#though with like. my use of religious symbolism in my art..it’s not like purely being edgy about christianity it’s more like repurposing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zephrunsimperium · 7 months

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Okay so I've been thinking a lot about what I want to draw cause I really really want to art but I've found myself in an inspiration drought after Inktober. And I was like, "I want to draw stuff from me and @ch4rl13-ch40s's AU but I don't think people on tumblr would love that" and then I realized that I should take my own advice and draw what I want dammit!

Zeph's Human Bill AU: A Summary

I will provide context for each individual drawing, but here's a summary of the AU beneath the cut. I've made it as brief as possible, but it is long please read it I spent hours on it. It's also BillFord stuff, I know this is primarily a FiddAuthor blog.

TW for religious trauma, child abuse/neglect, and drug use/addiction.

Part I: Bill's Backstory

William Cipher was born in the year 1951 in middle of nowhere Oregon. Shortly after entering kindergarten in 1957, Bill received an autism diagnosis (or what was autism in the 50s) and his mother was distraught, especially so because the local pastor told her the autism was caused by a demon possessing him.

Bill's mother quickly pulled him out of kindergarten to "home school" him and broke his leg to keep him from leaving the house. Bill would spend the majority of the next 7 years alone in the attic, reading old books left from the house's previous owners, favoring the thick and dusty math textbooks over the rest. Any time he got to leave the attic, he would collect things - anything to call his, random objects like bottle caps, spare change, pieces of thread, rocks - a habit that would later develop into kleptomania.

Bill grew extremely malnourished with a leg that never healed right. His father rarely interacted with him, but his mother made sure that Bill understood he was corrupted and needed to heal the only way anyone could - through Catholicism. Of course, as time passed, Bill didn't get "better" so his mother got angrier and angrier while Bill's anxiety got worse and worse, his religious rituals developing into crippling OCD. Triangles and the number three in particular became something of a holy symbol of the trinity to him. Arranging objects into threes, drawing triangles on himself and his possessions, counting by threes during panic attacks...

One day, Bill lashed out after his mother discovered the items he'd pilfered from downstairs and tried to take them away along with his precious books. As punishment, his mother splashed acid on his face, an injury that blinded his left eye. In his anger, out of pure impulse, Bill started a fire, fully intending to burn the house down with his parents inside. But while he waited outside, hearing their dying screams, 14 year old Bill realized too late that he regretted it. The police and firemen discovered him nearly catatonic outside the smoking building.

Part II: Backupsmore

After being passed around the foster system, Bill finally graduated high school. Grade school had not nearly been the utopia Bill was hoping it would be, but he still had a little bit of hope left that college would be a bit better. Though he didn't remember much from his childhood, his memories teaching math to an old teddy bear inspired him to declare a major in mathematics education.

Although Bill initially regarded his roommate warily, it didn't take long for him to find common grounds with Stanford Pines. The two bonded over being labeled freaks as children and found comfort in the strange new experience of being understood and seen. Eventually, after battling some internalized homophobia, the two started a secret romance

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Summer separated the two lovers and in the terror of being alone, Bill turned to hard drugs to cope. Although he was happy to see Ford again their sophomore year, hiding his budding addiction became a constant anxiety. And to add to his paranoia, Ford made a new friend out of Fiddleford Hadron McGucket. Bill despised the skinny blonde southerner immediately, terrified that Ford would replace him. After months of tension and open hatred between the two, Bill's homicidal impulses reared their ugly head again and he broke Fiddleford's arm. He would have done more, but Ford was able to separate the two. Naturally upset, Ford initiated a roommate swap as soon as he was able.

Part III: Gravity Falls

Bill graduated college out of pure spite and moved back to Oregon since it was familiar. Bill's students there had very mixed opinions of him. Sure, he was a little creepy and his dark humor wasn't for everyone and everyone had a different story to explain his limp and his eye patch, but one thing was undeniable: if you wanted to learn complicated mathematics, he was the best teacher you could hope for. Students from several small Oregon towns took his class for college credit.

After four years however, Bill's teaching career would come to a screeching halt when an accidental meth overdose landed him in the hospital. Unable to find any family or valid emergency contacts, Ford was contacted. Though it was not his initial plan upon being summoned without warning, pity and the softening of memory over time drove Ford to pay Bill's bail for drug possession and take him in with the hopes of keeping him clean.

It only takes a week for Ford and Bill to fall back into their old romantic patterns which come with mixed feelings; Bill is terrified of being abandoned again and Ford is worried about being let down again. Things go quite well for them for about a month or so - and Ford buys a cat for Bill which he names Pythagorus - until a familiar face fresh off of divorce proceedings arrives in Gravity Falls.

After Ford broke up with Bill in college, he and Fiddleford had a brief fling before Ford admitted he was just trying to get over Bill. Fiddleford arrives with the hope of getting back together with Ford, but is horrified to find Ford right back in Bill's "evil clutches." Fidds gets more and more unhinged as his memory gun usage ramps up and Ford tries to keep things civil between the two men.

#gravity falls #bill cipher #stanford pines #human bill cipher #zeph's human bill au #billford #gravity falls au #fiddleford mcgucket

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onlinesikhstore · 1 year

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Stylish sarbloh pure iron steel smooth sikh khalsa taksali chakri kara kada d6 Stylish SARBLOH Pure Iron Steel Smooth Sikh Khalsa Taksali Chakri Kara KADA D6 Design No. D6 Please note we have customised these kara for a Sikh guy on demand. These kara are collection items and can be used as weapon in Sikh Martial Arts (Gatka) These are Pure Iron Sarbloh Kara and may have bit of rust/blemishes (characteristics of sarbloh) present on them. In addition, these features provide Kara a Unique Vintage/Antique look. This rust/blemishes can be easily removed by Kitchen towel and using coconut oil on them. Please note sarbloh Kara are the only jewellery in the world that needs cleaning with sharp sand. These Kara won't rust at all as long as you are wearing them and they will adjust colour with touch of your skin. These Kara are made in the same way as they used to be made in Guru Sahib's time 300 years ago. 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Sign up for my email newsletters by adding my eBay Shop to your favourites Apart from religious values Karas are the best to be given as a rememberance/memorable gift. Hence, a brilliant gift idea for loved ones. These Karas are one of the Sikh Kakars. (Very Smooth - as shown in photos - photos are zoomed to show details) -Very Popular design in market right now - very famous in youngsters and we are the only seller who has this exclusive design for sale in UK. Very Smooth from inside and heavy. Non allergic to Skin. These Karas are from the Holy and blessed land of Shiri Amritsar Sahib (The City of Golden Temple/Darbar Sahib/Shiri Harmandir Sahib Ji). Please choose variation size while buying or mention it to us in your note: Please measure diameter of your old kara or 3 and half knuckles of your fist then choose size from the variations. Please read below more Information about Sikh Kara: A kara ਕੜਾ , کڑا कड़ा , is a steel or iron (sarb loh) worn by all initiated Sikhs. It is one of the five Kakars or 5Ks — external articles of faith — that identify a Sikh as dedicated to their religious code. The kara was instituted by the tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh Ji at the Baisakhi Amrit Sanskar in 1699. Guru Gobind Singh Ji explained: He does not recognize anyone else except me, not even the bestowal of charities, performance of merciful acts, austerities and restraint on pilgrim-stations; the perfect light of the Lord illuminates his heart, then consider him as the immaculate Khalsa. The kara is to constantly remind the Sikh disciple to do God's work, a constant reminder of the Sikh's mission on this earth and that he or she must carry out righteous and true deeds and actions, keeping with the advice given by the Guru. The Kara is a symbol of unbreakable attachment and commitment to God. It is in the shape of a circle which has no beginning and no end, like the eternal nature of God. It is also a symbol of the Sikh brotherhood. As the Sikhs' holy text the Guru Granth Sahib Ji says "In the tenth month, you were made into a human being, O my merchant friend, and you were given your allotted time to perform good deeds." Similarly, Bhagat Kabir reminds the Sikh to always keep one's consciousness with God: "With your hands and feet, do all your work, but let your consciousness remain with the Immaculate Lord." The basic kara is a simple unadorned steel bracelet, but other forms exist. It was historically used like a Knucke Duster for hand-to-hand combat. Battlefield variations include kara with spikes or sharp edges. Sikh soldiers of the British Indian army would settle disputes by competing in a form of boxing known as loh-musti (lit. iron fist) with a kara on one hand. Brilliant finish and very decorative. Ideal gift item for loved ones. We polish all our Karas with Brasso Polish and Cotton cloth before dispatch. It gives them good shine that will be long lasting. We ensure that our karas are rust free but with Sarbloh you can't Guarantee that as Rust is the Characteristic of Pure Iron/Sarbloh karas. There may be little bit rust present which is seen commonly in all SARBLOH KARAS due to purity of the metal/Pure iron + Cuts/marks are common on these warrior style Karas. These Kara have no joint, made with Traditional methods mostly by hand in Amritsar. Sarbloh Kara are warrior style Kara. Brilliant finish and very decorative. Ideal gift item for loved ones on all occasions. We are UK based supplier smartfashions.co.uk. Items can be collected from our shop in Rochester, Kent, UK. We have 100% positive feedback. Please bid with confidence and check our other fantastic listings. If you are not happy with your purchase we will give you 100% refund on return of item. No hard and fast rules for refunds and returns. Very Reasonable Economy Royal Mail Postage in UK for this Chunky Kara. Postage discounts will be given to International buyers for multi-buys. Any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for looking at our shop. PLEASE NOTE: Please measure/check size of your kara/bracelet first while ordering to avoid any hassle or posting it back to us and paying extra for p&p for exchange and swap of karas with other desired sizes. There will be charge of £4 p&p towards exchange/swap of Kara for any size issues for UK buyers and £9.99 p&p for international buyers that needs to be paid by PayPal in advance or interested buyer can send us pa repaid self addressed envelope for any exchange/swap along with the original item in its original packaging and buyer should also return us the gift item/bags sent along with the item for appreciation of purchase. We may post back gift items/bags along with the swapped item. P.S. Colour of item may slightly vary due to camera flash and light conditions. Some Karas may have negligible small black grinding mark on the kara joint. This is always seen on all karas as most of the Kara making/shaping work is done by hands. However, this do not affect the quality/look of Karas. Type: Bracelets/Bangle Main Material/ Metal: Sarbloh/Pure Iron/Steel Main Colour: Silver Tone/Sarbloh Gender: Unisex Country/Region of Manufacture: India Design Number: D6 Ethnic & Regional Style: Asian http://www-onlinesikhstore-com.myshopify.com/products/stylish-sarbloh-pure-iron-steel-smooth-sikh-khalsa-taksali-chakri-kara-kada-d6

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hikari-kaitou · 2 years

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Meta- Van Zieks and the Fleur-de-lis: Why It’s the Perfect Symbol for Him

My English major disease is acting up again, so it’s time for more meta!

**MAJOR DGS2 ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD**

One of Barok's prominent symbols is a little insignia called the Fleur-de-lis. Chances are you've seen the symbol before even if you didn't know it's proper name; it's an ancient symbol with religious, patriotic, and heraldic significance in the West. We can see it here on Barok's broach.

It's been stylized a bit in Barok's design, you may notice; in the real world, it looks like this

So what is this symbol? If you know a bit of French, you may be aware that "lis" means lily, but if you know your flowers, you can probably see that it doesn't really resemble a lily. They symbol is so ancient that it's hard to be certain exactly what flower inspired it, but most scholars agree that it was probably a type of iris called a yellow flag.

So basically from the moment Barok appeared on screen, his use of the Fleur-de-lis indicated two things to the astute observer: his relationship to Iris, and his misleading title (the Reaper of the Bailey).

Did character designer Nuri Kazuya take these things into consideration when he chose this symbol for Barok? It's possible: his handwritten notes in the DGS 2 art book prove that he did some research into the meaning of the Fleur-de-lis.

Next to the Fleur-de-lis, he's written 信仰 (religious faith), 知恵 (wisdom), and 騎士道 (chivalry), and beneath that, 三位一体 (3 in 1, i.e. the holy trinity).

Personally, I think it would be very poetic if the center part of the lower portion of the Fleur-de-lis, the bit that looks like the blade of a sword, represented Klint, the flourish on the left represented Barok, and the flourish on the right represented Iris. Barok, as Nuri has mentioned in the art book, is the human embodiment of shadow in London's justice system, and Klint was the light, but as we know, he lost his way in the darkness himself. In other words, he's half light and half shadow. Iris, being a sweet and cheerful child who strives to make things better for everyone around her, is pure light. Klint is the blade who drove Barok and Iris apart. If not for his crimes, Barok could have been a part of his niece's life from the beginning. However, he's also the centerpiece who unites them, as Iris could never have been born without Klint to be her father.

Historically, the Fleur-de-lis has appeared on the flask of oil used to anoint the French king, indicating that his claim to the throne was a right given to him by God. I find this interesting because, as I've mentioned before in another post, Ryuunosuke’s crest is the chrysanthemum, the symbol of the Japanese emperor. Until after WWII, the Japanese believed that their emperor was literally descended from one of their most powerful gods, and that's where his right to rule came from. So essentially there is an anointed king of the East and West standing across from each other in the courtroom.

The Fleur-de-lis can also sometimes be seen at the top of a compass, in the position of die north. It's a symbol that the compass user can orient themselves with, true and unwavering, not unlike Barok's sense of justice.

Unfortunately not all of the Fleur-de-lis's uses in history were positive. It was also the shape of the branding iron used on criminals in France in the middle ages. There can be no doubt that those who bear the name of Van Zieks carry the indelible mark of Klint’s crimes. Even though Barok played no part in the murders, he still suffered under the consequences of what his brother had done. He unknowingly became Stronghart's pawn, haunted by his grief over the loss of Klint, isolated by his loss of faith in others and their fear of his reputation as the Reaper.

Anyway, there you have it. If anyone else knows more about the Fleur-de-lis and the symbolism behind it as it relates to Barok,I'd be fascinated to hear it.

