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randomwriteronline · 4 months

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Bionicle and Plato's Cave: Mata Nui help us Random has been thinking again

HI. MY BRAIN HAS ONCE AGAIN BEEN SCRAMBLED. WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING.

A thing about stories is that there aren't really fully, one-hundred percent original ones. This is not a bad thing, it just happens.

Stories keep repeating one another whether we like it or not, maintaining their own identities through a variety of changes, and Bionicle repeats many, many stories within itself: you've got Polynesian mythos, fantasy epics, dystopian fiction, cosmic horrors, torahic and/or biblical episodes, a subversion of Pinocchio, an Odissey cut short... The works. I'm half certain one would manage to fit some parts of the Divine Comedy in there, probably.

But speaking of deeply allegorical works, the Organic Annal is that too - specifically bearing a resemblance to one of Greek philosopher Plato's most famous allegorical myths, that of the cave.

For those who do not know it, please have a simplistic bastardized version of its first half, which is the most relevant in this case:

A group of men have been, since birth, shackled within the deepest recesses of a cave. They are sat facing a wall upon which a fire casts the shadows of figurines (a tree, a donkey, a vase, etc) placed before it: this is all they've ever known, what they perceive to be reality. Imagine, then, that one of these prisoners manages to free themself from their restraints, and for the first time looks back. Thus they discover the figurines, the fire, and the lie they thought was truth; and though it would be easy to consider these new idols the "true" reality, the prisoner looks past them and sees that the cave stretches forward. As such they crawl through it until they reach the outside world: the sunlight forces their eyes down as they are not used to it yet, and their first taste of this new environment is a reflection in a puddle, or maybe a lake, wobbly and not quite clear. Only when they've accustomed to the Sun they can raise their head and properly discover the real world.

The myth of the cave is an allegory for the philosopher's quest in search of true knowledge, which resides not in the imperfect physical world, but in the perfect metaphysical realm of ideas.

This is not, necessarily, the allegory I believe the Innard Scoresheet represents.

The Biological Chronicle is, to me, a story about stories. About making stories, about being swept in the flow of a story, about recreating ourselves in stories over and over and over again.

I promise it will probably make more sense later.

But back to the point: the myth and the Flesh Record follow a similar structure and have a similar message. That is the thesis of this post until I inevitably get derailed again. Let's look at that.

In applying the steps (shadow, copy, reflection, reality) of the philosopher's journey towards enlightenment to the Meat Diaries, I'll do what Plato would bludgeon my head with a stick for and take them much more literally: the places described are physical ones, and the characters actively move between them. This is not because of any personal wish to specifically spite some dead Athenian fuck, but because that is literally what happens in the Entrail Annotations, whether through actual movement or changes of perspective.

The island of Mata Nui is of course the first step: shadows cast upon a cave wall.

There is a certain irony in this. Mata Nui shares the same allegorical location as the cave, yet physically is its complete opposite - an open space signaling the end of an enormous interconnected system of caves. The journey starts from the end. Great job everybody, we've found reality! This philosophy shit is easy.

But the island is still very much the cave. It looks prettier and livelier than the cave, but it's still a prison in which the Matoran have been confined with no chance of escaping; it's still cut off from the world at large, be it beneath it ir around it; it's still a place where beings who do not know any better blindly believe what is told to them. Only seven people know the truth (or what they believe to be the truth) and spin it in tales of shadow puppets: simplistic retellings full of gaps to fill with magic and terror and prophecies. The Turaga mean no harm - they had no way to know when or if they would have ever returned to Metru Nui, and it made no sense reminding the Matoran of a place they may end up agonizing to see without being able to - but it remains that Mata Nui is a cave, a prison of ignorance.

Things change after Mask of Light: shackles broken and door opened, the silver sea stretches before the Matoran and offers them a sight familiar yet different, more defined.

Metru Nui is the figurine, the copy held in front of the fire. It's the first introduction to the Matoran Universe proper, the first step towards the cave's exit. Here we see how the Matoran are supposed to work, how this sort of society is meant to function, and it... well, it sort of sucks the joy out of it, doesn't it? The soft edges of the figurine's shadow have been replaced by hard protodermis sides that leave no room to the imagination, letting us see the craftmanship clearly. And it's... it's kind of unpleasant. Kind of dull and mean and so... unmagical. I'd like the shadows again please. Those were nicer.

(Plato describes this exact happenstance in the philosopher's journey - upon seeing something closer to the truth one might feel repelled and want to return to simpler times. But we persevere. We must.)

Or perhaps this step is not Metru Nui itself, but the Turaga's recollection of it. The city they knew is now gone, abandoned to itself and rotting miserably alone for a thousand years, and yet they still cling to that pristine image their minds have sculpted for it, forgetting details, crafting imperfect copies of its reality: their own stories place it in a time before time, turn it as they say in a "city of legends", of great minds and a great hero and a strange tension pervading it that they might not consciously recognize. This is their basis for the stories they told, and they believe it to be the truth. It is not. The truth is deeper behind them.

The Matoran Universe as a whole is a reflection in the water. We've gotten out of that cave, but it's still too bright and our eyes can't adapt quickly enough: this will have to do for now.

But what is it a reflection of? A body? That's a given, since the whole thing is housed inside one. Yet this body does not behave like a body, its organs don't act like organs. They are landmarks and settlements, and there are species and parties involved in their own more or less treacherous businesses, and death is everywhere and seldom spares anybody, and evil isn't a singular incomprehensible thing but many perfectly identical pieces, and everything is happening all the time and I would like a break. Please. I can't handle all of this. It's too close to how everything already is. Let's go back to the figurines. They were worse than the shadows, but not to this extent. Please. I just don't want to see the bad guys win. I just don't want to see my friends die.

(Upon seeing something closer to the truth one might feel repelled and want to return to simpler times. But we persevere. We must.)

The Matoran Universe is a terrible place, but it's still far away. The edges are wobbly when the surface shifts: the stakes are universal in size, the rivalries are exaggerated, the situations are fantastical, the evil so terrible and terribly simple. It does what it does because it simply does it, and after all why else should it do it? In its increasing complexity it's still simple and sometimes a bit silly. It's still dolls that you can hold in your hand to make fly around.

As @sepublic mentions briefly here, Bara Magna is by contrast just so human. Before the big bombastic Rock-Em-Sock-Em Jumbo Edition ending and peeling away the sci-fi elements, these are stories of people trying to live. This is reality.

People are sleazy. People have priorities that not always include the well-being of other being put first. People are evil for reasons beyond just "power" or "money" or "why not". Strakk is a massive selfish bastard and also he is the one motherfucker who gets me because to be very honest I too would not want to wade through a desert crawling with quicksand and huge bat winged serpents and raptor riding marauders and spartans so bloodthirsty they don't even name their children until they make a new body count record without being paid well enough. Mata Nui's idealized honor makes him a complete anomaly because nobody is a prince in shining armor here. They're all covered in bones and doing their best not to start a war again.

Even his quest, despite what it entails and how solemnly he presents it and the information we as readers have (his identity as a usurped god exiled from his own body), is surprisingly real - in fact, his struggle is actually the same as Kiina's: both of them are strangers to the region suddenly separated from their people during a time of great strife and desperately wanting to reunite with them. The difference being that while Kiina had no chance to do such a thing, Mata Nui was built to fix both of their problems.

This is what the Matoran Universe is made in the image of. And while it very much deviated across time, the core of it remained the same: elemental tribes and variegated species caught in a dance of death, biting each other's tails endlessly.

This is the world the MU beings find once fully free. It's rough, but they've been through something like this before.

They'll handle it.

They always have.

That is the will of the Non-Mineral Journal.

Of Bionicle, the story-that-ended.

BUT.

Not necessarily of Bionicle, the story-that-does-not-end.

Now we are getting into "Random Experiences Getting The Brain Scrubbed By The Hard Back Of A Sponge And Makes It The Problem Of Everybody Listening To The Inane Yelling" territory. I'm talking walking into headcanon if not straight up just fanfiction territory. Possibly also sensible speculation but I don't know how to tell. Please do come smack me if you feel it is needed.

It's wild that Bionicle has managed to endure for what now (2024) are 23 years. The endless rebuildable possibilities intrinsic to being a LEGO product have certainly helped, but at the same time I really do feel like it wouldn't have held this strongly without its story.

I will admit I'm not a building kind of person. I had some ancient LEGO bricks when I was little and what I usually did with them was stacking them in a really tall line and try to keep it upright until they fell and scattered like lemmings booking it for a cliff. Getting into Bionicle would have never been possible for me had my dear beautiful friend @cantankerouscanuck not innocently dropped me links to Legends of Metru Nui, Web of Shadows, and the Crosswired Geeks website asking if I could have please considered skimming through it. This was back in september 2023. These pieces of plastic have been irreversibly fucking up my brain for nine months, and it was only possible because the plot and characters were written in a way that actively sunk its teeth into my skull and did an alligator death spin so potent that I'm still reeling from it, thinking about it.

