#So this concept is basically 'what if a religion was FORMED from pretty much the ground up out of DMT usage'

[serpentface]

Do psychotropic drugs and/or ritual play a role in any of the blightseed cultures? A pretty broad question, lol

Yeah that’s a very broad question, the answer is about as much as it tends to play roles in real history. Alcohol is pretty ubiquitous (outside of cultures that abstain from intoxicants) and used for a variety of purposes, opioids are commonly used in some parts for pain relief or recreational purposes, stimulants (usually in mild, natural forms) are used to provide extra energy, and hallucinogens are most commonly used as part of a larger religious framework (rather than for recreational purposes). Any more elaborate answer kinda has to be case by case in a certain culture or part of the setting.

I'll just take this as an opportunity to talk about the one established sect that pretty much REVOLVES around psychoactive use. This is the Scholarly Order of the Root, which is a sort of mystery religion + elite community of scholars who currently occupy the Ur-Tree and its forest in the far southern Lowlands (southeast of Imperial Wardin, on the same land mass).

The Ur-Tree is the obligatory Huge Fucking Fantasy Tree (and its surrounding forest). It’s a mass of vegetation about a mile tall and almost as old as Plant Life Itself, its upper branches are primeval plants, which become more modern the nearer they get to the ground (and each 'level' holds tiny ecosystems, some containing descendants of LONG-extinct arthropods/other small animals). Its lowest branches and the surrounding forest are contemporary plant life, and all is connected and protected by an incomparably MASSIVE fungal mycelium network (which is itself a living god).

A lot of the Scholars' more secretive practices revolve around experimentation with substance use with the goal of expanding the Mind and transcending the body to fully connect to the Dreamlands, and they have a supply chain of traders and mercenaries called Rootrunners who traffic substances into the Lowlands. Most of their psychoactive use is in a very intentional capacity and not just like, for fun, but a LOT of them are just straight up addicted to cocaine (in the form of alchemically refined bruljenum, which is used for practical purposes of its stimulant effect during long hours of work).

All known psychoactives are desirable for experimentation (particularly hallucinogens), with each having properties that either allow expansion of the Mind, transcendence of the body, or outright divine communion. Their effects are logged in great detail and interpreted to form the basis of the Scholars' understanding of the natural world and reality itself.

The most important substance is Ur-Root, which is root matter from subterranean levels of the Ur-Tree that have both their own intrinsic psychoactive substances and a very, very high concentration of living god mycelium. The tree root contains DMT and the mycelium has its own wholly unique effects (being an actual living god). They alchemically refine it into a purer, more potent form, and use it to expand beyond the body and directly commune with the Giants, a group of entities they have identified as the only true gods.

An Ur-Root trip starts off with minor visual distortion, which turns into shifting fractals that slowly obscure the vision. Eventually the senses are entirely taken over by a 'tunnel' of rapidly shifting fractals and geometries. In a complete trip, the experiencer gets a sense that they have been pushed through a membrane and entered another realm, finding themselves in a distinct experiential Space.

At this point they may encounter entities which communicate to them in a language impossible to describe but wholly understood. These beings are understood to be the Giants, or at least aspects of the Giants that mortals are capable of comprehending (they often take familiar tutelary forms of the Mantis or the Snake, or appear resembling the same type of sophont that the experiencer is, all composed of ever-shifting geometries). The experiencer often feels a sense of unconditional and endless love from these beings, though the Giants may be more hostile and may appear in the form of the Trickster (usually a cultural figure regarded as malicious, be it an animal or otherwise) in a bad trip.

(^Up until this point, this has mostly just been a DMT 'breakthrough' experience ft. 'machine elves' and the like).

They are then removed from this space and returned to something that feels like the real world, but is nearly unrecognizable. They have a sense of rapidly moving through time, and will usually see 'the spires' towards the beginning, which just so happen to look like this:

(source + some context via Implication- the spires are exactly what this art is depicting)

The experiencer continues to move across an unfathomable amount of time, occasionally 'seeing' other such flashes of unfamiliar landscapes and creatures, and yet also being devoid of all their senses, the 'seeing' is pure, unfiltered experience. There is a sense of interconnectedness with all life, and that one has become the forest (or even Life) itself. The sense of time is wildly distorted, the trip lasts only about 5 minutes but feels like an eternity and is understood as literal hundreds of millions of years.

The experiencer has usually lost any remaining sense of Self and individual consciousness during this phase (in which case this time distortion is usually a neutral or even peaceful experience), but some retain a fraction of their identity, and find themselves trapped and conscious while experiencing what feels like eternity (which can be LIFE-CHANGINGLY distressing, even after the fact).

(^This latter part of the trip is the effects of the Ur-Tree fungus).

The trip ends with a sense of rushing through the ground and back up into one's body, at which point they will abruptly return to their senses and consciousness. The details are then immediately retrieved via interview and recorded in immense detail. The whole experience is understood as having been full comprehension of the Dreamlands, communion with the Giants, and then a tour through the act of creation.

This is done as part of the initiatory practice into the inner mystery-religion of the scholars, and as needed for study by high scholar-priests. It is not taken lightly, both as it is absolute communion with the gods and reality, and in that it can be a very, very difficult experience. People who have gone through this often walk away with a permanently shifted perspective, often in a positive and/or comforting way- a sense of interconnectedness with all life, a peace with the concept of death, seeing less of a point in individual ego and the concept of Self, and comfort in the sense of divine love they (may have) experienced. This heavily influences the philosophy of the Scholars and has had effects by proxy in the religious worldviews of the region.

Details of this experience are closely guarded, and initiates are given absolutely no prior knowledge and expectations for their trip. This is seen as a necessity- their naivety will allow for a true, unfiltered experience, and can be used to gauge whether they should or should not be accepted. Those that have a distinctly bad trip upon initiation may be assumed to have been 'rejected' by the giants and thus denied full priesthood, though this largely depends on How they interpret their distressing trip- those who identify this as a test and harsh lesson in a journey to enlightenment may be accepted (as this is how fully initiated scholar-priests interpret and handle their bad trips).

This inner priesthood is only a small fraction of the Scholarly Order, and its greater function is as a hub of education and repository of knowledge, and Scholar-trained doctors can provide some of the best medical care available in the setting ('best medical care in this setting' only means so much but it's pretty solid, relatively speaking). Only a chosen few Scholars ever get to commune with the Ur-Root, and most of the divine secrets revealed in the process are kept hidden (though they indirectly influence the politics and worldview of the entire order).

[y-rhywbeth2]

Lore: Dating, Marriage, Sex, etc

Part 1/2

Link: Disclaimer regarding D&D "canon" & Index [tldr: D&D lore is a giant conflicting mess. Larian's lore is also a conflicting mess. There's a lot of lore; I don't know everything. You learn to take what you want and leave the rest, etc etc etc]

DnD isn't exactly a dating sim, so most of this lore comes from mining Ed Greenwood's answers to questions, but since his answers are apparently canon unless and until contradicted in published realmslore, here you go.

It's mostly in regards to human culture (and the Heartlands, Waterdeep etc at that) but I'll throw in some demihuman stuff here and there.

So sexuality, and the norms and moral values Torilians build around it: More tolerant and kinkier than Earth, for the most part, and still not a perfect bed of roses. (You won’t face legal oppression; you can get called slurs.)

Attitudes in the Realms

Dating

Sex (and a bit about contraception and conception)

Sexual Orientation

Polyamory

Cut for space and expected in the follow up: marriage, sex work, religion, and the absolutely deranged shit going on in some noble families.

-

Attitudes about relationships in the Realms

The long and short of it is that the root of Toril’s mainstream attitude towards sex and relationships draws from the sexual revolution of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

Cultural variations on and subversions of these norms occur, but the rule of thumb, especially as it applies to the video games is as follows:

Sex is not a terribly big deal nor innately taboo; pseudo-puritan attitudes are solely the province of some old high priests on a few religions in a minority of a minority. Virginity and the loss thereof is meaningless unless you're nobility.

Pretty much anything is legal so long as all parties involved are capable of giving and gave consent on most of the planet (though legal isn’t the same as ‘approved of’).

Of course TSR, and later WotC, fell very much on the side of ‘we can’t publish that!’ So it got massively obscured. It only really came through now and again, usually in sly little hints that could get past the radar/editors, becoming more obvious with 4e and 5e (Although Sune and Sharess were flat out stated even back in 2e to ignore gender when they’re in the mood to seduce mortals, and we'd already had Mystra saying that gender is basically just a costume for gods (which Mask illustrates.))

The Realms itself still has bigotry to go around, of course, but generally it's the clergy of a select few gods and the nobles who'll make a fuss about such things, and the latter only in regards to their own social circles and inheritance shenanigans. A traveling merchant who encounters a culture that practices forms of relationships he personally disproves of was probably raised to be polite and keep the slurs unsaid; diversity encourages trade, offending your neighbours does not.

What is and isn’t morally acceptable to an individual is determined by church doctrine and dogma (which determines many of life’s aspects, including love and sex and what's good or bad (chastity vs promiscuity, monogamy vs polygamy, whether procreation is mandated or not or even a sin, if loving people instead of despising them is a sin or not, and what acts are taboo))... and all that as interpreted by the local priests, who may not agree with their fellows’ interpretations. Some gods declare chastity a sin and want you to engage in as many romantic and/or sexual relationships with as many different people in as many different ways as humanly possible. Loviatar mandates BDSM and Ilmater doesn't frown on it either.

