#For I intend to make lore.

[ramblings-from-the-ether]

Saw Something, Done Something.

So one day, us writers of this blog came across this blog title:

And I was struck with inspiration for a storyline using this as the prompt. Essentially, Epithet Erased's beloved protagonist somehow becomes President of the United Mexican States (formal name of Mexico)

Within hour 1, several ground ideas were put in place:

The world of Epithet Erased must be somehow connected to a version of our world with 'Molly-favourable conditions'. This is explained with Taiga Country (the country where Epithet Erased mainly takes place in) somehow creating a portal system; with informal/civilian-to-civilian information transfer permitted between both sides.

Mexico falls in love with Molly. Basically Everyone* + Mexico Adopts Molly. Even the cartels spread Molly-related propaganda for their own PR aims.

Molly wins the 2024 Mexican Elections. Who will be Molly's political party? Well the EAM family (credits to @epitheterasedgen for the original concept) will support her! Her victory was not supposed to be possible anyways, but the people put enough write-in votes to make history.

Within 3 hours, despite having to focus on studies, I came up with this:

A full web of potential outcomes of the Electoral Crisis Molly triggers (I mean, most countries I know do not legally allow its head of state to be an underaged foreign citizen who has never step foot in the country). Plus the political aspects. There is even a civil war option with its own web of outcomes and factions. All of this have up to hours worth of thought put into it.

ALL HAIL THE BRAINROT!

MORE COMING SOON.

Welcoming lore-related questions about this concept.

Credits to @bonjurinko for the original inspiration.

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[dumborangecat]

She made it out alive, but at what cost?

[justlookatthosesausages]

This is going to sound preposterous but I really hope that the One Piece live action series will mark the beginning of a new era. I hope it will make big numbers and be acclaimed by fans, because it will teach hollywood and entertainment monopolies that when one takes time and involves the right people to make a live adaptation of a huge franchise, it always pays off.

I'm wishing for the moon here but I want stupid marketers to get it. I may not be a fan of One Piece at all, it'd be an honor in 20 years from now to say that they walked so many other good adaptations could run.

[lazycranberrydoodles]

ughhhhh so probably the tgcf scene i think the most about is in the final battle when hua cheng is holding xie lian and backwards gripping eming with his other hand i . god. this is referenced off of The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel (i’m pretty sure everyone has seen it by this point) which is surprisingly pretty topical for tgcf.

[ghost-bxrd]

"You're a kid whos mom was obsessed with a cult, and when you were just 12, she sacrificed you. You end in hell and expected to be tortured for eternity, but turns out the demon wanted a child of his own"

by WRITING PROMPTs

Maybe Bruce?

Aweee now, just imagine!

These cultists? Totally an accident that they for the ritual right. Jason doesn’t die so much as he just seem to kind of vanish into smoke and—

wtf.

Ok.

There’s- there’s a whole child.

Right at Bruce feet. All of a sudden.

A human child.

In hell.

And look, they couldn’t have chosen a worse demon to send a sacrifice to because Bruce? He’s a protector of children.

Because there’s something that so many story and demonology books get wrong.

Hell is for the bad people to be punished for all eternity.

And Bruce? And all the other demons populating hell? Well, they exist solely for one reason:

To punish sinners for the crimes they committed in life.

It’s a jail. Bruce and his fellow demons are the jailers. They don’t guard the doors of hell because they don’t want anybody to get in, they’re guarding them so nobody gets out.

But children, children have no business being in this place of torture and agony. Not ever. There’s a whole ass system in place to keep the good souls from accidentally wandering where they shouldn’t be.

So Bruce sees this tiny, starved child crying and screaming and— fuck. This is a Dick situation, isn’t it? He needs to go to earth. Again. And drag some people down to damnation all early and piss off death again. But you know what? Tough shit. They want a demon? They’re gonna get one.