I do think that's one of the main reasons why it's still going, why people still talk about it. It lives on through fans who still look at all the enormous potential left by the gaps and holes in the story and work on them, analyze them, make their own versions of them. So this second section is about that part of Bionicle, the story that just does not end, carried on by others.

So back to the point, what actually kickstarted this entire line of thought (the Squishy Note and the allegory of the cave are sort of the same lol) was a headcanon I have about the characters that have been actually missing from this analysis: the Great Beings.

You Know.

The Guys Who Kickstarted Every Single Thing, And Notably Continuously Did All Of It Wrong.

From my own prior knowledge I had understood that they are all Glatorian, and I just learned that they also were, apparently, given their incredible weird fucked up mental powers that made them into godly creatures by a space octopus.

I am going to take both pieces of information and discard them.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with them, except maybe coming from the leftest field available like a sack of granite to the face, but I feel like this kind of explanation for who and what they are isn't really satisfactory to me specifically. It does fit with the allegory of the cave still, technically - they are part of the real world, the ones who created every layer of detachment from it on purpose (somebody must have shackled those prisoners at the bottom of the cave, after all) and have managed to get to a higher level of reality still, following the platonic quest for knowledge into something that resembles the iperuranium, the perfect metaphysical world in which ideas reside.

But also... I'd like for there to be a limit to how higher we can go, you know? Into the cosmic horror? Because everything is cosmic horror in the Doctor's Report already. We live on a god's face. We live in a god's body. We are a god's cells. Our universe is a tiny manmade action figure in a larger universe. Our god is just a synthetic soul. The real older gods made it and sent it around to do their bidding. Also they're all gonna kill us when we figure out our universe is fake. Cosmic horror. Cosmic horror for miles. These are fucking LEGOs. Why is there so much existentialism in them.

So yeah, at the cost of sounding boring the psychic octopus from outer space might be a little bit too far for my personal tastes.

This does not mean I am immune to adding onto the cosmic horror.

Because my personal interpretation of who/what they are still adds onto the cosmic horror.

It just doesn't also include "giant aquatic fauna with psychic powers" in the already very large salad of sentient sapient species who have stakes in this universe, because I think we have enough of those.

So what is my platonic ideal form for them?

The Great Beings are human beings. Straight up just people. They're the readers, the players, the writers, the designers, the creators and tellers of the chronicle itself - they have this immense dominion over everything around them because they are the origin of everything around them in a sense, but their constant failings make sense because for all the influence and power they are still human, and that makes them very, very fallible. I mean, mr Greg "I will rewire your brain chemistry forever with some of the best stuff you'll read as a kid, and also for undiscernible reasons doors aren't canon" Farshtey would be one of them. Things make a lot of sense.

(this is impossible in Stone Cold Canon by the way and I am aware, because if we got to properly see the Great Beings they would have needed to be products to sell, but this is not a matter of probability it's a matter of Vision. like can you imagine how fucking cool would have been a Bonkle movie where the characters finally meet the Great Beings face to face and when it happens the style just completely shifts from 3D animation to a stop-motion and live-action combo with the Great Beings played by people and the characters portrayed by their actual sets with all of the lack of expression and stiff hands and all. do you see it. im about to blow up)

And so, we return to the allegory.

What are the shadows on the wall? Are they still the Turaga's tales? Then shouldn't they be their memories, as well? Everything that comes out of their mouth is hazy either with nostalgia or simplification, and none of it can be real. Yet they present it as such, because to them it is. Their ignorance is the same as the Matoran's, but they do not grasp it because they can't. Mata Nui to them is not the cave, it's the reflection in a lake: an imperfect mirror of reality. They cannot see the fire nor the figurines.

They are the figurines. Man-made creations confined under artificial light in a vast underground system, as large as a whole galaxy and yet so small, so isolated, so far back into the cave they are never meant to know anything other than. The shadows were their own but they can't realize that, and they can't realize they themselves are copies. The Matoran Universe is a puppet show that Teridax shuts down as he takes its reigns: he banishes its fire, Mata Nui (who is a gnostic Demiurge, a god made by gods demanding worship despite its falsehood - another copy not fully aware of being a copy) and shuts the entrance, plunging it all into darkness. No more knowledge. It is not something dolls need, after all.

Bara Magna is not the last step. It is not yet reality, not yet the truth. It's closer, much closer, but it's not: it's the lake, the puddle, the reflection that distorts when something is thrown into it. The stakes are more realistic, the characters and motivations, but not yet real. There is still a layer of separation: the elemental powers, the alien setting, the strange beasts, the supernatural history, the secrets pointing to things much bigger and more fantastical than anything reality could be, the way it is cut short by no fault of its own. What does it reflect? It's not the Matoran Universe, since that is a model based on Bara/Spherus Magna. It's not Mata Nui, because that is an attempt at recreating what the Matoran Universe was, at least in part. So... Is it the real world? Our, world?

It must be.

The Great Beings (us, the players and readers and writers and artists) shaped all of this. This universe is their creation, their work, and it is based on what they know, on their reality, because all stories are.

Maybe it was a story as close to real as possible that turned fantastic and wild until it became mythical, or maybe it was a simple story that grew so complex and grounded that it became life-like. It doesn't matter. It's a long story, a really, really long one, and maybe they're tired of it, or maybe they don't know what to do with it, or maybe they just think it has run its course, or maybe... Maybe they don't know how to tell it again. Tell it like this again.

So... I guess the thing to do is clean up.

Full tabula rasa.

And once we're done we can take these figurines we still have left, the last proof of all this immense work, this spiraling dive into who and what we are, how we function, how we create, how we imitate and recreate ourselves in fictional worlds that are our own and yet completely alien over and over, and make new ones. Distorted reflections that become imperfect copies to place before a fire so that their shadows can play out a new story upon a cave wall, for those same dolls to believe they are real.

God I got sidetracked severely

#bionicle #random talks #HELLO this took me TWO DAYS to write and i somehow reached conclusions i hadnt thought of during the writing process. Help Me #it also brought me Thoughts about g2 that i need to write down in a fic Right Now. it is Fucking Late In The Night. Shit.#also i finished this while watching an in-depth analysis of Emesis Blue (tf2 psych-horror movie) thats TWO HOURS LONG and very interesting #just to give you an idea of my current state #anyways its a mess. enjoy.

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milky-rozen · 6 months

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Taking a short break from Egyptian Mythology to practice with something different! This time, I will introduce you to Hu Tianbao, also known as "Tu'er Shen", a Rabbit god coming from Chinese Mythology, who was supposed to be the deuteragonist of my unfinished novel "Immortal Chronicles".

Born during the Qing Dynasty in China, he was deified after his death and became the God patron of Homosexual love and marriage. In my novel, he works as the main protagonist's lawyer, who is the immortal son of Chang'e, Goddess of the Moon, and the divine archer Hou Yi. Which is quite ironic, considering that the lunar immortal's mother, Chang'e, got her own rabbit companion as well!

A draft of the novel is available on Wattpad but it's only in Italian, so I'm afraid I can't share it with you for now :')

#my art #chinese mythology #hu tianbao #tu'er shen #Immortal Chronicles

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coarsely · 9 months

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(art; x x)

Anti-Chronicles; a WIP introduction

Set between the warring states of Bronze Eden and Nod, Anti-Chronicles is a non-linear, non-chronological anthology of stories taking place in these respective lands, aiming to explore the culture, history, politics and society and how they have changed over the years. Bronze Eden is a heavily controlled theocratic state filled with forced surveillance and religious fervour, led by the Potentate Dynasty who have been ruling Eden for millennia. Nod is the neighbouring anarchist state, post-apocalyptic and is completely free of any organised government or laws, dealing with the fallout of a nuclear weapon that distorted local time and space dropped on them by Bronze Eden.

STATUS; 1st draft, lore-building.

P.O.V.; 3rd person limited, with occasional chapter-specific exceptions.

GENRES;

Fantasy

Steampunk fiction

Post-apocalyptic science fiction

THEMES;

Religion as a tool of survellience and power

The politics of monarchies vs anarchism

War's impact on citizens

Nuclear post-apocalypse

Time-travel

Human connection in spite of hardship, violence, and colonialism

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNINGS;

Violence

Swearing and derogatory language

Sexuality

Religion and religious trauma, specifically Catholic based

Puritanism

Disordered eating

Child abuse

Cultural homophobia, misogyny, racism, etc

Death

Ableism

Potentially more which will be outlined when relevant.

