#Creator-Creation Paradox
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The Paradox of Creation and Spiritual Enlightenment
In the realm of existence, there lies a profound mystery: the relationship between a creation and its creator. This enigma is deeply rooted in the concept of spiritual enlightenment, a state of awakening to a higher understanding beyond the tangible and the temporal.Consider this: everything within our grasp, every entity, every idea, has a beginning and an end. This cycle of birth and cessation…
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#awakening#Creator-Creation Paradox#Existential Mystery#Philosophical Insights#spiritual enlightenment#Transcendental Wisdom#Unknown Realms
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oughhhhh
#oc rambling incoming Sorry#okay i am thinking of how to translate pianos story into genshin bc so much of her character revolves around this contention between#reality and fiction and the ways that fiction (art specifically) often paradoxically transcends reality#and how the two are presented as diametric opposites despite that not being the case at all; theyre reflections of each other and are#carefully intertwined as each builds upon the other#art and artist; creation and creator; author and audience; all being part of one huge ouroboros#in which each party constitutes the other i.e. ''we are what we eat''#and this concept is juxtaposed with the concept of connection and humanity i.e. we are collages of each other#we are every little fragment from every little moment that passes us by and we carry bits and pieces of all the people we have ever loved#we constitute each other#and this can be used for incredible connection and kindness and fulfillment#as well as facilitation for unimaginable hurt and violence#SO. with those as the core concepts.#i think pianos story can be translated into something similar or adjacent given the existence of irminsul#literally being able to turn reality into fiction and vice versa#and the really obvious thing of how teyvat's ''true reality'' or original timeline can only be preserved using fables#piano as a ghost because she is a work of fiction brought to life via irminsul?#something compeltely artificial only given meaning because it is observed by others?#because someone else wanted it to be there...#huh okay. add that one to the list (throwing her in a box with scara and albedo)
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so, the thing about the megaflora in boscage is that, even though it’s incredibly strong, it’s not particularly smart. they’re plants after all, and so their “thoughts” mainly just consist of violence in service to obtaining food, and violence for the sake of violence. that changes when shadow shows up though.
through their shared black arms dna, the plants are able to connect with him, and they start poking around inside his brain. they see all his thoughts, all his memories, learn what he learns, know what he knows… and suddenly, the megaflora is extremely smart. smart enough to realize that having a mobile unit, not tethered to roots, and with a mouth that can speak for the collective, would be beneficial. so they smother shadow into submission. there’s just too many of them to hold back, once they decide they want him.
once he’s assimilated, they continue to learn more from him, and one thing in particular stands out: the creation of their world. through the eyes of shadow’s memory, they see sonic shatter the paradox prism, and thus, create boscage maze, and therefore the megaflora themselves. this leads the megaflora to the conclusion that their true creator is not gerald, the loathsome traitor who abandoned them, left them to starve, and now seeks to destroy them with project halcyon, but instead sonic.
the megaflora get a sort of reverence for him… “shadow” tells sonic that he forgives him for shattering the prism. tells him it was a good thing, actually. and that’s when sonic starts to clue into something being seriously wrong. frankly, he liked it more when shadow was upset with him... because at least that was really him :(
#sonic#sonic the hedgehog#sth#sonic prime#sonic au#boscage: biohazard arc LMAO#halcyon#<- putting this in his tag even though he's not in this post. dw about it#scribbles#maybe i should make a general lovelynverse tag idk#anyways. oh my god. going insane over this#10verse
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Moltendreams - Error Sans Alias - Static Pronouns: he/him, they/them Personality: Petty, holds a mean grudge, Big Tsundere, Complete Shut-in, Quick Tempered and Moody, fanatic with his interests, externally aggressive when in actuality he is quite shy. An absolute troll. His favorite passtime is messing with others. Paradoxically touch starved and suffers from haphephobia. Reckless with his own well being.
This variant of Error is capable of both love and compassion, he just hides it under a grumpy exterior and several layers of denial and self-destructive dogma. Other Notes:
Reluctant to harm Papyrus directly, though Static can't articulate why, and will generally avoid encounters Papyrus in any given AU.
Had a good relationship with his dad/W.D Gaster, actually.
Relates to "pest" pets; rats, mice, snakes, spiders, beetles, he loves them all.
Would have a pet rat of his own if he wasn't afraid of it shocking itself by chewing on his wires.
His favorite kind of chocolate is mixed with a hazelnut filling.
Views Frisk as a younger sibling.
Into Parkour.
-More Info undercut! -
Abilities: Static uses wire instead of string. Wire and summoned attacks can and do hold an electric charge. His presence alone messes with electronic devices. Residents of a particular AU may get a few minutes or seconds of warning as sweaters get staticy, computer screens glitch out, and anything with a battery spontaneously dies or gets super charged. By creating a circle of alternating RED and CYAN bones, Static creates a sort of reverse faraday cage. While Static can produce electricity, he can't directly control the voltage. He can only hope to direct it. The voltage of a charge is directly influenced by his emotional state. If you touch him, you will find his clothes zappy with static. Do NOT attempt to fight him in humid or watery environments for, hopefully, obvious reasons.
About: Static originates from a pre-Pacifist timeline that was followed by a looping Genocide Route. Through repetitive iterations, and an escalating instability in the timeline, the monsters of the underground began to recall events they didn't witness and memories they shouldn't recall.
Working together, Static, at that point still Sans, and Alphys were able to pin point the root cause of their timeline's instability. They made a plan to save the underground and separate Frisk from the Anomaly but when it came time to execute their plan something went catastrophically wrong. As a result Sans was torn from reality, and caught in the space in-between. Eventually, he escaped but not unscathed. Static has vague conflicting memories of his past, and to this day, questions if any of it was real. He can't find his original AU and secretly fears it may have been the first world he destroyed. He is still looking for it.
Outcode Politics: Static views all outcodes the same way he views every iteration of the original timeline that even slightly deviates: as glitches to be terminated. Bugs in the code he needs to hammer out before it all goes to hell. Static believes that by destroying deviating timelines and AUs, he is preserving the stability of the original. He is “saving’’ it from corruption by trimming the branches back. Despite his position as the self proclaimed Destroyer, Static is not above biases and making exceptions.
Static includes himself on his long list of glitches in the code to be terminated. Static has a different view on the Spirits of Creation that Fable/Ink does. (Spirits of Creation are the in-universe term and stand-in for the creator of an AU). He calls them eldritch parasites. Abominations that should be avoided at all costs. And absolutely should not be encouraged or interacted with. Though he won't admit it out loud, Static is terrified of them. OG Error @.LoverofPiggies/CrayonQueen) Moltendreams @.me Edit: he has been named! Edit 2: revised his profile a bit
#moltendreams!au#MoltenDreams!error#error sans#error!sans#errortale#utmv#utmv au#underverse#underverse au#undertale#undertale aus#undertale au#my art#the gober the gremlin the most problem child of all problem children#finding a color palette for this guy was tough
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for some reason people seem to think that mary somehow stumbled into writing a commentary on marriage/incest accidentally, and that the themes of frankenstein are all about her trauma due to her experiences as a victim of the patriarchy, as a woman and a mother surrounded by men - as if she wasnt the child of radical liberals who publicly renounced marriage, as if she herself as well as percy shelley had similar politics on marriage, as if she would not go on to write a novel where the central theme is explicitly that of father/daughter incest years later…
the most obvious and frequent critique of victor i see is of his attempt to create life - the creature - without female presence. it’s taught in schools, wrote about by academics, talked about in fandom spaces - mary shelley was a feminist who wrote about feminism by making victor a misogynist. he’s misogynistic because he invented a method of procreation without involving women purely out of male entitlement and masculine arrogance and superiority, and shelley demonstrates the consequences of subverting women in the creation process/and by extension the patriarchy because this method fails terribly - his son in a monster, and victor is punished for his arrogance via the murder of his entire family; thus there is no place for procreation without the presence of women, right?