(Jason is soon introduced to another strange human after he mysteriously pops back up on earth. His name is Richard “Dick” Grayson, and his teeth are too sharp and his pupils look almost reptilian in the right light, but he takes Jason to a big ass house with a real strange butler and lots of food.

Jason thinks he’s seen the weird Brucie guy who introduces himself as Dick’s dad somewhere before… but Jason is cool with not looking a gift horse in the mouth. After all, what are the chances he’ll fall into another cult’s hands so soon after the last?)

[ancientbygone]

shall we renounce

from where we've come

and who we were?

[theminecraftbee]

you know sometimes one of the things the fandom does that i like the least is joke about how certain ccs are "lorephobic" because it basically always ignores the lore they actually are really and visibly doing. like, sure, they may not be doing the lore YOU'RE looking at, but, one, lore doesn't just mean "big overarching server storyline" it can also mean solo stuff. it can also mean 'builds that have story built into them'. it can also mean 'fun little storyline between like two guys'. it can also mean character continuity. it can mean many things. two, "this guy doesn't do lore" is NOT the same thing as "this guy doesn't do the specific lore i personally like and want to see them doing" and i don't always think you guys know the difference. all of this, of course, is to say: hey guys did you know zedaph can canonically time travel,

[zombiecicada]

Here there Wolfbell, how has it been? What do you think of the fellow competitors?

Ps: Do you like pasta? (Holding large bowl of spagetti)

Wolfbell: ……it could be better.

Wolfbell: The… others..? I’ve met a lot of people now.

Wolfbell: I’ve met s…some who’ve… b-been friendly to me.

Wolfbell: and then….. there’s a couple I’ve only seen from afar, who… I’d approach and talk to, if I only had the courage…

Wolfbell: and then.. the ones who have asked me… big questions… w-who are… like me in many ways… who have taught me I am…. Not alone in my e-experiences.

Wolfbell: and then… there’s the ones I find.. t.. terrifying.

Wolfbell, trying to keep her stomach from twisting at the scent of food: …. N.. no.. no thank you. Not right now.

-

@kirbyoctournament

Mirage belongs to @adridoot

Halley belongs to @zprite-x

Lady Celestine belongs to @kirbybecomesastarwarrior

Dotty belongs to @cauli-flawa

Techie belongs to @ivynajspyder

Wisp belongs to @moonsharkss

Starry Dee belongs to @staring-at-a-blank-pagee

Star belongs to @c0ffee-7

Fylass belongs to @george228732

Dazor belongs to @a-stardusted-sky

Necro Knight belongs to @dark-mega

Uther belongs to @quanblovk

Peony belongs to @giantchasm

-

[nessacousland]

As much as I like the reveal that the ancient elves were spirits forging themselves bodies out of lyrium in-universe...

It's certainly a choice to bake pretty overt parallels between a species that for all intents and purposes should never have existed - whose existence is in fact the catalyst for almost every known misfortune plaguing Thedas - and certain real life peoples right into the worldbuilding.

But it’s an even more "interesting" choice to then retroactively whitewash all the horrific oppression their descendants have suffered for eons in order to justify the suggestion that modern elves may just deserve any "future" mistreatment and distrust coming their way.

[liliaceaae]

Rhea’s home island; Brinerift

+closeups

Located somewhere around original Marineford, Brinerift is home to backup Navy dispatch troops. The island is divided into an inland town, and a seaside town, which wraps all the way around the coast.

Brinerift used to be a unified Island, however, it was hit by a tsunami and it wiped out everything except the inland town. Brinerift’s surrounding waters are extremely toxic and volatile, making the island highly susceptible to tsunami occurrences. The government seized this opportunity to invade and occupy the shore to establish a Navy base under the declaration that they’d guard the citizens from any more natural disasters.

The sea in the area is toxic due to the extreme salt concentration. The salinity makes travel with a ship without motors or paddles, like Navy warships, incredibly difficult to navigate the waters around Brinerift. The sea will quickly eat away at the quality of wood and metal and makes it nearly impossible to sail out to the next nearest Island.