#the great ace attorney #tgaa #barok van zieks #dai gyakuten saiban #my meta

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writingwithcolor · 3 years

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Jurassic period alien interacting with key cultures and historical figures in Middle East & Asia throughout history

@ketchupmaster400 said:

Hello, so my question is for a character I’ve been working on for quite a while but wasn’t sure about a few things. So basically at the beginning of the universe there was this for less being made up of dark matter and dark energy. Long story short it ends up on earth during the Jurassic Period. It has the ability to adapt and assimilate into other life animals except it’s hair is always black and it’s skin is always white and it’s eyes are always red. It lives like this going from animal to animal until it finally becomes human and gains true sentience and self awareness. As a human it lives within the Middle East and Asia wondering around trying to figure out its purpose and meaning. So what I initially wanted to do with it was have small interactions with the dark matter human and other native humans that kinda helped push humanity into the direction it is now. For example, Mehndhi came about when the dark matter human was drawing on their skin because it felt insecure about having such white skin compared to other people. And ancient Indians saw it and thought it was cool so they adopted it and developed it into Mehndi. Minor and small interactions though early history leading to grander events. Like they would be protecting Jerusalem and it’s people agains the Crusaders later on. I also had the idea of the the dark matter human later on interacting with the prophets Jesus Christ and Muhammad. With Jesus they couldn’t understand why he would sacrifice himself even though the people weren’t deserving. And then Jesus taught them that you have to put other before yourself and protecting people is life’s greatest reward. And then with the prophet Muhammad, I had the idea that their interaction was a simple conversation that mirrors the one he had with the angel Jibril, that lead to the principles of Islam. Now with these ideas I understand the great importance of how not to convey Islam and I’ve been doing reasearch, but I am white and I can understand how that may look trying to write about a different religion than my own. So I guess ultimate my question is, is this ok to do? Is it ok to have an alien creature interact with religious people and historical events as important as they were? Like I said I would try to be as accurate and as respectable as possible but I know that Islam can be a touchy subject and the last thing I would want is to disrespect anyone. The main reason I wanted the dark matter being in the Middle East was because I wanted to do something different because so much has been done with European and American stuff I wanted to explore the eastern side of the world because it’s very beau and very rich with so many cultures that I want to try and represent. I’m sorry for the long post but I wanted you guys to fully understand what my idea was. Thank you for your time and hope you stay safe.

Disclaimer:

The consensus from the moderators was that the proposed character and story is disrespectful from multiple cultural perspectives. However, we can’t ignore the reality that this is a commonly deployed trope in many popular science fiction/ thriller narratives. Stories that seek to take religious descriptions of events at face value from an areligious perspective particularly favor this approach. Thus, we have two responses:

Where we explain why we don’t believe this should be attempted.

Where we accept the possibility of our advice being ignored.

1) No - Why You Shouldn’t Do This:

Hi! I’ll give you the short answer first, and then the extended one.

Short answer: no, this is not okay.

Extended answer. I’ll divide it into three parts.

1) Prophet Muhammad as a character:

Almost every aspect of Islam, particularly Allah (and the Qur’an), the Prophet(s) and the companions at the time of Muhammad ﷺ, are strictly kept within the boundaries of real life/reality. I’ll assume this comes from a good place, and I can understand that from one side, but seriously, just avoid it. It is extremely disrespectful and something that is not even up to debate for Muslims to do, let alone for non-Muslims. Using Prophet Muhammad as a character will only bring you problems. There is no issue with mentioning the Prophet during his lifetime when talking about his attributes, personality, sayings or teachings, but in no way, we introduce fictional aspects in a domain that Muslims worked, and still work, hard to keep free from any doubtful event or incident. Let’s call it a closed period: we don’t add anything that was not actually there.

Reiterating then, don’t do this. There is a good reason why Muslims don’t have any pictures of Prophet Muhammad. We know nothing besides what history conveyed from him.

After this being said, there is another factor you missed – Jesus is also an important figure in Islam and his story from the Islamic perspective differs (a lot) from that of the Christian perspective. And given what you said in your ask, you would be taking the Christian narrative of Jesus. If it was okay to use Prophet Muhammad as a character (reminder: it’s not) and you have had your dark matter human interacting with the biblical Jesus, it will result in a complete mess; you would be conflating two religions.

2) Crusaders and Jerusalem:

You said this dark matter human will be defending Jerusalem against the Crusaders. At first, there is really no problem with this. However, ask yourself: is this interaction a result of your character meeting with both Jesus and Prophet Muhammed? If yes, please refer to the previous point. If not, or even if you just want to maintain this part of the story, your dark matter human can interact with the important historical figures of the time. For example, if you want a Muslim in your story, you can use Salah-Ad-Din Al-Ayoubi (Saladin in the latinized version) that took back Jerusalem during the Third Crusade. Particularly, this crusade has plenty of potential characters.

Also, featuring Muslim characters post Prophet Muhammad and his companions’ time, is completely fine, just do a thorough research.

3) Middle Eastern/South Asian settings and Orientalism:

The last point I want to remark is with the setting you chose for your story. Many times, when we explore the SWANA or South Asian regions it’s done through an orientalist lens. Nobody is really safe from falling into orientalism, not even the people from those regions. My suggestion is educating yourself in what orientalism is and how it’s still prevalent in today’s narrative. Research orientalism in entertainment, history... and every other area you can think of. Edward Said coined this term for the first time in history, so he is a good start. There are multiple articles online that touch this subject too. For further information, I defer to middle eastern mods.

- Asmaa

Racism and Pseudo-Archaeology:

A gigantic, unequivocal and absolute no to all of it, lmao.

I will stick to the bit about the proposed origin of mehendi in your WIP, it’s the arc I feel I’m qualified to speak on, Asmaa has pretty much touched upon the religious and orientalism complications.

Let me throw out one more word: pseudoarchaeology. That is, taking the cultural/spiritual/historical legacies of ancient civilizations, primarily when it involves people of colour, and crediting said legacies to be the handiwork of not just your average Outsider/White Saviour but aliens. I’ll need you to think carefully about this: why is it that in so much of media and literature pertaining to the so-called “conspiracy theories” dealing with any kind of extraterrestrial life, it’s always Non-Western civilizations like the Aztec, the ancient Egyptians, the Harappans etc who are targeted? Why is it that the achievements of the non West are so unbelievable that it’s more feasible to construct an idea of non-human, magical beings from another planet who just conveniently swooped in to build our monuments and teach us how to dress and what to believe in? If the answer makes you uncomfortable, it’s because it should: denying the Non-West agency of their own feats is not an innocent exercise in sci-fi worldbuilding, it comes loaded with implications of racial superiority and condescension towards the intellect and prowess of Non-European cultures.

Now, turning to specifics:

Contrary to what Sarah J. Maas might believe- mehendi designs are neither mundane, purely aesthetic tattoos nor can they be co-opted by random Western fantasy characters. While henna has existed as an art form in various cultures, I’m limiting my answer to the Indian context, (specifying since you mention ancient India). Mehendi is considered one of the tenets of the Solah Shringar- sixteen ceremonial adornments for Hindu brides, one for each phase of the moon, as sanctioned by the Vedic texts. The shade of the mehendi is a signifier for the strength of the matrimonial bond: the darker the former, the stronger the latter. Each of the adornments carries significant cosmological/religious symbolism for Hindus. To put it bluntly, when you claim this to be an invention of the aliens, you are basically taking a very sacred cultural and artistic motif of our religion and going “Well actually….extraterrestrials taught them all this.”

In terms of Ayurveda (Traditional holistic South Asian medicine) , mehendi was used for its medicinal properties. It works as a cooling agent on the skin and helps to alleviate stress, particularly for the bride-to-be. Not really nice to think that aliens lent us the secrets of Ayurvedic science (pseudoarchaeology all over again).

I’m just not feeling this arc at all. The closest possible alternative I could see to this is the ancient Indian characters incorporating some specific stylistic motifs in their mehendi in acknowledgement to this entity, in the same vein of characters incorporating motifs of tribute into their armour or house insignia, but even so, I’m not sure how well that would play out. If you do go ahead with this idea, I cannot affirm that it will not receive backlash.

-Mimi

These articles might help:

Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism Behind Ancient Aliens

A History of Indian Henna (this studies mehendi origins mostly with reference to Mughal history)

Solah Shringar

2) Not Yes, But If Ignoring the Above:

I will be the dissenting voice of “Not No, But Here Are The Big Caveats.” Given that there is no way to make the story you want to tell palatable to certain interpretations of Islam and Christianity, here is my advice if the above arguments did not sufficiently deter you.

1. Admiration ≠ Research: It is not enough to just admire cultures for their richness and beauty. You need to actually do the research and learn about them to determine if the story you want to tell is a good fit for the values and principles these cultures prioritize. You need to understand the significance of historical figures and events to understand the issues with attributing the genesis of certain cultural accomplishments to an otherworldly influence. 1.

2. Give Less Offense When Possible and Think Empathetically: You should try to imagine the mindsets of those you will offend and think about to what degree you can soften or ameliorate certain aspects of your plot, the creature’s characteristics, and the creature’s interactions with historical figures to make your narrative more compatible. There is no point pretending that much of areligious science fiction is incompatible with monotheist, particularly non-henotheistic, religious interpretations as well as the cultural items and rituals derived from those religious interpretations. One can’t take “There is no god, just a lonely alien” and make that compatible with “There is god, and only in this particular circumstance.” Thus:

As stated above by Asmaa and Mimi, there is no escaping the reality the story you propose is offensive to some. Expect their outcry to be directed towards you. Can you tolerate that?

Think about how you would feel if someone made a story where key components of your interpretation of reality are singled out as false. How does this make you feel? Are you comfortable doing that to others?

3. Is Pseudoarchaeology Appropriate Here?: Mimi makes a good point about the racial biases of pseudoarchaeology. Pseudoarchaeology is a particular weakness of Western-centric atheist sci-fi. Your proposed story is the equivalent of a vaguely non-descript Maya/Aztec/Egyptian pyramid or Hindu/ Buddhist-esque statue being the source for a Resident Evil bio weapon/ Predator nest/ Assassin’s Creed Isu relic.

Is this how you wish to draw attention to these cultures you admire? While there is no denying their ubiquity in pop-culture, such plots trivialize broad swathes of non-white history and diminish the accomplishments of associated ethnic groups. The series listed above all lean heavily into these tropes either because the authors couldn’t bother to figure out something more creative or because they are intentionally telling a story the audience isn’t supposed to take seriously.*

More importantly, I detect a lot of sincerity in your ask, so I imagine such trivialization runs counter to your expressed desire to depict Eastern cultures in a positive and accurate manner.

4. Freedom to Write ≠ Freedom from Consequence: Once again, as a reminder, it’s not our job to reassure you as to whether or not what you are proposing is ok. Asmaa and Mimi have put a lot of effort into explaining who you will offend and why. We are here to provide context, but the person who bears the ultimate responsibility for how you choose to shape this narrative, particularly if you share this story with a wide audience, is you. Speaking as one writer to another, I personally do not have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I think it is important to be face reality head-on.

- Marika.

* This is likely why the AC series always includes that disclaimer stating the games are a product of a multicultural, inter-religious team and why they undermine Western cultures and Western religious interpretations as often (if not moreso) than those for their non-Western counterparts.

Note: Most WWC asks see ~ 5 hours of work from moderators before they go live. Even then, this ask took an unusually long amount of time in terms of research, emotional labor and discussion. If you found this ask (and others) useful, please consider tipping the moderators (link here), Asmaa (coming eventually) and Mimi (here). I also like money - Marika.

#alien character #historical fiction #science fiction #pseudoarchaeology #Middle-Eastern cultures #South-Asian cultures #Islam #writing with Islam #mehendi #cultural appropriation #areligious perspectives in writing #asks #WWC

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samwisethewitch · 3 years

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Everything You Need to Know About Pagan Deity

As you’ve probably guessed by now, there are many, many, many different approaches to deity within the wider pagan community. While it would be impossible to summarize all of these different perspectives in a single blog post, this post contains some common themes and best practices that are more or less universal and can be adapted to fit whatever system you choose to work with.

In my Baby Witch Bootcamp series, I talk about the “Four R’s” of working with spiritual beings, including deities: respect, research, reciprocity, and relationship. However, when it comes to gods and goddesses specifically, I think it’s important to include a fifth “R” — receptivity.

If you’re completely new to this kind of work and want to avoid making rookie mistakes and/or pissing off powerful spiritual forces, sticking to the Five R’s of Deity Relationships is a good place to start. The Five R’s are:

Respect. It’s always a good idea to have a healthy respect for the powers you choose to connect with, whether you see those powers as literal gods and goddesses or as archetypes within the collective unconscious (see below). While not every ritual needs to be incredibly formal and structured, you should always conduct yourself with an air of respect and reverence when connecting with deity. There’s no need to humble yourself to the point of cowering before the gods (and in fact, this kind of behavior is a turnoff for many deities), but you should strive to be polite and follow your system’s proper protocol for things like cleansing, offerings, and prayers.

Research. I am of the opinion that you should do serious research into a god or goddess before any attempt to make contact with them. This can be controversial, but in my own experience things seem to go more smoothly when I know what I’m doing. Books are really the way to go for this — the Internet can be useful for connecting with other worshipers and hearing their stories, but it isn’t a good source for nonbiased factual information. I recommend starting with academic sources written by secular experts for a purely historical account that won’t be colored by personal religious experience. Once you have a decent understanding of the basic historical context, look for books by pagan authors who have experience working with this deity. These sources will give you a framework for your own interactions with them.

Reciprocity. As we’ve discussed before, reciprocity is a core value of virtually every pagan tradition. Reciprocity is a mutual positive exchange where all parties benefit in some way, and this quality forms the backbone of all healthy relationships with deity. While we benefit from connecting with the gods, the gods also benefit from our worship. Upholding reciprocity in your relationships with deity means making regular offerings to show your appreciation as well as living in a way that your god or goddess approves of.

