant to this post). However, what may seem GLARINGLY out of place to anyone reading this passage about the BIBLICAL CAIN is the mention of JOTUN, ELVES AND ORCS.

and you'd be right! that is weird! and Grendel is a part of that!

so, with this context, it can be understood that the "Mearc" of Grendel's "Mearcstapa" has multiple meanings, to us anyway. For the Anglo-Saxon people who composed and passed down the story of Beowulf, the lawless and dangerous wilderness just outside their villages would have been one and the same to the lawless, dangerous world of heathen gods and monstrous creatures that their culture had so recently left behind. Uncontrolled forces and places that didn't respect the rule of man or God, untamed, just barely dispelled and always lurking at the edges. That is the "Mearc", as it is used here.

Mearcstapa, Mark-Walkers, Cain, whatever, happy Deanmon 10th anniversary yall.

Oh, on that note- some scholars/translators HAVE tried to argue for "Mearcstapa" as "Marked Wanderer", re: the Mark of Cain. However, they are more or less soundly overruled by the prevailing academic understanding of the term...

which is that the "Mark" is a liminal space that, in addition to being the actual areas between towns/cities and the place where monsters live, is also the barrier keeping remaining scraps of paganism (ie, perhaps other gods?) out of Christianity. And the descendants of Cain were set to patrol it. And that's something someone said in, AT THE LATEST, 1000 a.d.

why am I burdened with this knowledge.

[ryemiffie]

Guys.. Stan canonically writes fanfiction, presumably posting it to ao3.. I bet that man has got the ultimate author's curse notes

"Sorry I'm late to update guys! Got arrested by the federal government for stealing materials from them to rebuild an interdimensional portal to save my long lost twin brother! But hopefully things will be more consistent now that I'm done saving him!"

"My bad for this being so rushed, currently living through the literal apacolypse!"

"Didn't mean for this too take so long y'all, had to reread the whole fic to refresh my memory after getting my brain wiped to kill the demon who used to date my brother, y'all know how it is!"

[same-picture-of-a-rock-every-day]

the rock mod is back :)

oh hey guys, long time no see :) I should check my follower count to see if i need to update my bio-

oh. oh wow. damn. Honestly, genuinely, keeping up with this blog and seeing everyone's reaction to it every day has been one of the few things keeping me going in college, especially with some personal struggles going on lately. I want to do something to thank you guys, if you have any ideas PLEASE let me know because I am NOT an idea guy (hence a blog that requires NO creativity lmao) over the next few days im also going to clean up my intro post and bio and stuff and just make this blog a little nicer (not removing anythin important!! the rock blog will still be basically the same :)

This blog also turns four years old in TWO DAYS so I will be doing something for that as well (if finals week doesn't kill me dead). I started this blog in high school during COVID, when I was depressed, unmediated, and generally struggling with life. Now im a relatively stable college student, on hrt and genuinely on my way to living my best life, and throughout it all, i've had the rock blog to remind me there are people that care if i'm there, even if its just a small thing like queuing a stock photo.

Lastly. I hate to ask this, things are tough out there for us all, but im struggling to make rent this month, and if you have a spare dollar you can send to your local trans disabled faggot rock blog, I promise it will go towards helping me survive and make more rock themed posts for ever and ever and ever. if you do decide to give me anything dm me and ill send you a picture of a rock from my personal collection. hell ill ship rocks to people if you send me enough lmaooo. my kofi is https://ko-fi.com/ sirrivix, again absolutely no pressure at all im just struggling at the moment.

[starcurtain]

"The Lion Has Its Own Historian:" Parallels Between Gorgo and Aglaea

While re-reading Mydei's "As I've Written" stories recently, I was intrigued again by the (seemingly impossible) section in which Aglaea unknowingly echoed Gorgo's words to Mydei, and this led me down a rabbit hole of thought: The roles of Aglaea and Gorgo--not only in Mydei's life but also in the story overall--form some interesting parallels that are worth looking at in closer detail.

Seize the Means of Control

Gorgo's ascension to a position of authority was predicated on power--not only on her martial prowess, which was expected in her culture (i.e. slaying a lion with her bare hands), but through her courage to meet the existing symbol of authority, Eurypon, in single combat and not concede. In Kremnos, status is conferred and maintained through violence. Though on the surface Gorgo defies this belief, she ultimately remains an active participant in Kremnos's tradition of "might makes right" through the Kremnos Festival, reinforcing rather than rejecting her culture's military-centric social structure.

Although Gorgo originally took part in the Kremnos Festival with the intention of beating Eurypon and seizing the throne of Kremnos for herself (presumably because she thought she could rule better), she ultimately chooses to accept his continued leadership and become queen instead, even granting him an heir to cement his legacy. In this way, despite presumably wishing for a less wasteful (of life) philosophy for the Kremnoans, Gorgo becomes one of the foremost beneficiaries of the very mindset she opposes. She clearly wants to reduce the meaningless bloodshed in Kremnos--she strongly rejects the notion of patricide, for example--but she doesn't (at this point) reject the overall structures of the Kremnoan culture, including the belief that combat ability should determine who leads.

In short, her position of authority was achieved strictly through her ability to oppose her foes.

Despite coming from a wholly different culture, one which (ostensibly) values debate, diplomacy, and the rule of law as the primary tools for establishing status, Aglaea's rise to power was remarkably similar to Gorgo's. The game confirms that the prominence and influence of the Chrysos Heirs in Okhema is no lucky accident--instead, Aglaea has clawed her way to the top, fighting tooth and nail to establish herself as a figure of authority in the Holy City.

We're told she exerts her pressure both through economic means, amassing wealth via monopoly on resources such as Amphoreus's internet, and through literal bloodshed.

The story dances around it, but Star Rail's marketing embraces it: Aglaea represents not just the joy of love but also the "deadliness" of romance, the figure of power in Okhema "pulling the strings" and making others dance to the tune of her vision for the future. She basically rules the roost in the Holy City in large part because of her capacity for violence, because of the literal physical and political power she wields as a demigoddess and the leader of the strongest group of fighters on their entire planet.

This "silk concealing steel" behavior reflects not just how she approaches any who oppose her--the Trailblazer and Krateros, for example--but also how even the NPCs throughout Amphoreus view her:

It's particularly Krateros's view of Aglaea which intrigues me, because the very same things he accuses her of are the things Castrum Kremnos is famous for (being warmongers, usurpers of power, etc.). By all rights, he should admire a "queen" such as Aglaea who rules by force and who is leading her people into the greatest war Amphoreus as ever known. And yet he and the rest of the Kremnoans seem to revile Aglaea for the very same things they saw as virtues in Gorgo.