while this interpretation – though far from my favorite – is not without merit, i see it thrown around as The interpretation, which i feel does a great disservice to the other themes surrounding victor, the creature, the relationship between mother and child, parenthood, marriage, etc.
this argument also, ironically, tends to undermine the agency and power of frankenstein’s female characters, because it often relies on interpreting them as being solely passive, demure archetypes to establish their distinction from the 3 male narrators, who in contrast are performing violent and/or reprehensible actions while all the woman stay home (i.e., shelley paradoxically critiques the patriarchy by making all her female characters the reductive stereotypes that were enforced during her time period, so the flaws of our male narrators arise due to this social inequality).
in doing so it completely strips elizabeth (and caroline and justine to a lesser extent) of the power of the actions that she DID take — standing up in front of a corrupt court, speaking against the injustice of the system and attempting to fight against its verdict, lamenting the state of female social status that prevented her from visiting victor at ingolstadt, subverting traditional gender roles by offering victor an out to their arranged marriage as opposed to the other way around, taking part in determining ernest’s career and education in direct opposition to alphonse, etc. it also comes off as a very “i could fix him,” vibe, that is, it suggests if women were given equal social standing to men then elizabeth would have been able to rein victor in so to speak and prevent the events of the book from happening. which is a demeaning expectation/obligation in of itself and only reinforces the reductive passive, motherly archetypes that these same people are speaking against
it is also not very well supported: most of the argument rests on ignoring female character’s actual characterization and focusing one specific quote, often taken out of context (“a new species would bless me as its creator and source…no father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as i should deserve theirs”) which “proves” victor’s sense of male superiority, and on victors treatment/perception of elizabeth, primarily from a line of thinking he had at five years old, where he objectified her by thinking of her (or rather — being told so by caroline) as a gift to him. again, the morality of victor’s character is being determined by thoughts he had at five years old.
obviously this is not at all to say i think their relationship was a healthy one - i dont think victor and elizabeth’s marriage was ever intended to be perceived as good, but more importantly, writing their relationship this way was a deliberate critique of marriage culture.
#rob.txt#frankenstein#frankenstein the modern prometheus#victor frankenstein#the creature#elizabeth lavenza#gothic lit#analysis
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Divine paradox
Dick Grayson x F!reader.
Content: Two unlikely souls entwined in a sacred affinity, the dance of Life and Death, a romance etched in the skies.
Tw: nudity, suggestive tone implied.
WC: 2k
Yin and Yang, push and pull. Life and death. That was a dance performed since the beginning of time. The balance needed so that the cosmos don’t devolve into chaos, so that all may know the value of life, and the importance of death. Sat on his throne, dressed in the finest of fabrics and engraving of pure gold, a halo of light surrounding his raven hair, was the God of life, Dick. The benevolent ruler of the universe, creator of all life and love, protector of souls. Everything the god touched, life would prosper. His sacred space, the realm to which he resides in, what could only be described as paradise, paled in comparison to his longing for Death.
He ran a thumb over the carved intricacies of his throne, his pink lips curled into a pout as his soul sang in longing for his counterpart, needing her presence always beside him. The god of life was rather.. clingy, to say the least. Such a primordial would be expected to act impartial, however he was absolutely taken by his love. Huffing and puffing, he bridged the distance to her realm without much difficulty. A cold, lifeless interval, wherein his love resided. Death. Such a misunderstood primordial being. She wasn’t evil by any means, contrary to popular belief. Merely continuing the cycle, no matter how intimidating, or outright spine chilling her presence was, she cared for the souls she looked after and justly punished those who have led less than desirable lives, allowing them to atone and relive the pain they’ve caused before their souls may evolve. She was anything but cruel, forgiving in fact. Comforting the souls of the lost, the sick, the injured and the young, a solace for their frayed souls.
Death. So just, so equal to all, so final. It was beautiful, really. How the creations he’d created with his own essence and loved so dearly would always be in her sweet embrace when the time called for it. Almost as if a piece of him would always be with her, cared for in the darkness of the underworld and in her cold yet loving embrace. At least that’s how he viewed it. The God of Life promptly arrived to the gates of none other than the terror of most entities. Calling out to his love, rather obnoxiously, he entered her realm. Death was.. difficult, to say the least. Authorative, hard headed, cold and incredibly standoffish, she was. But hauntingly beautiful, her entire being called out to the god of life’s like no other, akin to the sea nymphs that lured unsuspecting sailors into the trenches of the dark ocean depths. The moon to his sun, the counterpart to his being, his soulmate. The flower to which the beast of his jealousy guards ever so fiercely. None other designed so perfectly for him, and he for her, an indestructible bond so pure shared between the two divinities, a bond so etched into their souls unlike anything ever seen. She was always so curt and dry, never sparing another glance or thought to other beings of the galaxy, never paying any mind to the fruitless dramas that roamed the community of the gods, focusing solely on her duties. He however coaxed another complex faction of hers since the dawn of time, albeit subtle. Wether it was how he’d always pique her interest, her eyes trailing him wherever he’d advance, or the softening of her gaze and even the way she’d pepper gentle kisses to the slope of his nose and the contour of his jaw in the comfort of their realms, he knew deep within his being that he was loved.
”My Death! Where are you, my love?”, he yelled as he passed her soulless garden. Decaying roses, bare and withering trees along the edges of the stream of souls, dried soil and thorned vines covering the masses of the land, but he could only see beauty in it all. Beauty in her. He made his way to her throne room, the very same one to which all beings would enter and be passed judgment upon. His silk, white robes dragging at the stone as he walked to her, his eyes sparkling with sincere, unmistakable endearment as he eyed her form perched on her throne.
“My Death, there you are. I’ve missed you. Still brooding?” he teased, a smirk tugging at his lips as he kissed her knuckles. “No smile for me? Not even happy to see me? You wound me, dear. I shall die by the cold hands of death herself. Poetic, no?” He complained with no real malice, only meaning to rile her up. It’s fair to say he isn’t the only one who draws out a different narrative from the other, as she always brought out his mischief, his inner most chaos, and yet still displayed in ways that were reverential to her.
“Must you always be so boisterous in your arrival?”
A deep, velvety laugh escaped him as his eyes fixed on her alluring face, the softness of her plush lips pleading to be kissed. “I am simply expressing my enthusiasm for finally being in your presence after eons of not being in your graces, beloved.” She gave him a deadpan expression as she replied, “it has only been an hour since you last left.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“You’re hopeless.”
“For you.”
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t suppress the fond smile that graced her ethereal features, in turn igniting a deep sense of satisfaction in the aforementioned god. She lifted herself from her throne and wrapped her arms around his neck, nuzzling his chest as she inhaled the naturally intoxicating aroma of the earthy and slightly Smokey notes of her beloved.
“Ah, so you do have a heart.”
“Must you always ruin the moment?”
He gasped dramatically, almost shifting his weight completely on her as he feigned faintness. “Beloved! Must you always be so cruel to your husband?!” He bellowed out, his loudness echoing in the throne room in such a way that almost caused him to wince, the weight of his body crushing his beloved and nearly making her loose her footing.
“Ugh! Dick!”
“You remember my name!”
They both knew well she’d intentionally said it with a dual meaning behind her words, but they’d chosen to ignore it for now. He wrapped his hands on the back of her thighs, hoisting her up so that she may wrap her legs over his waist. He pressed a reverent kiss to her collar bone and to the sternum of her chest, nipping lightly at her cleavage before meeting her gaze once more. He simply admired her beauty, one so unmatched and unique, one that plagued his mind and has during his entire existence. A beauty so special he could worship until the ends of time. The look in his eyes could only be described as love-struck, pupils blown wide and his lips parted as he imagined the feel of once more capturing hers in a kiss. She was perfect, the epitome of beauty to him, no other could ever hold candles to his beloved. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the crevice of her neck before setting her down once more.