Relationship. At the end of the day, connecting with a god or goddess is about creating a healthy, fulfilling relationship. Like any relationship, it takes time and effort to keep the connection alive. The gods are living, thinking, feeling beings just like you and me, though on a much larger scale. Just like you and me, they have likes and dislikes and require certain things from those who want to work closely with them. Try to approach the gods as individuals, and connect with them as you would with another person. This will naturally lead to much more authentic and organic relationships.

Receptivity. To be receptive is to be open and ready to receive whatever comes your way — this is an essential quality for anyone who is serious about connecting with a god or goddess. Connecting with the gods means allowing them a place in your life, whatever they choose to bring with them. It means forming a relationship with them on their terms, and that requires us to give up a certain degree of control. While you should never feel afraid or completely out of control when connecting with deity (if you do, stop contacting that deity immediately), you may very well experience things you did not expect or ask for. Be prepared for these surprises, and understand that when the gods surprise us in this way, they do it in order to help us grow. Let go of any preconceived ideas about what a relationship with this deity “should” look like, and instead let it unfold naturally.

Though there is much more to working with deity than just these values, keeping these values in mind will get you started out on the right foot in your relationships with the gods.

Deity or Archetype?

As odd as it may sound, not everyone who connects with the gods through study and ritual believes those gods to be literal spiritual beings. Some pagans (I would even say the majority of pagans, based on my personal experience) connect with the gods as individuals with their own personalities and agency, but others connect with them as symbols that represent different elements of the human experience. This latter group is working with the gods not as deity, but as archetypes.

The term “archetype” comes from academia, particularly the fields of psychology and literary analysis. An archetype is a symbol that embodies the fundamental characteristics of a person, thing, or experience.

Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung argued that archetypes are powerful symbols within the collective unconscious (basically an ancestral memory shared by all of humanity) that arise due to shared experiences across cultures. For example, Jung would argue that Demeter, Juno, and Frigg all represent the “Mother” archetype filtered through different cultural lenses, reflecting the important role of mothers across Greek, Roman, and Old Norse culture. For Jung and his followers, archetypes allow us to connect to latent parts of our own psyche — by connecting with the Mother archetype, for example, you can develop motherly qualities like patience, empathy, and nurturing.

For comparative mythology expert Joseph Campbell, archetypes represented types of characters that appear in some form in most or all global mythology. In his book, The Hero of a Thousand Faces, Campbell identified the “hero’s journey” as the archetypal narrative framework on which most stories, from ancient myths to modern films, are based. (If you’ve taken literally any high school literature class, you’re probably familiar with Campbell’s work.) Like Jung, Campbell has been hugely influential on modern pagans who choose to connect with the gods as archetypes.

Working with an archetype is a little different than working with a deity. For one thing, while archetypes may manifest as gods and goddesses, they can also manifest as fictional characters, historical figures, or abstract symbols. Let’s say you want to tap into the Warrior archetype. You could connect with this archetype by working with gods like Mars, Thor, or Heracles — but you could just as easily do so by working with superheroes like Luke Cage or Colossus, literary figures like Ajax or Achilles, or the abstract concepts of strength and honor.

When pagans worship a deity, it’s because they want to form a relationship with that deity for some reason. But when pagans work with an archetype, it’s usually because they want to embody aspects of that archetype. In our above example, you may be trying to connect to the Warrior archetype to gain confidence or become more assertive.

The biggest difference between worshiping a deity and working with an archetype is that a deity is an external force, while an archetype is an internal force. When you connect with a deity, you are connecting with a spiritual being outside of yourself — a being with their own thoughts, feelings, and drives. When you connect with an archetype, you are connecting with a part of your own psyche. Because of this, archetypes tend to be more easily defined and behave in more predictable ways than deities, although some archetypes can be very complex and multi-faceted.

On the surface, worship and archetype work might be very similar, but the “why” behind the action is fundamentally different.

If you choose to worship the Morrigan, for example, you may have an altar dedicated to her, make regular offerings to her, speak with her in meditations and astral journeys, and/or write poetry or make art in her honor. If you choose to work with the Wild Woman archetype, it may look very similar to an outside observer — you may have an altar dedicated to the Wild Woman energy, speak with manifestations of Wild Woman (perhaps including the Morrigan) in meditation, and write poetry or make art dedicated to this archetype. However, these actions will have a very different intent behind them. Your Wild Woman altar is not a sacred space but a visual trigger to help you connect to the Wild Woman within you. Your meditations are conversations with different aspects of your own personality, not with a separate being. Your art is an expression of self, not a devotional act. The result is a deeper connection to yourself, not a relationship with another being.

I hope I’ve made it clear that archetype work and deity worship can both be very worthwhile spiritual practices, and that each serves its own purpose. Many pagans, myself included, work with both deities and archetypes.

There is some overlap between worshiping a deity and working with an archetype, and many pagans start out with one practice before eventually ending up in the other. Sometimes working with an archetype leads you to encounter a deity who embodies that archetype, which can lead to a relationship with that deity. Likewise, your relationship with a deity may help you become aware of a certain archetype’s influence in your life, which might lead you to work with that archetype.

Making First Contact

First impressions are important. This is true for making new friends, for job interviews, for first dates — and for your first meeting with a god or goddess. In many cases, the way you behave in your first meeting with a deity will set the tone for your relationship with them.

That being said, don’t overthink (or over-stress) about your first impression. You aren’t going to be cursed or punished if you mess this up — at the very worst, the deity might lose interest in connecting with you, and even that can often be remedied with an offering and a polite apology. While it’s always best to get off on the right foot, don’t feel like you need to be perfect.

So, how do you make a good first impression on a god or goddess? Honestly, the rules are largely the same for making a good first impression on any other person. Make sure your physical appearance is clean and tidy — some systems, such as Hellenismos and Kemetic paganism, have special rules for cleansing before contacting the gods, but it’s always a good idea to take a shower first and make sure you’re wearing clean clothes. Likewise, make sure the physical space you invite the gods into is relatively clean — it doesn’t need to be spotless, but take a minute to tidy up before beginning any ritual. Be polite — there’s no need to be overly formal, but you should be respectful. Don’t immediately ask for favors — how would you feel if you met someone at a party and they immediately asked you to do some sort of work for them?

Beyond the basics, it’s wise to make sure you have an idea of who this god is and what they are like before you reach out to them. This will keep you from accidentally doing something offensive. For example, you wouldn’t want to invite them to an altar dedicated to a deity they have a rivalry with. Likewise, you want to avoid offering food or drink that would have been taboo in their original worship. (Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, but when you’re just starting out it’s a good idea to follow the historical framework as closely as possible.)

At the risk of sounding like a broken record: this is why research is so important. Knowing who you are dealing with allows you to deal with them respectfully, gracefully, and competently.

Callings

There’s one aspect of deity worship that is controversial in modern paganism: the idea of being “called” by a deity. This is a question you’ll find many, many heated discussions about online. Do you need to be called by a deity to form a relationship with them? Do deities choose their followers, or do we choose them? How do you know what a call from a deity even looks like?

As I said, this is a controversial topic, but I firmly believe that 1.) you do not have to feel called to a deity beyond being interested in them, and 2.) feeling drawn to a deity’s image, symbols, and myths is a form of calling.

Many pagans do feel like they were called or drawn to the deities they walk most closely with. They may have encountered myths of that deity as a child or teenager and deeply resonated with them, or may have always had an affinity for that god’s sacred animals. They may have dreamed of this deity before knowing who they were, or may have felt a spiritual presence around them before identifying it as a god or goddess.

Many people first encounter the gods in fiction, only for this fictionalized depiction to spark a deeper connection that eventually leads to worship. In the modern era, it’s entirely possible for someone who worships Loki to have first encountered him (or at least a character loosely based on him) in Marvel comics and films, or for someone who worships the Greek pantheon to have first discovered them through the Percy Jackson books. As far as I’m concerned, this is also a valid “call” from deity. The gods are very good at communicating with us through the means available — including fiction.

That being said, just because you don’t already feel a strong connection to a god or goddess doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t worship them. The connection will come with time and effort, just like in any relationship.

Dedication, Patrons, and Matrons

In online spaces such as Tumblr and TikTok, a lot of inexperienced pagans parrot the idea that every pagan needs to have a designated matron and/or patron god and/or needs to be formally dedicated to a god in order to have a close relationship with them. Not only is this untrue, but such restrictions can actually cause harm and/or stunt spiritual growth.

Let’s address dedication first. To be dedicated to a deity means to outwardly declare yourself a servant of that deity, usually with a formal dedication ritual — think of it as the pagan version of joining a convent or going to seminary. It is an outward expression of your devotion and loyalty to that deity. Dedicants are held to a higher standard than the average worshiper by themselves, their communities, and the god(s) they have dedicated to.

Dedication can be a powerful and fulfilling spiritual experience (it’s the backbone of many peoples’ spiritual practice), but it should not be taken lightly. Dedicating yourself to a god or goddess should be a sign of your commitment to them and a deepening of your relationship — it should not be the beginning of that relationship.

Dedication is a lot like marriage. Just like you wouldn’t marry someone you’ve only been on a handful of dates with, you shouldn’t dedicate to a deity just because you’ve had one or two positive experiences with them. Like marriages, dedication can be difficult to get out of — ending your dedication to a deity is possible, but it’s a messy, complicated, uncomfortable process that is sure to shift the foundation of your entire spiritual practice, and not always for the better.

My advice to new and inexperienced pagans is not to even consider dedication until you’ve been practicing for several years. As you begin your journey, your focus should be on exploring your options, forming meaningful connections, and developing a practice that works for you and your unique spiritual needs. Now is the time for experimentation, not lifelong commitments.

But let’s say you are an experienced pagan, and you feel like you are ready for dedication. How do you know if you should dedicate to a given god or goddess?

Dedication may be the logical next step in your relationship with a deity if:

This deity has been an active part of your spiritual practice for at least 2-3 years, with no major gaps in contact with them

You are comfortable upholding this deity’s values for the rest of your life — and are willing to face consequences if you fail to do so

You are willing to dedicate a significant amount of time and effort to the service of this deity

You are willing to face major changes in your life outside your spiritual practice — dedicating to a deity often leads to major shifts that may affect our career, family, and/or relationships

If you answered “yes” to all of the above, dedication may be appropriate. This may seem overly cautious, but remember that dedicating to a deity is a serious, lifelong commitment akin to joining the clergy. For context, it takes at least five years of study and practice to become a Catholic priest, a similar amount of time to become a Jewish rabbi, and three years to become a high priest/ess in Traditional Wicca. If you don’t have the patience to maintain a relationship for a few years before dedication, that is probably a good indicator that dedication isn’t for you.

If you are dedicated to a deity or are planning to dedicate, you may actually choose to attend seminary or receive some other formal religious training. This training will help you to better serve your deity in a public capacity, as you will learn skills like religious counselling, leading ritual, and building community. If your program of study includes ordination, it will also allow you to perform legally binding religious rituals like marriage ceremonies. Depending on your path, attending seminary or training may be your act of formal dedication.

Finally, let me make it clear that dedication does not make you a better pagan than someone who is not dedicated. The choice to dedicate or not dedicate is only one element of your spiritual practice, and it is possible to have a fulfilling and life-affirming practice without dedication. Some of the people who do the most work in the service of the gods are not dedicated to them. You may be one of these people, and that is totally okay.

Patron/matron relationships are a specific type of dedication.

The concept of patron deities comes from Wicca and related neopagan religions. As we’ve previously discussed, Wicca is a duotheistic system with a God and Goddess, whose union is the source of all creation. However, because Wiccans believe that all gods are manifestations of the God and all goddesses are manifestations of the Goddess, some covens choose to work with the God and Goddess in the form of other deities (say, for example, Osiris and Isis), which are referred to as the coven’s “patron” and “matron” deities. In these covens, initiation into the coven’s mysteries (traditionally in the form of first, second, and third degree initiations) typically acts as a form of dedication to these deities.

As Eclectic Wicca has gained popularity in the last few decades, there has been a growing trend of individual Wiccans and eclectic pagans choosing personal patron and/or matron deities. Some Wiccans will have a single god or goddess they are dedicated to, while others feel that it is very important to be dedicated to exactly one masculine deity and exactly one feminine deity. This second model is the one I see most often in online pagan spaces, especially Tumblr and TikTok.

The patron/matron model can be useful for some pagans, but it is not one-size-fits-all. As I mentioned, this model of dedication comes from Wicca, and is a very modern concept. In ancient pagan religions, most people would not have been dedicated in this way. That does not mean that this isn’t a valid form of worship (it absolutely is), but it does mean that those who practice reconstructionist paths may not be inclined to interact with deity this way.

The guidelines for patron/matron relationships are similar to the guidelines for dedication in general, but these relationships often (but not always) have a more parental nature. For some people, having a divine mother and/or father figure is ideal — especially for those who are healing from parental trauma or abuse. If you feel drawn to this type of deity relationship, I encourage you to explore it.

On the other hand, you may not have any interest in the patron/matron model, and that’s totally fine! It’s called polytheism for a reason — if you prefer to maintain less formal relationships with many gods, you should feel free to do so.

I hope this post has helped clarify some of the murkier aspects of polytheism and deity work. Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg — I could write a book about this topic and many, many authors already have. However, I think the information here is enough to get you started, and I hope that it will provide a first step on your journey with your gods.

Resources:

Wicca for Beginners by Thea Sabin

A Witches’ Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

Where the Hawthorn Grows by Morgan Daimler

The Way of Fire and Ice by Ryan Smith

Jessi Huntenburg (YouTuber), “Dancing with Deity | Discovering Gods, Goddesses, and Archetypes,” “Archetype, Deity, and Inviting Transpersonal Experience,” and “10 Ways to Bond with Deity”

Kelly-Ann Maddox (YouTuber), “How to Have Deep Connections with Deities”

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tapeworrmart · 2 years

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Hello 😊 I'm a little curious about this. Do you have a reason for having blood tears for some, and others without?

I'm not criticising though, I'm just curious. Sorry if it came off that way 🥺

Hi! That's okay, thanks for being curious about my work!!

