#which might be called the soul.“ the use of the word ”part“ seems to imply the other “parts” of you-

[nocturnaclysm]

booooooooo

survive me!

[impale-me-radio-daddy]

Nothing Above the Knee

Inspired by @eggcats post on Vox's hoof worship, here is my radiostatic hoof fic. OG post can be found here.

⪫ Pairing: Alastor/Vox (Radiostatic)

⪫ Wordcount: 4k

⪫ Summary: Alastor wants something from Vox. All Vox asks in return is a few hours with Alastor's hooves.

⪫ Content notes: Explicit sexual content, hoof stuff, contractual obligation, interdigital scent gland play, hoof licking, hoof fucking, electrostimulation, Vox is very much on top here, did I mention this is about hooves?

“You’re slapping the contract down on the table?” Vox narrowed his eyes. “What are you, twelve?”

“You’re the one stipulating such a juvenile… thing,” said Alastor.

“It’s called a kink, Al,” said Vox, shaking his head.

“I suppose you always were a twisted one,” rejoined Alastor, a spark of something returning to his eye. “I’ve specified my own terms. I trust you remember how to read old fashioned paper contracts?”

“Not like I haven’t been an overlord for the better part of a decade now,” grumbled Vox, to Alastor’s terse smile. He picked up the sheaf of paper, reading through it. He knew Alastor well enough to pay attention to the fine print. He didn’t expect any cheap shots in the clauses, no I own Vox’s soul forever with no conditions, Al was too classy for that kind of bullshit, but that didn’t stop Vox looking for them, out of force of habit.

The meat of the contract was as Vox had initially proposed; Vox would get to look, touch and manipulate Alastor’s hooves as he saw fit, between the proposed times, a binding nondisclosure clause preventing either of them broadcasting the event during or after the fact, with an exception for recordings for personal use. In return, Vox would owe a favor of Alastor’s choosing; nothing suicidal, nothing that would cost above a certain price, a list of caveats that went on for a page and a half. Vox stopped when he got to the clauses Alastor had added, reading them through a second time. “Nothing above the knee, huh?”

Alastor lowered his eyelashes. “Since you only seemed interested in my… hooves… I thought it was a fair addition.”

Vox grinned to himself, sensing the discomfort that radiated from Alastor as he ran through the wording. “No-one gets to touch you above the knee, your pants stay on throughout the act… you realize that this applies to you, too, right?”

Alastor sniffed. “If you’re implying that your inept pawings might cause me to become so overcome with lust that I divest myself of all dignity and jump into your arms, Vox, then you’re a bigger narcissist than I feared.”

The truth lay low and unpleasant between them, unacknowledged by either party. Alastor needed the other end of the contract, needed the unspecified favor from Vox, or he wouldn't be here.

And much as Vox would have enjoyed Alastor's complete subjugation, he suspected that the man would rather die than endure it. Which led them to this interesting compromise. It was something he had wanted for a long time; even when they had been friends, he had fantasized about that part of Alastor's body. And, as Velvette liked to say, you were only unalived once.

“I'm surprised you didn't put in a clause stopping me inflicting pain,” said Vox.

Alastor shrugged. “I've never seen you torture someone when you didn't have to. You're not much of a sadist, old chum.”

“I could prove you wrong,” said Vox, an eyebrow raised.

“But you won't,” said Alastor, comfortably. “Are you going to sign it?”

Vox produced a pen with a flourish, blue electricity sparking around it. “One more stipulation. You have to be paying attention. The whole time. No tuning out.” He added the line to the bottom of the document.

“As you insist,” said Alastor, his voice level.

Vox grinned and signed his name, sliding the contract and pen across to Alastor, who signed in turn. Their human names. Not in blood. This wasn't a contract for their souls, after all. Just a favor for a favor.

And nothing above the knee.

There was something about kneeling between Alastor's legs that made Vox feel a little light-headed, even if it was simply to remove his shoes. The signal that Alastor gave off at close range was so strong that it was nearly tangible to Vox, his antennae giving a soft quiver as he bowed his head, taking Alastor's right hoof in his hands, the sole of his boot against Vox’s palm.

Alastor didn't seem immune to the tension either, his red eyes lighting with something like interest as he looked down from his seat on the edge of the bed, his ankle flexing to allow Vox to pull off his boot. He wore black cotton socks with nearly no elastic to them, a sight that made Vox start, his gaze running up Alastor's leg to the knee.

Vox ran his hand up Alastor's shin, the bump under the fabric of his trousers confirming his suspicions. “You're wearing fucking sock garters?”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“Oh, you freaky fucker.” Vox swallowed an error message. “You have no idea how fucking hot that is.”

The sock was shaped to accommodate a hoof rather than a human foot, the toe wide for the spread of the standing toes, a woven circle at the back to protect the dewclaws and allow for the ankle.

Vox cuffed the leg of Alastor's trouser, rolling it up to the knee, staring all the while at the gracile limb beneath.

Taupe skin faded into dark fur, the slenderness of it making Vox's breath catch in his throat. He could wrap his fingers around the limb at any point. Cradling Alastor's calf in his palm and along his forearm, he lifted the hoof to his lips and breathed in.

Holy fuck, the smell. Even through the cotton, Vox could smell Alastor's musk, deep and earthy and pungent. Vox pressed in with his screen, until Alastor's hoof pressed squarely between his eyes, a groan escaping his lips as he felt his cock twitch to half mast just from the sensation.

Alastor himself was meticulously clean, Vox knew, but part of the curse of a deer body was the scent glands, constantly excreting musk that would help an earthly deer find its way but held little use for a demonic one. It was why Alastor rarely removed his shoes. It was also why, when Vox opened his eyes to look back at Alastor, he found the smile strained, eyes wide, a flush of embarrassment coloring his cheeks. Fuck, that was almost better than the smell.

“I love the smell of you, Al,” Vox purred, reaching for the clasps on Alastor’s sock garter. “You’re fucking musky, ripe, you stink like a damn animal. I am so fucking hard right now.”

“I can see that,” said Alastor, his smile fixed. “I don’t need you to tell me.”

“Oh, but the contract says I can talk as much as I fucking want. So I’m gonna talk.” Slowly, as if unwrapping a gift, Vox pulled the sock from Alastor’s hoof, eyes widening as he took in the sight.

Alastor’s standing nails were perfectly formed, the same crimson as his fingernails and lustrous, a beautiful end to the long, elegant limb.

“Holy shit, you are fucking beautiful,” breathed Vox, running his hands over the hoof, fingers over the smooth keratin, round and into the fleshy pads behind the standing nails. He felt Alastor shiver at the touch, and made a mental note to probe there some more later. “You have no idea how fucking perfect you are.”

He stripped Alastor’s other hoof in a similar manner and pressed his lips to each of them, learning the shape of them with his hands as he praised them.

“Are you quite done?”

“Oh, you’re bored?” asked Vox, taking a slender hoof in his hands and feeling the arch, the space between the crimson dewclaws and the pads beneath the standing toes. “Let’s see if I can fix that for you, Al.” With a grin, he pushed the knuckle of his thumb between the tendons in the arch, pushing hard into the flesh as he stroked up and down.

A strangled hiss from Alastor was his reward, another shiver through the Radio Demon’s body. “What’s that, Al?” Vox teased. “Speechless for once?”

“No, I-” Alastor started, but Vox picked the moment to push his knuckle into the pad of Alastor’s standing toe, and Alastor gave a little gasp instead, a noise that went right to Vox’s already hard cock.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were enjoying this, Al,” said Vox, continuing the massage with a smirk.

“Fuck you,” Alastor snarled, his grin dangerous and sharp.

“Not on the menu tonight,” said Vox, his answering grin triumphant, his fingers kneading the pads of Alastor’s standing toes. “Nothing above the knee, remember? So, instead-” Vox ran fingertips over the red of Alastor’s nails, tracing the gap between the two. “Instead you get this.”

Vox pushed a finger between the two crimson nails, spreading the hoof apart, and grinning as he felt the fur around Alastor’s scent gland, oily and slick with his musk. The noise that Alastor made was everything; as if Alastor had just tuned to the wrong station, his voice thick with distortion. “What are you doing to me?”

Looking up, Vox noticed two things. First, Alastor was angry, antlers branching, eyes black with glowing red dials. Second, Alastor was hard.

“Holy shit. Fuck. Christ.” Vox stared. Al’s cock was pitching an impressive tent in his pants; any larger and he would be threatening to tear the seams. Vox had expected Alastor to endure the attention, maybe enjoy the hoof rub in a sensual sort of way, maybe be embarrassed. Not for it to do something for him. From Alastor’s expression, he hadn’t been expecting this either. Vox realized he was salivating, and swallowed.

Vox pushed his fingertip further into the gap between Alastor’s toes, feeling the weeping slit of his scent gland, the stink from the hoof intensifying as Vox smeared the musk back and forth.

“You frivolous piece of technological frippery- ngh!” Alastor’s grin was unhinged now, gums bared as well as teeth.

“I’m just doing what you agreed I could,” said Vox, drinking in the scene before him, glad he wasn’t the one coming apart at the seams this time. He kept his fingers moving, back and forth, looking at the spread of Alastor’s beautiful toes. “Speaking of which, uh…” Vox trailed off. His cock could fit between them, at a stretch. “You didn’t stipulate that I couldn’t use your hooves to jack off.”

Alastor was silent, but the widening of his eyes told Vox that he hadn’t considered the possibility. His poker face wasn’t that good, smile or no.

“If you object, I won’t,” said Vox, quietly. “I’m an asshole, not a monster.”

Alastor gave an annoyed little huff, staring at the two fingers that Vox had wedged between his toes. “I signed the contract. I don’t need your pity.”

Vox smiled when he heard it. “Atta boy,” he growled, spreading Alastor’s toes further apart as he freed his cock from his pants. His first glimpse of the slit of Al’s scent gland, the whitish discharge beading on it like dew, set an ache to the base of his cock, and he swore under his breath. “Oh, that’s fucking pretty, Al. Jesus, look at you.”

Vox lifted the hoof to his face, fingers still forcing the standing nails apart, and opened his mouth, curling his tongue into the gap. Oh, Alastor tasted fucking filthy, organic and overwhelmingly male. If Vox’s head had been biological, the combination of smell and taste would have made him gag, but as it was, he simply pushed away the mounting pile of error messages, keeping his senses as highly tuned as he could without shutting down entirely, feeling the emotion in his gut flicker from disgust to arousal and back again like a fucking metronome. The stink was soaking into his casing; he was going to smell like hoof for weeks. Tongue laving wet between Alastor’s toes, Vox groaned, teasing the slit of the scent gland as he made the crevice nice and slick for his cock.

From a secondary camera, Vox watched Alastor’s face, the quivering at the corners of his smile, the bobbing of his larynx. The tent in his pants, where an honest-to-god wet spot was forming, dark against the red. Alastor reached for his own crotch, looking to find friction, only to have his wrists snapped back into place by the chains of their contract. Vox groaned into the crevice of Alastor’s hoof as he watched Al snarl at the chains, hand going to his own cock and giving it a slow pump as he drew his head back.

“I’d love to help with that,” leered Vox, Alastor’s ankle still in his hand. “But no-one touches you above the knee, Al, not even you. You put it in the contract yourself.”

Alastor stared down at him, dial-eyed. “Fuck you, you tacky rectangle fuck.”

“Is this your idea of dirty talk?” Vox matched Alastor’s grin as he lowered Alastor’s hoof to his dick, a shock through his system as he made contact, pushing his dribbling glans against the pads on the undersides of Al’s standing toes, rubbing small circles into the yielding flesh there. Alastor made a soft, animal noise in his throat, and Vox guided himself to the gap between the toes, rubbing his glans there. “Haah- I think you need practice.”

“Why?” Alastor’s gaze on him was intense, even as his breath huffed between his teeth. “It seems to be working, after all.”