INSPIRATIONS;

Love, Death + Robots

I, Robot by Issac Asimov

Æon Flux

Dishonored (video game series)

Bayonetta (video game series)

Akira

The Real and the Unreal by Ursula Le Guin

CHARACTERS;

by nature of being non-chronological and non-linear, we have a lot of characters! some are kept to their own corner of the world, others move around. here is a short list of the more familiar faces, but there are many more you'll meet as we develop. To meet the entire cast, please refer to this post!

The Potentate Dynasty, the rulers of Bronze Eden who are said to be descended from the Empyrean Itself. Currently ruled by the aged Potentate Magnus, who has fathered six children during his reign. Living in the floating palace in the center of Bronze Eden, they keep to themselves, but their power is absolute.

The Imperators are the divine soldiers of Bronze Eden, also with a link to the Empyrean who are trained from a young age to be the protectors of the Temple and of the Potenates and priests who live within.

Sal Soloman and Ed Edwards are two scientists in Bronze Eden, who's meeting and relationship is both legendary and tragic.

Nod's warriors are disorganised and many, but by far the most prolific is Ucalegon, a native of Old Rhapsody. She works with her own agenda in mind, but nontheless has Nod's best interests in mind... for the most part.

Lady Jezebel is a radio presenter, activist and DJ who's voice has become synonymous with the Land of Nod. She is a pillar of Nod culture and beliefs, hugely influential though nobody knows her face or who she is outside of her radio work. If you want to know of the latest news or listen to the blossoming music scene, her radio is who you tune in to.

Vítor Cadogan is a resident of Golden Glimpse, one of the cities in Nod. Known for running a youth center, he was once a vigilante detective who sought to fight the crime that grew in the golden city's underbelly. He's had a change of heart and has dedicated the remainder of his life to supporting the youths of Golden Glimpse, but many hold his crimefighting past against him.

Other names you'll want to remember are Saccade, Helene, Ive, Cerebellum, Hendrix, the Praeceptor family, and Niles Clarke.

Please feel free to ask in the replies, my inbox or my dm's if you would like to be added to the tag list. This means being tagged in snippets, character profiles, lore dumps and graphics, and anything else related in a major way! I will not tag you in ask games, picrew chains and the like, as I wouldn't consider these notable to the actual tangible lore. You can ask to be removed at any time.

#brieuc.txt #anti-chronicles #wip intro #wip introduction #fantasy #steampunk #post-apocalyptic #science fiction

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crim50n-r8er · 1 month

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Back at it again with part 2 of the swaps found in my Blockbuster AU

Let’s go! Swaps under the cut for the viewing pleasure of those who don’t care

Shadow 🔁 Imperator Ix

Shadow: He behaves more like he does in SA2, Heroes, and 06 but more in an antagonistic role. He will be seen as the same as this version of the Nocturnus found the means of immortality through genetic alteration to the point of giving themselves longer lifespans, Shadow having what people would call immortality. He’s also the leader of the cult known as “The Brotherhood of Black Arms,” BBA for short, seeing Devil Doom as a divine being and seeks to bring its “glory” to their universe by merging the Twilight Cage with it. Keeps VA

Ix: He is now the immortal ultimate life form. His antagonistic side in the SA2 adaptation is similar to what he was like in Chronicles, just no insanity. He also is not as cunning, manipulative, or as good with persuasion as canon due to not having much wisdom by only being around 50 years old, with most of it in a comatose state. Not sure how he would act after redemption. I just know that I don’t want him to be an edgelord. He will not only be created by using Argus DNA but with chaos drives (Shadow’s original creation origin before Shadow 05) VA will be Jason Douglas

Silver 🔁 Shade

Shade: She is basically the same, but she can’t rely on technology to fight due to her world being in ruin by Dark Gaia 200 years in the future. So instead, she uses her stealth to get around Crisis City with Rouge providing cover if needed. She would soon get some tech of her own from stealing from Tails’s stuff in the present to finally fight along with the crew. VA will be Kimberly Brooks

Silver: With being the most notorious physic in the army of the BBA, he gets great acknowledgment for his efforts, even from Shadow himself. He is still skeptical about if merging the Twilight Cage with their universe is a good idea or not. He soon awakens to knowing for a fact that it isn’t due to being deceived for so long and immediately joins the side of good. Keeps VA

Cream role = Marine

Charmy role = Cream

Marine Role = Charmy bee

Think of Marine as a found family little sister of sorts for Vector who he protects with his life. She still behaves the same though, just no pirate stuff. VA is Kayli Mills

Cream, like her mother, is a member of the CAG along with her mother and Mighty. Best not to separate mother from daughter, right?

Due to not having any knowledge about Sonic Rush Adventure, I sadly will have to leave Charmy’s bio blank. I do know that he would be a pilot instead of a sailor.

Wisps 🔁 Chao

The Wisps would not have their variants who have different powers, just their appearaces, like Null Wisps filling the role of a Dark Chao

Chao variants will have the color powers such as Dark Chao giving us that demonic hungry hungry hippo lol.

Argus role = Devil Doom

I want Shadow to still have some relation to the Black Arms Remove VA

Black Arms role = Argus

Think of this as an alien species inspired by Argus from Sobic Chronicles and the 100-eyed giant of the same name from Greek Mythology

The E-Series role 🔁 The Gizoid

Emerl 🔁 E102 Gamma

Obviously the self-sacrificing robots have to swap. Gamma keeps his VA while Emerl’s will be Zach Aguilar

Gemerl 🔁 E123 Omega

Pretty similar, so I’d say it’s okay to swap Omega keeps his VA while Gemerl’s will be Johnny Yong Bosch

E101 Beta 🔁 Perfect Charib

These two are pretty similar to one another, so I’d say it’s a good swap. Beta: Keeps VA, Charib: remains undecided

E100 Alpha / Zero 🔁 Perfect Scylla

Scylla: He would chase after Tikal as she tries to save some animals from deforestation and due to her knowing to much of Noahs future plans. With him being so unhinged, I think it really works out well. VA remains undecided

Zero: I see it best to not separate Zero from the rest of the E-series. Keeps VA (if he has one, of course)

Rouge 🔁 Blaze

As the queen of the newly renamed “Unbra Dimension,” Rouge is the protector of the newly renamed “Umbra Emeralds.” Be careful, though. Rouge is very protective and possessive of these gemstones, and she will keep you away from them with her control over shadows (umbralkinises)

Blaze is now a Gem collector, but think of her more as the Indiana Jones type. Keeps VA

Illumina role = Solaris

Solaris Role = Gaia

Gaia Duo role = Lumina and Void (Components of Illumina)

Mephilis takes Void’s role, and since never takes his form based on Shadow, he will take form of the person he talks to. If multiple people are there, he’ll take form of the previous person who talked to him. He will act like he’s a sorrowful being, but it’s a trick to get back with Iblis to become Solaris again. Keeps VA

Iblis is just the same, a mindless monster of fire

Dark Gaia is the same, a monster of darkness. All that’s different is that it’s scaled down in size.

Chip is now an antagonist who sees the biological world as out of balance with so much sapien life, so he seeks to wipe out enough of the species to bring balance as normal Gaia. I’d say they’d go for about 3/4 of the world population. Keeps VA

Void is in Chip’s role, and he’s now a good guy as he, the god of nightmares, helps Knuckles in the events of my Unleashed adaptation.

Lumina will be in the antagonist as Commander Noah will seek the goddess of dreams to make his dream of ruling the world a reality.

Big 🔁 Froggy

A frog mobian girl who is always looking for her fat, purple cat. Froggy, now named Jelly, will be voiced by Cristina Vee

This will probably be it for now. I’ll cone back in the evening of my timezone to give you all the next part

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

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justagingerwithredhair · 4 months

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The Blue Moon Ball: Dancing (Part II)

I double check my clothes to make sure I'm still presentable after my blunder. Heni... what a friendly fellow! Looks like this socialization thing isn't too hard after all. I mean, if I can become highly proficient in ice elemental and divination magics, maybe I was selling my capabilities short. With renewed confidence, I make my way towards the banister when, lo and behold, to my horror, it is on the opposite side of the ballroom. The music is the loudest its been, and the dance floor packed. Oooooooh boy... this is going to be fun. Maybe I could fly over the crowd? The room seems big enough to do that safely so-- oh no. I look up and see couples dancing in the air, balanced on translucent disks of golden light, happily spinning above the crowd as the platform floats in tandem with their steps. Not only is the floor full, but the air too? I pinch the bridge of my nose and push up my glasses. Well, it seems the only way to high ground, is through all of this. I suppose I'll just have to pray to whatever deities look favorably upon me that I don't make a mockery of myself. It's alright. It's okay. Take a breath: 1... 2... 3... GO! My feet enter the fry.