Basically blood tears for me symbolise more of a holy/spirutual/intense grief or foreboding. Blood tears are often used as symbolism in a lot of religious works for martyrdom. But also they get used a lot in demonic possession accounts, mental illness accounts, general 'frenzy' stuff throughout history to show an intense emotional response. Now look, I don't claim to take my art that seriously, I don't choose blood tears because I want my art to have religious weight. I use a lot of psudo spiritual imagery in my work to give a tarot-y and dramatic flair. So that's why I use blood tears for some characters if I think that it suits.

For example Whitehead from A Field in England got blood tears because he is a character connected with religion and omens, and the colour red, so I thought it fit to give him tears of blood for a more religiously foreboding feel considering what's going on in the film (popular religion vs the threat of secular spirituality. A spirituality which whitehead finds strength in, therefore losing his idea of societal religious values to become his own formed thing, but still pure compared to O'Niel. Imo. So blood tears fit his religious metamorphosis and grief about it. It also looks ominous.).

But yeah! Tbh it's not always that deep, sometimes a character is crying cuz their story fits, and sometimes they are crying blood because their story fits a more poignant route.

Other times I just like using the colour red lmao.

I hope this made any sort of sense!! Thanks for asking!

#Honestly I don't mind questions about my art at all!#Thank you!

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attemptsonherlifepdf · 3 years

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attempts on her life: an exploration of victimhood, theatre and self-empowerment as modern feminine survival tactics

trigger warning for discussions of suicide, self harm, sexual assault, fetishism, eating disorders, implications of paedophilia and violence

‘is she not saying, your help oppresses me? is she not saying, the only way to avoid being a victim of the patriarchal structures of late 20th century capitalism is to become her own victim?’ martin crimp’s 1997 play, attempts on her life, was first performed at the royal court theatre upstairs the year of its release. written ‘for a company of actors whose composition should reflect the world beyond theatre’, the play explores the seedier, harsher aspects of reality, including pornography, ethnic violence and suicide. crimp’s central character, anne, is characterised as unique and empowered, but most importantly she is characterised by narrators and other characters describing her. the irony of a woman described as so empowered having so little voice of her own throughout the play is crucial to the question the play poses: is liberation from patriarchal constraints even possible, or do acts of reclamation serve to eventually end up catering to the male gaze regardless?

the scene ‘untitled (100 words)’ details anne’s self-destruction, manifesting in ‘various attempts to kill herself.’ it is an effort to replace being a victim of ‘patriarchal structures’ with being a victim of her own actions and emotions. arguably though, this effort may not be entirely fruitful as anne’s behaviour produces the same result she would achieve through allowing herself to cater to traditional expectations: a helpless victim of the male gaze. anne’s actions are presented as exhibitionist; while motivated by her own suicidal ideation, her attempts to take her life work as ‘a kind of theatre for a world in which theatre itself has died.’ she leaves a ‘gallery’ of memorabilia surrounding her attempts, including ‘medicine bottles, records of hospital admissions polaroids of the several hiv positive with whom she has intentionally had unprotected intercourse, pieces of broken glass...suicide notes…’ a narrator describes this exhibition as ‘the spectacle of her own existence, the radical pronography...the religious object.’ the semantic field of language in this scene associated with anne’s suicide attempts is littered with sexualisation and ideas of performance: ‘its sexy...voeyuers...pornography...object of herself...to be consumed...self-indulgent...entertaining.’ this opens up a dialogue between the narrators that evaluates her suicidal behaviour as a piece of artwork. one asks ‘who would possibly accept this kind of undigested exhibitionism as a work of art?’ while the other offers the idea that ‘gestures of radicalism take on new meaning in a society where the radical gesture is simply one more form of entertainment - in this case artwork - to be consumed.’ as uncomfortable as it is to suggest, anne’s suicidality is both fetishised and commodified, something that is partially her own doing. the concepts of ‘pure narcissism’ and ‘self-indulgence’ are attributed to her performance, along with one of the narrators pushing for her to receive psychiatric treatment. an obvious but viable interpretation of anne’s ‘gallery’ is that it is an exaggerated cry for help, where she lays out the evidence of her mental state in the hopes of receiving validation or assistance. this idea is disputed by this narrator’s counterpart, who suggests that ‘help is the last thing she wants.’ the sexualised language used and the repeated hints at exhibitionism could indicate that her performance is for the purpose of her own sexual pleasure: ‘surely our presence [the audience] here makes us mere voyeurs in bedlam.’ in forcing those around her to witness her mental decline, anne may be participating in fetishism. she certainly is acting with the intention of performing, and of being watched.

this is where the idea of empowerment and reclamation comes in. anne forces her peers into watching, something that she gets pleasure from, and this arguably serves as a reversal of typical sexual dynamics which place men in dominant, pleasure-receiving roles roles. in self-destructive behaviours, she reclaims her body and chooses to destroy it herself rather than allowing others to do it to her. however, in the process of doing so she achieves the same result that she would if she were allowing her environment to shape her into an object of the male gaze; that is to say, a helpless object. men’s stereotypical attraction to what ibsen referred to as ‘feminine helplessness’ tends to be the driving force of the objectification of women. it can be argued that this objectification is inevitable and thus anne’s efforts to control the means by which it occurs is the closest she can get to liberating herself from it. finding a way to enjoy or bear something painful and inevitable serves as a survival mechanism; ‘not the object of others, but the object of herself.’

the aesthetic framing of anne’s violence against herself is incredibly significant to its relevance as a piece of artwork. in ‘aesthetic violence and women in film: kill bill with flying daggers’, kupfer argues that film, and by extension plays and scripts, aesthetically frame violence in three ways: symbolically, structurally, and as a narrative essential. anne’s violence can be characterised as self harm and fulfills these three framings. symbolically it is an act of free will and a reclamation of her own body, an opportunity to enjoy her ‘inevitable’ objectification. structurally, the scene ‘untitled (100 words)’ occurs five scenes after the last discussion of anne’s suicidality within the play, a scene titled ‘mum and dad.’ this sets up certain aspects of anne’s performative nature in advance. after a suicide attempt she describes ‘[feeling] like a screen’ to her parents: ‘where everything from the front looks real and alive, but round the back there’s just dust and a few wires...an absence of character.’ here she details an experience of feeling disconnected from herself beyond her performance. the act of using performance as a means of openly criticising performance is certainly subversive, and is a device seen in more modern media, such as bojack horseman (‘i felt like a xerox of a xerox of a xerox...not my character’) and in bo burnham’s ‘inside.’ crimp uses his play to propose ideas about the nature of acting, particularly its role in the lives of women. the sentiment of acting being a survival tactic for women is echoed in much earlier texts, such as ibsen’s ‘a doll’s house.’ throughout the play nora caters to her husband’s infantalised fantasies of her whenever he is present, and doing so results in him giving her an allowance and certain limited but significant moments of freedom. torvald admits, ‘i would not be a man if your feminine helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in my eyes’ and repeatedly states that he wishes some ‘terrible fate’ would befall his wife so that he could have the pleasure of rescuing her. anne’s performance of suicidality, of feeling ‘beyond help’, would likely be received by men similarly to how nora’s childish facade is received by her husband, as a fantasy that involves saving her for their own sense of pleasure and accomplishment. however, what makes anne’s behaviour ‘radical’ is her refusal to accept help. she recognises that her feelings of hopelessness are fetishised and argues that ‘your help oppresses me.’ this sentiment is also reflected in ‘a doll’s house’; nora must refuse torvald’s money and help in order to pursue her own freedom in the final act. catering to his idealised image of a wife only served to help her survive her household, not to prosper or be her individual self. she had to leave the environment which forced her to perform behind entirely in order to discover who she is beyond the act. not accepting help is anne’s version of this, but the narrators consider the idea that even in isolating her act to only include herself, anne still cannot escape objectification. her ‘radical gesture’ of destroying herself and laying out the evidence of her behaviour is ‘simply one more form of entertainment, one more product… to be consumed.’ an earlier scene, titled ‘the camera loves you’ includes the line ‘we need to go for the sexiest scenario’, a statement which accurately summarises the likely reception to anne’s ‘dialogue of objects.’ arguably another aspect of what makes anne’s predicament ‘the sexiest scenario’ is that even within the text itself she is the subject of the conversation, but rarely a participant. anne is described by narrators, art critics, her parents, her family, etc, but only ever speaks for herself when her defiant statements are being quoted by one of these narrators. descriptions of her self-inflicted violence fit kupfer’s final framing: a narrative essential.

interestingly, the play consists of a somewhat non-linear narrative, where each of its 17 scenes has its own plot unconnected to that of the last. as a result, a narrative essential in ‘attempts on her life’ would be a device, or in this case an instance of violence, which builds our understanding of both anne and the play’s messages, rather than a traditional narrative essential which would drive the plot forwards. the play delivers multiple instances of various forms of violence, ranging from ethnic violence to self harm to forced pornography. anne’s self-injury in particular is framed just prior to and just after the midpoint of the play. before the midpoint, the audience learns of her ‘terrible detachment’ from the character she plays, how she ‘feels like a screen.’ the midpoint, a scene titled ‘the international threat of terrorism™’ opens with a brief analysis of a statement made by anne: ‘i do not recognise your authority.’ the speaker asks, ‘does she really imagine that anything can justify her acts of random senseless violence?’ ‘random’ and ‘senseless’ seem ill-fitting qualities to attribute to anne’s violence, particularly given that her parents state ‘she’s planned all this.’ however, this midpoint scene states ‘no one can find anne’s motive’, seemingly the reason that the speaker cannot see a possible justification for her behaviour. choosing not to recognise the authority of those around her is yet another aspect of our protagonist’s performance that is ‘radical.’ in neglecting to acknowledge the power of those objectifying her, anne is achieving two things; either she is allowing herself to experience her own body and emotions without it being for the sake of others, or she is allowing herself to be fetishised and is simply in denial of it. her defiance is complex and the results of it, and indeed the motivations behind it, are difficult to ascertain.

martin crimp’s use of 17 separate individual scenes rather than a traditional singular plot narrative allows the audience to gain a multifaceted understanding of many multifaceted issues. anne is placed and acts within varying contexts such as her own personal self destruction, destruction of land that comes with ethnic cleansing, the commodification of female bodies and two different familial structures. the scene ‘the camera loves you’ emphasises how anne is an ‘everywoman’ but rather than this term being used to describe an average woman in daily life, it instead refers to a woman who is, simply put, everything. anne is described in the scene ‘girl next door’ as ‘the girl next door...royalty…a pornographic movie star...a killer and a brand of car...a terrorist threat...a mother of three...femme fatale...a presidential candidate...a predator…’ by not allocating a specific speaker to each line, crimp allows the director to decide who describes anne and in what way. lines such as ‘what we see here is the work of a girl who clearly should have been admitted, not to an art school but to a psychiatric unit’ can be spoken by a parent, an art critic, a teacher, anyone, and the relation of the speaker to anne is what characterises the comment and thus characterises her. someone described as ‘self indulgent’ by a parent is very different to someone described the same way by a lover. this means that anne is not just every woman, but every woman to everyone. by placing this ‘everywoman’ in such a range of contexts, she arguably becomes a plot device used to convey meaning, and it can be argued that this negates the more empowered features of her character. it is entirely common for female characters to be reduced to plot devices, however most often when this occurs, the character is two-dimensional. anne, on the other hand, is consistently given additional layers to her character in every scene; she exists to be characterised. excessive use of character description in conjunction with limited speaking time is either evidence that crimp’s writing is atypical in style but not theme, or that it is poignant.

arguably, by giving anne countless traits and emphasising ideas of performance and media, crimp is using his 17 scenes as an extreme example of the commodification of female bodies. anne is sold to the audience as this larger-than-life persona, someone who fulfils a million roles in subversive ways that are interesting to watch, but she still ‘feels like a screen.’ again, this sentiment of the effects of performance on an actor is echoed in many modern texts and pieces of media, but ‘attempts on her life’ makes this point in specific reference to women. real life examples of anne’s treatment exist, and her ‘everywoman’ role allows audiences to relate anne to any number of women existing in media. the way that others only talk about anne when describing or evaluating her mimics the way that agencies and record labels create a solid branding for their actors, musicians, and so on. this brand becomes an intrinsic part of their genuine personality as they cannot be caught behaving in a way that is not consistent with it. acting becomes a constant, and these women are constantly selling a brand or persona, and have very little space to behave in ways that feel true to themselves instead. acting ‘out of character’ results in the loss of public support, funding from agencies, job offers, etc, and thus the character created for celebrities is vital to their survival in their respective industries. as previously discussed, traditional texts argue the importance of theatre for women’s survival just as much, namely ibsen’s ‘a doll’s house.’ the same way nora must leave the environment that forces her to act in order to be happy or individual, anne must do the same; but her attempts at suicide suggest that the environment forcing her performance is not a household or an industry, but ‘the patriarchal structures of late twentieth century capitalism.’ either she dies or ‘becomes her own victim’ in an attempt to escape constant performance, but even her death becomes somewhat performative. even dead, many female celebrities continue their branding through martyrdom. there is very little room for one to make art detailing suicide, sex, and the like without seemingly crossing the line between expression and glorification. women who suffer are not necessarily acting, but as their suffering is a part of their life experience, it becomes interwoven in their branding or public image: amy winehouse’s experiences with alcoholism and bulimia come to mind. winehouse never glorified alcoholism herself, but songs such as ‘rehab’ and documentaries covering her illness released after her death have certainly been accused of doing so. agencies and other creatives took advantage of winehouse’s struggles in order to perform their own ‘activism’ or ‘spreading of awareness.’

