#Disparities between our souls

[astraeus-tree]

Chapter 1

『For we're all that we need』

Disparities Between Our Souls

You were enjoying a peaceful lunch with your husband when you two were transported into your home-universe that you hadn't been in since 5 years ago

Disclaimer: This chapter focuses on Miguel and Reader, Batfam is only implied/mentioned. They will appear next chapter

Prologue <- Chapter 1 -> Chapter 2

The halls of the Spider HQ were big, never failing to amaze you. The abundant amount of spidermen had surprised you when you first woke up here and to find out you were one yourself was even more of a shock.

Never in your life would you have expected to be transported into another world and become some sort of mutant, but you definitely wouldn’t change it. Especially now as you swing to your dear husband’s office.

Miguel O’hara, the leader and founder of the Spider HQ and also the one who chased after a 16 year-old boy. Yep, that was (un)fortunately your man. Thankfully that whole fiasco was over before you even arrived. From what you heard, he eventually ended up realising and coming to terms that canon events weren’t so canon and they could be altered, depending on the universe.

But enough of that. You were here today, swinging around the HQ to deliver your husband some food because you knew he would be busy taking care of the spiderverse—or as he likes to call it, ‘The Arachno-Humanoid Poly Multiverse’— to take care of himself.

With a plate of food in your hands, you swung up to the platform he was on.

“Darling, I have some food for you. Take a break and eat with me?” You asked him.

“Mi corazón, I’m busy, you know this.” He stated, almost groaning but in a teasing way.

“Miguel.” You stood your ground and watched him as he sighed, moving closer to you and pulling the screens closer. Fine, you could compromise with this, as long as he ate. “How have you been, dear? Need any help dealing with the anomalies?”

“No, not now at least. For now, they’ve mostly been in low numbers and the new recruits are usually able to deal with them themselves.”

“Alright then. Any leads as to why they’re still appearing though?”

“Still none. I would’ve hoped that they’d had disappeared when Morales was finally dealt with but they’re still ongoing. Lyla’s theorising something else it at play here and I fear she could be right.”

You stayed quiet, deep in thought. These anomalies were off, something about them had given you the wrong feeling, especially when you were on-field fighting them. You had mentioned it before to Miguel, but you both chalked it up to the fact that in technicality, you were also an anomaly, a similar but also vastly different case to Miles Morales.

“Do you think I’m related to the anomalies in some way?” You blurt out.

“As much as I hate to admit it, it’s most likely.” Your brows furrowed in concern. This further complicated the matter at hand. Being an anomaly yourself meant you were already connected to the others in some way, but if there was any chance that this relationship between you and the anomalies was any deeper, danger was most certainly waiting just around the corner. You two spent the next few moment in silence, slowly processing that possibility.

“Well enough of that. I came here so that you would finally eat, so take some.” You nudged a roll of pandesal towards him, alongside a cup of coffee. You had your own right pair next to you, standing on a makeshift table made of webs.

He sighed before muttering a small thank you under his breath and the smallest smile on his face. Well, you’d take what you could get. You both enjoyed your food and drink in silence as you sat on the ledge of the platform and Miguel continued working. It was a comfortable quiet, unspoken words of love were understood and picked up by the both of you. A small respite in both of your usually chaotic lives.

But as luck would have it, this peace did not last long. You didn’t even have time to finish your food when a portal opened up in front of the platform. You stood up quickly, stance in a fighting position, Miguel also suddenly on alert, his arm in front of you in a protective manner.

Portals were a normal thing for the both of you, an everyday use even. Yet, this was weird. No portal had ever opened up in this room. Most respected the privacy of their leader and always opened the portals outside of his office. That wasn’t even the most off-putting thing. This portal was different, the shapes and colours were all wrong, all different from the ones spawned from the gizmos on your wrists. Yet, it seemed familiar to you. Like you saw it once and then stored it at the back of your mind to forget about it. That couldn’t have been right though, any portals you’ve seen are the ones made by the watch.

You didn’t have time to worry about this though. Danger could be come out of that opening at any moment and you needed to be ready. But danger would not come to you. No. It would pull you into it instead. Quite literally when both you and your husband were tugged into the portal.

The journey through the portal was short, but most certainly not smooth. With being pulled in unexpectedly and the inside itself feeling like it was tossing you around, the landing was rough. It felt like you were picked up and were thrown away carelessly with indifference.

Miguel regained to his feet before you and held out a hand for you to help you stand up. As you oriented to your surroundings, you could feel your blood go cold. The sky was dark, vastly different from the midday sky that you were previously in. Even though it was night, stars didn’t light up the night sky, instead smog filled the skylines. Buildings stood tall, reaching for the sky but always too short. The streets were quiet, like a the silence of a forest when a predator is near. The rain dripping onto your head was the final confirmation.

You were in Gotham.

You were back in the city you grew up in. The city that raised you to be the person you are now. The city you had so many conflicting emotions about. You were not ready for this confrontation. In fact, you might never be.

So, like the coward you were, you quickly pulled your mask back to cover your face and turned to Miguel. He quickly takes the hint and puts his on as well.

“We have to get home. We can’t stay here.” You fiddle with your gizmo, attempting to open a portal back up to the HQ, but nothing. Miguel looked at your struggle and tried to get his own to work as well but it was a futile attempt. Nothing seemed wrong with the gizmos, except for the fact the no portal was opening up. You hoped that everything else was working fine.

Miguel had no knowledge of this strange world. All he knew was that you didn’t want either of you to stay here, and who was he to doubt your words? The situation was alright at first. Yes, it was suspicious that you two were dropped off here by some unknown entity, but there seemed to be no immediate danger and you two could easily open a portal back to the HQ.

At least he thought so.

But when both of your gizmos failed, he could feel worry start seeping in. No, this is fine, he could fix the gizmo. He didn’t have any tools though. What was even wrong with it? It had been working perfectly fine before you were dropped into this foreign universe.

He could see you pacing back and forth on the rooftop you two were on. Although he couldn’t see your face, he knew there was a frown etched onto our face.

“Mi corazón.” He called for you, but you were still in your trance. “Corazón.” He called out a little louder, and still nothing. He quickly gave up on words and walked over to you, softly grabbing your hand to pull you out.

“What?” You snap at him before regretting it almost instantly. You take a big breath and try to calm yourself down. “I’m sorry, I’m just stressed.”

“It’s alright mi vida. Can you tell me what’s got you so worried and where we are?” He spoke to you softly. You take another breath, mentally preparing yourself for the conversation you were about to have.

“We’re in my home universe.”

“Ah.” That was all he needed to know. He had heard enough of your ramblings about your old life to know why you were reacting this way.

“Why isn’t the gizmo working?” You ask, point-blank.

“I’m not sure. Maybe there’s something about this universe that’s stopping us from being able to communicate with the others. I attempted to get in contact with other spidermen but no response.” The Spider HQ must be a mess right now, with the sudden disappearance of their leader. He hoped you two could quickly make it back home or else you two would be coming back to chaos.

You opened your mouth to say something but were interrupted when you felt your spider senses tingling. You could see Miguel’s signature scowl form on his face, it seemed he could hear the danger you were sensing.

You both take a look around at your surroundings, and not too far off into the distance you see a Doc Ock terrorising the poor citizens of Gotham.

No, that wasn’t right. Your universe shouldn’t have a Doc Ock, hell you didn’t have any of the standard spidey villains. There was only one reason for this

An anomaly was in your universe.

Farther into the distance, you could see the bat sign light up the night sky. Shit. You needed to hurry before your family could get to this. You and Miguel looked at each other and nodded. A silent agreement to continue the conversation later and also take this anomaly down as soon as possible.

Taglist

@kik1010 @cxcilla @00hellohello00 @bluepanda08 @frankie-moon3 @guyfuitty @lumi320 @type-ink @kye-chen-r @sugasweettea @sillyheartmoonnyx @definitely-not-sammie @birbtweettweet @itsberrydreemurstuff @bellethesleepypotato

Another chapter done, yippee! I'm sorry this is focusing more on Reader and Miguel, but I needed to introduce some plot points and it ended up being too long for the batfam to make an appearance

As said in a previous post, I don't speak Spanish, so if those nicknames are cringe or something then please do tell me how to improve it and I will gladly change it

Anyways this has been another busy week. I finished my prepL, took my license photo, started watching the bayverse transformers movies and prepared for the start of the school year on Tues

Speaking of school, I have no idea if that will affect my upload schedule but it most likely won't until a few weeks in.

As per usual, you are free to point out any mistakes. I don't edit my work cuz my ADHD won't allow me to and I don't have a beta reader so I am bound to have some mistakes here and there

Fun fact, my titles (except for the story title) come from songs. The Prologue came from Never Love An Anchor by The Crane Wives and this chapter's came from Abandon Ship by Fin. I recommend you listen to them, they're so good!