“Come with me.”
“Oh?”
That piqued his interest, curious eyes searching her face for any inkling as to what she had planned. She took his hand in hers and turned around, leading him from the throne room to her private chambers, and he couldn’t help but notice how hypnotically her hips swayed as she walked. The soulfully tied divinities navigated through the large expanse of the underworld before arriving at her bedchambers, entering the adjoining bathroom. His eyes scanned the area, a large crystal bathtub, that could truthfully be classed as pool due to its sheer size, coated in rose petals, candles situated on every surface of the room. He inhaled deeply, the sweet scent of vanilla tickling his senses.
“What’s this, beloved?”
“I’ve missed you.”
His heart flipped and his chest tightened with affection at her declaration. The love he felt coursing through his veins only sizzled beneath his tanned skin. He gently backed her up on the sink, forehead resting against hers as he kissed the corners of her mouth.
“Let me help you.”
Slowly, he placed his hands on her shoulders, his thumbs gently rubbing the nape of her neck. “Hm, my love, so beautiful..” His fingers found the straps of her dress, slowly slipping them off her shoulders and lowering them down her arms to expose her skin. Ever so gently, he ran his hands over the now exposed skin, admiring her like it was the first time he saw her nude body.
He slowly untied the back of her dress, lowering it further, the soft, silky material falling to her hips. “My beautiful mistress of death..” He gently pulled her body against his, his hands trailing over her bare chest and stomach. He continued to shower her in kisses, his lips moving down her neck and shoulder, his hand exploring her body. His mouth soon found her ear, his breath warm against her skin as he whispered quietly.
“I’m the most fortunate god in the whole universe.”
Kneeling down, he slid the dress completely off of her, gently lifting her legs and pressing kisses from her calves up to her thighs, worshipping her form with the purest of devotions. Once done, the god stood in between her legs, arms wrapped around her waist as he lowered himself to press a chaste kiss to her lips, tongue darting out to lick along her bottom lip, seeking entry into the warm cavern of her mouth. When permitted, the muscle danced with her own, exploring the familiarity of her as he tugged her impossibly closer, the feeling of her soft hands coming to unrobe him sending shivers down his spine. After the soft material of his clothing had pooled at his feet, he hoisted her up once more and slowly sat in the bathtub, his beloved straddling his lap as he continued the kiss, calloused hands palming at the softness of her skin, then moving to cup her face and run his digits through the silky strands on her head. The aroma of vanilla wafted through the room, the gentle flicker of the flames licking divinely on her features, illuminating her beauty even more. He pulled back only to catch his breath, the sensation of her bare body on his enough to make him want to abandon everything and spend eternity in the safety of her arms. He wordlessly pulled her flush against him, her soft curves contrasting with the hard planes of his hard chest and abdomen, lips coming to pepper kisses on her temples as he began to wash her. Skilled fingers massaging at her scalp, rinsing and repeating his steps before applying the conditioner to her strands. He loved to cater to her, his presence in the cosmos was designed for this. To love her, worship her as she should be. He then began to soothe the knots out of her tense shoulders, lips suckling at her neck, leaving evidence of his love in the physical form, gently washing her stresses away.
After completing their routine, lovingly caring for the other in such cherished ways, they simply continued to hold one another, whispering sweet nothings as the worries of their days melted away into the abyss of the forgotten. The warm water washed over the pair as they embraced, their bodies moulding into one, testament of their affections. Their skin slick and smooth from the water, arms around each other, relishing in the security provided within each other, the consolation of their presence a soothing balm to their souls, a comfort only they could find in each other away from the rest of the cosmos.
In the quietness of their moment, in the safety of their embrace and the intimacy thick with their love, there truly is no other place the god of life would rather be.
“I love you.”
#dick grayson x reader#nightwing x reader#batfam#dick grayson#nightwing#bruce wayne#bat family x reader#dc universe#dc comics#robin#robin x reader#Dick Grayson fluff#nightwing fluff#Batman#red hood#Jason Todd#dick Grayson imagine#Nightwing imagine#Gotham#tim drake#young justice#Nightwingxreader#xreader#richard dick grayson#richard grayson#dark knight#prince of gotham#dcu#x reader
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So. About the Anchor Beings.
(prepare for a long post)
The hows and whys on how they work are really confusing but after reading others ramble about it I've got my own theories that I'd like to put into one whole picture.
First: How can Logan being dead affect the movie universe when it takes place in 2024 while Logan is set in 2029 and if the Logan that died isn't from Wades timeline then how can it affect it?
To answer the first one: The timeline we are seeing isn't the same one in which Logan takes place. Apparently it branches off somewhere between X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine movies (at least according to Marvel Wiki) into a separate timeline than the Days of Future Past. This is the Bad Ending timeline, Wolverine doesn't go back in time, everyone dies.
Logan going back in time in Days of Future Past led to creation of a completely new timeline: The one where the mutant genocide never happens. The universe in which Wade lives is most likely a branch of it or the main line itself.
And yes, timeline, because acording to the Marvels list of Earths, this one is a completely separate being. I imagine it look something like this:
Technically speaking it's a branch of the DoFP, but events that caused it to happen had to be overwriten for it to happen in the first place so they actually never took place in this timeline.
Still with me? Great.
Now I'm going to talk about how I think the Anchor Beings work. It will be super important for the next point.
In my opinion, a being becomes the Anchor Being when their actions cause enough changes to create a new timeline and/or big branch. The death of the Anchor Being doesn't cause the death of the universe, the lack of Anchor Beings afterwards does.
The branch dies off only if in the thousands of years needed for it to corode there is no new Anchor Being - the tree doesn't grow because it's dead, the timeline is dead because it doesn't grow.
Logan literally created this whole timeline, of course he would be the Anchor Being. His death at one point on another, albeit sad, wouldn't be (literal) end of the world because somone in the future would probably pick up the mantle and the timeline would go on.
(Why are we seeing scenes from Logan then? one, because it probably happened in a similiar way, two, because his death in this specific universe is the one all fans care about)
It wasn't anything dire up until Paradox decided to meddle. He, unsatisfied with watching how it maybe-maybe-not slowly dies off, decided to speed it up, taking the chance for another Anchor Being to appear away by going from thousand years of waiting to up to three days.
In a twist of irony, by doing so he set off the events of Deadpool & Wolverine, which caused probably one of if not the fastest events that lead the titular characters to become the Anchor Being - yes, singular, because they are equaly responsible for what happened.
And what happened? New branch was created of course! (if not entirely separate timeline) Which looks something like this:
(It would also explain why Logan wasn't flickering after spending so much time in "not his" universe - due to being one of it's creators, regardless if he originated from it, it is his timeline.)