A beautiful waltz fills the air as dancers step in time. I try to keep up with the rhythm and navigate through the crowd. I have quite a bit of ground to cover before I make it to the steps. Tragically, I end up bumping into another dancer. I can tell my prayers have gone unanswered because we end up locking hands and trying to go with the beat. This caster looks to be another feline fellow (@thattabaxiwizard)! Though it doesn't seem being related to cats guarantees dexterity as she and I both struggle to move our bodies in a way that isn't awkward. I try to reassure her that I am no better than she is, but by the end of our exchange, we both spin away beet red from embarrassment.

Well, that could have gone better... but look! The banister is closer than it was a few minutes ago! Progress is progress. I get back into the rhythm of the music and step around the others. That is until I stupidly find myself in another unexpected collision. I must have it them in the back, as the tall figure is without a face at a glance. I profusely apologize to the caster towering above me in a trench coat. They turn around to reveal... a goose (@a-goose-in-a-trenchcoat)? Well it's not the most bizarre thing I've ever laid eyes on. But, oh dear, they were holding a drink and I spilled it all over them! Ivory and I quickly cast prestidigitation, cleaning the mess up like it never happened. I bashfully excuse myself afterwards.

After freeing myself from that ordeal, my eyes catch a golden disk floating towards the ballroom floor. A couple steps off and makes their way to a buffet. This presents a perfect opportunity! If I'm able to hop on, I can pilot the platform to the stairs without having to risk another dance! I squirm my way through the crowd and step up onto the plate. Light ripples through the shape as my feet hit the surface. Once soundly on, the platform begins to levitate higher and take flight. My legs wobble and buckle. Soon I find myself on all fours staring though the golden light at a sea of people below. It would appear these manifestations handle nothing like my staff. Though, the platform seems to move whenever I apply my weight to any side. I suppose I'll have to control this thing like a Dance Dance Revolution pad. Jamming and jigging my way through the ballroom, all seems to be going well! The banister is growing closer and closer. I'll be there soon so long as I--my eyes grow wide in horror--DON'T HIT THE CHANDELIER!!! I throw my weight to one side, barley scraping by the crystal fixture. However I fail to stop my own momentum and end up rolling off the side. I manage to cling on to the edge with all my puny strength. I am unable to determine if it's fortunate or unlucky that no one seemed to notice the predicament I'm in (or at least no one that I know of). Kicking my legs is enough to exert a modicum of control back over the disk, so I frantically flail my way over to the steps. So... close... just a little further...

With the last of my energy, I fling myself onto the marble railing and flop over the other side. Exasperated, I sit up, taking quick and shallow breaths. My eyes meet the piercing judgemental stare of two witches who witnessed the entire thing. Between gasps, I apologetically offer the plate that almost took my life to them in which they happily step on and seamlessly float off above the crowd. Red from embarrassment and sweat, I take a well needed breather on the steps. Once I regain my composure, I climb to the top of the stairs and begin to look for Lurien.

(So much for not making a mockery of myself...)

#blue moon ball #wizardposting #thattabaxiwizard #a-goose-in-a-trenchcoat

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cloaksandcapes · 17 days

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Robbie's been playing Eiyuden Chronicles lately, and one of the characters has a floating skeletal arm they use to attack. He's been wanting to make an item inspired by it for some time...but could never decide on what to call it.

Then it dawned on him, that the Paladin in his streamed campaigned, Rosalind Larest of the Second Chances, lost her arm sometime last year...

Knight Larest’s Left Arm

Wondrous Item, legendary (requires attunement)

“This skeletal arm is in pristine condition, reanimated by a strange bronze bangle around its wrist. It floats through the air by magical means and aids adventurers in combat, able to wield any one-handed weapon given to it.”

As an action, you can speak the command word of this magic skeletal arm to activate it, causing it to float around you within 5 feet for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, it deactivates and cannot be used again until you finish a short or long rest.

The skeletal arm can hold a single one-handed weapon you give to it. It cannot attune to a weapon, but can use magical weapons that don’t require attunement. Additionally, if you hand it a weapon you have attuned too, it will benefit from the magical properties.

The skeletal arm has an AC of 18, 50 hit points, is resistant to all damage and immune to poison and psychic damage. If it is reduced to 0 hit points it deactivates and falls to the ground. It can be activated again once you finish a long rest.

In combat, the skeletal arm shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can make one melee attack with an attack bonus of +8 and adds +5 damage to the weapon dice.

Unless otherwise instructed, the skeletal arm moves with you, always staying within your space. It has a fly speed of 20 feet if commanded to move elsewhere.

If the skeletal arm is within your space, it can use its reaction to make a melee weapon attack against a creature that moves adjacent to you.

Lucky Strike. If the skeletal arm scores a critical hit, it can use a 5th-level Divine Smite. Once it has used this property it cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.

If you want to support Cloaks & Capes check out our Patreon for 685+ magic items, 15 monsters, 200+ tokens, maps, player options and more for just $3\month. And join us in Discord or on Twitch every Mon\Wed\Fri to create new D&D Homebrews like magic items, monsters, or subclasses.

We add over 30 new items a month and 1+ monster a week.

#DnD #Dungeons and Dragons #DnD5e #Homebrew #Magic Item #DnD Homebrew #Homebrew Magic Items #dnd 5e homebrew #dnd item #dnd stuff #DnDaDay #Knight Larest's Left Arm

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h-doodles · 1 year

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hi, can I ask for your top ten favorite fics ? :)

Hi anon hiiiiiiii welcome!!! u caught me at a good time, ur soooo lucky bc i just glanced at my notifs and saw this ask get sent <3 KDBDKDKK its been literal years since i checked my ask box 👉🏻👈🏻

BUT ANYWAY! top 10 of all time???? be warned that while i am currently enchanted with ONE (1) 6 ft 3 in actress, I still do consider myself a girlie with varied tastes so. my old & other fandoms are mixed in my current list!

without further ado:

#10: knowledge for knowledge's sake by tigriswolf (ao3) || quite an old piece detailing how a change in the personality of one Hermione Granger could have had a massive impact to the story— and while I don't fuck with JKTerfling, the fics I've read from the old fans in the HP fandom are still honestly, some of the BEST I have EVER read. This one in particular irrevocably changed me as a teen, and is one story that I continue to draw inspiration upon when I create dark!AUs for my SI/OCs.

#9: Zutopia by itslivybear (ao3) || the fluff, the worldbuilding, an AU where Izuku is mentored by our beloved Rat God & together, they fix the world problems? GIRLIES catch me forever LOVING this concept like you could NEVER believe <3

#8: (not so) Bad Idea by @sarahpaulsonsoftie (tumblr post) || HEE HEE ITS LIVING IN MY MIND RENT FREE LIKE HELP THESE BITCHES GAY!!!!!! GOOD FOR THEM!!!!!!! ft a meddling plantita who really mothered; Marilyn Thornhill <3

#7: Hold my Soul by connyhascontrol (ao3) || I got into Trixie/Katya completely by one @montaguehphm introducing me to UNHhhh (HIIIIIII bestie I hope everything is going good and that ur gay keeps slay <3) and I haven't recovered ever since— reading the fics by writers on AO3 was a happy little accident, but one i will FOREVER love, nonetheless. Anyway, this particular fic was SO brilliantly original and YET so entrenched in the personalities between T&K that it ABSOLUTELY just wrecks me everytime I reread it. anyways hi @connyhascontrol pls know ur brilliant <3

#6: I think I'm gonna call him out by hellelf (ao3, users only) || again, another AU for Hermione fic, that's chockfull of world building and interesting relationships! It's been unupdated from its 5 chapters since 2021, but I still LOVE to look back at it from time to time 💖

#5: The Confectionary Chronicles series by cheshire_caroll (ao3); Into the Black series by angelholme (ao3); Hermione Granger & the Serpent's Renaissance series by epsi1on (ao3) AND New Blood by artemisgirl (ff.net) || if it's not evident, i am an absolute slut for fics ft. Hermione being badass & put into a v cool plot w/ insane amounts of world building, so yeah, def a top 5 most contender <3

#4: The Infinitely Curious Woman by chararii (ao3) || literally ALL of their fics are absolute bangers, and while I forever mourn their decision to stop all Naruto fics thanks to the great harddrive incident of 2022, I have nonetheless the GREATEST respect to their skill & talent to bring SUCH LIFE to their stories. In particular, I chose this particular fic of theirs because the premise of Sakura making her own way by shedding off her morality the more she learned & got influenced by her 2 greatest teachers was absolutely nothing short of DIVINE. It was and IS such an inspiration to read, reread & explore, and I will forever love @chararii for this brilliant piece of a fic

#3: The Endgame that never was series by @heleneplays aka me (tumblr masterlist) || ok I know this seems self-absorbed but DEAR MOTHER OF CHRISTIE i literally WENT OFF for a whole ass day and a half going feral for the Relics of the Lost Age series book 3 finale (hi @jamesshawgames pls know im still here and STILL simping even tho i am currently having a brainrot for a different thing on main sjdhdkdk i hope ur doing well dearest mr. chief author sir!!!!) and created this series from my dreams + nonstop ben&ben playlist— and honestly, I think it's VERY sexy of me <3 bc I rarely like things that I do after a while, but THIS— alongside Universal Constant (ao3) are truly my BEST work <3

#2: Across the Stars by nomisunrider (ao3) || I CAN NEVER STRESS THIS ENOUGH, HOW MUCH THIS FIC ALTERED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY LIKE. its been 4 YEARS since it was completed but HOLY. MOTHERFUCKING. GOD. The story between Michael & Philippa persisting beyond the odds, in a twist of the canon happenings in Star Trek: Discovery is FOREVER ingrained in my heart and soul and honestly once again THANK YOU @nomi--sunrider for SUCH a beautiful story 🥺🥺🥺

and drum roll please!!!