Most deities probably aren't going to discriminate. Gods see the universe in terms of their portfolio: what aids it is good what opposes it is bad. Most portfolios aren't terribly impacted by mortal love lives and hormones so I suspect the vast majority of gods could not care less, and, as per Faiths and Avatars, the gods 'generally try to be as liberal as possible to try and attract as much worship as they can.'

With Toril being polytheistic all of these gods are due respect and conflicting dogmas are just a fact of life. Several times a day a person is likely to be confronted with a choice – usually a minor one – where one action will serve some gods and be a sin in the eyes of others, and the rule of thumb is that everybody accepts you can’t please all of them all the time. You live according to the gods you favour above all others and respect the faiths of those you don’t: you expect that people will mind their own business and do them the same courtesy.

In the majority of the realms, including the cities and realms of the Heartlands, Silverymoon, Waterdeep and etc, at least, people are open minded and tolerant. A rule of thumb is that cities are more liberal and rural areas more conservative, but even then their norms and values don’t necessarily match the modern earth norms that might spring to mind; the nuclear family unit is not necessarily seen as default and polyamory is very common in some villages.

Largely, there’s not a whole lot of emphasis put on identifying your sexuality or making it a big part of who you are: most Torilians wouldn’t understand the point of drawing attention to sexuality outside of occasions where it’s actually relevant. If you were visiting Baldur's Gate and pointed out two men getting married at the temple of Tymora the people around you would be utterly confused about why you felt the need to single out the gender of the couple.

‘Individuals may find [queer relationships] too much for themselves to handle, but the laws and general attitudes of society don’t frown on it.���

You may have to ‘pick your neighbours and friends’ to live comfortably, but that’s significantly easier to do on Toril than Earth especially because you should have no reason to worry about persecution or discrimination under the law for deviating from whatever moral code a particular priest might be espousing.

Bastard children and wedlock don't cause a fuss so long as you're not a highborn (or found to have cheated on your partner, one assumes).

Contraception is widely available and family planning is emphasised; you are firmly encouraged to use it in a dangerous world where famines and disasters mundane and supernatural mean babies at the wrong times can lessen the chances of survival (for you and them).

-

Dating

Somebody who catches your eye is 'glim,' as in 'oh no he's hot' or 'she's well fit' or whatever. A Torilian who's very attractive is 'right glim.' As in they're 'glimmering.'

A term for a pair of lovers is 'brightbirds.'

Your 'fancyman,' 'fancylad,' or 'fancylass' is what your disapproving relatives will call your lover that you insist on seeing for reasons that escape them.

Waterdhavians call the target of their affections their 'rose,' which may get confusing as in other dialects a 'rose' is the slang term for a submissive woman in a Dom/sub relationship.

Red and black are considered the erotic/'sexy' colours. Garments featuring black lace and leather in particular.

Many priests, curiously, seem to find potential partners more attractive if they get a tattoo of their deity's holy symbol.

You can advertise your interest by wearing an artificial rose pinned to one shoulder: red signals that you're looking for a long-term romantic partner and black shows you're looking for sex. If the rose is made of steel then it indicates you're looking for a partner of the same gender. Wearing multiple roses indicates you're looking for multiple partners, but you might expect some raised eyebrows or comments if people think you're being overconfident. It's very rare to see women doing this looking for men, since it's thought of as a 'man thing' (wlw doing this to seek each other out apparently don't count to said men).

Sunites, as devotees of the goddess of love and beauty, are available for matchmaking services, advice and make overs.

Dancing - especially erotic dancing - is a large part of courtship trends across the cultural board. Which might tie in to the fact that all the goddesses of lust and love - Sharess/Zandilar, Sharindlar, Sune, Sheela Peryroyl, and to a certain extent, Lliira - are dancers or have dancing as a thing within their faith. Lliiran clergy give dancing lessons, and Sharessans and Sunites probably don't mind teaching either.

The only description of what a one might wear if one is feminine and wants to dress up and look fancy in human culture - the equivalent of a 'little black dress' - is a simple black gown with a high collar and plunging neckline in the front (the latter of which is optional). It's matched with a sash and boots and some small jewellery. If you want to 'dress down' the gown is pinned open to expose either bare skin or the underlying chemise (if you're going for a 'classy' look it'll be lacy and white).

Dwarven courtship involves a slow exchange of crafts made by ones own hand (this can be tools or physical artwork or things like poems and songs, the point is to illustrate your skill and the care you put in). You send it to the dwarf you're interested in, and hopefully they respond in kind. You then spend years doing this and slowly getting to know each other, eventually moving in and seeing if you can settle into something that can last past the initial spark before tying the knot.

Elven courtship apparently involves poetry, songs, and yet more erotic dances.

Drow have courting games called 'spider hunts' usually played at festivals by young drow, which are basically hide-and-seek.

-

Sex (and a bit on procreation)

You can't just fuck somebody right in the market square, but borderline public sex hidden on a rooftop, or ducking into an empty alleyway is pretty common and tolerated behaviour. You are, however, encouraged to keep your shenanigans off the streets lest you 'scare the horses,' take yourselves home or to the nearest festhall/brothel, and keep your 'public displays' limited to appropriate festivals (Greengrass, for example, which is a fertility festival and usually involves dropping all inhibitions for the day).

Lingerie comes in black and red and lace clouts (underwear) and dethmas (bras) which can be readily bought in most cities. Lace-up boneless corsets and shapewear are available as unisex garments.

Sex toys named as existing include whips, dildos, clamps and 'tingling creams.'

I've heard something about halfling orgies, but have found no details beyond 'exotic food.'

And in the Realms you're more likely to say 'rutting' rather than 'fucking' when being vulgar/casual about sex. Unlike 'fuck' it doesn't seem to double as a curse.

If you're considering bedding a priests be warned that as gods are said to derive power from having their name said aloud priests tend to call their gods name in bed. Fervently. The enthusiasm and emotion behind it is supposed to have a positive effect.

Elven foreplay involves sensory deprivation and ear nibbling.

Contraception, as mentioned, is stressed upon. People are concerned about plagues, famines, monsters and other concerns that lead Faerûnians to place a lot of importance on family planning. Contraception is generally delivered via divine magic - a cleric or druid can render you temporarily barren/sterile, guarantee conception or freeze a pregnancy at its earliest and least detrimental stages to be resumed at a safe date. People can ensure that their children will be born in times when it's best for them to be born. Elves have apparently mastered birth control, and it's basically impossible to get a child from an elf when they don't want one.

You can also ask the gods nicely and if you make sufficient offerings the deity can also rearrange your organs a bit to change the way you procreate (or possibly allow you both methods). Generally people will ask the deity they have the most positive relationship with, but Sune and Lliira are the favoured choices in the pantheon. Of the gods not recommended are Bane, Shar, Malar (whose idea of the perfect transformation is lycanthropy) and Selûne (who gladly supports you, but she's considered too mercurial and everchanging. She's not one transition she's eternal, ever shifting transition beyond the human physical endurance or mental comprehension.)

Arcane magic can manage physical modification via transmutation and glamours, which people often play with either as part of exploring their gender identity or just for fun, but transmutation via divine magic is vastly superior at allowing you to be fertile after the change if that's a goal. Arcane magic struggles with that. Arcane magic that allows for surrogacy and sort of IVF apparently exists, having been invented by a pair of liches that wanted a child for whatever reason, but I don't know how commonplace that is.

-

Sexual Orientation

Most people freely experiment in their youth, working out their preferences. Heterosexuality is the default, with bisexuality making up a sizeable second place and other sexualities constituting a fairly sized but unremarkable minority.

Obviously, the Isle of Lesbos does not exist and so neither does the world ‘lesbian’; Toril doesn’t have Earth’s terminology, it has its own words. It should be noted that some can be used in a derogatory fashion, although, considering reality, they could very well be reclaimed or have been stolen terminology twisted into slurs. The given terms, in Common, are:

Thruss - Lesbian Liyan - Gay man (elvish slang loanword) Praed - Gay man (gnomish slang loanword) Tasmar - Bisexual (masc.) Shaeda - Bisexual (fem.) (elvish slang loanword) 'No-thorn' - Asexual

Butches (‘harnor’) and effeminate mlm (‘dathna’) are liable to get scorn for their gender presentation more or rather than their sexuality.

-

Polyamory

In some lands (unspecified which ones) it's unremarkable and even expected for a relationship to be open by default.

While obviously it's not socially acceptable to jump into anybody's bed with no consideration of your partner's feelings on the matter, it's not a foreign idea to see love and lust as separate concepts.

In rural areas one can find villages that definitely don't follow the nuclear family model with mixed families living under one roof, and symbolic polygamous marriages may factor into the traditions of some seasonal festivals. For example in Turmishan a farmstead is traditionally inhabited by a family consisting of four married people, usually two men and two women.