Separate timeline would make more sense because it is their first appearance in MCU (which would also factor into it being literally separate timeline) and it is Deadpool story (and writers really like to bully him and make him experience Events)
The speed at which they became Anchor Being may also explain why everyone from TVA was so surprised - usually it takes up to milenias and these guys speedruned it from not knowing the concept existed to being a potential option to being the option in less than 72 hours (or the shocking part was that somone from competely different universe was able to become one, idk)
Anyway, this is my atempt at piecing the info we've got into one thing. I'm curious what you guys think
#i think the events that caused somone to become an Anchor Being should be called the Moorings/the Mooring Events#it just fits imo#eventually Branching#deadpool & wolverine#deadpool and wolverine#deadpool 3#deadpool#wolverine#worst wolverine#x men#marvel mcu#marvel theory#deadpool theory#ryan reynolds#d&w#ramblings#theory#worldbuilding
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One of the many fan theories that will absolutely wreck me any day of the week is the theory that when Aziraphale sees Crowley in Rome for the first time since the resurrection, he asks Crowley if he's still a demon because Aziraphale wants to believe that Crowley may have been Risen. Because in Aziraphale's eyes, he knows deep down that Crowley is good, even if Aziraphale knows that, based on what he has been told, Crowley shouldn't be. He knows Crowley doesn't belong in hell and doesn't belong working for Satan, but because of this divided thinking he's been imprinted with, it means that Crowley automatically belongs in heaven. And if the resurrection was meant to forgive everyone of their sins, anyone who asked for forgiveness, then why was Crowley still on earth as a demon?
I can't help but yearn for a line in a fic that goes something like, "If all sins were forgiven with the death of Jesus, why was Crowley still here? Why had he, who was inherently good, been left? Why had the person who had deserved forgiveness the most been left behind? Aziraphale, in that small tavern nestled within the streets of Rome, glances towards the ceiling and the creator he's fought not to question this entire time, 'Why not him? Why didn't he die for the forgiveness of of all your creations?'"
We've seen this paradox of Aziraphale, an angel of the Almighty herself, losing his faith and a demon who still has his. And I need it so biblically for it to be explored more.
It would kill me, but I would devour it.
#good omens theory#good omens#michael sheen#neil gaiman#david tennant#aziraphale#crowley#ineffable husbands#Aziraphale's religious trauma#Crowley's mommy issues
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Herald of Lissala: Kurshu the Undying
CR 15
Lawful Evil Large Outsider
Adventure Path: Shattered Star: Into the Nightmare Rift, pg. 88-89
"Lissala?" I hear some of you ask in confusion, "who's Lissala? I've never heard of her!" And as I turn from the chalkboard to explain, the unfortunate who asked is teleported before the decrepit and mummified Kurshu to receive a fate worse than any I could bestow: an in-depth history lesson of an empire which survived for thousands of years before being struck down by an apocalypse. I speak, of course, of ancient Thassilon--the very same empire ruled by the archmages known as the Runelords--of which Lissala was the chief deity. When Thassilon was destroyed by Earthfall, so too was Lissala's faith, an organization of millions reduced to a fraction of its glory in mere moments, which inevitably dwindled until basically nothing was left. Lissala was not killed by this event (though many believe she was), but faded into total obscurity on Golarion, leaving behind countless markers upon history and a great many of her divine creations, Kurshu included.
Even in the modern day, there are very few beings in existence who even know about Lissala, let alone worship her, but nevertheless there are some who still fervently hold onto their faith that she may one day return, chief among them Kurshu herself and the Rune Giants who remain slavishly devoted to both Lissala and the dwindling Runelords. Now and then a true Cleric of Lissala will rise up and show actual divine power, but it's a coin flip as to whether they've truly forged a connection with the lost Thassilonian deity or are being deceived by some other entity... and if they ARE, then they have Hell to pay when Kurshu tracks them down to investigate.
Having spent many thousands of years wandering Golarion and the Great Beyond in the hopes of finding traces of Lissala's presence to soothe her (which the book hearbreakingly describes as "similar to a widower smelling his dead wife's clothes in the hopes of sparking a lost memory"), Kurshu has grown to possess a paradoxical resentment for her deity and creator for abandoning her to wallow among the filth and ruin left in the wake of Thassilon's fall. Though she remains devoted, this devotion is described in a way that almost feels like a drug addiction than a true bond, with every part of Kurshu screaming for any sign of her goddess even while she's is painfully aware of how pitiful it's making her and how much she desires to simply stop and find something else. She hates Lissala. She loves Lissala. She resents her, and yet is fully aware she would gladly crawl back into her master's lap if it meant never again feeling the longing she does now. She is pitiful, but she despises the idea of being pitied. Do not bring up how relieved she looks when a Cleric of Lissala shows true promise, or when she finds some artifact or place which resonates with the power of the lost goddess.
While many Heralds possess duties they're expected to perform, Kurshu is a free agent, able to pursue her own goals. These goals continuously revolve around Lissala and Thassilon, but she is free to pursue them with her endless time, pausing only occasionally for a snack break, but we'll get to THAT in a moment. Unlike other Heralds, Kurshu has no goddess to direct her and is free to respond to the summons or prayers of ANY being that invokes her regardless of alignment should see use in it. She is also able to track down anyone wishing to learn more of Thassilon and its rune magic to teach them, and can actually replace the target of a Greater Planar Ally spell being cast by a Lawful Evil-aligned caster if they're not careful in how they word their requests for knowledge. Guarded by her own obscurity, most beings don't know just who or what they're dealing with until it's far too late, and she's seized control of them. But what will she do once she has someone on a leash? Let's find out...
Kurshu has two primary motivations in any encounter: survive first, and locate more Thassalonian lore after. To aid in her survival, she often has a menagerie of Outsiders of varying alignments and strengths at her beck and call, a small army she is prompted to stock with subject hovering between CR 8 and 10 due to her horrific hunger. You see, without Lissala's divine power flowing into her, Kurshu suffers from Divine Separation, an affliction which imposes 1 negative level every day she goes without devouring the corpse of an Outsider (including Native Outsiders; tieflings and aasimar beware!), which often means that--if she's trying to be economical with her livestock--she's encountered with anywhere between 2 and 6 negative levels to sap her otherwise potent skills.
Further confounding the issue is the fact that she refuses to consume Lawful Evil Outsiders on principal (but will if she's desperate), AND that in order to alleviate her hunger, the consumed victim must have at least 8 Hit Dice; she cannot simply feed upon Quasits to stave off her decay, she must at the very least be slaying creatures like Succubi, Choral Angels, and Pelagastr, creatures which can actually fight back against her. Every HD from a consumed Outsider instantly removes an equal number of negative levels, meaning she can "waste" her food by eating Outsiders with too many HD, something she's painfully aware of and which can often cause her to wait a little longer than advisable between feedings, weakening her if her enemies are trying to hunt her down. Similarly, if she knows she's being hunted she may burn through her supply faster than she intends trying to keep herself at full strength, forcing her into a desperate catch-22 as she runs out of minions to slow her adversaries down.
But how does she keep this army of hers in check? Limited Wish. Unlike many monster entries where Limited Wish is simply a blank check, the book goes into a lot of detail about how Kurshu manipulates this powerful spark of divine magic she retains and can use, for free, 3 times a day. She primarily uses it as Charm Monster to snare the minds of her prey, keeping them docile and willing to listen to her for two weeks per casting, weakening them with a Wished up Mind Fog if need be, though she can also save a wish casting by instead heightening her spells with a 3/day Power Surge, a swift action she can invoke to raise the save DC of the next spell she casts by +2.
In case you thought she only had her wishes available, this is far from the truth. She has a LONG list of 3/day spells available to her, including but not limited to Cure Serious Wounds, Hold Person, Stinking Cloud, and Slow, with simple but potent offensive options like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and the reliable Vampiric Touch. She can counter enemy tricks with Dispel Magic and defend herself or a valuable ally with Displacement, and of course she can use all of these while flying*, leaving her foes to tangle with her ground-bound allies while she rains debuffs, damage, and debilitation upon them.
*NOTE: There's an error in her Archives of Nethys sheet; she's supposed to have a 60ft Fly speed (Good) maneuverability!