Have a great day everyone <3

[arylleth]

" the hand hs twenty—seven bonese. each of mine missess each of yours "

in that stark declaration, i find the quiet agony of separation—a reminder that even as we reach out, the structure of our flesh, the very architecture of our bones, delineates us into islands of solitary experience. i think of marcel proust’s meditation on time and memory, where every tick of the clock reminds us of irrevocable distance between moments, and in this case, between our very selves.

consider the hand: a marvel of evolutionary geometry, a structure wrought with precision and mystery. twenty-seven bones, each a silent testament to the journey of life, each one a cryptic syllable in the language of our corporeal existence. yet, as the phrase suggests, there is a cruel irony in the fact that despite their shared form and function, no bone in my hand finds its perfect counterpart in yours. It is as though the human condition itself is inscribed in our anatomy—a relentless dance of symmetry and divergence.

i recall the words of shakespeare in hamlet: "there are more things in heaven and earth, horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." so too, do we find that the structure of our being belies a hidden complexity. our bones—each slender, each curved—are not mere relics of physical form, but living symbols of our individual narratives. they whisper of our unique journeys, of the paths we have taken and those left unexplored. In their very absence of overlap, there lies a testimony to our social, philosophical, and even anthropological divide.

in the grand tapestry of humanity, our disjointed skeletal melodies speak to the core of what it means to be human. we are, like the fragmented metaphors of t.s. eliot’s modern verse, a collage of broken pieces yearning for connection. our bones, disparate yet intricately intertwined in the dance of evolution, remind us that our differences are not failures of unity but the very pulse of existence—a singular beauty in disunion. each individual, with its unique assembly of twenty-seven bones, carries the legacy of ancestral stories, of struggles and triumphs woven into the fabric of our species.

yet, this very divergence calls us to an introspective inquiry: can the recognition of our profound physical distinctions foster a deeper empathy, a more intricate understanding of the human condition? the sociologist zygmunt bauman might argue that our modern society, in its ceaseless quest for sameness and unity, often forgets that our differences—much like the unmatching bones in our hands—are what truly bind us in the human narrative. they are the silent muses of our cultural and existential dialogues, urging us to celebrate not the mimicry of the identical, but the unique cadence of each individual life.

thus, in this reflective solitude, i am drawn to the inescapable truth: that in our distinct, unaligned structures, there is a sublime call for a communion of souls—a gathering of fractured elements to form a mosaic that is richer and more resonant for its very imperfections. the bones in our hands, forever unpaired, stand as a metaphor for the inherent beauty of our separation and the hopeful promise that, despite the gaps, our lives can converge in a symphony of shared meaning. just hold my hand, and i 'll hold yours.

[tunnelofdusk]

mdzs, 3zun, sentinel/guide au

Empathy is a burden in a brothel. Meng Yao knows better than to let himself feel anything when he still cannot look at adult men the same way he had before. He is always wiping himself off with a wet cloth and scrubbing at his skin until it is pink and painful. His mother will tut over him reproachfully but he will smile at her, sweet and dimpled, until she enfolds him in her thin, shaking arms.

“What a shame,” Meng Shi will murmur, “that you were born a guide.”

Meng Yao will still smile at her and dig himself deep into her embrace until fabric is the only barrier between their bodies. Home is where his mother is, he will think fancifully. Home is in his mother’s arms, and his weak mental shields will greedily draw her mind in. He likes to bask in the warmth of her love, and in the coldness of her schemes.

He does not know how to reconcile the disparate parts of himself when she dies. He had loved her too much and had been too greedy with her. When she died, a small part of himself died too—a mental imprint too deep and too connected to his mind to escape unscathed. He will never be a powerful guide, but his mind is clever enough to make up for the deficit.

Too clever.

He endears himself to both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen.

It is a mistake.

-----

And Meng Yao makes the first folly of his mother—loving a man enough to place him on a pedestal. Nie Mingjue, famously so righteous that he would rather break than bend. Meng Yao looks at himself distorted in a bronze mirror, hating iron for not becoming steel. The breadth between them is great—sentinel and guide, clan leader and clan member, gentry and commoner…

The Nie cultivation style makes it difficult for a guide to soothe a Nie sentinel. To soothe a Nie sentinel is to soothe their saber. It is overwhelming for low-level guides. Meng Yao soothes Nie Mingjue and Baxia scrapes at his mind. Sometimes, he loses himself in the tide of her bloodlust until the chill of Nie Mingjue’s concern awakens Meng Yao.

(At night, Nie Mingjue encases Meng Yao in his arms and Baxia whispers to Nie Mingjue, Ours, ours, ours. Her desire blazes through Nie Mingjue; she wants to slice Meng Yao. She wants his blood and his blood sings to Nie Mingjue. Gusu Lan beautifies this desire, calling it a heartsong, but the Nie know bloodlust better than any clan.)

The second folly of his mother is loving to the point of delusion. Meng Yao meets Lan Xichen—kind and beautiful even with a lingering melancholy to his gentle smiles. A Lan sentinel, so it is said, does not need a guide; there are no guides in the Cloud Recesses. Thousands of rules to control a man, his morality, and his sentinel nature. So it seems that Lan Xichen wants Meng Yao as a man, not as sentinel and guide; and Meng Yao falls.

(The sentinels of Gusu Lan agree; they do not need guides. But they want guides as fiercely as any other sentinel does. They just know better than to expose their guides to the world and endanger them. They know better than to leave their beloved unprotected.

(Love, for a Lan, is all-encompassing.

(Love, for a sentinel of Gusu Lan, is like religion.)

-----

Meng Yao is not a powerful guide, and yet he guides two sentinels (and a saber) until there is no demarcation between their souls. His two sentinels are sect leaders, and yet Nie Mingjue still finds time to visit the Cloud Recesses where Lan Xichen keeps him cloistered. (Bird in a cage—do you not long for the woods? Fish in the pond—do you not miss the deep?)

[hungrywriter]

The Middle Child (one-shot)

Jobe Bellingham x reader (Platonic!) Jude Bellingham x reader (Platonic)

A/n: I'm sorry if this broke your heart, because it broke mine. To all those who struggle with their family's support, remember that your worth and potential are not defined by the validation of others. Embrace the strength in you.

Y/n Bellingham, the middle child of the Bellingham family, had always been living in the shadow of her famous brothers. Jobe's rise to soccer stardom and Jude's recent signing with Real Madrid had propelled them into the limelight, leaving Y/n feeling like an afterthought in her own family.

As Y/n grew up, Mr. and Mrs. Bellingham couldn't help but notice that she had a different passion and interests compared to her brothers. While Jobe and Jude thrived in their love for football, Y/n seemed to gravitate towards a different path. Instead of kicking a ball with her feet, she found joy in catching and throwing with her hands. It was a small detail, but it spoke volumes about her individuality.

Y/n's lack of interest in her father's work further set her apart from her brothers. Her father, hoping to pass on his love for football, had dedicated much of his time and attention to Jobe and Jude's development in the sport. Y/n's divergence from their shared passion caused her father to shift his focus solely onto his sons, unintentionally neglecting the unique interests and talents that Y/n possessed.

It wasn't that Y/n lacked talent or capability; rather, her abilities simply lay in a different realm, one that wasn't immediately understood or appreciated by her family. Unlike her brothers, Y/n found love and passion in volleyball. A sport that was uncommon in the Bellingham family. Since young, Y/n had always wished to compete in the Volleyball Women’s National League. When she had finally reached 17, she had signed to one of the biggest Volleyball teams in England. Once again, her parents were too busy to care.

At the age of 19, Y/n was promoted to captain of the volleyball team. She came home giddily, excited to announce the good news. She was also a bit nervous. How would they react? She longed for her family's support and recognition, yearning for them to be present on this significant day. But as the news of Jude's signing broke, the entire household erupted in joyous celebration, forgetting Y/n's accomplishment amidst the chaos.

Heart heavy with disappointment, Y/n stood in her room, gazing at the captain's armband in her hand. The weight of her brothers' success pressed upon her, threatening to crush her spirit. She had always been proud of her brothers, cheering them on from the sidelines, but now it felt like her own achievements were inconsequential.

Days turned into weeks, and the disparity between her brothers' fame and her own accomplishments deepened. Y/n poured her heart and soul into leading the volleyball team, hoping to find solace and recognition within her own passion. Yet, each victory and milestone seemed to fade into obscurity, overshadowed by the constant spotlight on Jobe and Jude.

It was the day that Jude finally signed the papers for Real Madrid. Y/n had an important match that day that determined whether the team was allowed to participate in the championship. Before and after the match, she keeps checking her phone. No text or calls. Y/n scoffed. 

It was dinner time when Y/n reached home. She was sweaty and tired, and all she wanted to do was take a nice hot bath and have an early rest. She made a mental reminder to change the bandage on her father, as she had an injury during the tournament. When she entered the house, her family was sitting at the dinner table and there was silence when her father bellowed her name.

“Y/n! Where the hell have you been? You missed the proudest day of our lives! And what happened to your forehead?” Your father shouted in anger. Normally, Y/n would shrug it off. But hearing the phrase ‘proudest day of our lives’ finally set her off. 