The context is the key: Gorgo seizing power for herself is viewed as honorable and good because it happened in the context of Kremnos, while Aglaea's power struggle and military dominance occur within the so-claimed peaceful structure of Okhema's democratic society, casting her in the role of a "power-hungry tyrant" for the people living in Okhema, even those who should most appreciate her mindset.

Comparing Gorgo and Aglaea in this way highlights a key double standard in the way the Amphoreans react to women who rise to power, and makes it clear how thin the veneer of Okhema's "peace" really is. Stepping to the top rung of the social ladder through the threat of martial retaliation, Aglaea's battle against the Council and the Flame Chase's foes is no different from Gorgo tearing a lion apart with her bare hands, challenging a king, and taking her place at the top of Kremnos's hierarchy by seizing her weapon and making her stand. All that differs is how violence is received in their contrasting cultures, resulting in two diametrically opposed reactions from the "mere mortals" around them.

With Violence as Your Tool

I think it's important to emphasize that Aglaea and Gorgo also parallel each other not just in their rise to authority through physical power itself, but also in their stances on the necessity of that power: Both Aglaea and Gorgo (at least at first) view bloodshed as a necessary evil, an unpleasant facet of life that one must accept in order to achieve a goal. Violence, for both Gorgo and Aglaea, is a tool.

We see this clearly with Gorgo throughout her flashbacks, both in her initial fight with Eurypon (where she claims she would embrace the notion of death only so long as it is not "unnecessary") and in her other confrontations with Eurypon: Gorgo insists that the tradition of regicide must be broken and makes Eurypon promise not to lead Mydei to that path--yet later, she goes so far as to scold Eurypon when he shies away from his fate, essentially calling him a coward for fearing the prophecy that Mydei would one day kill him. "What prince of Kremnos hasn't killed his father?" she taunts, implying that, even as Gorgo fought to change the violent history of Kremnos, she still believed--at least at that moment--that refusing to face violence when it was foreordained made Eurypon a weak and unfit ruler.

However, we ultimately see this stance change. In Mydei's dream of training with his mother, Gorgo reveals that nearly losing Mydei completely changed her perspective on Kremnos's beliefs, finally killing any faith she had in their system of rule and their constant pursuit of Strife for strife's sake. She rejects the notion of combat being the ultimate test of a person's worth, explicitly casts aside her title and role as queen of Kremnos, and embraces a kinder identity as strictly "Mydei's mother." This is a crisis of faith brought on by experiencing the impacts of Kremnos's faith firsthand--by being forced to experience grievous loss, Gorgo is implied to have grown as a person, from one who is willing to accept violence as a tool to get ahead, into one who solely values peace.

These views, too, mirror Aglaea's pursuit of the Flame Chase Journey and her "hidden" feelings toward its necessary loss. We know already that Aglaea views the threat of violence as her go-to "means to an end" when it comes to achieving the Chrysos Heirs' goals.

She is not at all above putting people into harm's way to pursue the prophecy, such as letting Phainon take the Strife trial even knowing that he would fail, and she tells us players over and over again that her own humanity has nearly vanished, claiming that she now no longer has sufficient empathy for humankind to be swayed away from the path of Era Nova.

This is clearly not true (given how deeply she cares for Tribbie, how kind she is to Castorice, and how unwilling she is to actually bring any harm to Anaxa), but Aglaea insists on this emotionless illusion likely because it makes it easier to tolerate the cruelty required to continue pursuing her goal--she needs it to be true that the last of her humanity has already waned, because this is what makes it easier to accept that the Flame Chase Journey is a journey of "loss," one that is fueled by bloodshed.

It is an unfortunate truth of the prophecy that people will die in pursuit of the dream, that capturing all the coreflames and pushing the world forcibly into its next cycle will cost lives and require cold, rational decisions that will crush people's happiness and freedom. Aglaea cannot hesitate, cannot waver, cannot choose kindness over action.

But, like Gorgo, we know that accepting violence as a tool does not mean that the person wielding the tool is always happy to do so. As Gorgo loses her genuine faith in Kremnos's beliefs and begins to view training Mydei for war as nothing more than a rote requirement, devoid of meaning, Aglaea too struggles to uphold her emotionless facade, a protective cocoon whose cracks reveal the enormous weight she is bearing and how deeply the inhumanity of her own decisions wounds her.

We see this clearly in her character stories, where the actions and then later loss of her maid completely reshape her definition of "beauty":

And we also see it very clearly in her behavior toward Anaxa, where she hesitates at the crucial moment, unable to commit to the course of action that she herself set in motion:

Like Gorgo who longs for a softer world where she can simply be Mydei's mother, Aglaea too (no matter how much she claims) has not lost the part of herself that cares not only for the people closest to her but even for the innocents of the world, the boy who wants to bring his sister something beautiful, the girl who shares her bracelet...

Her nature, no matter how much of it has worn away, is at its core humble and kind--reviling the pain of others.

It's this fundamental conflict between love and what must be done that lends both Gorgo and Aglaea their depth as characters, that grants them both an air of nobility, in the way that everyone good who is suffers is noble. Being forced to cause harm without a desire to do so creates quintessentially contradictory characters, making the audience privy to both their external mettle and their internal hesitation, easily humanizing both of them. Aglaea and Gorgo are virtuous women whose cruelty is justified for the greater good. Yet in watching both of them struggle under the immense pressure of that cruelty, we recognize the inherent evil of a world that forces kind-hearted people into positions where bloodshed is their only path forward.

Both Aglaea and Gorgo are not women who normally hesitate to seize the tools available to them, or the kind of women who will shy away from wielding their strongest weapon--the threat of death--with impunity. The reaction to female characters who are willing to exert this kind of power over others (including over the men in their lives) both in-game and in the fandom (where Aglaea in particular is treated poorly for her "coldness") demonstrates how unique this particular type of female character still is, and suggests interesting overall power dynamics in Amphoreus that privilege women willing to utilize violence even above men who choose the same route, despite the strong patriarchal bent one might expect of a story with ancient Greece as its primary influence.