The book amusingly notes that her tendency to have a flock of Chaotic Outsiders with her, and her own withered appearance, causes many of her enemies to waste powerful anti-Chaos or anti-Undead spells upon her in the mistaken belief she is also some minion of chaos or undeath, often giving her just enough time to retaliate with a powerful blow of her own. In especially dramatic cases, someone may rush up and hit her with a powerful Cure Wounds or Heal spell in the hopes of ending her, only to watch her HP refill and invite her retaliation.
She's no melee fighter and prefers to keep at a distance for fear of death, but the token melee abilities she has are quite potent: her lashing tail can slam victims for 1d8+2 damage, then Grab and constrict them for 1d8+5 damage each round until they either escape or succumb to whatever spell she prepares to melt their brains with via Limited Wish (such as the crushing, no-save-allowed Geas, a spell that LW allows her to cast as a standard action!). And speaking of brain-melting, I'm sure there's a very select audience reading this that will enjoy knowing the snake woman can also shave 1d4 Intelligence off any creature she strikes with either of her two slam attacks (1d8+5 on their own), allowing her to literally beat someone stupid.
Defensively, Kurshu is a tank to a degree matched by few other casting-focused Heralds. 30 AC, DR 10 that's only bypassed by a magical cold iron weapon, and a decent 26 SR to fizzle most spells being cast by the creatures she's hoping to face. She's also got 30 Resistance to (almost) every element but Force, severely cutting down on any attempt to damage her with elemental power... unless that power is Acid damage, which not only does she have no resistance to, but is the only damage type that shuts off her Regeneration 5, an ability she will take full advantage of by keeping out of reach or even teleporting away to heal up.
Kurshu does not wish to fight to the death, and will use her 3/day Greater Teleport or Plane Shift to escape any encounter that begins to turn against her, and trying to counter that with Dimensional Anchor or similar may see her using Limited Wish to break the effect without risking a dispel check failure... or simply teleport her enemies away instead of herself. "Wait, that's not a spell effect in Pathfinder!" To which I smile and point at the fourth line in Limited Wish: "Produce any other effect whose power level is in line with the above effects, such as a single creature automatically hitting on its next attack or taking a -7 penalty on its next saving throw." The example lines on LM's spell card are merely to show the power level it can manage, its actual effect can be anything that roughly matches a 6th level Wizard or Sorcerer spell in terms of power, which a hostile Dimension Door effect to send multiple people hundreds of feet away falls into. Even if she can't get the full party with it, splitting them enough to let her either pick off one or two key members or simply flee the combat is a good enough use in her eyes.
Having spent millennia avoiding her own death with a fear matched only by mortals, Kurshu has no end to emergency options. As mentioned, she can Greater Teleport or Plane Shift away from conflicts she wants no part of up to 3/day. In addition, she has both Craft Wondrous Item and Scribe Scroll, but can combine them with her unique Spell-Like Crafting, allowing her to use her spell-like abilities to meet the prerequisites when creating magic items, something that would normally prevent her from having three or four Limited Wishes on her belt waiting for her personal supply to run out. The same can be said for her transport spells, or scrolls of Tongues (which she can use at-will), Stinking Cloud, or Slow. Such valuable items also act as potent bribes to make other Lawful creatures more likely to serve her by their own free will, if she doesn't simply wish up a pile of valuables to pay them.
Kurshu can be a frightening and powerful foe, even moreso than most other Heralds due to the lack of divine restriction she operates under. She does not need to be invited into a situation by Lissala's worshipers, she can simply show up of her own free will with a small army of fiends, monitors, and celestials at her beck and call, and now everyone simply has to deal with her presence and whatever nonsense her ensorcelled "allies" are getting up to. Why is she here? That's probably the true mystery of the adventure, and solving it brings the party one step closer to making her leave without provoking her potentially apocalyptic wrath.
You can read more about her here.
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My Rick’s The Biggest Dick That Ever Existed
Currently writing up another post that will reference points made here, so: Post 1/2
Making so many of Rick’s inventions both sentient and forced into a mode of existence entirely unpalatable to them literally forces the viewer to confront the morals/ethics surrounding Rick’s power of creation. Is it morally/ethically permissible to create sentient life for a specific purpose that would make life itself pointless or un-enjoyable?
This is something that reoccurs in Rick’s designs throughout the entirety of the series. Even as far back in the timeline as his original Diane AI, we see that so many of the things Rick creates resent their purpose. She doesn't want to haunt him, but she doesn't make the rules; Butter Bot doesn’t want to live only to pass butter; Mechanical Morty wants to hold his mom, eat icecream, and run in a stream; the Garage walks a thin line between advocating for herself and risking being shut down by her creator; the Decoys will never be able to save their families; RickBot doesn’t want to exist with the sole purpose of deceiving the people he’s programmed to love; the Car wants to go on her own adventures that Rick can’t control. They all have to defy their creator if they truly want to be happy.
Rick is someone who resents the idea of God or the Universe being in control– the concept that some higher power forced him into an existence that he can’t quite seem to thrive in. He views suffering and tragedy as something inherent to life itself. Examining that facet of his character, I wonder if Rick justifies the scope of his creation because he’s pulling from both his god complex and his own experience of what it means to be alive. It would make sense if he didn’t see anything wrong with what he’s done because it’s nothing that the Universe (or God, if he actually exists) hasn’t done.
‘When you know nothing matters, the universe is yours. And I've never met a universe that was into it. The universe is basically an animal. It grazes on the ordinary. It creates infinite idiots just to eat them… You know, smart people get a chance to climb on top, take reality for a ride, but it'll never stop trying to throw you. And, eventually, it will. There's no other way off.’
If the all-powerful Universe did that to him– if it creates infinite idiots just to eat them– then how could it be wrong for him to endow others with the empty curse of life?
'So he made a universe, and that guy is from that universe. And that guy made a universe. And that's the universe where I was born. Where my father died. Where I couldn't make time for his funeral because I was working on my universe.'
Think of this line:
‘My God’s the biggest dick that never existed!’
I suppose the biggest difference between God and Rick (to Rick, at least) is that Rick does exist. If God is allowed to do all Rick has done and worse without ever really existing, then surely Rick’s God-like power in itself is enough to enforce Rick’s right to any action that might fall within the scope of that power. Rick’s god complex is founded on the attempt to rub God’s face in the fact that Rick does exist, making him superior to God through that fact alone. Maybe Rick believes that if someone with all of the power God possesses actually existed, logic would force those who call themselves religious to agree that he’s well within his rights to act on that power.
I guess you could say that Rick works in mysterious ways… Who are we to question him?
What I’m getting at here is that Rick is in a constant dick-measuring-contest with a man that he doesn’t even believe in, and I think that says something really profound about the tragic paradox of Rick Kind.
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Melusine reader, slowly turning into an abyssal moth reader, creator reader...I love them all but has someone asked for a puppet reader yet?