#1 (current): I literally cannot pick between Better than Gold + Little Cat by @lady-dimimi / @azu-zu (tumblr post for BtG | LC ao3); How to woo a Hot Principal by @softshrimpy (ao3); and Lipstick Stains by @weemssapphic (ao3) || LIKE HOLY SHIT THE FUCKING AMOUNT OF TALENT, PLOT, FLUFF, DRAMA AND UTTER GAYNESS THESE FICS BRING ME— its SOOOOO insanity inducing in the best of ways <3 also, i really count myself lucky to get into a very active (x reader) sphere LIKE ITS SOOOOO INSANE i get to consume CONTENT daily for such wonderful characters and these special morsels be like. authors, I am sending you all a MWAH from me

#meows at you meows at you #thank u for the ask lol im sorry it took literally HOURS i had to look thru my ao3 rec list to pick lmao #anyways MWAH #anon asks #answered asks #lee answers #fic recs #personal.txt #clown.txt #simp.txt

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gellavonhamster · 19 days

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monthly media recap: august 2024

read:

Cabal by Clive Barker - oh you know, I've yapped about it and Nightbreed a lot here. The intersection of horror and eroticism, the monstrous and the divine, the queer allegory, the monsterfucking. So good.

The Second Continuation of Perceval - I liked it better than The First Continuation which I didn't even finish, but by the end I still decided to put my Arthuriana reading on pause for the time being. These were dragging me into a reading slump which passed as soon as I stopped trying to get through them. Going back to The Second Continuation, I am tragically unable not to picture that little dog that Perceval carried around as a chihuahua

Jelgava 94 by Jānis Joņevs - part coming-of-age, part chronicle of Latvian metalhead culture, extremely funny (even funnier than I remember the movie adaptation to be).

Rīgas raganas (Witches of Riga) by Linda Nemiera - first assumed it's gonna be the kind of ~ironic~ fantasy I've kinda outgrown, then got seriously hooked (the fact that it's set in my city certainly helped), then came the anticlimactic ending. Still, mostly liked it in the end. Also, gotta say it's extremely funny how the author created a magical explanation for the very real recent phenomena of roads caving in and cars falling into the resulting pits. Was reading this like oh right, this happened next to our office

The Amateur Cracksman and The Black Mask by E. W. Hornung - been reading the Raffles & Bunny short stories through Substack and just realized it has already covered the first two collections! This reading method is not for me, but the stories themselves are charming. They're like, what if Holmes and Watson but gentlemen thieves (Hornung was Conan Doyle's brother-in-law, btw) and also partially based on Oscar Wilde and Alfred Douglas? Really a very nice read.

+ currently reading: Weaveworld by Clive Barker

watched:

Nightbreed (1990), the Cabal Cut - not the version I'd, like, recommend to a random person, because it's glued together from the theatrical release and deleted scenes (some of which don't even have sound) and what not, but it really is much closer to the novel than the theatrical cut. See the post linked above for more thoughts on the book and both cuts of the movie

Lisa Frankenstein (2024) - finally watched it, and it was as delightful as I was promised :) I thought I saw enough spoilers for it, but I somehow didn't expect that ending at all, loved it. Loved the relationship between the sisters, too.

Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021), Fear Street Part Two: 1978 (2021), Fear Street Part Three: 1666 (2021) - me watching part 1-2: eh it's alright, not very original but interesting, and I like the kids. Me watching part 3: oh it's GOOD good! Thank you OPLA cast for luring me in

#talk talk talk #monthly media recap #we really are so back

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thefirstempress · 9 months

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Appendix B: the Tollesian Pantheon

As an additional aid for readers of The First Empress, I typed up a short who's who of the deities mentioned in the story. None of the gods actually show up in the story, and I basically leave it up to readers whether or not said gods actually even exist. Thematically, I want the Tollesian gods to have a similar feel to the Greek Pantheon, without directly copying them straight across.

The Tollesian Pantheon: A Brief Who’s Who Among the First-Generation Tollesian Gods —By Zahnia, the Chronicler

The Tollesian Pantheon (known as the Vestic gods among many non-Tollesian theologians) refers to all of the gods worshiped by the Tollesian-speaking peoples. Like many pantheons, the hierarchy of the Tollesian gods consists of one or more Elder Gods or Titans who created the first generation of offspring gods, who in turn reproduced to create minor gods, demigods, and mortal heroes of divine parentage.

Like many creation stories, Tollesian folklore personifies the Sun as the ever-watchful father of his children here on Mother Earth. The first generation gods, or Titans, are children of the Sun and Earth, who are responsible for the caretaking of the planet and the wellbeing of her inhabitants. And though this volume focuses primarily on Arr and his better-known descendants, modern theologians and classicists estimate as many as five-hundred and seventy deities were worshiped over the course of the Classical-era, with dozens of gods and goddesses falling into and out of obscurity during that seven-hundred-year period. Tollesian legends also mention at least thirty Titans aside from Arr, as well as countless demigods and goddesses. Not to mention giants, monsters, muses, nymphs, wraiths, angels, demons, and even spirits of personified concepts, any of which may or may not also be demi-deities.

Arr God of fate, time, destiny, Tollesianism, judgment, heaven, loyalty, fidelity Patron cities: Aneth, Arr Patuna Symbols: clouds, sundials, scales, dogs, full circles

Arr is the father of the first generation of Tollesian gods and one of few remaining Titans not imprisoned in the Underworld. Having been betrayed by his fellow Titans and forced to imprison many of them during what Tollesian theologians call the Great Division, Arr is inherently mistrustful of deities outside his family and is even more mistrustful of foreigners who follow non-Tollesian gods. Arr is most popular among the more isolationist city-states upon the Vestic Sea. Non-Tollesian theologians often suggest that Arr’s judgmental attitude toward xenoi was the religious and thereby cultural cause of many Classical-Era Tollesians’ mistrust of foreigners and foreign gods.

Thanusa Goddess of death, rebirth, fertility, mortality, the cycle of life and death Patron Cities: Pultus, Tiphilia Symbols: rabbits, flowers, beehives, eggs, vulvas, skulls, the Phoenix

Thanusa is Arr’s wife, fellow Titan and mother of the first generation of Tollesian gods. It’s not ucommon for modern historians and worshippers to misunderstand Thanusa’s role as goddess of death in Classical Tollesian theology. Earlier portrayals depicted her as a guide or guardian ensuring that souls of those who’ve died find their way to the afterlife. Around the 320s AE the first tragedies and satires came out featuring Thanusa as a callow, unfeeling villainess who cut off lifelines of those whose time had come[1]. The worst offender was whichever playwright invented that trope where the hero or heroine saves their dying loved one by interrupting Thanusa before she can cut their lifeline. Discerning whether someone knows this is a popular method among modern classicists of sorting out the semi-educated.

AndivaGoddess of justice, order, law, civilization, expansion, spread of Tollesian culture Patron cities: Andivel, Vislow, Chyllar Symbols: scales, columns, owls

Andiva is the first-born of Arr and champion of the expansion of Tollesian culture into other lands. As such, she is most popular among major cities which border on barbaroi lands. Like her father, Arr, Andiva is mistrusting of foreign gods, but unlike him encourages nonbelievers to convert to Tollesian religion, thought, and culture.

Zupor God of strife, war, destruction, warriors, physical strength, martial prowess Patron cities: Pellastor, Ryllar, Partha Symbols: spear and shield, hoplite helm, fire

Zupor is known across the Vestic Sea as the god of war and strife, and is the second of Arr’s children. Poleis which follow Zupor most closely tend to have a strong warrior caste—or at least place a special emphasis on having a well-trained force of hoplite elite.