Mydei is not the son of Eurypon, but explicitly and always "the son of Gorgo" even in flashbacks where Eurypon is still alive; in Okhema, both the Chrysos Heirs and the Council appear to be primarily directed by women (Caenis occupies the more visible role of Aglaea's opponent than Lygus does), with all of Okhema's demigods (including Cipher) being female. Gorgo's violence is regarded as honorable; Aglaea is met with disapproval from her peace-loving society but no one ever actually dares to stop her. Perhaps Krateros comes closest, by defying Aglaea's will and entering the Strife trial without her permission, but even he ultimately has to be rescued from Aglaea's clutches by Mydei, who explicitly invokes his mother's name to ensure Krateros's safety. Say it with me: The male character with the highest social status in all of Amphoreus has to rely on the power and reputation of his mother to rescue another man from a powerful woman. Amphoreus really said "Ladies first." 💯

Anaxa's reactions to Aglaea are humorous but are also a perfect example of this overall social structure in Amphoreus which assumes strong women in power have an automatic degree of legitimacy because they are willing to seize violence as their means, despite violence being, in real-world cultures at least, stereotypically the domain of men. In 3.1, Anaxa simply accepts it as a given that he will become Aglaea's prisoner and that she will be able to do whatever she wants to him, because nothing in Okhema's social, political, or military structures would enable him to genuinely oppose her (if he even wanted to).

Even in his (sort of) fake-out "siding with the Council" phase, all Anaxa does is move himself from the grasp of one powerful woman to the next, shifting from being Aglaea's prisoner to Caenis's ace. Cerces even has an entire voiceline where she points out word-for-word that Anaxa is functionally just moving from one woman's cage to the next. Caenis in particular seems to view Anaxa as an object, a biting dog she can keep on a leash until she sics him on her enemy. Anaxa obviously is not so easily manipulated, but Caenis's threat about karma eventually comes true, and he nevertheless suffers the final wrath of the Holy City's society, being judged more harshly than anyone else for his seeming unwillingness to submit to the power of either woman in control of Okhema.

Both literally and thematically, the game tells us players that Aglaea and Gorgo are courageous and effective leaders because they live by the blade, because they are willing to harden their hearts and do whatever it takes, whether that means taking another's life--or their own.

To Usher in a New Era

Of course what really distinguishes both Gorgo and Aglaea's willingness to cause harm from malevolent forces in Amphoreus is their ultimate intent. Although both women are willing to do whatever it takes, they do so only in service to a greater purpose, one that they believe will better their world. In this way, Amphoreus's writers reinforce the underlying impression in Amphoreus's plot that women are more trustworthy and reliable leaders than their corresponding male counterparts. Slight side note on this, but it's kind of funny just how consistent this is--even "outside" of Amphoreus, Welt and Sunday had to turn to Herta to save the day, while inside Amphoreus, Trailblazer is still relying on Acheron's advice to get them through. (When you cater to the incels so hard you somehow loop back around into writing staunchly feminist plotlines...)

The message, repeated and unsubtle, is that there is a link between women's leadership and righteousness, with both Gorgo and Aglaea representing an idealistic desire for a better future for Kremnos and Amphoreus as a whole--one by opposing fate and the other by enforcing it.

Both Gorgo and Aglaea face prophecies that promise to reshape the world as they know it, prophecies which require them to make decisions that will ultimately cost them their lives in a desperate bid to influence history toward the best path. Gorgo rejects the prophecy she is given, determined to protect Mydei despite the destruction the omens claim he will bring to Castrum Kremnos.

Because of the players' predilections for Mydei, this choice to reject fate paints Gorgo as a heroine, an unselfish and moral person who will choose the life of an innocent child over she own safety. Her willingness to fight to the death to prevent Eurypon's atrocity against their son flies in the face of fate itself, attempting to stop an inevitable, self-fulfilling prophecy.

And, in fact, the game even teases us with the idea: What would Kremnos have been like if Gorgo succeeded? When Mydei returns to Kremnos, he either "envisions" or actually experiences (via timelines bleeding into each other), a seemingly parallel universe where Gorgo succeeded in saving him from the Sea of Souls, and where she clearly rallied the people of Kremnos to her cause. The Kremnos we see in that vision is entirely different from Eurypon's:

The people are happy, rejoicing and at ease, talking about pomegranates and writing and playing games with kids, while the sun paints the whole city in a soft and gleaming gold.

Contrast that with the Kremnos that Trailblazer and Castorice find when they travel back into the past where Eurypon betrayed his wife and left Mydei in the sea:

In the seemingly alternate timeline where Gorgo lives long enough to raise Mydei, the Kremnos we're presented with... looks a lot like Okhema. Looks a lot like the peaceful, idyllic Holy City where children frolic in the streets and the people are still full of light and life. By defying fate, we are shown (at least in some fragment of Amphoreus's timeline) that Gorgo achieves what she had longed for in Kremnos from the start, creating a better, gentler future for the people, prosperous and free of the cycle of Strife and meaningless violence that had plagued their kingdom for thousands of years. In this way, we can say that, for that lost timeline at least, Gorgo essentially achieved the Era Nova for Kremnos, ushering in a time of peace for her people. What Aglaea seeks, the game shows us that Gorgo was capable of achieving.

Conversely, Aglaea's path forward involves taking the complete opposite road: Rather than rejecting fate to create a better future, Aglaea seeks to embrace it. She has fully invested herself and her resources in the prophecy of the Flame Chase. She has to, because if there's no Era Nova to look forward to, then there's no hope at all for Amphoreus, and how can it be that something so beautiful is doomed to total destruction? If the Flame Chase Journey will end in a new start, if someone--anyone--will get to live to see the world born anew, then every sacrifice, every burden, every agony will have been worth it.

By embracing her prophesied fate instead of rejecting it, Aglaea is taking the same decisive stand as Gorgo, seizing the future of her world in her own hands and forcing Amphoreus along the path toward what she believes will definitely be a brighter future.

Not only does the description of Era Nova match the idyllic Castrum Kremnos we see under Gorgo's likely rule, but even the moments where both women truly make their stand and reckon with fate reflect each other as well: Gorgo demands her fellow Kremnoans stand with her, hoping they will see the wickedness of Eurypon's decision and reject blind faith in the prophecy they've been given. With her own strength, if even just Krateros alone had stood with her, she easily would have been able to push back against Eurypon's scheme. She lays out her vision for a different future, rejects the notions of the past, and is met with silence.

Meanwhile, Aglaea faces the Council of Elders in Okhema, where the decision about the Flame Chase Journey hangs in the balance, waiting on the final vote of a single person to join up with her cause. Just like Gorgo, the alignment of even one person to Aglaea's cause will make proof of her righteousness, prove the she's right. Aglaea lays down the gauntlet, demands the loyalty of her allies--and her leadership and vision are rewarded when Anaxa joins up with the cause, tipping the literal balance of the scales towards the new era Aglaea believes her efforts will bring to fruition.

(In essence, at the end of 3.2, we get to watch Anaxa do exactly what Krateros failed to--stand on the side of the woman who wields justice.)