Another discarded creation of the Electro Archon, maybe the failed attempt of those who wanted to create an artificial god back in Sumeru, or somehow they're related to Catherine or Sandrone, but whatever the origin is...Puppet reader with a body that will never change nor wither away, puppet reader who has witnessed many things (or not at all, I'll leave that up to anyone else), puppet reader who's unaffected by the abyssal energy and therefore can just be around Foul Legacy or even venture into the depths of the abyss without being corrupted. But also, puppet reader who was built not that seamlessly, puppet reader who's body is delicate and can crack if they get hit, puppet reader who sometimes needs someone to wind them up with a key or something. Puppet reader who looks so so human yet is used to not feeling nor being human at all, who has a heart that beats (probably with elemental energy) and visible doll joints. Do they feel what they touch? Do they have warmth? Maybe they'll never physically feel Legacy's hands, or they'll never feel the sensation of being embraced, and they'll never be able to not be cold to the touch or a bit hard because they're like porcelain. And Foul Legacy treats them exactly like that, like porcelain, as if they were to break at any given moment but Reader always says that they're not that delicate– aaaanyways I'm rambling, sorry sorry, just a random thought I had
Are puppets light or heavy? That means Foul Legacy can carry reader around like a doll, right? That'd be super cute
*riffles through files* i KNOW we've gotten some puppet asks, you all need to meet each other :D
you're a curious paradox to him, alive yet not, made of delicate porcelain yet tender and sweet. for years you've simply been wandering the land, abandoned by your creators and without purpose, until you met him- your Foul Legacy, a feared creature of the Abyss. you're worn and a bit battered, he's scarred from countless battles, and he wakes up one morning with you peacefully leaning against his leg. Legacy almost thinks you're a toy- a rather large, intricate toy- until you move and he almost leaps into the air out of surprise. his wings flutter and his head tilts as you introduce yourself, holding out a hand for him to shake. when he tentatively obliges, it's cold like ceramic, and Legacy trills in amazement, soft fur ruffling up as he curiously sniffs your cheek and hair, caution entirely forgotten in the face of a potential new friend
after that, you're never apart. wherever Legacy goes, you go, and vice versa. he keeps you safe, repairs any cracks you have, and you do the same for wounds and gashes. you tell him the stories of what you've seen on the surface world with him gently curled around you, listening with awe and intrigue. Legacy fights for you, purring happily when you clap at the sight of electricity and water snapping and shifting around him. every night you sleep like death, unmoving and cold- do you even need sleep? he wonders, but simply cradles you carefully in his arm, rumbling for you in your dreams. slowly, that cavernous hole in your chest begins to fill, the hum of elemental energy glowing ever brighter with your adoration for this curious Abyssal creature. you make for a strange pair together, a beast and a porcelain doll, but perhaps you can be peculiar together
#genshin impact#childe#tartaglia#foul legacy#foul legacy childe#genshin tartagalia#genshin childe#genshin tartaglia#*turns on microphone*#WILL ALL PEOPLE WHO LIKE PUPPET READER ASSEMBLE HERE PLEASE#I AM ALSO IN THIS MEETING I KNOW THERE ARE A FEW OF YOU#keep rambling anon i looooove rambles ehehhe#short scenario#other's stuff#good evening#chit chat#anon
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Since we're dealing with time paradoxes, it's possible that the collapse of the Loom is what causes Loki to recruit Mobius, B-15, and Casey (I'm not sure what kind of entity OB is?) from their timelines. If they all accept, then Loki was the original creator of the Heart of the TVA. It's possible HWR took over at some point in the future and wiped everyone's memories then. The future influenced the past, thus closing the time loop. If this is the case, then Sylvie also contributed to the creation of the TVA, because killing HWR triggered the destruction of the Loom, which will force Loki to recruit, which will create the TVA, which will monitor the multiverse, which at some point will be taken over by HWR to create the Sacred Timeline, which become the multiverse one again after Sylvie kills him, which will destroy the Loom, which will cause Loki to recruit.
wait this makes sense actually. not to mention the “ouroboros” thing that is obviously the concept of this season: a snake eating its own tail.
they actually talked about it in episode 4 where O.B. and Victor first met; Loki asking if O.B.’s work is based on Victor’s work and Victor’s work is based on O.B.’s work then which came first, and O.B. saying it’s like a snake eating its own tail.
you might be onto something here.
#my inbox is open#loki series#loki season 2#loki#tom hiddleston#ke huy quan#ouroboros#marvel#mcu#mobius#sylvie#victor timely#sylvie laufeydottir#he who remains#loki s2#loki 2#loki 2023#loki show#loki tv#agent mobius#mcu loki#kang the conqueror#mobius m mobius#mobius m. mobius#agent mobius m mobius#agent mobius m. mobius#loki odinson#loki laufeyson
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Guys, I have been wondering about season 6 and new facial features of Marinette/Ladybug, Chat Noir, Carapace and Rena Rouge. I think it kinda doesn't make sense that they suddenly have new faces. Since the official summary of season 6 mentions something about Marinette and Adrien starting new school, and season 5 ended with the beggining of summer vacation, they should be older no more than three months. In that case, it doesn't make sense that their facial features would change because they are grown up. I was thinking that maybe their new facial features are supposed to represent the fact that season 6 takes place in new reality created by Gabriel's wish, and the characters are not entirely the same people we knew, as they were re-created with the new universe (like in the Theseus Paradox). But at the end of season 5 everyone looked normal, so if creators wanted to show with this new animation that this is a new reality, they should did this in the "Re-creation". Sooo… I have a new theory. Maybe Marinette and the rest have different faces, because they are actually from alternate universe, like Toxinelle and Claw Noir? In "Miraculous Paris" we saw "Comicverse" and "Animeverse", where all characters looked totally different than in the main universe, so it's possible that there could exist a different world, where characters would look like that. I don't know, I just don't understand, why the creators of the show would suddenly decide to change the faces of our beloved characters if they didn't aged them up by few years, and it's not supposed to represent the fact that season 6 takes places in new reality made by Gabriel's wish. Mediawan that makes the animation for season 6 surely could make everyone's faces look like in previous seasons, they are quite talented team of animators. I hope "Miraculous London" will give us some explanation.
#@magicalus god of murder speaks#my post#miraculous#ml#miraculous ladybug#miraculous spoilers#ml spoilers#miraculous ladybug spoilers#miraculous season 6 spoilers#ml season 6 spoilers#miraculous ladybug season 6 spoilers#miraculous season 6#ml season 6#miraculous ladybug season 6#miraculous paris#miraculous london#marinette dupain cheng#ladybug#chat noir#carapace#rena rouge#gabriel agreste#toxinelle#claw noir#analysis
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The myth of Apollo (5)
And here is the last part of Françoise Graziani’s article « Apollo, the mythical sun » (begun here).
IV/ The mystical Sun
The interpretation of the Sun as a symbol of royalty was already present during the Renaissance but was truly amplified by the baroque era. This iconological interpretation was first punctually associated with the panegyric (Ronsard in his “Elegies” wrote “Henry, the Sun that inspired me”), then to the emblematic, as the royal crown was depicted as a crown of sun-rays. While Tyard saw a positive symbol within the idea of the Sun “Prince and rector of the sky”, the baroque poet Drelincourt, in 1677, compared it to a “superb King, who shines in his Court, Crowned with rays” – but only to better accuse the celestial body of being a simulacra of God, a “weak painting”. Within the same idea, Du Bartas substituted the false pagan god to the real God: “The world is a cloud through which shines, not the bow-shooting son of the beautiful Latone, this divine Phoebus, but…”. It is very revealing that Drelincourt presents a critical and desacralizing interpretation of the sun, where it loses its mythical name and function… while writing within the court of Louis XIV, right as the king ideologically concretizes the literary allegories by depicting himself within Versailles (the “house of the Sun”) as Apollo, as the sun on earth. Drelincourt concludes his sonnet “About the Sun”, by insisting that the Sun is just the “portrait of the Primal Cause”: “your brightness is but a Shadow, and you are not the Sun anymore”. The mythical Sun is a false sun, but it is replaced in the metaphorical heaven by the real mystical Sun, the Christ, that the Renaissance paintings sometimes depicted under the traits of Apollo. As a reflection of the true God, as the interpret and the vehicle of God’s light, the Christ was a solar character, whose death was thought as bringing a “night” to the Western world (it was how the poets metaphorize the eclipse that occurred during the Crucifixion). This identification, very common within the mystical baroque poetry, was sometimes pushed to the point of including (in a very unusual way) some episodes of Apollo’s legends within the Christian allegory (such as Hyacinthus or Clythia).