[theoldoor]

must u betray me with a kiss ahh doodle

i love oc x canon talia lore IM SCREAMMINGG analyzing my own work here LMFAO i didnt write it with these thoughts in mind but lets seeeee

the talia story is wrote is basically revolving around beliefs and desires, especially the desire to live and the recycling nature of life. yknow, wasteland of talia - everything gets recycled.

i do want to focus more on aventurine’s religious writing side, but im not very erhhhh good with that

i think the concept of the story im writing for them is heavily based on desires and religion, considering the heavy emphasis i put on the parallel between Avidity (fenrir’s clan) and the streetcar named desire LOL (however, the streetcar reference thing will come in another posttt)

context context, at the end of the talia quest, yk the oc quest that i wrote when there’s a big battle going on like how every quest ends lol. here, it would be revealed that fenrir is the final boss, after completing the little obsidian vampire ritual things with the scraps and turning into this big chimera monster thing and he got that cornerstone as well (boosted damage). he used the cornerstone, which he wasnt supposed to and how tf did he even do that

aventurine was supposed to use the cornerstone, yk joining the battle, but that would most likely cost him his life and fenrir - even know he knew that aventurine’s luck would save him, he still can’t bear to continue with the plan because that lingering chance of failure worry him too much

so aventurien was liek “ayo where tf my cornerst- FENRIR GET YO BUMASS HOME!!!” and he got snatched by the IPC to safety to return to work and fenrir out there smacking everyone

ART CREDIT TO @BLANKETC ON NEWGROUNDS!! CHECK THEM OTU!!!

the “kiss” here, i wrote it to be implied but regardless it still symbolizes a form of betrayal because its wrapped in what should be a sign of devotion

fenrir’s “betrayal” isn’t driven by hatred, greed or other devious motives its from desperation. you know some form of love but it has been twisted. he wanted to save aventurine from a fate he believed to be inevitable and similar to judas, which is an obvious reference here, who believed he must to fulfill a necessary prophecy.

aventurine wouldve probably anticipated a betrayal from someone on his side, fenrir even. but with understanding there came trust, and in a game of gamble you cant trust - so aventurine put his trust on fenrirs love - “a dog known to betray his owner”. he had let his guard down too much and with a life like aventurine, letting your guard down is a guaranteed idk bad thing

i cant say for aventurine, but just headcanon and a sense that aventurine feels bad asf after that “betrayal”, having the very fragile connection that he held dear weaponized against him i think thats pretty serious idk man probably makes him feel greedy

but its both love and betrayal harharhahrr

aventurine’s the typa lad to be like “yeah ima be the final sacrifice, ill die for everyone” and then at the border to death he realized that everyone in question made him happy and he wished to be selfish and not make the sacrifice earlier because its too late to go back now

bumasses

[gffa]

Have you watched the First Okiro's recent Star Wars video? He made a really interesting case about how TLJ Luke was a form of character assassination. When I saw the ask you answered about how Luke treasured Yoda and read the last paragraph, I thought maybe you'd agree.

https://youtu.be/r0I86ii2N_8?si=-oHY6dQsFBsSAfPv

Hi! Honestly, I pretty much refuse to watch any Star Wars video essays anymore because so many of them are anti-Jedi and I don't think it's fruitful for any of us for me to put myself through that, they don't gain anything, I don't gain anything, etc. So I have no idea what the case being presented in the video is, I'm only going on "character assassination" in TLJ and how I actually disagree. I mean, I think it was poorly executed in some ways, but that the basic concepts of it are ones I actually think are the best parts of the movie. My problems with TLJ's Luke story is that I think the extremity of it was too much, that him being on the island for six years without contact with anyone was too long for how I see Luke, as well as I think the structure of having Han die and not showing that deleted scene of Luke mourning his death, of having Luke interacting with Rey but making it all about Ben, none of that worked for me. But what does work for me is that the idea of overcoming pain and suffering is a one-and-done deal is just not how Star Wars or the Force works. Luke very nearly fell to the dark side in Return of the Jedi, that wasn't just put there for the aesthetics, that was something he was genuinely teetering on the edge of, he was raining hell down on Vader when slicing away at his arm, Sidious genuinely felt the anger and rage roiling inside Luke, he had to struggle to turn away from it and embrace what it meant to be a Jedi.

That's not a one time struggle--that's something characters face their entire lives. And if you include the Disney comics (which are really good imo), Luke struggles with loss and pain and anger after the defeat on Bespin, he has to struggle through not falling to the dark side again. And, hell, even MARK HAMILL says that Luke's fall down the reactor shaft on Bespin was akin to him basically trying to commit suicide because he was so devastated. So I think it's fair that Luke could struggle with that again later in his life, I think it's fair that after pouring everything of himself into building up the Jedi again, to have it torn down by someone he loved, someone that he may have bordered on attachment to (as Star Wars and the Jedi define it--love and attachment are not the same thing, attachment is the desire to hold onto something/someone so tightly because you can't live without it and thus you can't see it clearly, which I think I could believe of Luke, that he was so blinded by his desire for what he wanted for Ben that he couldn't be objective about him, just like he struggled with loving his sister so much that rage boiled inside of him when Palpatine threatened her and Luke's friends on the second Death Star), that he retreated because this felt so massive and he felt like he was the only one who could build this school and that he pulled these kids into this life. Like, it's fair that Obi-Wan struggled with Anakin's betrayal and cut himself off from using the Force on Tatooine, so I think it's fair that Luke struggled with Ben's betrayal and cut himself off from using the Force on Ahch-To--they both had to process that grief and it's not always a perfect path when it's someone you love that dearly and were so incredibly close to. Ultimately, the entire speech Luke gives is one that is DESIGNED to be knocked down, he is literally standing in front of the First Order and facing them down with his laser sword at the end of the movie, Rian Johnson literally says that it was Luke's personal failure, not the failure of the Jedi religion, and Luke finds his feet again. And that's my guy!!! The guy who makes mistakes, but is such a core of goodness and compassion and care for others that he eventually gets over these massive hurdles placed in front of him, and so that part of Luke's story worked for me. I'm just not wild about the finer details of how it was actually executed, even if I think it's fair to point out that Rian Johnson was handed a pre-existing situation that he then had to reverse engineer a backstory for with an extremely limited time to do it, because apparently THEY DIDN'T PLAN OUT THE TRILOGY AHEAD OF TIME for fucks sake.

[kintatsujo]

something I've been thinking about on and off with regards to Legend of Zelda is the ways in which it gets fantasy religion very right, despite the fact that it kind of started as "we don't understand Christianity" and careened into "let's throw in what we're familiar with and make it something of its own"

in fact, perhaps it gets its fantasy religion right in the ways that it does BECAUSE this is how it started

and the core root of what Zelda gets right about it is...

Hylia and the Three Goddesses don't have fixed character designs.

Think about it. Your average jrpg, you're almost certainly fighting God at some point, and he almost certainly has a specific character design because of course he does, and a LOT of fantasy settings just use that same basic character design throughout all the iconography

but how do you always know it's Jesus in Christian art? He's every skintone a man can have, and while most White Jesuses (Jesii??) look like Cesare Borgia I don't have to be told when a picture of a Black man is meant to be Christ.

Or how do you know it's a particular polytheistic god, or a character from a folk tale, or whatever?

How do you always know it's Hatsune Miku?

And the answer is pretty easy, right?

It's because of their symbols.

So in Zelda, we see a winged woman with her hands clasped, perhaps holding a sword, perhaps wearing a winged crown or headdress or a crown of light, we know that's meant to be Hylia.

And when the Three Goddesses show up, the Triforce symbol is usually involved, or we see spheres or indistinct figures of gold rising upward, light trailing behind them, or we see three feminine figures dancing together, or we see their individual sigils, that sort of thing.

And then there's even the Heroines from botw/totk, who are all depicted with the same form and figure but who each have their own symbol.

And another thing is that MUSIC is very important to the way the goddesses come up; Zelda has her own song and Hylia's song is based on it. The dragonsong of botw and the way it distorts when one of the holy dragons is hurt. The songs Link has to play for puzzles, the holy songs that are the whole key to things.

Zelda as a franchise in general just really understands how much music is part of people, and it especially shines when gods enter the picture.

And idk, all things considered, the Hylian/Hyrulean religions are sort of scant, they're not usually heavily gone into, but what the games give us, I think they get right, and it's just kind of interesting to me from a worldbuilding perspective.

Especially since for my own fandom shit I'm perfectly happy to throw the whole ass thing into a blender with the concept of schisms and regional faiths and hit puree, lmao

[ambyandony]

monster au squatizi is so funny to me because the dynamic is different from basically any other iteration/au of their relationship. like in the monster au squalo barely knows what the fuck is going on and he and tiziano grew up in wildly different societies . in most other aus theyre on equal ground more-or-less and squalo is well enough adjusted to living on land that he can afford to have crippling anxiety

squalo has fully formed cognitive thought and reasoning skills but comes across as childish at first due to his stilted and rudimentary speech capabilities so initially tiziano makes the mistake of being a bit patronising until he fully recognises that they are more-or-less the same 'age' cognitively. At first, Squalo isn't confident about interacting with landfolk, but he gets gradually better; he just doesn't like anyone but Tiziano much. By the time they end up in Passione, Squalo seems able to be around other people without causing a scene, but he still has trouble with social cues, and his lack of knowledge of the dry world makes it hard for him to strategise and understand his objectives sometimes, so he leaves planning things to Tiziano.

and see with Squatizi, the thing is in the monster au their attraction towards each other starts like a puppy love sort of thing. like they just think the other is cute/pretty. but because they grew up in wildly different cultures tiziano keeps thinking that squalo is coming onto him because squalo keeps TOUCHING HIM VERY INTIMATELY and like. trying to cuddle him in bed. tiziano has no idea how to approach the topic and squalo wonders if all landfolk are this warm. its actually meant more-or-less platonically by squalo and tiziano has to try harder and harder to ignore the fact hes fallen in love

They end up as mates as, like, a natural progression when Squalo starts nipping at Tiziano (to his dismay, thinking its a bad sign of squalo being either upset or trying to eat him) and when Tiziano asks him Squalo tilts his head and explains his desire to be mates in the absolute bluntest most explicit raunchiest way he possibly could. i dont mean like he says 'i want to fuck you' no its worse than that and tiziano is like . o. okay.