Seaside residents have access to outside trade, Navy lead education, and free access to inland travel.

In order to qualify as a seaside resident, at least one person in the family must be enrolled in the Navy. If that person dies in action, the rest of the family’s rights to settle at the shore are retracted. Dissented soldier’s rights are stripped, and only their offspring may regain their Navy status. Many of the Brinerift citizens have multiple children for this reason, to have multiple sources of “security.” The benefits of the seaside makes the inland life seem unworthy in comparison.

Inland residents are heavily restricted and must sustain themselves on local agriculture, with no access to foreign resources.

Only if granted limited-time clearance may inland citizens enter the Seaside town. Students from inland are allowed and encouraged to go to school in the seaside town; A subtle way to brainwash the children to convince them and their families to join the Navy and relocate. Many inland residents consist of elderly people who still care deeply and tend to their natural fauna. The island’s oldest belief is to cherish and respect their nature.

The Brinerift people regard the sea as a vengeful god; Believing that if you aren’t obedient, it will send tsunamis as punishment. Over time, the people came to regard their local ecosystem with intense respect and love.

Tension points

Where the rivers come too close to the ocean shore, the BR residents worry that one more tsunami encounter will eliminate their only source of fresh water

Where the marines settle at the edge of the North forest, they argue that they need more space to establish buildings in order to complete the breakwall on this side of the island

[akkivee]

ALSO??????? WHAT TF DO YOU MEAN THEY UPDATED GENTAROS CATCHPRASE??????

AND THAT THEY CHANGED A LINE IN ARB WHERE HE REFERENCED THAT OLD CATCHPRASE INTO SOMETHING NEW THAT EXPRESSES HIS WILL TO CONTINUE ON WITH THE LIE??????

AND THAT WILL IN OF ITSELF WAS REFERENCED THIS WHOLE TIME IN HIS NEW SOLO WITH HOW THE POEM LITERALLY ENDS WITH HIM SAYING HE WILL CONTINUE TO LIE??????

[boundinparchment]

All these leaks have me convinced I’m just not meant to enjoy Natlan, lore wise or character wise 💔

Hot take I guess, sorry in advance

[the-mononoke-facade]

Alright, so there's been some talk about whether Shusu is actually a different medicine vendor from Ri Kusu (show Kusu), and at first that was my assumption (or my preference since I found the characterization in the book went all in on the detached, stoic side of things than any of the other things that make Kusu an interesting character). But the more I think about it, the more I'm like "is he though?"

And my wondering about it comes from two places, first being that the theme of disentangling harmful attachments is what the book is named after, and the other is the descriptions of the taima sword both sheathed and released, as well as the descriptions of Hyper/Shingi thoughout the book

(spoilers for Shu, since I've seen more people asking about it lately, as well as including suppositions based on recent lore drops and some minor spoilers for Karakasa based on trailers and the like)

Starting with the descriptions of the sword and Hyper, despite the sword being depicted on the cover being a now seemingly defunct design from older promotional material for Karakasa, the sword is described in the first story, Kama Itachi, as having the kinds of colored stones that are characteristic of the Ri taima sword when sheathed.

When released, it's described in multiple stories with some variation of being "an enormous, glimmering blade," which is also what we've seen throughout the show for the Ri sword. The Shingi of Shu is described with gold, serpentine patterns snaking all along his exposed skin (also tanned but given Shingi also has darker skin, that specific detail might just go with being a spirit of the sword), Kama Itachi mentions gold brocade (it's unclear from what I was ever able to translate of it if it was referring to the robe or the markings, so take that with a grain of salt), Toutetsu mentions the kumadori markings on Kusu's face becoming more elaborate from how they started (compared, again, to Kon Shingi and Kusu where their respective face markings don't seem to have a whole lot in common except maybe the eyebrow area), and then Tamamo no Mae outlines the crimson eyes and silver hair. All of that sounds an awful lot like Hyper and the Ri taima sword (and you know, I kinda figured Fuguruma Youbi would have a better description to pull on as well given how like half a page was Tamenaga just contemplating Kusu's beauty and like, me too man, me too, but ah well)