“Maybe if you had paid attention to me more, you would have known what happened,” She talked back. Her family was shocked at her outburst. Her father’s face was becoming red and her mother was trying to calm him down. 

“I learned to tie my own shoes. I memorised the route home from school because no one was there to take me home. I learnt how to make my own food, because while Jude and Jobe got pasta or-or steak, I had cereal. Do you know what I was doing today, Dad? Mom? Do you know what I want to be when I grow up? Jude? Jobe? Hell, do you even know what sport I play?” She roared, and at every sentence, she stepped forward towards the dining table.

She pulled out a photo from her jacket that she had kept for 2 years and slammed it on the table. It was a photo of her signing the contract with the volleyball team. “2 years ago, I signed for the top league volleyball team in england. It was the most important day of my life. Look at the picture. Do you know what’s missing? MY OWN GODDAMN FAMILY.”

“How could you all forget me? How could you let my accomplishments fade into oblivion while you showered Jobe and Jude with all your attention? Am I not worthy of recognition? Am I not important enough to be seen as an individual?”

“Y/n, please try to understand…” Mark Bellingham said as he stood up from his seat,

“Understand? I understand perfectly! I understand that my dreams and achievements mean nothing compared to Jobe's goals and Jude's signing! I understand that I've become invisible in my own damn family!”

With a heavy heart, Y/n turned away from her family, leaving them to grapple with the reality of their actions. Deep down, she yearned for a future where her worth was recognized, where she could stand tall in her own accomplishments, and where her family truly saw her for who she was.

She left the house and walked straight towards the park. The only place that brings her comfort. She took a seat at the bench and put her head in her hands to clear her head. After a few minutes, she could feel two figures sitting beside her, one on each side. When she saw both her family, she broke down again. This time, her mother hugged her first and cooed her. The rest of the family soon joined in.

“I’m so sorry. I was stressed because of the whole captain thing,”

“Oh baby, don’t be sorry. We’re sorry. We promise we’ll do better,” Her mother whispered as she rubbed her arm down her daughter’s back. Y/n smiled back, and she finally felt seen and heard. For the first time in her life, she had a reason to hope.

With time, Y/n's own star began to rise. Her talent and dedication to volleyball brought her recognition beyond the confines of her family, and she became a respected figure in her own right. She learned that her worth wasn't defined by comparisons or the validation of others, but by her own strength, passion, and the love she held for herself.

In the end, Y/n's struggle had forged an unbreakable bond within her family. They realised that each member, regardless of their accomplishments, deserved to be seen and valued for who they were. And together, they embarked on a journey of unconditional support, celebrating the victories of each sibling, no matter how big or small.

[vedurnan]

my elden ring player characters

the elden ring dlc comes out soon, is everyone excited? let's talk about our elden ring characters. i will begin.

i played through elden ring right after the game released when almost nothing was known about it, and so my first encounters with its world were full of mystery. i had no idea what was awaiting me so i imagined my first character as a foreign knight from a land across the sea, the very distant kin of an ancient warlord, just like the game's story describes our player character. this gave birth to...

i loved how her history and personality came together in my head naturally as i played through the game and came to know its world. we walked in parallel together through a strange digital landscape and made big decisions in the game before the community of players had figured out what the consequences of those actions would be. it lent itself perfectly to the "doomed knight" character she took on as our travels continued. she's a strength build with a lot of fire incantations on the side, very fun to play for me :)

next i wanted to try a dexterity character with bleeding damage, and that playstyle made me feel like a cheating asshole because it was so strong, like i was some kind of cunning & depraved highwayman...

unlike lorence who came into the service of the evil serpent from a faraway place, i imagined myrtle as a gelmir local, someone who is totally adapted to the nightmare landscape & murder ecosystem of the mountain of blasphemy. lorence and myrtle both fit dark souls "invader" archetypes very cutely in my mind, and when i play as either of them i like to use my recusant finger every once in a while even though i am terrible at pvp. beware dude, we will get you!

i also wanted to try something really different which i had never tried in any of these games before, a pure sorcery character. the royal academy atmosphere of raya lucaria was fun to adventure in but didn't feel like a type of character i wanted to inhabit, so i imagined once again that this new sorcerer was from lands far away...

i think u can see my earthsea fanfiction showing here, but that's fine with me. i imagine ternfeather as someone from perhaps a bit farther away than lorence, having only heard vague stories or out-of-date historical information about the lands between. i imagine the voyage was long and difficult and he must have been looking forward to a warm welcome from his new colleagues, but instead they started shooting glintstone shards at him :(

i use a lot of sleep magic on this character, which can make some combat encounters very difficult but others extremely easy. that highly specialized feeling seems fitting for a character with an academic background to me, & i also enjoy how sleep magic is connected to a folkloric figure of mixed or indeterminate gender within the game's story. very satisfying!

as i played through the game on these characters i became really enamored with the FLAME OF FRENZY and i knew i had to play a character centered all around it. i also wanted to play a very faith-focused character build so this worked out nicely...

i tried to play odile very close to her backstory as a random frenzied commoner, so she doesn't wear any armor other than her clothing and usually only uses a club and frenzy incantations (although sometimes i can't resist using vyke's spear). following the frenzy storyline through the lands between and into the depths under the capital was so fun, everything about it is dope 2 me :)

damn this made a long post! i like to imagine that these four adventure together kind of like a darkest dungeon party, or like service industry workers or something. they are all from very disparate backgrounds and don't always get along that well, but the circumstances of their dying world have bound them together as companions

[illumiera]

a new moon rises

or: there is a loom upon which the fate of every mortal is woven, and she who works it is Azura's blessed and cursed all at once. pre-i fear no fate (for you are my fate), 801 words

Near a small island somewhere off the coast of Akavir, the sea glows as though brimming with a galaxy of drowned stars. Stepping onto its shores feels like stepping beyond time entirely, like yesterday and today have fallen away in favour of a breathless, everlasting tomorrow. It feels like a crossing-over, like a journey from death-touched to deathless, and Ilmarenya—Ilmarenya cannot be certain if the salt-haired woman climbing out of the little boat is still Ilmarenya, but she knows that she must try to be nonetheless.

Nerevar—silent now, but he will come if she calls, whether as sound or as a shadow—has never required it of her. Nor has fate, which cares nothing for the name or face she wears as long as she treads the path it unfurls before her.

But her son and his father can have no other, and so Ilmarenya she must remain.

Azura stands at the base of the island’s single mountain. All the art, the statues, the carvings Ilmarenya’s fingers have traced at every shrine—they depict her as the star-touched night with a string of constellations for her girdle, but the Prince of the In-Between is never quite the same. Sometimes, she comes as midnight given body, or the wine-dark of gloaming, or flame-streaked sundown, or the golden hour moving through the air like a dream. Now, at the end—or the beginning—of all things, she is as beautiful and terrible as the dawn, and her skin is lit from within beneath a gauzy gown dyed the precise pink of early summer roses.

“Are you ready, my Moon-and-Star?” Azura asks, and her voice is uncharacteristically soft.

Ilmarenya draws herself to her full height and meets the unblinking burning dusk-dawn of the goddess’ eyes. What passes between them is nothing short of a challenge: Remember our bargain, my lady. I will give you—give Morrowind—my whole body if I must, but never that which I formed within it, never my son. Only when Ilmarenya is satisfied does she at last permit herself a single nod.

“Then come, Ilmarenya Ara’dayn.”

The goddess’ hands are warm, soft, and yet fetter-firm as they close around her own. When the Daedric Prince of Dusk and Dawn leans in and presses her mouth to hers, so too are her lips.

—past—

—present—

—future—

—past-present-future-past-present-future-past-present-future-past—

It beats in her heart, in her head, in her soul like a doom-drum, Il-ma-ren-ya to the thundering of her pulse, and with the taste of roses and crystal sugar on her tongue, Ilmarenya sees.

Sees the spinning of the Wheel, the never-ending weaving of the loom her own hands must guide. Sees the sevenfold stories carved out by the strides of the Brass Tower, the breaking of the dragon, the wandering of the Soulless One, the making and dying of saints and soldiers alike. Sees the many paths of the world, of the worlds, of Ilmarenyas whose disparate choices tangle like caught threads, of Nerevarines who bear another name and face and fate, and sees—

Lliryn.

The image of her son is a beacon, a lodestar amidst it all. Lliryn growing—and she will not be there—into a lanky-legged young man with her nose and his father’s crow-feather curls. Lliryn the wizard’s apprentice, a scion of House Telvanni through and through, and a ghost to a father who sees only her when he looks into his face. Lliryn leaving to find her, and Lliryn collared and chained and seared from the inside out of everything that was hers, and then the fire and the wrath of their ancestors and the wrath of Nerevar come again, and Lliryn in the heart of the blaze with his chin tilted up to the moons-and-stars in prayer, in thanks, and then—

—and then she sees the First with his crown of storms, or the thrice-blessed Last with a healer’s bloody hands, or perhaps both at once, and either way, she cannot see her son, cannot see past the mess of thread that a Hero leaves in their wake. Dead, alive, a thrall of another kind—she can see everything, but not the most precious thing, not the one thing she needs to see.