Ultimately, through they do it through diametrically opposite paths--rejecting and embracing prophecy, respectively--both women are characterized by their drive to create change, their refusal to accept a quiet descent into cruelty and darkness. Both take a stand, outlining their vision for the right way to go on, for a better, softer, brighter world, seeking the loyalty of comrades to legitimize their causes, and--failing that--willing to make the ultimate sacrifice of themselves to further their truly noble causes.

The strength of both women lies not just in their martial prowess, but in their unwavering dedication to a just cause, no matter the cost to themselves.

Generational Influence

What actually started me off on this whole look at Gorgo and Aglaea as thematic parallels was Mydei's scenes with Aglaea, particularly how he clearly considers her a role model for ideal leadership. While I won't go so far as to say Aglaea perceives herself filling any sort of maternal role for Mydei, I think the connection is obvious on Mydei's end: Having never gotten the chance to truly meet his mother, Mydei is almost certainly projecting "the leader my mother would have been" onto Aglaea. (Or perhaps we should say the opposite: The empty spaces in Mydei's mind when he thinks of "Gorgo" are sutured closed with Aglaea's golden filigree.)

Does this sort of praise sound a bit familiar? It ought to, because this is how Krateros describes Gorgo:

Both women are characterized by their ability to move people's hearts, to inspire hope, and to model ideal strategy for others.

So how could Mydei do anything but link Aglaea's leadership with the life he imagines his mother would have led if she had had the chance to rule Kremnos?

Consider the entire situation from Mydei's perspective: His people have just been (forcibly) rescued from an insane king whose true downfall began with his betrayal of wife, their nation's one genuinely noble leader. If Gorgo had been their ruler, none of this suffering would ever have happened. Fleeing the madness and death Nikador is bringing to Kremnos, the entire surviving host of his people migrate to the "Holy City," the (supposed) last bastion of light and peace and happiness in Amphoreus--which is effectively ruled by a woman so powerful that she knows and sees all.

Seemingly effortlessly, she commands respect and fealty, marshaling her forces to do battle with the might of her own sword, while fighting to maintain the very same values Mydei's mother wanted to bring to her own nation. While being unafraid of bloodshed, she treasures life more than anything else. She's honest, direct, and unflinching, but still, despite everything, kind and dedicated to protecting the world she loves.

Mydei doesn't know his mother but there she is. There's the "queen" that his mother should have had the chance to be. There is the leader that Kremnos needed. There is the powerful woman whose dream for the future could have single-handedly changed the course of fate.

Clearly, for lack of personal experience, the Gorgo in Mydei's mind is less a real person and much more an idealized figure. His only direct knowledge of her comes from one "dream," where she tells him that he's more important than the world to her (undoubtedly leaving Mydei to grapple with the question of whether that is something she truly felt or something he just wishes to be true, by the way). Mydei's only other frame of reference for his mother is Krateros's blind veneration, with Krateros constantly holding Gorgo up as the standard Mydei should meet.

Gorgo is clearly on an achingly high pedestal for Mydei. He shaped his entire youth around the need to avenge her, and then he shaped his entire adult ideology around her vision for Kremnos. In "our" timeline, Gorgo may not have lived to create the change she hoped for, but her goal was ultimately achieved nonetheless, through the inter-generational influence her memory had over Mydei. It was Gorgo's hatred of wasteful bloodshed that helped Mydei to hate it too. It was Gorgo's desire to change Kremnos's traditions that led Mydei to consider tearing down its dynasty. It's his mother's gentle love for her people that echoes in Mydei's same affection.

And through Aglaea, all those views and lessons were enforced. Before joining up with the Flame Chase Journey, the game tells us that Mydei's life was effectively still a hellscape even when he had his friends: They wandered the land with nowhere to call home and were attacked by (or themselves attacked) everyone they met, engaging in endless violence just to keep existing, while he watched his companions be brutally murdered one by one. At the risk of extreme understatement: Mydei was not living the life his mother wanted for him.

After joining the Flame Chase Journey, Mydei becomes one of the "heroes" who dedicates himself to protecting innocents and serving as a guardian; he finds a cause, does his best to create a new home for his people, and works to reshape their views towards the beliefs his mother espoused. Like Gorgo putting down her weapon and taking up the role of "just your mother," Mydei gets to (temporarily, briefly) let down his guard and live as just a person, cooking sweets, roleplaying with kids, and cuddling with chimeras.

He inches closer to the dream of finding meaning in finding peace.

And if it was Gorgo who inspired those choices, then it was Aglaea who made them possible--Aglaea who accepted the Kremnoan Detachment into Okhema, Aglaea who literally put aside her fear of Mydei to accept him as a fellow Chrysos Heir, Aglaea who guided him, Aglaea who modeled transformational leadership for him, Aglaea who gave him the final (if forceful) push he needed to commit to changing his people's future, destroying the bloodstained Kremnos of the past. In all his struggles to move forward, the threads of Aglaea and Gorgo's mirrored ideology lead Mydei through the labyrinth of uncertainty.

All things considered, Gorgo might actually be the character with the single most significant impact on Amphoreus's current plot other than the Trailblazer, because the guidance and beliefs she instilled in Mydei will live much longer than Gorgo and even Aglaea herself--may even live on through the end of the world and the rebirth of all of Amphoreus, because it is her exact ideology that becomes the backbone of Mydei's life advice to Castorice. When Castorice reveals their future, telling him the demigods of today's Amphoreus will become the titans of the new cycle, Mydei looks her in the eye and tells her the exact thing he learned from his mother and Aglaea:

Don't accept defeat--defy despair with everything you have and weave the future with your own two hands.

Perhaps nowhere do we see the parallels between Gorgo and Aglaea more clearly than in the "As I've Written" chapter, where we are told that what ultimately swayed Mydei's decision to join the Flame Chase Journey was when, completely without knowing it, Aglaea spoke the exact same words as his mother.

Though the organization of "As I've Written" is often unclear, making it difficult to determine which passages are actually linked to each other and which are entirely separate, I'm going to personally interpret the quote included in Mydei's third chapter as that special sentence once spoken by both Gorgo and Aglaea:

"The lion has its own historian, and the history of the hunt should not be held by the hunter alone."

Putting aside that all of this is completely impossible in the timeline as we know it (Mydei has no way of remembering the sentences his mother might have spoken to him, and none of the sentences in any flashbacks or her letter to him have anything to do with lions or historians), if this is the line echoed by both women, it is an obviously poignant phrase that would immediately signify to Mydei that Aglaea's ideology matches his mother's.

