#I am SO sad right now it's not even funny

[gamerexdrex]

It was like being jolted awake

You… become aware of the blade on your hands, Leather handle rough, well worn and blade pristine; you slowly begin to let go of it, suddently being very aware of the fact that those are your hands.

You- you know they are your hands, logically you know they are but you weren’t- they always felt so far, so numb, why-

You begin to breathe heavily. Breathe- you never felt the air entering your lungs, the smells of wax and ink and blood and sweat and and and-

You fall backwards, because you didn’t expect to feel your legs moving, to be aware of them.

Looking around for, something, anything, to stop this makes everything worse.

Was the floor always so cold? Was the sun always so bright, so warm? You never paid any mind to how rough your hands felt, to how sore your body always was. Why does your side hurt? Your head?

Why is there water falling out of your eyes? Why, why, why why why whywhywhwy-

And suddenly, it all went quiet.

You look around, and see The Archimage

Oh fuck, The Archimage

Honestly, they looked oddly well despite having just survived an attempt on their life if you say so yourself. Their cape lost a sleeve, sure, and right now they are bleeding so much from their forehead they can’t open an eye; but otherwise just looks like they always do.

Long silver braid, floating pleasantly around them, a blue long-brimmed hat that could easily protect two people from the rain, a scarf peppered with stars; you can even see silver tatooes on his brown skin.

You keep staring at their clothes feeling… something odd. It makes your chest feel funny, and you can’t stop staring and the scarf, observing the stars and planets move on the silk.

“How odd” says The Archimage.

You jump, you had forgotten he was there with you in-in-

Wait, weren’t you at his tower?

You look around to see a blue nothing surrounding you both; If you looked closer, you could see small shiny currents, moving plesantly like diamonds in water.

You reallllly want to touch it.

…

You don’t know why you want to touch it.

You jump, again, when you feel the tiniest brush against your back.

“Ah” the Archimage looks, sad? “My apologies young one, I did not mean to startle you” they explain “I just needed to see something better, and assumed you were more at ease now”

They at their palm “Tell me, since when did you suffer from the control spell?”

What

The surprice must have been shown on your face because The Archimage looks absolutly baffled “You didn’t know?”

Altough being aware of feeling your neck move is nauseating, you slowly shake your head.

This makes him somehow even more baffled “what do you mean? You should have known! Nobody just not feels their body being stolen; your feeling going away, so how in the Orion’s belt did you-“ he stops himself, looking very suddently horrified.

“Tell me, young one, have you ever felt… like everything is away, like seeing it from a far?”

You nod.

“Have you ever stopped feeling that way before today?”

You shake your head.

The Archimage looks… devastated. It’s so different to went you tried to kill them, so much more ready to crumble than when fighting for their life.

You could use that, you could try stricking now that they look so defeated, yet something stops you. You feel like you have swallowed a rock, keeping you in place, all because of The Archimage’s teary face.

You remember something you know people do when others are upset, but you never had to do it before. You stand up on shacky legs, and clumsilu walk towards the Mage. He looks at you, just a tad bit confused, before you wrap your arms around his chest.

You both freeze for a moment, you really didn’t think this all the way.

Still, The Archimage relaxes, and very lightly, wraps their arms around you too.

Your chest is weird again, warm you think. Like all that happened today was just a memory

You raspally ask “Am I doing it right”

The Archimage responds “yes, you are doing well”

Trained from birth as an assassin, your mind was bound by a powerful control spell. Sent to kill an archmage, they cast Dispel to weaken you—accidentally freeing your mind instead. For the first time, your dagger points wherever you choose.

[allonsyisabelli]

My phone did a factory reset out of nowhere and I lost ALL of my drawings. So fuck it, here are the sketches I've managed to recover by screenshotting and sending them to my friends.