(note: 'boyfriend' and similar terms carry too legal a context to me; for all intents and purposes, theyre basically husbands but squalo doesn't have a legal identity or any assets or a concept of religion. they cant get married so they just mate for life instead)

[damonblack966]

6 Things That You Don’t Need To Be An Effective Witch

You get people who are otherwise preaching a philosophy of oneness and being in tune with yourself and valuing nature and peace, becoming utterly irate because someone else is doing something different. Am I the only one who sees the huge contradiction here?

What Is Witchcraft?

Here’s the thing, witchcraft isn’t a set of rituals. It isn’t the worship of a particular god, it’s not a religion, it’s not even the methods we use to cast spells. Witchcraft transcends all of these things because witchcraft is about doing what works. And if the massive diversity in magical tradition speaks to anything, it’s that there are a LOT of ways to do magic that work!

What witchcraft really is, at its core, is the manipulation of the energy that makes up everything from the tiniest microbe, to massive sequoias, this wonderful planet that we live on, every star, every breath we take, and every god we may or may not pray to. Magic is literally everywhere. It’s inescapable because it IS us. It’s everything!

Why So Many Things Are Optional

This base nature of magic and our universe is exactly what makes so many things in magic optional. Since magic is everywhere and everything, there are basically infinite ways to take advantage of it. And the vast majority of these methods work given the right circumstances!

Think of it this way, if magic could only be accessed in one way, we would see the exact same magical structure repeated over and over and over again in every culture and at every point in history. That is not the case, though! All you have to do is look at the amazing diversity present in our current magical culture. You have ceremonial magicians summoning demons and performing long and intricate rites while housewives practice folk magic involving nothing more than a whispered incantation and some spices from their cupboard. Both methods work. How can we claim that there’s only one way to practice magic when Hoodoo, Santeria, Wicca, Appalachian granny magic, and so many more traditions exist simultaneously and all seem to work? The answer is that we can’t. They DO all work because they are all taking advantage of the exact same universal forces in a myriad of ways.

So What Is Optional?

There are so many more optional elements than I could possibly list here, but these are some of the most common elements of the craft that I see being touted as non-negotiable.

1. Gendered Energy

The use of gendered energy (i.e. masculine and feminine energy) is an incredibly prevalent part of modern witchcraft, and this is largely due to the widespread nature of Wicca. Wicca teaches this gender split as a core part of its practices and, because of this, such methods have filtered down into the collective consciousness of neo-Wicca and nondenominational witchcraft as a result. The widespread nature of this concept does not make it mandatory, however. There are plenty of forms of witchcraft that do not teach or use any form of gendered magical energy, and some (like Feri) that actively teach that one should strive for the freedom of energy that comes from releasing oneself from such limiting concepts in magic.

If the idea of gendered energy makes you uncomfortable, if you find it difficult to work with, or if it simply doesn’t resonate with you, you don’t have to use it! You can simply omit that part of the craft without suffering any ill consequences. Your magic will still work, it won’t be any less powerful and in fact, by removing an element that didn’t resonate with you personally, your magic might become even more effective!

2. Specific Tools

You can find a list of “beginner’s tools” in pretty much every book and website about witchcraft out there. Everyone seems to have an idea of what tools are must-haves for practicing magic and often, these lists of tools don’t match up with each other! One source will tell you that you absolutely must have a wand, while another doesn’t even mention wands, but says that two knives rather than one are essential. Some sources use herbs, others essential oils, still others make no mention of such things. You’ll find everything from bells to cubes, mirrors, chalices, and candles on these lists. So what’s a witch supposed to think?! Which tools are really necessary?

The reality is, none of these tools are necessary. Sure, they all have their uses and can help you in harnessing your inherent magical power, but these tools don’t give you magical power and you can certainly access that innate connection to your energy without them. The best thing to do is to only use the tools that speak to you and make you feel as though your magic is working. If you’re short on resources and can’t afford tools, makeshift tools, DIY altarpieces, or nothing at all, can suffice as well. Magic can be done with nothing more than your will and intention, no tools, no words, and no outside trappings of any kind, if you so choose.

3. Divination

Divination methods like tarot, pendulum reading, and scrying are incredibly prevalent in modern witchcraft. They’re so prevalent, in fact, that many people feel as though without these elements they’re only practicing half the craft! This simply isn’t the case, though. Divination is a wonderful form of magic and can add a lot to your daily workings, but your witchcraft is still witchcraft even if you don’t use it. Some people really hate divination. Some people don’t want to know the future. Some people just find that they’re not very good at divination. There’s nothing wrong with accepting that divination just isn’t your thing if you don’t feel that it’s beneficial to you! 

I’m not very fond of math and you know what, despite the warnings of every grade school teacher, my life has suffered very little for my avoidance of math. I simply choose to focus my efforts on those things that I’m actually good at! In the few instances where I might need some math, there are always people in this world who have the skills that I do not. I can seek out people whose strengths complement my weaknesses. You should take this same approach to witchcraft (and possibly the rest of your life too). You have developed a set of skills, talents, and strengths that are unique to you. Why would you go out of your way to average yourself by becoming mediocre at those things that you have no natural aptitude for when you can spend that same energy becoming truly great at those things that you’re naturally good at?

4. Spirit Work

In much the same way as divination, spirit work is everywhere and is often seen as a completely necessary part of witchcraft. One of the most common questions I get from beginners is about whether they have to work with spirits. Many of these beginner witches are considering giving up the craft entirely because spirits scare them and they’ve been led to believe that they won’t be able to practice the craft without spirit work! How terrible to think that someone might give up their own power simply because they’re afraid of something that they never have to deal with unless they want to.

It’s true that spirits are everywhere and that becoming a witch will get you in tune with your own capabilities to see and interact with these spirits. That doesn’t mean that you have to work with them, though! If you feel unsafe around someone, you don’t force yourself to spend time with them simply because it’s expected of you. You do something about it! You get away from them, you choose not to live your life in their presence, you can even take out a restraining order if you need to. Spirit work is the same way. If you don’t like spirits, you can just avoid them! Put up wards to keep them away from you and your home, tell spirits that ask for your help that you’re not the right person to help, give stubborn spirits the boot with a solid banishing spell. If you don’t want to work with spirits, then DON’T. There are plenty of people out there who will do the spirit work that you don’t want to do. Let them deal with the spirits. Protect your space and your peace of mind if that’s what feels good for you.

5. Gods & Religion

Has anyone else here noticed how hard it is to find non-religious witchcraft? Because I have. The thing is, gods and religion are not mandatory in the craft. No matter how many spells you see invoking a deity or how many witchy sources you find that involve the horned god and triple goddess, you do not have to work with any god that you don’t want to. That includes gods that show up and want to work with you. You have every right to say no to them and not work with them if you don’t want to. Personally, I’ve told Odin to get lost more times than I can count. Do I have something against Odin? No, not necessarily. I just don’t think that working with him will further the path that I’ve chosen for myself. I respect him, but I don’t want him all up in my life and my witchcraft. You have every right to do the same. Pick and choose those beings that you allow into your life carefully. Remember, witchcraft is about claiming your power. Do not give your power of choice up just because the being contacting you is a god. 

You also do not have to believe in gods at all. If you find yourself in the atheist or agnostic crowd, you’re still a totally valid witch. Your power is still real, your magic still works. Don’t let overzealous people force their beliefs on you or make you feel that your personal path is wrong. There are many paths that lead to many places in this life and no two people will walk the same path. We are all here to learn and experience something different. It’s only natural that we will each need to choose our own path to fulfill that.

6. Being a nature obsessed person

I know, I know. We should all care about the planet and love mother nature and blah blah blah. And that’s all great but you know what, even if someone does care about not harming the planet, that doesn’t mean they’re going to be an outdoorsy, tree-hugging, garden planting kind of person. Or even if they are into being outdoorsy, that doesn’t mean they’re actually going to be able to. Plenty of people have limitations that prevent them from being able to go outside a lot. Sun sensitivity, physical disability, anxiety, introversion, and just plain old not wanting to can keep people inside year-round and you know what, that’s fine. A witch who never works a single spell or ritual outdoors is still a witch.

The truth is, your craft should be tailored to you as an individual. Intuitive magic is guaranteed to be more powerful for you personally than any other form of magic on the planet. It’s like the difference between wearing clothing off the rack and wearing clothing that has been tailored to fit your body precisely. The off the rack stuff might feel fine and look good but it will never compare to the look and feel of something tailor-made for you. In the same way, magic that you find in a book or through a teacher might work well for you, it might feel good and give you the results you want but it will never compare to the feel and the power that you can attain through intuitive magic.