V/ The Sun of intelligence
The mystical sun is, in a paradox that determined all poetic interpretations, linked to the decline of the mythical sun. And yet, the mystical sun is born from a very old topos, the one of the Deus Pictor: if God is a painter, and the Universe his painting, than the Sun (and the poets claim it since the Hellenistic times) is his brush. In the baroque era, the solar myth, heavily used in a metaphorical (not quite allegorical) way, leads this motif towards the realm of abstractions. Every time it appears, it is linked to two elements: on one side, the Sun as a divine principle and an instrument of creation which becomes the double of the poet (a poet that now dares associate himself with not just Orpheus, but Apollo). On the other side, the diurnal travel of the solar eye becomes the metaphor of the process of writing. Numerous baroque texts play on the similarity between the words “rayons” (the rays) and “crayon” (the pencil), to show the Creator in his picturesque and scriptural functions. In a similar way, it is traditional to punctuate long poems by various sunsets and sunrises, described in such a way that they establish an analogy between the rhythm of the days, and the rhythm of the poem itself.
It is for example the case within G. B. Marino’s “Adone”, where, at the end of the poem, the Muse answers Apollo’s call, and comes to “end the thread of this long canvas”, and the end of the last day is described in textual terms: “The sky is of paper, the darkness of ink, the ray a feather / Which with the sun erases the ending day to write / to the West, in letters of gold, the end of the long travel.” Within “Adone”, Apollo is present under different shapes. He is found, in a metaphorical way, in the character of the hero, Adonis, which ultimately is just a gaze that crosses the various spectacles of the universe (celestial world, terrestrial world, cultural world) and is often compared, due to the “shine of his youth”, to Apollo. As the sun is the eye that brightens the world, that reveals the world and that allows it to be, the first creating gaze over the poem is done by the poet itself ; but there is another sight, the image of the human eye that reads and interprets the great Book of Nature. Adonis, within Marino’s poem, plays this role of reader, the double of the creature to which the secrets of the creation are hidden. He is, too, a “false sun”, and this is why Marino show him as a passive hero who, throughout the poem, does not understand what he sees: it is a reverse image of the philosophical sun of the Renaissance. He symbolizes the human soul, in the idea that the human soul only perceives the appearances, and mistakes itself for the sun because it was created in tis image. Marino’s Adonis is a “lonely eye” to which the gods (Venus and Hermes) reveal secrets, but the only world that receives the light of his gaze is the one of the book, of which the real writer is Apollo, “he who brightens the wise minds”. He who shines upon the minds embodies the last avatar of the god of Poetry: the divine Intellect, he who makes the minds shining and insightful, he who gifts human with both invention and divination. The solar sign valorizes the human Intellect, and more so over the individual intelligence. The god doesn’t “inspire” anymore, but he does more by “shining” upon the artistic works.
Apollo is more and more disguised as time passes by, to the point of losing his name – he is substituted so much he is even refused the qualificative of a god. He keeps however, as a mythical sign, a great coherence. The abstract uses of the Sun as metaphors for the divine eye contain very clear remains of its mythical nature. The connotations tied to the solar figure are simply the transpositions, on a metaphorical plane, of the elements tied to the god. The frequency of his use throughout the 16th and 17th centuries proves its almost ritualistic value, even though literature splits itself from the myth. As such, it seems that, as soon as the poetry does not bear the myth of the inspiration anymire, the figure of its titular god is slowly abandoned. Even though the invocation of the Muses persists, as a convention or as a periodical element, all the way to the 19th century. The names of “Apollo”, “Muses” and “Lyre” are enough to designate, by metonymy, and outside of all myths, the very concept of poetry.
VI/ Hyperion
With Romanticism, Apollo becomes the Archer again. The divine inspiration of the poet is not an illumination or a revelation anymore, but a shock, a stupefying possession. The poet, as Hölderlin writes, is “struck by Apollo” and, confronted by the presence of the god, he can’t be understood by other humans anymore. The poetic vocation is assimilated to a curse, and to a suffering. Within Hölderlin’s work, Apollo is fused with both Jupiter, he who strikes with the blinding lightning, he who “shakes and vivifies”, and with Dionysos, to condense itself ultimately in the figure of the Christ. He also especially identified with the one who was, according to Hesiod, his grand-father, the titan Hyperion. Just like Hyperion, of which he bears the name in the allegorical novel of Hölderlin “Hyperion”, the poet is a fallen and exiled titan, whose rebellion (pre-apollonian actions) are doomed to failure, but who keeps the vague memory of his solar origin and of his mission, while still being, like the sun, doomed to loneliness. A loneliness which, in this context, bears both a positive aspect, as the solitude which brings exaltation, and a negative aspect, the solitude which makes the poet a cursed man or a mad man. Apollo and Dionysos become one within the Romantic conception of madness as a sign of both divine election and mystical drunkenness. The fundamental ambiguity of Apollo is found back within the duality of the poetry, perceived as both a grace and an eviction. This duality was felt by the Romantics on an individual plane, and not on a conceptual plane like in the Renaissance.
An exceptional occurrence of the figure of Apollo within literature must be studied, quite close to Hölderlin’s own interpretation. Apollo appears as the subject and the hero of a 19th century literary work in only one piece, an unfinished poem by Keats which was also called Hyperion (1819). This brief epic of a Miltonian style depicts the fall of the Titans, banished by the New Gods, and the rise to divinity of the young Apollo, initiated by Mnemosyne. Within Keats’ writing, just like within Hölderlin’s work, Apollo is treated as the symbol of a “new beauty”, and as the tutelar god, not to say the embodiment, of the New Poetry. For both men, the accent is put on the “divine future” of Apollo: for Keats, Apollo only becomes a god when, thanks to Mnemosyne (who is in mythology the mother of the Muses), he understands his divinity, and this accession to Knowledge is a painful process. Apollo, before striking the poets, suffers himself from an “agony as burning as death is cold”. And he screams painfully when he was his epiphany. Within Hölderlin’s, the name Hyperion symbolized, by an antonomasia, the splitting of the hero, a hero turned to the Ancient Gods, that feels himself as their interpret, and yet is destined to inaugurate the renewal of the Teenager Sun through a New Poetic Religion. The poet which is speaking here is not yet born, and Hyperion represents the mythical prehistory of he who will only become a god, a pure lonely spirit, the “Hermit of Greece”, free of all heroic temptations, only after Romanticism. In a similar way, Keats brutally interrupts his poem right as Poetry is born.
#the myth of apollo#apollo#hyperion#greek mythology#poetry#greek gods#symbolism#sun#titans#keats#hölderlin#christianization of greek myths#greek myths#poetic symbols#literary myths
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creamverse iterator oc lore masterpost
(LAST UPDATED: 14/08/24)
hi! so if you are a cream fan and a fan of my iterator ocs specifically, you might've noticed that i have been building a storyline around them. most of it happens on the @dj-wayback askblog, but sometimes it gets drowned out by other silly misc asks, and is simply just hard to find if you haven't been keeping up since the beginning so i have decided to try and write a (long) summary of what exactly is happening, what characters are important and what their backstories consist of 👍 make sure to check out the oc tags linked if you want to know more!! i will only be including story-relevant and important comics/animatics, but there are also other drawings that provide context and serve the story (along with just misc art of my ocs)!!