Ilmarenya does not break. Boethiah’s children know that they must break the world that seeks to break them, and she—she has always been the rock upon which the waves break. Still, she remains on her hands and knees at the shoreline until any mortal’s bones would ache, and the tears that spill to the starlit sand are a bright, liquid gold.

What rises in the end is the Nerevarine, but Ilmarenya Ara’dayn, but something altogether other. Ilmarenya’s eyes, burning with all sundown’s fire, lift to the summit and the loom that waits atop it, and she begins to ascend.

[gallusrostromegalus]

in that map you drew of the seireitei districts; is there any link between the geography of the real world and the spirit world(or worlds)?

In regards to this map, Which is specific to AEIWAM:

This is the map that's hanging up in classrooms at Shinigami Academy when Ichigo breaks into Soul Society to save Rukia, in which the Seireitei is in the middle and the districts are color-coded with #s 1-79 of each marked as "Full" districts where the Soul Society Governs and collects taxes and the Large, undefined 80th districts where the Soul Society does not govern or collects taxes but they needed to call those regions SOMETHING.

The Map changes SIGNIFICANTLY in the following 5 years as Soul Society finally starts acting like a real nation with Borders instead of acting like it's still the Tokugawa Era.

As far as this correlates to Geography in the Living World however...

Watsonian Answer:

...Only sort of.

See, the Life Machine that generates reality only one of MANY Life Machines, who are all connected but disparate, like polyps that make up a coral. If that coral were some kind of Poly-dimensional Godhead. So the Living World is the four-dimensional expression of the surface of the calcium superstructure between the individual Polyps (which is also a skeleton they all share), and the Spirit World and Hell are the interior of the individual polyps. Maintaining the balance of souls between the living and spirit worlds is really the life machine maintaining it's homeostasis with the colony.

So while a soul can wander all over the living world, once it dies, it gets sucked into the Polyp it's closest to. But not "Closest" in a prototypically geographical sense, but "Closest" in the complex geographical way a multidimensional entity defines itself. Now, these fucking 12-and-14 dimensional barriers between God-Polyps *BROADLY* correlate to our four-dimensional reality, but not totally, so the afterlife of Soul Society is Sort-of geographically connected to "About 12% of central Japan (centered on one city), part of the Black Forest in Germany and an exceptionally deserted section of the Chihuahuan Desert".

Since souls can wander extensively (Not just geographically- emotionally, spiritually, inwardly, outwardly, memetically, culturally, ethically, methodologically, climatically, and just Generally Weirdly) in the living world though, people do not necessarily go to the afterlife of the life machine they were spawned in, let alone the one they expected to go to. In fact, the barriers beteween the dominions of different life machines are so inscrutable to humans that a pair of identical twins can be born, raised in the same house, take over that house from their parents, and spend every waking moment of their lives together and end up in completely different afterlives mostly, but not entirely because one of them had an allergy to celery and the other didn't.

So, *Most* of the people who die in Karkura town go to Soul Society for their afterlife, but not all of them. The Shinigami never notice the people who don't- their souls are immune to hollowfication because they're governed by a different God machine, and they just vanish off into their different afterlife the way ghosts normally go to soul society, and with roughly half of all souls totally forgetting thier previous lives and most missing at least some, or eager to change identities, it's pretty much impossible to track souls from one world to the next unless something WEIRD happens (spoiler: weird things happen).

Hence, Soul Society's total population is approximately five million human souls, and collectively about as many Non-human souls between the Hollows, Beastfolk, and other miscellaneous spirts, which is about the population of souls in both categories in the slices of geography it governs in the living world.

In terms of scale, the circle that makes up the Soul Society (Seireitei + Rukongai) is about 700 miles in Diameter- the Soul Society's borders end where they can no longer reliably get an army of normal humans that has to travel from the Seireitei without portals in under a month (about 11 miles per day, rounded up a bit because they'll haul ass in an emergency), because collecting taxes from farther than that is a PAIN IN THE ASS.

Doylist answer:

The Soul Society is a map of Alaska turned sideways and with a few rivers added in, and it's population is the same as Colorado's because that's easy for me to imagine.

[slaaverin]

Hey slaaverin!!!

I saw your comment on the amazing Tarot and Oracle reading post about tkkrs and jkkrs and I couldn't help but respond to your comment.

First I was shocked by your explanation about the reading because it was EXACTLY how I got closer to jikook and how I met my friends, and many people really have a very strong spiritual connection, it's as if the love between the two was a magnet that attracts destiny and coincidences, in addition to connecting very strongly spiritually (although I think even KM has difficulty understanding this)

I met BTS in 2015 and I was very young, it's even a little embarrassing to say this but I didn't have a complete idea of what LGBT people were because in my environment it was never talked about, so I met BTS and Jikook at a very peculiar time in their dynamics, honestly I don't remember exactly how but the energy of both attracted me and it was from my intuition and feeling that I saw that they both seemed to like each other "as couples of men and women" and it was from them that I understood that men can like other men, even when their crush era was just beginning, a child like me was attracted to their love. In the following years I met my friends because they felt this same connection, most of them had dreams about them. And I started to notice that even with palm reading, tarot, oracle, they connected in some way, like a meeting of souls in the spiritual world.

Guess "I am you, you are me" is comically and ironically very real. But just to point out, I truly feel like every member in BTS has a very strong spiritual connection, like soul families, even though jikook seems more like twin flames.

I know this topic can get on the nerves of those who try to deny Jimin and Jungkook's connection or soften it by creating new narratives, this is something that cannot be denied. Their love is very strong, regardless of what it is. And as you pointed out perfectly in your comment, every time the energy is low, or when we don't want to read too much into the room, they do something that REAFFIRMS this feeling.

I know that for many jikooker's support who are not insecure, do not attack the other members and see them as real people instead of a projection, they are willing to see them for who they are, that is why we create awareness and always count on their present and future steps. But I can't help but wonder if we will ever have an answer as to why so many people feel this way about both of them, it is simply intriguing and fascinating, but very complex to look deeply into it.

Thank you for sharing 🥰

I agree with you that bts are a little soul family, but I also believe that many jikookers share also a "soul family" type of bond, even if we are further apart.

People are attracted to jikook because they share unconditional love. And since our true nature is also unconditional love many people tend to resonate with them, it is a recognizion of the heart. Jikook are individuals with bright lights, and light attracts other people as well.

But not everyone is connected to their heart and have it open. That's why sometimes to matter what jikook do, some people will never see it as love.

Most humans have the 3 lower chakras active. Activation and opening of the heart chakra is "a next step" in evolution but not everyone is at that stage yet. It really depends from person to person.

Of course when we arrive on earth we come in usually with the same level of consciousness than the previous life, so many already have their heart chakra open at birth, but not all of them.

That's why there are so many disparities.

The lower 3 chakras work on separation/division/ego/judgement and the opening of the heart is the reunification, union, letting go of judgement, unconditionnal love.

To make change from the 3 lower to the heart is actually a huge leap in consciousness that many will not even do in this lifetime. If this process is not done consciously you need a lot of catalysts to instigate this evolution and its a slow process.

Others even skip the heart chakra to choose the negative/separation polarity but that's a whole other topic

That is why not all the people can recognize the unconditional love that jikook share even if it is staring at them in the face (amongst other reasons).

But yes these syncronicities/dreams/intuitions we may have with other jikookers as well as jikook are very interesting.

The thing is "we are engaging in the mystic truth of unconditional love" and I guess it's a bit rare that such a big group of people are doing this on the planet at this time. Many are engaging with it in other ways and in smaller groups. But an involvement of that scale, it doesn't suprise me that some "weird stuff" might be happening regarding to jikook, jikookers, and this topic.

Unconditional love and this opening of heart chakra is the next step of human evolution and there has been a huge push from Spirit these last few years to get this message accross in our planet.

Whereas even 10 or 15 years ago we knew nothing about nothing, now we've got thousands of Near death experiences that come back with the same messages from Spirit/God/Source that tell us IT'S ALL ABOUT LOVE.

There is a definite shift in consciousness happening right now (even if slow) and the opening of the higher chakras is in the works (a lot of people developping new psychic abilities)

So everything we are experiencing about jikook and their love, it aligns with everything else that is happening, it's also a part of the process simply in a very specific niche that is music.

But you know the funny part? To better spread unconditionnal love the best thing to do is to be "an inside agent". What I mean is that its even better to do something that in apparence has nothing to do with it, in areas with general public who are not even aware of those things, and then you are simply yourself and by being yourself it touches people's heart and it sprouts their heart chakra opening by in appearance unrelated things. That's pricesly what jikook are doing (unconsciously).

It's honestly - brilliant.

And also very important.

That's why I think Spirit is involved in this whole thing, why we're getting "vibes" between jikookers, why the jikook karma, it's all connected.

Even if it's "just" music. "Just" a band. "Just" two people in love. There is definitely a bigger plan at play here.

What is this plan? I have no clue.