Although the English translation of "As I've Written" leaves A LOT to be desired (sometimes to the point of being entirely incomprehensible; I legitimately have no idea who okayed those translations, rife as they are with just straight up grammar errors lol), the origin of this phrase is unmistakable. It comes from the African proverb that is normally translated as:

"Until the lion has its own historian, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter."

Essentially, "History is written by the victors."

If we take the English translation seriously, what Aglaea and Gorgo would have been saying is that "the defeated" (which, by the way, is symbolized by the lion repeatedly in Kremnos's history) should have their own historian, and that no one should get to speak for them. That is, of course, that no one should get to speak for Mydei except himself--that he should take charge of his own destiny and write his own history into the books.

Krateros repeatedly insists that Mydei is the hunter, the one who should be controlling the whole hunting ground:

But Aglaea sees through Mydei in the first moment of meeting him--sees that he's not the victor but the victim, not the Kremnoan king-to-be but the "wandering lion" who is at risk of being slaughtered on the altar of Kremnos's glory. Kremnos's history is not the "hunting lion"--it's the lion hunt. Gorgo the founder killed the lion, Gorgo the mother killed the lion... So where does that leave Mydei, the symbolic lion?

This line is saying, Aglaea and Gorgo would both have been saying: I see you. I see that there's an entire unspoken legacy weighing on your shoulders, a horror you're fleeing from like wounded prey, a fierce desire in you to refuse the tale this world is writing for you. And in supposedly echoing Gorgo's words, Aglaea would also have echoed the very core of Gorgo's faith:

Those who have lost everything still deserve the chance to shape their own futures.

Those who have faced impossible odds, those who Fate itself has marked for death, those who would martyr themselves to secure the futures of others can and should still rage against the dying of the light, still fight with every tooth and nail to bring about a different ending.

When no one but (apparently) the ghost of Gorgo in his head had ever said it to him, Aglaea told Mydei:

If you want a different history, you can write it.

Of course he joined the Flame Chase Journey after seeing that its leader carries the very same deep-rooted goodness as his mother.

And while we're here talking about the mirrored ideologies and guidance both women have offered to Mydei, I also want to add a tiny aside about Aglaea's symbolic leadership of the other Kremnoans as well.

Although of course Mydei remains their de facto leader even in Okhema, Mydei himself makes a big deal out of the Kremnoans having submitted to Aglaea's authority, repeating in several places that the Kremnoans have a duty to follow her commands.

This isn't an off-hand statement; for someone who should have already been crowned king to state in his own words that his people should submit to someone else's authority is effectively tantamount to ceding his throne specifically to her--Mydei has essentially handed over the reins of Kremnoan leadership to Aglaea. He's the crown prince, but she's effectively the queen (that his mother never got to be). The promotional materials even label Aglaea and Mydei as occupying the same role ("King"). This is especially clear in how the Kremnoans refer to her. In multiple places, Aglaea is referred to as "the golden-haired usurper."

You don't get called a "usurper" unless people believe you're attempting to undermine their current ruler. In all but flat out saying it, the other Kremnoans perceive Aglaea as usurping Mydei's authority, despite Mydei himself willingly giving that power to her. Mydei isn't careless with the Kremnoans' futures, he doesn't shirk his duties as their crown prince, and he certainly would never surrender his power to a weak, unfit ruler. Undoubtedly, Mydei is comfortable with the idea of ceding authority to Aglaea in part because he recognizes his mother in her, sees the qualities that elevated Gorgo to royalty in Kremnos alive and well in Aglaea's Okhema. In this way, perhaps we could say that another factor contributing to Mydei's hesitance to take up Kremnos's throne might be a subconscious sense that the Kremnoans are already in the right hands, that Aglaea--embodying the ideal leadership Mydei projects onto the memory of his mother--is a better fit than he could ever be to lead them anyway?

Heck, while we're at it, I think it's even interesting that the cities of Okhema and Kremnos mirror each other so much, down to things that honestly don't make sense: We're told the legend explaining the lion heads on the walls in Kremnos, but... why are there are also talking lion heads all over Okhema's walls? Gorgo who tore the head off the Tretos lion is echoed in Aglaea, who rules a kinder, softer city still symbolized by the lion, where the talking lion heads get to be gossips and riddle masters instead of war strategists.

Okay, and the last silly thing I want to say: Aglaea would definitely not call herself a mother figure for Mydei, but after 3.2 reveals Gorgo's tough love methods, Aglaea's attempts at scolding him start to look pretty familiar, from her exasperated chiding to her genuine criticism:

Mydei has it tough, having to meet the expectations of women like these lol.

To Fade from the World

Sorry, that was a bit too light-hearted for me, so time to end this post with some more pain:

A final point I think worth comparing between Gorgo and Aglaea is the ultimate fate that both of them face in the story: Gorgo is already gone, but Aglaea is not far behind.

Gorgo's death in particular is treated as abominable. Kremnoans may be warmongers and Strife worshipers, but they're supposed to be honorable about it. Key to their obsession with combat is the idea of noble combat, between contestants who are each given a fair chance. Despite being Gorgo's greatest ally, Krateros does not stand up and join her in her revolt against Eurypon, likely because of that same "might makes right" mindset that shaped so much of Kremnos's decision-making: If Gorgo's cause was truly righteous, then she should have been able to stand up for it herself and win a duel against Eurypon. If it had been a fair contest as expected by Kremnoan cultural standards, then whoever won would have been considered the "correct" person, and no one could have contested the fair results.

But Eurypon's cowardice drove him completely from the path of Kremnos's sacred virtues, causing him to betray their values by betraying his wife, using poison to deny her her fair chance in the duel. This action--forsaking the core tenets of Nikador's divinity--marks the truest extent of Eurypon's downfall, and cements that he is utterly unfit to rule, lacking both the courage to confront his wife in fair combat and the honor to reject under-handed schemes to ensure victory.

Gorgo's death is treated as a tragedy, an act that entirely shapes the course of the story through Mydei's loss to the sea and his subsequent quest for vengeance. It was cowardly betrayal that took away Kremnos's path to a brighter future, locking the self-fulfilling prophecy of Kremnos's downfall into place.

And this, of course, is a perfect mirror to the prophesied end Aglaea is going to face, possibly sooner rather than later. Upon their ascension as demigods, each Chrysos Heir is told how their life will end. Aglaea's prophecy states: "You shall have your final bath in warm and radiant gold."

As Aglaea is most often seen there, the assumption is that she will literally die in the baths--Mydei states this in-game, saying "If a normal person heard that prophecy, they'd probably just stop coming to the baths." Aglaea effectively dismisses this threat (in a very Kremnoan fashion even, lol) by simply saying "Well, who cares? I like baths!" Whatever will be, will be; if her assassin has the strength to end a demigoddess, then truly, it doesn't matter where she goes in Okhema or across the world--fate will find her.