Vox glitched, freezing for a second before shaking it off. How the fuck did Alastor always seem to know just how to get under his skin? Vox watched Alastor’s face as he smeared his glans between Alastor’s spread toes, the pearly white of Alastor’s musk mixing with the neon blue of his precum, back and forth until the space was slick with it and Vox could push the shaft of his cock between Alastor’s toes without much friction. The contract compelled Alastor to watch, so he did, his hips rolling futile as he sought friction the air above him could not give him.

“You’re looking pretty out of it there, Al,” teased Vox. “Sure you don’t want any help?”

“What-” said Alastor, chest heaving, monocle askew. “-can you do to help, Vox?”

“Roll over,” said Vox, sitting back a little. “You can hump the mattress.”

Alastor gave a radio hiss. “Fuck you.”

“Would love to, believe me,” Vox shot back.

“The contract says I have to watch you.”

“Is that all?” Vox snapped his fingers, feeding his visual inputs through to the screen on the wall on the other side of the bed, his view of Alastor’s hoof, the lustrous crimson of his standing nails spread apart with Vox’s shaft between them, Vox’s electric blue claws wrapped around Alastor’s slender arch. “There- that should count.”

Alastor glanced at the screen, then back at Vox. “Are you going soft?” Alastor hissed. “Why give mercy? You want to humiliate me.”

“Says who? Says you?” Vox pulled a face, stroking his hand up the delicate bones of Alastor’s ankle. “I’m not here to play carnival freak show dominant, Al- god knows I get enough of that at home. I just wanna worship your hooves.”

“And stick your garish dick between my toes.”

“Yeah. And stick my garish dick between your toes, so sue me.” Vox shrugged. Just hearing Alastor say dick was a pleasant little throb. “I think you’re enjoying this, Al. Tell me I’m wrong.”

Another heave of Alastor’s chest. “You’re wrong, Vox. You’re wrong and you’re tacky.”

“Then why are you still hard, Al?” Vox raised an eyebrow. Alastor didn’t have an answer for him, so he continued, pushing the head of his cock back between Alastor’s standing toes and into Alastor’s intercapital notch, as far as it would go, wedging the two halves of the hoof apart. Vox slid himself back and forth, and Alastor shivered, blood running from his lip where he had bitten it, his grin fixed as he refused to make a noise, refused to groan, or whimper or gasp.

“You wanna know what I think?”

Alastor stared at him. “No.”

“I think,” Vox continued, unperturbed. “That you’re just too fucking proud to admit you like this. You like me, on the floor in front of you, you like my touch, and you like me fucking your hoof like the sloppy little pussy that it is.” With each like, Vox gave a thrust of his hips, Alastor’s hoof slick and tight around him, his thumb curling round the standing toes to the flesh underneath, pressing through the fascia and against the cruciate ligament. Alastor cried out; ears back, eyes wide, still deliciously hard in his pants, as Vox continued. “I think you’re too fucking proud to take me up on my offer and roll over and hump the mattress like the rabid animal that you are. Because you’re afraid that you’ll like it when you cum from me fucking your hooves.”

Alastor snarled at him, arms lashing out and catching on the chains of the deal. “You’re pap,” he growled. “Slop. Mass-marketed, overhyped, underproduced, noisy garbage. Your viewers are idiots and so are you.”

Usually this would get right under Vox’s skin, but usually he wasn’t using Alastor’s hoof to jerk off, so the insults lacked their usual barb. It was easy to see who was in charge, which one of them was an animal snapping at the bars of their cage. Vox grinned, radiating smugness. “Are you gonna roll over and hump the mattress for me or not, Al?”

“Go fuck yourself,” growled Alastor, which meant yes. Vox pulled himself out of Alastor’s hoof, and got to his feet as he watched the Radio Demon roll over for him.

With Alastor face down, Vox ran his fingers over each of Alastor’s hooves in turn; one slick and covered in the blue smears of his precum, the other untouched, the scent gland still beading white with musk. Alastor’s narrow ass, fully clothed, flexed back and forth as Alastor found friction in the bedding below him, grinding himself into the bedding with a strangled groan that seemed to thrum through Vox’s loins.

Vox felt an irrational surge of jealousy for the mattress, and dismissed it.

“It’s a shame an old fucker like you gets pretty hooves like this,” said Vox, running a talon over the edge of one crimson nail, dipping his fingers between the toes of the unfucked hoof and smearing the musk over it, watching Alastor watch him do it on the big screen in front of them. “Anyone else, and they would be out on display, for the world to see, all shiny and crimson and shit.”

“Really? I thought you’d appreciate exclusivity.” Alastor’s tone was sarcastic, but his words made Vox’s cock ache. The thought that he was deflowering Alastor’s hooves. Despoiling them. A part of Al that pretty much no-one else would even see.

“Oh, I do, Al.” Vox’s voice was a groan as he stacked Alastor’s hooves one atop the other, lined up so that he could slide himself between both sets of toes, and pushed himself in.

“Fuck,” hissed Alastor, his voice lower in his register now, his eyes losing focus. Vox wondered what his O-face looked like, wondered if he stopped smiling when he came. Al’s hips were still twitching, still grinding himself sordidly into the bedding, and Vox matched his jackrabbit place, grinning as the motion brought a whine to Alastor’s throat.

“Look at you, Al, you wanton little minx,” purred Vox, listening to the obscene squelch his cock now made sliding in and out. “You’re gonna cum with my cock in your hooves, arentcha?”

“N-no-” Alastor groaned, gritting his teeth, a quiver through his body as he willed himself to stop humping the mattress. A good attempt, but futile.

Alastor’s assessment when writing the contract hadn’t been wrong, per se; Vox didn’t much enjoy torture. But, long experience as an overlord had shown him a thing or two, and his powers. Well, his powers were quite useful for this sort of thing.

The electricity that ran through power sockets and the electricity that ran through nerve endings were pretty similar, after all, and Vox could feel all of Alastor’s nerve endings, firing through the strands that wrapped the bones of each hoof, up into the braid of nerves that ruled his body. What sensation went where wasn’t an exact science, but Vox was practiced. A zap to the prostate was always surefire, but hooves had a lot of nerve endings too, enough to get someone off.

Carefully, Vox brought electricity to the surface of his cock as he pushed it once more between the pads of the prone Alastor’s feet, enough to tickle the nerve endings. The reaction was instant; not an orgasm, but a quiver through Alastor’s body, a strangled capacitive whine in his throat. Alastor’s fingers clenched, rending the bedsheets with his claws.

“Good?” asked Vox, gentle because gentle pissed Alastor off more than rough did. “We can stop anytime, y’know. Nullify the contract. Just say the word.”

“Cheap tricks-” gasped Alastor, trying to turn in on himself and finding he could not, too stubborn to do anything save submit as the electricity from Vox’s cock made him quiver again, whine again. His breathing was shallow, his eyes wide as Vox fucked his hooves, squeezing his delicate ankles as the sound of electricity arcing through air and into skin sounded at the apex of each squelching thrust. “-fuck.”

“Good boy,” Vox ground out, his voice breathy as he applied a little more voltage. “Give in. Lemme make you cum.”

“Damnable -ngh- picturebox,” whimpered Alastor, a sweet sound on his lips as he came, quivering, into the bedsheets.

“A picturebox who makes you cum,” growled Vox, wishing to hell that he could touch more of Al than just his calves and shins as he fucked the still-slick still-sensitive space between Al’s standing toes. “How does it feel, Al? Getting fucked senseless by a clout-chasing, mediocre video podcast? Fucked by mass-marketed, overhyped- ngh- noisy garbage?” Vox could feel himself getting close, his audio lagging and glitching, the movement of his hips becoming irregular, a pressure in his shaft, his balls hitting the underside of Alastor’s neatly manicured crimson nails at each stroke.

Alastor gave a noise that wasn’t even a word, half animal, half distorted signal, and Vox came, hard, one arc hitting the side of the bed, the second hitting the backs of Alastor’s legs as he pulled out, vivid blue stripes over dark flesh and fur. A third and fourth spurt drizzled over his own hand and Alastor’s sublingual pads. Vox stood there for a moment, cock in hand, staring at his handiwork as he blinked away the error messages displayed on his screen. The great Radio Demon, covered in his cum. His cock, smeared with Alastor’s musk. Fuck.

Alastor sighed into the bedsheets, a slightly sulky edge to his tone. “You’ll clean that up, I hope.”

Vox felt a swell of something other than triumph in his chest; something warm. “Yeah, I’ll wipe you down, Al.”

There was something nice about both being in a post orgasmic haze, Vox thought, as he knelt again at Alastor’s feet, a warm cloth and basin in hand. Alastor, now back in the position he had started in, had little inclination to do anything other than regard Vox with languid red eyes as he wiped the evidence of their encounter from Alastor’s ruby red hooves, the bones delicate in his hands.

Vox planted a soft kiss on the front of Alastor’s hoof, below the dewclaws. “We should do this again sometime.”

Alastor lifted his leg from Vox’s hands, and in a fluid, measured movement, pressed his hoof to Vox’s forehead, grinding it back and forth with a twist from his hip, leaving a damp, scent-laden mark on Vox’s screen. “Absolutely not.”

“Say next week? I have the quarterly review Tuesday, so I’ve gotta keep the board happy, but Wednesday I don’t have anything I couldn’t blow off.”

Alastor gave Vox a level smile, pushing his face with his hoof. “If there is one quality of yours I have never had reason to doubt, Vox, it is your capacity for blowing things.”

Vox grinned. “That sounds like Wednesday night to me.”

[recurring-polynya]

Izakaya Kamenoya, part 3

It's been so long, and I kept getting busy with stuff, but rest assured, I have not stopped thinking about every shinigami's favorite watering hole, Izakaya Kamenoya, for even one second of that time, and today I am going to talk about what's really important: what kind of booze can you get there.

The multiplicity of drink options is honestly the thing I really love about Kamenoya. On a meta level, someone has to draw all this stuff, like, with their hands. I have no idea, actually, if the animators consider this sort of thing a break from all the powering up and sword fights and rolling across cave floors, or if they consider a Trip to the Bar to be really tedious. My point is, they very well could have just always drawn people drinking out of the same cups, except they didn't, they drew a series of loving close ups of sake-pouring and a variety of drinkware styles. On a more Watsonian level, I just like the idea that, like Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want at Izakaya Kamenoya. So let's get into it!

I think the thing that really made me notice this was this scene from the Amagai Arc, where you see Kira doing mokkiri, or overpouring his sake. (At least I think that's what he's doing. The articles I read sounded more like the server is supposed to do it, which emphasizes the establishment's generosity, so maybe Kira is just being a messy drunk. I'm pretty sure you're also not supposed to pour yourself sake, you're supposed to do it for your tablemates)

Often, mokkiri is done into a masu, which is a small square box that was used as a standard measure for rice. You can see Nanao drinking out of one here!

What kind of cup to drink your sake out of is a huge topic, but basically, it depends on the flavor and characteristics of the sake. The fact that Kira and the Lads are drinking out of clear glasses might imply that they're drinking chilled, summer-style sake (or possibly trying to appreciate the clarity of the vintage, as if this is what you call up Iba and Renji to go to the pub for).

I am not an expert, so I'm not going to attempt to identify exactly what these different cups would be classified as, but you can see a variety of shapes, sizes and materials.

I found less information on different shapes of tokkuri (that's the slightly bigger bottle that you serve from), but those come in a variety, as well. Mostly, they have either the large, oval-shaped jugs you can see in the first picture, or the more slender white ones in the second. I am really fond of these tall boys that Kira and Hisagi have, which seem to have straighter sides than the other kind, kind of like a milk bottle.

While we're looking at that picture, there's an ad on the wall for beer. Beer!

