#I also contacted the other pcp pagans as I said I would

[cryptidsmagick]

Not related to Cookie Run (I run Identity Coining, for reference, if you've noticed a similar syntax) but I can't exactly say I, personally, haven't had a problem with anything due to... Avatars of the Archive.

I fully understand that it was originally a request, but there are still...a few things.

TMA Paganism does not have a leader at all, obviously, however the server I'm in (nearly been in it for a year, it's been around for 4-5 years now; founded near the end of TMA), has been a dominating space for TMA Paganism on Discord, and one of the members runs the TMA Pagans, which is just as old of a member of the community.

And again, they do not lead it, but I did extend an invitation on their behalf for discussion as they welcome other forms of PCP/neo-faiths as well for discussion (there's a dedicated channel), as they would've been happy to discuss their concerns and give advice as people who've been in the pop culture paganism community for a while!

Now, the main issue me and other TMA Pagans had:

The Name.

Avatars of the Archive imply members of the Magnus Insitute of London, which is reserved for Eye Avatars. Now, "The Magnus Archives," and "TMA" will inevitably be used to address the avatars and their entities to address them as determiners, but more vague terms can be used (Smirke, Lietner, and Jonah Magnus have been brutally pipe murdered peer-reviewed by the community, however, Dread Fears is a canon term people wouldn't mind being spun off of to describe their practice).

Plus, there are canon names for some of these TMA faiths. Imagine if someone started coining names for Christian sects that already had names—people would not be pleased. A lot of eldritch horror media has canon faiths that should be acknowledged before coining any religion imo, such as the Silt Verse.

Now, once again stemming from the name, Avatars of the Archive implies everyone who follows the faith is an avatar or describes themselves as such.

Summary 1: Name can be easily mistaken for things/is confusing. There are more canon-appropriate names + canon subfaiths that should've been included on the wiki page.

Absolutely not!

One of the older members of the community I mentioned typed up this lovely article regarding discernment between avatars, devotees, etc.

In simple, avatars are individuals who feed off others. Devotees, are, evidently devoted but are not necessarily Avatars. Then there's the Prey/normal people who the entities feed off of but do not Hunt for themselves. So forth.

"The Prey" may not be comfortable with the idea of being an Avatar. They are, often, not even comfortable acknowledging that they even are prey for an entity.

"The Avatars" might not even be comfortable grouping with others in a religion, which is why even with the canon faiths, there were canon divisions and loners and so forth.

Media likes this has very specific terms that should be respected. They also have phrases that should be respected.

To get my point across, you wouldn't address a TMA Pagan with "Ceasless Watcher, turn your gaze [...]" because it's the equivalent of a hex. You wouldn't address a Silt Verse Pagan with "The river rises" because it's the equivalent of a hex. So if you wouldn't misuse a hex, why should you misuse everything else?

Summary 2: Elaborating on some issues with the name, Avatar should not be used as a catchall address.

Then there's the fact it's a Religion.

I love the concept of Neoreligions, hell, I coined a couple of neoreligions on request, but evidently, I had some qualms when I felt an obligation to write an essay regarding the Dreadful Ones.

To start with unpacking this: Religion inherently implies there is a defined system for a faith. The person who started it believed in itself or started, intentionally or unintentionally, as a cult. I'm being brutally honest here.

Now, obviously, we don't want that. But it's nice to have a term to bring members of similar beliefs together.

The issue, again, lies inherently in religion.

However, this is the only available term at the moment besides the recently coined, Neomythic.

Now, ficto-religions do not have a defined system as they're just...chaos magic. More specifically, they center on the pop culture paganism branch of chaos magic. By trying to shape it into a religion, you're taking the freedom of paganism out of it, no matter how vague you try to make it.

This is inherently harmless, but plants seeds for harm.

Concerns are further discussed here.

Summary 3: Ficto-religion in general; taking paganism out of pcp and making it religion is harmful to practitioners. Requires putting the coiner at center (or at least, making it the "supreme" or "right" form of practice) which opens ways to fults/cults and discourse.

Regarding the Dreadful Ones—

I did not coin the term. The term was entirely paganism based, and references to the Magnus Archives (Dread Fears? Dreadful Ones?), and as result of tumbling across @redacted-coiner, it was requested that I make a flag. And I did, heavily linking to the original coining and other beliefs that wold fall under the umbrella.

Even though the flag was coined under "Dreadful Ones Ficto-Religion," it is not a religion but a general self-identifier for a path one might follow in their pagan journey.

Summary 4: More about Dreadful Ones; It's not a religion.

Just a word of advice.

I feel as if more people haven't commented with their opinions because you aren't coining with the right tags. If you tagged the original communities (please just look at the tags below as an example, I'm not going to write them out twice /tired), you would find a lot more people will comment. So far, you've only been tagging with liom and mogai which people usually don't look to for faith/paganism/religion/etc, and have not been reaching to the right people. The community cannot provide input if you stay in a dusty corner of Tumblr walled by your own terms. No offense, but the only reason I found you was due to following queer tags as a member of the LGBTQ community.

Summary 5: More tags/relevant tags = more input.

Hi being someone brought this up to my intention, did I do something wrong with Baked Faith (Cookie Run Ficto Religon) in the way I explained the term? To my memory I wasn't informed that anything was wrong but if I did please inform me? I did expand on the subgroups within it's wiki page but I just want to make sure something isn't wrong.

If I don't do something right with my terms I do apologize. But if possible please inform me directly if something is wrong, I will not always see comments about things so having a direct line of comment would be helpful.