Of course, there's also the possible interpretation that "final bath in gold" refers simply to bathing in her own golden Chrysos Heir blood...

But in either case, the prophecy, Mydei's comments, and some plot leaks I've seen all point towards a violent and unexpected end--likely at the hands of a betrayal.

Like Gorgo, Aglaea will not live to see the world she wished to create, the softer, golden future she wanted to bring to her people. At the hands of her enemies, either facing it with honor or in an unexpected moment of vulnerability, Aglaea will be eliminated before the final hour, fading from Amphoreus's memory as the survivors succeed--or fail--to usher in the new era she sacrificed everything to create.

Although both unique characters on their own, entirely separate from each other, examining Aglaea and Gorgo's parallel plot points, core character traits, and their roles and influences on others throughout the course of the story reveals yet another incredible "echo effect" in Amphoreus's writing, aligning opposites--Okhema and Kremnos, Beauty and Strife--through eerily similar patterns and revealing the enduring thematic threads that bind together the separate portions of Amphoreus's tale.

More than anything, Amphoreus feels to me like a very Hamilton-esque "Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?" plot, one that hinges on the question of who has the power to shape and reshape the future of their world, who has the power to break through a pre-ordained structure and bring about a better end--who has the courage to sacrifice it all to seize the reins of fate itself.

Through Aglaea and Gorgo, the story reinforces a message about women in power, women who perfectly balance violence (the traditional domain of male figures) with love, with beauty, and with righteousness to shake the foundations of their world. In what they value and how they lead, the story mirrors and mirrors again, mise en abyme, the message that those who are willing to give it all for the greater good are the true crafters of our story.

(Perhaps all this is preparing for the presence of another woman, one just as willing or more to do all that must be done to usher in a brighter future for her world?)

The history of the hunt should not be held by the hunter alone.

The lion has its own historian--and so too does the lioness.

Although Gorgo and Aglaea will both fall before that golden Era Nova can be achieved, the marks they have left on Amphoreus's plot, through their legacies of defiance and grace picked up and carried, torch-like, by other characters, demonstrate just how central both women were to all that happened in the world's past and all that will happen in its future.

[artuurle]

Okay so about those headcanons-

I believe ascending to god-hood in Great God Grove is heavily Tied to a persons mental health, whole post is under read-more for the sake of everyone, poorly written ramblings by someone that struggles to write out thoughts below with some doodles (obviously spoilers too!) :

Aka dumb idiots who girl-rot (/silly) and don't handle their internal issues end up ascended in the realms hours to DAYS after the event instead of immediately after like in the case of King. In my headcanon this is because a gods new form is tied to who they are, and if you hate yourself, don't know who you are, or think you're nothing, it'll effect how you turn out, fighting with other aspects of how you see yourself for dominance. The harder the struggle to create a form, the more of a recoup period for said god to actually start being able to do things- think about it like recovering from exertion or from being sick.

This of course can lead to some problems for the said gods with more problems than others, like Inspekta:

He fears being nobody, dying, leaving nothing behind, and being forgotten- and when he ascended he quite literally lost his whole torso and his tail popped off! hands possibly representin' the others that propped him up! Finally waking up after ascending I'd take it he took his form rather poorly and actually needed extra time to recover *emotionally* before anything on top of the time needed to pop into full existence as a god. I believe when the other gods saw his entrance into the realm, it was quite literally him dropping in from a long ways up with a thud for the jacket and his head bouncing away (really silly, like a ball). while being able to put it together for the other gods he ended up really struggling about what he'd become in private.

Another god i believe may have had issues with ascending is not surprisingly, Click Clack. A god i feel in his human life spent making himself palatable and burying editing out how he felt about things and being unnoticed. Also wouldn't be surprising some of the burying editing came in during the time between him and Thespius ascended, his lover was above them now, after all! I actually drew how i envisioned his entrance to the god realm, because i'm biased.

like a sudden ink spill appeared after a while and he crawled out, exhausted.

anyway i've rambled incoherently enough hope u enjoyed my nonsense and the doodles [explodes]

[vermwerm]

raymond my beloved he won the beauty contest in master rank [as he should]

[yuwuta]

yuuta crumbs pls queen 😔🤲

here’s something from a fic that’s been kicking my ass as of late, it’s something i planned way back in february as a valentine’s day thing and obvs never got around to finishing it in time 😔 for context, yuuta’s been hit with a kind of cupid’s bow/lovesick curse that makes him act, well... more lovesick than usual. f2l because what's new around here

“Yuuta, stop!” 

He freezes, the tone of your voice shocking him to a complete stop—the desperation and anger in your cry reverberates through him and incites fear. Not the basal kind that makes him feel like he’s in danger; the kind born from anxiety; the kind that makes him terrified of losing you.

When he turns to you, it’s with wide, regretful eyes, and a strikingly meek demeanor, in complete contrast to his previous, eminent bloodlust. He unclenches his fist from Toge’s jacket, dropping him from his grasp to trudge towards you with laser focus.  

“Are you mad at me?” Yuuta questions, words desperate not unlike yours before, but far more rushed, and laced with an anxiety that isn’t unlike the normal Yuuta you know. He stops walking when he’s in front of you, tipping his head down slightly, leaving no room for you to look anywhere but directly at him, when he notices you trying to tip-toe to look past him to Toge, “Did I make you mad? Are you angry? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. Please don’t hate me!”  

He keeps pleading with you, begging you not to hate him. You’re not sure that he even knows what he’s apologizing for, but his mantra of don’t hate me, don’t hate me—I love you—don’t hate me rings loudly in your ears. 

His reaction confuses you. Had the way you called his name struck something this despondent and regretful inside of him? Can he even feel true regret right now?—you’re certain if you hadn’t stopped him when you had, he’d have hurt Toge, but he didn’t seem sorry about injuring his friend, only for making you upset. It wasn’t like a few days ago when your mere presence could catch his attention, make him light up and wag his tail like a puppy. You had asked for Yuuta to calm down before he grabbed Toge, but he was blind to your wishes this time—it wasn’t love that was fueling his actions anymore. 

His curse didn’t make sense before, but now it’s grown even more confusing to you. You don’t have time to ponder the abnormalities any further when you start to feel Yuuta’s cursed energy bubbling around you. He’s still crying for forgiveness, clearly remorseful of his actions, but his energy doesn’t wallow with him; it grows stronger with every plea from his lips, and eventually the room feels stifling because of Yuuta’s persistence and exclamations of love for you.  