Nyrus God of the sea, sailors, overseas trade, storms, tides, male bisexuality Patron cities: Illarra, Fildor, Tutna Symbols: orcas, waves, tempest, sailing ships

As god of the sea, Nyrus is among the more popular patron gods among costal and island poleis. Third of Arr’s children, Nyrus is also father or grandfather of the Nereids, sea nymphs equally famous for saving or drowning Tollesian sailors.

Cibades God of agriculture, farmers, planting, harvest, wine, brewing, vineyards, fertility Patron cities: Clenia, Mertal, Vindel Symbols: plow, wheat, goblet, grapes, scythe, sickle

God of wine and wheat, Cibades is fourth of Arr’s children, and patron god of polies famous for their wine or beer production and to a lesser degree of breadbasket poleis.

Kralor God of knowledge, learning, wisdom, teachers, students, critical thinking, literacy, writing, science, art, philosophy, music Patron cities: Ovec, Thornic Symbols: scroll, book, abacus, lyre, drum, quill

Though not always most cunning of the gods, Kralor is by far the most learned. Father of the Muses. In the Tollesian tradition of wholeness of body and mind, Kralor is frequently depicted as a warrior-philosopher or scholarly wrestler.

Ido and Iva God and goddess of love, romance, sexuality, fertility, marriage Patron cities: none Symbols: the heart, the lovers, roses, rabbits

Ido and Iva are twin god and goddess of love and romance. While Ido and Iva have no patron cities as such, their clerics and priests are frequently called upon during marriages and rites of fertility in towns and cities across the Vestic Sea.

Ferra Goddess of medicine, healing, physicians, health, sanitation, fertility, wholeness of body and mind, female bisexuality, same-sex marriage Patron cities: Kel Fimmaril, Noro, Ferra Arte Symbols: the serpent, burning incense, mortar and pestle, leaves and herbs, midwives

Ferra is the goddess of health and medicine and was particularly popular among smaller city-states such as Noro and Kel Fimmaril. As a goddess of fertility, theatre frequently portrays Ferra as somewhat overly prolific—sluttish, really—giving birth to nearly half of the second generation of gods, goddesses, and demigods. According to legend, however, Ferra would later marry and forsake all other lovers for her younger sister Avilee.

Suvie Deity of the wilderness, mountains, forests, jungle, hunting and trapping, natural selection, gender queerness, gender nonconformity Patron cities: Gillespar, Hastia Symbols: mountains, trees, bows and arrows

Hermaphrodite deity of the forests, variously portrayed as either a beautiful, bow-toting goddess of the hunt or as a virile, spear-wielding warden of the forests. Additionally, Suvie is the parent and guardian of such forest spirits as wisps, fey, Dryads, Naiads, and fauns.

Avilee Winged goddess of protection, defense, common soldiers, fallen soldiers, bereft mothers and widows, war orphans, battlefield medicine Patron cites: Voris, Ortenia, Aula Symbols: spear, javelin, guard dogs, shepherd’s crook, hoplite armor

Wife of Ferra and youngest of Arr’s children, Avilee is also humblest, most caring, and most protective among the Tollesian pantheon. As such, she is also most beloved among her siblings, often acting as a mediator between her more quarrelsome kindred. Early in life, upon seeing the grief and destruction caused by her brother Zupor’s war and strife, Avilee took it upon herself to protect the common soldiers and care for the victims of war, be they fallen soldiers or bereft families. She is generally depicted with great, hawk-like wings and full hoplite panoply, wielding a spear and shield or bow and arrows.

Second-Generation Tollesian Gods

Vepu God of the afterlife and the Underworld Patron Cities: Tanythe, Zunia Symbols: skulls, bones, ashes, urns

Vepu was a mortal king who so impressed Thanusa with his management skills that she elevated him to godhood to rule and organize the Underworld and its afterlife.

Arrolus God of naval warfare, warships, marines Patron Cities: Descal, Tarsa Symbols: war galley

Arrolus is the son of the war-god Zupor and a Nereid huntress named Gale.

Orova Goddess of night, shadows, trickery Patron Cites: None Symbols: bats, wraiths, shadows, blackness, the moons

Orova is the best-known Tollesian trickster goddess, a daughter of Ferra and an unknown Titan. Her favored ally is a wraith named Anache. Not necessarily evil, Orova is the most chaotic and capricious of the Tollesian gods.

Pharesthus God of smithing, mining, iron and bronze Patron Cites: Velia Cestini Symbols: hammers, ingots, anvils, forges

Pharesthus is the son of Ferra and an ancient giant named Sherto.

Clanti Goddess of merchants and trade Patron Cities: Vislow, Ortenia, Lecne Symbols: coins, purses, scales, trading galleys

Clanti is the oldest daughter of Ferra and Nyrus as well as twin sister of the god Curé. Satirically speaking, she was considered the second-most-important god of the Illaran Confederation.

Curé God of bandits, pirates, burglars, and thieves Patron Cities: Illarra, Adis Symbols: daggers, slings, raiding galleys, purse-cutters

Curé is the son of Ferra and Nyrus and twin brother to Clanti. Both satirically and literally, he was regarded as the most important god of the Illaran Confederation.

Axu God of gender assignment and gender presentation Patron Cities: none Symbols: none

Daughter of Suvie and Ferra, Axu’s primary duty is assigning humans their gender at either at birth or conception, depending on the particular theologian.

[1] Truly, the quickest way for an author or playwright to kill my interest in their work is to portray Thanusa as a villainess. This was a character who felt deeply for those who’d died—especially those who died unjustly—and whose ancient stage-masks nearly always portrayed her weeping. Portraying her as a murderess remains one of the worst character-assassinations in the history of Tollesian literature and theatre.

#first empress #my novel #my writing #excerpts #appendices

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steamedtangerine · 2 months

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God Talk VS. God Crock

Since the assassination attempt, there will be nuts out there trying to spin it as being about "divine intervention".

I just came back from eating with a family member and overheard some carry-out folks talking about it being "the hand of God" that saved Trump, and one person added "well, he has been going to churches, so he must be praying more".

Ugh. First off, where I live-yes, Trump did recently go to an "all-black church" in Detroit, but not surprisingly, the pictures coming back from that event showed a mostly white crowd. This is a rich man (not a poor Lazaraus) with no sense of humility who lies and falsely accuses folks with no sense of empathy-the kind who knocks over demonstrators just to do a vain photo-op holding a Bible upside down.

Second, as someone who has read the Bible cover to cover twice (same with the Book of the Subgenius and Bradbury's Martian Chronicles-but that's a different matter) and lived with theologian students, I feel like I should chime in (cue DaFoe in Spiderman "Scientist" meme) on this with what little I can offer. Sure, it will involve religious talk with Biblical citation, but even the secular minded will benefit by arming themselves with at least some knowledge to refute the self-righteous hypocrites who twist things horribly wrong. To fail to embrace even a few grains of truth is to put oneself in line with the same Biblical illiteracy the Evangelicals chose to adopt.

Some of the hottest, worst takes ever to surface after a current event seem to come from Evangelicals. Pat Robertson was infamous for spewing the most misguided statements about Hurricane Katrina, disasters in Haiti, AIDS, disasters in Dover, PA, or mishaps befalling Ariel Sharon....to name a few. He did this with the grandiose presumption that he was more privy to understanding God's unfathomable ways more than anyone else.....so much for embracing the necessary virtue of humility.

....however, the Bible asserts many times over that we all each take our chances just as anyone else has to in this life. I mean, count your blessings and know where they come from, but never presume you are immune to affliction or persecution just because you attend more functions, buy more religious goods, or pray the most words. You got 40+ chapters in the book of Job, and they are not all dedicated to this constricted populist narrative of "Job suffered, was tested, and persevered", otherwise it would be one heck of a short book. No, what South Park and tons of Sunday School sessions fail to mention is that the Book of Job is this Rabbinical back-and-forth about why "bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people." The answer in the end is God communicating to Job "my ways are my ways, and they are not for anybody to understand".

It doesn't stop there, in the Gospels, Jesus says "it rains on the just and unjust alike". He also mentions that buildings will fall on the faithful (quit the drooling, Dr. Lecter), the just will be persecuted by the unjust, and that children will be born blind not due to any evil their parents did or that they were somehow born "maligned in spirit".

St. Paul later insists (in the 6th chapter of his first letter to Timothy) to avoid anyone saying "gain is close to Godliness" (not to mention warnings of those who use their faith as a cloak for covetousness)-this could not be a bigger condemnation to the Mega-church self-glory-seekers and those pushing a "health & wealth" prosperity-based ideology. Compound all this with all the condemnations of the rich and those lacking in humility or all the passages insisting God shows no partiality, and one walks away with a far, far different picture than the superficial world that Evangelicals dwell in.