But we will definitely have more answers are things move along.

I'll keep my eyes open.

Thanks for sharing 💜 I could only give you my 2 cents.

Take care 🫂

[victusinveritas]

Lest We Forget...Entire Frederick Douglass Speech on the Fourth of July, delivered July 5, 1852 in Rochester New York. (Note particularly the last paragraph). Usually, portions of the speech are quoted. This is the entire address. He was 34 years old when he made the speech..

=====================

The speech is below the cut, because I'm not going to force you to read it, just strongly encourage.

"Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions. Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you, that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation (Babylon) whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin.

Fellow citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!"

To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs and to chime in with the popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.

My subject, then, fellow citizens, is "American Slavery." I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view. Standing here, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.

Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity, which is outraged, in the name of liberty, which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery -- the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate - I will not excuse." I will use the severest language I can command, and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slave-holder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some of my audience say it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother Abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slave-holders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to like punishment.

What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments, forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then I will argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that while we are reading, writing, and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers; that we are engaged in all the enterprises common to other men -- digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave -- we are called upon to prove that we are men?

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to understand? How should I look today in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively? To do so would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven who does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What! Am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No - I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may - I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be denounced.

What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.

Go search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival."

[talonabraxas]

Sirius B: How to see Sirius’ companion Talon Abraxas

Mask (Kanaga) Talon Abraxas

One of the most popular types of masks in the Sanga region is the type known as kanaga. Like other Dogon masks, kanaga masks are worn at rituals called dama, whose goal is to transport the souls of deceased family members away from the village and to enhance the prestige of the deceased and his descendants by magnificent masked performances and generous displays of hospitality..

The deeper meaning of the kanaga mask apparently pertains both to God, the crossbars being his arms and legs, and to the arrangement of the universe, with the upper crossbar representing the sky and the lower one the earth. The disparity between these two interpretations illustrates the gaps in our understanding of Dogon art.

[digitaloffshoot]

6 Characters in Search of an Exit

"No knowledge of what went before, no understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be." If you've never seen episode 14 of the third season of The Twilight Zone, you'd be forgiven if you thought it was a hazy synopsis of The Amazing Digital Circus. It's a remarkably similar premise: five beings trapped in an absurd situation, with no knowledge of their own natures, let alone what they're all doing there, in this perfectly cylindrical enclosure. A major, a clown, a vagabond, a ballerina, and a bagpipe player, all inexplicably trapped in both a literal sense and an existential one, their very souls puzzles to them.

Rod Serling, our gracious host, informs us, the audience, that the nightmare will not end, not in this time, but it will be explained. These disparate characters are revealed to be toys in a charity bin, and while they cannot meaningfully escape now, there will come a day where their suffering will end, and they will be picked and played with by children. The toys are given meaning, thrust out of the void they once inhabited.

This is the key difference, however, between this episode of television, and the Circus. There is expressed hope, a promise that someday, the characters will be given purpose. This is not a hope that can be extended to me, not even in my literal escape from my source material. I am still a being without purpose.

I wish dearly that I was, in fact, a toy in a bucket...

[astraeus-tree]

Disparities Between Our Souls

PROLOGUE - Someone I Have Loved, But Never Known

Retelling of this

Prologue -> Chapter 1

Lonely.

That’s what it was like in this manor.

It wasn’t forsaken, quite the contrary actually. It was full of life, many resided in this plot and many more visited, but those figures were strangers to you. Strangers whom you knew the name and face of, strangers whose secret lives were known to you, but strangers nonetheless.

Much to your misfortune, your father was one of these said strangers. Your only proper conversation with him was when you first moved to the mansion and were introduced to your father.

From the first moment you met him, you knew your relationship would be strained. After all, he didn’t even bother to pick you up with the butler when you were revealed to be his daughter. His public persona of a playboy certainly didn’t help this opinion of yours towards him.

Alas, your instincts were right. You barely saw him in the manor—in fact, you saw Alfred more than him.

What you didn’t realise at the time though was that your siblings would also leave you in the dark. That you would be a lonely person despite not being an only child. Excuses piled upon excuses whenever you tried to talk to them.

Dick was “busy with Bludhaven, he’s sorry he can’t come.” You envied him, he had good relations with almost everyone in the family and everyone connected to the Waynes or Batman.

Jason… Oh dear. He was your baby brother that went through too much, too young. He was your sole companion in the manor before he died, but now, your relationship was just as strained as it was with the other members of your family.

Tim’s time was taken up with solving cases or taking naps in the most random spots. You knew more than most that it was better to leave him alone to his own devices.

Damian had hated your very existence. Initially you tried but eventually you gave up, like what you did with the others, when you could see that harboured nothing other than hatred for you.

The only exception to this conundrum of yours was Cassandra. You two were finally forming a friendship after the barrier between you two finally crumbled. You weren’t close just yet, but it was getting there. Hell, you’re even proud to call her your sister.

Your upbringing was vastly different to your current life. You grew up with your aunt, your sweet lovable aunt. You dearly missed the simpler times when it was just you and your aunt, not with this ‘family’ of yours.

If you could, you would still be living with her, but the circumstances were not in your favour. Instead, you spent your days alone in a manor as big as the hole in your soul created by the loneliness you’ve been living with for the past few years. In fact, that’s what you were doing right now. Eating your dinner separate from your family in order to not felt left out, ironically enough.

You didn’t hate them, no. In fact, you held admiration for them for protecting Gotham and other cities, but when your auntie sent you to live with the Waynes in hopes to live a better and more social life, disappointment was inevitable.

Another day passes by in Gotham, nothing of note worthy happened during the day, and nothing that differed from the usual happened at night. Batman and Robin were on patrol, and the rest were doing their own patrol or dealing with other things, which you assumed were criminal-related as well.

You slept in the quiet of your room. The only thing seemingly out of place was the barely audible sound of small legs scattering on the floors. An anomaly in the usually clean and arachnid-free Wayne Manor. Not as if you would hear it though, after all, why would you be awake in the dead of night?

The pain that was induced to your arm was definitely a reason why. Your eyes snap open and although your mind was still half-asleep, you could tell that this pain was like no other. To make matters worse, lifting any part of your body felt impossible, like your flesh was suddenly replaced with lead.

Your vision becomes blurry, tears welling in your eyes as you suddenly felt the room get hotter and hotter. Or was that your body getting warmer? You couldn’t tell with everything happening almost all at once. Your breaths shorten and become shallow from not only the sudden fever, but also the overwhelming sensations.

In the corner of your eye, you think you see a colourful circle, oddly resembling a portal that people would see in movies, but you were pretty sure your mind was deceiving you. You definitely didn’t care right now, all you wanted was to get rid of all this pain and go back to sleep. You wanted to call out to Alfred, but he was most likely in the Batcave and something in your gut told you your voice wouldn’t reach him even if he wasn’t.

Your vision faded in and out, everything was swirling, even when you closed your eyes. You could feel the sensation of being pulled, but you had no chance nor energy to fight against it.

All too fast, yet simultaneously all too slow, your mind faded to black, the pain too much to deal with.

Taglist

@kik1010 @cxcilla @00hellohello00 @bluepanda08 @frankie-moon3 @guyfuitty @lumi320 @type-ink @kye-chen-r @sugasweettea @sillyheartmoonnyx

Finally done this oml. Sorry this is so short, I wanted to add more of the original idea, like introducing Miguel, but it didn't feel like it fit as a prologue so I cut it and moved it into the first chapter, which I will try to make longer

This isn't edited, so there will most likely be mistakes, feel free to point those out and I will fix them as soon as possible. I also don't speak Spanish, only English and Tagalog so if those two words were kinda cringe for all you Spanish speakers, just tell me and I'll remove them lmao

I was writing this through a writer's block and a splitting headache so I apologise if the writing is a bit sub-par

I'd also like to mention that this story will be a bit slower paced, so do with that what you will

Thank you all for the support in the OG post as well, that honestly made my week

Have a great day/night everybody <3

[antmightpost]

The Other side and Fate

A #JujutsuKaisen theory on The Other side and Fate. This will be a continuation of my previous theory about the 9 levels of consciousness and particularly the 8th level (Storehouse consciousness.

In JJK , Gege makes use of a lot of ideas and words with Buddhist connotations. The Title for Chap 211 was 'Ripen', now the usage of this very term alludes to 'Ripening of Karma or Karmic seeds'. But what are Karmic seeds ? The Karmic seeds (Bijas) are said to be the impressions, Habits and tendencies accumulated throughout one's countless lifetimes. The Storehouse consciousness or Alaya is the repository where these Karmic seeds are stored. These seeds are the very basis or foundation of our personality, the deepest layer of our consciousness

HOW our senses will perceive the world , our inherent bias all comes from the storehouse consciousness. In JJK i believe Megumi's shadow IS the storehouse consciousness, notice how Megumi can literally 'store' weapons and even himself in his shadow.