In modern times, beer is actually the most popular alcoholic beverage in Japan, which Wikipedia tells me came about after WWII because of restrictions on the use of rice. They've had beer since the Edo era, though, and many of today's major breweries got started in the late 1800s. I love the idea that beer is a thing you can get in Soul Society, but it's clear that it has not overcome sake in popularity the way it did in the World of the Living--which makes sense, because of they never had those restrictions. (In other words, throw this in the bucket of stuff like tattoos and attitudes toward homosexuality that I think diverged from the Living World because of weird quirks of history).

In fact, Kamenoya apparently imports beer from the World of Living (maybe it also has local brews as well).

Look how lovingly that bottle of Kirin is drawn. 😂 The fact that it's shown in a glass mug in the ad, but served in a Pilsner glass here supports the idea that there are multiple kinds of beer available. Now, I believe that Kirin Zero is non-alcoholic. It's surprisingly hard to do research on beer labels from 20 years ago. I couldn't find a label that looked exactly like that, and Kirin's non-alcoholic offering seems to be called Kirin Free now (Kirin Zero is now zero-carb and I couldn't figure out if it's alcoholic or not). In any case, I am choosing in my heart to believe that this is because of weird TV censorship and in no way implies that Rukia is not one of the champion drinkers of the Gotei-13.

Don't get me wrong! I love a bar that offers non-alcoholic options! You can also get tea at Kamenoya, which you can see Tobiume and Okyō drinking below; Momo has some as well (they also have a discussion about it)

earlier posts in this series: (part 1) (part 2)

[bunnygirlwhore]

Doing a replay of Deltarune chapters 1 and 2 because I am hyperfixing after watching Device Theory Part 3 (go watch it, its by mollystars on youtube, I dont care that the full series is 10 hours watch it now please its so GOOD) and I have decided to write down random thoughts.

1. Why does Kris specifically plug in the tv?? Like, assuming a pre-meditated making the chapter 3 dark world, the tv is gonna be there no matter what, why does it being plugged in matter?

2. wait beautiful day is mentioned twice so early on, looking out the window in Kris's room and Toriel says it in the car.

3. Why did Toriel say Asriel's name in all caps like that?

4. Still don't know what to make of every clock in this game being broken.

5. I remember hearing Jockington has the same talksprite multiple times in the files, and he has the thing about having one picture of a soccerball over and over. If he has some third thing that repeats like this then there's like, something up with that.

6. The options of "not yet" and "yes. Ask." Still seem odd, IDK what to make of them.

7. Thinking about something one of my partners said and I can't help but wonder if the guitar in Susie's music is the same as the one in the song that plays when you seal the fountains.

8. Now realizing both the scene's with Susie outside the classroom have semi-meta stuff. Chapter 1 has the allusion to Asriel and Chara dying in Undertale, and Chapter 2 has the references to the wait between chapters.

9. I swear if you hit enter fast enough at the how's that sound choicer there's like, a frame of a new textbox.

10. Whatever happened to Kris at the bunker is like, gossip around town. I wonder if that's what Susie is referencing in the "Guess you have experiencing running away" line.

11. I wonder if we'll ever get to hear more of that ocean noise.

12. I wonder it at some point in the game perserving Kris's save will have an effect.

13. There's no way we don't come back to the cliffs at some point.

14. The like, green funky gaster narrated title screen calls copying files a division. That implies something is being spread evenly between the files. What could that be?

15. I wonder if the glowshard will do more than just be an investment.

16. Seriously what the fuck is up with this closet.

17. Could those monoliths in the background be chalk? Erasers? What the hell are those?

18. How did Lancer get up there?

19. The monoliths in the background before the jump down to town seem to have an intentional shape to them.

20. Why does Kris keep looking at the screen after cutscenes.

21. I wonder if Castle Town will get even more buildings later, and what implications an Inn might have. Dark Worlds are compared to dreams so often, what if you sleep in one?

22. Why does Ralsei with hood on have a talksprite? Is that gonna come up again later?

23. Ralsei has fur and two layers on, does he not get warm? Do Darkners not have to deal with temperature based discomfort?

24. I find the distinction between EARTH and WORLD to be interesting. All the weird all caps words in the prophecy really.

25. Why does prophecy drawing Ralsei have the cloak like that? Is that why the talksprite exists? Will Ralsei put the cloak back on to be like "I gotta, its for the prophecy."

26. I wonder, since the soul seems to leave Kris during fights, at some point will they use an enemy attack to go do something? Will they ask like, Ralsei or someone to do a long attack so they can go off to do something?

27. Odd how i-frames carry over between attacks.

28. Why did Kris look at the camera for a single frame.

29. Why does the exit used in castle town in chapter 2 not exist in chapter 1?

30. Still wonder why Ralsei looks at the camera like that before closing the door.

31. I always forget about getting candy from the other trees.

32. Wait in one of the x-flatter things Ralsei mentions EXP, which like, that does not normally come up in this game? Like at all? Now that I think about it, is there even any way to earn EXP?

33. Did Susie crack the door or was it just like that?

34. I know its nothing, but Ralsei using the word proceede feels so fucking ominous

35. You can get close enough to C. Round that it does the "!" but you don't encounter the creachure. It stops dancing and just kinda sits there. Amusing.

[aeonophagic]

I'm really glad you enjoyed these! the translator is actually user 17979 on here, they've written some really good After God fanfics and are a good friend of mine! the other parts they've translated are: original: "His soul seemed to have left his body. He was unfettered. There was no fear or panic. He felt nothing."

original: "It does not matter. They are one and the same. I need his power. I underestimated him."

and this one is more just a funny one from our treasured translator:

I'll have you know I had about the same reaction to the "You are the story I started 50.000 years ago" line, it just brings up so many questions; VA's lore is scattered as it is and very little is given to us, so just dropping something like this in a convo I doubt a lot of people have read is so [vague hand gestures] it's quite late at night when I'm writing this so forgive any incomprehensibility: the line itself, combined with some others there ("It's tone was surprisingly laden with grief, as if it was lamenting a past that could not return") read to me as slightly contrary to VA being merely a Divine Key, it sounds like he has an amount of history in the PE; my personal idea that is pure unadulterated speculation is that VA might have started out as just a person who had something to do with the PE HoR? it would explain the fact that he repeatedly speaks to a "you" which is clearly not actually Joey in this convo and doesn't seem to be Welt Joyce either considering the 50k years thing, that is to say maybe VA even inherited the core (woo Welt paralel) of the PE HoR; considering that Vill-V does say that the Core of Reason is fucking weird [paraphrasing] and, at least if my memory is holding up, Welt did retreat into the Herrscher Core at least once to avoid dying, there's nothing saying VA couldn't have also pulled that and ended up getting his ass merged with that Fragment of Prommy and turned into the only DK we know to be sentient, I dunno I'm sleep deprived that being said the 3rd line I sent last time would imply that VA was also like not human if all of this happened... I'll just say he yoinked a body Orokapi style and call it a day cuz I think if I keep trying to get these thoughts down on paper they will actually become complete word vomit [thumbs up emoji] anyhow the ramble section ended up being longer than I intended... but the fact that we really know so little of his lore does make my brain go haywire, if they ever explain Void Archives' lore properly that'll probably all be disproven but it's what I came up with considering what we know (and I remember)

“There was no more gravity that bound him to the mortal world” I think this one is in reference to Void Archives likely using the Fenghuang Down… ouuu

I definitely think the PE Herrschers besides Elysia all being nothing more than the names of said Herrschers in the story is one of the things that blocks my road here. Me and a friend have theorised plenty of things about the PE HoR, but none can be confirmed, none are even implied!!! A character with such a nothingburger that you can just make shit up and no one could tell you yes or no. My favorite theory is that the PE HoR looked just like Otto, but a girl. Because it’s funny. But now I don’t know… I can’t sacrifice my integrity for humor… I think the idea of the person that used to be what later became Void Archives was a part of the HoR core is really interesting. It would take from the whole “artificial thing struggles with humanity”, because then they’d have already been human once, but at the same time it would be as if they were reclaiming their humanity which is also intriguing etc etc… it’s really interesting. I initially thought Void Archives’ sentience came from them being part Prometheus since she’s sentient too, but at the same time why would Vill-V merge them with her then..? Because Prometheus is an AI so she can handle the “ever expanding knowledge”? Don’t know… so much left in the air, most Void Archives lore we know is stitched together thanks to No.17 who hasn’t talked about them even once. Thank you for sharing!!! I’m having lots of thoughts…

[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for 30th Tue per annum (I)

Eph 5:25-33; Ps 127; Luke 13:18-21

Marriage, we say, is a sacrament. And so, within and through the marital relationship, God is present and active to transform our human ways of behaving and relating with his grace; we’re being opened up to God’s ways of seeing how we should be human, how we are to live as husband and wife. And “this mystery is profound… it refers to Christ and the Church.” (Eph 5:32) As such, the language of how a married couple relates to each other is like that of the head to its body, and this must surely imply mutuality and co-operation, and mutual need while respecting constitutive difference as well. For elsewhere St Paul reminds us strikingly that “the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” – not if we want to get somewhere – but at the same time each part of the body has its own proper and distinct part to play. Hence, husband and wife, united in the sacrament of marriage, are being formed by God’s grace in mutual love and partnership, helping one another to grow in holiness. So, St Thomas Aquinas describes marriage as “the greatest friendship” because husband and wife are “partners in the whole of daily life”.

But at first glance the language of submission found in today’s passage from Ephesians comes across as somewhat grating, and no doubt it has, when misunderstood, led to situations of abuse, and to the servile domination of women by their husbands. So is St Paul to blame for creating such conditions with his words? We might note that further on in this chapter, St Paul then looks at the relationships between children and their parents, and then between slaves and their masters. And again, one doesn’t find anything as such to forbid the Greco-Roman norm of slavery although Paul does remind both slave and slave owner that they have one Master, and they should both render due service to God. It seems to me, then, that the Apostle, in writing to the Ephesians, is not principally setting out rules nor seeking to change social norms in themselves. 

Rather, we see what we might call “pastoral accompaniment” in action, as Paul seeks to change first the attitudes and the perspectives of the first Christians. For it is an interior conversion of the heart that St Paul seeks, a work of God’s grace, because only the converted heart, that places Christ first, can generate genuine change in a person and in a society. For the Apostle (and the Church) has to be a pastor of souls, a doctor of hearts, and not a politician. And the gradual work of God’s grace in our human society is to change us from within, giving us hearts of flesh in place of stony hearts, converting us so that we will act to change our cultures and human contexts. Thus the grace of the Gospel is like yeast that silently and invisibly leavens the flour, causing the advent of God’s kingdom. But, as we know, changing our lives and living up to the vision of the Gospel is a slow process and earthly revolutions seldom change hearts for the better.

So, marriage, which in the Greco-Roman world is an unequal relationship in which the man owns the wife as his own chattel, is being re-envisioned in the light of Christ and his Gospel. Thus St Paul says: “let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” No longer is the husband to see his wife as his property, or as one whom he dominates, and who is there for his service and enjoyment. Rather – and this turns the pagan notions of marriage on its head – the wife is to be loved as an equal, as his own self, even as his own body; “nourishing and cherishing” her. Indeed, he is to be Christ to her, which means the husband is called to be willing to lay down his life for his wife; he must love her sacrificially. And the wife in turn is called to love her husband like Christ, giving herself to him, and so loving him sacrificially. So, there is a fundamental call within marriage of mutual self-gift; a call to learn the way of sacrificial love, which is what the Christian vocation is essentially about. 

Thus we can speak of Christian marriage as a sacrament and a vocation to holiness because in and through their marital relationship, God’s grace is at work to teach husband and wife to love as Christ loves, to be friends who are thus willing to lay down their lives for the other. For “greater love has no one than this”! Indeed, in the verse that precedes and rightly frames today’s passage, we find the lens for interpreting St Paul’s teaching on marriage, and indeed all our Christian relationships: “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Eph 5:21).   