Third, from a historical sense, who have been the bad guys who cheated death and the righteous who weren't so lucky? Hitler avoided many assassination attempts and presumed "God was on his side". Meanwhile, all the martyrs throughout history (ones who had legit causes) have suffered-not only does the Bible not sugar-coat things by informing the studious that this can sometimes be an unavoidable fact, but some of the more old school faiths-especially the Catholics-want everyone to be reminded clearly in this matter. So, what is to be said of the MLKs, the Medgar Evers, the Jean Donavans, or the Archbishop Romeros? Were they-for all their obvious righteousness, not as blessed as Golden Boy Donald J. Trump?

I hope noone here encounters the near-idolatrous "Trump was favored by God" crowd, but at the very least, if one actually reads the very book they claim to extol (by starting at the center-ie. the Gospel), one quickly finds out how little the Evangelicals know about what they're talking about.

Thus, ends the sermon.

#idiocracy #propaganda #request #top tier

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nevermore-grimes · 5 months

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Hi! Hello! I’m a maladaptive daydreamer. You can call me Divine. No, I’m not being sly… The name is derived from my fic blog, @divine-knight-hand, hehehe! *Both of my blogs are 18+, btw!!!*

Contrary to that blog, I will not be talking fanfiction here. So, if you want fandom-accurate stuff, this blog isn’t for you (also, please do not interact here, I beg!).

But, if you’re looking for MaDD content, then welcome! The Ember Blade Chronicles is a paracosm yeeeeears in the making. I was about 6 years old when I started maladaptive daydreaming, and this is pretty much the only paracosm I got, so a LOT of work went into this, as you can see.

On that note, here is The Ember Blade Chronicles! And if you have any questions about anything you see here AT ALL, I hiiiiiiighly encourage you to ask! (Please, please, pleeeease ask me about my paracosm! I wanna talk about it!!!)

The Sisters

*NOTES: I was going to do all four of The Elemental Four, but half of them aren’t relevant anymore. The most consistently revelant paras in my paracosm are these two chumps (affectionate). Also, since these are paras based off of and named after real people, I’ve changed their names for privacy reasons. So, just enjoy the super cool aliases~

🔥 Nevermore Grimes - My darling parame. *Slaps the top of her head* Lemme tell you, this woman can fit so much trauma, it’s not even funny. I torture her the most often when I’m bored, lmao! Anyways, since she’s the main character of this paracosm, I won’t be doing much introduction here. All I’ll say is that she’s the second oldest of The Elemental Four, wielding the element of fire.

💧 Aerith Lake - Nevermore’s little sister. She’s the youngest of The Elemental Four, wielding the element of water. Don’t mistake her kindness for complacence. She always finds the voice to speak up for herself when it counts the most. Though she still carries a teensy bit of abandonment issues from when Nevermore ran away from home, she trusts that her big sister won’t disappear without a trace again… Mostly.

The Lore

Get ready. There’s quite a lot… (We also meet some fictparas! Yay!)

TWs for up ahead: Many mentions of death and killing, and quick mention of rape (blink and you’ll miss it)

The Origins - After an accident involving her powers manifesting leads to her having a hand in the death of one of her parents, Nevermore runs away from home in guilt and shame, though the escape from a life she longed to abandon was a pretty solid perk. Moved to action after growing tired of feeling confined to what those who have power over her want for her, she becomes the violent driving force that is “Justice Incarnate”, wanting nothing more than to protect others from that same helpless feeling. Though, the news was quick to deem her “The Red Rapist Killer” (Which is a horrible name, if you accidentally stop short…), demonizing her for her use of killing as punishment. But, no matter what, she swore to never resort to the powers that took one of her parents’ life from her…

The Macbethian Saga - Returning to her home planet, Macbeth, Nevermore has to balance the trials that come with learning to control the powers she despises with the trials that come with rejoining a family that’s grown to resent her for abandoning them (Oh! And let’s not forget about the trials of learning how to function in a royal family). She’s forced to leave her life as “Justice Incarnate” behind, but old habits die hard, and as The Elemental Four serve as princesses by day, they also end up as a band of vigilantes by night.

The Hero Saga - Blindsighted by an unexpected encounter on a royal outing to a champion’s match on a certain planet of misfits, Nevermore is forced to learn how to run with the big dogs, and quick. As it would turn out, fighting a battle for the sake of sparing half of the universe wasn’t so fun if losing was in the cards… But, upon the return of the disappeared, the Elementals find themselves cast out of their kingdom by their once loyal subjects, so they move to join Earth’s mightiest heroes. This is where Nevermore makes her debut as Ember Blade.

The Dimensions Saga - The Avengers have no time to settle in to their new lives once they’re quickly faced with a new threat. If they don’t close all the inter-dimensional rifts being ripped open around the universe, its potential collapse awaits them. The solution? A hell of a lot of dimension-hopping.

The Pre-War Saga - The rifts are gone, but the Avengers are forced to prepare for war as villains past are being revived and recruited by none other than The Grandmaster. Who knew a fruity old man could have such sinister ambitions? This doesn’t bode so well for the cute and comfortable little life that Nevermore had just started building for herself…

The War Saga *Current Saga* - The Avengers take to space. Their battlefield? Ego. Stationed in an impossibly large space station just a few jump points away, they’re tasked with facing down villains past, all to save half of the universe again… Anyone else getting serious deja vu?

The New-Asgardian Saga - War is over, but Nevermore barely has time to celebrate as S.H.I.E.L.D. begins a manhunt for her. After they claimed she’s proven herself a serious threat to humanity, they’ve made it very clear that they will shoot on sight. So, she leaves with her lover to the newly-rebuilt land of New Asgard, relocated back into space from Norway. But, Nevermore is too stubborn to kill off Ember Blade, so it would seem she’s back to the vigilante life…

#paracosm #parame #parasister #para portal #paraportal #paracosm information #paracosm introduction #madd #maladaptive daydreams #maladaptive daydreamer #maladaptive daydreaming #parame: Nevermore #factpara: Aerith #The Ember Blade Chronicles

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sfsolstice · 6 months

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Do you have a favorite author?

What/who inspires your poetry and writing style?

I always gets such magical, dreamy, fantasy vibes from your work.

anon :""(( <33 those are like the best vibes i could ever hope for for my work thank you !! means the absolute world to me 🫶

and oh boy ! do i have the lore dump for you ! :D

( under the cut, just so i don't just ramble all over y'all's dashboards )

so i don't have a favorite author / poet or anything at least not right now (could def change in the future lol) ! but when it comes to literature / poetry that really moved me as a kiddo starting out writing, i think a lot about the poetry and novels and short stories my hs ap lit teacher assigned us (who is a man deserving of his own story another time i think ahsjdk)

he gave us a lot of (mainly south american) magical realism and romantic literature; off the top of my head, he assigned us: the house of spirits by isabel allende; one hundred years of solitude and chronicle of a death foretold by gabriel garcia marquez; and i think i read shalimar the clown by salman rushdie for his class ?

( in other words, he made us read the alchemist by paolo coelho and i liked it so much that it's in my dna now agakdlf )

other than that, i've been curious about esoteric things like palm and card divination since i was a kid (that superstition that says that your biting your lip accidentally, means someone's talking about you kinda stuck with me hard..........) ! and the concepts of spirituality (like soulmates, past lives, etc etc) just really speak to the hopeful romantic in me ;^;

oh and !! fun fact, i started out as a physics major in college because i 1) liked math and 2) liked stars ahskfl so even though i ended up dropping the major and going full psychology, i still like math and i still like stars, so ! just, the universe itself, made up of its tiny bits and pieces, really is a thing to be admired :') (i.e., the universe will always be one of my favorite muses)

anyways ! enough from me lol thank you so much for asking !! it means the world, truly :") <3

i hope you have a rad rest of your day hehe

#qna #thank you again for the ask !! ❤️#god i am a yapper.............#im sorry to everyone with adhd and hates huge blocks of texts #i am so sorry 😭#also kinda #solstice shares

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vacantgodling · 1 year

Text

Wip Folders Tag

thank you for tagging me @arigalefantasynovels !

Rules:

Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, & then post a little snippet or tell them something about it!