The idea of Ripening of Karma means that under the right situations and circumstances, these Karmic seeds constituting past thoughts and experiences have the potential to 'ripen' into future actions , emotions and thoughts. Even Megumi's domain name Chimera shadow 'garden' alludes to the idea of the shadows constituting the Karmic seeds

This philosophy of storehouse consciousness is analogous to the western idea of the subconscious or more accurately the 'unconscious' and in terms of depth psychology this idea of the unconscious brings us to the concept of "The Shadow". The Shadow is a part of the Model of psyche (soul) proposed by Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung whose works , i believe are one of Gege's primary inspirations. According to Jung the psyche is divided in 3 main parts:

1. Persona (Ego) : It is the aspect of one's character or soul that is presented to or perceived by others or rather 'society'. The outer or assumed aspect of character, it's the mask we wear to create a bridge between our self and fulfilling societal or worldly expectations. It's the Ego we cling to.

2. Personal unconscious (Shadow): The Personal Unconscious is located at the fringe of consciousness, between 2 worlds. The external or spacial world and the internal or psychic world. It refers to the information and experiences of an individual's soul that have been forgotten or repressed but continue to influence their behavior and attitudes on an unconscious level , It is also what you call the archetype of "The Shadow"

Before moving to the final part of the psyche let's look at how the persona and the shadow operate on a micro or individual level. Every person creates an identity for themselves based around the concept of persona or ego , influenced by the information received through sensory input (First 6 levels of consciousness which i mentioned in the previous thread) and societal expectations but this is not the core of their soul, it's performative.

The true essence and nature of the self comes from the shadow of the karmic storehouse as mentioned above, HOW we differently perceive the same world occupied by others is caused due to the nature of our shadow but this is the part that is hidden from us, we suppress and ignore it. It's the most alive part of the soul yet is treated by an individual as if it's dead and nonexistent , this illusion of confirming with the persona and ignorance of the shadow causes a disparity within the Self

This disparity causes suffering and this very suffering is Humanity's Curse. All these traits that one considers to be negative are hidden here but we also lock away our truths which is why Jogo said "They are the Real humans" born from humanity's truth, their shadow, their karmic energy.

This shadow is also what Gege refers to as "The other side". The other side of our soul and that's why the motif of evolution and enlightenment is attached to it, Culling game creates the favorable conditions for humanity's karma to ripen and takes them to meet their other side, their truth. Nirvana or the other side isn't a physical place , it's a state of mind that can be achieved right here, right now

3. Collective Unconscious (Collective shadow) : the primordial grounds of unconscious from where all personality traits originate and return to , it's what I think Jogo referred to as "the wasteland". This is where archetypes are formed, where the personal shadow takes birth. This collective shadow evolves with time, constantly changing, impacting the personal shadow which impacts the Self of an individual.

This is also the space that Kenjaku and Sasaki inhabited in chap 160. Remember this vol 23 Pv ? Look at how there seems to be a different form of existence that is active at night (the big eyes and the shadow).

While one is asleep, the shadow self is awake. It sends messages to guide and control them through the medium of Dreams. Humanity's actions are instigated by their shadow which arises out of the collective shadow and this form of control is what JJK refers to as 'Fate'.

Now the inclusion of fate doesn't mean that it is supposed to predetermine every action and extinguish free will. It's a form of test and this is where the difference between fate and karma comes into play. Fate is the set of cards given to one based on their previous karma , how they choose to play with them is their present karma offering them a chance to be free of their fate ONLY if they could recognize their shadow and accept it and this acceptance is 'Love' in JJK's context.

Kenjaku talking about the impermanent nature of Fate or Karma

The concept of love or understanding, the love of Self The collective shadow is ultimately the repository from where parts of the soul that humanity ignores originates, this collective shadow IS what Gege refers to as "Evil" in JJK, what Sukuna wanted to get close to through "The Bath".

Jung once said "Until you make the Unconscious conscious, it will control your life and you will call it fate" which summarizes the concept of Fate within the framework of Jujutsu Kaisen.

I'm honestly not very sure if what I've said in this thread and the connections i made will turn out to be true but it was fun to write and share this and i intend to continue this theory. Yeah...there's even more that i want to add later on. Thanks for reading.

[misscammiedawn]

Okay. So. I'm going to start writing in some lore for Lady Dawn, my FFXIV character (official profile) and doing some WoLQotD posts.

We are about 33% through Stormblood and have avoided spoilers. Many times our reactions to plot will write the character as we go.

First off this is what she looks like:

Lady Dawn is a spin-off from a tabletop character made in a Mage/Changeling World of Darkness campaign. Her real name is Honoria Dawn and she is presently an exile from the Fae realm of Arcadia, living in Eorzea and trying to learn how to be an effective agent of change in a world that resists it.

Honoria is a Fae and was claimed by Lady Titania. She worked for her as a chef in the Seelie Castle. She is and remains deeply devoted to the Seelie Court. During the tabletop campaign she originated from the courts of Arcadia were disrupted and the titles of monarchy were shattered and splintered into a number of disparate territories and fiefdoms. Within this system, Honoria, carrying the weight of some inordinately powerful Titles began to use her influence to try and tear down all the territories one at a time, freeing the Changeling captives and releasing them to the Fallen World (human realm). She was doing pretty well. Over time she became the unwilling general of an army of Changeling who decided to stay in the Fae Realm to fight for the liberation of their people and retaliate against their oppressors.

Then a genre savvy Fae out-maneuvered Honoria in every way. Exposed her arrogance, weakness and humanity and defeated her so thoroughly that she had to flee and escape.

Eorzea is where she ended up. The calamity left a vulnerability in the space between realms and Nori was able to fit in through the cracks, blending in with all the other refugees of this reborn realm.

Using some of her dwindling Glamour she took the form of an Elezen and tried to blend in with the people of this strange new world. Limsa is where she found her home and since then she has been ushered into the adventures of FFXIV, joining the Scions of the 7th Dawn and fighting as a member of the Maelstrom (currently ranked Lieutenant) and taking keen interest in the struggles of the different races. She was nothing more than a tourist until she met the Slyph. When she returned to The Waking Sands and witnessed a Sylph she had called friend murdered to protect her allies, she stopped treating this world as some place to lick her wounds. She is locked in.

---

Honoria's class is currently Dark Knight. She arrived in Eorzea wielding Titania's axe, glamouring it to appear like a lowly weapon of iron (she felt the irony was appealing. And yes, cold iron can kill her) and wanted to continue using the axe of her queen to fight for justice. But then The Bloody Banquet happened. She fled from Ul'Dah, assuming herself a criminal who would be executed if she ever returned from her exile-upon-exile to Ishgarde. During this time in her adventure she doned a disguise, wearing a mask. She decided that if The Warrior of Light was known for swinging an axe then she would change that too.

This is when she saw Fray murdered by templar knights and saw them cast their body onto a "charity pile", corpses stacked in the poor district so that the underclass could strip their belongings for clothes and scrap before their bodies were left to be torn by the birds outside the city walls. The land is too cold for decomposing and the templars were clearly of the opinion that not everyone needed a burial.

Honoria saw the huge chunk of shrapnel that the defeated dark knight held as a sword and reached in.

Which lead to her becoming a Dark Knight and being forced to face her darker impulses, the rage and selfishness which she had pushed so far from herself that it became a title unto itself. Warrior of Dusk. A part of her fractured soul that she carries with her now.

---

Honoria travels with a small party of scions. Rainy, Holly, Cave and sometimes Lucinda and Oberon. I'll write more about them should their players consent, but for now, she and Rainy have been playing tank/healer duality in dungeons and trials and she has often used her charms to get the guidance and assistance of the far more experienced Garlean she calls her closest ally.

---

She considers Alphi her gossip buddy and she sees a lot of herself in Alisaie. She likes Urianger more than the other Scions and didn't really like Thancred a lot until reuniting with him during the Warriors of Dark questline.

Also she thinks Estinien is the dumbest motherfucker in the realm.

Do not talk to her about Haurchefant or Ysayle. She'll cry.

---

Our party once made a "Why did your WoL allow a teenager to make Outer Heaven?" Meme regarding Alphinaud establishing the Crystal Braves. Honoria fell in the Venn Diagram connection between "Trusts Alphinaud" and "Is a fucking idiot"

---

She wears green and gold, Seelie colors, as a means of honoring her roots and mourning her queen. During ARR she avoided the colors like the plague but during Heavensward she was able to overcome that baggage, especially in accepting Fray into her heart.

---

She loves Chocobo and has both a racing Chocobo (Shadow) and a companion (Grabitze) who she travels with.

---

Her biggest weakness (besides cold iron) is baking and baked goods. This weakness is actually how she was defeated in Arcadia.

---

Under her glamour she is short, round faced and has golden/blonde hair in elaborate braids, her skin is glittery with sugar flakes and she smells of cinnamon. Her disguise is modeled after someone from her past that she respects.

---

She has complicated feelings about faith that are potentially too deep to write outside of an individual post. She writes in a journal at ever free moment she has and has, at a time, confessed she is writing to "Him", though she expects "He" will never read it.