Could it be a matter of these characteristics being in line with how swords associated with any of the hexagrams with fire as a component seem to show up? It's definitely not impossible, and I certainly don't know enough about how I Ching works to make any certain statements on that, but if I were to speculate on a little bit I noticed poking around a hexagram lookup table, with the hexagrams that are composed of two different elements, it seems to be less about one element being dominant over the other so much as two elements meeting in a certain arrangement to create a new result (and even with two hexagrams composed of the same elements, which of the two elements is on top of the hexagram can drastically change the meaning). So then if each permutation creates a unique end result, wouldn't it also follow that the respective swords would all be pretty unique from each other? How would you even determine that "yes, this is the trigram element this sword is associated with"? By the top of the hexagram? The bottom? The yin/yang alignment of the sword? To my mind, it makes more sense for all the swords (and therefore the spirits attached to them) to be unique to their own hexagram (again, not an expert by any means, I'm open to other takes on how that could work, this is just my working idea of how it works)

So if the swords ARE all meant to be unique, then it's a safe assumption that the sword in Shu is the Ri sword. Does that necessarily mean it's the same medicine vendor wielding the sword? Not necessarily, we don't have any information on what happens to a sword should a medicine vendor fall trying to slay a mononoke; does it disappear? Does the sword spirit die alongside that medicine vendor (especially if it happens after the sword's been released)? And what happens to a medicine vendor if a particular sword doesn't need to be in play at that particular moment, given that it seems from the lore drop that the number of swords in play can go up or down? Does he disappear? Does he get stripped of the qualities that made him a medicine vendor and continue living on as a human? Some kind of unaffiliated ayakashi waiting in reserve for when the sword needs to come back into play? Enter the collective unconscious? Is it possible for this sword to show up the same as it is for a different wielder? All of that is the realm of theories and headcanons for now, but it's not impossible that it's a different hand wielding the same sword (and if it's a different entity, is it a reincarnation of the same soul or is a new one selected?)

With my second sticking point being the theming of letting go of harmful attachments that is the book's namesake, which is a common theme that also runs throughout the arcs of the show (Tamaki and the cat being stuck to haunt the Sakai manor without having gotten any justice for the atrocities commited by the family, the zashiki warashi letting go of being ripped away from the women they chose to be their mothers in this life as well as Shino's letting go of the exercise in futility that would have been using her body and sacrificing the baby she already has to try to right that wrong, Genkei's fixation on his guilt over Oyou's sacrifice, Ochou's futile attempts to meet her mother's selfish expectations, the todaiji feeding the greed and obsession of the suitors and its own obsession with being desired, Ishikawa's drive and tenacity to find the truth persisting even after her death)

From that angle, the various stories in Shu are pretty much in line with that theme as well: Tokuemon's deep-seated grudge against his abusive father, especially when that abuse was suffered in service to an ancient obsession of his family for riches and honors; Hori Mondo's obsession with his late master and the honor that should be able to be assumed with the ruling samurai class which is disproven by his master's successor, who himself is obsessed with proving himself capable of filling his father's massive shoes, Ishiuemon's obsession with increasing his own power at the expense of Zen, who becomes obsessed with becoming Ishiuemon's wife even as she was nothing more to him than a pawn; Kei's attachment to the notion that she's owed something going right for her after a life that's been filled with hardships, Hagino's obsession with her husband's all-but-confirmed infidelity even at the cost of her daughter, Takaharu's not being able to keep it in his pants for the sake of the family he already has, Koharu's obsession with gaining her mother's affection; Shunsui's obsession with being a popular author and narrator and tainting Ofumi with that obsession when he betrays her trust to help get her love letters over to a more accomplished author that Shunsui both reveres and is jealous of; Jinjirou's obsession with getting his family's sacrifice properly honored when everyone around him seems keen to shrug it off; Tadayoshi's obsession with getting his daughter Kaede safe behind the walls of the Ooku and Kaede's drive to meet his expectations even as they bear down on her