[revvethasmythh]

you ever think about the parallels drawn between veth's brothers and khaaz, the goblin who had her killed. the way veth sees her brothers when khaaz laughs at her expense. the way they both call her circumstances a "penance" that she has to pay, for the crimes of being "annoying" or fighting to survive. the fact that veth thought she deserved it

[eternalergo]

what a day ☀️

[friend-shaped-but]

ALLLL right, long post time. I will be talking about "classical" lit, folk traditions, and, most of all, published genre mythofiction when I try to answer this. I know your query is more about the mythology fandom spaces but I'll get to that later.

When we write fiction that involves characters that come from religious traditions, do you think it automatically becomes our responsibility to approach them with a certain level of respect because of that context?

I only think that a writer's responsibility is taking themselves seriously and writing with all their heart and avoid being deliberately obtuse. Of course we need to be aware of the context these characters come from, but respect isn't exactly the word I would use. I would rather say that writers need to be AWARE of the context. The reasoning behind the word choice will be apparent in the next paragraph.

i.e. Should we not treat them like we do other blorbos/fictional characters.

The 'main' epic has inspired several off-shoots, what-ifs, alternative and transformative works that are really great works of literature and art in their own right. The thing that made them truly great, I would argue, is the authors behind them getting really attached to certain characters. I would even go further to say that these characters were indeed their blorbos, even though that exact word did not exist back then. I am even going to go further to argue that this slight irreverance actually made their works more interesting and more human.

I kind of want to take the examples of Bhasa and Bhatta here, two sanskrit playwrights. I have read some of bhasa's plays, both original and translated, and unfortunately I haven't had time to read Bhatta's work, but I have read ABOUT it so forgive me if any of my takes on venisamhara are half-baked.

The Pancharatram is straight-up a fix it fanfiction. A lot of the so-called villains of the mahabharat are also softened a little and it is very clear who the guy's blorbos are as they keep coming up in his plays a lot.

I also want to take the example of more recent writers who were writing books BEFORE mythofiction was solidified and marketed as a genre. They also have a deep attachment to the story they are writing and are sometimes influential enough to change a cultural narrative.

A lot of times in modern published genre mythofiction, the authors make a great deal of how much they respect and admire the traditions and in my opinion this is what makes most genre mythofiction so cringey and bad. It's insincere, plainly put. The authors don't have an attachment to the characters and sometimes I even wonder if they even LIKE what they're doing.

This is why I think the use of the word "respect" is misplaced. Over reverence can, a lot of times, make someone detach from what they're doing, when a storyteller's whole job is to make someone feel seen, heard, alive. I do believe that a cultural awareness is required, but yeah! Call them your blorbos! Make art! Get weirdly attached to that one side character! Get weirdly sad when you need to write angst with them!

I speak directly in reference to Hindu scriptures, but I'd be thrilled if someone had a related opinion.

Now I want to kind of talk about the commodification of mythofiction as a genre because I feel like this kind of plays into that. We are in an era where this genre is gaining a rapid revival, all around the world, and half of the things that come out of it aren't even good. In traditional publishing, you need to be similar enough so someone put a tacky review on the back of the book which says "OOH THE NEXT (insert author name)" but you also need to be original!! It needs to be palatable to the "younger generation" and 'relatable' and funny but it also needs to be "respectful" and "reverent" to make sure as to not cause any waves. I would suggest you to watch Kate Alexandra's videos on greek mythological retellings which I believe also manages to show the state of the mythofiction publishing industry in India today. So I think viewing this question in a broader lens would help more than a narrow lens.

These are figures that many people revere and hold sacrosanct, but then fiction is an inherently transformative space. It is meant to reshape, reimagine, recontextualize.

Yeah!! Now I am going to actually get to the heart of the matter which is what I suspect your original post was about. Sorry for the detour but I felt it was necessary. You're right about this! I mean, look at ohot! I know using the example of my own work sounds in poor taste but On His Own terms is a place where I do reshape and reimagine and recontextualize and center the main character. I know giving Shikhandi's example isn't exactly on-topic because he's not exactly revered or held sacrosanct.

Is it okay to cross those boundaries but make your readers aware that your work is obviously not canonical and just your perspective of it?