[ofstoriesandstardust]

day 8 - tis the damn season - jake “hangman” seresin

a/n: this fic makes my brain go brrrrrrrr. i’ve been wanting to write this since I saw the movie in may so what better way to bring it to life than as part of ficmas? i know this is so late and i’m so sorry! i have to be up in six hours for a trip i still haven’t packed for. delightful. 

summary: No matter how many years pass, you and Jake always seem to be drawn to one another. How unlucky to be in love with someone you know will only ever leave.

inspired by taylor swift’s “tis the damn season”

12 days of ficmas | main masterlist | top gun: maverick masterlist

warnings: swearing, angst with a hopeful ending, implied/referenced sex, Jake has a shitty Dad but that’s all that’s said on the matter, i just love commas

word count: 1,995

“and wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles i’m faking/and the heart i know i’m breaking is my own/to leave the warmest bed i’ve ever known” 

You let out an exhale, watching the puff of air disappear in front of you as you shut the truck door behind you. 

Somehow, without fail, you always ended back up here, back in your childhood home, in your high school bedroom, with the only man who’d ever felt like home. His touch is firm on your shoulder as you unlock the door to the house. 

“Your Mom?” He asks, the door shutting behind the two of you. 

“Out.” You breathe. Your back hits the wall, Jake’s hands finding your waist. “Across town, at the Miller’s.” 

“Good.” He says, going to suck on that sweet spot on your neck. Your eyes flutter shut, hands moving up to curl into his blonde hair, wondering how he manages to make even this feel like home. 

-

Your chest is heaving as you lay there, Jake rubbing soft circles into your shoulder. It feels far more intimate than whatever the game the two of you have caught yourselves in is, finding your way back into each other’s bed each time you’re home for the holidays, even as you swear to yourself it will be the last. 

“Guess who I ran into yesterday?” He breathes out, turning to look at you. You’re still staring at the ceiling, trying to catch your breath. 

“Who?”

“Sarah Roberston.” 

Now you shift, looking up at him. He’s looking at you in that way that he does, the way that makes your heart clench with the ache of all you can’t have. The look that makes you think you might be his home too. “The one you took to homecoming our sophomore year?” 

He nods, confirming your question. “Yeah. Her parents still own the bakery in town. Guess she picks up shifts every once in a while when she’s in town.” 

“Oh.” You shift again, looking back towards the ceiling. It stings a bit, him telling you about girls he used to date, knowing what the two of you had just been doing moments before, but you have to brush it off. 

He’s not yours to love. 

-

The knock on your front door is loud, firm, and your stomach rolls, knowing just who it is. 

You open the front door anyways, knowing how much you’ve missed the blonde, craving his presence. And sure enough, there he is. He’s got his leather jacket thrown over his shoulders, hands shoved in his blue jeans. He’s been growing out his hair while he’s on leave and you have to admit how much you want to run your fingers through his hair. 

He looks good. 

You sigh, leaning up against your front door. “Hi Jake.” 

He sniffs. “Smells good.” 

You nod, pushing yourself off the doorframe. “Mom’s baking her sugar cookies.” You move, closing the gap ever so slightly. “What’re you doing here Jake?” 

“You haven’t been answering my texts, sweetheart. Got worried and had to see you.” 

You groan, the hand that’s not on the door handle reaching up to rub your face. “Jake-”

You had sworn to yourself you’d stop doing this with him.

“Let’s go for a drive.” 

You startle, eyes going wide. “Now?” 

“No better time like the present.” He says, a teasing smile on his face. 

“Is that Jake?” Your Mom calls from the kitchen. You sigh, looking over your shoulder to answer her, only to be greeted by the sight of her pushing the kitchen door open. She appears over your shoulder, smiling brightly at the sight of Jake. “Oh hi Jake! It’s so good to see you.” 

He gives her that smile, the one that makes all the daughters melt and all the mothers coo. “Hi ma’am.” 

“You should come in. Was just about to start frosting my sugar cookies and sure would love the help.” 

Jake sighs. “Well, that sounds delightful ma’am but I was hoping I could steal your daughter here for a drive.” 

She beams at him. “Well, that sounds just lovely. Go on, why don’t you?” She says, looking at you. Your shoulders deflate, knowing you’ll never be able to tell your Mom no. 

“Let me grab my coat.” 

-

“Why are you back Jake?” 

The two of you are at the lookout, the place so many went to make-out, fumble around in their backseats as they tried to hook-up. 

The weather’s cold, and with the holidays only a few days away, the rocky pass is devoid of any young high school kids, stupid and in love. 

Your heart aches at the thought of how stupid and in love you’d once been, hoping one day it’d be you the man sitting next to you would choose to bring up here. 

Now that he had, it all felt wrong. 

He looks at you, bringing his gaze from the fog cover that’s blocking any view of the town, to meet your own. 

“Why do you always come back? You know what he’s like.” 

When Jake left for the Navy, you never thought you’d see him again. You thought he’d take the ounce of freedom and independence and control the Navy gave him and run with it, never to be seen by you or his shitty Dad or any one else in this town ever again. 

But every year, like clockwork, he’d be back. 

And every year, like clockwork, this game between the two of you began again. 

But every year, like clockwork, he’d return right back to the Navy, not to be heard from again until the clock reset and the cycle repeated. 

He hesitates, thumbs tapping the steering wheel. “There’s uh... always a few people I want see.” 

“Like Sarah Robertson?” You say, letting out the words tumble out of your mouth, full of venom and sting, before you can stop them. 

“Like you.” He says quietly. He’s looking at you with such raw honesty, you can’t seem to look away. 

It falls silent in the cab of the truck, but when it becomes apparent you’re not going to say anything further, he wordlessly starts the car. The rumble of the engine brings you back and you force yourself to look out the window, blinking back the emotion stinging your eyes. 

“Why do you come back?” He asks finally, when you’re halfway back to town. “Why do you come back every year when you have that hotshot job, the high life in the city? Your world has moved on.” He says the last sentence so quietly that if the only sound wasn’t the passing road, you would’ve missed it. 

You shrug, pulling your feet up on to the seat. “I don’t know. To see Mom, I guess? I know she gets lonely in that house by herself, but she won’t leave.” 

She won’t leave. 

Jake tosses you a look. “Put your feet down.” 

You sigh dramatically, rolling your eyes at the blond man, but follow his instruction anyway. “You’re no fun.” 

“Sure, call me no fun for making sure you don’t get hurt but if we were to get an accident, you’d thank me for not gettin’ hurt.” 

His Southern accent, so often hidden, colors his words. You’ll never tell him how much you love that drawl of his. “That’d never happen, you drive extra safe when I’m in the car.”

He sighs, reaching his right hand out to your thigh and giving it a soft squeeze. “Of course I do. Don’t want you to get hurt on my watch.” 

The conversation is suddenly heavy, intimate and vulnerable, and you find yourself shrinking back. 

The two of you couldn’t go down this road. Jake would leave, you would leave, and yet- next Christmas, the two of you would do it all over again. 

He sighs once more, letting go of your leg, even though you suddenly feel ice-cold at the loss of his touch. “C’mon, let’s head back and help your Mom with those cookies.”

-

It’s only that night, when Jake is asleep in his bed, his Dad out for the night, that you know you can’t keep doing this. 

It hurts too much, to always watch him leave. To watch him leave every year until one year he leaves for good, to fulfill his fate of never returning to this small town that had always kept him so confined. 

The steady rise and fall of his chest lets you say the words you’d never be able to say to his face. It might make you a coward, leaving like this, but better to be a coward than someone who stays just to always be the convenience fuck. 

“Jake.” You breath. He makes no movement at the sound and you swallow, closing your eyes. “Jake, I always wish you’d ask me to stay. I- we always do this and we can’t. We can’t keep doing this. We’re both meant to leave and one day, you might not come home. And maybe it’ll be because you’ve died or you’ve finally found the perfect life with the perfect wife but fuck Jake, I can’t keep doing it. To wait for the day when you leave and don’t come back. It’ll- it’ll hurt too much. We have to end it here and I’m sorry.” 

You shift up, tears burning your eyes. There’s a sudden startle, shift on the bed, and you know he's awake. He rolls over in the sheets, hand reaching out for your figure, finding empty sheets where your body was just moments before. The only light in the room is the soft winter glow from the freshly fallen snow outside. He sits up, a frown forming on his face. 

“Hey, where are you going?” 

You shake your head, reaching out for your pants on the floor, afraid to meet his eye. “We can’t keep doing this Jake. This cycle, every damn year, falling back into each other’s beds like we’re in high school. We did it all through college and we’re well into our adult lives and- someone has to cut the cord Jake.” You say, finally turning to look at him. “I’m sorry it has to be me.” 

You shake your head, moving to stand up from the bed as you’ve finally pulled your pants on, wanting to shed yourself of his shirt, shed yourself from this shame and embarrassment as you’ve let yourself continue this for years, always saying just one more time. You want to shed the material that’s itching your skin, memories of the football team he played for and friday nights spent together under the lights when it felt like the world was all your own. 

His wrist reaches out to find yours, fingers sliding together to intertwine with your own. “Stay.” 

You shake your head, trying to tug yourself from his grip. 

“Jake-”

“You said you wished I’d tell you to stay. I’m telling you to stay. Please stay.” His voice drops off to a whisper, a certain vulnerability taking over his eyes. “I should’ve asked you so long ago- Please stay.”

You go against everything that’s screaming at you to leave and to not look back as you let your body relax. Jake loosens his grip on your wrist, moving closer to you. 

“Please stay.” he whispers. “We can figure it all out in the morning, but- please stay darling.” 

You find yourself nodding, let him guide you back down to lay in his arms. He tugs your jeans off, kicking them back off the bed and onto the floor, as he wraps the sheets back around you. His arms falls over you, pulling you to his chest. 

He rubs your cheekbone as you begin to fall back asleep, letting yourself have the man who feels like home just this once. To believe that maybe-

His voice is soft as your breathing steadies out. “Darling, you’re the place that’s ever been home.”

[utilitycaster]

what i'm curious about is what was up with the celestial regardless of how it got there—whether direct messenger or Planar Ally or something else. like, if resurrection spells aren't working and resurrection spells involve calling a soul through the planes, doesn't that suggest that interplanar magic is having trouble in general? i'm unfamiliar with dnd beyond CR and your meta, so i'm probably not understanding something; it just seemed a little odd to me

TBH your guess is as good as mine - this is all straight-up Matt Mercer Homebrew rules. The spells are from D&D, but I believe the ley line and planar stuff as it relates to mechanics is completely from Matt (though it's definitely pulling from real-world folklore about leylines as a source of magic).

I will note: according to Ressia Uvesic, the Scribewarden in Uthodurn, later this same day in Uthodurn, scrying and other divination were also not working reliably, but Abbadina was able to scry without issue. So here's a couple of theories:

It might be that if you're actually on a nexus, you're able to get through (this would also explain why short-range Sending worked when Team Wildemount was in Molaesmyr, and why they received very direct messages from the Dawnfather and Changebringer there as well). This explains why Hearthdell is doing fine, why Planar Ally works, and is consistent with the heightened magic. This also might imply that actually, resurrection would have worked in Molaesmyr, and had Orym attempted to use his sending stones, they might have worked when he was in Hearthdell proper.

It might be cross-planar in terms of source of the magic and so clerics are struggling but Abbadina is fine...but Uthodurn has wizards, so you'd think they could scry. Maybe that's the unreliable part? Doesn't explain Kiro here.