If you only take one thing away from this post, let it be this: Stop worrying about whether you’re doing witchcraft “right” by other people’s standards. The only yardstick you should measure your craft by is whether what you’re doing works or not. Do what works. Forget about the rest.

[ladyhindsight]

Hi, I saw that previous ask that was sent by someone else about the parallels between the Shadowhunter society and Israel and it reminded me about the way that Cordelia is portrayed in TLH. When CC initially said that there would be Iranian characters (Cordelia and Alastair) in TLH (before the series was released), she was asked on her tumblr blog if these characters would be Muslim. She said that they cannot be Muslim because Shadowhunters do not follow any religion therefore they are all atheist. But this was really strange to me because in all of her books, the characters reference God a lot, their swords are named after angels in the bible, they are always quoting bible verses, and they also reference events that happened in the bible. So it always seemed like to me that the entire shadowhunter society was based off of religion. If Shadowhunters are all atheist then why are they always talking about God and the bible? In TMI, it’s stated that the two first Shadowhunter parabatai were Jonathan and David who were close as brothers; this is referencing Jonathan and David from the bible. It’s stated that the entire Shadowhunter race was founded when the angel Raziel mixed his angel blood with human blood which means that in this universe angels are REAL. I also think it was stated that Raziel was sent down by God or something but I can’t remember. the demons of hell (Asmodeus, Belial, etc) are also real. Hell is real as well apparently.

So basically the implications of this are that Cordelia assimilated into the Shadowhunter religion rather than her own. Since she’s a Shadowhunter that means she’s half angel.. so of course she can’t be Muslim because her entire existence disproves that in CC’s view. So since CC chose to make angels and God real in her universe, and also saying that Cordelia and Alastair cannot be Muslim, what is she even trying to say?? That God and angels and the bible are real but other religions aren’t??

Not to mention that Cordelia and Alastair are half white by father and have English first and last names (just like all of CC’s characters of colour..)

The faith of Raziel has been a previous discussion point on the blog years past, so I'll reiterate some points here. The topic has rared its head every now and then again, mostly because it is inconsistent and senseless and pretty insensitive to the whole concept of religion.

Clare created a religion for the Shadowhunters to follow, to believe in Raziel as their angelic creator, and formed some base rules for it, which essentially are that Shadowhunters have their own religion and thus don't practice others, and the Ascendants have to convert from the any previous religion to the one of the Nephilim. When discussing Sona, it is stated that "some Islam and Qur’an stories have been blended into Sona’s beliefs, though she is not exactly Muslim as Shadowhunters do not conform to any mundane religion and have their own where they worship Raziel." Which is still yeah, alright, but the whole faith in Raziel is still contradictory at best.

How can you draw so much religious inspiration while at the same time divorce yourself from it completely? The Nephilim religion is based on their creation, mundane religions also based on creation myths, so how is the Nephilim one the one everyone has to adhere to when all the stories are true? It's ludicrous that the Shadowhunters are brought up with such doctrines as "all the stories are true", basically act atheistic, but also at the same time demand other people from other religion to join their faith instead and adhere to their doctrines in which you wouldn’t necessarily believe in.

It seems "all the stories are true" don't apply to religion but fantasy elements such as witches, warlocks, vampires, werewolves, and faeries. With religion (Abrahamic ones to be exact), Clare is being picky.

The Shadowhunters aren't even particularly religious themselves, they have no culture or customs surrounding the faith of Raziel, no rites or holidays or sacred traditions or anything. They might as well be atheistic in the sense that none of the characters, sans Cristina (and her family?), practice the Nephilim religion. But even with Cristina, how does her faith show other than her belief in angels and her religious medallion she wears? Clare not being particularly religious is really reflected on the fact that not much though went into this. Previously when discussing Jonathan Shadowhunter, I said that:

Jonathan’s country of origin is never told, but of course from when the map was what it was during the Crusades. Not that it really matters because we can pretty much deduce they were Europeans since the First Crusade was initiated by the Latin Church and was partaken by the contemporary European kingdoms and empires. There’s also the fact that the roots of the birth of the Nephilim are in religious wars, and trying to remove Jonathan Shadowhunter and the origin of the Nephilim from that is evasive. Okay, let’s leave this thing here and go do this completely other stuff, totally didn’t just try to invade another land and get distracted. It’s interesting to note some liberties authors and filmmakers take when it comes to representing a part of some culture, religion, or myths. What makes inspiration differ from misrepresentation and all that. The wiki states that: “Jonathan then transformed his sister, Abigail, and his friend, David, into Shadowhunters. Inspired by the tale of their coincidental biblical namesakes, Jonathan and David took that story and became the first parabatai, performing a ritual where they took each other’s blood, spoke the oath, and inscribed the runes upon each other.” In Books of Samuel, Jonathan and David, bonded by a strong friendship, form a covenant by taking a mutual oath. “Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.” It’s funny that an author writes their coincidental biblical namesakes when there is absolutely nothing coincidental about it. It isn’t just that Clare was inspired by the writings in the Old Testament, she outright writes that her characters took that story, being coincidentally named the same, and created the parabatai bond based on it. They acted on religious texts. And of course, Jonathan’s sister just happened to be named after the second wife of King David. [...] Why is their faith so centered on Raziel alone when their universe is obviously filled with other god-like beings and entities? I guess it’d be fine if Raziel was worshiped as a patron but didn’t exclude other faiths and the Nephilim didn’t outright demand you to just drop the religion you practice. Why is it suddenly the Shadowhunters’ business what you can worship and what not? There plenty of polytheistic religions so why can’t the Shadowhunters be polytheistic too? It’s nothing away from worshiping Raziel.

Clare made ground rules for the Nephilim religion but failed to ask the follow up question that essentially makes the basis crumble. Let's even consider Jace Herondale who first said that he does not believe in angels or a god. As the series progress, it becomes all the more evident and rather glaringly so that angels (Ithuriel) and Raziel himself/themselves(?) are very real. Jace experiences no growth or acknowledgment as to this. When Jace is faced with Lilith, he throws her and Sammael's love and Sammael's earlier demise at hands of the archangel Michael at her face, names his angel blade Michael when fighting Lilith, but at no point do we really see how did we get from point A to point C where any of this contradictory behavior is realized or discussed between the characters. Or even acknowledged that holy shit, these biblical beings actually exist.

Hell, even The Last Hours has God (or a god?) himself smiting down Belial, a fallen angel, and NO ONE EVEN BATS AN EYE. Most Shadowhunters are really apathetic towards heaven-level stuff happening right in front of them. In some other older post I said:

The thing that strikes me as particularly odd is that they constantly cite the Bible, and their oaths—the parabatai one, for instance, from the Old Testament—are of biblical origin, and Jonathan Shadowhunter himself was told to be a crusader, yet none of it is considered Jewish or Christian. Angels are inherently religious beings, and Abrahamic religions and whatnot where they appear are far older institutions than Shadowhunters are as a race. I just don’t see it as a good idea to draw so much from their religious mythology but completely cut ties with their spirituality and meaning.

[Here's a link to a post compiling some of the earlier pondering on this mess.] If you want, you can also check my Jonathan Shadowhunter tag, I've been sent some great thoughts about him and the Nephilim creation.

Part of the problem also lies, once again, within the worldbuilding, the major lack thereof, because I don't think materializing the Princes of Hell was in the early plans for Clare, at least considering books 1-3 of The Mortal Instrument. None of it was essential to her nor a primary objective in the development of the Shadowhunting world.

[sssssaarn]

Hi there! Today is day 10/11 (I missed a day so I'm trying to catch up)!

First post, tag on blog.

General #2: 10. Kintype(s): Common misconceptions

I've already talked a bit at length about the giant misconceptions surrounding 'alpha' wolves, and how I absolutely hate the trope in all its forms. So, for the sake of not repeating myself, I'll simply skip over that misconception.

Another very common misconception is one I see with crows; that being, that crows 'like' or prefer shiny objects. This is just… Untrue. Yes, crows are quite varied personality-wise just like humans are, and so of course there may be some specific crows that do prefer shiny objects… But there's just as much of a chance of crows absolutely hating shiny objects. It depends on the crow!

Saarn, as well as the nälkä religion as a whole… Have a massive amount of misconceptions, even on the official SCP website itself! Probably the most glaringly painful and incorrect if you do one minute of research yet is still somehow wide-spread misconception I can think of is that the nälkä are Yaldabaoth worshippers… Ignoring the fact that we literally want to kill Yaldabaoth, are we also just completely forgetting Ion here? Ion is closer to being the 'worshipped deity' of the nälkä religion than Yaldabaoth ever was.

General #1: 11. If you’re out, talk about the most accepting person you’ve come out to. If you’re not out, talk about what you would hope a coming out experience would be like.

Funny enough, I just 'came out' to one of my moms about being fictionkin today. I didn't use the exact same language/wording (for example, I didn't just say 'I am fictionkin of Klavigar Saarn' because I knew she likely wouldn't even know what fictionkin are or who Saarn is), I more or less used similar concepts that she already knew to explain myself. Since she is already a very spiritual person, she didn't even question it, and even encouraged me to talk about my source. She even listened to the possibility that I might've been Saarn multiple times over. I feel like it was pretty close to what I would want a coming out experience like that to be.