I had mused a while ago that the feminist theming, in contrast, seems to be missing, putting more focus on the woes of the men in the story often at the expense of the women around them, but in hindsight I almost wonder if that's actually the point (and I think I'll find a more solid answer to this in Oni, from what I've gleaned so far, so this might be another "put a pin in it" thought as well...but that pin's going to be in for a very long time at the pace I'm going through this book lol). Another common thread with Shu is the letting go of how things used to be with a lot of the expectations chaining these characters coming from the Sengoku era, which just don't work going into the "peaceful" Edo era. While women's rights prior to Edo weren't exactly robust, they were stripped down over the course of the Edo era.

It could be taken, then, that this comparatively larger focus on men at the expense of the women around them is another reflection of moving into and accepting Edo-era paradigms, and also giving a peek into the unintended (or maybe "unintended") consequences of putting safety and control over freedom. From that angle, a medicine vendor meant to embody not just a woman's desire but also what a woman wants to be would also then become gradually less considered over time (and while he never had the kind of involvement in Shu that he does in the show, there is a general trend over the course of the stories of his engagement falling off a little more with each story). Ending the book with Nuppera-hofu, with Kaede losing her face as her father lost sight of why he was fighting so hard to get her into the Ooku ("she'll be safe there and won't disappear like my wife and eldest daughter did"), where it's not even clear which sister is the one being sent to the Ooku by the end of the story but what does that matter when the goal of getting to the Ooku was achieved, then leads in very nicely to Karakasa, where so many women have lost their individuality in service to "the greater good" until it hits a tipping point, the karakasa becomes active and starts upending everything that the Ooku was built on, and possibly even projecting that outward to reflect what's happening in the rest of the country as well

So then to bring it back to whether Shu Kusu is Ri Kusu or not, if being more passive, or more "feminine" starts to fall in line with the increase of systemic oppression women face in this new era, then in order to reclaim some of his own power and agency, Kusu would need to start to be more active, not a spectator but an actor, and then that leads into Ayakashi Bakeneko, where he's at his most emotive, his most active, and pushing the hardest to be in control of the situation, before gradually over the course of the show relinquishing more control to start to shift back into more of a passive spectator role as women start to chafe under the abuses they're suffering in this restrictive period and fighting to get some of their power back, having the second Bakeneko arc happening somewhere in the 1920s (still obviously a lot of problems, both the old deep-rooted ones and the new ones coming from the reactionaries that don't care much for these seeds of more equality between men and women starting to grow, Moriya being the poster boy for that group and their trying to act like they're the victims in all this while they start running out of justifications for "putting women in their place"), but with more power being reclaimed, he then wouldn't need to be quite as active or "masculine" to be able to have the power or influence needed to get the truths from the humans he needs to perform his duty, so then the differences in characterization could be reflective of what is needed for the era in question. It could also be a matter of the Ri sword and the need to cut away attachments becoming less and less necessary over this general period of human emotion, to where the sword is taken out of play by the end of Shu and the wielder of Ri we see in the show is either a new medicine vendor, or the same one but with a mandatory vacation thrown in there to discombobulate him on how human emotion sphere looks by the time he gets back

Anyway, that's a lot of rambling to say there's a case for it being at least the same sword if not also the same medicine vendor as the show, and it's a matter of the framing and themes of Shu not doing any favors to him for highlighting the things that make him a cool character

[drfetusdaily]

ive decided to share some of my personal au doodles (what spawned my fangame) cuz i think it gives more insight of the ways i see them .. sniles so sneetly

some design stuff has changed since some of these doodle creations but theyre still mostly the same .. grin

[aghostsdestiny]

'Whether by chance encounter or not, if It sees fit to pursue you, no road is safe for you to be on.'

@finalityzine