"Unreliable" often just means "more difficult than usual"; scry and teleport are both spells that are not always guaranteed as is, so it might just be that because Team Issylra gave specific items, scrying was fine for them, but had Abbadina tried to scry on someone she vaguely knew her chances of failure would be much higher than usual. Also, frankly, maybe the people in Uthodurn they were scrying on had died and they didn't want to deal with that. Which means that cross-planar magic on the whole isn't necessarily an issue (Kiro's thing is fine), just resurrection specifically. I'm not a huge fan of the theory that Vax is the world's only psychopomp, a word I've gotten to use twice today which is very fun for me, but like, idk maybe that's the resurrection issue.

Point being: Matt has room to handwave this while still making it logically consistent, because the actual rules as written don't dictate the specifics of how spells work in 5e. (If anyone with more old school D&D knowledge wants to weigh in on earlier editions, please feel free to do so though I'd prefer you did your own post with an @ and a link rather than reblogged this, just for the sake of not making a huge unwieldy reblog chain/making me see notes specifically responding to you).

[itsnevercasual]

YOU'RE LOSING ME - an analysis

first of all, i do and don’t think this song is about joe, certain lines throw me off of thinking it is about joe alwyn.

first of all, the song starts with a sigh. we’re going to go through this assuming it is a song about joe.

the first song we hear from taylor about joe is track 1 off of reputation: …ready for it? in which she clears her throat. the most recent song about him, she sighs.

“you say ‘i don’t understand,’ and i say, ‘i know you don’t’.”

this first line makes it seem like she was the one to end things, and the wording makes it seem as if he was oblivious to his actions she talks of throughout the song.

“we thought a cure would come through in time, now i fear it won’t”

they thought their relationship would be able to be saved, ‘have a cure’, but (as a lot of tabloids said), it ran it’s course, they couldn’t be saved or fixed.

“remember looking in this room, we loved it cause of the light”

i’m pretty sure that they were living together, but i know for a fact they were looking at buying their own house together. but i believe this line is a callback to cornelia street, and possibly even daylight. cornelia street primarily because it says ‘windows flung right open’, and mentions light a lot. daylight, because, well.. she refers to their love as being a daylight color. this would mean she is using a metaphor as well, calling their relationship a room. essentially, she’s saying ‘remember looking at our relationship, we loved it because of the daylight color’.

“now i just sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time”

again, implying that she was the one to end things, albeit reluctantly. their love has faded and the light it created in her is dwindling, hence her sitting in the dark as she wonders if it is time to end things.

“do i throw out everything we built or keep it?”

i think this is a rhetorical question, but also not. she’s asking if everything they made for themselves together is worth keeping, essentially saying, is it worth it to stay in this relationship? she’s giving him a chance to tell her no.

“i’m getting tired even for a phoenix, always rising from the ashes. mendin all her gashes”

as we all (probably) know, joe and taylor met during the reputation era where she was being very publicly criticized and humiliated, but she rebuilt herself and became even bigger (‘always rising from the ashes’), and she healed the hurt they caused by herself (‘mendin’ all her gashes’)

“you might just have dealt the final blow”

THIS line makes it seem like there was an argument that caused her to officially end things, or kill the last bit of love they shared. we all know we say things we don’t necessarily mean out of anger, perhaps joe said something he could not take back??

“stop, you’re losing me (x3)”

this line and the repetition, although simple, has SOOO much meaning. it’s almost like she’s begging and warning him to stop saying whatever he was saying, or stop doing what he was doing, because she didn’t want him to lose her.

“i can’t find a pulse, my heart start anymore for you. ‘cause you’re losing me”

it’s important to know that during this part, there is very clearly a heart beat in the background. but also, this line makes me think of a certain song about joe: king of my heart. she essentially says she owns her heart (and body and soul). it also makes me think of death my a thousand cuts: “my heart, my hips, my body, my love, trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch”. she often says that joe owns her heart, but now her heart can’t even start for him. and since it won’t start for him, she has no pulse.

“every morning i glared at you with storms in my eyes”

this line makes it seem as if they’d been having issues for quite a while. i think storms could be interpreted as tears, as he seemed to care so little or not even notice at all that he was losing her.

“how can you say that you love someone you can’t tell is dying?”

obviously, she isn’t literally dying, but this is a callback to the ‘i can’t find a pulse, my heart won’t start anymore’ lyric. he doesn’t even realize he’s losing her, therefore he doesn’t realize he’s killing her.

“i sent you signals and bit my nails down to the quick.”

she tries to hint that she is unhappy, and biting nails is an anxious habit. so, she sent the signals, and sent another in anxiously biting her nails.

“my face was gray but you wouldn’t admit that we were sick”

eventually, joe saw the signs of the relationship dying, but refused to admit it. but, in refusing to admit the relationship was dying, he refused to fix it.

“and the air is thick with loss and indecision”

joe’s indecision to do anything makes them feel the loss of the relationship before it even happens

“i know my pain is such an impositition”

joe not acknowledging her makes her feel as if her pain is a burden to him

“now you’re running down the hallway”

i personally think this is a metaphor but also not

like he is running away from their problems and therefore out the door, so he is running down the hallway yk

“and you know what they all say, you don’t know what you got, until it’s gone”

she knows that he’ll regret losing her once she’s gone

CHORUS:

already analyzed

“how long could we be a sad song ‘till we were too far gone to bring back to life?”

joe and taylor wrote MANY sad songs together and taylor said in an interview that they bonded over sad songs. but also, she’s calling THEM a sad song. she is saying that they are the sad songs that make you feel as if your heart was ripped out of your chest.

with the prior experience taylor has had with dating, the second she writes a sad song about them, the relationship ends.

“i gave you all my best me’s, my endless empathy”

she tried to be the best version of herself for him and she tried to empathize with him on how hard it was to be with someone as famous as her

“and all i did was bleed as i tried to be the bravest soldier.”

obviously she isnt going to war

she is saying that she is trying to be the bravest person she can be in this relationship where she doesnt know where they’ll end up

“fighting in only your army”

she didn’t fight for anyone else, not even for herself, but she fought for him

“frontlines don’t you ignore me, i’m the best thing at this party”

first half of this verse is a lot to discuss already. the frontlines are the first thing you see when you think of an army. they are the ones risking the most and the most vulnerable, but also seen as the strongest. but, even if she fights on the frontlines for them, joe doesn’t notice.

obviously joe and taylor have been out together before, but we also know that taylor is insecure, so joe’s reluctance to notice anything she does to fight for them makes her think that she isn’t good enough. the best thing at this part line is her reassuring herself, not him

“and i wouldn’t marry me either”

the first time i heard this line i had to sit and pause because throughout their entire relationship, taylor has expressed the want, or even need, to get married and havr a life with joe. paper rings as the biggest example. so this line is not saying that taylor was the one reluctant to get even more serious, it was joe.

“a pathological people pleaser who only wanted you to see her”

taylor has shown she is a people pleaser before this line, with mirrorball being a prime example. but this line makes it seem as if the only person she really wants to please is joe.

“and i’m fading thinking do something, babe, say something”

this is circling back to the metaphor of her dying. she described joe as her lifeline and their relationship as things similar. so, as their relationship dies, she does too, but she still begs him to save them while he can.

“lose something, babe, risk something”

this makes it seem as if joe was scared to take a risk with taylor. whatever it was im not sure. but this could also be her begging him to risk his own pride and fight

“chose something, babe, i got nothing to believe unless you’re choosing me.”

she wants him to chose whether or not they are going to end up together.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Ya know, a ways back someone had asked me if I had any takes on Yoruichi's tattoo --I forget in which ask, but there was a bigger question that I wound up answering and I sort of forgot about the tattoo part entirely. But at the time, I really didn't have anything to say about it anyhow, but I don't think Kubo had released that art of the original Gotei at the time. So as it happens there are some odd little adjacencies now, although not especially strong ones... but I figure I can squeeze a post out of it.

So originally Kubo did a little color spread of all the Bleach girls in swimwear at the beach, and that in turn got adapted into a dumb little filler thing in the anime based off some other omake. It's also shows up in Bleach Brave Souls.

(weirdly a different swimsuit specialadds a different, unrealted, tattoo on her right thigh??)

But in the body of the manga itself, she's never actually shown with it. In most cases we don't get a 100% irrefutably clear view, but there are plenty of moments where her left upper thigh is definitely visible enough that if the tattoo was canon it should have been visible. The most obvious contradiction being her first appearance in her human form on account of, you know... her being entirely naked for that...

Now, one of the most immediate evocations of the sun tattoo would seem to be Ichigo's "Black Sun" motif --although it seems like a "tribal" style tattoo, which would be solid black anyway, making it hard to really assume it's a deliberately associated color-- which is itself actually kind of weird because it started entirely meta textually as part of the pair of databooks, SOULs and VIBEs: the former being the manga databook, and the latter being the accompanying anime databook, together featuring the phrase

"the rain drags black sun down, but the rain dried by white moon".

But this actually conflicts with the manga's use of a black moon motif for Ichigo, and doesn't really appear in the text at all. In fact the only real association Ichigo has with the black sun in the story proper might be the tangential association with Yhwach calling him, "my son born in the dark" when Yhwach himself is associated with the sun and light, and his own mirroring of the black flame(?) motif.

Otherwise the only loose link between Ichigo and the phrase "black sun" is that zangetsu's crossguard in bankai is a manji/swastika --a symbol used in Japanese Buddhism, via Chinese Buddhism, via Indian Buddhism, but originally taken from Indian hinduism where it was itself a sign of the sun god Surya-- and the SchwarzeSonne:"Black Sun" rune was a part of Himmler's stupid esoteric LARPing horseshit he did in the N*zi party, where he just mashed up the swastika, Nordic runes(𐌔), the alchemical sol niger:"black sun", and the Arthurian round table concepts so he could have that dumb mosaic built into the floor of the Wewelsburg castle he had requisitioned.

Sorry i got off topic... point being: the BlackSun was kind of like a leveled up swastika as far as n*zi symbols go, so it kind of follows that Ichigo's devloping powers imply a black sun as the next step past swastika.

But like I said, that's a super loose correlation within the text itself. Rather, the black sun in Bleach actually seems to be a weird recycling of something Kubo did in Zombie Powder: The black getsuga tenshou's black flame motif being a kind of throwback to the black flames of Akutabi Gamma's Karinzanjutsu, and the Ka-rin[火輪]: "Fire Ring/Wheel" having a symbol representing the sun, thus the sword style's black flames making its symbol a black sun.

So what's the point in bringing all this back up if what we're asking about is Yoruichi? Well, Yoruichi may not have had any sort of identifiable sun motif herself, but her ancestor, Chika, does. His name can read as "1000 Sun", although in the context of Yoruichi and Yuushirou's names both having words for "night" in them, it makes sense that Chika's name should actually be read, "1,000 Days", or very possibly "1000th Day" since Yoruichi's name is clearly meant to be read as "1st Night" considering her birthday is January 1st.*

*Her overall gimmick is a reference to hatsuyume[初夢], a tradition/idea that your first dream of the newyear --taking into accounts that you stay up until midnight on new years, your first dream is on Jan 1-- is supposed to have some prophetic qualities. (Incidentally, Urahara's birthday is December 31st, and given his partnership with Yoruichi could imply he's meant to be associated with the Omisoka holiday? but I'm not getting into that here.)

Anyway... all that just to say that her sun tattoo isn't really canon but if it were, it might have something to do with her ancestor, Chika. Although given that their family crest features a moon and they have a night theme to naming, I'd assume Chika's name is meant to be kind of an outlier rather than directly reflective of any family themes.

I dunno, I guess that's not really much of anything actually, since the whole black sun tangent doesn't even link back around... I guess the only thematic link is that in rather literal terms a "black sun" might be most readily envisioned as an eclipse, which in both the Shihouin and Ichigo's cases would be a way of aligning the moon and sun motifs.