in light of ‘attempts on her life’ and the concepts surrounding performance that it poses, we must consider: is liberation from patriarchal constraints even possible, or do acts of reclamation serve to eventually end up catering to the male gaze regardless? it would not be accurate to the play’s style and purpose to try to make one singular conclusion to this question. crimp uses varying styles and contexts in order to showcase the various aspects there are to this issue; the necessity of performance, the constraints it leads to, the sexualisation of suffering, brand maintenance, and so on. anne’s lack of voice in this play can be read either as an example of the very thing the play criticises, or simply just poor usage of character, and the former feels most appropriate for crimp’s writing style. the play implies that victimhood can be intrinsic to womanhood, but presents anne’s defiance as ideallised, encouraging it. theatre can be used as both a survival mechanism and a method of empowerment, but the play posits that it is only empowering to a certain extent; it allows one to control the means by which they are objectified but not to actually avoid objectification. one can behave in undesirable manners, such as anne’s displays of suicidality and exhibitionism, but then we must examine their motivations. is anne behaving in this way solely based upon her low mental health? or is the fact that she is also engaging in a form of exhibitionism and forcing an audience evidence of her sexualising her own experience? if so, her sexualisation of suicidal behaviour likely stems from the ‘patriarchal structures’ she is working to avoid being a victim of, suggesting that it is not possible to liberate oneself from them. anne is evidence that women are not separate from the patriarchy, but active participants in it as it is a collection of ideals engraved into western society. it would be unfair and somewhat dejected to conclude that these ideals cannot be unlearned, but ‘attempts on her life’ certainly illustrates that unlearning them is a more active and difficult task than simply holding a feminist ideology.

i.k.b

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demonslayedher · 3 years

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do you still take asks? if so, could you explain tanjirou's hanafuda earings? i've seen some people online (like insta and other such places) claim that the design is one of a flower, but i always thought it was of a sun since it was supposed to be like a token for the sun god or something (disregarding possible [and hopefully unintentional] symbolisms coming from ww2)

whenever these people say these, they go back on to the earings being called hanafuda cards, and that hana means flower. i'm not that smart when it comes to japanese things or hanafuda cards specifically, so if you could, can you explain the hanafuda cards and the design on tanjirou's earings?

thank you and i hope you're having a lovely day (love your blog, btw, esp the art and japanese trivia posts)

Hahaha.... my attempted answer to this met so many technical difficulties, this is my third version, I think, hahahaaaaaa. TwT We shall indeed endeavor to keep this related to the original Sengoku period design of the earrings and their relation to Hanafuda cards, though indeed this is a Heisei/Reiwa period production and it's unavoidable that the similarity would be read in a post-WW2 context. It's not that I don't have things I could say on that, but I prefer not to go in that direction either (and people who choose to use the alternate design have my support). Short answer, though: nope, not a flower design!

The sun symbolism and its representation of Japan supersedes Muzan’s birth by at least a few centuries, and in its earliest uses with a simple circle to represent it, it wasn’t even always defined by the color red. The bright color red has been, however, long since symbolic of the sun, so it’s unsurprising that at some point the two symbols came together. No one knows who to credit for its design as a symbol to represent the emperor, but it seems this started in the Sengoku period, same time Yoriichi and his mother Akeno were around in the 15th, 16th centuries or so (but hard to say). The imperial use is due to the Shinto mythology that the emperor is descended from the sun goddess, Amaterasu. (I’ve have heard some KnY theorists posit that certain characters represent different gods in the Shinto pantheon and that Yoriichi represents Amaterasu (who indeed has historical male representations), but I don’t buy into those theories.)

While’s it’s not to say Amaterasu couldn’t be beseeched for healing a deaf child, she doesn’t strike me as the first goddess you’d go to for help with that, so I had originally suspected Akeno might have been more of a practicing Buddhist seeking the help of Dainichi-nyorai (the Buddha that represents the sun, if we put it very simply), or that she might had been a follower of the Nichiren sect, which embraced syncretism with Shintoism and used the “Nichi” (sun) symbolism pretty heavy-handedly (that sect tended to encourage a devout following of women, too). That’s as far as I find relevant to read into this side of things, though, for a look at Akeno’s altar shows us a round mirror often used in Shinto worship (some scholars suspect the round shape represents the sun, too, but it’s not at all limited to being a sacred item to represent sun-related deities). However, religion is and always has been complicated, and Akeno may have been a follower of any pure or blended strain of Shintoism and/or Buddhism.

Tl;dr: Akeno has a profound faith in some kind of sun deity.

After all, Yoriichi says this very plainly on this page in Chapter 186, “My mother was a person of very deep faith.” In addition to her daily prayers for peace, she made the earrings for Yoriichi praying that the “god of sunlight” may shine on and warm his unhearing ears. We have no further definition of this “god of sunlight,” so it could be Amaterasu, Dainichi-nyorai, any possible unnamed sunlight god she might have had faith in (Gotouge tends to borrow heavily from a lot of different religious traditions without narrowing them too far into any particular sect or strain). We may not be meant to read this in such detailed historical context as Amaterasu because it is left so ambiguous, but the art representing the sun is pretty ubiquitous throughout Japanese culture by that period.

And would you look at that, little Michikatsu and Yoriichi were playing a card game! Hmm, I wonder what? While I cannot claim anything one way or another about how Gotouge and her editors saw it or what they may think of it being seen that way abroad, the rays inevitably make it seem similar to the 16-ray naval flag, and the earlier color illustrations did have red lines. However, at some point the design settled into using 11 thin black lines only, with an emphasis in Gotouge’s character design notes (from the first fanbook) on the pooling thickness at the ends of the lines. This feels to me a bit like inky brushstrokes, and there is also design emphasis on the thick lines at the tops and bottoms of the earrings. These details, as well as the notes (cropped out of the image below) about the movement and weight of the earrings around Tanjiro’s face make them seem to have the thickness of light cardboard, which altogether makes them very similar to Hanafuda cards. Most specifically, doesn’t it look like this card featuring pampas grass and the moon?

While Hanafuda does literally mean “flower cards” and there are designs grouped around certain themes (even if the theme itself isn’t a flower, the design will typically incorporate a plant), I feel fairly confident saying the design of Yoriichi’s earrings is not a flower, and indeed the sun.

Primarily because these earrings aren’t Hanafuda cards! Hanafuda technically didn’t exist until after Yoriichi’s time, and was adapted from a Portuguese card game. Said game was initially illegalized at the same time Christianity was illegalized, but the Edo public loved their card games, and reinvented it every time some previous version was outlawed for its use in gambling. Even today, there are many, many different versions or reiterations of Hanafuda under the same or different names. I have never played though, and will not attempt to explain it. ^0^;; (I have cousins who grew up playing the Hawaiian version, though.) It was finally legalized in the Meiji period, and the first fanbook even lists this as one of Zenitsu’s favorite games.

By the Taisho period anyone would had been familiar with it, leading Muzan to describe Tanjiro to Yahaba and Susamaru as “the demon hunter who wears earrings that look like Hanafuda cards.”

While my research didn’t take me this far, I’m willing to bet card games with similar illustrations existed far prior to Hanafuda, and whether or not Akeno would had been influenced by them is anyone’s guess. But as she made them as religious items, that still makes them not game cards. I do assume she used high quality washi paper though, the finest she could afford as the wife of a high-ranking samurai. Good washi is strong enough to last for centuries, and even used to be used for making clothing because it’s so durable. But it’s also lightweight, she wouldn’t want to weigh Yoriichi’s little ears with precious metals or anything like that, I believe!

This all being said, I have most certainly noticed a trend of actual Hanafuda cards being used in accessories, everything from earrings to necklaces to charms to hang on facemasks to manicures. The only time I’ve seen this sun design has been in clear reference to Kimetsu no Yaiba, though!

This went in a lot of different directions, Anon, but I hope that clears things up about the sun and Hanafuda connections more than it clouds everything in unnecessary details. XD

#KnY fandom theories and meta #KnY nerdery #KnY reference #tsugikuni yoriichi #tsugikuni akeno #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer

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familyagrestefanblog · 4 years

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Theory on the guardian Temple: Mount Kailash

Every since "The Collector" I was convinced that the guardian mountain in Miraculous is most likely inspired by a real life counterpart. Then "Feast" came around and confirmed it to me. So I started to do some research and here we are with my answer and a new theory: Mount Kailash.

This mountain is surrounded by mysteries GALORE and its was such an interesting research to do! The more I read up on it the more I was convinced that this is indeed the inspiration of the guardian mountain in Tibet (and its entire society) we see in the show.

So let's not waste any more time and let's dive in. As always, I have alot to say ^^

As always, starting with the basics:

Just like in the show, Mount Kailash is located in Tibet and is part of the Himalaya. Its shape is a bit tricky to compare but even if it wouldn’t add up I think it wouldn’t matter that much. As long as the Ml mountains shape isn’t completely off and unrecognizable let a mountain be a mountain, the shape is not what’s most important about it anyway (not in this theory at least). The height on the other hand adds up very nicely. As we see in the flashbacks the guardian mountain may have been up high but also wasn't the highest mountain in the region by far.

This also applies to Mount Kailash. It is “only” 6,638 m (21,778 ft) high, which is small in comparison to several other mountains that go up to 8,850 metres (29,035 ft). So just like in the show, its not the highest mountain but definitely high enough to sometimes be above a cloud layer.

Next is the lake. Just like we saw in Fu’s flashback, mount Kailash also has a lake. Two to be correct. Lake Manasarovar and Lake Rakshastal.

The lake seen in the flashback I believe to be Lake Manasarovar (right)

The lake is located right by Mount Kailash and is believed to be the most sacred one in Tibet and has the most transparent water among all the lakes in China. In Hinduism, Lake Manasarovar is a personification of purity and bathing in it and drinking its water is believed to cleanse all sins. That sounds definitely like a perfect fit for the ancient, mystical guardian mountain lake we are looking for here.

Of course, the show hasn’t given us any indications yet that the mountain lake has such a high status (how could it? We saw it in one picture) and for all it is, the one in the show doesn’t have to. If the lake(s) end up having such qualities as well (which I believe and I’m also convinced the second lake will be of great importance as well but all of this is an extended theory for a very different day) than that’s wonderful and I’m more than happy, but if not then I’m convinced as well that it was not just a random lake they put in there but one with a mighty cultural significance.

Beside that, the lake happens to be a fresh water lake. This would also explain how a squid or kraken was shown to us to have been there, since those are freshwater animals.

Next is the whole temple thing in general. In real life there is of course no temple on Mount Kailash, but this doesn't mean that the concept of a temple for this mountain is anything new. In fact, it's really, totally, utterly not. There may be no temple on our mountain but we still do have a Kailasa temple and MY is this one important as well!

Comparing these two makes it quite obvious right away, they do have big differences. The material, the design etc. But once again, inspiration doesn't mean copy paste.

What caught my attention here were for example the big stone circle in the middle that mirrors the guardian symbol and the big tower right beside it reminds of the biggest building from the guardian temple. While the Kailasa temple is not built on Kailash, it's shape is supposed to reflect and honor the mountain because the temple was built for the greatest of the hindu gods, lord Shiva (the main God who is supposed to life on top of kailash's peak) and therefore it was supposed to resemble his home.

Meaning what Miraculous did here in my opinion, is that they simply combined Mount kailash and the Kailasa temple to make their own version for the show that is unique enough to stand on its own but also stays close enough to its roots to properly honor and portray them.

I LOVE this.

(Okay I'm gonna take this little section to gush a little about this temple because my GOSH this temple is a beauty to behold!

You are not just looking at any temple here, all of this was CARVED out of the stonewall in ONE PIECE! This is one of the greatest architectural masterpieces in human history and today no one can actually tell how the ancient local people even DID this.

I mean LOOK at this! This is of pure stone, all in one piece and there is even a gigantic underground section!

And each and every wall is full of smaller carvings from the bottom to the top, telling the stories of their culture, their mythology and believes. And even those are little pieces of art for themselves! This is marvellous! I hope that one day I will be able to see this place in person because... wow!)

Alright, leaving the materialistic basics behind us, lets take a look at its religious and cultural significance and its mystical reputation because those are *chef kiss* just beautiful.

Here is an important thing to keep in mind that since the Miraculous mountain is not going to be straight up real life Kailash, only inspired by it, this also means the show would be able to include some of its myths and folklores a lot more directly. Therefore I’m also including them here in my theory.

Coming back to what I said earlier, that apparently Mount Kailash is the holiest mountain on earth. And well, that's no exaggeration of mine. Mount Kailash is the center point of 4(!) religions, Buddhist, Hindu, Jain and Tibetan Bön. These religions also make the fact that the guardians are portrayed as monks a perfect fit. The fact that Mount Kailash has such an immense significance for the regional religions also led to one of the greatest check points for this theory:

Mount Kailash is to this day unclimbed. For several reasons I will cut down to the 3 most important for my theory:

1. As Mount Kailash is believed by 4 religions to be the center point/or a place of great significance, it is also a place that people hold in alot of honor, respect and fear as well. It's peak is believed to be place were their gods rest and/or where basically the divine energies of Existence are residing and therefore you don't just CLIMB that mountain.

Regional people and believers go an incredibly long way to honor it even to this day and therefore, no, regional people never dared to claim this mountain for themselves and its forbidden by the law to dishonor this sacred place by doing so. Bringing this back to miraculous I’m sure you already see why this fits like a glove.

If there is any real life mystical mountain the guardians of the miraculous would be located on, it's this one! The Miraculous are the origins of the in-universe world and as we know from Fu it is an unspeakable honor to be chosen as one of their guardians. The guardian society was/is located off of the normal society and at least the local people from Fu's childhood knew of their existence. Meaning here again, the miraculous mountain as well holds a great cultural significance and only the chosen guardians were allowed to climb it but for that they also had to dedicate their lives to the miraculous and life in isolation from the rest of the world.

This in combination with:

2. When I say it is forbidden to climb that mountain I mean FORBIDDEN. Not only by regionals and believers because of religion reasons. No. Between the 50s and the 70s Chinese authorities have officially managed to declare this sacred mountain as off limits, keeping it unclimbed and under protection with all means needed. Meaning no climbing by foot (beyond the free area that has always been allowed) or by any machine. It's peak is to be remained untouched. And this also means any footage taken from the mountain needs to be done from far away, no matter how ouf of the world the happening on the mountain may be. And that's precisely what we saw in "Feast"

One would think that the reappearance of a long-lost temple on a fuck high mountain would get the immediate reaction of storming and exploring it like hell. But that's not what's happening here and I don't think it's just for plot convenience at all. If we are indeed talking about a mountain in miraculous here that is just as protected by the law as mount Kailash in real life, then THIS reporting here is as close as anyone can officially/legally get in that moment without serious consequences with the law and Chinese government.