General #2: 11. Community: Online

I am… A bit conflicted by the current state of the online otherkin community.

On one hand, there are definitely some enjoyable beings I've met here! On the other, I do feel that, the Tumblr community especially, has become less carefree? As in, there is a certain tense atmosphere around worrying if what you say is 'wrong', especially from newer/younger members. I can unfortunately completely understand this feeling, speaking from personal experience I can tell how it is choking out the creativity from newer/younger folks.

I recently read 'The Dragonheart Collective's Testimony on the KFF Phenomenon', and as I mentioned in a small ramble post of mine, I feel like the combination of the rise of KFF and cringe culture certainly has not helped the atmosphere of the community. And thus why I also think why so many fictionkin prefer to share their experiences on 'kinfession' blogs, because it's safer and easier.

I wasn't actually around in the community during the period of either KFF or cringe culture, but I was heavily into cringe culture in self-shipping (AKA 'Sans fangirls') and fandom spaces, and I can certainly tell you that both self-shipping and fandom communities have decidedly gotten worse (TikTok also didn't help, but that came far later). This could, as always, be nostalgia putting rose-tinted glasses on for me, but I always remember fandoms before cringe culture being more out-going, more free, and definitely more cringe. All of this made them more fun.

But after cringe culture, I remember how fandoms seem to go… Quiet? In a way? Basically, people are afraid of interacting with each other now, everyone is keeping each other at arm's length.

All's this to say, the 'quieting' of fandom spaces is reminding me of the 'quiet' of current alterhuman spaces, and it makes me very sad.

[elliepassmore]

Snow Crash review

3/5 stars Recommended if you like: hard sci-fi, dystopian sci-fi, tech bros, sword fighting, VR

TW statutory rape

So...let's have this be the last time I'm fooled by pretty colors and Sumerian cuneiform (also the last time I take a book recommendation from another book). This book and I did not get off to a good start, what with it opening with a million random words thrown together with exposition on what those words meant. Then I got used to it, then Stephenson had to bring in the anthropology and linguistics.

Now, normally I love seeing those things in books. I love both of those subjects and studied them in college and on my own time. That being said, Snow Crash is like if a tech bro was court mandated to take linguistics 101 and anthropology 101, only paid attention 33% of the time, then retold his tech bro buddies all about ancient civilization and ancient languages after having a couple of beers. This is, perhaps, a bit mean, because Stephenson does get some of it right. But then he goes off the rails and while I understand this is sci-fi....well, the basic facts are just plain wrong. Go off, but at least base it in fact.

A slight rant, so perhaps skip these next two paragraphs if you don't want to read about me complaining about linguistics and anthropology more, I'll try to make it brief. Stephenson was off to a good start talking about Sumer and Sumerian religion, he actually stays pretty on track with Sumerian religion, interestingly enough, but then he goes and starts talking about how Sumer was stagnant and yet somehow everyone spoke Sumerian and how me dragged Sumerians out of cave-man-hood.....except, Sumerian wasn't the first language. It's just the oldest language we have written attestation for. People could speak, and were modern humans, well before Sumer became a thing. Hell, Akkadian and and some form of Proto-Old-Chinese (among others) were both spoken at that time, the Sumerians just got to writing first. (and let's not even get into the "cave man" concept)

Further, Sumerian didn't just magically vanish, what happened was a series of smaller and larger civilization collapses caused by a whole host of factors, through which Sumerian gradually went from being the predominately spoken language of the area to a language spoken almost solely religiously due to the influx of newcomers and conquerors to the region combined with certain conquering dynasties forcibly migrating native Sumerians to the outskirts of the empire (where they had to interact with the natives there, who definitely did not speak their language) and bringing other cultural, linguistic, and ethnic groups into the traditional Sumerian heartland. Also, more minor, but there were not "tens of thousands" of languages being spoken in the 1980s. We have approximately 7000 languages today and while we are losing languages at a rapid rate, we are not losing them that quickly. Language, and by some extension culture, was the whole basis of this book and Stephenson just got so much of that basis wrong that, while I enjoyed a decent portion of it, I just couldn't get over the incorrectness of it,

Okay, back to the regularly scheduled programming. As far as plot goes, it was actually pretty interesting following Hiro and Y.T. as they got tangled up in web after web of this conspiracy. There were so many moving parts that seemed disparate from one another and yet somehow connected, and I really enjoyed seeing how it all came together. I liked how things built up and I think the showdown with Hiro gets a good climax, but stuff in the real world fell a little flat. I would've liked to have a firmer resolution with things, even if it left some things open ended. As is, it just feels like a let down.

Hiro was a hard character to get into. He's just kind of there for the beginning part of the book, a problem which is compounded by the sheer amount of lingo and information being dumped on readers at the beginning of the book. He turns out to actually be a pretty chill dude later on and even when he was confused, he at least seemed to grasp things quickly, so there wasn't too much just standing around and questioning things.

Y.T. was a bit easier to like from the get-go, though her lingo is just as confusing as Hiro's. 15 definitely seems young to be doing a lot of the things she's doing, and while I know her mom works long hours for the Feds, I'm surprised she has 0 clue what her daughter is doing. I liked Y.T.'s spunk and tenacity. She could get freaked out at times, but she was a go-getter and immediately jumped into doing anything she was interested in or thought would help.

While I did spend a good portion of this review complaining about the technical linguistic and anthropological side of the book, I did enjoy some of the book. The problem is, is that combined with the factual problems, the book reads too much like your stereotypical hard sci-fi that's easy to make fun of because the authors are using a gazillion weird words to enforce the 'futuristic' idea. Things like "franchulate" I can see where it comes from; 'Kouriers' are on thin ice, but whatever, they're trademarked; but there was a lot of stuff that I thought was just unnecessarily in "sci-fi lingo." All of this put together, plus the very ending of the book, reduced my overall enjoyability.

[crow-caller]

marcy from the hush hush series deserved so much better and gave me a writing idea (for a better take on the idea of a chronically ill half angel i guess?) but i have no idea about general angel lore or anything, what would you suggest? (sorry if this is rambly im tired)

Angel lore is very loose but also very specific. That's one reason I think it's so fun.

Angels are, it shouldn't be forgotten, religious beings. They're very explicitly things which belong to certain religions, generally our main idea of them being from the big Abrahamic ones. Within that they differ a bit, but mostly exist to act as messengers from a greater divine being. Angel originally just means 'messenger'!

So when you write about angels, you need to first decide if you're doing just 'angels as a fictional species' where it's more about aesthetics and people with wings, or doing angels in relation to their original context. There's a lot of free form and stuff to explore with it and so many different takes. It's why I have two published books with radically different ideas of angels, and more unpublished ones with... even more ideas of angels!

My rough guide to your basic angel is:

-A being created to serve a divine, higher power, usually lacking or limited in free will or choice, but also very happy to serve- it is their purpose! (But what if an angel felt differently? What if one had free will?)

-Angels usually have one particular role and function and act with strict rules and bonds to fulfil it (What would it take to make an angel break that? Or question the rules?

-Acting as a guardian and messenger to humanity, who was created after them. (Humans have free will and angels do not... Humans are made in the image of the higher power and most loved by this higher power. This could be difficult for an angel to accept!)

-Beings of energy and light, capable of taking a human disguise. Angels can look and be however, and generally are understood to be genderless- as servants, they don't have those markers of 'identity' (so what if one did?)

Can you see why they can be really, really fun to explore?

(Oh, and the 'biblically accurate angels' thing... not really a thing. Pretty much just a weird internet obsession myth. Angels can be described in some wild ways, but most of what we understand to be angels are just seen as people with wings, usually though 1-3 pairs. Or really technically pure energy spirit taking that shape, as their 'true form' is really beyond human comprehension. The eye-wheel guys aren't. strictly speaking. angels. (maybe) But that's a whole other topic...)

***It's also worth noting angels are a religious concept and innately tied to religion. You can have fun with it and you can have ones divorced from that origin, but you should always be aware they aren't like, dragons: they're not fictional monsters! They have very big significance for a lot of people in a spiritual way who very much believe in them. Very different from vampires. With that too, you should be aware of things like certain concepts relating to them or lore that might be closed to outsiders or best not to touch. Do some research if you're going to use actual, real aspects

[fenmere]

Who we are

We've written about this before, and we'll write about it again. We have slightly different words for it tonight, so we want to put them out there.

This is related to this post about the difference between the words Kepekapean and Ktletaccete.

OK.

We are Ktletaccete and Beshakete, and Jenifer and Eh. Ktletaccete means "descendants of Jenifer and Eh", but sometimes we'll get lazy and use the word to describe our two eldest members, too.

This is probably going to get lengthy.

Beshakete

Getting the Beshakete out of the way, because they're description is short. They are called Outsiders in English, and are basically spiritual walk-ins. There are thirteen of them that we know about. They are all elemental in nature, as far as we know. And not elemental as in like wind, earth, fire, and water. Nor as in the periodic table. But elemental as in Entropy, Interconnectedness, the Concept of Forward, Dirt (specifically), Container, Sphereness, etc.

Some of them have developed pretty complex personalities and life histories while in our system, while others have opted to remain as pure to their original selves as possible.