(Technically I guess Isshin's relationship with Masaki is a kind of eclipse, as its the overlap of her sun/center of the universe iconography with Isshin's own moon motif via engetsu, but honestly Isshin was never actually moon themed and his shikai just felt like a lazy tack on detail that Kubo gave no real thought or consideration to beyond it being a derivative of what Ichigo already had going on.)

edit: oh you know something i didnt think to mention in the first draft of this.... For a brief window where the soul king had been shown with all his limbs and then none and then we learned about the hand creatures and the heart, some people had the idea in their heads that Yoruichi was somehow or for some reason the left leg of the soul king?? I have no opinions on this as a theory other than it being silly

[ancestorsofjudah]

2 Kings 9: 11-13. "The Maniac."

The Hebrew word for maniac is m'shuga, which means, "footloose, untethered, unwrapped." It is also a term that has roots in the characteristics of a prophet which explains their anointed status and why they say and behave in strange ways.

Why is it relevant to call a man of God, sent by the Prophet Elisha a m'shug?

11 When Jehu went out to his fellow officers, one of them asked him, “Is everything all right? Why did this maniac come to you?”

“You know the man and the sort of things he says,” Jehu replied.

12 “That’s not true!” they said. “Tell us.”

Jehu said, “Here is what he told me: ‘This is what the Lord says: I anoint you king over Israel.’”

13 They quickly took their cloaks and spread them under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, “Jehu is king!”

Cloaks which are of the purest white, are a symbol of Kohanim, the Temple High Priests, which the script says were behaving like a bunch of randy soldiers when a young prophet shows up to ascend a new king. He did his duty and ran, leaving the new sovereign behind, feeling kind of foolish.

The Kohanim consider the prophet's task legitimate and pay homage. The comment about bare steps refers to the requirement for bare feet during victory oblations.

Very nice bare feet are a sign of intense Jewishness because in order for the feet to remain soft, ruddy and supple like they are supposed, the environment around their owner must be spic and span, free of debris, filth, or injury.

Just as the Kohanim used their white cloaks to cover the bare steps imply the temple or military barracks were bleached pure white, so the soul must be purest white in order to lay down the cleanest tracks for the feet.

One would not convey a new king along a route that was unclean or littered, nor would his court or the Assembly agree to any such thing.

The Values in Gematria for the above verses are as follows:

v. 11: the Value in Gematria is 13533, יג‎ה‎גג‎‎, "a roof." The Hebrew word for roof is gag, and the presence of a young prophet under the roof is the beginning of the three part analysis method called Chabad, Chochmah, Binah, Da'at, "hypothesis, data, evidence" via "a spiritual exposure":

"The housetop seems to indicate a certain spiritual exposure. Someone on the housetop opens himself for something, preferable something soothing, or higher.

Since societies at large were often referred to as houses (particularly the "houses" of the national deity), their "roofs" might refer to the apex in information technology and ultimately national councils, where conversant senators came to exchange and discuss the latest intel.

The alphabet was arguably the most sophisticated thing to come out of the Bronze Age, but the literary traditions that carried it went much beyond what we today call a good yarn. Mankind's most ancient stories contain a level of complexity that is truly mind boggling.

Whether by intuition, natural selection or some other technique, the ancient stories that we know so well are the mere wrappings of vast data banks and pools of wisdom, ranging from the Standard Model of Elementary Particles to Relativity Theory, evolution theory, cosmology, sociology, psychology and an untold library of technologies.

v. 12: the Value in Gematria is 8439, חדגט‎, hadget, "cut through to the winepress of vision."

v. 13: the Value in Gematria is 7012, זאֶפֶסאב‎, zefesab, "what God hides within something that is fashioned."

"The verb עצב ('asab II) means to form or fashion. It's used only twice in the Bible. Job declares YHWH formed him (Job 10:8), and Jeremiah writes about women making images of a goddess (Jeremiah 44:19). In both cases, something is fashioned in the image of something else, with the intent of forging an emotional bond with that creation.

The derivatives of this verb are:

The masculine noun עצב ('eseb), literally meaning something fashioned. It's used only once, in Jeremiah 22:28, where the prophet speaks of king Coniah (=Jehoiachin) as a despised vessel.

The masculine noun עצב ('oseb), meaning idol (Isaiah 48:5 only).

The masculine noun עצב ('asab), also meaning idol (Isaiah 10:11, Jeremiah 50:2, Hosea 4:17). This word occurs always in plural."

Until there is proof of intuition, everything we think we perceive is just an idol. Even the making of a king is just the forging of another idol until the man acts like a king. It is ideal if he starts doing so when he is the Prince, but that is on another planet far far away.

If the Prince and the King cannot prove they are men, and not idols made in the images of goddesses the prophet that appoints them is just a m'shugana. If the prophet is correct, then as the Melachim says, the ground becomes hallow and is safe for all men to walk upon, completely unlike how it was when Ahab and Jezebel were in charge of things.

[riverdamien]

Peniel--August, September, October

August, September, October, 2023

Temenos Catholic Worker

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

415-305-2124

www.temenos.org

Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min., D.S.T.

---------------------------------------

Journal of An Alien Street Priest:

Growing up in the South, August was a time called the "Dog Days", a time of severe heat and humidity. I slept on the front porch in the cool of the evening with my dog.

August: a time for outdoor movies, concerts, beach visits, and nature hikes (if you don’t mind mosquitoes). And if your summer is anything like mine, it also means interruptions, unreachable colleagues, and unfinished business. Summer is also a time of tension. Yes, there are joyful outings and abundant picnic tables, but also devastating losses in our neighborhood and record-high temperatures. Supreme Court decisions are taking away our rights, gun violence is taking away our babies, governments are zealous to take away food aids from our tables and healthcare from our neighbors. We need more than cool drinks to refresh our souls.

So use the “Dog Days” of August as a time of simply relaxing, playing, reading, and loving your neighbor. With me meditate on the words of Richard C. Schwartz daily: “Many of our religions  have thaught us through spiritual practices we will be able to escape from the Earth plane. The paradoxical truth how ever, is just the opposite. In mediation we do not escape from this plane. Rather, we merge our consciousness with the planet, so that we know reality, know the cosmos, in the fluid, vast and expansive way that Earth does!

Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!

Matthew 13:1-9,18-23.

On the Parable of the Sower!

The “Parable of the Sower,” as the story from our Gospel reading is commonly known, always has confounded me.

From the time I first learned the parable about a farmer who sows seeds that meet different fates depending on the kind of soil they reach (or don’t), external conditions, and how the seeds are tended, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to understand.

In the United Methodist Church of my adolescence, we were taught that the seed was God’s truth (i.e., scripture), that we were the soil, and that whether the planted seed flourished and produced fruit was somehow up to us and an indication of our spiritual health/God’s approval.

But in real life, isn’t the farmer the one responsible for how and where seeds are planted, tended, and harvested? If seeds are planted in rocky soil, choked by weeds, or carried away by birds (or stolen by “the devil”), doesn’t the fault lie with the farmer and not the seeds or the ground?

Throughout much of my life, each time the Parable of the Sower would appear in the ecclesiastical cycle, I’d find myself crankily listening with a furrowed brow. I didn’t understand. The not-knowing made me uncomfortable.

Am I the ground and the seed? Is God the farmer? If not, who is?

Part of the problem might lie in what’s not included in today’s reading — the bits in between Matthew 13:1–9 and verses 18–23 — where the disciples ask Jesus why he chooses to teach in parables.

Hey rabbi, why not just give them a list of clear commands, they seem to imply, or better yet, a manual with step-by-step instructions for how to live?

“You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom,” Jesus begins his response in The Messager para-translation of verse 11 and onward. “You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a ready heart for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward a welcome awakening.”

Jesus says he uses stories because he doesn’t want a repeat of what the prophet Isaiah foretold:

Your ears are open, but you don’t hear a thing. Your eyes are awake, but you don’t see a thing.

Biblical scholars (of which I am certainly not one) debate whether Jesus, in his parables, employed allegory — a literary device where characters and plot points reveal hidden moral or political meanings.

Whether allegorical or not, to my eyes and ears, Jesus’ stories contain wisdom and mysteries that continue to unfold over time and eternity, to and through our interactions with them.

It’s impossible to ensure with total certainty what the results of a literal planted seed will be, no matter how carefully it is tended and cultivated. Likewise, no one can predict the ultimate result of a seed planted in someone’s imagination.

Through the years I have always been asked "how many young people have you gotten off the street or off drugs and so on?"

And all I know is that I plant the seed, and it fruition may come long after I am gone, but I plant the seed.

I’m pretty sure Jesus knew this. Perhaps that was his point.

There is mystery, yes. And people have agency. We have the power and ability to choose what to do with what we have received, whether it’s information and talents, peak experiences or traumas.

The boundary-shattering science-fiction novelist Octavia E. Butler grew up Black and Baptist in the racially segregated Pasadena, California, of the 1950s, where the seeds of Bible stories and Jesus’ parables were planted in her young heart. While she eventually walked away from the Christianity of her youth, some of those same seeds grew into her 1993 novel The Parable of the Sower.

I walked away from the Christianity of my youth, the traditional Christianity of my adulthood, and the institutionalized church, but the seeds planted in my childhood have flourished into a Christianity that sees all as our brothers and sisters.

Butler’s Sower is set in a dystopian (but not by much) 2024, where the United States is on the brink of annihilation thanks to cataclysmic climate change, rampant social inequality, unfettered corporate greed, and inexorable political corruption. It also features a political candidate championed by far-right Christians, whose slogan is, “Help us make America great again.”(Sound familiar!)

The heroine of Sower is Lauren Olamina, a Black teenager and daughter of a Baptist minister who has a medical condition called “hyper-empathy” that makes her physically experience the suffering of others. Convinced that humanity will not survive much longer without radical change, Olamina develops her own belief system, where the only enduring truth is “God is Change.” It grows to becomes a religion of its own called Earthseed.

My own experience is"Christ is change", he is the Cosmic Christ, in a world that is so separated by all sorts of divisions. I am seeing more and more homeless on the street and people not caring. A professor in a course I have taken on adolescent psychology talked of driving around and seeing more and more people on the street and how sad it is. She appeared not to give one a care. I have not seen one politician in the City care for the poorest the poor working twenty dollars and hour job in a City where rent is sky high!

[Butler] doesn’t say that religion is good or bad, but she says that we use it to try and articulate our role in life and in the universe, my spirituality gives me meaning and purpose in life. It is why I serve God and see God in everyone.  Theologian Tamisha Tyler told journalist Kimberly Winston in a fascinating Religion Unplugged article about the rise in Butler’s popularity during the COVID era.

Butler’s Parable of the Sower became a bestseller in October 2020—nearly two decades after it was published and 14 years after the author’s untimely death in 2006 at the age of 58. She didn’t live to see the harvest, but when it finally came, it was as abundant as it was unexpected.

Butler’s Parable of the Sower has even been made into an opera that has reached audiences around the world. On March 7, 2020, the opera, which was adapted by mother-daughter musicians Bernice Johnson Reagan (one of the founders of Sweet Honey in the Rock) and Toshi Reagon, was performed at UCLA just days before COVID sent the world into an unprecedented lock down.

I’ve lost all my fear and exchanged it for a clear vision in the last five years as I have struggled with a shoulder injury, seeing young people die from COVID and violence,being beaten and cripple for an extended time. As we open our hearts and eyes we see the whole world’s gone crazy.

Stories find their audiences and audiences find the stories.

Read this novel, see our much our world is similar, and how our fears and actions are similar. Raise the issues within yourself and move towards becoming new.

May we each have ears to hear the stories we need most, embrace awakening as it comes, and remain open to the unfolding mystery.

May we see each other as human beings, struggling, suffering, whose end will be the same death, and work as hard as we can to provide health care, housing, food, and equality  for!

October 4 will the 29th Anniversary of Temenos Catholic Worker! I asked you to remember we have been here that long because of the response to our begging, and we beg now for support and know that it will feed, provide pastoral care, and a ministry of harm reduction to our homeless brothers and sisters! Thank you!