Tag as many people as you have wips

I think for simplicity’s sake i’ll just do paramour & tcol’s wip folders bc i have so many other wips and this would be long as fuck. this is already gonna be long as fuck bc i have so much,,,, so, i will tag @magic-is-something-we-create & @calicojackofficial though if anyone else who sees this and wants to give it a go have at it :3

but without further ado here is my chaotic google drive (put under a cut for convenience)

big title is the wip, indents are folders within the wip folder and bullet points are the docs within.

paramour (beauty and the crimson hamlet)

DRAFT 1

**WORD COUNT SPREADSHEET**

20. half truths

OUTLINES

✨OFFICIAL OUTLINE✨

chapters in terms of the order i want to write them

OUTLINE

requiem for the monochrome

lavendula (paramour spin off—requiem maybe?)

library

lying to yourself (laven’s story)

monochrome plotting

role swap au

A Fool’s Errand

(and these are just rouge in the folder)

an invitation (aloe and hya speak)

company / cinderella “so this is love”

divine

ending / “so you traded your wealth for a paramour”

i will figure out amon if it kills me

lavendula comes for a visit tm

links

masquerade (porn)

midnight query

mine

nerves

tango

tea with eldest nibling

the veneration of the three divines

ties that bind

worldbuilding rambles // to organize later

you can’t love me / confession

THE CHRONICLES OF LATHSBURY (TCOL)

old tcol content (2008 ideas to 2020)

(within this folder there are more folders)

Classes

VGS Class Descriptions

VGS Class descriptions + magic explanation

VGS Classes: Short Explanation

Drabbles and Writing

Erik x David thing

Erik’s Struggles (VGS)

Jihi x Cameron: “you can keep me as long as you want me”

Profiles and Characters

character plotline synopses

TCOL CANON 2021+

(within this folder there are more folders)

city worldbuilding

the city of eros (& argos)

worldbuilding template

lore writings

a king is a shepherd

pinella’s pass & the lady of the mists

sorrow

tempering chaos

the sword of a great hero

whole

your honor — during the battle

novel writings

dark hunter

some kind of beginning idk

TCOL OUTLINE

tcol writings

in the dead of night — clear x forte

quiet — clear x forte pt 2

trying — clear x forte pt 1

why — sommore clear forte bs

(these are just rouge within the main folder)

Boury 2022-12-02-23-42.png

categorizing tcol names

character names and general info/importance

descriptions for tcol character gauntlet

historical characters & name meanings/roles

IMPORTANT LINKS

magic explanation (better)

ORACLES AND SHIT

royal family tree(s)

sana, cava, ars

Schools of Terrae

tcol gods

tcol guardians and time periods

TCOL profiles for tumblies

tcol timeline

TCOL: crash course

terrae mythology

Terrae’s Pantheon

THE HISTORY OF TERRAE—presentation

Untitled Spreadsheet

Vaveia 2023-03-02-19-25.png

worldbuilding tidbits and plot points

#wip folder tag #about renjamin #s: paramour #s: tcol

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veebs-hates-video-games · 1 year

Text

Ok this is mostly going to be rambling about Tears of the Kingdom, but I'll at least briefly mention a couple other things I keep meaning to say something about and not getting around to.

Pixel Puzzle Makeout League was surprisingly good and deserves its own post because it does some unexpected things.

Theatrhythm Final Bar Line is still mixed but overall more good than bad and generally has similar positives and negatives to the previous Theatrhythm games and Melody of Memory (which is better as a game than any of the Theatrhythm games even if it still has some issues too).

The Outer Worlds is...a game. I totally forgot I started it at some point, and it hasn’t made a huge impression on me in the first five hours or however long.

Cadence of Hyrule is great for a while and does a lot of things right, but there’s a kind of frustrating spike in difficulty near the end, and I’m not sure if I’ll bother finishing it.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed is already GOTY 2023 for me, even if 99% of other people will say it’s TotK. Some day I’ll get around to that XC3 post...

Anyway, as someone who liked a bunch of things about Breath of the Wild but found enough frustrating about it that it took four attempts at playing the game to make it past a single Divine Beast and then give up forever, Tears of the Kingdom brings almost all the same problems along with it but mitigates them enough that I’ve finished a temple without giving up on the game and stopping playing for several months a single time so far.

The really short version is that I think everything in Steph Sterling’s soon-to-be infamous review is true and accurate, and the main thing I disagree with is that at least based on my enjoyment of actually playing the two games I’d have to give BotW an even lower score. Come at me, haters please don’t actually and go do something more fun like playing the game you like so much because I’m glad you’re enjoying it

Yes I’m 100% one of those people who thinks weapon durability has never been a positive thing in any game I’ve played (with the possible exception of certain Fire Emblem games) and Skyward Sword introducing a stamina meter to Zelda was a mistake. I’m happy for people who think they add something to the game for them, but for me they're actively anti-fun and constantly interrupt me when I’m trying to engage with all the neat systems the game has. Please just incentivize me to try new things by rewarding me positively for doing it (see: XC3 and in particular Future Redeemed) instead of punishing me for not playing the game the way you want me to.

Thankfully new additions like weapon fusion and ascend go a decent way to mitigate the frustration I have from stuff like that. I can skip a lot of the tedious climbing, and between avoiding most combat and gooping items together I’ve never had a shortage of actually decent weapons since like halfway through the tutorial.

Another positive is the ability set this time around. It’s a bit weirder on the surface, but they complement each other well and feel a lot less janky to me. Half the time with stuff like stasis I felt like I was fighting against the game trying to get the correct angle and momentum, but the new set of abilities pretty much always does what I want it to and lets me do all sorts of silly things in ways that don’t even seem like they should work at first. The game is at its best when I’m just messing around with that stuff to invent and solve problems in unusual ways.

And then the game is at its worst when I have to do combat of any kind. I can tolerate it better than in the previous game, but I’m still not a fan. I’m still reluctant to use my best weapons or any items I don’t have a reliable supply of, and the controls are still wack. You cannot convince me that run on B and jump on X isn’t crazy or that not being able to remap them is a good idea. I’m also still not a fan of the half dozen popup menus for changing weapons or selecting items or whatever because while they do technically work they’re so awkward to use and would really benefit from a third hand. Finally the N64 controller’s true purpose is revealed.

And speaking of menus, the menus still kinda suck too. Why is every food ingredient and every rock and every bug and every plant and 7000 other things dumped into a single tab instead of having sub-categories? Why is every single one of them available in the popup menu for attaching them to arrows or throwing them or whatever with apparently no way to at least favorite things? Why are there no options in the options menu like changing the volume (ideally with music/voice/sound effects separately adjustable)?

And why is the map? Why can’t I reveal stuff on the map just by going there? Why after the map is revealed is there no way to tell which parts of it I’ve been to already and which ones I haven’t (especially annoying so far for tiny random sky islands)? Why do I have to mark every stupid little thing on it by hand? I am playing the game on a computer, and my map exists on an in-game computer. Computers are supposed to deal with this crap for me so I can do something fun instead. And this is coming from someone who drew their own maps for the NES/SNES games on graph paper and actually enjoyed it.

A lot of these things aren’t huge deals on their own, but I’ve been spoiled by the vast number of quality of life features in XC3 and its DLC recently, and the little things add up. And I know there are people at Nintendo who know how to address these things because literally people from Monolith worked on both BotW and TotK, just not on those specific parts of them as far as I understand (mainly with building the open worlds because they already had previous experience doing that).

On the plus side, even if I’m a little underwhelmed by the story and storytelling (thanks again for ruining everything for me, Monolith), it was immediately much more engaging to me than BotW’s was. Wow, there are actual characters with motivations and stuff right off the bat. Neat! No offense to anyone who liked Calamity Ganon and the Calamity in general, but that was the least compelling antagonist in a Zelda game since probably the NES for me, and I’m glad they’ve taken a bit of a different approach this time. We’ll see what I think if/when I get further through it, but so far it’s at least better even if I don’t entirely love it.

I dunno, it’s something I guess. There’s just enough there for me that I’m still going, but it sure is good at discouraging me from doing stuff that would be lots of fun for me with minor tweaks. But hey, at least locking on to enemies actually follows them with the camera again now, so that’s nice. You know, that feature they literally invented for Ocarina of Time and nearly every 3D game anyone’s made has used since then but then they decided not to in BotW because...reasons?

In conclusion, it seems to be a great game for many other people and a decent but frequently frustrating one for me, but shifted a bit more toward decent and a bit less toward frustrating than the previous game. I’m still not convinced either one of them is a Zelda game though. They feel like something totally different to me with a vague Zelda theme overlaid on them. Oh also the puzzles are much better this time around so far. So that’s nice and more Zelda-y. And maybe we’ll get a Musou game out of it again in a couple years like we did last time, which would be nice because Age of Calamity was the best Zelda game since A Link Between Worlds (not counting remakes and stuff).

#tears of the kingdom #future redeemed #cadence of hyrule #the outer worlds #theatrhythm final bar line #pixel puzzle makeout league #zelda #theatrhythm #final fantasy

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