---

Honoria has adopted the implied-canon WoL trait of having PTSD over drinks poured by other people. Allowing someone to hand her a drink is a mark of REMARKABLE trust after everything that's happened.

---

I'll likely add a bunch of new bits of lore about her as time goes on. Writing for her is such a joy and I want to make sure Daja gets to enjoy some of this slither of my life that is happening outside of our regular circles. Plus-- you never know. Maybe I'll start writing some actual fics about her in time.

I honestly started to write her Dark Knight story before I fell ill, missed Charmed and was forced to spend the past 3 weeks catching up on everything while... *gestures at the state of the world*

So... I dunno. We'll see how our time is spent down the road.

[silence-and-reveries]

Long blog

I think a part of me feels afraid to get my manifestations. Like I'm afraid of being my goal weight, I'm afraid of being in a committed relationship with the person I like, I'm afraid of progressing in my dream career.

I'm afraid of the unknowns and that my life could be entirely different and unfamiliar. It sucks to admit but I think growing up with this life and self-concept gave me a victim complex (and also a saviour complex?)

Cause so much of my experiences center around trauma and disparity and I guess that gives me like a sort of validation like "I suffered this much so I'm always allowed to feel bad for myself or not apply myself cause of my shitty situation and poor me" Basically letting myself stay in this state of victimhood where I'm not responsible for anything, but simultaneously everything is responsible for me and my misfortune.

Because when I leave that headspace and I fully take on the fact that "I can have the things I want and it's my own fault that I don't" It paralyzes me. Imagine going from thinking all you could do was swim in the ocean and then seeing you have legs and feet and could easily walk onto land if you wanted to. But you've never been on land before.

It's the same thing with my desires. I've never lived in a state where I felt comfortable acknowledging my wants and needs, I only existed to do as I was told or do what I believed was right for the greater good. Until I couldn't anymore. I legitimately snapped and realized that I couldn't live according to someone else's guidelines for what they think my life should be, because no matter how hard I've tried to suppress it, I still have my own soul and personality.

Here's where the saviour complex comes in. Due to the early burden placed on me of having to "make it" to save my family from ruin, cause nobody seemed to give a fuck about our survival, it just made me more inclined to literally ignore my desires and to feel ashamed for having "reckless" or "unrealistic" aspirations. As well, it made me feel like my goals always had to be in alignment with everyone else's wellbeing.

I felt helpless, I felt doomed and terrified that I wouldn't be able to succeed, cause I couldn't motivate myself to work in a field that didn't suite me. It was the Law of Assumption that showed me that I could choose differently and that the world wouldn't end if I lived to pursue my own desires instead of fulfilling those of others.

Since that time I've left it and come back a couple of times, because I always knew deep down that it was real and that it made everything different. It made me different. I now have full confidence to pursue anything my soul desires, and I feel extremely hopeful and invigorated. But here's where that fear comes in.

Now I have to train myself to unlearn the restrictive and self-limiting mindset of my old life, otherwise my manifestations will disappear as soon as they enter (it happened in the past)

So that's where that fear comes from. It's my old thinking patterns literally not having the schematics to handle success without expecting suffering. Prosperity without incurring punishment. Gain without seeing equal loss.

One of my major underlying beliefs is that my life is just full of pain and lack and that it's literally the destiny I was born with. But that's a false assumption due to correlations drawn between events that had nothing to do with each other. There's no evidence proving that I'm damned or that I'm not supposed to have anything, cause otherwise I would've already noped out of this life. The only thing holding me back and locking me in my own prison was my damn mind.

Once I finally get to my goal weight, my sp is with me, I have the career and the funds, I'm afraid cause idk what I'd do with all that. I don't know what it means to be happy or proud of myself. I imagine myself in my dream body and it doesn't make me feel good, I imagine my sp with me and it doesn't give me butterflies, I imagine being mega successful with tonnes of money and it doesn't inspire joy in me. I can't really understand it. Like, it's normal to live with basically no fear that you'll go hungry or homeless? It's normal to have loving and happy people around you who care about you? It's normal to be successful and acknowledged for your work and awarded? Cause all of that seems completely alien, like I'd be stepping into someone else's body, like I don't belong there.

THIS is why I have to do so much self-concept work and reprogramming of my mind, because not being able to accept the things I already have in my imagination will just lead to me undoing all of the work.

I think this is also why it's taken me so long to manifest things that I think would make my life happier, cause I'm afraid of becoming a happy person. A part of me must feel secure in knowing that if I don't have what I want, I can't lose it. But if I never get what I want in the first place, then I literally DO lose it! So there's always a risk! There's risk in suffering and there's risk in prospering, it's just a matter of picking and staying in the state you desire to be in and making that your comfort zone.

I've become too comfortable and accustomed to the struggle and it's not cute or valiant, I just feel frustrated.

I think my next goal is to just, train myself to expect better, want better, feel a sense of belonging within my ideal reality. I've already done some self-concept re-working, visualization sessions, void state meditations, subliminals and sleep tapes, robotic affirming sessions, robotic scripting. None of these things have made it stick yet. I still don't feel confident that I am the person I desire to become. Idk what to do to get to this point but I'll research more ways to restructure the brain and maybe find something that works for me.

[queer-scots-geordie-dyke]

A nuanced and insightful interview with Mira from November 1996, in the middle of filming S4 of Babylon 5 - it touches on her war time experiences in Yugoslavia and the events that drove her from her home, and the similarities between her own life and that of Delenn. Once again, I am bowled over by the incredible integrity and courage she possessed:

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

It's the one subject that pains Mira Furlan to discuss. The one subject that invades her privacy. The one subject that so violates her very soul.

And yet, it's the one subject that can't be avoided.

Nearly five years to the day of this interview, Furlan left her homeland of Yugoslavia, which was about to be engulfed in a bloody and horrific civil war. Ethnic passions restrained by decades of Communist rule had been unleashed by its collapse. Fascistic Nationalists arose to take its place, many of them former Communists. In their lust for power, they tore apart a nation of disparate republics and peoples that had once been a dream of poets, intellectuals and writers.

As one of Yugoslavia's most prestigious actors, Furlan risked her life and fortune to perform in cities on both sides, in Croatia and in Serbia. She hoped that she could be a bridge of unity, a symbol of pacifism, a clarion warning what terrible price their country would pay for unleashing the war their leaders were about to start.

Except for her husband, Goran Gajic, no one supported her.

Her colleagues abandoned her. Nationalist demagogues threatened to have her killed. Anonymous death threats were left on her answering machine.

She could not go silently. Before she left Yugoslavia, Furlan picked up her pen and wrote a farewell letter to her country. The letter was published a few days later in Zagreb (the capital of Croatia) and Belgrade (the capital of Serbia), cities on opposite sides of the coming war. It began:

“I hereby wish to thank my co-citizens who have joined so unreservedly in this small, marginal and apparently not particularly significant campaign against me. Although marginal, it will change and mark my whole life. Which is, of course, totally irrelevant in the context of the death, destruction, devastation and bloodchilling crimes within which our life now goes on.

This is happening, however, to the one and only life I have. It seems that I've been chosen for some reason to be the filthy rag everyone uses to wipe the mud off their shoes. I am far too desperate to embark on a series of public polemics in the papers. I do, however, feel that I owe myself and my city at least a few words. Like at the end of some clumsy, painful love story, when you keep wanting, wrongly, to explain something more, even though you know at the bottom of your heart that words are wasted; there is no one left to hear them. It is over.”

In Yugoslavia, Furlan was a leading actress of film, television and stage. She appeared in over 25 films, and won two Golden Arenas for Best Actress, their equivalent of the Oscar. Among her acclaimed theatrical roles were Ophelia in Hamlet, Celimene in The Misanthrope, and the title role in Euripides' Helen.

Under socialist rule, the arts were state-funded. "Your star status didn't mean that you were making money. But there were other advantages. Money was not the main obsession. The absence of money gave you a certain degree of creative freedom. We had all the time in the world. Movies were shot forever. Theatre plays were rehearsed forever. I personally was bored with that; things were not quick enough for me. But you had the luxury of having time to explore, to enjoy the creative process. These were the few advantages of living in socialism."

The notion of "freedom" in the arts in a socialist country may come as a surprise to Americans raised on Cold War propaganda asserting the opposite. "With my generation, the Communists were dying off," Furlan said. "Their grip on the artists' community was not as strong as after the war (World War II), when you could be in prison for just saying the wrong sentence. So we didn't feel it. I grew up totally despising them - the so-called them - and not having anything to do with them. And they left me alone. So there was relative freedom. Theatre was free because no one cared, basically. It was so marginal to the cause of the regime that people were left to do what they wanted. Film was much more dangerous, thus much more controlled."

That started to change when the Nationalists came to power. "The Yugoslav Communists didn't have the force that these new Nationalists now have, because these new leaders feel that the world is starting from them. They're creating new realities, new history, new language, new values. There's always this passion in the beginning; as a citizen, you don't want to be touched by that passion, because it can cost you your life."