They didn't NOT storm the temple because of plot reasons, they didn't because they are legally aren't allowed to set foot on a sacred unclimbed mountain that is supposed to stay that way. What a great and subtle way of telling us more and more about the significance of the guardian mountain. Wonderful Miraculous, I applause you ^^

But there is still another reason why Mount kailash's unclimbed status convinced me that this is indeed the mountain we are (at least in an inspired way) being presented with in the show.

My point 3. is the reason why Kailash remained unclimbed by (the native) people in the first place which highly influenced its immense religious status although history to the point where it is believed to be the center place of GODS, THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE and ALL OF EXISTENCE.

Cause its not like no one ever tried to climb it. Naturally people did, just like with any other mountain on earth. But here is the thing: somehow no one was able to actually DO it. Odd how humans were and are able to reach the peak of freaking Mount Everest even though it's ALOT higher and objectively deadlier by a long shot but "small" and "easy" Kailash is the one still unclimbed.

Kailash didn't get its godly, mystical and fear-striking reputation for no reason. We are now officially stepping into folklore and myth terrain which is actually exactly what we are looking for because a show called "Miraculous" is going to REGALE in the supernatural stories of its influences. And when I say supernatural, I do indeed mean SUPERNATURAL. The climbers who survived their trip reported of unearthly happenings and situations that made claiming Kailash simply impossible. I'm not sure if saying Kailash seems to have a mind on its own is appropriate but it surely seems to try to defend itself from people who aren't worthy or not supposed to be there with means from another layer of existence.

Sudden weather extremes that come out of nowhere to stop the mountaineering and a seemingly changing environment that leads the climbers into confusion, the wrong direction (away from the peak) and even their end are two of the greatest examples and they fit perfectly into the nature of the Miraculous.

Another myth I’ve read quite a lot about is that on Mount Kailash time works… differently.

This also goes back to its defence mechanism of intruders because it is said that trying to climb it will let hair, nails etc grow a lot faster or fasten up the aging process all together to the point were relatively young climbers died the very next year of freaking OLD AGE! This is not only interesting for the miraculous mountain because it’s a supernatural coping mechanism of the Miraculous origin place using a power we are already familiar with (Bunnix time powers) but also because Kailash’s very same time anomalies are also said to grand a longer life (to those who are worthy if I’m not wrong). And do tell, what’s Fu’s age again? That’s right, a very impossible 186.

BUT, when the Miraculous guardian mountain does grand those who are chosen to be guardian (probably through a ritual or something like that to ultimately seal their “decision” to dedicate their lives to the Miraculous) a much longer life through its magical nature, that would definitely make Fu’s age much more plausible.

And yet still, even after everything I brought up one can still raises the questions “Yes but why THIS mountain? What’s so special about it that all of the miraculous things would happen there? Real-life and Miraculous. For all it is, is it just a coincidence?”

You all know me well enough by now that NOPE, I’m sure as heck not done yet :D Lets get to my last point and this one is what sold this entire idea to me 100%, without a single doubt left behind. This is the HEART of this theory.

Let me explain to you Mount Kailash’s status as Axis Mundi.

Trying to keep this as easy as possible, I do think its concept is comparable to the medieval believe that the earth is the centre of the universe. That everything from the sun to every known planet circles around us and we were the first and most important thing created. Axis Mundi is somewhat like this.

Axis Mundi means “earth axis” in latin and is basically the center point of the earth. It has several ways to approach its meaning from religion, astrology to geography. Good thing for us, Mount Kailash is a complete jackpot in this regard, so this makes it easy! (This is probably the reason why Kailash is seen as THE Axis Mundi for many people, even if there are several others that fit under certain categories as well)

Astrologically Mount Kailash is an Axis Mundi because of its location between the two celestial poles. Its distance to the north pole is 6666km and to the south pole LITERALLY the double: 13332km. Its wild, but it gets even better!

The geographical point of view only supports the astrological because Mount Kailash is said to be part of a several-linked-monuments-line with the exact same km-count of 6666km in between all of them.

And maybe this is the right time to remind you that the height of Mount Kailash that I have mentioned in the beginning is 6638m.

Although this is a point, I wouldn’t bet my hand on for 100% legitimacy, since when I double checked the Kailash to Stonehenge UK distance on Google Earth, I ended up with a distance of 6.900-something km. But at the same time the measurement system there can get quite off in such mountainy terrains so that doesn’t mean its officially wrong. Just in question. Luckily it isn’t even that important if this is true or not in real-life, because even if it isn’t, then Miraculous as a TV show can still incorporate and work with this myth/conspiracy(?) no problem.

Another geographical but more local reason for why Kailash is seen as Axis Mundi in China is because there 4 main Asian rivers find their source: Shiquan (Lion!) river, Maquan (Horse!!) river, Xiangquan (Elephant) river and Kongqu (Peacock!!!) river. now that’s something to keep in mind in future. Each on one of the 4 sides of the mountain, making it indeed a source of life for all of China and therefore a “center point” as well.

And last but definitely not least and my, this one if my favourite!

As I explained earlier, Mount Kailash is seen by 4 religions as the center place of their gods, the entire universe and all of creation. But not only that. Because since it is the place where literal gods can manifest, it is also the place where our material world meets the spiritual one and they overlap (Hence the supernatural nature and abilities of the mountain).

Do you see what this means for Miraculous?

It means that the guardians didn’t chose their mountain by sheer coincidence. It means that this very mountain peak is the place where humans where/ARE able to get access to the Kwamis!

A while ago Thomas Astruc posted this on Twitter

He describes the nature of the Kwamis as not actual living creatures per se but more like the embodiments of abstract concepts found in this universe’s existence. Humans can only interact with them through the ml jewelleries but even if these get destroyed (bee miraculous in “Queen Wasp”) the Kwami doesn’t “die”, it just goes back to its original abstract (bodyless) form and can be brought back with their Miraculous because, logically, destroying the bee miraculous for example didn’t wipe out the entire concept of Submission. Duh. Therefore, Pollen was still “there”.

So if the Kwamis are more embodiments of abstract concepts which need a specific item to physically materialize in the, well, MATERIAL world then this means there needed to be a place of transition between these two layers of reality to seal the Kwamis to the Miraculous’ in the first place. And BOY, this is it!

I’m so convinced that the guardian mountain is the Miraculous inequivalent of our Mount Kailash, everything fits like a glove and explains so many questions I haven’t even considered to ask before now!

Especially the last part about the origins and nature of the Kwamis and how their transition into the real world happened is such a gigantic lore aspect! There is so much to be discovered and connected here and I’m already reworking everything about the lore I have so far and MAN I’m glad I picked up on theorizing about Ml again! I am EXCITED!

But for now, this is it :D

#miraculous #miraculous ladybug #ml theory #guardians of the miraculous #ml tibet #kwamis #ml spoilers #ml feast #ml season 3 #ml guardian mountain #Mount Kailash #Kaisala temple #ml master fu #ml sugar

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passionate-reply · 3 years

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This week on Great Albums: one of very few albums that I think is truly perfect. John Foxx’s second solo LP, The Garden, is a masterpiece of Medieval mysticism, romantic longing, and modern electronics. Transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! In this installment, I’ll be looking at a classic sophomore album, and one which epitomizes the principle of taking one’s sound in a different direction the second time around: The Garden by John Foxx, first released in 1981.

While The Garden was Foxx’s second release as a solo artist, it’s also his fifth LP overall, as he had spent the late 1970s fronting the original incarnation of Ultravox. Foxx’s Ultravox was an eclectic mix of influences from glam, punk, and, of course, electronic pioneers like Kraftwerk, but it would be the latter of these ideas that dominated Foxx’s solo career. His 1980 solo debut, Metamatic, is some of the purest, starkest, and harshest minimal synth around, and remains one of the most iconic early works of the subgenre.

Music: “Underpass”

If you want more like Metamatic from Foxx, you’ll want to skip ahead to the 1990s, because he turned his back on this thin and aggressively inorganic sound remarkably quickly. While he would produce several more LPs in the 1980s, the group of them seems to grow progressively lighter and softer, with less blistering analogue synth, and more radio-friendly love themes. But while Foxx’s third and fourth efforts are often panned, The Garden has actually won nearly as many fans over the years as Metamatic, proving itself to be powerful in its own ways, despite its radically different aesthetic. Where Metamatic dealt in brutalist city blocks and Ballardian psycho-sexuality, The Garden takes place in moldering cathedrals, embracing Gothic splendour and (imagined) Medieval emotionality.

Music: “Europe After the Rain”

“Europe After the Rain” opens the album, and also served as its lead single, becoming a relatively minor hit in the charts. As we hear it, we immediately become aware that Foxx has abandoned the instrumental palette of Metamatic, made almost exclusively with an ARP 2600 synthesiser, in favour of something more lush. On “Europe After the Rain,” traditional instruments like acoustic guitar and piano are impossible to ignore, though the constant bass synth ensures we never forget Foxx’s roots either. It also seems to be a major thematic leap away from Metamatic, with its tender and romantic feel. Still, that may not necessarily be all there is to it--the song is presumably named after a famous painting of the same title, by the Surrealist Max Ernst, executed in the early 1940s as World War II was first beginning. Ernst’s painting is a sort of apocalyptic vision, in which crumbling structures are overtaken by vegetation, and two figures wander through it, seemingly passing by one another. Perhaps Foxx’s “Europe After the Rain” is also a theme for a devastated landscape, its lovers meeting again the last survivors of some nuclear holocaust? Maybe it isn’t too far away from the themes of crushing modernity employed on Metamatic after all.

Note, as well, the emphasis on “Europe,” conceptually--The Garden is, at least partially, a sort of search for a new European cultural identity. The Garden fuses electronics, and hence Europe’s characteristic technological achievements, with a love of more traditional European cultural ideals, namely, the aesthetics of Medieval Christianity. For evidence of that idea, look no further than its most obvious apotheosis, the track “Pater Noster.”

Music: “Pater Noster”

“Pater Noster” is, of course, a setting of the Latin-language translation of the so-called “Our Father” or Lord’s Prayer, one of the most popular and well-known texts in Christianity. “Pater Noster” is the album’s most obvious love letter to the Middle Ages, but an informed listen will show that it has little to do with actual music from that era--I actually could forgive the synthesisers, which might be analogized to the role of church organs, but the percussion-propelled nature of the track is what really makes it feel ahistorical to me. Despite the religious themes of The Garden, Foxx always averred not being any sort of authentic believer in religion or God, and maintained that he was interested in the traditions of the Church purely on aesthetic grounds. Whether you think this sort of appropriation is appropriate and respectful or not, it’s certainly one of the album’s prominent themes, and part of what makes it feel as unique as it does. While I’ve emphasized the themes of romanticism and religiosity, it’s also worth noting that The Garden is not a complete break from Foxx’s earlier works, and in its return to a more guitar-driven sound, it often winds up riffing on something not unlike punk.

Music: “Systems of Romance”

Astute followers of Foxx will have already noticed that the track “Systems of Romance” shares its title with the third and final LP he released with Ultravox, in 1979. Apparently, it was written that much earlier, though it wouldn’t be seen to completion until several years later. Combining a hard-driving guitar, played by Foxx’s Ultravox bandmate Robin Simon, with the inscrutable, sensual, elemental lyricism Foxx employs throughout his mid-80s oeuvre, the track “Systems of Romance” really feels like a bridge between 70s art rock and 80s avant-synth-pop, moreso than anything else on the album. Much as “Systems of Romance” extracts a certain prettiness from punk, so does the aesthetically-oriented “Night Suit,” which plays with appearance, deception, and masculinity.

Music: “Night Suit”

“Night Suit” is the track on The Garden that I feel is the most exemplary of its own time period, a mysterious ode to a mystical garment that could almost feel at home on an album by Visage. The Garden is interested in “romantic” themes, but “Night Suit” truly feels at peace among the New Romantics. It’s got some of the most “believable” rock influences, with a prominent guitar riff from Simon, and yet its emphasis on the power of fashion and appearances, destructive, and perhaps even supernatural, is hard to imagine in a genuine punk context. As it implores us to “be someone” or “be no-one,” it’s easy to fit “Night Suit” into one of the major themes throughout Foxx’s career: the tranquility and liberation of personal anonymity. Why is the “Night Suit” a suit in the first place? The song wouldn’t make sense if it didn’t deal with a garment that is also a non-garment, something to wear that feels default, neutral, and unassuming--not to mention classically masculine.

On the cover of The Garden, the main thing we see is, well, a garden. Despite Foxx’s more obvious personal presence on the albums before and after The Garden, it’s easy to miss him here, dwarfed by the scale of nature that surrounds him. It’s almost like the album is more meant to be about this place, and the concept of “the garden,” than it is Foxx as a person, or any particular perspective of his.

While the actual capital-R Romantics were deeply interested in the “sublime,” and the scenes and moments in which mankind faces its vulnerability and insignificance when compared to the natural world, it’s also worth remembering that a “garden,” by definition, is really not a natural space at all, but rather one which is arranged by human hands. Even if this composition resembles those of Romantic painters, I think it’s worth looking earlier in the European past to interpret this one. Gardens were one of the most prominent symbols in Medieval literature, and scholars have suggested that they serve as symbols for sensuality, romance, and the yoni itself. Through the association with the Garden of Eden, gardens often represent a sort of lost, but longed-for paradise, and a return to innocence which is as tantalizing as it is impossible. In particular, “Europe After the Rain,” with its theme of lovers meeting again after the passage of some time, seems to connect with this idea.