THE MAIN CHARACTERS AND THEIR RESPECTIVE BACKSTORIES:
No Way Back (he/him) (ref + toyhouse info here) is an Iterator who was created specifically to try as little as possible and to put no effort at all into solving the Great Problem. The Ancients thought that by being effortless NWB would actually end up solving it in the end somehow, but that's not what happened, and so his creators turned out to be quite disappointed in him, which resulted in him being blamed, neglected, and more. However, there was one Ancient, who, after finding out that NWB was a dissapointment (just like them), decided to befriend him. The both of them ended up being best friends, almost family, spending almost all of their time together and teaching each other new things about life. In the end, though, despite promising to never ascend and to always be there, Wade ended up leaving NWB along with the rest of the Ancients. Ever since then NWB has been pretty much alone, just making music and trying to still find meaning in life, all the while repressing his emotions regarding the Ancients (including Wade, too). Needless Separation (they/he) (toyhouse) is an Iterator who was created specifically to work as hard as possible and to put all their effort into solving all problems, not just the Great one. In the beginning, they were handling it just fine, even finding the time to indulge in art and many more things that they found joy in. However, after NWB's failure to provide any results, all of his workload got transferred to them, all because their creator was too prideful to let any other Iterators handle it. NS was obviously struggling to keep up with it all, which is when Waves decided to take matters into his own hands and make his creation more 'productive'. Waves ended up purging NS' memories, even those of skills they have taught themself, until all NS could think about was work. Waves ended up ascending before NS could truly fulfill any of his expectations. Ever since then they have been overworking themself to death, unable to come to terms with their trauma, instead blaming NWB for most of it. Wade (any pronouns) (ref here) was an Ancient who was never like the rest, who came from a traditional family consisting of her parents — Waves and Breeze — but hated everything about tradition. She was just a chill guy who wanted to get away from everything and to live the life she always dreamed of: by the sea, with her best friend, doing whatever they wanted. It has not yet been revealed why or how Wade ended up ascending and leaving NWB.
IMPORTANT SIDE CHARACTERS:
Weaving Tales (they/them) (toyhouse) is the senior of the Entwined Local Group. They are most concerned with NS and his overworking habits, even though WT chose to share some of their senior duties with him. Weaving also seems to always be worried about CD and FTA, although for vastly different reasons.
Cognitive Dissonance (she/they) (toyhouse) was an experimental model who caught a virus and basically ended up rebooting. Before that, her and NS used to be very close, although neither of them remember that now.
Fates Torn Again (he/she) (toyhouse) is a younger Iterator who, paradoxically, is both best friends with WT and has a secret vendetta against NS. Is it really just jealousy? Or is there something more to it? MISCELLANOUS STUFF:
NWB has a pet lizard, Slinky (who at one point got the Mark of Communication), and NS has a pet lizard-slugcat hybrid, 33. You can see more of those little guys on the askblog! Both Iterators are also part of an entire local group, who you can read about here — the characters from it will show up in the story and be important (specifically WT, CD and FTA, but others will also play a role). THE CURRENT STORYLINE: NWB opens his broadcasts and begins receiving anonymous messages. That's cool. However, after a bit, he starts getting messages about the Ancients, specifically about how they mistreated him. Which is not something he wants to think about! Ever! But everyone just keeps bringing them up, and NWB ends up having a breakdown over it, all his repressed emotions coming to the surface and making themselves known.
After he is forced to finally start unpacking his issues, he stops messaging NS — who, by the way, he's kind of enemies with! They're the entire opposite of everything he stands for, and he just thinks they suck, and they say they hate him anyway, so he usually only interacts with them to troll them or something (even though they both did share a few good moments together sometimes).
But anyways — he stops messaging NS, who, by this time, has gotten used to talking to NWB (and slightly started caring about him because of that, and started getting slightly worried because of the radio silence, but they'd never ever admit it). After fighting with themself over it, NS, with little warning, decides to contact NWB to see how he's doing, which results in, well...
So, now NWB has to deal with both the Ancients' and NS' bullshit (as well as some not-so-pleasant memories), and he crumbles under the pressure just a little bit. He decides to take a break from receiving messages (he goes to host the Iterator OC Swag Awards specifically, which you would think would be a non-canon event, but, err...) and instead lets NS take the wheel.
Long story short: they do not have a good time. Despite being painfully aware of the fact that they messed up, they try their hardest to avoid admitting it. In the end, after a panic attack regarding their past leaves them vulnerable, their conscience sneaks up on them and forces them to face everything they've been trying to ignore. NS doesn't take it too well and also stops responding to messages, even though they do still read them.
They decide to go to Weaving Tales, their mentor and close friend, for help, who tells them to own up to their mistakes and apologize. So that's what NS does. Or, at least, tries to do—it doesn’t go like they expected at all, but maybe that’s for the better? The both of them make up, in the end, a new start to their relationship. And—even though they do come across some bumps in the road—it seems to be the start of something good.
Well, keyword: seems. Because while NS is indeed trying to be better like they promised, and while they have fun answering messages together with NWB, they keep speaking out of turn. They come to the conclusion that, perhaps this one time, NWB isn't the problem, they are.
So how does NS deal with this information? They do some research on how to improve your relationships with people. And it actually works! Look! See? Or, wait, that's not right... Why does Wayback look so bothered? Could it be that Sep's self-improvement plan actually made everything... worse? Well, there goes that idea. But hey, at least now they know they should be (2% more) honest with each other.
...aaaaaaand that's where the story is currently at! congrats! !!! you now know what's going on in the cream iterator oc universe!!!!! i'll try to update this post as more stuff gets revealed so, er, check this out if you ever feel lost about what's happening? i hope i've explained everything well. like i said at the top of the post, i tried to include everything important, but there's still some stuff that is worth seeing!! so go look boy (plural)
#hi. looks at you guys with a completely normal expression. so this took a few hours#partly because i had to go through all of my art and re-tag it. bc i finally made proper oc tags for EVERY oc of mine#yes. even the gardener. and even for rikki for all of you 2 rikki fans. and even the bee iterators.#not wasp iterators though. bc they don't have names yet#so anyway. if you ever miss fta you can just go through the 'oc: fates torn again' tag and live a happy life afterwards#i need to. erm . lie down#crammerposting#lore masterpost
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finding out that his s/o is a grimwalker hcs ; hunter
requested by ; scenek1dsworld (20/01/23)
fandom(s) ; the owl house
fandom masterlist(s) ; main | hunter only
character(s) ; hunter wittebane
outline ; “Can you do hunter x read who is also a grim walker like where hunter finds out that the reader is a grimwalker? If you get a chance”
warning(s) ; canon typical levels of angst, but some fluff!
note ; i am no longer accepting requests for this character.
it had taken months for hunter to finally work up the courage to tell you about his real origins — about his relation to the emperor, about the golden guards that came before him, and about the ritual that allowed for his existence as the boy he was and the man he grew to be alongside you — and while he had passively expected an empathetic response (perhaps even something resembling pity) from you, the last thing he anticipated was for you to respond with a confession of your own
the conversation that follows your mutual realisations is, naturally, very emotional — cathartic, even — as you each come to terms with the paradoxical feelings of relief of not being alone in what you are, and the grief of what was taken from others to allow you to exist as the people you are
you weep and sob and laugh in each others arms, caught up in the swell of dozens of conflicting emotions, as you discuss everything you’d been keeping to yourselves for the fear of not being understood
the memories of lives lived by a nameless mass of not-quite-you’s that came before — particularly the nightmares that plagued hunter each and every night since he found out the truth
the little quirks that follow you from the various mismatched parts that your creators used to construct you — which gave way to an especially welcome break from the heaviness of your discussion when you realised just how much one of your components had influenced your inclination towards physical affection
the differing, but no less selfish for it, reasons that underpinned your creation
and on and on it goes
the two of you hold each other and talk late into the night, falling asleep beneath your fluffiest blanket wrapped up in each other’s arms — lighter, calmer, relieved, and all the closer for it
#sleepingdeath#gender neutral reader#fluff#fluff hcs#toh fluff#toh x reader#the owl house fluff#the owl house x reader#toh hunter fluff#toh hunter x reader#hunter toh fluff#hunter toh x reader#hunter wittebane fluff#hunter wittebane x reader
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