They are fractal in nature. The instance of any one of them, as they occur in our system, is not the whole, but it describes the whole, and contains infinite multitudes all the way down.

The Ktletaccete and Jenifer and Eh

We have three genders, which are our ways of relating to our body and the outer world through the sections of the brain that we each live in: dragons, girls, and id monsters. We're not going to talk much about those, but Jenifer is the eldest girl, Eh is the eldest dragon, and Phage (who is Beshakete) is the eldest id monster. Not all id monsters are Beshakete, and not all Beshakete are id monsters, but there's a large overlap.

But, anyway, we Ktletaccete and our parents seem to be this:

Dragons.

Real, live, shapeshifting dragons.

You might opt to call us spiritual dragons. We prefer the term "memetic entity" or even "storybook" or "mythical", though our myth is our own and comes from nowhere else but what we've experienced since our vessel was born.

We are not like other dragons, but no dragons are.

Dragons are an extremely diverse category of archetypal monster, and the original dragons were really just a collection of individual creatures, beasts, monsters, spirits, and gods created specifically for their unique roles in their unique stories of origin.

But, thanks to the evolution of language and memetics, all dragons are related now, too.

And things that existed long before the word dragon was invented are now dragons, including extant living species of animal and plant.

We dragons are, more or less, the children of humans. At least from a certain philosophical perspective (many spiritualities and cultures would say otherwise, and that's OK - we're talking about our own, here).

So, we Ktletaccete are a breed of dragon who are descended from humans, unique to ourselves. And when we say that we are not human, what we mean is that we've evolved to be incompatible with humans reproductively and socially and are basically a new species. But we are technically human in the same way that humans are lobe finned fish.

The ancestry is important and undeniable, and a thing that makes us terrestrial (despite how our fiction paints a picture of it being otherwise - we can daydream). But the distinction and difference is more important, practically speaking. So, we will insist, regularly, that we are not human.

How we Ktletaccete develop and function - our life cycle

Jenifer and Eh are both essentially walk-ins who entered our system before anybody else formed and took ownership of our vessel and brain, much like how many religions describe the way all souls work. This is according to their memories, and they basically have developed like any other sentient children (though Jenifer has spent most of her life dissociated and hidden in our subconscious, watching everything quietly like the nonverbal autistic she is).

So, we're not describing their conception or development.

When a Ktletaccete is conceived in our system, they start with the formation of a self schema.

All schemas of identity become self schemas in our brain. ALL of them.

If we learn about a person, enough that we understand them as a person, even if they're fictional or an anthropomorphized thing, that schema of identity is enough to become a self schema and gain consciousness. Almost immediately.

This can be as simple as a face, an expression, an emotion, and a motive. Names are not required. But, names can imply all of those things sometimes, so a name can spark a whole person if we focus on it the right way.

This means that we create so many introjects.

But, we can also create a new headmate by imagining an alternate version of one of us, like, "what would I be like if I had a different special interest or a different name?" And, every time we make a TTRPG character, we make a headmate if someone who already exists doesn't come forward to make the character a faceclaim.

Now, every new headmate gets associated with a member who becomes their parent. Their parent will help them form and grow, lending them memories and memetics, portions of identity either from themselves or from things they admire.

Most new headmates are either children of Akailea (the mother of all introjects) or Gnargrim (our brood guardian), but our older members will still occasionally have children, too. Sometimes, like in the case of Little Eh and Elle, it will be a classic split, usually caused by their parent (Eh in these two cases) trying to be someone they're not. Rarely having anything to do with trauma, but more likely ambition or curiosity.

However it happens that relationships form, our parents always give our children the identity of being Ktletaccete.

This happened even in the case of Phage giving birth to Ni'a, even though Phage is not Ktletaccete. Ni'a identifies as half Ktletaccete, really.

From our conceptions, we develop immediately into beings that would be autistic by human standards (our vessel is autistic after all), and with a special interest or Art. For the vast majority of us that Art is studying and imitating a subject, such as Venom or our toilet as an anthropomorphized semi-animate object. For the rest of us, it's often a skill or an area of study, or a neurological talent.

Morde's Art, for instance, is networking between all of our system members via our brain's neurology.

And then, after that, as we experience life, whether that's repeating the same dream over and over with minor variations in our inworld or fronting and doing stuff in the outworld, we grow into full fledged people.

Now, our inworld shapes are something interesting.

Most of us have humanoid forms, because we are factive introjects of humans. But we are not human, and being shapeshifters we can easily take other shapes.

Those of us who are directly related from Jenifer and Eh, however, do not have default human forms. We tend toward either the draconic or some other Terrestrial animal (though usually still with draconic traits).

Our wolves, for instance, have fully draconic forms that they can take, as well as fully lupine and humanoid forms.

Our biggest clue that we we have non-human forms is the dysphoria, dissociation, and phantom climbs we experience when we front. Which are strongest if we haven't fronted in a long time.

It's pretty clear from that that when we are inworld and disconnected from the front, we take our most comfortable non-human form and get used to it.

But, when our vessel is sleeping and we front in a dream, we unfortunately get such strong signals from our vessel that we usually take human form in the dream. Also, our nightly dreams are usually processing memories from our outworld experiences, so there's the association of being humanoid from those memories as well.

In this way we teach each other how to pretend to be human and try to pass as human when we're fronting.

Most of us, including most of our introjects, seem to dream of the day when we don't have to do that anymore.

Anyway, none of us die. Our vessel will, someday, and that will do something to us, but until then we're immortal and impervious to harm in the same way as a cartoon character. You can squish one of us flat, tear us apart, swallow and fully digest us, and we'll pop right back up an instant later.

Since we've learned that, we've moved all of our weirdest kink scenes entirely inworld. And we've become much, much less fearful of our horror movie style nightmares.

Nightmares about social situations involving our outworld parents still trigger us for days afterward, unfortunately.

[loominggaia]

Is the FGG religious?

I think they're all agnostic, with a small handful of exceptions. Those exceptions being...

Evan: Evan was once a practicing Lindist, only because he was raised in a Lindist household and he knew nothing different. As he grew older and exposed himself to more worldly ideas, he began to find cracks in his religion and eventually fell out of it. He now vaguely claims himself to be "spiritual", not a Lindist but still having faith in Gaia as an intelligent and loving maker. He continues to worship Her in his own way, not in the way Lindist doctrine demands. He also still observes the minor gods from Lindist scripture, which are all really just elements of Gaia by different names (water, fire, land, air, etc.)

Lukas: Lukas considers himself an atheist. However, in the context of Looming Gaia, the word "atheist" can encompass several very different belief systems. In Lukas' case, he doesn't believe that Gaia is a sentient being who does anything deliberately. Everything She creates is just a byproduct of Her survival, and She lacks the capacity to care for these creations or anything else living upon her. Lukas views Allkind as parasites living on Her back. He believes that his maker basically shat him out by accident and regards him like a dog regards a tapeworm.

Lukas looks down on anyone who believes otherwise, and he hates the concept of organized religion in general. He believes that religious doctrine, in all its forms, only does harm and makes the world a worse place for Allkind.

Glenvar: Glenvar is the most religious member of the crew, surprisingly enough. Though it seems he treats everything in life like a joke, his faith is the one thing he takes very seriously. He's a devout Sylvanist who compromises his faith for nothing. He'll skip work to goof off without a second thought , but he wouldn't dream of skipping a prayer ritual. It's too important to him. He communes with his gods daily and finds comfort in them.

This annoys his crewmen at times, because he makes them participate in these rituals whenever the opportunity arises. If it's prayer time (sunrise and sunset) and they happen to be standing near one of his shrines, they better get on their knees and join him. If they don't, he'll kick them in the shins to drop them, then trap them in a headlock and force them to pray with him, because he takes great offense when they "disrespect" his gods. If his crew is eating meat, they better throw a piece of it in the fire first or he'll grab it off their plate and do it for them. If they hunt an animal, he'll make them say a prayer and dress its corpse in flowers right after they kill it. And so on...

Most of his crewmen just go along with it, because it's way less trouble than fighting with him about it. Lukas, on the other hand...Lukas and Glenvar have had some earth-shattering fights over religion. They argue about it pretty much daily. These dumb arguments have become background noise to the rest of the crew, it's as natural as birdsong to them at this point.

Elska: Elska's tribe had its own set of beliefs about the world as well as their own unique creation theory. This religion is so small and obscure that it doesn't even have a name, but it's what Elska has always believed and continues to have faith in today.

In short, she believes that Gaia is a huge cosmic centaur who shaped Elska's tribe in Her image, forging them from stone and bone (This is why her tribe is called the People of Stone and Bone). When her people die, they join Her in the cosmos with all their ancestors, where they run free among the stars for all eternity.

Elska isn't pushy about her religion like Glenvar is. She mostly keeps her faith and rituals to herself. Leaving her mountain actually made her start questioning this faith and gave her a new perspective on it as a whole. She still believes in it, but she looks at it differently than she used to.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

[uboat53]

Okay, a few things have come together in my head that I've been thinking about for a while, so I think it's time for a LONG RANT (TM) to lay it all out. If you're interested in my conclusion rather than just my ramblings, go ahead and skip to the bottom, there's a TL;DR.