In hindsight, The Garden really stands alone in Foxx’s career, a masterpiece whose precise style he would never attempt again. We might say it became that Garden of Eden, to which the artist could never return. While Foxx’s interest in Medieval spirituality would return on ambient works like Cathedral Oceans, and he would occasionally return to love songs with an electronic backing, the precise combination of lovelorn bardistry with a flair for the baroque that appears on The Garden remains totally singular. Foxx’s follow-up to this album, 1983’s The Golden Section, narrows its thematic focus towards poppy love songs, and its instrumental focus, likewise, is that of a fairly unremarkable mid-80s synth-pop record. But at the same time, I like to think that tracks like “The Hidden Man” manage to maintain a sense of the mystical.

Music: “The Hidden Man”

My favourite track on The Garden is “Walk Away.” While it lacks the severe and tragic grandeur of the album’s title track, which closes the album on a lofty note, “Walk Away” shares some of its delicate qualities, reviving the soft piano that we heard on “Europe After the Rain.” Thematically, “Walk Away” seems to deal with fragility and transience, and the grave significance that a brief, passing moment may have--which makes that “delicateness” feel all the more poignant in context. Its call-and-response outro, featuring one of Foxx’s most anguished vocal performances, really makes it a stand-out. That’s everything for today--as always, thanks for listening!

Music: “Walk Away”

#music #album review #album reviews #great albums #john foxx

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rosaguard · 3 years

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❀ . ━ ❛ ON AERIS’ DESI IDENTITY.

for the sake of making this question easier to answer, I’ll be breaking it up into parts ( yes, i tend to ramble about other things before fully getting to my overall point ). as always, i’m black - not south asian - but i do my best to research before speaking about a culture i do not belong to.

verumking asked : some questions about brown aeris because i'm. forever heart eyes tbh. // you've drawn a lot of parallels between hinduism and the cycle of life on gaia, and also the conflict between aeris' human desires and her duties as a cetra. is her desi identity something she specifically attributes to her cetra heritage? does she begin to embrace it in her day-to-day life at all-- i.e. making and wearing henna, cooking traditional food, etc? how do her views on her identity change with each incarnation?

this is a somewhat difficult question to answer simply because fin.al fa.ntasy often picks and chooses which game is going to be the one™ where the culture and identity of the people within the game actually matters and when it does not ( on a side note: the series in general has a bad habit of using real locations with brown people as inspiration for settings in the game and not reflecting the real people and culture of those locations within the games. half of xii’s party being white people from a desert region literally inspired by the middle east is a glaring example of this ). anyway, i would say vii itself easily places itself within the category of there not being any real sense of culture - or at least nothing of any real substance in my opinion. by that i mean things like how the sector 5 and 7 slums are essentially the same in the remake ( outside of the former being ‘greenier’ ) even though it doesn’t make sense for the equivalent of two mini-cities that are kind of semi-lawless / mostly left to fend for themselves by shinra to not have more of a difference regarding their identities: how they operate, how the people act within them, etc.

there’s also the fact that one of the most well known locations within the game is a christian-styled church within the sector five slums...and yet no religion is ever mentioned within the game’s worldbuilding. the church’s very existence could be seen as ironic if there was actual commentary on humans ( unknowingly ) building a false religion over time as a result of the void created after their ancestors willing choose to abandon their connection to the planet but there isn’t any. humanity, at least within the context of this universe, are essentially treated as the equivalent of atheists that don’t ‘believe’ in the planet being a living organism that deserves to be respected. meanwhile the cetra, the closest thing the game has to a religious group, don’t really seem to follow any specific tenets of a faith outside of protecting the planet and cultivating life on it. basically, i find it weird that a human-made structure and the symbolism that comes with it is imprinted onto aeris of all characters.

on one hand i get the logic behind it: she’s easily the most ‘spiritual’ character of the group ( if not the whole game ) and is canonically white / ’western’ inspired as nom.ura put it so western concepts of what is pure / holy is going to be applied to her from a pure aesthetic standpoint alone. from the church, to her somewhat overused prayer pose™, and her own final limit break which has white angels taken straight out of christian art descend from the heavens in its animation sequence, this specific imagery is given to her a lot - even if it doesn’t make sense from an in-universe perspective. the reason i even bring any of this up is that i think how culture is used and applied to certain characters is already inconsistent which is worth pointing out. aeris’ own identity already clashes with itself in canon - some of it being fully intentional and a part of her arc ( her desires as an individual vs her duty as a cetra ) while some of it ( basically everything stated above ) is...definitely not?

✿ : is her desi identity something she specifically attributes to her cetra heritage?

yes and no. however, before i fully elaborate on why, i have to touch on how i view the cetra as a whole. i’ve always saw them as people who, while nomadic, still have individual ‘tribes’ they belong to / travel with and it would’ve been common for members of one group to branch off and intermingle / travel with another ( or even just travel on their own for a while ). the more the cetra travel and expand their ‘network’ across the entire planet, it’s only natural that groups are going to start forming their own unique differences, whether it’s with looks, how they speak, and their culture, with their bond to the planet and their duty being what ties them all together. the cetra being separated into specific tribes is also directly supported within canon:

ifalna: 2000 years ago, our ancestors, the cetra, heard the cries of the planet. the first ones to discover the planet's wound were the cetra at the knowlespole*.

ifalna: then, just as it had at the knowlespole. it approached other cetra clans...... infecting them with... the virus.

while the cetra capital, the city of the ancients, is in knowlespole ( the modern equivalent of the region that the icicle inn and the northern crater is ), ifalna confirms that other clans beyond it exist. although the details around jenova’s arrival and defeat are unclear, from ifalna’s retelling of what happened ( and her distraught response while doing so ) it seems as if all of the cetra that first encountered jenova were either killed or infected before jenova moved on to do the same to other clans. this more than likely results in entire sub-cultures and histories lost before jenova is sealed away by the cetra aeris descends from ( which would explain why there’s not much recorded information on the cetra within the universe ).

one also has to remember the groups of cetra that branched away from the others and become humans. although they abandoned their duties, it’s very likely that they still retained aspects of cetra culture and it just changed / adapted over a period of two thousand years. with the cetra mostly wiped out and forgotten about, i don’t find it realistic for aeris, at least at the beginning of the game, to really know which ‘parts’ of herself come from where; especially since there would realistically be desi-coded humans that haven’t had ties to the cetra in thousands of years. although i headcanon both her mother and father as brown / desi, aeris doesn’t know who her father, professor gast, even is and the years she spent with her mother were in complete captivity. based on aeris’ ignorance about the white materia ( ex. her thinking it was useless originally ) and the cetra in general, one would assume that ifalna wasn’t able to teach aeris much due to not wanting to reveal anything to shinra since they were likely under constant surveillance. there’s also the fact that aeris outright rejects being a cetra as a child and tries ( yet fails ) to assimilate into ‘human’ culture:

“well…” kyrie replied. “there’s a crumbling church in the slums, where we played together. we did things like pretending to hold wedding ceremonies. aeris was always in the church, taking care of the flowers on her own. sometimes we talked about it. one day, aeris told me to go home quickly. i thought she was being mean because i stepped on her flowers.”

“when i got home in a bad mood, my parent’s bodies were being carried to the house. i heard it from my grandmother. about the lifestream and the ancients. i thought it was just a fairytale at the time, but after that— i figured aeris was an ancient. ...hey, what do you think i said when i met aeris after that? i said ‘you creep me out’.” - kyrie revealing her relationship with aeris after learning of her death in the kids are alright novel.

i guess the real world equivalent of what i’m trying to say would be similar to how i’m black / african american but do i really associate myself and my identity with africa beyond a surface level? the answer is no. how could i when i don’t know anything of my ancestors, african americans are generally robbed of learning about our history, and i don’t even know what ‘part’ of africa i come from. navigating your identity, your culture, and your heritage is extremely complicated and i don’t really see it being any different for aeris. she doesn’t have any way to truly ‘discover’ and connect with her cultural identity - even if she wasn’t actively rejecting it.

✿ : does she begin to embrace it in her day-to-day life at all? i.e. making and wearing henna, cooking traditional food, etc?

she does - although it’s a gradual process that doesn’t start until she leaves midgar. canonically, it’s not even until cosmos canyon that aeris finally begins to ‘connect’ to her heritage and fully understand what it means to be a cetra:

aeris: i learned a lot. the elders taught me many things. about the cetra... and the promised land...i'm...... alone... i'm all alone now...

however, in between chasing sephiroth, almost dying, and then saving the world, she doesn’t have much time to come to terms with everything that she learned there. in my blog canon, she does eventually leave edge a few years after its built to begin traveling on her own and eventually finds herself back in cosmos canyon. realistically, the elders there don’t have all the answers for her but her simply studying there is an important stepping stone to reclaiming a part of herself that she never got to know - or really accepted ( her parents also studied and met there so her life would be coming full circle in a way ).

so with all that said, i see aeris’ ‘embracing’ her desi heritage the most with fashion at first since she technically already does - regardless of whether she realizes it or not. the ultimania for the remake includes concept art for the cetra ( which can be viewed fully here ) and they’re specifically said to have been designed to have similarities to aeris - meaning that aeris’ current style of clothing is meant to embody her ancestors. highlighting a cetra design that looks weirdly similar to aeris herself, this cetra’s outfit - at least to me - feels similar to clothing popular in india and other parts of south asia:

if the dress was taken out and a few alterations was made to her top and half-skirt, it could easily resemble how a lehenga choli piece is worn. the top piece of her half-skirt also resembles the look of an oddiyanam, a type of waist ornament that women in south india wear.

there are other cetra’ accessories that resemble jewelry common in india as well: the armlet on the unnamed cetra resembles a bajuband ( a similar one can be found here ) and bangles similar to a kangan or churi, commonly worn by women across south asia, are prominent in both aeris and the cetra’s overall designs too.

with mehndi / henna, i definitely see her wearing it across her hands and feet but it’s mostly similar to whenever she wears traditional dresses: it’s reserved for special occasions / celebrations. with that said, that’s more so when she’s grown accustomed to applying henna herself without messing up or someone else is doing it for her. it wouldn’t be uncommon to see aeris’ hands decorated with different patterns every few months: a direct result of using her own body as practice when first learning how to draw designs ( if you want to get full fantasy with it, the designs glowing against her skin when she uses magic would be neat ). as a side note: for those who don’t know, there is a short story about aeris’ time in the shinra labs. it contains a drawing by her, which is also in the remake, that has more designs for the cetra ( you can see the unedited version here ):

also aeris cooking? l o l. joking aside, in my three years of writing aeris i’ve never really put much thought into her style of cooking, what type of food she specifically likes to eat, etc. outside of the fact that i don’t think she is much of a cooker at all ( probably because i’m not one either ). however, i cannot let a question go answered so! i’m probably going to sound redundant mentioning cosmos canyon again at this point but it really is due to the fact that it’s specifically the source of her connecting to who she is. the drawing she drew in a trance as a child even includes a location that is more than likely cosmos canyon ( and yes, i checked to compare ). the most notable npcs there are all brown and i do see them all being people of color that have come from different parts of the planet to share knowledge and learn amongst each other. although her main purpose of living in cosmos canyon the years she’s there is to study her people and record her own knowledge ( i’ll touch on this later ), it also provides her with an opportunity to connect with other people that are desi-coded like her on a more personal-level.

am i basically saying she probably tasted some type of chaat ( dahi vada specifically ) for the first time after leaving midgar and never looked back? yes. it’s not until aeris leaves midgar that she gets to experience trying out various food from her own culture as well as food from cultures outside of it in general ( not that these foods didn’t exist in midgar but she’s poor and doesn’t really have the means / opportunity to try them before ). aeris definitely becomes a fan of dishes that are savory with gravy, can be eaten with sauces like chutney ( she likes red chili, spicy coconut and mango chutney the most ), or dishes based around vegetables ( although if there’s spinach it, don’t tell her because ew ), fish or lamb. dishes such as rajma, samosas, sambar, biryani ( it’s probably one of the first desi dishes she would cook on her own ), pakora ( she’s definitely eaten chili pepper pakoras without a sweat ), etc. are all up her alley. aeris admittedly also has a sweet tooth so snacks like kozhukkattai, gulab jamun served with ice cream, etc. also appeals to her greatly™.

the process of eating these dishes when they’re made by other people vs actually introducing them into her day to day eating habits are two different things though. not to say that she wouldn’t make an effort to try - she definitely will but learning how to cook these dishes takes time ( especially if you’re already not much of a cook. ). incorporating them into her daily lifestyle wouldn’t be an instant process but it will happen eventually.

✿ : how do her views on her identity change with each incarnation?

as the embodiment of the lifestream, aeris is constantly consuming information between each reincarnation. the lifestream houses memories and knowledge since the planet’s very inception so she literally has thousands of years of information to sort through and process between each new ‘life’. the different cetra clans that were mentioned earlier? aeris would technically have the ability to trace back the memories of her entire lineage and discover which clan she’s from if she wanted to. with every incarnation, she’s learning a little more about her people, where she comes from, etc. and being a cetra starts to feel like less of a burden to her and a role she starts to embrace / actively take pride in. while there will come a time where she’s not the ‘last cetra’ anymore, aeris essentially becomes an eternal record keeper for her people.

once she begins working with the WRO, it’s actually her idea to start an annual celebration event ( or festival ) during the anniversary of meteorfall. despite her people being nomadic and spread out, the cetra had a capital city and it’s not far fetched to assume that it was used as a place for the cetra to converge during important events, celebrations, etc. through aeris, aspects of their culture begin to live on in new ways such as the meteorfall festival which becomes a celebration of life and the planet itself. while the festival isn’t intended to have any real world parallel, i do think the symbolism of the diwali festival is fitting for the events of sephiroth’s defeat / lifestream and holy destroying meteor:

diwali symbolizes the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.

overall, no matter how many times she reincarnates, aeris always returns to cosmos canyon to record everything she knows, whether its her own life experiences, the memory of her people, or their culture, so that her children, her grandchildren, and so on can always have knowledge of their history and identity in a way that she wasn’t able to.