There's no canon. There's literally no canon. There are just versions of manuscripts, there are oral traditions, even the texts that we call "canonical" sources today contradict themselves all the time. Like Vishnu is treated as the coolest guy ever who can do everything in Vishnu focused/Vaishnavite texts but in Shaivite texts he's a pretty nasty little guy. The opposite happens with Shiva's portrayal. Most of the folk traditions and folklore doesn't even have a written text and are mostly oral in nature. So yeah, there's literally no canon. Canon doesn't exist.

But in fandom spaces, it is sometimes relevant to the story to say that a certain thing does not conform to BORI or that you have changed certain details because a lot of times that might be important. (case in point: Me with Satyajit in OHOT, also me with most of the female characters in OHOT. I have my reasoning for the choices I make). We all have different media as reference points for the mahabharat and knowing what a person's reference point is usually helps to understand their perspective. Which is why I like that there are separate tags for BRC and Starbharat on AO3. I usually never tag my works with the star plus mahabharat tag unless I am directly inspired by a detail from it.

Is it the author's responsibility or is it the readers' to know what they're reading and not engage with things they do not agree with?

This is honestly a tricky question, I will probably come back to it tomorrow because I am very hungry and tired rn... and also I think @noisybasementrebel summed things up perfectly.

I also hope my long answers also made sense hehe!!

I've been mulling over this for far longer than I should care to admit, so I present it to y'all. Hoping I can get more opinions on this.

When we write fiction that involves characters that come from religious traditions, do you think it automatically becomes our responsibility to approach them with a certain level of respect because of that context?

i.e. Should we not treat them like we do other blorbos/fictional characters.

I speak directly in reference to Hindu scriptures, but I'd be thrilled if someone had a related opinion.

These are figures that many people revere and hold sacrosanct, but then fiction is an inherently transformative space. It is meant to reshape, reimagine, recontextualize.

Are there certain boundaries one ought not to cross? How do you handle that? Is it okay to cross those boundaries but make your readers aware that your work is obviously not canonical and just your perspective of it? Is it the author's responsibility or is it the readers' to know what they're reading and not engage with things they do not agree with?

I hope I'm making sense with this!

[turnedpalefromlackofsun]

i wrote a fanfic

[figureitoutinthemorning]

Hmmmmm okay you all can ignore this lmao I’m just going to Complain On The Internet for a bit because I’m pretty sure it’s that or tell the next person to say hi my entire life story, and no one wants that, least of all me ✌️

[marsbotz]

i ship inhun in a way that differwnt and more swagful than anyone else btw.

[buck-yyyy]

local guy is being gay at 3am because they can’t sleep :(

[lyknest]

.

[indigo6f00ff]

funny update a couple of months later for People Who Want to Know: i dont have the car that got me into this Incredibly Minor Accident anymore. while after the accident, i did have to get the brakes serviced (wow, they were faulty, who knew!), it proceeded to have Several More Issues, such as: the transmission being fucked up and Trouble With Turns. i still drove it regardless because i needed that shit to get to college but eventually the radiator fan stopped working on it (where it would start overheating if the car wasn't moving (if the car was moving then air could still blow over the engine, cooling it down)) and My Mother deemed it too dangerous to drive. RIP to the shitty 2012 jeep liberty hand-me-down with 200k miles that led to the creation of the Kim Moment(TM).

need to share an experience i had 30 minutes ago

(edit: thanks to @walks-the-ages for providing and reminding me to put alt text, sorry it slips my mind alot lol)

[kurp-stuff]

.

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

My brother started asking me about about the research I did in high school and now I’m reminiscing about the good old days

[eyes-inthe-dark]

it's christmas and suddenly my dash is THRIVING

some of the funniest shit ive seen in month

i think we all know what this means and while it is funny that we all flee onto tumblr to escape the hell that is family or being alone around this time

i'm sending hugs and kisses to all who need and/or want them

you have gotten through this and you will continue to get through!

take as long of a break as you need, and know that you are seen and loved!!

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt my nuggets again. Explodes them.