“No, no—Yuuta, I don’t hate you,” you’re careful to call his name tenderly this time, despite your hurried actions to reach and cradle his face between your palms, “I never said that. I never would.”  

Almost instantly, he seems to calm, the room feels lighter, and he stops rambling for forgiveness once he hears your words. “You… don’t hate me?”  

“No, Yuuta, I could never hate you,” you tell him, gently, endeared by how placid he’s become after a shred of reassurance—and relieved to no longer be drowning in the threat of his cursed energy, “But if you love me—”  

“I do,” he interjects, raising a hand to wrap around your wrists, tilting his head down further into your palms; and his eyes sparkle now like a little kid who’s excited to share something—eager and grounded and certain, “I do love you, not if.”  

You pause, then smile. It’s impressive how chipper he is now when he was bordering on a lovesick-induced panic attack mere seconds ago. “Well since you love me, you can’t hurt the other people I care about.”  

Yuuta frowns now, moving his hands to peel yours away from his face. He lets go of your wrists only to wrap his hands around yours instead, holding them between your bodies. “But I don’t want you to care about anybody else,” he pouts, petulant, the childlike air around him now on the verge of a tantrum, “I love you, and only you. I want you to love me, and only me, too. Isn’t that fair?”  

His words are so earnest and bold, you’re tempted to believe him this time; almost tricked into thinking Yuuta is saying this of his own volition; almost flattered by his proclamation until you remember that these are the emotions and words of a curse, and not his own.  

“I can’t not care about my friends. They care about you, too—Toge cares about you a lot, so you can’t hurt him, or anybody else, not even for me.”   

You feel him squeeze your hands as his lips turn downwards in frustration. He’s quiet for a moment, weighing his options, and you carefully scan his face, hoping your words don’t resonate the wrong way. Luckily, after a minute, a small smile crawls onto Yuuta’s lips and his head perks up before he tells you, “Okay… if… if you care, then Yuuta cares!”  

“Well, that’s not...” you pause, when Yuuta’s grin widens, eyes crinkling from his smile and you don’t have the heart to stop it, nor do you have the capacity to stop him should you trigger another episode. “You know what, yeah that works.”  

“Because I love you!” he continues, moving his hands to rest against your shoulders, now happy and sure of himself, “Do you love Yuuta, too?”  

Your head jerks slightly, leaving you looking up at him owlishly when you realize this is the first time he’s asked you that question. Up until now, the cursed version of Yuuta has put the emphasis on his love for you, unconcerned about a mutual attraction. Even just now, his concern with Toge’s potential attraction to you was a new development—and his true concern seemed to be with how he could stop it, to ensure that you only felt his love.  

Things are changing. Yuuta almost hurt someone he otherwise considers a dear friend—he’s not just playing at pure love anymore—now there’s jealousy, and fear, and a possessive nature on the table, too, and you’re not sure what to expect next. His curse is inexplicably complex, almost impossibly human. You wonder how it’s at all possible. 

You know that Shoko advised you not to feed into Yuuta’s cursed feelings too much, but right now you can hardly see the line between your Yuuta and the lovesick version of him, and you won’t wait until that border is permanently blurred. If reassurance is what it takes to keep his feelings at bay, then so be it. You’re not scared of Yuuta himself, but you fear that he might hurt himself just to seek your approval and love. You can’t let him do that, especially not when he already has it.  

“Of course I do, Yuuta,” you reply, a wobbly smile with teary eyes because now you’re pleading with him, “Please, don’t forget that.”

[slutpoppers]

Blue

[crossbackpoke-check]

blessed be (lorscher bienensegen) | telling the bees (wiþ ymbe)

"Bees" [remixed, abridged], Claudia Emerson // "Letter to Someone Living Fifty Years from Now" [remixed. abridged], Matthew Olzmann // "Letter to my Great, Great Grandchild" [remixed, abridged], J.P. Grasser | Len Redkole, Nina Weiss, Brian Babineau, Christian Peterson, Mitchell Leff, Dave Isaac, Megan DeRuchie

[curse-of-dming-strahd]

oh good, my players all loved Blinksy and thought he was hilarious and loved his weird toys and none of them have any idea that if they fail three death saves they'll wake up in his back room in the body of a wooden marionette because he's been tinkering with putting loose souls in toys for funsies. :)

[blue--ingenue]

thinking about autistic!Scorpius and how Draco and Albus would do everything they could to help him feel comfortable at school:

Draco ensuring that his jumpers and robes are made from non-scratchy fabric

Draco taking him to cute stationery shops in muggle London so that he can use fidgety pens in class

Albus learning a charm that casts a bubble of silence around them when he notices that the crowded halls are causing sensory overload

[skywerse]

I designed finch's dad!!!!

[dirksawesomesprites]

WHY IS WRITING SO HARD

why cant i just stick to sprites why do i torture myself in 2 creative ways

damn me

falls to my knees

i wanna post sprite edits of my fanfics so bad hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back hold me back

[rewritingcanon]

hmmm do you perhaps have any rose and/or granger-weasley family headcanons that you're willing to share with the audience 🎤 🎤🎤

bless you nkem for dragging me back to my roots as a headcanoning account and YES I INFACT DOOOO

rose:

sometimes i forget that white rose is also canon, but to me she's black. and also ginger. don't ask how both can be true, just is.

literally is her mother 2.0, but has her dad's sass. and she got ron and hermione’s combined anger so like,,, jesus.

was extremely tall as a child and would bully people for being small but then stopped growing when she was fourteen and everyone caught up to her and surpassed her (karma)

had braces when she was an adult

out of all the wotters she had the most pride and arrogance. to the point where she can be clumsy and nerdy as shit and if someone laughs at her she throws the biggest hissy fit

this is why albus and her got along so well. because he also doesn’t like getting teased and the whole family would act as if rose and albus were crazy for getting upset at harmless jokes

looks very young. like a teenager even until shes thirty

biggest most beautiful brown eyes you’ve ever seen like literally

she’s either the most stylish with 110% effort or she’s coming in mismatched pyjamas with no bra, not even 0% effort its in the negatives

her room is always always always filthy

gryffindor chaser until she graduates. never was quidditch captain cuz she was too scary, but was vice captain cuz shes great at ordering people around (she doesn’t even have to try that much, they just listen to her)

similarly she’s just such a leader. people gravitate to her or purposefully avoid her for this reason

like this is the reason why hugo is so damn uncontrollable because he grew up with rose as an older sister and hermione as a mum. no one compares to them.