INTRODUCTION

Lately, thoughts I've been having about politics and religion in general have come together for me and I've realized that it explains a lot about this particular political and cultural moment we're living through. The basic throughline is this: the people who claim to be proud Christian American Nationalists actually don't fit either the "Christian" or "American" part of those definitions.

RELIGION

Let's start with religion. I've been thinking about religion for as long as I can remember and lately I've come to the idea that there are essentially three "waves" of religion. The first wave is purely explanatory, it's meant to explain things in the world that couldn't be explained at the time; to make sense of the world. This kind of religion doesn't usually have a name and has existed as far back as we can tell there were humans.

The second wave, seems to have come about with the advent of settled civilizations. Basically, this wave not only seeks to explain, it also imposes a moral code. This moral code is either applied generally within a society but not outside of it or explicitly imposes different rules for those inside and outside the society. Most forms of early paganism and Hinduism are examples of this as is Judaism in its early forms.

The third wave, however, is what I call the "universal" religions. These religions do not differentiate between societies or groups of people and apply moral teachings universally to all human beings. Christianity in its theological sense is an example of this religion, as are Buddhism and Islam.

The thing about these examples, though, is that they're not necessarily the religion-as-practiced. Many people who call themselves Christian, for example, very much express a morality more similar to a second-wave religion, not the third-wave religion to which they claim adherence. Keep this particular thought in mind, we'll be returning to it later.

AMERICAN VALUES

"American values" is a nebulous concept that often means different things to different people. For my purposes, I'm going to focus very directly on the values expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution that specifically made America different from other nations on Earth at the time. To me, these are the values that are uniquely American as opposed to being more broadly accepted.

The concept of government isn't unique, that was pretty universal in the late 1700s. Christianity or faith-based statements of values like "endowed by their creator" aren't unique either, probably more the opposite at the time. What is truly unique about the United States and its founding values expressed in these documents is the idea of government by and for the people. All of them.

Certainly we've consistently failed to meet that promise, but the fact that that promise was written in the first place is what has driven every effort to make it a reality. Progress has been slow and we've even had to fight a war to drive it forward, but I don't think anyone can deny that we're extraordinarily closer to meeting that promise today than we were in 1800 and that has a lot to do with the fact that it is explicitly laid out in our founding documents.

This value, to me, is the one thing that is uniquely American. That this nation was founded not to be the home of some people, but of all people, and that its government should represent all of them.

Of course, like with religion, you will find a good deal of people who call themselves "American" who do not accept this fundamental American value.

POLITICS

With these two things in mind, we're seeing something unique in our politics these days. There have always been Christians in America, including both Christians who practice it as a second-wave (in-group morality) religion and as a third-wave (universal morality) religion, and there have always been people who refused to accept the basic American value that our government of, by, and for the people should represent all the people who are inherently created equal, but I can't think of a point in American history where the type of people who practice Christianity as a second-wave religion AND who do not accept that the government should represent all people were clustered together in a single political party.

Various forces of history, including the backlash to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the increasing secularization of the country, the increasing diversity of the country, and a widening divide between urban and rural regions have led to an astonishing concentration of these type of people in the Republican Party in a way that has not been seen before in American history. This has had, to put it lightly, some ramifications for our country.

You can see it in the way that Republican politicians and influential figures consistently refer to "real Americans". Implicit in that statement is that the other Americans, usually Democrats or people who live in cities (who, coincidentally or not so coincidentally, happen to be much more racially and religiously diverse than Republicans or people who don't live in cities) aren't real Americans. This is metamorphosing into a belief, particularly expressed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, that only an election where the "real Americans" win is considered legitimate; others are not permitted to govern.

You can also see it in the way that rules are applied subjectively. Senator Fetterman (D-PA) wearing shorts and a hoodie in the Senate is an affront to the dignity of the institution and drag shows are inappropriate for children, but Representative Boebert's (R-CO) lewd behavior at a family event is somehow not worthy of mention. Parents should have the right to prevent schools from teaching their children about race in schools, but not the right to prevent schools from including right-wing materials in their curriculum.

I could go on and on and on listing hundreds, even thousands of examples of each of these, but I think you get my point. The movement that styles itself as a Christian American Nationalist movement does not apply morality universally the way theological Christianity does and does not believe that the government should represent all people as is laid out in our founding documents. This movement fundamentally rejects the moral principles that are fundamental both Christianity and the United States and make them unique.

TL;DR/CONCLUSION

The modern Republican Party, particularly driven by Donald Trump's MAGA movement fundamentally rejects the moral statements that are unique to Christianity and to the United States. They reject the idea that morality is universal, choosing instead to apply morality differently to their in-group as opposed to an out-group, and they reject the idea that a legitimate government must represent all people, believing instead that only a particular group has the right to govern and rule.

In this way, the policies proposed by this group represent a rejection of Christian and American morality which they are attempting to disguise by cloaking themselves in the symbols of both, and that is something we should all be horrified by.

[thegirlwhowrites642]

are there any themes, motifs, phrases, symbols, narrative devices or anything else that come up multiple times in different stories you've written? what are they, and why do you think they recur in your work?

Such an interesting question! Thank you.

I think I bring back a lot the concept of finding peace in someone in the middle of chaos. It's what attracts me the most about Harry and Ginny I believe. But I think it's something that I put a bit also in Percy and Audrey when I wrote their story. And I know it's something that I enjoy using in my original work. I suppose it is something I wish for in my life.

I'm also going to add a panic attack when it makes sense because for personal reasons it's something very cathartic for me to write. In general, I tend to write a lot about dark themes, and mental health, but also always associated with the contrast of light and healing, which I think it's pretty obvious when you read Back to the Eclipse, my first, and at the moment only, complex and long fanfiction. But knowing my original writing I see simply myself following my usual pattern even in fanfiction. A bit comes from personal struggles and a bit from this fascination I've always held for the themes of light/darkness, good/bad, life/death. It's basically in anything I do just in different forms. From the fact I study law to my end-of-middle-school thesis (it's a thing in my country) that was about Sherlock Holmes and the birth of criminalistic (I was a very well adjusted 13-years-old). I also know a lot about religions for example. And you should read some stuff I wrote as a child, like, why nobody thought of bringing me to, not even a psychiatrist, a priest for an exorcism is a mystery to me.

I love family dynamics. Even when they are ugly. This is more me being Italian I think. In English literature, you have all these orphans and found family, and to be honest, I find it appealing only to a certain point. In Italian literature is all generational trauma!, how to deal with both loving and hating your family!, it's a cultural thing. And, well, not to increase the stereotypes about Italians and family, but family is very important to me. I'm sorry too, a chat between Ron and Ginny, is one of my favourite pieces of fanfiction I've written.

When the story is complex enough I very much love to put in some symbolism (you can always see it in my love for bringing back Harry's bright descriptions of Ginny). Back to the Eclipse has a decent amount of it, from dates to other details (I'm still waiting for people to tell me if they spotted some of this stuff), because I feel like a story should have layers, it should tell you something new every time you read it, it should be worthy of being read again (and because I'm a nerd who loves to complicate her life). I don't think though that I have specific symbols I bring back, I think they should be studied in the context of the specific story and characters.

At last, when it comes to narrative techniques, I have to say that I like to go straight to the point. Some writers like to indulge for pages on creating a frame for a very specific scene but, with the exception of some particular masters of the craft, they are often parts that I can't wait to finish when I read and so when I'm the one writing I don't indulge in that (it often feels like an unnecessary showing off of artistry). If it's necessary for some reason of course I write it but otherwise, I just like to get into the thick of the story.

[thedreamparadox]

Where did the Nightopians and Guides came from? I could imagine Wizeman creating the Nightopians as food source for the Marens but what about the guides?

Guides and Nightopians are both naturally occurring entities within the Night Dimension. Nightopians have a lore justification for this from the original NiD En website that the NiGHTS wiki has a copy of (I haven't gotten around to poking at the Jpn site much beyond an initial 'oh god there's so much stuff here' peruse, so I'm unsure if this lore is consistent between versions since En changed up some things).

For how I handle the lore, Nightopians naturally appear within Nightopias even when Dreamers aren't present, and Nightopias are a little bit more permanent than I think the original game lore implies. These weird little guys exist to just vibe, for how I have things humans that have Ideya just naturally create Nightopias unconsciously because dreams are weird. If Nightopians have any kind of hand in that process, it's not really relevant to any of my fics.

Guides occur naturally as well, but occur in the parts of the Night Dimension that we see outside of Nightopias in JoD. This 'Collective Unconscious' type side of the dimension got pretty wrecked by Wizeman and humans typically aren't lucid enough to get to it, though some can access it by either chance or by transporting themselves there via a variety of different lucid abilities (ie teleportation, magic doorways). Guides are a natural manifestation caused by human perception, since animals having important roles in folklore, myth, and religion has basically been a thing since humans were able to figure out language to start with. (They're also a concept leaning on the concept of dream guides used in dreamwork in real life, though if you go looking into any of that, take anything you read with a grain of salt as lucid dreaming gets used in New Age spaces a lot and some sites will spin lucidity into spiritualism or religious concepts, which is not a vibe for everyone.)

Wizeman designed Nightmaren to be the antithesis of good dreams, so they eat Nightopians. Probably a good thing for Wizeman, really, he wouldn't really be able to power an entire army of nightmare monsters that are still dependent on some form of energy usage without them lol