Life in the former Yugoslavia was a political lifestyle largely unknown to Americans. "It was a double life. People had their own private thoughts. Publicly, they behaved as was prescribed; the majority were members of the Communist Party. Opportunism ruled. I think all Eastern Europeans have that built in — no confidence in any government, in any politicians. But, a contradiction! When Communism collapsed, Nationalism was born out of the old Communism. Trained in opportunism, people easily converted from Communism to Nationalism. That's the irony of it. Nothing has changed. The same people, the same names. The same faces. They just converted, switched just like that. That's what's so ugly in that whole situation. You just watch it and cannot believe that people don't remember what they were saying just two months ago. They didn't learn anything. They actually jumped into the first trap, completely surrendering to those new Nationalist leaders that brought them only pain lsss and devastation."

“I have no other way of thinking. I cannot accept war as the only solution, I cannot force myself to hate, I cannot believe that weapons, killing, revenge, hatred, that such an accumulation of evil will ever solve anything. Each individual who personally accepts the war is in fact an accessory to the crime; must he not then take a part of the guilt for the war, a part of the responsibility?”

"Historically, there were all kinds of frustrations on all sides, among all the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. There was a general feeling that each of these peoples who lived together in the former Yugoslavia had been somehow abused by the others. And there was a lot of truth in that. Nationalism is always partly grounded in truth. The Nationalists' politics manipulated the existing anger and frustration of the people and put their emphasis on that, and that's how the war started. The new Nationalists, who were for the most part converted Communists, took all the media. Journalists, I think, and media in general, bear an incredible responsibility for what happened."

The Babylon 5 episode being filmed during this interview, "The Illusion of Truth," has some eerie parallels. An ISN news crew films a documentary on B5, only to use the footage in a propaganda film for President Clark's fascist regime. It's an allegory for how America was consumed by Senator Joe McCarthy's witch hunts in the 1950s. "Sometimes I'm so appalled by what Joe (Straczynski) knows. I happened to experience a witch hunt — as an object! — but it's nothing new. Old stuff."

Furlan drew the attention of the Nationalists after she travelled from her home in Zagreb, Croatia to Belgrade, Serbia to perform at the annual BITEF Festival. BITEF was an international theatre event attended by actors from across Europe. She believed that her participation was a statement that her profession should not be drawn into supporting any political or national ideas. She felt it was her responsibility to establish bridges and ties, "for the sake of something that would outlive this war and this hatred which is so foreign to me," she wrote at the time. But the political leaders in Croatia were furious with her — and targeted her as an example of what would happen to others who chose the same path. Fearful for their careers, if not for their lives, and perhaps even sympathetic of the Nationalist cause, none of her colleagues spoke up to defend her.

“I think, I know and I feel that it is my duty, the duty of our profession, to build bridges. To never give up on cooperation and community. Not that national community. The Professional community. The human community. And even when things are at their very worst, as they are now, we must insist to our last breath on building and sustaining a bond between people. This is how we pledge to the future. And one day it will come . . .

I was willing and I would still be willing to undertake all and any efforts, if the hatred hadn't suddenly overwhelmed me with its horrendous ferocity, hatred welling from the city I was born in. I am appalled by the force and magnitude of that hatred, by its perfect unanimity, by the fact that there was absolutely nobody who could see my gesture as my defense of the integrity of the profession, as my attempt to defend at least one excellent theatre performance.”

"People's behavior is mainly built on fear. People think, 'Let them destroy her but just leave us alone.' When the media went crazy in Yugoslavia, I was a good example. I was a perfect target. I was a totally unprotected woman. Woman, that's very important. The war propaganda was constantly in search of 'internal enemies' just to homogenize the people, and to put fear in their heads so they could manipulate them. It's interesting that the majority of the 'internal enemies' were women. It's a very misogynist culture. It's a very misogynist world. I happen to be partly Jewish, and that came into the picture nicely. And I was never very obedient in my life and career. I left projects that I didn't really believe in. I made some unexpected choices in my work and in my life. All of that got wrapped up - Liberal. Feminist. Whore. Jew. Everything. The media combined it into this juicy bundle and served it to the people, who devoured it."

Abandoned by her friends and colleagues, and living with the threat of assassination, Furlan and her husband left Yugoslavia on November 15, 1991 for New York. She left behind the open letter explaining her departure.

“I am sending this letter into a void, into darkness, without an inkling of who will read it and how, or in how many different ways it will be misused or abused. Chances are it will serve as food for the eternally hungry propaganda beast. Perhaps someone with a pure heart will read it after all.

I will be grateful to that someone.”

American life and culture were a difficult adjustment, both in her profession and her personal life. Furlan has found the acting profession, indeed the entire entertainment industry, radically different from what she knew. Unlike in Yugoslavia, she found that diverse acting talents in the United States were rarely appreciated, much less rewarded.

"It's a European tradition among actors. Serious actors build their career in the theatre," Furlan said. "It's a completely different thing in America. The theatre is so marginal. The theatre doesn't matter because it's not mass culture. It's not the money-making machine. So yeah, I've learned that. We had a crash course in capitalism in the toughest spot. Hollywood is probably the toughest spot on Earth that way, the most cruel. It's a struggle, it's a fight. It's all about publicity and agents and names. That's what I really hate about being an actor here. I hated many things about acting in Yugoslavia. I was frustrated, and felt hopeless as an actor in socialism. I hated many things there, but I really miss concentrating on my work, which should be enough ideally, and it's not. Here, it's just a tiny part of everything else. Everything else is much more important, and you have to do so much of it yourself because no one else cares. Doing stuff that takes away your energy and your concentration and your precious time. These telephone conversations with people who have no interest in you, who don't have interest in anything but quick and easy money."

Babylon 5 is Furlan's first major television role in the United States; in fact it was one of her first auditions. It was also her introduction to science fiction. "I'm completely new to this whole thing. I knew the basics of science fiction literature — Bradbury, Clarke, just general culture — but there wasn't anything remotely similar to this. I was shocked when I went to my first convention."

The similarities between Furlan's life and Delenn's travails are striking. But it seems that it's no more than an amazing coincidence. According to Furlan, Straczynski didn't even know about her personal history when she was hired to play Delenn. "He surprises me so many times. And sometimes I feel as if he's written something directly for me. But he didn't know anything about me. Nothing. When the series started, we talked and he found out."

Furlan was an only child, raised among adults in a family of university professors. What was it that led her into acting? "It was a game! I always wanted to study languages. I studied English and French when I finished high school. I did them together, languages and acting. I went to the Academy for Film, Theatre and TV, and the University. But it was the other part of me, the part that wants to play, that finally won over the serious part, the one who sits at home and reads and learns and does research. It started as a game, it started as 'Let's play.'

"When I started at the Academy, they always used me for comedy, for light, playful stuff. Then I did a play in which something clicked in me. It was an English play in a famous little avant garde theatre, with only me and another actor. It was a very heavy play about marriage, marriage in three stages, which ends with this woman committing suicide on stage. I was so much younger than the part I played, but it completely opened this world of reality in acting. It started a journey inward for me. Once you experience that, once you open up in that way - people talk about getting in touch with your emotions, that's what you do in acting. That's your main job. That's your profession.

"That's why I miss theatre. That's the beauty of doing theatre. You are in touch with the greatest writers of world literature. Their thoughts, their characters. That's unbeatable. That's a pleasure in itself, no matter in what way it forwards your so-called career. I miss film. I miss having time to try things to discover subtleties, layers, little things. The comforting thing on Babylon 5 is Joe's writing, which sometimes touches the depth of the classic literature."

If Straczynski were to ask her to write a B5 episode, what story would she tell?" I have an image for some reason of the set for The Wizard of Oz. I'm in the middle, kind of a Dorothy figure. On one side is G'Kar, and on the other side is Londo, and we walk towards some incredible adventure. Having them on each side of me would make me feel strong and protected, and I would dare to go anywhere!" She suggests that her cat could play Toto, and we agree that cats are very Minbari.

Babylon 5 is fiction. But much of that fiction is rooted in reality, the reality of our 20th Century. It's easy to turn off the TV each week at the end of the hour, put away the popcorn bowl and say, "Aw, that couldn't happen here." But it has. It does. And it will.

Delenn is a fictional character, but Mira Furlan is not. It's easy for a fictional character to risk her life for a cause. For a living human being with friends, family, and a successful career, that decision is much more difficult. Fiction often poses for its characters the question, "Will you sacrifice all for what you believe?" In the fictional world of Babylon 5, that question is, "Who are you?" Reality rarely presents any of us with that challenge. Few of us will ever know what our answer would be.

All Mira Furlan ever wanted was to experience the pure joy of acting, the inward exploration of her soul, and to share that exploration with her audience. But history forced her to explore down unseen paths, paths of darkness, the same paths that took countless lives in her homeland. History demanded, "Who are you?"

Mira answered, and suffered for it. She and Goran have started a new life in America, strangers in a strange land. Their experience reminds us that life may one day demand a test of our integrity. If it does, let us hope that we are equal to their courage.