even ron defers to rose 💀 granger-weasley family is a straight matriarchy

suchhhh a menace as a child lol would cry about being teased and then turn around and call albus’ best friend ugly to his face (she doesn’t actually think she’s teasing, because she’s not joking. she’s being deadass. she’s saying this all very matter-of-factly. “scorpius has very big teeth. not a bad thing it just puts his whole face off balance and makes him look uncanny. not a bad thing just very unnatural. not a bad thing just your friend is visually unappealing.” it’s actually so much worse).

then she learns what ✨inside voices✨ are. but she still struggles. bless.

annoying feminist valedictorian that half the schools hates just because shes a successful black girl that has twice the IQ as them. literally hermione all over.

has personal beef with veggies

started joining in on wotter banter when her frontal lobe developed because it was always a pride thing for her, and that grew into steel. shes not gonna bother cracking the shits when roxanne calls her an unc but she won’t hesitate to rip a new ass into somebody if they overstep with her

look. i keep forgetting this is not canon because she acts so much like it in text but this girl HATES boys. og misandrist. never got the hype about men (*cough* lesbian *cough).

both her and polly got into kpop as a joke but now she genuinely really likes it (newjeans fan number one… which.. rest in peace for that 😭)

links up with polly in the most random of places. like they hang out during polly’s church on sunday mornings whilst she’s praying and rose is sitting next to her on the pew like 🙂 or just in one of those underpasses underneath the train thats filthy with moss and stuff

idolises her mum so much likes shes such a mama’s girl despite the mummy issues she may have. hermione and her are locked in fr. twinnem.

doesn’t date whilst shes in hogwarts cuz she believes shes better than 90% of the people there. but maybe she’d experiment in her last year just to check shit off her before-grad bucket list

granger-weasley family:

matriarchy next question

idk if this is actually canon or just heavily implied but ron definitely quit being an auror to be a dad when hermione was pregnant with rose

rose was going to be named aurora but ron had this dream of this little curly haired toddler girl and him calling her rose, so he made the dream a reality 🥹 (rose is so pissed when she finds out she couldve been AURORA. hugo is more pissed when he finds out he would’ve been named aurora too if he had been a girl).

ron’s known as the chess master supreme and im sorry but rose and hugo are absolutely shit compared to him so at every weasley hang out, rose would make all her cousins queue up to see if anyone could beat ron and she facilitates this with a list so no one sneaks back into line after ron inevitably beats them. hugo commentates and hermione refs 😭

hermione refs everything in the granger-weasley household actually even when ron is arguing with one of the kids, they will all turn to her for a final verdict (she’s usually on the “apologise to your father” side but bless)

rose and hugo have cousins on the granger side but theyre not so super close to them cuz theyre like,,, second cousins yk.

back when rose and hugo were super young and hermione was really busy with ministry work, it would just be him and the two kids lots of the time and he’d try to do cute things like taking them to picnics or to the beach. but then he’d forget to do simple shit like putting a cooling charm on the sandwiches or packing towels and he would get soooo upset hugo and rose would try to cheer him up 😭 hugo would probs pick weed flowers for ron or give him broken shells or some shit

also ron is definitely that one dad who is ALWAYS surrounded by mums who volunteer at their kids’ schools or help out at their daughters dance recitals. like he is literally the only man there its hilarious

all the single mums clearly Want him too and every time hermione pulls up and she’s hit with one of the “youre sooooo lucky your husband helps out whilst youre soooo busy with work 😗” she gets premonitions of sending The BirdsTM after them too

when hugo goes to hogwarts rose forces him to have wednesday meals with her so they can have time to catch up. so i dont think rose and hugo ever really drift apart even there is a bit of an age gap. plus i imagine theyre both gryffindors so theyre always chilling in the common room too.

ron is super love dovey with hermione in front of their kids its the most disgusting thing to them. like get away from our mother you freak.

hermione and ron take baby rose and hugo to the cinema for kids movies and hermione is the one who manspreads and sleeps through 80% of it and ron is always trying not to be so moved into tears by the end

ron taught hugo how to crop dust

rose and hugo are somewhat used to people shit talking their mother because she’s literally the president, so they get pissed off but theyre kind of used to it. but do NAWTTT disrespect their father without expecting to catch a stray

hermione yaps about her kids and husband allllll the time to her colleagues in the office. shes so proud of them for just like,, existing. she will build them up as the gods amongst all children. they all know everything about rose and hugo but rose and hugo no jackshit about them.

ron keeps all of his kids’ pieces of art and school projects and baby teeth and shoes and friendship bracelets. if hermione even thinks of throwing some away (she likes a clean house) she will have to fistfight ron and suffer his days-long silent treatment (hugo and rose dont care half the time, its literally just ron who wants to keep everything).

ron does the mum thing where he pees in the dark with the door open and everyone just has to ignore it

hermione runs every parent volunteer bake sale like the military. one of the kids tried to haggle her and they were at the stalk for like 40 minutes before they mutually agreed to lower the price by 40 cents. rose was soooo embarrassed.

hugo would offer to massage hermione’s shoulders when she got back from work so he can be a good little son but he was absolutely shit at it and would get his skinny fingers and jab them into her joints to get out ‘the knot.’ it hurt her more often than not but hermione would always agree to it and say hes amazing through tears of agony

rose wanted matching hair with ron as a kid

when ron got the joke shop and hermione had rose it was literally just a shop for making babies life for the next few years until hugo grew up and george duelled him to return the shop back to its old glory

ok thats all ive yapped sm it took me like months to make this post im so sorry.

[musicalyeetreblr]

I llove those no one mourns the wicked slideshows on tik tok.

I think it’s hilarious tho when ranicent appears on them because like gelphie they yuried so hard someone exploded the city w a dragon.

It’s also funny to see draco on them too. Him and Elphie be like shit my son is dating kaworu nagisa basically damn.

[johanna-swann]

Omfg, "Eddie is an army medic, how could they exclu-!" stop. Just. Stop and shut up.

First of all Eddie was in the army a decade ago and he doesn't appear to have stayed in contact with anyone from back then (and a lot of his friends from the army are dead anyway, thank you season 5 for this nugget of gold). He doesn't have a long army career where he climbed some god damn latter, he joined completely green behind the ears and did two tours as a medic. What's he gonna do, try and pull rank on whoever is in charge of a potential domestic (bio-weapon) terror attack? By citing his references of having been a medic 10 years ago? Fuck off, his army connections aren't worth shit in this situation.

Also they have two paramedics in there already! One of them went to med school! Why do you think this story needs a third medic, so he can also be incapacitated so that Bobby ends up having to do the surgery? For fuck's sake.

Eddie just got two episodes back to back where his story line was the focus. Now he's sitting one out, grow the fuck up. At least your fave still has a personal story line.