#lunja

[androidfoe]

what myth in amazigh mythology that you like a lot? :0

i've already talked about multiple myths (anzar's bride, ayyur and the orphan, teryel trying to kidnap ayyur and tafkut) but i remember not really expending on lunja— who's one of my favorite! <3

lunja, sometimes described today as a "cannibal rapunzel", is an ogress and daughter of teryel, mother of all ogres. teryel gave birth to her little time after her time in attala—the underworld (the magic place where humans originate from) and while little is known about how things went like there (how did teryel —a mortal— ended up in attala? how did she survive? how did she found the tree of life and death? how did she get out? all is unknown, i personally believe that ifru —who's also the goddess of attala— had something to do with it), but we do know that she consumed a golden leaf from the tree of life and death, and thanks to it, gained magic powers, became an ogress and immortal/goddess. she also was gifted with 80 biological children, while it is hinted that teryel was pregnant, it is even more hinted that the reproduction wasn't sexual, and that only the consumption of the golden leaf leaded to the pregnancies.

her first born was lunja, a girl with unmatched beauty and glowing golden hair. teryel loved her daughter very much and spoiled her (ex: trying to steal the sun and moon for her). and of course, lunja is her mother's daughter and is a man- eating ogress. she doesn't use the same tactics as her mother, who simply chase human, lunja uses her beauty. so many princes asks her hand in marriage, and each time she accepts, but when the couple's first night together is here, lunja kills the man and eats him (and some sources also says that she eats any other men present in the palace). the funny thing is that even if most princes proposing to her doesn't know about her being an ogress, other's do, but still asks for her hand, believing they can change the ogress' daughter to become mortal. how wrong they are.

[the-commonplace-book]

why is the traveler exercising racial prejudice against people from the Sumeru desert? why do they respond with such hostility to the exact same kind of kindness and greeting that they receive with open arms from the light-skinned local majority? 

WHAT REASON IS THERE FOR THIS?

The locals in the rainforest region have been socially conditioned which doesn’t make it ok by ANY means (racism is always wrong) but it makes unfortunate sense. The people from the desert are trying to keep up their religious and cultural practices as refugees. And the tragedy of that is that the people in the rainforest region of Sumeru will only accept them if they assimilate. Worship their god, follow their social customs. And yeah, some of them resort to crime because they are being active discriminated against and still have families to feed! 

But that all brings me back around to THIS

They did nothing weird. They just said hello. The only thing that makes them different from the other people we’ve met so far is that they have darker skin and are dressed in the clothes of their own culture.

AGAIN NOTHING IS WEIRD ABOUT THIS. THIS IS THE EXACT SAME KIND OF KINDNESS AND FRIENDLINESS WE HAVE RECIEVED FROM VARIOUS FOREST RANGERS, SCHOLARS, AND OTHER LOCALS. 

The only thing that makes it different is that this group is from an ethnic minority. And yes they did turn out to be shady, but that’s a fault of writers and I was so disappointed because they are the only significant dark-skinned characters we met so far (they really just went for mild tan on the playable ones - I mean these are the only significant actually darker skinned characters). 

And the Traveler has NO REASON to have this kind of prejudice. They’re new to this nation. They have met people from all different cultural and ethnic backgrounds though out their travels. Not really any dark-skinned characters except for Xinyan and Kaeya because the devs apparently don’t like to give us dark-skinned characters, BUT they still have been to three very different nations at this point. They have no reason to be immersed in the racial prejudice that plagues Sumeru. 

The writers for this particular quest just decided that the Traveler was going to think they were sus for not reason other than their appearances.

Which brings me to THIS

The Traveler and Paimon don’t even question it. They don’t think “oh that man is sus” no they go “wow these are bad people”. Despite some old (presumably an immigrant from elsewhere in Teyvat or from the ethnic majority) man from the Akademiya hiring them to get a mushroom. Which is a perfectly harmless thing. There is nothing criminal about that. And when the Traveler threatens violence (because even when you go the diplomacy rout you can’t have them NOT threaten violence) Lunja gives in to their demands because she doesn’t want her boys to be hurt. 

She walks off saying that the Traveler had better watch their back and that is VALID. YEAH. She has ever right to hold a grudge. The Traveler was unequivocally in the wrong here. Lunja and her boys don’t know about the mushroom’s significance to the Aranara. Not once does the Traveler try to explain the situation. They just assume the worst and go for the throat. 

I hate this quest with a passion. I had to stop playing for a bit because I was so mad and now I’m just clicking through the dialogue and breezing through the subsequent tasks to be done with the Aranara and going back to the main quest because this isn’t okay. And I’m pissed off that they had an opportunity to say something meaningful and they didn’t.

They just decided to be racist.

[canonical-transformation]

Lunja at the Cat's Tail please.

[canonical-transformation]

[Lunja:] “What're you going to do, eulogise us to death?”

“If I gotta,” said Hu Tao. “I know some boring eulogies.”

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Hu Tao! Lunja! Aranakin! Nahida and Zhongli! The only thing this chapter is missing is tonal consistency 🥲🍵

[canonical-transformation]

A brief preview from Nara Agni Chapter 3, featuring one of my favourite NPCs from the Agnihotra Sutra quest.

---

A cascade of bangs rang out from the cave entrance. Then, after half a minutes' pause, another series of bangs, this time louder.

"Shit," said Lunja, "we're out of time."

The explosive traps had detonated as planned, but if the second wave had gone off then odds were the adventurer was still alive.

She looked to her boys. "Minum, Ziri, get that splint tied off, then help support Isan. Anqa, still seeing stars? Can you manage a walk with us? Lean on me if you've gotta."

"Uh, boss..." said Minum, staring past her.

"What?"

"Yoohoo! Need any help?" interjected a new voice. "No? Well... Anyone in the market for a coffin?"

Shit.

Lunja closed her eyes, took a deep breath in and out, then turned to face Miss Hu, a.k.a. the Liyuean chick with the cute jacket.

"Hey there, friend," she said.

"Friend? This is how you treat your friends?" said Miss Hu, hands on her hips. "You tried to kill me! You know what kind of person attempts to kill someone then calls them 'friend' a minute later?"

"Someone who keeps business and friendship separate?"

Miss Hu rubbed her chin. "Hmm. I was gonna say 'crazy redheads', but I guess your answer works too..."

[marco-giacinto-fan]

Lunja tied on a chair, her twists fastened on the armrests

(cont'd)

[marco-giacinto-fan]

Lunja hopelessly trying to loosen her ties

[androidfoe]

the princes that wants to marry lunja are so funny to me. they're the og "i can fix her" (they in fact didn't fix her and got eaten instead)