✿ : brown aeris says thanks for reading!

i hope this was a satisfying answer to your questions! i try to do my best with honoring the cultures i’m talking about and not treating them in a haphazardly and/or lazy way. i wanted to explain her journey of being someone not really connected to their heritage at all and explaining the process she goes through in a realistic way without..making it surface level? hopefully i achieved that!

#❀ . ━ ❛ blood of the ancients ❪ headcanon ❫ .

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chibimyumi · 4 years

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Hi there! So I've been meaning to ask this for a while after realizing it, but don't O!Ciel's, Doll's, Alois', and Lizzy's color schemes kind of reveal their past and future a tad bit? I've know Alois outfits are bold yet kind of gothic colors like violet emerald green black and brown which all in the world of art are color forms of different emotions depending how you work with them, green being envy or disgusted but he hides it with royal purple, black means wounded which are his shorts & tie

Dear Blackbutlerfandomnerddomain,

While colour symbolism is popular, I personally don’t think the colours in Kuroshitsuji’s costumes are supposed to deliver any meaning other than aesthetic value. Especially with O!Ciel and Lizzie we can say with some certainty colour symbolism is not within the intention, because they change clothes in every single illustration, and every time they wear different colours. Yes, these characters do have tones they tend to wear, but that’s how real people dress themselves too. Somebody who likes calm colours is slightly less likely to have a rainbow assortment of neon, for example.

This is simply the way I understand Yana’s style, there’s not really ONE correct answer here. So feel free to read as much into the colours as it pleases you. But as I personally see it, Yana’s style of using symbolism tends to rely on objects rather than colours. Allow me to briefly analyse two artworks to illustrate what I mean and how I came to my understanding.

Case One

One of the most famous artworks is the front illustration of the second illustration book. Many colours including green, red, blue, white, gold are all present here.

One could make arguments for the black and white of the Earl’s attire being symbolism, but this meaning is quickly overshadowed by the ravens emerging from the Escher patterns. Red is the most eye-catching colour in this illustration. One might say O!Ciel’s gloves being red means to symbolise his hands being blood-dyed, or his shoes red because he walks a bloody path... but then how do we explain the inside of the drape or Sebastian’s waistcoat?

The setting is a place that appears to be a type of greenhouse; a place built to maximise the function of sunlight. And yet, while the illustration seems to suggest it is daytime, the sun is failing miserably in face of the heavy clouds. Rather than painting the sky ominous red or just dark, Yana uses the unsuccessful sun to set a mood or convey symbolism. “Is the white light against the dark clouds not also a type of colour symbolism?” Yes, it may be, but then one should also ask the question: "why choose a greenhouse then, and not any other setting that could have conveyed the light/dark contrast?”

Case two

Another famous piece is this 2014 artwork. The overall tone is gloomy and is mostly lacking in colours. Though held back in terms of colour, there is a lot to be unpacked here!

The first thing that catches the eye is indeed the overwhelmingly sombre palate of this illustration. Black can symbolise many things, but when 70% of the illustration is black, one could say this illustration is either incompetent in conveying symbolism in it being over-saturated with “meaning”, or that the black is merely here to set a tone.

Instead, we can see white lilies in O!Ciel’s hair as well as one stem carried by Sebas. Rather than colour symbolism, Japan has a long history of flower-symbolism (花言葉・Hanakotoba), and Yana herself is big fan of this style. When Western culture was introduced to Japan, black and white lilies were accepted as symbols for death.

The composition of the artwork leads the eye from the bottom left corner to the top right. This guides our vision to the empty plate at the top of the table, where a bright white saucer lies with a conspicuous bit of red sauce.

Red might symbolise blood here, and it is befitting. But more importantly we also need to consider this choice from an artist’s point of view. How many different colours of edible sauces are there? There’s chocolate sauce and other dark sauces, but that would just blend in with the rest of the illustration. Yellowy sauce is certainly a thing, but that’d be overpowered by the golden details. So red is the only bright colour that would make the empty saucer pop out. The Empty saucer has a fork placed diagonally on top, meaning that somebody had consumed food and is now finished. Rather than the colour of red, I think it is the now-empty saucer that is supposed to symbolise Sebastian’s goal of consuming his master.

Next to the saucer is the skeleton of a bird; presumably a crow judging from the size. Skeletons universally symbolise death, but it has nothing to do with the colour.

In Japanese native culture the topic of ‘death’ is big taboo. In older Japanese buildings for example, the 4th floor would often be skipped because ‘4′ (四・shi) is a homophone of death (死・shi).

In the past when Buddhism was introduced, the Japanese embraced this religion with open arms because finally there was something else that would deal with ‘death’ while native culture could stay in its comfort-zone. It was a bit like: “we do we... Hey, Buddhism, can you take care of that thing we’re too afraid of for us? Thanks dude!” Since the introduction of Buddhism, images of skeletons came to not just mean ‘death’, but more specifically ‘impermanence’ (無常・mujou). Impermanence is one of the core teachings in Buddhism, reminding humanity that everything will eventually come to an end, be it good or bad. With Buddhism introduced, skeletons were no longer only associated with pure fear, but instead gained an additional meaning of acceptance of change and the cycle of nature.

The origins of the meaning of skeletons have blurred through the years, many Japanese people probably don’t even know why things evoke certain meanings in them (just like in other cultures, I presume). But fact remains that though still macabre, in Japan a skeleton is now assumed to symbolise the naturalness of death.

That the skeleton of the bird is preserved in a glass dome is interesting. Glass domes’ function is primarily display. Out of all things, Yana chose to specifically display the symbol of impermanence and death, meaning that within this artwork that skeleton is the key object of display. In human subjectivity death is finite and fearsome. To a demon like Sebastian however (from whose perspective we view this artwork as he’s the only one awake here), he probably views death more akin to the way Buddhism views it; as just impermanence. I am NOT saying that Sebastian subscribes to a Buddhist philosophy, but I am saying that he must view death a lot more neutrally than most humans do.

Most Japanese people are not raised consciously religiously, but everyone is always influenced to some extent, Yana included. And therefore it is no surprise that Yana might have been inspired by the neutral view towards death (for at least Sebastian), even if she might not know where this inspiration comes from.

The casualness of ‘death’ in this illustration is further indicated by the coffin that is set up as a dining table. There is no respect, no ceremony, objects are scattered on top and around. The message is rather straightforward so I shall waste no more time explaining the obvious here. But I do wish to point out how this gives further evidence for how the meanings of this illustration should be considered from Sebas’ perspective, just like the crow’s skeleton as explained above. What is finite to us, is just a fact of nature to Sebas.

Conclusion

Yana has created many illustrations. Not all include symbolism, but the more elaborate pieces are usually packed with them. Of course I have only analysed two illustrations, and I would not blame anyone for calling this post insufficient evidence. But... I could just go on and on forever, and I need to draw a line somewhere, right? What I can say with confidence however, is that if you were to grab any artwork by Yana and see it for yourself, rather than colour, item symbolism is stronger.

Also, the way Yana uses colour is just not very symbolism heavy; she has a much stronger tendency to use colours purely aesthetically. Take any of the inside covers of this series, and one would quickly find out there really is no pattern to be found here.

In a nutshell, Yana’s colouring style is mostly aesthetic and used to set a tone for her illustrations. What carries the symbolism instead is in the objects.

Again, this is merely how I personally read Yana’s illustrations and an elaboration of how I came to this reading. There is not one correct answer to read illustrations, because art is subjective in its core. So if the colours do mean more to you than they do to me, please do enjoy doing so by all means ^^

#Kuroshitsuji #Black Butler #Art #Illustration #art analysis #analysis #I did study art for a bit and it shaped the way I look at art #but the core lesson of art analysis class is that art is always subjective #ALWAYS #symbolism

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onlinesikhstore · 2 years

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SARBLOH Pure Iron Steel Smooth Sikh SINGH Khalsa Taksali CHUNKY Kara KADA D10

Stylish SARBLOH Pure Iron Steel Smooth SINGH Sikh Khalsa Taksali CHUNKY Kara KADA D10 Design No. D10

Weight is approx. 225-300g (variable due to size)

Width is approx. 2.3cm

Thickness is approx. 9mm

Please note we have customised these kara for a Sikh guy on demand. These kara are collection items and can be used as weapon in Sikh Martial Arts (Gatka)

These are Pure Iron Sarbloh Kara and may have bit of rust/blemishes (characteristics of sarbloh) present on them. In addition, these features provide Kara a Unique Vintage/Antique look. This rust/blemishes can be easily removed by Kitchen towel and using coconut oil on them. Please note sarbloh Kara are the only jewellery in the world that needs cleaning with sharp sand. These Kara won't rust at all as long as you are wearing them and they will adjust colour with touch of your skin. These Kara are made in the same way as they used to be made in Guru Sahib's time 300 years ago. These kara are also though to give iron to the body with touch to skin that's one of the reasons that Singhs wear it in old times, These Karas are from the Holy and Pious Land of Shiri Amritsar Ji (The City of Golden Temple/Darbar Sahib Ji/Harmandir Sahib) Every Kara is unique as these Kara are made by hand. Smooth SARBLOH TAKSALI KARA (variations are prepared by measuring the internal diameter of Karas). These Kara are rememberance gift for life. Best thing ever to gift your loved ones and these always remind them about your presence. I am myself wearing a 15 years old Kara that my Grandmum has gifted me and it always remind me of her. Kara GIFT FOR LIFE #karaforlife #kadaforlife Visit My eBay Shop: OnlineSikhStore Check out my other items! Be sure to add me to your favourites list! Sign up for my email newsletters by adding my eBay Shop to your favourites Apart from religious values Karas are the best to be given as a rememberance/memorable gift. Hence, a brilliant gift idea for loved ones. These Karas are one of the Sikh Kakars. (Very Smooth - as shown in photos - photos are zoomed to show details) -Very Popular design in market right now - very famous in youngsters and we are the only seller who has this exclusive design for sale in UK. Very Smooth from inside and heavy. Non allergic to Skin. These Karas are from the Holy and blessed land of Shiri Amritsar Sahib (The City of Golden Temple/Darbar Sahib/Shiri Harmandir Sahib Ji). Please choose variation size while buying or mention it to us in your note: Please measure diameter of your old kara or 3 and half knuckles of your fist then choose size from the variations. Please read below more Information about Sikh Kara: A kara ਕੜਾ , کڑا कड़ा , is a steel or iron (sarb loh) worn by all initiated Sikhs. It is one of the five Kakars or 5Ks — external articles of faith — that identify a Sikh as dedicated to their religious code. The kara was instituted by the tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh Ji at the Baisakhi Amrit Sanskar in 1699. Guru Gobind Singh Ji explained: He does not recognize anyone else except me, not even the bestowal of charities, performance of merciful acts, austerities and restraint on pilgrim-stations; the perfect light of the Lord illuminates his heart, then consider him as the immaculate Khalsa. The kara is to constantly remind the Sikh disciple to do God's work, a constant reminder of the Sikh's mission on this earth and that he or she must carry out righteous and true deeds and actions, keeping with the advice given by the Guru. The Kara is a symbol of unbreakable attachment and commitment to God. It is in the shape of a circle which has no beginning and no end, like the eternal nature of God. It is also a symbol of the Sikh brotherhood. As the Sikhs' holy text the Guru Granth Sahib Ji says "In the tenth month, you were made into a human being, O my merchant friend, and you were given your allotted time to perform good deeds." Similarly, Bhagat Kabir reminds the Sikh to always keep one's consciousness with God: "With your hands and feet, do all your work, but let your consciousness remain with the Immaculate Lord." The basic kara is a simple unadorned steel bracelet, but other forms exist. It was historically used like a Knucke Duster for hand-to-hand combat. Battlefield variations include kara with spikes or sharp edges. Sikh soldiers of the British Indian army would settle disputes by competing in a form of boxing known as loh-musti (lit. iron fist) with a kara on one hand. Brilliant finish and very decorative. Ideal gift item for loved ones. We polish all our Karas with Brasso Polish and Cotton cloth before dispatch. It gives them good shine that will be long lasting. We ensure that our karas are rust free but with Sarbloh you can't Guarantee that as Rust is the Characteristic of Pure Iron/Sarbloh karas. There may be little bit rust present which is seen commonly in all SARBLOH KARAS due to purity of the metal/Pure iron + Cuts/marks are common on these warrior style Karas. These Kara have no joint, made with Traditional methods mostly by hand in Amritsar. Sarbloh Kara are warrior style Kara. Brilliant finish and very decorative. Ideal gift item for loved ones on all occasions. We are UK based supplier smartfashions.co.uk. Items can be collected from our shop in Rochester, Kent, UK. We have 100% positive feedback. Please bid with confidence and check our other fantastic listings. If you are not happy with your purchase we will give you 100% refund on return of item. No hard and fast rules for refunds and returns. Very Reasonable Economy Royal Mail Postage in UK for this Chunky Kara. Postage discounts will be given to International buyers for multi-buys. Any questions please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for looking at our shop. PLEASE NOTE: Please measure/check size of your kara/bracelet first while ordering to avoid any hassle or posting it back to us and paying extra for p&p for exchange and swap of karas with other desired sizes. There will be charge of £5 p&p towards exchange/swap of Kara for any size issues for UK buyers and £15 p&p for international buyers that needs to be paid by PayPal in advance or interested buyer can send us pa repaid self addressed envelope for any exchange/swap along with the original item in its original packaging and buyer should also return us the gift item/bags sent along with the item for appreciation of purchase. We may post back gift items/bags along with the swapped item. P.S. Colour of item may slightly vary due to camera flash and light conditions. Some Karas may have negligible small black grinding mark on the kara joint. This is always seen on all karas as most of the Kara making/shaping work is done by hands. However, this do not affect the quality/look of Karas.

Gender: Unisex Country/Region of Manufacture: India Main Material/ Metal: Sarbloh/Pure Iron/Steel Design Number: D10 Type: Bracelets/Bangle Main Colour: Silver Tone/Sarbloh Ethnic & Regional Style: Asian https://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=2&pub=5575123674&toolid=10001&campid=5337687501&customid=61267dde4d26db3e4b1f0590&icep_item=272973931938&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg

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