Temenos Catholic Worker

Fr. River Damien Sims. D.Min.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

.

[sweetroyalberry]

She takes longer to awake than the other two guests of honor. Her mind feels empty yet clear, the rough waves tugging at their boat previously now silent. It's all so strange - any stress previously felt on board remains, but calling back to any specifics proves difficult. Have they made it to their destination - her home - yet?

Mae's consciousness is slowly restored to her, in part thanks to the commotion occurring what sounds like to the left of whatever room she is confined in. The voices of young girls...at first arguing, then...slight panic? Before she can get up to get a better understanding, some other murmurs can be heard, and much closer to the bed she is laying in.

"...stroke of luck. There's hardly any girls our age anymore--and the ones I've met get snatched up quick. My sister came of age the other week and she already had a slew of men begging for her hand in marriage. She isn't even pretty! We're done for, lads..." "There's Margret," another acolyte offers. "She managed to come back to the village." "You're kidding. Yeah, she came back... half-turned and half-mad! I doubt anyone would try to wed her. She used to have this fire about her, but now she's just crazy. But this girl... she seems so reliable, you know? A real beauty, too; the other one is rather plain." "Beggars can't be choosers..."

...ignore the fact that they are ogling over her, which is gross in of itself. Did they mention...girl-snatching? Ohhh no no no no-

"No no NO!" Mae's lips work faster than her eyes, opening after the words come out to see the young men's confused faces. A brief look to their sides only further confirm her fears - heavy weaponry implying that she wasn't getting healed by your friendly Zofian priests. She needed to get out of here before they do Mila-knows-what to her.

"I mean...no need to nurse me up! I'm f-fine, see?" without giving them a chance to remark, Mae is already rolling out of bed and runs leftward, away from the fire. Stings of drowsiness and fatigue do quick to prove her claim false, as she immediately trips over herself only to (fortunately) encounter some familiar faces: King Alm and another man that was on the boat. He complained about their shanties, if she remembers correctly...? Kinda a jerk.

But the girls don't see you as a threat. They probably see you as a sort of potential "big sister" figure. All eyes are on her, hopeful eyes.

These must be the source of those previous voices. Were they...trying to help them as well? Mae almost feels guilt for the men she just bolted past, until reminding herself that they were mainly planning to wed her on the spot. Yuck.

While going for a headcount on the amount of girls present, she is distracted by the amount of young faces present, or rather the majority of youth present. It takes her back to living with and looking after young, lonely souls within Novis' priory. Thinking of home reminds her of their reason for returning to Valentia in the first place - and she suddenly feels a surge of confidence. Their first spot might not be the home she is more comfortable with, but these girls appeared to need their help.

"Hey, no need to look down. We're all here to help out!"

"What about him?" One of the girls points at Rafal. "He's being an arse!"

She looks at where she is pointing, at the other man. Now that she has time to think, is this not one of her own professors? There's no girls crowded around him, only Alm....ohh.

:"Oh I'm sure he didn't mean it! He's fineee," she quickly comments, not entirely having a grasp on the situation but assuming it had something to do with being a little freaky.

𝐌𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐊𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐔𝐍𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐘𝐀𝐑𝐃

[onefleshonepod]

🐘 Is the "cradle creature" in Nona's drawing an elephant?

Image description and transcript:

Annotation of three quotes from Nona the Ninth. Areas with brackets have colour-coded annotations. The annotations will follow.

The Angel urged tersely, "Did you I get this from a picture?" Nona looked down at the animal she had drawn, and thought perhaps she understood. She said, (“No, I made it up.) It does work, I promise. (See these things? They're its ears,") she said, in much the same tones as she would have explained to Kevin. ("This thing is its nose,) and (you can't see it because I didn't draw it, but the mouth is under here.) (When first it was born) (it used to live in a river, but then it got cold so it had to get large.) I know (the legs can't rotate,) but you don't think that's stupid, do you?"

"I've seen pictures of this (animal) before," said the Angel, slowly and carefully. "I only saw it because I did a special unit when I went to university. I went to the special (zoology) school on Miró and attended a heap of underground archaeology talks.

"You wouldn't have," said the Angel. "It's a cradle creature."

Nona is the soul of Earth, so in a sense yes, she, via the evolutionary process on Earth, “made [this creature] up.”

Nona mentions the ears first, indicating that they are a prominent part of the drawing, and calls them “things.” It seems as though she thinks they’re not immediately recognizable as ears to Cam and the Angel, and they look weird to her as well (Nona has only ever seen human and dog ears in this body). I think this indicates that the ears are large and unusual, which suggests that maybe this animal is an elephant.

Another use of the word “thing” [in reference to the nose] – Nona is implying that the nose looks weird to her, or she thinks the nose looks weird to Cam and the Angel, and is unlike a human or dog nose. That would again work with this animal being an elephant.

The mouth is "under" something, perhaps the nose, and can't be seen, and Nona didn't draw it. An elephant's mouth is somewhat hidden under its nose, and in a head-on view of an elephant, the mouth is not visible.

Nona is comparing this animal unfavourably to Noodle, whose legs can rotate.

I believe this sentence [“When first it was born…”] is about the entire evolutionary history of this animal. From the perspective of Earth, the life of the creature is not the individual life of the individual animal she has drawn, but the history of the entire species.

All tetrapods descend from the Sarcopterygii, or "lobe-finned fishes." A living member of this clade which closely resembles basal fossil sarcopterygians is the lungfish, a freshwater fish. The evolutionary ancestor which lived in a river that Nona is referring to might very well be this basal sarcopterygian.

It did indeed get a lot colder on Earth from the Devonian period, when the basal tetrapods first arose, to the present day.

The Angel's words here suggest that Nona has drawn an animal that really existed.

Zoology to the layman is often understood specifically as the field of study of vertebrates (although invertebrates are also animals).

"Cradle" could be a reference to the "Cradle of Mankind," Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, where the Leakeys researched hominin fossils, or to the "Cradle of Humankind," a fossil hominid site in South Africa. Both of these sites are also home to African elephants. However, it could also just be a broader reference to the planet Earth as the birthplace of humanity.

[theminecraftbee]

Ok so I know nobody cares about empires musical anymore but I was re-watching it and here’s all the lore I could find in your old friend xornoth:

* He seems convinced that when he succeeds in world domination, the world will be his. Either this means that exor is little more than an idea and xornoth is the one truly in power here, or it’s a Darth Vader-palpatine type situation where he thinks he’s doing it for himself but it’s all going to go to exor in the end

* He refers to himself as “big daddy xorxor… or for short xorny” which is hilarious I’ll admit, but he also uses the line “that’s what they call me”. That’s what who calls you? There are two possibilities. The first is that he’s referring to the people in his life before he became the demon. However, this is unlikely because he uses call in present tense, implying that he still has contact with these people. The other option has to do with “demon high school and demon college”, which I’ll touch on later

* Here we have the lines “pour me out some ichor/fill it to the brim/blood’s getting thicker/sippin’ as I sin”. I don’t believe this has much to do with the actual lore, but it is really funny to me because it sounds like a thirteen year old who just got back from hot topic and decided that they are the most tortured soul in the universe. Does demon college have demon hot topic? A question I never thought I’d have to ask myself

* Here we also have some fun lines, “you’ll learn, I’ll never return/to the boredom I was born of” which I find funny bc it makes me imagine that the former king and queen of Rivendell got bored one day, fucked, and xornoth came out

* Ok this might be my favorite part. In Lizzies pinned comment, she says “backing vocals by Maddie”. I am going to assume that the voice we here next is this Maddie. Maddie might be the best thing ever come out of music, in my opinion. For anyone who doesn’t want to look up the lyrics or doesn’t have them memorized already, she says “Scotts in the library getting kinda wise/says he’s got a plan for xorxor’s demise/xorny doesn’t care though/says he isn’t scared so/read a book, try your luck, xorny doesn’t really give a - “.

* Now, this is far from the first time we’ve heard Maddie‘s voice in the musical. She has a very high voice and has done backing vocals throughout practically all of the songs. It almost sounds childish, making her parts exceptionally funny.

* It is worth noting that your old friend xornoth is the only time that she actually speaks any words. What makes her especially interesting is that it seems that Xornoth, unlike the rest of the cast, can hear her. Once she says her bit about the library, Xornoth seemingly replies to her with “for your information I’ve got an education/Scott never showed up to my graduation/first demon high school then demon college/where’d you think I got all of this demon knowledge/demon University top of every class/you think you can catch me in a little bit of glass”. He goes on, but after this he’s not addressing Maddie so I’m gonna ignore it for now.

* I kind of wanna mention that he says the phrase embellishing my lore here, implying that he knows that he’s part of a story, but that kind of tears down absolutely everything else I know about this universe so I’m just gonna assume it’s an Easter egg and ignore it

* Also that in the lyrics he does the thing where you use an apostrophe to put two words together I don’t know what it’s fucking called but it almost sounds like he has a southern accent and that’s kind of funny to me

* Anyways back to Maddie. Xornoth does the chorus of the song again and then Maddie fucking giggles and says “look what they’re doing now writin’ out a spell/The demon from the east is goin’ back to hell/got a list of things that’ll make xor cower/they’ve got the smarts and they’ve got more power”.

* Maddie does the almost southern apostrophe thingy

* In reply, xornoth says (while approaching the empire characters, might I add) “if you want power well Xornoth’s got some/I pack more punch than a sawn-off shotgun/i’ve got more action than die hard 2/and your little faction’s a try hard crew”. I almost want to believe that this means the in-game empire‘s characters can hear Maddie too. However, they don’t seem to react to her at all. Therefore, I think that this is just her almost telling him what to do or giving him ideas for his speech. The more I say this the more it seems that the mysterious disembodied Maddie and Xornoth are friends.

* Also I’m not sure what to do with the modern day references. Maybe the way we have fairytales about like elves and knights and shit they have fairytales about our world?

* As xornoth continues on with his chorus, Maddie starts adding in her own comments between his lines. Her words go as followed: “trap him in a cell and keep him off the streets/listen to him yell, they’re tamin’ the beast/charmed like halliwell, never be released/yeah! Headin’ back to Rivendell, cookin’ up a feast”

* It is at this point that I actually googled the lyrics and realized that Maddie does not, in fact, do Xornoth’s apostrophe thing. I am ignoring this for the sake of my own interpretation. You’ve heard of the world is your oyster? Get ready for canon is your oyster.

* I looked up halliwell here. Apparently she’s a singer from Spice Girls and under people Also ask, it said Who is the most powerful charmed one so I’m assuming this is just another modern reference

* I have never heard a Spice Girls song in my life but I think it’d be funny if they still existed in the universe except they were like from one of the kingdoms or some shit. Maybe Spice Girls is like a famous Rivendell band I don’t know. I’m just making shit up at this point btw

* Let’s get back to Maddie. I feel like saying she’s just Xornoth’s friend is a bit misleading at this point. I would almost label her as a younger sister. Due to my general lack of knowledge about her abilities, the mysteriousness around her, and the childishness of both her voice and the things that she does I almost feel the need to compare her with the collector from owl house. I wish I could fit her simply into the lore by saying that she’s xornoth‘s friend from demon high school and/or demon college, but since he has to explicitly tell her that he went there I don’t think that’s the case. She spends most of the story hanging around Lizzie, as evidenced by her appearance in the vocals of other songs. However Lizzie never mentions her, so I have to assume that Lizzie cannot hear her. Whether or not Lizzie knows that she’s in a musical is not some thing I’m willing to tackle at this point.

* I feel the need to draw comparison also to oli. He doesn’t show up in this song, but he’s present in some others. In prismarine, he almost seems like he’s asking Lizzie about this experience, or she’s telling the story to him. He also voices the prophecies. It seems odd to me that Lizzie would be able to hear him when she couldn’t hear Maddie, but perhaps there is some kind of difference between them, or they can choose who can hear them. Though I find the second point unlikely because there’s no real reason Maddie would choose to not have the other characters hear her. Perhaps they’re some kind of minor gods? We know that Lizzie is often called a goddess so it’s not unreasonable to think there might be others. I’m not entirely sure about this, but it does tickle my brain in a fun way

* Now it’s time to talk about demon college. Oh this is a fun one. I know that everybody and their mother has made jokes about this but I feel like it raises some really interesting questions. Xornoth is clearly upset that Scott didn’t show up to his graduation, but explicitly states that it’s Demon high school and demon college. As far as we know, Scott is very specifically the champion of aeor. There is no reason for him to be here. I feel like there are two possible answers here. The first is that Scott truly was set to be on the same path as his brother, but broke free. However, this doesn’t really add up with the rest of his lore.

* The second one, and the one that I like better, it’s a bit more complicated. It says that exor wanted to train his champion in a way that wasn’t too different from what he was used to as to not make the change to sudden. This could also be just to help him with his people skills so that he would be able to give dramatic villainous monologues instead of stumbling when he first sees a human being again. Therefore, I propose that exor took the existing, Rivendell, elven High school and college and made an illusion of it that instead taught things that a demon would need to know. It would assumingly we have all the same people as the real one. Therefore, our old friend xornoth could mean that the illusion Scott didn’t come to his graduation bc the real one wouldn’t to make it more realistic.

* This also implies that at some point both Scott and xornoth were college kids. Do with that what you will.

* This also brings the line of “Big daddy xorxor/that’s what they call me/or for short xorny” into question. He might be referring to Maddie and/or oli. However, it might also be a college nickname. I like these both because they’re equally funny

* Actually now I’m thinking about the top of every class line. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe actually Exor just takes a shit ton of kids every year and puts them into a school program and then the one that ends up being the best is chosen as his champion and the rest of them make like I don’t know a town of evilness. Now I wish the empires crew just randomly stumbled upon that and they were like what the fuck is going on here

* The fact that Scott didn’t show up to his graduation implies that they’re not twins btw I just realize that

* Still not sure how Maddie fits into any of this but I love her anyways

* In conclusion: holy shit I need to do this more often this was really fun

Anyway I just thought I’d share this it’s not very coherent but I like it

holy shit anon you have done. SO MUCH analysis here.

[amaranthineoceans]

Everything Weird About Deltarune!

Spoiler Warning for Undertale and Both Chapters of Deltarune! Really! I Literally Go Through Everything I Can Remember About Them!

This is a long post so get comfortable. Also note that my brain doesn't process thoughts into words very well so some of these might not be worded in the best way. :)

Deltarune. The first teaser chapter was released on October 31, 2018, and it came out of nowhere. We've all gone through this, but I'll try and go through every single painstaking detail I can remember. Feel free to reblog and add/correct things.

The weirdness begins right off the bat. The title is an anagram of UNDERTALE. We all know Toby likes to use anagrams when he wants to indirectly tell us when things are related, so it's no surprise that when you go to download DELTARUNE, it warns you that the game is designed for people who have played UNDERTALE. You think, "Cool, so it's a sequel? Or maybe a prequel? A different perspective of UNDERTALE perhaps?" You were wrong; so terribly, terribly wrong! I'll elaborate on this later.

Before you download the application, the terms of service that you must agree to beforehand reads simply and plainly, "You accept everything that will happen from now on." This detail was kinda brushed off in the beginning, because, hey, it's Toby Fox. He does weird stuff all the time. But even in the first chapter, it's apparent that the concept of choice, or more accurately, the lack of it, is a very present theme in the game. I would like to remind you that Toby has announced that there will be one ending in the game. One. I'll elaborate on this later.

The program (as in, what the game is called in your files) is named SURVEY PROGRAM. Why not just call it Deltarune like it is when you download chapter two?

The game launches you, without a title screen, without any setting adjustment options, straight into a reference to the theme of the entire franchise: the lack of choice. A strange formless voice guides you through "making a vessel", with what we know now as a fountain in the background. You have the option to make some very disturbing choices in this character creator, such as making its favorite flavor "pain" or expressing your feelings about it with options such as "fear" and "disgust." You name your "creation," tell the formless voice your name (which is different from your vessel's name) and watch as said formless voice muses over your name at an agonizing pace. It thanks you for your time and tells you that your wonderful creation, (cue music cutout and background removal) will now be discarded. "No one can choose who they are in this world." The screen slowly turns white as the voice says, "Your... name... is..."

It gets weirder. The next scene appears from the whiteness and showcases Toriel calling "Kris" out of bed. Kris' area of the room is very bare in contrast to the other side, which we later discover is Asriel's.

It's Toriel. Why is Toriel here?

Kris is kind of an anagram of Frisk (the protagonist of UNDERTALE) but without the F. I highly doubt this is a coincidence.

Speaking with Noelle is the only reason you can proceed (see what i did there?) while finding a partner in the classroom. This means you can't go through the 1st chapter without knowing who she is. Is it because of the Snowgrave route?

Ralsei is just suspicious to me. There's no way he was just waiting in that castle his whole life alone without some mental toil. So either he's insane or he wasn't alone the whole time. What happened? Is it related to how he can close his eyes and see what Susie is going through when she's apart from the party? Was he just watching everything? Is he related to the formless voice?

Susie's icon is the only one without color in the Dark World.

Jevil's fight is more difficult than Sans'.

Your actions have little consequence in the first chapter. If you choose to go genocide, the only difference in the ending is being run out of the kingdom, and this doesn't carry over to the next chapter. Again, lack of choice, people.

If at the end of chapter one, you walk around town, it's mentioned (notably by Noelle) that you're usually not this talkative. If you go to the hospital and speak with the receptionist, they mention that you used to play the piano in the corner. If you decide to attempt to play the said piano, an out-of-key bash can be heard and the receptionist comments on how you used to play beautifully. If you try this in chapter two, the result is the same. All this is confirmation that Kris is acting noticeably weird.

When you leave the Dark World and walk around town, you can find Sans. He "pretends" to recognize you, and if you tell him you recognize him, he tells you it's funny, considering that you two have never met before. He winks. I'm pretty sure he knows that the player is there.

The mention of Papyrus in both games, but the purposeful lack of him. Like he's avoiding you.

If you go upstairs while inside Asgore's flower shop, there are flowers in glass cases resembling his SOUL collection in UNDERTALE. There's a red flower.

You can't enter the church.

The clock in the storage closet shows a different time than all the others in the school.

If you go all the way south in town and into the woods, the music stops and you come across a rusty, double door is in a hill covered in crass. It's locked. If you go this way in chapter two, however, you watch a cutscene where you and susie happen to find Monster Kid from UNDERTALE (or someone resembling them) and an owl kid in front of the door. The owl kid is pressuring Monster Kid to (presumably) break inside, telling them that they don't want to be a wimp like Kris. Does this imply that Kris is connected to this strange door somehow?

The ending. You know what I'm talking about.

Did Kris actually rip out the SOUL (I say "the" because I'm not entirely sure it's Kris') and knife because they wanted to eat the pie? Did they only eat the pie because Toriel caught them?

Why did they look at the player? Are they sick of being controlled? Is that why they freaked out after the Spamton fight? (later)

Anyway, now we're at chapter two.

DELTARUNE Chapter Two was released on September 17th, 2021. 17. Entry Number 17. Sound familiar?

Asriel's part of the room is different from the last chapter. I don't think this means anything sinister, but I think it means Kris notices different things about the room as the story progresses. My theory is that it will become more sinister in each chapter.

Ralsei getting super excited to see Susie and Kris after a day. As in he has separation anxiety and it breaks my heart. not anything suspicious but it makes me sad so it's on the list.

Kris and Susie's rooms. Ralsei REALLY doesn't want them to leave. Seriously get this boy a therapist. Or a stuffed animal. SOMETHING.

Kris having to gather everything from the storage closet so that people appear in the Dark World????? Why??????????????? They had to do the same thing for the computer lab too.

The golden door. I don't trust it.

How/why the heck did Noelle and Berdley go into the Computer Lab Dark World? I don't see either of them just walking into pulsing void doors without Susie.

Apparently the knight has been gone for a bit and can corrupt people's minds? The king in the first chapter doesn't seem like he can be redeemed but Queen just seems,,, not bad, but a little crazy. I wonder what happened.

Then again, name ONE person in this franchise without trauma.

Spamton.

Horror doesn't bother me. Spamton? Spamton bothers me.

SPAMTON. ENOUGH SAID.

A Kromer is a type of hat invented in the '70s. Nobody named Mike is associated with it, that I can find.

SPAMPTON. HOW DO I EVEN DESCRIBE IT.

HIS SONG IS THE ONLY ONE WITH WORDS.

The way he asks Kris is they want to be a heart on a chain their whole life. Like, dude, no wonder they were screaming after the fight.

WHERE DID THE YELLOW HEART COME FROM. YELLOW MEANS JUSTICE. WHY DOES JUSTICE APPLY.

Kris screaming after the fight and the player not being able to hear it. Don't you dare tell me that's just how the game is designed. There are sound effects characters make throughout the game. None that I can think of apply to Kris, apart from when they rip their soul out.

Ralsei brushing off the Spamton fight. Either that's his coping mechanism or he was trying to shut Susie and Kris up to protect them from... something. I'll touch on that in a minute.

According to Queen, DETERMINATION is a key factor in creating a fountain.

Also according to Queen, Kris, Noelle, and Susie all have DETERMINATION SOULS.

Ralsei freaking out about Berdley making a fountain implies that he may also have DETERMINATION. Why I'm bringing all this up will make sense soon.

How was Noelle able to cast Snowgrave... a spell that she, according to her, didn't know?

The Snowgrave route is so twisted.

You manipulate Noelle into killing Berdley and then, when you get back to the computer lab and investigate his corpse, the text box says that he doesn't seem to be awake. As if you're in denial?

Burgerpants recognizes you. Not Kris. As in the player.

The ending. I don't think I need to describe it. Kris is very methodical without the SOUL. (I say "the" because, again, I'm not 100% convinced it's theirs.) I'm saying this about how they left clues that someone broke into the This proves that they are NOT a mindless, vengeful husk.

HOW DID THEY MAKE THE FOUNTAIN WITHOUT THE SOUL INSIDE OF THEM. DID THEY FEED THE SOUL TO IT AFTERWARDS? IS THAT WHAT THAT WAS?

Another point I would like to make is my theory that Ralsei knows much more than he would have us believe. I might put this into a different post because I have yet to gather my points into a coherent bullet point list, so keep an eye out for that.

Anyway apart from Toriel and Susie being VERY heavy sleepers, I think I've gone through everything. I have a few theories.

1. Kris is possessed by the player and figured out that they could make a fountain from Queen and related to Spamton freaking out about freedom. They then decided to make a fountain going by the logic that "this would tick the player off." This is one of my top theories that assumes that the SOUL is theirs.

And 2. Kris is possessed by both the player and the knight. I think the formless voice at the very beginning of the game is the knight, and they somehow needed the player to possess someone with DETERMINATION. If so, then why Kris? We know from Queen that Noelle and Susie, and maybe even Berdley also have DETERMINATION. The most plausible thing I can think of is the fact that human souls are stronger than monster ones.

I do think that the popular theory (about the one that suggests that the Dark Word is nothing but a figment of a child's imagination, and the events that occur in said Dark World are simply children playing with toys) has been thoroughly dashed due to Berdley's murder in the genocide route of the second chapter. Unless he's not dead. Regardless, how the events (or lack thereof) that occur in the second chapter play through the next will be interesting, especially considering Toby's announcement about how there will be one ending to the game. So either Berdley isn't dead, or he will be.

Aaaand I think that's it! Sorry for the long post; let me know your thoughts and if I missed anything!